questionoftheday | Member Posts

So as anyone in the uk can attest, we’ve been hit by a sudden heatwave this weekend, which is so completely and utterly draining (plus it’s making me feel so melty). It shows no sign of leaving which also sucks so I feel this week will be mostly avoiding heat and staying inside (until Friday anyway)

As such the weekend has been mostly uneventful. I had veggie sushi cause we got avocados when we went to town, which is always nice. I watched Blithe Spirit on sky arts which was fun.

Then we watched Look Who’s Boating, a special feature on the Doctor Who boxset which was fun. It saw the fifth doctor, Nyssa and Tegan’s actors go on a boating trip, which was funny. They did a road trip thing on one of the other boxsets and this was basically a successor to that (with added cooking, plus a doctors table type segment at the end) and it was a fun time. In the night I watched the Tales Of The Tardis version of Earthshock which was pretty good. It’s still one of the best fifth doctor eps but poor Adric.

I’m almost finished with the special features now, there’s just an escape room (I watched the other one last night) and an interview with Adric’s actor and I’m done…

Which is good timing cause the new Doctor Who Movie came yesterday. (Though it got delivered next door by mistake.) it’s the 4K steelbook which is very fancy. I dunno why I decided on that I don’t usually bother with steelbook or 4ks but… ah well. I’ll probably watch Saturday.

And speaking of Who I did listen to an audio while I was melting, Time In Office, which was a fun time. And appropriate cause it’s set during a gap in Frontios (it’s funny Tegan’s made Earth Ambassador).

But other than that nothing exciting, though Death Valley and Brokenwood Mysteries are back, both of which are fun times. (Though the latter means iplayering last nights springwatch).

Gaming wise I’ve not done much, just Tomodachi Life (there’s finally a second child), some Fortnite and the pad games (I need to focus more on magic arena, I keep falling behind on it). And dreamlight cause there’s a star path I’m trying to speed finish.

I also started Silverweed Road and this guy in the first story is such a jerk I’m praying on his downfall, which feels inevitable

This morning I did submit the uni postponement thing so hopefully that goes ok. Cause ugh there was no way I could actually do the assignment, not with this heat coming through and my anxiety brain being terrible. Part of me is hoping to hear soon but also… eh my heart hasn’t been in this uni course. Part cause of the noises making my head worse and the medical stuff but also… I dunno.

I digress.

Plans this week are to finish the Who ray stuff (tonight), start going through the blu ray pile (tomorrow), welcome to Derry (Thursday, depending), Doctor Who Movie watch (Saturday) and dnd (Sunday). I also wanna watch something on shudder and prime, plus more Tales Of 85/Amazing Digital Circus (and I still need to watch more Heated Rivalry and The Beauty).

Friday should, hopefully, be the trip to the cinema for Backrooms. The listings aren’t live though so I dunno what the second film might be. I’ve pretty much given up on Passenger (from what I’ve seen it’s bad sadly) unless an afternoon showing is added. I might watch Mandalorian and Grogu again if nothing else. At least the cinema will be nice and cool!

Masters Of The Universe is getting two preview showing days next week (Wednesday and Thursday) so I might see it before the planned Friday I was aiming for, but we’ll see. I’m so hyped for it, it has such Guardians type vibes and yeah He Man is hot.

I also wanna try and write more but ugh, I’ve had such trouble for months ficcing.

My problem tends to be I’ll get an idea and a burst of creative energy, writing a decent chunk in one go (until I either get tired or something else comes up) and then I just… don’t go back to it. I just can’t seem to get back in the zone which is so frustrating and then the cycle repeats. I just wanna finish some of my WIPs, not constantly add to them but I just… can’t and it’s so incredibly frustrating.

Ugh.

Anyway I’m just gonna flop some more now and then wait on the food delivery.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Ludwig Goransson - Rotta Chase

moem

I have two simple rules with regards to social media:
- If it's owned by Google or Meta, I don't use it.
- If it forces a 'feed'* on you, that you can't control, then I don't use it.

*By 'feed' I mean that an algoritm decides what you get to see, so you can't freely make your own selections, and/or you can't choose to see everything you've selected in a purely chronological order.

