morgandawn: (Default)
[personal profile] morgandawn
 Fandom History: Persian/Farsi Speakers Needed
In late 2019, TV, movie, anime, gaming, celebrity, music, and book fans assembled to save Yahoo Groups after Verizon decided to shut down the mailing list service. Approximately 300,000 fandom groups have been saved. The Yahoo Gedden project is working on identifying the fandoms of Persian language mailing lists and can use your help. We need people who can read Persian/Farsi natively* right now to help us identify the Unknown groups. You can work at your own pace and it is a low time commitment. Work is done on Discord, just reading the group description and a few messages and summarizing the messages in English, maybe answering a question of clarification ("is it talking about X or Y?"). No software or other tools needed besides your phone/computer and access to Discord.


*We're not certain if these mailing lists are using a specific dialect or standard modern Farsi 

(no subject)

Jul. 14th, 2025 01:55 pm
watersword: Graffiti scrawl of "ignore this text" (Stock: ignore this text)
[personal profile] watersword

It turns out that North & South (2004) is not soothing to watch whilst stitching; I am not interested in the 1850's generally, I am in no fit state to be entertained by the Industrial Revolution and labor unrest, and the cinematography is bleak. Richard Armitage's jawline does not make up for these flaws.

The Three Sisters plot has begun giving me peas! It is surprisingly difficult to distinguish between "immature snap pea" and "mature snow pea". I should probably give up this plot next year, as the fee is almost twice as much as the one near my apartment, and getting there & back is annoying, and the plot is weed central ....but the raspberry patch! I got sour and sweet cherries at the farmer's market, which of course means that I made cherry-pit whipped cream to go with the cherry galette; it is now corn and zucchini season, which is one of my favorite seasons; I miss having a grill so much. It is absolutely perfect grilling weather.

Somehow I have three community events at the same time tonight: a embroidery meetup, a constituent outreach meeting with my city councilor, and a meeting of the neighborhood association board. ::facepalm::

Superman 2025 thoughts, no spoilers

Jul. 14th, 2025 01:16 pm
petra: Superman looking downward with a pensive expression (Clark - Beautiful night)
[personal profile] petra
If the new Superman movie had included Súperman es Ilegal (lyrics in English and Spanish in video), even just a little bit, I might've felt all the whiners were justified in saying how woke it is. It's a charming movie with compelling performances, but "woke" is a serious overstatement by people who can't handle characters who aren't white dudes doing things.

This Ma and Pa Kent were my favorite iterations of themselves outside of comics, and I fully believed that this Clark would say, "Dang."

If you like your superheroes a little too clean-cut and a lot too earnest, you, too, may enjoy this flick.

i love a low-stakes question

Jul. 14th, 2025 09:48 am
fox: my left eye.  "ceci n'est pas une fox." (Default)
[personal profile] fox posting in [community profile] agonyaunt

Dear Miss Manners: The neighbor who lives directly across the street from me parks in front of my house. If this was occasional, I wouldn’t care, but it’s become the daily routine. I can’t imagine consistently doing this.

I enjoy looking out my window in the evening, but now my view is a car every night.

Today a work truck parked in front of my house, so the neighbor parked in their own driveway (which is always clear, as is their curb). When the truck left, they moved their car back to my curb, leaving their driveway empty the rest of the day.

I realize this could sound petty, but our other neighbors respect this unwritten rule.

In addition to unwritten, the rule is possibly unknown to this neighbor. Miss Manners trusts that you don’t think the car is purposely parked with the intention of blocking your view, and that you realize that others have a legal right to park on a public street.

Therefore, the neighbor would be doing you a favor by refraining from parking there. And to ask a favor requires purging any annoyance you feel and admitting that complying would be a voluntary kindness.

An amusing confession of your staring-out-the-window habit would be more effective than an admonishment for violating neighborhood expectations.

Gratitudes dammit

Jul. 14th, 2025 09:31 am
kass: A glass of iced coffee with milk. (coffee)
[personal profile] kass
1. Murderbot! I deeply enjoyed the whole first season. I think they did a lovely job of translating from book into tv show, and Skarsgard has totally sold me on the role. (It helps that we know he loves the books too -- he wants to do right by them.)

2. Andor! I'm now seven episodes in and absolutely loving it. It feels awfully relevant to our moment. Also I am amused by the fact that this show also relies in part on the acting talent of a Skarsgard, just, y'know, a different one.

3. Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy by Martha Wells, published to celebrate the Murderbot S1 finale.

4. Cold coffee with milk and splenda, and a distant patch of blue in the cloudy skies.

5. All of my laundry is folded and put away. This is, as ever, a temporary state of affairs but it's a nice one while it lasts.
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
I’m a 20-year-old male college student who met someone new this spring. We clicked instantly and have been dating a few months. He visited me at college, and we’re both living in New York this summer. We enjoy lovely dinners and each other’s company with almost no issues, except one major sore spot.

I recently let him know I’m not interested in monogamy right now. Having been in a long-distance monogamous relationship before, the pressure and trust issues made me skeptical of that norm. I explained that because of my past, I struggle to feel deeply sexually attracted to someone I actually care about. We have OK sex, but it lacks the fire of casual hookups. I also explained that my interest in nonmonogamy was less about actively seeking others and more about lessening the pressure around potential lapses during travel or because of distance.

