actually the fact tumblr glitches and treats you like a new user when youre not is really funny. could you imagine taking a bite out of a fucking big mac or whatever and a whole crowd of people jump out and start cheering and congratulating you on learning how to eat
Okay I know this was mostly a joke but I just feel the need to point out - this didn't start out as being mean, it started - and largely continues - as the opposite.
For a long time, tumblr had tags and no other search function. You wanted to find a post that wasn't tagged, you had to go to Google and type in your query and add "site:tumblr.com" and hope for the best.
As it is now, that method is STILL better than our native search function most of the time, but the quality of tumblr's native search function isn't really what's important here, what's relevant is how they implemented it.
See, the search bar in the upper left corner of the site - you used to type in something there, and it would take you to posts tagged with whatever you searched. Then, one day, they quietly rolled out an update that instead brought you to a search page that pulled up nearly every post that even mentioned your search term.
This...did not mesh well with the site culture.
Because, see, we had an etiquette guideline - do not post your negativity in the public tags. Why? Because people go into the public tags to find content about things they LIKE. Posting hate in a public tag was basically seen as being a raging dramamongering pissbaby troll LOOKING to start a fight over petty nonsense.
So imagine, suddenly, you log in one day, and someone's sending you anons angry about you allegedly posting hate in the tags, when you have NEVER done so. You use what you THINK is the tag search function to prove it, and - what the hell? Your UNTAGGED post about how annoyed you are with your notp...is appearing there???
So people started censoring things like that. Usually not because we all think the thing we're complaining about is profane (though sometimes it does get a giggle to think of it as such), but to keep it from showing up when people are searching for what they love and to prevent pointless drama. To avoid looking like some asshole troll going onto a fan forum specifically for The Blorbo Show and making a thread entitled "THE BLORBO SHOW SUXXX AND YOU ALL SUCK FOR LIKING IT!!"
And now it's just part of our site culture, for both peacekeeping reasons and petty glee.
In the United States, many jails and prisons can and will charge you money for every single night that you spend imprisoned, for the entire duration of your incarceration, as if you were being billed for staying at a hotel. Even if you are incarcerated for years. Adding up to tens of thousands of dollars. What happens when you’re released?
In response to this:
—
So.
You’re getting charged, like, ten dollars every time you even submit a request form to possibly be seen by a doctor or dentist.
You’re getting charged maybe five dollars for ten minutes on the phone.
Any time a friend or family tries to send you like five dollars so that you can buy some toothpaste or lotion, or maybe a snack from the commissary since you’re diabetic and the “meals” have left you malnourished, maybe half of that money gets taken as a “service fee” by the corporate contractor that the prison uses to manage your pre-paid debit card. So you’re already losing money every day just by being there.
What happens if you can’t pay?
In some places, after serving just a couple of years for drugs charges, almost 20 years after being released, the state can still hunt you down for over $80,000 that you “owe” as if it were a per-night room-and-board accommodations charge, like this recent highly-publicized case in Connecticut:
Excerpt:
Two decades after her release from prison, [TB] feels she is still being punished.
When her mother died two years ago, the state of Connecticut put a lien
on the Stamford home she and her siblings inherited. It said she owed
$83,762 to cover the cost of her 2 ½ year imprisonment for drug
crimes.
[…]
“I’m about to be homeless,” said [TB], 58, who in March [2022] became the
lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the state law that charges
prisoners $249 a day for the cost of their incarceration. […] All but two states have so-called “pay-to-stay” laws that make prisoners pay for their time behind bars
[…].
Critics say it’s an unfair second penalty that hinders rehabilitation by
putting former inmates in debt for life. Efforts have been underway in
some places to scale back or eliminate such policies.
Two states — Illinois and New Hampshire — have repealed their laws since 2019.
[…]
Pay-to-stay laws were put into place in many areas during the
tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and ’90s, said Brittany Friedman, an
assistant professor of sociology at University of Southern California
who is leading a study of the practice.
