brin_bellway: forget-me-not flowers (Default)
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 [tumblr.com profile] catchymemes) In which I have a lot of psychological baggage around museums.

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

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

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

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

[fairly mild cw: corporate bullshit] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by [tumblr.com profile] rustingbridges; in response to [tumblr.com profile] 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 [tumblr.com profile] headspace-hotel) Poetic meter and artistic instincts.

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

[cw: illness, apocalypse, (arguably) amnesia] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by [tumblr.com profile] eightyonekilograms; partly in response to [tumblr.com profile] 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 [archiveofourown.org profile] Edonohana; h/t Ozy Brennan) The intricacies of tardigrade literature.

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

[cw: what it says on the tin] [Science; Wayback] (by Arevalo et al; h/t [twitter.com profile] 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 [twitter.com profile] 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 [tumblr.com profile] trivialagent) It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.
brin_bellway: forget-me-not flowers (Default)
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 [personal profile] wolffyluna) The cost-benefit tradeoffs of a potential job. [two comments]

[Dreamwidth; Wayback] (OP by [personal profile] 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 [archiveofourown.org profile] 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.

Read more... )
brin_bellway: forget-me-not flowers (Default)
[cw: (fairly strong) apocalypse, (fairly strong) death, (arguably) drugs, (arguably) discourse]

Read more... )
brin_bellway: forget-me-not flowers (Default)
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 [personal profile] 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 [tumblr.com profile] 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 [tumblr.com profile] soaringsearingphoenix) How to perform feeding enrichment on yourself.

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

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

[cw: paralysis, (mild) amnesia] [WordPress (Tumblr)] (OP by [tumblr.com profile] 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.

Read more... )
brin_bellway: forget-me-not flowers (Default)
Today I was *trying* to determine whether a poem in an old birthday card was an Established Thing or something the sender wrote herself, and instead I stumbled across this hardcore hedonic utilitarian critiquing Brave New World and talking about what a *properly* done utopia would be like.

My first thought was "how is this dude coming across so badly? I know utilitarian arguments *can* be made well, I've seen them, so what exactly is the difference that's making him give off such creepy vibes?"

My second thought was "wow, you can really tell this dude's not autistic".

I tried pulling at that thread a little more, and I don't think it's that he's *allistic* necessarily--autism is a big umbrella--but that, specifically, he talks like someone who has *never been overstimulated*.

He thinks that if variety is good, then more of it is better; if evolution-in-the-colloquial-sense is good, then more of it is better; if pleasure is good, then more of it is better. This *absolutely does not* fit with my own experience: even *pleasure itself* can be bad if it is too intense. Not in some abstract Catholic-guilt way, but viscerally aversive.

(This does *not* seem to be a two-directional sign overflow: I am very not a masochist and have never had sufficiently intense suffering wrap around and become enjoyable. Admittedly, there are absolutely forms of pain far worse than anything I've ever experienced, but I'm hardly going to test them out: besides, masochists of my acquaintance generally indicate it doesn't need to be that intense to start working.)

---

...honestly, I'm not sure I even value happiness that much? It's...nice, sure, in moderate quantities, but it hardly seems like something to base a value system around. Possibly part of it is that I'm so accustomed to operating at the second level of the Hierarchy of Needs that I can't wrap my head around the concept of wanting more than safety, but I don't think that's the whole story.

I look at that article and I think, why is *this* what he wants? He dismisses other desires as the legacy of "selfish DNA", but why latch on to *happiness* as the desire to be endorsed? What makes *that* special?

(I wonder if he would just sputter and go "It just...*is*! How could it *not* be?!". I know I tend to sputter at people who don't have a strong will to live.)

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Brin

May 2025

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