He seemed to take it all right, but I later discovered that within two weeks, he slept with three people without telling me — supposedly to avoid getting cuckolded or looking foolish. I haven’t seen anyone else in the meantime, so now I guess I look foolish. When I confronted him about acting out of anger rather than communicating, he immediately blamed my original sin of wanting nonmonogamy, which he says is for “hippies and sex addicts.”

I told him how I’ve seen relationships, including my parents’, destroyed by infidelity and deception. I asked whether he would prefer a relationship filled with lies or one built on honesty — to which he said he would rather not be with me at all, which definitely hurt.

To ease tensions, I agreed to four months of exclusivity to see where we stand. I emphasized my reluctance to rush things, especially because I haven’t felt deep love or trust yet and can see that he is much more into me than I am into him. Continuing, even not in my preferred way, seemed better than cutting off someone I care about.

But I’m still curious about nonmonogamy, especially while I’m young and good-looking and trying to understand which relationship styles work for me. Should I suppress my bohemian urges and go along with his desire for exclusivity or attempt another structured conversation about it? Am I too young for this to matter or is this actually the best time to test boundaries? Any thoughts on examining this situation and mending resentments before they spiral?


Read more... )

Daily Happiness

Jul. 13th, 2025 10:44 pm
torachan: charlotte from bad machinery saying "oh the mysteries of the moth farm" (oh the mysteries of the moth farm)
[personal profile] torachan
1. I finished another of these 300 piece Disneyland anniversary puzzles from the multipack. This one went much faster than the Mickey head shaped one, but was still fun.



2. Tonight we saw Paul F. Thompkins' Varietopia again and it was a lot of fun.

Read more... )

3. New favorite picture of Molly.

(no subject)

Jul. 13th, 2025 07:00 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Dear Carolyn: I have an older sister, “Amy,” who was prettier and more outgoing than I was, so I kind of lived in her shadow, but I adored her and she was always my best friend growing up. Her sophomore year of college, I found out from a friend at her school that she was doing drugs and her boyfriend was a dealer. She’d secretly dropped half her courses and was barely passing the rest. I offered to find her some help, but she just ridiculed me. As things worsened, I was worried about her, so I told our parents. She lied and said I’d made the whole thing up because I was so jealous of her. My parents believed her and even said I might need therapy for telling a lie that big, until she was arrested a few months later and the whole truth came out.

For years following, she kept lying, stole so much money from me, wrecked my car and said/did many other horrible things to me. I moved away and cut her out of my life. She skipped out on her treatment program and got arrested again.

Last year, Amy completed rehab and is supposedly clean. She also had a baby last month, has minimal support from the father and is back living with my parents.

They want me to forgive and forget and be part of my nephew’s life, but I see it as insisting I give Amy another chance to hurt me. I still have so much resentment against her. I don’t want to take it out on her son, but I can’t stand the thought of being around her. She never apologized or tried to make amends for all she put me through, and I’m not sure I could ever trust her again. Is it even worth trying to be a part of my nephew’s life when I feel that way about his mom?
— Distrustful


Read more... )
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Dear Annie: I have a frustrating problem with my mother. I'm 40 years old, but she still treats me like I'm a teenager. She expects me to answer every call immediately and freaks out if I'm unavailable, often roping in my cousin to text me if I don't respond since my mom doesn't know how.

This has been going on since I was a teen. When I was 18, I was expected to call when I left or arrived anywhere. I once forgot to call her after leaving a bookstore, and by the time I got to the library, I was accosted by three separate employees saying my mother had been calling. My aunt and cousin think it's a cute story, not infuriating like I do.

Last year, I mentioned I was heading to Walmart. Remember that I'm 40. I didn't check my phone for 10 whole minutes, and in that short time, my mom called several times and had our cousin text to "see if I was OK."

Most recently, I missed a text and then a call from my cousin -- she was picking me up -- because my phone was on silent after I got home from work and I'd stepped into the bathroom. My mom later confronted me about the "stunt" I pulled, how it was so rude I'd done that and told my cousin they shouldn't pick me up anymore.

How do I explain to her that she's suffocating me? I know she worries, but I'm 40 years old. I'm not a highly sought after princess the world is about to kidnap at any moment; I'm just another random person, not a highly coveted commodity. The more she does this, the more she pushes me away. -- Smothered in a Small Town


Read more... )
seascribble: the view of boba fett's codpiece and smoking blaster from if you were on the ground (Default)
[personal profile] seascribble
Martha shared this link to an interview where the Weitz bros talk about how Stephen Maturin was an influence on how they decided to write Gurathin. WEIRD LITTLE FREAKS EVERYWHERE. As someone noted when I shared this on the discord, the two characters are not very much alike in the end, but you can see the notes. Very cool. 



Here is a fic rec about when Iris is a baby and Perihelion is in a lab. 

And here is an art that is very adorable of baby Iris and Peri together. 


More Murderbot Articles

Jul. 13th, 2025 11:41 am
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
[personal profile] marthawells
A really thoughtful essay on Murderbot: ‘Even If They Are My Favourite Human’: Murderbot Just Explained Boundaries

https://countercurrents.org/2025/07/even-if-they-are-my-favourite-human-murderbot-just-explained-boundaries/

“I Don’t Know What I Want”: The Line That Changed Everything

In the final moments of the season, Murderbot says: “I don’t know what I want. But I know I don’t want anyone to tell me what I want or to make decisions for me. Even if they are my favourite human.”

