rowyn

Or at least that's how the snow looked in the bright sunshine. I didn't try to get out of here today but I should have apparently. It's supposed to snow again tomorrow.

I am struggling to do the declutter thing but I did get the top of the jewelry box cleaned off and untangled about a dozen necklaces. Also realized the jewelry box on top the big jewelry box (I love jewelry so I have lots) was empty. It's now filled with anime fandom pins. I need to find a display for them.

This whole day seemed to slip past me in a very unsatisfying way. So I have little to report so have science Saturday

RFK Jr. Once Celebrated Raw Milk. Now, A Baby Has Died From Bacteria Linked To Unpasteurized Dairy Guess th is is going on the micro discussion board for class

Review Of 52 Studies Finds No Fitness Advantage For Trans Women Over Cis Women There are admitted flaws to the study but it does make a good point (that will be ignored by those who don't want it to be true)

A Subterranean City Of Salt Has Been Preserved Within This Cave-Like Mine For Centuries This has been on my bucket list for years

Heard The Rumor Earth Will Lose Gravity For 7 Seconds On August 12, 2026? Here’s Why It’s Rubbish FFS

Dry Scooping: Scientists Have Warned Against A Potentially Deadly TikTok Challenge.

When Vampire Bats Become Close Friends, They Start ‘Talking’ Like Each Other

Physicists push thousands of atoms to a 'Schrödinger's cat' state — bringing the quantum world closer to reality than ever before

Preserved hair reveals just how bad lead exposure was in the 20th century

James Webb telescope solves mystery of 'forever young' vampire stars from the dawn of time

More than 43,000 years ago, Neanderthals spent centuries collecting animal skulls in a cave; but archaeologists aren't sure why

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: The Gorgon

dialecticdreamer

A Small Hurdle
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1086
[Wednesday, May 13, 2020, 11 am]

:: Aidan brings up a strange duplication of effort, and asks for an explanation. Part of the Edison’s Mirror (Teague Family) story arc. ::

Back to A Hopeful Errand
To the Edison's Mirror Landing Page
On to

Aidan picked up each of the bills that Deirdre had dropped onto the table, his frown deepening as he laid them out, carefully turning them all to face the same way in the stack. He tapped them with his index and middle fingers held together. “Win… She left this money to pay for the meal, and I presume to tip the server. You changed plans to add a meal for Mac and Ed, which is appreciated, but what should happen with this?” He tapped the bills again, silently.

Win’s hands slowed to a stop, resting her fingertips on the edge of the table across from him. “What would you do?”
( Read more... )

Current Mood: awake

sholio

In a generally unsurprising plot twist, all three of the Babylon 5 vids in this year's Festivids were by me. I haven't gotten around to properly reposting them to my signed vid account, but for now the signed vids are uploaded to the anonymous account and they can also be downloaded by clicking through to Vimeo as an interim measure until I get them properly posted for download.

I also added them to my Sholio Vids collection.

Some random notes on this year's vidding under the cut.

( Talking a lot about Babylon 5 )

torachan

We went to DCA this morning, planning to try more lunar new year foods, but while we ended up eating a lot of new menu items, none of them were LNY stuff lol.

( Read more... )

azurelunatic

I got a steroid shot in my right knee on Wednesday, and miraculously I can almost walk again.

I'm still spending a lot of time in bed, but I don't have to strategize about bathroom trips. One cane is sufficient.

ysabetwordsmith

Thanks to

fuzzyred, the series Peculiar Obligations now has its own landing page. This series features Quakers and organized crime, particularly with pirate allies.

Current Mood: accomplished

starlady

source: Hook (1991)
audio: Hans Zimmer, "Drink Up Me Hearties"
length: 4:34
download: 549MB on MediaFire
summary: What's lost can be found…in Neverland.

AO3 page | YouTube link

Watch on YouTube

kaberett

At some point in proceedings (depression? pain? migraine? dense technical text for the PhD? poetry?), I realise, I have gone from reading Unusually Quickly to still reading More? Than Population Norm? (75ish books last year, of which 15ish were graphic novels or otherwise not-a-novel's-worth-of-words), but no faster than I'd be able to read the text aloud -- "hearing" each word in my head, and often rereading sentences repeatedly.

