Bear Blog Most Recent Posts

Fountain Pen collecting

hidden (wolves) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 12:09:00 +0000

Earlier this year I treated myself to my DREAM pen. I've been longing for this pen for yeeears, since I first set my greedy eyes on it. So when I saw it second hand, I paid out big money (imo, seeing other people's collections... oioioi) for my Dragon Palace Sailor Pro Gear Slim.

It's not my first Sailor pen; when I heard that Sailors have a distinctive feedback, I had to check that the Dragon Palace really was the pen for me. I got a cheaper Profit Junior model, which I loved. In fact I adore the Sailor feedback so much I really miss it when I use the other pens I own haha.

Somehow, I now have enough Sailors to man a small ship, three of which are from the Shikiori Tsukuyono Minamo collection lmao. I love them, and they were discounted okay, have mercy on my weakness (and I'm shamelessly still searching for the one I'm missing -- for less than it usually sells for anyway lol).

ANYWAY, the point was: my grail. The Dragon Palace.

Was it worth the years of daydreaming, searching and the money I paid out for it? Honestly. H o n e s t l y. Nah. It's beautiful, and writes lovely, but it's just a pen. I do feel the difference with the gold nib vs steel, but it's not enough of a difference in my hand that I... care? I notice it, and I like it, but it's just a little a softer. Nothing really to write home about. In fact, the steel nibs give a little more feedback, make a more of little satisfying scratchy sound, and I prefer that.

I also prefer the cigar shape of all my other pens, the Pro Gear Slim's chopped off ends are kinda boring to my eyes. Don't get me wrong, it's my favourite in my collection but like... if someone handed me another Pro Gear, I would hand it back (jk that shit would be on ebay within the hour BUT. lets pretend).

So I guess the point is, while I love my pen - I have no regrets, and wouldn't part with it easily - I think I'm done with my fountain pen collection (besides the one missing Shikiori). I have more than I could everrrr need, a good range of nibs to play around with, and enough colours to match whatever mood I'm in. Its nice, to retire the part of this hobby that was just endlessly Searching for Something, and to just enjoy writing nonsense on my dumb little notebooks.

Teatro com Libras e histórias de vó

hidden (thblog) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 12:05:00 +0000

Há uns meses assisti a um teatro de rua na temática de Paulo Freire. A peça trazia muitos elementos sobre educação e tinha um jeito leve e brincalhão de passar pelos atos. Um nível altíssimo de língua portuguesa, pois parecia que o grupo brincava com as palavras; as frases, versos e cantigas se encaixavam com muita leveza.

O grupo todo era talentosíssimo, mas hoje vou destacar a atriz que estava fazendo a interpretação em Libras. Gente, que entrega sensacional. A expressividade, os gestos, a cadência. Só ela adicionava uma riqueza à peça, parecia que dava alma pra coisa, e veja só, eu diria que melhorava o entendimento do texto pra todos os presentes.

O último ato trouxe de volta as peripécias da linguagem, valorizando a cultura falada popular. Pra isso, eles cantavam sobre coisas que avós diziam, talvez uma forma de dizer que se perdeu, ou uma gramática diferente, ou ditados que não são mais tão comuns. Com isso eles passavam perguntando pra plateia quais eram as coisas que as avós delas diziam, que hoje não se diz mais (pelo menos não da mesma forma). O resultado foi riquíssimo! Ouvir de várias pessoas as falas das avós delas foi muito bonito; parece que trouxe mais vida pra memória delas.

Afinal, qual a fala da MINHA avó? Eu te conto, ela dizia "Faz por donde, menino!". Fique comigo nesse post, depois das fotos eu vou explicar o que isso significa:

Essa conversa de Paulo Freire me deixou pensativo e lembrando com carinho da minha avó por parte de pai. Veja, eu venho de família caipira do interior paulista. Meus avós e meu pai se mudaram pra cidade quando meu pai tinha 20 anos, já que a vida na roça vinha se mostrando difícil em termos de possibilidades de trabalho. Minha vó nunca estudou, então ela não sabia ler nem escrever.

Me intriga o fato de a minha avó ter cultivado um tipo de sabedoria diferente. Na falta de poder ler, ela passava muito tempo conversando com as amigas, com as vizinhas, traçando seu conhecimento de forma oral. Algumas dessas amigas tinham netos numa idade poucos anos a frente do meu irmão mais velho, então ela tinha muita informação sobre como funcionavam vestibulares e alguns tópicos acerca da educação.

Ela tinha uma convicção: a educação era a única alavanca capaz de transformar nossa vida. O incentivo ao estudo pra mim sempre foi tão natural, pois nunca me restou dúvida do sacrifício que meus ascendentes fizeram e quão cruel foi a falta de estudo e possibilidades. Nessa convicção e por meio dessas conversas, ela entendeu que inglês era importante. Tinha que estudar esse negócio. Assim, por volta de 2006 ou 2007, ela tirava uma parte da sua aposentadoria pra que meu irmão fizesse aula de inglês. Eu ainda não, pois não dava para os dois fazerem a aula, mas alguns anos depois, quando meu irmão começou a trabalhar e eu pude também estudar inglês.

Veja só, meu trabalho hoje exige a tal língua estrangeira e eu uso todos os dias. Antes de eu me entender por gente, minha avó — que era analfabeta — já sabia o caminho da educação. Já sabia o que tinha que fazer, e botou a gente pra estudar. Essa história me causa duas sensações: eu fico intrigado por perceber como ela era uma pessoa sábia, sensata e com uma visão de mundo que contrariava as estatísticas. E também fico muito orgulhoso e muito grato de ter tido essa avó.

