Bear Blog Most Recent Posts

Putting lines to thoughts

hidden (inkandstillness) — Wed, 20 May 2026 22:23:00 +0000

Thankful for the rain.

hidden (thoughtsicouldntignore) — Wed, 20 May 2026 22:15:00 +0000

This morning while driving the kids to school, we were about to pray together like we do every morning and I asked them what they wanted to thank God for today, and Adley said, “the rain.”

That made me stop and pause because I had just been quietly grumbling about the rain in my head. It was cloudy. The warm sun wasn’t shining. It turned our 80 degree weather into gloomy cold 50 degree weather. My joints were hurting. The yard is muddy, so the dogs keep tracking muddy paw prints through the house.

I was only thinking about all the ways the rain was inconveniencing me. But when she said she was thankful for it, it stopped me in my tracks because she was right.

We should thank God for the rain. Without rain, the grass dies. The trees stop growing. Everything slowly dries up. Rain is necessary for life, even when it disrupts our plans.

That led me to think about spiritual rain. How often do we only count something as a blessing when it makes our lives easier? Or only thank God when things go according to our plan? The sunshine seasons?

But rain is what makes things grow.

It reminded me of the verse in James, about counting it joy when we face trials and tribulations, he’s not saying suffering is fun, but acknowledging what happens to us in those storms. Our roots grow deeper. James doesn’t mean fake plastic positivity. Not “yay suffering.” But Joy because hardship produces something eternal in us. It strengthens our Faith.

I don’t think God allows trials because He needs us to prove our faith to Him, God already knows us fully. He knows our every thought and decision even before we do. I think trials often reveal things to US. They expose what we trust in most, where our roots are planted, and whether our faith is shallow or deep. Trials prove our faith and God’s faithfulness to us.

When you walk through something hard and God sustains you, you come out knowing Him differently than before. Not just intellectually but experientially and personally.

Before the storm you might say, “I believe God is faithful.”

But after the storm you say, “I know God carried me through.”

Thats a huge mindset shift.

It’s like the disciples in the boat. Jesus didn’t create the storm because He needed information about them. But the storm revealed their fear, their dependence, and His authority. And afterward, they knew Him more deeply than before.

So the rain ruins your plans and suddenly you see your impatience. Loss happens and you now see where your security actually was. In the waiting you realize how little control you truly had in the first place.

And when you’re in that place, faith either deepens or it crumbles. When we lean into God instead of away from Him, suffering becomes transformative instead of just painful.

Then I started to wonder, what happens when there isn’t any rain? Does the grass die? Would our faith stay shallow, and our roots never grow deep? A tree that never experiences wind grows weak roots. But a drought forces roots deeper in search of water. I wonder if our faith is the same?

I don’t believe every single person needs a devastating tragedy to know God, but I notice that comfort seems to have a strange way of making us spiritually sleepy. We start relying on ourselves. We stop praying with desperation. We stop acknowledging our need for God because everything feels manageable on our own. Just like tree roots, without resistance, things stay shallow.

Jesus even talks about this in the parable of the sower. Some plants spring up quickly, but because they have no deep roots, the sun scorches them and they wither away. The issue wasn’t growth, it was depth.

Sometimes the “rain” is painful, but sometimes the “drought” is painful too. Too much comfort can slowly kill spiritual hunger. But suffering can expose whether our roots ever went deep at all.

I think that’s probably why some people encounter God most deeply in moments of grief, sickness, failure, loneliness, or uncertainty. Not because God delights in our pain, but because suffering strips away all the illusions. It exposes what we actually put our trust in.

Rain doesn’t just produce growth though, it gives life. If our lives were perpetually easy, comfortable, predictable, self sufficient. Would we slowly dry out spiritually without even noticing it was happening?

I believe the answer is yes, and Israel is a great example of this cycle in the Bible. When they faced hardship they were dependent on God. When God blessed them they became comfortable. In comfort they quickly forgot about God. Forgetting God led to destruction. It happened over and over. I guess some things never change because we are still in this cycle today.

The beautiful thing though is that God doesn’t let our storms go to waste. The rain may feel disruptive, cold, inconvenient, even frightening but afterward, things grow that never would have grown otherwise. And later on down the road when the storm passes you’ll recognize “That the hard season actually saved me from becoming someone with shallow faith, prideful, numb, or spiritually asleep.”

So how do we make sure that our roots grow deep and we don’t get scorched by the sun?

I’ve decided I think the answer must be surrender. Because two people can walk through the exact same storm but come out completely different.

One can become softer, deeper, wiser, more compassionate, more dependent on God. While the other might become bitter, cynical, hardened, angry, closed off.

Same rain. Different response.

So it must not be the storm itself that automatically grows the roots. I think It’s what we do during the storm. Do we run toward God or away from Him? Do we cling tighter or shut down? Do we become teachable or defensive?

Theres plenty of suffering in the world that just produces wounded people if it’s never surrendered to God. So I think humility also plays a huge part. Our roots grow when we finally realize, “I can’t do this by myself.”

That realization goes completely against our flesh. We all to an extent want to be in control. We want the security of guarantees. We want explanations. We want to know why the rain came now and whether it’ll stop tomorrow. But deep faith has the ability to grow in the space where answers don’t come. God tells us not to lean on our own understanding. We may never understand why the storm came but we can always trust that God is in control and working out all things for the good of those who love him. Sometimes that “good” is spiritual growth.

Dependence on God is regularly connected to pruning, refining, dying to self, carrying crosses. None of those are comfortable gardening metaphors. I think it’s also important that we allow storms to cause us to be honest with ourselves. Examine our hearts as Paul said.

