faranae

[faranae]

Spud is here!

For a week!!

[faranae]

Welp. Thanks UPS.

Waiting on an expensive package (getting a monitor repaired).

UPS delivery notice says "left at mailbox".

We don't have a mailbox.

The proof of delivery has no photo.

Time to contact support! This sure is going to suck...

#fara speaks #story time

[faranae]

Do you agree with the following statements?

I: One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.

II: The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.

III: One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

IV: The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.

V: Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.

VI: People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.

VII: Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

...

If you said "yeah, duh" to all of the above: Congratulations! Your convictions are in line with the seven fundamental tenets of the Satanic Temple!

(Yes, really.)

#sunday trivia #the satanic temple #satanism #fara speaks #thinkonthings

[faranae]

HEY Y'ALL UH MARCH WENT BY REALLY FAST

REMINDER: TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO MAKE SURE YOUR RENT PAYMENT/HOUSING FEES ARE TIMESTAMPED/POSTMARKED FOR THE MONTH OF MARCH

I've spoken to TWO people so far today who didn't realize March was already over. Seems having Easter preparations so early this year messed with quite a few people! D:

#delete later #PSA

[faranae]

reblog this if your blog is a safe space on april fools and won’t have any jumpers, screamers, or anything scary or anxiety inducing

#April fools #april fool's #reblog

[faranae]

Yo.

Fuck Putin's war, but also I think we can all collectively say "fuck ISIS" today.

For the OOTL: Terrorists opened fire on a crowded concert near Moscow last night, killing at least 133 people (at present count) including children and elderly. ISIS has claimed responsibility. USA intelligence warned Moscow last week. Putin is already trying to suggest Ukraine was involved.

Now, on to the reason I'm posting:

I've seen some chatter on Tumblr today saying Moscow "had it coming" in various ways, some more subtle than others, so let me make one thing crystal clear: If I see anyone condoning the slaughter of innocent children on my feeds, at any time, we're done.

I will not engage. I will not DM. I will not explain. If they have to be *warned* to not condone shooting children, they're not worth the breath spent. They have failed the decent-human-being check and I want nothing to do with them.

#fara rants #content warning #Up to 7 blocks so far #Including an old friend #Happy birthday Fara #I am so disappointed in people this morning

[faranae]

Over the past few days I've been watching my guild leader pull every part out of his new build because it won't post. The motherboard is throwing the error that basically means "yo, we can't read your input", even though he's swapped keyboards.

I have suggested no less than 5 times over this period that he update the motherboard's BIOS just in case it's something with the low-level drivers. Which is extremely easy since his MOBO has the flashback feature. (Put file on USB, plug in USB, push button for a few seconds, thassit.) He still hasn't. All of his parts are scattered around now.

Those of you who know computers will know my pain.

Those of you who don't know computers:

This is like watching someone take a level to every item on a table without checking to see if one of the legs needs to be shimmed, while someone repeatedly tells them to check and see if the table itself is the problem first.

ToT

#story time #fara speaks

[faranae]

Rant incoming

I love when I talk about my own identity and what I settled on after years of uncertainty and insecurity only to have internet randos constantly yelling about not forcing identities onto folks who don't want them. That's some boogeyman shit.

I... Didn't? Like, it should be a given from any decent human being that I'm not sitting here forcing my identity onto others just by claiming it myself. That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works, actually, and it's the same logic the bigots and TERFs use if you take more than 10 seconds to think about it.

If Susan says she identifies as a butch lesbian, she is not calling for all of lesbian-kind to adopt butchdom. Maxille calls themselves the King Fruit? Surprisingly not a crusade to force that title on others, though an uprising or two may be due because I don't remember voting for them.

If I say I identify as queer and ask folks to respect that, I am not saying "everyone in the LGBTQ2S+ communities needs to accept being called queer" because that would be fucking stupid.

I am, quite literally, begging here: Leave queer folks alone. You don't have to use our umbrella. We are not threatening you by fighting for our right to just stand here, holy fuck.

We are allowed to point out literal campaigns designed to vilify us. We are allowed to point out that we reclaimed queer decades ago and that there are groups fighting--recently!--to undo that. We are allowed to draw attention to the hitlists and harassment, even if you don't want to see it.

We are not forcing you to listen, but a modicum of respect would be nice. If you can't stomach treating a queer person like a human being with feelings, perhaps you can manage the bare minimum and just leave us the fuck alone in our own spaces.

And on that note: Maybe, just maybe, you can block and move on if one of our posts breaches containment and hits your feed instead of jumping in and shitting on everyone just trying to connect with their peers and find a sense of belonging.

I am so tired.

/endrant

#queer pride #fara speaks #fara rants #content warning #Queer mention #I even tag it for folks who filter it #What do you want from me

[faranae]

What the hell is this?

My Amazon package today came in a box that cannot be reused.

Literally. The box is designed that you have to rip it in half to open it.

It's reduce, reuse, recycle, PRIORITIZED IN THAT ORDER. They just straight-up deleted the middle step. What in the consumerist hell?

