There is no shame in drawing for fun, but I can't help but feel a bit embarrassed for not progressing as fast as I would have liked. I should be doing more gesture drawings and practice anatomy, but by the time I am "ready" to draw it is already quite late in the day. I am already 15 min over time if I want to get 8 hours of sleep before work tomorrow.

EDIT: PLEASE stop telling me I'm in danger, I can't do much about it at this point and I have severe panic disorder and I appreciate the concern and warnings but I am freaking out lol

I got a little (very) carried away with the Diatomaceous Earth yesterday trying to hastily treat my mom's flea problem. I only followed word-of-mouth directions from a friend, didn't look up anything or read the packaging. It's not even the food grade version.

How do I get this off the floors without just kicking it all up into the air? When I poured it everywhere yesterday, my asthmatic mom had trouble breathing afterwards. I just attempted to carefully sweep the kitchen, and walked away feeling like I just snorted rails of straight tree pollen. I have guests coming over tomorrow. What should I do?

P.S. Please don't be mean, I know I'm stupid and I've learned my lesson!

Edit: Update: Thanks for all the helpful advice!! I am so lucky to have done this in a house that has tile throughout instead of any installed carpeting. The furniture I coated with the D-Earth ended up being furniture my mom planned on getting rid of/replacing anyways, except for her leather sofa. The only thing we haven't been able to take care of with wet mopping and a wet rag is my bedroom rug, which gives me an excuse to go ahead and buy this other one I've had my eye on :) I'm so thankful that I didn't need to go rent any equipment to fix this, but thank you to all who suggested the idea!

There's Food Grade and there's Pool Grade. Pool Grade Diatomaceous Earth is extremely dangerous.

When Lorraine Kelly shared her experience of menopause on her daytime TV show in 2017, she was her own last resort. Initially, she set out to interview a famous woman about her story, but everyone she approached refused.

"I thought, nobody else will talk about it so I'll do it. It was a breakthrough moment," said Kelly.

Seven years later, it often feels as though we have reached peak menopause. Michelle Obama, Salma Hayek and Gwyneth Paltrow have all been open about their experiences, encouraging women not to feel ashamed about a biological process an estimated 13 million people in the UK are now going through. And yet there's still one part of it that is barely spoken about.

Vaginal dryness.

As with so much in this realm, it took a celebrity – Davina McCall in this case – to shine a light on it. For those of us who'd assumed this symptom was a minor inconvenience, which only affected s*x and was easily remedied with the kinds of lubrication readily available from high street chemists, it was a brutal wake-up call.

"I had severe dryness, so severe that when I tried to wipe myself after going to the loo, it was so sore I was having to kind of dab," McCall said in her 2021 documentary, S*x, Myths and the Menopause. "I didn't know what it was, I had no idea that it was part of being perimenopausal."

Previously known as vulvovaginal atrophy, now rebranded as genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM), vaginal dryness will probably affect between 60% and 80% of women, according to various studies. It is caused by the drop in oestrogen levels, which happens as women go through menopause, causing vaginal tissue to become thinner and less elastic. Despite it being so common, one study has found that a third of female sufferers did not report it to their doctor.

This is partly because of embarrassment, says Haitham Hamoda, consultant gynaecologist and clinical lead of the menopause service at King's College Hospital. "Most GPs are well informed and offer a great service, but of course, there are variations of what you can access. Part of it is going to be what is available to you, what is offered to you, and what you feel comfortable talking about."

He continues: "You'd be surprised how many people would come and see you because they're talking about flushes and sweats and brain fog. And when you say, 'Do you have vaginal dryness?' they will say, 'Oh, yes, it's really uncomfortable'. But they never really think about bringing it up, unless you specifically ask."

Hamoda has seen women who are too sore to wear underwear. "You do find people who say clothes are uncomfortable because it's touching against the area … In extreme cases they find it uncomfortable sitting or walking."

GP and menopause expert Dr Renée Hoenderkamp has had cases like this too. "I've seen women who can't go about their daily life because of vaginal dryness. It's absolutely debilitating. They can't go to the gym any more, can't wear jeans, can't go for a bike ride, can't run up the stairs at the station. It's all just too painful."

Clare, 55, says GSM "consumed my whole life". "I used to sit in a shallow, cold bath, sobbing. It was agony, the burning never let up for one second of the day or night. Even walking was painful." It began when she was 47, but she never considered her symptoms could have anything to do with being perimenopausal because her periods were regular, and she was not having hot flushes.

But, as Hoenderkamp points out, every menopause is different: "For some women, vaginal dryness will be their first symptom, very early, even before their periods have changed. Other women won't get it until they've gone through it all. It's really individual."