This is in contrast to how I type, which is much faster than I can speak comprehensibly (... though I now recall that I am in fact often asked to Slow The Fuck Down when providing information verbally).

I have over the last little bit been tentatively experimenting with trying not to read each word "aloud", mentally, and instead treating The Written Word as something that doesn't always need to be (pseudo-)vocalised.

It feels weird. It's an active effort. I am extremely dubious about the impact on how much information I retain; Further Study Required. I think this is probably how I used to read (when?); I'm not sure what changed; I'm unsettled.

(And I want to post something to Dreamwidth before bed, and this is a thing I was thinking about a lot while almost-but-not-quite finishing Index, A History of the -- I'm at a point I'd ordinarily count as "finished" but obviously it is in this instance both important and rewarding to read the index, all two of it, so here y'go.)

settiai

Well, I was planning on trying to get this post finished before reveals, but I didn't manage it. So I've now updated it to include the names of the vidders as well.

Sadly, I haven't had time to watch everything from this year's Festivids, but I at least have watched the vids in fandoms that I'm familiar with and am caught up on (as there's a few that I'm behind on that I skipped because of the risk of potential spoilers). Here are some of my favorites from the ones that watched:

( Vids under the cut. )

Current Mood: accomplished

lb_lee

Okay, I know there are folks who do Font Stuff and I am at my wits end so I throw myself on y'all's mercy. I have a couple fonts. One, Hershey Noailles Old French 2.5, is a bold version of the other, Hershey Noailles Old French.

And I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME get my computer to see that. At first, it insisted they were two completely different, unrelated fonts, so I popped them into FontForge, renamed them to have the same family and named one Hershey Noailles Old French with weight Regular and the other Hershey Noailles Old French Bold with weight Bold. That at least got my computer to go, "Ah, I see, these are indeed the same family, one is bold and one is regular!" which is great... but now my computer insists that the two fonts are identical. I do not know why, they very clearly are not when I open them individually in Font Forge... but they show up as identical in Font Viewer too! And any time I try to use it, I get the bold face, and I cannot get the regular one.

I am giving up for now but ARGH. (And all of this could've been avoided if the font distributor had just NAMED THEM RIGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE!)

Current Mood: frustrated
Crossposts: https://lb-lee.insanejournal.com/13399.html

cosmolinguist

This afternoon, diffrentcolours and I were watching a documentary about chemistry with Jim Al-Khalili. (D has done sterling work getting the TV to be able to talk to his file server, so it's way easier to watch random things he has downloaded for us...like this BBC documentary about the history of chemistry.)

Suddenly, out of nowhere, D said of Dr. Al-Khalili, "He has a good scientist head."

"He really does!" I replied immediately.

Then I paused.

Then I said "Wait, I don't know what that means, and I don't know why I was so convinced of it."

Maybe it's the baldness?

Bald/shaved heads are so good. This came up at transgym this morning too: I was complaining about how much sweat my hair has absorbed because it's too long now --the last haircut I had was on my birthday! 3-4 weeks is plenty for my hair to need cutting again; the one problem with really short hair is it doesn't stay that way for long. And my barber has suddenly turned into a laundromat -- seriously, it only took a month for it to be open as a completely different kind of business! -- so I need to try a new one and I haven't had time and ugh...maybe tomorrow.

Anyway, as I was complaining, I was overhead by F, a guy with a shaved head, who said "enjoy it while it lasts!" Apparently he's still in his 20s, bless him. But it got me and our friend A talking about how much we like bald guys as an aesthetic, and then D told us about the subreddit for bald people, where guys share photos of them with thinning/receding hair, all sad about it, and then photos of them bald, happy, no longer giving a fuck. I think it's that "the way to win the game of conventional attractiveness is not to play" transformation that makes this seem sexy to me.

(Not that baldness can't be conventionally attractive, but a lot of balding guys seem to think that. Even if they're just having to get used to the change or confronting their mortality or whatever they do, I don't know. But it seems to do them some good to have to come to terms about it, if not embrace it.)

