Reading

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recurring posts

Good News

Good news includes all the things which make us happy or otherwise feel good. It can be personal or public. We never know when something wonderful will happen, and when it does, most people want to share it with someone. It's disappointing when nobody is there to appreciate it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our joys and pat each other on the back.

What good news have you had recently? Are you anticipating any more? Have you found a cute picture or a video that makes you smile? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your life a little happier?

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Poem: "The Road to Transformation"

This is today's second freebie, thanks to new prompter

andromedaprime. It also fills the "transformation" square in my 10-1-25 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. It is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty.

( Read more... )

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The Dark Crystal

Have my rambling live watch of The Dark Crystal (1982) below the cut.

( this movie is so dear to me )

I quite enjoyed this rewatch. I'd chosen it for background noise, to have a controlled, constant, known audial stimulation while I contended with pain. I honestly didn't mean to get drawn into ACTIVELY watching it, and yet.

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Poem: "Maybe She's Just Singing"

This is today's freebie. It was inspired by prompts from

rix_scaedu and

mama_kestrel. It also fills the "magic" square in my 10-1-25 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem belongs to the Practical Magics series.

( Read more... )

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Green Burial

Traditional burials are bad for the planet. So this woman created her own 'cocoon coffin' made of seaweed instead

Ultimately, she made her own — a fully compostable, translucent “bioplastic” material made out of seaweed. Creating this material even led Kostur to use it in fashion accessories and wedding floral displays, which is now how she spends most of her time professionally.

This is one of the very few modern funeral displays that meets or exceeds the splendor of some historic ones. Plus the symbolism is extremely helpful.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: on my Chandler/Joey chair
Current Music: Queens of the Stone Age

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Spooktober Fic 7 - Firelight and Knives - Danger Days, Party Poison/Kobra Kid

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

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What I have been reading, September edition

I haven’t read that much in September, or rather, not finished much. I don’t even want to know how many books I have started…

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno Garcia. I’ve enjoyed everything I have read by this author, and I enjoyed this one as well. It has three timelines, but I found those easy to keep apart, and the three protagonists each with their own voice. There is a young Mexican woman, Minerva, who in the 1990 studies at an old New England university. She writes her thesis on a mostly forgotten horror author, Beatrice Tremblay who attended the same university in the 1930s. The second timeline is her diary Minerva gets access to, where Beatrice describes the disappearance of her best friend. And last there is the story Minerva’s great grandmother Alba told her about what happened on the family farm in the 1910s. All the stories are linked, and like all of Moreno Gracia’s books I have read there is something supernatural in action. Here it is witches. Even though I guessed from the start who the antagonists were, i still found this a very interesting read.

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold. I’m not a big fan of true crime, and I’m not especially interested in Jack the Ripper. But The Five isn’t about him, but about the five women he killed. Rubenhold is a historian and she has made a thorough research into their life. The only thing she doesn’t describe is their murders, she cuts away at the last sighting, and returns to talk about their families reaction. Because most of them had families who cared deeply for them. And what I found very interesting was that she could find no proof any of them, apart from the last victim, was a prostitute at the time they were killed. Most of them were homeless, and all of them poor and alcoholic. Evidently Rubenhold has received a lot of flack, even outright hate, for daring to claim Jack the Ripper didn’t kill prostitutes. She has also received critique for not describing the actual murders, but personally I liked that. I thought it was a good book, and I found her descriptions of the five women thoughtful and interesting.

Story of A Murder by Hallie Rubenhold. Because I liked The Five, I went on to read her book about the Crippen murder. I knew the basic fact about it, mostly because Agatha Christie was inspired by it in Mrs. McGinty Is Dead. Again I thought Rubehold did a good job describing Belle Elmore, the victim, Crippen and his mistress Ethel Le Never, and she has clearly done her research. But I just can’t find this murder interesting, even if it was deeply tragic, so I can't say I enjoyed this book much. But if you are interested in true crime, I think you might like it.

Current Mood: busy

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Birdfeeding

Today is cloudy and mild.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 10/7/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 10/7/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 10/7/25 -- I picked up some flowerpots that got knocked over.

