Ranked Choice Voting and Matrix

This blog post has been on my to do list for a while now - as far as I can tell, this started back in February of this year (2026). Simple Chats, a Discord channel largely made up of folks from Bear Blog, wanted to open a discussion about if we should move off of Discord, or stay. This conversation started because of Discord's announcement to roll out age verification. We also had plenty of alternatives to try out, thanks to Kami. I wanted to talk about this process a bit.

If you'd like, you can read this article on the Grizzly Gazette!

Getting Started

First, we had to figure out where to possibly go to. As I mentioned, thanks to Kami we had a few alternatives already set up to try, but we also tried a few others people suggested. I put together a list of the pros and cons I could see for each one, with the idea that if people didn't want to try them all themselves, they could read the pros and cons list. You can view below the list I put together, if you're interested. The suggestions we had were an IRC Server, Matrix, Stoat, Fluxer, Kloak, or staying on Discord. We also discussed if we should bridge channels from Discord to the new location, or not.

Discussion and Voting

We discussed what to do for a while, and eventually decided to put up a vote for the channel. We decided to use Ranked Choice Voting, as we felt that would be the most fair, and allow people to express their preferences past their first choice.

What is ranked choice voting?

Ranked Choice Voting allows you to vote for multiple options in a vote, rather than just one option. This is useful for a decision like this (or for voting in general), because it eliminates the mind game of "oh, well I prefer option x, but I think options y or z are more likely to win, so I better vote for one of them". We used a site called rcv123.org for the vote, and I think it went pretty well! With Ranked Choice Voting, you rank your preferences, and if your first option gets eliminated, your vote moves to your second option, and so on until a winner is elected.

How'd it go for Simple Chats?

I found the process of ranked choice voting really interesting, especially as time went on. The vote stayed up for a while, and you can see the results online here. Some pretty interesting things happened though -

The first was who was in the lead early vs late in the vote. Early on in the vote, the only people who voted were those very active on the server, and specifically active the discussion on where to go. During that, Matrix and Fluxer were the top options by far. Eventually, an announcement was made to the whole server, to get the attention of those who may not be as active. Once those votes started coming in, votes to stay on Discord sky rocketed, ultimately making it so at the end of the first round of voting, Matrix, Discord, and Fluxer were all tied for first.

Let's talk about each round:

Round 1

With Ranked Choice Voting, generally if a candidate reaches the 50% mark or higher (for when there's one position open) the race is over, and that's the winner. When that doesn't happen, you move on to round 2.

Round 2

Here, you can see Kloak and Valour were eliminated, because they were no one's first choice. Because Stoat and IRC were tied, rcv123 uses some algorithm to decide which one gets eliminated, based on how many people voted for them as 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. options. According to RCV123, in more official systems it's random chance.

Round 3

With IRC eliminated, the person who voted for them voted for Stoat as their next option (or, next non-eliminated option), so Stoat gets their vote. With still no winner, we go to the next round.

Round 4

Stoat is the next to be eliminated with the least amount of votes. One vote from Stoat went to Matrix, the other to Discord.

Round 5

Fluxer, with the next lowest, is eliminated. A majority of people who had voted for Fluxer had Matrix as their second option (or, their next still available option), and so Matrix takes the win.

Life on Matrix

Matrix is a open source, decentralised, communication platform. Kami currently hosts for us, and it's been great so far! Matrix has a few oddities - for example, permissions are done on the room level (akin to a channel on Discord) rather than at a space level (akin to a server on Discord). It also has a bit more limited functionality than Discord. That said, everything else with it has been great, and we've just gotten around to disabling most of the bridging (the vote ended up wanting a few channels to remain bridged). The other thing I've noticed is the experience is different for folks depending on what app you use to access Matrix, and so some features may not work for some people.

But, overall, I think everyone who has started using it has continued to enjoy it. I know personally I've even started using it for some personal projects.

Wrap Up

I wanted to put this post out there for two reasons: One, to show people how you can use things like Ranked Choice Voting in day to day life. And two, to hype up Matrix a bit. It's honestly been really great, and I think more people should give it a shot!

Article written by Kami

Heya!

I've been on bear for a while now, and while it's been awesome to see everyones cool website designs, I still ocassionally run into blogs which make some easy to fix mistakes regarding accessibility. So, in this blogpost I want to quickly go through some easy things you can do to make sure that more people will be able to enjoy your blog.

Color Contrast

So, first up, the biggest thing that I see over and over on here: Color contrast.
Please, make sure your website has good color contrast. Simply take the color of the text, and the color of your background and input them into this website.

If both Normal Text and Large Text pass: You're good.

If they don't, fiddle around with your color choice a bit until you find some colors you like that also have decent contrast.

I think it's important to note here that good color contrast benefits everyone, not "just" people with visual disabilities. It's less straining to look at, and it'll ensure you posts remain readable even if, for example, you're sitting outside somewhere and the sun is causing plenty of screenglare.

I feel this is important to note, because I ocassionally see people saying that accessibility isn't important on their hobby website or blog, because of X or Y reason. If you want anyone (including yourself, mind you) to use your website, it's a good idea to care about these things - even if the usecase might seem non-obvious at first.

Not only because it's a nice thing to do for people do have disabilities and want to view your site, but also because it helps out literally everyone else as well.

Do your future, outdoor-browsing self a favor and and improve your color contrast.

Alt Text

If you are going to add an image to your website, please give it some alt text. Alt text is a short description of an image for visually impaired people. It's also displayed if the image can't load for whatever reason. (For example, if the internet connection of the person reading your blog is too slow.)

Here's how to add alt text with markdown:

![A description of your image](https://link-to-your-image.com/image.webp)

Here's how to do it if you're using html:

<img src="https://link-to-your-image.com/image.webp" alt="A description of your image">

Generally, you should add alt text to any images you use. If your image is purely decorative, it is fine to ommit. If you're using html however, you should still add the alt attribute. Just leave it empty instead. That way, screenreaders know to ignore the image. Here's an example:

<img src="https://link-to-your-image.com/border.webp" alt="">

I think it's important to stress here that an image is only decorative if it does not convey any additional information. So, if the image is just used as a decorative border, for example.

