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Is there a best way to update a static blog from my phone?
Opening the blog repo in a text editor and pushing to git will definitely be too much friction for me to do regularly.
I want to just be able to just write text, save/send it somewhere, and have my home PC (I guess?) process it for me. -
Dragonsweeper - A lovely minesweeper game
This is a really excellent take on minesweeper. Spaces can contain monsters of various strength, and you need to spend HP to defeat them. By collecting EXP and hearts to level up and heal yourself, the goal is to become strong enough to slay the dragon.
It took me a few tries to get a handle on the strategy, but this is super fun!
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I've added my pronouns to my profile.
I hadn't before, because my pronouns weren't important to me. I've learned, though, that this is because I am privileged.
For many people, their pronouns are very important. And, unfortunately, there are many who are openly antagonistic towards these people. So it's important for people like me to be openly supportive, to balance the scales if you will.
"I support your rights to feel however you want to feel about yourself" feels like such a ridiculous thing to say. In a sane world we would never *need* to say that. But look around, guess what. We do need to say it, and we need to say it loudly. So I will. -
The Sociable Weaver
The sociable weaver is an African bird that creates giant, community nests in trees. The nests look like a giant woolly mammoth hanging in a tree, and have many entry holes on the bottom. These nests can house over 100 pairs of birds, spanning multiple generations at a time.
Photo from Wikipedia, by Harald Süpfle -
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Goodness. I live on the other side of the planet, and the anxiety coming from America is palpable. My heart is with everybody who is in pain now.
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Becoming a parent introduced me to stress
I have always been a calm and happy person. Aggressively optimistic, even. I made it through the first 1/3 of my life without feeling much stress, only getting angry on rare occasions. Anger management, emotional therapy, mindfulness exercises, these were all things that I had no need for.
I thought that this was a personality trait, but now I realize that I was simply blessed with an easy life. I wasn’t particularly good at dealing with stress, I just didn’t have much stress coming my way.
Well, parenting is not easy. It is demanding. uncontrollable, scary, and stressful. I love my kids dearly and would not want them to change for the world, and that seems to make it even harder. I want so badly to be the parent they deserve, to guide them with a gentle hand and encourage their every exploration.
But it is hard.
And I am feeling the stress that had nothing to do with me until now. I feel frustrated when things don’t go the way I expected, I feel ashamed when I neglect opportunities to engage my kids, and I feel angry when situations get out of my control.
I have to tell myself to take a deep breath and count to ten. I have to spend time with myself to sort out my feelings and learn what my needs are. All of these techniques that I had always overlooked as having nothing to do with me, are now suddenly instructive and eye-opening.
In my head, I know that I am probably overestimating the impact that I have on my children’s growth. They are their own people, and they will live their lives to their fullest. They will learn from and be influenced by so many more sources than just their father.
But I want to give them everything I can. I want to be a rock-solid, positive influence like my parents were for me. I want to teach them the names of flowers, and insects, and constellations, and construction trucks, and super-heroes, and inventors, and mountains, and countries, and exotic foods. I want to make things with them so that they can understand how things work, how they can take things apart and put them back together again. I want to show them that they are special, and that they have so many unique things to offer to the world.
But I am not that father yet. I’ve learned how selfish and impatient I can be. I’m new to this, too, so of course it will take a lot of time, effort, and patience. I need to take things one step at a time, and also let myself recognize that I am already doing a fine job.
But now, I am stressed out.
But it will be worth it.
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The Hayao Miyazaki art catalogue looks beautiful. Too bad it seems to be only available in the US now.
https://academymuseumstore.org/products/hayao-miyazaki-catalogue -
An analogy:
I join a social network with the goal of building a space that I like, out of lego pieces.
The fediverse slowly gives me a few pieces at a time, and I choose what I want. I slowly build out a nice lego structure.
Networks with algorithmic feeds dump me in a room full of legos, and say I have my pick. Most pieces aren't what I want, and a good number are even broken. I spend most of my time sifting through pieces, looking for something I can work with. -
I've been really enjoying the slow pace of joining the fediverse. Find a few interesting people to follow, see who they interact with and slowly branch out connections from there.
In networks with algorithmic feeds, you're presented first with EVERYTHING, and are tasked with filtering out what you don't want until you have a nice curated space. It's stimulating by design, but a little overwhelming. Conversely on the fediverse, you start with NOTHING and slowly add content you like.
Everything is a preference for sure, this just feels so refreshing to me.