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The Crow’s Second Tale by Marissa Lingen,

mrissa. A hopeful coming of age story about a very determined young person who finds her own way forward.

The Things You Know, The Things You Trust by Marissa Lingen,

mrissa. Shifting and changing science fiction that is also about the present moment.

Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell. At the end, John Wiswell comments, "Off the top of my head I gave them the example that if I wrote a haunted house story, it wouldn’t be like Haunting of Hill House – it would be about a haunted house that was lonely and desperately wanted someone to live in it. One of my fellow authors reached across the table, grabbed me by the hand, and said, “Please write this.” On the train ride home, I did."

sonia

youfeellikeshit.com, a self-care game by Amanda Miklik, based on a twine site by Jace Harr. Step by step questions to help you feel better.

Using the Arousal-Valence Model to Better Your Emotional Intelligence by Dr. Megan Anna Neff. Some aids to naming emotions for people who find it difficult, including an Unpleasant/Pleasant, High/Low Arousal grid.

Finding the Middle Way in Black & White Thinking with Marbling by Cait Klein.

Black and white thinking is a trauma response that is important to break down for our overall happiness and wellbeing. When we are not feeling safe, it’s easy to slide into rigid thought patterns such as everything is either good or bad, friend or enemy, kind or mean, awesome or awful etc. The reality is things are rarely ever all one or the other, and as we break down binary ways of thinking we allow more space for connection and collaboration to move forward in our lives.

Self Compassion and How The Science of Kindness Changes Your Brain interview with Dr. Kristin Neff, audio with summary.

The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age by Thea Lim.

When I was twelve, I used to roller-skate in circles for hours. I was at another new school, the odd man out, bullied by my desk mate. My problems were too complex and modern to explain. So I skated across parking lots, breezeways, and sidewalks, I listened to the vibration of my wheels on brick, I learned the names of flowers, I put deserted paths to use. I decided for myself each curve I took, and by the time I rolled home, I felt lighter. One Saturday, a friend invited me to roller-skate in the park. I can still picture her in green protective knee pads, flying past. I couldn’t catch up, I had no technique. There existed another scale to evaluate roller skating, beyond joy, and as Rollerbladers and cyclists overtook me, it eclipsed my own. Soon after, I stopped skating.

“To See it All at Once”: Black Southern Placemaking Technologies with Zandria Robinson

It was amazing to me to get to graduate school and to discover that I was a Southerner, and to discover that there was this idea that once all the Black [Southern] people left for the Great Migration, apparently we just didn’t even exist anymore, despite the inconvenient fact of the whole civil rights movement. So I had a bone to pick, and I just continued picking it.

How our noisy world is seriously damaging our health by James Gallagher.

"You have an emotional response to sound," says Prof Clark. Sound is detected by the ear and passed onto the brain and one region – the amygdala – performs the emotional assessment. This is part of the body's fight-or-flight response that has evolved to help us react quickly to the sounds like a predator crashing through the bushes. "So your heart rate goes up, your nervous system starts to kick in and you release stress hormones," Prof Clark tells me.

Women are three times more likely than men to get severe long COVID by Gillian Rutherford.

Through analysis of immune cells, biomarkers in the blood and RNA sequencing, they identified a distinct immune signature in female versus male patients.

They found evidence of “gut leakiness” in the women patients, including elevated blood levels of intestinal fatty acid binding protein, lipopolysaccharide, and the soluble protein CD14 — all signs of gut inflammation that can then trigger further systemic inflammation once they reach the circulatory system.

Opinion | I’m just 16, and I already have too many memories of mass shootings by Lydia Ganser. "It’s easy to offer condolences from afar while doing nothing to stop the guns."

What I Need You To Understand, Notes from Chicago in Late October by Dan Sinker.

There's noise, so much noise, but there's also signal and the signal was that they were here that they were everywhere. Smash and grab jobs happening across the city nearly simultaneously. But the things being stolen aren't jewels, they're lives. Off streets, from yards. One roofer plucked off a ladder. A landscaper thrown to the ground, tackled by a half-dozen men in camo with weapons. Sixteen people on this day. Sixteen people disappeared, from just the northern side of the city and suburbs. More across the entire city.

sonia

I had my first-ever personal training session yesterday. It went well! There's a gym one block from me that I've had my eye on ever since it quit being a Crossfit gym and went independent. I was dubious about exercising in an indoor space, but a friend pointed out that their big open warehouse door means that they have a lot better ventilation than most gyms.

