The Dread Slender Gnome

Has anyone heard from Nina?

Looks like she hasn't posted for a few weeks now.

Sir Patrick Stewart has died.

End of an era. I doubt I'll see another like him in my lifetime.

Gods' speed Sir Patrick.

Linda Blade making an excellent point. Namely, that the laws banning discrimination on the basis of "presentation" or "gender identity" could be used to stop TIM being prevented from participating in mens sports, or using men's spaces, and that in fact that is how they ought to be used.

That is, if they actually were a genuine effort to tackle discrimination, rather than a mere means to an end for the men to get into women's spaces, groups and sports for purely self-serving reasons*.

*Yes, being "validated" is included in these reasons.

Another personal family tragedy brought on by trans ideology. The step/adopted mother of a TIF responds to the claims the daughter made at a Trans rally, that her parents disowned her when she was a young teen. It seems that she lied about her parents to a braying public, in order to make a political point.

https://spinster.club/@[email protected]/posts/B9wDJjkr1V0fgcC8G0

This same problem applies to all hate speech legislation, which aims to criminalise speech that is "abusive", "hateful" or "spreading hate".

One person's plain speaking truth/opinion is another person't abuse, if "abuse" is not strictly and explicitly defined. And so far I've not seen any hate speech legislation where such a strict definition exists.

https://spinster.club/@[email protected]/posts/BBtgF0tFd7ksQ9VGC0

I got the preserved lemons out today to try them out. Used one quarter for a flavoured butter with toasted hazelnuts, black pepper and salt. Stirred that in with assorted warm veggies; brussel sprouts, broccoli, carrots, peas and onions. It was lovely.

The lemons aren't as soft as I expected, and the flesh doesn't come off as easily as the recipes suggested. But it tasted wonderful when chopped up fine and mixed with the butter.

to ensure her wish to be treated by a female doctor was respected

Now after Giggle v. Tickle, we can surmise that any such respect would in fact be considered illegal discrimination in Australia.

As I understand it, the courts specifically threw out the "actual female" defence, so this particular patient would have no recourse either, no matter how much she insisted that the doctor was actually male.

If "woman" means includes men who say they are women, and if there is no exception for "female", then logically there can be no right for a hospital patient to expect their request for female staff be respected.

Therefore, I expect there will be no investigations into this incident either.

I'm never chasing that damned setting point again.

This time I actually got the jam temp to start rising, only for the sugar to promptly start burning.

Luckily I smelled it quickly and killed the heat, and it's possible the rest of the jam is serviceable. I think I can taste a smoky hint in it from the burned sugar, Himself says he can't. We'll taste again once it has cooled down. I'm happy to eat it as is, but if there's a whiff of burned in it, I'm not going to give it away as gifts as I originally intended.

Blast. It's a really nice jam too. Quince, pomegranate, lemon, coriander seeds and rose pepper.

Ooooh how I WISH I could see the linked video. Anyone on the birdsite able to link the original one here?

https://spinster.club/@[email protected]/posts/BBhuxAAo1OOlpt6sIi

A recent interview with the woman who got concussed during a high schoolvolleyball match, when a male player on the other team spiked the ball very hard and it hit her in the head.

About 1h.

I've been thinking this Shane Gillis comment for a while, and I now have Opinions.

Necessary disclaimer: I don't use the word "whore" so I wouldn't describe this particular gymwear style with it. I would rather say "borderline inappropriate" or even "inappropriate"; more of that later. This isn't so much about Gillis' joke, as it is about the reaction to it and this particular strand of gym fashion.

First of all, I think this "we don't dress this way for attention" doesn't make any sense. Any woman who wears to a public place a (at times a push-up) sport bra and tiny, gossamer shorts that she deliberately pulls up between her buttocks*, is in my opinion at the very least looking to show off. But I don't think they're looking to show off to men, at least not necessarily. I think they are to a great extent looking to show off to other women, as a mix of both competition and fishing for admiration. Women are socialised to gas each other up anyway, so expecting "yess girl" type of comments for "cute" outfits makes absolutley perfect sense. Especially when they post selfies on social media. We already know this phenomenon with men, where they show off their gains in muscle shirts or selfies, in a clearly homosocial display. In fact it is such well-known behaviour that it's the butt of a lot of jokes. I think women are (now) engaging in exactly the same thing. Now I don't think there's anything wrong with this, not as such. If one wants to show off to gain validation and compliments, that's fine with me. But it would be nice if people were honest about what their doing.