If you're going to add HTML, make sure to use semantic HTML

If you're going to mark up something using HTML, please do a quick google search beforehand to check if there's a more specific HTML element you could use. What do I mean by that? Well, let's say you want to add a caption to an image. Maybe your first instinct is to do something like this:

<img src="https://link-to-your-image.com/image.webp" alt="Kami">
<div class="caption">A very cool image of Kami talking about web accessibility.</div>

Technically, this works. You can put this on your website, and it'll look fine enough. Thing is, people using screenreaders will have a harder time realizing that the caption actually belongs to that image. And on top of that, you're gonna have to put in some additional effort to make it look nice.

If you take maybe a couple minutes or so to look up if there's a better fitting element though, you might end up with something like this instead:

<figure>  
  <img src="https://link-to-your-image.com/image.webp" alt="Kami">  
  <figcaption>A very cool image of Kami talking about web accessibility.</figcaption> 
</figure>

Not only will this be much nicer to read on a screenreader, the figcaption element actually comes with some built-in styles that will make it look more like... well, a caption. If you're lucky, the theme you're using might already have some built-in styling for it!

The same thing goes for basically anything you want to mark up with html. Before going off and making your own completely custom class, try and see if there's a nice HTML element you can use as a jumping off point.

Use headings properly

It can be tempting to misuse <h1>, <h2> and so forth and # Markdown Headings purely to get differently sized text. And while that may look nice, that's not actually what you should use headings for.

Semantically, headings are landmarks. They're used to denote the different sections of your text. This is useful for people navigating your website with either mouse and keyboard or a screenreader. They'll be able to jump to those places in the text.

If you don't actually want to use a heading for its intended purpose of marking different sections of the text, add a css class to your theme, like this for example:

.text-large {
font-size: large;
}

<p class="text-large">This text is big just because it looks nice!</p>

It's also very important that you have your headings in the right order. If you're making a post, <h1> and its markdown equivalent # Heading will always be taken by your post title.

So, if you want to mark a new section you should use either <h2> or ## Heading. If you then want to add subsections to those sections, you can use <h3> or ### Heading and so on and so forth. If you're adding a page to your blog, the <h1> slot won't be taken up, so you'll be able to use that instead for your toplevel heading.

If you don't follow these rules, your post will be rather annoying to navigate via keyboard only or with a screenreader.

So, Don't do it like this:

# The Title of My Very Cool Article
Hello guys, today I will tell you why I'm very awesome and attractive. Here it goes.

# Why I'm so awesome
Some text goes here 

# The biggest reason
I'm very cool and awesome because my website respects user preferences
Some more text
And even more text

# Another reason   
I've got incredibly good taste in books,
and have read all of lord of the mysteries

# A different topic
Some more text

Do it like this instead!

# The Title of My Very Cool Article
Hello guys, today I will tell you why I'm very awesome and attractive. Here it goes.

## Why I'm so awesome
Some text goes here 

### The biggest reason
I'm very cool and awesome because my website respects user preferences
Some more text
And even more text

### Another reason   
I've got incredibly good taste in books,
and have read all of lord of the mysteries

## A different topic
Some more text

Use rem for font sizes

If you're making your own theme, or adapting an existing one, please use rem for font sizes instead of something like px. Unlike px, rem is not a static unit. How large one rem is changes with the font size setting the user has set.

This means, that if a user has set their browser to use a larger than normal font-size for whatever reason, your website will respect that preference. If you use a static unit like px, users will have to manually scale up your website - which is annoying.

So, be nice to users that prefer larger or smaller than normal font-sizes, and instead of doing this:

.elem {
	font-size: 16px;
}

Do this:

.elem {
	font-size: 1rem;
}

Aaaand, that's all for now!
There's obviously a lot more you could talk about when it comes to this stuff, but taking some time to implement just these tips where appropriate will already make reading your blog a much nicer experience for everyone who might want to do that.

Including future you!

So, do yourself and everyone else who might enjoy your website a favor, and make sure that it's accessible.

Thank you for reading this far, and if you've got any additional questions/feedback, you can email me at kami@kamiscorner.xyz.

I wrote this then the day before posting it Peige at Pretend Typewriter wrote about cleaning the dining table. Sometimes the universe just goes like that. How many people are right now stressing that their dining table is messy? Maybe millions. So I thought about deleting the post but then decided no, that coincidence in itself is something interesting.

The forces of entropy are particularly strong on my dining table. A blackhole sucking junk in.

There's also a spare chair no one sits in. Because it never gets used for sitting stuff gets piled on it. Because stuff gets piled on it it never gets used for sitting. You know how it goes.

I'm consistently baffled by how messy and mucky things get so quickly. Why does everywhere need hoovering so often? What do you mean the sink needs cleaning again? Didn't I just do that?

My wife says my standards are high. I feel my standards are pretty low, actually. We were at my sister's for one of the many children's birthdays parties, a bunch of aunt and uncle Pokemon characters standing around in the kitchen watching kids dropping food on the floor and eating it anyway. "To be fair," I said, "if I was going to eat off any kitchen floor it would be this one."

The floor under the dining table is also affected. Because of all the legs, creating a little forest to trap stuff blowing in through the back door. Right now that's a lot of dandelion seeds, wisping about. Perennial dust bunnies of course. The robot hoover gets lost under there, also trapped. Sometimes I put the chairs up on the table to give him free rein.

Other than the dining chairs all my downstairs furniture is strategically placed a robot's width away from walls and other furniture. The organising unit of measurement in this house. It was his birthday the other day. I love him - I remember his birthday. Well, the day he arrived here. I want to celebrate it every year. Throw confetti and then send him to hoover it up.

We don't always eat on the dining table. Maybe three or four times a week. It's just as likely being used for games or jigsaws or DIY. Sometimes at the same time as the eating. This is almost certainly part of the problem.

Previous •

Article written by Moose.

This blog post has been on my to do list for a while now - as far as I can tell, this started back in February of this year (2026). Simple Chats, a Discord channel largely made up of folks from Bear Blog, wanted to open a discussion about if we should move off of Discord, or stay. This conversation started because of Discord's announcement to roll out age verification. We also had plenty of alternatives to try out, thanks to Kami. I wanted to talk about this process a bit.

