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2025-07-30 20:44:00

Felt like writing a little summary with pictures about what I've been up to recently.

My guest post at Steven's is out! It's about my favorite in-game homes. So, if you want to see my Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley and Palia homes, you should go check it out.

I've also started playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure and greatly enjoying it. I'm 50 hours in now, and I often play it while on my indoor bike:

I also got a cute Cinnamoroll to attach to my bags:

In the meantime, I've also published two more translation/summaries to GDPRhub. I have three wiki entries up now, currently working on a fourth.

There's also been a lot of MtG lately, especially in the LGS. My wife was at an Edge of Eternities Prerelease event (I love the set, but I suck at Limited, so I avoid that). I still need to pick up my two Commander set preorders. But look at this cool card she pulled:

After my rough day earlier this week¹, she was so sweet and got me flowers and gifted me a Normandy brick set <3 It lives next to my screen for now.

By the way, she left a glass of water in the freezer for a little too long and it resulted in this whacky looking ice mold of the glass she was able to pull out of it:

My coworker also had too much zucchini in his garden and gifted me two massive ones, totaling 2.5kg. Here's one filled with minced soy, rice and vegan cheese:

And finally, I've made a meme to make fun of me hitting Bearblog's anti-bot protections every now and then by accident. Thankfully, Herman is always so patient with me and my blog shenanigans.

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2025-07-30 16:00:00

Tired of this constant barrage of censorship hidden under the guise of protecting children, MasterCard/Visa monopoly setting the global standard of what is and isn't acceptable, and frequent attacks on encryption in EU law as well.

Being online isn't worth all that. You aren't getting my ID for services like this. And I wish more big services would just pull out temporarily and geoblock instead of bending the knee - would love to see the hell the MP's would be living in if Meta, X, Google, Wikipedia, XBox, PlayStation and more would just not be a thing anymore in the UK for now, even rendering devices near useless. Boycott that shit! Let them squirm and undo it under pressure. The UK isn't even that huge of a market compared to others. All companies get by complying with it is suddenly having the responsibility thrust upon them to store this very sensitive data, process it, and make the "correct" decision - despite all the risks that the ID picture could be edited, it could be someone else's ID, AI verification failing and estimating someone to be older or younger than they are, and more. That, or needing another third party to do a service for them. It only creates problems that the clowns who enacted it won't help with.

This doesn't even just affect the big players - think about your forum admin, your Mastodon instance maintainers, and more. Together with the rise of vibecoding and unsafe apps, this is the worst thing you could do. How does anyone read these stories and think "We should let them possibly have to do age verification and collect IDs or biometric features too!". It's a privacy nightmare that doesn't protect any children.

As if that wasn't enough, we are losing important media because money rules the world and not even the ones with capabilities to stand up against it (like Steam) will do it. Important media isn't always clean - it may be gross, gory, sexual, horrific, repulsive, questionable, weird. It can be queer. It can be critical of states, of capitalism, of politics and political figures. I love weird and freaky games, even the ones I have no interest in playing.
They'll always start with things most people can get behind ("Of course you'd want to remove incest! That's wrong! If you're against that, you probably love incest!") and move it up a notch, especially if it's coming from religious extremists. It's always "the unacceptable things" while they continually increase what is unacceptable.

You may be in favor of removing stories containing incest - but that not only removes media critical of incest and calling it out, it soon covers all sexual games (as it happened just now), then it moves on to horror media and shooters because it "glorifies violence" (as horror games have also been partially affected now), which also tends to affect media that depicts the realities of war to criticize it, which often includes political criticism. That opens it up to things we had to re-negotiate over and over again politically since decades now. Queer topics have always been under heavy scrutiny because of supposedly being "too sexual" or "inappropriate for children".

Unfortunately, this slippery slope is very real and not just a fallacy. It's sadly the continuation of a long time of promoting the mindset that the media you consume is who you are and what you personally love and support, which has already spurred book bans. It's the logical conclusion of the immature opinion that reading Lolita by Nabokov makes you a pedophile.

This stuff is worsened by the fact that we barely own media anymore - they can freely remove it from your device library most of the time, or they remove it from their catalogue and you lose access. No physical copies available. You cannot seriously want half your Steam library or Kindle library raided for bullshit like this. We are in the midst of fighting for more consumer rights about getting to keep the products you paid for, and yes, that includes media you find questionable that others own. If you don't want to lose access due to licensing issues or premature retirement of the game or the fact that this single player game somehow needs server connection to be playable and they shut the damn servers off, then you don't want it removed based on vague themes it may or may not have just because of politicians or a payment provider either.

