Look, it’s starting to be pretty damn obvious that “Free Software” and """Open-Source""" are no longer the kinda hippie shit we tought them to be back when they’d give you Linux distros CDs with magazines about computer touching.
The Free Software Foundation has been sliding into irrelevance more and more by entirely failing to address its big Creepy Uncle problem. Open-Source has turned into a form of unpaid internship to be hired to make shitty apps that bring more surveillance and ads to our world.
Read book 92. Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach, 1970, a fable, as the characters are literally seagulls, about how the Flock are inspired by joining an obsessive flying-and-starving cult that it would be insulting all round to describe as Buddhism-lite-for-libertarian-Christians. It gave me the feeling of a late 60s hippy cult trying to manifest, and very much Of Its Time as it was written 1967 ish (at last, a realistic use for the phrase "of its time"). Not my thing / out of five, but I can understand why some people find it interesting or useful in the same way people can find inspiration in bland self-help platitudes or undemanding mass-market spirituality, because the inspiration is contributed by the reader (or their Genius / Juno / whatever).
However, remember that the unexamined life is definitely worth living: look at dogs! Be honest, reincarnation as a domestic dog or a wild seagull? Dogs, innit.
Second paragraph of third chapter, with illustration:
The Congregation of Christian Brothers, who published Éire – Sean is Nua [Ireland – Old and New], were a Catholic celibate community who founded several Catholic education schools and who, with this publication, portrayed themselves as supporters of Irish Republicanism. Our Boys, another Christian Brothers publication, was a reaction to The Boy’s Own Paper and other British boys’ papers, viewed as imperialist propaganda. Our Boys was first published in 1914 and sought to present a Catholic and nationalist alternative to Irish children.
This is a totally comprehensive listing of how Ireland is portrayed in comics. The start of the story is actually told in a very intertesting appendix, looking at revolutionary era cartoonists – Grace Gifford, Ernest Kavanagh, Joe Stanley (Padraig Pearse’s press office during the Easter Rising, who published Ireland’s first comic, Greann, in 1934) and Constance de Markievicz.
Most of the book looks at the mainstream comics industry as it has developed since 1940, usually featuring American writers trying to get to grips with local complexity. There are some cringeworthy moments, for instance the heroic Gay Ghost who comes from the castle of Connaught in County Ulster. There are a number of stories featuring Nazi meddling in Ireland, usually with the involvement of the IRA, though the latter are not consistently portrayed as being on either side.
In the post-war decades, Irish creators start to get in on the act, with the Christian Brothers publishing Eire – Sean is Nua [Ireland – Old and New]; and there’s also a flattering biography of Eamon de Valera from the early 1970s, at a time before the events of his life after 1921 were taught in school history classes.
The Troubles offered plenty of narrative opportunities for long-running comics series to visit Ireland’s shores, some of them more effectively than others. Sometimes the comics publishers found that they had bitten off more than they could chew; a 1986 story with Spiderman visiting Northern Ireland was aborted by Marvel after the publishers received a bomb threat. Was it credible? I guess it doesn’t matter.
The main narrative (before the appendix) look particularly at the work of Garth Ennis and Malachy Coney, mainstream comics writers who are from Northern Ireland. Ennis doesn’t always do it for me, but I remember his early Troubled Souls and Coney’s Holy Cross stories with great affection.
Those of you who know the author will not surprised to learn that it reads like he speaks; this isn’t polished academic writing, it’s a rush of enthusiastic information, crammed onto the 259 A4 pages with wafer-thin headers and footers. But the information is cool, and important. I’ll try and get hold of the French-language comics mentioned (including Partitions irlandaises) and will report back. Meanwhile you can get Irish Conflict in Comics here.
Suicide is America’s secret. We keep it from ourselves, but not talking about it only makes it worse.
Suicide is the most preventable form of death in this country. We know what we can do to save lives. We know what works.
By lifting the stigma surrounding mental illness and attacking the stereotypes about suicide that can prevent young people from reaching out for help when they need it – that can save lives.
By sharing our feelings about anxiety, depression, and loneliness before those secrets wall us up – that can save lives too.
67% of students tell a friend if they are thinking about suicide rather than a parent, teacher, or counselor.
That sounds like a lot of pressure if you are that friend, but it’s really not. It just means doing the little things. Asking questions, listening without judgement, validating their feelings, and referring them to a professional.
You don’t need to be a trained professional to help a friend – you just need to be a good friend.
I have owned my dishwasher for 2 years now. I like to run it every few days in the evening, but sometimes I want to retreat upstairs before 9pm when the electricity gets cheaper, and I don't always remember to go back down and start it.