[…]
Connecticut used to collect prison debt by attaching an automatic lien
to every inmate, claiming half of any financial windfall they might
receive for up to 20 years after they are released from prison
[…].
Text by: Pat Eaton-Robb. “At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt.” AP News / The Associated Press. 27 August 2022.
—
—
Look at this:
To help her son, Cindy started
depositing between $50 to $100 a
week into Matthew’s account, money he could use to buy food from the
prison commissary, such as packaged ramen noodles, cookies, or peanut
butter and jelly to make sandwiches. Cindy said sending that money
wasn’t necessarily an expense she could afford. “No one can,” she said.
So far in the past month, she estimates she sent Matthew close to
$300. But in reality, he only received half of that amount. The balance
goes straight to the prison to pay off the $1,000 in “rent” that the
prison charged Matthew for his prior incarceration. […]
A PA Post examination of six county budgets (Crawford, Dauphin,
Lebanon, Lehigh, Venango and Indiana) showed that those counties’
prisons have collected more than $15 million from inmates — almost half
is for daily room and board fees that are meant to cover at least a
portion of the costs with housing and food. Prisoners who don’t work are
still expected to pay. If they don’t, their bills are sent to
collections agencies, which can report the debts to credit bureaus. […]
Between 2014 and 2017, the Indiana County Prison — which has an average
inmate population of 87 people — collected nearly $3 million from its
prisoners. In the past five years, Lebanon’s jail collected just over $2
million in housing and processing fees.
Text by: Joseph Darius Jaafari. “Paying rent to your jailers:
Inmates are billed millions of dollars for their stays in Pa. prisons.”
WHYY (PBS). 10 December 2019. Originally published at PA Post.
—
Pay-to-stay, the practice of charging people to pay
for their own jail or prison confinement, is being enforced unfairly by
using criminal, civil and administrative law, according to a new Rutgers
University-New Brunswick led study. The study […] finds that charging pay-to-stay fees is triggered by criminal justice
contact but possible due to the co-opting of civil and administrative
institutions, like social service agencies and state treasuries that
oversee benefits, which are outside the realm of criminal justice. “A person can be charged $20 to $80 a day for their incarceration,” said author Brittany Friedman, an assistant professor of sociology and a faculty affiliate of Rutgers’ criminal justice program.
“That per diem rate can lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars in
fees when a person gets out of prison. To recoup fees, states use civil
means such as lawsuits and wage garnishment against currently and
formerly incarcerated people, and regularly use administrative means
such as seizing employment pensions, tax refunds and public benefits to
satisfy the debt.” […] Civil penalties are enacted on family members if the defendant cannot pay and in states such as Florida, Nevada and Idaho can occur even after the original defendant is deceased. […]
Text by: Megan Schumann. “States Unfairly Burdening Incarcerated People With “Pay-to-Stay” Fees.” Rutgers press release. 20 November 2020.
—
So, to pay for your own imprisonment, states can:
– hunt you down for decades (track you down 20 years later, charge you tens of thousands of dollars, and take your house away)
– put a lien on your vehicle, house
– garnish your paycheck/wages
– seize your tax refund
– send collections agencies after you
– take your public assistance benefits
– sue you in civil court
– take money from your family even after you’re dead
I don't think about Harry Potter all that much these days but sometimes I just randomly remember that these kids were writing on parchment. Like I know they have an aesthetic but WHY are these children writing their essays on ANIMAL SKINS in this day and age. It just isn't practical. At least go with old-timey paper or something.
To all the people in the notes saying they thought that parchment was old-timey paper: you didn't write five fantasy books where it is explicitly mentioned as being used extensively multiple times each book. If you had, you presumably would've looked the word up in the dictionary first. Different writing materials require different types of storage and treatment and you'd look up parchment vs. paper if you were going to replace one with the other, to make sure you didn't make any stupid worldbuilding mistakes. Same as you would with vellum, or papyrus, or wood slips, or any other writing material.
you would be amazed and depressed to realize how confidently wrong most writers are about at least one crucially important item that made it to publication.