This is not a dramatic declaration. It is confusion wrapped in clarity. A sentence that holds discomfort and self-awareness in equal measure. It reflects a truth often ignored in stories about intelligence and emotion: that it is okay to not know, as long as that unknowing belongs to the self. In a world that constantly demands certainty, this line opens up space for uncertainty without shame.



* And a great interview with Alexander Skarsgård!

https://collider.com/murderbot-finale-alexander-skarsgard/

So, it just wants to start fresh and get away, and figure out who it is and what it wants. It doesn't really know that. I quite enjoyed that Murderbot didn't end up having answers to all the questions or knowing exactly what it wants. It's more messy and complicated than that. But it definitely knows that it needs to find its own path and make its own decisions, to make its own mistakes, and not have the Corporation or anyone tell it who it is or what it wants.
runpunkrun: illustration of numbered sheep jumping over a sleeping figure, text: runpunkrun (and then she woke up)
[personal profile] runpunkrun

Fam, I have been so wiped out lately that I feel like I have a Victorian wasting disease. All I can really do is just sit on the couch and read or work on my virtual farm. On the other hand this has given me plenty of time to make up Fake Victorian Wasting Diseases:

  • nervous frippery
  • whispering spleen
  • hysterical ennui
  • chimney wheeze
  • evening vapors
  • wastrel's scrod

june booklog

Jul. 13th, 2025 11:57 am
wychwood: Frannie smiling, with a heart (due South - Frannie heart)
[personal profile] wychwood
53. Beautiful Just - Lillian Beckwith ) I don't love this any more, but I can see why I did.


54. The Whig Supremacy - Basil Williams ) Moving into ever more familiar territory...


55. A Tale of Time City, 56. Eight Days of Luke, 61. The Game, and 62. Dogsbody - Diana Wynne Jones ) Apparently I have strong feelings about Dogsbody still. But these were all very readable, if in some cases rather slight.


57. A Problem for the Chalet School and 58. The Chalet School Triplets - Elinor M Brent-Dyer ) Always a pleasant time re-reading these.


59. A Sorceress Comes to Call - T Kingfisher ) Kingfisher is just generally reliable for me, and this is not an exception.


60. The Incandescent - Emily Tesh ) I enjoyed this a lot, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing where Tesh goes next! Recommended to anyone with an interest in pedagogy and school stories; what a great combination that definitely should be more common.
mific: (Atlantis gold sunset)
[personal profile] mific posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG1
Characters/Pairings: Teyla Emmagan, Cam Mitchell, John Sheppard, Jack O'Neill, Ronon Dex, Daniel Jackson, Sam Carter, Miko Kusanagi, Rodney McKay, Teal'c
Rating: Gen
Length: 1505
Creator Links: LtLJ on AO3
Themes: Working together, Teams, Humor, Action/adventure

Summary: Five things that happen on missions where SG-1 and SGA-1 go through the gate together.

Reccer's Notes: A great example of the 5-things format - five dramatic, telling, and sometimes amusing times when members of the premium gate teams of Earth and Atlantis worked together. The last one's an absolute classic!

Fanwork Links: Five Joint Missions, Post-Retrograde on AO3
and I podficced it, here.

mific: (Sinners)
[personal profile] mific posting in [community profile] fanart_recs
Fandom: Sinners
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Smoke, Stack, Sammie (Preacherboy), Annie, Mary, Bo Chow, Grace Chow, Delta Slim, Pearline
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: doodlesnoff on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: A great montage of them all dancing at the Juke, before everything goes to hell. I love the warm colours and the joy.
Link: "for a few hours, we were free"

Derek Hale Fan Video - Titanium

Jul. 12th, 2025 09:32 pm
brokenframe: (Default)
[personal profile] brokenframe posting in [community profile] vidding
Title: Titanium
Character: Derek Hale
TV Series: Teen Wolf
Music: Titanium by Sia
Length: 3:55
Streaming/download at: DW | Tumblr

Daily Happiness

Jul. 12th, 2025 08:01 pm
torachan: (Default)
[personal profile] torachan
1. We had originally been planning to go to Disneyland this morning, but last night I was just feeling tired and suggested we skip our weekend trip since we're going to a show (Paul F. Thompkins' Varietopia again) tomorrow already, and just have one stay at home day. Well, turned out to be for the best because apparently JD Vance is at Disneyland this weekend and so not only is there extremely heightened security inside and protests outside, but the thought of being at the park at the same time as him is a bummer and would just ruin the trip. So we'll just wait and go sometime this week. It's not like we haven't been recently lol.

2. Instead of going to the farmers market or Disneyland, our usual Saturday morning choices, we walked up to a local bagel place and got fancy bagels. We each got two half bagels with different toppings. She got the laika (smoked salmon, cream cheese, pickled red onions, cucumber, capers, and dill) and the scarlett (cream cheese, lightly grilled tomatoes, lemon zest, and chili flakes), and I got the mia (avocado, pickled red onions, chili flakes, and cilantro) and the pre-jam (cream cheese, peaches, honey, and mixed berries). We also got a yuzu strawberry lemonade ice tea and a vanilla orange latte. Everything was so good!

They always have super long lines on the weekends so we've been curious but I'd never been before. Carla's been a couple times on weekdays, when it's not as crowded, but she'd only gotten the scarlett before and hadn't tried anything else. They have online ordering but I didn't know what time Carla would wake up, so I didn't put in an order early, and by the time she woke up around 9:30, there were no more order slots, so we just walked up, but the line wasn't bad yet (maybe fifteen minutes or so and then a bit more of a wait to get the order). Definitely worth it, though.

