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~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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brin-bellway:

Today, I am thankful that my workplace does not play Christmas music.

Our radio developed some issue a while back that severely restricts which stations it can pick up, so this year–for lack of better options–we *are* on a Christmas-music station.

I’m actually coping a lot better than I thought I would. I think there’s a lot more pressure on *children* to like Christmas, and as I spend more time away from that it seems to be getting easier to appreciate Christmas on my own terms. And understanding what my problem with “The Little Drummer Boy” is [link] seems to have taken the sting out of that song. And IIRC, all of the co-workers whose shifts overlap with mine are first-gen immigrants from non-Christian societies, which lets them take an outsider-but-laid-back-about it attitude towards Christmas that might be rubbing off on me.

My preference ordering tends to go hymns –> songs that aren’t about Jesus but *are* explicitly about Christmas –> secular winter music: the hymns tend to be prettier, and the secular songs can feel dishonest and…nonconsensually inclusive? Just because you didn’t say the C word doesn’t mean you aren’t *thinking* it–in fact, I *know* you’re thinking it because the announcer literally just called this a Christmas music mix–and it doesn’t mean I should be happy to join you in a celebration that isn’t mine. Please go back to singing about Jesus so I can go back to Your Culture Is Not My Culture But Your Culture Is Okay.

(Also, “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” is still fucking creepy.)

But overall, it’s actually been surprisingly okay.

Tags:

#on Black Friday (the first Christmas-music day) my (apathetically Hindu) manager wished me a happy Christmas and split a cookie with me #and I find I have no objections to this #music #Christmas #oh look an original post #oh look an update #in which Brin has a job

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

So much adulting today.

—

Got up a bit early for an appointment at the doctor’s office, because starting a few months ago most of my menstrual periods have been significantly worse than usual, and after the 2.5th bout of debilitating dizziness (the .5 was a time where it felt like it was *going* to happen but never quite got bad enough that I couldn’t stand up) I figured there was enough of a pattern developing here that I shouldn’t bet on it going away on its own.

The first-line treatment is daily iron supplements, plus two naproxen twice a day around the onset of menstruation (apparently, in addition to the painkilling effect, higher-dose naproxen can also make periods lighter). If the OTC stuff doesn’t cut it, the next step is to “”sample”“ some birth control pills. (She is one of those doctors who, when possible, keep their poorer patients supplied with enough ”“samples”“ of a medication that they never actually have to spend money on it.)

—

Then my brother and I went to the bank and signed up for index-fund RRSPs [link]. It’s not so much that I’m planning for retirement per se (though my brother might be thinking of it that way, I’m not sure), but after many hours of very stressful research regarding which forms of investment fall in the intersection of “non-awful returns”, “low fees”, and “won’t piss off the IRS [link]”, this is the only entry that I am sufficiently confident is on that list.

(I came scarily close to buying some non-RRSP index funds this autumn–even set up the account for it!–and only found out that doing so would incur the IRS’s wrath because my brother mentioned he was thinking of getting a TFSA, and this inspired me to read the Wikipedia article on them [link] (they are also terrible, for some of the same reasons). Thank you for telling me this extremely important information, Wikipedia, because nobody *else* fucking did!)

It looks like we are allowed to have *some* ETFs [link] under *some* circumstances, but I don’t have a clear sense of which ETFs/circumstances those are. Once we’ve reached a point in our lives where [18% of all the post-immigration income we’ve ever had] isn’t enough room to keep our savings in, we will have to find an appropriate specialist to consult about exactly how to tell when an ETF is permissible.

Tags:

#sometimes I wonder if I should go into U.S. tax preparation so maybe one day I can actually fucking understand what my own taxes are doing #but I think I’d rather do something more in the realm of bookkeeping or cost-benefit analysis #this stuff does not seem to *quite* be my style #but it’s even less everyone else’s style so I took the research upon myself #(at least I get to cost-benefit-analyse the various types of investment?) #adventures in human capitalism #oh look an original post #home of the brave #our home and cherished land #medical cw #menstruation #the more you know

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

they were not kidding when they said this economics textbook had been adapted for Canadian audiences, huh

Tags:

#this image file on my computer is named ”Have We Mentioned Lately We’re Canadian.png” #(I wonder what this example is in the original American) #oh look an original post #our home and cherished land #adventures in University Land #reactionblogging #bluespace #(not *exactly* but it does seem to have a similar blurring between the picture and the other elements of the page)

I’m in a new demographic now.

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

Age 25 – 34.

(haven’t taken any surveys since, but I’m sure I will soon)

I had a good birthday!

