Posts made by Rinel

@Admiral said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

So... I'm spiraling, folks. Wish me luck.

Oof. Get some pizza. Watch some Netflix. The storm will lift in time.

@Ganymede

Samesies! Immunity doesn't attach! Of course, proving the elements such that strict liability comes into play is, to quote Blackstone, "a bitch and a half."

@Ganymede said in The Work Thread:

I wish I had this skill, but I don't. I cover my emotions with laughter. I laugh a lot, actually.

I mean, it sort of makes people at work uncomfortable, but my other mode is killbot, so --

That was me before HRT. But now I'm going through puberty 2: hormonal boogaloo, and everything makes me cry.

When your bosses pull you in because you left early on Tuesday due to panic and tell you not to... because they have panic attacks too and that if you're going to be panicking, you should just come into their office and cry with them.

Which of course you promptly start to do, and they rush to give you a big hug and tell you that they won't give up on you but you can't give up on yourself.

Y'ALL

@Auspice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Stress, anxiety, panic, etc. manifest as severe chest pains for me often. The way one doctor described it is I get muscle spasms in my chest right around my heart

Yeah. I just don't know which muscles are spasming. If it's not vasospasm, then it's probsnly esophageal. Nothing else matches the area and migration upwards and outwards.

Got prescribed some beta blockers from my psychiatrist on Friday. They keep heart rate depressed and will stop the physiological effects of anxiety, which is what causes me to spiral into full blown panic.

2+ years of this makes me know there are no silver bullets, but I confess when I heard about it, I thought "silver bullet."

Of course I remembered yesterday that my panic attacks are atypical and, given other facts, indicative of Prinzmetal's angina. Which, if I have it, means I cannot under any circumstances take beta blockers. And the main way of testing for it is to induce coronary vasospasm. During angiography. Also known as coronary catheterization.

And, of course, if I do have it, I get the possible joy of having a pacemaker installed before my 30th birthday.

I'm terrified and overwhelmed and have spent most of the weekend crying in bed. I am a broken human being.

Also, I did a look-back, and I'm one of the lucky few who see absolutely no hair regrowth on HRT. I even showed pictures to strangers for analysis. So I either look balding, choose wigs that I can't afford, or get a surgery that I can't afford.

@Aria said in Good TV:

Please excuse me while I ugly snot-cry at The Good Place finale.

Girl, same. I thought I was doing fine, just sniffling, and then... waves.

Oh God.

Monday meeting got moved from 11:30 to 3. Partner sent out message to firm saying they expect everyone to be there.

My day ends at 3.

shrug

Update: I'm getting a free ride home! \○/

While I'm glad it's essentially confined to my scalp, having seborrheic dermatitis is just... old, at this point. Huge swaths of skin breaking away and peeling off. Great for my OCD, terrible for my appearance.

Also, it itches.

@Ghost said in Good TV:

Not a fan of these mini-Netflix services, but Picard IMO is worth the cost more than Discovery is. I'm biased, though, because I think Trek should have never left the Prime timeline.

Did ST:D confirm that it's not in the Prime timeline? I stopped watching during season 2. Plan to get back to it, but I've got a lot to watch. I'm thinking about getting CBS for a few months for it and for Picard.

@Ghost said in Good TV:

Picard

Just watched Picard. I... I don't know what to say.

I never make noise when I watch stuff. But this? I made exclamations of glee, of delight, of shock. I literally said "oh, that is not good. Oh, holy shit, that is not good" at one point.

This is what being awestruck feels like. Oh my God. I'm in disbelief.

@Ganymede said in Separating Art From Artist:

No one (I know) seems to care what the implications of the Forstater case may have on freedom of speech in the UK, an issue that a British author would have every reason to be concerned with

Here's the thing, though: it has none. Firstly, freedom of speech in the UK is already a flimsy construct. Secondly, employment tribunals have no precedential authority. Thirdly, the case was exquisitely narrow in scope--whether a person's "gender critical" views constituted a protected category of belief such that it would be unlawful to deny renewal of a contract with her based upon actions she had taken pursuant to this belief (e.g. misgendering coworkers).