These rules have served me very well.

This also means that I use Reddit in a limited way: I visit two or three specific subreddits, but never the homepage, and I sort everything by newest. Interestingly, many Reddit users don't seem to realise that this is possible. If you mention it, you'll get downvoted. Maybe people see it as a kind of bragging: look at me, I'm not a slave to the algoritm!

I don't understand why many people seem happy (or at least accepting) with being served a 'feed' that's chosen for them. Why so passive?

I do watch clips on YouTube now and then. Yes, that's an exception. I do this through an application named FreeTube. It can be used without autoplay, without recommendations. If you do want recommendations, your data stays local: no tracking. Oh, and there's no ads.

My internet usage very rarely shows me ads anyway. This is another thing that people put up with, apparently. I guess it's something you get shoved down your throat when you use Android or iOS. I understand why most people use one of these because the alternatives are few and far between, and come with their own limitations. Personally I'd rather deal with those limitations. It's a 'pick your poison' kind of thing.

My own preferred poison happens to be Ubuntu Touch. AMA, if you're so inclined.

ysabetwordsmith

This is an advance announcement for the Tuesday, June 2, 2026 Poetry Fishbowl. This time the theme will be "Fun with Language." I'll be soliciting ideas for linguists, translators, interpreters, historians, diplomats, refugees, explorers, partners, teachers, clergy, leaders, superheroes, supervillains, alien or fantasy species, failure analysts, ethicists, activists, rebels, other people who get into interesting linguistic situations, translating, interpreting, reading, researching, revising theories, conversing, traveling, inventing languages, parenting, teaching, adventuring, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, asking for help and getting it, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, expecting the unexpected, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, libraries, laboratories, meeting rooms, ruins, liminal zones, trading posts, port cities, schools, churches, supervillain lairs, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, farmer's markets, starships, alien planets, magical lands, foreign dimensions, other places where languages mix, alphabets, pictograms and other symbols, lost languages, ancient tomes, mysterious texts, misnomers and mistranslations, recordings, the record that breaks the record player, puzzling discoveries, sudden surprises, the buck stops here, trial and error, intercultural entanglements, 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.

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

The Bear Tunnels features numerous tribal languages.

Clay of Life is Jewish fantasy with occasional bits of Hebrew or Yiddish.

The Daughters of the Apocalypse spans a variety of languages, including a split before Before and After English.

Eloquent Souls presents a setting where soulmarks are common, but they don't always appear in the same language.

Fiorenza the Wisewoman is Italian fantasy with bits of Italian.

Frankenstein's Family features two scientists running a valley in historic Romania, with languages including Dacian, English, French, Hungarian, Romanian, and Latin.

Hart's Farm is a free love community with a few really exotic characters, set in Sweden with occasional tidbits from other languages.

Not Quite Kansas includes demonic and angelic writing.

Peculiar Obligations features a mix of Quakers, pirates, and other people speaking diverse languages.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all trying to get along and figure out how to make a functional society. It spans a wide range of languages including Arabic, Dhivehi, English, Esperanto, French, and several tribal ones.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

If you're interested, mark the date on your calendar, and please hold actual prompts until the "Poetry Fishbowl Open" post next week. (If you're not available that day, or you live in a time zone that makes it hard to reach me, you can leave advance prompts. I am now.) Meanwhile, if you want to help with promotion, please feel free to link back here or repost this on your blog.

( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )

Current Mood: creative

adafrog

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

stonepicnicking_okapi

This is the final entry in a series about my quest to read all of Agatha Christie's works in UK publication order. It was begun in January 2021 and ended in May 2026.

It's taken me five years but here I am: the final cases.

Postern of Fate [1973] This is the last Tommy & Tuppence, and unlike the other two, it was written near the time it was published. Tommy & Tuppence are an elderly couple now, living in a house with a past and some of the furnishings left behind have clues to a past case of espionage and murder and disappearances and unresolved questions. And their old gardener gets murdered because he knows too much. It wasn't so bad, but I might've thought that because I knew it was the last.

