musings-at-dawn

[musings-at-dawn]

my anonymous friend sent me this and i thought this was really beautiful

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“I can’t make you understand. I can’t make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I can’t even explain it to myself.”

— Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

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― L. M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

[text ID: I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.]

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actually i love growing older and learning how i work as a person like realizing what kinds of fabrics feel best on my skin or what brand of yogurt i like best or how I want to be touched. watching myself change, enjoying brussel sprouts when I used to hate them as a child, understanding why I got angry in that one conversation 10 years ago… there are so many mysteries inside me that i have yet to unravel and there will always be more and sometimes i think maybe its all worth it

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The Irish Aesthete: Ruins of Ireland, by Robert O'Byrne

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“How evanescent those loves and friendships seem at this distance in time … We move on, make new attachments. We grow old. But sometimes, we hanker for old friendships, the old loves. Sometimes I wish I was young again. Or that I could travel back in time and pick up the threads. Absent so long, I may have stopped loving you, friends; but I will never stop loving the Day I loved you.”

— Ruskin Bond

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Love seeing women with bare faces, short fingernails, practical shoes, comfortable clothing, a full plate, a toothy grin, a relaxed posture. Love love love seeing women comfortable and happy and unselfconscious.

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"Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known."

"Winnie the Pooh" - by A.A. Milne

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― Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

[text ID: You are untranslatable / Into any one tongue.]

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― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

[text ID: I desire the things that will destroy me in the end.]

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  ― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

[text ID: I belonged always to whatever was far from me and to whatever I could never be.]

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Listen: my father speaks Urdu language of dancing peacocks rosewater fountains even its curses are beautiful. He speaks Hindi suave and melodic earthy Punjabi salty rich as saag paneer coastal Kiswahili laced with Arabic, he speaks Gujarati solid ancestral pride. Five languages five different worlds yet English shrinks him down before white men who think their flat cold spiky words make the only reality.

- Shailja Patel, 'Dreaming in Gujarati'

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My 13 year old cousin came back from a date with her boyfriend and said, "I can't wait to grow up and spend sunday afternoons with him." At first, I wanted to laugh (after all they're just 13), but I remember being 13 and having the world in my hands. I remember getting excited to talk to someone about my dreams and wishes, and how happy these daydreams and fantasies made me. There's this innocence you can only have at 13 and the world rises and falls and crashes and burns every year... until you do not think about quiet sunday afternoons.

So I asked her about the date and heard her giggle about bubblegum flavored ice cream, and how much she loves this little life. I think she makes me love it too.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

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mid-evening, r.a. @boyfig​

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hello! do you have any recommendations for indian historical fiction? ;; also! i recently read miri jiyori(about a tribe) and chinatown days(indo china war of the 1960s), both are translations and i think that you might like them too!

hello! thank you, i will definitely check those out. here are a few i’ve read/are on my list (mind you, i don’t read as much historical fiction as i would like to, but we’re also in luck because what I read tends to be indian/south asian)

a flight of pigeons by ruskin bond: set during the revolt of 1857 in north india; about a family who is at the receiving end of rebel anger and who take hindu and muslim help to save themselves; it is ruskin bond so i don’t even need to spell out why it’s great

midnight’s children by salman rushdie: set in bombay right after independence, revolves around salim and a thousand other people who are all born at the stroke of midnight of august 15 and all of whom are extraordinarily talented; about the transition in the 1940s, early indepdence bombay and india 

a fine balance by rohinton mistry: about four people in bombay in 1975 just after the emergency was declared who are brought together given the political and social upheavals; explores caste, privilege, friendship against the backdrop of turbulent politics

the lives of others by neel mukherjee: about a family in kolkata which is representative of changes in west bengal and india with the east pakistan crisis and the naxal movement; this is for you if you love stories spanning generations

fortune’s soldier by alex rutherford: a fictionalised take on robert clive and his arrival in india and subsequent career in the east india company as one of its highly gifted generals; really nice because it is complex in its portrait of clive and his times; explores both the indian social dynamics and, more importantly, the scottish presence in early mercantile operations in india

the black hill by mamang dai: set in 19th century arunachal pradesh, a little before the revolt of 1857; about a bunch of people in upper assam (around the brahmaputra), one of them is a missionary, others are villagers, and hill tribes; about local responses to foreign rule; shows the tensions in tribal villages against the backdrop of british annexations and assimilative policies really well;

the glass palace by amitav ghosh: set in burma in 1885, just around the british annexation of the land; abut a boy who ends up building a teak empire in burma’s forests, and his search for a young woman as a rich man years later across burma, india, and malaya

