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Debbie and Me

So the rain has just started. The wind is blowing the branches almost to breaking point on the weaker trees. The patio is soaked. I couldn’t finish preparing. I just couldn’t. Anxiety about the cyclone feeding into my agoraphobia, leaving me inside huddled at my computer watching netflix and rocking back and forth and back and forth in my chair, typing because it is the only thing that keeps me from tearing my skin off with my own nails. Three days I’ve been like that, preparing what I could in little bits and pieces at the storm front comes ever closer; but, I just couldn’t finish. I have left windows untaped, bottles of water unfilled, important documents unprotected and in the case of my birth certificate, simply unfound. The police came to my house nearly four hours ago now, ordering me to evacuate. I live in the middle of the old delta. Ten thousand years ago the Don River flowed out to sea all around me and my little island of land. Lovely Debbie, Category 4, crossing the coast with the king high tide. Storm surges eight to ten metres high are expected. If I don’t get flooded, I will be stranded. Because I can’t evacuate. The cyclone shelters - one which was rated for only a Category 3, by the way - does not let us bring our fur-children. My sister told me to go, to just leave, to lock my darling girls up in the bathroom with only a couple of days worth of food and a litter box, all along, without me, in a house that may not survive. How could I do that? They are the best friends I have in town. They are the only ones I talk to for days or even weeks on end. A lot of the time they are the only reason I get out of bed in the mornings, because they won’t let me stay there. So I’m staying. I have no idea how much medication I have taken. I wouldn’t be surprised if I pass out soon. I most definitely wouldn’t be surprised if - when I wake up - if I wake up - I don’t remember anything of today. That’s a lovely side effect of my anxiety medication if I have to take too much: complete short-term memory loss. It’s happened before, and I still have no memory of what happened that afternoon. Having it happen today or tomorrow... it could be fatal. So I am scared. I am anxious. I am thoroughly drugged up and about ready to fall asleep in this chair as I rock, and rock, and rock, with my black bat cat Mischief sleeping on the cat bed she shares with her sister beside me. I don’t know when my next post will be. Could be tonight, could be tomorrow, could be a week, or it could be a month. Or it could be never, dying trapped under a roof beam as the flood waters rise. Personally, I think that would be preferable to surviving, and having nothing left. I don’t think I could deal with that either. It’s not the best way to go, but at least all of this will finally be over, and I wouldn’t have to keep living like this. Still, Debbie is coming. Those in Bowen, stay safe, if you can. See you on the other side.

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Desperate John Deere tractor owners are downloading illegal Ukrainian firmware hacks to get the crops in

John Deere is notorious for arguing that farmers who buy its tractors actually “license” them because Deere still owns the copyright to the tractors’ software; in 2015, the US Copyright Office affirmed that farmers were allowed to jailbreak their tractors to effect repairs and modifications.

But the Copyright Office doesn’t have the legal power to allow anyone to make a tool to make such modifications, which makes the Copyright Office exemption pretty symbolic.

Nevertheless, Deere responded immediately to the Copyright Office ruling by amending the EULA for its tractors to prohibit any such modification, third party repairs, etc, and made farmers click through the EULA and “agree” to it in order to start up their tractors.

Now, farmers find themselves in desperate straits. Not only does Deere gouge them on repairs (“$230, plus $130 an hour for a technician to drive out and plug a connector into their USB port to authorize [a user-swapped] part”), but the repair shops can be far away or busy, and thus a half-million dollar tractor can sit immobilized while a farmer frets about getting his crops in.

To add insult to injury, the new Deere EULA makes farmers indemnify the company against “crop loss, lost profits, loss of goodwill, loss of use of equipment … arising from the performance or non-performance of any aspect of the software.”

But farmers need to get their crops in, and they expect to be able to go on fixing, tuning and modifying their tractors as they’ve done since tractors were invented, and so they are turning to the Ukrainian black market. Breaking DRM is illegal in the Ukraine, but the law is less vigorously enforced, so Ukrainian manufacturers offer downloadable cracks that allow farmers to seize control of their tractors, violating their license agreements but saving their crops and their money.

