Urocyon's Jaunts

Beforehand, finally get some of this tabledesk clutter dealt with in my little lair, and relocate the Nerd Brewing corner to the other cluttered table behind me with the isopod enclosures.

And finally pick up a small tank to get going with aquariums here. 😎 (Yeah, I anticipate that more might show up...)

A.k.a., finally getting back into another longterm special interest. I put it off partly because I felt so terrible about what happened with the babies when I had the huge health crash back in 2020. They did at least mostly survive, and had to go to a good fish store. But, the neglect didn't happen on purpose, and it really is unlikely to happen again.

Picking that spot because it's right where I spend most of my time already, so I can easily just glance over there. And also because it has All The Outlets for this end of the room in an older building. Another power strip will be needed, and I'll probably switch something with higher power drain over to the balcony room outlet.

Anyway, thinking that this is probably my best option with what I want to do:

I would just order it from shrimps.se there, but it'll be logistically easier to pick up that and whatever I can to set it up from a local fish store and maybe Hornbach. That way, I can get Mr. C to just drive us, and nobody (probably mostly him) will need to go pick up an awkward tank box and heavy substrate from the nearest DHL agent. Delivery to your door is unfortunately not the norm here.

That way I can finally browse at least one LFS with a great reputation (which most likely does carry these), and also spare my bank account. It's all shared funds, but aquarium stuff is pricey af here and it'll just be easier if it goes on his card this late in the month.

(Also, I really need to try to sort out my account that wouldn't verify properly on Tradera, which is the local answer to eBay. Should be handy for cheapish plants and stuff from other hobbyists.)

Anyway, the plan here is to start out with another heavily planted, hopefully low maintenance ecosystem type tank with Neocaridina shrimp and a betta.

With this type of tank, I would like to try a little "prettier" planned aquascaping approach with prominent rocks and wood worked in, rather than just the same old full-on jungle of plants effect. (Don't worry, it'll still be a lot of plants!) But, we'll see how that turns out.

Yes, that's 38 minutes of a guy geeking out over aquarium substrates, including A LOT going into the benefits of volcanic aquasoils like the Fluval Stratum that I'm considering. Not everybody's idea of fun. 😅

But, from what a lot of folks keeping tanks similar to what I'm wanting are saying? It really is a good, simpler approach to do similar things compared to the layered methods. Which makes it easier to move plants around without also stirring up dirt into your tank water. Sounds like win-win!

I would normally start planting things out heavily as soon as I get it set up, and worry less about cycling because I was pulling plants and filter media from established tanks chock full of friendly bacteria.

But, starting totally from scratch this time? I think I might try the "dark start" cycling method.

(Yeah, I've found a couple of new channels for hobby shit. I like their style.)

That involves getting the hard stuff in there, adding a little ammonia source (already ordered some ammonium chloride), and leaving it with the lights off and filter running while the bacteria get established. You can avoid algae taking over, and also stress on new plants from the water quality swings. Then add the plants once things are more stable.

I had like one, maybe two friends who were all like FUCK YEAH YOU PAINT IT WHATEVER COLOR YOU WANT, PURPLE BEDROOMS ARE AWESOME.

But when they actualy saw the finished bedroom, every single one of them was like, “Oh yeah, that’s really pretty.” (Well, the ones who supported me from the beginning were more like WOOHOO.)

MEAN YOU HAVE TO ABANDON

WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY.

When I bought my house, the kitchen was multiple shades of dingy white. It was dismal, but it was now mine! So went to the hardware store for paint (well, several trips, painted swatches on panel, etc — I’m very picky. But this was the final, ‘real’ trip). It was a busy day in the paint section. There were at least five people behind me in line.

Now, remember, latex paint is slightly lighter and brighter when wet than it is when dry. And I’d decided to paint my kitchen candy-apple red. The hardware store employee took my gallon off the Paint Jiggler and cracked it open to put a dab on the top, revealing the most incredibly deep pink, and behind me I hear the entire line of people say,

“Oh my god.”