3. Later in the morning, Carla was talking about some Lush product she'd seen mentioned recently and it got us thinking about Lush again. There was another product she used to use all the time when they had a location here in Santa Monica, but that one's been gone for ages and it was sort of out of sight out of mind. But it turns out there's one at the mall in Culver City, so we decided to go check it out.

We got several things and then headed to the Target at the end of the mall and passed by a super cute hobby shop that had a bunch of knock-off lego type bricks with all sorts of licensed characters, and they also had a bunch of book nooks and other wood craft type stuff and we ended up buying quite a few things lol. Facebook/Instagram has been pushing book nooks on me for a while so it felt like fate. I got one book nook and Carla got three wood craft dinosaur sets and a Kung Fu Panda brick set (this brand is a lot less cheap looking than most non-lego brand bricks I've seen).

I have been trying to find some new plain t-shirts I can wear to work as I currently only have one that both fits well and feels nice (though I do have others that are tolerable). It's really hard for me to find shirts because I am sensitive about fabrics. I usually buy most of my clothes from Target because I don't like shopping and am lazy, but they don't have any good t-shirts right now, so while we were at the mall I checked out Uniqlo and Old Navy, and neither had good shirts (the Uniqlo ones I couldn't even bear to try on because the fabric felt so NOPE to me just from a quick touch), but at least I can mark those off my list of possibilities.

We then went to Target and got some random stuff (mostly food, but also a nice Encanto puzzle) and then while I was waiting for Carla to check out I got a pepperoni cheese pretzel from Auntie Anne's. Haven't eaten there in literal decades, but it was delicious. Also had tasty watermelon lemonade.

Overall it was a very nice trip. We used to go to the mall all the time years and years ago and never go, but this one is not at all dead and has lots of nice shops. Kind of seemed like back in the heyday of malls. We should do that more often!

4. Look at Tuxie's snoot! So cute!

get down, get down

Jul. 12th, 2025 09:52 pm
musesfool: iconic supergirl (up up and away)
[personal profile] musesfool
As I may have mentioned, Baby Miss L loves potatoes, so when I saw a t-shirt on Etsy that said, "Potatoes gonna potate!" around a picture of a potato, I thought, I have to get it for her! Unfortunately, it was only available in neon green, which I did not like the look of. Luckily, many other vendors were also selling t-shirts with pictures of friendly potatoes on them, so I got her this one that says, "Tater tot!"

This morning, I received a series of glamour shots and a video of Baby Miss L thoroughly excited about wearing the t-shirt. It was so great!

I also learned that The Muppets covering Jungle Boogie is one of her current favorite videos. AMAZING!

On all counts, her vibes are immaculate.

Tomorrow, I'm going to a birthday bbq at my brother's, and I'm bringing her the Batman and Robin t-shirts, plus some toddler books about Batman and the Justice League. Hopefully she enjoys them almost as much! (I also recently sent her a Captain America t-shirt, which I believe she wore for the 4th, and I also got pics of her in the Superman dress, with her arms up like she was flying. 😍😍😍)

In other news, I found this review of the new Superman movie really moving. Will I venture out to a theater to see it? Probably not, but I will be very excited to watch it when it makes its way onto HBO in a few months.

*

Weekly Reading

Jul. 12th, 2025 05:49 pm
torachan: onoda sakamichi from yowamushi pedal with a huge smile (onoda smile)
[personal profile] torachan
Currently Reading
A Slash of Emerald
82%. Second in the Dr Julia Lewis mystery series. It's been a while since the first one and tbh I've been reading/listening to so many historical murder series that they start to blend together a bit so I don't entirely remember the first one (though I did give it four stars so I clearly liked it) but I feel like I'm enjoying this one even more than the first? It's definitely good.

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
4%. Title is self-explanatory. Just started but it seems like an interesting topic!

Kill Her Twice
6%. YA murder mystery set in 1930s LA Chinatown. So far so good, but I've only just gotten started.

Just Happy to Be Here
26%.

Sister Outsider
32%.

Recently Finished
Riding the Rails
This was good! Felt a little repetitive and the best parts were short chapters that focused on individuals rather than the longer chapters that were supposedly organized by topic but kind of wandered a bit.

Murder at the Patel Motel
I really liked this a lot. It looks like the other books the author has written are middle grade and I'm going to check them out, but I hope he does some more mysteries because this was a lot of fun.

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy
New Murderbot short story. It's available free here. This is set after the most recent book and is about ART and crew. I enjoyed it.

Astronautical!
Cute middle grade graphic novel set in a universe where a planet has broken apart into little bits and one can travel between the chunks in boats. Things like gravity and oxygen are hand-waved and it's very vibes-based and ultimately a little too silly for me, but it was cute.

Koyubi-sensei no Reiteki Sakusen
New manga by Uguisu Sachiko. This is a single volume collection of what were originally one-shots, so although they have the same characters, there's not really any plot arc. I've read (and scanlated) a couple of the stories but the rest were new to me. I like all her stuff and this was no exception.

Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri vol. 17
This really feels like it's wrapping up. There was an announcement for the next volume in the back and it was listed as volume 18 rather than final volume, but I would be surprised if it went more than another volume or two after that. tbh I'm fine with that. I've enjoyed the series but I liked it more before it developed an over-arching plot. (My same complaint with Katekyo Hitman Reborn, which also started as a gag manga and evolved into something with silly elements but overall more serious.)