Second of all, I do think this clothing is straight up inappropriate for a public gym. You go there to work hard, and that means sweating. And personally I do not want your midriff sweat rubbed all over the benches, backrests and other equipment. Put a damn T-shirt on, and use a towel for good measure. And same goes for butt/crotch sweat for those whose shorts are barely long enough to cover their butt cheeks. I don't care if you wipe your equipment afterwards, I would much rather the skin-to-device contact not be there in the first place. I'm going to take a page out of Joey Swoll's book and say that if you want to train like that, build a home gym, train there. The gym I go to has in fact a rule in place, that forbids the use of sleeveless tops while training - for everyone. And I think that is an excellent rule for a gym.

And no, I don't buy the "comfort" excuse. Gyms are air-conditioned spaces, I'd be very surprised there was one hot enough that one actually needed to wear what amounts to a bikini, to avoid overheating.

*No, I'm not lying, this is actually a Popular Thing.

I got this cheap-seeming plastic-body fountain pen some time ago (didn't buy it, it came with something else), and I didn't bother to put it to use, because I figured it couldn't be good quality or nice to write with.

Now out of mostly boredom I grabbed my inks and got around to filling it, and turns out it's actually excellent. A bit light for my taste, but it draws a lovely line, has fantastic balance and slides beautifully on even cheap paper.

Even filling the bladder ink container isn't as big of a faff as I thought it would be. I'm definitely adding it to my usual rotation.

I may also have ordered some turquoise ink* just now, because I was ordering other things anyway and well, it was cheap and I don't have turquoise yet.

*And a matching aluminium-body fountain pen. No, I don't have a problem.

I love Baba Yaga stories. My favourite fairytale series has several tales where she features, and they were always among some of my favourites.

24min

I'm convinced that the main reason Hamas isn't marching Gazan civillians at gunpoint to face Israeli troops, is that it would be a bad look on international media*.

And of course also because then it would be easy to tell which people are Hamas operatives and which people are civillians.

*Yes, I'm aware many media would simply not show the footage, but enough would for it to make a stir.

Amala Ekpunobi commenting on a frankly infuriating debate about feminism and Twanz. Well, the other woman is very sensible, but the pro-T woman made me want to rant at my screen with. Ekpunobi failed to mention this, but the pro-T woman had only two things to say in these clips, 1) the numbers game and 2) appeal to emotion (empathy).

I was a bit disappointed that she didn't get called out on the numbers game in the bits that were shown. I'm still waiting for someone to straight up ask them what is the acceptable number of women being put in jail sells with rapists, maimed by male athletes, losing scholarships because of TIM teens, being dragged through courts for saying women have a reason to worry about their safety, or being told they're not allowed to have lesbian meetings for females only, because that's discriminatory. I want to see a pro-T person being put on the spot, being made to come up with a number of how many cases like this per year are acceptable. Make them own it.

~20min

I've been considering maybe getting an oil sprayer for the kitchen. However, I'm a bit suspicious about how cleanable they are, seeing as they will all involve tiny tubes and crevasses. And I would very much like to properly clean old oil out of my dispenser every now and then. The online reviews I've found seem to either not address that well, or they appear to be mostly advertising copy.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good brand/model?

I don't need one that also doubles as an oil pourer, as we have those already. So spray only.

Obviously must be available in continental Europe. Preferably not through Amazon, but if needs must, then they must.

Spotted on .club. Courtesy of someone on Twitter.

Slightly more repetitive than the first version I saw.

I really enjoy a calm, logical breakdown like this. No appeals to emotion, no hyperbole, just logic and information, presented with several good points.

~18min

Regarding the River Cottage preserve book. The worst thing I can say about it at this point is that it's a bastard to try and lay down on the counter so it stays open.

As in it won't, not without extra help.

The jam I made yesterday out of the kind-a-damson fruit came out so good, it should be illegal.

Used the River Cottage book again, namely it's recipe for plum jam's orange juice+cinnamon variation, with added angostura and cardamom.

And it settled all right too, into a soft, spoonable jam. The only confusing thing was that I could not get the temp of the jam to rise to 104,5C, which the book gives as the setting point. My thermometer just about got to 96C. I boiled the jam the recommended time and a bit extra, but then stopped because the consistency clearly changed and I was worried about it boiling over (yes, too small a pot/pan, I know). My thermometer was one of those digital ones with a probe at the end of a cord. Do those not work for jams? Do I need an actual jam thermometer? Or was the problem having a fairly wide and shallow pot, as opposed to a regular one? Or was it because I run out of sugar (!) and had slightly less than the recipe called for, I think 100g or so?

