Brinens and Things

(We've more or less returned to an Errand Day system, so I deliberately postponed this roundup so that Backup Day and Errand Day would be offset rather than piled onto the same day.)


Comments on my own posts:

[cw: discourse, (mild) violence] I personally am missing the part of sexuality that would make me sexually attracted to motorcycles

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Comments on other people's posts:

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by yvannairie) Did you know ruby-tipped styli are a thing?

[mild cw: apocalypse] [Reddit; Wayback] (OP by TheTwelveYearOld) Well, I finally broke down and made a Reddit account. Reddit, while being useful to *read* in some cases, tends to be a bit...harsh, for me to want to participate in. But I found I couldn't just leave the poor OP, not when I *knew* the answer to their question and knew there was a good chance that nobody else would give them a straight answer. (Reddit, as we've seen before, is a *terrible* place to ask for advice on apocalypse insurance. Even r/collapse seems to be generally fatalistic about it.)

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by prokopetz; in response to moonlit-tulip) Utility-belt tips.

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Links:

Two laugh-rule entries:
[Rock Paper Shotgun; Wayback] (by Nate Crowley) How fast can you die in Crusader Kings 3?

After that, just in case anyone in the church still likes him, he converts to the Lollard heresy, because its name contains the word “lol”.

[mild cw: stalking, death] [mango.pdf.zone; Wayback] (by Alex Hope) Airline boarding passes are much like keys, in that it is much more dangerous than you might think to post pictures of them on Instagram.
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(Alex Hope's other blog posts are hilarious too, and I recommend all of them.)



There is a blanket [cw: illness] on the rest of this post.

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Comments on my own posts:

Doing the hermit-crab shuffle [three comments, not counting the postscript]

Ask me about my special interests [four comments, two of which are new]

Blog formatting skills

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Comments on other people's posts:

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by lydamorehouse) The costs and benefits of smart-home assistants.

[mild cw: death] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by ilzolende) Blog recs.

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by rustingbridges) The hostile fee structure of Paypal.

[cw: nsfw text] [AO3; Wayback] (OP by Huitzil) Hey, remember that porn-worldbuilding giftfic I got a few years ago? The author wrote a revised and expanded version! I highly recommend it, as well as the chapters that *weren't* inspired by me.

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by siderea) Various ways to follow a Dreamwidth blog (in this case, siderea), and the circumstances in which one might pick one over another.

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Links:

[cw: food] [Tumblr; Wayback] (OP is technically by extrajordinary, but the bulk of the thread is by petermorwood; h/t ilzo-misc) Restaurants in ancient Rome.

Two laugh-rule entries:
[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (by siderea) The Great Chain of History.

[Bulwer-Lytton; Wayback] 2019 winners of the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest, in which one attempts to write the worst opening line for a novel.

Comments on my own posts:

Vocation [three comments]

[cw: drugs, amnesia, maybe medical abuse] The onomatopoeia of breathing

[cw: food] The one about food routines [four comments]

How to Backup Your Dreamwidth [two comments, one of which is new]

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Comments on other people's posts:

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by sigmaleph; in response to contrarianarchon) Relatively good computer skills; the wonders of virtual machines. [two comments, one of which is new]

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by contrarianarchon) How to block the annoying sidebar videos on Serious Eats.

[arguably cw: embarrassment squick] [Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by argumate) Clever vs obvious solutions.

[cw: nsfw text] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by feotakahari) Foot fetishism vs snake fetishism.

[Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by sanesparza; in response to rustingbridges) Dream points-of-view.

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Links:

Some selections from old Youtube bookmarks I was going through:

[cw: abuse] [Youtube] (by TL Forsberg) A bilingual music performance.

Three laugh-rule entries:
[Youtube] (by Joe Nicolosi et al) A trailer for a hypothetical genre-savvy horror film.

