Welcome to my Nest

Im the kind of autistic that once I find something that works i buy mostly that until I can’t - like 75% of my bras and panties are Parade lmfao.

While we at it, got recs for places to get cute size 13+ shoes that aren’t Pleasers and don’t fall apart instantly? How about queer and/or Black clothing shops in general?

and yet, you know exactly how to bake a cake and what every variation of cake could possibly taste like because in every single book you find interesting there is a cake recipe that takes up half the book. you pick up book summaries that seem promising and they instantly veer off into discussing the rich texture of a good sponge cake, or the creamy frosting of this author's favorite red velvet cake. you don't hate cake, you really don't, and maybe there are even a couple scenes of characters eating cake or discussing their latest baking ventures that you actually enjoy, but in the grand scheme of things, it just feels pointless because you literally cannot go five fucking pages without someone losing all their personality to repeat the same recipe for angel food cake you have been hearing about since you were ten years old and already sick of it. because, apparently, even when authors write characters who don't like cake, the book is STILL SOMEHOW derailing itself to discuss the novel idea of not liking cake every ten seconds INSTEAD OF BEING AN INTERESTING STORY.

and now writers are trying to create entire worlds where dragons are drawn to you based on what kind of cake recipes you've baked and what fucking color frosting your spiritual cupcakes are and you think at this point they MUST have lost the plot, surely this cannot be an applicable fantasy even for cake enjoyers, but you're WRONG because people are constantly asking you if you've read the new cake recipe featuring dragons because they know you like dragons and mean well so you can't just tell them that you'd rather die than read another fucking box mix cake recipe in your life. so you grit your teeth and go yeah i just don't think it's really my thing.

at this point, you've read enough cake recipes that you're pretty sure you could write your own damn extended frosting scene. but you still, after all these years, do not want to bake a fucking cake. and no amount of 50 page, in-depth baking grease scenes or descriptive frosting decoration will ever close the gap between you being constantly reminded that you fundamentally cannot relate to anyone describing the taste of cake. readers want to see the same box mix cake reheated another time because they're waiting to see if the author will add a dash of vanilla, or perhaps cinnamon this time, trying to guess what will change the flavor of the cake in the end so that they can imagine eating it themselves, and all of it is functionally useless to you because, again, You Do Not Want To Eat A Cake Ever Even In Your Imagination. and sometimes the author will insist that Baking Is What Makes Us Human and that it's The Most Important Thing In The Universe and you'll have to sit off to the side like well i don't think that's true, personally, because i do not like cake, but i guess i can understand how someone would maybe reach that conclusion. maybe they were talking about pastries or muffins. but even then you're still annoyed about the implication that People Who Do Not Like Baking Are Not People when you, in fact, know people like that.

I'm Sparrow, I'm a trans woman in desperate need of financial help.

I was diagnosed with Burkitt's Lymphoma early last year, and while I seem to be cancer free now, it has left me poor, deeply in debt, and with chronic pain that hinders my ability to work long stretches. My job pays ass, and gives me as few hours as it can each week, and I'm living paycheck to paycheck just trying to survive.

I've been off my hormones since I was diagnosed and can't even afford to go to the doctor for a checkup let alone get back on the hormones that I so desperately want, and I'd desperately like to be able to see a doctor and make sure the cancer isn't back on top of just being able to get to work every day.

If you can help in any way, please do, I'm so desperate for some kind of relief...

They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.

Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.

You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.

This article specifically notes:

For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.

Other important quotes:

What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.

Two things back that up:

There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.

Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.

Here's the complaint filed to the court, the primary source for the case mentioned in the article. You can find mentions of GDID on page 30 of the document or 34 of the PDF.

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

I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.

I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.

My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.

Three years.

No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.

I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.

I'm also a librarian and queer books are almost always cut first when we have to weed for space or prioritize new releases over old items because no one reads them

I will say, when I worked at a large downtown location, we had a "browsing card" that we would check out items we found taken off the shelf and left on a table, as an example of a book that had clearly been read, just not checked out by anyone

it's possible queer books do actually get a bit of unfair treatment in this regard because people may be nervous or outright scared to check them out onto an account with their name on it. so they get browsed at a much higher rate, but if a library doesn't have a specific system in place (or need for it) to count browsed items, then it looks like they aren't being used and they get weeded

for other librarians, a browsing card is a great idea if you have enough staff for the extra work / enough items left out to justify it

for patrons, check out queer books even if you don't read them! you're not lying or committing any type of fraud. you're keeping books on the shelf long enough for pride season when people are interested in checking them out again and for people scared to use their own accounts or who don't have library cards

for anyone nervous about using their library card, libraries do not keep search histories of what you check out!! this means even if the government does come back with a warrant, *wet farting noise* too bad! it doesn't exist!

It feels like such a small thing, but all movements are made up of small things! We have this mindset that in order to get everything done, everyone must be doing their (or *the*) absolute best at all times. But not everyone can do the same things, to the same degree, with the same amount of productivity or success. Not everyone can; sometimes, they're the ones that need help. Sometimes people just need help.

This post is very much so intended for the people who can. I've seen a lot of replies from folks who say they don't have to (or don't think about) checking out or requesting queer books from the library specifically because they *can* buy them, can pirate them, or already have them in their house or on their computers or phones. But in instances like that, keeping these books in circulation is less for you and more for the people who can't. The folks who come to the library, who don't have access to internet--or even electricity--at home and would never--have never--been able to interact with this "ubiquitous queer community" we have here online who has made so many of these. materials so avaliable to the rest of us.

And... if I can be a little frank. Sometimes the hyperaccessibility of these materials online (through pirating, cheap e-book copies, etc) gives people a false sense of security. It implies that these things are an infinate resource, good for "When I get around to it".

And often, you won't. There's so much to read and so much to do. So much to download and so much to sit down and stare at for hours. That kind of mental scope puts books in people's hands (or phones), but never in their heads.

I live in a province that is currently trying to ban queer books from libraries, and as a library patron, this is terrifying. 95% of the books I read are from the library and a lot of them are way out of my budget to buy personally.

Making Queer History would not exist without the school library I skipped class in to write articles. It would not exist without my friends with library cards for their universities sharing them and getting me access to rare texts. I would not be able to read as much as I do without Libby and Hoopla. If I have ever given you a book recommendation, know that I likely got it from the library first.

I cannot overstate the importance of protecting libraries and checking out queer books. And I want to say thank you to everyone above for being as passionate as I am about queer books in libraries.