Brinens and Things

Comments on my own posts:

[cw: food, (arguably) illness, (arguably) heights] I have officially survived my twenties

[cw: illness] Variolation, part 4: Secondhand [three comments, one of which is new]

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Comments on other people's posts:

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by itsbenedict) A day in the life of a Tumblr user.


[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by oak23) The importance of ego-syntonic clothing.


[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by nenya_kanadka) How to make Wikia actually usable (and Dreamwidth even more usable).


[cw: illness, medical, (fairly mild) venting] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by cordeliaflyte) Fantasies about easy solutions to medical problems: not always pleasant.


[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by eightyonekilograms, though also kind of jv) Tumblr Backup Awareness Week, and a modernised version of tumblr-utils. (Though I ran into enough problems getting the python3 version of tumblr-utils working that I eventually gave up and went back to python2.)


[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by thedarlingone) More on the mobile-accessibility updates to Dreamwidth.


[cw: nsfw text] [Dreamwidth; Wayback crawling forbidden] (OP by porthole) The distinction between fetishes that can be done in real life and those that cannot (and the grey areas between).


[arguably cw: apocalypse] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by ladiesloveduranduran) Which of these U.S. cities would you be most willing to live in?


[cw: illness, (arguably) poison] [Updated part of WordPress thread (Tumblr)] (OP by rustingbridges; partly in respose to keynes-fetlife-mutual) Nipping colds in the bud (maybe) with zinc lozenges. [three comments, two of which are new]


[cw: illness, vomit, unsanitary] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by toasthaste; in response to robustcornhusk) Norovirus prevention tips.


[cw: sexism, embarrassment squick] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by RaxKingIsDead) Accidental street harassment.


[cw: corporate bullshit, (arguably) government bullshit] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by JoshGreenberg27) How to get government-funded U.S. tax preparation. (It's still not 100% clear, but it looks like probably *not* for non-residents. On the ""bright"" side, I'm below the income threshold to have to file at all for 2023, and there's no further stimulus checks to claim by doing it anyway.)


[Start of WordPress thread (Tumblr part 1; Tumblr part 2)] (OP by gummybugg; mostly in response to sacrificedtoatree) I have unlocked a fiction-writing skill tree! [two comments]


[arguably cw: guns] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by trailertrashin) "The Glass Eye - Adult Greeting Cards": a real store that really exists, somehow.


[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by whatcha-thinkin) Assuming you had access to perfect medical care at no additional cost, which of these fixes would you want most?

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Links:

[strong cw: illness] [Patreon; Wayback] (by Violet Blue; h/t siderea) A list of COVID-19 resources, consisting largely of people doing their best to navigate things on their own because God knows there are no trustworthy authorities left on this. I bought a $4 bottle of store-brand mouthwash (contains cetylpyridinium chloride) because of this post: I figure it's an extremely low-risk bet.

On a similar though shorter/narrower note, https://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/805203.html

(Update from January: ...if someone who *doesn't* now have a history of COVID infection (or who can otherwise psychologically handle it) can pick through all the stuff in Violet's news roundups about Post-Acute Sequelae Even Worse Than Previously Believed to get at the actionable advice, I would appreciate it)


[cw: illness] [Absolutely Maybe; Wayback] (by Hilda Bastian) Researchers have not given up on creating a COVID vaccine with sterilising and/or durable immunity! Things may still improve.


[cw: corporate bullshit] [PCMag; Wayback] (by Chloe Albanesius; h/t Violet Blue) Obituaries for tech products and services that were shut down in 2023.


[Youtube; Invidious] (by Pope Kallisti; h/t blazingdarkness) A MIDI conversion of "Bring Me to Life".


[Live Science; Wayback] (by Victoria Atkinson) I told somebody in a nuclear-vs-solar argument a while back that I'd care less about solar if ordinary citizens could get household-scale nuclear batteries. There has been non-zero progress towards this.


Two laugh-rule entries:
[Beware The Shadows; Wayback] (by Brett J. Talley) The 56 best/worst analogies written by high school students (or, fairly likely, ""high school students""). (I've seen a lot of these before, but not all of them.)

My favourite is "Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph."


[brr; Wayback] (by Anonymous; h/t Jenn) Showering at the South Pole. (This whole blog is amazing, though usually more in a "wow, Antarctica is such a place" way than a "funny" way.)