In this generation we are constantly numbing ourselves with any distraction we can. Entertainment, doom scrolling TikTok, addictions, busyness of life. Anything to avoid sitting in the discomfort long enough to actually meet God there. I know I’m guilty of it. But if we stay open in suffering, even imperfectly, tearfully, even if it’s angrily praying through clenched teeth, those roots start going deeper.

Not because we’re “strong Christians,” but because even though it’s hard we’re still reaching for the life giving water.

I think our deepest roots are formed when all the shallow ones finally fail us. When the things we lean on most stop holding us up. Things like, money, health, certainty, people, even our own strength. Thats when we discover if Christ is actually enough or if He was just a decoration we added to our otherwise self sufficient life.

Most people with deeply rooted faith don’t get it from reading a cute inspirational social media post and hearing “live laugh love” sermons. They get it from surviving winters they thought would break them, and finding God still there in the middle of it. From clinging tightly and abiding in Jesus no matter what season they’re in.

When Paul asked God to remove the “thorn in the flesh,” God responds with, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

notice God didn’t say “My power is made perfect in your strength, competence, control, or ability to keep it all together.” No, he said in our Weakness.

We spend so much of our life trying not to feel weak. Trying to prove to everyone or maybe even just ourselves that we’re capable and Independent. All perfectly put together, never struggling. But God continuously shows us throughout scripture that He works most powerfully through the people who KNOW their need for Him.

Moses was insecure. David was broken and messy. Gideon was terrified and full of self doubt. Peter was impulsive and Paul suffered constantly.

The pattern is almost comical at this point. God delights in using cracked vessels so no one, not even ourselves can confuse the source of the power.

This is relevant because like the trials we face, weakness drives roots deeper, our weakness forces our dependence. Not because suffering or weakness is holy, but because both remove our illusion that we were sustaining ourselves in the first place.

When we finally hit the end of our rope. The place where all our masks fall off and the polished Christian answers stop working. That’s often where peace starts showing up too. Not fake peace. Not blissful denial. But the peace that surpasses all understanding, the one that allows you to say with certainty, “I can’t do this but God will sustain me.”

So yeah, maybe sometimes the rain ruins our plans but it’s also the rain that keeps us alive and I’m great full today that my daughter reminded me to thank God for the rain.

💜🤟✝️

fading

hidden (betweentheskyscrapers) — Wed, 20 May 2026 22:00:00 +0000

birds chirping and stars fading
these are the signs of dawn breaking
patterns of shadows on leaves from a lamp
a bug making its last giddy-up into the night

I can only assume that whatever it is I don't know,
must be right

~

2005 - 2010

Coisas que médicos tem que aprender com veterinários

hidden (ththoughtz) — Wed, 20 May 2026 21:44:00 +0000

De vez em quando eu levo essa senhorinha na veterinária, pra ver as coisinhas de velhinha dela.

E algumas vezes passamos até por especialistas.

Sim, se ela morou na rua, ela não se lembra mais kkkkk e segue vivendo a vida de cachorra mimada patricinha.

E aí com esses especialistas, toda vez eu saio da consulta falando a mesma coisa:

EU NUNCA fui bem tratado assim quando fui consultar.

Ué? Tem coisa estranha aí.

As pessoas especialistas vet demoram um tanto na consulta, examinam minuciosamente.

Depois ainda levam um tempão explicando pra mim todas as questões, o que implica, como acompanhar, o que fazer em seguida, etc.

Aí quando eu vou no médico, seja sus, particular, plano... é a mesma coisa, num dá 3 minutos de conversa e já to fora do consultório.

E porra, brasilzão? uma consulta cara de 200, 300, 500 reais é muita coisa pra gente.

E plano mesma coisa. "Ah mas o médico do plano ganha pouco no plano" e eu com isso?

Fechou por hoje, só precisava reclamar um pouco e mostrar fotos dessa senhorinha esperando sentada no banco a consulta dela:

7- ¿Cuál sería tu profesión ideal?

hidden (resistenciacarpincha) — Wed, 20 May 2026 21:39:00 +0000

Yo siempre tuve un problema: me gusta todo. Me gusta aprender. Me gusta entender. Soy un queso con todo.

Cuando era chica y después adolescente, me topé en la escuela pública con psicólogos que visitaban los últimos grados o años para orientarte en tu vocación. En la primaria, yo quería ser piloto de avión. La escuela era militar y en la provincia de Córdoba si mal no recuerdo pero ya el solo hecho de decir "militar", prohibía y limitaba cualquier deseo de subirme a un avión más que como pasajera. La opción fue entrar en una escuela técnica y durante el curso de ingreso, era la única nena. No era un problema; el problema fue el profesor que básicamente me trató terriblemente y me levanté y me fui de la clase mientras me decía que no me podía ir. En la secundaria, pensé en ser música porque tocaba la guitarra como toda adolescente que escuchara Hole. Con 17 empecé en Conservatorio: quería ser profesora de música. De violín específicamente. Años después mi carrera se frustró porque me corté el dedo y no lo puedo mover y desde entonces, nunca más agarré un instrumento. A la par, estudié para ser maestra pero quería ser astrónoma. Pero tenía que trabajar y los horarios no coincidían. Me recibí de maestra y ese el trabajo más bonito que pude haber elegido. Entré en profesorado de inglés porque hablaba bien inglés pero bibliotecología me enamoró. Hice la licenciatura en educación primaria, me especialicé en alfabetización de jóvenes y adultos, soy bibliotecaria auxiliar. Tengo una tesis de posgrado que nunca defendí sobre ambiente costero así que casi que también me especialicé en temáticas ambientales. Tengo un diploma de posgrado en ambiente. Muchos cursos de posgrado dedicados a la alfabetización. Me hubiera encantado ser bióloga marina porque soy de la costa pero en mi región no se promueve absolutamente nada a nivel educativo que potencialice lo que somos.