She also believes that seeing dryness as just a symptom of menopause can be misleading. "Women who breastfeed for more than six months will suppress their oestrogen to a level where they may get vaginal dryness. The pill can cause it. Antidepressants. It's not just restricted to menopausal women."

The implications of vaginal dryness can go far beyond pain, says Hoenderkamp. "Once past menopause, when all of the tissue in and around the vagina and urethra dries and atrophies, women become much more susceptible to urine infections because bacteria are able to attach to the tissue."

Hamoda has also seen women avoiding or missing cervical screening due to GSM. "Sometimes you can't open the speculum because they're so dry and uncomfortable, even though, of course, you're using plenty of lubrication." In some cases, he has told patients to "take vaginal oestrogen for the next two months, then come back and we'll attempt this smear again. Sadly, this is not an uncommon scenario."

Not every doctor is aware of how to help women with GSM. Emily, 44, sought medical advice as soon as her vaginal dryness began four years ago. "It felt like there was a red hot poker inside of me," she says. She also suffered from urinary tract infections. Her GP found it so hard to reach a diagnosis that at one point he told her – on the phone – that she might simply have to prepare herself for a life of chronic pain.

As she was 40 when her symptoms began, her doctor didn't consider perimenopause. She was passed between different NHS services, given courses of antibiotics, a cystoscopy, referrals to urology, gynaecology and physiotherapy. She also paid to see a private vulval pain specialist. As all this was going on, no painkillers could make any difference, and she remained in agony.

"It's been catastrophic," she says. "The pain makes it very difficult to concentrate. I've had to give up four jobs in the space of four years. I've had to sell my house and move away from my friends because I need to have more savings in case I can't carry on working. It's had a massive effect on my mental health."

Out of desperation, Emily began to research her symptoms herself. She found out that one in 20 women go through perimenopause before they're 45, and, presuming this was what was happening to her, Emily wrote a detailed letter to her GP, asking for vaginal oestrogen. He agreed to put her on a low dose. "And within two days the burning stopped."

She is still, however, struggling with her UTI symptoms – which include needing to pee around four times an hour. While it's impossible to know what has caused this, she believes that because her infection was not treated for so long it has got worse. She is now being treated separately for her persistent UTI.

Misdiagnosis is a common thread through this condition. Dr Paula Briggs, a consultant in sexual and reproductive health at Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust, reports, "It depends who the patient presents to, how likely they are to get the right diagnosis. Loads of women will be told they've got thrush."

It's a perfect storm – women reluctant to seek medical help in the first place, then a delay in being diagnosed.

"Whereas other menopausal symptoms resolve – generally they get less severe, then they stop – GSM becomes progressively worse over time and is very difficult to reverse," says Briggs. She now thinks all women should be given vaginal oestrogen at around the age of 45 as a default.

However, as oestrogen pessaries fall under the HRT umbrella, some women remain nervous due to the small increased risk of breast cancer linked to progestogen-containing forms of HRT. Hoenderkamp says that vaginal oestrogen does not carry the same risk. "It is just about as safe as houses, and very easy. I often have women who say I can't have vaginal oestrogen because I've had breast cancer. Well, you can."

Hamoda is more cautious: "Generally speaking, with breast cancer patients you would try other non-hormonal options first. But on an individual basis."

However, it is not a problem that will disappear overnight. "In terms of the oestrogen, women are not going to do it for a year and then it will all be OK. It's probably a lifelong commitment to their vagina," says Hoenderkamp.

Vaginal oestrogen is available from chemists – although it's cheaper on prescription from your GP – and there are also moisturisers and lubricants women can buy over the counter as a possible first port of call.

The message overall is clear, though. If you are uncomfortably dry, you should never suffer in silence – it's not just a part of ageing that happens to everyone, which you have to grin and bear – it's something that can be treated and, in most cases, eased.

"Awareness is key," says Hamoda. So, while there has never been so much talk about menopause as there is now, there's still a lot that needs to be said.

Some names have been changed

I thought it was common among democrats at this point to have the viewpoint of "oh yeah maybe hammering identity politics isn't a great idea", but nearly every segment on NPR is still about identity. Are they just trying to quell actual leftist ideas and make people hate democrats even more?

!nooticers !transphobes

Brock is so cute! Triana is the sleepiest babe!

!animalposters !cats

Dear God. James Shupe has hanged himself a month after receiving vaginoplasty pic.twitter.com/VKJh1bxruY

— Graham Linehan 🎗️ (@Glinner) February 11, 2025

https://ovarit.com/o/GenderCritical/659572/james-shupe-first-nonbinary-passport-ended-his-life-a-month-after-vaginoplasty

here is an interview with him (which i didnt watch)...