I finally got in touch with them, and after some logistical hassles, I had my appointment with a tall, kind, strong young woman. She seemed easy in her body, and calmly gave me instructions and feedback in a way that felt welcoming and safe. I said I wanted it to be gentle and gradual because my body tends toward strains and injury, and she gave me exactly what I asked for. We focused on upper body, and did rows with hanging rings and bench presses with free weights and some pushups at a 45 degree angle because I can't quite do them lowering to bench height. It lasted an hour and I thought I would be sore today. I'm mildly achy, enough to tell me I did something, but not too bad.

I never thought I'd be the kind of person to lift weights or have a personal trainer. I liked being strong when I was moving house, and I'd like to get stronger again without having to pack up everything I own. And if I'm going to do that, I need some personal help to learn how to do it properly. They have some strength classes that I'm hoping to join once I understand the basic movements and how to do them safely for me. And I have some weights at home that I might be able to use in between.

I never had private lessons in anything as a kid. It was a big step for me to start taking singing lessons a few years back, and that has been wonderfully healing, as well as improving my singing over time. Getting some personal training sessions feels like self-love, permission to pay for the help I need instead of trying to tough it out on my own.

writerkit

House is being sold. Have to be out of house by December 31st.

We are looking for a three-bedroom apartment in the greater Camberivlle that's no more expensive than $900 a person and preferably a bit less, or alternatively a four-bedroom apartment and an additional person.

I am also looking for help with the physical elements of moving, given that what COVID did to my heart is going to interfere somewhat with the moving-furniture stuff.

Also possibly a backup place to stay for a bit if I can't find an apartment in that timeframe.

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Location: M

kaberett

~~... has done so many things and is Going To Bed and will fill in this placeholder Tomorrow.~~

Reading. ( Descartes, Gouldercourt et al., Clifford )

Forgotten Fruits (Christopher Stocks) got auto-returned to the library for a second time while I was still, like, a third of the way into it. I am going to try to take the DNF with grace this time, but the Completionist Itch is still there...

Writing. Grumpy e-mails to HMPO. Grumpy e-mails to uk.bookshop.org (on the plus side, the book I bought from them now has a shiny wee DRM-free tag! on the downside, I can download it in neither of the browsers I've tried so far.) Mental drafting of context-setting on movement and sleep, which really need to get out of my head and onto the page.

Playing. Inkulinati! We have Completed All Three Journeys. In the second stage we achieved an absolutely bullshit strategy that made things astonishingly easy; the third stage (with SEAL) was much harder work.

Little bit more I Love Hue.

Cooking. Two things of particular note, of which the first was ridiculous parsnip risotto with thyme pesto from The Modern Vegetarian, extremely good, would very happily eat again but I'm more dubious about the prospect of cooking it again, though I will concede it would probably go faster now I know what I'm doing.

Item the second was THE MEDLAR STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING. I am not entirely convinced I can actually detect the, you know, medlar, but it is very tasty.

Elsewise I have two batches of medlar jelly on the go (first batch did not set properly, BAH, I have not made enough jam recently, so I'm going to need to redecant and reboil that before I move on to the spiced) and some ridiculous quince sorbet that needs forcing through the sieve before churning.

And I have still not touched the apples.

Eating. Saturday lunch at Holtwhites Bakery :)

Exploring. Stupid little walk on Sunday revealed unto us, among other things: a pair of cyclamen in a bit of the verge outside our house we don't normally walk past; a discarded fork; a local bush of Purple Metallic Berries; a secret holly hedge.

Growing. SEEDS arrived. Jalapeños (at least at home) turning red.

fayanora

Libraries are so cool. I had a writer's question that I sent to both the two local library systems, LINCC and Multnomah county, which was: Can a homeless kid get a library card? I provided some details like he and his mom live in their van, and they have a PO box. This is because one of the characters of book 7 is a homeless witch named Raven.¹ I was fully expecting the answer to be No or similar, but I was pleasantly surprised by the answer. For the Multnomah county system, which he would be most likely to be using, they've got a student connect thing where if he has a student ID for the area, he can get a library card that way. But they did also say a PO box is enough to get a card.

