#electrician life

[plugincaro]

Saif Sea Electric Water Buoys

Amazing indeed… this can also be used during flood conditions… but for this to be effective it needs to be much bigger… so as to save 10 people at a time… wonder if this can be shaped in cylinder shape… like a banana boat…with gps capabilities for tracking… Saving 1 person at a time… with 1 device is too less… In India people’s lives have lesser value than in foreign countries… govt will not…

[inkskinned]

the rise of AI art isn't surprising to us. for our entire lives, the attitude towards our skills has always been - that's not a real thing. it has been consistently, repeatedly devalued.

people treat art - all forms of it - as if it could exist by accident, by rote. they don't understand how much art is in the world. someone designed your home. someone designed the sign inside of your local grocery store. when you quote a character or line from something in media, that's a line a real person wrote.

"i could do that." sure, but you didn't. there's this joke where a plumber comes over to a house and twists a single knob. charges the guy 10k. the guy, furious, asks how the hell the bill is so high. the plumber says - "turning the knob was a dollar. the knowledge is the rest of the money."

the trouble is that nobody believes artists have knowledge. that we actively study. that we work hard, beyond doing our scales and occasionally writing a poem. the trouble is that unless you are already framed in a museum or have a book on a shelf or some kind of product, you aren't really an artist. hell, because of where i post my work, i'll never be considered a poet.

the thing that makes you an artist is choice. the thing that makes all art is choice. AI art is the fetid belief that art is instead an equation. that it must answer a specific question. Even with machine learning, AI cannot make a choice the way we can - because the choices we make have always been personal, complicated. our skills cannot be confined to "prompt and execution." what we are "solving" isn't just a system of numbers - it is how we process our entire existence. it isn't just "2 and 2 is 4", it's staring hard at the numbers and making the four into an alligator. it's rearranging the letters to say ow and it is the ugly drawing we make in the margin.

at some point, you will be able to write something by feeding my work into a machine. it will be perfectly legible and even might sound like me. but a machine doesn't understand why i do these things. it can be taught preferences, habits, statistical probability. it doesn't know why certain vowels sound good to me. it doesn't know the private rules i keep. it doesn't know how to keep evolving.

"but i want something to exist that doesn't exist yet." great. i'm glad you feel creative. go ahead and pay a fucking artist for it.

this is all saying something we all already knew. the sad fucking truth: we have to die to remind you. only when we're gone do we suddenly finally fucking mean something to you. artists are not replicable. we each genuinely have a skill, talent, and process that makes us unique. and there's actual quiet power in everything we do.

[xoxoemynn]

I know it's a much beloved fic trope to have Stede wipe the kohl off Ed's face and tell him he knows he's Ed, he's not the Kraken, he knows him, he loves him, etc. But I have to say, I actually really love that by the time they're reunited, Ed's face is clean.

Ed has been through hell, his heart has been broken, he hates himself, he feels unworthy of love...

But now he wants to live.

Yes, of course it's wonderful that Stede loves Ed so deeply, that he's returned to him, that he wants him to be safe and well and happy. But Ed needs to want that first. Ed needs to go on his own healing journey that isn't contingent on Stede.

And with his face already bare in front of Stede when they reunite, with him having been re-born on a beach, we see that's happening.

He's taking his first steps forward, and I am so excited to see this journey.

[l48yr1nth]

i want to draw so many things i think i am coming back

[ourhouseishaunted]

my brain for the past like 2 weeks

[timetravelingthroughspace]

In Which I Vent;

I don’t know if I should pause HRT. HRT is wonderful, but has mainly only resulted in breast development. I’m still undergoing laser treatments, but that is only going to eliminate about half of my facial hair by the end of my sessions. The gray hair that remains will require electrolysis. I chose to begin with laser because of the higher cost and pain associated with electrolysis, but I now feel that choice was a mistake.

The fact that HRT has not done much for me makes me realize that I will ultimately require surgical interventions that I just can’t afford. If I lived in a state like Washington or California, these procedures would be covered by health insurance, but alas i live in Florida. I also cant afford to move.