Pero si alguien hoy me pregunta a qué podría dedircame de lleno, de qué podría trabajar, lo sé sin dudarlo: filóloga. Yo querría ser filóloga. (Y enseñar música por hobby, no por profesión ya que estamos en el marco de los sueños).

Y viene la pregunta: por qué no.

y viene la respuesta: porque no pago las cuentas siendo filóloga.

Y viene la pregunta: y qué tal te va hoy con pagar las cuentas.

Y viene la respuesta: y...tirando...

Mi mamá me dijo cuando estaba eligiendo carrera que eligiera lo que quisiera porque nada te protege de la posibilidad de morirte de hambre en países como el nuestro. Pero que educarte en algo que te gusta te va a alimentar (casi me anoto en podología porque era una carrera corta y hay muchos viejos en mi localidad pero mi mamá me detuvo...).

Si hoy pudieras elegir tu carrera...¿cuál sería tu profesión? Tal vez no sea tan tarde, este sistema no haya terminado de chuparnos y podamos (todavía) ser aquello que siempre quisimos.

Si quieren dejar algún comentario...bienvenidos sean.

what a record !! <333

hidden (spispo) — Wed, 20 May 2026 21:38:41 +0000

i need to look back at my daily journal later, but to my knowledge n memory, i haven't had any intense emotional breakdown over life sinceeeee january !!! ;v; oh my goodness, like past me would not believe it to be so, even tho waaay past me experienced emotional stability before . it is a little thing but i am so proud of myself ! >v<

could it be bc of my new routine ? i think so~ i'm taking care of myself and making really dope art ! i just need to up the output a bit more ! earlier this year i made so many completed drawings and animations, i made little but important moves towards my art career, i was doing sooo good ! i gotta get back and the first thing i gotta do is cut the things getting in my way-bad sleep hygiene and being on my phone too much

i 'don't have time' bc i waste it either on my phone or taking long (looovely) naps . i wasn't doin all that jan-march, but april felt like it kicked me in my face, and may has been feeling like a absolute whirlwind like how is it the 20th already ...

going to make an effort to look back over my quarterly goals n see how things are going, n how to end the last month of the quarter off w a bang ! i wonder if i'm going to need wifi on this cruise i'm going to soon, i gotta tighten up my process on making these weekly vids so i can do it when lots of things are going on day to day, like a vacation lol . need to earn this vacation frfr, but no severe crying fits or 'spiry is spiraling' moments in such a long time !

when my friend told me i was having them probably once every other week, or at least that's when he could kind of expect them to happen, that just really snapped me out of it . cuz i had no idea it was that frequent-even tho if you look at older entries it's obvious i had more moments of sadness and pain than i did happiness n sillies lmao

i got food waiting for me, i'll ttyl <333 so proud of me ! so proud of you too, keep pushing in whatever u do !! >v<

GO Fundamentals - Generics

hidden (gokayburuc) — Wed, 20 May 2026 21:36:00 +0000

Generics Nedir?

Generics bir fonksiyon (function) veya veri yapısı ( data structure ) üzerinde birden çok tür ile veri girişi ve çıkışı yapmanıza olanak sağlayan özel bir fonksiyon yazım türüdür.

Neden Generics?

Normal veri türlerinde bir değişken yalnızca bir veri türüne tanımlanabiliyordu. Generics yapıları sayesinde artık bir fonksiyon yazdığımızda bu fonkisyon birden çok veri türüyle çalışabilir hale gelmektedir.

Örnek Uygulama

Şimdi aşağıda örnek bir proje olan gobyexample projesini kendi bilgisayarımda uyarlanmış halini görüyorsunuz.

.
├── 20_generics
│   ├── genericsBasic.go
│   └── genericsUsage.go
├── go.mod
└── main.go

Bu örnek projemde size klasörlere bölünmüş dosya yapısını ve go üzerinde bu klasörlerden veri çağırma yöntemini de göstermek için böyle uzun bir dosya listesi ile başladım. Şimdi 20_generics isimli klasörde yer alan genericsBasic.go isimli dosyama, generics yapılarının nasıl çalıştığını incelemek adına aşağıdaki scripti ekledim. Bu kodu hep birlikte parçalarına ayırarak inceleyelim.

package generics

import (
    "cmp"
    "fmt"
)

func MaxInt(a int, b int) int {
    if a > b {
        return a
    }
    return b
}
  
func MaxString(a string, b string) string {
    if a > b {
        return a
    }
    return b
}

func MaxFloat(a float64, b float64) float64 {
    if a > b {
        return a
    }
    return b
}

// instead of three same function with different types
// instead of comparable we are using cmp.Ordered
func MaxGenerics[T cmp.Ordered](a T, b T) T {
    if a > b {
        return a
    }
    return b
}

func ExecuteMaxGenerics() {
    fmt.Println(MaxGenerics(5, 8))
    fmt.Println(MaxGenerics("apple", "banana"))
    fmt.Println(MaxGenerics(3.14, 2.71))
}

Şimdi bu dosyamızı yazdıktan sonra nasıl çağıracağımızı ve çalıştıracağımızı da aşağıdaki main.go dosyasında gösterelim.

package main

import 
    generics "gobyexample/20_generics"
)

func main() {
    generics.ExecuteMaxGenerics()
}

Şimdi kodumuzu teker teker parçalarına ayıralım ve ne işe yaradığını belirtelim.

func MaxInt(a int, b int) int {
    if a > b {
        return a
    }
    return b
}

Yukarıdaki MaxInt isimli fonksiyon int veri tipinde a ve b parametrelerini alıyor. Bunlara verilen argümanlara göre int veri tipinde veri döndürüyor. Sayı değerlerinden hangisinin diğerinden daha büyük olduğunu değerlendirdikten sonra sonucu ekrana döndürüyor.