Voltando às falas de vó do teatro, a fala dela "Fazer por donde" significa então "faça sua parte", "faça por merecer", "dê o seu melhor", "faça o que for possível". Acho que era a forma dela de dizer pra eu fazer a minha parte, que ela estaria fazendo a dela e pensando no melhor pra gente. E assim foi feito. A saudade dói, claro, mas os sentimentos de carinho e gratidão amenizam tudo. E do lado de cá, eu sigo fazendo por donde.

Ei! Agora é com você! Tal como no teatro que pedia pra plateia contar as expressões e histórias de vó, como um exercício de manter a linguagem popular e a memória viva, eu vou deixar o convite pra você também deixar um comentário aqui no guestbook me contando qual é a expressão, fala ou ditado da sua vó que hoje não é tão comum mais. Talvez as respostas viram um novo post, quem sabe? Ou eu atualizo aqui? Veremos. Um abraço e deixe seu salve

Day 2 with the Steam Machine (or: running Sunshine)

hidden (zegnat) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 11:45:00 +0000

For many years I have only used laptops. Because who has the space for a tower PC? But now with the Steam Machine sitting on my desk I can no longer unplug and continue work on the couch.

A quick look around the internet pointed me at the Sunshine and Moonlight combo. So I went with that instead of the old VNC stuff I was using 20 years ago. Blindly trusting my fellow webizens here.

Sunshine was quickly installed via Discovery (Flatpak). And I installed Moonlight on both my work laptop (via brew) and phone (via F-Droid).

I quickly ran into one issue: the Steam Machine is connected to a 3440×1440 wide screen monitor. And that is what Sunshine will start to stream. I was able to configure Sunshine to change my resolution when I connect from a Moonshine client.

How I did that.

Within the Sunshine configuration there was a new “application” called Desktop. I navigated into its Edit section. In there is a subsection called “Command Preparations”, where I could set commands that will run on start and end of streaming.

I set the Do Command to bring my screen down to a non-wide-screen 720p with the following:

flatpak-spawn --host kscreen-doctor output.HDMI-A-1.mode.30

I set the Undo Command to bring my screen back to its usual format:

flatpak-spawn --host kscreen-doctor output.HDMI-A-1.mode.1

And everything worked!

But where did I get those values?

Running kscreen-doctor -o on the command line can give you information about what is currently running:

Output: 1 HDMI-A-1 f26f4ee9-d493-4a1a-ab41-ebec598e97e0
        enabled
        connected
        priority 1
        HDMI
        replication source:0
        Modes:  1:3440x1440@85*!  2:3840x2160@60  3:3840x2160@60  […]  26:1280x1024@85  27:1440x900@85  28:1280x800@85  29:1280x720@60  30:1280x720@60  31:1024x768@60  32:800x600@60  […] 
        Geometry: 0,0 3440x1440

On the very first line it told me my display was available as HDMI-A-1. After that I just needed to identify the right modes. The currently selected and recommended display is mode 1 at 3440×1440, so that was easy for the Undo. Then I just kept scrolling through the list until I saw a resolution that made sense for me to stream. I settled on mode 30 at your old school 1280×720.

Not Glorious Mud

hidden (legs) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 11:40:00 +0000

I write this during just as official drought conditions have been announced for most of England. And although the prospect of weeks of ‘blessed rain’ – as my Kenyan circus tumbling friend calls it – might be a welcome change, it brings a flood of bad memories…

I’ve always been terrified of boggy ground, welly-swallowing mud and anything else swampy.

Winter 2016 was the second wettest winter since 1910 and Hurricane’s field turned into a quagmire. He was utterly unconcerned because he’d become infatuated with a miniature Shetland pony belonging to my neighbor. She’d been moved to a field which backed onto Hurricane’s, divided by two barbed wire fences with a ditch between.

Hurricane did little else but pace up and down in the hopes of seeing his lady friend. But as the rain continued to pour he stopped pacing. He just stood and stared despondently. And created the perfect conditions to get something called mud fever. He’d made his own clay bog which covered his hooves right up to his stifle (that’s the equivalent of a human’s knee). I knew he wasn’t right.

Mud was stopping oxygen getting to his legs and creating a moist space for bacteria to accumulate. In short, the area above his hooves – once the mud was scraped off – was raw.

‘Unless you get that ‘orse out of there soon he’ll get the mange’ said TSM. But TSM was lambing and didn’t have a moment to spare. Nevertheless, he refrained from using his favourite phrase… Instead he muttered, ‘No cure for the mange’.

Getting to Hurricane would involve going through the bottom gate which also had its own clay bog. I had no choice.

Clinging onto the gate post I looked to see where I could take a safe next step.

‘I can’t do this’ a voice screamed in my head.

‘You don’t have to’ came an odd but reassuring response I’d heard before.

Grey-wellied feet squelched a way through.

I’d found the right antibacterial shampoo to clean Hurricane’s legs. But first I had to clean the mud off. It took about forty-five minutes to treat each leg. Clearly uncomfortable for my beloved, we took it slow and gentle. He never once tried to kick, just shifted out of reach. I waited. Went to another leg. Time disappears in these situations. I probably did daily this for a week or so.

