This week in squirrels…

Summary

  • Streaming has been a mixed bag lately. Twitch changed the way they count viewers, so my views are much lower now. Now I show streaming to nobody for large swaths of time, which may be a reflection of my lack of popularity/discoverability.
    • Still, I am trying to improve my speaking and presenting, so I will master the “being on” to nobody skill.
    • Ironically, I had an excellent late-week stream. Having even a few people around can really change the tone and feel, but also, I am getting better at swerving and filling time. Working on my speaking skills is part of the point.
  • UUUUUUUgh. My old friend amdgpu: ring gfx_0.0.0 timeout is back. I swore I was rid of this. It only happened once, but still, crashes and resets on the tower I work from are agonizing.
  • New medications I am taking are working wonders. I am still experiencing some energy issues. However, things are significantly better overall, particularly regarding fluid retention and mobility. I don’t feel like an overstuffed sausage constantly anymore. During my monthly massage, I received comments about less intense fluid buildup and lymphatic draining going far more easily than usual.
  • It’s shocking the amount of time I can burn just tweaking tech stuff, but I swear my blog has almost all of its annoyances out the window and done with. I even made a sharing profile.
    • Mastodon was frustrating the heck out of me because I couldn’t get cards to work, and then four days later… it just worked! Not sure if my blog became more magical, or if I really needed to let Mastodon catch up.
    • Either way, I have cards and more blog posts. I am sticking to my twice-weekly cadence and want to see if I can maintain this for three or four months to really make it a habit.
  • More upgrades! This week, for the Apple stuff, macOS 26 Tahoe came out. Not all of my equipment is new enough to upgrade; I have a lot of equipment, but I don’t constantly replace most of it until it actually has issues.
    • The Apple TV experience was fascinating. The moment it booted into a new OS, it was significantly faster. Much less typing and click lag, everything is moving faster.
    • Obsidian is ultra buggy on iPad, constantly forcing itself into a phone-width screen with a large white bar at the side.
    • Yet, Some apps are really doing the new UI well, I am looking at you infuse and overcast.
    • The new UI is mostly fine, but I keep hitting text that is unreadable due to background showing through, especially in the Photos app. I do like now a lot of the design language evokes the early Mac OS X design language with the oval buttons, lots of frosted glass, and round lickable everything.
    • They removed how sidebar apps and split screen apps worked on the iPad, and I really loathe the new way to do split screen. It’s far more clumsy and finicky.
  • Exciting news! Well, the precursor to exciting news. A commission I have been waiting on for a very long time is out of the backlog and into work. I’m going to have a full-body Live2D model with some great toggles and outfits. My excitement can hardly be contained.
  • It’s been raining most of the week, and while it’s brought tonnes of humidity, it’s also lowered temperatures into the low 30s. 30s are not quite window-open-all-day temps, but at least I can get some more airflow in the house. Sadly, I also struggle with humidity, which has been particularly challenging.
  • I didn’t mention the murder last week, and honestly, I am even less interested in talking about it this week. Still, I also find it very difficult to avoid it or give it an excess of mental space due to the changes that are being pushed from it.
    • Everything that is transpiring are things many of us knew deep down were going to happen the moment a big enough event could trigger it, but it makes it no less difficult for those being targeted. And for those people being targeted, listen to Black people. They have been through this before.

Books

  • Brewing Up Bedlam (Magic and Mishaps): Still In Progress
  • Whisper me a Love Song, Vol 9: ⭐⭐⭐
    • I feel like, if not for the rough paneling and the fact that the ultra-rough anime already spoiled the end of this arc long ago, I could give this 4-5 stars, but for now, it’s pushed down to the weakest book in the series for me. I have high hopes for the next arc, though.

Music

  • HEALTH: I keep coming back to VOL4 and Rat Wars… I have this nagging feeling I should like this group more than I do, but I just haven’t given it a good enough listen… IDK. The pandemic collabs are still excellent.
  • Clipping.: I think Clipping.’s latest album is their weakest work to date, but it doesn’t change Clipping. from being one of my favorite acts.
  • Sewerslvt: Jvne re-posted the vent music session she did after her girlfriend committed suicide, “Tortvred Lesbians Ripped Apart.” I waxed and waned on buying the 22-minute-long track, but eventually caved and bought it. It’s excellent but also very intense, especially when you know the context that it is essentially one long building scream of pain and loss.

Reads and Vids

I know my links have been obnoxiously dark this week, but there are so many fascinating stories about various dark patterns and trends popping up. I offer some apology for how intense some of them are, and made sure to add some fun stuff too.

  • The Les Claypool Interview: I swear I am not an old music lady who yells at cloud, but yes, I do watch Rick Beato, and this Primus interview was so good.
  • A picture of me became a meme and things got weird: the sub-topic of this video is the communal and sociological bonding purposes of memes. It’s a fascinating topic, not too deep a dive, but a fun one.
  • Republicans embrace speech limits & Republicans are honoring Charlie Kirk’s memory by declaring war on the First Amendment: These are two of many writings I am seeing that are all leading to the conclusion that this murder is being made into the zeitgeist needed to consolidate power and strip rights, ala Timothy Snider’s writings. A lot of people in my circle are struggling with the erosion of their own humanity; it is amplified so much harder with the “when we die, it’s righteous, when y’all die, it’s a tragedy” attitude. To quote something that I sat with for a while,

    He would wear blackface and tap dance on my grave and so I don’t know how I am supposed to feel about the fact he was killed; and what does that mean about my ability to get in touch with my own humanity? … I’m tired of playing the moral superiority game, I get nothing for it, and so I am unmoved." - Sharhonda Bossier on “Pod Save the People”

  • Michigan Lawmakers Are Attempting to Ban Porn Entirely: Normally, I would roll my eyes at something like this and not share it, but right now, I earnestly believe this has a shot at going somewhere, which is disturbing and links back to my point about the acceleration of locking down and restricting speech.
  • Massive Attack Turns Concert Into Facial Recognition Surveillance Experiment: Hot on the heels of the coldplay ceo incident, Massive Attack threw down pretty hard. As an infosec person, I was aware of this surveillance alongside device tracking and other forms of “casual” but extreme daily monitoring when you go out. My question is, will this actually start a useful conversation or be a one-off stunt?
  • I think I know why (YouTube) views dropped: A fascinating deep dive into an issue with view counts many creators and streamers have been talking about, including a lot of information and graphs from many channels and research into what is a likely cause. If all of the things shake out as stated, it may finally pit most content creators against their ad-blocking content consumers. I am already seeing videos from people pushing viewers to support them in other ways.
  • Dark patterns killed my wife’s Windows 11 installation: I fight using local things that require me to have an online account to access them. It’s a trash pattern, and this is a fascinating dive into how a horrible chain of events can’t lock you out of a desktop because you bought a new phone.
  • This was never about “open dialogue”: So many things flooding past my feeds are about how ragebait and this faux debate rage content is causing issues like what happened this week. But this is a more interesting discussion on it.
  • Hypocrisy is the point: It is, it’s about being able to be above the rules that you make others follow

Quote of the Week

Someone asked if I was ready for the fall, and it actually took me a moment to realize that they meant autumn, not the complete collapse of democracy.