keeping track of lovely posts

Here are some basic primers. If someone is wearing what look like Meta glasses, they usually have a small circular camera in the outer corners of the lenses, like the one on your phone.

I would also regularly check their own product pages so you're on top of what the models look like. They tend to have larger frames, but come in a variety of shapes and colors.

A new hobbyist developed app warns if people nearby may be wearing smart glasses, such as Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses, which stalkers and harassers have repeatedly used to film people without their knowledge or consent. The app scans for smart glasses’ distinctive Bluetooth signatures and sends a push alert if it detects a potential pair of glasses in the local area.

The American Foundation for the Blind has said that "The Ray-Ban Meta glasses are an accessibility tool only by coincidence. That makes them more affordable and, in many ways, unaware of the needs of users with reduced vision" although they do have seemingly positive views on Meta Glasses as a whole. (source 10). It also seems like their marketing push as accessibility devices began last year (source 11).

But to add even more into the nonsense, Meta is now toying around with adding a "limit" to the functionality of their glasses unless their users pay for more access (source 12). AND, as stated above, Meta has officially added facial recognition code in their glasses and only admitted it after being called out, which is basically the death of privacy as we know it (source 13, source 14, source 15). And oh look another lawsuit because of it (source 16) THAT THEY LOST (source 17)!

Long story short: I don't begrudge someone using them as a disability aid overall, but ultimately both their privacy and other people's privacy are being disregarded by Meta and that is not and should not be acceptable by any means.

I understand there is no ethical consumption under capitalism but there is a level of personal responsibility someone has to take when using them if they truly truly need them, such as opting out of sharing information, not filming strangers without permission, not posting footage of strangers online, opting out of facial recognition if possible, etc.

I admit I struggle doing recaps with these chapters--the previous one, or the one before, I don't remember exactly, I started writing a post, typed the heading and then just sat and stared at the white space, not knowing what to say. What do you have to say about happiness?

I know some members find these chapters dragging, I think they're fine--which is surprising bc I have a poor attention span and can't deal with long descriptions in books. But LMM here combines description with action, making it bearable--she describes the landscape by telling us what Valancy and Barney are doing. The way she talks about the woods and everything, it's like she personifies them, I don't think she does it to this extent in any of her other works? Still, the passages about Valancy waking up at night do go on a bit too long.

But yay, Roaring Abel is back!

He generally brought his fiddle and played for them, to the delight of all except Banjo, who would go temporarily insane and retreat under Valancy’s bed. 

This is the type of content I am here for.

And not one single word on how he reacted to their marriage.

“A plate of apples, an open fire, and ‘a jolly goode booke whereon to looke’ are a fair substitute for heaven,” vowed Barney. “Any one can have the streets of gold. Let’s have another whack at Carman.”

This guy has unresolved baggage with money.

Presumably none of the Stirlings ever thought about her—except Cousin Georgiana, who used to lie awake worrying about poor Doss. Did she have enough to eat? Was that dreadful creature good to her? Was she warm enough at nights?

Valancy should invite Cousin G for a visit--I know she didn't want any of them to visit, but she should have Georgiana visit her just once, so that the poor thing stops worrying. Yes, she is warm enough and has enough to eat, and that dreadful creature is good to her. She might even concede that Barney is not that dreadful after all.

It's cool that they still go to town for movies and hot dogs.

It struck Valancy more than once that Barney himself laughed a great deal oftener than he used to and that his laugh had changed. It had become wholesome. 

Barney has some stuff of his own to go through.

The story Valancy concocted sounds plausible enough. I know the truth, obvs I've read the book more than once, I don't know what I would come up with if I was reading it for the first time now or if I knew someone like that IRL (well, IRL he would be more likely a subject of true crime podcast episode than a love story). He seems more like he is hiding from something or avoiding something.

Of course, the name of the man in the clipping was Bernard Craig. But Valancy had always thought Snaith was an alias. Not that it mattered.

Well, it's your name now too. I have come round to the name Barney (in any case, I can't imagine another name for him) but LMM could have thought of something better sounding than Snaith. Snaith is a town in Yorkshire (about 22 miles from Leeds), it's name derives from the Old Scandinavian word sneið, meaning "piece of land cut off". So, maybe it is appropriate. Island is a piece of land cut off and Barney, by all accounts, also cut himself off from his old life or society.

Poor Valancy, what she went through that stormy night, worrying about Barney! And that is not good for her health!

“Barney, I thought you were dead,” she whispered. Barney hooted. “After two years of the Klondike did you think a baby storm like this could get me? I spent the night in that old lumber shanty over by Muskoka. A bit cold but snug enough. Little goose! Your eyes look like burnt holes in a blanket. Did you sit up here all night worrying over an old woodsman like me?”

Okay, man, but she is your WIFE, ffs, you cannot physically want her not to be worried about you. Who else is supposed to be worried about you if not her?

"When—I saw you—come round the point—there—something happened to me. I don’t know what. It was as if I had died and come back to life. I can’t describe it any other way.”

Also, if Barney had changed his behaviour when Valancy moved in with the Gays (e.g. driving past more often than usual), I think Abel is shrewd enough to see through that (especially combined with Barney lecturing him about how to behave properly around Valancy).

Abel also has more first hand experience with the Stirlings, so knows what sort of life Valancy would be returning to. Marriage is one of the only options open to Valancy to escape that, so I think Abel would also be unsurprised from that angle.

Barney: Going to kiss my wife without examining why I want to (or even why I married her)

The legendary Eartha Kitt belts out a powerful and impassioned rendition of the song Little White Lies during a guest appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, originally broadcast by CBS on July 26th, 1959.