The Introvert in the Tower

When Life Gives You Corpses is a brilliant YA about a cursed praying mantis who falls for a young witch. Yield Under Great Persuasion is a raunchy, but surprisingly sweet story about two men repairing their relationship. Fabulous Bodies is a horror story about a queer rockstar rising from the dead.

This is Where the Future Bleeds is a fantasy set in a vividly imagined land, where two women (who happen to kiss) are the key to healing the broken sky. You're No Better is a story about a teen struggling in the shadow of his murderous parent. Oil on Canvas is about a woman who finds disturbing paintings in the home of her dead mother.

Over a year ago, National Public Data (NPD), a search site for people, earned a place in privacy infamy for a security breach that revealed the personal data of 3 billion individuals (that's billion with a "b"). Now, after disappearing, NPD is back. As ZDNET sister publication PCMag reported, NPD is open for snooping again under a new owner, the rather mysterious-sounding Perfect Privacy LLC.

Oh boy. Better head over to nationalpublicdata.com and see if your profile is there. Then follow the handy instructions in the ZDNET article to have yourself removed:

How to remove your information from NPD

Search your name on nationalpublicdata.com.

When you find your profile, click "View Full Profile."

Copy its URL.

Go to nationalpublicdata.com/optout.html.

Drop the URL into the "Your Profile Link" field and click "Request Removal."

Enter an email address, and the site will send you an email requesting that you click to confirm deletion. 

And while that is obviously horrifying to me, I think people ho are still in deep denial can sort of pretend to themselves that there must have been a very big battle there, or a massive fire, or one really big bomb. The 'oh we were fighting Hamas/Hezbollah' bullshit can somehow be wielded to stay in that deep denial.

So I think they should be showing more shit like this:

Stolen from the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

On Android 

With the release of Android 12, Google began allowing users to delete their ad ID permanently. On devices that have this feature enabled, you can open the Settings app and navigate to Privacy > Ads. Tap “Delete advertising ID,” then tap it again on the next page to confirm. This will prevent any app on your phone from accessing it in the future.

On iOS 

To see which apps you have previously granted access to, go to Settings > Privacy > Tracking. You can set the “Allow apps to Request to Track” switch to the “off” position (the slider is to the left and the background is gray). This will prevent apps from asking to track in the future. If you have granted apps permission to track you in the past, this will prompt you to ask those apps to stop tracking as well. You also have the option to grant or revoke tracking access on a per-app basis.

Clothing company Patagonia is currently sueing drag queen Pattie Gonia for "irreparable” harm to their brand.

To be clear; Pattie named herself after the region in South America.

So Pattie is asking people to politely ask Patagonia to drop the lawsuit.

I'm extending the invitation to all of you, because sueing a drag queen for 'infringement' in the current political cultural landscape is vile. Especially a drag queen who has raised millions of dollars for non-profits, uses her platform to raise awareness for climate activism, and fully aligns with Patagonia's apparent climate-conscious mission statement.

They're claiming they're sueing for $1. They're actually asking her to stop using her name, and pay over $1 million in legal fees. They're straight up harassing her.

In contrast, drag queen Jan Sport has a Jansport bag line. It's that easy to just... work with a queen.

Anyway. Be respectful(ish), but feel free to be annoying on Patagnoia's socials, asking them to 'DROP THE LAWSUIT'

Some pretty seismic changes they’re calling for here - no feeding at all besides a little mealworms, suet or fat balls between May and October, no flat feeders at all, change the location of your feeders each time they go out, and clean your feeders and bird baths weekly.

The birding community is still working out the nuances, as we are wondering how this will affect populations in certain areas devoid of natural resources for birds, and if it will start another catastrophe, but this general advice should be followed for now

Their bills are late, but not so late that utilities will be cut off, so for now, we’re focusing on rent and living expenses.

Rent (due June 5): $0/$1500

General living expenses: $0/$200

My previous post got several hundred reblogs over the last month, but only a handful of donations. I know not everyone can afford to give, but if you have a spare $5 or $10, please send it to them — small donations add up.

Venmo and cashapp are preferred, because that way, they can access the money immediately without having to pay a withdrawal fee.

Venmo: @enbymickie

Cashapp: $enbymickie

PayPal: [email protected]

More details under the cut

The way I explain it to my patients is that our neurons don’t regenerate. They make connections with each other and that’s it. If you don’t use your brain, they make fewer connections and, if one of them dies, you’re gonna miss it, because that was the only one that knew how to do X. Now, if each one of them has many, many connections, you won’t notice the difference when one of them dies. The others pick up the slack.

As of 2024, 45% of dementia risk factors are modifiable. Relevant to this conversation, 5% for less education and 5% for social isolation.

We absolutely are going to see the reflection of this, but it’s gonna take decades and it’ll be too late. So, for the love of your brain, pretend that it’s a muscle and make it work. People complain about “when am I ever gonna use this maths formula in my life?” You’re not. You’re teaching your brain to think logically. Those sinapses will be there for when you need to figure out your week’s schedule. English classes taught me how to interpret data and how to convey it in this text so it’s clear and you understand what I’m saying, not because I needed to justify why the curtain is blue.

Make your brain know how to do different things. Logic games, puzzles, taking care of a garden even if small, planning a church’s event or birthday, learn a new instrument, learn a few words in another language, look at a calendar every day, do some manual labor if possible. Do not, I repeat, do not let your brain get rid of sinapses by letting AI do everything. Your brain uses 20% of your body’s energy — do you really think it’s going to maintain connexions that aren’t in use?

Most cases of Alzheimer’s are sporadic, meaning no family history. Family history of a first-degree relative with Alzheimer’s starting before they were 80yo increases your risk in 2-3x on average.

On what the male loneliness epidemic is really about. Given actual alternatives, women are opting tf OUT of "traditional roles".

The police ruled it a suicide. The family and local community demanded an investigation. The police refused to change their ruling.