@eyrea@mstdn.ca
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

eyrea

@eyrea@mstdn.ca

Geek who writes from vocation, knits from nervous habit, and works in IT. she/her/hers

Personal web site at: https://katherine-hajer.com

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

kamikat, to FiberArts
@kamikat@horrorhub.club avatar

@sewing I have been participating in Me Made May since 2010. DAE participate in Me Made May?
https://www.instagram.com/p/C5OAoeXMK9d/?igsh=dGlmbDZ5NW0yNzVj

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@kamikat @DanielMenjivar 🤔 Maybe that's an idea... use it as an excuse to update one's blog. I know I need to do that, anyhow.

gemelliz, to Canada
@gemelliz@mstdn.ca avatar

Hey Canada,
"Did you know both London and NYC have implemented a DAILY $15 congestion tax?
If you drive into the city 5 days a week - you get charged $75 a week for a tax aimed at reducing vehicle use.

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@gemelliz Toronto and Vancouver, among other Canadian cities, should so do this.

HelenLockhart, to random
@HelenLockhart@mastodon.scot avatar

This article has some great ideas for make at home fast food to replace heavily processed fast food. Many of these things we do already, but I'll have to try the 3-2-1 biscuit recipe.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/apr/01/ditch-the-upfs-how-to-make-easy-healthy-convenience-foods-from-fizzy-drinks-to-flapjacks

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@HelenLockhart Awesome, thank you!

During the lockdown I randomly got a craving for Egg McMuffins (something I rarely ate when I went to the office). I started making them at home with real cheese and whole wheat bread. They make a great lunch with a side salad.

NickEast, to scifi
@NickEast@geekdom.social avatar

I didn't realise this was a thing, do people really think Mary Shelly wasn't the first SciFi author? 🤔

@sciencefiction @writers @writingcommunity @writing


eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@iinavpov @AspiringLuddite @icastico @NickEast @sciencefiction @writers @writingcommunity @writing I think the difference between Shelley (and her non-English counterparts) and earlier works is that Shelley moved from fantasy to science fiction. Today, traveling to the moon is fact, and before that it enjoyed some decades as science fiction. Prior to that, it was total fantasy.

Frankenstein goes into detail as to how the doctor builds the monster, and that's what makes it science fiction.

patrickworld, to random
@patrickworld@mastodon.online avatar

It would be cool if everyone stopped trying to come up with a funny gag today 😑

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@patrickworld If they're only trying to come up with it today, they're far too late. Good April Fool's -- coming up with a positive message in a humorous way -- takes careful planning and execution.

People should be delighted at the reveal.

Edent, to random
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

The problem with Eternal September isn't that n00bs are stupid lusers - but that we do a terrible job introducing people into our culture.

So many online spaces seem to have an attitude of "if you don't already know the rules, you can't play". There's no helping newbies and neophytes learn the how and why of a community.

Most organisations are desperate for new members. And yet, when people show up, they're laughed at, blocked, or sent away.

1/2

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@Edent From what I've seen, it's the meeting of two opposing forces:

  1. People who just want to operate on the in-group wavelength

  2. Noobs who want to be accepted IMMEDIATELY and don't want to have to go through the footwork of acclimating.

oldladyplays, to random
@oldladyplays@wargamers.social avatar

April Fool's Day is the worst and stupidest tradition we have about the calendar. "Ha ha, we'll have a day where everybody lies and tries to trick everyone else, and it'll all be a big laugh and no one will get hurt."

It's bullshit. Most AfD jokes (see what I did there?) are cruel and mean-spirited, making fun of people for trusting you. Is that really how you want to be known?

Needless to say, you can trust there will be none of that shit coming from this account on Monday. I'm always up for actual fun, you know, the kind where people are invited to take part and enjoy, rather than some of them singled out for mockery.

Yep, I'm the mayor of Nofunnington. As everyone knows, I never do anything remotely fun or funny. That's why I hate this day. Sure.

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@oldladyplays Oh.

I haven't seen anyone do an actual April Fool's prank since the 70s, and even then they were pretty transparent.

The ones I cherish the most are the ones that make you go, "whaaa? that can't be real" and then you get to fact check and learn something.

A personal favourite which would go down well in Nofunnington: knitting milkweed for monarch butterflies: https://youtu.be/JRwFWirJmU4?si=j89civSn9J-QGASz

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@oldladyplays And I'm not willing to kill satire, parody, or sarcasm. Being incurious and credulous is what makes dis- and misinformation work so well.