Mission! vol. 4

Saint Young Men vol. 21

Murderbot Interview

Jul. 12th, 2025 03:05 pm
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
[personal profile] marthawells
Here's a gift link for the New York Times interview with Paul and Chris Weitz, who wrote, directed, and produced Murderbot:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/arts/television/murderbot-season-finale-chris-paul-weitz.html?unlocked_article_code=1.V08.exvw.M_qE37ROOT58&smid=url-share
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
[personal profile] petra
I had the opportunity to go to a concert of his recently and enjoyed his part of the show exceedingly. The opening act, Puddles Pity Party, was very much not my thing, alas, but Mr. Yankovic is exuberantly himself, the costume changes are lolarious, and the music is inimitably Weird. If you like his work, you'll almost certainly like his concert. Extra points awarded for the songs (not all of them, alas) that had text videos, effectively functioning as closed captioning with a sense of humor.

Also, the audience was full of people wearing extremely cheerful shirts, and made great viewing.

I have not seen the most recent Murderbot yet, but I did spot David Dastmalchian as John Deacon in a clip of Weird-the-biopic which was played at the concert, so that's almost the same thing, right? I was very proud of my facial recognition software for picking up on that. I would like to belatedly award points to the casting department for finding a way to get another MENA-descended person into Queen, which is a great joke I didn't get at the time.

I loved the new Murderbot short story, which I read aloud to my SO.

Reading adventures

Jul. 12th, 2025 05:16 pm
cimorene: Pixel art of a bright apple green art deco tablet radio with elaborate ivory fretwork (is this thing on?)
[personal profile] cimorene
I haven't been able to get invested in reading a specific fandom in several years. Every now and then I look at fandoms I have read in the past and manage to spend a few weeks rereading some of them before I run out of patience to keep looking, but that's not very long.

About a month ago, I tried to read some 911 fic from [personal profile] waxjism's spreadsheet. She is keeping a spreadsheet of every fic in this fandom she has read. She records the title and author; pairing (even though they're all the same pairing); summary - which is sometimes the author summary and sometimes she writes something in this field like a comment, or a whole rant, that doesn't actually include a summary; a column called "good/no" where she categorizes them as very good, good, above mid, mid, "sub mid", or bad; and a column called "comments" where she sometimes rants, or continues the rant from the summary columnn, and sometimes just says things like "fun-ish" or "not flawless" or "pretty hot" or "unbearably written by a child or a super-offline person". This is different from how I, at least, used to keep track of a recs list when I had to do it manually, because she puts in everything she starts even if she DNF immediately, and also it's for private use. I tried to use it to find things to read, and it's not like I'm unfamiliar with reading fanfiction without canon but also I had seen some of this show accidentally while she was watching it. I did keep trying for a while and I read... some... number of the ones she marked very good or good, based on the comments and summaries, but I kept getting bored and annoyed at the characters. It just wasn't grabbing me. Very disappointing because there would've been a lot to read. (A huge amount of the things on this spreadsheet are marked bad or sub-mid even by her, and I think she is in general more forgiving in judging quality than I am even though unlike me she never reads things that seem kinda bad or mediocre to her for fun. And she has never gone archive-spelunking or read directly from the tag: she ONLY reads from recs and bookmarks. There's no control to test it here, but I think this bears out my personal conviction that there is a 0% increase in quality from recs and bookmarks (of random people that you don't know as opposed to someone vetted and trusted) vs. the slushpile (the entire content of the archive at random)).

A couple of weeks ago I saw a post on Tumblr that said something like, paraphrased, "There's a very popular notion that in the past all literature was good quality compared to now, but that's not true. This is survivorship bias. The stuff we still know and read in the present day is the good stuff, but a vast quantity of bad and mediocre stuff is lost to time." Someone responded by linking to The Westminster Detective Library, a project investigating the earliest history of the detective fiction genre. Apparently the professor who began it was initially inspired by a conviction that Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue was not actually the first detective short story based on features of its writing which in his opinion betrayed the signs of a genre history. The website contains transcribed public-domain detective fiction that was published in American magazines before the first Sherlock Holmes story's publication. I have been enjoying reading through it chronologically since I read the post. Reading in one genre is a bit like reading in one fandom, and reading very old fiction has several special points of interest to me because I love learning about history and culture in that way. Of course on the minus side, it isn't gay. But I'm getting fascinating glimpses of the history of the genre and the history of jurisprudence in both America and Britain. And although there is definitely mediocre and "sub-mid" writing published in the periodicals of the 18th-19th centuries, awash in silly cliches and carelessly proofread if at all, they are still slightly more filtered for legibility and literacy than the experience of reading modern fanfiction (even, as mentioned in the last paragraph, from recs lists and bookmarks, unless you have a supply of trusted and well-known reccers to follow. I sometimes come near tears remembering the days when I could always check what [personal profile] thefourthvine and [personal profile] norah were recommending, but I can't blame them for the decline, either, because I was generally reading and at least bookmarking if not reccing just as productively at the time).

