Damn, that was a compelling read. When I clicked on the link and saw it was from 1941, I felt a grim resolve to read it in full, because when people post decades old pieces on fascism, it always hits hard (like that Sartre bit about antisemitism that gets shared quite often).

Reading through this piece was a curious feeling, because I was wondering which of the people at this party I might be. Certainly not Mr A, because I am descended from no-one great. I certainly didn’t go to the same school as any Mr A, so I’m also not Mr B. With a certain sense of dread, I considered that maybe I’m Mr C, given that I also started out very poor and worked my way up to where I am (I’m the first in my family to go to university, for example). I concluded that whereas Mr C’s battle against class has left him cold and hard, I have found myself becoming warmer as the years go on.

I was thinking like this throughout most of the piece, perversely waiting for someone I will never meet to tell me whether or not I’m the kind of person who becomes a Nazi. In the end, none of the archetypes described seem to fit me. It turns out that although fascism today functions remarkably similarly to how it did then, the world itself is different enough that the archetypes today don’t map onto the past.

I know I’m just a random person on the internet, but I’m super proud of you for this. Like, making that decision and turning a serendipitous situation into an active choice takes a strong sense of will. Congrats

I have a couple of friends who smoke and I really enjoy heading outside with them when they go out to smoke. I especially enjoy it when it’s very cold out, because nothing makes me appreciate the cosy warmth of my home more than a brief spell of bracing cold.

Shame about the passive smoking though

Subvert expectations by being normal. It’s diabolical.

This comment is for Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who was abducted by the Chinese government after he was selected as the 11th Panchen Lama. The Panchen Lama is the 2nd most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism, after the Dalai Lama.

He was 6 years old when he was taken. He and his family have not been seen for 29 years. I think about him often.

Thanks for that link, I have sent it to a friend who I know will love it.

Gosh, you must have been startled by that. Tempered glass terrifies me because it feels like it has demons inside (that’s why it explodes so violently when the seal is breached)

I feel quite anxious trying to make sense of geopolitical events like this, especially given I’m ashamed of how little thought I gave to Palestine before Israel escalated from apartheid to all-out genocide; as you say, this is a ridiculously complex situation, and the snippets we get on the news are ridiculously oversimplified at best, and egregiously biased at worst.

Syria seems like a far away, foreign land where conflict is the inevitable norm. But it feels like that’s something that I’m meant to think, because it’s politically useful for people like me to think that way. Unfortunately, simply knowing that you’re subject to propaganda is far easier than actually gaining a more full and nuanced understanding of a conflict.

Oh I struggled most of all on the sand twins. I’m mildly claustrophobic and those caves freaked me out (especially as I tend to think poorly under pressure, so running out of time made me panic and get lost more).

Tips! Many ADHD medications have the side effects of appetite suppression. Because of this, it can be a useful routine to eat something when you take your meds, to reduce the likelihood of going too long without food.

This goes doubly if you also have autism and/or other problems with interoception (knowing how your body is feeling/feeling hungry)

The testes themselves aren’t soft ime, but if we’re talking about the overall (scrotum + testes), then I would say it’s pretty soft.

Though I’m going to take this moment to soapbox about the importance of regular testicular self examinations: https://www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support/testicular-cancer/how-to-check

The key thing is checking regularly enough that you know what’s normal for you, and thus can see a doctor if there are any unexpected changes in shape or texture. (Apologies for lecturing in reply to what was probably a joke)

I agree. A great example of why can be found in this excellent article about an extensive “dossier” of fraud allegations against a top Alzheimer’s researcher: (https://www.science.org/content/article/research-misconduct-finding-neuroscientist-eliezer-masliah-papers-under-suspicion)

Specifically, this snippet:

“Microbiologist and research integrity expert Elisabeth Bik, who also worked on the Zlokovic dossier, contributed other Masliah examples and reviewed and concurred with almost all of the findings.”

Elisabeth Bik is someone who has an incredible eye for fraudulently edited Western Blots images and someone I greatly admire. Calling her a “research integrity expert” is accurate, but what I find neat is that (to my knowledge) she doesn’t have any particular training or funding towards this work. A lot of work she does in this area starts on, or is made public on PubPeer, an online forum. This is all to say that Elisabeth Bik’s expertise and reputation in this area effectively stems from her just being a nerd on the internet.

I find it quite beautiful in a way, because she’s far from the only example of this. I especially find it neat when non-scientists are able to help root out scientific fraud specifically through non-scientist expertise. As a scientist who often finds herself propelled by sheer enthusiasm, sometimes feels overwhelmed by the “Publish or Perish” atmosphere in research, and who worries about the integrity of science when there’s so much trash being published, it’s heartening to see that enthusiasm and commitment to Truth still matters.

Because I was originally planning on just having the plate of cheese until I discovered there were a couple of leftover tortillas which would make the “meal” marginally less miserable.

Though I think that melting it on the tortilla wouldn’t have worked as well: the melted cheese had a wee layer of oil which I poured off onto a paper towel; also, to melt the cheese, I had to do it in a few short blasts, rearranging/“stirring” the cheese each time. I think that had I done this on the tortilla, it would have become a soggy mess.

