recs

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

aichu-dechu:

pancakeke:

the scariest thing in the world is probably whatever’s going on in the tiny gap between my kitchen counters and the oven

I didn’t know these existed for far too long as an adult but they are more than worth it (this particular brand is under US$10 on Amazon but I bet you can do better):

2dbef084600ab3c1f0209f53b555de61ca47e57c

Tags:

#found this in the notes #unfortunately my stove is next to a wall and not a counter so I don’t think this will work for me #but something to bear in mind for other setups #domesticity #oh look an update #recs #unsanitary cw? #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

jadagul:

That night he dreamed.

A duel between magicians makes a fascinating tale. Such tales are common—and rarely true. The winner of such a duel is not likely to give up trade secrets. The loser is dead, at the very least.

Novices in sorcery are constantly amazed at how much preparation goes into a duel, and how little action. The duel with the Hill Magician started with a dream, the night after the Warlock’s speech made that duel inevitable. It ended thirty years later.

….

And in his sleep he concentrated, memorizing details. A narrow path curled up the hillside. Facts twisted, dreamlike. There was a companion with him; or there wasn’t. The Warlock lived until he passed through the gate; or he died at the gate, in agony, with great ivory teeth grinding together through his rib cage.

He woke himself up trying to sort it out.

The shadowy companion was necessary, at least as far as the gate. Beyond the enemy’s gate he could see nothing. A Warlock’s Wheel must have been used there, to block his magic so thoroughly.

Poetic justice?

He spent three full days working spells to block the Hill Magician’s prescient sense. During that time his own sleep was dreamless. The other’s magic was as effective as his own.

Larry Niven’s novelette “What Good is a Glass Dagger” isn’t generally super well remembered; to the extent people think of it, it’s in relation to the much more famous sequel, “The Magic Goes Away”, which used magic as a metaphor for the oil and energy crisis.

(It’s also one of the first stories to use the word “mana” to refer to magic power; it’s still exotic enough that Niven italicizes it in the text. It’s not the first ever, but I believe it’s the actual source that RPGs drew on when they used that word.)

But this passage has always stuck with me. Wizard duels aren’t flashy explosions of power. They’re very careful maneuvering, with decades of prescience, and the winner is the one who best manages that careful maneuvering around their opponent’s blind spots while creating blind spots for their opponent.

(There’s a truism in D&D3.x that a level 13 wizard, with time to prepare, can kill anything that isn’t preparing in return. And I feel like this story represents that concept really well, though the details are all different.)

Tags:

#storytime #recs #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

star-anise:

Don’t get your sex ed from fanfiction!

Get it from

{{cursive font:}}

Scarleteen

​

ruffboijuliaburnsides:

Not even joking, y’all, Scarleteen is an amazing resource that deserves attention and (if you’ve got the cash for it) donations so they can keep providing thorough education about sex, consent, relationships, etc to folks of all ages who need it.

​

mycroftrh:

b668119b8b553b72e7f81f48c6f9a8454f5f9be5

@sage-derby Yes!!!

Here’s a rundown of their general policy, from literally the first article I clicked on just now:

52f3f08ed835501cf3549ec6f394a6c934f0f98b

As you might be getting from that, they’re pretty intersex inclusive, too. Here’s a sample of something that’s a little more directly about sex-specific stuff in case you’re thinking “well but they said that was just about pleasure tho”:

dd5b0008374ecd410fd05f863a0f15b56f52f3cd

They have a lot of sections on their site, but number two is Gender:

320d88b4bdc1fa46f25306f7a35860495503b545

“That’s probably just like hetero gender dynamics stuff tho…” Nay nay! Here’s a few of the articles from the first page of their “Gender” section:

3ccd47e097fd7f9ea9b28283e1f494072ad4fbaf
de396bf19adea9f17cc6d0ecfc4ea8e544844799

Scarleteen was a huge help to me as a trans person. They have a live chat that has sex-ed type folks giving real-time answers, and even just the staff+volunteers who happened to be attending to the live chat were able to help me with weird niche trans problems – a decade ago, when trans people, it seemed, damn near didn’t exist. They are EFFING AWESOME and want to help you!!!!

​

ithinkthe4thkindisabuttthing:

In addition to LGBTQ+ positivity…

They have a disabled section with stuff for chronic pain. There was a link about navigating consent with non-verbal partners. This is an awesome resource, I’ve never felt so included.

Thank you for introducing me to it!

​

ineffectualdemon:

As a parent this is an invaluable resource because lets be real. No matter how close you are to your parents sine things are UncomfortableTM to talk about with your them

So acknowledging that and telling my kid “You can ask me anything but if you’re too embarrassed to ask me something this is a trusted source you can go to” is super important

​

star-anise:

Yeah, honestly I don’t even think it’s embarrassment as much as just… boundaries and privacy, that means teens don’t want to walk up to their parents like, “Dad, what should I keep in mind if I want to give oral sex to my partner?”

