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recursive 🏳️‍🌈

@recursive@hachyderm.io

mastodon 4.7.3

I used to have a lot of technical interests and I sometimes still do, but I’m mostly just finding ways to more deeply experience embodiment in the physical world, so I lift weights a lot, go for long walks, and I’m starting to get into climbing

Trans dyke, old enough to be your mom

Please have something meaningful on your profile before you follow-request

All statements made here are my own, not those of my employer or my cat

1938 Followers

1858 Following

50 Posts

Joined November 18, 2022

Website:

https://alexandra.magin.org/blog/

Location:

Seattle

pronouns:

she/her

recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

I’m beginning to come to the conclusion that the only sensible response to the emergence of ridiculous politics around trans people in restrooms is that everyone should just randomly use any gender restroom at any time until we grow out of this stuff as a society

We should not tolerate any restroom being unsafe, and the notion that the historical segregation of restrooms by gender confers some safety is dubious at best

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

It annoys me that we are culturally prone to talking about impressive technology we (personally) don't understand as "magic" I think this does a disservice to those who may be hear us (especially children) and thus think, "I could never do something like that!" It's a lot of hard work and cooperation that got us the things that exist today. And you could be someone who makes the next amazing thing exist

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Mastodon is the kind of place where if I made a shitpost like:

You can tell the difference between leaded and lead-free solder by tasting it

So many of you would get mad as hell and probably report me and even consider making a fediblock post, but you wouldn’t do the sensible thing and quote tweet it because you’re too cowardly to have that kind of callout culture

(Feel free to quote tweet this!)

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 2mo ago

Big Rheostat doesn’t want you to know about pulse-width modulation

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Oh I forgot about this, it’s so crazy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_polymorph

en.wikipedia.org

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

It would be so cool if some day I can stop hearing about J. K. Rowling

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Replying to

Some uptight person out there is writing an angry screed about this right now but I'm profoundly glad that things are in a lot of ways less pointlessly rigid than mid-20th century North American culture

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@richlv@mastodon.social @eanakashima@hachyderm.io "Target fixation" is the term I'd heard in conjunction with motorcycle safety training It's a surprisingly accurate pattern of behavior when any sort of fear or panic takes over

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 7mo ago

Talking with folks at the local hackerspace about my ham radio experience has me thinking about 10.368 GHz equipment again. There's a lot more commercially available now, but there's also a lot less random telco surplus

Because building, testing, and adjusting stuff would be half of my enjoyment, I wonder about doing this from scratch. How bad is it to get prototype quantity PCBs made in the suitable substrates (i.e. not FR4, stuff like the Rogers products) these days?

Also not sure what's currently available in interesting semiconductors after all the weird shortages we've had and increasing tendency to only have very purpose-built RF stuff outside of expensive military parts

(I do have ... a good portion of the hard to obtain test equipment, though I do not have access to wire-bonders)

Retoot welcome

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@leftpaddotpy@hachyderm.io ugh yeah And as much as I have a lot of issues with LLMs, the usual responses on fedi are based heavily in people’s personal trauma with other things in life and/or purity culture

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 7mo ago

RE: @stefan@stefanbohacek.online

Sagan's writing about this always brings me to tears https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections

Because it's distinct from a lot of the domineering "you are small" messages in this (and some other societies) –rather, it's that the entirety of human existence is small, but it matters, cooperation is the greatest thing you could do.

stefanbohacek.online

Stefan Bohacek: "On this day in 1990, the Voyager 1 space probe to…" - Stefan's Personal Mastodon Server

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Daojoan@mastodon.social I think a few of them were mandated by people who spend all day in meetings and don’t care where their desk is

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@JessTheUnstill@infosec.exchange I was told that was just Grindr

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@alice@lgbtqia.space also the technique which in my experience is hard to do but is what is considered 'correct' is to only bleach the parts which weren't previously bleached

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

I'm annoyingly being forced to reckon with a particular kind of intersection between mortality and quality of life

(I'm in no danger, but in the long run I am in danger and I don't like the implied choices)

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 14mo ago

@mipsytipsy@hachyderm.io wrote an amazing blog post https://charity.wtf/2025/07/09/thoughts-on-motivation-and-my-40-year-career/

I feel like she's describing so much of what got me interested in tech work and why I still have so much ambition and hope for it

Overall, society's not been great at making spaces for neurodivergent folks who also love the complexity of systems of humans, and in a way, working in tech has felt like the only place I could have gone and made my life work, especially before I figured all my shit out

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@grim_elsewhere I too find it far easier to learn to trust someone after 30 minutes spent together IRL

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Xibanya@mastodon.xyz IME the thing society doesn’t understand well enough is that inclination to perform gender in the way which straight people expect (and media depicts) isn’t especially correlated with people’s gender (and with trans people’s need for transition)

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@saraislet@infosec.exchange oh, we'll simply measure lines of code written!

