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garaksapprentice.bsky.social
Textile artist, writer, permaculturalist, medieval re-enactor, nerd. I write about fashion history and textile crafts at the intersections of permaculture, sustainability, equitable tech, & neurodivergence. They/them.
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There's actually an extremely large scholarly literature about this. With some regularity, dictators order their troops to shoot protestors, the troops are like "wtf no," and then the dictator falls. I'll dig ho and dump some cites below in a second

submitted 11 days ago • 63 comments

Folks are begging to learn about the Ur III royal household model, to read Weber and Schloen closely. Hire a Bronze Age political historian today!

submitted 20 days ago • 2 comments

Gonna get my sixth or seventh (losing track) Covid shot tomorrow. Would have it already but had to wait a fortnight after this year's flu jab. Remember if you're on Australian Medicare it's *free*.

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

Happy days for my fellow ADHDers in NSW! Hopefully other states will follow suit once this gets rolled out. The wait for a treating psychiatrist in some places is absolutely brutal, triply so if you live rural. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05...

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Update:

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

Two things often overlooked in discussions about compulsory voting: 1) It makes it very hard to intimidate people out of voting 2) It makes voter suppression tactics we see Republicans use in the US, like restricting early voting, and having few polling booths, ineffective.

submitted 46 days ago • 6 comments

This is a perfectly good and reasonable productivity metric. I would attempt to use it myself, except that I'm currently investing in the sewing machine's metrics instead.

submitted 51 days ago • 0 comments

Relearning how to gouache the only way I know how: shitty paint, shitty paper, and The Picture that every kid draws when they're six. But with more perspective and shading.

submitted 51 days ago • 0 comments

And then we're back to people who don't understand the system destroying people's livelihoods. Because to you or me, enamel pins are a luxury item. But to my independent artist friends, enamel pins have been the thing that made their careers sustainable.

submitted 55 days ago • 7 comments

These books were fantastic. Can't wait to sit down with the short stories tonight.

submitted 57 days ago • 0 comments

Today I learned (the hard way) that you can get blocked salivary glands when you're on a high salt diet & accidentally stop drinking a billion litres of water because the weather suddenly cooled. The human body truly is just a sack full of smaller sacks. And sometimes those sacks get rocks in them.

submitted 58 days ago • 1 comment

the whole irony poisoned way of seeing something unusual and reacting with quips of 'kill it with fire' or 'i just lost brain cells' is such a muted way of trotting through this beautiful timeline, and such a common reaction from those raised by the internets depths. i hear this a lot with my books

submitted 59 days ago • 10 comments

I need a new project like I need a hole in the head, but I also need more mindless knitting to do while I binge read (Grace Draven is great fantasy romance, highly recommend), so I guess I'm starting one of Elizabeth Zimmerman's garter stitch something or others.

submitted 60 days ago • 1 comment

The rules I always state for audience Q&A: 1. Questions in the form of questions 2. Questions are one part questions 3. Questions are as brief as possible And the reason is so as many people as possible can ask questions. If you tell people the rules ahead of time, they're usually on board.

submitted 62 days ago • 33 comments

Fancy new ergonomic keyboard arrived today. It is Very Fancy. But luckily also very easy to rip off all the keycaps and put them in their godgiven rightful order, which obviously is not qwerty, because why do you think I need an ergonomic keyboard in the first place?

submitted 63 days ago • 2 comments

It is truly astonishing to me how someone can see a full beard, flat chest, and aggressively Queer Dad energy and still have the unmitigated gall to write "mother" and "her" in their report. Wouldn't you at least double check that shit first? You're supposed to be a professional!

submitted 65 days ago • 0 comments

Achievement unlocked: the beard is now long enough that when I complete the first phase of Operation Haircut (take everything back to 1" with the clippers), I go from Wild Man of Borneo to Teen Wolf Extra. (I then become fit for human society by taking the 3/8" guide to the sides and back.)

submitted 66 days ago • 0 comments

Yes. I picked an *excellent* colour to paint all my re-enactment gear. (If this isn't actually a plausible orange for medieval wood paint it's too late, I'm doing it, all shall love me and despair.) #medieval #reenacting

submitted 66 days ago • 0 comments

Me: I wanna weave on the big room but it's too hot outside, & I can't weave on the folding loom cos it needs warping & a taller chair, & I need to warp the inkle & uuuuuugh Elder Child: buck up son, it's not that bad. Just warp it off. Me: 🥲 I'm so proud of you. That was *terrible*.

submitted 68 days ago • 0 comments

Alt text: a billboard on the side of a building with a picture of a nurse in scrubs with their arms crossed. The billboard text reads "Australia's nurses pay more tax than the gas industry. How is that fair?"

submitted 68 days ago • 0 comments

Today's plan: pilates to fix my sad little back, write?, warp Inkle loom for the next sample/teaching band (sewing thread this time, my favourite!), go do Anti-Poverty stuff/election planning, feed people pizza for dinner, collapse until tomorrow. So few things, so many chances to get derailed...

submitted 68 days ago • 1 comment

This is one of the best threads I've ever read on ChatGPT, relationship advice, and ChatGPT's relationship 'advice'.

submitted 68 days ago • 0 comments

This is so much more correct and detailed than other smug people in Australia boasting about our supposedly "universal health care"

submitted 69 days ago • 1 comment

Getting a job as a piper just so I can reel something.

submitted 70 days ago • 0 comments