Image: Laser-eyed loon flying away with the "Don't Tread on Me Snake" in her beak. The words "Don't Tread on US" appear in laser light trails around her head (by Cas Fern, local tattoo artist.)
I took a break on Sunday. The weather here in Minnesota has finally stepped up to join the resistance. Today we are expecting -20 F/ -29 C windchills and yesterday the windchills were around -11 F /-23 C. I won't lie. I let Mother Nature take my shift. There were things happening, including my singing group, but I spent the day baking hot cross buns and snuggling under blankets.
Rest is resistance, too.
If you are not from around here and/or would like to watch naomikritzer talk about her experiences "commuting," and talk generally, along with Diana McCleery, about what things are like on the ground here in Minneapolis and St. Paul. My friend Cliff interviewed her on an SFF videocast:
It's a good watch? I will say that the guy who opens and closes the video, Bob, is a bit of a character, but if you can get past that and some of the echo in Naomi's microphone, it's very informative. Naomi recently did a ride-along with the folks who are self-organizing to follow and harrass ICE vehicles and so it's fascinating to hear how it's being done.
I always feel that people don't quite talk enough about the mutual aid that folks are up to--but the truth is the quiet revolution just isn't splashy enough for the front page.
I know this seems like a petty thing, in these parlous times, but I am having a hard time finding bookends. We are finally, finally getting all the books out of storage and sorted and on shelves and they might almost fit if we have enough bookends. (If you're going to do part of a shelf as 2 rows of paperbacks, that needs at least 1 bookend to keep the last ones from falling into the larger books that are going as single rows.)
Where can I find plain metal bookends, like the kind they use in libraries? I do NOT want to get them from Amazon, for political reasons. Neither do I want to get them from Target. Once, I might have tried Home Depot, but it turns out that they are cooperating with ICE in deeply distressing ways so I don't want to do business with them either. Etsy is generally recommended as an alternative to Amazon, but they just have decorative standalone bookends. Some of them are really pretty but they are too bulky for this purpose.
I was trying to think of the book that has had the greatest effect on my life. Books like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , or The Fountainhead carried a lot of philosophical weight at the time I’d read them in college but they seem like junk upon re-reading them now. So, I asked myself again, what book has really changed my life? Then it hit me: it was, without a doubt, Richard Ferber’s Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems.
We have two kids, one age six, the other 11 months. When our six year old was a baby, we put her to sleep by holding her and rocking her. She would wake up every couple of hours, crying for us to come back and rescue her. We finally gave up and let her sleep with us. It was the only way we could get any sleep. To this day, she demands that one of us crawls into bed with her until she falls asleep.
When we had our other daughter, she would cry for us every hour at night. The whole family was exhausted from the ordeal. Would we have to suffer this ordeal for three more years?
Some friends told us to “Ferberize” her and we’d all be able to sleep soundly. We were skeptical, but we bought the book and followed the instructions faithfully. In a nutshell, Ferberization entails putting your baby in her crib, kissing her goodnight and walking out of the room. She’ll cry, of course. After five minutes, you walk in and reassure her, then walk out again. This time you wait ten minutes. You repeat this, adding five minutes between return visits. It sounds cruel. As a parent, your instinct is to run to your baby as soon as she starts crying. But in this case, not following you instincts is the best course of action. It took exactly two nights to Ferberize our baby. She has learned to fall asleep on her own, and when she wakes up at night, she knows how to fall back asleep on her own. Best of all, she is happy, confident, and well-rested. And so are we. We have our nights, and as a result, our days back.
While this was truly a life-changing book, you really don’t need to read it. Other chapters address the nature of sleep and how to deal with more unusual child sleep problems, but for most people, the procedure I described above is all you need. Reading the book, however, made me feel better psychologically about going through with it. — Mark Frauenfelder
I have three kids. This method works. — KK
Better than lying with your toddler or young child until he falls asleep at night is for him to fall asleep with a “transitional object” — a stuffed animal, a doll, a toy, a special blanket. The toy will often help him accept the nighttime separation from you and can be a source of reassurance and comfort when he is alone. It will give him a feeling of having a little control over his world because he may have the toy or blanket with him whenever he wants, which he cannot expect from you. His toy will not get up and leave after he falls asleep and it will still be there whenever he wakes.