The answer was "of course it fucking doesn't," because of course it fucking doesn't. Can you imagine an Anglican insisting her Christian views should be a protected basis for her saying "Merry Christmas" instead of a company mandated "Happy Holidays?"

I did research into the Forstater case, because I would rather transphobia be protected than free speech be diminished. So you know one person who cares.

ETA: If a famous author cares about freedom of speech, there are better ways to go about it than posting the latter-day equivalent of #IstandwithSkokie

@Derp said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Rinel said in Separating Art From Artist:

I'm going to say it's immoral, because you're treating that person as a means to an end (inducing others not to be nazis) rather than an end in themselves (changing their mind re: nazism).

Ugh. I can't Kant. I despise the categorical imperative probably about as much as you despise consequentialism.

Probably doesn't help things that my personal ethical system is actually theistic in nature

@Ganymede said in Separating Art From Artist:

The line I see is whether the shaming leads to physical consequences. It is clearly wrong if someone is assaulted or killed as a result of exposing them.

I'm going to say it's immoral, because you're treating that person as a means to an end (inducing others not to be nazis) rather than an end in themselves (changing their mind re: nazism).

But that's because I despise consequentialism.

@Auspice said in Separating Art From Artist:

Publishers and studios won't touch something that might be 'risky'

That's always been the case, and as you yourself pointed out, censorship usually affects the oppressed more than the oppressor.

Thankfully self publishing is in full swing these days, so now is actually the best time to be a new author.

@Pandora

I chose those people for a reason. If you're outing and misgendering trans people to crowds, you're a bigot. Sure, people get tarred with the "bigot" brush too easily these days, but my point is that the people who are actually being significantly affected by cancel culture are actually bigoted.

Here's my pithy and probably overly reductive take on the matter: if "cancel culture" isn't strong enough to do anything more than make Natalie Wynn quit Twitter and devote a video to the topic, then I sort of doubt its power.

Most of the people upset about cancel culture, and who are affected by it, are unrepentant bigots who are being deplatformed. To which I say, good. I am glad people like Milo Yiannopoulos and Notch and Nina Paley and Bret Weinstein* aren't having people bend over backwards to let them spew their garbage.

*Weinstein does actually offer one of the stronger arguments against deplatforming. His actions at Evergreen were fine, IMHO, but he went full alt-right after leaving the college. Partly this is due to him being a sort of shitty person, but there's no doubt that when people get lumped in with garbage people, they tend to adopt some garbage views.

@Auspice said in The Work Thread:

@GreenFlashlight said in The Work Thread:

@Auspice said in The Work Thread:

Someone put up posters all over work for a fundraiser they're doing for Australia.

And I'm like.
This is cool what you're doing but covering the poster with glamor shots of yourself plus like, two stock koala photos is weird and means I am prob just gonna look for an official foundation thanks.

(p.s. Australia is more than just koalas.)

Yeah, I won't take shots at anyone trying to help, but I'm really suspicious of how basically every story I hear about the Australian fires frames it in terms of animals dead and contains no mention at all of the effects on the indigenous population. It makes me think there's a horror going on there we're not being told about.

I figure it's just 'people like cute animals and koalas are v. fetch rn'
because I adore flying foxes and there's reports entire populations of them are gone, but you don't hear much about them at all in the news.

This exactly. It's why you get images like this:

Very moving. Also very odd that a eucalyptus is a white skinned, white featured woman instead of, say, a brown skinned one with aboriginal features.

But if it were that, then it wouldn't be popular. Activism sometimes perpetuates things it's technically against in order to reach a closer goal.

@Tinuviel said in Separating Art From Artist:

There is no absolute morality, therefore it has to be subjective.

Quite literally begging the question.

Your best argument here is the is-ought gap, and you're going with people disagreeing? Come the heck on. People disagree about observable phenomena (see, e.g., 9/11 truthers). Is reality subjective as well?

The answer is no. Things being difficult to ascertain does not make them subjective. It makes them topics about which a great many people are wrong.