  • Went exploring in some shopping plazas I had previously only visited with specific purposes in mind.
  • Learned about the existence of 3.5mm-to-cassette-tape adapters (examples), wooden sudoku boards, and little grocery stores both expensive (but organic!) and actually very cheap (since Mom insists on having brisket for holiday feasts (except the ones where it’s turkey instead), I figured I ought to tell her about the butcher I found with brisket on sale for $5/lb; she later picked some up and put it in the freezer for the next non-turkey feast).
  • Picked up another free mango smoothie, and a cookie from Subway that I didn’t even know was coming. (I haven’t had any good opportunities to buy anything from Starbucks since they instituted their “must buy at least one thing per year to receive birthday presents” rule, Giant Tiger failed to record my birthday properly and so sent me nothing, and the other freebies I haven’t had a chance to pick up yet without going far enough out of my way to make it not worth the fuel. I expect to be in the correct areas before the various vouchers expire, though.)
  • Ate homemade macaroni and cheese, and later birthday cake made with almond meal instead of flour (I like my chocolate to be mixed with nuts, and it turns out almond-meal chocolate cake is excellent at this).
  • Got the solar-powered phone battery. Have not had a chance to try it out yet, except the flashlight function.
  • Also a gift card for the restaurant I work at (some of our stuff is actually reasonably priced even by my standards if you have an employee discount, so I eat there a couple times a month), and–because Mom has a thing about wanting to give people surprise presents–a variety pack of differently flavoured Kit Kats. (I haven’t yet had any of the caramel, mint-cookie, or green tea, but I did eat the strawberry one. It tasted a bit artificial, and I don’t think I’d bother getting it again, but nor was it bad.)

Tags:

#oh look an original post #birthday #food #adventures in human capitalism

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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Update:

I am now officially an accounting major.

(Specifically, I’m in the one-year† accounting certificate program. This then leads into the two-year† advanced accounting certificate, and from there a bachelor’s.)

I’m coming up on the end of this semester, and next semester I’m going to take a course (microeconomics) that–though mandatory for accounting–doesn’t fit into any of my remaining slots for a CS program, so I figured it was time.

—

†”Year” here being a standardised unit of measurement meaning “10 courses”. At my current part-time rate I expect it will take me about two years to get the first-level certificate.

Tags:

#adventures in University Land #oh look an original post #oh look an update #a couple nights ago #(after I’d already decided to do this) #Mom and I were talking about how my ”first job” was accounting data-entry #when I was a pre-teen Dad would give me a nickel for every receipt I typed into his household-expense-tracking program #”we should have known then” she said‚ only partly joking #(I wrote this draft a couple days ago) #(today I took my final exam for this course and signed up for econ) #((I didn’t *have* to do them in that order that’s just how it worked out)) #(I’m going to take a week off from school and then get a head start on reading the economics textbook) #(it’s an ebook so it’ll probably have arrived by then)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

Did you know that when writing a post, you can rearrange the order of the post’s tags by dragging them?

I just realised this, and it looks very helpful for fixing typos in tag rambles: just write a corrected version of the tag and drag it into place.

(though I might still continue writing my longer tag rambles out in a notepad window and then pasting them in)

Tags:

#Tumblr: a User’s Guide #oh look an original post #the first two tags on this post were originally in the opposite order #just because I could #the more you know

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

@sinesalvatorem, about the r/k thing that I’m not going to reblog under my no-guilt-trips policy:

I suspect we’re both projecting our own selves onto the rest of society and ending up skewed. (Intellectually I’m willing to believe you’re closer to the truth than I am, although I’m really not sure how we could *tell*.)

I deliberately cultivate cowardice as a way of coping with my violent urges. It’s true that fear holds me back, but there are some things I very much *should* be held back from, and I feel like the price of being also held back from some things I *shouldn’t* hold back from is worth it given the stakes.

(and no, it’s *not* just intrusive thoughts)

I try to avoid anything that might piss people off because that would make it harder for *them* to hold back, and I know how hard that can be sometimes. I try to make it as easy as possible for them to keep their violent urges reined in, and (I hope) they’ll do the same for me, and this fragile truce between a whole lot of murder-monkeys that we call “society” will keep functioning.

—

(Each approach has its disadvantages, and one of the disadvantages of cowardice is that people who *would* advocate cowardice are, of course, less willing to speak out against the people advocating bravery. As such, bravery advocates tend to stand unopposed. I’ve seen other posts like this in the past, some of them shading *much* further than yours does into “you should exploit situations where people’s fear makes them unwilling to fight back against assholes”.)