Getting Started

First, we had to figure out where to possibly go to. As I mentioned, thanks to Kami we had a few alternatives already set up to try, but we also tried a few others people suggested. I put together a list of the pros and cons I could see for each one, with the idea that if people didn't want to try them all themselves, they could read the pros and cons list. You can view below the list I put together, if you're interested. The suggestions we had were an IRC Server, Matrix, Stoat, Fluxer, Kloak, or staying on Discord. We also discussed if we should bridge channels from Discord to the new location, or not.

Discussion and Voting

We discussed what to do for a while, and eventually decided to put up a vote for the channel. We decided to use Ranked Choice Voting, as we felt that would be the most fair, and allow people to express their preferences past their first choice.

What is ranked choice voting?

Ranked Choice Voting allows you to vote for multiple options in a vote, rather than just one option. This is useful for a decision like this (or for voting in general), because it eliminates the mind game of "oh, well I prefer option x, but I think options y or z are more likely to win, so I better vote for one of them". We used a site called rcv123.org for the vote, and I think it went pretty well! With Ranked Choice Voting, you rank your preferences, and if your first option gets eliminated, your vote moves to your second option, and so on until a winner is elected.

How'd it go for Simple Chats?

I found the process of ranked choice voting really interesting, especially as time went on. The vote stayed up for a while, and you can see the results online here. Some pretty interesting things happened though -

The first was who was in the lead early vs late in the vote. Early on in the vote, the only people who voted were those very active on the server, and specifically active the discussion on where to go. During that, Matrix and Fluxer were the top options by far. Eventually, an announcement was made to the whole server, to get the attention of those who may not be as active. Once those votes started coming in, votes to stay on Discord sky rocketed, ultimately making it so at the end of the first round of voting, Matrix, Discord, and Fluxer were all tied for first.

Let's talk about each round:

Round 1

With Ranked Choice Voting, generally if a candidate reaches the 50% mark or higher (for when there's one position open) the race is over, and that's the winner. When that doesn't happen, you move on to round 2.

Round 2

Here, you can see Kloak and Valour were eliminated, because they were no one's first choice. Because Stoat and IRC were tied, rcv123 uses some algorithm to decide which one gets eliminated, based on how many people voted for them as 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. options. According to RCV123, in more official systems it's random chance.

Round 3

With IRC eliminated, the person who voted for them voted for Stoat as their next option (or, next non-eliminated option), so Stoat gets their vote. With still no winner, we go to the next round.

Round 4

Stoat is the next to be eliminated with the least amount of votes. One vote from Stoat went to Matrix, the other to Discord.

Round 5

Fluxer, with the next lowest, is eliminated. A majority of people who had voted for Fluxer had Matrix as their second option (or, their next still available option), and so Matrix takes the win.

Life on Matrix

Matrix is a open source, decentralised, communication platform. Kami currently hosts for us, and it's been great so far! Matrix has a few oddities - for example, permissions are done on the room level (akin to a channel on Discord) rather than at a space level (akin to a server on Discord). It also has a bit more limited functionality than Discord. That said, everything else with it has been great, and we've just gotten around to disabling most of the bridging (the vote ended up wanting a few channels to remain bridged). The other thing I've noticed is the experience is different for folks depending on what app you use to access Matrix, and so some features may not work for some people.

But, overall, I think everyone who has started using it has continued to enjoy it. I know personally I've even started using it for some personal projects.

Wrap Up

I wanted to put this post out there for two reasons: One, to show people how you can use things like Ranked Choice Voting in day to day life. And two, to hype up Matrix a bit. It's honestly been really great, and I think more people should give it a shot!

Well, I did it. I now have my Associate Degree. Took me a few years of stop-and-go attendance, but I eventually did it. Half-assing it, I finished out with a cumulative 3.5 GPA, so I'm pretty happy with that.

I graduated with a major in general studies with an emphasis on CS. You're probably wondering "what the fuck is 'general studies'?" It's basically just a degree you get for doing the Gen Ed requirements. It transfers nicely and doesn't lock you into any one major. It is a pretty useless degree in the sense nobody is going to be urgently hiring people with GenStudies degrees, but it's great for just taking out the Gen Ed requirements and it transfers nicely to universities. So if you're planning on going to a 4-year university, consider a gen studies degree at a community college. You can take elective classes for the major you'll want in a 4-year, and it'll be a hell of a lot cheaper.

I talked with a counselor and it would basically zero out the university I'm planning on attending's Gen Ed requirements, and I can focus entirely on my ACTUAL major.

If you know me well enough, you know that my long-term goal is to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, i.e. a therapist. So, that's what my major will be in, Social Work. I'm taking a break this summer to kinda give myself a breather before trying to hit hard on my bachelor's degree.

So, yeah, that's pretty much it. Got a degree. Now I'm on to bigger and better things. Best of luck to me lol.

Previous |

Reply via email: me@absurdpirate.com

as of writing this...

I woke up this morning and considered calling out, but I just decided to go into work today. I'll be home kinda early and can just kinda relax while my daughter is with her grandpa. I added some chill, low-stim music to my iPod. This new addition is Ambient 1: Music for Airports by Brian Eno.

Something different catches my eye, my ear – all my senses – on every walk. I walk through streams of thoughts and feelings and sensations. Today, what first caught my eye was a bird perched on a tree along a path lined with trees and bushes. The song of the bird eased me into my walk.

I started to think back to my morning writing session. I had a creative writing assignment to work on that left me with many ideas – big questions – to explore in future pieces. My walk helped me process some of my ideas, and note down more that I might want to explore. Some of the ideas I have are too complex to examine in detail all at once – the kind of ideas rooted in questions that are answered with time; with life. And so I did what I could do in the moment: I kept walking, letting my mind wander with every footstep.

I felt the warmth of the spring day on my cheeks, the sun beaming down through the cloud-scattered blue sky. I heard and felt Nature. A butterfly briefly flew alongside me as I walked. Moments later, I saw the butterfly in the distance. I had no idea butterflies could move so fast: to perch on a growing flower in one moment and then to be in the middle distance in the next. Maybe I noticed how far the butterfly had moved because I had slowed down.

