Still a ways to go
Things are definitely looking up right now, but we certainly aren’t out of the woods, and the fight is still to come.
Note: I am going to be discussing American politics here, which butts up against the comment policy. Keep in mind that this is my own personal site and not a public platform (so the first amendment doesn’t apply), and neither bigotry nor conspiracy theories will be tolerated, regardless of which “side” you’re on.
Also I’m just some random software engineer with a blog and a tendency to ramble and no real background or credentials in politics. Take this for what it’s worth.
💬 (no title) Notes
In reply to: IWC East invite
Fluffy, I’m curious if you have time to do us all the kindness to deliver a 15-20 minute keynote on the topic of your choosing for the upcoming IndieWebCamp East 2020 on Saturday, November 14, 2020 some time between 10 and 11 am Eastern? Given the online nature of the camp it will take place via Zoom to an international audience and, as usual, will be recorded for posterity.
Oh, wow, thank you for the invitation, but I’ll have to decline, as the timing doesn’t really work for me, between traveling that week and also being in Pacific time.
I could possibly record something in advance instead, if that’s okay, although I’m spread a bit thin right now and I don’t think I could commit to that either.
❤️ Jason Wardell: Novembeat 2020
Ugh no I need to get off nortriptyline
Nortriptyline helps me with pain and brain stuff but it also has been making my blood pressure steadily go up. These problems I’m having are a repeat of why I tried getting off of it the last time around. Constant dizziness and headaches and tinnitus and feeling like crap.
I appreciate how much it helps me with my anxiety and my insomnia and pain, but I need something else.
Nortriptyline updates
I’ve been at 30mg of nortriptyline for 6 days now, and I’m trying to figure out if this is how I felt on it before. Going through my nortriptyline tag I see that I actually was up to 40mg on my initial tapering, and after sitting there for a while I decided it wasn’t doing enough for my pain and that’s when I tapered down to 20. In one entry I complained that it wasn’t helping my sleep at all, and how it was making me constantly dizzy and tired and headachey.
This time around it’s definitely helping my sleep, and I’m not dizzy, although I am quite tired (despite actually getting a full 8 hours of sleep every night, for once!) and today I had a headache all day. Also plenty of nausea. But at least I got a nice long walk in.
💬 Re: What if a website were only accessible by assistive technology? Notes
In reply to: Re: What if a website were only accessible by assistive technology?
Manuel Matuzović shares a thought-provoking experiment: the sample page accompanying his article “Accessible to some” has been optimized for screenreader software only, making it a hellish experience for users using the visual interface with a mouse.
The example website would be a clever illustration, except that it doesn’t actually work with VoiceOver on macOS (on Safari it just reads the visible text, and while Firefox does a bit better it stops after reading the first chunk of text and doesn’t proceed), nor with the built-in screen reader in macOS Safari.
Using aria labels to override the text is a poor approach to making plain text documents screen-readable; a better approach would have been to do all of the obnoxious stuff purely through CSS, which would also allow this page to work in, say, lynx | say or the like.
Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts Season 3
So, this isn’t a spoilers post at all, it’s just some gushing about how amazing the final season of Kipo was. It’s a perfect ending to the series, and I’m glad that Kipo was able to tie everything up so well.
What’s frustrating about it was apparently the showrunners had to guess about Netflix’s intentions and, as such, they decided to make the first three seasons as a self-contained arc rather than risk cancellation in the middle. Which Netflix ended up doing anyway.
If Netflix would just like say “Hey, your show is great but we’re not going to keep it going past this next season, so please wrap it up,” like, okay, that still sucks, but at least it lets the shows end properly. Unlike so many of their other shows where they take a wait-and-see approach and then cancel it after leading the show creators along about whether there’s a future for it.
Anyway. Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts is not a show that’s going to disappoint by being cut off before it gets a chance to end. So, if you were enjoying it, please finish enjoying it.
Meanwhile, tthe creators' hope is that if the show gets enough attention, Netflix will bring it back for a second arc because they have many ideas for future stories in the setting, and that would be fabulous.
Also, I had no idea it was originally a webcomic; from the archive.org mirror it looks like it originally got two chapters before it was picked up by Dreamworks. And it was also rather different! I hope Sechrist picks it up again.
ADHD and fibromyalgia and nortriptyline
Yesterday I finally met with a new psychiatrist (having lost access to my previous one back in, oh, March), with the intention of figuring out what to try next in terms of ADHD medication.
As a recap, the first medication I tried (Concerta) just made me irritable and gave me tachycardia, and the second one I tried (Adderall) worked really well for my brain but also made my blood pressure skyrocket.
Anyway, on Tuesday I had also met with my pain doc and the decision we came to was that we should try increasing the nortriptyline again, since 20mg is doing something but not enough, and I couldn’t really remember why I felt like 30 was too much. He wants me to target 40-50mg for my eventual long-term dosage.
pain management update
Today i had a followup appointment with the pain clinic. Unfortunately, as soon as I started working again my pain flareups came right back. But the doctor was able to pinpoint a few things which are probably the underlying causes, and gave me some more exercises to try. We also decided to try increasing my nortriptyline dose again; I’m on 30mg for the next week then going up to 35 after that (update: and mentioned an eventual target of 40-50, forgot to mention that).
It’s also pretty clear that stress is a huge factor, and boy howdy have I been under a lot of it. Fortunately my new workplace is hugely into giving generous vacation benefits and making sure people actually use them, so in a couple weeks I’m taking a trip out to Port Angeles and staying in a tiny house for a week. I’ll probably bring a guitar and my iPad and try to just, like, decompress, and Be, and spend a bunch if time in the olympic peninsula and enjoy the small town vibe.
Everything I’ve seen about Port Angeles indicates it is a pretty good place with a lot of comfort potential. Maybe even the sort of town I’d want to retire to. And apparently it’s even pretty trans-friendly! I look forward to seeing this year’s Clellam county election results.