ToT

#Whyyyyy #fara speaks #recycling #amazon #photo post

[faranae]

Despite residing in a similarly-shaped tube my facial cleanser is not, in fact, toothpaste!

#fara speaks #Guess how I know #microblog

[faranae]

In other news I got caught in the "I'll take my meds as soon as I finish this one thing" trap and now I've lost 2.5 hours in a blink.

Reminder to take your meds, folks. ;u;

#fara speaks #You know what would have kept me from losing that time #My meds #go figure lmao

[faranae]

For the love of Frick, if you compute in a dark/dim room please hook up a light to illuminate the wall behind your screen. It doesn't have to be the sun! Just a fraction of your screen's brightness, really.

If you want to be very fancy you can refer to it as "bias lighting" but that's going to bring up a lot of expensive specialty products and buzzwords and tech specs if you look it up. A $2 USB light from the dollar store can do just fine; Just look for anything that disperses/softens the light instead of shining a harsh beam.

The reason for this: Eye fatigue!

When you only have dark surroundings and a bright screen in front of you, your eyes have to do a lot of extra work adjusting all the time to such a harsh contrast. Adding even a dim light against the wall makes it easier on them, adding a step in the middle.

(Visual artists: You know how it's easier on your eyes to work for longer periods on a grey canvas instead of white? Similar concept!)

Before I go, one more tip!

The 20/20/20 trick is worth remembering to prevent and ease eye strain: Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

(That's about 6 meters for those of us who measure things in Normal, but "20/6/20 trick" really isn't all that catchy now, is it?)

#fara speaks #thinkonthings #bias lighting #eye strain #I forgot to turn my backlight on this morning and now I have a headache

[faranae]

"Hey, the laptop feels weird."

So, Sander's lid isn't closing flush. On closer inspection, the touchpad sure is popping up out of the keyboard by about the same amount as that gap you see in the above picture, so roughly 1/8".

"Ah, fuck." I think to myself. "That's probably a spicy pillow."

So, I flip Sander over and break out my handy-dandy T5 Torx bit to take the bottom of the case off. I ease my way in by working at all of the screws at once. I am careful. I am cautious...

... And I jump 3 feet out of my skin when the plate suddenly releases with a resounding CRACK:

That 1/4" gap you see there? That's not the lid. That's the bottom plate of the laptop, pushed up by the swollen chunk of chemical oh-no underneath it now that there are no screws to keep the delinquent battery subdued. Normally there are sets of clips along the inner edge of the chassis that hold the plate on, but they were no match for the Spicy Pillow.

There he is! Sander Cohen's undoing in all its glory. If you've ever wondered what a 50Wh 3-cell lithium-polymer battery looks like once it's going spicy, now you've seen it! :D

A few hours later and he's now recovering from surgery and doing quite well, though he will forever be tethered to the wall AC now that he's got no cell in there. I'm glad, because I'd just finished wiping the machine clean and setting him up for BabyCat to use for her schoolwork and some games. @_@; Her phone recently shattered (wasn't her fault either, the poor thing) and this was a way of cheering her up, and it almost went so horribly wrong.

#computer stuff #Fara speaks #story time #computer problems #Spicy pillow #Sander Cohen the Laptop #photo post #Kudos to this chassis though it snapped right back into shape

[faranae]

I love Reddit sometimes.

#reddit stuff #screenshot #uncaptioned #This whole thread is gold

[faranae]

Y'ALL I ALMOST FORGOT TO POST A PIC NOW THAT THE KIDDO HAS THE NEW HEATING PACK

They're a stuffy "shell" around a microwavable clay-based hot pack. I'm not making any product endorsements here as she hasn't *used* it yet but I have to admit this lil them is cute as hell.

Bonus points for the "olotl" wordplay on the tag. (sounds like "a lotta", or "a lot of")

So I was on the phone with my mother earlier. She wanted to confirm that my kid would enjoy/use an item she wanted to buy for the holidays. You know those stuffed animals with the removable heating packs you can put in the microwave? One of those things for assisting with her newly-discovered monthly agonies.

I confirmed and she continued, chattering about which one to get, and asked if we're still into pokemon (we are) and started rattling off a few colors to choose from in the design she'd picked.

Now, considering she had in that same conversation mentioned both stuffed animals and pokemon, I was curious what pokemon she'd found heating pads of that had multiple color choices?

Folks.

I do, on most levels, love my mother. I swear I do. But I had to convince this 50-whatever adult woman that axolotls are not a pokemon and are, in fact, a real animal.

At first she tried to double down when I corrected her.

Y ' a l l . . .

#photo post #story time #fara's mom #fara speaks #Hand for scale #Ignore my horrendous FFXIV hotbar

[faranae]

Trying to remember how to draw D&D!Sam

#sam higgins #dungeons and dragons #doodle

[faranae]

(or it would be if it wasn't 24h maint day. goddammit.)

I think it's an FFXIV and laundry kind of day.