Aura's Den

Aura's 2026 Goals

Man, what a year, huh? It's...not been a great one, huh? Just generally pretty shit, huh?

Keywords: Personal

In Memoriam: Shadow (2009–2025)

We had to put down a dog today. I…I wish it didn't have to be this way. But, when you bring a pet into your life, I guess, to some extent, you accept that one day they'll leave you.

Keywords: Personal

METAR and TAF - The language of aviation meteorology

Or, well, one of the languages, anyways.

Of all the ways to communicate meteorological data in a machine-readable fashion, METAR is probably one of the easiest to understand. METAR is a standardized way to communicate observation data most commonly used in aviation. It's often used alongside TAF (the Terminal Aerodrome Forecast), a directly related means of communicating forecast data. You probably won't ever need either, but I figured I'd give you a lesson in the two anyways

Keywords: Miscellany

A Guide to Incest in Texas

Yeah, sure, let's start 2025 off with this.

So, this is gonna be a short, but weird one. We're gonna discuss incest in Texas, and specifically Texas Penal Code Section 25.02, Prohibited Sexual Conduct. (It's called "prohibited sexual conduct", but, if you read the text of the statute, it's incest.) Even more specifically, we're gonna discuss weird things that aren't included in this statute.

Keywords: Miscellany

Aura's 2025 Goals

Ah, boy. Here we are again. End of the year. And this is my fifth year doing these posts! Wow! How time flies! So, let's talk about the year, shall we?

Keywords: Personal

Metastasis

In which I pontificate on the results of the 2024 US Presidential Election.

Keywords: Personal, Hot takes

Aura's 2024 Goals

Normally, this is where I'd talk about bad shit that happened last year and that I expect of this year. And, well, it is an election year here in the States, so...

Keywords: Personal

Aura's 2023 Goals

Oh, boy, here we go again! It's (two weeks after) the end of the year! Time to increment that arbitrary number once more! (I swear I wrote this on time, but didn't post it...)I mean, what can I say? The year wasn't completely awful?

Keywords: Personal

PSA: How to Save a Life — CPR and Cardiac Arrest

TL;DR: If someone goes unconscious or is complaining about symptoms of a heart attack, call for an ambulance; if they go unconscious, you should probably do CPR; if you're doing CPR, you may also want to get an AED if possible; and overall, you should definitely take a CPR class if at all possible.

Keywords: PSA

Every Instance of Pronouns in the United States Constitution

So, some seemingly notable dumbass posted to Twitter that there aren't pronouns in the constitution, so, inspired, here we go. Every single instance of pronouns in the US consitution.

Keywords: Language

Aura's 2022 Goals

Ahh, new years, that wonderful time of year where we celebrate incrementing a number on a calendar! Isn't it great? At long last, we've gotten out of the frying pan that was 2021 and into the fire that is 2022! Oh. Wait.

Keywords: Personal

PSA: The Gift of Life — Blood, Marrow, and Organ Donations

TL;DR: If you are at all able, you should be giving blood, registered to give marrow, and registered as an organ donor. These are absolutely vital acts that save lives. Seriously, go register tomorrow and try to give blood within the next few weeks.

Keywords: PSA

A follow-up to my last blog post

So, there are a couple of things I want to talk about in regards to my last post here. In particular, I have one thing I want to add to my whole message to older queers, and then have some messages for younger queers.

Keywords: Hot takes, Queer shit

Getting involved in queer discourse: A hesistant hot take

You know, I really didn't want to have to do something like this. I mean, come on! It's the first day of pride month! We should be celebrating! And, yet, here I am, at 13:00 on the 1st of June, having to write up a blog post calling out what I see as shitty behaviour. Good going. So, yeah. What's happened this time? Well...

Keywords: Hot takes, Queer shit

Aura's 2021 Goals

Happy New Year! We've finally gotten out of the hellhole that was 2020. Unfortunately, since the arbitary incrementing of a human-designed calendar is unable to fix problems by itself, we're now in the likely hellhole that will be 2021. Honestly, we've found ourselves going, "Thank god the old year is over," so many times over the past 5 years that my expectations are dead. I'm coming into this year expecting it to be even worse than the last, so if it's not, I can at least be happy about that.

Keywords: Personal

Adventures in Conlanging - Electronic Cataloguing

I like conlanging. Quite a bit, actually. To date, I've worked on no fewer than 7, with a few more that never quite got past the phonology and maybe some very basic grammar bits. Most of this has been done on paper, with notebooks upon notebooks dedicated to various conlangs I've worked on at various points in time. But writing dictionaries on paper can be... inconvenient, to say the least. It can be difficult to find a given word, figure out how similar a word is to an existing word, alphabetize things, or add stuff to an entry after adding others after it. So, for this reason, I prefer to do digital cataloguing. What follows here is some of the various systems I've used and my thoughts on them.

Keywords: Adventures in Conlanging, Language, Software

English Writing Reform

This is a subject on which I have thoughts. Shall we go over them?

Keywords: Language, Proposal