Done Since 2025-03-09
2025-03-16 04:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mdlbearThe week has been mostly okay, or at least not particularly (not okay), but with occasional nostalgia attacks and nostalgic rabbit-holes. Unpacking boxes of books can do that, apparently. Especially when one box contains mostly the contents of my TBR shelf, and another some of the old favorites dating back to my parents' house in Connecticut, and their Heritage Press subscription. No idea what I'm doing with two copies of the NESFA Press edition of The Rediscovery of Man, though. But since I have all of Cordwainer Smith's short fiction in digital form, I don't need to have multiple dead tree editions taking up shelf space.
Do I? Many of those editions have memories associated with them. Maybe I should write some of their stories before I put (some of) them into boxes to go back to storage. I should certainly inventory them. Of course, the same goes for the boxes of assorted memorabilia, which won't all fit in the curio cabinet that we have yet to put together. How am I supposed to decide what to do with the things I'm unlikely ever to use again, but can't bear to part with?
The unpacking was, of course, enabled by N and I having finished putting up the four bookcases in the living room. A 78cm shelf roughly corresponds to the contents of a loaded 16" moving box or banker's box. It's not all going to fit, even after the serious culling before this and the previous moves. I mean, books! I'm a firm believer in the maxim that "there is no such thing as too many books, only not enough bookshelves." As, I would expect, are most of my readers.
Also, my birthday was Thursday, and Colleen's is today. I wrote about Colleen's yesterday, and combined writing about mine with Thankful Thursday. I might be just a bit confuzzled.
In the links, you ought to read How to Use Signal Encrypted Messaging, if you're not using it already. You ought to read Leopards eating faces, if you haven't heard that phrase before, or been puzzled by its meaning.
Notes & links:
0309Su * sift litter boxen
& awake 4:30ish
* up 7ish; W=92.7;
* drugs: first am 7:30; rest am 08:34; 2*coffee; pm 1900ish
: My bathrobe turned up in the mystery box! It also included a wireless ergonomic
trackball, a bag of assorted pens, my tweed hat, dresses, sarongs, etc.
@ An exploratory fly-by of Pi-Hole 6 • The Register
* pm friend of G's visiting
singing: The Travelers. Emmigration was discussed, among other things.
$ HSX - $12.04 from Bandcamp via PP
@ www.erininthemorning.com New German, Swiss, And Austrian Guidelines Recommend Trans
Youth Care, Slam Cass Review.
" The recommendations, released by the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies
in Germany, come at a time when US politicians erroneously claim that Europe is
"pulling back" on transgender care. "
@ Signal President Meredith Whittaker calls out agentic AI as having 'profound'
security and privacy issues | TechCrunch
@ OpenCloud 1.0 now available: New open-source alternative to M$ SharePoint et. al.
" high-performance, GDPR-compliant alternative to proprietary solutions such as
Microsoft SharePoint, Google Drive or Dropbox. [...] OpenCloud offers a future-
proof, transparent, and digital sovereign solution for IT infrastructures in Europe
* get $$ to the R and A
0310Mo * change litter boxen (N")
& awake 5:30ish? Bronx. is S=6:00 enough? no: down 6:40ish
* up 8am(alarm); ;
* drugs: first am 8ish; rest am 10:09; pm
@ Bispecific antibodies targeting the N-terminal and receptor binding domains potently
neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern | Science Translational Medicine
@ Naturally occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side
effects (andrewducker)
! survivor guilt
* n*15min: (w\ N) reinforce existing bookcase with extra brads to prevent sagging
* n*15min: (w\ N) assemble second bookcase. Back pieces on backwards, but ok. They'll
have books in front of them anyway. We may also have cracked the dowels on one side,
so added a couple of extra brads to the back piece.
@ The empathy struggle when cuts hit WA’s Trump country | The Seattle Times
* email reply to R wishing him luck and thanking for birthday wishes.