Sexuality is one of those areas where kids should be developing the ability to figure out their own tastes and preferences beyond what their parents have defined for them. it’s also part of them building relationships outside the family home, and generally learning to operate autonomously. It’s great if kids have a good base of support to fall back on, but honestly it’s healthier for parents and caregivers to say, “I’m going to give you the tools and resources you need to explore this on your own, so you can practice independence, though you can come to me any time you want.”

Like, this whole process of forcing kids to rely 100% on their parents for knowledge about how their bodies work and what sexual pleasure is like is in itself really unhealthy and creepy. It commonly forces kids to secretly go to sources of dubious reliability or trustworthiness, which makes them really vulnerable, especially if telling their parents about any problems they encounter means they need to confess that they broke the rules.  It is so much safer to let kids know where the good resources are, and that they’re allowed to access them.

Tags:

#endorsed with two caveats: #(1) it’s been around a decade since I was there and things may have changed #and (2) I viscerally hate Scarleteen #I wouldn’t say that I actually *blame* them #they held themselves to an impossible standard: of course they failed to meet it #they’re correct that said standard is worth asymptotically approaching #but the more someone emphasises that they do their uttermost to be inclusive of everyone #the more it hurts when it inevitably turns out that they don’t mean you #sexuality and lack thereof #recs #people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me #nsfw text #venting cw #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

robustcornhusk:

paradigm-adrift:

Turns out they sell special reusable earplugs for musicians that decrease volume without muffling sound as much as regular earplugs. They’re real handy to have as a purse item. Mine saved me from having a meltdown at a restaurant composed of 0% sound-absorbing materials like a month ago.

the off-the-shelf etymotic earplugs are good at evenly reducing sound, but in my experience & in some friend’s experience kinda uncomfortable for sustained use; i used to try to wear them for loud music events but would always take them out after a while.

loop earplugs look nice (!?) and also are comfortable! you have to rotate them until they’re comfortable, and then they’re pretty much unnoticeable. i wore them for 8 hours at a loud music event two weeks ago. my voice sounded a little weird in my head at normal volume, but i got used to it after a bit. i’ve also worn them while exercising, which wasn’t amazing but sucked less than disposable earplugs.

my partner has custom-molded earplugs, which they say are 1) very comfortable and 2) don’t make your voice sound as weird in your head as shittier earplugs. they also have replaceable filters, so you can swap them from “just a little quieter” to “someone is shouting directly in my ear from 3 inches away and I can’t hear it” (which are the filters they accidentally had in at the same loud music event… they had to use their backup earplugs, also loops).

for home use (blender, vacuum, fire alarm, etc), i have a couple of sets of children’s earmuffs

Tags:

#holy shit #portable? sound blocking?? that isn’t *itself* sensory hell??? #I need to look into this #(I wonder if I’d be able to sleep in them without having nightmares‚ or if that’s just inherent to the concept) #((they were false-awakening nightmares in which I took out the earplugs and found that my ears were still clogged)) #((I was prone to ear clogs as a child‚ and they *were* often triggered by sticking something else in my ear‚ and)) #((I was always worried that one day they would happen to occur in both ears at the same time and I’d end up nearly deaf for ~3 weeks)) #((this did not ever actually happen‚ but it very plausibly could have)) #((and my subconscious is–as of 2015‚ anyway–not over this)) #(((which is honestly valid of it))) #the more you know #recs #transhumanism #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

jettkuso:

Real observations since I started wearing a wizard hat daily:

– Brim is so wide that I stay BONE DRY taking walks in the rain

– Brim can be positioned to block the sun from ever getting in my eyes AND keeping it off the back of my neck

– The pointed top part creates an air pocket, keeping my head from getting hot or squishing my hair as it might in a ball cap

– Hat can easily be pulled down over the tips of my ears without looking dumb, protecting them from wind chill

– Strangers say they like my hat, giving me the chance to tell them that I am a wizard

– When you’re wearing a wizard hat, ALL OTHER FASHION CHOICES become secondary, allowing you to branch out with style

Embrace ego death. Stay protected from all elements. Wear a wizard hat.