A couple of days ago it finally occurred to me to look for a delayed start function, and there it was, a button clearly labeled Delay that delays the start for an hour every time it's pushed. Now I know!
The two levels are awkwardly laid out and after two years I am still trying to figure out how to load my dishes and containers in it efficiently. On the positive side, it is really quiet and I can't hear it running from upstairs at all.
Social media platforms are designed to maximize engagement, not protect your peace of mind. The major platforms have also reduced their content moderation efforts over the past year or so. That means upsetting content can reach you even when you never chose to watch it.
You do not have to watch every piece of content that crosses your screen, however. Protecting your own mental state is not avoidance or denial.
For over three decades, I’ve been saying what the medical establishment didn’t want to hear: ADHD isn’t a disease, disorder, or defect. It’s an inherited trait that served our hunter-gatherer ancestors well for hundreds of thousands of years—and continues to benefit many people today. Now, groundbreaking research is finally proving what I’ve long called the “hunters in a farmer’s world” theory.
The latest study, published in the prestigious Proceedings of the Royal Society B just a few months ago, provides compelling experimental evidence that people with ADHD traits are superior foragers. Using an ingenious online berry-picking game, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that participants who scored high for ADHD characteristics consistently outperformed their neurotypical counterparts at gathering resources—exactly what we’d expect from evolved hunters suddenly dropped into sedentary, agricultural societies.
The work she’s doing now? Converting a rusty 1940 Ford pickup truck into a traveling banned bookstore. She calls it “The Banned Wagon.”
“I was originally thinking of opening a regular bookstore, but after the fight over banning books in Fairhope, I was inspired to go this route instead,” Fugett shared with the Alabama Political Reporter.
Her goal with The Banned Wagon is to put banned and challenged books “back into the hands of the people who need them the most.” That includes LGBTQ+ youth, and other marginalized communities. But Fugett also knows that everyone needs access to books that challenge their worldview.
This is a replicable tactic for dealing with censorship.
Another option is to stash diverse titles in Little Free Libraries, in BookCrossing, in any swap shelf you see, and so on. Poke a bigot in the eye, share banned books! Here are some ideas.
I impulse-made pasta dough in the stand mixer last night, and then today, I:
went to the farmer's market, where the good sourdough vendor was in attendance and recognized me, and I also picked up an apple tasting flight (Macoun, McIntosh, Honeycrisp, and Gala) and honey for Rosh Hashanah Tuesday, as well as a dozen gorgeous multicolored eggs, a purple cauliflower, and various other vegetables;
meandered around the neighborhood in perfect early-fall sunshine, following the treasure map of local yard sales, and one house was giving away their stuff, including an adorable little pitcher and stationery and stamps and linen napkins I'm going to turn into embroidery projects;
did some gardening and met up with a friend and her kid, and hung out with them for a few hours and made play-doh shapes;
came home and rolled out half the pasta dough and made ravioli and took a hot bath.
And now I'm going to drink some mint tea and lie on the couch and read a book and cuddle my cat. Tomorrow there is a block party and more fresh pasta to roll. This all feels suspiciously idyllic.
TLDR: hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, with known immune system crossovers, turns out to have weird immune system proteins on top of all the other weirdness.
Interesting new hEDS paper I saw mentioned on FB today,
"Proteomic analysis revealed 35 differentially expressed proteins in hEDS, with 43% involved in the complement cascade and 80% linked to immune, coagulation, or inflammatory pathways. ... Cytokine profiling revealed alterations in nodal immune cell mediators in hEDS patients, supporting a model of dysregulated inflammatory response. Our findings indicate a systemic immune dysregulation, particularly involving the complement system and profibrotic cytokines, as a common feature in hEDS pathophysiology."
The EDS Society write-up says there's another paper in the works from another team with similar results from a larger sample, and that includes people with HSD diagnoses, not just hEDS (unsurprisingly, I'm convinced the hEDS/HSD divide is bad science).
It’s just a little before 3pm on a Saturday in Boise, and I’ve fed myself on a Subway Bacon Chicken Ranch sub (with oatmeal raisin cookie), and now I’m going to lie around on a bed in a darkened hotel room, watching YouTube cooking video until my brain is ready for a nice afternoon nap.
These are my unhinged tour habits! The pure licentiousness is the stuff of legend!
Anyway, hello, Boise. I will see you tonight at that most hedonistic of night haunts, the public library.
Tomorrow! Denver! I’ll see you at the Tattered Cover Colfax! 3pm — that’s right, it’s an afternoon event, because it’s Sunday, and we get our iniquity done early on Sunday.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
justin_mason_feed at 10:30am on 21/09/2025
busy![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