Motherboard’s Jason Koebler bought his way into the paid, invite-only forums where farmers trade advice and suggestions on fixing, tuning and improving their tractors, and lived to tell the tale, which is a fascinating story of fake parts sold from ag-business websites that used to launder payments for login codes to the illegal tractor underground.

Nebraska and four other states are considering “right to repair” legislation that would do away with this ugly business in favor of just, you know, letting farmers treat their tractors as though they belonged to them. This legislation is being vigorously opposed by an unholy alliance of automotive companies, Apple, and Big Ag, all of whom want to keep their cushy, government-enforced monopolies intact.

https://boingboing.net/2017/03/22/make-hay-while-the-sun-shines.html

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You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering.

The Doctor (via wilwheaton)

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A Knot and A Ball

Impending disaster hovers black and boiling on the horizon, blowing away all notions of security and washing out to sea the idea we maintain control over our own lives. We are just specks of dust blown to and fro on the wind, or plankton trapped in the tides of the ocean to be eaten by something bigger than us, or washed up to die exposed on the shore. And my heart... my heart. A knot in my chest and a ball in my throat that grows ever larger as the storm grows ever closer, and leaves me trembling anxious and drugged and unable to do what I need to prepare. Preparation, far better than reaction; yet, I am shaking too much to pass through the door. Agoraphobia, anxiety, and depression suck.

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We are not inappropriate. Read more tweets about the Youtube’s LGBT+ Ban.

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Shep and Wrex (Commission) by nancekievill

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Damn right it is.

When you procrastinate writing and make silly images instead…

Explosive procrastination.

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FINALLY! It really bugs me how people write that they can ride from Skyhold to the Hissing Wastes in half an afternoon. We have forgotten just how difficult, dangerous, and prolonged travel was before modern transportation. Of course, these don’t even account for bandits, sickness, blocked roads, or bad weather, so I’d be tempted to add a couple of days to each one.

THEDAS-WIDE TRAVEL TIMES

assorted routes

distances taken from this, transport speeds from this

origins travel times here, awakening ones here

skyhold to val royeux : red

total distance: 320 miles | horseback time: 6 days 40 miles on mountainous trails 1 week on foot | 4 days on horseback + 35 miles on roads (to jader) 1 ¾ days on foot | 1 day forced march | ¾ day on horseback | ½ day fast carriage | ½ day horse relay + 245 miles at sea 3 days merchant ship | 2 ½ days fast ship | 1 ½ days fast ship peak weather

antiva city to denerim : light green

540 miles at sea 6 ¾ days merchant ship | 5 ½ days fast ship | 3 ½ days fast ship peak weather

minrathous to kirkwall, route a : purple

1820 miles at sea 3 weeks merchant ship | 2 ½ weeks fast ship | 2 weeks fast ship peak weather

minrathous to kirkwall, route b : dark green

total distance: 765 miles | horseback time: 10 days 190 miles at sea (to vyrantium) 2 ¼ days merchant ship | 2 days fast ship | 1 day fast ship peak weather + 365 miles on the imperial hwy (to cumberland) 2 ½ weeks on foot | 2 weeks forced march | 1 week horseback | 6 days fast carriage | 4 ½ days horse relay + 210 miles at sea 2 ½ days merchant ship | 2 days fast ship | 1 ½ days fast ship peak weather

adamant fortress to weisshaupt : blue

910 miles on roads 6 ½ weeks on foot | 4 weeks forced march | 3 weeks on horseback | 2 weeks fast carriage | 11 days horse relay

if anyone has requests for other routes, let me know!

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Impending Doom

How does an anxious, depressed agoraphobe deal with disaster? Not well, and it hasn’t even happened yet. For context, I live in Queensland, Australia. It is predicted we will have a Category 4 cyclone bearing down on us by Monday night. Again, for context, a Category 4 cyclone was what decimated Darwin. And I have no idea what to do. Oh, I know all the usual things: tape up windows, collect birth certificates and passports, bottled water, clear up the yard; but, then what? Cyclones are notoriously unpredictable; but, what do I do if it does cross here? I have no money for travel out of the danger zone. Even if I did manage to scrape it up how am I going to be able to deal with people? Where do I stay? How can I find someone who will let me take my cats with me? I have the strongest sense of impending disaster and the thought I will end up homeless, with nothing to my name, like so many others have in the wake of the storms is giving me the worst anxiety attacks. I got lucky the last couple of years: the cyclones either never came to me or never developed. I’m scared, I’m anxious, and I’m panicking. Life as an agoraphobe: such a party.