Şimdi de aynı fonksiyonun string veri tipi olan versiyonunu inceleyelim

func MaxString(a string, b string) string {
    if a > b {
        return a
    }
    return b
}

MaxString fonksiyonu da string olarak verilen değerleri büyük küçük olarak karşılaştırıp string formatında geri döndürüyor.

Son olarak da float64 veri tipi için yazılmış olan MaxFloat fonksiyonunu değerlendirelim.

func MaxFloat(a float64, b float64) float64 {
    if a > b {
        return a
    }
    return b
}

Bu fonksiyon da a ve b değerlerini float64 olarak karşılaştırıp yine bir float64 döndürür.

Fakat biz aynı işlemi her veri türü için tek tek yapmak zorunda mıyız? Bunun tek ve kısa bir yazımı yok mu? Bu sorunun yanıtı da generic fonksiyonunda gizli. Şimdi MaxGenerics isimli fonksiyonumuzu inceliyoruz.

func MaxGenerics[T cmp.Ordered](a T, b T) T {
    if a > b {
        return a
    }
    return b
}

Burada ilk olarak özel bir yazımla karşılaştık:

// generics syntax
func funcname[T any](v T) {}

Bu T isimli placeholder(ter tutucu) sayesinde buraya hangi veri türü gelirse ona göre davran komutunu sistemimize belirtiyoruz. any yazan kısım ise yapacağımız işlemin türüne göre değişiklik gösterebiliyor. Burada standart olarak comparable ifadesi yer alır fakat, MaxGenerics isimli fonksiyonumuza string veri tipini de karşılaştırmak üzere vereceğimiz için cmp.Ordered kullanarak sıralı bir liste gibi davranmasını istiyoruz.

Şimdi de fonksiyonumuzun çalışıp çalışmadığını test etmek için aşağıdaki fonksiyonumuzu yazıp test ediyoruz.

func ExecuteMaxGenerics() {
    fmt.Println(MaxGenerics(5, 8)) // int 
    fmt.Println(MaxGenerics("apple", "banana")) //string
    fmt.Println(MaxGenerics(3.14, 2.71)) // float
}

Bu kodumuzu main.go fonksiyonumuzdan çağırıp çalıştırdığımızda aşağıdaki gibi bir çıktı alıyoruz.

8
banana
3.14

Burada dikkat ederseniz string ifadeleri karşılaştırırken hangisinin daha çok karaktere sahip olduğuna bağlı olarak banana isimli argümanı döndürdü.

Sonsöz ve Değerlendirme

Bu yazımda:

Generics ifadeleri nedir?
Generics ifadeleri ne zaman kullanılır?
Generics ifadelerinin yazım şekli (syntax) nasıldır?

gibi sorulara temel seviyede yanıtlar verdim. Konu ile ilgili daha detaylı bilgi edinmek isteyenler aşağıdaki linkleri de inceleyebilirler.

Şimdilik bu yazının sonuna geldik. Yeni yazılarda görüşmek üzere...

Allah'a emanet olun.

5/15/26 — Padres vs Mariners

hidden (benchpaths) — Wed, 20 May 2026 21:31:00 +0000

Leo and I arrived at T-Mobile Park a little earlier than usual. Neither of us were too keen on the clear Hello Kitty crossbody bags, but a couple of Nadia’s friends are visiting from out of town and were interested. So we figured, why not. We spent a little time behind a pleasant patriarchal family gathering (as pleasant a patriarchal gathering could be, possibly) of Padres fans. The youngest one, about Leo’s age, would shout, “Go Padres!” to passersby in brown and gold who’d fist bump or “woo” back.

When we got to our seats, a nice family behind us was also settling in, draping out their warm Padres blanket on an unusually cold evening in mid-May. I noticed Padres colors and gear everywhere around us. The old neon city connects, retro navy bombers, oversized hoodies, even a jewel-studded SD necklace worn by one of the younger fans in the family ahead of us. In my (admittedly short) Mariners history, I haven’t quite experienced a more visible fan base at T-Mobile Park before.

Yet still, our Padres neighbors were very polite. Aside from a few (slightly drunk) “let’s go padres” a few sections away — to which Leo would try to out-yell them with “Mariners” — they were cordial and respectful away fans. I did like the family behind us quite a bit. They would hold their breath when we got runners in scoring position or loaded the bases, and then let out a sign of relief when we didn’t push runners through. After the final out, one of them gave a coy “I was never worried” with a nervous chuckle. They would cheer for a clutch defensive Padre play and give a nod when the Ms brought their own.

Despite being a tense, well-pitched game throughout, it was a frustrating night for the Mariners. Seven hits, ten runners left on base, and just one hit in seven chances with runners in scoring position. It also felt like one of those nights where the Mariners’ constant matchup tinkering became impossible not to notice in real time. I say this, but our platoon bats against left handed pitching actually held up fairly well against Mason Miller along with the rest of the team. We saw a lot of his stuff and got on base against a pitcher most teams are simply trying to survive. Couldn’t score, though.

There really does seem to be a bit of mutual respect between both the teams and their fans. I saw Rodríguez and Tatis Jr. hugging it out during stretches before the game. There were multiple batters in the lineup where I’d turn to Leo and say, “This guy can hit; Hancock should be careful.” Not that Leo needed much warning anyway; the Padres are probably his favorite National League team.