If I were to pause HRT, I could stop paying my FOLX subscription and save the money i would otherwise be spending on medication to facilitate a move.

Meanwhile, I am at something of a crossroads with my career. I am, very ironically, making more money now as a dishwasher than I was as a master electrician at a fairly well respected regional theatre, a position that I needed a degree for, a degree that I incurred private student loan debt to complete.

I frequently consider going to graduate school so that I can find work that will pay enough for me to be financially stable and self sufficient, but am terrified that this will simply incur more burdensome debt.

I just don’t know what to do about all of this. It all basically seems to come down to money.

I struggle with addiction.

I was sober for a year or so and then relapsed.

Alcohol has, for a long time, been sort of a maintenance strategy against dysphoria. When I was young I kept trying to push from my mind my desire to become a woman. I believed in god at that time, so I’d pray to become female and then left it to god to determine me worthy of transformation. This of course never happened. By 16 I realized that god would do nothing and that I couldn’t keep my thoughts and feelings from returning. And so I chose to become an addict. I could forget, if I were an addict.

I remember that day very clearly. Now I do, anyway.

Well, it worked. For a long time alcohol worked. Until it didn’t.

I’ve gained a peculiar sort of control over my alcoholism in recent months. This isn’t to say that I don’t ever over indulge, but most weeks I’m not interested in alcohol. And if I do choose to have a drink, I generally can’t have more than one nor do I wish to. I’m not sure what to attribute this to except HRT. That and the return of memories or greater details in my memories associated with my experience of dysphoria growing up.

I’m not a psychologist nor am I seeing one, but I suspect the anxiousness I experienced at one time as a desire, a compulsion to drink, was actually the anticipation of the return of thoughts and memories which I’d learned to “treat” with alcohol. I think that embracing myself and my experience has short circuited what was at one time a zombie-like need to drink.

Not sure.

I don’t really know what underlies the change in my relationship with alcohol, but I want it to continue.

If I pause HRT, what will it mean?

Yes, I mean in terms of my relationship with alcohol, but also my relationship with myself.

I’m not sure what to do yet.

[ritzrabbit]

Y'all, I'm tired. XD but I'm still trucking on. Haha

[winter-angst]

Brock: five, six… seven gifts?

Jack, nervous: um yes?

Brock: for our two year anniversary??

Jack: um yes?

Brock: be completely real with me

Jack: okay

Brock: are we poor?

Jack:

Jack: at this rate we will be

Brock: 😭😭😭

[shmreduplication]

my mom: *literally meets my dad and bonds with him due to the fact that he's the only person she knows besides herself with a home computer in the late '80s* my mom: *gently pressures all her kids into going into computers* me: *is biologist* my data analysis software at work:*requires me to learn code* my data collection process: *requires me to learn code even tho it's just fucking google sheets* my primary piece of equipment at work: *has extremely limited use functions UNLESS you input code directly*

[loumauve]

I snapped today at work, and by snapped I mean I politely commented on a help desk ticket by summing up an mess of an (type of) issue that's come up for at least the fourth time in the 2+ months I've been managing user accounts, and asked the person responsible to fix it (himself for once) because last time I fixed his mess-up it took me two whole days to work out the details with at least four other colleagues from different departments and I really don't want to do it again. there's other shit that needs doing, I've been working 10+ hour days for most of this week already, so I need to cut down not add on more.

(good thing tho - at least we managed to fix the issue where the dataset of a newer employee got mixed up with another one of the same name and therefore wasn't able to apply for any of the access/accounts she needed. technically not entirely my area but it does impact us not being allowed to create an account for her so I figured I might as well track that issue down. took three days and at least three other people, but hey - it should all work out now. yay for that)

[mudstoneabyss]

We've barely been using tumblr lately because it's just been making us feel worse but the cons of that are the Night Vale withdrawal

[eastberlin]

Well we went from not having internet at home to not having power at home, so that’s very exciting. Everybody say “thank you giant tree that snapped in half”!

[babyspacebatclone]

Can I get some help with something? Cuz I really would rather prevent a fire from happening at my work if my fears turn out not to be exaggerated….

