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“I have never regretted what I was born worn. Only what other people choose to make of it.” — Anya Ow

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I love this so much.

Sometimes it feels like you've lived your whole life in a house that's always a little bit on fire. Like it's usually just in one room and you make sure to wet the walls around it so it doesn't spread and that usually works. You were expected to take more responsibility over fire containment when you were like seven because it's not like you can expect your parents to always be 100% on guard about making sure the whole house doesn't catch fire, and you figure that's just how things are like.

And sometimes as a kid you visit your friends' homes and some of then whisper to you - grimacing with embarrassment - about how they're not supposed to tell anyone this, but there's a whole room in their house that's currently on fire. And you're like yeah it's ok I'm not supposed to tell people about the way our house is a little bit on fire all the time, too. And then you visit some other friend's house and there's no trace of fire anywhere, and you think "wow, these people are really good at hiding their house fire."

And one day you show up to work like "hey sorry I'm late, I forgot to wet the walls before going to bed last night and my whole house burned down", and you're startled by the way people react, acting like that must be the worst thing that has ever happened to you. And you're just like "chill, it's been years since the last time this happened, and it wasn't even that bad this time", and that just makes people more shocked, acting like that's the weirdest and most concerning thing they've ever heard anyone say, which only confuses you more.

And then someone tries to explain to you that people aren't supposed to have an ongoing house fire. Most people actually never experience a house fire in their lives. Like not even once. Not even a little bit. The normal amount of having your house be currently on fire is zero.

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Never assume wickedness when it could just be incompetence.

And maybe consider that most of us are wicked and incompetent from time to time.

Ok, well, not you. Of course not you. Sorry. I meant me.

not to sound like a christian facebook mom but some of yall need to have grace in your hearts for the people in your lives or the people you pass once on the road and never see again like you literally need to stop assuming the worst of everyone and their intentions it is poisoning your brain. you can be careful and responsible without being a miserable person. it is possible i promise

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Our baseline state is ignorance.

I understand why a lot of fantasy settings with Ambiguously Catholic organised religions go the old "the Church officially forbids magic while practising it in secret in order to monopolise its power" route, but it's almost a shame because the reality of the situation was much funnier.

Like, yes, a lot of Catholic clergy during the Middle Ages did practice magic in secret, but they weren't keeping it secret as some sort of sinister top-down conspiracy to deny magic to the Common People: they were mostly keeping it secret from their own superiors. It wasn't one of those "well, it's okay when we do it" deals: the Church very much did not want its local priests doing wizard shit. We have official records of local priests being disciplined for getting caught doing wizard shit. And the preponderance of evidence is that most of them would take their lumps, promise to stop doing wizard shit, then go right back to doing wizard shit.

It turns out that if you give a bunch of dudes education, literacy, and a lot of time on their hands, some non-zero percentage of them are going to decide to be wizards, no matter how hard you try to stop them from being wizards.

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If someone says. “who cares what other people say?” my response is usually, “Everyone. Everyone cares. It’s why you get embarrassed if you fart in an elevator.”

Don’t make me ashamed of my insecurity. I have enough problems.

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Being mean to strangers online feels like yelling at a car that cuts you off. Except that they can see what you say, so doing it makes you an asshole.

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The proportions in the AI girlfriend ads are strange enough that I feel bad for budding robosexuals. If that’s what they need they should at least get decent art.

But then I guess it’s this generation’s dakimakura, so realism isn’t the goal.

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If you have bad stuff in your life and your friend won’t let you refer to it, they aren’t a friend. They are an acquaintance.

Having a traumatic childhood means you cannot talk even objectively about your basic foundational experiences without it being "venting", even if you're not actually venting. You just straight up have a huge chunk of your life you can't talk about, full stop, without it being trauma dumping.

And it not being socially acceptable to talk about your own childhood is super alienating. Sometimes people want to know why, and any answer you can give them is going to be off putting.

It's to the point I get irritated when something I said is framed as venting when I'm literally just talking about my life experiences, doing my best to keep emotion out of it.

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Touch the Love.

I had a boss that would say that to me. She was a designer that later opened a new age retail store. She was sincere, grounded, and funny. A good person. Idealistic, who believed that intentions affected outcomes.

Maybe they do, but not enough in this case. Channeling energy doesn’t help if there is no foot traffic. And catering to rich hippies wasn’t a great plan even then. Everyone wanted to do it, because it let them dream their dreams while chasing money.