[Youtube] (original by Toby Turner; translated version by Draazil) The Dramatic Song, as heard from the foreign grandma's perspective. (This one is only funny if you speak Icelandic or--in my case--have already heard the original English version (which is also hilarious in itself, btw))

[Youtube] (by Jordan Taylor et al) How to write a worship song (in 5 minutes or less).



There is a blanket [cw: illness] on the rest of this post.

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Comments on my own posts:

Lifelogging, part 2

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Comments on other people's posts:

[cw: nsfw text] [Tumblr; Wayback] (in response to the moderator of asexualactivities) On disliking orgasms.

[Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by prettyarbitrary, though my post is more *inspired* by hers than actually responding to her) The immersion and danger of the outdoors.

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Links:

[Bloomberg; Wayback] (by Matt Levine) I *like* Matt Levine's stuff, but every time he treats "should index funds be illegal?" as if it's a hypothetical and somewhat laughable question, and especially here where he is idly interested in the thought of *maybe* *someday* structuring tax incentives to favour active investing over passive, I feel actual physical pain.

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (by yourlibrarian) Introducing the March Meta Matters Challenge, encouraging people to preserve their old (and new!) pieces of fan meta.

1. What is the best book you have ever read? Why did you like it?

*Ever*, I'm not sure.

The cached answer from back when I was often asked my favourite book is "Ella Enchanted". It's got tons of loophole exploitation! And people getting mind-controlled into being happy about their situation! And a *genuine* happy ending!


2. What is your favorite kind of weather? Why?

About 12°C, sunny, light breeze, leaves crunching under your feet, ragweed season over.

I can go outside, enjoy the fresh air, wear a turtleneck *and* my favourite jacket and be neither too warm nor too cold.


3. If you had $100,000, how would you spend it?

You know what, it *is* about time I wrote down the List. It'll help me make sure I'm keeping track of it all, compared to just having it in my head.

(all figures in CAD, translated where necessary)

i. Very extensive roof repairs (~$6,500 - $11,000, depending on quality and haggling)

ii. Partial dentures for Dad (~$2,000)

iii. One-month, three-person emergency fund (Brother has a full-time job and partially separate finances: he can take care of himself) ($3,750)

iv. Laptop for Mom (current laptop barely functions as a personal computer (plus it's hampering her ad-mining) but would make a fine prosthetic brain for the TV; current TV prosthetic brain barely functions as such but would make a fine short-term emergency spare) (~$400)

v. Three-month, three-person emergency fund ($7,500 if you already have a one-month)

vi. Dental checkups for me and Mom (~$350)

vii. Extensive porch repairs and handrail installation (don't have a price quote on this yet, maybe a few thousand)

viii. ~5- to 7-year-old Toyota Prius V (by far the most fuel-efficient of [non-luxury car models capable of driving 100mi to New York, fitting $800 of groceries inside, then driving 100mi back]) (~$14,000)

ix. [classified] ($3,700)

x. Six-month, three-person emergency fund ($11,250 if you already have a three-month)

xi. Fill out rest of RRSP (~$3,200)

xii. Replace upstairs hallway carpet (much of which is covered in permanent dog-urine stains), probably also have to replace parts of the floor underneath as some spots are suspiciously squishy (don't have a price quote on this yet)

xiii. New coat of paint for parts of house requiring protective paint coating (don't have a price quote on this yet)

xiv. Ask Dad if there are any other house repairs I've overlooked (don't have a price quote on this yet)

...let's see, what I am up to now? Around 60 - 70k? And the original 100k was probably meant to be USD, so I've still got about half left.

If I had 65k lying around because of extra *income*, I'd say that's enough for it to be worth my while to hire a U.S. tax specialist to fill out the Qualified Electing Fund paperwork on a bunch of VGRO. (The nice thing about those all-in-one funds is you only have to fill out one set of QEF paperwork (per year) for your entire portfolio.) But this is a lump sum, which means we're still bleeding money underneath (albeit less than before, what with the non-beater car), which means we're likely to need that 65k in the next five years, which means no stock market. I'll just add it to the same carefully-optimised† savings account as the emergency fund. (Between that and the emergency fund, it's over $200/month in interest!)


