This isn’t even an Android One thing, but this post made me nostalgic for my Nexus 6. That was my first android phone, and I had a lot of fun tinkering with rooting and custom ROMs. The codename for the device (used for ROM stuff) was shamu.

I miss my magnificent whale

I just checked and about:config is also available on Iceraven (another Firefox derivative)

Also, if anyone (like me) switched away from Fennec because it was flagging as having a vulnerability in it recently, it appears like it’s been updated and that issue has been resolved. (I’m switching back because I have found Iceraven feels slower)

I don’t have one because I’m bad at note-taking

I was talking to a friend about this recently. It’s so surreal to think about when it’s so prevalent in the modern world. Take a scan around your immediate environment and imagine if all the plastic was gone

Big up recommending moisturiser. In addition to this, I have found that exfoliating before is a huge help.

Also your hair direction tip is a big one. Sometimes I get impatient and shave against the hair grain because it’s quicker to get a close shave that way, but I always end up regretting it due to ingrown hairs and other irritation

I think it’s almost entirely marketing.

Anecdata:

• using a “men’s” face razor on one’s legs will blunt it far quicker (and make it so it can’t be used on the face anymore). I have heard it suggested that maybe razors intended for shaving legs are more durable for this purpose, but I think that the skin on the legs is probably more forgiving towards blunt blades.
• When I was using either men’s or women’s razors depending on whatever was cheapest, I found that the most consistent determiner of shave quality was fresh razors (especially as I tend to not change blades often enough, partly because they’re bloody expensive)
• due to this, I switched to using double edged safety razors. The blades are cheap as hell and I got a way better shave. It was intimidating at first, but easier than I expected. (Get a little box or tin to dispose of old razors in). The cheap blades encouraged me to switch more often.

The technique is a bit different from what disposable razors require, so I’d maybe recommend getting a double edged safety razor, but allowing yourself some time to practice using it on less sensitive areas (using things you’re more familiar with for those areas in the mean time)

As well as cost, I get far better results, including fewer ingrown hairs. Now I’m used to this new kind of razor, even shaving my vulva and butt-crack is quite straightforward and quick. I have only cut myself once or twice using a double edged safety razor, and it was when I was being a dumbass and not taking my usual level of care. Just make sure you use plenty of soap/foam (hair conditioner works great too)

I pay for Bitwarden, because the pro version has a few features that are somewhat useful, but also I wanted to support the software.

Obligatory evangelising: If you don’t already use a password manager, I am urging you to start. Not because it’s something you should do, for security purposes (though that’s definitely true), but because using a password manager has been one of the single greatest quality of life improvements I’ve made for years. I used to have a system where I had a few stronger passwords for important stuff, and I reused old passwords for services I didn’t care about, but that always caused problems when stupid password requirements would mean I couldn’t use my regular variants, and I’d forget about these requirements and aaaaaaa.

Give it a try: You don’t have to switch everything over all at once. It has browser extensions and apps. You can make a super strong master password with four random words (write that down on paper and store it somewhere secure (not your wallet)). Bitwarden is open source and free

Okay, evangelising over

Other subscriptions I have include VPN, and I think that’s mostly it, since I tried to cut down on subscription stuff

I find perspectives like yours interesting because I experienced something similar when I was a closeted bisexual, and working through internalised homophobia was necessary for me. However, I have gay friends who are icked out by heterosexual PDA, and so I don’t feel comfortable assuming that what you’re experiencing is homophobia without applying a similar lens to what my friends feel (which feels wrong, because as a bisexual, I find both The Gays and The Straights deeply confusing)

There is a sense in which they are related though, and that’s that they’re both things that fall under the justice system. I understood the person you’re replying to as making a general point about their lack of faith in the justice system by juxtaposing a case with disproportionate punishment with a morally awful but unpunished case. The two examples aren’t directly related, but that’s why the contrast works — it’s two facets of a fucked up justice system.

