Local moth fairy loves lämp, more at 11 @elfi@pixie.town

it's time to spin the... [crowd chanting] WHEEL! OF! DHARMA! [it slows to a crawl near "nirvana" but clicks over one more to "reincarnation as a slug"]

Real talk here folks:

My rent is more than my entire #ODSP cheque.

I have $1000/mo health costs not covered by #OHIP

I have been sent home from ER instead of admitted because of bed availability, not my need for care.

There have been times I've been left alone literally starving in my home without care or support.

If you care about affordable housing, health care, or the social safety net actually catching you, #VOTE Feb 27th.

#ONpoli #ontarioElection

NAACP lists companies that dump #DEI in its tactical spending guide for Black Americans - I love the idea of a ‘tactical spending guide’. #NoBuy #Boycott #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackMastodon #BLM https://apnews.com/article/black-consumers-dei-buying-guide-naacp-34664d8af92e2dc1ba787a498348b7a4

The Three Sisters are squash, beans, and corn, grown together by indigenous Americans whose roots invigorate the soil and help one another grow. Haudenosaunee myth has them being a byproduct of Earth Mother's dying desire to sustain her children with good food. #MythologyMonday

Btrfs = Bocchi the rock file system

A straight white guy friend was complaining about not being able to find any gaming groups for WoW that weren't full of MAGA assholes. He said he keeps joining guilds with older (60+) casual gamers like himself because he can't keep up with the kids, and he'll start to make friends, but then they will reveal themselves to be Trump-lovers. He asked, "What am I doing wrong?"

I said, "First of all, your screen name is Russian. Leftys are gonna be wary of that, and the Alt-right loves it.
Second, you should put some social signals in your bio, like pronouns."

"Okay, but how do I tell people I'm cool, but I'm not gay or trans?"
I explained to him what "cis" and "ally" mean. He had never heard of this before, which showed me what kind of online spaces he was landing in.

Next, I said, "Look for the furries."
"But, I'm not a furry?"
"Yes, but the presence of furries are like lichen. They are a sign of a healthy ecosystem."

This was about 3 months ago. Now, he tells me he joined a guild labeled as LGBTQ-friendly and has made several new cool friends. He says, "I thought they would be talking about sex all the time but it's just a regular group." He mentioned that there are many women and PoC in the group too, and "Everyone's so nice on dungeon runs, telling people they did a good job and being supportive, sharing loot."

I didn't tell him that this is what the whole world would be like without patriarchal toxic masculinity, because I think he figured it out himself.

Google is so powerful that it "hides" other search systems from us. We just don't know the existence of most of them.
Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information.

Keep a list of these sites for reference:

https://refseek.com

https://worldcat.org

https://link.springer.com

https://bioline.org.br

https://repec.org

https://science.gov

https://base-search.net

Apropos of Amazon.com soon removing the download to USB function for #Kindle purchases, here's a reminder that sellers can restrict the uses of digital media and users of other proprietary booksellers like #Kobo should also consider downloading their books and removing #DRM restrictions. I've put together a guide for how to do this with Kobo purchases on an #ArchLinux environment, and it may be helpful for other setups as well. https://ljwrites.blog/posts/kobo-drm-removal/

* Edited to reflect a fact-check on what function Amazon.com is actually removing. See @rowyn's helpful comment and ensuing thread for more! https://mastodon.art/@rowyn/114013913813834865

btw, if you want a cheap computer:

ex-corporate kit on eBay is a goldmine. desktops, laptops. reasonably powerful desktops are SO CHEAP. many vendors with a 6mo warranty too.

(if you want usable graphics, business PCs with AMD chips have Ryzen graphics and not the Intel rubbish.)

attention trans fem futches and butches

this is a selfie inspection checkpoint