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Daily Life

So, I went outside yesterday. Grocery shopping, because my doctors want me to acclimatise myself to what scares me. Anxiety through the roof, I made it inside and down one aisle before I had to abandon my trolley mid-aisle and run. That happens to me far more often than I tell people on my fenharelsmythlover20 blog and facebook profile. Those of us with mental disorders find that other people’s willingness to assist and accept you and your problems has an expiration date. I’ve been living like this for over two years now. Before that I was caring for my elderly, chronically, and terminally ill parents from the age of 14; but, had been a full-time carer for my mother for over two years. I discovered that most of my friends left me during that first period. Those who stayed started growing incredibly frustrated with me about six months after this all started, and that was before I was even able to see a psychiatrist and get a proper diagnosis. Now, even my doctors are pissed off with me. I was supposed to be better a long time ago. Never mind that the government changed the regulations for government-funded mental health organisations which resulted in my local therapist dropping me from her client list and not - until now - having a new one. Never mind that, since I’m living on Newstart, I often can’t afford to buy my medication, even in Australia. No, two years was apparently the end of it. I deserve no more sympathy because I didn’t adhere to their schedule. Meantime I’m sitting here, tearing myself to shreds, having to pay $11 for grocery delivery that would have otherwise gone on to my power bill. Living with agoraphobia, anxiety, and depression isn’t easy. Anyone who says otherwise is an ignorant fool.

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The fanfiction saves everyone. That’s our avenue for fixing things that they do wrong. Like, apparently, not including any Drell in the game, if the trailers are anything to be believed. That’s the first thing I’m fixing.

the more I see of Andromeda, the more I’m afraid that we all have way too high expectations and we are going to end up disappointed. 

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a note to millennials re: gen-x not entirely freaking the fuck out over trump

it’s not that we don’t think it’s bad shit

it’s just that it’s not NEW bad shit to someone who grew up under reagan and the bushes, exactly; what’s new is how blatant and hamfisted it is, not the actual agenda

also new is the fact that people care and are horrified

also new is the fact that people have anything better to compare it to

so we’re kinda like “aw not this shit again, i thought we were past this” rather than “end of the fucking world” about it, like “welp time to dig up those old dead kennedies albums”

even the nuclear threat is like

idk babies we thought about getting nuked a LOT when i was growing up, it was just this constant cloud following us around, we made nuclear apocalypse jokes and it wasn’t even that dark because it was just life

it’s been nice not thinking about mushroom clouds for a while but it’s not exactly a shock that it’s come back up

i’m not trying to make you feel naive here, i’m just saying history is dark as fuck, and while you maybe knew that intellectually, you’ve been living in a very bright time up until now

i wish you could’ve gone your whole lives without knowing your government doesn’t have a problem with getting everyone killed for no fucking reason except to add another zero to the already absurd bank accounts of a tiny handful of elderly white men, but since shit fell out this way, i guess i just have to let you know that it isn’t something new, it’s the same battle we’ve been fighting all along

anyway, i’ve got your back

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New blog.

So, I guess I’m trying this again. I’ve tried to write so many blogs, journals, and diaries; but, I’ve never seemed to manage keeping it up. No wonder my psychiatrist was upset with me. Still, time to try again. If nothing else, let this blog be a good resource for writers and artists who find it, so they can more accurately depict those of us with this disorder. But why now? I guess it is because I’m back in therapy, with an old psychologist I’ve seen before. He’s a good bloke; but, this therapy he’s suggesting - EMDR - scares the shit out of me. If I’m like this, I’m like this for a reason. Digging that reason up... I don’t know if I want to do that. There are many things I wanted to do with my life that my multiple disorders prevent me from doing; but, I’m still scared. I don’t know if it will be worth it, in the end. Still, blogging. Here’s hoping I keep this one up. The gods know it won’t be easy.