And although his legs slightly improved, overall, he did not and the weather worsened. When I saw him sitting on his haunches, I knew we had to move him immediately into the better drained field at the top of the farm’s drive.

How?

Love or lust.

My neighbor came to the rescue.

The feisty little Shetland who was barely taller than a dog was led her down to Hurricane’s end of the adjoining field. She had absolutely no interest in the lack-luster coated but still striking chestnut. Her eyes were fixed downwards at the lush grass. A mouthful or twenty would suffice as a reward. Hurricane was barely aware of our presence.

Suddenly rediscovering his snort, he followed the tiny mare from his side of the fence. Somehow, we got her out and him in.

Slowly, my boy recovered.

I still hate mud and boggy places.

And although my devotions, perhaps, played some small part in keeping Hurricane alive, it pales against the honor and grace he afforded in allowing me to tend him.

We enjoyed thirteen or so further months of each other’s company during which our friendship deepened and I got to see other facets of his character. He was fascinated and terrified of the wheelbarrow.

My horse-ranger days had trained me to muck out and keep a field clear of manure. Hurricane managed to produce a disproportionate amount for a single horse. Nevertheless, he made the back-breaking work fun, nosing me for a pony-nut before dancing away at the mere suggestion I might move the barrow or shovel in his direction.

I wasn’t stupid. At some point he’d met a surly groom, master or mistress.

Not on my watch.

One fine day, as I raised my both my hands in sheer laughter at his antics he did something wonderful. He reared up, whinnied and cantered round in beautiful circles, flouncy and excited. Had some more pleasant memory been ignited?

I did the human equivalent, raising my hands in the air and finding I, too, could run in a circle. I’d already found the joy of dance through a discipline called Biodanza. We even danced ‘horse’ which of course I believed I excelled at… but to actually dance ‘horse’ with a horse? Sublime.

It became our secret play, as and when he was in the mood. Never in company.

#horse #mud #dancing #interspeciescommunication

"One way languages gain and lose adherents is through calculations people make about what a given language can do for them."

hidden (etan) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 11:30:00 +0000

Sometimes It’s O.K. to Let a Language Die - When cultural preservationists cast every extinction as murder, they can ignore speakers’ decisions—and the costs of keeping a fading tongue alive. By Nikhil Krishnan in the New Yorker

ヒンスちゃん

hidden (noesworthy) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 11:29:00 +0000

今日は札幌行ってきた😆

大きめのドラッグストア入ってみたら、

SheglamとかバイユァとかPerfect Diaryとか

アマゾンでよく見るような、韓国?中国?コスメがたくさん売ってたけど

実物のパケ可愛すぎる😮😮😮

カラバリ豊富すぎる😮😮😮

なんか、日本のコスメだとなかなか合う色ないんだけど

中韓だとコレ!ていう色が絶対ある不思議

うろうろして、

ヒンスのリップティントGET🤭

なんか紫がかったヌーディーなピンクベージュみたいな色なんだけど、帰り道塗ってみたら恐ろしいほど自然に馴染んでてびっくり🫪

自然なのに塗ってないときより綺麗に見える

絶妙な温度感

ブルベカラーかなと思ったけど、あとから調べたらニュートラルっていう分類だった

イエベの子にも合うってこと?

まじでどうやったらあんな色編み出せるんや??

韓国ブランドの色彩センスは天才的やね😮😮😮

Sightless Links for August 2026

hidden (sightlessscribbles) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 11:06:59 +0000

Before we begin, learn how to follow Sightless Scribbles here

Go to this page to follow by RSS or email

nums.size() vs int n = nums.size() in a For Loop: Which One Should You Actually Use?

hidden (antcode) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 11:03:00 +0000

You write this loop a hundred times a week and never think about it:

for (int i = 0; i < nums.size(); i++) {

}

It compiles. It passes your tests. It ships. Then, months later — or thirty seconds into a coding interview — someone feeds it an empty vector, and everything goes sideways. Not a crash you can point to on line 12. Just... your loop runs forever, or reads garbage memory, or returns a wrong answer nobody can explain.

Nine times out of ten, the culprit is one of these two lines quietly living somewhere nearby:

for (int i = 0; i < nums.size();       i++)   // fine, until...
for (int i = 0; i < nums.size() - 1;   i++)   // ...this shows up

Let's talk about why that second line is a landmine, what the "cache it first" habit actually buys you, and where it doesn't save you.

The Setup: Two Ways to Write the Same Loop

// Version A — ask the container every time
for (int i = 0; i < nums.size(); i++) { }

// Version B — ask once, remember the answer
int n = nums.size();
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) { }

On a good day, these do exactly the same thing. The interesting part is what happens on a bad day.

The Landmine: Unsigned Arithmetic

Here's the detail that catches people off guard: nums.size() doesn't return a normal int. It returns size_t — an unsigned number. Unsigned numbers can't go negative. So when someone writes:

for (int i = 0; i < nums.size() - 1; i++) {
    // compare nums[i] and nums[i + 1]
}

...and nums happens to be empty, size() is 0. And 0 - 1, in unsigned math, isn't -1. There's no negative to go to, so it wraps all the way around to roughly 18 quintillion. Your loop condition just silently became i < 18446744073709551615, and your "obviously correct" comparison loop is now reading way past the end of the array.