4. Did you ever meet a famous person?

Well, there's a surprisingly decent chance I've run into Justin Bieber at some point and not realised...

I mean, in general, I don't expect that I'd notice if someone I was meeting was famous. Didn't even realise for a while that the person I was chatting with in some blog comment threads a few years back was Ursula Vernon, and I can't blame prosopagnosia for that one.


5. Were you ever in a helicopter, limousine, racecar, hot-air balloon, submarine, horse-drawn carriage?

Only horse-drawn carriages.

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†About 2.8 - 3.3% interest, depending on which promotions are going on at the moment.

Comments on my own posts:

Interesting Fact Meme [five comments, one of which is new]

[cw: death] seven-year-old me is screaming and covering her ears [two comments]

[cw: food] The pumpkin-spice one

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Comments on other people's posts:

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by yvannairie) Social norms around blog archive-binging. [two comments]

[arguably cw: nsfw text] [Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by asexualactivities) A post I wrote a while back about asexual fetishism becomes relevant again.

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by wolffyluna) Automated transcription is untrustworthy. (Also, neat rock facts.)

[cw: nsfw text] [Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by asexualactivities) "If you’re an ace who masturbates regularly, what happens if you don’t?"

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Links:

[Tumblr; Wayback] (by 0ct0pus; h/t consumptive-sphinx) The burrowing octopus.

[cw: food] [Atlas Obscura; Wayback] (by Tal McThenia) An Arctic exploration team's supply cache accidentally becomes an experiment in long-term food preservation.

[WordPress; Wayback] (by Randall Munroe) Randall Munroe holds a competition to write something using only book titles. Some of the entries are delightfully loophole-y.

Comments on my own posts:

[OP is NSFW and a bit discourse-y, but this comment thread is not] Horizons

The one about asynchronous communication and Australians

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Comments on other people's posts:

[cw: discussion of anxiety] [Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by overlordtulip) Helplessness vs responsibility.

[Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by aeiously; in response to sigmaleph) Case-sensitive handwriting.

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by wolffyluna) Yay geology-blogging!

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by wolffyluna) ""Disgusting"" sedimentary rocks. [two comments]

[cw: bugs (no pictures)] [Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by itsbenedict) Long sleeves/pants: like a weighted blanket, but all the time.

[Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by senator-mon-mothma; in response to maryellencarter) Circadian rhythms in an interplanetary setting.

[cw: food] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by contrarianarchon) Fake followers for hire. [two comments]

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by thedarlingone) Was about gaming serial-monogamy, has topic-drifted into gender and presentation. [three comments, one of which is new]

[cw: nsfw text] [Medium; Wayback] (OP by Ozy Brennan) Children's sexual development. (Apparently the way the Medium commenting system works is that every comment is its own post, visible from and linking back to the OP. I'm glad they recognise the importance of replies-via-reblog.)

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Links:

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (by wolffyluna) The "shitty first drafts" paradigm, and how it sometimes does more harm than good.

[Tumblr; Wayback] (by chapmangamo) A comic depicting various languages' equivalent idioms to "when pigs fly". For more, see this Wikipedia link. My favourite is "on St. Never's Day".

[Tumblr; Wayback] (by koryos) "[L]et me explain the digestive system of the vampire bat. I guarantee by the end you will be wondering how these creatures even exist."

[cw: nsfw text] [Daily Dot; Wayback] (by Ana Valens; h/t soveryverytired) Today in sites that can't be trusted to let people like me talk about sex without cracking down on them: Patreon. (although given how Patreon is even more dependant than most sites on sucking up to payment processors, I'm kind of surprised it took this long)

Laugh rule:
[cw: murder] [Twitter; Wayback] (by AlexBlechman; h/t no_man_fathomed) The most dangerous game.