The other thing that has happened to affect my reading is that my little sister's high school best friend got engaged and invited my sister to her engagement party in Florida, which is going to be "Gatsby-themed". The 1920s is possibly my single oldest hyperfixation, dating from before the age of 10, and it's the historical period that I know and care the most about. For the past ten years or so the term "Gatsby" has, consequently, inspired me with the most intense rage and irritation, because its popularity after the movie version of The Great Gatsby flooded the internet with so much loathesomely inaccurate "information" about and imagery of the 1920s as to actually make it harder to find real information, and nearly impossible to filter out this dreck. So my sister began shopping for her Engagement Party Outfit, which is supposed to be "Gatsby"-themed, and I am the permanent primary audience for this (just as she is the permanent primary audience any time I am planning outfits or considering my wardrobe). This has led me to reading 1920s magazines online from the Internet Archive and HathiTrust - initially the middle-class fashion magazine McCall's; then also Vogue and Harper's Bazar (much more pretentious and bourgeois). I tried to branch out into interior design magazines of the same period (House & Garden and Better Homes & Gardens), but it has been harder to find scans of them. I find 1920s romantic fiction (serialized copiously in all these magazines) much less readable and enjoyable than the 1920s detective fiction which I am more familiar with (I've read plenty of it thanks to my interest in Golden Age detective stories)... but I've also learned a lot more physical and aesthetic details about women's fashion and interiors from the romantic fiction, which makes me think I perhaps need to seek out more of it.

Two more new BtVS vids!

Jul. 12th, 2025 09:29 am
tafadhali: ([art] intricate rituals)
[personal profile] tafadhali posting in [community profile] vidding
[personal profile] periru3 and I have posted two more vids in our ongoing vid album Jagged Little Slayer, a mashup of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Alanis Morissette:


Title:
 You Oughta Know
Character/Pairing: Buffy/Faith, S4
Summary: I'm not gonna fade as soon as you close your eyes.

AO3 | DWTumblr


Title:
 Ironic
Character/Pairing: Minor characters suffering mishaps
Summary: Isn't it ironic, dontcha think?

AO3
| DW | Tumblr

lab results are in

Jul. 12th, 2025 08:57 am
lunabee34: (Default)
[personal profile] lunabee34
1. I've been on tenterhooks waiting for my lab results from my initial consult with Dylan's rheumatologist. I will never, ever allow their phlebotomist to stick me ever again. She stuck me five times, including in my hand and down my forearm, and I still am bruised up to hell and back. To add insult to injury, she then refused to stick me anymore and I had to go to an independent LabCorp. That phlebotomist stuck me once and it didn't even hurt. I'll be getting all my lab work done there from now on. I had it done on July 3, and I've been so antsy to get the results but the holiday clearly backed everything up. Anyway, I got the results today, and they are super fucked up! Hooray! I am testing positive for things I did not before on previous tests and on tests I've never taken before. She also sent me for an interminable set of x-rays on my knees and back. I am really hopeful for a diagnosis, but who knows. I've been disappointed before. It looks like the most likely possible diagnoses will be lupus, mixed connective tissue disease, and/or ankylosing spondylitis (hence all the x-rays). We'll see. She might just tell me I'm old and fat. *sigh*

2. Stranger Things recs )

Daily Happiness

Jul. 11th, 2025 10:48 pm
torachan: karkat from homestuck looking bored (karkat bored)
[personal profile] torachan
1. I had a pretty laid back day at work today but I am super glad it is the weekend and I have a break for a couple days.

2. I am so glad I was able to get this picture. Jasper: She's lurking again, isn't she?

Oh, cat

Jul. 11th, 2025 10:37 pm
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)
[personal profile] azurelunatic
Caught Yellface with her WHOLE HEAD inside the Fritos bag.
prozacpark: (PLL - Ali's funeral)
[personal profile] prozacpark posting in [community profile] vidding
So, I am looking for a fanvid made for festivids for “Snow White: a Tale of Terror” called “Bare your Teeth” using Lady Gaga’s teeth by vidder e- transitions back in 2010.  

I seem to remember having accessed it either through YouTube or Vimeo at some point but all of the old links I have found link to a download on the vidder’s personal website, which no longer exists.  

I’m hoping for a link or if someone had downloaded it at some point and still has it, I would be forever grateful.  

2025 sweater #1: Thorn & Embers

Jul. 11th, 2025 01:02 pm
teaotter: (Default)
[personal profile] teaotter
I promised y'all a post about making my first sweater this year. Here it is!

tldr: Finished in all its glory:

a hand-knitted sweater with a complex pattern: something kind of like a black houndstooth on a background of shifting burnt umber / purple-ish brown / golden brown, with black knitted cuffs and crew neck collar.

(Though I have to say, the colors in this sweater do *not* photograph properly with my phone. It's a lot more brick than yellow, and there's a gradient from the bottom to the top. The digital editor in my camera is determined to edit this like there's no tomorrow.)

more process nattering and photos under the cut )

the read on the speed-meter says

Jul. 11th, 2025 03:20 pm
musesfool: (easy like sunday morning)
[personal profile] musesfool
Two guys came and measured the space for my new dishwasher and it will apparently fit, but there are as always several - okay, 2 - unexpected wrinkles: 1. the current machine is hardwired into the electric, but the new dishwasher needs a plug, so the installers are going to have to build an outlet? These 2 guys didn't seem to think it was a big deal but it is another $75, which at this point is whatever, fine. Secondly, they were concerned that the installation might damage the drain pipe under my sink, and I was like, can we wrap it in something to protect it from being dinged? and they were like, "Eh, maybe, but if it breaks you're responsible for fixing it." Which, thanks. I suppose I can get under there and wrap a towel around it if necessary.