Tags:

#you want me to be brave? fine. I’ll post this. #(this is the third version of this post I’ve written) #(I tried to balance ”not being more hostile than necessary” with ”the hostility is kind of the point”) #(there’s only so much I can defang a post about how sharp teeth can be) #((I’m not *exactly* angry but writing this post still makes me very aware of how unfulfilling the lack of violence in my life is)) #((but I’d rather have a life whether I neither give nor receive violence to one where I do both)) #((and I’ve made my choices accordingly)) #this post technically qualifies as: #oh look an original post #but is closer to the spirit of: #reply via reblog #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #discourse cw #violence cw #posts I am almost certainly going to regret

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Speaking of self-sufficient smartphones, and today in Posts I’m Writing Because I Know I’m Going to Want to Link Them Later, here are some offline-focused apps I already have:

Games: 2048, Boomshine, Hangman, Minesweeper, Sudoku. (I prefer to use a laptop for more complex games.)

File interfaces:
    AndrOpen Office: takes a ridiculously large amount of storage space (400 MB!), but if you have the room for it, a pretty good way of interfacing with the .odt- and .doc-formatted parts of your archive. (If you don’t have the room for it, LibreOffice Viewer is better than nothing.)
    FBReader: A good way of interfacing with the .epub- and (if you get the extension for it) .pdf-formatted parts of your archive.
    foobar2000: I used to use built-in MP3-player apps, but that forces you to change to a new one when you change phones. Then for a little while I had one that didn’t offer mass-adding to playlists and, if you tried to skip to a particular point in a track, *pretended* to work but actually skipped you to a *random* point in the track. This one doesn’t seem to have either of those problems.
    Kiwix: The leading way to interface with the .zim-formatted parts of your archive. If you don’t have any .zim files (or if you do, for that matter), they will offer you some. I highly recommend downloading Wikipedia and Wiktionary. (The current version of the app is a little prone to crashing, but it’s still usable IME, and I expect they’ll fix it at some point.)
    ZArchiver: For the .zip (or tarball, I guess) parts of your archive.

Things that prefer to sync with the cloud at least occasionally, but in the absence of Internet will continue running off of their (increasingly outdated) local copy of the data indefinitely:
    MapFactor: Offline maps by province! OpenStreetMaps-based, so if you find an error you can (once you have Internet again) just fix it and it will trickle down with the next map update! Saved-waypoint backups to both cloud and file! Does *not* delete your maps if you haven’t had a chance to update them for a few weeks (seriously, Google Maps, what the fuck)!
    Google Calendar: need I say more?
    Google Sheets: Currently I rarely need my spreadsheets to be offline (a lot of them deal with online games), but it’s nice to have around for the exceptions.
    Google Translate: not all functions can be made available offline, but you can still do a fair bit if you make sure to grab all the offline-language packages you might need beforehand.
    Unit Converter: Internet is completely irrelevant for most of this, but there is a currency-conversion function as well. Never realised how useful a currency converter would be until I had one: lets me do things like follow Mom around Aldi translating the prices of everything she’s interested in buying, to help her decide if it’s a good deal or not.
    Weather Underground: Obviously, this one becomes outdated sooner rather than later, but it’s still nice as they go.
    Dropsync: Last I checked, the official Dropbox app had neither a “sync all files” option nor a “store files on SD card” option. This one does both.

Things I keep around specifically in case of being without Internet:
    OffLine Browser: I haven’t really had a chance to use this yet, and I’m not sure its use case really applies to me (generally if I want a local copy of a website, I want it for the long term and portable; I don’t tend to need temporary or app-tied caches), but it might come in handy.
    Avast Wi-Fi Finder: Whenever possible, use wifimap.io instead. Problem with wifimap.io is, it only offers downloadable maps by city (and doesn’t show which province-level jurisdiction the city is in, just which country; you don’t get to know, say, which of the 12 Stratfords in America it’s actually offering you), so no matter how well you predict which locations you’re going to end up in, sooner or later you’re likely to end up in a location too small to have an associated downloadable map. (In which case it’s still useful for situations where you can use the live map, like “has *some* mobile data but is looking to stretch it out by supplementing with Wi-Fi”, but if you have no Internet at all it’s useless.) Avast is much buggier, tending to lose hotspot listings, but at least it offers whole-country downloads. It’s better than nothing: just remember to take its information (*especially* information on where hotspots *aren’t*) with plenty of salt. (Take wifimap.io’s information on where hotspots aren’t with salt too, and consider fixing it where you can. I like to go out to new places and go treasure-hunting for unlisted public hotspots to add.)
    Nethack: Okay, not so much something I keep around in case of being without *Internet* so much as something I keep around in case of being without a *laptop*. As I mentioned earlier in the post, I prefer laptops for more complex games; however, if someday I have to go without a laptop for an extended period, I want to reserve the right to play Nethack anyway.