Consider these events for your future purchases: Let's for example pretend you have the digital-only PS5 edition (no optical drive) and you love playing games via the PS+ subscription included games and possibly even PlayStation Now, while the other games you have on there are digital license purchases from the PS Shop. Suddenly, laws are enacted in your country and MasterCard/Visa is freaking out; the things you were playing get removed and restricted, your library is affected too since those are just licenses, and to continue using your PlayStation account, you need to send over ID or do age verification via a third-party app. What if you don't want to? Not complying bricks large parts of your device, because you'd need to verify identity if you want any more games than what you are now left with on-device. Compare this to a PS1 or PS2, where you just had a device, some discs, and were able to play without any sort of interference by the company behind it, and could just buy more in physical stores.

My consumer choices aren't even better than this; I too have to ask myself how functional my Steam Deck will be if my Steam account is ever locked down, banned, deleted or introduces measures that I don't want to comply with.

The current moves are a disaster for freedom of speech, artistic expression, creation of online spaces away from the big apps, and consumer rights. I hope more services just threaten to leave until the OSA is amended or taken back, and I hope more consumers refuse using a service with such unnecessary surveillance and control. It's the only way to revert and possibly prevent copycats.

I hope alternative payment systems (that aren't crypto¹) manage to emerge or regulations get put in place so payment providers with such a huge amount of power cannot just set the cultural standards. I wonder if we truly at some point have to retreat into an alternate web via onion sites, gopher, gemini, etc. and pay everything with paysafe cards purchased in a physical shop, but I guess none of these would actually truly evade or solve the problems. Take it as your sign to always support removing DRM, archiving, piracy and more as these are the only ways left to even keep media around that is easily just lost forever in moves like this.

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2025-07-30 02:59:00

This past month I stumbled upon a desire, or really a fixation, on watching a movie every single day for the entirety of July. Initially it was a coincidence - we just happened to watch a movie for the first 3 days of July and as someone that averages only about 4 movies per month for the past few years, it spurred a single stray thought that changed the entire month's trajectory.

Movies 1-3, not including the special In The Mood for Love 2001 short that followed the screening.

Here are a few things I learned, about myself or in general, throughout this month of watching a movie every day.

• It is actually extremely hard to watch a movie every single day for an entire month. Maybe this isn't news to some people. Maybe it's not even news to me, given that I'm not a huge movie watcher in the first place. What I mean is, it is actually very logistically difficult to watch a movie every single day for a month. I had to plan my days much more purposefully: movies had to be something I had to actively make time for, as opposed to something I could turn on if there was nothing else I wanted to do. I paid much more attention to my watchlist on Letterboxd, knowing that I would need to find something every single day.

• Concessions had to be made. Not every day could be feature length film. There was some disagreement in my household whether or not a short film could count as the movie of the day, but realistically there were days where I came home at 11:30pm and just simply could not watch a 2 hour movie. (Thank you, Wes Anderson collection of shorts!)

• It is hard for me to focus on multiple endeavors at a single time. I was so locked in watching movies this month that I barely felt the energy to make things, whether that be sketching, painting, or even going to the ceramics studio. I also felt that it cut into the available time for other hobbies - I haven't touched a book in weeks, and even my time on the Switch was limited because I had to weigh everything against what movie I wanted to watch. This was maybe a disappointing side effect of this month, but ultimately I don't regret it.

• In contrast to the above, I feel inspired to paint more. One of my favorite things to paint is movie stills. I've gained a running list in my head of movies I've watched this month that I would love to paint. For that alone, I feel this month was one of collecting inspiration rather than production, which is possibly just as valuable, especially in a world where it feels like inspiration is force-fed through repetition and algorithms, rather than an active seeking and finding of things that make you feel anything.

Various movie still paintings over the years in watercolors and gouache: 'Still Walking', 'Eat, Drink, Man, Woman' (not ever finished, and also the first time I thumbnailed underpaintings to see how they might affect mood), 'Ratatouille', and 'The Red Shoes'

• New favorites were found: these are all the movies that I gave 5 stars, or hearted thus far. In The Mood for Love and The Fall are the only 2 that got both.

In order of date watched

More than anything else, the best thing I've taken away from this month (which isn't over technically, so I guess I have 3 days including today to mess it all up and not watch a movie on any one of these days), is a fixed attention span. At least, a little bit.