Your question is a good one though, and I hadn’t considered it until I read your comment.

I think one of the really neat things about games as a medium is that “the experience” is inherently a super malleable concept. Gaming blows my mind when I think about how adaptive you need to be to run a tabletop roleplaying game, like Dungeons and Dragons — no matter how elaborate your plans are, players will always find a way to throw a spanner in the works. Video games have the same unpredictability of how players engage with the world you’ve made, but a much smaller ability to respond and adapt to ensure that they’re getting the correct “intended experience”.

In some respects, I agree with you, because when I play games, I care a lot about the intended experience. However, the reality is that I bring too much of myself to any game that I play to be able to think of my experience in that way, and I think that’s probably one of my favourite aspects of games as a medium — a dialogue between gamer and game developers. Especially because sometimes, the intended experience of a game isn’t well executed; there are plenty of times I have gotten lost or confused in games because the game didn’t sufficiently communicate to me (or other players with similar experiences) what it expected us to do. Part of the role of the game designer/developers role is to be guide the players so they get something resembling the intended experience.

Honestly, part of why I am on the pro-accessibility side of this issue is because I’m a bit of a snob — I think that being able to adapt a message or experience to a diverse audience shows a singularity of vision that’s more powerful than experiences that target a much smaller audience.

For example, let’s say that the subjective difficulty level of a game (the “experience”) equals the “objective difficulty level” of a game (the difficulty setting) minus the player’s skill level. For the sake of this example, let’s imagine that 10 arbitrary units is the correct level of the subjective difficulty level, and above/below that, the experience is degraded; also, let’s say that player skill ranges from 1-10, with most people clustering in the 4-6 range. In that world, if a game could only have one difficulty mode, 15 ish would probably be best, because 15 (objective difficulty) - 5 (average player skill level) = 10 (intended subjective difficulty level). I don’t begrudge game Devs for targeting limited audiences if that’s what they feel capable of, but I do massively respect the craftsmanship of being able to build a game that can serve a subjective 10 to a wide range of people, by having a range of difficulty settings.

I have an experience relating to game difficulty and accessibility that you would probably appreciate.

I was playing Rimworld for the first time, and because I was aware of how huge disasters that wipe out most of your work (that you can sometimes build back from) is a part of the game, I felt bad about playing the game on the mode that allows you to load earlier saves; I would find losing progress in this way more stressful than fun, so I wanted the ability to reverse poor fortune or choices, even if it felt like I was “dishonouring the intended experience”.

However, a friend (who was the reason I had bought Rimworld in the first place, and who enjoyed the chaos of no-save mode) pointed out that whilst the no-save mode may be presented as the default, the mode with saves enabled is presented as a perfectly valid way to enjoy the game. This made me feel immensely better about it, and I was able to dispel the silly guilt I was feeling. It highlighted to me the power of how we label difficulty settings and other accessibility settings.

Games are a funny medium.

I enjoyed using phyphox while on a plane recently. I found it fun to track the pressure and to see how it loosely corresponded to my own subjective experience of ascending vs descending.

I can’t recall any “useful” things I’ve used the app for, but I really enjoy having it — it makes me feel powerful. Like, it’s nice to think that if I did have some ideas of experiments to run, I could. It feels fitting to be able to access the sensors, because there are many ways in which our electronic devices nowadays aren’t (or don’t feel like) our own, so this feels like a small amount of clawing back power, even if I’m not using it for much.

Yesterday for dinner, I microwaved some red Leicester cheese on a plate, and then I scooped it onto a tortilla. I feel this image

I made a few Romanian friends in university. Granted you’re going to get some skewed perspectives when talking to expats, but each one of them said that Romania was a shit hole that they were glad to have escaped. Decree 770 (and other policies that were enacted by the same regime, that have left a scar on the country) was a large part of why.

This might be helpful, or it might be unrelated.

Recently, I made mozzarella from scratch. In order to do that, I needed some milk that wasn’t homogenised. Homogenisation is the process of breaking up the fat globules within milk into smaller droplets so they’re more evenly dispersed throughout the liquid, meaning there won’t be a fatty layer that separates out when you leave the milk to stand.

Most milk that you buy at the supermarket would be both homogenised and pasteurised. I learned that pasteurised milk could work for cheese, depending on the specific temperature the milk was heated to during pasteurisation (because the required minimum temperature for pasteurization is below the temperature that causes issues for mozzarella, but some brands pasteurise at a higher temperature. Unfortunately most brands don’t say what temperature they pasteurise at, but I got lucky with the first one I tried). That part’s not especially relevant to you and is mostly cheese related

The thing I wanted to suggest, out of scientific curiosity more than helpfulness, is that I wonder how your son would do with pasteurised, non-homogenised milk — perhaps it’s the homogenisation that’s causing the problem, rather than the pasteurisation. If you do try this, I’d be interested to hear back how things go; I haven’t heard of anyone having issues like this before

This isn’t a problem of being pregnant while in law school. This is a problem of someone’s Title IX protections being violated. Your comment implies that you think that Brittany Lovely was unwise to continue at law school while pregnant, but it’s fairly reasonable to expect a law school to be following the law.