(Plus obviously bald heads are sexy because a nice close shave is fun to touch, and in the right circumstances I think the stubble can feel good too...)

ysabetwordsmith

These 773,000-year-old fossils may reveal our shared human ancestor

Exceptionally well-dated fossils from Morocco capture a moment nearly 800,000 years ago, right at a major turning point in Earth’s magnetic history.

Fossils from a Moroccan cave have been dated with remarkable accuracy to about 773,000 years ago, thanks to a magnetic signature locked into the surrounding sediments. The hominin remains show a blend of ancient and more modern features, placing them near a pivotal branching point in human evolution. These individuals likely represent an African population close to the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Neandertals, and Denisovans.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny and cold. Much of the snow has melted.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 2/7/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I refilled the hopper feeder.

I've seen a female cardinal.

EDIT 2/7/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

There were two cardinals in the forest garden, but it was hard to tell colors at dusk.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

umadoshi

In movie news, Cineplex has a listing for Zhu Yilong's new movie, Scare Out, which is apparently opening in Canada on Feb. 17. I refuse to let myself be excited about this, after having so much hope about Dongji Rescue last summer. But maybe it'll open here and I'll be able to see it! At least the 17th is before the crunch at work starts.

Reading: To shake things up a bit from Kurosagi, this week I reread the first two volumes of Hikaru no Go. In both of these cases, I'm pretty much relying on Goodreads to tell me when I get to volumes I haven't previously read. Awkwardly for my sense of "what even is time?", this means that I now know that I first read vol. 1 of Hikaru no Go in 2006 and vol. 1 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service in 2008.

My sense of how far I got into Hikaru no Go is completely nonexistent, since I know I read some number of volumes at some point, and I saw some of the anime (long enough ago that I know we were still living in the co-op we moved out of over fifteen years ago), and

scruloose and I (much later) saw the c-drama in its entirety. It's all rather a jumble. But seeing the c-drama did inspire me to finish buying the manga, and I guess its time has come!

I did wind up reading all of Dungeon Crawler Carl, and the upshot, given my uncertainty about finishing it to begin with, is unsurprisingly that I doubt I'll pick up the second book. I think it's very safe to say that LitRPG is not my thing. I did wind up liking the book more overall than I would've thought back around the 40% mark or so, though.

Watching: We're caught up on The Pitt and one episode behind on Frieren. We've also seen the second episode of Midnight Mass, which has a lot of animal harm; I don't have any triggers that I'm aware of, but it was enough to be upsetting.

Playing: I think I've finished Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven, which is to say that I've finished the main plot and done a few wrapping-up things, leaving me free to idly manage the cult and do dungeon runs, but that's usually when I wander off.

Weathering: We're having some of what I would call Normal Snow for the second time this week. The first time, a few days ago, I realized I've started to basically think in terms of "winter days that are cold but not much is happening outside" and "snowstorms", without much in between, but that's probably a result of leaving the house so rarely as much as it's a byproduct of climate change.

marthawells

Some good news:

Both Queen Demon and the Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute anthology, made it on the Locus Recommended Reading List:

https://locusmag.com/2026/02/2025-recommended-reading/

with a lot of other excellent books and stories, including a new section for translated works.

You can also vote on the list for the Locus Awards. Anybody can vote here with an email address: https://poll.voting.locusmag.com/ though they have you fill out a demographic survey first with how many books you read per year, etc.

Of course a lot of great work did not end up on the list, like I was surprised not to see The Witch Roads and The Nameless Land duology by Kate Elliott, which I thought was excellent.

oursin

That was a week that felt a bit odd, which may have been quite a bit down to my not sleeping as well as have latterly been doing.

Also not getting out for accustomed daily walk as often as usual because RAIN.

Somewhat stunned by phonecall from friend with whom I am collaborating on various projects who has recently had some rather devastating health news.

Resumption of contact with two other friends: one of whom I had contacted after receiving what turned out to be, as I had suspected, spam email from her hacked account.

Having the February blahs, pretty much.

smbc_comics_feed

Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/moneychanger

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Later he explodes sinners with giant sturgeons coming from the inside out.