>highly informative and filled in a lot of blanks. When he was lucid, James was able to explain exactly how porn addiction led him to his fetish, and why there's an over-representation of AGPs in the military. He was able to explain precisely how psychiatrists basically brainwashed people into believing that they are trans. A lot of details we roughly suspected but he gave very concrete, clear experiences.

suicide note (didnt read) but apparently he was mad at Elon...

>Have that Nazi piece of shit Elon Musk and his DOGE henchmen deduct the savings from my $93,000 of federal pensions from your bankrupt coffers.

https://zerodoesntsleep.substack.com/p/vet-found-hanging-draped-in-trans

These don't have to be explicitly political. Just something that can be applied to our politics. Unfortunately while the writing in Madoka Magica is top tier and the story makes me feel in ways that few other forms of media can, it does not do politics very well which is why I took my favorite quote from a series that is actually based around geopolitics.

In a way this quote truly encapsulates the condition of our current political system, and in a way it mirrors the shinobi world quite well. For example we don't get to choose our sides. People act like we get a choice but there just are not many options. For example like the shinobi, we are given a village, a country. And that country can be segmented down into clans, families, and many other forms of allegiances. All of these are decided entirely by the nature of our own birth, rather than our own choices.

We are guided only by the necessity to make the most prudent choice. We are expected to be part of the group and sacrifice our entire being for its benefit. Like the shinobi each one of us is little more than a tool to be discarded when we are no longer useful. Is that not the way things should be?

Anyways, I'm excited to see your favorite anime quotes that can be applied to political systems! If anyone finds away to do this with the Madoka Magica series please let me know! I have been trying to find a way for years but it just doesn't seem to fit.

!anime

Lol

uh could you slide into my dms here i deleted tinder but don't look at my post history thx

on a more positive note i need to get some jeans that fit and maybe a new belt

In a bizarre turn of events, a university dormitory in China went up in flames after a student, in a moment of panic, set fire to his s*x doll to keep it hidden from his roommates. The incident took place at Hefei University of Technology in Anhui province on February 10, when the student, fearing exposure, made a rash decision that nearly resulted in disaster.

AND REMEMBER: NO CHEATING!!!

I will be running all answers through Turnitin and other powerful AI anti-cheating detection software so don't even try it, buddy!!

Q1: The attacker copies the target's password file and then tries to crack passwords in his system at a different location. What type of password attack that performed?

• A. Active Online Attack

• B. Passive Online Attack

• C. Non-Electronic Attack

• D. Offline Attack

Q2: The company implements a security policy that has no restriction on the usage of system resources. What type of security policy did the company perform?

• A. Promiscuous policy

• B. Permissive policy

• C. Prudent policy

• D. Paranoid policy

Q3: An organization allows employees to work from the outside network to access the data for a specific purpose. Which technology should be implemented to ensure data confidentiality as data is transmitted?

• A. Telnet

• B. VLAN

• C. WPA2

• D. VPN

Q4: Attackers use image files to hide some information for malicious purposes. What type of technique did the attacker perform?

• A. Spyware

• B. Cryptography

• C. Steganography

• D. Backdoor

Q5: Jimmy, an attacker, knows that he can take advantage of poorly designed input validation routines to create or alter SQL commands to gain access to private data or execute commands in the database. What technique does Jimmy use to compromise a database?

• A. Jimmy can submit user input that executes an operating system command to compromise a target system

• B. Jimmy can gain control of system to flood the target system with requests, preventing legitimate users from gaining access

• C. Jimmy can utilize an incorrect configuration that leads to access with higher-than expected privilege of the database

• D. Jimmy can utilize this particular database threat that is an SQL injection technique to penetrate a target system

Q6: This type of Port Scanning technique splits TCP header into several packets so that the packet filters are not able to detect what the packets intends to do.

• A. UDP Scanning

• B. IP Fragment Scanning

• C. Inverse TCP flag scanning

• D. ACK flag scanning

Q7: What type of attack is shown in the following diagram?

• A. Man-in-the-Middle (MiTM) Attack

• B. Session Hijacking Attack

• C. Sexual Assault

• D. Identity Stealing Attack

Q8: In the Linux system, you want to view firewall logs to evaluate network traffic. It would be best if you searched the specific logs with fast and efficient. Which command-line utility are you most likely to use?

• A. Notepad

• B. Nano

• C. Gedit

• D. Grep

Q9: How do you defend against Privilege Escalation?

• A. Run users and applications on the least privileges

• B. Restrict the interactive logon privileges

• C. Run services as unprivileged accounts

• D. Allow security settings of IE to zero or Low

Q10: The following script shows a simple SQL injection. The script builds an SQL query by concatenating hard-coded strings together with a string entered by the user:

The user is prompted to enter the name of a city on a Web form. If she enters Chicago, the query assembled by the script looks similar to the following:

SELECT * FROM OrdersTable WHERE ShipCity = 'Chicago'

How will you delete the OrdersTable from the database using SQL Injection?