But, you know, if you want to sell stuff, and you don’t want to create a bullshit “need” with marketing, then you have to look at the needs people already have. My liking something doesn’t guarantee that there is a market for it, especially if I’m not flexible about where I sell. So the store didn’t do so well.

But that’s beside the point.

She would say, “touch the love” because she believed that touching things made you fall in love with them. Or it could.

Now, decades later, I’m learning about how the sensory system is a fundamental part of cognitive development. And, in an era where sapience is being imitated by agents with no access to complex sensation, I am thinking a lot about how all meaning is derived from the senses at some point.

Our senses matter. Very much. As we grow more isolated an deprived of sensation, I worry. I know there is great creativity and kindness in much of the younger generations. And I deeply appreciate the wealth of knowledge available to me in this digital era.

I just would like to remind whoever might read this that sensation is very important. Tangibility is a wonderful thing.

Y’all have a nice night.

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The idea of having no choice but to use Chat GPT is so strange. The only way I can think of that being true is if you have to sift large amounts of data in a short period of time, and your job depended on it. But it would have to be non-exploratory , otherwise you are missing any useful rabbit holes.

Are people saying they need it for, what, writing? It’s not you writing, though. If someone wants writing from you, usually the fact that you do it is important. They want to see how you communicate, how you think, or what you know. Maybe you are supposed to learn something by writing. So having ChatGPT do it is just not doing it and lying about it. The goal is not accomplished.

I know AI can do good things. But we, as a species, are foolish with our toys.

My main worry with AI is more that it is making us stupid and uncreative, and it’s blocking person-to-person communication. It takes the problem of people not reading or being able to watch a full movie and expands it. The loss of creative jobs and the plagiarism are both important, but I think the loss of skill and connection is going to be more harmful in the end.

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Privacy extension for Chrome

If anyone wants it, here is an extension for Chrome that tells Google Analytics not to collect your data. Google made it, take that as you will:

The same site has a link to a Facebook cookie killer, that seems worthwhile, so here it is:

Hey, this one removes social media buttons, that seems good:

That's all, good luck.

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No choice? Fuck, that’s depressing.

The only time we don’t have a choice is when someone’s survival is at stake. Everything else is about comfort and convenience.

"I know chatgpt is bad but you just don't really have any choice" you literally do. Don't use it. Have some moral backbone.

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I hate the word “kiddos.” It’s just so twee. From what I see in the Momosphere, this may mean I am a horrible, dried-up husk of a woman. Ah, well.

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saying “be safe” like a spell that’ll protect them

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was talking to my mom about how white people ignore the contributions of poc to academia and I found myself saying the words "I bet those idiots think Louis Pasteur was the first to discover germ theory"

which admittedly sounded pretentious as fuck but I'm just so angry that so few people know about the academic advancements during the golden age of Islam.

Islamic doctors were washing their hands and equipment when Europeans were still shoving dirty ass hands into bullet wounds. ancient Indians were describing tiny organisms worsening illness that could travel from person to person before Greece and Rome even started theorizing that some illnesses could be transmitted

also, not related to germ theory, but during the golden age of Islam, they developed an early version of surgery on the cornea. as in the fucking eye. and they were successful

and what have white people contributed exactly?

please go research the golden age of Islamic academia. so many of us wouldn't be alive today if not for their discoveries

people ask sometimes how I can be proud to be Muslim. this is just one of many reasons

some sources to get you started:

but keep in mind, it wasn't just science and medicine! we contributed to literature and philosophy and mathematics and political theory and more!

maybe show us some damn respect

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Terry Pratchett wrote my brain

I was rereading a bunch of his quotes, and he was just so freaking fantastic. I've never read any author that had that combination of wit, wisdom, and rage. And a deep, thoughtful compassion. Packaged in a large collection of extremely goofy fantasy stories. So here is today's Terry Pratchett quote. I will post these as often as I can remember.:

"You couldn’t say: It’s not my fault. You couldn’t say: It’s not my responsibility. You could say: I will deal with this. You didn’t have to want to. But you had to do it." - Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

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You know what the essence of love is for me? Dealing with shit. Literally.

Putting a hot compress on my first cat’s infected booty.

Dealing with the various and abundant grossness that came out of my daughter.

My grandmother diapering her husband as he became disabled.

I think if you love someone long enough, you end up dealing with gunk.

And, personally, I’m ok with that. There are a lot of things I’m not very good at. But when I’m giving that kind of care, I know it’s good enough. It’s enough love, at least for that moment.