Brinens and Things

Comments on my own posts:

The one about Recoll

[cw: what it says on the tin] The one about plague nightmares [one comment, not counting the postscript]

[fairly mild cw: war, amnesia] The one about remembrance poppies

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Comments on other people's posts:

[Substack; Wayback] (OP by Evan Þ) If you enjoy my posts in which I express wildly alien intuitions about things, you may enjoy me dipping my toes into a (very polite) discussion of free will. (At least, I assume these intuitions are wildly alien from how often I see people say things that only make sense under different intuition sets. In any case, we are pleased to offer the finest autoxenoanthropology here at Brinens and Things.) [two comments]

[cw: poverty, venting] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by catchymemes) In which I have a lot of psychological baggage around museums.

[cw: death, aging, apocalypse] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by treadwells) Cottagecore and a broader view of danger.

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by mindstalk) The hole in comparative social-media discussions left by ignorance of Tumblr.

[cw: food, poison, illness, (arguably) death] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by ultraviolet-divergence) Dealing with the latest big listeria outbreak.

[cw: (strong) illness, (strong) apocalypse, bugs] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by siderea; in response to ewt) The wonders of PPE, climate-catastrophe edition.

[fairly mild cw: corporate bullshit] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by rustingbridges; in response to bulbous-oar) How to selectively prevent Android apps from accessing the Internet.

[Scribble Hub; Wayback] (OP by wingedcatgirl) Isekais and the importance of caution when carrying irreplaceable otherworldly technology.

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by headspace-hotel) Poetic meter and artistic instincts.

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by reptile-ruler) Fighting Tumblr's slippage down the slope towards Internet silos.

[cw: illness, apocalypse, (arguably) amnesia] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by eightyonekilograms; partly in response to sigmaleph) In the future, "zoonosis" will be a word everyone knows; knowing *where* they learned it is another matter. [two comments, sort of]

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Links:

[Imgur; Wayback] Live wire-sculpture (not to be confused with live-wire sculpture).

[arguably cw: injury, embarrassment squick] [Hackaday; Wayback] (by Lewin Day) False positives on Apple's automatic car-crash 911 calling.

[CBS; Wayback] (by Phil Galewitz) Over-the-counter hearing aids now available in the United States.

(Although I am also having feelings about this sentence:

A pair of prescription devices typically sells for {{USD}}$2,000 to $8,000.

Only if you're getting ripped off, dude. Go to Costco. *So* glad we told the non-chain hearing-aid centre to go fuck themselves when they wanted six grand: the perfectly fine Costco hearing aids were CAD$1,800 *before* the $1,000 government subsidy. (that's not even *counting* the refundable tax credits I might be able to wring out of it))

[Kiwix; Wayback] What is the size of Wikipedia? (Also, your regular reminder that Kiwix is amazing and you should check it out. (And it gets even *better* than amazing after you figure out how to make your own ZIM files.))

[AO3; Wayback] (by Edonohana; h/t Ozy Brennan) The intricacies of tardigrade literature.

[cw: what it says on the tin] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (by siderea) Stop relying on Twitter for third-party authentication.

[cw: what it says on the tin] [Science; Wayback] (by Arevalo et al; h/t KelseyTUOC) A 20-valent influenza vaccine, containing examples of every known flu subtype. Works well in mice and ferrets, soon to be tested in primates and--hopefully--humans. In addition to the obvious benefits, it shows promise of providing cross-protection against novel influenza strains.


Three laugh-rule entries:
[cw: corporate bullshit] [Twitter; Wayback] (by rahaeli) Sporking the Cohost terms of service.

[Youtube; Wayback] (by Lauren Lopez and Robert Manion; h/t Blazing Darkness) Bella Swan is sixteen, going on seventeen...

[cw: scopophobia, (arguably) corporate bullshit] [Reddit; Wayback] (h/t trivialagent) It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.

[cw: (strong) fire, unreality, (mild) illness]

(*looks at those content warnings* ...to be clear up front, my house is intact)

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Now that my WordPress is in usable condition, Tumblr comments will have their primary link be to WordPress, with the original Tumblr version in parentheses. I won't explicitly include Wayback links for these, just as I don't explicitly include Wayback links for links to my own Dreamwidth: they'll go into the Wayback Machine in a few weeks when I upload that month's posts.


Comments on my own posts:

Ask me about my special interests [two comments]

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Comments on other people's posts:

[cw: amnesia, (fairly mild) drugs] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by slatestarscratchpad; also in response to how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess) The moral relevance of dreaming selves.

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by lydamorehouse) Unlike Facebook, Dreamwidth-based image hosting works on Firefox by default.

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by rustingbridges) Grumbling about Google CAPTCHAs. [two comments]

[cw: amnesia] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by contrarianarchon) What falling asleep feels like.

[cw: nsfw text (and arguably images) in the link] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by asexualactivities) On setting up a sex-education website in a manner friendly to sex-repulsed people. (With test subject: a masturbation sleeve review.)

[cw: amnesia] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by staff) An update on how to handle Tumblr's latest wave of censorship: tumblr-utils needs some tweaks in order to continue functioning. [two comments, one of which is new]

[arguably cw: fire] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by ultrastimpaks) Do you sleep with your door open, or closed?

[cw: poverty] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by siderea; in response to etirabys) More on the importance of storage space and stable housing.

