As I'm doing a lot of accessibility testing these days I feel like I need to re-share this 5 year old blog post. :)
So I've learned that RedBox has gone bankrupt and is shutting down. Apparently property owners are getting quotes as high as $1000 from companies who will contract to haul the machines away. I know several hackers interested in them, however, and would be willing to take one or two for free. If you are in central Florida and have a RedBox machine you no longer want on your property, you can reach out to me and I'll put you in touch with someone who will take care of it for you and re-home it.
cw boost: fucking neonazis pretending they aren't
I'm currently really enjoying these mixes: https://www.youtube.com/@Shell_PL/videos - high variety and only uplifting, it seems!
CW-boost: politics, philosophy, agency, centrism
geklaag over FTM, content warnings
Hoewel ik content warnings graag meer gebruikt zie worden, zal ik iets of iemand niet snel direct erop aanspreken.
Maar FTM maakt het wel heel erg bont; dan denk je een artikel te gaan lezen over retentie van gegevens door politie, dan krijg je ineens een gedetailleerde omschrijving van een gruwelijke moord in je gezicht gegooid in de inleiding, zonder enige waarschuwing vooraf.
What the fuck, FTM, had daar nou echt even geen waarschuwing vooraf vanaf gekund? Dit gaat echt wel heel erg ver.
I think the biggest thing the furry fandom can do is learn to be better community managers within our niche but open communities, be they fediverse servers, discord chats, streaming communitys, or whatever. And that's a hard and sometimes complicated thing to do. It starts with being good neighbors to each other, a little mutual respect for bounderies and shared spaces. Cooperation and communication.
Furries Are Losing the Battle Against Scale - Dhole Moments https://soatok.blog/2024/05/30/furries-are-losing-the-battle-against-scale/
dentist, positive, details and advice
There are three main things that helped me get my teeth into a healthy state:
1. I changed toothpaste to Elmex. I don't generally care about brands, but crucially their formulation is different and it doesn't cause slimy-throat for me like most other toothpastes do. The exact reason is unclear to me. It made it much less unpleasant.
2. I got an electric toothbrush (one of those 'sonic' things, but from Lidl) that is waterproof and so can be used under the shower. This made it easy to integrate into my evening shower routine, so I could brush my teeth in relaxing comfort (important because my Tourettes is triggered by repetitive movements... like brushing teeth, and I need to be very relaxed to suppress this).
3. I got a water flosser, one of those that pumps water into high-speed bursts. Instead of just flossing, I also aim it carefully between my teeth and gums, to flush out the crap that's causing inflammation and infection. This is important because my executive dysfunction prevents me from reliably brushing twice a day, and so it builds up. An alternative but less pleasant solution is to use chlorhexidine mouthwash (note that it can have side effects).
These things, combined with a long-running deliberate effort to get things in order, and quarterly teeth cleaning at a very helpful dentist as a temporary measure, are what helped me ultimately get my teeth in very good shape again - after a literal decade of barely brushing due to a litany of brain and disability issues, and never visiting a dentist.
Long story short: yes, it's possible to recover from even very bad dental hygiene. But you need to think very deliberately about *what* it is that is preventing good dental hygiene for you, and try to find concrete solutions to it. Just "trying to remember harder" is not going to fix it, regardless of what your parents/friends/etc. say.
There are most likely many other solutions to these issues too, if the above are not accessible to you for any reason.
And most of all, there's more than one way to get there. The nominally 'correct' way isn't necessarily the right way, when things like disability get in the way. Sometimes you just need something different that does the same job better for you. There is no shame in that.
dentist, positive
I have reached infection zero 👏
Just visited dentist to have a final check before transplantation, and they found zero current issues; only a slight risk of future issues for my wisdom teeth, but they are currently issue-free (and the risk of removing them could actually be bigger).
This has been a many-year project for me, honestly, and it started before I knew I needed a transplantation.
Hey fedi, let's play a new(?) game! It's called "Stories That Could Have Happened".
The game: Someone picks a phenomenon, a saying, an event, or something else, where we don't actually know for sure how it happened or came to exist, and then we collectively write a Story That Could Have Happened about its origins! It doesn't need to be true or based on history!
There are only a few base rules, to keep it fun and non-confrontational for everybody:
1. You can either post a top-level reply to start a new story about the topic, or reply to someone else to continue on their story chain so far.
2. If you reply to someone else, you must either add to it or refine it with more nuance - you cannot outright contradict their post!
3. Posting with public visibility is encouraged, but make sure to add the #StoriesThatCouldHaveHappened hashtag, so that people can mute it if they want.
4. Keep your post short, and leave enough room for the next person to build on it.
So, anyone up for playing? 🙂 Let's start with this topic:
"Turning lead into gold"
Where did the idea come from?
twitter, DMA, EU
So, Twitter is no longer designated as a "core platform service" (gatekeeper) under the DMA. Twitter's reasoning for this is.... interesting:
"First, X Holdings Corp. argues that X does not constitute an important gateway
for business users to reach end users within the meaning of Article 3(2)(b) of
Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 for the following reasons: (i) X is not part of a
digital/platform ecosystem, (ii) X operates on a small, decreasing scale, and (iii)
X’s relative user engagement is low and declining"
ref. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202441/DMA_100041_631.pdf and https://ec.social-network.europa.eu/@EUCommission/113316593914664643
Technical debt collector and general hype-hater. Early 30s, non-binary, ND, poly, relationship anarchist, generally queer.
Sometimes horny on main (behind CW), very much into kink (bondage, freeuse, CNC, and other stuff), and believe it or not, very much a submissive bottom :p
Feel free to flirt, but if you want to actually meet up and/or do something with me, lewd or otherwise, please tell me explicitly or I won't realize :) I'm generally very open to that sort of thing!
Further boundaries: boosts are OK (including for lewd posts), DMs are open. But the devil doesn't need an advocate; I'm not interested in combative arguing in my mentions. I am however happy to explain things in-depth when asked non-combatively.
My spoons are limited, so I may not always have the energy to respond to messages.
Strong views about abolishing oppression, hierarchy, agency, and self-governance - but I also trust people by default and give them room to grow, unless they give me reason not to. That all also applies to technology and how it's built.