brin_bellway | Entries tagged with in which brin has a job

Sometimes, when there is incomprehensible pop gibberish on the work radio and I try looking up the lyrics, it's like "oh, it seems obvious in hindsight, how did I not parse that before", and the sensory data kind of snaps into place. (Though it sometimes turns out that the song was better as incomprehensible gibberish.)

Other times it's like, no, actually, the reason you couldn't understand what they were saying there is because they were secretly code-switching into Korean.

(Okay, yes, the Korean word for "apartment" clearly descends from English (via Japanese, apparently), but still, overall I feel vindicated in that I could not reasonably have been expected to figure out what they were on about this time.)

Current Music: "APT" - Rosé

[Substack; Wayback] (by Matt Glassman)

At the heart of the book is a simple proposition. Imagine I offered you a choice. You can have $500 no questions asked, or you can roll a die. If you choose the die and it comes up any number but 6, you get nothing. But if it comes up 6, you get $5000.

This book is not about the people who take the $500. But it’s also not about the people who think for a couple of minute and choose to roll the die.

This is a book about the people who instantly grab the die, can’t imagine not instantly grabbing the die, and think anyone who doesn’t instantly grab the die is somewhere between irrational and insane.

The me of a month ago, when Scott Alexander asked this hypothetical, thought about it for a bit, didn't come to any satisfying conclusions, then took the $500 with a vague sense of this being the Objectively Incorrect Decision and some self-loathing.

The me of today has been through quite a bit more training on this subject! The me of today has practised taking appropriate risks!

The me of today thinks about it for a bit, pulls out an arcane-looking calculator, types some numbers into it, then says--

"That's above the half-Kelly wager for my bankroll."

--and walks away with $500 and a clear conscience.

[cw: poverty, (arguably) venting]

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Current Mood: mostly numb

Do people with bus commutes, just, have frequent kinesthetic hallucinations when they close their eyes? Is that just a normal part of day-to-day life? Does it go away after a while?

It's not especially bothersome, but it's weird. It's like a Tetris effect, but in my vestibular system.

[arguably cw: illness, venting]

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I am too tired to properly analyse which details of this are too sensitive to post here and which are not, so let me just say that I have an internship now.

(probably there should be exclamation points on that, but some events are too big for emotions. except anxiety. there's plenty of that.)

Me: *looks at watch*

Me: 5:14, okay, what should my plans be next-- wait, shit, I was supposed to be at work for 5.

Me: ...I have never in real life had the problem of losing track of time and forgetting to go to work, but I *do* have recurring nightmares about it. I *could* play it safe and act like it's real just in case, but it sure would be convenient if it weren't real. Hmm...right, okay, so what you do here is...

Me: *closes eyes, jumps*

Midair body: *settles gently back to the floor at an acceleration much less than 1 G*

Me: :D

Current Mood: relieved

Comments on my own posts:

Tips on Offline-First Smartphones, 2023 Edition [one comment on Dreamwidth, one comment on Tumblr]

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Comments on other people's posts:

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by

nuclearspaceheater) General life improvements of weightlifting.

[cw: illness, (fairly mild) venting] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by

mindstalk) The spirit (and not just the letter) of mask rules.

[arguably cw: amnesia] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by

unprettyextra; in response to

etirabys) How to help archive Imgur. (Though Imgur has since started its deletions, the archiving project continues.)

[cw: embarrassment squick, (arguably) discourse] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by

hjartasalt; in response to

nuclearspaceheater) American hegemony and (sort-of)-multi-currency cash registers.

[cw: amnesia] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by

sigmaleph) How to (maybe) know your sleep latency.

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Links:

[arguably cw: amnesia] [Baturin; Wayback] (by Daniil Baturin) A review of a Windows-ripoff Linux distro from 2003.

Laugh-rule entries:
[WordPress; Wayback] (by Bret Devereaux)

This is the third part of the second part of our three(ish) part look at the governing structures of the Greek polis (I, IIa, IIb). At some point I promise I will write a series whose organization does not look like a parody of itself.

[Mastodon; Wayback] (h/t Seebs)

(here's the alt text on that image in case you want to stick it into Google Traduction:

ARRÊTEZ L'ANGLAIS – L'ANGLAIS N'EST PAS CENSÉE ÊTRE UNE LANGUE INTERNATIONALE – DES ANNÉES D’ANGLAIS et pourtant AUCUN INTERÊT parce qu’on peut regarder la version du film doublée par Kev Adams – Tu veux dire des trucs en anglais pour rigoler? On a un outil pour Ça, Ça s'appelle «GOOGLE TRADUCTION» – «Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. Will, will Will will Will Will's will? All the faith he had had had had no effect on the outcome of his life» – Indistinguable d'un AVC REGARDE ce que les Anglais te demande de Respecter, avec tous les cours & voyages linguistiques qu’on fait pour les comprendre (Ce sont de VRAIS mots anglais, parlé par de VRAIS Anglais): Embezzling ????? gobbledygook ??????? discombobulated ????????????????? «The bamboozled children skedaddled»
Ils se sont foutus de notre gueule putaingue

[WordPress; Wayback] (by Crow)

In promoting her new book, the author also made a few choice memes. I can’t think of any other way to describe them.