The librarian for LINCC -- the Clackamas county library system -- said "Yes, we would work with the patron to make sure they could use the library. Typically, we would provide a temporary card if they did not have proof of address and photo ID. So that would allow them to check out 5 books and use the other library services. In most cases, if someone is houseless and is in shelter or has a PO box, we would work with them to give them a full access card which would allow up to 80 checkouts. We have a lot of options for patrons that are houseless to access services in the library."

I don't know if the numbers are the same in Multnomah county; I asked in a reply and am still awaiting a response. But still... neat.

And like sure, Fae Springs is a school of magic. But it canonically has a website on the mundane Internet AND is on the website for the US Department of Education. Mainly because of mundane parents of magical kids.

1 = His mom is a 'middle spectrum' witch, IE not powerful enough of a witch to be able to use magic for much of anything. Chooli is also in the middle spectrum, but zee can see spirits and talk with ghosts. Raven's mom cannot. Her magic is very weak and she never got much past first or second year level spell-work. Basically she's barely a witch at all, and works two mundane jobs: one at Walmart and another at Safeway.

fayanora

In the US, since 2008, meat from cloned cows does not have to be disclosed. If you live in the US, you might've eaten meat from a cloned cow and not even known it.

This is not the kind of cloned meat the old scifi novels promised me. I was promised sheets of cloned meat grown in a laboratory like something out of a mad scientist's lair, meat that was real but which did not have a nervous system and therefore could not suffer. This though? This is just "cow with extra steps."

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

mdlbear

So I did, in fact, need a live appointment about the pain in my right ankle. Edema, which I could have checked for a couple of weeks ago if I'd thought of it. (I did think of it late last week, and immediately made the appointment.) I am now on two more blood pressure meds, and I'm supposed to keep my feet up and avoid salt. So much for brine pickles and pizza with anchovies.

The only places where I can put my feet above the level of my heart are in bed (with my feet on the wall, so I can only do it for a little while in the morning), and the living room couch. And about the only thing I can do in that postition is breathing exercises. Growf. I have a follow-up appointment this coming Wednesday.

I re-stacked the plastic bins under my desk, so I can at least keep my legs level if not up. Don't know whether that will help much, but it can't hurt. (Much; it's a little hard on my unsupported knees, and starts hurting after a little while..) Still no idea why I always feel cold in the late afternoon and evening, but I've gotten Colleen's fake-fleece-lined scooter cape out of the closet and it helps. The cold feeling might be partly -- or even mostly -- anxiety, but, well, Colleen's cape.

N is back from London, after getting m and Cricket settled there. Not clear what that will do to our recording schedule -- not much given that it was already a shambles. Lizzy, the folding mobility scooter, is also back. She appears to need some work, and definitely needs a new battery.

I don't think I've mentioned N's book, The World As It Ought to Be, since it came out in hardcopy and Kindle. Go get yourself a copy. I finally got her author's website more-or-less done; she's having it professionally desighed, but the one I hacked together will do until that's done. I got the Website Portfolio, which I mentioned last week, more-or-less done as well.

Some links: The rebellion will be federated – 2025 edition - Elena Rossini. She saved a baby goat. Now they travel the country, share a bed.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Current Mood: worried
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: a little practicing

galeogirl

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Current Mood: irritated

soc_puppet

Uh, school continues apace; I'm still a little freaked out by my final projects, but whatever, I'll make it work.

Worked the wood kiln on Thursday; I had a shift that was fairly early on in the process, so there wasn't actually a lot for me to do! My wrist is still a little sore from splitting some wood, though.

I made myself a new icon, though I'm putting off uploading it, because I think it'll be the perfect opportunity to make an icon-uploading tutorial 😂

I've got some new SVSSS thoughts I should probably copy over at some point, but I also don't have quite enough time for that, as it is nearing Bed Time Routine O'Clock.

So yeah! That's me for now. More hopefully soon.

