oh look an original post

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

(Note: I do not do pranks. In any case, I encourage you to check this thing out for yourself.)

Today I learned that you can download the entirety of Wiktionary onto your smartphone. Speaking as someone without a cellular data connection who likes her apps to be as self-sufficient as possible, this is so cool.

(The downloadable Wiktionary is about a month out of date at the moment, but Wiktionary-as-it-was-one-month-ago is a lot better than nothing, and quite a bit better than an offline dictionary that only defines English and can’t be stored on the SD card.)

If I had a larger SD card, I could even get Wikipedia! (Or rather, Wikipedia as it was ~3 months ago, but still.) (~18 GB for an imageless version, 50-something GB for the full copy.) So, while I currently still don’t get to have Wikipedia at my beck and call at all times, the problem is now merely “too little storage space”, which is much easier to fix than “how the fuck do you even download Wikipedia”.

I haven’t played around with it that much yet, but initial tests are promising. (I tried using my local copy of Wiktionary just now to double-check my usage of “self-sufficient”, and it worked fine.)

(A while ago I was reading the Eclipse Phase RPG sourcebooks, and at one point they mention a device characters can get that stores a local copy of space-Wikipedia, automatically updating itself whenever you have space-Internet access and providing you with Wikipedia-as-of-the-last-time-you-had-Internet when you don’t have Internet access. And I was like “Damn, *I* want one of those”. Turns out, you can pretty much have one of those.)

Tags:

#I mean there’s a lot of tech in Eclipse Phase that’s like ”damn I want one of those” #but that one stuck out because it seemed like it might actually be feasible at our current tech level #and indeed it is #give or take a live-update mechanism #(which might very well be the hard part) #oh look an original post #proud citizen of The Future #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #the more you know #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers

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~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

It’s March 31st, so I figured it was time for the yearly promise:

I will not post any pranking OPs. All April-Fools-related reblogs will be clearly marked as such (using the tag “April Fools”).

Tags:

#oh look an original post #April Fools #stay safe out there folks

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

Since I was thinking about music a lot today, I ended up having this happen:

Me: Hey, it’s been a while since the last Assemblage 23 album came out. I wonder if he’s done anything new lately? I’ve lost contact with everyone who would have told me if there were a new Assemblage 23 album out, so it’s up to me to keep track of it.

Wikipedia: “Endure is the eighth album by the American electronic act Assemblage 23. It was released on August 28, 2016“

Me: Sweet!

…oh god, I still haven’t finished listening to the “new” Florence and the Machine album from, like, two years ago

(I know you’re almost certainly not reading this, @anshinwrites, but thanks for getting me into this artist.)

Tags:

#oh look an original post #music

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

Daylight Savings tonight (for U.S. and Canada)!

Yeah, I know I’m not Supposed to be happy about it, but sunlight! A whole hour of it! Every day!

(I never wake up before dawn anyway, so this does actually add sunlight to my day rather than moving it around)

Equinoctes are all well and good, but this is the beginning of spring as I see it.

(*looks at snow falling outside* Not that everything gets the memo right away, but I do get springtime levels of daylight!)

Tags:

#please just let me have this moment #oh look an original post #daylight savings time

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~ Brin ~ 5 Comments

I watched the first issue (both parts) of Season 12 of the Red Panda Adventures yesterday! I did say something about maybe doing more reaction-blogging, so:

God, I’d forgotten just how bad I am at stories with pictures, especially stories with pictures and words, and especially especially moving pictures. (It could be worse: they could be moving photographs rather than drawings.)

Pictures are so complicated; even if I can take my time, I usually miss a bunch of stuff*, and it only gets worse if it’s time-limited. It probably doesn’t help that I’m used to Red Panda episodes being purely audio: I suspect it strengthens my tendency to treat videos as basically audioplays, just with minor visual enhancement (getting the broad strokes of the imagery and missing all of the details).

(This is one of the reasons I have a lot of trouble with any webcomic** more complicated than XKCD, the other reason being that even steady webcomics update so slowly that by the time they reach the end of a plot thread, you’ve forgotten what the beginning was. When you combine these two effects, you tend to end up with climactic moments relying on minor details that I haven’t seen in ten months and also didn’t even notice at the time. I’m sure there must be people webcomics work for, but they really do not mesh well with my brain.)

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did have fun. I just had to strike a compromise between “overwhelmed by quantity of sensory input” and “not getting the full effect of the story”, and I’m a bit out of practice at that.

Maybe I should try watching these episodes multiple times, shifting my focus on rewatches. They’re short enough that it wouldn’t take ages: I could probably even do two watches of an issue consecutively without burnout. (Even without soaking in Everything, watching videos gets mentally taxing after a while. One standard-length TV episode (~45 min) is somewhere around my limit.)

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*Fun fact: image descriptions have a curb-cut effect. I’m (effectively) not blind, but I often find I understand an image (especially a comic) a lot better after I’ve read an image description, because the description pointed out important bits that I didn’t notice. (I wonder if I should try described video sometime.)