There are so many baby carriers on the market right now, and I’ve tried a good deal of them: various slings, the Ergo Baby, Baby Bjorn, and the like all tend to put the bulk of the baby’s weight on one part of the back. While there is some distribution with shoulder or hip straps, the weight is still focused primarily on one area (shoulder/hips). I had seen the Moby Wrap and had decidedly avoided trying it, as it looked complicated and uncomfortable. A friend finally convinced me to try one, and I fell in love.
Not only is my baby securely snuggled up against my body, but it is incredibly comfortable to wear. It looks to be about 20 feet of fabric that you wrap around your body and slip the baby into. No doubt based on some age-old method of carrying babies, it is by far the most comfortable and versatile carrier I’ve seen. Because it crosses around your body so many times in different locations, it distributes the weight of the child to a variety of places: shoulders, upper back, lower back and hips. Plus, the baby can face forwards, backwards or sideways when worn on your front, and she can be worn on your hips or back as well.
While it does require an introduction on how to put it on, once you have figured out how it works, it could not be simpler to use. The basic concept is that you create a cross of fabric on your body and slip the baby between you and the cross, with her legs hanging out between. Also, because of the criss-cross over your shoulders you can nestle the baby’s head under the wrap, allowing full protection from the sun or, more importantly for the new parent, a quiet zone in which to nap, even at a bustling market. For all its simplicity this is simply the best baby carrier available.
There are several variations on this idea — one with rings, one made of more stretchy material, one with fancy patterns — from various manufacturers, but the basic design is all the same — wrap the fabric around your body, slide the baby in and enjoy. — Elizabeth Sendil
Like most Americans, I hauled my firstborn around in his carseat/infant carrier. Never again. For my second child, I researched slings extensively, and bought a New Native. It’s simpler than any other sling, including the Maya sling Cool Tools reviewed.
New Native is just one piece of fabric, hemmed and stitched into a big pocket. That means no adjustment rings or buckles to come loose or fiddle with. Accordingly, it’s sized. I wear a medium. My husband, who is much bigger than I am, wears my (medium) sling as well — there are three sizes, small, medium, and large, and the medium fits a pretty wide range of people.
I’ve slung my second baby since day one. She has taken countless naps in it. The sleek, professional look of the New Native means that a lot of people take it for fashion. While my daughter was small, they didn’t even know I had a baby on. I wore it to the office and even taught class with it.
At nine months I can count on one hand the number of times my daughter has ridden in a stroller. Everywhere I go people who see it wish they had known about it when they were carrying babies, and ask me where I got my sling: New Native. — Donna Bowman
We carried our seven-month-old daughter around Prague and Leipzig for hours in a standard BabyBjörn this last winter and she/we loved it — cozy and comfortable. The problem: it’s only a front carrier, and since then, she’s gotten heavier, which started to take it’s toll on our backs (imagine carrying a bowling ball strapped to your chest.). Now we’re using an Ergo, which can be easily re-configured for back-, front-, or side-carrying. Since it buckles around your waist, most of the weight is put on your hips. While an “original” BabyBjörn is rated for use with babies up to 25 lbs, I tried ours with our daughter when she was 15 lbs and it was a no go. She’s heavier now, and the Ergo remains incredibly comfortable: I’ve noticed much less lower back strain.
Learning to scoot the baby around your hips, onto your back, and into the Ergo without outside help is a bit of a production at first, but no problem once you get the hang of it. If you want to put the pack in front or on your hip, it’s quite simple, too (ed. note: the videos are quite helpful). Like the BabyBjörrn, the Ergo is made of cotton and cleans up very easily with just a sponge most of the time. It can be washed in a machine, too. There’s a cotton hood (the green fabric in the pic) that attaches with snap buttons for when the baby is sleeping — protects her from the elements, and keeps her head from flopping around.
