oh look an update

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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brin-bellway:

I have collected the data and calculated the results for 2017, and the main result is:

Over the past six months, we were short an average of $65/week. Just $65. That’s all.

(Considering how large some of the outlier charges were, there must have been some individual weeks in which we had more money at the end of the week than at the start. Maybe even individual months.)

We are *damn* close, and this could very well be the year we get in the black.

*sigh*

Okay, so this is very embarrassing, and also bad even if you ignore the embarrassment factor, but I told you the first thing and so I feel obligated to tell you the second.

I am issuing a retraction. When calculating our income for the latter half of 2017, I failed to notice that one of the entries was not actually income, but rather a transfer from a retirement account (an account which, by the way, is now empty, and so will not be able to help us in the future).

The actual shortage is about $360/week. If, as we are planning to do, we drop the less cost-effective of the two life-insurance policies, this drops to $185. Still possible (13 more minimum-wage hours would do it), but rather less so.

(I suppose if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is)

(what does it say about my life that “only short $65/week” is too good to be true)

Tags:

#both of my parents appear to be in that awkward stage of life #where you’re too fucked up to perform able-bodied work but not fucked up enough to be Legally Disabled and get help that way #I mention this because of the possible positive resolutions to this predicament #one of the more likely ones is ”a parent manages to find a job they are actually capable of doing and which is willing to hire them” #but they keep looking and often all they find is jobs requiring traits like #”must be able to stand up for several hours straight” #or #”must have good hearing” #or for Dad #”must be able to act as if one is reasonably happy to be there” #(like) #(I manage to mostly skip the emotional-labour parts of my fast-food job) #(by being *genuinely* happy to be there and so not having to fake it) #(but even when Dad is happy it’s hard to *tell* that he’s happy) #((not to mention that he *wouldn’t* be happy)) #((because depression + overly high standards)) #adventures in human capitalism #oh look an update #tag rambles #oh look an original post #(ish)

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

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Also, I have acquired a new appreciation for AO3’s download function, which is great at facilitating archiving.

And I have acquired a new opposite-of-appreciation for fanfiction.net, which goes so far the other direction that you are *not allowed to copy text from a fic*. I did a couple of small fics by *going into the page source*, finding the fic *there*, pasting it into a LibreOffice document, and *manually replacing the br tags with line breaks* (there was probably some way to automate that last bit). Then I hit upon the solution of simply saving the entire page as an HTML file, which seems to have worked. Good: I was not looking forward to manually inserting line breaks in Chanson de Geste.

Tags:

#oh look an original post #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers

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~ Brin ~ 3 Comments

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identicaltomyself:

tilthat:

TIL that some people can voluntarily control the tensor tympani, a muscle within the ear. Contracting these muscles produces vibration and sound. The sound is usually described as a rumbling sound.

via reddit.com

TIL that not everybody can work the “rumble muscle” in their ear. I just assumed that everybody can do it, but nobody ever talked about it because it is so useless.

Update: apparently I *can* do this? At least for short bursts. Huh.

Tags:

#oh look an update #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #kind of hurts to force it like that though

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

justice-turtle:

ahahahahahaaaa *laughs my well-rounded ass off* Somebody got smacked down HARD. Patreon’s so used to being the only game in town, they forgot that their core userbase was likely to kick back. Angry fans are like swans: they will not only beat you up, they will bring everybody they ever met to beat you up as well. That is possibly the most sincere-sounding apology I have ever seen from a corporation. ^_^

@ksonney, best known to fandom as Ursula Vernon’s husband, has offered to help creators look at their options and set up somewhere else if switching away from Patreon is a thing you still want to do. (Which it might be! As Ursula put it on Twitter, “They’ve unburned that bridge, but there are still scorch marks on the foundations.”)

Tags:

#Patreon #PSA #interesting #oh look an update #(though I don’t think I posted anything about the original) #(I don’t use Patreon myself)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

msmarvel:

Riz Ahmed Could Start a Boy Band with Guys He Met During an Airport Security Search.