Tags:

#clothing #recs #(wouldn’t this be more self-actualisation than ego death though) #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

brucespringsteendotcom:

It’s nuts that Antarctica is just down there. On this planet. With me. I want to know what’s going on in there

Tags:

#I have been reading through the archives of brr.fyi and yeah #it’s nonfiction but it doesn’t *feel* like nonfiction‚ you know? #I am intellectually aware that Antarctica is real but it’s hard to *believe* it‚ deep down #I feel the same way about‚ like‚ Jupiter #Antarctica #recs #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

itsbenedict:

just read Copy <|> Paste, and i gotta say: rip to kate but i’m different. i would simply not give a shit about the ethics of sacrificing clones! if it were me it’d be me and a clone of me wouldn’t think twice about walking into the nuclear reactor if he had the original standing right there. absolutely just kill me if it’s convenient! there’s more where that came from! kate out there trying desperately to cling to the top of the slippery slope and i got me a snowboard

Tags:

#I think I’m in the middle here #Brin-2-9-2-1 responds to that situation with #”well what are we standing around here building up lack for‚ let’s get this over with” #and walks grimly into the reactor #a forgotten party *is* death‚ Robin Hanson #storytime #recs #death tw #amnesia cw

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

bright-eyed-sunshine:

psycheterminal:

Treat anything on Discord as media that will be lost

Do not use Discord to host your files. Do not rely on Discord to preserve your text. DO NOT RELY ON DISCORD FOR ANY KIND OF PRESERVATION OR HOSTING!!

It CAN be lost, it WILL be lost! You must consider Discord as a part of the Core Internet, controlled by one company that hosts the servers.

I thought it was impressive at first that it replaced IRC, but now I am horrified. If the company behind Discord went under today, how many friends would you lose?

How many relationships? How much writing?

You may think this won’t happen, but I remember when AIM went down and along with it, entire novels worth of interaction with my oldest friend.

IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU. IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN. NO COMPANY IS INFALLIBLE.

Back up your files! Download anything you’ve saved to Discord NOW, before the API changes go into effect! And DO NOT RELY ON THEM FOR HOLDING IMPORTANT FILES!

Here is a program that lets you download any and all of your discord DMs, your servers, everything. You can set the format (raw text, html (dark and light), and others. You can even download the uploaded files not just the text, though that may be just for the command-line version not the GUI window version.

GitHub – Tyrrrz/DiscordChatExporter: Exports Discord chat logs to a file

Please back up your conversations, your stories. I have a backup of everything I care about that runs once a week, with full attachment backups every several months. I write stories on discord, and would be devastated if someone happened to them. You have to have your own local copies of every file you care about.

Tags:

#Discord #amnesia cw #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #PSA #recs #DiscordChatExporter is amazing #highly‚ highly recommended #though note that due to limitations on Discord’s end‚ it can’t preserve info on *who* used reaction emojis #if you’re extremely stubborn like me‚ you can open up the raw HTML and manually edit that into the hovertext #if not‚ don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good #even an unmodded export is incredibly valuable #(from my perspective‚ here on the other side of the queue‚ I reblogged that post on offline-first smartphones less than an hour ago) #(and I will note that the *text* of DiscordChatExporter HTML exports is visible on mobile‚ but not the images) #(even if you turned media downloads on (and do make sure to turn media downloads on)) #(not sure if there’s some tinkering I could do to make that work: I *mostly* re-read chat logs on a laptop) #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

bisexualbaker:

bisexualbaker:

Why do people keep recommending Dreamwidth as a Tumblr alternative, when Dreamwidth and Tumblr are so different?

To be flat-out honest, it’s because Dreamwidth has so many things that Tumblr users say they want, even if it’s also lacking a lot of features that Tumblr users have come to love:

  • Dreamwidth has incredibly lax content hosting rules. I’d say that it’s slightly more restrictive than AO3, but only just slightly, and only because AO3’s abuse team has been so overwhelmed and over-worked. Otherwise, the hosting policies are pretty similar. You want to go nuts, show nuts? You can do that on Dreamwidth.
  • In fact, Dreamwidth is so serious about “go nuts, show nuts”, it gave up the ability to accept transactions through PayPal in 2009 to protect our ability to do that. (It’s also one reason why Dreamwidth doesn’t have an app: Dreamwidth will never be beholden to Apple’s content rules this way.)
  • Dreamwidth cares about your privacy; it doesn’t sell your data, and barely collects any to begin with. As far as I’m aware, it only collects what it needs to run the site. The owners have also spoken out on behalf of internet privacy many times, and are prepared to put their money where their mouth is.
  • No ads. Ever. Period. They mean it. Dreamwidth is entirely user funded.
  • Posts viewed in reverse chronological order; no algorithm, opt-in or otherwise. No algorithm at all. No “For You” or “Suggested” page. You still entirely create and curate your own experience.
  • The ability to make posts that only your “mutuals”, or even only a specific subset of your “mutuals”, can see. Want to make a post that’s only open to Bonnie, Clyde, Butch, and Cassidy? You can do that! Want to make a post that’s only open to Bonnie and Butch, but Clyde and Cassidy can’t see shit? You can do that, too!
  • The owners have forsworn NFTs and the blockchain in general. Not as big a worry now as it was even a year ago, but still good to know!
  • We are explicitly the customers of Dreamwidth. Dreamwidth wants to make us happy, so any changes they make (and they do make changes) are made with us in mind, and after exploring as many possibilities as they can.
  • Dreamwidth is very transparent about their policies and changes. If you want to know why they’re making a specific change, or keeping or getting rid of a feature, they will tell you. You don’t have to find out ten months later that they’re locked into a contract to keep it for a year (cough cough Tumblr Live cough cough).