Curtain [1975] Like Sleeping Murder, Christie wrote this in the 1940's and put it in the vault. And I liked it. Of course, there are many cringe-worthy bits (Hastings has a daughter who would probably be diagnosed as on the autism spectrum now but of course is treated rather awfully). Nevertheless, I think it was a good end to Poirot. He goes back to Styles. Hastings is a dim dick as usual. But loyal and a good narrator.

Sleeping Murder [1976] This was written in the 1940's too and published the year Christie died. A young couple is drawn to a house in which the wife of the couple lived briefly as a child (and witnessed a murder in). Repressed memories come flooding back and soon Miss Marple's on the case and sorts it all out. Obsessive love. Lots of suspects. Solid.

And that's it. I did two collages. I am not really happy with them (I sort of went overboard with the pink flowers) but I was even less happy with the color scheme of the Curtain postcard so I decided to go back to Styles.

ysabetwordsmith

Coming Soon: 2026 Pride Bundles to Raise Money for the Queer Liberation Library and Transgender Law

It’s almost Pride again, which means it’s almost time for Duck Prints Press to launch our fourth-annual Pride Bundle charity drive! We’ve got three bundles this year: a general imprint bundle with 25 titles totaling 381 pages; an explicit bundle of 15 stories, 237 pages; and an art bundle with 10 artworks, 250 mb of digital artwork!

The General Imprint Bundle will cost $25 USD (60% off normal!). 40% of this sales price will go to our selected charities.

The Explicit Imprint Bundle will cost $15 USD (60% off normal!). 44% of this sales price will go to our selected charities.

The Art Bundle will cost $10 USD (66% off normal!). 24% of this sales price will go our selected charities.

Poke a bigot in the eye! Save up to buy some queer stuff. :D

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Prince William is Selling 20% of His Duchy Landholdings to Build Affordable Housing and Restore Nature

The Times reported that the offloading seems to be currently planned for Duchy property in Bath, Cornwall, Dartmoor, the Isles of Scilly, and Kennington in south London. Early estimates are that it could lead to 12,000 housing units by 2040, about one-third of which are expected to be affordable for the lowest income brackets.

Much of the estate’s lands are in rural areas, so money and attention will be devoted to reviving rural economies and communities, as well as developing environmental value in the form of carbon storage potential in peat bogs, woodland, and wetlands.

Daaaamn. I am impressed. Rich, powerful people rarely think about the poor let alone about displaced wildlife.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: impressed

ysabetwordsmith

Force the Oppressor to make a Lose/Lose Choice

Social Change Toolkit: Dilemma Actions

A dilemma action is a strategic action that forces your opponent into a lose-lose situation.

Basically: You've given them only bad options. No matter what choice they make, it's valuable for your goals in some way.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Astronomers find an unusual exoplanet with cloudy mornings and clear evenings

This technique exploits transit geometry. As WASP-94A b crosses in front of its star, its leading edge appears first – the morning side, where air flows from the cool night side into the hot day side. Its trailing edge, which vanishes last, represents the evening side.

The Hubble Space Telescope couldn’t separate these regions. Its readings averaged the whole disk, leaving clouds and clear skies blurred together. JWST’s sharper instruments let researchers measure each half separately.

“What we saw was a real dichotomy between the weather on both sides of the planet, and huge differences in cloud coverage, and that changes our whole picture of the planet,” Sing said.

Current Mood: busy

pshaw_raven

Just before we left on our trip, my Chromebook broke. I opened the lid and the screen literally cracked. The drive is fine, and I'm going to (at some point) hook it up to an external monitor so I can get some stuff off its local drive. I usually save important things to the cloud, but sometimes I forget.
Fox has set me up with one of his old laptops, which is a bit janky but works for what I need. I prefer this to buying a whole new computer and creating more e-waste. I think the whole reason I had that Chromebook was that I was going to use it as a Steam gaming laptop, but then Steam and Google couldn't get along and I bought a Steam Deck anyway, so it's a moot point.
We also spent last weekend doing a spur of the moment project Fox had an idea for. He saw this stuff called polymeric sand. You pour this between pavers, and then wet it, and it sets into a substance halfway between concrete and glue. Weeds can't grow through it, and ants can't burrow into it. So we pulled up the bricks in the garden and repaved with this stuff. I kind of wanted to wait until winter, but keeping the weeds down was bothering him. Anyway, it's done now.

