Call me Orange! (they/them)

I ask my students every week to write 10 observations of the actual world. It’s very hard for them.

Ms. Tippett:

Really?

Ms. Howe:

They really find it hard.

Ms. Tippett:

What do you mean? What is the assignment? 10 observations of their actual world?

Ms. Howe:

Just tell me what you saw this morning like in two lines. I saw a water glass on a brown tablecloth, and the light came through it in three places. No metaphor. And to resist metaphor is very difficult because you have to actually endure the thing itself, which hurts us for some reason.

Ms. Tippett:

It does.

Ms. Howe:

It hurts us.

Ms. Tippett:

You naming something.

Ms. Howe:

We want to say, “It was like this; it was like that.” We want to look away. And to be with a glass of water or to be with anything — and then they say, “Well, there’s nothing important enough.” And that’s whole thing. It’s the point.

Ms. Howe:

It’s the this, right?

Ms. Howe:

Right, the this, whatever. And then they say, “Oh, I saw a lot of people who really want” — and, “No, no, no. No abstractions, no interpretations.” But then this amazing thing happens, Krista. The fourth week or so, they come in and clinkety, clank, clank, clank, onto the table pours all this stuff. And it so thrilling. I mean, it is thrilling. Everybody can feel it. Everyone is just like, “Wow.” The slice of apple, and then that gleam of the knife, and the sound of the trashcan closing, and the maple tree outside, and the blue jay. I mean, it almost comes clanking into the room. And it’s just amazing.

Ms. Tippett:

In some basic level, what they’ve done is just engage with their senses.

Ms. Howe:

Yeah, and have been present out of their minds and just noticing what’s around them, which is — we don’t do. And again, not to compare it to anything. They’re not allowed. And that’s very hard for them. And then on the fifth or sixth week, I say, “OK, use metaphors.” And they don’t want to. They don’t know how. They’re like, “Why would I? Why would I compare that to anything when it’s itself?” Exactly. Good question.

So then you think, why the necessity of a metaphor? Why do you have to use a metaphor now? Not just to do it to avoid it, but to do it to make it more there. And it’s very interesting.

right now there is drama in the MCYT Fandom.

As of June 7 2026 Avidmc and Marma1ade have quit content creation. Also as of June 7 2026, creators from the Minecraft server Skyblock Kingdoms (sbk) have come forward about “irrevocable damage [Avidmc and Marma1ade] have caused to SBK and its friends” (quote from Sbk statement on twitter) and have removed them from the server.

Below is a time line of statements, with links to the original, for ease of access. However I want to make clear that every one of these statements does not ask for aggression or violence against anyone, infact many implore the reader not to send any hate or aggression. Instead these statements ask for caution. ⚠️ do not attack anyone for who they support. Do not send hate to anyone involved. Doing so will get you banned across platforms, and make you a shitty person. ⚠️

This is purely for information collection and gathering. Make judgments based on your values and verifiable fact.

I love not farming

I respect the hell out of farmers and I'm glad that's someone's dream. because it's sure not mine

I would not be taken in by the tradwife influencer grift about milking a cow in a sundress. I have been around cows. my uncle was a dairy farmer. I love not milking a cow. I love getting milk from a store. I love getting vegetables and fruit and meat and bread from a store.

would I rather it be a local farm's store or a local bakery or butcher shop? yes! maybe when I make more money!

But that requires some explanation. ALDI stands for Albrecht Discount, because it was founded by 2 brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht. They took over their mother's convenience store in 1945 and focused on conservable items which meant not needing a cold chain and they also aggressively cut items that were underperfoming. This was quite a hit in war ravaged west Germany and in 1950 had 13 stores in west Germany and in 1960 they had over 300.

It was at this point that the brothers had a dispute about the sale of cigarettes. Ofcourse the harmful effects of smoking weren't known (by the public) in 1960. So what was the dispute about? Cigarettes were going to be the most expensive item in their stores by a long shot and Karl thought that it would encourage theft whereas his brother didn't think it be that large am issue.

This dispute proved irreconcilable and they decided to split the stores north to south creating two companies ALDI Nord and ALDI Süd.

ALDI Süd was the first to make their way into America and claimed the Copyright ALDI. So when ALDI Nord expanded overseas they couldn't call themselves ALDI so they bought up a local chain called Trader Joe's and operated under that name ever since, although they did keep most of the corporate structure intact.

But that's why there's 2 ALDI's and why ALDI Nord goes under Trader Joe's in the US.

Ohh extra tidbit, the owner of ALDI Nord, Theo was once kidnapped and held ransome for 7 million marks (at the time 2 million USD). The two kidnappers were arrested during a sting operation helped by the then Bishop of Essen (so I guess that's check mate), but roughly half the money was never recovered.

>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.

>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.

>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.

>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.

>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.

>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.

>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.

>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!

>Lemmings problem now solved.

>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.

>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.

>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.

>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.

>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.

>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.

i have a special interest in people's diaries and diary-keeping. any articles you can recommend either generally on the topics of historical figures' diaries or on how diary keeping (what's considered socially acceptable to put in a diary specifically, how people wrote and why, etc.) has changed over time?

i'm a nosey person and i want to read all the things <3