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by transgenderer; in response to sigmaleph and pedanther) Even in the age of smartphones, wristwatches are still useful. Even and perhaps especially dumbwatches. [two comments]

[cw: Pyrebound spoilers] [WordPress; Wayback] (OP by theredsheep) Today on Pyrebound reactionblogging: population estimates.

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Links:

[cw: medical, self-harm (ego-dystonic), death] [New Yorker; Wayback crawling forbidden, but paywall is of the type easily circumvented by hitting ctrl-a ctrl-c before it pops up, then pasting into the word processor of your choice] (by Richard Preston; h/t GeneralDisarray) An article about Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, a rare genetic disorder which I had not heard of before.

Two laugh-rule entries:
[arguably cw: nsfw text] [The Register; Wayback] (by Richard Speed; h/t compusever)

the software has been taken up by clients seeking to hand over control of their computer to someone else in exchange for a fee and a promise not to email their partner. The prospect and thrill of the loss of control is apparently an enticing one.
[...]
The Register reckons that same effect could be achieved by putting an unpatched version of Windows XP on an open internet connection for a few minutes.

[cw: murder] [Tumblr; Wayback] (by ficklefackle; h/t consumptivesphinx) That knife was from *what*?!



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

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We'll be formatting this slightly differently today. First, the comments/links that *aren't* COVID-19 related:

Comments on my own posts:

The one about how hard it is to control the exact phrasing of your speech

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Comments on other people's posts:

[cw: food] [Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by etirabys) Granola bars are a solution to many of life's problems.

[Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by etirabys) Books within dreams.

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Links:

[GitHub; Wayback] (by gildas-lormeau; h/t Gwern Branwen) Tired of wrangling the file proliferation of saving webpages to HTML? Tired of the broken formatting of saving webpages to PDF? Try SingleFile! I've been testing it out on parts of my archive where I was previously making do with shitty PDFs or multi-file HTMLs, and it's been working great.

Laugh rule:
[Diaryland; Wayback] (by Grizzly and Ninja of the Clan)

Oh, and Jack liked the exercies. He thought they were fun and he likes the color yellow. He wants me to make sure I included that in this review. He likes the color yellow.

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

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Had to postpone last week's backups because my laptop had enough on its plate, so here is a somewhat larger roundup.


Comments on my own posts:

[none this time]

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Comments on other people's posts:

(Note: this post is subject to a formatting glitch. The last post is still last, but all *other* posts in the thread are in reversed order.) [Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by icarian-arts) Today in "memes that came to people in visions": accidental tips on phone customisation.

[Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by femmenietzsche) The social acceptability of the word "bitch".

[Dreamwidth; Wayback crawling forbidden OP apparently later turned crawlability on] (OP by yvannairie) The complicatedness of musical taste. [three comments]

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by yvannairie) Pokemon Go identity logistics.

[Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by thisismycursed3rdblog; addressing itsmaledict (Halloween alt of itsbenedict)) Just how many twists can we put into enemies-to-friends-to-lovers?

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Links:

[FiveThirtyEight; Wayback] (by Ben Casselman; h/t Scott Alexander) As a 25-year-old part-time student in a certificate program at a school that prides itself on its *high* acceptance rate and who has never lived on-campus, I really feel this article.

[Tumblr; Wayback] (by doctorbeth) Adorable stuffed-animal clothing.

[mild cw: war] [Tumblr; Wayback] (by the-battle-lesbian; h/t consumptive-sphinx) Shaun Keenan does some excellent art of dinosaurs in (relatively) modern contexts.

[BBC News; Wayback] (can't find a byline; h/t Matt Levine) The best roundabouts in the United Kingdom.

[cw: abuse] [The Outline; Wayback] (by Joanna Mang; h/t Scott Alexander) I remember Shakesville, though I was never a regular reader: it was too intense for even 2011!me to handle. (And I say this as someone who was once among the top 5 most prolific commenters on Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.) I disagree with Scott's assessment, though: to the extent that Shakesville strikes me as less terrifying than it did before, it is only because I have since met people whose goodwill is not conditional on staying in the good graces of Shakesville's ilk.

[Raph's Website; Wayback] (by Raph Koster) A postmortem of the MMO Star Wars: Galaxies. I never played it and am not sure I've even heard of it before, but the series is interesting nonetheless.

(although why one would deliberately create a world in which everything decays I do not know; decay is the worst part of the real world and I for one would rather not have it in my escapism, especially not in such a...well, *inescapable* manner)

Laugh rule:
[Sputnikmusic; Wayback] (by SowingSeason)

traits not necessarily suitable for a band that regularly references animals and shouts hey! an average of nine time per song.

(I finally got around to listening to this 2015 album recently. Very solid album, only a couple of duds. (Whereas with My Head Is an Animal I only liked about the first half.) My favourite was "We Sink", because I am predictable and also it is pretty.)


Bonus: a few selections from my recent bookmark-tidying.

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (by deird1) The Vegemite Effect. (A memory: "This food tastes of lies," I say, waving around a piece of food from the Chinese buffet when I'd been *told* we were going to a steakhouse.)

[Tumblr; Wayback] (by thatsnotwatyourmomsaid) Hello, you must have found my camera!

[WordPress; Wayback] (by Chris Witham) Welcoming new zombies to the collective.

[K.B. Owen Mysteries; Wayback] (by James Thurber) Viewing Macbeth through the lens of murder mysteries.

Laugh rule:
[Bandcamp; Wayback (while for *best* results you'll need the audio, Wayback *will* at least get you the lyrics)] (by Brooke Abbey) Let me tell you the story, as sad as it's true...