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Stan Getz - The Girl From Ipanema

pshaw_raven

Mystery Springs!
Taste the Waters of Enlightenment - ahead, left on Luna Farms Road
On the beach!
Gas - Food - (some) RV Parking
( Stop in on the way to everywhere )

Current Mood: dorky
Current Music: Brian Eno - Always Returning

ysabetwordsmith

What really causes heatwave deaths? Study of 3 billion people reveals the answer

“For example, a city in which everyone has air conditioning is not necessarily one in which there is no Systemic Cooling Poverty,” said lead author Giacomo Falchetta, a CMCC researcher.

“This shows that there are many factors that influence Systemic Cooling Poverty: transport, building materials, laws and regulations around work and exposure to heat, as well as access to services.”

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

thatzeta

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

Current Mood: sad
Current Location: at home
Current Music: Lacuna Coil - Trip the Darkness

ysabetwordsmith

Today is mostly sunny and warm.

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

I put out water for the birds and watered a few plants.

EDIT 5/25/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 5/25/26 -- I started trimming around the telephone pole garden. The grass is so tall that it's still wet (presumably from dew) midday on a hot sunny day. >_< I only got one side done.

Then I remembered that I only have a little bit of topsoil left. I was going to restock bagged goods but we haven't had a chance recently. *sigh* So it's either wait on that part for later, run out to get some, or try to haul the giant bag meant for the hollow by the garden shed clear across the yard. Probably wait, because trimming the grass and digging out weeds will take ... most of the day, I suspect.

EDIT 5/25/26 -- I did more trimming around the telephone pole garden. I cleared the south end.

EDIT 5/25/26 -- I did more trimming around the telephone pole garden. I cleared the west side. I still need to do some cleanup of the north end near the telephone pole, but that's mostly Asiatic lilies.

EDIT 5/25/26 -- I finished trimming around the telephone pole garden. I cleared the north end. Next I need to dig around the edge and pull out encroaching weeds.

EDIT 5/25/26 -- I started digging and pulling weeds around edges of the telephone pole garden. I cleared the east edge.

EDIT 5/25/26 -- I did more digging and pulling weeds around edges of the telephone pole garden. I only got about halfway through the short south end before hitting a huge clump of grass and giving up. I need the shovel for that. :/

EDIT 5/25/26 -- I did more digging and pulling weeds around edges of the telephone pole garden. Using the shovel, I finished the south end and did part of the west edge.

EDIT 5/25/26 -- I did more digging and pulling weeds around edges of the telephone pole garden. Using the shovel, I finished the west edge. The north doesn't need as much work in that regard, so I'm basically done with the edging. The middle still has a lot of weeds, but I'll do that another day.

EDIT 5/25/26 -- We picked up bagged goods from Rural King. They're out of suitable topsoil, so I just got 3 bags of potting soil; and I had to substitute a more expensive brand of compost.

EDIT 5/25/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I watered some plants around the house yard, mostly the barrel garden and the goddess garden.

EDIT 5/25/26 -- I dumped out the big bag of raised bed soil from Costco, sowed Bee Lawn Mix on it, and watered it. Then I dragged my trolley around several places where I've been cutting grass, gathered the cuttings, and strewed that over the top of the bare soil to discourage critters from digging in it.

The whole western sky is a pale sherbet orange, very pretty. :D I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

thatzeta

I am melting.

That's probably all I can even complain about. The usual work shit I complained about the past weeks, whenever holidays happened. Also the boss was really ornery today and I got really pissed at one point and had to bite my tongue and not give a rude reply via walkie headphones.

At least we got out of the store at a decent time.

Current Location: at home
Current Music: Gjon's Tears - Tout l'univers

thatzeta

It's that time of the year where the Holidays are just stacked on top of each other. Another one coming up on Monday and we're rapidly approaching summer temperatures, so people are losing their shit again between buying for a day where the store is closed and buying enough beer and meat to have a block-wide BBQ event.