Tags:

#Ahmed^3 #oh look an update #(this post was actually still sitting in my consider-reblogging from the *last* time JT reblogged it) #(I suppose I might as well reblog the newer one) #((normally I don’t let them sit *quite* that long)) #((but I was having some browser issues a while back and figured getting rid of every tab with moving parts (like GIFs) might help)) #((so I left this as a URL in a notepad window where it was much easier to neglect))

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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moyaofthemist:

HEY Y’ALL IT’S HEALTH CARE TIME

GO SIGN UP

HEALTHCARE.GOV

GO. YOU HAVE 45 DAYS. GO NOOOOOW.

(sorry for shouting, but open enrollment is only nov 1 – dec 15 this year with minimal advertising to tell folks it’s open. go. please. get yourself covered.)

Update: because of this post, I successfully remembered to renew my Ontario health card.

This was…not its intended purpose, but also not *not* its intended purpose.

Tags:

#oh look an update #our home and cherished land #(now I just need to replace my 3.5-month-expired driver’s license) #((don’t worry I haven’t driven since then)) #(I’ve been using my Canadian passport when I need a government ID but a card would make things a bit easier) #((for some reason health cards generally don’t count))

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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mazurah:

squelchsquelch:

Reminder to turn off tumblr’s stupid “best first” feature now that it’s rolled out!

Go to profile>settings (the gear)>global settings>dashboard preferences

How to Get Rid of This Shit for Dummies:

Okay, I could only figure out how to turn this off on MOBILE! It doesn’t seem to give you the option on desktop. So I’m sharing an even greater in-depth tutorial (with images) on how to turn this off.

On MOBILE go to the fourth tab at the bottom that looks like a little person: 

tumblr_inline_oyt9d3bmkn1ujfscj_540

Then at the top of the screen click the little gear: 

tumblr_inline_oyt9d9tagt1ujfscj_540

At the top of the screen find the option General Settings: 

tumblr_inline_oyta9laqve1ujfscj_540

Then find Dashboard Preferences: 

tumblr_inline_oyta4i0ym21ujfscj_540

And switch “Best Stuff First” to the OFF position: 

tumblr_inline_oyta62knei1ujfscj_540

To reiterate, that’s: 

Profile – Settings – General Settings – Dashboard Preferences – Best Stuff First – OFF 

In my experience, settings DO extend across platforms, so if you turn it off on mobile, you should be good on the desktop version as well. 

Please reblog!

Tags:

#The Great Tumblr Apocalypse #Tumblr: a User’s Guide #oh look an update #here’s a reminder for those of you who use mobile #now that they’ve actually released it

Video ~ ~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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brin-bellway:

God, the Internet is amazing.

I was thinking fondly of a song from a childhood video game, but I could not recall how the song went or the exact name of the game. And I thought “Maybe I can fix that.”

Armed only with the information “there was this M&M-themed game on CD-ROM, and the song was the background music for level 5″, it took me all of a couple of minutes to track this down. (If you would like to skip to the best part, that is at 1:03. I tried linking to that timestamp, but it looks like you can’t do that with video posts.)

Bonus: apparently the game disc’s ISO is available from the Internet Archive.

(I wonder if Windows 7 is backwards-compatible with Windows 95 games, or if I would have to take stronger measures?)

Update:

I downloaded the ISO, installed some software that lets me run the ISO in a virtual CD-ROM drive*, and tried the game.

It works! Windows 7 had no problem (nor even complaint) installing and running this Windows 95 software. I played through level 1 and most of level 2 (out of, I think, 10). When I ran out of lives, I decided to stop for the moment rather than restarting the section.

*I do have a real CD-ROM drive, but I didn’t want to bother obtaining a blank disc to burn the file onto.

Tags:

#games #my childhood #food mention #oh look an update #Windows versions 8 and newer have virtual CD-ROM drives built in #so if I had one of those it would have been even easier than it already was #(assuming they didn’t break backwards compatibility with the game in those versions)

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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stimmyabby:

autie-stereotype-crime-noir story

 

stimmyabby:

i like clues because they make sense, unlike people, who have legs that go on for days. how can a leg go on for days? i don’t know. help

 

stimmyabby:

i got the call late at night: “there’s been a murder on the orient express.” i knew i had to take the case immediately, because that is a TRAIN

 

stimmyabby:

i have been told i am “gritty” and “hardboiled”, maybe because i eat so many eggs and crunch the bits of shell between my teeth

 

stimmyabby:

“he’s the killer!” i said. “wait, no he’s not. wait, all these people look the same, which one is which again?”