…in perfect chorus.

This is the door to my garage. It used to be white. Live your best life.

Mischief the cat says “Who goes there?”

Every visiting friend says “This is so cool.”

my garage. It used to be

white. Live your best life.

not decorating trends; those have always existed. but the idea that color and decoration is inherently childish

this is the dining room at the Eustis Estate in Milton, Massachusetts, from 1878 (where I used to work, briefly). the walls are TEXTURED MICA SHIMMER on a green background. Adult Space For Adults!

A jewelry shop in Paris c. 1901. kids can’t buy jewelry!

who can forget the classic 1950s colorful bathroom? I’m not a huge fan, but still! adult space! bright colors; decorative designs!

So here’s two examples of traditional Norwegian farmhouse interiors. You know. The kinds of places peasants live in.

This type of painting is called “rosemaling” and today you usually find it on, like, carved wooden bowls and such that are only used for decoration. But back two centuries ago, it was very common to find the interiors of homes covered in it, in projects that were painted little by little over the decades. Because it’s beautiful to look at, paint is the cheapest way of decorating your house, and what else are you going to do on the long winter nights when it’s too dark and cold to work outdoors?

But mostly, they did it because it made them happy, and it was beautiful.

No, this is one random person being transmisogynist and clearly blatantly wrong. There is nothing in transandrophobia theory that says anything even close to this, for good reason, because it isn't true.

There's plenty of people saying wildly wrong, extremely transphobic stuff about trans men all the time. Including people who would very much like to link that transphobia to transmisogyny theory to give it unearned validity. But they will never make me stop learning about transmisogyny, make me dismiss it as not real, or stop fighting for trans women's liberation.

Devotion

Another design is using 2 20x25x1 filters, taping them to the sides of the box fan and then to each other so they sort of make a triangle, then cutting cardboard to make a top and bottom to the triangle.

This was discovered as a more effective design during the 2020 US west coast fires.

https://tombuildsstuff.blogspot.com/2013/06/better-box-fan-air-purifier.html

This is the story of Mira, a dying kitten I rescued. I have started a GoFundMe to help pay for her medical bills as I am in a rough place financially. Her full story is posted on the GoFundMe.

Any support is appreciated, either through donations or shares 💖

Thank you for taking the time to read my little comic~ have a lovely day! ✨

Mister Mini 😻

Submitting to @mostlycatsmostly

it installs a user-login-time "startup" executable that ignores any windows directives to disable it on startup. doing so only removes the even-more-malicious taskbar-icon-creating advertisement-notification-creating process. no matter what you do, the sleeper "updater" process starts when you log in, and runs perpetually

it sends & receives encrypted network traffic both periodically and non-periodically. both are bad, both are suspicious, and a program doing both is more suspicious than the sum of their parts. and to boot: acrobat will polymorphically edit its code after such network activity

this isn't new: it has always done this. now, it does not even do the thing it is meant to: provide a way to interact with documents, which is amongst the very first features computers were built to provide. you can merely open PDFs and read some of their content in the narrow space between the requests for adobe to give them your money, and interface for features you cannot use (because you don't) or do not, have not, and will not ever need

adobe and microsoft would very much like the user's cultural norms around computers to allow for advertisement built into the local software and even operating system itself. the web being 100% advertisements was not enough! sure enough, acrobat will hijack the windows notifications system thing to give you the 2026 equivalent of pop-ups

i don't really know enough about windows software equivalents, so i'll paypal $20 to the first person that reblogs this with a list of 3-5 PDF reader/editor/etc acrobat equivalents that meet the following criteria:

open source, locally-built executables must match checksum of prebuilt distributed executable

no paid features/premium version/subscription/whatever

not a toy hobby project thing, must be windows-users-proof

KDE Okular: is a decent viewer and can also do basic annotations, and is so not-a-toy that you can even download it on the Windows app store.

they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!

Denying access to other groups the state (or corporations) decide they want to exclude is simple and can be done with plausible deniability by restricting the acceptable proof of adulthood.