For the past few years, I have had the hardest time watching a movie without a secondary activity. Sometimes this is my phone, it used to be my phone more often pre-Sung, but in the past year or so that secondary activity is usually crocheting or knitting. Something to keep my hands moving while we sat down to watch something. On the one hand, it felt nice to continue feeling "productive" while sitting and watching something, but it also became something impossible to shake. We would sit down to watch a movie, any movie, and I would immediately bring my little bag of yarn and hooks, and start working on a project.

After the first 19 days of watching a movie every day, which at that point did not include short films, while we were watching The Fall, I didn't need to pick up a secondary activity at all. At first, we were quick to dismiss it as the product of watching that particular movie, which features "one of [my] boys" to quote Sung, and is also the best movie I've ever experienced (not just watched - experienced!) in my life¹. But after that turning point, I didn't find myself reaching for anything when we watched movies after that day either. I suddenly felt like I could sit through an entire movie without literally itching to also be doing something else.

I learned, and I am loathe to admit that I was wrong and Sung was right, but this did actually impact how much I'm paying attention to the movie. Sung, if you're reading this, pretend I never wrote it. I'm paying attention to the movie. Please let me still knit while we watch things sometimes. <3 It was if a switch in my brain had been clicked.

I can blame this tendency on so many things that are neither original thoughts nor surprises - the proliferation of short form content, the idea that I always need to be productive at all times, the over valuation of "efficiency" etc etc etc. All I can say is, I'm glad I'm out of it. And somehow, movies feel fun again. I remember when I was younger, and sitting to watch a movie meant time spent with my family. We would eat dinner, also a family affair, clean up, and flick through channels until we found something we (read: my parents) wanted to watch, and we would sit side by side by side by side and do nothing but watch. Well, nothing but talk through the whole thing. This is also how I ended up watching a lot of movies I shouldn't have watched and gave me reoccuring nightmares into adulthood, but that's neither here nor there.

It would be ridiculous for me to say that I will never multitask again while watching a movie, and some movies do feel like they were meant to be on in the background, rather than deeply watched. But I feel excited to watch movies, and to engage with them deeply, and to focus my attention on one thing at a time and for that to be okay. To not try to optimize my hours in the day so that I have "something to show for it" on the other side of it. But there is joy in basking in just the one thing. And as Sung brought up in our friend movie club discussion of Taste of Cherry, there is value in boredom. There is value in letting your mind wander, and maybe the point of some movies is not to provide immediate, instantaneous entertainment that is easily processed and forgotten. Maybe some movies are meant for meditation, for creating space to think about yourself and your life within its duration. To ask yourself how you feel, what it means, and to let your mind wander, to imagine what it might feel like to be in the backseat of this car, listening to two people talk in the front, drifting slowly asleep in the glow of warm afternoon sun against the window.

Taste of Cherry, 1997

If I'm honest, it's unlikely I'll embark on this kind of endeavor ever again, or at least any time soon. But I'm glad I started it on a whim, and am finishing it with determination and an intention I hope to carry on.

2025-07-30 02:17:13

I was email chatting with B, and she brought up a really cool question about online zine clubs. I shared a few places where I hang out online for zines, but there isn't really a little "club" that I know of to chat all things zines. Like: tools, questions/feedback, sharing process and pics, or bouncing ideas off each other.

Sometimes zine making can feel a bit lonely, so feeling a part of a group can be really fun, and encouraging.

There are a few Discord places and Reddit channels that I like, but they sometimes feel a bit busy/big that my introverted self gets a little shy about sharing these types of things. Writing on my blog and on my Kofi page is still a way I love to share, but when it comes to gathering like-minded makers, I feel like there are no simple platforms for this.

Tumblr has "communities" now, which actually could be fun. Like a tiny Bearblog zine space? Hehe.

I'll have to think about it. If anyone has any ideas/feedback or knows of any online "club spaces" that are low-pressure, pls email me :)

I added a digital version of my zine How To Share Your Zines Without Social Media in my Kofi shop.

I like to send extra little treats through the mail with my zine orders, but I know sometimes it's just easier to print them at home!

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2025-07-29 18:23:00

Contributing to open-source projects is a goal of many programmers. Issues tagged with "good-first-issue" is one way to find something to work on.

When newcomers (people who never contributed to the project) browse issues in a repo, GitHub will hit them with a banner "If you're ready to tackle some open issues, we've collected some good first issues for you.", which will take you to an issues page filtered with the label good-first-issue.

Think of this page as a landing page for your repo to newcomers, since it's pretty much the first thing someone will look for when they're looking to contribute (most repos will also link this page in CONTRIBUTING.md). But I've found this page to be downright unhelpful in most cases. Usually it's filled with issues which fall into one of these buckets:

Stale Issues

The implementation is no longer required, but no-one bothered to update the issue.

