Random Miscellany Blog

Side blog for the stuff that doesn't fit the theme of my 200 other blogs.

[liberalsarecool]

The bubble is nigh.

[animentality]

[what-even-is-thiss]

Health classes really ought to teach people what the beginning stages of addiction are like because a lot of people don’t realize they’re addicted to something until they’re years deep into it.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Signs you might be getting addicted to something:

If you go without it you feel unwell in a way that you never usually feel unwell. Sweating, tired, sleepy, headaches, irritable, depressed, etc. For example when I was in opium withdrawal I got incredibly depressed in a way that I’ve never been before or since. When you quit caffeine you might get super bad headaches even if you never usually get any headaches.

Thoughts of it regularly bother you and the thoughts go away once you’ve taken it but only temporarily. Unlike with a food craving which usually stays away once you’ve satisfied it or distracted yourself from it.

You find yourself rationalizing with yourself why you should break your own rules about how much you can take and how often. For example you might only let yourself drink alcohol every four days but start thinking that three days is actually close enough to four days, right? Especially if this happens regularly.

You’re using it so often that you feel the need to lie about how much you use because other people might think it’s concerning

If the substance or activity is nearby it’s genuinely difficult to not consume it or participate in it in a way that’s really frustrating.

You feel bad when you’re not on it and your brain tells you “if you just take the thing you wouldn’t feel this way”

You can only feel “whole” or “normal” when you’re on a substance even though it’s a recreational drug

And if you read this and think you might be addicted to something, don’t panic and don’t feel ashamed. Realizing you’re addicted to something isn’t a failure. It’s more information about your health that you can use to manage your condition, whether you want to get rid of your addiction or not.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Health classes really ought to teach people what the beginning stages of addiction are like because a lot of people don’t realize they’re addicted to something until they’re years deep into it.

[omgthatdress]

ily, menswear guy

[hometoursandotherstuff]

The C.E. Morris Mansion looks like a gray brick vampire's house. The 1895 Romanesque Revival home, built in 1895 in Columbus, OH has 7bds, 5ba, 6,649sqft, and had a price drop of $495k to $1.895m.

Definitely a vampire castle.

The entrance hall has 2 stairways.

Look at the fireplace. Of course, the entrance is so large, it functions as a massive sitting/reception room.

Very large dining room.

This room has a small round table. Looks like it could use a crystal ball.

In here there's a rounded tower room with another stone fireplace.

It's also a library/office.

The kitchen's crazy. Look at all the carved wood and the marble.

It's so huge. The fridge has a front that looks like an old ice chest.

Above the stove, there's like a little fireplace with logs.

Some of architectural features were salvaged from a local Methodist church.

This little half bath is on the stair landing.

Huge bedroom.

Looks like a dumb waiter.

A home office.

These bedrooms are crazy big.

You can see some church elements in this room, including a stained glass window hanging.

This room in the turret is a modern TV room with an observatory and night sky ceiling.

Looks like a craft space.

And, then b/c the house is so large, there's another big kitchen. It even features a fireplace.

Nice bedroom up here.

Large retro style bath.

There's also stuff in the basement. There are over 100 photos on the listing and the stuff that they will have to move looks impossible to accomplish. They will need an industrial mover.

Even a shower room.

There are some nice gardens on the lot.

0.58 acre.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/875-E-Broad-St-Columbus-OH-43205/80904689_zpid/

[hometoursandotherstuff]

The C.E. Morris Mansion looks like gray brick vampire's house. The 1895 Romanesque Revival home, built in 1895 in Columbus, OH has 7bds, 5ba, 6,649sqft, and had a price drop of $495k to $1.895m.

Definitely a vampire castle.

The entrance hall has 2 stairways.

Look at the fireplace. Of course, the entrance is so large, it functions as a massive sitting/reception room.

Very large dining room.

This room has a small round table. Looks like it could use a crystal ball.

In here there's a rounded tower room with another stone fireplace.

It's also a library/office.

The kitchen's crazy. Look at all the carved wood and the marble.

It's so huge. The fridge has a front that looks like an old ice chest.

Above the stove, there's like a little fireplace with logs.

Some of architectural features were salvaged from a local Methodist church.

This little half bath is on the stair landing.

Huge bedroom.

Looks like a dumb waiter.

Looks like a home office.

These bedrooms are crazy big.

