Brinens and Things

*flump*

[muffled by lying facedown] hello and welcome to the Q4 edition of this fortnightly roundup

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Comments on my own posts:

[cw: illness, medical, food] Status update, morning of 2023-08-01 [four comments]


[arguably cw: apocalypse] Friday Five: August 25, 2023


[cw: food, poverty] Extreme couponing [two comments on Tumblr]

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Comments on other people's posts:

[cw: apocalypse] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by c-rowlesdraws) The fictional for now cultural symbolism of auroras.


[cw: illness, apocalypse] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by stumpyjoepete; partly in response to nuclearspaceheater) Air-purifier recs.


[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by lonelyroommp3) The psychological importance of tidy surfaces.


[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by sigmaleph) What does "soul" even mean, anyway?


[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by moonlit-tulip) VPNs and Tumblr shadowbanning. (Update: they *eventually* un-shadowbanned me, several weeks after I contacted them.) [two comments]


[arguably cw: amnesia] [Start of WordPress thread (Tumblr part 1; Tumblr part 2; Tumblr part 3; Tumblr part 4)] (OP by calware; also in response to lizardywizard) Pi and the overestimation of common knowledge; speaking of senseless, fortunately-lifted Tumblr bans... [two comments, sort of]


[cw: illness] [Start of WordPress thread (Tumblr part 1; Tumblr part 2)] (OP by rustingbridges) Nipping colds in the bud (maybe) with zinc lozenges. (They *do* sell Life Extension in Canada, it turns out.)

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Links:

[Tumblr; Wayback] (OP by sun-dari, but read the whole thread) Pun translations in Good Omens.


[Substack; Wayback] (by Adrian Hon; h/t wolffyluna) Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser: a LARP event from a post-scarcity (or at least much richer) society that tried to manifest on a world not prosperous enough to support it. (Or at least, that was *my* takeaway from the article.)


[Taiwan Quest; Wayback] (by Zhen-Kang) Discouraging under-the-table transactions via a government receipt lottery.


[strong cw: illness] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (by synecdochic) Modern COVID-testing technique. (Well, the post is mostly about other COVID-related things, but anyway.)


[cw: medical, (arguably) illness] [Ontario; America; Wayback 1; Wayback 2] (h/t cobaltdrgn) Did you know that fat people need a different size of vaccine needle?


[NASA; Wayback] We, the people of Earth, have obtained actual rocks from an actual asteroid!


[Dynomight; Wayback] (by Dynomight) The midwit home: smart enough to be helpful, not smart enough to betray you to the corporate overlords (or just be an overcomplicated pain in the ass).


[strong cw: poison, death] [Los Angeles Times; Wayback] (by Emily Alpert Reyes and Cindy Carcamo; h/t nuclearspaceheater) The terrible hidden cost of engineered-stone countertops.


Laugh rule:
[cw: (fairly strong) illness, (fairly strong) apocalypse, war] [Mastodon; Wayback] (by plaguepoems@mastodon.social)

Darker days ahead
she tells me
for all of us there are
darker days ahead
and as she delivers
this ominous declaration
I’m not really sure
if she means the plague
or the catastrophe
some other calamity
or daylight savings
but regardless of the specifics
I fear she is right.

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.

Do you ever think about how the difference between "I don't think the world's a mere commodity/I'm only acting under orders" and "I don't think the world is convinced/That we should merely follow orders" is a *single phoneme*, and that phoneme difference is "mmm" versus "nnn"?

(I always thought it was the first one, but apparently lyrics sites say the second. Can't tell from context: they both fit, although I do think option 1 fits a bit better.)

Comments on my own posts:

[cw: discourse, (arguably) apocalypse] The one about AI artists [one comment, not counting the postscript]

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Comments on other people's posts:

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by mindstalk) Old kitchen appliances (and when to replace them); the wonders of mosquito nets. [two comments]

[fairly mild cw: food] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by mindstalk) Optimal potato baking.

[arguably cw: discourse] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by Anonymous; partly in response to jadagul) The unrelatability of complaints about modernity (or at least these sub-genres of complaints).

(Update: writing that post inspired me to give warc2zim another try, and this time I successfully got it working! (The Linux port of Kiwix can't *directly* display warc2zim files, but it turns out there's a workaround: activate local-server mode and view the file through your web browser.) Mobile access, baby! (*And* it's even slightly more space-efficient!))

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by transgenderer) How to send and receive SMS messages from your laptop.

[fairly mild cw: illness] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by camwyn) Dutch has some amazing profanity.

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by camwyn) The wonders of mosquito nets, disability edition.

[WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by doctorwhoisadhd; in response to itsbenedict) How to play Character Opinion Bingo.

[arguably cw: unreality] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by seat-safety-switch) Solar phone charging, the easy ways.

