So apparently there's a chance that the English-speaking part of LiveJournal will shut down soon.

Wtf!

IG I'll need to archive some of my favourite webpages T_T

 

Also Happy New Year bitches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mostly everyone is dormant in the podcast world during Void Week, but Tech Won't Save Us got out a cool one: "How Effective Is Australia's Social Media Age Limit?" with Cam Wilson. Cam has been on the show before, before the ban was implemented. It's now only a week or two into the ban, so early to say if it has done anything good for kids, but he talks a lot about the technical challenges, privacy concerns, and the political and economic interests shaping the ban.

I am flat-out against bans like this (though I will listen to opposing POVs) for a bunch of reasons:

1) The disastrous effect it has on queer and trans kids outside of major urban centres.
2) The fact that there is no equivalent ban for chatbots (meaning that lonely, isolated kids will increasingly turn to chatbots rather than other kids for company).
3) The privacy violations and additional surveillance for adult users (i.e., having to upload their face or donate more information for data-mining to prove their age).
4) My general shitlib opinions about free speech, which includes kids.
5) The methodology of the research that suggests social media is bad for kids. To be clear, I think social media is bad for kids, but I don't think the research is very good at proving it.
6) The lack of anything that addresses the real problems that lead to harmful social media practices, which include inaccessibility of public spaces for youth (and older people!), helicopter parenting/overscheduling, policing of parenting (i.e., parents being disciplined for allowing their kids to roam free), algorithmic instead of chronological timelines and post promotion, the infestation of ads/chatbots/surveillance tech in all social media spaces.

Cam doesn't talk enough about the first two issues imo, but he does have very interesting things about the privacy concerns and especially about how other, non-banning solutions, would have produced better results. For example, forcing these companies to build versions of their platforms that were safe for kids would provide an off-ramp from the block and, by extension, make us aware that a safer, better experience is possible for all of us. He also walks us through the process of the ban, its initial aims, what the final legislation looks like, and the way in which campaigns can gain steam very quickly, become watered down by corporate interests, and ultimately declare total victory based on one or two points.

At any rate, it's interesting to listen to, and I hope he does a followup later on so we can see how it worked out on the ground and if it had any positive effects at all.

The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

I'm Ren, I'm in my 40s and a parent, I'm non-binary, married to an American, we live in Wales. I was born in Coventry but have lived in Wales for most of my life (and my grandfather was Welsh).

I have two kids, age 9 and 5, both idetinfyings as girls atm. Flower is all about lego and Tabby is all about cats (and well, Tabby). 

I'm not really into a fandom atm, not in the way I used to be when I was younger. I tend to write and bootle about in whatever show I'm binging at the time, though Stargate remains my fave. I do write orignal stuff as well. I want to write more this year, more of everything, I haven't been writing as much as I used to.

I loved doing the challenge before and wanted to do it again, plus I thought it would be a good way to connect and try to un-isolate myself. I tend to be pretty insular nowadays, both on and offline. Between the anxiety and the kids and my physical health (firbomyalgia), I haven't done much outside of go to work. I started archery last year and started writing again though.

I have a longer about me for my friends list here.

Happy to have more friends on here!

january
february
march
april
may
june
july
august
sept.--movies|books
october
november

comics etc
( Read more... )

gen lit
La fille du Nil (Gilbert Sinoué, t2)
La chambre d'isolement
Histoires mystérieuses t1 (Isaac Asimov, french translation to Asimov's mysteries)
Strange new worlds #2
Cyrano de Bergerac (Edmond Rostand) *
De la terre à la lune (Jules Verne)

YA & children's
( Read more... )

non fiction
Sociologie de Mylène Farmer

films
Lawrence of Arabia
Wonder Woman 1984
Antz
The social network
Blue Jean
I of whom I know nothing

series
DS9, s5e26
Batman the Animated Series
Miraculous Ladybug s3p2
DS9 s6 e1, 2, 3, (4), (5), 6, 7, 9, (11), 18, 19, (20), 24, (26)
and instead of binging Voyager while i stll can i speed-rewatched a choice episodes of
DS9, TNG and TAS + 2 VOY later episodes

on-going stuff
Comme un poisson dans l'arbre
Toutankhamon l'ultime secret, Contes et légendes populaires de Bretagne, Rien ne va plus
The tears of the Singers, Brigands & breadknives, Lo que me queda por vivir
promenons nous dans l'espace (t1)♥, à l'image de mona lisa (t1)
muted ep12 & 13, gunnerkrigg court chp99, tiger tiger interludes, colossale ch 13, oglaf (up to plot thickener + tsa 2025)