This is the single most common reason a two-pointer or sliding-window solution passes every normal test case and then face-plants on the empty-input edge case — the one test everyone forgets to trace through by hand.

Where Caching Actually Helps

int n = nums.size();
for (int i = 0; i < n - 1; i++) {
    // n - 1 is a normal signed int subtraction — no wraparound, even when n == 0
}

Cache the size into an int, and this specific bug just... stops existing. n is signed, so n - 1 behaves the way your brain expects it to. It's not that caching is inherently "faster" or "more correct" in general — it's that this particular habit happens to force you through a signed integer, which is what actually kills the bug.

(You could get the same fix by writing (int)nums.size() - 1 inline, for what it's worth — but almost nobody does that. Caching is just the version people actually reach for.)

The Twist: Sometimes You Want the Live Version

Here's where it gets genuinely interesting instead of just being a "gotcha":

for (int i = 0; i < nums.size(); i++) {
    if (someCondition) nums.push_back(x);   // container is growing
}

If you cache n before this loop, new elements pushed in during the loop get silently ignored — the loop only ever sees the original count. If you want the loop to notice new elements as they're added, the inline version is correct and caching would be the bug.

So this isn't "always cache, no exceptions." It's: know whether your loop bound is supposed to be a fixed snapshot or a moving target, and write the code that matches that intent — instead of defaulting to whichever one you typed first out of habit.

Performance: The Argument Nobody Actually Needs to Have

Quick myth-bust, since it comes up: .size() is O(1). It's not strlen() scanning character by character — it's a stored counter. Calling it every iteration isn't "slow." With optimizations on, compilers frequently hoist it out of the loop themselves anyway. If someone tells you to cache .size() purely for speed, they're solving a problem that mostly doesn't exist. The real reason to care is the signed/unsigned trap above, plus:

Repeated use. If you reference the size three or four times inside the loop body (n - 1, n / 2, n - k), caching once is just less noise to read and less room for a typo.
Clarity of intent. int n = nums.size(); followed by plain n tells the next reader "this bound is fixed for the whole loop" without them having to check whether nums gets mutated somewhere in the body.

The Takeaway

Both patterns are legitimate — the point was never "always cache" vs. "never cache." It's this: your loop bound is either a frozen snapshot or a live value, and those are two different decisions with two different failure modes. The bug isn't caused by picking the "wrong" one — it's caused by not realizing you were making a choice at all, and getting bitten the one time your input happens to be empty.

Trace your loop through n = 0 by hand once. That's the whole habit.

Sobre escrever todos os dias

hidden (blogdoth) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Um dos meus autores favoritos é o Fernando Sabino, comecei a gostar de ler crônicas por meio dos textos que ele escrevia para o jornal e também nos livros. De acordo com Humberto Werneck em artigo publicado no dia 12 de outubro de 2023 no estadão: Fernando “se impunha a obrigação de escrever todos os dias, tivesse ou não assunto.”

Outro cara que admiro muito e que escreve todos os dias em seu blog é o Seth Godin. Ele está publicando todos os dias há mais de 10 anos. Nem todo herói usa capa.

Neste mês estou participando do BEDA (Blog Every Day August) e meu desafio será postar todos os dias durante todo o looonnngo mês de agosto. Não sou nenhum Fernando Sabino e tampouco um Seth Godin, mas esse exercício de escrever todos os dias vai ser bom para eu praticar ainda mais a escrita e ampliar meu repertório.

Você já participou de algum desafio parecido? Tem gente que se propõe a correr todos os dias, ou ler todos os dias, são formas de criar um novo hábito e se desenvolver mais numa área específica.

Vai ser minha primeira vez participando de um BEDA, esse em específico está sendo organizado pelos amigos do entreblogs e a galera que faz parte da comunidade está bastante animada.

Agora é ver até onde eu consigo chegar sem começar a inventar assunto nonsense só para cumprir agenda.

Escrever todos os dias também é uma forma de prestar mais atenção na própria vida. Quando você sabe que precisa publicar alguma coisa, começa a observar melhor as conversas, as pequenas situações do cotidiano, alguma lembrança que apareceu do nada ou uma ideia que normalmente não receberia a devida atenção.

Alguns textos vão ser legais, outros bem meia boca. O importante, pelo menos para mim, é chegar ao final de agosto podendo dizer que sentei aqui todos os dias e escrevi alguma coisa.

A jornada começou.

E-mail Guestbook Voltar

POSTS POPULARES

18 Feb, 2026 O chato fitness
25 Nov, 2025 Sobre blogs pessoais
23 Oct, 2025 O culto a performance
11 Sep, 2025 Pequenas alegrias da vida adulta
28 Aug, 2025 Mini manual da desimportância

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

JUL >> AUG

hidden (pretendtypewriter) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 10:46:33 +0000

Monthly reflection and outlook.

July happened.

The month flew by and was filled with emotional ups and downs. Let's reflect.

