Random Dalliances and Nerdism

not opening the comments

letting people be wrong

letting people be wrong about YOU

letting people have a bad impression of you (see above)

knowing when your input isn't needed

spotting bot comments

Thanks, Anon!

normal purse contents (wallet, keys, chapstick, massive wad of trash and receipts, etc)

first aid kit

large quantities of candied ginger

clothespin

fingerless gloves

emergency dice set

mysterious flash drive

carnival ticket (when did I even go to a carnival?)

small metal frog

mystery key (rusted)

tiny goat

eight spools of thread

fortune cookie fortune ("your goals will have you reach new heights")

cursed locket

measuring tape with built in flashlight and screwdriver

$5.13 in loose change

incredibly small snail shell

piece of purple broken glass

three hagstones

compass ring

four old train fare tokens

various acorns

forty-five cool rocks I found

It's a very normal bag sized bag, I swear!

Weirdly enough, the purpose of this purse cleanout was to move stuff from my old bag (the strap was breaking for some mysterious reason that's probably completely unrelated to anything in this post) to a new bag that looks like it should be bigger, but actually holds less stuff. Had to remove some of these items, which is an absolute injustice.

(The rocks are staying, because what if I need a cool rock for something in an emergency? Also because they're getting a nice little polish from jostling around all the time in the inevitable beach sand that ends up in every bag I own.)

Tumblr users over here trying to foil my plans to disappear into the ocean with a bag full of shiny rocks to bribe the merfolk into letting me live with them.

Okay admittedly I have no solid proof that this particular locket is cursed. Honestly it's mostly just wishful thinking. But maybe someday...

I really wanted to get a picture of my other actual, really definitely cursed locket for this post, but I'm currently unable to find it.

Edited to add because Tumblr was really determined to post this before I was done:

Okay it took me forever to remember to actually take pictures, but!

Tiny Goat!

Hagstones, plus bonus purple glass and train fare tokens, just because I think they're neat.

Also, the umbrella thing a few weeks ago proves nothing. The fact that there was an audible scattering of trinkets onto the sidewalk when I opened my umbrella (a small, purse-sized umbrella! a reasonable umbrella to carry around in one's bag!) does not in any way imply that there were too many trinkets in my bag. I have no idea how those coins, rocks, and random bits of broken jewelry got in there. It's an utter mystery.

Artist: Tim Brierley

When you're in school, the cognitive tasks are there for the explicit purpose of being brain exercises. It's weightlifting. It is FOR building your mental muscles and making you a stronger thinker and planner. "Offloading the cognitive tasks", then, is just Not Doing The Weightlifting. What happens when you pay for your gym membership and just stand around messing around on your phone? Nothing. Nothing happens. Just money leaving your wallet. Nothing else.

Using AI is a short term pleasure that is going to fuck you over in the long term, and by the time you realize that you didn't build the necessary muscles you need for the cognitive tasks required of your ACTUAL JOB (or, like, adult life in general), it's going to be too late to do anything about it... except going back and doing the real work all over again to get you up to speed.

A "book" is (a slightly outdated beyond this specific topic) term for your union card, which states that you're a member in good standing of your local/union and ostensibly means that you have the coinciding skills that go with the title of journeyworker or apprentice or whatever. Typically, to become a journeyman, you serve an apprenticeship (usually 5 years) and then have to take a test of some sort to prove you've acquired all the necessary skills to earn the qualification. The card/book is the proof that you have a basic level of competency.

Sometimes though certain locals, usually in the South or other places where right-to-work or similar attitudes are stronger, will "sell books," which is to say they will allow people who either haven't served an apprenticeship or passed a skills test to buy their card so that they may work on union jobs.

There's a myriad of reasons and reasonings on why a local might do this, but on the ground, it means that if I'm on a big job, anyone from areas or locals that have a reputation for selling books is automatically assumed to be under-qualified. This sucks, because I've known plenty of badass hands from Southern Locals, but because they come from book-selling locals, they had to overcome that stigma. To an extent, this whole thing is self-regulating because if you bought a book and can't hack it, you only come to a travel job once before they will never invite you back, but it is a constant source of sand in the gears for the whole labour management process.