Tags:

#oh look an original post #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #recs

~ Brin ~ 3 Comments

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Since I keep wanting to be able to link to it, and also to help me keep track of what all I’ve got in this, here is an updated Utility Belt Inventory, September 2018 edition:

Main bag:
    Main compartment:
        Wallet (notable non-obvious content: glasses prescription)
        Notebook
        2 pencils (mostly for taking exams)
        4 napkins
        Canadian passport (acting as primary government ID)
        Small scrunchie (I often bring my big scrunchie with me too, but I use it around the house often enough not to keep it in the bag)
        Small dim flashlight, good only for reading by
        AAA replacement battery for above flashlight (expired 2015; mind you, flashlight has same batch and works fine)
        Packet of Kleenex
        Book-shaped keychain, with broken attachment
        Twisty tie
        Honey-coloured rock, souvenir of a Rock and Mineral Fair a few years back
        Eurocent coin (found on a store floor in *this* continent)
        100 yen coin (ditto)
        Penny squished into New England Aquarium souvenir
        Shopping bag, folded into its attached pouch
        Disposable plastic bag (the kind bulk foods are sold in)
    Front compartment:
        Clip-on sunglasses
        Nature Valley peanut butter granola bar (expires January 2019)
        Nutri-Grain mixed berry granola bar (expires April 2019)
        Pen (the kind with a button you click, rather than a separate cap that could get lost)
        Plastic tortoise
        Rubber lizard
        Stretchy string (originally a Chuck E Cheese prize bracelet, which I immediately untied into string), which past!me says is 16in long so I didn’t bother to measure it now
        3 moist towelettes
        Short string with keychain loops at each end
        Chunk of amethyst, with broken keychain attachment
        Magnifying glass
        Penknife, with scissors and tweezers
        Slice of blue agate
        Mini crayon set (six to cover the rainbow, plus brown and pink), in a Ziploc so that it won’t spill and/or melt over anything if its case breaks
        Small blue Sharpie
        Mini sewing kit (I let past!me catalogue its contents: “a needle, six different colours of thread wrapped around some cardboard, a safety pin, and a button”)
        1-metre tape measure
    Back compartment:
        Quart/medium Ziploc bag (huh, that’s it for empty Ziplocs?; *adds another quart, plus 2 sandwich, 1 snack/small, and 1 gallon/large, then moves to main compartment for better fit*)
        2 tampons: 1 light, 1 medium
        2 menstrual pads
        Some dried-out baby wipes (water to reactivate them stored separately)
        Silver Star of David, necklace attachment *not* broken but also not in use
        Loop with…what is this kind of closure called? *searches* looks like it’s called a “side-release buckle”; about 9in long in total
        Wire saw
        8×11 paper with knot instructions printed on it, given to me by my Girl Guide leader
        An overlapping set of knot instructions, this time on a set of professionally laminated cards
        Purple geode
        Foil blanket
        …what the fuck, where is my poncho, could have sworn I had one in here
        (Well, at least I have a blanket and a hat (hat to be described later), that might suffice)
Hand sanitizer (directly attached to belt)
Phone pouch:
    Back compartment:
        Earbuds
        Lightweight gloves with capacitive fingertips
        The lanyard that came with the pouch
        Strap about 2ft in length, with clips on each end (visible in the third picture of the link)
        Carabiner
        (Coming soon: solar-powered external phone battery (+ bonus flashlight function), ETA November)
    Middle compartment:
        Phone (+ myriad contents)
    Front compartment:
        USB to microUSB adapter
        microSD to SD adapter
        String with adjuster (also visible in the third picture of the phone-pouch link)
        Snack size Ziploc containing the European!AC to USB adapter my most recent smartphone came with, the pin for popping the SIM card tray out, and something that might be a stand
        North-American!AC to USB adapter
        …huh, apparently I have *two* microSD to SD adapters in here, that seems excessive; *puts second one on coffee table until I decide where to keep it*
        Spare pair of earbud covers
        Screen cleaning cloth
        Edit Sep/15/2018: Found out Dad had the kind of adapter that lets you plug USB peripherals into a smartphone lying around unused, so I stuck it into my phone pouch in case it comes in handy. I’ll give it back if he needs it, plus I recently gave him my spare microSD card (32 GB), so even if you insist on viewing it transactionally he’s getting the better end of the deal.
Keyring (on retractable string)
    House key
    Loblaws (grocery store) loyalty card
    Canadian Tire (department store) loyalty card
Other keyring
    Bike key
    P.O. box key
    Samoa keychain
Penknife pouch
    Penknife, with fork, spoon, and corkscrew
Medkit (and other things that needed the space)
    Side compartment:
        3 medium-small Band-Aids
        3 medium Band-Aids
        3 knee Band-Aids
        Moleskin bandage
        String with adjuster and clips at each end, like a hybrid of the things from the third phone-pouch picture
        Emery board
        2 dimenhydrinate pills (expires January 2020)
        2 pseudoephedrine pils (expires June 2019)
        2 acetominophen+dextromethorphan+phenylephrine pills (expires October 2018; I would have preferred pure dextromethorphan pills, but the combo was all they had in pill form (cough syrup is fine for home, but hard to store in a medkit))
        1 loperamide pill (expires May 2020)
    Main compartment:
        Snack Ziploc:
            4 restaurant packets of salt
            2 restaurant packets of pepper
            1 single-serving bag of M&Ms (expires November 2018)
        Bug repellent
        Sample-sized tube, originally some skincare product, washed out and refilled: masking-tape label indicates it is antibiotic ointment and expires November 2018
        Another sample-sized tube with the same treatment done to it, this one indicating it is diphenhydramine anti-itch ointment and expires March 2019
        2 pairs of disposable nitrile gloves
        Fairly large roll of something that might be gauze
        Smaller roll of something that is definitely gauze, as it is labelled (past!me only mentions one roll of anything even resembling gauze, so I can’t ask her for help)
        Travel-sized bottle of ibuprofen, emptied out and refilled with a newer batch (masking-tape label indicates it expired June 2018; *fetches January 2021 batch from cupboard, dumps out 6 old pills, replaces with 8 new pills, relabels*)
        Surgical mask, for keeping pollen out of throat
        Blister prevention ointment (looks like a deodorant stick, but you rub it on your feet)
        Whistle/compass/mirror combo
        Collapsible metal ~shot-sized cup, with keychain loop
        Mini hairbrush
        Lighter
        Instructional paper (past!me lists it as “heat exhaustion, blisters, insect stings, and sprains”)
        Dental floss
        (Coming soon: water-filtration straw, ETA December)
Paracord bracelet (directly attached to belt)
Hat with brim and chinstrap, tied up in chinstrap and strung through belt