Another thing JKR did that bothered me as someone who volunteered at a raptor centre before I read the books (I was late to the party): the casual ease with which everyone handles owls.
The thing about owls, and raptors of any kind, is that they have big fucking talons. And it doesn’t matter if they're trying to hurt you or not, these are animals with meathooks on their feet. You need special equipment to handle them without risking serious injury and infection. You at the very least want a falconer's glove, but given that owls like to perch on your forearm like it's a branch, you're better off with an eagle glove which covers your whole arm.
At no point in the Harry Potter series is falconry equipment of any kind ever mentioned. People just let owls perch on their hands or shoulders like it's nothing. There's even one particularly cringe-inducing sentence where an owl sits on Harry's lap, a glaring continuity error in light of the epilogue where he has children. I could only conclude that standard wizard clothing universally includes thick leather gloves, shoulder pads, and a jock strap. That's the only way I could get through it.
"There's even one particularly cringe-inducing sentence where an owl sits on Harry's lap, a glaring continuity error in light of the epilogue where he has children."
This is the funniest thing anyone has ever said about Harry Potter
This buttery, chamomile tea-scented loaf is a sweet pop symphony, the Abba of cakes. A pot of flowery, just-brewed chamomile isn’t required for drinking with slices of this tender loaf but is strongly recommended. In life and in food, you always need balance: A sip or two of the grassy, herbal tea between bites of this cake counters the sweetness, as do freeze-dried strawberries, which lend tartness and a naturally pink hue to the lemony glaze. This everyday loaf will keep on the counter for 3 to 4 days; be sure the cut side is always well wrapped.
is there anyone out there with a nyt cooking subscription
will they send me the chamomile tea cake with strawberry icing recipe
Ingredients Yield: One 9-inch loaf
½ cup/115 grams unsalted butter 2 tablespoons/6 grams chamomile tea (from 4 to 6 tea bags), crushed fine if coarse 1 cup/240 milliliters whole milk Nonstick cooking spray 1 cup/200 grams granulated sugar ½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt 2 large eggs 1 large lemon 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 1½ cups/192 grams all-purpose flour 1 cup/124 grams confectioners’ sugar ½ cup/8 grams freeze-dried strawberries
Preparation
Step 1
In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon chamomile to a large mixing bowl. Pour the hot melted butter over the chamomile and stir. Set aside to steep and cool completely, about 1 hour. Step 2
Use the same saucepan (without washing it out) to bring the milk to a simmer over medium-high heat, keeping watch so it doesn’t boil over. Remove from the heat, and stir the remaining 1 tablespoon chamomile into the hot milk. Set aside to steep and cool completely, about 1 hour. Step 3
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with the nonstick cooking spray and line with parchment paper so the long sides of the pan have a couple of inches of overhang to make lifting the finished cake out easier. Step 4
Add the sugar and salt to the bowl with the butter, and whisk until smooth and thick, about 1 minute. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, vigorously whisking to combine after each addition. Zest the lemon into the bowl; add the baking powder and vanilla, and whisk until incorporated. Add the flour and stream in the milk mixture while whisking continuously until no streaks of flour remain. Step 5
Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake until a skewer or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean (a few crumbs are OK, but you should see no wet batter), 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in the pan on a rack for 30 minutes. Step 6
While the cake cools, make the icing: Into a medium bowl, squeeze 2 tablespoons juice from the zested lemon, then add the confectioners’ sugar. Place the dehydrated strawberries in a fine-mesh sieve set over the bowl and, using your fingers, crush the brittle berries and press the red-pink powder through the sieve and into the sugar. (The more you do this, the redder your icing will be.) Whisk until smooth. Step 7
If needed, run a knife along the edges of the cake to release it from the pan. Holding the 2 sides of overhanging parchment, lift the cake out and place it on a plate, cake stand or cutting board. Discard the parchment. Pour the icing over the cake, using a spoon to push the icing to the edges of the cake to encourage the icing to drip down the sides dramatically. Cool the cake completely and let the icing set.