EDIT 10/7/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

As it is almost suppertime, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: creative

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Poetry Fishbowl Open!

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "Witches and Wizards." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

I'll be soliciting ideas for witches, wizards, other magic users, mentors, elders, teachers, students, adventurers, explorers, damsels/gentlemen in distress, historians, partners, leaders, dark lords, the Chosen One(s), superheroes, supervillains, teammates, fantasy species, ethicists, activists, queerfolk, other unusual fantasy folk, studying magic, doing magic, enchanting artifacts, breaking curses, breaking rules, exploring new territory, meeting new species, upsetting predictions, twisting tropes, flipping stereotypes, expecting the unexpected, researching, revising theories, parenting, teaching, adventuring, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, experiments changing paradigms, adapting, improvising, troubleshooting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, coming out, running away from home, going off the rails, subverting fate, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, other fantastic activities, witch's huts, wizard's towers, magical schools, castles, ruins, stone circles, dungeons, dragon lairs, Underhill, the forest primeval, underwater, underground, liminal zones, kitchens, campfires, libraries, laboratories, apothecary shops, supervillain lairs, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, farmer's markets, magical lands, foreign dimensions, other phantasmagoric settings, unusual magical systems, pointy hats, robes, wands or staves, cauldrons, herbs, crystals, potions, magical artifacts, quests, time periods other than medieval, governments other than monarchy, dragons, unicorns, enchantments, reversals, contradictions, conundrums, puzzling discoveries, sudden surprises, inventions that change everything, time travel, travel mishaps, the buck stops here, trial and error, polarity, weird food, secret ingredients, supplements that turn out to be metagenic, intercultural entanglements, asking for help and getting it, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, lab conditions are not field conditions, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Currently eligible bingo card(s) for donors wishing to sponsor a square:

Fall Festival Bingo Card 10-1-25

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

The Adventures of Aldornia and Zenobia is about live happy lesbians in a quirky fantasy world.

Clay of Life is Jewish fantasy about a blacksmith and a golem.

A Conflagration of Dragons has unforseen disasters and cultural upheavals.

Gloryroad Crossing is the weird village where adventurers go to restock.

Kande's Quest is sword & soul with caucasian-inspired demons.

Monster House is suburban fantasy with a diverse household, where the line between truth and fantasy isn't always clear.

Not Quite Kansas has a helpful demon.

The Ocracies features all the political systems other than monarchy.

One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis follows Shaeth as he works on becoming the God of Drunks.

Path of the Paladins is low fantasy about paladins trying to restore a world gone to ruins.

P.I.E. is urban fantasy about paranormal investigations.

Polychrome Heroics has primarily superpowers, but magic is described as "sorcery" there. Antimatter & Stalwart Stan are a cross-cape couple, and Antimatter essentially does science-based magic. Aubrey the Alabaster is another sorcerer. Eric the Elven King has interdimensional refugees.

Practical Magics is low fantasy with a prosaic focus.

Quixotic Ideas is contemporary fantasy where magic integrates with modern life in positive ways.

The Ursulan Cycle is genderbent King Arthur.

Yellow Unicorns is a quirky fantasy setting where the only yellow things people can see are the unicorns.

Or you can ask for something new.

Boost the signal to reveal a verse in any open linkback poem.

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

ai,
generators

If I were to ask you if this was the way to the village, would you say yes?

In the last few years, generative AI has clearly developed many uses. Pictures of Paddington Bear bringing Sutekh's gift of death to all humankind? No sooner said than done. Footage of your favourite ship pair kissing, even when they never met in canon? There's a generator for that. Let alone the twerking...

One application that isn't so obvious and can sometimes lead to amusing not-quite-there misconceptions is to convert a picture into a romance novel summary. Feed whatever picture you like into the classifier at imagetoprompt.com, click on the thumbnail, and ask it "If this was the cover for a romance novel, what might the blurb say?" (For added verisimilitude, you can tell it the characters' names too).

( examples )

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The Day in Spikedluv (Monday, Oct 6)

We were woken up by coyotes again. Twice; coming and going. When the noise died down the second time, there must've still been something out there because Ti did the high-pitched warning call.

I did not go downtown today because of mom’s doctor appointments.

