14jan2025

Yeah, I know I was supposed to finish up those xmas beads, but I still haven't fixed up the camera/godox flash problems; and we're getting to the coldest part of winter (which, admittedly isn't nearly as cold I remember my childhood being—correctly, as it turns out—but I'm getting soft in my old age, I guess) so, while I certainly enjoyed the beautiful, large-flaked snowfall we had briefly mid-day, I was in the mood for flowers.

So here we are. And now I have another page onto which to hang all those links, so's I can clear them out...

• weight training and pain: this is one person's experience with the ‘knees over toes’ guy; not sure it will work for an arthritic knee, but it appears to be a more sophisticated version of my physical therapist's ‘as long as your pain is a 3 or lower, keep going’ —cuz hoping pain cures itself thru inaction doesn't seem to work real well. (I've kind of noticed this myself. That said, if you have pain while moving, please see a qualified PT!)
• If pullups are just too hard, mebbe just start with a 60 second hang; I need to strengthen my hands anyway, if I'm gonna start doing etchings, especially scrimshaw, again...
• Using dogs to find Lanternfly egg masses;
• though my initial reaction to the Neil Gaiman accusations was dismay, now I'm just pissed about the betrayal—not just of the victims (whom I noticed tended to be damaged, vulnerable people, something predators identify carefully) but all of his fans for whom his works meant something—especially the ones in marginalized communities who found, hope, solace, inspiration. I'm lucky, the only thing I'll really lose is the make new mistakes quote, which I really, really appreciate—but what about those with shelvesfull of books? That said, this take is the one I've found most useful;
• via slacktivist, “[t]here are many programs trying to reduce recidivism. This one works” and How a would be bomber rebuilt his life had for me fascinating parallels, not least of which is that investing in people when they're young and vulnerable is both easier, and cheaper, than after they become adult [criminal]s. (What would've happened, for example, if Gaiman had been rescued as a child, or entered counseling as a young man? How much suffering, both his own and others, could've been avoided?)
• Also related, treating addiction using a harm reduction model—that is, giving people resources before they've perfectly got their lives in order. Besides the fact that the author herself was an addict and now is doing all this useful work because someone cared enough to help her, the bit that stood out to me was an offhand comment about a surburban family man who could turn away from the siren song of highly addictive oxycodone, even though it was the most fabulous thing ever, because he had his career and family and life to lose, and it wasn't worth it—whereas the average addict doesn't have those alternatives, so of course they're just gonna go, screw it, and take the drugs.
• People with addictions have something to contribute, she says. (You still get to set boundaries, of course: I've deeply admired those who have continued to support family members who've sown chaos & stolen because of their addictions, but I don't think I have it in me to be that generous.) Reminds me of that Bujold quote about throwing geniuses away because they're from poor backgrounds, so never recognized.
• And one last somewhat arty entry, Martha Stewart weighs in on how to make a junk journal. Ha. I've been doing those for years, and other artists even longer. It's just a variation on mixed media, which got its start in the 1920s with the Joseph Cornell and the like. But Stewart claims this is different from scrapbooking...and I s'pose it is—but only in the modern sense! Original scrapbooks were just that—collections of mementos. Where I feel mixed media moves into junk journalling is when it collects unimportant ephemera—not just tickets from treasured experiences, say, but labels from jars, or instructions included with everyday objects. Ironically, the illustrations to the article feature vintage, browned envelopes, postcards from half a century ago, and black and white photos—all things I'm lucky to have acquired (mostly from people have died) but are not the typical person's daily ephemera, which to be honest tend to be brightly coloured, featuring ugly, unattractive graphic design—and more often than not is printed on plastic substrates that are difficult to glue, tear or otherwise use—I should know, I've been fighting with these problems for years.

But, hey-ho, today's entry features flowers, and delicately coloured ones to boot. Enjoy!

7jan2025

So I was reading this dude's rant on pocket why nothing works anymore and now have a rant of my own—as you may have noticed I'm kinda aggressively avoiding the political nonsense on the national level—and the big reason this particular rant annoys me is not that the guy is ranting—we're all allowed to do that—but that he's committing the fallacy that LanguageJones cites in his annual how to learn a language video which is successful learner-youtubers push a particular technique that works for them but isn't universally (or even commonly) applicable and not necessarily supported by science.