+

Finishing my relax-station. I can't believe how quickly I put this area together! Normally it takes me years! I still stare at that wall in awe every night before bed and think to myself, I can live like this? Right now?
Experiencing music again. I've been writing to write a blog post about this all month but haven't gotten around to it. But collecting records, buying a record player, etc. was a great investment for my emotional well-being. I end the day feeling calm and happy, and have created a bedtime/wind-down routine out of it. And on that note...
Vinyl Wednesdays. I'm so used to doing everything with Daniel that I didn't know I really needed some time to myself. I make Wednesdays a whole event now: get dressed up and spend two hours before lunch deep-diving into music. I love it.
Getting out of the dungeon. My D&D crew finally left the dungeon! Since we only play 2 hours per month, they've been in that Dungeon for like, a year. XD I've also been really inspired by The Legend of Vox Machina so I want to incorporate better storytelling and character creation into the game. I wanna be a better DM!
Buying a domain name. I finally decided on a domain name for my Taiwan project and it makes it feel more real now.
Family photo album is on the way. Two days ago I received an email stating that my sister is shipping something to me. Of the items is my family photo album, which is essential for the Taiwan research project! I'm excited to finally get started.
Co-working with friends again. I had been out of the co-working routine for some time now (mostly out of laziness), but I realized to be a good community member you gotta be there for the community! We are friends of course, but I see us a community first, rather than a friend group.* That's why our virtual meeting room was set up in the first place, so we can help each other out when we need it.
Speaking German with my German group again. K restarted our group chat and yesterday we met up with Muffler as well. It was nice to just speak German freely without worrying about making mistakes and switching to English when I needed a break. The funniest thing I notice is that Daniel's always the first to switch to English. :P However, he is helpful at correcting us when we make really big mistakes and he also taught us some funny Swiss German words.
My bladder is healthy. That's always good to know.
Been going to the gym consistently, twice a week. I've been enjoying going to the gym on Sundays, but for a few weeks we were pushing our weekday gym time. It's back to Wednesdays now.
Haven't had to use my savings all month. I thought my spending habits were off the walls after the record table + album purchases, but surprisingly I didn't have to dip into my savings at all in July! I have to now in August, but next week I'm going to visit the social welfare office to see how I can get some moneys to pay my bigger bills without exhausting my savings.
A new perspective on my job search. I'm hesistant to write a long post about this because of potential employers, so long story short, Usagi helped me gain a new perspective on feeling like I've failed at my career: I've already had a career, I've worked for 15 years in various industries, and I moved to Switzerland and live in a city people dream of visiting. I made it already! So now I just need to look for my retirement job, whatever that may be. :P But yeah, that made me feel loads better.
I'm cooking more. On Fridays I've been making yummy, more complicated meals that I miss eating. Last week I made zhajianmian and yesterday I made Japanese curry with chicken drumsticks. (Meat on the bone is always better.) The meals felt like home.

* I remember reading this in a blog post somewhere but I can't find it! If anyone somehow knows what I'm referring to, please reach out so I can reread the post and link their blog here.

-

I got rejected from a job I really wanted. It felt like a stab to the gut and derailed my emotions for a week.
I'm still looking for work. It hurts to say I have no prospects. I'm trying new methods and as mentioned in the positives, changing my outlook on the situation.
Bear Blog drama. I didn't want to mention this because it's a topic that's been beaten to death, but I gotta say that seeing how everything went down made me sad. This is the indie web, why do people care about trending? I wish the trending list was gone and it was just the discovery feed.
My leg hurts again. My referrals for regular physiotherapy has run out, and since I am searching for a physiotherapist for another issue, I'm noticing that things are getting out of whack again and my left leg is in constant pain. I hate doing admin things as they overwhelm me, so I thought I could focus on one physiotherapy at a time. But I don't think I can, so I should call my GP on Monday.

While this month felt more emotional than the previous, I'm still glad that the positives outweigh the negatives.

Looking forward to...

Queer Chor is back! Our third project begins with our first rehearsal on the 23rd of August. I need to print out all the new sheet music and practice!
Receiving the care package from my sister. Not only am I receiving the album, she mentioned she added some gifts for me, Daniel, and Boba. Super curious!
Hanging out with V&N again. We haven't hung out in a few weeks because they've been traveling. They're starting to feel like good friends now, where I'm excited to see them to catch up and share what's been going on in our lives.

Goals

Keep up with Vinyl Wednesdays. I love the feeling of having a haunt. I also wanna befriend the owner and tap into the local community more. I had some falling outs in the past and I'm ready to try again.
Visit social welfare. I thought I had to exhaust my savings before I could apply for social benefits, but Usagi was like, uh, you know you're allowed to get money without having to burn through your savings, right? And in Germany, you don't even have to pay them back once you get a job again! (In Switzerland, you only have to pay back if you get a well-paying job or an inheritance, otherwise you don't need to pay back.)
Contact a job recruiter. My friend B in the Netherlands connected me with a recruiter and I KEEP FORGETTING to contact them for potential freelance work because I'm a dum dum. So putting this on here so I won't forget.
Print out CVs and start handing them out to businesses. Big gulp. I'll definitely blog about this experience.

Conclusion

July tried me. Despite this post being overwhelming upbeat, I had moments of existential dread throughout the month that drained me of motivation to do anything. And that's where the arts saved me—both listening to music and drawing. There were times when I was super bummed and Daniel would say, "Why don't you draw in your sketchbook?" And I would begrudgingly do so, only to feel so much better after. Art: I recommend it. ㋡

Meh, August. I'm not excited about it but it's gonna happen whether I like it or not. ㋡

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆Reply via email₊˚⊹⋆˙

Previous |

Monitoring mv and other quiet commands with watch and progress

hidden (semaj) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 10:42:00 +0000

mv gives you no progress output at all, which is not much fun when you are moving 100+GB of Google Takeout archives and cannot tell if anything is happening.