I like your blog because (years ago, when I first learned the word), I used to attach negative connotations to the word “luddite”, and your blog’s name and topics made me realise my interpretation of historical Luddites was uncharitable.

To be fair, as a Millennial, most of my earliest experiences with tech were super positive, so it’s no wonder why I simplified things down to “luddites = anti-technology = bad”.

It probably is irrational, but humans are pretty irrational.

I think this kind of tension is inevitable when so many people say “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”. Many people with work burnout tried that, and found that they came to hate the thing they love.

Often, when we get stuck in that rut, we can’t undo the harm that it’s done to our passion, and retraining in a different field may be difficult or impossible. Maybe there was a period where it was possible to toe thelp line and make a career out of a hobby, and an attempt to regain some elements of that. In many cases, it’s dumb as hell to keep throwing oneself at the same thing that made someone burnt out in the first place but sometimes, reclaiming something they love is liberating and healing.

I say this speaking as an academic who has always found it hard to separate my work from what I love doing, because even my “extracurricular” projects tend to have a fair bit of overlap with my work. I sometimes wish that I was someone who could have a clear divide between work and fun, but to do that, I’d need to find work much further away from my passions.

I’ve read about that. It’s horrifying beyond words.

For recommendations and discovery (which was a large part of what kept me with Spotify), I’m a big fan of https://listenbrainz.org/ In the time I’ve been using it, the recommendations have gotten way better, and I appreciate their efforts towards transparency. (Yay for open source)

You can import listen data from music streaming services, so if anyone is curious, I’d recommend setting it up and seeing how it goes; I only recently got round to cancelling my Spotify, but before then, I had it set up so my Spotify listens would show up on my listenbrainz.

You’re quite right though that there aren’t any straightforward replacements for Spotify. Personally, I’m returning to the seven seas, which is why I’m so appreciative of listenbrainz — that discovery stuff really was the last big thing chaining me to Spotify

It’s also that even time off can be difficult to get, because of a lack of acknowledgement of variability in menstruation. I have seen way too many situations where a manager (or whoever is responsible for okaying time off) underestimates how bad it can be for some people, possibly because no-on close to them has bad periods, so they think that everyone who struggles is playing it up for time off work.

Something that really icks me out is that there have been a few times where I have been used as a comparator to shame colleagues; I have always been blessed with light and pain free periods, and when I was on hormonal contraception, they actually stopped entirely. This meant I never needed time off for menstrual reasons, and this was used to sort of say “well Ann presumably menstruates and just gets on with things, so why can’t you?”. Many of us have had the experience of asshole managers who micromanage employee sickness and are exhausting to deal with, but there’s a subset of those who are extra assholish around menstruation related sicknesses. Something I’ve seen once was someone who seemed to be tracking the periods of her employees, and would call up to query times if you had taken period related time off and it didn’t fit into her predictions. I can only assume that she was fortunate to have super regular periods, but many people who do suffer enough to need time off work can’t predict their periods to that degree of accuracy.

But as others have said, it’s not just about time off, but sometimes it’s small stuff like taking additional or longer bathroom breaks. Or, when someone has come back from a menstruation related sick day, jokes like “you feeling better? Great, just make sure you don’t bleed on the chair, haha”, to the entire office. Obviously that’s inappropriate and the kind of thing you’d report to HR, but it’d be less prevalent if people were less weird about menstruation in general.

In a way, I appreciate your being confused by this, because if more managers thought about this like you do, this wouldn’t be nearly as big of an issue. But way too many people make it weird.

Thank you for the succinct explanation

The rear view mirror thing is a good tip. You’ve made me realise I sort of did this somewhat without being aware of it (I tended to be attentive when adjusting my mirror, so more often than not, it would be set in accord with good posture). Now I am aware of this, I can be much more deliberate in making this happen.

Coney Barrett is a weird one, because she’s probably one of the more principled judges there. It’s just a shame that the principles she adheres to are batshit insane. “Wildcard” is definitely the word for her in this case; I share your consternation around considering this “hopeful”

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