kanthapura by raja rao: i’m not sure this entirely fits the historical fiction bill, but it’s an important book either way; about how gandhian independence struggle arrived in a south indian village and how people received gandhian principles; it’s kind of heavy with the mythological references and everything, so mind that

aavarana by s. l. bhyrappa (translated by sandeep balakrishna): about a woman in aurangzeb’s india who converts from hinduism to islam but is later disillusioned when she sees religious ethic being used to justify a great deal of oppression; it’s very raw but it’s also brutally honest

if you read hindi, there’s tamas (तमस) by bhisham sahni, which is about partition riots; it explores people on both sides of the communal divide and it’s partly based on sahni’s life and experiences with the partition too. i’m not sure if there’s a translation and if there is one who’s it by so you’ll have to check that

tamrapat by rangnath pathare: it’s marathi, and i’m unsure if there’s a translation, but you can keep track if one comes along; it’s an absolute giant of a book and it kind of intimidates me; paints a picture of politics and society from 1942 to 1979 through stories of a series of people and associations

and now for two that aren’t technically indian but i think you should check out anyway

a case of exploding mangoes by mohammad hanif: based on the plane crash that killed general zia ul-haq; the novel dramatizes it, in that it’s about a pakistani air force pilot who is on a mission to kill the general and so he assembles a motley crew; the book was well-received and it’s supposed to darkly funny

in the time of the others by nadeem zaman: about a man who’s stuck in east pakistan during 1971 as the pakistani army attacks and as the mukti bahini gathers steam; about living in violent times and tensions in south asia during then

i hope you find something you like in these. happy reading :)

[musings-at-dawn]

The Very Basics of Not Killing Your Computer

AVOID HEAT STRESS

If you have a laptop DO NOT use it on a soft surface like a pillow or on a blanket, it’ll block the vents on your computer and make it get really fucking hot inside.

If you have a desktop you gotta open it up and blow out the dust sometimes.

If you are moving your laptop in a bag turn the laptop off. Don’t put it to sleep, don’t just shut the screen, turn it off, because otherwise it’s in the bag generating heat and there’s nowhere for the heat to go in the bag. OFF. Not sleep. OFF.

DO NOT DROP

Okay I know that should be obvious but drop damage to your hard drive is bad bad news. Be as careful as you can to set your computer gently on flat surfaces; don’t leave it hanging out on a bed where it can get knocked off, don’t set it on the roof of your car. And yes, just dropping it a couple inches can kill your hard drive or totally shatter your screen.

DON’T PUT SHIT ON YOUR KEYBOARD

Look I’ve seen four people ruin their laptops because they had a pen on the keyboard and closed the laptop and it fucked up the screen and the keyboard and it sucks so much and you feel awful after it happens because it’s so avoidable just don’t put things on your keyboard and always check that your laptop is clear before you close it.

PROTECT YOUR PORTS ON YOUR LAPTOP

You’ve only got one power jack and a limited number of other inputs on your computer and if they detach from the motherboard you’re fucked. USB ports get damaged because people use them a lot and eventually it weakens the connection and then they just stop working and it sucks. You can get around this with USB ports by using a USB hub to connect things like your keyboard and mouse.

For your power plug you just gotta be careful. Avoid tripping over the cord at all costs, don’t yank the plug out of the computer. It will SUCK VERY MUCH A LOT if you have to buy a new computer because the power port lost contact with the motherboard.

Don’t move your computer with things plugged into it. Take the power cord off before you put your laptop in the bag, take out the USB mouse dongle, do not travel with little nubby bits sticking out of your computer that can easily get caught or get tweaked or snap off inside of the thing.

(I really can’t emphasize enough that most of the “it will cost more than it’s worth to fix this” laptops I see are because of USB ports and power jacks. People don’t seem to know that this isn’t something that can be fixed easily; a broken power jack is a “remove the motherboard and resoldier components” job, not a “plug a new one in in fifteen minutes” job and most computer repair shops aren’t going to solder things for you and if they DO it’s going to be very expensive)

RESTART YOUR SHIT AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH AND JUST LET THE FUCKING UPDATES RUN

You should probably restart more than once a month but whatever. This is actually something that I consider part of reducing heat stress because when your processor is straining to keep up with all the background bullshit that’s running from a program you opened three weeks ago it’s going to use up resources and get hot and look just restart it once in a while.

Also the updates are almost always okay and safe and generally running updates is a good and secure thing to do (though maybe follow a blog dedicated to the OS you run because if there IS a problem with the updates that blog will probably talk about it before the update gets forced on your computer)

ANTIVIRUS BULLSHIT

Yes you should probably be running an antivirus.