Current Mood: restless

linky

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Double Face by Urashimasakatasen

kaberett

Irritatingly, the medlar jelly recipe I used last time I made the stuff, over at the RHS, is no longer extant (web.archive.org link!). Herewith my own readily findable copy of the thing, plus my notes on what I'm actually doing this time around.

(For amusement: I apparently first found the medlar sticky toffee pudding recipe in 2023...)

( Recipe as written )

( Notes )

azurelunatic

The washer saga ended a little while ago, with a brand repair tech who corrected something simple. Thursday night (the start of Friday wash day) the dryer gave up.

Since the dryer had been leaving unsightly rust streaks on all the lights, I have not been subtle in my campaign for a new one.

Delivery is scheduled for today, of a dryer with a steam cycle but without wifi.

linky

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Want You Back Again

galeogirl

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Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Turn! Turn! Turn! - The Byrds

kaberett

... Nor shall I say what objects of vision must be agreeable or disagreeable to it; for from what I have already said about the other senses, it is easy to grasp that light that is too strong will injure the eyes and moderate light must refresh them; and that, amongst the colours, green, which consistss in the most moderate action (which by analogy one can speak of as the ratio 1:2), is like the octave among musical consonances, or like bread among the foods that one eats, that is, it is the most universally agreeable.⁴⁰

⁴⁰ What the basis of this remark is is unclear, and although various writers have made suggestions about the relations between colours and sounds, the attempt to quantify green on a par with an octave certainly cannot be sustained. It is worth noting that Descartes will later advice Elizabeth to rid her mind of sad thoughts by reflecting on the greenness of a wood (Descartes to Elizabeth, May/June 1645, AT iv. 220).

(trans. and footnote courtesy of Stephen Gaukroger.)

chicating

( Read more... )

jesse_the_k

from someone who's a realist-for-now yet also wants to believe.

Adam Engst on Can Agentic Web Browsers Count?

tl;dr No, given a readily available data set on a webpage, they can't.

The sweetest and scariest part was his sympathy for Copilot's very anxious inner monologue as it tried to come up with answers while working to a deadline that nobody had created.

When it comes to system prompts, the anxious tone of Copilot’s internal responses suggests a “ship now, apologize later, if you’re caught” system prompt that, if reflected in a real-world workplace, would be problematic. Obviously, AIs don’t have feelings that can be hurt and won’t complain to HR, but such a culture tends to encourage people to cut corners and make poor decisions that compromise quality and customer service. If Copilot is any indication, the same is true for AIs.

davidgillon

The House of Lords have been taking evidence on the Assisted Suicide Bill.

Disabled folk to Parliament: The possibility of being compelled into assisted suicide scares us

Pro-assisted suicide mob to Parliament: a few disabled people coerced into assisted suicide is still worth it.

Honestly couldn't make it up

Current Mood: Grrrrr!

davidgillon

After three days in a row of not getting to sleep until after the sun was up (and then being woken mid-morning), I've basically spent the entire day asleep, apart from answering several phone calls from my sister and then almost immediately falling asleep again*.

I answered those sitting cross-legged on the bed, and I fell asleep in that position and then slept that way for several hours. My hips are NOT happy with me.

* I was particularly impressed that I picked up the thread of a dream I'd been having before one call afterwards. Strange dream for me, unusually non-action movie style.

Current Mood: Ow!
Current Location: Not cross-legged, much

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Access Fandom

improving disability access in fandom

Stories! Find your own way

Links: Emotions, trauma, research

Wanting to get strong

Looking for Housing

vital functions

Libraries are so cool

Cloned meat has been a thing since 2008

Done Since 2025-11-09

(no subject)

Wait, it's been HOW long since I last updated here? Aaaaaack!

Fannish Fifty #50: Anime NJ++ Roundup

[food] medlar jelly recipe

Alas, dryer

Fannish Fifty #49: Leijiverse and Mayalock Ask Answers

A time to build up, a time to break down

[pain] today in Descartes: green is the best colour because it is most like an octave

Not Wednesday, but WIP

boost: Adam Engst Learns Seven Agentic Web Browsers Can't Count

Department of Couldn't Make It Up

Well, that was sub-optimal

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