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/moneychanger

senmut

AO3 Link | Hunting Gone Wrong (1144 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars [2008] - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Suicide/Suicidal Ideation
Characters: CC-1119 | Appo, Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Suicidal Thoughts, Child Murder
Summary:

Appo is on a death world, hunting, but maybe he was the prey... and the wrong one at that.

Hunting Gone Wrong

They were being hunted, picked off one by one on this death world. Appo wasn't certain what he'd done to anger his Lord, but being sent to hunt a Force User had seemed easy enough on the data pad.

The reality was proving brutally different, and he was down to just two members of the original six that had followed him here to capture the rogue Force User for Lord Vader. Nor could he just comm for back up; the Exactor was pursuing the rag tag Rebels that had been in the system when they dropped.

Appo pulled up a map of the world, narrowing in on the fissure-laden landscape of this island. The Force User had taken out the other drop ship while they were in atmo before ditching from the ship and letting it crash. A small part of him decided it was rather fitting that they were all marooned, and Appo's chances of a pick up were a lot better than the Force User's.

TK-1138 let the world kill him, spooking at a noise and falling into one of the hissing fissures. Appo looked at the last surviving man of his squadron and ground his teeth inside his helmet. They might only be fleshborn, but he'd spent time fine-tuning the training that CC-2224 sent them out with.

They had to be the best to be 501st, after all. That had never stopped being true, from the before-times to now.

"Stay here, get the communication unit pieced together. Fleet should be back any time now."

"Yes sir."

Was the trooper relieved? Hoping Appo was the next victim? It didn't matter. Appo had to catch this karking —

The pain in his head came back, as that slip into his first language usually sparked it.

It was bad enough he held tight to his name.

He'd forgotten what it was like to hunt by himself. Even in his plastoid, it was easier to move and hide and track than when he was half-focused on keeping a squad alive.

He thought he was closing in on the Force User. He was fairly certain they were even injured. All he had to do was clear this climb, and he'd be close enough to be sure. Just a little more to climb —

— and a noise drew his eyes up, to see a face with white marks on bronze skin, blue and white marks on the horns and headtails alike, but eyes like his own staring holes into his soul.

The Jedi were traitors, manipulating the whole war, killing his brothers to cling to their power. The Chancellor said so, and he was their Supreme Commander. The General believed it. Appo followed orders, led the men up the stairs, and they started quartering the Temple, clearing out the traitors of all shapes and sizes.

It didn't matter that this one looked like the Commander. She'd been a traitor too. He brought his blaster up for a clean shot, waiting until she deflected two others to take his own.

He ignored the voice screaming in the back of his head that she had been just a kid.

Appo blinked at the bright light all around him, his concealing helmet (bucket, a piece of him remembered) gone, and him trussed him up as firmly as he'd meant to do to her once he caught the Force User.

She was tossing an EMP grenade in a hand, pacing in front of him.

Just as suddenly as she'd overcome him on the climb, she was there, kneeling in front of him.

"It would be more merciful to kill you," she said. "To you and to my father."

Clone dark eyes staring out of a face like hers.

"I don't feel like being merciful today." She clicked the detonator, and Appo's world disappeared for the second time in less than an hour, this time consumed by searing pain in his skull, the kind that came when he remembered the before times.

Vader's Fist.

Torrent Company.

Memories, like those of two different men, warred within him.

Torrent won.

He found himself retching up the nutripaste he'd been rationing himself since landfall. She at least tilted him with the Force so he didn't get it on himself.

Appo looked at her again, recognizing the hard jawline and set of the eyes as The Captain's trademark resolve. The lines of her marks might scream of the Commander, but he didn't think this one was going to try and make it all better like Commander Vod'ika had tried time and again, after the bad campaigns.

"So, when I take your binders off, I'm not going to stop you if you choose the easy way out," she said in a hard voice. "Didn't even know that kriffing monster still had any of you. Was supposed to be him I was facing down here."

"You… tried… to bait VADER?!" he asked, but of course a child of those two would be that brazen.

She didn't answer, just staring at him with unblinking anger at him for not being the right prey.