Going back to Dr Bogost's rant, he starts out with his three year old's refusal to use ‘magic’ (sensor activated) potties, because the kid is so short it triggers the flush mechanism prematurely, thus frightening the child. Such toilets, he says, waste 3x as much water as the old fashioned kind you had to manually flush. Ditto sensor'ed sinks, that jet water out at full blast.

These, he says, are examples of the declining quality of tech, but a professor who writes books about how to spend your time wisely ought to be able to differentiate between poor tech and the real problem (which he very, very briefly touches upon) which is corporate cheapness: sensored toilets work pretty well—when the sensor, as with our Japanese toilets, is located on the seat, rather than at the back. In another tab, I have an article from Smithsonian magazine about the absolute filthyness of human hands—because they touch things—so I'm all for bathroom design that is touch free (you see this in modern theatre design, where you don't even have to touch an entrance door) because the fewer things you touch, especially in public places, the less likely you're to pick up (or distribute) fomites.

This means, not having to touch toilet, sink, and paper towel, even soap dispenser handles is a good thing. But he's mourning the (loss of) sensory delight of yanking out paper towels unimpeded (which, yeah, nice, but honestly, people [like him?] who pull out too much have spoiled it for the rest of us), or flushing toilets by hand (ugh) .

His is most certainly not a universal experience!

In his view, those automations merely mean fewer workers to clean the bathroom. (How? —I can see how public restroom hand dryers, which a lot of people, myself included, don't like, presumably because they're slower, much noisier, plus they deprive the user of a handy cover to open the bathroom door, though I expect they're more ecologically sensible, at least for the vast majority of people who throw the paper towel out [and yes, I cart them home & use them to wipe up bead release off my table, then compost them, because it clogs the plumbing system to use washable rags] —nobody seems to be arguing for a return to those unsanitary cloth towels of days gone by).

I haven't noticed that the sensors have substantially reduced cleanup time, or, to be more precise, (since I haven't cleaned a public restroom in about 50 years & don't actually know how much of an impact the new tech has had) how much impact its had on the cleanliness of bathrooms, which I'm using as a proxy—after all people still drop toilet paper on the floor, and the tampon collectors still need to be emptied at the same rate. I mean, places that post cleaning schedules seem to imply a once-an-hour check, and that's about what I recall, too.

Personally, I love the way tech has improved not only toilets, but dishwashers (which waste less water than cleaning dishes by hand) washing machines (which freed women from a major household chore), furnaces, induction cooktops (so much safer than gas & more efficient than the old electric coils...) not to mention the plethora of devices that didn't even exist when I was a child. Microwaves for the win!

I expect low information (for values of whatever the topic is at hand—I, frex, am a very low information person regarding football, so I'm not necessarily being pejorative here) folks to make this error, but not professors writing books on how to spend your time wisely, for which these modern (in)conveniences are clearly adjacent.

But bitching about tech is easy. Fixing the power imbalance between the average schmoe and corporate America is not. Identifying an imperfect, annoying piece of tech is easy. Understanding why manufacturers, in our profit driven economy have prioritzed half-assed decisions amongst a myriad of factors (which all boil down to money, really) is more complex.

But with so much misinformation out there, it behooves those of us who (presumably) have the resources to filter it, not to give into clickbaity impulses, and lay the blame squarely where it belongs: on greedy people.

That said, this bead is a sample, and the design needs work, so perhaps I too am being a bit selfish inflicting it upon you. But perhaps I'll figure those bugs out, along with a bunch of other projects; but as a first pass, it's not too bad.

6jan2025

For those of you who celebrate it, Happy Epiphany—I happen to have a good friend with a birthday on this date, so the 12th day of xmas is generally a positive for me.

On even numbered years I celebrate the xmas hols with my sibs and their families, which is a roundabout way of saying since I'm out of town, I tend not to post over the holidays. (Was looking over last year and was so impressed that I managed 12 days of xmas posting—not this time!)

