Bix Dot Blog

Aphantasia, Meet Anauralia

Just a couple of weeks ago, I referenced what I called my aphantasiac monologue, an attempt to describe how i only can conceive of sounds, much as I only can conceive of pictures. Basically the idea that in addition to not having a mind’s eye so, too, do I lack a mind’s ear.

The Disablement Of Spacetime

At the end of a long and trying day that did not go in any way that especially resembled how I’d hoped it would go, disability access designer Nick Colley posted some thoughts to Mastodon about an overlooked aspect of designing for disability.

We Should’ve Had A Web Of Personal Data Servers

Recently I’ve been exploring, once again, options for book tracking that aren’t Goodreads, prompted in part by this very long read about the site. Whenever I do this, it quickly becomes obvious that there simply isn’t one site or service that replicates everything Goodreads provides me: book tracking, author recommendations, and listings of new releases of the types of books I tend to read.

From Alaska To Bajor In Search Of Identity

Like many other people my age, I’ve been rewatching Northern Exposure ever since the digital release a few months back more recently was followed by Amazon picking up the streaming rights. Yesterday, it was the episode “Crime and Punishment”.

The Forgotten Trip

Late last month and early this month, I got a bit morose about the idea that I’ll never be able to travel again, a thing that’s also all wrapped up in the aphantasia and SDAM which preclude me from being to re-live old travels. As if to emphasize all of this, yesterday my Timehop reminded me of a trip I’d taken since moving to Portland about which I’d entirely forgotten until that moment.

They Pull Me Back In

First the disclosure: I’ve read neither the Mike Masnick post nor the Jaron Lanier and Allison Stanger article that prompted it, so I’m not actually here to respond directly to either of these things. It’s just that 47 U.S. Code § 230 is being discussed again, and I wanted very briefly to return to something I’ve written before.

Walking And Talking

One problem with only having had the refurbished Apple Watch since last August is that I don’t really know how long I’ve been keeping up with the daily walk for exercise, let alone how to calculate the longer period going back into the early pandemic that then got intermittently interrupted by weather too cold or too hot. All I really can say for sure is that currently there’s about a year where it’s steady except for two weeks in and around a summer heatwave.

The Heresy Of The Status Quo

There’s a thing I was going to add to my post about self-censorship yesterday that I never got around to: the dust-up over Threads saying that it will not algorithmically recommend to users so-called “political” posts from people they don’t already follow, in the way that it does recommend posts on other subjects from people they don’t follow.

My Aphantasiac Monologue

Whenever I bring up memory it inevitably also implicates my aphantasia, but this Musings post reminds me of that other mental process that causes much surprise at how different brains work: the so-called “internal monologue”.

On Shadowbanning Yourself

There’s a little discussion going on today amongst bloggers I either follow on Mastodon or who are in my local feed. The topic is self-censorship, and because I don’t tend to engage in it myself, I’ve a few things to say because I knew in advance where the discussion would end up.