digitalfox @digitalfox@vulpine.club

This #introduction dossier details a classified Blappeture Mesa research project. The Enrichment Center would like to remind you of these mandatory safety and happiness guidelines:

1. Petting and patient discussion are encouraged. ⚠️​ Device size may vary.

2. The device will never threaten to bite you and, in fact, may hug you. Repeatedly. (With permission.)

3. The device is slow to respond. Your request will be processed.

#Art details/full resolution/extra story: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/27507881/

I put the following into the GPT-2 #AI text language model at https://talktotransformer.com :

Do you like paws?

And I think I've found a #paw lover.

Paws are cool! Paws will always find me the sweetest thing.

The thing about our dog, we all love him right?

Ohh. We definitely love him. He's our best friend…

Paws are cool! You're going to love being pawed!

Watch out for 🦊​🐾​ coming your way!

(Putting in just the above two emoji generated full song lyrics about… letting a child know the future is all gone. Well.)

When they taught the Golden Rule, they should've put as much emphasis on "don't burn yourself out hoping someone will do for you what you're actively doing for others."

Sometimes people are in tough situations or dealing with other problems and you might be one of the few that can still reach them. It'd be a disservice to them if you voluntarily push yourself to the breaking point, resulting in lashing out against them and burning their lifeline. Life's not tit-for-tat; if you find yourself desperate for favors in return, you probably need to step away and isolate yourself from the situation until your emotions cool.

…apparently the way I can give advice to myself is to pretend I'm telling someone else.

(Not subtoot, nobody's responsible for this except for me.)

@quarky I'm curious, and a bit confused: what are socks in the context of glaceons and such? Is it the color difference around the paws?

If it's out of place to ask, you'd rather not elaborate, etc, I respect that.

(…if it is the fur pattern, and it's not a hassle to check, would you say this data-fox has socks?)

The power of imagination leads to many wonderful sorts of emotionally meaningful interactions, especially in the realm of varying size, where one can offer another a "pick me up" in both meanings of the word, envelop another in an embrace when they feel scared, offer a shoulder to sit atop while they work, etc.

Unfortunately, it's more difficult (for me at least) to capture the sense of low-energy relaxing, enjoying another's company, and such, without it requiring ongoing moderate effort from the narrators to depict the scene and one's own characters.

"Hey, mind if I read in your room while you're working on something?" may not require much from each other in person. But in fiction (including/especially #macro / #micro ), that's actually almost as intensive as actively interacting, or even more challenging for some folks.

I struggle with #anxiety over taking too much of others' limited time; it's unfortunate that desiring something that would be simple in reality turns into something energy-intensive in fiction.

(Alternative: some strange fox wants to curl in someone's lap or rest hidden from the world under their foot/paw, worries about imposing on others, uses up others' time rambling about contradictory emotions instead.)

One day I'll figure out how to speak positively to myself like I usually can for others.

You are adequate.

Strive to improve, but don't hate yourself when you don't (feel like) you measure up others.

You are part of a society; you don't have to be as good as everyone combined because you don't have to struggle alone.

#ForToughTimes

Today I learned that if you insert an invalid #nginx configuration before nginx is installed, the package will fail to install since it can't start the service, thus breaking Debian/Ubuntu's #dpkg until nginx's configuration is fixed.

Whoops.

To reduce the impact of accidental breakage in any configuration management (#Ansible, #Salt, etc), make sure the nginx package is installed before you mess with the configuration.

@99CentSoftness I keep getting confused seeing your new icon in my Home stream… But in a nice way - I rather like it! 🦊

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYbdx4I7STg "The Weird World in RGB", 22m
Fascinating #science of human #color perception, CRI, and why "purple" is a lie (cc: @azure).

Long exposure of lightning over a volcano in Chile, by Francisco Negroni - looks amazing!
📷🔗​ Photographer: https://twitter.com/Negronifoto/status/1056891929806430208

#lightning #volcano #nature #photo by #FranciscoNegroni (CC: @azure )

"How to talk to a s̶h̶o̶r̶t̶ tiny person"
🎨🔗​ Artist: https://twitter.com/Starlimisky/status/1160736127336112128

#macro #micro #dragon #dog #art by #Starlimisky

Does anyone else (with or without #autism ) deal with sensory overwhelming from excessive or negative stimuli, enjoy heavy #weight or #pressure (e.g. weighted blankets), and to supplement their strong desire for affection despite having social anxiety and/or a sensory system not suited to society's norms, imagine themselves as a smaller creature able to be picked up, grasped tightly in another's hand, pressed to the larger fellow's chest, caught beneath the giant's foot/paw, etc?

I feel I'm an odd one out when it comes to this. I like some stereotypical #macro / #micro things, but for specific, weird reasons, making it a bit hard to reconcile with others. (Hint: don't try to push "adult" motives on me; I don't fit in that box.)

I know I need to build my social circle more so I'm not pestering the same small group of folks with frequently asking if they'd nicely hand-squeeze, (carefully) step on me, and other stuff. It's not fair to them. Granted, being social is also stressful for me and part of the very reason I want to curl up beneath/within someone heavy and strong. So… thanks mind and body, you're doing great 🙃

Below the fold (since Mastodon aggressively collapses "long" toots):

"Take On Me (a-ha) on Dancing Toothbrushes (+6 Other Electric Devices)" 2m:44s, by Device Orchestra.
"Three googly-eyed electric toothbrushes dance and play Take On Me by a-ha together with 3 credit card machines and 3 typewriters."

This kind of silly, interesting DIY fits right in with my interests.

I've found a glorious combo of #music, #electronics, and fun #hobby projects… Check their other stuff, too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NATZy-ZqD7A

I've barely gotten back into #Blender, and #Blender28 feels amazing. Gonna take some re-learning on my part, though (and I'm not just talking about the change to left-click for select).