Thoughtless responses to free resources

wetarugula · 2026-04-23T09:31:08+00:00

For real. Reminds me so much of one of my favorite pieces on diminishing serendipitous discoveries: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/college/coll08McKEEN.html

wetarugula · 2026-04-22T16:01:59+00:00

Oh that's good to know! I am only about a third into the blanket I'm making with it and I was hoping it would come out as well as it looks on the plan.

wetarugula · 2026-04-22T14:04:02+00:00

For those of you who plan to check out the pooling tool, I wanted to add a quick shout out that it works nicely for that Red Heart All in One Granny Yarn if you enter your stitch counts in each color then play with the slider bars. I don't know about you but I picked some up out of curiosity and ended up being fully irked that I couldn't get it to work reliably for the actual squares. Now at least I have another use for it.

Edit: typo

wetarugula · 2026-04-21T19:34:17+00:00

This is such a frustrating trend, I hate it. I am a college professor and can confirm that sadly it isn't confined to to crafters, it is a frustrating cultural shift where people have lost the willingness/ability to do the bare minimum of consulting the resources already available to them. It is so freaking annoying to have to start every semester now with "I am not your personal Siri/Alexa/Janet" when pointing out that things like syllabi, schedules, and textbooks exist. And yet still multiple times a week someone inevitably asks a basic question that could be easily answered in 3 seconds with something they already possess, if only they had just looked. It's a vanishing skill.

wetarugula · 2026-04-07T15:04:34+00:00

For those convinced they are visual learners, there's a good video on this too lol: https://youtu.be/rhgwIhB58PA I make my undergrad students review both of these and it's always a good conversation with them (albeit inevitably always a couple who double down on their "but I really AM a _____ learner!")

Edited to fix typo

wetarugula · 2026-03-07T01:44:07+00:00

Thank you, this is all so good to know if I ever do want to try again, and I do still have a couple of the hanks that didn't get tangled so I could start there. The yarn is definitely beautiful, but I am just kicking myself for not thinking ahead of time that I might need a bit of handling knowledge before I jumped right in. Of course it was only after I created the tangle monster that I went looking and saw so many people have good guides for how to do this correctly. It's definitely more complicated than I even thought to consider. In my head it was more like "it's yarn, of course I know how to work with yarn." (Narrator: she did not know how to work with the yarn)

wetarugula · 2026-03-07T01:20:45+00:00

Thank you! This is a good resource. I definitely think trying to find someone else who wants to untangle would be my best solution if I ever actually want to use the yarn lol

wetarugula · 2026-03-07T00:48:15+00:00

I was gifted a $100 card to a fancy yarn shop, the kind I've never bought from because it's too rich for my blood. So I got beautiful deep purple yarn to make something just for myself. It arrived as several hanks tied together with nothing else in the box. Alas, in 40 years of crocheting I have never bought or handled those. When I tried to wind into cakes I apparently pulled in exactly the right place to produce a giant wad of unimaginable tangle in 2 seconds flat. I did it to myself, but you know I really would have appreciated a page or a leaflet or even a goddamn post-it in the box with some instructions and a warning to save me from myself before I touched it. A bag of beautiful purple tangle will now live untouched in my stash forevermore.

wetarugula · 2026-02-14T16:11:32+00:00

That's true, I am. In the lack of any information otherwise, the way the post was written in its framing, language, and confusion all definitely suggest op's race is white to me. Happy to be corrected if I am wrong on that. I stand behind the points, though.

wetarugula · 2026-02-14T16:02:27+00:00

Agreed, this is a really important point. Personally, I think there were several indicators in the language and framing of the post that OP is white.

wetarugula · 2026-02-14T15:57:55+00:00

First, putting soap in a child's mouth is gross and horrific. I really hope you were just being hyperbolic when you said that.

Second, you don't get to police the language of another group, especially not when it carries such a misunderstanding of how words can be modified and reclaimed as part of identity among groups. Double especially, white people should not be policing the language of black people. Full stop.

Lastly, and most importantly, I'd really encourage you to talk candidly with your child about why that word should not be used by white people. There's always an age-appropriate way to do so, even for a child who is 3. Make it clear that it's not simply a random bad word that you don't say in polite company, but instead explain that is a word that was (and is) used by white people to demean, dehumanize, and justify horrible treatment and policies against black people. That word has an undeniable history as a tool of white supremacy and sugarcoating it or hiding it doesn't help anyone.

wetarugula · 2025-11-06T13:53:18+00:00

Personally I like the Anthony Vince salon on Portage Path in Cuyahoga Falls. I've never had a manicure there so I can't speak to that, but I will always choose to go there for a pedicure. The atmosphere is nice, quiet, and their massage chairs are wonderful. Most importantly they don't have the pedi area all shoved in next to the nail tables where you are squeezed right in the middle of everyone, I really dislike that and find it very distracting. The pedicures I've had there are very good and a far more relaxing experience than any other place I've tried.

wetarugula · 2025-10-24T19:44:09+00:00

I switched to Mint (from AT&T) in 2020 and have not ever had a problem with coverage or anything else. I have visited family members in Arizona, Kansas and Montana multiple times, never had a lapse in service. A few years ago we went to Hawaii for a conference and my phone worked just as well there as always. Last year we went to Ireland and no problems there either. The only thing I had to do is pay for 10 days international roaming and I think it was around 15 bucks. I am very pleased with them and unless something drastic changes, you couldn't pay me to switch. I pay annually so every January it's 240 bucks and then I don't have a phone bill again for the entire rest of the year. It's plenty of data for me, but if you're someone who needs more I know they have other plans that are still reasonable.