Enjoy a peaceful April 1.

ChrisMayLA6, to books
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

At the risk of reigniting a debate that has been had in my timeline in the past... here's a report of a University of Valencia that looked at over 20 paper examine the differential effects of reading digitally & on paper.

The research confirms my experience (my own & in the reading of my erstwhile students) that reading digitally is less likely to lead to long-term educational (knowledge) benefits...

@bookstodon

https://www.upmpaper.com/knowledge-inspiration/blog-stories/articles/2024/makes-you-learn/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=PaperBecauseItsReal2024&utm_term=&utm_content=Image

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@elysegrasso @adritheonly @ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon Just remember that both SAT-style tests and access to technology are controlled by the government du jour, and not teachers.

In the late 90s, I had to teach introduction to web page creation classes with Notepad as my IDE, not because I was anti-IDE, but because I couldn't get anything else installed and approved.

That same course was later discontinued as "regional" by the Harris government.

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@elysegrasso @adritheonly @ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon And since when do educational studies influence anything in the last 40 years?

Seriously. The trend has been to take that away from teachers (although, weirdly, governments often want teachers to do more classroom research), and implement a strict curriculum teachers have little say in shaping or providing.

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@elysegrasso @adritheonly @ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon Any classroom tests being conducted by teachers are being done on top of their existing workload, not necessarily by people with a research background. That makes it easy for the only completed tests to be only existing to confirm existing biases.

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@elysegrasso @adritheonly @ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon Okaaay... who do you think is conducting these tests? Because when I was a teacher it was teachers working on their MEd or PhD.

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@elysegrasso @adritheonly @ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon Right, and my point is blaming teachers for the test design -- which you did -- may not be as cut-and-dried.

I've read papers based on one classroom of kids doing something different for one term. That puts constraints on the findings, and they should be treated as such. The problem is the extrapolation, which does away with the constraints and turns into "all teachers think..."

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@adritheonly @elysegrasso @ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon Yup. I was taught in teachers college that in the 60s in Ontario, if you were on page 72 of your math textbook, you could state with confidence that the vast majority of your peers across the province were also on page 72 that day, and that they were all using the same text as you.

Then people (understandably) said they wanted individual and community circumstances factored in.

idle, to crochet Czech

Om Nom. There's a reflective thread added to the eyes, so taking the picture wasn't easy.

(Following a good pattern feels easy. I wonder how hard it'll be to come up with my own one. I guess I'll have to try sooner or later.)

@crochet

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@idle Ahhhh! I love that version!

I made Om Noms for my nieces when they were little. I didn't follow a pattern, but I did use a crochet sphere calculator to make the body.

Here's the blog post with links to the resources if you are interested https://www.katherine-hajer.com/diy-eyrea/2015/3/16/cut-the-yarn

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@idle The phone call where my brother related all of my niece's specifications was hilarious. She was about 6, but she knew what size and features she wanted to a very exacting degree.

rysiek, to infosec
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

It just hit me: as shitty and annoying as they are, cookie banners and privacy screens are freaking amazing!

They are teaching a whole generation of Web users:

  1. never to click on the default button;

  2. to always be suspicious of intentions of anything online.

:blobcatcoffee:

#InfoSec #Privacy

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@rysiek On the other hand, I've noticed an uptick in the number of sites which only have an Accept All button.

They can still do that outside of the EU.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

You're at the Frozen Yogurt place, what flavors and toppings do you choose?

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@RickiTarr IF they didn't make the vanilla with Splenda, which gives me hives, then vanilla with fresh strawberry slices.

Probably the vanilla has Splenda, so a berry flavour with fresh berries, and granola if THAT doesn't have Splenda.

Froyo places are a food reaction minefield (so are salad bars) so I don't usually indulge.

BiDickEnergy, to random
@BiDickEnergy@tooters.org avatar

If I'm sitting at your desk, I WILL use your lotion for my crusty hands

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@BiDickEnergy I would much rather that than have your cracked skin bleed on my desk

DanielMenjivar, to Toronto
@DanielMenjivar@mastodon.social avatar

I am out of the house today, for the first time in over a week. Two weeks? More? It’s been so long I can’t remember!

Stopped by Tacos Moras on St. Clair West in for a delicious Torta. The bun! So good.

Lightly toasted bun with melted cheese, beans, guacamole, carne asada, onions and cilantro.

