procrastinatorproject

[procrastinatorproject]

what is an RSS feed and why does AO3 have them?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and the word syndication here is referring to broadcasting or transferring or otherwise sharing information. I first encountered it as a way to aggregate all of the news sites and blogs I wanted to read that were scattered all over the internet.

You might already be familiar with tumblr blogs that start with ao3feed - these are automated blogs that create a new post every time a work is posted in the feed(s) that they track. You can follow those tumblr blogs and learn about new works that way. They've subscribed to the RSS feed so that you don't have to.

If you wish that you could get push notifications from AO3 on your phone instead? The RSS feed will allow you to do that. You just need to get an account with an RSS reader first. Here are a few that are free:

Feedly 

NewsBlur 

Inoreader 

They each have slightly different features, so depending on the search and filter options you want or how you like your information displayed, you might like one better than the others. All three work on the web, on iOS, and on Android.

Once you have a feed reader, tap on the RSS Feed button at the top of the tag results page that you want to get notifications for and open up the XML file. If it downloads instead, try opening in a new tab or just copying the link address. You'll want to grab a url that looks like this: https://archiveofourown.org/tags/9835/feed.atom (this is the url for Kirk/Spock, if you're curious)

That feed.atom ending on the url is what you're looking for. When you open your RSS reader and create a new feed, you can use that url to set it up.

Once it's set up, you'll be able to see everything currently available in that tab, listed out in your reader. Just like the ao3feed tumblr blogs, the reader will show you the title, author, summary and tags for each fic, and then it will provide you with a link to read the work on AO3.

It will also notify you every time a new work is posted to that tag. You can adjust your notifications to suit you.

Not every tag on AO3 has an RSS feed, but it's worth checking out if you've never tried it before.

Editing to add: the AO3 FAQ also talks about these feeds

[procrastinatorproject]

Watching non-Trek sci-fi like:

Trek trope

Trek trope

How did they do that makeup?

Trek trope

Is that a practical effect? How did they do that?

Trek trope

Trek actor

[procrastinatorproject]

this emerged in my head when I was trying to drive

[procrastinatorproject]

"And sometimes she baked him a banana pie, which was a kind act. The Librarian was not very familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you."

~ Unseen Academicals (Discworld) by Terry Pratchett

[procrastinatorproject]

Sound up! 😂🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿😂🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿😂🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[procrastinatorproject]

this sentence came so far out of left field i reflexively closed the tab and had to open it up again to take this screenshot. i mean like yes its true that mushrooms are not plants but ive literally never ever ever ever met or even heard of anyone anywhere at any time who has used this definition of a plant-based diet

[procrastinatorproject]

When I was studying in the UK, my bank account was compromised *twice* (probably from manipulated card readers at the grocery self-check-out).

I got texts that suspicious activity had been detected on my bank account and then got a call from the bank.

The first time, I was extremely overwhelmed and flustered because nothing like that had ever happened and German banks at the time were *not* technically savvy enough to be sending people text messages.

So I was really worried about it being a scam, and I was really apologetic about it. But the bank employee on the phone was *delighted* that I was being cautious! Praised me effusively (which is saying something for an English bank 😂) and said they wished more of their customers would be suspicious of this kind of call because often it *can* be fraud.

And they told me to hang up and call the number on the back of my debit card. That would directly connect me to the bank's fraud department and I'd either end up on the phone with the same employee or one of their colleagues and it was the right thing to do.

If you get a call from somewhere that sounds official, always tell them you'll hang up and call back through official channels. And if they're anything but supportive, they're either a scammer or a dick and you don't want to be dealing with them.

Ask them to give their name and department if that's relevant and then go to the bank's/government agency's/company's official website. If they don't have a fraud prevention line or whatever it's about, you can usually call some main switchboard or customer service line and ask to be put through to the specific individual in question if there actually is a legit reason why you might want to speak with them specifically. Otherwise they'll be able to tell you who to turn to.

Always hang up and call back, always make people at the door show you their IDs and take note of their name.

Stay safe out there!

My mom got phished in an EXTREMELY refined scam that pretty much anyone could fall for-- basically her account was already pre-hacked and they spoofed the bank's number exactly, called her pretending there was fraud, and read back legitimate and fake transactions and personal info so she wouldn't suspect they weren't the bank. Then discouraged her from logging in claiming the account was locked so they could investigate the fraud-- all so she wouldnt catch them making massive purchases using her stolen info.

We have the same boss and when she told him what happened he recommended she call the bank directly, so she did and they managed to catch it in time before $20k of transactions went through. Very scary

I guess the lesson here is never ever answer your phone, I love that fraud is so rampant an entire form of mass communication is now useless

ANYONE can fall for phishing scams- my mom is extremely smart and we discuss common scams that target her age demographic and she still fell for this. If it happened to me I may have fallen for it too. Always be careful!

[procrastinatorproject]

A video that made me weirdly emotional, an interview about it that was released today, and the original video the first one was about.

[procrastinatorproject]

I gotta say, one of the greatest achievements of my 20s was that I learned (mostly) to differentiate between:

"I truly do not want to go" and

"I'm just feeling the Demand Avoidance, and I will like it once I get there."

[procrastinatorproject]

You think “oh it would be useful to learn how to identify my thrifted yarn and clothing” and before you know it you’ve been recruited by fiber witches giving out their spells willy nilly, again

[procrastinatorproject]

a good way to inspire yourself to do more is to see yourself as the wacky sitcom B plot character in your friends lives, "wouldnt it be funny to tell the friends in my phone about it." has gotten me to do anything from going to a festival (excelent) to wild camping (it went badly) (coastguard called) to trying to get the train to stonehenge (stonehenge costs money so i ended up just getting lunch in sailsbury, it was okay.) i bought a bicycle today and 20% of my reasoning was "itd be funny to surprise my roommate by coming home with a whole bike." . life is for living. and baby i live for the bit.

[procrastinatorproject]

CLIFF watches her for a moment then goes back to cutting. They work together in total silence for a while. CLIFF stops then and looks at HEFINA again. She doesn’t look up. He smiles, then returns to his pile.

Pride (2014) dir. Matthew Warchus

[procrastinatorproject]

In the “Gonna Buy This Book Instantly On The Strength Of The Cover Alone” dep’t…

The reviews are good, too. But O. M. GGGGGG. 😃

[procrastinatorproject]

I’m starting to sound like a nutcase at work because upper management keeps trying to implement AI programs and AI assistants and Chat GPT and my middle-of-the-road, don’t-infodump, don’t-engage response has been “I don’t like AI”, “I prefer to remain in control of my own tasks”, “I’d rather make my own mistakes”, and “I don’t trust any machine smarter than a toaster”

[procrastinatorproject]

one way to tell if a tv show is good is if it features at least one implied throuple

[procrastinatorproject]

Love this village that Tumblr truly is because it's just us sticking our heads out the window and yelling across the street, "hey, is AO3 down!?"

[procrastinatorproject]

me: Hm, I have an idea for a textured stitch pattern I could use on a sock. A nice, basic sock with some texture, yep.

me: The beginning of the round makes a jog in my repeating texture, which annoys me. I could add a narrow vertical stripe, just a couple of stitches, ribbing maybe, to make the break in the pattern look like an intentional design feature. It's still pretty simple, though.

me: Actually this vertical stripe should be a little wider, more of a decorative panel, so I can put some cable-y things on it.

me: Now I need to decide how to end the textured section, and make a transition into plain stockinette for the foot.

me: plain stockinette is boring, I think it needs a little border just before the toe.

an outside observer, looking at my nearly-finished sock: This looks like it was constructed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini to be installed in the Vatican.