RE: https://mastodon.social/@VeroniqueB99/117287577043548512
And yet, here we are.
What’s it gonna take for citizens to use the constitutional powers the country has bragged about all these centuries?
Remote
Vickie Gray 🍁
@graymattergrcltd@infosec.exchange
mastodon 4.8.0-alpha.3+glitchVickie Gray, retired from IT. Posting photos of flowers, greyhounds, gardening. Play bagpipes. Might start painting again. I’ve been told I’m pragmatic and wise but I’m probably just exhausted and too old to worry whether people will like me if I say what I think. Canadian to my bones, Scottish to my soul. AuDHD, one of the “Lost Ones”. Content is 100% GenOI - generated by organic intelligence, one feeling, sense, thought, and representative word at a time. Awkward, often weird, but always trying to be compassionate.
123 Followers
203 Following
46 Posts
Joined June 19, 2024
Pronouns:
she/her
Relax like a greyhound on a fluffy bed.
RE: https://toot.cat/@EveHasWords/117068114886184635
I was provoked, too. For 60 years, I have been subject to the incessant aural demands and expectations of people who think their thoughts are more important than my own. “Take out your earphones so you are ready listen to me whenever a random thought spills from my gilded lips,” is the auditory equivalent of “Smile! I’ve decided to observe you for a few minutes so I want you more pleasant to look at.”
Noise-cancelling headphones have done more for my sanity in public places than all the shelf-help books, therapy, mindfulness, and breathing exercises I could ever subject myself to.
Is it satire? Is it clickbait? Doesn’t matter. I add my tiny voice to the growing roar of outrage. Now, where did I put my earphones? It’s getting loud in here.
Apparently this is restful.
He is greyhound #6 for us and the first one that spends most of his sleeping time upside down.
Anybody else have a dog that sleeps in weird positions?
#MastoDogs
#DogsOfMastodon
#GreyhoundsOfMastodon
#RelaxLikeAGreyhound
#IrishGreyhoundsOfNovaScotia
#AussieGreyhound
Replying to @hacks4pancakes@infosec.exchange
@hacks4pancakes@infosec.exchange Ya. As a Canadian, the flag thing is ick. For me the problem is I get accused of being American because of my Canadian accent, and I have to dodge all kinds of hostile behaviour until I explain that I live in Canada, in the time zone one hour earlier than EST (What? There’s another time zone earlier? Yep and yet another a half-hour earlier than that in the same continent). That is the secret handshake that proves I’m really Canadian. ONce I’m known as Canadian, shoulders relax, smiles appear, and the topic of conversation gets normal again. Canadians have a long history of wearing Canadian flags on clothing and personal items not to signal Canadian-ness but to signal not-American-ness.
Americans have figured out that they get treated better abroad if they signal Canadian-ness to hide their American-ness, so they wear Canadian flags. Then they do not-Canadian things, like apologizing to inanimate objects, and it effs it up for everyone. Of course most midwesterners, like Minnesotans, are honourably Canadians.
And of course, we have our own American-funded fascists who did the truck convoy to Ottawa and threatened to take over the government. They covered everything in Canadian flags and all other Canadians avoided Canadian flags for years. Until, of course, Trump started threatening to invade, annex, claim mineral and oil rights in Canada and our relationship with the US forever changed from buddies, mates, and neighbours to icy politeness, making new friends globally, and keeping an eye on the crazy uncle who won’t step away from the booze and keeps trying to open the gun cabinet.
But then the Canadian response was based on a great Canadian hockey legend, not American blood and soil patriotism. Elbows Up!
Anyway, Canadians have been side-eyeing our neighbours for some time now, and the rest of the world is only now catching up.
Retiring from being self-employed is weird. Yes, I did it because my (physical) heart was struggling so hard I was regularly stumbling from dizziness and getting nightmares about dying, but I am now swimming in this kind of identity limbo. Business kabuki is no longer rewarded (if it ever was) and whoever I was before I started being groomed to “fit in” by neurotypical society is gleefully shouting at me to just have fun. But what is fun? I have no idea.
Replying to @SecureOwl@infosec.exchange
@SecureOwl@infosec.exchange Jesus. Isn’t that just decency? We always offer trades coffee, tea, Gatorade, whatever they need.
Our newly adopted Aussie greyhound is a Very Good Boy.
We have had him for 4 days and he is roaching. Total greyhound win.
#GreyhoundsOfMastodon
#MastoDogs
#DogsOfFedi
#DogsOfMastodon
#Greyhounds
#Australia
#GreyhoundsOfAustralia
#AussieGreysInCanada
RE: @guardianfeeds@rssfeed.media
As an adult educator I see this. Adults are already cognitively overloaded. Giving in to this is a survival tactic. But like all tactics, it’s not a strategy. This will make all adults much more easily controlled.