You can see some church elements in this room, including a stained glass window hanging.

This room in the turret is a modern TV room with an observatory and night sky ceiling.

Looks like a craft space.

And, then b/c the house is so large, there's another big kitchen. It even features a fireplace.

Nice bedroom up here.

Large retro style bath.

There's also stuff in the basement.

Even a shower room.

There are some nice gardens on the lot.

0.58 acre.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/875-E-Broad-St-Columbus-OH-43205/80904689_zpid/

[exploitastic]

[twofingerswhiskey]

"oh food now has so much added to it, past food was so pure and untainted" victorians used to cut bread with chalk and aluminum powder. romans put lead in the wine, which was made from dirty feet mushing unwashed grapes covered in horse shit and road dust. i think our species will survive a few additives in food. our food systems have never been cleaner and safer. it has room for improvement, but we're not putting fucking plaster of paris in the milk

[segamascott]

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

*takes the hand of a period drama writer gently* A queen consort is not a queen regnant. A dowager queen is not a queen regnant either.

There is very little intrinsic institutional power in queenship. The power a consort, dowager, or queen mother has depends mostly on how much the reigning sovereign (usually a man) is willing to grant her. Needing a queen to serve as regent is exceptionally rare, and the regent is more often a male relative.

I know this is a bit of a bummer. I'm sorry.

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

For clarity:

Queen regnant: woman who rules in her own right, not on behalf of someone else.

Regent: Someone who temporarily assumes the powers of the monarch on account of the monarch being too young or too incapacitated to govern.

Queen consort: Woman who is married to the monarch.

Dowager queen: Woman who was married to the monarch. The monarch is dead, and she is owed support as his widow.

Queen mother: Woman who is the mother of the monarch. Usually the dowager queen, though there are exceptions if there isn't a straight line of succession.

[kawuli]

random PSA, I know a lot of people use duckduckgo as a Google alternative search engine, but it always kind of annoyed me when I was using it because it felt like No Name Brand Google

I have switched to using Startpage.com and vastly prefer it. for one thing, instead of displaying an "AI summary" at the top of the search results (unless you turn it off, yes I know), it displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, with link, whenever it finds one that's relevant.

also a waaayyyyy better sense of design than duckduckgo

also private, European based, least annoying search I've used lately (RIP old "don't be evil" Google)

[yomikoreadsbooks]

Keeping a list of Google alternatives just in case…

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

i have one of those, scraped from multiple different rec posts:

Search Engines

Infinity Search is an alternative search engine with a special focus on privacy

DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for those who value their privacy and are put off by the thought of their every query being tracked and logged. Uses bangs, ![site] for in-page search (sells your data to microsoft and draws from fucking bing)

WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine that allows you to “compute expert-level answers using Wolfram’s breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase, and AI technology.” A data search engine.

Boardreader is a search engine for forums and message boards. It allows you to search forums and then filter down results by date and language.

Based in France, Qwant is a privacy-based search engine that won’t record your searches or use your personal details for advertising. Uses “&” as a bang search.

Another privacy-based search engine is Search Encrypt, which uses local encryption to ensure that users’ identifiable information cannot be tracked. Metasearch across multiple engines. 

Offering unbiased results from several sources, SearX is a metasearch engine that aims to present a free, decentralized view of the internet. Can be self-hosted. 

Gibiru’s tagline is “Unfiltered private search” and that’s exactly what it offers. Requires AnonymoX Firefox add-on for privacy. 

Disconnect allows you to conduct anonymous searches through a search engine of your choice.

Swisscows provides fully encrypted searches to protect your privacy and security. Built-in violence/porn filter cannot be overridden. 

MetaGer offers “Privacy Protected Search & Find” through its anonymised search. A plugin will allow it to be made a default.

Gigablast is a private search engine that indexes millions of websites and servers real-time information without tracking your data, keeping you hidden from marketers and spammers. Variety of filtration and refinement options for searching. 

Oscobo is a search engine that protects your privacy while you search the web. By not using any third-party tools or scripts, your data is protected from hacking and misuse. Has a Chrome extension to allow use in toolbar. 

https://search.marginalia.nu/ an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Use old-school searching rather than query-based for the best results. 

https://www.mojeek.com/ 

https://wiby.me/ - It’s goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites. 

https://4get.ca/ it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesn’t have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think it’s the best for research, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can.

https://www.searchenginemap.com/ for more on how search engines relate to each other.

https://yep.com/ is a crawler

https://www.etools.ch/ retrieves from Google, Mojeek, Bing, and Yandex, like Searx

https://www.dogpile.com/ 

https://searxng.org/ (next gen Searx)

https://luxxle.com/ - possibly conservative?

https://presearch.com/ - good for academic?

https://kagi.com/smallweb - free/randomised Kagi.