I did a load of laundry, hand-washed dishes and ran a load in the dishwasher, went on several walks with Pip and the dogs, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and scooped kitty litter.

I watched some HGTV programs.

Temps started out at 48.9(F) and reached 85 (according to Pip). It was very warm out. Temps are going to drop in the coming days, first day 70s, then 60s, then 50s, then back up into the 60s for several days before it’s all 50s all the time. Not great, but at least it’s not 30s. Yet.

Mom Update:

Mom was so-so today. ( more back here )

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Artificial Intelligence

More LLM fun! Miserable fail at running a vending machine business simulation

This is quite interesting. Researchers set up multiple LLMs and configured them to run a vending machine simulator, described as "Agents must balance inventories, place orders, set prices, and handle daily fees – tasks that are each simple but collectively, over long horizons." Basic business process.
[---8<---]
Basically it was a demonstration of how such large-language models are terrible for long-term runs and shows their ability to hallucinate and make poor decisions.

It is obviously a bad idea to replace intelligent human employees with sloppy programs.

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défi:pumpkin autumn challenge

Pumpkin Autumn Challenge : Le Loup des Mers (Riff Reb's)

Catégorie : Ma meilleure ennemie (Dualité - Hiérarchie - Inégalité - Résistance - Rebelle - Sacrifice - Enemies to lovers - Steampunk)

Une BD en un tome, adaptation d'un roman de Jack London dont j'ai entendu dire beaucoup de bien mais que je n'ai pas lu. Le personnage principal, Humphrey, est dans un bateau qui fait naufrage. Il se retrouve recueilli par un navire de chasse aux phoques et son capitaine, Loup. Loup est physiquement inébranlable, intellectuellement brillant, avec une volonté de fer ; c'est aussi un sadique qui ne souffre aucune contradiction. Plutôt que de ramener Humphreay à la côté contre une riche récompense, il décide qu'à partir de maintenant il sera le nouveau mousse du bateau.

C'est un livre d'aventures, mais où le centre de l'histoire est le confrontation philosophique entre Humphrey, représentant le civilisation, et la puissance amorale de Loup. J'aurais aimé qu'Humphrey soit un peu moins fade, étant donné le rôle qui lui est attribué.

Chaque scène est monochrome, noire et une couleur, avec les couleurs qui changent selon l'ambiance. L'ambiance graphique, d'ailleurs, est globalement très réussie. En général, c'est une très bonne BD. Et pourtant ! Alors que je lisais, en particulier toutes les phrases "littéraires" qui sont les pensées d'Humphrey, je me disais que j'aurais sans doute dû lire le livre en premier.

Entry tags:

rant,
real life

SERIOUSLY??!?

Like many people, I pay my monthly bills online. Just went to pay my natural gas bill, and they have a new payment provider / controller / whatever. Need to register with the new system. There's a field where we have to put in our account number, which is 16 digits. After a couple of false starts, I discover that the reason I keep getting error messages is that the field accepts only 15 digits!!!

*headdesk* Now, I don't know a whole lot about coding... but isn't it kind of obvious that you need to make the field capable of holding ALL the required information?

And there's not even a way to contact the payment company. I emailed the gas company to tell the payment company. Hopefully they'll get it fixed in a few days.

Just... so stupid.

Current Mood: busy

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Vocabulary: Saxicolous

Saxicolous -- living or growing among rocks.

What a useful word! It can apply to mosses, lichens, most alpine plants, and some animals such as pikas, ibex, or snow leopards who also favor rocky terrain.

Current Mood: accomplished

Entry tags:

food,
recipe

Today's Cooking

Today I'm making caramel apple crisp in a muffin tin. I diced up a Jonathan apple with a little lemon juice, then divided it among 4 cups, then added a spoonful of apple cider caramel sauce to each. The crumble topping is quick oats, flour, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and butter cut together until crumbly. It's in the oven baking now. :D

EDIT 10/6/25 -- Well, that turned out super awesome. It's like a warm, diced caramel apple in a bowl. (Note that if you prefer your caramel apples with nuts, the crumble topping will accommodate sliced or chopped nuts.) Happily there are 2 more Jonathans and a whole carton of caramel sauce in case we want more.

