the blog of the Beautiful Noelle Sociohat Follow me on Bluesky Subscribe to my blog {{ email-signup }}...
I started hearing this phrase when I grew into my teens, no longer something small and cute, but a gangly thing with a pretty face. No matter how awkward the form I took, it was enough to be desired. I heard it first on an unusually chilly day during the amihan season. I came to school wearing the black cardigan I loved. I arrived a little late, and my classmates had crowded around a girl who had…
I’ve been writing personal essays at the behest of my mother, the oomfie-beloved sociomom, and the task has given me both a dull, low-grade anxiety about what my writing is actually worth to people and a deeper understanding of the weaknesses of my prose. Like all of sociomom’s advice, this challenge has been more illuminating than for the practical reason she intended, which in this case was to…
My mother brought up the Regional Schools Press Conference while we were eating lunch, and unfortunately her beloved interns did not bring home the bacon (my father made us some pork belly with a wicked barbecue sauce, though, so it made for a nice consolation prize for me, if not for the interns). This, of course, made my mother bring up one of her favorite topics: my hat trick victory at my very…
When I say Quotes, I am of course referring broadly to fountain pens and the hobby surrounding them. My friends introduced me to these things some time last year, and I’ve been obsessed ever since. To a reasonable degree, I think. There’s only so much about fountain pens to really be picky about, which I believe helps me remain clear-eyed: they’re tools, ultimately boring. I pretend to be…
Linux Mint has been my daily driver for... I'd like to say a month now, but I haven't actually been keeping track. I have been using it so frequently that it feels like a natural part of my everyday now, like I've finally planted my feet in this strange new country. Which wouldn't be accurate, because I do have some experience with Linux before this. I ran Ubuntu on a virtual machine years ago for…
I’ve finished watching Pluto recently, and while the show only touches on human memory as a comparison point to that of a robot’s, it nevertheless made me think of the effect it has on the human experience. The show presents robotic memory as completely perfect: not only is it free from the data rot of real life data storage devices, it also doesn’t have the same quirks as human memory. They have…
Every time Sam Altman and his parade of vacuous little conmen show us these expensive computer tricks, the reaction always plays a little bit into their act. We argue for the value of human art on reflex. Real human artists are better than AI because of this and that, a piece of our soul against the half-chewed bolus of a machine's drawing, robots replacing our jobs—I think all these dramatic…
I'm almost done with my first journal, I though I'd tell you. Even something that should be under lock and key feels like something to be shared; if it's anything at all like an achievement then I'm compelled to tell people, otherwise I'd feel like I had wasted my time. If a tree falls in a forest... you know. Better go and post it. Ever since I got into the habit of it last August, all my…
When it was announced that Cohost was shutting down, there was a push towards people making their own websites instead of migrating to other, worse social media sites. And I see the argument—cohost showed us that the internet didn't have to be a constant stream of slop that made us angry, so why not take that idea further? Do away with social media altogether and instead make a network of personal…