Other Searchers

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.https://cosine.club/ is an electronic music similarity search engine

[mutationgirl]

out on a walk. waiting for a light to change. nighttime. across the intersection from me stands a man in full joker makeup and a purple suit, with rectangular frame glasses, straddling an e-bike. we both misinterpret the light changing as it being our turn, because the “time to cross” chime on this lengthy light is broken. we both step a little out and then immediately realize our error and retreat as traffic surges past. an hitherto unmentioned apologetic young man in a car with out of state plates rolls down his window to express his regret for being inconsiderate. when it is truly our turn, we both press forward. as the joker-clad man rides by me, he expresses his hatred of crossing this road. in that second, illuminated by traffic lights, i agree. he speeds up and disappears into the night with the tails of his coat streaming in his wake.

[depsidase]

[twiststreet]

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

Edited down a long tweet. (x)

[starrieslight]

Here's the link to the actual paper, in case someone wants to read the whole thing

[sunderwight]

The thing about the destiel news meme is that I actually think it's great.

It does let you know that something has gone on in the world. But it's such a short format that it could never even pretend to give you all the relevant information about that thing. It usually provides less detail than the average headline, so it's not actually reporting, it's more like shouting a head's up across a crowded room. Still lets you know that something has happened though.

The very fact that it's a goofy and irreverent fandom meme also serves as a perpetual reminder that using social media to get news is a bad idea. Now that you know something has occurred, go read an actual article from a real source to verify it and get the details. It's an alert system with a format that never lets you forget that alerts are not articles, and that this website is not beholden to any kind of journalistic integrity.

I love it, the comments on destiel news memes are almost always full of people saying that they saw it and then rushed off to go verify the news with a reputable source. Do you know how often more "serious" format news stuff on this site just leaves people complacently certain that they've been given accurate info? Way too often. I wish half as many of those news updates had people commenting that they left tumblr to go double check it.

[headspace-hotel]

today my wisdom is: the ecological crisis of our planet is not a thing that will Suddenly destroy us sometime in the next century—it has taken decades of continuous work for our biosphere to be preserved thus far, and it will take decades more of continuous work to continue preserving it.

The apocalypse is not a single event hovering in the future bearing down on us while we sit helplessly. We are at least 150 years into an ongoing "apocalypse."

Things will continue to steadily get worse without steady action, but "augh! it's already too late to stop climate change and mass extinctions!" is specifically the worst response

[headspace-hotel]

what I mean is, there is a persistent fallacy that the present situation of a thing is always worse than the past, even if there have been fluctuations in badness.

This is not true. There is a great wealth of specific cases where ecosystems/species/a specific anthropogenic impact on the environment is CURRENTLY, RIGHT NOW, better than it has been at any point in the past 100 years

[headspace-hotel]

I've been researching the history of conservation in the USA...and I think current doomers would benefit from knowing just how bad things got throughout the 20th century.

The eastern USA's natural environments were fucking razed. We went scorched earth on everything.

In the 1930's, DEER and WILD TURKEYS were almost eliminated from my state. Deer. Wild turkeys. Common animals that you can see all the time.

I've seen animals close to my home that a person in the 1970's would not have been able to see. I saw river otters and a bald eagle a couple months ago! Farmer family friend remembers when a bald eagle sighting here made the news. There is a thriving population of elk (16,000 animals) in the Appalachian Mountains, for the first time since before 1850!

We actively tried to exterminate so many species. Bison. Wolves. Mountain lions. The US GOVERNMENT PAID PEOPLE TO KILL CARNIVORES. They're still here. They're reclaiming their old territories. All is not lost

[bogleech]

There was a time most American cities almost never saw a blue sky. Brown and yellow smog was the norm and rivers were garbage sludge that are now teeming with fish. People don't know that government environmental regulation actually did succeed, that the EPA really worked as intended. Now it gets eroded because people think it isn't making a big difference, and they think that because they haven't seen what it's still holding back.