Two tools fix this: watch and progress. With your move already running, open a second terminal and enter the following:

watch progress -w

This refreshes every 2 seconds and shows a live view of the running process.

Progress probably needs installing first, but it is a quick job with your package manager. On Bazzite, I installed it using brew (brew install progress)

This is post 57 of #100DaysToOffload.

To respond on your own website, write a post which contains a link to this post - then enter the URl of your page here. Learn more about WebMentions.

Don't buy AR glasses

hidden (ay) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 10:38:00 +0000

 I was browsing the thread under this Mastodon post about how absurdly gamified the Temu app has become. Someone posted this decade-old video:

It's sad and a little scary how HYPER-REALITY predicted the current state of web (and app) design, assuming you're not using a decent adblocker. Like the film Idiocracy, this is a video which has slowly turned from hyperbole into a chilling reflection of reality. All the same companies and individuals who turned the web into a gamified nightmare clusterfuck of banners and popups and dark patterns and enshittified services are going to race to do the same to AR if it becomes mainstream. There's no reason to suspect otherwise.

All this leads me to ask, what actual incentive (aside from short term conveniences) would I have to buy an AR device? You don't need an AR device. And you can't become dependent or reliant on a device you haven't yet bought. So don't buy one!

You're not always expected to have your phone out. Most of the time, it should be in your pocket. Despite an epidemic of absentminded people walking around glued to their phones (I'm as guilty as anyone), it's still considered bad etiquette to use them during dinner, or while crossing the street. That's not the case with glasses, which are designed to be worn all day. That will become the expectation for AR glasses as they evolve into lighter, sleeker devices. All the same apps and services keeping you tied to your phone will follow you over to AR. Is that what you want?

Do you really want the hellscape end-state of the modern attention economy grafted onto your fucking face? To see ads everywhere all the time? Why?   Even if you currently own an AR device and are enjoying a clean, uncluttered, curated user experience, how long do you think that will last? The web didn't turn into what it is overnight. Things take time to enshittify, but it's bound to happen.

Pop-up windows were a plague in the 90s and early 2000s, and remained that way until browsers started blocking them by default. This forced the popups to migrate into the pages themselves, and they've been trapped there ever since. Well, AR will be the escape hatch through which they break free of the constraints of the browser window and escape into the "real" world. Is that what you want? REAL-WORLD POPUPS? Are you insane?

  I don't know exactly how, I don't know exactly when, but Apple and Google and Meta will create their own frameworks for businesses to display interfaces and ads and popups in arbitrary places, and it will spiral out of control. History will repeat itself.

Keep using your smartphone. Don't become dependent on an always-on HUD. Put up some resistance. If they want to envelop you within the cyberpunk dystopia, they should be forced to drag you inside it kicking and screaming.

Bear Blog post navigation

hidden (robert) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 10:38:00 +0000

Bear's {{ previous_post }} and {{ next_post }} links work out of the box.

These styles center them and swap the default look for a pair of guillemets (arrows), keeping things minimal.

Preview

How to use

Add the markup to your footer (Dashboard → Settings → Header and footer directives) and the styles to your theme. Bear replaces the placeholders with links to the previous and next posts automatically.

Markup

<div class="post-nav">
{{ previous_post }} {{ next_post }}
</div>

Styles

.post-nav {
  display: none;
}

body.post .post-nav {
  display: flex;
  justify-content: center;
  align-items: baseline;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  gap: 1.2em;
  margin-block-end: 1.5rem;
}

.post-nav a.previous-post::before {
  content: "\00AB\00a0";
}

.post-nav a.next-post::after {
  content: "\00a0\00BB";
}

Want more? Check out the full Bear Blog library.

Slices of Life

hidden (anselia) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 10:06:42 +0000

Something I already felt the first morning when the sun illuminated her golden locks

This was something I'd never could've seen coming, something I already felt the first morning when the sun illuminated her golden locks, the little anchor behind her ear and the butterfly on her back. That same butterfly that always brings me back to that moment of bliss.

Now here, miles away from home, just the two of us, there could've been so much more. At night my other self from a parallel universe tells me stories in my dreams of how things are over there, and sometimes I find myself longing to just switch places.

Even if it's for a little while..

Agnès Gruda - Mourir, mais pas trop

hidden (lectures) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Ce recueil compte treize nouvelles, toutes ayant un lien direct ou indirect avec la mort. Je sais, ceux et celles qui me connaissent diront qu'il a été écrit pour moi, ce recueil. Et pourtant, je vous le jure, je ne connais rien de cette écrivaine, à l'exception du fait qu'elle est d'origine polonaise. Et je me souviens l'avoir déjà lu dans La Presse, journal dans lequel elle tenait une chronique, il me semble. Mais ça doit remonter à plusieurs années.