I kept walking. A colourful garden caught my eye – planters full of whites and oranges and greens and pinks where, months earlier, there was only soil and potentially an idea in the mind of the gardener: “What will I plant next?”

Toward the end of my walk, I saw a leaf shaped like a heart on the ground. A green leaf with innumerable veins that look like branches on a tree; the essence of a tree, in miniature, right in front of me. I held the image of the leaf with me as I kept walking.

I step outside with my eyes and heart open, looking up and around to see – and feel – the world around me.

This is my submission to the May 2026 IndieWeb Carnival on the topic “Write a love letter.” This is my love letter to Nature and walking, a letter I have been writing for some time and will continue to write into the future.

If you have ever spoken to me, you may have heard me express a meandering interest in doing something with audio. I think the heart of this interest is that I love conversations and storytelling. I love hearing people talk about the things that make them light up. I love asking questions. I enjoy the feeling where you feel like you see the world in a new light after having spoken with someone.

With all that in mind, a few weeks ago I had an idea: I could interview people who love the web and chat about all things indie web. This coalesced into an outline for a podcast, which then became Wonders of Web Weaving.

Every Tuesday for the next fifteen or so weeks, I am going to be releasing an episode of the show. The first episode is with Adam, the creator of omg.lol and maintainer of many wonderful web projects.

I named the podcast the way I did because web weaving – making websites and the community around doing making websites – really is wonderful. After the first interview, I felt I had made the right choice in the name – the magic of the web permeates through so much of the indie web.

The show has its own website, which has an RSS feed you can use to follow along with episodes. Each episode will be accompanied by a hand-written transcription, available on the web page for each episode.

I am thinking of the next fifteen weeks as either season one, or the entirety of the show. Whether there will be another season, I’m not sure. For now, I’m challenging myself to commit to fifteen conversations. Having a clear goal towards which I can strive makes the project more sustainable than committing to a recurring show.

I hope that you all enjoy the show as much as I enjoy recording it. The first episode is ready for you.

Today I tweaked my training routine.

It's not that different from what I've been doing over the past few months, but I wanted to get back to a 50-50 running/lifting split with more minimal lifts focused on a few key compound lifts.

Here's the new plan:

Day 1 — Lift

• Deadlift, 4x5-8
• Overhead Press, 4x8-10
• Pull-Up, 4xMax
• DB Lateral Raise, 3x10

Day 2 — Run

Day 3 — Lift

• Squat, 4x5-8
• Bench, 4x5-8
• Seated Row, 4x8-10
• DB Bicep Curl, 3x10

Day 4 — Run

And then repeat that four-day cycle. Here's my brief rationale:

• I like lifting more than running, so I'd like to get back to more of a balanced split between them.
• This time of year is the busiest work season for me, so keeping the workouts simple and short is the best way for me to maintain consistency and actually go. These lift days should only take ~30 minutes.
• I increasingly believe focusing on a few of the most important compound movements (squat, deadlift, bench, pullup, overhead press, row) is the best bang for your buck. Plus those are the most fun for me.
• I'm switching from a push/pull split to a mixed routine, which will hopefully keep some muscle groups more fresh within each individual workout. For instance, doing deadlifts, pull-ups and rows in one workout on my previous split meant I was pretty gassed for whichever exercise came last.
• I'll get 48 hours between each lift.
• The back-and-forth nature of the routine will make it a lot easier to keep running consistently.

Today I tweaked my training routine.

It's not that different from what I've been doing over the past few months, but I wanted to get back to a 50-50 running/lifting split with more minimal lifts focused on a few key compound lifts.

Here's the new plan:

Day 1 — Lift

• Deadlift, 4x5-8
• Overhead Press, 4x8-10
• Pull-Up, 4xMax
• DB Lateral Raise, 3x10

Day 2 — Run

Day 3 — Lift

• Squat, 4x5-8
• Bench, 4x5-8
• Seated Row, 4x8-10
• DB Bicep Curl, 3x10

Day 4 — Run

And then repeat that four-day cycle. Here's my brief rationale:

• I like lifting more than running, so I'd like to get back to more of a balanced split between them.
• This time of year is the busiest work season for me, so keeping the workouts simple and short is the best way for me to maintain consistency and actually go. These lift days should only take ~30 minutes.
• I increasingly believe focusing on a few of the most important compound movements (squat, deadlift, bench, pullup, overhead press, row) is the best bang for your buck. Plus those are the most fun for me.
• I'm switching from a push/pull split to a mixed routine, which will hopefully keep some muscle groups more fresh within each individual workout. For instance, doing deadlifts, pull-ups and rows in one workout on my previous split meant I was pretty gassed for whichever exercise came last.
• I'll get 48 hours between each lift.
• The back-and-forth nature of the routine will make it a lot easier to keep running consistently.

Like most of us the first music I listened to was my parents'. I'm the oldest so I didn't even have the influence of an elder sibling. I didn't really listen to anything that might be in the charts until I got to secondary school.

The impact of Bob Dylan on my life deserves its own post. My dad was a big fan. And I mean Big Fan. My sister is named after the song Visions of Johanna. Guess who my brother is named after?

Both my parents were into The Beatles. My mum saw them in concert in 1964 when she was fourteen. Pretty cool.

The song that got me thinking about this post is The Actor by the Moody Blues. I don't know anything at all about music but I do like a weird album and In Search of the Lost Chord is a weird album. The Actor is my favourite mostly just because I find the line "The sound I have heard in your hello" unbearably romantic.

Hotel California by The Eagles was a favourite of my dad's to play on guitar. That and House of the Rising Sun. He was in a rock against racism band that included people playing sitar and tabla. I wrote a chapter about a time-travelling hotel based on the song. Last year my nephew started singing it at the dinner table, apropos of absolutely nothing, and we ended up putting it on and starting a dance party in the kitchen.

Both my parents were into the folk music of the seventies. Lindisfarne, Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, that sort of thing. My sister and I could sing the whole of Matty Groves as a sort of slightly horrifying party piece.