So we'll see how this goes on Tuesday. Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't completely wreck my kitchen!

Speaking of wrecking my kitchen, my current HGTV viewing is "Help! I wrecked my house!" which I'm enjoying, but oh my god, the sheer hubris of some of these mediocre white men, who think they can demo a kitchen or a bathroom down to the studs and then figure out how to put in a new one, and then have to call Jasmine because of course they can't. I don't understand these people, tbh. There is nothing wrong with asking a trained professional to come in and do that kind of work, especially if you're not particularly handy. (And even you are handy in the "can change a washer in the faucet" variety, what makes you think you can install a shower from the ground up??? WTF?) On the other hand, I am really sympathetic to the folks who did hire a contractor who turned out to be shady and didn't do the work properly and stiffed them of their money to boot!

In other news, I am now on vacation and very excited about it! Except shit, I forgot to set up my out of office message. I will have to log back in and do that.

*
altamira16: A sailboat on the water at dawn or dusk (Default)
[personal profile] altamira16
This book was a very well done AI skeptic book that was rooted in deep knowledge of the history of artificial intelligence. It brought to light some interesting points that I had never thought about, and it never descended into a rant.

It gets into the history of AI, and a lot of that discussion is rooted in the type of probabilistic models that I learned about in grad school. It is discussing n-grams, Markov, and so on.

There is a discussion about how AI is an attempt to break labor and gets into a more detailed history of the Luddites. The Luddites were craftsmen, and machines were replacing their hard won skills with an inferior product. The machines that were doing this were also dangerous to their operators.

Various people involved in AI feel like there should not be any AI policy until it is thoroughly discussed, but the authors propose that existing laws should be used to limit the use of AI in areas where it can do harm. They quote Michael Atleson, an attorney within the FTC Division of Advertising Practices:


Your therapy bots aren't licensed psychologists, your AI girlfriends are neither girls nor friends, your griefbots have no soul, and your AI copilots are not gods.


The book was extremely critical about the use of AI in making medical decisions and in law. Law has to do with the nuance of language, and generated language that no human really thinks through does not have the same nuance.

There were also good arguments for limiting the use of AI in education.


In August 2020, thousands of British students, unable to take their A-level exams due to the COVID-19 pandemic, received grades calculated based on an algorithm that took as input, among other things, the grades that other students at their schools received in previous years. After massive public outcry, in which hundreds of students gathered outside the prime minister's residence at 10 Downing Street in London, chanting "Fuck the algorithm!" the grades were retracted and replaced with grades based on teachers' assessments of the student work.


While some technology in education is important, a lot of technology in education is designed to give an inferior education to poor kids and union-bust.

One thing that I did not know was that the little Gemini summary on a Google search uses 10-30 times more energy than search before this feature was added.

The authors see both AI doomers and AI boosters as two sides of the same coin. Both of these groups believe that the AI will become smarter than humans. The outcome is the only thing that they differ on.

The group that wants to consider the data used to train the models and the impacts that AI has on the present really does not want to get lumped in with AI doomers that think that the AI is going to eventually get so smart that it will destroy humanity. They are rooted in reality while the doomers are not. There was some criticism of how Vice President Harris was trying to get the people concerned with the present impact of AI to work with the doomers.

There were a lot of references Karen Hao's work. How has recently released the book "Empire of AI." Hao is an AI journalist specifically focused on OpenAI.

Daily Happiness

Jul. 10th, 2025 08:49 pm
torachan: john from garfield wearing a party hat and the text "this is boring with hats" (this is boring with hats)
[personal profile] torachan
1. Had a long day today with a lot of driving, but it was a good day. I made three store visits and they were all pleasant and not being made because of some stressfull issues that had to be addressed or anything like that. More of this, please.

2. While I was out, I had a bunch of delicious foods. The first store I went to has a little restaurant that sells freshly made sushi hand rolls and I got those for lunch, including their wagyu beef one, which is so good. Then when I went to the next store, there was a shop in the same shopping center that has mochi donuts and lattes and I got a sakura matcha latte and black sesame mochi donuts.

3. Carla went out shopping today and actually stopped at a different branch of the same mochi donut store and brought home donuts, so I can have more of them for dessert and for breakfast tomorrow!

4. This morning as I was about to leave for work I spotted this silly guy in the laundry.

2025 Disneyland Trip #49 (7/9/25)

Jul. 10th, 2025 08:08 pm
torachan: (Default)
[personal profile] torachan
We ended up doing another after work trip last night. It was very hot during the day, but had cooled off nicely by the time we got there (though still a bit muggy).

Read more... )

New Murderbot Short Story

Jul. 10th, 2025 09:33 pm
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
[personal profile] marthawells
The new Murderbot short story is up at Reactor Magazine:

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy

https://reactormag.com/rapport-martha-wells/

Edited by Lee Harris, art by Jaime Jones.


And Murderbot was renewed for a second season!

https://deadline.com/2025/07/murderbot-renewed-season-2-apple-tv-1236453764/

“We’re so grateful for the response that Murderbot has received, and delighted that we’re getting to go back to Martha Wells’ world to work with Alexander, Apple, CBS Studios and the rest of the team,” Chris and Paul Weitz, said in a statement Thursday.