Note: BabyBjörrn does make an “Active” model (which we have not tried) with lower back support that is supposed to “ease the burden.” However, you cannot convert that one to a hip/back carrier. —Brandon Summers
Our son is a very sound sleeper and had problems with bedwetting. We tried everything we could think of. Finally I stumbled across a mention of Enurad in a parents’ forum. It’s a wireless wetness sensor that you place in the child’s underwear. A standard alarm clock has been modified to ring at the slightest wetness. Enurad combined with limiting nighttime fluids solved the problem in a couple of months. He wore the device for sometime after that as an insurance policy. He just slept better knowing it was there. At $210 it’s not inexpensive, but worth every penny. Enurad doesn’t have a US distrubuter that I know of. I ordered ours from Austrailia. Highly Recommended. — Johnboy
According to the most recent science moisture alarms are the most lasting medical cures for nocturnal bedwetting, better than commonly prescribed drugs. —KK
Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.
A year after their expulsion from the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams camps, refugees wait not only to return, but to reclaim the rights the camps preserved.
I started tracking bike maintenance a couple of years ago, and am trying to be pretty systematic about it. According to my records, I put the prior set of brake pads on Frodo on December 21. Between then and now, I rode a total of 166 miles.
For comparison, the prior 3 sets of brake pad changes occurred with elapsed mileages of 703, 599, and 646 miles.
When I was in Seattle, I bought a couple sets of KoolStop brake pads to try out, although I couldn't remember the specific differences between the different colors when shopping, so I wound up getting 2 sets of the salmon and 2 sets of the black. I can already tell you that they feel NICE.
Cats are not toys to be played with, and they cannot be thrown around as if they are.
Adopting a cat should be a wholesome thing to do, an action full of joy and good intentions from everyone. When someone rescues a cat, we always hope that the kitty will be adopted by them as well, that her forever home will be guaranteed right away, but we know that not everyone can handle becoming a cat owner at the drop of a dime. And giving the cat away to someone who can take care of it and give it the life and the love that it deserves is a good thing too. Doing what is best for the cat is what matters.
When the woman in this story gave away her cat, we saw that as a good thing. Unfortunate, yes, but ultimately, that is what was the best for the kitty. We also understand the sadness of having given her away. What we do not understand is demanding to get her back. This woman gave the kitty away for a reason. You can't just toss the cat around from home to home, thinking that there will be no consequences. And after that, threatening that if the cat isn't given back to them, then the new owner has to pay all the previous expenses the cat had, on top of the actual fee they took for the cat… that is too much.
Bleep Marlowe. She attacked my ankle -- just a few stinging claw punctures -- as i went over to the cat barrier where she'd confronted Bruno. I hope he learned that the barrier protects him. Ugh.
I am so easily distracted.
I feel a little guilty having today off work and nothing more than "try and get myself moving" as the order of the day. Plus tomorrows walk out protest and my conflict in attending (because work, which is whole point, i get it). Plus [deleting incomplete list and replacing with] all the other distressing issues with the slide to fascist government in the US.
Time passes
I have attended the Pendle Hill hybrid worship. There was a moment of clarity for me: a sense that released the guilt, a wave of grace, a sense that it is right to engage in zest in living. Not much more clarity than to turn my attention to my usual forward.
And then looking at the temps for Ohio as my travel dates begin to show up in the ten-day forecast: yikes. So far a high of 21°F and a low of 8°F. More concerning is the snow event on the day i need to get to the airport. I know better than to trust the call for 7" of .. snow? But....
1. “If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl. But by all means, keep moving.”
2. “Why would Kim Jong Un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat’? Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend — and maybe someday that will happen!”
3. “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
4. “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”
5. “When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love.”
6. “The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware, and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown. Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do.”
7. “Capitalism was built on the exploitation of Black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both Black and white, both here and abroad.”
8. “This is Martin Luther King on steroids… I told that to [North Carolina gubernatorial candidate and self-proclaimed “Black Nazi” Mark Robinson], I said I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you’re Martin Luther King times two.”
9. “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
10. “I’ve got to be the cleanest—I think I’m the most honest human being, perhaps, that God has ever created.”
11. “It is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”
12. “I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? Because you see, it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that.”
13. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
14. “I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th.”
15. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
16. “When I said that Hillary Clinton got ‘schlonged’ by Obama, it meant got beaten badly. The media knows this. Often used word in politics!”
