counterintuitive to me that, even with the high rates of immigration and the quality of translation technology, I’m so insulated from the Chinese internet. I don’t know what discourse they have. I read about crazy intense doxxing and harassment incidents in books about China (like Age of Ambition) but that’s like being a Chinese person who kinda knows what Twitter is like from the Justine Sacco incident. I want to… oh, get their jokes, be in some actually good Discord servers, know whatever arbitrary sexual acts or dynamics are taboo in their culture. (There was a really good tumblr thread on Chinese fandom is totally okay with… was it incest? Something that US fandom feels weird about? but is not okay with poly or even multi-shipping? I loved that thread.)
Would be so amazing if there was a blog run by a normal Terminally Online person in China who just happened to speak very good English and was willing to post 1 screenshot a day of something that was on their feed, translating and explaining everything to me. God, I’d fund that Patreon
My wishes are answered! The spouse of someone I share a Discord server with is running weibo.substack.com
Premise: just faithfully translate the first 1500 words of whatever shows up in the Weibo trending posts today. No cherry picking articles, no punditry or commentary. Come experience the Chinese internet!
I’ve enjoyed every single post. Just picking a random one:
A lot of parents are asking a blogger for advice about going to high school overseas, because Chinese high school is too stressful. But they’re concerned about their children not being patriotic anymore after leaving China. The blogger admits that this is a very valid concern, especially since lately, there’s been many incidents of very patriotic Chinese students going overseas and getting into violent physical conflicts with their classmates over political differences, and that this is illegal in a lot of countries. So therefore, his advice is to send their kids to Russia. There are a lot of great schools in Russia. Russia’s leading the world in tech, and is pretty good in the arts too, and their food is great. A lot of modern Chinese processed food actually comes from Russia, so it’s very easy to find things like cream popsicles and sausages that were a hallmark of Chinese people’s childhoods. And you don’t have to worry about war in Russia, because it’s such a big country that no invader can win. Also, lots of hot chicks in Russia. But if your child is a girl, you have to be a little careful going to Russia, because their food is high in calories so it’s very easy to get fat. And Russian men like to drink a lot, so it might be a little scary for girls.
Two recurring themes that make me go “oh wow, huh” are bride prices (major driver of social drama and economic action) and treatment of children.
Tags:
#reading a random selection of trending Chinese Twitter-analogue posts has immediately reminded me #of why I don’t read random selections of trending Twitter posts #I would like to listen to some chill Chinese nerds please #(I know I said I have issues with the concept of chill-ness) #(but in this case it would be a much more graceful failure mode than the reverse) #discourse cw #sexism cw #child abuse cw? #disordered eating? #alcohol mention #oh look an update #China
in the glorious transhumanist cyborgian future one of the first things I want is a complete searchable AI-assisted index of everything I ever read and watched so I can effortlessly be like “hey what was that article I read where…” or “which video was it that made this point”
Tags:
#we can’t 100% do this yet but we’re closer than you might think #Whisper + Recoll is such a good combination #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #transhumanism #proud citizen of The Future #amnesia cw?
Please re-blog to widen the data sample! I might use this for my statistics project at the end of the semester, and every answer is a great help :).
Please share in the tags what you picked and why if you’re so inclined.
Tags:
#reblogging this post to commemorate getting a subsidised bus card today #(and yes‚ I went to pick it up via bus) #(then I bought my mom some broccoli on my way home) #the transit here still has some improvements left to make to be truly Good #but it is *infinitely* better than it was when I first moved here‚ and I am grateful beyond words #keep up the good trajectory #adventures in human capitalism #proud citizen of The Future #surveys #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what
The British should put a time limit on the Monarchy.
Not like declaring a republic tomorrow, but deciding on a date in the future that ends the British Monarchy.
And there’s a perfect date for it coming up!
October 14th, 2066.
A thousand years since the Battle of Hastings. A thousand years of this one specific bloodline ruling England.
Call time on the Monarchy after exactly one thousand years. Nice, and neat.
Even better: Charles isn’t living 44 years. He’ll be gone in about twenty. Now William? He’s what, 40? Yeah, he can live another 44 years. His great grandmother was over a hundred, his granny was 96, William can make it to 84 barring accident or assassination.
So on October 14th 2066, William the Last steps down a thousand years after William the First won the crown.
Nice, neat, and fair. William gets the crown he’s been waiting forty years for already, but ten-year-old George grows up without expectation of it.
Have a nice big abdication ceremony, even.