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Links:

[My Modern Met; Wayback] (by Larisa Crowder) The technology behind heated car seats, now wearable and reversible (that is to say, it can also do cooling). (Kind of expensive and hard to get, but I suppose new devices usually are.)

[cw: illness] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (by the United States Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate; h/t siderea) How to disinfect monkeypox fomites, and how not to.

[arguably cw: venting] [The Millions; Wayback] (by Rebecca Steinitz) A personal view of anosmia. (I came across this link buried in an old email, where I was recommending it to others. It's interesting to look back at it now, having developed a very different relationship with anosmia.)

[Mobile Syrup; Wayback] (by Jonathan Lamont) Payment-method optimisation is about to become *even more* complicated. My parents can't keep up as it is.

[Imgur; Wayback] (h/t Marri) Ordinary office worker in the streets...

Laugh rule:
[cw: illness] [Jenneral HQ; Wayback] (by Jenn)

Relatedly, as a #millennial, the whole #supportlocal lifestyle where I go to 4 specialty grocers for specific ingredients instead of one (1) Loblaw is very appealing to me.

(...I admit that this line is significantly less funny after I looked it up and discovered that the singular of Loblaws *is* sometimes "Loblaw", and not *always* also "Loblaws".)

Comments on my own posts:

The one about thermostats and code-switching

[cw: what it says on the tin (no pictures)] Recipe: Crispy Chickpeas [one comment, not counting the postscript]

[cw: what it says on the tin] In which Brin continues to have finance Issues very different from *other* people's finance Issues [one comment, not counting the postscript]

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Comments on other people's posts:

[arguably cw: corporate bullshit] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by wolffyluna) The cost-benefit tradeoffs of a potential job. [two comments]

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by feotakahari) Definitions of utopia.

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Links:

[Mobile Syrup; Wayback] (by Dean Daley) It's possible to get Android 12 to run on an 11-year-old smartphone! Technically. Mostly.

[Astronomy; Wayback] (by Eric Betz) What will it be like to watch Betelgeuse go supernova?

[Audubon; Wayback] (by Kenn Kaufman; h/t Siderea) The four sexes of white-throated sparrows.


Two laugh-rule entries:
[cw: apocalypse] [AO3; Wayback] (by Nestra) NPR during the zombie apocalypse. (This would probably be much funnier if I had any significant familiarity with NPR, but it's still funny without it.)

[arguably cw: violence] [Involuntary Book Club; Wayback] (by Max) "I'm tired of all these grimdark fantasy novels. Have you read anything fun lately?"



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

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Weird MSL (Metric as a Second Language) problems: this smart thermostat has no option for "display indoor temperature in Fahrenheit and outdoor temperature in Celsius".

I understand why they didn't include that option! The vast vast majority of people would find it very confusing!

But it *is* how I actually think, and now I have to decide which compromise to go with.

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(Currently leaning towards Fahrenheit, since the indoor temperature is in larger font and overall more central to the purpose of the device than the outdoor temperature. Also I do often use outdoor Fahrenheit when it's warm, so the weather display probably won't trip me up in the summer.

Also also, we haven't decided yet if we're actually going to allow the device Internet access long-term: I'm not sure it would be very useful given our lifestyles, so it might just be needless attack surface. We're going to leave the Internet access on for a bit while we get used to the device and see if it comes in handy.)

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.)



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

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--how diversity keeps us from missing the obvious


[cw: illness, (arguably) infohazards in link]

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Comments on my own posts:

preference utilitarianism ftw, I guess

[mild cw: apocalypse] Comment and Link Roundup: December 23, 2020

[fairly mild cw: politics] why does this have to be hard [two comments]

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Comments on other people's posts:

[arguably cw: apocalypse] [Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by grayestofghosts) In which we grit our teeth and set up Bridgefy (or at least try to). [three comments]

[cw: apocalypse, (arguably) death, (arguably) murder] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by poipoipoi-2016) American tech companies keep setting up their offices in ridiculously dangerous parts of the country, which sucks if you're trying to work for them.

[cw: food] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by soaringsearingphoenix) How to perform feeding enrichment on yourself.

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by wingedcatgirl) "Cis" is a Latin prefix, not an acronym.

[cw: embarrassment squick, rape] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by glumshoe; in response to jadagul) The unwittingly erotic games children play, or in some cases freak out about.

[cw: paralysis, (mild) amnesia] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by worldlypositions) On writing through coded blinking, and composing posts in your head.

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Links:

[Bloomberg; Wayback crawling forbidden] (by Matt Levine) Breaking news: Money Stuff is back! I haven't had a chance to read it yet because it just came in while I was drafting this post, but I thought y'all deserved to know about it.



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

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