“test groups who used ChatGPT had the lowest brain activity and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioural levels”. We undergo not just cognitive offloading, but cognitive surrender: we forget what was possible.”
Replying to @KatyElphinstone@mas.to
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to after 60 years, I’m now having silent heart attacks. My husband started asking about symptoms. I explained that, yes, I was having symptoms but I just ignore them. That’s what I’ve learned to do after being ignored, accused of “faking it” for attention (when the last thing I want as an autistic is attention), musdiagnosed, medicated, and told that CBT would sort me out. I filter out body signals to the point that dizziness, nausea, crushing fatigue, pain in my jaw, and other signals of a heart attack are just a Tuesday.
Replying to @aparrish@friend.camp
@aparrish@friend.camp I can guarantee that young people today would fill a course teaching them the craft of how to find out if something works or is true. Call it whatever you like, but every generation wants tools to fix the broken world handed to them by their elders. Care and craft are required in all endeavours, and have been taught in writing, music, math, science, art, and trades forever. Even if you can’t “Get A Job” (TM) any more with Hello World like I could when I started in 1983, the discipline teaches curiosity, patience, and persistence, all capabilities necessary in fighting for human rights.
Replying to @Susan60@aus.social
@Susan60@aus.social @Pinchy63@ottawa.place That sounds like a good transition. There are a lot of things I’ve enjoyed but given up over the years for one reason or another, and I am going to noodle away at those for a while to see if anything is still for me. Art is one of those, and playing piano. I kind of want to be in my own space now that I don’t have to go out peopleing for work.
Replying to @eoinmorris@mastodon.ie
@eoinmorris@mastodon.ie I’ve been through that several times. What worked for me was exploring things that are really interesting to me - like I hyperfocus til my eyeballs fall out. When I connect with the community around that thing, like comments on posts about a topic and asking questions, I find other people with similar neurotypes. Especially the people who aren’t “out front” or recognized names. Kinda the outliers, the quiet ones, the people just doing their own thing. I used to get sucked in by the leaders but it’s the people on the side, the ones who just hang out who are often easier to connect to. I don’t know if that will work for you, but I hope you find your people!
Replying to on beige.party
@VoxOfGod@beige.party Thank you!!
One day before an assessment of my bagpipe performance skills and theory knowledge (a prerequisite for teaching certification) and I am going full-on AuDHD.
PDA
Rehearsing failure
Mono-focusing
Being grumpy and annoyed at my utterly innocent and thoughtful partner for things I normally love him for.
Shallow breathing, upset stomach, hyper-arousal of all senses (tried to eat one of my favourite meals today and the smell of the pre-cooked ingredients made me almost vomit), inability to relax…
I want it to be over NOW.
Then after the exam, I’ll be fine, I will miss the hyper-focus time, I will start thinking about what I can do NEXT that will be complex, intense, and challenging, and I will be full of energy.
Did I mention this is the last commitment I made before having a silent heart attack? I have declared my retirement, started the admin to close my business, and I don’t know if I will actually want to teach.
But I have been working toward this milestone for 2.5 years, through medical diagnoses, business insanity, and the *waves hands* state of the world. I just want to get it finished and be able to say I saw it through and did my best. It’s honestly the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Bagpipes are the most bonkers complex instrument to learn to play if you actually want to learn all about them.
So when I’m done, tomorrow at noon my time, I’m gonna be pretty pleased with myself. And exhausted. And feeling free for the first time in decades.
But right now I’m just not fun to be around. Especially to myself. Ugh.
Kudos to all my neurokin for finishing really difficult things you start.
#AuDHD
#ActuallyAutistic
#Bagpipes
#Music
Replying to @nicolegoebel@digitalcourage.social
Replying to @graymattergrcltd@infosec.exchange
Of course, if I assume it will, it probably will, right?
Focus on the now, Maxwell.
#JodiTaylor
#TimePolice
#ILiveInMyHead
Replying to @afewbugs__dup_8491@social.coop
@afewbugs@social.coop The milk has lactose in it which will stick to the tape. You could rinse with water. The problem will be keeping the tape from sticking in the spools. If you’re REALLY careful, you could unspool the tape and let it air dry, and then REALLY carefully wind the spools again. The real risk is creating creases in the tape that will cause sound when moving over the reader. Tape is magnetic, so it should be fine.
On a recent trip, I played my pipes on a BC beach. A woman watched and asked me to play Scotland the Brave. She said her late husband’s father played the pipes in the Australian armed forces in the Second World War, and her husband always hummed the tune in memory of his Dad.