17. “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”
18. “If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate. Same everything. Same number of people, if not, we had more. And they said, ‘He had a million people,’ but I had 25,000 people. But when you look at the exact same picture, everything’s the same, because it was the fountains, the whole thing, all the way back from Lincoln to Washington. And you look at it, and you look at the picture of his crowd, my crowd, we actually had more people. They said I had 25,000, and he had a million people. And I’m okay with it because I liked Dr. Martin Luther King.”
19. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream that one day, on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
20. “I’m the least racist person you have ever interviewed.”
- - -
Just in case you need an answer key: Even numbers: Trump Odd numbers: MLK Jr.
It snowed all day yesterday, starting before dawn, but nothing stuck to the sidewalk until after dark, by which time it was still snowing and I was just not up for shoveling. Which meant, of course, that first thing this morning, after the overnight freeze, there was a layer of ice on the sidewalk. With a great deal of effort and about an hour in two segments (pre- and post-breakfast), I managed to break up and remove enough to make it reasonably safe. I hope. My hands were a little shaky at the end, which indicates I exerted myself more than I should have. Our house is not that wide, thankfully.
The temperature is supposed to go above freezing this afternoon, so hopefully that softens the remainder enough that I can scrape it up. Putting salt on top of ice doesn't help, it just melts the top so it can refreeze in a new and more slick state. Nope!
I have a free ticket for the Orchestra's MLK Day concert this afternoon; I was originally planning to attend with my friend who is now out of town because of a death in the family. We shall see if I recover from my exertions enough to attend. I am not worried about wasting a spot, they generally hand out more tickets than there are seats for these events, and tell you a seat is not guaranteed.
It's possible more snow will arrive in the coming week. Whee. If it does, I hope it doesn't affect our choir kickoff on Saturday, January 24th. Also, I hope the scores get sent out soon, as I need to make a trip to the library to print mine.
When authorities used Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) facial recognition app on a detained woman in an attempt to learn her identity and immigration status, it returned two different and incorrect names, raising serious questions about the accuracy of the app ICE is using to determine who should be removed from the United States, according to testimony from a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official obtained by 404 Media.
ICE has told lawmakers the app, called Mobile Fortify, provides a “definitive” determination of someone’s immigration status, and should be trusted over a birth certificate. The incident, which happened last year in Oregon, casts doubt on that claim.
“ICE has treated Mobile Fortify like it’s a 100% accurate record retrieval system of everybody’s immigration status for the entire population of the U.S. when this is obviously not true, and could never be true from a technical perspective,” Cooper Quintin, a security researcher and senior public interest technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told 404 Media. “It is sickening that ICE is using this flawed app and unacceptable invasion of biometric privacy to supposedly determine whether someone is undocumented and deport them or even worse.”
The incident involved a 45-year-old woman who court records call MJMA. She was detained with more than 30 other people during a raid in Woodburn after authorities smashed a van’s driver side window and pulled her from the vehicle. MJMA is now suing ICE and being represented by attorneys from the Innovation Law Lab.
💡
Do you know anything else about this app? Do you work at ICE or CBP? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.
Oregon Live briefly mentioned the face scan in a December report. 404 Media has now obtained the CBP official’s full testimony.
The CBP official, called MK in the transcript, said she was trying to determine the woman’s immigration status. MJMA was refusing to answer questions.
“So then, in order to [...] to use another tool that I had to identify her, I took my government cell phone out of my pocket. It has the little facial recognition mobile query for CBP. And I took a photo [...] I tried to take a photo of her face, and she looked down,” MK said. Another part of the transcript specifically names Mobile Fortify.
“So then I remember I moved her shoulder back. And she complained because I did forget she had handcuffs on and [...] like, behind her back. And she kind of, like, yelped, like if I had caused pain, like a lot of pain. So then I apologized. I said (speaking Spanish), which is 'I'm sorry,' (speaking Spanish),” she continued.
MK said she explained to the woman she needed to take her photo. “So I took her photo, where she kind of looked at me. And then when I looked down at my mobile query, it came up to a very [...] like, a similar person. I wasn't sure if it was her or not.”
A screenshot of the testimony.
The first name the app returned was Maria, according to the testimony. “It matched to someone [...] I remember saying, ‘Maria? Like, is this Maria?’ And then at that point there was other ICE agents around me. So they were like ‘Maria, Maria,’ to see if she would respond because, again, she was refusing to talk to us, which is her right.”
