Our Newest Pattern: Willow! | grainline – Lovely new tank top/dress pattern from Grainline. Definitely bookmarking this one for Spring!

MENACE 2, an artificial intelligence made of wooden drawers and coloured beads – We Make Money Not Art – This is beautiful and miraculous. It’s a computer, an AI, that learns to play tic-tac-toe. You can make one yourself out of matchboxes and beads. I am tickled. Tickled, I tell you!

A writer returns to his hometown — once isolated, now connected — to conduct an experiment and answer the unanswerable
Source: The Internet Really Has Changed Everything. Here’s the Proof. — Backchannel

Lovely piece about growing up in a very small town. I related a lot. My school was a little bigger–we did have a newspaper and some AP classes–but everything else was the same. I was in high school before I met my first black person. The only radio stations were country and classic rock. It was a Big Deal when our town got a McDonald’s. We didn’t have the Internet but we did have cable, which was a lifeline for some of us. (I remember staying up late to watch 120 Minutes on MTV and seeing videos by XTC and the Breeders.) I wonder if the lives of high school kids in Lagrange have changed as much as the those in Napoleon…

FASTE: Ferris Bueller’s Bedroom – Suggested to the Snook as another potential redecorating option for his office…

I remember once being at an event with a group of women and telling a silly anecdote about something I was excited about. I honestly can’t even remember the topic. But what I do remember was one of the other women – who’d been drinking quite a bit – sneering at me, “Isn’t that all just a bit much?” The implication was that my enthusiasm was too much, that I was coming off as a try-hard or a show-off. I laughed it off at the time, but it stung. It’s such a shitty thing to say to someone else.

Not that I don’t recognise the impulse. I was reminded of it today because I actually found myself thinking the same thing towards someone else. It’s someone who has newly joined a community I’m in, and this person is 100% ALL ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME. I saw yet another social media post from this person and felt the urge to roll my eyes. It’s like their enthusiasm is so huge that it feels like they’re performing it, to shame the rest of us who aren’t that gung-ho. Obviously as a senior member of the group, I’m over such huge public displays, right? It marks them as such a n00b. And what are they trying to do, take over from those of us who’ve been involved a lot longer?

And then I realised I don’t want to be a person who thinks like that. So what if someone is head-over-heels in love with a new thing? GOOD FOR THEM! It’s so easy to become jaded and “over it.” Why should someone liking something a lot threaten me? Why should it make me want to take them down a peg? I remember how that feels. It’s crappy. Maybe this is maturity – realising that I’d rather be someone who is supportive and kind and builds people up, than someone who has to protect her position by cutting others down.

Anyway, just rambling…

NASA’s new space tourism posters are spellbinding | The Verge – GASP. I love these. If anybody wants to get me a fantastic birthday present, well, here it is.

My family uses Slack. It’s pretty interesting. | Labs – I started off rolling my eyes at this, but by the end I was getting some ideas. The Snook and I have used Google Hangouts for years, which is great because the whole history is searchable. But it doesn’t really have integrations like this… Hmm. Ideas. (Link courtesy of @mpesce).

Spotted on Ask Metafilter: this incredibly useful list of regular maintenance-type tasks that grown-ups should know about. We just discovered that our new air conditioner’s manual recommends cleaning out the filters inside every two weeks. Whaaa? Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.

But we are getting pretty good at this grown-up stuff. We have a shared Todoist project of recurring tasks. I’m reviewing them now alongside the Metafilter list, as well as this Art of Manliness checklist too. Anything else I should have on there?

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I nearly forgot to share the finished bathroom photos with you! The Snook spent the last day of his Christmas break painting the cornice and the ceiling. So remember, this was the Before. And here is the glorious After:

It’s just so pretty and pristine! (I can’t stop cleaning it. I even bought a shower squeegee.) By swapping the shower and the toilet, our shower is now quite a lot bigger. We’ve got more storage. We’ve now got an exhaust fan so it doesn’t get so steamy. We’ve got a fancy shower with both a rain head and a wand. We’ve got a 4-way LED light fixture that provides a lot more light. I love it.

In terms of styling, we’ve gone with grey, white, stainless steel, and glass. (I can’t believe I just said styling. I have a room in my house where everything goes together!  HOW GROWNUP IS THAT.) That said, most of it’s from IKEA: Grundtal Toilet Roll Holder and Door Hanger, Strapats Pedal Bin, Nordrana Hanging Storage and Set of 4 Baskets, Immeln Soap Dish, Kalkgrund Toilet Brush Holder, Toftbo Bath Mat, and Sinnlig Calming Spa Candles. From Costco: Charisma Bath and Hand Towels. From Aldi: Rubber-coated Ceramic Soap Dispenser. And our toothbrushes are in a mug from Rediscover Ceramics.

I’d say that overall this is pretty much 95% what I envisioned in my head when we started out. I didn’t get my black grout, and the toilet had to be moved forward due to an errant support beam. But other than that, it’s perfect. And not only that, but we also had gas installed to the house, two instant-on gas hot water heaters, a reverse cycle air conditioner (with units in the bedroom and living room), and our two old electric water heaters were decommissioned. This was a massive project, and I have to give all credit to the Snook. He pretty much project managed the whole thing, and he did a fantastic job!

* Okay, so we’re still going to paint the door one of these days as well as the grotty old window frame, but that can wait for a while…