When people ask for specific tunes, or tell me personal stories like this, I realize what an honour it is to be a culture bearer for this tradition. Funerals, weddings, honouring those who have died for others, leading people in parades that celebrate an event or community, or just playing fun tunes to lift people’s spirits; the pipes are iconic and important in ways no other instrument is.
The commitment is to make the music for the pleasure of others, and that means playing well. Playing well is not easy and takes years of hard practice to be even minimally competent, because it’s such a complex instrument. There is no equivalent to a guitar-player’s 3-chord folk song on the pipes. Cue the scene from Friends.
The instrument is a crazy system of reeds, tubes, string, and air, all of which must be controlled and each part of which can stop behaving optimally without warning, and often all at the same time. Pipers have to be knowledgeable about the effects of humidity (snow, rain, drought, indoor heat systems), temperature (room, outdoor, sun, shade, wind), and terrain if marching, all while playing complex technique from memory in sets of 6-10 different tunes in a variety of time signatures.
There are a lot of people who like to make fun of the pipes. Most pipers laugh along, because what else are you going to do? But at a wedding, after I piped the bride down the aisle, the guitar player in the house band cracked one of the usual (yes, I promise, I’ve heard them all, and seen all the videos, many, many times) bagpipe jokes to his band buddies, so I offered him my pipes to try. He declined. But he never joked again.
But when someone comes up to you with honest emotion and tells you a bagpipe story about their parent, or teacher, or sibling, or partner, and how pipes played a part in a deeply emotional life transition, it’s a moment of connection that reaches across continents and centuries. And when you play a tune they request, and they smile and applaud and maybe even wipe away a tear, and thank you so effusively, it feels like a uniquely human moment. Two people sharing the impact of music, sound, memory, power, and tradition.
PSA: I am in the process of adopting a greyhound, so there will be many photos of this new delight. He will be our 6th retired racing greyhound, filling a gap in our hearts left by our most recent sweet boy in January.
For those of you who know how this process goes, I have no date, no dog info, and only one picture, which I stare at several times a day. The likely lad will be coming from #Australia to #Canada in the next month or so, and he has no idea how loved he will be.
Please be patient as your feed is inundated with photos of a skinny dog doing absolutely nothing.
Replying to @PotMetPetunias@mastodon.gamedev.place
@PotMetPetunias@mastodon.gamedev.place Maybe. Or propagating salvias. Or making giant paintings of bees. Dunno. Time will tell.
Replying to @Pinchy63@ottawa.place
@Pinchy63@ottawa.place Cheers. Yes, the hours are good! I’m working toward a bagpipe tutoring certificate, so there’s structure there that keeps me grounded and a goal to keep me motivated. It’s the rest of the time…should I read my book? Walk the dog? Weed the garden? Do differential calculus? Ride my bike? Start a new hobby? And then my HTN meds make me feel weird so I do nothing. The fear of being “unproductive” is carved so deeply.
I suppose it’s just another work in progress.
Thanks!
RE: https://eigenmagic.net/@vampiress/116859241032699772
This is an excellent post about what happens when we let LLMs do the “boring” stuff.
Soon, everything is boring.
#creativity
#CreatingIsHuman
Quoting
Blog post: Inspired by the video I just boosted - some honest thoughts on my AI remorse from my experiments earlier in the year.
It was bad, and I have SERIOUS regrets.
https://goodnameforablog.com/posts/very-average-prototypes/
Open quoted postReplying to @gnomekat@tech.lgbt
@gnomekat@tech.lgbt Ha! That made me laugh out loud. I’ve been known to say something very similar.
Replying to @ratcatcher@beige.party
@ratcatcher@beige.party yep. Two years ago if that’s the latest. Thank science for that because shingles made me almost lose my mind.
Presenting Greyt Australian Toe Beans, by Ned:
#RetiredRacingGreyhounds
#GreyhoundsOfMastodon
#FirstDayOfFurever
#HalfwayAroundTheWorldToUs
Replying to @adhdeanasl@beige.party
@adhdeanasl well done.
A question for birdwatching friends who are also nerds:
I want to get a birdhouse cam. We have built birdhouses and would like to see what’s happening inside without interfering at all.
What cam would you get that can be properly secured, connects wirelessly on a secure local network (not streaming, no internet), doesn’t require changing batteries (disturbing the nest) and can be plugged in to a source of electricity. The birdhouse is attached to a barn with power and wifi. Will be purchased from source in Canada.
Advice very much appreciated!
#Birdwatching
#AllAboutBirds
#Birdhouse
#Science
#Ornithology
Replying to @brianbilston@mastodon.online
@brianbilston This hit hard today. Funny, but also…
Thank you for the poems. I enjoy every one.