My mum is very into Motown, especially Diana Ross. There was a tape she'd recorded off an LP of a Diana Ross album and on the other side, in an attempt to be contemporary, she recorded some Madonna songs. Consequently I thought all those Madonna songs were Diana Ross, that there was no such person as Madonna. Just the one great All Powerful Diva.

Joan Armatrading is also one of my mum's favourites. She was at a Joan Armatrading concert, pregnant with me, when she first felt me kick. So I narrowly avoided being named Joan. The album Me Myself I was invariably playing every car journey. My favourite song is Feeling In My Heart (For You).

The Weight by The Band has the chorus "Take a load off, Fanny" which my dad used to sing to me as Franny. Now we do the same for my nephew whose nickname also rhymes. We also sing "Annie are you okay?" from Smooth Criminal at him.

Of course there was also Rolling Stones, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Queen, The Kinks, Beach Boys, mixed in. We listened to a fair amount of classical - my grandad was very into classical music. And bhangra and Bollywood soundtracks. I asked my mum once why she wasn't really into any eighties music, she objected she had been busy having children. My wife's parents are a chunk younger than mine and it's really interesting how completely different their music and hence our experiences growing up were.

The title of this post is taken from a column by Robert Winslow Gordon 'Old Songs That Men Have Sung', 1925. Found on the House of the Rising Sun Wikipedia page. I have notes about my listening.

Previous • Next

When I think something is bad, immoral, unethical, harmful, evil - or whatever may apply - I neither do it in private or in public. I don’t just adhere to this rule of not doing it when I’m by myself, I also don’t do it when I’m with others, regardless of whether they might do that thing and would think it’s more comfortable for them when I partake as well.

That’s what’s at the core of living within my own moral boundaries and values. Yes, it might be difficult at times or offend people, but at least I neither feel like a hypocrite nor a coward. I stay true to myself and my behavior aligns with what I expect from myself and how I wish others lived. I cannot force anything they don’t want on them, but I can lead by example and enforce my own boundaries. Do what you want, but I will not do it.

You compromising on your understanding of what’s right and wrong simply to appease others and not stand out is sad. You are betraying yourself and what you stand for for very little, temporary gain, and you rob others of being challenged and inspired.

It also makes me wonder if you really stand behind what you preach; if you truly think something is cruel and unacceptable, you would not try to find loopholes to still keep doing that thing, and then pointing fingers as to who made you do it or what exception counts.

No more excuses pointing at what others are doing, how your behavior has no impact and how hopeless or hard it is. Hard things are worth doing. It’s time that you show some respect to yourself and stop putting off making some decisions and sticking to them.

Your trust in yourself erodes when you keep making promises to yourself you don’t keep. Aren’t you fucking sick of seeing other people live the way you want to? You don’t have to feel inadequate, guilty, jealous or like a hypocrite in their presence. You can avoid feeling like you have to justify yourself if you commit even for just a month and go from there. Take inspiration from the people you admire and ask them for help. Find your own path that’s similar to theirs if that’s what works.

You made yourself do that. Take someone accountability for your actions. You have a choice every time.

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Published 11 May, 2026

Letterboxd tells me I've watched at least two films a month every month for the past ten months or so, even though I never plan for it and can never recall my most recent watch. I’ve done my two for May this week: Bayn Al Qasrayn (1964) and Tiny Furniture (2010). Most people I know would watch one but not the other.

I’m reading Famesick, finally. I whole-heartedly recommend it if you’re in your twenties or a woman or neither one of those things. Lena is such a brilliant observer. She makes the funny look like it comes easy. I keep highlighting big chunky passages because I feel so deeply seen and understood by her experiences. There’s a bit where she talks about how, in her early twenties, she’d get acquainted with people much older than her and hear them use a common turn of phrase she’d never heard before and think they were a genius for coming up with that on the spot. I didn’t even know that this was a relatable twenty-something experience that you could write about, I thought I was just a gullible girl. And maybe that’s it, maybe it’s just nice to know there’s another late-blooming semite out there who finds solace in telling the truth.

I’m trying to get over this thing I have where I struggle to justify new clothes and shoes, the result of years of having a weird relationship with my body and my money. I recently wrote up what I imagine my coolest self is like, inspired by Aerie's post, and learned that my coolest self is extremely chill about her weight. She wears heels casually and plays a racket sport on the weekend. She’s a rodent owner, probably a hamster. She doesn’t find it so scary to drive or maybe she learned it’s okay that she does. Mint on the windowsill, home-pickled veggies, signature perfume. Her French is decent and her Arabic is as good as her English.

This one is nowhere near being ready to pull off wearing heels casually but she did recently write up a post in Arabic on her blog. We’re getting vulnerable here. On the very day I hit publish, I went out for breakfast at The Sunbird. Sunbird squared. I quizzed my family about our lineage while we dipped bread in various mezzes.

They tell me they’ll miss me but not with words. My mother passes me a russian doll and tells me I can keep it. When we hug, she kisses my shoulder. My father lays down on my bedroom floor because he has nothing to say but wants to be near me. I ask if the vine leaves that we’re having for lunch are goodbye vine leaves and my mother says they’re not goodbye vine leaves, they’re just regular vine leaves.

Mimi and I spend most evenings talking for hours. We sit in Hemingway’s in the early of the weekend taking turns exchanging frank stories and feelings. Sometimes I wish our conversations could be even more frank but I think the kind of honest I want from her, and most people, is a kind of honest that she isn’t even doing alone. Her threshold for listening to me be honest in a way that would make many mothers squirm is often enough for us both. She really is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. It’s crazy to me that she doesn’t see it.

I really like the concept of nicknames online. Being able to name yourself as whatever you want. We don't choose our names when we are born so this is a way to do that. Mix your real name with something else or choose something completely different, it's fun.

I feel like my nickname online has become my third name (I have two names as most native Spanish speakers do), because I spend a lot of time on the internet interacting and presenting myself with this name that I dont feel weird if people call me like that. When I first started to interact with people online I felt a little weird, it felt like a fake name, but is been years now and I'm used to my online friends calling me by my nickname. Its just natural when you spend time together, like in person after being friends for some time you made up a nickname for people you're close to, for me is the same.