I did, in fact, post most of the 2022 giftwrapping, but none of the beads I made as family mementoes, and since my flash isn't talking to my camera (resolving this issue is clearly on the list of New Year's resolutions) I've yet to take any studio shots of the latest batch. So! 2022 it is, starting with this gift, which serves as an intro to the 2022 xmas bead colour scheme:)

2jan2025

Happy New Year.

I did not expect my retirement years to be, um, so excitingly...chaotic. I have fond hopes that the current turmoil will be a turbulent prelude to an ultimately better, kinder, more just world; but I'm not a fan of the idea of hitting bottom before coming back up. Wages were depressingly flat during my working years, but things seemed relatively okay; I do wonder what sort of impact all this is gonna have on young people growing up in it. I worry about them.

I want to make more art, and spread more beauty and kindness in the world. To that end, here's a webpage of a drawing I made to bring in the new year—it's imperfect, but then, so are we; and nevertheless it can still have some value.

Take care.

5dec2024

Well, yesterday? we were all s'posed to post this ‘LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back’ meme, which as a bona fide non-cis person you'd think I could get right, but nooooooo, cuz I'm always behind.

Currently reading a m/m reinterpretation of Pride and Prejudice as recommended by NPR, Gabe Cole Novoa's Most Ardently, which for obvious reasons needed to be relocated to London (Longborn, Elizabeth Bennet's home, is nowhere near London) in order for there to be enough of a queer community for the characters to interact with, but the author could've stood to have done a better job to make alternate-history geography apparent: as it was, I was scratching my head wondering how Oliver (the Elizabeth character) could go to a big fair, then an impossibly large bookstore while living near a tiny village, then wait, wut? only Darcy could afford more than one book? Did the author not realize Jane Austen and her family, despite their finances (probably) being about the same (or worse) than the Bennets’, were all ‘great novel readers’? By the time we got to the Watiers invite, I'd concluded the Bennets were not living in the country, but couldn't help wondering whether they even let minors in the infamous gambling club, let alone have a special night for them?

The author also refers to Oliver Bennet and Darcy as ‘boys’ which was super grating, because the original characters were very much adults—legally and emotionally. In this version, only Bingley (& mebbe Jane?) seem to be grown-up, which comes off very strange, as Darcy is the elder and Bingley's mentor in the original, whereas here the roles are sort of reversed...?

Plus, I don't think regency era people ‘processed’ their feelings. Reviewed, examined, considered, perhaps—but not processed, which strikes me as corporate-speak escaped into the wild. I mean, here's Elizabeth, frex, after receiving that pivotal letter from Darcy that flipped her opinion prejudice of him:

After wandering along the lane for two hours, giving way to every variety of thought, reconsidering events, determining probabilities, and reconciling herself, as well as she could, to a change so sudden and so important...

—Austen, Pride & Prejudice, end of ch 36

But I'm only a quarter of the way in, so the story could very much improve!

But keeping with the Janite theme, here are some comments on two Austen related stories I did finish; and in the meantime, stay strong, everyone, cuz I don't really think the world is gonna be a better place if we return to a state in which a reasonably liberally reared teenager could be unaware of gay people's existence. (Why yes, that was me, half a century ago. The 70s wasn't weren't all peace and love.)

UPDATE: fixed link, minor formatting & grammatical errors

18nov2024

Ok, nobody needs to read yet another political rant, so I kinda buried that. On to linkies.

• the physics of curly hair. (With chemistry;)
• Boing boing, to use Cory Doctorow's phrase, has become entirely enshittified, but here's one of the very last interesting posts, about the highest order rubik's cube that's been built—it weighs (iirc) nearly a hundred pounds and requires a supporting frame to reposition. Somebody did a lot of 3D printing to make this thing.
• Fabulous and ferocious feminist northwest coast's masks
• A US sitcom (that I never watched) converted to an even more successful Russian one. Superb casting, copying the script but subbing in localized jokes made this show about a dysfunctional family work.

That you could just straight-ahead convert a script was not something that would occur to me. I s'pose this was the equivalent of that famous comic artist who said, never draw what you can copy, never copy what you can trace, never trace what you can just sub in. Or more charitably, don't reinvent the wheel.

So, here's a new gifwrap that riffs on designs I've been doing for awhile. But it's the first non-doodle art I've made since the election, so I'll take it.