The easy way — he knew just what she meant, and as her features blurred with the earlier, rounder face of that child in the Temple, he thought he just might.

"You said your father," he managed to get out instead. "The Captain lives?"

"Somewhere out there. It's not like he and I could work together once I was old enough to go out on my own."

The binders fell away from him, and his gear was right there. A tiny piece of him suggested he go for his blaster, not to take the easy road, but to try and take her down, like he'd been told to.

Just like he'd been told to murder children. And atrocities that made that pale in comparison, ever since the day he followed his General into haran.

"What's the hard way?" he asked, and that got a blink, then a flex of the too-small lekku.

"I take you to a rehab specialist, away from the fighting, and you figure out if you can make peace with the man that chip made of you."

"Will he come there? Or her — kriff." The face and lekku had gone hard all over again on the pronoun. "She's gone?"

"It's why I joined up. He lived, when she didn't come back to us. And I'm not going to stop until he goes down."

"Small part of getting off this rock?"

"Got that covered." She turned to start walking down the easy side of the rise.

A few minutes later, he was following, with just the weapons and rations, hard as it was to leave the armor's protection behind.

She didn't say a word, and he kept following. Maybe, in her, in what she offered as the hard way, he'd find a way to his honor again.

purplecat

A picture of a grimacing weeping angel on a TV screen with THE TIME OF ANGELS on it as well.

elainegrey

HOME! I am home home home home.

This business of feeling feelings: so glad to be home. I think i loathe air travel. Thank goodness for e-books, enabling me to dissociate from the experience. There was a period when i was flying cross country and crocheting when audio books and crochet were my flight go tos, but between there being more of me and less room i can't imagine doing much than holding the phone. Between NC and Ohio with stops at a hub were just tiny hops in the air and back down and long stretches of sitting or lugging.

Work went well. We had an all staff meeting where our president cheer-led us in this year's theme of courage under pressure, and i think i needed to hear it. This project will take much courage. It will also be very engaging between now and retirement, and i wonder if it will exhaust me or engage me.

And there was some speaking of retirement. Our product person DH is retiring... soon? I thought it was next year but some chatter made me suddenly wonder if it's this year. I discussed that question with the engineering manager BC as he drove me to the airport. (We both thought it was further off.) BC said he was planning to retire at 60 as our employer has a health care benefit that continues then until Medicare. (He said it as if it was a long way off. Rummages in LinkedIn: hmm, he graduated from college 9 years after i did.) He thinks our employer will pay the same into our health care as they do now after retirement. I just thought we could buy into the same negotiated plan. I can take the benefit on Friday, 2028-03-31.

I don't know if it will be fiscally wise to retire then, but right now i hold that out as conceivable retirement to myself when my sense of energy flags. Working until 62 or 63 would have some financial benefits. I just don't know if i can i develop practices to take care of my physical body.

--== ∞ ==--

I did take double doses of my morning meds yesterday, unintentionally. Last day, i thought, and downed all the remaining pills, forgetting that the trip was a day shorter than planned. I found a pub med review of 400+ overdoses for the med and decided i did not need to call poison control. There's a one percent chance on paper of a bad reaction, and i am a larger person, so the impact would be diluted. I reduced caffeine, crossed my fingers, and all was ok. I have lots of other physical complaints and whining, but nothing worrisome.

Christine says she's feeling stronger and can tell she's healing.

I should move my body today, something in the yarden. Unpack. I probably have a long list of todos.

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rowyn

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February 2026

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Network

Awash in a sea of diamonds

#76 A Small Hurdle (part 1 of 1, complete)

Festivids vidder reveals and vid nattering

2026 Disneyland Trip #8 (2/7/26)

Ahhhhhhh, sweet sweet steroids

Website Updates

[vid] The Lost Boy (Hook)

[navel-gazing] reading, fast & slow

Festivids

Font Woes; Help?

Heads

Early Humans

Birdfeeding

Weekly proof of life: mainly media

Locus List

Deep blankness is the real thing strange

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Moneychanger

GenPrompt Bingo: A Moment of Clarity/Understanding

Random Doctor Who Picture

(morning writing)

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February 2026

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