Either way, the jam came out perfectly acceptable in consistency, so clearly the temperature issue wasn't a deal breaker. The jam is absolutely delicious and I'll be eating it with everything I can think of (within reason).

If there is hate speech at all, this is it.

But since I don't believe in censorship, I say we should publicise his words as much as we can. Make those crowing about "the religion of peace" face this.

And make the "moderate" and "regular" muslims take a position on this, so we know exactly where they stand.

Is using unripe tomatoes for cooking a thing? I seem to recall something about "green tomatoes" used in recipes, but I'm uncertain if they're unripe or some kind of green variety.

If so, what can one do with them? Because I just discovered I'm going to have a good batch of tomatoes which won't have time to ripen.

If you have kids and they're using Roblox, you might want to reconsider whether that's a good idea.

About 1h.

I think I saw this thing mentioned here a couple of months ago, but now I'm starting to see people talking about the practical effects.

I saw a video yesterday by a Finnish knife maker who said he has had to stop selling his knives abroad. The reason he gave was the new EU-wide packaging waste directive that's just come to force. The video's title translates to "where there's EU, there's a problem".

The directive requires all sellers to register in the country they sell to, pay a yearly registration fee and then pay some small amount per packaging (if I understood the last part correctly). Each country has of course its own registration requirements, and the kicker, its own fees. And some countries require one to acquire a middleman to operate this system on behalf of the seller. According to the seller, the fees range from tens of euros (e.g. Holland) to several hundreds (e.g. Sweden, 200€). He did a quick calculation of how much it would cost him to keep shipping to 11 EU countries and came up with about 1 200€ if he did it all by himself, and 3 000€+ if he paid someone else to take care of it.

And there's no cutoff for small sellers, so the law applies the same to multi-million € companies as it does to small craftspeople who sell maybe ten pieces a year abroad. And so do the punishments, with apparently no mechanism to take into account the seller's yearly turnover. However, there doesn't seem to be any information out there on how they're planning to enforce this either, except for perhaps randomly auditing individual sellers. After all, post will still presumably operate as normal.

When EU was sold to us, it was sold on free business, free movement, ease of this that and everything. And one of the big arguments the pro-side used was that it's better to be in the house when decisions are made, than outside hearing about them after the fact. Well, I fail to see how this particular decision was made any better by virtue of Finland being within the EU.

My dislike for the EU stems to a great extent from the conclusion* I came to long ago, that it was made by big business, for big business. This is yet another directive, which merely serves to cement that conclusion.

Original 12min video here, in case anyone wants to brave the original Finnish version.

*Essentially the second half of my dislike comes from what I see as its fundamentally undemocratic nature.

Mauritania was the last country in the world to officially abolish slavery. That happened in 1981. Law allowing slaveholders to be prosecuted was passed in 2007. Under international pressure.

We can all take a wild guess as to whether slavery still exists in Mauritania or not.

A short documentary on the matter, posted on Cyberpunk Dingo's channel. About 26min.

I'm torn between pointing out the utterly shit logic, pointing out that a person actually thinking this way is clearly a danger, and making fun of the obvious idiot. Oh, and thinking this must be trolling.

Hat tip

One of the definite benefits of spinster.club is that the interface seems to be clearly more customisable.

As someone who likes things the way she likes them, and someone who spends a lot of time working on computers, I find great value in being able to set up interfaces in precisely the way they work best for me.

Unfortunately a lot of coders don't seem to realise the value of this, and either disable or just leave out the option for the user to customise interface.

Update on Dora Moutot's and Marguerite Stern's fund raiser for legal costs against the criminal prosecution they're faced with.

The fundraiser is still going, and out of their secondary goal of 25 000€, they've raised almost 44 000€.

Here's hoping that gets them an excellent legal defence.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/frais-de-justice-pour-dora-moutot-et-marguerite-stern

In looking into making preserves, I came across this one jar company called Weck. I've come to prefer their jars over any of the others I've come across. So I went and ordered a bunch directly from the manufacturer and I have to say I'm very happy with my order. The online shop was great, and delivery was very well packaged.

Obviously priorities and tastes vary, but these really are my favourite for preserves. In case anyone is interested: https://weck.de for most of Europe https://weckjars.com/shop/ for the ... somewhere else.