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@alice@lgbtqia.space You're going to want to use something that's more dilute, like 8 volume "developer" (this is hydrogen peroxide and some thickeners, the lower 'volume' number is lower concentration) in conjunction with whatever bleach powder (20 or 40 is pretty strong on fine hair)

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@rcombs@social.treehouse.systems @NanoRaptor@bitbang.social I would add the nuance that fuel injection systems tend to tolerate it a lot better than carburetors ... I think all the places it has positive pressure just kind of forces the gunk through

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@alicela1n@social.treehouse.systems It's interesting how we basically didn't get to designing the fully integrated CPUs of the mid to late-1970s without using existing computers

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org I recognize this feeling of frustration But I wonder if instead we should ask ourselves if our urge to do something individually is necessarily the right thing, or if it's a consequence of not being supported enough by the systems around us. It's common for us who do technical work to dream of technical solutions to social problems -- but maybe we should also be able to access existing resources and cooperate with others more easily than is possible today

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@rcombs@social.treehouse.systems @foone@digipres.club Pretty sure this is just what one does when one wants to achieve the Ken doll aesthetic

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@koakuma @kouhai The only reasonable price I am aware of in the US retail market is Costco's generic

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@kouhai I am curious about the efficacy decrease in long term usage and why it is. Not sure if I have experienced such because I usually only use continuously for a month or so My other opinion is that fexofenadine is the only one that has no neurological effects for me. Cetirizine gives me drowsiness, often in very annoying ways, such as "took it in the evening, had an overwhelming need to take a nap the following afternoon". Loratadine wasn't as bad but I think I sometimes felt more anxious on it?

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 17mo ago

Replying to

@hazelweakly@hachyderm.io well done, I hate it

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@spinach@girlcock.club At the very least, a nice CRT

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@alice Wasn't long though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mortimer_Granville#Electric_vibrator

en.wikipedia.org

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@saraislet I would tell you to stop hate-reading Andy Grove, but I have to admit he did have an unfortunately outsize impact on management practices and thus is relevant to your work

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@nxskok@cupoftea.social @hazelweakly@hachyderm.io Also, notably it lets you scroll the list of departures in an itinerary to the left to see the ones you've missed, or which it thinks you will miss

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 7mo ago

Replying to on furry.engineer

@soatok@furry.engineer Thank you so much for doing this work. I've enough frustrations with the usability of Matrix and I don't really want to see them win everyone over based on some unsupported assertions about their security

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 7mo ago

@alice also IMO those are the two best pride flags

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@mosssupply@tacobelllabs.net oh I thought that was just “being queer”

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@rcombs@social.treehouse.systems @foone@digipres.club Although I hate Ken a lot more after that scene on the beach in the Barbie movie

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

In Ann Bannon’s novels, the character Beebo Brinker has a dog named Nix

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@h3mmy Yes, this is a thing I think about often and don't yet have any good answers for, beyond "it's probably healthier for me to do things because I want to than because I 'should', because in my experience I want to do fairly good things anyway"

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@h3mmy Yeah. This is really leading me to think about some uncomfortable moral questions of how I approach care for others vs maintaining resources and safety for myself I think I was taught a lot of ambitious moral principles growing up, and yet in the realities of our present society, it's hard to live up to many of those principles without great self-sacrifice, and thus I find it challenging to *appropriately* extend help to others under the system of morality I was taught This really connects with a lot of the kind of "discernment" I think I've been learning while doing therapy the past few years -- How do I *choose* correct action as a mature adult instead of merely engaging in a simplistic set of childish feelings of "I should"? A lot of my own care of myself vis-a-vis neurodivergence and trauma has been bootstrapped by asserting that it is axiomatic that I am worthy of that care from myself, it is a useful belief I would like to give that kind of care to anyone. But it's not easy to do in a society that's so against it that often doing so may detract from the care of oneself. I think that someone who is a clone of me would be pretty nifty and I would be more *interested* in them, but what part of my resources in life deserve to be allocated to those who I find interesting vs people in general? (This isn't even getting to the problem of "we treat people as 'safe' based on some pretty shoddy similarity heuristics")

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@h3mmy It it implied that I would recognize this person as basically a copy of me, or is part of the scenario whether or not I would?

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@jyn mmm. this is good, thank you for writing it

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 7mo ago

@alice ooh, I haven't seen jeans like that in a minute. Good outfit

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 17mo ago

Replying to

@hazelweakly@hachyderm.io that first line has me listening to Against Me and having Feelings

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@aphyr Last time I experienced this I was in the (much smaller) crowd of zoomers. Fortunately I was able to hasten the process

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@lcamtuf@infosec.exchange Math *is* hard

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@hazelton@sparkgap.marsfreeradio.org But who will check the check valve checker?

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social Do you have something like https://www.goldeagle.com/brands/sta-bil/ where you live? I don't really know why it works, but the active ingredient is an aromatic hydrocarbon which reminds me of an artificial fruit smell, which is hilarious (I've used it on <1 liter carbureted engines)

STABIL Car, Boat & Small Engine Fuel Treatments | Gold Eagle

STA-BIL Brand Fuel Stabilizers – America’s most trusted fuel additive & fuel system treatments. The best fuel additives that protect against ethanol damage.

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 3mo ago

I'm really tired of computers are unaffordable because VC-funded companies need to build the next Uber which will end up ultimately being unreasonably expensive for me to use while invading my privacy I'm not even saying AI is bad (though many uses of it are, or they reveal the ways our present system rewards unethical behaviors)

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@kate@shrike.club it’s giving brat

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recursive 🏳️‍🌈 @recursive@hachyderm.io

· 2mo ago

Okay so are trolleybuses angel girls because the trolleypoles are wings

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