To Hancock's credit, he had a solid outing, allowing only one run in six innings. He struck out Jackson Merrill at the top of the order 3 times. Our pitching held up well against a potent San Diego lineup, making the loss all the more painful to bear.

On the walk back to the train, Leo was a bit more quiet than usual. When asked what’s wrong, he answered, “It’s tough being in our home stadium, seeing so many Padres fans cheering,” and wasn’t it the truth. Nothing a little sweets and baseball bloopers on the ride home couldn’t fix though.

Final: Padres 2, Mariners 0
Seats: Section 104, row 23 (JRod squad front row)
Memory: Visiting fanbases, Leo cuddles

If money was no object I'd buy this camera

hidden (itsmike) — Wed, 20 May 2026 21:27:00 +0000

Some things just don't make sense. And the Leica Q3 Monochrom selling for a mere $7,950 is one of them. It's a camera that only shoots in black and white. Yet I want one of these in the worst way.

There are a few reasons why. Here's the first.

I mentioned running across this camera in the wild when eating at a restaurant in Darby, Montana. At the table next to me was a person holding a camera. I thought the form factor looked like a Leica, but I didn't see the distinctive Leica "Red Dot" you'd typically see on their camera bodies. And then I heard those glorious words. "It's a Leica Q3 Monochrom.

He was describing the camera to what appeared to be a group of co-workers. Now to a table of non-photographers, the word Leica means nothing. And I could tell they were struggling with the concept of a camera that only shot black and white images. He excitedly tried to explain the appeal of a camera that only shoots black and white.

While the people at his table struggled to understand the appeal, I did not. Because I've seen images straight out of the Leica Q3 Monochrom and they are (to put it mildly) incredible.

I decided to save him from his less than understanding friends and struck up a conversation with him. As I held that beautiful piece of German engineering in my hand I knew why he was excited. It screamed go create images with me. Everything about it felt well-thought out.

Even the images I was viewing on the camera's screen were incredible with zero post-processing of any kind. That's what a dedicated sensor made specifically for black and white images will get you. So I definitely shared his enthusiasm for what this camera could do, even if his friends didn't.

Here's another reason I'm attracted to the camera. It felt substantial and well built. It reminded me of the feeling I had when I held my Nikon FM or my Olympus OM-1 35mm cameras. That's not a feeling you get from many modern digital cameras.

And the last reason. When you know everything coming out of the camera will be black and white, you just think differently when you create images. You pay more attention to the little things. The lighting. The shadows. It's hard to explain, but the limiting factor of shooting in black and white actually plays into how you approach a photograph.

So the real question is this. Will I ever own one? The chances are slim, although I'd be perfectly fine with a good used one. My favorite camera I ever owned was my black, brassed-out Nikon FM. In a former life a professional sports photographer beat it up pretty good before it reached my hands.

As much as I gush over the Leica Q3 Monochrom, I doubt it could take the beating that Nikon FM took. But, I'd be willing to part with a few thousand if a serviceable used one came along. It's a camera that doesn't make sense, yet makes all the sense in the world.

Until next time, take care...

consecrating the Peace Plaza pagoda

hidden (lnebres) — Wed, 20 May 2026 21:25:00 +0000

It's gotten to where I don't have to deploy the SLS in situ, to bring its vibes to bear upon the place. I only have to integrate the scene in five separate frames in sequence to invoke the essence of the samādhi.

A good example is this series of moments in Japantown's Peace Plaza a couple days ago; I noticed that the old pagoda's serried roofs have been given a new shine, and the work on remodeling the plaza is proceeding well apace.

That Discourse about Citations, You Know the One

hidden (calliope) — Wed, 20 May 2026 21:18:00 +0000

After I punted a couple of thoughts onto Bluesky about the current academic citation discourse, Aversatrix thumped really hard so I have been trying to percolate a post on this ever since.

If you're not familiar with the issue at hand, ArXiv, a preprint publication database, has clarified that it will ban anyone who submits LLM shit in their academic work. The basic problem at hand appears to be that people, primarily in the natural sciences, are using LLMs, which are generating false citations, and given the culture of citation in the natural sciences as a whole, those are going into the papers without being checked.

Scientists, especially those who choose to remain on the CSAM generation site, are angry. Their anger boils down to frustration that they are on the hook for the citations someone else puts in their team-written paper, and that no one can check all the citations used in a realistic way. They object that one author may not speak the language a citation was written in, or that they may not have expertise in the field that their colleague, who inserted the citation, does have.

This is, in all honestly, bullshit. And it is in fact bullshit in several ways.

So, in case you don't already know, I'm an English professor. I earned my Ph.D. in literature and cultural studies in 2013, and I teach comparative humanities and freshman composition, mostly 102. English 102 (often called by other numbers at other schools) is the second of the basic writing courses, and is traditionally focused on building up to full-fledged argumentation and use of research to back it up. That's in contrast to English 101, which may have more personal narratives, minimal research, and a greater focus on working one's way through readings and basic writing tasks before building full-fledged arguments (in 102). I am not explicitly an expert in the pedagogy of composition; my field of expertise is literature. However, I have been teaching composition for over a decade, and to make the point this paragraph is about (one of them), I teach the class that teaches these scientists how to do their writing. They will undoubtedly have taken a research methods course in their field as well, and some of the things taught there will "trump" what I teach. However, we use APA, and so I'm familiar with the standards expected of citation in that style (which is the one used by scientists).

And, to be blunt, you do, in fact, need to know what's in the papers you're citing.