So apparently Apple is now bringing out a "white-labelled" iPhone model, designed for parents to buy for their kids. The idea is that the phone itself doesn't have any of the social media or whatever apps that kids could get into unpleasant things on, but that they have to be manually added by the parent.

And I still Do Not Get why a kid needs a bleedin' smartphone in the first place. Give them a regular mobile, they can call, text, have an alarm, all the basics. But they can't get into deep shit on the Internet completely unsupervised. No need for a fancy "white-labelled" iPhone with a special set-up.

Do people just have more money than sense or what's going on?

Did anyone post this one here already?

Last week I made a small batch of jam out of nectarines and oranges. In addition to sugar, I used angostura bitters, coriander seeds and rose pepper. And I cut out most of the white pith of the orange to reduce bitterness.

It turned out lovely. Just a bit of bitterness to give it character, but not too much. The only thing I would change is next time I make something like it, I'd use more coriander and rose peppers.

Oh, he doesn't want his photo shared in public?

Well then, we should all make sure it gets as little publicity as possibly. Certainly nobody should forward or repost it.

Half an hour of cool geology.

I had somehow completely missed that there's an active fault in the middle of continental U.S.

"People don't see me the way I see myself!!! It hurts so much!!"

Dude.

NOBODY is seen by other people the way they see themselves. Get the hell over yourself. Anybody who hangs their mental stability on the perception of others is going to end up a train wreck sooner or later.

Also, this is a great example of the "dysphoria" getting worse, as she's realising she's chasing something far more elusive than she thought before getting surgery. Oh and the insistence that she's "not female". Sheesh. This is a masterclass in setting oneself up for failure by chasing delusions.

This lovely woman is having altogether too much fun in this video.

<5min

Today's New Thing: lemons preserved in salt. I'll see in about a month how they turned out. Most instructions say to leave them attached at the bottom and then shoving them into a jar, but had I done that, my jar would've fit about 2 lemons. So I took the halves apart and only left the two quarters attached.

Today's semi-new thing: a portion of jam out of oranges and nectarines. Generous amount of orange zest, 3 oranges and 3 nectarines, a dash of angostura bitters and then maybe something else if I feel like it. Maybe I'll throw in some red peppercorns. That should be ready to taste as soon as it cools down.

In case someone needed this in their life, at this very moment. A small collection of funny commercials. Courtesy of 🇫🇮

~5min

Is this true? Because I sure hope it is.

Eavesdropping upon a video of some architect who is explaining how his firm uses AI in design.

Verdict: His supposedly ground breaking and innovative process is merely reducing architecture to humans tweaking computer-generated imitations of past architecture projects. Of course he and the people he's talking to seem to have no understanding that this is what's happening.

And when I say "past", I mean modern, postmodern and current architecture. Because of course this man and everyone around him is fully in the present architecture bubble where there really is only one way of doing design.

I was just about to ready to break and ask if anyone here has a copy of the River Cottage Handbook for preserves, and if they could upload a photo of the onion marmelade recipe.

But I actually managed to find my own copy, in the nick of time.

Onion marmelade heaven, here I come.

As much as I would like to cheer Antifa thugs getting a taste of their own medicine, I can not and will not. Because this is one of the possible "war on our streets" outcomes if extremists on both self-proclaimed left and the religious right are allowed to roam free doing what they want.

The other possible scenario is non-religious right, or even regular citizens rising up against far-left violence (though the latter would be more torches-and-pitchforks thing than an actual campaign of violence).

I need not tell you none of this is good. We do not want war on our streets, anywhere, or between any parties. If we could put all the kooks into massive encampments in the middle of nowhere where they could just fight each other, that would be one thing, but we can't.

Religious terrorists need to be stopped. Far-left political terrorists need to be stopped. Nobody must be excempt from the law, and that must go especially for ideological or political violence.

(Regular caveats about the confirmation of the story in question apply, but do not diminish the main point.)

I miss having cats in the house.

But I still miss OUR cats too much to even think of getting a new one.

Is anyone else having issues with Spinster not loading properly, or is it just something wrong at my end?

The only flaw with this one is that it's TOO DAMN SHORT!!

I nominate we bring back the practice of affixing descriptors to kings and queens. They would need to be dinner-table rated, of course, so no slander. But they could be pointed, as many have been.

I say Charles should be Charles the Old, since he was so far along when he came to the throne.

The recently died king of Norway could be known as Harald the Sailor (he competed in an olympic sailing crew).

And we could treat the same way those who aren't officially kings (or queens), but who behave as if they were.