Replying to @dinobelbo@mastodon.online
@dinobelbo@mastodon.online @autistics@fedigroups.social @actuallyadhd@fedigroups.social Loop has some that I use for playing my bagpipes, called “Experience”. I think they are marketed for concerts and so on. I can hear enough to get by in a close conversation and they quiet the standing waves and out-of-tune harmonics so I don’t lose my mind when I’m playing pipes with others.
Replying to @david_chisnall__dup_6636@infosec.exchange
This is like the conversations our town had with some university students about sustainable energy innovations.
Them, excited, clutching their speaking notes: “We have worked out that if you had a way to move individuals collectively from one place to another, for a fee that amounted to less than the total cost of ownership of their cars over a measured period, and was dependable enough for the majority of people that the cost of switching was minimized, then you would significantly reduce carbon emissions, road repairs, and traffic jams.”
Me, in my outside voice: “So you’ve invented buses.”
Replying to @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social I’m so sorry. I’m leveraged up to the neck, but I hope the family receives what they need.
CW: discussion of animal remains
Dear animal #Science folks, especially those who work with decomposed animal remains. I’m not sure of the Latin name for that profession.
I found something while spring tidying in the garden that could be teeth or barnacles.
I wondered if there is a way to tell the difference? I could post a photo, but there are 3 “teeth” in a row, with one grooved smooth side (like tooth enamel). The other side looks like the “chewing” part of a molar, or the spiny sides and openings of a barnacle.
Both are likely. We live in #NovaScotia on a 200 year-old “petticoat” farm - small farm where women farmsteaded while their husbands were away at sea. Every spring I find items that have surfaced in the frost heave, and have found bones, pottery shards, glass, marbles, etc.
Many thanks!
As well as saving digital data to keep it unadulterated and free for all, buy up physical books before they are all sucked into LLMs, destroyed, and irrevocably slopified.
Used books.
Old books.
New books.
Boring books.
Instruction manuals.
Field guides.
Picture books.
Poetry.
Music books.
Philosophy.
Plays.
Maps.
History books.
Dictionaries.
Language guides.
Most especially, out-of-print books.
Saved in millions of homes, in stacks, bookshelves, bedside tables, boxes, kitchen tables, bathrooms, and attics.
#LoveUsedBooks
#HumanIntelligence
#Books
@jerry@infosec.exchange can I change my handle without losing my account connections/etc.?
I am retiring and don’t need the biz name any more, but love my account. Any help welcome. 🤗
Replying to @SoftwareTheron@mas.to
@SoftwareTheron Thank you!
Replying to @bedast@beige.party
@bedast@beige.party fantastic! So happy for you both!
Why is this ship setting sail from Canada?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/08/greenland-iwarning-trump-linked-oil-firm-prepares-drill
Anyone else have a daily battle with language and communication?
Them: where do you want the bags of manure?
Me, in the middle of work: it’s okay. Just leave it by the fence. I’ll look after it on Saturday
Them: okay (rolls eyes) but I was going to move it for you so you don’t have to.
Me, feeling guilty that I think it’s easier to move it myself than explain it to someone who is impatient, and wanting to get back to what I was doing: well, thanks. (Frantically thinking of how to explain it without confusion) beside the south-east garden bed closest to the steps to the deck.
Them: Puts the 10 bags of manure 20 feet from there on the south-west garden bed beside the steps to the porch.
Saturday: i move all the bags to the south-east bed.
Them: why are you moving them? I put them where you said.
Me: i said south east by the deck.
Them: i didn’t hear that. You said by the porch. (Rolls eyes and laughs like I’ve been an idiot again)
Me:…
Replying to @spiegelmama@infosec.exchange
@spiegelmama@infosec.exchange Good luck. 🐾
Replying to @ricci@discuss.systems
@ricci@discuss.systems I don’t want my tags or posts to spread, honestly. I want claim a one-person space, and have 1-1 connections with about 20 people who make me laugh, show me pictures of their cats, and tell me if there’s an infosec vulnerability I should be aware of. I get that on @jerry@infosec.exchange ’s community. I then end up seeing other interesting posts they boost that I mostly passively consume, like infosec, AI, science, or nature articles. But Ii don’t really want to be “tag-driven”. I lived in the early Twitter and it was fun for about a year until the grifters got hold of it. I had to be on LI because I had a business that theoretically would benefit from that network (there was never any real outcome even after more than a decade of doing all the things I was supposed to and hating every minute). I am here because I can follow fun, interesting people, not algorithms. And I am gonna just keep doing that.
I know you know this, but waiting for somebody else to solve the problem will run out the clock.