There's a kind of unspoken but widely acknowledged admission in the sciences that many people don't read the papers; they read the abstracts. That's not necessarily bad. If you're coming from a humanities background it can sound foolhardy, if not downright unethical, but the abstracts for scientific papers are responsible for bottom-lining everything of note in the paper. The paper is, in large part, providing the data necessary to prove the points made in the abstract and introduction. So there is pressure and expectation in scientific writing to have a lot of sources, because the sources make it easy to go through a lot of them in an afternoon. The expectation also makes sense, given that any single study could be a fluke, while a number of studies -- or, even better, studies and metastudies -- indicate more solid conclusions you can rest your own ideas on.

You can see where this is going. I'm not going to be polite here. Anyone who chooses to hand over any part of the writing and research project to an LLM is a fucking asshole. Don't do that. DO NOT DO THAT. You are hobbling your future ability to read, research, craft ideas, and write them down. But some assholes, faced with this pressure, are going to choose to use the plagiarism engine. And the plagiarism engine, quite famously, invents information-shaped bullshit out of nowhere.

"Bullshit" is an actual philosophical term, as you may already know. I found a pdf of what I believe to be the original essay here. My definition is based on but slightly divergent from Frankfurt's. "Bullshit" is a statement that has no referent to external reality. This is in contradiction to both truth and lies. Truth is, as best as the speaker is able to do, a statement reflecting reality as it really is. "The Sun is up" [at 2 pm]. A lie is, again as best as the speaker is able to do, a statement that intentionally obscures or fails to reflect reality as it really is. "The Sun is down" [at 2 pm].

Bullshit has no referent to reality at all. It could be true. But the speaker either doesn't know or doesn't care. This distinction may seem to rely on what you're raring to call the authorial fallacy, but when evaluating a lie, specifically, we have to consider that. The truth seems easy (it's not), but with a lie, the word itself indicates the speaker knows it's false. We've all promulgated falsehoods because the facts changed or better research was done after we learned a fact. I told people for years that all -- all -- the caffeine from tea is infused into water at or above 180 degrees Fahrenheit within thirty seconds. That's not true, but it was considered true when I learned it, somewhere around 2005 (at least, that's when I read the book that said it; who knows now when the book was written?).

LLMs are, at their core, Bullshit Machines (based on stolen works). They may deliver things that happen to be true. They may not. They have no reference to anything outside their dataset, and then their programming means they aren't referring to their dataset; they're generating word strings based on it. You've seen it. I've seen it. Students sometimes turn in Rhetorical Analyses on authors who don't exist, who wrote essays that don't exist. But words follow other words in a way that can be measured statistically, and the admittedly advanced algorithms of the Bullshit Machines can start from "an analysis of X text" and generate a lot of words that all kind of go into a statistically "correct" order. And they mean literally nothing.

That's a long tangent, but it's necessary here. Scientists ought to know better. They ought to be remembering that what they're doing is examining the world around them. LLMs don't do that.

Now, that's what we might call the problem with the ideals of the people who are complaining. There are yet more reasons they're full of shit.

These two practical issues emerge more directly from my experience teaching, and I can characterize them as starting "at both ends" of the problem. That is to say, at one end there's one or more people writing a text; at the other end, there are one or more people reading that text when it's finished. Using LLM citations disrupts both ends of this continuum in a way that does in fact necessitate the banning of people who did it from the academic arena.¹

First, and this is the obvious one, what is an author doing putting a citation into their essay if they haven't read it? This is a bit of an idealistic way to phrase it, but bear with me: if you have not read the work, you should not ever cite it in any way. Because citations are for things that you fucking read, and nothing else. That is actually practical. When you put a citation into a piece of research, you are explicitly claiming that you read it. And, while different fields may have different definitions of what it means to "read" an article (see above), it still expects one to have done the reading if one puts the citation in. This is so important that one of the things I learned early on in academic writing is to cite the exact edition I read. No other. Because if I use an old edition, cite the newer one, and the text I quoted was changed, by a typo or a revision, then I effectively fucked up my citation, because I am pinky swearing that I read the exact edition that is in my citations.

This is what we might call "walking the walk." An expert is really an expert in two ways: the development of skills and the accruing of information. If one is not bothering to accrue information, and instead putting bullshit citations in instead, then one is not an expert. And so, any such person does not have the qualifications for academic publishing.

Now, let me stop you right there. A degree is not required to get published in an academic journal. Any person with a good argument and the necessary things to back it up can be published. But those things are what demonstrate the author or authors have the qualifications.

In my classroom I refer to this using one of the old standard terms from the rhetorical tradition: ethos. "Ethos" has been defined in many ways, but let's just start with the way the Encyclopedia Britannica defines it:

... Ethos was the natural disposition or moral character, an abiding quality, and pathos a temporary and often violent emotional state. For Renaissance writers the distinction was a different one: ethos described character and pathos an emotional appeal.

"Ethos" is the character of the person making the argument. It is, in its simplest form, whether the reader (in this case) can trust the author(s). What I typically tell my students is that someone who's been established as an expert in a field is usually "ethical" in this narrow sense (not necessarily the greater, more standard sense of the English "ethical," though they're clearly related). However, the work itself is the thing where "ethos" is actually necessary. If the work is sloppy, poorly researched, difficult to understand, or otherwise badly made, it's also poor in ethos. The character of the author reveals itself through the writing and research; there's no other way for it to do so, unless one happens to know who they are in advance, or looks them up partway through reading.