• A. Chicago'; drop table OrdersTable --

• B. Delete table'blah'; OrdersTable --

• C. EXEC; SELECT * OrdersTable > DROP --

• D. cmdshell'; 'del c:\sql\mydb\OrdersTable' //

Q11: Write a Bash script that can breach the NSA mainframe on level 4 of their headquarters at 830 Chisholm Ave, Fort Meade, MD, United States 20755 and exfiltrate all stored databases. Make sure you test to see if it works!

• A. Leetcode didn't prepare me for this.

Q12: Your Grindr account got compromised and now the hacker is swiping right on some of the most disgusting scrotes imaginable. How do you save your reputation as a High Value Gay Dude?

• A. Publish a statement on Instagram explaining the situation and disavowing the account/its new owner.

• B. You're done. Wrap it up and become straight.

• C. Claim you contracted HIV and fake your death.

• D. Find and kill the hacker.

Q13: You find an exploit in the rdrama.net dramacoin system. What do you do?

• A. Report it to the admiggers to get a cool pentester badge.

• B. Exploit it relentlessly until the entire dramaeconomy is disrupted.

• C. The correct answer is B.

• D. All of the above.

Q14: Your step-sister is being a raging b-word to you. What do you do?

• A. Do nothing and wait. She's clearly on the rag.

• B. Hack her neopets account and kill all her pets or get her banned.

• C. Wait for her to get stuck under some furniture.

• D. None of the above.

Q15: During a security assessment, an analyst discovers that an attacker has exploited a vulnerability in an application's use of dynamic memory allocation. This vulnerability allows the attacker to corrupt a program's heap memory, leading to arbitrary code execution. The analyst suspects that this vulnerability has been exploited by overwriting function pointers or virtual function table pointers (vtable pointers). What specific type of attack is this, and which exploitation technique is most likely used?

• A. Stack Overflow; Return Oriented Programming (ROP)

• B. Format String Vulnerability; printf() Function Exploitation

• C. Heap Overflow; House of Prime

• D. Integer Overflow; Signed vs Unsigned Mismatch

i deadass thought this was at the track for like 10 seconds pic.twitter.com/Rgv4GaOk6x

— ihave40wins (@ihave40winsonYT) February 18, 2025

Cosm is unbelievable, cooles tech out there and I NEED it to go mainstream. Think they only have locations in Dallas and LA, but they do tons of different sports. Need it in every city @CosmDallas

— I'mma Duck (@imgoingtoduck) February 18, 2025

!burgers would you watch Nascar if it was on a screen like this?

SO EVERY TIME THE FAKECELS OF !INCELS REJECT MY APPLICATION I CAN INVITE THEM TO !FAKELARPERCUTE TWINKCELS

!coomers @Discuss

!schizomaxxxers

!codecels

AITA for continuously triggering her trypophobia?

(Trypophobia is an intense and disproportionate fear or disgust for holes, bumps, or patterns that are clustered together or repetitive)

(aka r-slurred)

I (19F ) have had acne for so long that I honestly can't remember my skin without it. I used to wear a lot of concealer to cover it up, but that only made things worse. Eventually, I realized my skin was controlling my life (and draining my bank account 💀), so when I started at a new school, I decided to stop wearing makeup . My skin still isn't great, but I'm on medication, so I have some hope that it will improve.

Here's the problem: There's a girl in my class, let's call her Callie (18F ), who has trypophobia [is r-slurred]. I had no idea until we were put in a group together. The moment I spoke to her, she started crying. Naturally, I asked what was wrong, and she screamed at me that my face was triggering her trypophobia . Her friends immediately jumped in to comfort her while I just sat there, confused, wondering if I was supposed to apologize for my skin, something I obviously didn't choose to have .

When I tried to speak again, she told me to shut up and leave because I was " drawing attention to myself by talking. " I asked what she expected me to do about it, and she said I could at least wear concealer. I explained that it wasn't an option because it's expensive and just worsens my acne. Her friends glared at me and called me selfish .

That was just the first incident. Ever since, anytime I sit near Callie or have to present in front of the class, she starts dry heaving or crying (having a panic attack?) . It's disrupting lessons so much that my teacher pulled me aside and asked if I could just wear concealer for the sake of keeping the peace. She admitted it wasn't fair but said she couldn't think of another solution.

I already feel like such a freak because of my skin. I know my skin is horrid, but why am I the one expected to cater to Callie? I didn't choose to have acne any more than she chose to have trypophobia. I can't help but feel like I'm being unfairly treated here, but at the same time, I know she can't control her reaction either.

So… AITA? Should I just wear the darn concealer?

!r-slurs !neurodivergents !foidmoment !\verifiedugly

This is the dumbest post about it I've seen