Notices by Toilet full of bugs (ephemeromorph@topspicy.social)

Duck taking a bath with their toy rubber human

@anon_opin Make sure not to pick it straight up; you can hurt the snail and give it mantle collapse (which is fatal). If you need to move a snail, please gently bother it (tap its shell, etc.) until it retreats into its shell, then pick it up.

@HauntedOwlbear Do you have an SMTP server provider to recommend? I'm on Dreamhost - as far as I can tell it's not a service they offer.

Going through that old dickdance of 'trying to install something using a 'super easy guide!' written by someone who presumes knowledge I do not possess'.

I'm trying to set up a Discourse board using a cloud server with the suggested 1GB of RAM. I've got as far as the part where I install the actual software, but the installation halts because apparently if I have under 2GB of RAM I need a 2GB swap file, and I can't create the swap file because of 'insufficient space'. The cloud server is 80GB big. Like, what do you want from me?

This is after struggling with trying to SSH into the damn thing because 'the default security lets you use SSH with port 22' means 'you have to actually create a SSH rule first, in defiance of the layman's understanding of 'default'.'

Through trial and error, I managed to set up a babby cloud server on DreamCompute and install the Discourse software on it. Hoorj!

Now I need to create my admin account - which I've found I can't do, because I need my Mailgun account to work first. I can't satisfy Mailgun's captcha and now I've run out of attempts. Dickdance clown fiesta today.

It's getting more tempting to just pay Discourse $20 a month to host the fucker for me. But that's a little more than I want to pay for a silly message board. I'm trying to host it myself on a wee cloud server for $6 a month, which I'm okay to spend.

Apparently I somehow made two Mailgun accounts and that's why I can't get verified.

I can't get verified on Mailgun because I need to provide a copy of my 'acceptable use policy'. Jesus.

I already tried Brevo but they wouldn't even send me the verification email because apparently my Proton email address isn't acceptable.

I just want to set up a silly little forum.

Does anyone have a free transactional email service to recommend, which doesn't require me to be a business?

- I tried Brevo and they wouldn't let me sign up with my Proton email address.
- Mailgun wants me to provide a copy of my 'acceptable use policy', which I don't have because I'm not a business. I assume Mailjet will be the same because it has the same parent brand.
- I've heard Mailchimp is crap.

I just want to set up Discourse (forum software) so volume will be low.

@fesshole I'm on fesser's side and am surprised by the replies saying that 'kink-shaming' is bad. You're allowed to have whatever kink, but I'm allowed to not like it. Why do I have to be okay with something just because it gives someone else a boner?
'OP could have been nicer' - BF could have been nicer about springing such a big ask on someone before checking whether they were okay with that kink.

Imagine if nipples had 'foreskins' that you had to pull back to breastfeed. Would it still be taboo to show boobs in public if you kept the 'foreskin' closed and the nipple covered?

Coming home from my job (staring furiously at a computer) to relax with my hobbies (staring furiously at a computer).

@fesshole You dumb fuck.

Apparently to harvest fish roe you have to kill the fish - I thought you just squeezed them and made them squirt the eggs out. (You can do that but you have to give the fish an injection first to make the eggs detach from the lining of the roe sack, and it gives the eggs a hard texture that's not as nice.)

Elgin is no more. A neighbour found him on the street 'in a bad way' and took him to the vet.

He had cardiomyopathy and a big blood clot - nothing to be done. He hid his pain well; I saw him only 3 days ago and he was his usual sassy squirmy self. Either it was genetic or it was some ailment he picked up when he lived as a stray.

Bye bye Elgin - you weren't a very good pet but we liked you anyway.

Does anyone have period tracker apps (or websites that look okay on a mobile screen) to recommend? I use Clue and it's so needy! Always asking me to journal my feelings and asking me to pay for the 'pro' experience. I just want something simple where I can punch in the days I'm dropping clots and it extrapolates when it's likely to happen next.

I used to use a website called My Monthly Cycles but it was pants on mobile.

Wheelbarrows are fuckin brilliant. The essence of a bucket (probably the first human invention - how can you forage if you can't carry your food home?) combined with two simple machines: the lever and the wheel. Same form factor for thousands of years. Perfection. Cannot be improved.

@anon_opin I disagree because a) they can pick something they'll actually like, instead of something well-intentioned but useless because you have only a surface-level understanding of their hobby, and b) it's money that they have no choice but to spend on something fun. If you gave them cash, it would get absorbed into household expenses.