After MJMA did not respond, either verbally or nonverbally with a change in her face, the CBP official scanned her face again. This time, Mobile Fortify gave a different name.
“And then I tried taking her photo again, and this time it came up to someone else. I can't recall the name, but we used that name as well, ‘Are you this person?’ She looked at us. Like, I remember her eyebrows kind of like [...] like, ‘Who are you talking about?’ She gave us that look,” MK testified.
MJMA again didn’t respond verbally, and instead crunched her eyebrows, according to the testimony. “And so then we were like, ‘Well, I don’t know. Possible.’,” the CBP official said.
A screenshot of the testimony.
Stephen Manning, executive director at Innovation Law Lab, told 404 Media both of the names Mobile Fortify returned were incorrect.
“The app returning different names for the same individual shows that it’s not reliable or accurate and shouldn’t be used in the field,” Homeland Security Ranking Member Rep. Bennie G. Thompson told 404 Media in a statement.
Oregon Live reported that after authorities moved MJMA to an ICE detention center in Tacoma, they released her the next day without any conditions. She is suing to assert her Constitutional rights, according to Innovation Law Lab. In her own testimony, MJMA said she was issued a B-2 visa, which is a tourism visa, and last entered the U.S. with it last January. Manning said that MJMA is seeking asylum.
“My job is to give people digital security advice and there is no advice I can give on this because you can’t change your face, and if you don’t submit to their demands ICE has demonstrated that they are willing to shoot you,” Quintin added.
Mobile Fortify uses CBP systems ordinarily used to verify travelers as they enter the U.S., according to the leaked material. The app turned the capability inwards onto American streets. In partnership with Reveal, 404 Media reported the app has been used against U.S. citizens.
404 Media previously obtained an internal DHS document under the Freedom of Information Act which showed ICE does not let people decline to be scanned by Mobile Fortify.
Last week a group of Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation, written by Rep. Thompson, that aims to rein in Mobile Fortify. That legislation would essentially kill the local law enforcement version of the app, restrict use of Mobile Fortify to points of entry into the U.S., and force DHS to delete images of U.S. citizens after 12 hours.
Rep. Thompson previously told 404 Media, “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien.”
Inaccuracy has long been a concern of facial recognition systems, and mistakes have led to innocent people being detained or charged with crimes. When facial recognition tools do make mistakes, it is often against people of color.
“For over a decade, researchers have shown that facial recognition is a flawed technology that performs particularly poorly on women of color. Using it to determine a person’s status is inviting misidentifications and false positives,” Chris Gilliard, a privacy researcher, told 404 Media. “The willful use of such an error-prone technology suggests that the appearance of a process is more important than accuracy or fairness.”
“This is the logical extension of a landscape that promotes facial recognition as a tool for seemingly harmless purposes like fast food drive throughs or unlocking your phone,” he added.
CBP acknowledged a request for comment but did not provide a response in time for publication.
In another piece of testimony, this time from an ICE deportation officer called DR in the court records, the judge asked “what’s the rate of identification with Mobile Fortify?”
DR replied, “I [...] I can’t speak to that number.”
As someone who enjoys attending conferences, I thought it might be helpful to share a list of my favourite front-end and web development conferences.
Smashing Conf 🇩🇪🇳🇱🇧🇪
I've been attending Smashing Conf for more than 10 years now. It's obviously one of my favourite events. It's a relatively small conference, the topics focus on web development and design, the atmosphere is fantastic, and you can learn a lot.
Attend Smashing Conf to learn new web development and design techniques.
Beyond Tellerrand 🇩🇪
Beyond Tellerrand is a one-of-a-kind event. It's not necessarily a web conference, but there are always several talks about web development. I would say the core topic of the event is design and creativity.
Attend Beyond Tellerrand to meet like-minded people and get inspired.
Fronteers Dark Mode 🇳🇱
I've never attended Fronteers Dark mode, but I did attend the original Fronteers conference, which I liked a lot. In terms of the topics and the atmosphere, it's very similar to Smashing Conf. Dark Mode is a spinoff from the original event and sounds super interesting. I definitely plan to attend it.
Attend Fronteers Dark Mode to learn new web development and design techniques.