So those are some things that Tumblr users would probably love about Dreamwidth.

Another reason Dreamwidth keeps being recommended is that a significant portion of the Age 30+ crowd spent a lot of earlier fandom years on a site known as LiveJournal. Dreamwidth may not be much like Tumblr, but it it started out as a code fork of LiveJournal, so it will be very familiar to anyone who spent any time there. Except better.

Finally, we’re recommending Dreamwidth because some of the things that Tumblr users want are just… not going to happen on the web as it is now. Image hosting is the big one for this. Maybe in the future, the price of data will be much cheaper, and Dreamwidth will be able to host as much as we all want for a pittance that a fraction of the userbase will happily pay for everyone, but right now that’s just not possible.

Everywhere you want to go that hosts a lot of images will either be running lots of ads, selling your data, or both.

Dreamwidth knows how much it costs to host your data, and has budgeted for that. They are hosting within their means, within our means.

Dreamwidth is the closest thing we may ever get to AO3 as a social media platform. One of the co-owners is from, and still in, fandom; she knows our values, because they are also her values. It may as well be the Blogsite Of Our Own.

TL;DR: There is no website that has everything that Tumblr wants and nothing that it hates. Dreamwidth at least has all of the important stuff covered.

Tags:

#yes this #I have maintained an outpost on Tumblr‚ but I moved my home base to Dreamwidth after the Purge #and I’m very happy with it #Dreamwidth #The Great Tumblr Apocalypse #recs #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

togglesbloggle:

eightyonekilograms:

GitHub – Cebtenzzre/tumblr-utils: A fork of tumblr-utils with Python 3 support, bug fixes, and lots of features I found useful.

Python 3 script for backing up your Tumblor blog; I can confirm it works perfectly once you add your API key using the README instructions. I did have to pass –no-ssl-verify on the command line, because without that it spat out of a bunch of SSL failures, but other than that it worked (and very quickly too, my ~5000 posts took less than a minute)

WordPress itself also has an import tool that can bring Tumblr over to any WordPress blog- mine is up at https://thestonesgowalking.wordpress.com/ Just look for the ‘import’ tab under ‘tools’ in your dashboard there. WordPress has been showing an interest in the fediverse, so I’m hoping that at some point in the future I can double-import from Tumblr->Wordpress->Hypothetical Fediverse Thing, basically to keep blogging with as much continuity as possible and maintain a (theoretically) searchable history across platforms.

As always, multiple backups are better than one, so I’ll be using this python script as well. Tumblr isn’t being formally shuttered yet, but with @staff down to a skeleton crew, they won’t have as many resources to throw at hardware failures, technical snafus, and other such problems. You should take final responsibility for your own data at this point; don’t assume that you’ll get much warning if the worst does happen.

And of course, pour one out for the folks that put so much work in to the site. There was a phenomenal amount of human energy that went in to keeping our collective garbage fire burning, and I am, truly, so very grateful to them for that.

Tags:

#I can’t reblog The Post because jv turned off reblogs in an attempt to stem the overwhelming flood of Discourse #(Discourse with‚ disappointingly but unsurprisingly‚ quite a lot of bad reading comprehension) #((meanwhile the CEO‚ Tumblr user photomatt‚ is desperately doing damage control)) #((”there are amazing examples like OpenAI and Telegram running circles around much bigger players with small teams. #That’s what we hope to replicate.”)) #((”since people leaving Tumblr aren’t being laid off #they’re just switching to other teams within Automattic #if something doesn’t work or breaks we can always pull them back in to work on it.”)) #but really‚ when it comes down to it: #there isn’t much left for me to say that I have not already said #and very little left for me to feel that I have not already felt #y’all know where to find me #I keep a local copy of the list of Tumblrs I follow‚ and I’ll look y’all up elsewhere if need be #call this an evacuation drill #Tumblr’s final demise may or may not turn out to be causally downstream of this incident #but someday it *will* die #(…also‚ uh‚ contemplate LiveJournal’s current state for a few moments) #it’s just been declared Backup Awareness Week here on Tumblr‚ and I will be moving posts on digital preparedness to the front of the queue #as for this specific post: #I did not know there was a Python 3 version of tumblr-utils! #maybe I will be able to finally uninstall Python 2 now #I’ll have to test this out #Tumblr: a User’s Guide #recs #The Great Tumblr Apocalypse #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #tag rambles

{{context note: The Post}}