**I haven’t really tried non-web comics.

Tags:

#Red Panda Adventures #(okay so this was more about my relationship with video-based media in general than about RPA specifically but still) #oh look an original post #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #I was researching video conferencing recently for a school assignment #and the supporters praise it for conveying zillions of microexpressions and whatnot #which to me seems like a *downside* #video chats immerse you in so much input that your brain *has* to dump most of it #but you have limited control over which parts get dumped #and your conversational partner doesn’t know what made the cut and what didn’t #ideally you want to prevent people from sending messages you’re not going to receive #so that they *know* you don’t know it #(and if your partner is better at processing large quantities of real-time information than you are) #(they have an advantage over you) #(which they might exploit) #tag rambles #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #reactionblogging

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~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

For anyone reading this wondering “wait, who liked my ancient Red Panda Adventures post”:

Yes, hi, I finally finished the audios! (except the pilot season, which I will try next) I figured it was time to see what the fandom looked like!

And…yes, it’s small, but after looking at the Hidden Almanac tag and seeing almost nothing, I’m mostly just glad anyone was talking about this at all.

(I don’t even listen to very many podcasts, why do I keep ending up in tiny podcast fandoms)

I don’t normally do reaction-blogging (maybe I should, it seems like it might be fun), and I don’t art, so right now all that’s in my Red Panda tag is a couple posts of me yelling about mind-control ethics, because I’m me. I’d love a chance to yell excitedly about other things together, though!

Tags:

#Red Panda Adventures #I’ve also read the books #I’ve watched the Kickstarter video comic but not the later ones yet #(nor have I read them in comic form) #oh look an original post #(also I’m glad people seem to generally agree with me that the Mad Monkey is fantastic) #(he’s been my favourite villain since his first appearance) #(and the finale was brilliant)

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

Happy Extra-Good-Sales-When-Running-a-Girl-Scout-Cookie-Booth-Outside-a-Convenience-Store Day!

(we’ve never been a football-watching family, so this is what Super Bowl Day means to me)

Tags:

#convenience stores on Super Bowl Day are prime cookie-booth territory #everyone wants them #oh look an original post

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

For anyone betrayed by that post going around that claimed to be “Weightless” by Marconi Union (aka “the most relaxing song ever”), but was actually (spoilers) n inevnag bs “Pbggba Rlr Wbr”: here is an actual recording of “Weightless”.

Tags:

#(I believed that post at first) #(and I *did* consider reblogging it without listening to it because I’d already heard it on Youtube) #(but I decided to look at TagViewer first) #(this was the correct decision) #oh look an original post #music #I was disappointed but not surprised to learn that this song makes my chest hurt #and to a lesser extent my head #it’s the opposite of relaxing #look brain #I love you and I know you love me #I know you’re just trying to protect me #but also you’re a paranoid wreck #and as if that weren’t bad enough you were given some very fucked up sex ed as a kid #(I don’t mean that in the usual sense) #(I don’t necessarily think there’s a whole lot anyone could’ve done to make my upbringing less toxic in that regard) #(it just happened to be an incredibly bad match) #I’m glad you’re a *little* less panicky now that you have some decent models for what consensual sex can look like #I hope we can heal more in the future #((um)) #((for anyone who found this in the Marconi Union tracked tag or something)) #((I swear these tags make sense in context)) #tag rambles #(I specifically left them in the tags) #(in order to leave it up to the individual whether to include them when reblogging) #(so you can just have the PSA part if you want) #sexuality and lack thereof #people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me

Basic Income Pilot consultation

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{{Title link: https://www.ontario.ca/page/basic-income-pilot-consultation }}

“We are committed to implementing a Basic Income Pilot, and your participation is a key part of that process.”

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The government of Ontario is asking for feedback from the Ontarian public regarding a future test of a basic income plan. I encourage you to read their provided materials and, if you live in Ontario, take the survey. The survey will be open until January 31st, 2017.

I’d heard rumours of an Ontarian basic income before, but I didn’t realize until today just how seriously they’re considering it.

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(It’s not 100% certain yet, but they’re leaning towards testing a negative income tax rather than a universal income. They said this is partly for practical reasons, and partly because other places are already working on UBI tests and they want to cover a new base in the global testing.)

Tags:

#Canada #Ontario #basic income #the more you know #I’m not sure I have any Ontarian readers #but I *know* I have readers excited about basic income in general #and maybe some Ontarians who don’t normally read my blog will come across this #our home and cherished land #(I’ll admit I’m a little concerned) #(after all the hype last year over ”free tuition”) #(and then seeing the fine print and finding out it’s only for full-time students) #(I’m actually going to be *worse* off under the new system than the old) #(because I won’t even be getting the inadequate version of tuition reimbursement they’re currently doing) #(so my hope about this basic income thing is cautious) #(but it is hope nonetheless) #oh look an original post