Plus, what an absolute baller move to announce your regnal name as William the Last.
the Final Bill
Tags:
#Britain #that one post with the thing #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what
For the people in the notes wondering whats going on a quick Google search told me this is to transport watermelons from farm to ship. It cools them and keeps them from getting too warm in the sun before they’re packed away to wherever they go to.
wildgifthorses: I think you can get raw counts from the API
Yeah, and you can also get the vote percentages to six decimal places in web debugger, thanks to a truly wild web design choice:
Sticking the raw percentage directly into the width attribute is just a delightfully bonkers way to implement that, and I love it. And with six decimal places that’s enough to derive the raw count unless you go really mega-viral (and maybe even then it just adds more decimal places).
But it would be nice to have a way I can see right on the dash without having to tinker.
Tags:
#The Great Tumblr Apocalypse #fun with loopholes #fun with statistics #the more you know
#surveys #names #language #I am aware that I am *supposed* to pronounce it ”archive” #but there are already like three other websites that people around me call ”the Archive” #(you’ve got your Internet Archive‚ your Archive of Our Own‚ your Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive) #and we need some more fucking disambiguation
My new favorite thing: People making their reusable elastomeric respirators beautiful! (Usually the Dentec P100 or the Dentec N95, which are NIOSH-certified and reusable.)
I’ve been collecting as many of these customizations as I can find, and I think they fall into a few categories:
The first is the colorful distraction, where it seems like the aim is to make the mask colorful and cheerful — less scary — which distracts from the apocalyptic / gas mask vibes, while still being simple enough for everyday wear.
2. The second is make it fashion, where the aim is to just make something that looks so incredibly cool that you feel beautiful wearing it, and it feels like a stylish accessory. These use lots of shiny elements and swirling patterns (all of the below by @nickelpin)
3. And the third is punk where the mask customization embraces and enhances its non-conforming / resistance undertones. My favorite in this category is by @andrewshumate, who installed a CO2 monitor and set it up so the filters change color based on the CO2 levels in the space.
I have been daydreaming a lot about designs for a customized Dentec P100 or N95!
(my daily masks are either my Dentec P100 or the comfy 3M Aura N95, and I’d like to have a reusable respirator that looks less intimidating for everyday walks etc.)
First, some cheerful patterns. I actually like the cloud one a lot, I might do it. I think the high-contrast sunflower design is super effective at distracting the eye from the respirator shape.
I’m also really into this night sky version. Feels more beautiful / mysterious / subtle.
These are not my style, but I’m reeeeeally into the idea of bootleg Louis Vuitton designer masks. (This is like, the opposite of punk, lol)
Just thinking about how wearing a respirator (like KN95, N95, or the pictured elastomeric N95s and P100s) is very cool and my personal experience is that everyone thinks you’re cool and attractive when you do it.
Project N95 is a nonprofit that sells these and other respirators for relatively cheap, you can find them here: link .
I got a question about reusable masks that look less apocalyptic but still work.
I’m not a mask nerd (just a normie who wants to stay alive another week + live in solidarity with disabled people), so first I want to recommend The People’s CDC as a resource. Their latest info on masking is here, and they also have a weekly COVID weather report newsletter that I love here.
So: If that’s you, I’d recommend the Flo mask. It’s not NIOSH-certified yet, but it does seem to work like an N95 from what we can see (results here and here). It also has kids’ sizes!
And you can do cool mods like adding spikes or decals. (Artist and designer Nickelpin has an online shop where she sells Flo mask decal stickers like the sparkly star below — that’s here.)
Tags:
#I’m not much into decorating things in general #and to the extent that I have an aesthetic‚ ”post-apocalyptic chic” actually fits it very well #but I’m glad this exists #(also‚ while we here at Brinens and Things do *not* endorse passive-aggressively strapping a CO2 monitor to your face) #((except maybe at DefCon: seems like in that social context it actually might not backfire)) #(we have to admit that’s a hell of a thing) #clothing #illness tw #transhumanism #proud citizen of The Future #((getting an elastomeric is‚ in all sincerity‚ one of the best things that has ever happened to me)) #((warts and all)) #((I said back in the day that I might stop masking in summer‚ or with some vaccines in me)) #((but in the end‚ I thought: why go back? why settle for less?)) #((I’ve had a taste of a better world‚ and I’m not going to turn around and walk away)) #((The Future has open borders: to live there‚ one need only choose)) #tag rambles
Brinens and Things 