When I get new followers <3
Leftism teaches you that the most annoying people in the world can have the exact same opinions as you. And they'll still get on your nerves
Other leftists will say some shit you fundamentally agree with but phrased in a way designed in a lab specifically to piss you off. Like you're right but shut the fuck up
i hate you shein. i hate you wish. i hate you temu. i hate you aliexpress. i hate you fast fashion. i hate you consumerism. i hate you planned obsolescence. i hate you plastics.
sorry to the the little girl at the vet who wanted to see the kitty in my cat carrier but instead saw my guinea pig sized black rat with hair loss. some people have to be goth
would YOU resent a surprise b man.
today is my birthday, and while 30 used to seem unreachable, i’m still here, im standing, and i’m doing what i love 🖤 the best gift i could ask for would be sharing my work if you like it, or consider checking out what i make!
help your local goth transmasc move and get some sick stuff 👀🩸🩸🩸 lots of new designs in stock, and all orders placed until the 30th come with freebies to celebrate! pins, stickers, patches & more c:
TIL a family in Georgia claimed to have passed down a song in an unknown language from the time of their enslavement; scientists identified the song as a genuine West African funeral song in the Mende language that had survived multiple transmissions from mother to daughter over multiple centuries (x)
Sewing Machines & Planned Obsolescence
I've got these two sewing machines, made about 100 years apart. An old treadle machine from around 1920-1930, that I pulled out of the trash on a rainy day, and a new Brother sewing machine from around 2020.
I've always known planned obsolescence was a thing, but I never knew just how insidious it was till I started looking at these two side by side.
I wasn't feeling hopeful at first that I'd actually be able to fix the old one, I found it in the trash at 2 am in a thunderstorm. It was rusty, dusty, soggy, squeaky, missing parts, and 100 years old.
How do you even find specialized parts 100 years later? Well, easily, it turns out. The manufacturers at the time didn't just make parts backwards compatible to be consistent across the years, but also interchangeable across brands! Imagine that today, being able to grab a part from an old iPhone to fix your Android.
Anyway, 6 months into having them both, I can confidently say that my busted up trash machine is far better than my new one, or any consumer-grade sewing machine on the market.
Old Machine Guts
The old machine? Can sew through a pile of leather thicker than my fingers like it's nothing. (it's actually terrifying and I treat it like a power tool - I'll never sew drunk on that thing because I'm genuinely afraid it'd sew through a finger!) At high speeds, it's well balanced and doesn't shake. The parts are all metal, attached by standard flathead screws, designed to be simple and strong, and easily reachable behind large access doors. The tools I need to work on it? A screwdriver and oil. Lost my screwdriver? That's OK, a knife works too.
New Machine Guts
The new machine's skipping stitches now that the plastic parts are starting to wear out. It's always throwing software errors, and it damn near shakes itself apart at top speed. Look at it's innards - I could barely fit a boriscope camera that's about as thick as spaghetti in there let alone my fingers. Very little is attached with standard screws.
And it's infuriating. I'm an engineer - there's no damn reason to make high-wear parts out of plastic. Or put them in places they can't be reached to replace. There's no reason to make your mechanism so unbalanced it's reaching the point of failure before reaching it's own design speed. (Oh yeah there is, it's corporate greed)
100 years, and your standard home sewing machine has gone from a beast of a machine that can be pulled out of the literal waterlogged trash and repaired - to a machine that eats itself if you sew anything but delicate fast-fashion fabrics that are also designed to fall apart in a few years.
Looking for something modern built to the standard that was set 100 years ago? I'd be looking at industrial machines that are going for thousands of dollars... Used on craigslist. I don't even want to know what they'd cost new.
We have the technology and knowledge to manufacture "old" sewing machines still. Hell, even better, sewing machines with the mechanical design quality of the old ones, but with more modern features. It would be so easy - at a technical level to start building things well again. Hell, it's easier to fabricate something sturdy than engineer something to fail at just the right time. (I have half a mind to see if any of my meche friends with machine shops want to help me fabricate an actually good modern machine lol)
We need to push for right-to-repair laws, and legislation against planned obsolescence. Because it's honestly shocking how corporate greed has downright sabotaged good design. They're selling us utter shit, and expecting us to come back for more every financial quarter? I'm over it.
Working at Joanne Fabrics, I get asked often by customers what machine I use (probably because I'm the youngest looking person there who knows anything about sewing machines)
Truthfully, I tell them that I don't use any of the ones we sell. My inherited Janome from 1965 is still going strong.
Once I saw a Singer sold only to be returned the VERY NEXT DAY broken. I try to recommend Janomes because they're the lesser evil right now, but I feel so bad when our older customers come in wanting to replace their machines with a new one that probably will only last a few months. It makes me feel rotten inside.
For the love of god NEVER get a Singer