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@DanielMenjivar This is such a great "so, you want to have a nice sewing outing in Toronto" thread. I had totally forgotten Mokuba had moved rather than closed.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Alright y'all, whenever I see something funny, I save it to show you all, but then I forget, so now I have a small backlog. So, here's a couple of things to give you a chuckle, and feel free to share a couple of your own if you have them!

Why would a rich famous guy marry a 34 year old woman? If you started immediately you MIGHT be able to have two kids. And she’s publicly had sex with a ton of guys. Despite her wealth she’s very low quality for any successful male. Just seems weird and almost like he’s a L= Why would a successful man want a middle aged woman who’s always on tour? Is it...could it be...because he’s gay? Underneath all that nonsense is a lovely picture of Taylor Swift mentioning that she's 34
There's two kids in the pool with their mother one is being held up by the mother and it says Horny, the other is next to them struggling to swim and it says Hungry, underneath that is a skeleton under water that says Happy
ra Tech > News Tech VIRTUAL LOVE Al girlfriend earns $30,000 a month from ‘lonely men’ and received *20 marriage proposals’ despite not being real Charlotte Edwards, Assistant Technology and Science Editor Published: 16:51 ET, Jan 18 2024 | Updated: 824 ET, Jan 19 2024 There is a picture of a blonde white fake looking woman who looks just a little too perfect

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@Basmitharts @RickiTarr Having reached, at the same time, "it's okay to talk about women openly as if they're farm animals", which is something, if not an achievement.

aronow, to random
@aronow@hachyderm.io avatar

This morning I found out 76% of women report using less due to harassment and “tinder-like messages”.

WTF

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@cy Definitely they were more foolish than sinister -- and I for one appreciated they were willing to speak plainly about their intentions once we asked them about it.

I think if they had showed any interest in writing and peer feedback at all, it could have gone better for them.

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@Selena @cy Depends on who's doing the coding.

Straight men who knit (something that was strongly male-coded until the Industrial Revolution) can usually out themselves simply by mentioning a sweater they made for an ex-girlfriend. Some people will persist in labelling them gay after that, but then it's the other people's problem.

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@Selena @cy And I never said anyone was getting any dates -- just that if you're going to go the common interest route, it is probably best to have that common interest.

ifixcoinops, to random
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

Yesterday was a hard day. Got cheered up a bit today by getting a free bike off one of those Buy Nothing groups on Facebook.

When last I visited my family I rode a pushbike for the first time in over twenty years and I'd forgotten how much fun they were, how light, how without the context of being on top of an engine you look behind yourself and go "Wow, I went FAR!" and I said "Haha yeah I'm gonna get a bike when I get back to America." My brother said, as many people in my life have always said, "Dan, never buy a pushbike, people throw or give them away them all the time" and everyone's right of course, they do.

This thing's got two problems, slow leaks in the tyres and not changing gears properly. I've never fiddled with a derailleur before but eh, it's not rocket science, it just goes in and out on a cable; got the derailleur all cleaned off and adjusted up and still no dice so I took apart the shifter mech that lives on the yoke. Symptom was it wouldn't shift down more than a couple of clicks, this is the style where you've got two levers, one has a positive snap and one feels like a ratchet, the ratchetty one weren't ratchetting so I figured its ratchet must be stuck open and aye, its ratchet were stuck open.

Now if only I'd known this thing came apart on a left-hand thread, I might not have stripped that one bolt and be waiting on parts, but in the meantime I worked it a bit and gave it a drop of oil and now the ratchet bit works if you press up as well as in lol, just kinda hold it together with a squeeze whenever you change gears, it's fine

Tyres can wait til the weekend, I'll just pump it up now and then

Also this thing is so high. It's SO. HIGH. I'm 185cm and when I went to see to the bloke giving it away I craned my neck right back to say hello, dude could've been 2m tall. The seat's already down as far as it'll go and I'm 41 so I don't think I'm likely to grow into it. Getting real Penny Farthing feeling tryna ride the thing. Good fun though, and littleun actually managed to Properly Ride her bike today for a few metres, pedalling and everything, so tomorrow's gonna be a dad-and-daughter-and-bike day

eyrea,
@eyrea@mstdn.ca avatar

@ifixcoinops Way to fit the gender talk in there 😂.

What I've never figured out is the bollocks-smashing bar is supposed to make the frame stronger... but at the same time I've never heard of a step-through bike frame breaking because it was a step-through.

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