@ ‘I don’t feel safe’:Trump’s passport gender policy sparks fear for trans
travelers
% 19:39 anxiety attack? feels like I'm freezing, but..
-> N came down to put dishes away, and stayed to sit with me while I loaded my drugs
-> said I should go upstairs to be with cats. So, 2hrs before bedtime, here I am
* load drugs.
: Note that the mystery box also contained the Spotted Cat, that was Colleen's favorite
hospital stuffy. She is comforting to have around.
0311Tu * sift litter boxen
& awake 5am; both cats on the bed. No nipping from Bronx, because I started getting up
* up 5ish; ; Dutch, ..., dishes
* drugs: first am 5:15ish; rest am 7ish; 2? * coffee; pm 19iish
: managed to drop the water bottle after taking my abiraterone. The bottom broke, so
there was about half a liter of water and some plastic fragments on the floor. I
think I got all the pieces.
@ Undocumented commands found in Bluetooth chip used by a billion devices
but: The ESP32 Bluetooth Backdoor That Wasn’t | Hackaday
@ Zyxel won’t patch newly exploited flaws in end-of-life routers
: R isn't attempting a name change, so their ID isn't at risk. Relief.
@ 23 Best Amazon Alternatives for Ethical Online Shopping (ysabetwordsmith)
@ siderea | The Cognitive Load of It All, or the Response Matrix [US/pols, Ω, ...]
Doc Impossible: "Came across this elsewhere, an…" - Hachyderm.io
" alt: The four lanes of an effective civil rights struggle: Protecting people,
Disrupt and disobey, Defend civic institutions, and Build alternatives. "
@ Tiny Zine Swap Shop! | helping librarians introduce zinemaking to young people
(via ysabetwordsmith -- exponential explosion in the comments)
@ We can have a different web
@ We Need To Rewild The Internet
@ A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden
@ Microplastics may enable spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs, study says
* Bookcase, with N during final assembly.
* starting to put books on shelves. Will want pruning. Picked up Women En Large and
got stopped by a beautiful picture of Cindy hugging a guitar. Among others.
-> cleared two boxes
@ Now, Witness the Power of this Fully Operational Battle Station! Bendix G15
* 22:00 E''s thesis defense via zoom
& 15min: loaded and ran dishwasher
% back pain - standing too much. 440mg Naproxen
0312We * sift litter boxen
* LJ 21st Bloggaversary for mandelbear@
& awake 5ish
* up 7:50ish; ; Dutch
% dream: I was coming back to my hotel from... something, and got a call from some
Italian guy who was asking, on behalf of some colleague, whether PIA would work for
a user interface. I told him to have them send me an email. Getting back to the
room I found Colleen packing up, happily bragging to the maid about how we used to
handle a car(?)-full of luggage plus two babies. (note: we never had 2 at once)
* drugs: first am 07:55; 2* coffee; rest am 09:22; pm 21:18
@ Jeff Bezos takes another pathetic step in his march toward MAGA
@ In Defense of Text Labels - Christopher Butler
@ siderea | Leopards eating faces [pols]
: 11ish N"
% random thought: It's been proven that placebos can be effective even when the patient
_knows_ they're taking a placebo. The same must be true of spirituality/religion.
cf. my afterlife fantasies.
& 15min: found a box of loose filk including the sheet music for Life Cycle of Flowers
a stack of the songs I wrote in Carleton, and copies of HyperSpace eXpressions! Whew!
* Bookcase, with N. That's all four of them. Room for another, but barely. Later.
* (at random) putting books on shelves. Some will undoubtedly be moved up to my room or
re-boxed and stored (hopefully with more complete location information)
* guitar: Wheelin', Millennium's Dawn, River, life cycle of flowers, Help Me Make It
Through the Night, Keep the Dream Alive
* 15min: install phone-holder. It's designed to go in a car, and has a magnetic
charger and automatic grabbers. It also works very well as a place to hang my mask.