VOY s4, Disenchantment, House MD, ST Prodigy s2
VOY s7e(20), 24
DS9 s7e(1, 2), 5, 8, 10, (11), (14), (15), 16, (21),

Happy New Year! Well this is kind of late, haha. It didn't start on on the best note, I hung out with Robyn and when I was pulling out to go home, it was raining and I couldn't see through my rear view camera clearly and I ended up bumping into a parked car across the road. ;_; I felt so stupid, I should have just looked through the rear view mirror, what was I doing! I left them a note about it at least although they haven't called me, and I didn't see any damage, so hopefully it won't turn into anything. I was so mad at myself! I still kind of am, haha. I also misjudged the driveway and took a big thump over the curb which wasn't great. Ugh! Hopefully it won't be a bad omen for the year to come.

In brighter news though, the new merch has come in! :D It's super exciting to see and touch and feel, it's all real! I still haven't worked out the exact logistics about how to set up shipping and all that... and this was just a test run of the charms. But it's so neat to see them anyway!

( There's a restock of the Papyrus shaker keychain but they look the same so I didn't bother posting a shot of them here )

Excited to get the small clasps to put together a real chain and see how it looks! Gotta wait a few days for them to arrive though. There used to be a Joann's Fabrics close by where I could've just run and got them easily but it's shut down now. ;_;

On a more serious note, LJ's started banning people for posting outside of Russia within Russian LJ and adding money/id restrictions there, all of which bodes badly. This thread goes into it a bit more. LJ's gone through a lot of different scares over the years but this one seems really serious. If you have an LJ account you should back it up as soon as you can! I'm working on it myself. I've been mirroring these posts on DW for ages, but that doesn't keep the comments, and I want to save those too!

The thought of LJ really dying makes me so sad... I've spent so much time there. Even with Dreamwidth still up to continue long-form journal posting, losing LJ just feels so wrong. :< I've hung onto LJ all this time, even after almost everybody left, and to finally come to the end of it... it hurts to think about.

lj post

I don't know how coherent this is going to be, but I'm going to give it a shot. Feeling 100% like shit today. Instead of improving, the cough has developed a cold so now I'm sneezing in addition to coughing so much that I sound like a 67 Chevy turning over. Awesome. I hate that for me.

I'm not quite to the point of drowning in snot, but I can see it on the horizon. I fucking hate being sick. I am not good at it, and I tend to be whiny. I'm already over this. I was over it when the first cough hit me, but now I am seriously done. It needs to fuck off and let me get a decent night's sleep. I haven't had one in like three nights thanks to the cough.

I had to cancel the 5th anniversary game of Frostmaiden, which made me sad. I may have shed a couple of tears after I sent the message that I was cancelling. I was just frustrated with my body and upset that I let the players of my second oldest game down. We at least were able to move it to the 9th, so it's not too far off.

TOday, I have work, whether I like it of not. I am realizing that I guessed correctly about going to Philly this weekend. There was just no freaking chance that I could drive nearly 2 hours like this. I'd be pulling over every three minutes to cough my brains out and blow my nose.

Instead, we will have a quiet weekend--no games scheduled til Sunday and that's not one I'm running, so even if I'm not quite fully healed, I can mute myself until I need to talk.

I just have to get through today's shift. I will, but it will probably suck.

Jess is equally sick, if not worse. They had a 99.6 temp yesterday. Not upto the point of a doctor marking it as a fever, but they normally run low, so 99.6 can feel like 100.6. At least they can take it easy today.

Depite cancelling Frostmaiden and the crud, which my sister also has, it was a nice day yesterday. We napped a couple of times and had plenty of good food via doordash and uber eats. The morning was mexican breakfast. I got the Hurrache Albanil, which is a corn tortilla, crema, cheese and two tried eggs on top. It's lovely and filling and very tasty. Right now, things aren't tasting that great. I'm more tired then hungry and when your stuffy like this flavors are muted. That was really tasty though. Jess got mole, which burned right through the stuffiness.

For lunch I ordered Crepes. There's a place in Catonsville caled the Crepe Escape and Creamery that happened to be on Uber. It looked interesting, so I ordered. It was very delicious. Jess got the tropical with mango, pineapple and strawberry with coconut cream inside. I got the Strawberry, bananna, raspberry with coconut cream. I loved it. I couldn't eat all of it, but it was great. I had chocolate truffles and sprinkles on it, which gave it a great texture, in addition to the chocolate tasting amazing. My sister got the strawberry, raspberry and blueberry with whipped cream, which looked lovely. My sister and Jess ate all of theirs, and then Jess finished mine before bed (with my blessing)

Dinner was Bonefish grill, which was somewhat disappointing. My steak sort of sucked, but the Lobster was pretty good. And the Boom Boom shrimp appetizer was as always wonderful.