CSS Day 🇳🇱
If you're into CSS, you would love CSS Day. It's two days focused on CSS with skilled and talented speakers from all around the world. What's great about CSS Day is the conversations you will have in between and after the talks, because there are so many smart and friendly people there who love CSS.
Attend CSS Day if you want to learn a lot about CSS. I will be there this year.
State of the Browser 🇬🇧
State of the Browser is a nice little community-driven web development conference, which I immediately fell in love with. High-quality talks, nice people, great atmosphere.
Attend State of the Browser to learn new web development techniques. I will be there this year.
A-Tag 🇦🇹
A-Tag is where the Austrian web accessibility community meets every year. It's the perfect event to stay up to date on accessibility-related topics and network.
ParisWeb is another community-driven event I was impressed by, even though most talks were in French and there were only four English-speaking speakers. Still, I could tell it's a great event.
Attend ParisWeb to learn new web development techniques and accessibility best practices.
Potential Candidates
I have three more events I plan to attend, and I have a feeling they're going to be great.
Web Day Out 🇬🇧
Web Day Out is a new conference held in Brighton. The core idea of the event is to get you up to speed on the most powerful web platform features that you can use right now. I love that because it aligns perfectly with what I've been working on over the last couple of years: finding ways to break old habits to get the most out of CSS.
Attend Web Day out to learn what you can do in web browsers today. I will be there this year. You can use the discount code JOIN_MANUEL to save 10% off the original price.
WebExpo 🇨🇿
WebExpo is a larger event, but from what I've heard, it still feels community-driven. I don't know how great it is, but I've only heard good opinions.
Attend WebExpo to learn new web development techniques. I may be there this year.
FrontKon 🇨🇿
FrontKon is another event I haven't attended yet, but I heard it's great. This year, they also have more English-speaking speakers.
Attend FrontKon to learn new web development techniques. I will be there this year.
My blog doesn't support comments yet, but you can reply via blog@matuzo.at.
but have you ever even heard of the fynbos biome ?!!?!?!?!
a biome so unique in south africa that it’s earned an entirely new biome classification for itself. so many plants are endemic to this area, and ofc it’s under threat of extinction.
It’s a wonderful place! I had the privilege of visiting the fynbos last year and it was as amazing as these photos show and more!
Title: The Mysterious Affair of the Missing Socks Author:lucy_roman Rating: Teen and up Summary: Ray and Fraser are on holiday but Ray's socks are disappearing Pairing: Fraser/RayK Word Count: 1,266
For the first few chapters that I read, I was enjoying Ava Morgyn's The Bane Witch, as heroine Piers Corbin heroically Gone Girled herself out of an abusive marriage by faking a combo poisoning-drowning and flailed her injured way north to seek refuge with a mysterious aunt, accidentally leaving a fairly significant trail behind her. Satisfying! Suspenseful! I was looking forward to seeing how she was gonna get out of this one!
Then Piers did indeed get north to the aunt and tap into her Family Birthright of Magical Revenge Poisoning. As the actual plot geared up, the more I understood what type of good time I was being expected to have, and, alas, the more it did, the less of a good time I was having.
So the way the family magic works is that all of the Corbin women have the magical ability -- nay, compulsion! -- to eat poison ingredients and convert them internally into a toxin that they can -- nay, must! -- use to murder Bad Men. It's always Men. They're always Bad. They know the men are Bad because they are also granted magical visions explaining how Bad they are. They absolutely never kill women (there are only ever women born in this family; they have to give male babies away at birth in case they accidentally kill them with their poison, and I don't think Ava Morgyn has ever heard of a trans person) or the innocent!
...except of course that the whole family is actually threatening to kill Piers, to protect themselves, if she doesn't accept her powers and start heroically murdering Bad Men. But OTHER THAN THAT they absolutely never kill women, or the innocent, so please have no qualms on that account! Piers' aunt explains: "Yes, Piers. Whatever has happened to you, you must never forget that there are predators and there are prey. We hunt the former, not the latter."
By the way, both irredeemably Bad Men that form the focus of Badness in this book -- Piers' evil and abusive husband, and the local serial killer who is also incidentally on the loose -- are shown to have been abused in childhood by irredeemably Bad Women, but we're not getting into that. There are Predators and there are Prey!