Honourary member: one-quart water bottle, in shoulder-strap pouch

(for comparison)

Tags:

#oh look an original post #Useful Things #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #food mention

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

Saw an ask meme where one of the questions was “How well do you think you’d do in a zombie apocalypse scenario?”, and wondered how I would answer it.

I would probably do fairly badly, actually, despite what you might think given some of the stuff I’ve been talking about lately. Most of my apocalypse-proofing efforts assume few to no hostiles. I don’t think I even actually want to change this: the best forms of apocalypse-proofing are the ones that make regular life better too (even if there are never food shortages, keeping a supply of your favourite nonperishables on hand means you can buy during one 20%-off sale and live off of it until the next 20%-off sale, so that it’s effectively 20% off all the time), the next best are the kind that start being useful when even a minor, common disaster strikes (let’s gather round the solar-powered computer and listen to some locally-stored music while we wait for them to fix the downed power line), followed by the ones that have never done anything concretely beneficial but at least you feel safer having them around (I sometimes look at the cases of water sitting in the parental bedroom and smile). But being good at violence would just make me more tempted to use it where it isn’t warranted, and that would make regular life *harder* and *more* likely to go disastrously.

The best-case scenario is probably the one where I become the pet librarian/techie of some group, coaxing as much function and comfort as possible out of off-grid computers. Wikipedia is handy in almost any situation, and I bet there are times as a post-zombie nomad when a video game is *exactly* what you need for morale, a reminder that not *everything* about the old world is gone.

Tags:

#can’t shoot and I suck at running but I’m damn good at   #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers   #(<– when I thought of that tag something in my brain went ”that. that’s the prepping tag.”)   #(which is the main reason I’m posting this)   #((will use it on non-computer-related prepping too though))   #mind you skill at running is probably in the Makes Regular Life Better Too category   #perhaps I’ll try and acquire some   #oh look an original post   #food mention   #apocalypse cw   #zombie apocalypse   #adventures in human capitalism