Today, we'll see if I'm going to be up to cooking after work. I suspect no, but, We'll see. I have some really nice steaks that I could throw on if I'm able to stand for that long.

Okay, time for me to go forth and consider breakfast. I think I'm going to eat leaftover pork souvlaki skewers. Everyone have a most excellent Friday! *air guitar*

Title: "The Morning That Came After The Night That Was The Year Before..."
Artist: magnavox_23
Character/Pairing: Jack/Daniel
Rating: G


Base gratuitously pinched from Bradley Whitford's socials... *g*

January 2026
1,659 books total
256 read (15.4%)

December 2025
1,454 books total
250 read (17.2%)

Andrea arrived at the Historia for breakfast.

“I’m still not sure why you wanted to be here this early,” her mother complained.

“I’m meeting someone, but I wasn’t sure when she’d be here.”

“So you’re going to wait all day? Is it SpiderGirl or Ninja Talon?”

“Could be the latter,” Andrea said.

Her mother turned towards her. “Don’t think that their visits have gone unnoticed, Andrea,” she said quietly.

“I thought you and Dad were asleep.”

“Only one time, but I heard you talking to both of them in your room. I didn’t hear what you were talking about though.”

“Good.”


Andrea ordered her breakfast and read the paper. She found that it was Melinda Parris who had wrote the article on Anders’ fall. ‘I suppose Penelope Jericho is taking her time with her more detailed version.’

( Read More )

✔ Read 45 min. per day.
✔ Drink something while reading. (Soda.)
✔ Log reading/thoughts on DW.
✖ Read an owned, unread book.

Cute Girlfriend spent the night, which was nice. I got some chores done, but now I have a headache.

Current reading: "The Ancient Magus' Bride, Volume 14", by Kore Yamazaki
Minutes read: 49
Pages read: 180
Progress: 100%
( Read more... )

Here are my answers to this week's Friday Five!



1. Do you mostly drink tap, filtered, or bottled water?

At home, filtered, always. When out and about, I try to have a reusable water bottle with me, or ask for filtered water at restaurants, but sometimes I am forced to buy bottled water. 







2. Is it safe/recommended to drink tap water where you live? If not, why?

Nope! I live in a developing country and while the water where I live is decent quality, it's still not potable. Most people use some kind of water filtration/purification system, or buy purified water from commercial vendors. 

3. What does the tap water taste/smell like where you live?

Neutral, with a slight hint of chlorine from the purification process if it's from the municipal supply. I'm lucky to live somewhere with excellent groundwater. 

4. Do you collect rainwater? If so, what do you use it for?

Rainwater harvesting is done by the municipality here and is standard. (I live somewhere prone to droughts.) It's used to replenish the water table. 

5. Do you/have you ever had restrictions on water use where you live? What did you have to change about your lifestyle?

I have been lucky enough to never have had restrictions on water use, because my building has a borewell, so we were almost never dependent on municipal water supplies. There was a period of time where we supplemented the water from the borewell buy buying water commercially, but the thing with living in a drought city is that you're naturally careful about water use - to this day, I only take Navy-style showers, and have a deep and abiding hatred for golf courses. (Seriously, they should not exist in climes drier than Scotland. Why the fuck are there so many in Arizona?!) Seeing California ideas of 'restricted' water usage after growing up with people lining up to fill pots when the water tanker came was a trip, let me tell you. 

One of the DW admins posted this LJ news and the short of it is, it looks like LJ is purposely cutting off its entire non-Russian userbase, either to sell off that part of the site or to just boot it altogether. Get your stuff and whatever else you want downloaded from it NOW, if you haven't already.

We all know what the internet could have been, what it was supposed to be, and yet here we are, in the worst timeline. Happy new year, everyone.


Had two days off for the new year, go back to work tomorrow, then get the weekend off. We're not doing Saturdays at work any more, which is fine by me. The rotating schedule business (one week of MTWTF, one of MTTFS) was really annoying. I'm not doing rotating schedules any more. That's one of my criteria for my new job. No rotating schedules, no surgery, no travel.

I just did something I've had on the back burner for years: I emailed an acquaintance who's a tattoo artist about getting my first tattoo. 🥰