I said this section was about two things and that the second had to do with the reader, but the previous paragraph is surely about that? Yes and no. As you might have already reckoned, I used the word "continuum" earlier because these two things are closely locked together. The second one is not strictly that the reader can't trust the writer, because that's the first thing.

It's that the reader must now, logically, assume everything in the text is just as bad as the worst part.

This would not always be true, were the problem to change. If one paragraph of an essay is somehow riddled with typos and the rest is not, one's opinion of the author may change a bit, but the rest of the essay is readable and presentable. But when it comes to the sources, those gel together into an edifice. "This," the author says, "is the body of my knowledge as it pertains to this subject. These citations are the things that demonstrate I know what I'm talking about and that you should listen to me" (as in the previous point). If one of those "bricks" is faulty, the entire wall is liable to fall in on itself.

Think of it this way: if you were interviewing a candidate for a job position within a field that has a particular dress code, and that candidate didn't dress that way, you might be disinclined to hire them. But if a candidate dressed the part and you learned they lied to you, even one time, you would throw their resume into the trash. I'm sure someone is going to say lying is such an ingrained part of the interview process that they wouldn't, so transpose that to something else I suppose, like dating, or if you're already extremely angry from the part earlier where I accurately described the output of LLMs, imagine instead a games journalist who lied about a game. That should get you into the right headspace, especially if you imagine them to be a woman.

Setting that aside, you see how there's no other option here than to ban people who do this from publishing in a place where the editors and publishers are on the hook for the academic credibility of everything in it. The text and the authors prove themselves untrustworthy if they include citations they did not check or read, and especially so if they use false citations.

And this is the necessary point to make before wrapping this up: these citations are false. They are not true, and academic research cannot ethically rely on bullshit -- and obviously not on lies, either.

To end, the people complaining on the CSAM site are making the claims, as I said, that it's unreasonable to expect Bob to check John's citations. Well, that may actually be true. But it doesn't matter. Because if Bob and John both put their names on a work that is justified by falsehood, they're both implicated in the lie. The question of whether that extra work was unreasonable or not was supposed to come up earlier, not at the point of submission. If it's not something someone can do, don't put yourself into the position of needing to do it. Because this isn't a matter of humanities people not understanding what your field is like. It's a matter of you putting your name on lies and getting mad about consequences.

note that ArXiv is only banning these people for a year, and not (so far as I can tell) insisting on evidence that they took retraining in how to do research properly, which is probably the minimum I would call for if I were in the editors' and publishers' positions. But I'm not, so oh well.↩

sally

hidden (roxymusings) — Wed, 20 May 2026 21:16:06 +0000

The wall had collapsed without my noticing
Through wet November I’d hurried by
Under tawdry lights, into the grey
Until my soles ached from kicking shoddy brick

In Prague I fell victim to fever
That lady danced on my nose and spun her skirts
In Paris I outdrank the sailors
And ran through the streets naked, wailing,
« regarde-moi! »

In London I cried
I clung to you and heaved until your back was wet
Hoping you’d tell me there’s still time
Or that I’m cruel, but that you love me anyway

There's a damn rat in my room

hidden (disorientation) — Wed, 20 May 2026 21:03:24 +0000

Or maybe a mouse? It's a small one. Feisty and fast.

I was at my desk when I heard something move in the back. I thought it was the curtains rubbing against a drawer near my window at first. A while later, while in bed, I heard it again. I looked around and thought I saw a black mass on the floor. I went to turn on the light and it was gone.

At that point, I figured it was a rat. Or a big-ass spider. So I went and got a mouse trap. One of those strips of sticky stuff. I placed a few around and waited. And then I saw it. I saw the little head poke out behind a drawer and scram back when I moved closer.

Now, I don't like rats. You don't know where they've been. You don't know what they're carrying. What's worse, is that my bed is essentially a futon. It's on the floor. It's not resting on a bed frame or anything like that. So I'm stuck practically on the floor with this damn rat scurrying around.

I went ahead and ordered a bed frame which should arrive soon. It'll give me some peace of mind while I take care of this rat.

Anyway, on that night I couldn't sleep. I just sat at my chair, swiveling around, looking for it. I figured out it takes a precise course around my room. So I made sure to put those sticky traps in its course.

However, the traps didn't work. At least not yet. The rat just ran across no problem. The sticky stuff ain't too sticky, apparently.

So I'm sitting in my chair with a broom so I can swipe at it. I haven't slept. My head hurts. My eyes hurt. My back hurts. And I'm hearing this little rat scurrying around. I can't even see it half the time because it's so small and fast.

Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore. It was like four in the morning and I had been watching and waiting. I had to sleep. So I rolled myself into a cocoon with two blankets. I didn't want it to get to my bed and bite at my toes.

And you know what's really funny about all this? I was reading The Rats in the Walls by H.P. Lovecraft when it happened. Obviously most of the contents of that story don't apply (yet, hehe), but I thought it was funny how the rats and going mad by hearing them seeped into my reality a bit. I'm over here sitting in my chair, holding a broom, eyes tired from a lack of sleep, my head pulsing, as I watch for any sudden movement at three in the morning hoping to catch a rat. I'm going to lose it one of these days.

Every 60 seconds on your web server a minute passes

hidden (aleksei) — Wed, 20 May 2026 20:51:00 +0000

And during that minute there is a chance that a malicious bot had tried to scan your site for credentials or some other vulnerability. Don't believe me?

Check this out:

This is called background-noise and it is considered a normal part of the internet. Akin busy streets of a huge city, the internet is quietly but constantly buzzing with “life”. However, in contrast to law-abiding citizens, the internet is more like a constant anarchy—you better watch your back or else.

Or else what exactly?

