Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Misc. comments 66: ( terminology, the river Thames, recipes and ingredients, family trees, classifying fruit, covid precautions, learning math, subscription prices, reasons for blogging )
( covid vaccination and masking )

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minoanmiss was talking about kids at the place she works trying to get out of math class. amaebi talked about her son's math classes, and I wrote:

Reading this comment, I think part of why I came out of high school still liking math may be the teachers, and another part may be the slightly odd curriculum they were using. It was the "experimental" math track per my high school, and "unified" according to the university that promoted it; we got a lot of the standard material, up to calculus, but also propositional logic (in eighth grade), Cartesian geometry (instead of Euclidean), and combinatorics. The school also had a "regular" math sequence, and students who found experimental too difficult (or, I would guess, whose parents thought it was too weird) could move into those classes, which also led to calculus).

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In response to brithistorian wondering about weird magazine prescription costs:

My guess, beyond late stage capitalism being weird, is that they're somehow still selling advertising to companies based on the number of people who are reading, or at least getting, the print edition.

If so, it benefits them to be sending out more paper copies, even to people who read the digital version and will throw the paper magazines away without opening them. It sounds like the prices of daily newspapers increased when they were selling fewer ads. What I paid at the newsstand in the morning was about enough to cover the paper and printing costs, and the reporters' and editors' salaries, the fees for syndicated comics and columnists, and any profits all were paid for by advertising.

It's not quite "if you aren't the customer, you're the product," but it's a little bit in that direction. At one point, my daily English-language newspaper options in New York included several that cost about 50 cents, plus two free papers given out at subway and railroad station entrances, and the Wall Street Journal and Women's Wear Daily.

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finch was talking about "why do I blog anyway?" and I said:

Part of why I post here is for my own later reference, which includes both things I hope will be interesting to others, and minutiae of stuff like starting on new meds. I made a bunch of posts early in the pandemic because I could feel time just slipping away, then.

My posts here are also about talking to people, which is sometimes conversation and sometimes "here is information I think you might find useful.".

There's a pinned post at the top of my Dreamwidth account page, which says this is [partly] an online substitute for a paper journal, and also invites new readers to introduce themselves.

I am reminded again that some people post a lot more often than others, and that's OK: a "hi, I'm back, yes it's been at least a year, sorry" from one friend, and an apology for not posting often from another, who has posted several times this month.

When I was deliberately posting every day even on days when nothing had happened, in 2020, it was when we were saying things like "what even is time?" and "time is soup."

I just looked at the first few questions on the "365 questions for 2023" post in my sidebar, and don't feel inspired to talk about them.

I also still have a set of me-specific questions from jesse_the_k, which I do hope to post about.

I haven't said this in a while, so:

If there's something I might post about that you find triggering, I'm usually willing to put things behind cut tags. You don't have to explain why, if you can identify what you're asking for. So, using a silly metasyntactic variable, "please put discussions of crottled greeps behind cut tags" is sufficient, why you're asking isn't my business. If even "lj-cut text="discussion of crottled greeps" would be a problem, I could probably do "lj-cut text=exampleusername don't read this."

I may say no to such a request, and would try to say it kindly.

This post was prompted by someone posting in her own journal about why a particular topic is triggering for her. Sharing that was generous of her, and I didn't wait for that post before pinning a private "cut tag this subject" to my journal.

The wandering.shop Mastodon instance (server) is pausing new accounts for probably a few days while they catch up with the growth in activity: "We have gained over 500 accounts and have around 1000 users *active* (up from maybe 100 or so)."

umadoshi just posted a fresh link to her pretty comprehensive guide to using Dreamwidth. It's not official, but includes some links to things that are.

She reposted, and I'm linking to it, because the apparent imminent collapse of Twitter means some people will be looking for other social media sites. DW is not Twitter (which is part of why I like it here, and rarely post(ed) there), but scratches some of the same itch.

I use cut tags for a few topics, either because I'd want other people whose journals I read to hide posts on that subject, or by request.

If there's some a subject you'd like me to hide behind cut tags, please tell me. The most recent addition, I happened to see a friend's post in her own journal about finding the subject triggering.

I'm screening comments on this post, so you can ask me to hide a topic without people knowing that you're the person asking. Even if I decide I don't want to cut tag a subject -- unlikely, but possible -- I won't identify you as the person asking.

Prompted by @lcohen talking about her history with Livejournal and Dreamwidth, I took a look at the very beginning of my journal. The first days has two entries, a mention of an odd typo on a sign, and this:

Wonderful. The office party is tomorrow, and the only thing on my mind is politics, which is not a suitable subject for idle conversation with cow-orkers. Even the play I saw recently was political. Aaargh.

An old LiveJournal tradition, the first sentence of my first post of each month this calendar year. Nothing terribly interesting here, for better or worse:

( Read more... )

I added the subtitle "Don't mourn, organize" after the November 2016 US elections. I just removed it, because it doesn't feel right mid-pandemic. (I am tempted by "Don't just do something, stand there.")