I have been kicking around a post idea for something like a year or a year and a half, but I've been torn between wanting to write it as a post (and tell you things) and wanting to ask for solutions.Mr. Bostoniensis and I have been trying to consolidate our household, and the Bra … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1897060.html[Content Advisory: info that may be US government classified and controlled unclassified info leaked to news outlets, within. Actual status is unclear to me.]Cuba has been effectively under siege by the US since at least … | Continue reading
2026 Jan 20: ApasheOfficial on YT [music video]: Kyiv by Apashe & Alina Pash comments | Continue reading
If you live in the BosWash Corridor, especially in NYC-to-Boston, you need to be paying attention to the weather. We have an honest to gosh Nor'easter blizzard predicted for the next 3 days, with heavy wet snow and extremely high winds – the model predicts the damn thing will hav … | Continue reading
Hey, does anybody happen to know the answer to this question?Back when Mr B and I started doing joint grocery orders, I started analyzing our budget like you do. In the course of doing so, I discovered something I hadn't realized: about a third of my "grocery" budget wasn't food … | Continue reading
Overheard on Reddit, u/Itsyademonboi: Sorry, Nazis are from Germany under Adolf Hitler, what we have here is Sparkling Fascists. comments | Continue reading
For those of you in the parts of the US for whom an ice storm is predicted and who have no idea of what that is except that it means it will be cold:1) If you have an ice scraper to clean the ice off your car, have it inside with you, not in the car. Because at a sufficient leve … | Continue reading
Hey, Americans! Do you live around or south of the Mason-Dixon line? If so, your weather report for later this week is shaping up to be a bit exciting. Looks like Actual Winter will be visiting places that historically have been poorly prepared for this sort of thing, i.e. TX, … | Continue reading
I found this intriguing. YouTuber KnittingCultLady, who is an Air Force veteran and author about two books on military culture from the standpoint of cults(!), put out this rather frustrated video clarifying how members of the military respond to illegal orders. The tl;dr is th … | Continue reading
(h/t hudebnik)Two things: this is a thing that has happened, I have a read on what it is that nobody else seems to have come up with.1) The thing that happened:2026 Jan 16: NYTimes: "Thousands of Chinese Fishing Boats Quietly Form Vast Sea Barriers" by Chris Buckley, Agnes Chang … | Continue reading
This was it. This was the week that America admitted America is going fascist – which is to say has gone fascist, i.e. has had its government seized by fascists with broad fascist support for imposing fascism which it is now doing with zeal, i.e. has an acute case of fulminant f … | Continue reading
This is blackly hilarious and absolutely worth a read.Leftist journalist Laura Jedeed showed up at an ICE recruiting events to do scope it out and write about what she found. What happened next is... eye widening.2026 Jan 13: Slate: "You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The … | Continue reading
2026 Jan 14: NYT: "Renfrew Christie Dies at 76; Sabotaged Racist Regime’s Nuclear Program" by Adam Nossiter. "He played a key role in ending apartheid South Africa’s secret weapons program in the 1980s by helping the African National Congress bomb critical facilities." Renfrew Ch … | Continue reading
Heads up, locals! Observers report evidence of ICE/DHS activity preparing for an operation in MA, imminently.2026 Jan 13 5pm: u/rarelighting in r/Boston: Boston quietly prepares for an ICE surge, points at:2026 Jan 13: Axios: Boston quietly prepares for an ICE surge by Mike Deeh … | Continue reading
"What I 'erd, this nobby, 'iz bird got fingered over a tin o'beans, only shot the poor cow, didn't they? So, like, everybody's tooled up, an'..." – V for Vendetta, Alan Moore & David Lloyd, 1988 comments | Continue reading
2026 Jan 6: Görkem Şen (Yaybahar on YT): Yaybahar III NadiriThe description text: The essence of gold was rare, he conquered with his virtue, offered his gifts and fell behind the sun...Dedicated to the soul of my dear friend's father, Nadir Oğuz... I am surmising that "Nadiri" m … | Continue reading
Interesting:2025 Dec 31: DwarkeshPatel YT fea. Sarah Paine: Human Rights Killed Communism - Sarah Paine:BTW, that's Sarah C. M. Paine, until very recently the William S. Sims University Professor of History and Grand Strategy and the Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History, … | Continue reading
"...but it turns out, mining is fun."2025 Dec 26: Engineer Everything (user Engineer.Everything-i5g) on YT: Shall I go still deeper? #engineering #Minecraft #tunnel #mining #constr... comments | Continue reading
2025 Nov 14: Jonasquin on YT: "Bridge over Troubled Water but it's a Renaissance Madrigal | Feat. Tabea Bös":There's more where that came from:• Let It Be (a Renaissance Madrigal) | Feat. Anna Petrtylová • 'Enjoy The Silence' by Depeche Mode in the style of a madrigal by Carlo Ge … | Continue reading
2025 Dec 24: ScienceDaily [press release?]: "Scientists reverse Alzheimer’s in mice and restore memory": By examining both human Alzheimer's brain tissue and multiple preclinical mouse models, the team identified a key biological failure at the center of the disease. They found t … | Continue reading
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Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1891517.htmlThis is part of Understanding Health Insurance Introduction A Health Plan is a Contract The Three-Stage Model ⇐ You are hereThe Three-Stage ModelWhen you have health insurance, you have a contract (health plan) with the … | Continue reading