Mixed with awful delivery dates... well, I hate it here right now lol

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: at home
Current Music: Wir sind Helden - Nur ein Wort

daryl_wor

The brilliant advice NOT to view the news because of stress... well the person clearly doesn't know me because THIS is my News. So, yeah, OLD advice.

Current Mood: bored
Current Location: Memory Lane
Current Music: Dark Academia

conuly

Friday, I get a text from the staffing agency asking if I can work at X place on any of five or six different shifts. I take a realistic look at those shifts and the five I'm currently working and text back that I can do Monday, 4 - 12 - before my 12 - 8 shift at the same place.

Sunday I work 12 - 8. I get home around 9, I chat with my family, I hang out, and at around 3pm I head to bed. At 5:30, Manager at X place calls and says "This isn't like you, where are you?"

....

I did go in for that Sunday shift, but I also forwarded her a screenshot of what I actually agreed to. Because geez. And you can believe I did not kill myself cleaning on the overnight.

med_cat

ВЕРА

Кажется Песчинке, что она
Выполняет важное задание:
Без нее бы рухнула стена,
Без нее бы обвалилось здание.

FAITH

A Grain of Sand thinks
That she is carrying out an important task:
Without her, the wall would fall,
Without her, the building would crumple down.

И не нужно на неё пенять,
Ни к чему пускаться в рассуждения:
Крепче будет здание стоять
От ее, Песчинки, заблуждения.

And there's no need to upbraid her,
Or to go into long discussions:
The building will stand all the stronger
Because of her, the Grain of Sand's, self-deception.

(Felix Krivin, from his book "Kaleidoscope", published in 1965)

the_siobhan

An exciting weekend was had by all.

Friday was actually nice weather, so I walked downtown to run some errands. Picked up my new glasses, dropped some stuff off to a charity, bought some new headphones to replace my broken ones. Got over 10k steps in, which is a new rehab best. The dodgy foot was so sore after and has been doing some cramping since, but I keep stretching it and so far so good.

Woke up Saturday and it was raining.

And raining.

And raining.

About 8 PM my neighbour knocked on the door because the drain pit was overflowing and he could see from his top window that it was pouring down my back steps. I checked and the basement was still dry but it meant the water being pushed out by the sump pump was just flowing back in from above. (And carrying mud from the yard with it.) The pump was going non-stop. The connection between the pipe that comes out of the wall and the one that is buried under the yard is open to prevent back-flow and water was starting flow over the top and into the neighbour's yard, where it was going into their basement.

So I spent the next hour in the rain moving mud from one spot to another. I piled some rocks along the wall of the pit and closed the gaps with mud to make the world's shittiest temporary dam and I dug trenches on the opposite of the pit to try and get the water to flow towards the back of the yard instead. I was only kinda successful because I hit cinderblock at one point, but the rain finally slowed down a bit.

By morning the sump pump was still sending water into the pit, but the level had gone down maybe a foot so it wasn't overflowing any more. It rained again last night, but this morning it's at about the same level. I checked the weather and we're supposed to get a couple of days off from rain, so fingers crossed it empties a bit before the next round of water.

So getting that to work better is definitely this summer's big work project.

****

This morning I got up, emptied the dishwasher, and spotted what looked like a tangled clump of food and hair resting against the drain so I reached in with my hand and pulled it out.

Dead mouse.

So that's how this week has started.

Profile

question of the day

July 2019

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Neutral Good for Practicality by timeasmymeasure

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated May. 26th, 2026 12:46 pm

question of the day

Member Posts

It’s trying to kill us

Social media

Poetry Fishbowl on Tuesday, June 2

Yay!

All of Agatha: the final cases

Books

Affordable Housing

Activism

Exoplanets

(no subject)

Your GPS May Have Lied to You

Climate Change

Torn

Birdfeeding

Melting

Holiday Spam

No, no news....

There is a funny side, but seriously?

ВЕРА / "Faith", by Felix Krivin

springing fresh from the world

Profile

July 2019

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags