“Left Wing” Zionism: How to Sell an Ethnostate by overzealots: It bothers me that this commentator repeats multiple times that states have to justify themselves to exist. States don’t need to take on a specific form to be legitimate. If their existence was inherently legitimate when …
Archive
2025
The Crazy World of Korea’s Plastic Surgery Industry by Mina Le: Calling that industry “crazy” is an understatement. Young people have to get work done or else they might struggle in their romantic relationships or finding jobs. At the same time, them getting work done makes it …
My CD collection is coming together nicely. I’m sitting at 30 CDs and counting. It started with my favorite albums (at the time), but I’m expanding little by little. Eventually I’d like to stop renting my music and listening to my own collection. 🎶
Imagine living a long life – in centuries – of exclusive leisure in solitude. That sounds like hell to me, like what’d be my purpose? What would I be alive for? I could die and it would mean nothing to no one, not because they’d detest me, but because they wouldn’t be conscious of …
Last.fm is History to Me: I used to have a Last.fm account up until recently. I kept one around intermittently after initially creating one for the first time in 2019, connecting it to my Spotify and then forgetting about it for two years. After that I used it a bit but hated seeing how “horrible” the information …
The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov 📚:
Finished reading: The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov
❗️Disclaimer: Possible spoilers ahead.
If It Can Be Gamed, It Will Be: In a way it was good for me to have started out blogging on Bearblog. It was simple enough, maybe a little too simple, but exactly what I needed to learn how to customize my experience with CSS and HTML – things I should’ve learned in school, but they kinda didn’t stick around in my …
I have way too much free time at the moment and I’m spending it alone for the most part. That is the worst combination for me.
Finished migrating my Mastodon profile to this blog. I hope this is the final migration. My current setup to make up for the lack of Ivory’s amazing timeline save and sync involves Reeder as a read-only Micro.blog client. Since Micro.blog doesn’t have the robust RSS capabilities of a dedicated …
Seeing all of the pretty pictures people take on here makes me a little jealous. My photography skills are bad. I take pictures like an elderly person holding a smartphone for the first time. I’m going to start being a little more delicate with how I take pics from now on. I guess the best way …
I think I’m done with migrating from Bearblog now. One thing I didn’t count on just working without my fiddling with it is the RSS feed. People who followed the RSS feed from my previous Bearblog don’t have to change anything because Micro.blog and Bearblog place the feeds at the …
Imaginal Disk by Magdalena Bay 🎵: Been obsessed with this album. It has been in my MusicBox for a while, and I regret not checking out sooner because Magdalena Bay’s show in my city was two weeks ago. Missed my chance, but maybe another time. Transitions everywhere, album has consistency and variety, and this [redacted] sings like …
Bring Back Single Purpose Devices: I use devices that can do so many different things that I nearly forgot the beauty in tools that do one thing and do it well. Keeping things simple pays off for me in the long run because I can focus on the goal more easily. I live in a very touristy city and in the past two years or so, I’ve been …
The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov 📚:
Finished reading: The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
❗️Disclaimer: Possible spoilers ahead.
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back 🎥: The movie is really shallow with little to no character development. It is way too long because most of it is hectic fighting scenes or preparations for fighting, and quite frankly I couldn’t give less of a fuck. There is still like only one woman which is insane to me, and the acting in …
Copyright Must Die: Copyright is supposed to give artists and creators ownership and control over their creations. Art and knowledge are intangible, merely bits of information, that can be copied and duplicated easily compared to tangible assets like money or real estate. Copyright was supposed to be the tool for …
The way this is not even a joke, coming from someone who tried to study economics for a semester but gave up because it felt like indoctrination even more than the school system is, lmfao. https://social.edist.ro/@CosmickTrigger/114818986002998510 Mainstream economics as it’s taught at …
Technical Solutions For Social Problems Is Not The Answer: For a while now, I’ve been deeply interested in robots and sentient intelligence other than that of humans in general. At first, it wasn’t much of a conscious decision to surround myself with media that in one way or another discusses this topic. In part it was sparked by a class I took in my first …
Never Been Closer To A Great Summer: My exams are over, summer is here, and I’m busy again. This is the first summer in which I have a plethora of activities to engage in, thanks to antidepressants and plenty of therapy. There are a few games I’d like to play, many books I’m reading or about to start, and lastly a couple of shows and …
🗓️ July 1, 2025
My Experience With The Fitness Studio So Far: I signed up for a fitness studio near me in early May. McFit had a special offer going on where I would pay 5€ for the first two months and then 30€ afterwards for a plan that would normally cost 50€. Ever since the signup, I’ve gone there five times total. I was unsure if training at the fitness …
When I can't watch your show legally literally anywhere (and I'm being very generous by putting up with the streaming disaster we have now), then I'm fucking pirating it. I'm not not watching your show. I'll just do so for free lmao.
Virgin by Lorde 🎵: Every song on this album is a bop. I really love the minimal production which is not something that many albums get right. In my opinion, it was a wise decision not to hype the album up to be something it isn’t, at least as far as I could tell. It can be whatever you make it out to be: a …
Echo Valley 🎥: Her daughter is such a bitch and she knows it. She is literally testing her mother’s love towards her and is ready to incriminate her own mother just for her sadistic urges. Her fighting back was so skillfully done. But how did no one question that the horses survived? She must’ve …
A Little Life Update From Me: I’ve been meaning to write a post for my blog for a few weeks now, but it seems like the more time passed, the less I was willing to actually write anything. It doesn’t help that my blog experienced an existential crisis where I didn’t know what I was going to do with it. I felt …
Interstellar 🎥: Rewatching this movie with my brother has awakened some awareness in me that I didn’t get when I watched this movie for the first time a few years ago. It’s mad disrespectful, out of touch, and reductionist. It’s giving a tech bro explaining why fighting back climate change is …
🗓️ May 13, 2025
Dust by Hugh Howey 📚: Finished reading: Dust by Hugh Howey This book series and its ending remind me of another series I read at the age of 13-14 by the Austrian author Ursula Poznanski called Eleria in which humanity also makes the planet uninhabitable and lives in so-called spheres that aren’t too different from silos. …
I’ve spent this past week (actually these past two weeks intermittently) helping my brother build his first PC1, which was much harder than I anticipated. I was scared we would break something or that the final build wouldn’t boot. Long story short, all of my fears actually came true and we had to …
Forever Howlong by Black Country, New Road 🎵: Everyone around me knows that I’ve obsessed with Forever Howlong since its release on April 4 a few weeks ago. I’ve been listening to Black Country, New Roads comeback nonstop ever since and even bought its CD (my ultimate gesture of showing love to the craft, I guess). It starts out really strong …
Columbia University Is Just Rotten.: If an institution could succumb so quickly to an authoritarian power that theoretically threatens its existence, don’t you think that it’s most likely been part of that authoritarian movement for a while? Did it have to succumb to anything if it was the main actor in the demolition of the very thing …
Are We Collectively Depressed?: This post is inspired a little bit by Ava’s sunday, 6th april 2025 where she shared how her RSS feeds have been dry and how the internet (including – but not limited to – Bearblog) is feeling stale lately. I thought this was just me feeling down or something, but this was a symptom of me …
First, you control the media. Then you have everything.: There is a ton of misinformation1 about various, mostly recent, events in Syria floating around, and I hear from relatives all the time – however “by the way” they mention it – that they don’t know a thing, actually. And it requires a lot of self-awareness that I’m surprised to see in …
I think my crisis is over, pretty much. It has been a turbulent week for me, emotionally, where I completely broke down on the inside for reasons that are lowkey ridiculous. It happens, I guess. I was kinda burnt out from the last couple of months and just need a break. Doing better now! I decided …
🗓️ April 5, 2025
Another Diva Devoured By The Abyss: Something happened a few days ago (or rather a response to something) that I still have not gotten over. I’m mostly writing about it to make sense of my disappointment. FKA twigs was supposed to have a few shows across Europe and her Prague show, probably the most important one, was cancelled last …
Shift by Hugh Howey 📚: Finished reading: Shift by Hugh Howey I love how this book served as a retelling of the first from a different perspective. We kind of got the full story with how Solo was discovered by Jules. We also got some info on how he lived up until he met her. It’s like there were two opponents in this …
The Social Sciences Had a Very... Questionable Past: I’m always so thrown off anew at the lengths misogynists are ready to go to further prove to themselves that their misogyny is rooted in reason – however twisted – and thus justified. I was attending a lecture about science theory and history and this is one of those lectures with the most …
This week’s postroll is a bit modest in selection. You could say “quality over quantity” was this week’s unofficial motto. Depriving Yourself of Art Isn’t the Answer: This was in response to my post about the ethics of enjoying (subjectively) good art by (objectively) bad people. …
Re: Lazy Perfectionism: In one of his recent post “Leaving Things As They Are,” visionaryhussy from The House of Supreme Sultriness brings up being a lazy perfectionist. For some reason I felt obliged to explain why perfectionism brings a bout of laziness with it by default. Take what I’m saying here with a …
A Late Course Correction Is Still One: I’m officially parting ways with economics. I’ve been studying towards a bachelor’s degree in economics and social sciences (the official name) since September of last year and I’m done. I don’t want this. To people around me, this most likely doesn’t come as a surprise as I’ve been dissatisfied …
I’ve played around with an updated links section on my blog, linked somewhere in the navigation bar. But I didn’t like maintaining it and there was always the question of how other people would keep up with it since it was simply a page that gained more content over time, meaning it had …
