I don’t write about being chronically ill very often, mostly because I’m still thinking it through in real time.

This short piece is about effort, belief, and what it’s like to live in a culture that insists improvement is always possible…even when your body says otherwise.

kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/…

#Health #Scotland #UK #Writing #WritingCommunity #Books #Reading #Women

Effort Without Improvement

Chronic illness, meritocracy, and the pressure to do more

^{Kristie De Garis}

Look what was in the mail at work today! It came from far far away and now it's mine. A few days ago, I was wondering what to read next. Well, now we know.

(tagging @emilymbender and @alex for no specific reason)

#Books #Reading #AI #NoAI

📚 Renaissance Studies Reading List 2026

🔗 manchesteruniversitypress.co.u….

#Reading #ReadingList #Nonfiction #History #Histodons #Renaissance #Books #Bookstodon

Renaissance Studies reading list - Manchester University Press

Welcome to our Renaissance Studies Reading List 2026. Over the past year, we published an exceptional range of new titles across Renaissance and early modern literature, history, and theatre.

^{Bethan Hirst (Manchester University Press)}

Search on YouTube is at its worst right now. You type "how to make apple pie," and the algorithm gives you three ads, a viral cat short, and a "For You" video about gaming.

It is what @pluralistic rightly calls enshittification.

I spent the last month refactoring the core script for search fixer. Big improvements:
> A new settings UI that doesn't look like an airplane cockpit.
> Improved anti-shorts protocol: Revert shorts to the normal player.
> Fixed the filters for those annoying auto-generated "mixes" that clutter the results.
> Optional grid view for search.
> Experimental keyword matching.

homepage:
phoennix.gitlab.io/youtubesear…

update and new features:
phoennix.gitlab.io/youtubesear…

Reclaim your feed and I hope you give it a try✨🙏

#opensource #enshittification #firefox #chrome #mozilla #browser #youtube #distraction #adhd #mentalhealth #cooking #reading #tumblr #art #design #nature

Extension : Search Fixer

YouTube Search Fixer is an extension designed to fix YouTube search and de-clutter your search page to make it less distracting. It removes suggestions like For you, People also search for, Related to your search, etc from your feed.

^{phoennix.gitlab.io}