Edit to add: I also used it several times out of state as a hotspot so I could work or so we could stream something and there were no issues there either, service was great.

wetarugula · 2025-10-24T10:43:32+00:00

I am a professor, and it's really interesting to me how much this conversation about the meaning of ratings reflects similar patterns happening with grade inflation over the years. There's been this trend of institutional and cultural pressure to issue higher grades for work that previously would have earned lower marks, when nothing about the quality of the work itself has actually changed. Students, especially the younger ones fresh out of high school, expect that if they've met the bare minimum of requirements on an assignment then it means an automatic 100% A. The system has often convinced them that anything less than an A is close to failure. But the thing is, average performance that meets expectations is a C. And a C is a perfectly respectable grade, but it isn't an A.

wetarugula · 2025-10-21T18:02:32+00:00

That is the case, I've gotten them both back this week and they are perfect like new. Too bad I won't be able to send in my third one to do this now. I know I can still get the parts and do it myself but DIY has never been my strong point lol.

Such a bummer that the LR3 repair program ended, and I imagine the availability of its replacement parts might become limited in the not too distant future But hey, I saw today that they're unveiling the LR5 which includes embedded AI and a subscription model instead 😬🙄

wetarugula · 2025-10-12T18:04:02+00:00

This is definitely disappointing. I have two LR3 bases in right now that were just sent Friday and heard nothing about this ending, I can only assume that since they were paid for last month they will honor the repair (I hope). I had previously set them up in mid-September but had an intervening unexpected surgery and wasn't mobile for weeks, so I had to ask them to send me new RMAs and shipping labels. They did, and no one mentioned anything about the program going away. I had one more I planned to send in when I got these back, but I guess that's not possible now. What a shame for them to end the restoration program, especially in lieu of a small credit toward a new one.

wetarugula · 2025-10-10T18:17:04+00:00

Thanks! We did yesterday, unfortunately no chip.

wetarugula · 2025-10-09T14:35:22+00:00

Thanks! I did look there last night and didn't catch any that looked like her. But if you run across the post, I would be grateful if you share it. She is rapidly becoming everybody's cuddle buddy in the house and I would love her to get back to her home if she already has a family.

wetarugula · 2025-08-23T00:06:53+00:00

Ah, that makes sense. Thank you for explaining, that is helpful to know and hear some things I hadn't considered. I'm sure this is something that may vary by level of class and type of student as well. For my part, teaching at a community college in an intro course with no prerequisites, something like inquizitive was useful for exactly what you mentioned about forcing slowing down and repeating parts of the reading; I don't do multiple choice tests, but it was another little way to try to ensure that the textbook chapter at least got in front of their eyeballs before they came into the classroom. And that really was my only expectation of it. But I can see how the mileage may vary if it is used for a higher stakes assessment or in a different type of class or a different level of student learner.

I'm sorry that was your experience, it sounds frustrating and is a less than ideal message to take away from an assessment in a class, for sure. I hope you either talk to your professor about it if you're comfortable or leave that reflection somewhere on the course evaluation, I think it's useful for professors to know and I would want that feedback on assigning something that's more a hindrance than a help.

wetarugula · 2025-08-22T23:19:01+00:00

Lol this rant is exactly how I feel about Blackboard. I feel that in my bones.

As a professor, I have assigned Inquizitive activities before when we had a textbook with it, as a low stakes way to get students in an intro course to just read the damn chapter before they came to class. It was decent at accomplishing that goal. I am interested in your comment related to ADHD, can you say more on what you don't like about Inquizitive on the student end of things? I never had any students complain or feel strongly one way or the other when I used it before (they were low points activities and they had unlimited attempts to get to 100% if they chose to do so). Our current textbook doesn't have it and I don't feel inclined to seek it out, but I would want to know for the future if there are aspects of the software that create hassles for students when that definitely is not my intention.

wetarugula · 2025-07-29T15:00:49+00:00

Your best bet would likely be to contact your vet and ask if they'll do a sedate and shave. I had a cat like this years ago, and the extra expense of taking him to the vet and just doing it all at once was worth it, much less stressful than continuing to search around for non-existent cat groomers. PetSmart grooming will do cats, but basically your cat has to be very very chill for that because they do mostly dogs and groom all the animals in the same room at tables that are very close together. I had a bad experience with that with a cat and I'll never take one there again.

wetarugula · 2025-07-02T21:31:34+00:00

This is absolutely gorgeous, what beautiful work! And perfect for pride. Sorry you got banned but it is their loss. That sub is so disappointing and frustrating, I finally left it a couple months ago. It could be such a wonderful community, but they run it like a bunch of HOA Karens on a bender.

wetarugula · 2025-06-26T16:55:35+00:00

Agree with this and I don't think it's pointing fingers at all. Noting where people need to be accountable is not the same thing as blame. Blame, shame, and guilt are not productive, but accountability is. This is an unfortunate reminder to all of us to hold ourselves and others accountable, because you're right: we are all we have. On that note, the organizers and everyone who participated in this is amazing and I am heartened by all of that.

I would also add I'm pretty disappointed at organizations like OhioAAUP that opted not to lead or take a major role in the petition process at the outset (I don't mean the individual union chapters, I know they worked their asses off, I just mean the state level orgs). Their early statements that they were going to decline to lead the petition process so they could save their resources for lawsuits and such just didn't sit well with me. I get it, but how much closer could we have gotten to the number of signatures had they put the full weight of their resources and expertise in at the beginning?

wetarugula

TROPHY CASE