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.

Comments on my own posts:

[arguably cw: ableism] The one about the term "hyperfixation" [two comments]

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Comments on other people's posts:

[cw: corporate bullshit] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by prokopetz) Suspiciously polished websites shilling for fellow suspiciously polished things. (Update: Dad and I (and maybe Brother) are going to give a cloud-free RoboVac to Mom as a joint gift on the first night of Hanukkah.)

[cw: food, unsanitary] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by sojournthemoon, a fictional character whose author is luminousalicorn) Obstructed melioration: not just for Amentans. [two comments, sort of]

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Links:

[mild cw: apocalypse] [The Prepared; Wayback] (by Josh Centers) Ever wanted to email people over a radio transceiver? (Since you're reading *my* blog, I'm guessing you probably have.) Turns out it's possible! Takes hundreds of dollars of equipment, a ham license, a pain-in-the-ass setup process, and an agreement not to use encryption of any kind when communicating this way, but if you're sufficiently determined it *can* be done!

(Am *I* sufficiently determined? Not at the moment. A future me with less on her plate might be, though, if a better method hasn't come along by then.)



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Comments on my own posts:

[cw: venting, (mild) kidnapping] The one about emergency alerts

[mild cw: injury, war] One man's modus ponens [no new comments from me unless you count the tags, but worth noting these comments from rustingbridges]

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Comments on other people's posts:

[cw: food] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by YuckyTom; in response to jadagul) How to instantiate supposedly-nonexistent kitchen appliances.

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Links:

[arguably cw: unsanitary] [Region of Waterloo] A virtual tour of a landfill and recycling centre.

[fairly abstract cw: discourse, war] [Tumblr; Wayback] (by togglesbloggle) I'm not sure what I think about this post (about culture war and Twitter poisoning, with Go metaphors), but it's interesting.

Four laugh-rule entries:

[cw: what it says on the tin] [Anchor] (by Jess and Sam)

Jess: Mindless Matters is an 18+ podcast that features live inductions. Please, do not listen while you are driving. Do not listen while you are doing important things that [need necessary focus?], don't endanger yourself...you are *responsible* for ensuring your own safety.

Sam: It's called "not safe for work" for a reason!

[Rock Paper Shotgun; Wayback] (by Nate Crowley)

Enter Wartales, then, which maddens me with the urge to append "woo-hoo" to its name every time I type it.

[Incognito Money Scribe; Wayback] (by Jacob Schroeder)

In other words, the $1.50 hot dog is synonymous with the Costco brand. The money-losing frankfurter is a part of the company’s identity. It is a staple for customers to recharge after buying five pounds of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, 50 rolls of toilet paper and a coffin.

(Wait, do people actually eat at the Costco restaurant? ...I was gonna say "well, I guess of course people must or Costco would have shut it down", but, uh, it kind of sounds like they're running a food stand for the Aesthetic, so maybe they *wouldn't* have shut it down for mere lack of business.

Is the food any good?)

[strong cw: corporate bullshit] [Wall Street Journal (paywalled, but apparently my university alumni account still gets me Wall Street Journal access)] (by Jeff Horwitz; h/t Matt Levine)

Other flubbed enforcement actions were taken against the accounts of [...] Mr. Zuckerberg himself, whose live-streamed employee Q&A had been suppressed after an algorithm classified it as containing misinformation.

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Comments on my own posts:

Comment and Link Roundup: October 21, 2020

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Comments on other people's posts:

(This post was made on June 16th, but I overlooked it while making the previous roundups.) [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by gnabrie) I do know what "burning CDs" means, and someday I might actually have a reason to do it again.

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by maryellencarter) Extensions of the self.

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by voxette-vk) Big 5 personality tests. [two comments]

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Links:

Laugh rule:
[Memory Alpha; Wayback] The continuity section of the article on one of the least continuous Voyager episodes (and that's saying something).

Tuvok mistakenly has his commander pip in the past. He did not earn this promotion until the fourth season episode "Revulsion". Although this is technically a continuity error, it is actually consistent as Tuvok was mistakenly shown wearing a commander's pip throughout the first half of season one.

{{Also:}}

This brings the total number of torpedoes confirmed to have been used by Voyager over the course of the series to 66, a total which exceeds the irreplaceable complement of 38 that had been established by Chakotay in the first-season episode "The Cloud".

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

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