0313Th 79 * sift litter boxen
& awake 3:40ish
: Bronx was an absolute pest. Drove Ticia off the bed twice (once with a fight). But
he seemed to settle down once I got out of bed and put more food out. So maybe that
explains the nipping. Not the fighting with Ticia, though.
* up 7:30; ; Dutch
* drugs: first am 7:55; rest am 09:26; 2*coffee; pm 20:50ish
& 10:08-11:33 video (discord) call from E for my birthday!
* 15min: unpack keyboard stand, set up keyboard in bedroom.
-> the wall wart, however, is nowhere to be found. Apparently (09/27) left behind.
-> Hmmm. 12V, center positive. 5.5/3.3mm, 1mm center pin
: N gave me a couple of songbooks for my birthday.
E's present was making a therapy appointment, and giving me a call.
IIRC she said that my present to her was getting health insurance
* st/roll, with N on (scooter)Lizzy, to Erasmusweg.
* 17:30 cancer support group -- next April 10; presentation on trauma/EMDR
*- left links to goingsideways.blog and mdlbear.dreamwidth.org
@ ‘People Are Scared’: Inside CISA as It Reels From Trump’s Purge | WIRED
@ How to Use Signal Encrypted Messaging | WIRED
0314Fr-0316Su Festival of the Living Rooms #25
0314Fr Purim (sundown), Pi Day * sift litter boxen
& awake 04:33.
-> dream involved helping someone pick out a laxative. None of the brands were ones I
recognized.
cats didn't need food; refreshed it anyway. Spmebody (likely B) had thrown up some
recently-eaten kibble.
* up 06:40; ; Dutch
* drugs: first am 06:45; rest am 9ish?; coffee; pm 21:18
* 6am... LIVE Stream: Total Lunar Eclipse March 13–14, 2025
Caught the livestream about half an hour from totality.
@ Plastic Recycling Gets a Breath of Fresh Air | News | Northwestern Engineering
* E asks for Colleen's any my full name, birthday, and place of birth. via Discord DM
% having a surprisingly strong reaction to being reunited with some of my books --
Anybody's Bike Book, Norstrilia, The Mouse and His Child...
& weirdness renewing my YT subscription. Had to use BUNQ card.
-> connection to web app is flaky -- use the QR code.
-> $G knows too much. May have to kill it.
* * locate, * mail R's birth cert
* 15min: Two more boxes of my uncovered, along with the one with Book Trails, which
will go direct to storage
& reading: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 19:02 - didn't do much else today
% 19:12 freezing. Air temp 22°C, as usual. Now putting blanket on over green sweater
@ Resistance to Trump is everywhere — inside the first 50 days of mass protest
Waging Nonviolence People Powered News & Analysis
0315Sa Ides of March * sift litter boxen
@ Assassination of Julius Caesar - Wikipedia
& awake 00:30oish.
* up 7:20; W=-92.7, S=4:35ish; ... laundry, ..., Dutch
* drugs: first am 07:30; rest am 9:30ish; 2*coffee; pm 22:10
* Pay AX
& pre-order Flow from $A -- see if it's available elsewhere. Ships in june, there's time
@ 8 of the Best Areas in the United States for Alternative Lifestyles
% unpacking old books is hazardous. Rabbit holes.
(pulling myself out of _A Swiftly Tilting Planet_, which I haven't read yet.)
@ Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28 - Ars
@ 13 Years–Multimedium Rare
@ posted: mdlbear | River: Remembering the FlowerCat: on her 73rd Birthday
* 18:00 (11pm mountain time) FotLR starts
paused for dinner and toasts. Would have been nice to have had the monitor speakers
set up, but ok.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-16 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-17 06:03 am (UTC)Problem is it wouldn't be all that little.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-17 12:41 pm (UTC)But if you have space constraints you can always feed the unwanted books through a few at a time. Keeping the Library stocked.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-18 07:49 am (UTC)