The book wants to make sure we understand that it's very important, righteous and ethical for the Cobin family to keep doing what they're doing because everybody knows nobody believes abused women and therefore vigilante justice is the only form of justice available. There are two cops in the book, by the way. One of them is the nice and ethical local sheriff who is Piers' love interest, who is allowing her to help him hunt the local serial killer despite being suspicious that she may have poisoned several people. The other is the nice and ethical local cop investigating her supposed murder back home, who is desperate to prove she's alive because she saved his life and he's very grateful. He understands about abuse, because his name is Reyes and he's from the Big City and his mother and sister were both abused by Bad Men. The problem with these good and handsome cops is that they're actually not willing enough to murder people, which is where Piers comes in:
HANDSOME GOOD COP BOYFRIEND: You don't want to help me arrest him, do you? You want to kill him. PIERS: Doesn't he deserve it? HANDSOME GOOD COP BOYFRIEND: That's not for us to decide. PIERS: Isn't it? This is our community. You're an authority in maintaining law and order, and I'm a victim of domestic and sexual violence. Surely, there is no one more qualified than us.
This book was a USA Today bestseller, which does not surprise me. It taps into exactly the part of the cultural hindbrain that loves true crime, and serial killers, and violence that you can feel good about, in an uncomplicated way, because it's being meted out to Unquestionably Bad People. Justice is when bad people suffer and die. We're not too worried about how they turned out to be bad people. There are predators, and there are prey.
Given all space and time, and all history and fiction, which offer of adventure would you be most likely to accept - and which one would you definitely decline?ffutures asked.
Well, I'm tempted to say "none, because I'm chicken and would rather read about those adventures than experience them". But that would be a boring answer, and there are some which don't carry the risk of dying of smallpox or being turned into a Cyberman, one presumes. So, let's see....
Fictional: To get the obvious out of the way first: assuming that I'd live in a universe with the Doctor in it for real (the only universe worth thinking about, according to the Master, who ought to know), and that I would not live in one of those eras where one can google at least asome appearances of his which ought to give me an inkling about the risk travelling with him involves... I think I'd say yes if 'Thirteen offered me a trip with the TARDIS. She's not my favourite Doctor, but she conveys trustworthiness if she wants to, and even if I did manage to look up her companions, thehir rate of not just survival but lack of heartbreak (Yaz always excepted) at the end of their travels with her is promising. Most of the other Doctors would in real life make me think "nah, you seem to be interesting and/or crazy, but I wouldn't trust you to bring me home again".
I would definitely say no to Gandalf. Especially if I were in Bilbo's position. Firstly, stagemanaging an intrusion by loads of uninvited guests is just rude, and secondly, no way you're getting me anywhere near a real life dragon to be torched. No thank you. And that's before we're talking about the travel conditions. I can't ride, and while I do like long hikes, taking these in eras where I could get eaten by trolls... no, really not. I'm just not Burglar material.
Real: If I was dared as Nellie Bly was to travel around the world in 80 Days a la Jules Verne, with a newspaper paying for it, absolutely, I would have tried my best.
Would not have joined: any expedition involving the Artic. I like snow in winter, and I also like to ski, but I like it with the perspective of afterwards returning my heated apartment and being able to take a luxurious long hot bath. Not from the perspective of someone looking for the North West Passage on a sailing boat in the 18th century or someone racing to the Pole in the 20th century. I like my limbs unfrozen and uneaten, thanks.
I did two loads of laundry, hand-washed dishes, went for a walk with Pip and the dogs, baked chicken for the dogs’ meals, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, changed kitty litter (you know it’s Sunday!), and showered.
I went with another one of my own teas today, The Republic of Tea’s Blackberry Sage (Fruity black tea blended with herbs, which tells you nothing, really. Which is funny, because the ingredients just list black tea, natural blackberry and sage. o_O)
I took a nap, and watched two eps of Wild Cards and some Zoo Tampa. My one dismay is that I didn't get any more writing done.
Temps started out at 25.5(F) and reached 31.1. We had the overnight snow plus more snow today. Pip was busy shoveling and snow blowing.
Mom Update:
Mom sounded good on the phone. She said she’d eaten and it had settled fine. My brother visited earlier and Sister A was there when I called.
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