October 2025 – Pearl of Civilization

Watch as the fourth class of painkillers kick in for today’s “breakthrough” pain

A scorecard from Gubbins, showing a score of 3365, with the best word "pastes" for 500 points

A Gubbins scorecard, with a score of 5565 and the top word "quelled" for 850 points

A Gubbins scorecard with the score 8945, and 5 words that scored over 1000 points including "destroyed" and "assinine"

A Gubbins scorecard with a score of 13232 and 9 words that scored over 1000 points, including "peggings" and "ungainly"

They just want to be loved

Going to start singing this at people who are still concerned about inclusion and balance for nazis.

Giant mutant tarantulas just want to be loved
(just wanna, wanna be loved, loved)

… when I sing it, I swap out “maniacs” for “murderers” because I am tired of casual ableist slurs

At a chronic pain seminar tonight, the OT said, “one thing we often hear is, ‘oh i wish you could just put me in a coma until my current neurons would die and be replaced with new ones that aren’t so highly reactive’, but unfortunately that isn’t how the nervous system works.”

Firstly, lol at “unfortunately”. Love this ally who wants to make coma therapy wishes come true.

Secondly, wanting a temporary coma really is a common fantasy across quite a few chronic conditions. I have personally heard it from people with pain, anxiety, depression, ME/CFS, and also just sleep-deprivation (parents).

I mean

Promo photo of the book My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh, with pink block letters over a classical oil portrait of a woman looking bored or resigned

I am thinking about how often patients are correct in a general or metaphorical way– folks with ME who say they feel like their batteries don’t work and then research turns up mitochondrial dysfunction.

Makes me wonder what version of coma therapy will turn out to work for us all.

Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Chapter Numbers

I got physically agitated about the section numbering in a book that Simon showed me 😂

Spent time on the alt text to try to bring this chaos to you.

Beginning of the table of contents for Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.

A. Consciousness, with subheads I, II, and III
B. Self-consciousness, with subhead IV, and sub-sub-heads A and B
C. (AA.) Reason, with subhead V, sub-sub-head A, and a further nested section a

End of the table of contents for Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, continuing the lettered subheads from the previous page, and then,

(BB.) Spirit, with subhead VI, sub-subhead A, and nested sections a, b, and c; sub-subhead B with nested sections I, II, and III which have nested sub-sections labelled with a, b, c.

(CC.) Religion, with subheads that at least follow the numbering pattern from the first page

(DD.) Absolute Knowledge, with subhead VIII, Absolute Knowledge

Mastodon poll by @beandreams (me) from 1 Oct 2025.

Which baffling aspect of Hegel's table of contents are you?

C. (AA.) - 37%

One level of subheads is numbered continuously - 39%

New level of roman numerals in BB.VI.B only - 53%

Two levels of capitals before using small letters - 29%

All but one of the top-level sections group everything under a single sub-head. WHY. My urge to refactor is so strong 😂

Month: October 2025

Watch as the fourth class of painkillers kick in for today’s “breakthrough” pain

They just want to be loved

Coma therapy wishlist

Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Chapter Numbers