Ces treize textes, tous magnifiquement bien écrits, ne sont pas macabres, contrairement à ce qu'on pourrait le penser aux premiers abords. Au contraire même, ils décrivent la vie telle que la plupart d'entre nous la connaissent. Après tout, la mort fait partie de nous, car nous avons tous, à un moment donné ou à un autre, perdu une grand-mère, un oncle, un père, voire même un ami. Si tous ces événements sont malheureux, ils ne sont pas tragiques pour autant. La mort est un phénomène naturel, c'est la manière de mourir qui peut s'avérer tragique, parfois, comme dans La chambre froide, la nouvelle qui ouvre le recueil, dans laquelle une jeune journaliste se retrouve dans la chambre froide d'un restaurant d'hôtel en compagnie d'un terroriste d'à peine seize ans, le corps ceinturé d'explosifs, avec qui elle trouve le moyen d'échanger des grimaces… Elle était venue couvrir un congrès mondial de gastronomie à New York. J'ai trouvé l'écrivaine astucieuse en nous présentant le même personnage, quelques années plus tard, qui se lie d'amitié avec Jacob, un homme de quarante ans qui vient de vivre une séparation. Tous les deux sont devenus enseignants au Nunavik, dans le nord du Québec, en pays inuit. Cette nouvelle, la treizième et dernière du recueil, s'intitule Toute la beauté du monde, comme quoi nos blessures peuvent laisser une place à la beauté contemplative.

D'autres nouvelles brillent par une approche originale, comme Le piano, dans laquelle Agnès Gruda raconte le parcours d'une femme à partir d'un vieux piano droit qu'elle a acheté à l'âge de seize ans. Acheté justement dans une vente après décès, notamment pour impressionner un garçon, ce piano de marque Lesage l'a suivi presque toute sa vie, même s'il était devenu un objet encombrant qui a fini par servir de décor au cinéma. Et que dire d'Objets inanimés, une nouvelle en deux parties, qui raconte l'immigration au Québec deux jeunes polonais qui vivaient chez leur grand-mère. En deuxième partie, le garçon devenu grand, effectue un voyage à Varsovie pour retourner sur les lieux de son enfance. Un texte très touchant. Certaines nouvelles sont porteuses d'espoir aussi, comme Un matin presque comme les autres, dans laquelle la mort d'un être cher convainc un homme d'origine iranienne — un Kurde, en fait — de retourner dans son pays natal, laissant sa cordonnerie à Flo, une cliente qui, malgré son instruction, faisait des ménages pour vivre parce qu'elle ressentait le besoin de faire quelque chose de concret. Même chose pour Savoir ou pas, un récit d'homme qui est libéré d'un grand poids en passant un examen médical. Je ne résumerai pas chacune des treize nouvelles, mais je peux vous assurer qu'elles vailles toutes la peine d'être lues.

J'ai choisi de rédiger une note de lecture sur Mourir, mais pas trop, mais j'aurais pu tout aussi bien en faire une sur le recueil précédent, Onze petites trahisons, publié chez le même éditeur en 2010. Ces deux recueils sont d'une grande qualité littéraire, et chacune des histoires racontées par Agnès Gruda porte en elle une humanité qui, malheureusement, se raréfie dans la littérature actuelle. Je ne jette la pierre à personne, surtout aux gens plus jeunes, mais je constate, c'est tout, que l'universalité n'a plus la cote dans ce monde foisonnant de particularismes. Mais il s'agit d'un tout autre sujet…

Gruda, Agnès. Mourir, mais pas trop / nouvelles. Boréal, 2016

Gruda, Agnès. Onze petites trahisons / nouvelles. Boréal, 2010

Daniel Ducharme : 2026-08-01

Une lecture recommandée par Sylvie B.

As Desventuras do Mim

hidden (exiladolinguistico) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 09:41:00 +0000

Há palavras que sabem exatamente qual é o seu papel.

O mim sempre soube.

Veio ao mundo com uma missão bastante modesta.

Receber a ação.

Nunca praticá-la.

Durante séculos, desempenhou essa função com admirável disciplina.

"Trouxeram um presente para mim."

"Disseram isso para mim."

"Tudo aconteceu diante de mim."

Vida tranquila.

Então alguém lhe entregou um verbo.

Para mim fazer.

O pobre mim entrou em pânico.

Fazer?

Eu?

Mas eu nunca fiz nada.

O mim não faz.

Não compra.

Não vende.

Não estuda.

Não viaja.

Não decide.

Não paga.

Não assina.

Não organiza.

Não resolve.

Sempre que aparece um verbo no infinitivo, ele dá um passo para o lado.

Quem assume o trabalho é o eu.

Por isso dizemos:

Para eu fazer.

Para eu estudar.

Para eu viajar.

Para eu resolver.

Para eu decidir.

A regra é surpreendentemente simples.

Se a palavra depois de para vai praticar a ação do verbo, ela precisa vestir a roupa de sujeito.

E sujeito atende por eu.

O curioso é que ninguém diria:

Mim faz o jantar.

Nem:

Mim compra um carro.

Nem:

Mim cheguei ontem.

Todos sentimos, intuitivamente, que alguma coisa está errada.

Mas basta colocar um para na frente e o mim ganha uma autoconfiança inexplicável.

Para mim resolver.

Para mim explicar.

Para mim assinar.

De repente, ele acredita que pode tudo.

Há, no entanto, uma ocasião em que o mim continua perfeitamente inocente.

Quando não faz absolutamente nada.

Este presente é para mim.

Guarde isso para mim.

Trouxeram uma cadeira para mim.

Nesses casos, o verbo pertence a outra pessoa.

O mim apenas recebe os benefícios da ação.

E é exatamente aí que ele se sente em casa.

Talvez o mais injustiçado dessa história seja o próprio mim.

Passou séculos cumprindo fielmente suas atribuições.

Agora vive sendo promovido para um cargo que nunca pediu.

E, convenhamos, administrar verbos nunca fez parte de suas competências.

Deixemos o mim em paz.

O eu faz. O mim deixa fazer.