I like my birth name, but I also like this new one I created. Sometimes I think that I should have used another nickname for my blog, because at this point, this nickname feels like my real name.

Article written by kami

Heya!
For this month, we'll be reading 17776.
Long story short, if you wanna participate, you can read it here! for free! Isn't that fun?
It's one of my favorite books of all time, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else has to say about it.

Anyways, thanks to voting taking a while, and our last book club deadline having been extended partially into this month, we're only starting to read it now. Nonetheless, thanks to it actually being fairly short, I'm still pretty positive that we'll be able to get this done by the end of this month. If not - well, we'll extend the deadline again, i suppose.

If you'd like to vote on books or have suggestions that aren't on our list, shoot us an email! The current book list is as follows:

• The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin, Ash
• The Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate, Fixer
• Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, inchwyrm
• There is no Antimemetics Division by qntm, Kami
• The Right to Oblivion: Privacy and the Good Life by Lowry Pressly, Absurd Pirate

Contributions to the book club will be listed below:
Happy reading!

The Wry Writer and Explicating Elle have done Five Ws of reading posts which is a lovely idea. So here's mine.

WHO - An author you would love to have a 'One to One' with

Maybe Andrea Wulf. I love the style of her books but also the people and themes she chooses to write about. Or Emma Donoghue, her interests are also diverse. Unless I can cast Speak With Dead, then it's a whole other question.

WHAT - What genre do you most gravitate to

At risk of sounding wanky, literary and "the classics." I'm not going to say romance because that is so reluctantly. I find so few things to scratch my specific itches. Also fantasy and scifi.

WHERE - Where do you prefer to read

Outside! Lying in the grass. With a Pepsi to hand.

WHEN - What time of day do you prefer to read

A lot of my reading is done first thing in the morning but ideally later afternoon or early evening. While I'm winding down but not yet too sleepy.

WHY - Why is your favorite book your favorite book

No idea! I was as surprised as anyone. It seized me. Except I suppose the language, the humour, the subtext... it's all very 'me'.

BONUS - How do you go about selecting what you will read next

I wish I knew. I have lists but I'm constantly upsetting them, going off half-cock. I'm very suggestible so whenever I see something or someone mentions something I'm off. Also I'm always reading at least eight books at once so 'next' is pretty fluid.

Read more about my reading

Previous • Next

Had to laugh when I opened my kindle app and was met with recommendations for a LitRPG book and a mauve-coloured cocktail-sporting blonde/redhead romance sitting side by side. Underneath them, a book about the bible.

What must The Algorithm think of me? That I need cleansing at least.

I've barely been on kindle so maybe it's panicking and throwing everything at me just to see what I do. Someone who has most recently read eighteenth century gothic novels, trashy romances, and isekai. I'm not going to defend the indefensible.

But you know, as the man says, Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large. I contain multitudes.)

No one would guess I love a big dumb monster movie. I'm very into a Victoriana blouse despite the fact everything else I wear bar underwear is from the 'men's section'. It takes me two minutes to slowly lower myself into a 28° swimming pool and I also swim in 13° lakes for fun. I like looking at the bag when I give blood but the pimple popper videos my wife watches make me feel nauseous.

There's nowt so queer as folk. We all have our quirks, one might say politely. Less politely, we are all utter weirdos. Part of being human. Our weird surprising parts are our most interesting parts.

Previous • Next

"In My Mind" by Amanda Palmer

The song "In My Mind" by Amanda Palmer I first heard while playing my favorite video game of all time, Life is Strange. The song and lyrics are above if you want to listen or read them, but I was just listening to the song again the other day, and it made me want to post about it.

I think the song is incredibly relatable - in the song, Amanda Palmer sings about how in her mind, she has this vision of herself, and how she'll look or how she'll act in different amounts of time. But, she also mentions that all of those goals were supposed to have happened by now too. From the lyrics:

And it's funny how I imagined
That I would be that person now
But it does not seem to have happened
Maybe I've just forgotten how to see
That I'll never be the person that I thought I'd be

And, for me at least, this is something I've struggled with most of my life. For me, my goals are usually "Oh yeah, I'll start getting in shape soon" or "in five years, I'll definitely have more money, more skills, be in better shape, etc.". But... then time ticks on and "it does not seem to have happened". I love that phrasing in particular, too, because for me it really does seem like when I'm thinking about these plans, it's almost abstracted to "yeah, future Steven will get this done. Not current Steven though, oh no." and then yeah... somehow the changes seem to not have happened.

As the song goes on, the next part that really hits me is the following:

And when they put me in the ground
I'll start pounding the lid
Saying I haven't finished yet
I still have a tattoo to get
That says I'm living in the moment

There's so many things in life we put off because we think we can get to it later. But, eventually, we all die. You look up and suddenly years have passed, and you've still not done the things you've wanted to. Someone online, I think, pointed out that no one dies with an empty schedule - people had plans, things to do, people to see. And that is also a bit of a sad thought to me - how much will I just never do because I put it off until "later", but eventually run out of time?

Another song that sort of touches upon time sort of just passing is "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads funnily enough. From lyricstories.com:

Talking Heads' 1981 single “Once in a Lifetime” is a rock song about routine, materialism, and the feeling of life passing you by. The song's core meaning wrestles with waking up in a life you don't quite remember building and asking yourself how you got there.

The last two sections I want to look at from "In My Mind" are from the 3rd and 4th verses:

[From Verse 3]
How strange to see
That I don't wanna be the person that I want to be

[From Verse 4]
And maybe it's funniest of all
To think I'll die before I actually see
That I am exactly the person that I want to be

I find both of these interesting - from verse 3, because often I talk about the person I want to be - wealthier, more in shape, eating better, etc. But do I actually want those things? I say that I want them, but I'm not actually putting in the effort to do those things. Which brings us to the lines from verse 4, "That I am exactly the person I want to be". Assuming I'm only doing things that I want to be doing, then who I am, in this moment, is exactly who I want to be. I think this song, overall, is about accepting yourself for who you are.