Like Xi the Pooh-bear. Or Putin the Blundering, seeing how well the war is going for him. Though considering how competently he rose to power in Russia and held power, that might be unjust.

I have no ideas for most royalty, seeing as I know little enough about them to warrant suggestions. I know a bit about Elizabeth II, but not sure what quality stuck out enough to warrant being turned into a descriptor.

So, Dolly Parton is gone.

People seem to be posting her songs now, but I'm going to go another way and post my favourite cover of a song by her.

I want to think she had a chance to hear this version, I think it would've tickled her.

Wait... why does Spinster look different all of the sudden?

And I gues Spinster club is now up. Will go and see.

Want to get hammered fast? Watch this (reaction) video and take a shot everytime one of the two TIM says something stupid or infuriating.

~17min

Oh she IS laying it on thick.

And apparently the usual suspects are having a massive strop. Good on her.

"A trans player/man has never played in the WNBA" is such a weird argument. It's like saying there shouldn't be laws against burglary because a particular neighbourhood has never been burgled.

"That has never happened" is not an argument against "that should not be allowed to happen". Just on the level of basic logic, it simply isn't.

I remain baffled by the stuff the gender-brigade puts out there, apparently thinking they've just made a mic-drop-point.

GETTING TEXT VERSION BACKUP OF YOUR SPINSTER POSTS

So regarding making a text backup of one's posts on Spinster. I used a little thingymajiggy made by

, that can be found here https://tkammer.de/spinster-export.py

The instructions for using it are within the code as comments, they read as follows. How to use:Install Python: https://www.python.org/downloads/Create a new folder and put "outbox.json" into it, along with this script.You should be able to start the script by double-clicking on it.Translation of the above by

in case it’s more useful than Tay’s tech version:

You can copy-paste the code into a text file called "script.py" or download it with the little button below the text area and rename the file to "script.py".



> Important: To be able to create a text file that's truly called "script.py" and not secretly "script.py.txt" (with the .txt part hidden), you have to make sure to display file name extensions:

https://www.howtogeek.com/205086/beginner-how-to-make-windows-show-file-extensions/



> If you have Python installed, you should then be able to execute the script simply by double-clicking on it. The result will be a file called "Spinster posts.txt" in the same folder, which will contain the posts in plain text and a bit of extra data like the date.



(This should work equally well on a Mac, the only difference will be the part about making sure the file is really called "script.py" and doesn't have a hidden ".txt" at the end.)

I think that's it for the instructions. Will edit if the author says differently.

I've used this method before and it worked. It creates a text file which is readable and editable. No images. So if you just want your posts somewhere on your hard drive and are happy to lose context and images, this is the way to go.

Good grief, I can't believe I've never come across this one before.

~15min

@anyoneitmayconcern

I don't seem to be able to make a backup of my posts here. I clicked the "create backup" but nothing happened, it just now claims one is created and gave me a string of numbers. So... huh?

So when this goes down, I'll likely lose any messages I've exchanged with others, or posts I've made in the last few years. If anyone thinks I've said anything worthwhile, or chatted with me about anything that seems important, well it'll be gone and I won't be able to refer to it.

What?

Is this true? If it is, they're proposing a straight up criminal's charter. This would be a godsend to any crooked businessman or corrupt politician.

Not to mention regular criminals.

I'm not at all sure the person with the "WHITE LIES MATTER" sign realised the sign could be understood in two diametrically opposite ways.

Well this is interesting. The Finnish Institure for Health and Welfare (independent government body) is now* recommending that under 13s not be given "smart" devices at all. So no smart phones, tablets, anything. They're also recommending the same age group not be allowed to use social media.

They're also recommending no screen time for under 2s, max 1h for 2-10 year olds, and max 2h for 11-13 year olds (all per day).

A youth medicine researcher they interviewed is calling the introduction of social media and smart devices to children an "uncontrolled human experiment". Operators say that the number of small kids getting smartphones has plummeted within a year.

This is definitely good news, as Finland is one of the most pro-newest-tech societies I've encountered, with near-blind faith in new and modern being automatically Good. If they're waking up to the problems of smart devices in the hands of kids, it is a good sign.

(Mind you the government was also talking about outlawing social media for uner 15s, and that has all the issues such bans would have elsewhere, and those aren't mentioned in the article. )

Annoyingly they only seem to have posted this article in Finnish, but you can run it through an online translator if you want to see it.

https://yle.fi/a/74-20205185

*Now being the start of the year, but I only saw this now.