Can We Ethically Love Bad People’s Good Art?: I admire bad people and I’m not going to sit here and talk you into believing that that is any good. In my recent post talking about my current CD collection, I showed off CDs from morally very questionable people and expressed interest in buying CDs of other morally corrupt acts, like for instance …
Wool by Hugh Howey 📚: Finished reading: Wool by Hugh Howey This book feels like a manual for how this world is being run at the moment. The turn of events and the move of rich people clutching their purses evermore so tightly is going to end in a devastating war for which the perpetrators will be well equipped with. And …
Are We Witnessing A Collapse?: My professor for cross-department business administration was having a full blown crisis today. She told us she had to strip stuff from the curriculum for this class because of how much had changed just in the last week. Elon Musk and Trump are basically – um, how do I put this nicely? – disrupting …
My CD Collection: I’ve been a CD collector for a while now, but recently started growing my collection a bit more. Buying music is so expensive (costs more than a monthly streaming subscription at the very least) so I don’t buy more than two a month. Recent additions have been Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish, …
Bitching About Proton For The Last Time On This Blog: I know I said I would post an update in a few weeks down the line, but I can’t keep using that shit for longer. I’m sorry, why does anyone put up with Proton Mail as it is? If all you need is a secondary mailbox for more sensitive stuff, sure, it works fine. But as your main? Their mobile apps are …
There is nothing like the feeling you have after an exam you’d been dreading for months finally being over. And there is also nothing like the feeling of knowing you failed so badly, it’s funny, tragic and disheartening at the same time. I only got 25% lmao. College tingz, I guess. …
The Nightmare Of Picking An Email Provider: I’ve been shuffling through email services recently like I shuffle through underwear. The good things first: I didn’t spend too much time playing around with them. Most were an easy skip like Tuta Mail and Mailbox.org, others were good but not the thing I was looking for like Fastmail. …
Star Wars: A New Hope 🎥: 📝 Note: This review was initially written as a comment, but it kinda got too long for a comment so I thought I would make it into a post. This is in reply to visionaryhussy’s review. Go read that one first before mine! First of all, I liked the review a lot. I watched the movie two days ago …
The Broken Promise Of The Post-Twitter Era: Nick’s status reminded me of my dormant Bluesky account and all my reasons for why it has been dormant for a while. I’ve written about this site a lot on my blog, in fact more than about any social network. I was really excited for all the things it could’ve been which it ended up …
how the Asian “Model Minority” perpetuates Anti-Blackness by OlivSUNia: I’m not Asian as per white supremacist thought, but I do relate to most of the struggles outlined in the video. I pass judging by my looks so I needed to pass when I open my mouth, too. My speech needs to sound the …
Wednesday, February 19, 2025 →
Rediscovering Old Hobbies: I used to practice a variety of hobbies before school and other… things robbed me of my time. Recently, I’ve been playing with the idea of giving them all a shot again. I used to cycle a lot as a child, but since moving to Austria, I have cycled maybe twice or thrice (in ten years). I …
I feel like blogging more and I would very much like to be less negative on this blog. It’s not like I am a negative/pessimistic person to be around, but the good stuff about me usually goes into my journal so I never go back and prop it up for a blog post (ie basically censoring the parts I don’t …
Over-Dependence On US Services:
With the recent events happening across the Atlantic, I’m reminded once again how dangerous it is to overly rely on the US (or any one country for that matter) as much as we do in our digital lives. So much has gone down in just the last 24h alone. How can we confidently assume “the system will take …
the desire to be sad: “tragically beautiful” art & romanticizing mental illness by OlivSUNia: In this video, Olivia cites Nietzsche’s description of the earliest forms of punishments: breach of contracts in which someone inflicts harm on another in equal measure to the harm inflicted …
finding purpose in our insignificant existence by OlivSUNia: The running example in this video is of riding a Japanese bus as a foreigner. Olivia discusses all of the tiny subtleties that, as a foreigner, one would notice, wonder what they mean, and then be faced with two options: either they …
Re: Re: I’m Okay With My Screentime: Reading the original and then the reply to it made me reflect on my journey with my screen time. During the pandemic, I had a double digit screen time on my phone alone, dominated mostly by TikTok. Since watching The Social Dilemma in 2021, my life changed for the better: I cut back on social media, …
This Arab Is Queer by Elias Jahshan 📚: Finished reading: This Arab Is Queer by Elias Jahshan This Arab Is Queer by Elia Jahshan is an anthology of queer Arab stories told by Arabs primarily living in the diaspora. The book aims to reclaim the narration of Arab stories with Arab voices. Queer people in Western media are reduced to pawns …
On Journaling: How I Regained My Voice: I write about my experience in a society forcing me to conform to certain values that were antithetical to my existence and how that cut the thread between my voice and head.