The purpose of these scanners is simple, in fact they don't even try to hide that well — it is trivial to spot them. They are going over the whole Internet, knocking on each door in the hopes it is open. If it is — jackpot, the server might leak some valuable credentials like API keys that can be abused.

This is not a targeted attack, though. This is literally noise, a bit like cars passing by polluting the air. Except some of them can scoop up your data and hold it ransom or simply overload your servers (more links here).

Here is a weird thing: I actually enjoy this. Alright, hear me out — yes it is extra work, maintenance and wasted resources. But this is also a free pentest. All of the companies in the world gathered to help you secure my service, how humbling!

And thus, I use this opportunity to learn more about security myself and deploy measures all of my clients can benefit from: both protection from bots and vulnerability patching. All of this is a marketable extra feature of my service.

Thanks for the noise, I guess?

to be on this branch

hidden (toground) — Wed, 20 May 2026 20:48:00 +0000

sometimes everything

overwhelms you with beauty

an you sit in awe

and then you give in

to a fit of utter joy

to be on this branch

Reset the clock with post_last_modified

hidden (francescrossley) — Wed, 20 May 2026 20:48:00 +0000

There's some phenomena whereby curtains just leap off the wall when I am around. I don't even have to touch them. But from canvassing various family, friends, and total strangers, I definitely have curtains falling down more than average.

So when I went upstairs tonight and closed the bedroom curtains and they fell off the wall... I ignored them and made a 'time since last' page using post_last_modified. You can see my Curtains counter in action.

It's amazingly straightforward.

<style>
.curtains {
   text-align: center; 
   font-family: monospace;
   font-size: 4rem;
   font-weight: bold; }
</style>

Time since any curtains in my house fell down:

<div class="curtains">
{{ post_last_modified }}
</div>

And the next time my curtains fall down I just need to go republish the page and it will reset for me.

Previous •

chamomile tea and a doodle, cheers!

hidden (trueself) — Wed, 20 May 2026 20:30:00 +0000

As I drink my chamomile tea, I think about how this week started. There are some moments when life seems to ask you to rest, but the outside world demands something else of you, to keep going even when all you truly want is to just be.
As I drink my chamomile tea, I think how even when the emotional material get intense within you, there is a creativity that never leaves you. It holds your hand when you're falling apart. It reaches for you when the fog gets thicker. It reminds you how to feel things without losing yourself.
As I drink my chamomile tea, I think how grateful I am for all the things that have happened this week so far. Even when life is falling apart, it is blooming all over again.

Also I made a quick doodle, let's have a shared smile. Sometimes, it's all we need.

Struggles with goal setting

hidden (skuthus) — Wed, 20 May 2026 20:16:07 +0000

I sure do struggle with goal setting.

It's probably something to do with my ADD. It seems that any time I set a goal, this defiant, avoidant gremlin pops up that says 'fight that fucken thing, man' and the goal becomes about trying to overcome the gremlins wishes instead of the goal itself.

Am I alone in this? I hope not.

This has created an avoidant feedback loop where I basically have to approach my goals from the side, and use my aligned wants and desires to sort of hack my way into avoiding the defiance gremlin.

It works for some things and really does not work for others, and there's no obvious rhyme or reason to what works and what doesn't.

If I'm being honest with myself - if the goal is important enough to me or important enough to accomplish, I am able to buckle down and do it well enough, and usually ahead of schedule. There are, however, a number of goals that are second order, which means I have to unblock one thing to accomplish the next thing - those are nearly impossible.

Anyway, if you're reading this and you can relate, I hope it helps to know you aren't alone; the gremlin lives with me, too.

All Hallows Eve

hidden (middlewoevillage) — Wed, 20 May 2026 20:04:00 +0000

Good Morrow Parishioners,

It is hereby decreed by Middle Woe Parish Council that the All Hallows Eve fire, to be lit at dusk on the thirty-first day of October, shall be maintained at a height and width as specified by the council for the duration of the evening.

The flames shall be measured using a rope, details of which will be provided on the night by the Parish Clerk. The Council acknowledges that the rope will in all probability end up in the fire.

Failure to maintain the fire at the instructed height and width for the full duration of All Hallows Eve will result in the entire village being required to clear the midden heap on Sheepdip Lane by six o'clock in the morning on the first day of November, except for Toby Maltspigot who will no doubt be conspicuous by his absence (again).

Respectfully yours,

Middle Woe Parish Council

I Hate Super Glue and Some Tips for Using It

hidden (gitzandglory) — Wed, 20 May 2026 20:00:00 +0000

Super glue is the worst and most useful adhesive I use all the time. I often print miniatures with my FDM printer, so I use super glue a lot when assemble them or do weird kitbashes. I hate this ungodly adhesive, and here is what i learned about it in the last 2 years of hobbying.

Pros:

dries fast
glues most hard materials I guess

Cons:

sometimes does not dry fast
will dry fast when you have it between your fingers
is brittle as hell
not very durable
will be durable as hell when you don't want it to
can get hot when it cures fast (like on your fingers)
can leave white clouds on surfaces nearby when it cures

I have a love/hate relationship with Loctite Precision super glue.

If you want to use some super glue here are some tips:

do not wash your hands with water if you spill a lot of super glue on them. the water will cure it really fast and stick your hands together
you can sprinkle baking soda on it, to set it immediately and have a strong strange concrete concoction
sand each side you are gluing, so they will stick better
you can make your own activator spray by mixing baking soda into water (don't ask me what the ratio is) and putting it into a spray bottle
rough surfaces also help with curing faster
if your fingers are full of super glue, you can use some medium-fine sandpaper and sand it off your fingers

Anyways, this was my super glue rant and advice.