So, I, uh, got my RSI/ergonomics debugged!* I then promptly lost two days to bad sleep due to another new mechanical failure of the balky meat mecha and also a medical appointment in re two previous malfunctions. But I seem back in business now. The new keyboard is great.Patro … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1890494.html0.Hey Americans (and other people stuck in the American healthcare system)! Shopping for a health plan on your state marketplace? Boy, do I have some information for you that you should have and probably don't. There's … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1890011.htmlThis is part of Understanding Health Insurance Introduction A Health Plan is a Contract – You are hereHealth Insurance is a ContractWhat we call health insurance is a contract. When you get health insurance, you (or so … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1889543.htmlPreface: I had hoped to get this out in a more timely manner, but was hindered by technical difficulties with my arms, which have now been resolved. This is a serial about health insurance in the US from the consumer's p … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1888828.htmlHey, Americans and people living in the US going through open enrollment on the state ACA marketplaces who haven't yet enrolled in a plan for 2026!Just about every state in the union and DC (but not Idaho) proudly touts a … | Continue reading
Very shortly after I posted my recent request for pointers on 3D printing education – a request which was occasioned by my getting excited over my new and improved typing capability courtesy of my new NocFree ergonomic keyboard and wanting to make it a peripheral – my shoulder/ba … | Continue reading
I see that I didn't note last year's Annual Introverts Liberation Feast. Perhaps I wrote a draft that I never got around to posting. It was something of a grueling deathmarch. Because my physical disability makes me largely unable to participate in food prep or cleaning, it al … | Continue reading
I want a widget that doesn't exist so I might be stuck designing it for 3D printing. I have never done this before. For design software, I gather both Onshape and TinkerCAD are available for free. Anybody with experience have opinions which I should start with? I have never u … | Continue reading
Saw this, blew my mind, thought I'd share. Behold, Lençóis Maranhenses:2025 Oct 28: PBS Terra [pbsterra on YT]: It Looks Like a Desert. But It Has Thousands of LakesWhen I heard in the video how big it was, I turned on satellite view in Google Maps and popped "Lençóis Maranhense … | Continue reading
The Bostoniensis household's last grocery order included some cucumbers but the delivery service mystifyingly substituted for them a head of cabbage. They were very apologetic when Mr B called to complain, and refunded us the price of the cabbage, so now it's a free cabbage. Bu … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1886696.htmlHey, Americans and other people stuck in the American healthcare system. It's open enrollment on the state exchanges, and possibly through your employer, so I wanted to give you a little heads up about preventive care an … | Continue reading
YES YES YES.SciShow did a collab with Tom Lum and ESOTERICA and delivered a deep dive into the history of the relationship of chemistry and alchemy and the politicization of the distinction between the two: "In Defense of Alchemy" (2025 Oct 17).I cannot tell you how much I loved … | Continue reading
I have been dealing with some health stuff. I recently got a somewhat heavy medical diagnosis. It's nothing life-threatening, and of yet I have only had the mildest of symptoms, and seem to be responding well to treatment, but it's a bummer. My new specialist seems to be fanta … | Continue reading
Americans, as I hope you know, on Nov 1st, the Federal government, being shut down, did not transmit the money to the states to pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka SNAP, aka "Food Stamps". In many states, SNAP money is supposed to hit recipients' EBT cards … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1885137.html[Previously: The Essequibo (Buddy-ta-na-na, We Are Somebody, Oh): Part 1]Now, when looking at these strikes being carried out in the Caribbean, shockingly, I think there's not been a ton of coverage on this. CNN, for one, … | Continue reading
New post imminently! Watch this space! comments | Continue reading
Hey, quick temperature check. I've been reading a lot of media I don't expect my readership to read, and now I'm a little disoriented to who knows what.View Poll: Geopolitics awareness check comments | Continue reading
1)Is there a term for the part of a large non-fiction writing project that comes after the research – when you have a huge pile of sources and quotes and whatnot – and before the actual "writing" part, the part that involves making sure you have all the citations correct for the … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1882720.html 0.Hey, Americans! Look sharp, the Trump Administration is trying to play a head game on you about Covid vaccines, and it's apparently working, because I see nobody talking about this in the news or on social media.There … | Continue reading
I don't know who needs to know about this, but:I just discovered the Android app "Periodically". It's described as an "event logger". It's for keeping track of when a recurring thing has happened, and figuring out what the average time is between occurrences. You just keep it up … | Continue reading
New post imminently! Watch this space. comments | Continue reading
Current rumors engulfing Bluesky have me recalling an old Communist-era Russian joke:Every day, a man walks to a news stand and pays for a copy of Pravda, unfolds it, looks at the front page, and throws it in the trash. Every day he does this, for months, until finally the news … | Continue reading
Yall, the bowed musical instruments have finally made it to the electronica party. This is the coolest damn thing. Audio required, video also extremely worth it if accessible. 3 min 17 sec. 2025 Aug 11: Open Reel Ensemble: "Tape Bowing Ensemble - Open Reel Ensemble": 磁気テープを竹に張って演 … | Continue reading
Whelp, it looks like I'm in the market for a cell phone again. On Saturday night, I noticed something dangling from the corner of my cell phone, which immediately struck me as odd, as there's no aperture in the protective gel case there for something to get stuck. Well, there's n … | Continue reading
Yall. I am so tired. Last thing first. Investigating the other thing, I discovered this. I'll just cut and paste what I submitted as a ticket to Patreon: I took a break of a few months, and when I came back my fees spiked. What gives? I just did a month (July 2025) that extremely … | Continue reading
I finally got around to pursuing a replacement of what we in the Bostoniensis Household refer to as the Lorem Ipsum card, which was itself a fiasco. (Recap: PayPal, an organization full of people who are not as smart as they think they are and blessed with perhaps the deepest mar … | Continue reading