#digital experiments

[hexenmond]

madwoman

I am going to teach myself a different keyboard layout. Neo, which is very different from QWERTZ (which I am used to).

Why would I put myself through this? I can type pretty fast with QWERTZ, thanks to years of doing it a lot (never learned it properly though).

There's a few reasons, the latest that is currently tipping me over the ledge being that typing anything in Turkish with a bog standard German QWERTZ layout requires me to copypaste all the special characters from a character table, which is seriously no fun. And switching keyboard layouts just for a word or three – meh, no, uncool. Functional but uncool.

But learning a whole different keyboard layout that will enable me to write things in sooooo many languages? And generally type even more efficiently once I've mastered it?? Sign me up baby 🤩

…honestly I cannot resist the siren call of Optimisation™. Things could be better! I only need to put in a large amount of effort! 😆

But seriously, I'm giving this a go. I already installed the layout and the training programme, AND did my first lesson (two letters, did not pass). No risk no FUN!

(So if you don't hear from me for another while, it's because I cannot type quickly enough, and/or I got stuck entering my password because I can't do it with the new keyboard layout.)

[wintvies]

sorry if i was a bitch i probably wanted to go home

[wizard-legs]

Shrek’s lesbian daughter and donkey’s gay son at the fantasy thrift.

[winterofherdiscontent]

. moon kitty (2021)

[blaithnne]

I cannot stop thinking about Episode 5 of TADC because Ragatha is, however unintentionally, one of the best examples of how isolating and difficult it is to interact with the world as an autistic person I have ever seen. To the point it genuinely makes me sad to think about her. I need to make a post expanding on this at some point but rn just. The way everyone assumes there’s some sinister hidden meaning to everything she does and says but she’s literally just trying to be nice and she doesn’t understand why it’s not working. The way she tries so hard to make connections but it constantly falls flat, she says things that hurt without realising how or why. She follows the rules she’s been taught will make her friends — she’s kind, she’s forgiving, she’s accepting and apologetic when she messes up, but for some reason it’s just not working. She tries to mimic other people, she tries to laugh at past experiences, tries to open up about her past like everyone else is doing, but now everyone’s uncomfortable and looking at her like she’s crazy and she doesn’t get it!! She doesn’t get it!!! Jax is a jerk and he’s mean to everyone but for some reason Pomni likes him and she doesn’t get it, she doesn’t understand! Pomni tells her it’s okay to be a jerk sometimes but Ragatha doesn’t like being mean, she wants to be nice to people, but she does it anyway, she gets mean like Jax and Zooble do but now Pomni’s looking at her like she’s done something wrong but she just did what she asked her to!! She doesn’t get it!! At the end of the episode everyone goes off into their groups and Ragatha is left alone, after having tried so hard to make friends and fit in and make people like her, she’s still alone, and everyone thinks she’s weird and unapproachable and she just has to give up and accept that she is inherently unloveable. Her evil alter ego tells her she’s going to die alone and nobody loves her and the only thing she corrects her on is the fact that they can’t die here. The few that might like her when she’s around don’t miss her when she’s gone, because there’s nothing to miss. Ragatha has spent her whole life systematically stripping away everything that makes her different and unlikeable in order to make herself more palatable to others, and in the process she has made herself a personalitiless blank slate with no unique identity for others to latch onto and appreciate. She has nothing to add to any conversation because she’s too afraid of being disliked to have a memorable personality beyond being generally polite and nice. And just. God. Someone get this girl some noise cancelling headphones and a therapist on speed dial, being this good of a representation of what it’s like to be autistic, especially to be an autistic person with trauma, is not good for the soul. That final shot just destroys me right in the heart. My poor girl.

[rot-farm]

color study of just some cool ass fish. Original image sourced from @ meenmeen_0 on tik tok!

[reasonsforhope]

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

--

I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

[half-doomed-lunatic]

self indulgent severance paintings inspired by René Magritte

[miwkchii]

Finally debuting my telemachus design 🙏

Little Wolf basically :

[doesephs]

put neil josten in solitary refinement that man needs to learn some manners

[kittycouch]

#43

[wintvies]

reconnecting with my room after being around other people for too long

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The Wizard Cowboy War (Wizboys VS Cowards) continues on.

[narvidraws]

[desertowlet]

Gosh, Captain, way to ruin the vibe at your own birthday party...