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Trauma

We need a framework to treat fandom trauma

Well, online trauma in general.

( Read more... )

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Books

14 Ways to Celebrate & Take Action for Banned Books Week

From July 2021 to the end of the 2024 school year, PEN America recorded nearly 22,810 cases of book bans across 45 states and 451 public school districts.

These numbers represent a crisis of censorship that is only growing, especially targeting historically marginalized voices that share stories and lived experiences of racism and LGBTQ+ oppression.

The most effective approach is to make it illegal to ban books. An effective tactic is to point out how much time and money it will save. People in office may care fuckall about civil rights or reading, but they are probably tired of hearing het up soccer moms whine about a book with two boys kissing.

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

blogging,
personal

Monday Update 10-6-25

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Esbat
Shopping
Birdfeeding
Space Exploration
Today's Adventures
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Money
Today's Cooking
Gaming
Friday Five
Birdfeeding
Activism
Follow Friday 10-3-25: Japan / Japanese
Gender Studies
Birdfeeding
Hobbies: Seatweaving
Fall Festival Bingo Card 10-1-25
Moment of Silence: Jane Goodall
Birdfeeding
Cuddle Party

Food has 51 comments. Affordable Housing has 51 comments. Robotics has 73 comments.

There will be a Poetry Fishbowl on Tuesday, October 7 with a theme of "Witches and Wizards."

"An Inkling of Things to Come" belongs to Polychrome: Shiv and needs $200 to be complete. Shiv attends the first session of his Worldbuilding class.

The weather has been sweltering again, but today is slightly cooler. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a wren (possibly a Bewick's wren or Carolina wren), and a fox squirrel. I heard a blue jay screaming but didn't see it. The migration is heavily impacted -- we drove past the lake recently and there was no sign of waterbirds, whereas normally this time of year there would ducks, pelicans, etc. in fairly large flocks. I saw a huge corn devil in the field across from us that was harvested recently. Currently blooming: dandelions, marigolds, petunias, red salvia, verbena, lantana, sweet alyssum, zinnias, snapdragons, blue lobelia, perennial pinks, oxalis, moss rose, firecracker plant, tomatoes, tomatillos, yellow squash, zucchini, morning glory, chicory, Queen Anne's lace, sunflowers, cup plant, cypress vine, sunchokes, sedum, violas. Tomatoes, ball carrots, and groundcherries are ripe. Fields are about half harvested.

This is gospel for the vagabonds, ne'er-do-wells, and insufferable bastards

- I ended up tapping out of work on Friday, because my stomach/innards started doing the thing that sent me to the ER, and I needed to take meds and fall over RIGHT THEN. Things slowly got better, but I pretty much crashed on the couch all weekend, watching tv and doing hand sewing. Buttons. Many buttons.

- I still have many medical appointments to schedule. My labs and ultrasounds all came back fine, but apparently I have some ovarian cysts; those plus some other possible pelvic issues may be the cause of my sudden-onset abdominal pain. Therefore, time to find a GYN and make an appointment. Lets's see how far out the ones suggested by my GP are booked, whee.

- My boss moved our 1:1 to today (instead of the usual Wed. time) because she wanted to talk to me about having a mentor to help me hone my skills in writing leadership & exec communications. The big things I need to improve, apparently, are giving the tl;dr version with the important info, the "why" behind the issue, and to call out the areas where I don't have the answers; in fact, it's good to point out where I don't have answers. I'm all for a mentor, but that last bit of pointing out where I don't have answers freaks me out. I'm supposed to be perfect, dammit. (Cue laughter from everyone around me, yes, I know.)

She also commented that I'm doing really well, and this is all to set me up for future success to get the promotion. This leads me to believe that maybe I'll get a decent review. Now let's set the timer for when the Brain Raccoons will start screeching.

- My duster from Market of Stars arrived. The print is gorgeous. The fabric is much lighter than I expected. And the shape is a little more square than I expected. It's beautiful, but ... let's put it this way, I'm glad I didn't spend my own money on it. I'm sure I'll be able to figure out a way to make it look better than "Hi, I'm wearing a square of fabric", but it'll take more finessing than I expected.