Sophos is free and it’s fine. But don’t pay for it - if you’re using Sophos use the free version.

If you’re looking for something paid and a little more comprehensive I recommend ESET - get the cheap version, renewals cost less than the initial purchase, and feel free to get a multi-year version, the credentials follow your email not the computer so if your computer dies before your license expires you can install the license on a new computer.

DO NOT INSTALL NORTON OR MCAFEE THEY ARE EXPENSIVE BULLSHIT. Kaspersky is whatever. It’s less bullshit than Norton or McAfee but not as good as ESET for about the same cost.

If you think you’ve got a virus run the free version of Malwarebytes and get your shit cleaned.

KEEP LIQUIDS THE FUCK AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER

Again this should be obvious and yet. But seriously, just make a rule for yourself that drinks aren’t allowed on the same table as your computer and you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches.

PLUG YOUR COMPUTER INTO A UPS

Okay I fucking hate amazon but here’s a thing you should be using, just search the rest of the internet for “surge protector/UPS” and you’ll find something that isn’t from amazon - APC is a solid brand for this.

Basically you want a fat surge protector that has a little bit of a battery backup and you want to plug your computer (desktop OR laptop) into that instead of into the wall. The benefit of this is twofold:

1) if there’s a power surge the UPS will prevent your computer’s power supply from getting fried and possibly frying parts of your motherboard

2) if there’s a power outage and you’re *at* your computer you’ll have enough time to save what you’re working on before your computer loses power (like, you’ll maybe only have a minute or two on a small UPS but that’s still time to hit CTRL+S and keep from losing work)

At a bare, bare minimum your computer should be plugged into a surge protector but NOT directly into the wall.

BACK YOUR SHIT UP

[we interrupt this yelling for me to tell you that Western Digital has apparently released their new My Passport line and I’m obligated to inform you that you can get a 2.5″ USB 3.0 backup drive with FIVE FUCKING TERABYTES OF STORAGE for $130. Or you can get 4TB for $93. Or you can get 1TB for $53. basically what I’m saying is that it is not only cheap computer season it is also cheap hard drive season.]

[also if you’re getting a backup drive get western digital not seagate seagate fucking sucks and has a much higher failure rate]

Uh, okay, anyway - Do an image backup of your computer every once in a while so that if you get infected or your hard drive dies or whatever you can just restore from backup and move on like nothing happened.

HERE’S HOW TO DO AN IMAGE BACKUP.

SAVE YOURSELF THE WEAR AND TEAR

You know what is cheap? USB Keyboards and USB mice. You know what is not cheap? Fixing the touchpad on a laptop or replacing a laptop keyboard.

Get yourself a USB hub, a USB Keyboard and a USB Mouse (wired or wireless, doesn’t matter) and if you’re using your laptop at home plug *that* into your computer.

Also if your keyboard on your laptop breaks it’s fine just to use a USB keyboard instead I promise; if the screen breaks it’s also usually cheaper and easier to get a used or inexpensive monitor than it is to replace the screen. Your laptop is basically just a very small version of whatever bullshit is going on inside a desktop, if the peripherals break but the core components are fine you can just use it like a desktop.

Unless it’s a piece of shit that doesn’t have any USB ports or video out in which case you got ripped off, friend, demand functionality in your devices I’m sorry.

/rant

[musings-at-dawn]

I feel like so many (especially young) people here on tumblr were beaten over the head again and again with “believe the victims, stop asking them to prove their victimhood” and instead of understanding that this means “don’t dogpile victims because you like the abuser” instead took it to the no-nuance end of the pool and turned it into “if you hear something bad about someone don’t go looking for sources or context” and those are not the same things

You should look at sources. Always. Taking a moment to say “wait, who said that? what happened?” isn’t victim blaming, it isn’t siding with an abuser, its taking a step back to understand a whole picture, in its context. 

When you do this, 

you are actually a better ally than just knee-jerk, superficial, performative support.

you can approach with nuance.

you can avoid speaking over them, and learn how to be a better, more supportive ally.

you can avoid repeating old claims that have already been either addressed or disproven.

you can avoid propaganda and disinformation, which not only serves to undermine whoever its about, but it undermines everyone else. 

This post is about political disinformation, but when people get away with making false allegations about abuse or racism or homophobia or any other gross behavior it undermines the positions of actual victims because people who are prone to bad faith can say “ah, that was a scam, victims are scammers”. When you make false claims about politicians, you undermine the political process and allow people who are prone to bad faith to say “see I don’t need to participate”.

I know we hate checking facts and sources here on the internet, but that’s the whole point of the internet. Information is available, and you should be checking your sources before you make claims about people.