They immediately without context are my kind of humour. Clickhole could post this and I’d send it to all my friends. Levelling is, as a reminder, a sometimes used term to describe killing god. These stock photos are very persuasive in getting me to love god, I’ll admit. I’ll say the unlevel memes are also quite tumblr ‘I dreamed of this meme and now it is real’ style.

[Know Your Meme; Wayback]

A Google Trends graph for 'stonks'. Hovertext shows that the date of a sudden peak is January 24 - 30, 2021.

A Google Trends graph for 'stonks'. Hovertext shows that the date of another, smaller peak is July 10 - 16, 2022.

[cw: illness] [Armbrust; Wayback] Review of a terrible surgical mask.

"And look at the stare in his eyes. I mean, the woman is intense, but this dude, like something's going on there, man. It's the face of someone actually receiving the coronavirus into their body."

[AO3; Wayback] (by

seasparks) I don't go here, I was just wiki-walking, but:

seasons of crappy Netflix that were deemed sufficiently bad to allow Canadian access to them

[cw: Christmas, (arguably) war, (arguably) apocalypse]

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[cw: Christmas, (mild) illness, (arguably) apocalypse]

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[mild cw: unsanitary]

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[cw: illness, (mild) injury, (arguably) venting]

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[arguably cw: illness]

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This is a callout post for LITE 92 for cutting off "American Pie" after the third chorus.

Play the full eight and a half minutes, you cowards.

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(I once had a radio force me to listen to the entirety of "Light My Fire", and I feel that getting a proper "American Pie" would be fitting compensation.)

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~~I was *enjoying* showing off that I know all the words, goddammit~~

Current Music: "American Pie" - Don McLean

[cw: hormones, (arguably) venting, (arguably) nsfw text]

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always have some cash on hand, and always have your SIM card on a different provider network from your home Internet

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(Rogers, one of the Big Three networks of Canada, is out nationwide. has been for nearly 12 hours. still no word on what the hell's going on. *some* credit cards work at *some* stores, but overall the system of commerce is something of a trainwreck today. I should know: I was front-of-house at a restaurant over lunch.)

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(part 2)

Current Location: a Telus-network mobile connection

[cw: illness, poison, venting]

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[cw: illness, poison]

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I haven't had much energy to spare lately, but I eventually managed enough to put this together.

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Comments on my own posts:

History-wikiwalk blogging, part 2

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Comments on other people's posts:

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by

mortuarybees) Being your own boss often isn't freeing.

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by

unpretty; partly in response to

bending-sickle) Water softeners: highly recommended. (If you are in a relevant area.) [one or two comments, depending on how you count]

[cw: depression, anxiety, (mild) food, (mild) illness] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by

fairycosmos) Grocery-store mood whiplash, now with more price-matching.

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by

rustingbridges) I've finally found a moisturiser good enough to keep up with food-service work that *doesn't* cost $40 a bottle! [four comments, one of which is new]

[cw: poverty] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by

librarychair) It's tax season! Time to take that official net-income figure and check it against your local income-tested programs! (Update: looks like we're eligible for subsidies on electricity but not bus fare. I'm still gathering up everyone's signatures, but I expect we'll be able to send in the electricity application tonight.)

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by

wolffyluna) Shift-work tradeoffs.

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Links:

[JetPens; Wayback] (h/t Dynomight) I had not seen any of the apparent dozens of people recommending these. I'm not sure I'd find them useful, but--

Conversely, the ink can reappear when temperatures reach below -10°C/14°F.

--I'm charmed by the idea of invisible-ink signage that appears in winter.

[CTV News; Wayback] (by Alexandra Pinto and Jeff Pickel) The famed Ezra Avenue party (an illegal street party "thrown"† by University of Waterloo students each year on St. Patrick's Day, known for attracting crowds of up to thirty thousand people) was *not* collectively cancelled for the third year running. Police attempted to discourage it from returning by putting up barriers on Ezra: students simply partied on adjacent Marshall Street instead, which seems worse for everybody involved (in that normally, if you're contemplating living on Ezra you at least have a chance at making an informed decision). I feel very sorry for the Marshall residents.

†via decentralised common knowledge rather than any explicit organisation, as I understand it

[arguably cw: apocalypse] [Medium; Wayback] (by Thomas Smith) How to build an off-grid solar system on a three-digit budget (home-office scale). (for comparison: two-digit off-grid solar system (phone scale), five-digit off-grid solar system (house scale))

[arguably cw: apocalypse] [Bloomberg; Wayback (Firefox reader mode will show the full article)] (by Debby Wu; h/t Matt Levine) Salvaging semiconductors from washing machines.

[cw: apocalypse, food] [Unprepared; Wayback] (by Josh Centers) Food security in a time of fertilizer shortages.

[mild cw: illness]

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Brinens and Things

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Entries tagged with in which brin has a job

Just meet me at the 아파트

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Today in penny farming

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Unforeseen disadvantages of non-elastomeric masks

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Even just the basics of lucid-dreaming techniques are well worth picking up

Comment and Link Roundup: June 1, 2023

It's Epiphany, my last chance to finalise this draft while still having it be arguably timely

Just like the ones I used to know

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this post brought to you by mobile data

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Comment and Link Roundup: May 17, 2022

Oh, I will

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