EUSEXUA by FKA twigs 🎵: I don’t know what’s with so many of my favorite artists turning into aliens in recent times, but I’m down as long as that music is serving. Eusexua, the title track, is what lured me into FKA twigs to begin with. I had given her a listen before, but her sound was so weird to me that I felt the songs …
How I Deal With Information Overload: In order to keep the high volume of media I stumble upon manageable, be able to reference it later, and keep a record of all that I see, read, watch, listen to, and generally enjoy, I’ve long had no systematic way of going about this until recently (read half a year ago). Most of what I’ll talk …
How I Deal With Information Overload: In order to keep the high volume of media I stumble upon manageable, be able to reference it later, and keep a record of all that I see, read, watch, listen to, and generally enjoy, I’ve long had no systematic way of going about this until recently (read half a year ago). Most of what I’ll talk …
Perverts by Ethel Cain 🎵: I’m not really the type to write, speak, or think coherently when I get excited. This is especially so when I get overstimulated by music which is the case with this album. I guess it’s another side effect of my ADHD. That means that I’m probably not the best at making music reviews, but it’s not …
Music Questions Challenge: As it seems, it is challenge season and I’m here for it! Takenvault has started a music questions challenge chain and I see now Ava is already onboard, too. I’m bored so I’ll answer these questions as well. Questions What are five of your favorite albums? Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain, brat by …
Bearblog Questions Challenge: Seeing as there is a challenge making the rounds I thought I would join in on the fun! Why did you make the blog in the first place? I was trying to escape social media but without not being online. I started this blog to talk about why I wanted to distance myself from social media, how I was …
2024
before 📺: This was incredible, terrifying and fascinating – all at once. I’ve never thought about what was said in the closing monologue of the show like that before: If we have to acknowledge an afterlife then we have to acknowledge a beforelife, something that came before. I did consider beforelives many …
Are You Tech-Savvy Enough?: I’ve always been drawn to computers. I don’t need them, but I genuinely like them and all the things you can do on them. But it’s hard to do all of those cool things when all your brain can think about is fixing tiny imperfections. You use what works for you, but what works for you depends on your …
Phone Addiction: I just felt like adding my thoughts to Ava’s on online addiction because it’s something that I’ve been stewing on for quite some time. thoughts on online addiction: But did/do you have a safe to lock your TV or books into? Do you add controls to your TV that it would shut off and not turn on after …
My Relationship With Numbers And Obsessive Self-Optimization: In trying to savor my mental health & improve, I’m shooting myself in the foot by overthinking my habits & choices.
Human Rights Are Concessions, Not A Given: State-granted rights are subject to revocation, turning an uprising into a logical consequence of the recent rise of authoritarianism.
Revamping my blog: I was supposed to be studying for my upcoming exams this morning, but instead of doing that I revamped my blog and added some add-ons to it. I have ADHD so I’m kind of used to all of this, but it doesn’t make it less exhausting. In part, I don’t regret the changes I’ve made, like I often do after …
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo 📚: Finished reading: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo Do laws and institutions change values, or do values drive laws and institutions? – Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (p. 177) A great question posed by the author in the voice of the main character. Such a powerful question that just took me off-guard …
Is It A Right For A Country To Exist?:
I’ve been pondering about this topic for a while, but couldn’t find the right words to say my thoughts out loud. This post is the product of many variations of the same thing, some of them scrapped before ever being written anywhere.
No country in the world establishes its ability to exist through …
Just Fucking Stop Oil:
As the years go by, it feels like humanity is picking up pace to cause its own demise. Many fictional works try to visualize what our actions mean in the present and future; Some of them offer a glimpse of hope, others are more realistic and show a very possible future if we stick to our current …
Self-hosting Mastodon: Self-hosting Mastodon was something that intrigued me, but that I was too afraid to try out for myself because I have no technical background in self-hosting at all. I liked the idea of owning my identity with my own domain name and the thought of having so much control over my online experience was …
Pose 📺: Absolutely phenomenal. Made me cry, laugh, grieve, and experience every imaginable emotion. Loved every second of it. Just ground-breaking! 🏳️🌈 Rating: 5/5
A Fresh Start: This is my first blog post ever. I’m definitely making this a bigger deal than it is, but for someone who grew up in a generation that equates the web with walled gardens like Meta’s platforms, it is not a small deal either. While we did have to practice writing blog posts in English class, it never …