 

stimmyabby:

i’m a straight shooter who plays by my own rules, all 376 of them that I have in this annotated binder

 

stimmyabby:

i’m a lose cannon, in fact, i have been institutionalized for erratic behavior

 

stimmyabby:

my job as a detective is made harder by the fact that i am physically incapable of telling a lie or bluffing but made easier by the fact that i have no emotions about anything but trains. once a train was murdered, and i couldn’t stop crying

 

stimmyabby:

she had curves in all the right places. i like curves, because they make sense, unlike people

 

stimmyabby:

i like my liquor hard, and my social interactions harder

 

stimmyabby:

i’m the best detective around, but my fees are high, and i only take payment in trains

 

stimmyabby:

she had curves in all the right places. she was a graph i was making about trains. in the other room, my dad was crying because i wouldn’t make eye contact with him

 

stimmyabby:

“you will tell me what i want.” i said. “everyone tells me what i want. i’m tough as nails, and i’m not afraid to display aggressive behavior”

 

stimmyabby:

i got into this job because one time in fifth grade i asked my special teacher why people don’t like me, and she told me to be a detective and figure it out. i took that completely literally, and here we are today

 

stimmyabby:

maybe i should throw away all my detective memorabilia so that i can hug my dad for the first time

 

stimmyabby:

“i know you’re a detective,” my mom sniffled, “but sometimes i feel like the real detective, trying to figure out how to finally help you”

 

stimmyabby:

the only mystery i cannot solve is the mystery of why these nice ladies keep making me play with special blocks. i have literally no theories about why this is happening

 

stimmyabby:

“i didn’t solve the case, and i let a second train get murdered!” i cried. “i’m a bad detective!” “oh, honey, no,” my mom soothed, “you’re not a bad detective, you’re just special, and sometimes that means things are a little bit harder for you”

 

stimmyabby:

he handed me the pictures of the suspects. i crossed out their eyes so i could look at their faces.

 

stimmyabby:

i got the call late at night. “TEXT ME” i shouted into the phone

 

stimmyabby:

“there’s been a terrible murder.” “that makes 231,” i said, twirling my hair. i like numbers.

 

stimmyabby:

she had curves that went on for legs. i reminded myself to make eye contact, like my special teacher told me

 

stimmyabby:

“ain’t she a beauty?” i asked. my special teacher had been working with me on saying “isn’t.” “a genuine Horse .75. i got her 12 years and 37 days ago and she weighs exactly 14 ounces. i call her Melissa, after my special teacher. she’s almost as good as a train.”

 

stimmyabby:

i took out my bottle of whiskey, and started to read the label aloud

 

stimmyabby:

i’m a private eye. that means i think eyes should be private. why do people have to look at each other’s eyes all the time?

 

stimmyabby:

the ceiling fan moved slowly in my grimy office, slowly like someone about to give up on the world. i stared up, up, up at it, distracted from my obsessive cleaning. it had curves in all the right places

 

stimmyabby:

the whole world seemed black and white, like an old film, or my thinking

 

stimmyabby:

i took my gun out of the pocket of my trench coat, which i was wearing because of my sensory issues

 

stimmyabby:

with my gun smashed​ to pieces on the floor and the criminal’s gun pointed right at me, it seemed like just about the right time to elope

 

maybesimon:

this is the best thing in the world

 

ilzolende:

#(it took me a while to understand that last one though) #(I think the joke is that the protagonist is using “elope” to mean “run away”) #(oblivious to the specifically marriage-related meaning it has in practice?)

That term is actually often used to describe “autistics wandering off”, do a web search for “elopement autism” or something.

Ah, okay. I don’t think I’ve heard that usage before. (Or maybe I just haven’t heard it in ages: most of my experience with autism-blogging was in the late 00′s.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #oh look an update #the more you know #autism