More for the letter than the answer

Jul. 10th, 2025 12:45 pm
ysobel: (fail)
[personal profile] ysobel posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Dear Eric: I am 40 and physically disabled. I need a powered wheelchair to get around both outside and inside my apartment. Recently, my tires were popped by some broken glass from a bottle thrown out of a passing car onto the sidewalk. It has been a week since I have been able to use my wheelchair, and I have another 20 days before my new tires arrive.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be infuriated that someone’s litter caused me to spend $200 on replacement tires.

My caregiver disagrees. He says that it’s my fault for continuing and not turning around. He also said that I am overreacting, when the most I have done is complain a little bit for maybe an hour total and make a joking “whoever threw the bottle on the sidewalk owes me $200” comment once.

Am I being too sensitive about this? I think being upset about having to spend $200 that I don’t have to replace something necessary for my continued function in and outside of my apartment due to litter is understandable, but I would like to ask for your thoughts on the matter to be sure.

— Tire’d


Tire’d: Let me get this straight. Your caregiver, who understands the challenges you face navigating a world that is often not accommodating, thinks that you don’t have the right to be peeved about this? Litter, particularly broken glass, is a problem for everyone and any one of us could and should be upset about having to navigate a sidewalk strewn with jagged pieces, even if it didn’t cost us $200 or a temporary restriction in mobility.

What happened wasn’t fair and it had a greater impact on you than it would on someone who could just step to the side or crunch the glass under a boot. Your caregiver needs to acknowledge that some things in the world affect you differently. This is what empathy is. One doesn’t need firsthand experience to be empathetic, but in this case he has to be able to see how hard this one battle has made your life.

I hope that this is an isolated incident in your relationship and he’s able to be supportive in other ways. Because care is about more than physical assistance. It’s also about being willing to say, “I see you. I hear you. What you’re feeling is valid.”

Dexter (2006-2013)

Jul. 10th, 2025 11:30 am
runpunkrun: richie tenenbaum with a shaved head and sunglasses, text: let's fuck this up (let's fuck this up)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
Once upon a time, I watched the first five seasons of Dexter and then stopped for whatever reason. Recently I saw it was on Netflix and thought I should finally finish the series and I might as well start at the beginning so as to maximize the amount of time I could spend not having to think about anything else in the world except for what a selfish asshole Dexter is and how much I love Deb.

Previously on Dexter...

Spoilers for the series )

media update? nah

Jul. 10th, 2025 12:51 pm
omens: baby Thor says "I like you!" (baby thor)
[personal profile] omens
Nothing to report re: media, as I'm in the middle of a book (Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid) and nothing else! (Aside from a lot of language stuff, many many many language stuff.)

But! Ghost was by! If you recall, I was very worried about her super swollen face last time I saw her (the 21st) and on the 7th she was by, finally. All healed up and everything!



LOL the haze is the petunias she's standing behind - fucked my white balance, but I thought it looked cool anyway:



It has been chaos around here lately, but HIIII

garryowen: (trek Kirk Spock TOS)
[personal profile] garryowen posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Pairings/Characters: Kirk/Spock
Rating: G
Length: 1 min 41 sec
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] indeedcaptain
Theme: Working together, outsider POV

Summary: the flagship may not be all it's cracked up to be

Reccer's Notes: Have you ever wondered what it's like to work with a commanding officer who has zero judgment when it comes to the captain and who does shit like almost kill him while under the influence of Vulcan mating hormones? Or how about working under a captain who has zero judgment when it comes to his first, and is always doing shit like risking his life and the ship to save his first's life? This short song captures what that must be like. It's the little things like trying to get your damn performance review submitted to Starfleet.

I'm not super into filk, but this one is well-written, with fun rhymes and nice progression from beginning to end. It'll put a smile on your face.

Fanwork Links: HR Violations on the USS Enterprise

Daily Happiness

Jul. 10th, 2025 12:13 am
torachan: a cartoon owl with the text "everyone is fond of owls" (everyone is fond of owls)
[personal profile] torachan
1. I took one car to the car wash yesterday and the other today and now they both look much better. I will be very glad when they are finally done with the huge construction at the end of our street (should be done by this fall) because it really kicks up a lot of dust. (Even the car I got washed yesterday already has a visible layer of dust coating it by today.)

2. Since I got these new shoes several months back I have noticed them being really squeaky, especially on certain types of flooring. They're so squeaky that I often felt self-conscious about them. After trying a few things, I noticed that the insoles I have for them are slightly too large, even though they are the correct size range for the shoes, and it seems like the part of the insoles in the toe area are where the worst of the squeaking is coming from. So I ordered one size smaller of insoles and have been wearing those for the past week and the squeaking is almost totally gone! They still make a little noise once in a while, but it's like 99.9% reduced. The restroom at work was one of the worst offenders, so the first time I was able to test them in there and they weren't squeaking up a storm, I knew they'd be okay everywhere.

3. We went down to Disneyland tonight for dinner. It's been hot during the day this week but was much nicer by the time we got down there (and the sun was going down by then).

4. I finished another puzzle this morning. This is my first time doing a puzzle that wasn't square, so that was an interesting twist. I usually do the edges of a puzzle first, but I couldn't do that with this one because most of the edge pieces were tiny and didn't even interlock with each other, just with the next layer of pieces in from them.



5. Gemma looks very disturbed to realize that I've seen her.

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thefourthvine: Two people fucking, rearview: sex is the universal fandom. (Default)
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