I’ll start off by saying I did just do a quick search about this to prove I’m at least not making stuff up, but I’m afraid I’m going to need to parrot back some expert advice to my daycare’s owner because yes he really is that big of an idiot.

The question:

Exactly how dangerous is it to have a dryer start melting down fabric tags like shrinky dinks???

Like, that one corner is just straight hard plastic. I had to cut it loose to be able to get the baby bouncer cover on, which initially just confused me until I processed exactly how bad it was.

There was also a cloth baby book with teether-like edges that had them fuse together that I didn’t think to get a picture of before handing it over to my director, this book though so you can get an idea:

I know if something were to get caught in the door or similar that could cause the overheating, but the book is too big for that.

When I brought up what I found to my director, which has only been stuff from about a week, she (sadly rightly) said the owner would just tell is to “Not put stuff with plastic in the dryer then.”

I immediately showed her the bouncer cover, which proved that it’s not just obvious plastic but any synthetic fabric at risk, but she just sighed, had me turn down the temperature setting on our only working dryer, and reminded me that our idiot of an owner has let the other dryer sit broken for over four months because well, how badly do we need two dryers?

(We wash all the children’s nap blankets once a week. I’m 90% certain this is required by licensing. We have to do each room on different days because they take multiple loads. This is on top of cleaning rags, washing baby toys on every use, and older soft toys as often as we can manage….)

Anyway…

How big of a fire risk is there? Because the building is old, the basement hasn’t seen updating in probably 50 years, and if there is a fire starting in the laundry room there will be issues.

[harlequinlestat]

Updates: We’ve been talking on the phone and on FaceTime for the past two-ish days, and I feel like a high school kid with a crush?? I keep trying to prepare myself for the let down when he inevitably sees me in person and isn’t attracted to me, but honestly, this is the first time I’ve enjoyed talking to someone so much while dating. And we haven’t even been on a date yet because of his crazy work schedule!

[theajaheira]

adventure :)

[geminicollisionworks]

With nothing much else to post at the moment, Berit has suggested that I share some tracks from maybe the biggest influence on Life With Althaar with "the yutes."

The Firesign Theatre was a surreal comedy group -- composed of Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and Philip Proctor -- that worked in audio, from 1966 to 2012, on radio in a mostly-improvisational form, and on LP and CD (and occasionally stage, film, and video) in a densely scripted and layered series of landmark audio works combining high and low comedy, poetry, literature, music, philosophy, metaphysics, theatre, surrealism, absurdism, and social commentary into a thick audio stew.

I've been listening to their albums for literally all 54 years of my life, and my voice (physical and creative) owes everything to them (probably all 75 voices I've performed on Althaar could be directly traced back to one of the Firesigns, if not deliberately imitating some other famous person).

While our show is more plot and character-driven and less abstract than most of their work, I think the influence is apparent, both in audio production and in a kind of philosophy of sonic comedy.

So I'll be sharing some of their work here over the next week, hoping to keep it alive in the Future. No problem if it's not your bag -- there are plenty of dated references, and some of the dialect voices verge on (or cross into) the problematic -- but maybe someone out there catches the bug.

Here is the title track from their first album, Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him, from 1968, originally all of side 2 of the LP. It's a simple start from them, getting to know the capabilities and limits of a real recording studio (only 4 tracks!), but it's pure Firesign.

(and yes, I chose to make one of the opening scenes of Althaar's first episode a Customs check in homage to this piece...)

The Wikipedia article on The Firesign Theatre is a detailed and accurate history if you want to know more.

When meeting the Firesigns at a signing in 1993, I mentioned to David Ossman their huge influence on me and he asked, "What do you do? Comedy?" And I replied, "No, I'm in Audio" (which was my job at the time). And he slammed his signing pen down and said:

"You see! People are always asking me 'where are the comedians influenced by Firesign these days? why does no one do comedy like you anymore?' And I always tell them, the people influenced by us didn't go into Comedy, they went into Audio! That was our real influence!"

And so, 30 years on from that, I find myself winding up doing both.

Hope you enjoy the all-nite images.