Unattended Issues

There is a PR (or multiple) linked to the issue but no one has attended to it.

Ambiguous Context

The issue is written as if the newcomer is supposed to understand a lot of context. Someone has asked a clarifying question, no one has answered.

Issues is not the way work is done is repo

Usually the most pertaining factor, because GitHub issues suck. There are tribes of developers working on something off GitHub (Discord/Email/Whatever) and issues is where end users come and report bugs or feature requests.

I don't know what is the best way to start contributing, maybe it still might be browsing this page, I just wish more projects took the time to making this page more useful. When you create a "good first issue", think of it as paying it forward. You enter a contract with a fragile newbie; be precise, helpful and unassuming.

2025-07-28 19:59:00

There's something grotesque about the way we expect other people to be convenient for us. We want people to be emotionally available, yet low maintenance — like a houseplant that texts back promptly and never makes things weird. What we’re really after is connection without complication — the sanitised version, the one that doesn't require us to bump into the messy subplot of someone else's emotional arc.

I was in line at an organic grocery store in Ubud. A woman was paying at the only register, casually asking the cashier a couple of questions about those impulse items near the counter — stuff designed to seduce you while your card is already in hand.

In front of me, a guy in yoga wear exhaled hard, then cut her off with a sharp “Are you buying or not?”.

My first instinct was to tap him on the shoulder and tell him to wedge his vegan sliders somewhere his breathwork wouldn’t reach. But I figured he was probably late to a meditation class and spiritually unravelling under the weight of a 45-second delay.

What was actually happening, though, wasn’t a crisis of efficiency — it was a crisis of expectation. This guy wasn’t impatient — he was offended. Offended that other people weren’t moving at his preferred tempo.

And I saw myself in that. Not in the outburst, maybe, but in the posture: the rigid belief that others should cooperate with an internal script I’d never shared.

We do this constantly. Someone cuts us off in traffic, and we construct elaborate narratives of their moral failings. A friend cancels plans, and suddenly it’s a question of respect, of consideration — of everything except the possibility that they might be drowning in something we can't see.

Here's what I've been sitting with: What if the problem isn't other people's inconsiderateness, but our own inability to tolerate the fundamental messiness of being human around other humans?

Think about it. Every person you encounter is mid-chapter in a story you haven’t read. You’ve dropped in on page 137 of a private novel — right in the middle of a plot twist they didn’t choose, shaped by episodes you’ll never get to read.

And yet we take their moment of incoherence personally, as if their unfinished narrative is a threat to the neatness of ours. As if they exist primarily to validate our sense of order.

This isn't some call to play nice. And it’s not permission to excuse harm or let everything slide. It’s choosing a frame that doesn’t turn every interaction into a drama where someone always has to be wrong.

So what do you do instead? You assume good intent as a practice of psychological flexibility. Not because people always deserve it, but because the alternative — that constant scanning for slights, that hair-trigger offense-taking — is its own kind of poison.

When someone snaps at you, what if your first thought wasn't "What's wrong with them?" but "I wonder what they're struggling with?"

When a friend withdraws suddenly, what if instead of cataloging their failures of friendship, you considered that they might be barely holding themselves together?

It’s not virtue. It’s perspective — recognising that the story we tell ourselves about other people's motivations becomes the reality we live in. Choose the story where people are fundamentally trying their best with whatever resources they have available, and you get to live in a world where connection is possible even when it's complicated.

I'm not suggesting we become naive optimists, pretending that cruelty doesn't exist or that boundaries aren't necessary. Some people are genuinely toxic, and sometimes the most compassionate thing you can do is remove yourself from their orbit. But most of the daily friction we experience isn't malicious — it's just human beings being imperfect while trying to get through their days.

The thing about assuming good intent is that it creates space for actual resolution. When you approach someone's difficult behavior as information rather than attack, you can respond from curiosity instead of defensiveness. You can ask questions instead of building cases. You can offer understanding instead of demanding explanations.

When you stop needing other people to be different than they are, they often become easier to be around. Not because they change, necessarily, but because you stop bracing against them. The relationship moves toward connection — not control.

This requires a particular kind of courage — the willingness to remain soft in a world that often rewards hardness. To stay open when closing off would feel safer. To choose interpretation that allows for complexity rather than the simple clarity of righteousness.

So next time someone disappoints you, try this: instead of asking "Why are they like this?" ask "What are they carrying that I can't see?"