Notices by Kira (tty@sunbeam.city)

You ever do the thing where you use your mouth & lungs to suck the air out of a water bottle, and it scrunches up?

I used to think it was somehow, like, the force of me sucking the air out that was crunching it up?

I remember when I learned that, no, that's just the kinda insane pressure of the atmosphere we're at the bottom of. 1 kg per square centimetre crushing down on everything on land on this planet at all times. 😳

PhysicsGirl stands for the first time in 2 years!

https://youtube.com/shorts/2ntx91cOYEc

She's been dealing with very severe Long COVID since 2022, and has been bed-bound, I think, since then.

I heard anecdotally that she had a good stellate ganglion block injection (SGB), which is, as I understand it, a relatively new Long COVID treatment.

Really excited for her, and what this could mean for other folx dealing with Long COVID (and perhaps also ME/CFS)!

Today I learned about sakiori, a Japenese weaving art, that reuses old fabric to create new. Some garments are over 100 years old.

It originated in northern Japan, where it was too cold to grow cotton. So, any fabric was treated with care & reused as many times as possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEJoSil2jSA

#solarpunk

It would be cool if authors had a "piracy tip jar" on their websites.

That way, if *someone* pirated a copy of one of their books because they just wanted a DRM-free copy, they could still pay the author directly for it (skipping the publisher middleman) if they enjoyed or appreciated their work.

We could call it the "Piracy OR Random Kindness Tip Jar", so nobody needs to incriminate themselves. 😇

New write-up on my website ✨

A very simple setup for local-only speech-to-text using Whisper, using mostly shell scripting:

http://kira.eight45.net/diy-whisper.html

✨ 🎙️ ✨

Questions, comments, improvements welcome! :boost_ok:

Feeling really lucky that I am able to run almost entirely freely available, open source software on my lil computers. ☺️

I sometimes forget that most people don't have that, and are subject to capitalist & corporate coercive forces that are really unjust. 💔

@neauoire You are so welcome! You do the work that helps people go from,

"Only 64kb!?"

to,

"Wow, 64 *whole kilobytes*!"

@clarity Happy birthday, Clarity. 🎈

Three of the biggest fears that have been weighing on my mind these last few years, in no particular order:

1. Global climate change
2. COVID-19 and Long COVID
3. National trends toward right-wing political views

Each year they weigh a bit heavier. 😞 :blobcatmeltcry:

It feels so meaningful to me when I see some dangerous debris on the bike path, and I slow down & stop, and take the time to move it off the path, so future cyclists don't need to worry about it.

I think about how important and undervalued maintenance is in the dominant culture. Building new things gets all of the glory, when it's the maintainers and acts of service that are what truly, imo, make this world work.