E ambos vivem muito bem assim.

August is Here and Procrastinating

hidden (turbiegaming) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 09:32:28 +0000

So... August is here. Time flies, huh?

August, which is also means that winter's coming nearer and nearer. August, which means English Premier League is starting back up for new season, 2026/27. August, which means Grand Theft Auto 6 release is coming nearer (fingers' crossed that it isn't delayed yet again).

Time flies when you're enjoying your current life.

And by enjoying life, I have procrastinating on some stuff. Like video editing for example.

Either way... Short post for today. Happy blogging!

Previous |

"Your old hairstyle really suited you."

hidden (defjuan) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 09:28:19 +0000

How am I supposed to respond to that?

For most of my life, I've kept my hair fairly short and neat. I was a sweaty boy who became a sweaty man, and this has always been the way. And as I moved to Japan and started cutting my own hair fairly proficiently, this made the most sense.

I did detour in college and grew my hair long. That was a direct result of the cultural impact of The Lord of the Rings movies. At least that's how I justify it to myself these days.

I did spend the past year or so growing it out again. Call it a mid-life crisis, but the realization that my hair was thinning made me figure I should enjoy it while I can. This time, I opted for the top-knot with shaved sides. A modern take on a traditional Japanese look? A bit more noticeable than I'm used to, but I did receive compliments quite often. Something new for me.

But after over a year of this look, genetics and the passage of time became more apparent. Loose strands would easily get pulled out when tying, brushing, or even sleeping. And pulling my hair up and back made the receding hairline even more apparent. I made the decision to cut my losses, literally.

Back to something short and trim. With another excruciatingly hot Japanese summer, I didn't expect the change to catch so many people off guard. But it did, and the reactions have all been pretty much the same. "Oh! You cut your hair." That's usually it. No follow-up. No, "It looks good." Just stating the obvious with a tinge of disappointment in their voice. I've noticed. Although I'm not looking for compliments, I do note that none have been given. I couldn't help but wonder if a woman wouldn't get the same treatment in this case?

But this Thursday night, while joining my regular billiard social at the bar, I got the most straightforward version. "You cut your hair! Why? Your old hairstyle really suited you."

What can I say to that? Even if I agreed, I'm at least a year and a half from getting back to that point. This entire experience has taught me that although I'm not especially particular about my looks, I am just as self-conscious as anyone once I'm noticed.

Enjoy Being Offline

hidden (citron) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 09:27:22 +0000

I feel increasingly like I want to disconnect from the internet. Age verification is here. Platforms are closing in all around us. AI is scraping every findable thing out there. Companies are processing every bit of data they can get on you even when you're not the one giving to them. Every second webpage wants me to find all the cars or bicycles.

Lately, my favourite moments are those that have nothing to do with being online. I like being away from cell towers. I like being with the important people in my life without being glued to a device. Sit around a campfire and live a primitive life for a while. 😅

Don't get me wrong. I love a lot of digital technologies. I'm a tech worker during the week and I love playing with open source projects. Sometimes, it's nice to leave it all behind for a little while.

popular narrative says that we are all doomed. i refuse to be doomed

hidden (skuka) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 09:22:00 +0000

propaganda is not just about politics, it is about control

i do not buy this narrative that the job competition is awful, we are all doomed, AI will take all our jobs, IT is dying. the layoffs happen because of the financial crisis (which is not ok to mention out loud, because then the company's share prices will go down), not because of AI (imho).

this is psychological warfare on people that is done to break us, make us docile, make us accept that things are always just getting worse and there is no point in anything other than buying shit on amazon and embracing generative AI.

oh and being pitted against each other by nation-states, if you read any of the mainstream media the people from the countries which your country is against geopolitically are dehumanized. but i digress. the point is that i refuse to be a part of this narrative. i refuse to engage in what i can only call a psyop.

futility and competition in job search

firstly, i've been applying for jobs, and most of the time, there are 100s of applicants for each position. that is a lot of competition. however, many of those people who linkedin claimed have cliked on apply have not completed the next steps of the process, many will be disqualified because of technical issues (for example, they require visa support that the company cannot provide). in the end result, i will be in the pool with much fewer than 100s of people.

i might still not make it, but the scale of competition is not as overwhelming.

secondly, there is a bigger competition when you apply for a job, but there is virtually no competition in doing good work. i have started to contribute to translations of docs of the browser i use and like. i have been looking at someone's github project to learn react, found a leaked credential, and emailed the person. i want to contribute to the open source community and do good things. by doing that, eventually, i will build my own network that is more robust than the network you get out of networking events.

i had found jobs in my previous career through networking, but i had never really tried to network - i just did good work, held open lectures, tried to educate and help. there is no competition when you are trying to do good things since others do not view you as a competitor but instead a collaborator. and this always leads to opportunities (time to an opportunity may vary). that is how i want to view the world and the world has been confirming this over and over again.

conclusions

you can refuse the narrative. build your own narratives based on your experiences and data you have access to! you can read mainstream media (i include popular youtubers in that, as well), but treat it more like a visit to the zoo where you can observe the animals without interacting or thinking that this is their natural habitat.

we are not doomed. we are in a financial crisis - they happen regularly. things are tough, but they are not hopeless. you can refuse to feel hopeless. it is amazing what human spirit can do.

i am refusing to be doomed.

wrote this post in the middle of reading issue 617 by the Flaming Hydra