And I'm trying to get better at that - I try to keep in mind the now, rather than just the future. I try to remind myself that, the life I'm living at the moment, is 90% of the life I've always dreamed about living, and I should be happy for that. I've come so far, and while it's easy to forget that, I don't think I should.

The steam of the espresso machine — of focusing in the milk to make sure it is just right, of tapping to remove the bubbles, of preparing. Soft instrumental music plays in the background, more upbeat than the music to which I was listening earlier — easing me more into the day. How the smile of a barista lights up my day. Of noticing the care and attention put into the latte art.

I have not been to a coffee shop in days, and so this morning – a morning where a drizzle of rain hung over the air, a refreshing air – I felt like I was seeing all of the rituals associated with making a cup of coffee from a new perspective. The care the barista puts into preparing a drink, the sound of the steam wand as it froths milk, the rapport between the staff members.

A hand-crafted (decaf) flat white was the best possible start to the morning on a day where the only thing I had planned was to have a coffee, read a bit of a book, and wonder “should I go see that movie I want to see?” The movie was The Devil Wears Prada 2. I had not seen the first one, but lots of actors I like appeared in the second one so I thought I would go see it.

Less than an hour before the morning screening, I booked a ticket. I usually like to prepare more, but perhaps my mind was already made up that I wanted to see the film and I was yet to realise it. It has been a year since I was last at the cinema, so I revelled in the chance to go again to see a movie that looked good. In summary, after watching the movie, I was impressed, and left excited to watch the first one too.

As I left the movie theatre, on the fourth floor of a shopping centre in the heart of the city, I heard the sound of bagpipes. The fourth floor has an open roof and so the bagpipes could have been coming from anywhere. I felt so much at home in hearing them. Where else in the world could I leave a movie screening and hear bagpipes? That sound was a portend for what was to come.

While I didn’t necessarily have a plan for the day, the more hours that passed the more I started to piece together things I was thinking about this week. I have started to get back into Magic: the Gathering, watching a few videos online of people playing games. I decided I wanted to go to a trading card shop to at least inquire about what has changed in the format since I last played seriously, nine years ago. It turns out, a lot has changed, but the worlds I could learn about are exciting.

On my way to the trading card shop, I noticed a crowd of people lining the streets on Waverley Bridge, the scene of a painting I really love. I stopped for a moment and overheard people talking about the event of the day – the tartan parade, dedicated to celebrating all things tartan. Last year, I had encountered the parade under similar circumstances: I was walking around and happened to be in the place where the parade was about to start, not knowing the event was scheduled. A lot has changed since last year, too.

Having fifteen minutes or so before the parade was scheduled to begin, I got some lunch and waited. Then, with great excitement, I watched the event from beginning to end – an hour of pipe bands, dancers, people from clans across Scotland, people who work for charities in Scotland, and people who have come from all over the world to celebrate tartan. There was a pipe band from Switzerland and contingent of people from Peru, Italy, and more. I love seeing so many people coming together — in so many outfits and from so many places., I wrote as I was surrounded by music and colour and stories and life.

Early on in the parade, a larger-than-life (paper?) unicorn was carried by several people. “A unicorn!” remarked a child nearby with great excitement. I was surprised for a split second until I remembered the unicorn is our national animal, my favourite fact to share with people I meet from other places in the world. I can think of no better animal to represent the Scottish attitude than the unicorn – welcoming, playful, and always able to bring colour to a room.

There were also people dressed as dinosaurs at the parade for a reason I can’t remember. Nonetheless the dinosaurs made me laugh the kind of laugh where you feel nothing but pure joy. The emcee for the parade had some playful banter with the dinosaurs who roared, saying something to the effect of “I’m glad I’m up here” (on the double-decker, open-top bus with tartan livery from where the emcee announced all the groups in the parade) to the dinosaurs below. I’m having a good time, I thought.

I walked for miles today, from the coffee shop to the theatre, stopping for an hour afterwords to watch the tartan parade, to the card game store and back. Serendipity was my best friend. Then, just as I was getting ready to go home, I saw someone I haven’t seen in months. Seeing them smile and wave as I did the same, my world was brightened, to an extent where despite my best efforts to describe what I was feeling it was impossible to do so. I felt so much less alone than I had the moment before.

The small things – the warm morning coffee, the smile and wave from a friend, the unicorns; the serendipity of walking without a plan and being open to what you see – really do make life special.

Today, I attended a protest for the visibility of ME/CFS sufferers.

ME/CFS is short for Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome; it is a chronic illness characterized by extreme fatigue that doesn't improve with rest, along with sleep issues, dizziness, muscle and joint pain, cognitive difficulties, extreme sensitivity to stimuli, and more. There is significant overlap with what is often referred to as "Long Covid" or "Post Covid", leading to speculation that they're one and the same. It is estimated that 1.5 Million people are affected in Germany alone, with around 40 Million estimated worldwide. One day, it could be you.

The exact cause is still being investigated, but it is most often associated with a viral infection (Covid, Epstein-Barr, etc.), and while symptoms can sometimes be managed, a full recovery is very rare. There is currently no known treatment or cure, and diagnostic criteria are still being developed after all this time (50 years since the WHO has acknowledged it!), which makes getting a diagnosis hard. There is stigma around the illness, with doctors dismissing symptoms entirely or blaming it on mental illness or laziness, inappropriately trying to force sufferers to overexert themselves, worsening their symptoms. This is aided by the fact that ME/CFS is often not taught in medical degrees.

This group of patients is especially vulnerable, because advocating for themselves takes so much energy they don't have. Many of them can not even get out of bed or do any strenuous mental tasks, or they have to spend the little energy they have with the bare minimum to survive and then have none left for their free time. They are frequently very isolated and lacking the support they need.

Any exertion can cause weeks of increased symptoms (post-exertional malaise). Years of their life are just gone, spent existing in bed in a dark room, unable to think clearly or to really move, having difficulty speaking, having difficulty processing and enduring sounds, touch, or light. The fatigue can become so bad that they are unable to even talk.

Their education, finances and careers suffer, they can no longer take care of themselves and their families or pets, they struggle with doctor's appointments or the paperwork required to receive assistance, disability benefits, etc. and often start to have other chronic illnesses like fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and more. It can affect both children and adults.

It's easy to forget they exist because they are not visible out in public and left behind in public discourse. To make them visible, people all across the country meet up to lie on the floor - this happened for the first time in 2023, and is still going strong in 2026.

I don't have ME/CFS, but after a Covid infection, I struggled with orthostatic issues, post-viral tachycardia, and my chronic illnesses (Crohn's and Bechterew's disease) sometimes cause me intense fatigue as well; so I can relate a little to some parts of the illness, but I am lucky that my issues have treatments that helped (and some I could recover from). It was important to me to show up when they can't.

what we ask for

1. Dedicated funding for ME/CFS
Research funds must be specifically allocated to ME/CFS with PEM, rather than absorbed into broader post-infectious research categories. Otherwise, the disease risks being underfunded while still being treated politically as adequately addressed.

2. Priority for drugs and effective treatments
Prioritize the development of medications and clinically effective therapies, not only basic research or administrative structures.

3.Mandatory involvement of patient organizations
ME/CFS patient representatives with PEM expertise should be directly involved in planning and implementation. Past programs included people unfamiliar with the disease, resulting in research that overlooked core symptoms and legitimized unsuitable therapies.

4. Immediate funding for biomedical research
Concrete biomedical projects should receive funding without delay, not spending years building structures before supporting treatment-oriented research, despite already existing promising drug approaches.

5. Clear disease definitions, rigorous research standards and exclusion of unsuitable research approaches
Studies should use strict diagnostic criteria and focus on PEM as the defining symptom. Many previous studies examined general fatigue rather than properly diagnosed ME/CFS, producing weak or misleading results. Research that ignores the biological, multisystem nature of ME/CFS should not be funded.

6. Legal and political safeguards
The so-called research decade should be backed by binding commitments rather than remaining a non-binding political initiative. Otherwise, funding and programs could be reduced or canceled after political changes.

7. Healthcare access, diagnostics, social support, and patient care, sustainable research infrastructure
Long-term structures such as specialized centers, biobanks, patient registries, and clinical trial networks should be established to support ongoing nationwide ME/CFS research.

8. Use existing research and strengthen international cooperation
Future work should build on existing ME/CFS findings and coordinate internationally to avoid redundant studies and accelerate progress.

resources

The International ME/CFS Awareness Day is on May 12th.

Donate to the ME/CFS Research Foundation

Read what people affected by ME/CFS say

18 Minute Short Documentary on YouTube, English Subtitles

🇩🇪 Doku: ME/CFS: Keine Kraft mehr

🇩🇪 ME/CFS sufferer in Austria making use of assisted suicide program

🇩🇪 Liegenddemo Germany

🇩🇪 MECFS.de

🇩🇪 MECFS-Info.de

🇩🇪 ME-Hilfe.de

🇩🇪 Fatigatio.de

🇩🇪 Nicht Genesen Kids

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Published 09 May, 2026

when i first bought my laptop i wanted something powerful that could do it all. the only computer i had my hands on was the family laptop at the time and i was only able to play light indie games on it. so i wanted the most powerful laptop that i could buy for the least amount of money. i settled on buying a laptop with the specs listed below:

Processors: 12 × Intel® Core™ i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz
Memory: 16 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
Product Name: HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15-dk0xxx

now i don't know computers that much but i know that those were pretty good for 2021. however i did not consider one thing that was so obvious in hindsight: the ergonomics.

my back hurts

yeah so turns out buying a laptop without considering how portable it was was a terrible idea. that thing weighed a little over 2 kgs and i also had to carry it's included 200w charger (because of it's terrible battery life) that brought the total weight to closer to 3 kgs. laptops are supposed to be portable. this was the polar opposite of that.

during the first 3 years of med school i didn't really carry this thing around much. i also didn't have anything else to study on so i bought printed lecture notes and those were also really heavy. plus they were in black and white and if the lecture notes changed compared to last year, i was screwed.

should've bought a tablet sooner

at the end of my third year i bought a cheap tablet, the samsung tab s7 fe. honestly i don't know why i just didn't just buy this thing sooner. it made jotting down notes and following the lectures so much easier. i could just redownload the slides if the they changed and i could use it to read textbooks really easily.

that tablet is not the most powerful (4 gbs of ram is abysmal) but it doesn't really need to be, the only things i do on it are watching youtube videos or writing stuff on pdfs using samsung notes.

so why the macbook?

i really like my tablet but i sometimes need a laptop with a keyboard and the ability to run computer apps. i found myself not being able to go to the library to study with my friends on more than one occasion because i needed to finish up patient documents. i also started to incorporate anki into my studying routine and i needed something that could run the full desktop version of anki with all the addons.

as for why a macbook specifically it is fanless, has a really good battery life, is really light and it does not run windows. there wasn't just anything that came close to it in the current market even if i was comfortable chucking linux on it.

i also briefly considered the new macbook neo but i ideally want to use this thing well into residency and 8 gbs of ram scare me for the long term.

so how is the macbook?

i got the m4 air with the 256 gigs of storage, i only had this thing for a little over a week and i love it. i used gnome for years and i got accustomed to it's workflow. using macos like gnome is not that different. thanks to my sugar daddy suliman i got access to alcove and alfred and they are super fun (suliman also helped me a ton so kudos to him). device integration wasn't all that hard thanks to an implementation of kde connect, soduto. macos generally wasn't as locked down as i thought it was going to be.

i really like the keyboard and the trackpad is a joy to use. the only negative experience i had with the macbook was i couldn't create a new apple account for whatever reason. i solved that issue by asking a friend to make one for me. was still frustrating.

closing thoughts

if i could go back in time i'd just buy a tablet on my first year and skip on buying physical textbooks or lecture notes. i'd also wait till my 4th year (when clinicals start) to buy a slim portable laptop. these things are easier to say in hindsight though.

all things considered i'm not all that upset with my purchase of the gaming laptop. i think my thoughts are also influenced by the fact that i own a steam deck that i bought in the summer of last year. and i know what i want to play which is still indie games. turns out triple A games were never for me. i guess moral of the story is you don't always need the most powerful laptop out there. make sure you consider the drawbacks of the devices you are buying.