History

May. 31st, 2025 09:57 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The Best Part of Researching Trans History Is When I’m Wrong

Lost pieces are being found, and pictures are coming together after generations of obscurity.


If you or your people are being hunted, write down your history and culture. Copy it. And then scatter it as widely as you possibly can. Hide it in walls, under floorboards, tuck it into other books. Stamp it on clay, fire it, and drop the tablets into a landfill because archaeologists always know to look for middens. Fling the copies so far that your enemies will never find them all. And then you can speak your truth to the future and the listening ears who come after.

Now is the perfect time for this kind of activism.  It's something anyone can do.  It's cheap and easy.  Just pick any thing the fuckwits in charge want to suppress, and work against that to preserve it.  You can do this every time they piss you off.

Activism

May. 31st, 2025 09:50 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
"In our America: All people are Equal; Love Wins; Black Lives Matter; Immigrants & Refugees are Welcome; Disabilities are Respected; Women are in Charge of their Bodies; People & Planet are Valued over Profits; Diversity is Celebrated."

Available as a flag, sign, sticker, and various other formats.

Regrettably in local-America, people will probably vandalize this, but it's there if you want it anyway.  *ponder*  Or as bait if you're trying to trap thugs.

Achivedment Unlocked

May. 31st, 2025 06:03 pm
hrj: (Default)
[personal profile] hrj
So I've probably already mentioned (many many times) that one of my strategies for leading a balanced and productive retirement has been to identify a variety of "activity categories" and aim to do something in multiple categories each day, as well as aiming to do something in each category on a regular basis. That is, I don't have to hit every category every day, but I should rotate through them and get good coverage.

Today is the first day that I hit all 12 categories. I may at some point add more categories, but these are broad enough to cover almost everything. So what does that look like?

Got up around 6am (which seems to be what my body wants to do at the moment). Light breakfast and post about the podcast on social media {Category=Promotion}, then completed revisions on Skinsinger story #3 {Category=Fiction writing}.

Went out on a bike ride {Category=Exercise} and paused at the turn-around point to have coffee and read/annotate a chapter of my current LHMP book. {Category=Read for LHMP} Divert the end of the bike ride to set up the gym account that I get as part of my Medicare Advantage plan.

Shower and decompress for a bit, reading the current hard-copy novel (as opposed to the current audiobook). {Category=Fun reading} Then do a page of Medieval Welsh translation. {Category=Language} Type up the LHMP notes. {Category=Writing for LHMP} Then work on the "What is a Related Work Anyway?" background research. {Category=Writing organization/research}

Do a deep-clean of the bedroom. {Category=Housework/organization} Start dinner simmering (not a category). Do a session of weedwacking in the backyard. {Category=Yardwork}

At this point, knowing that I had a zoom date in the evening {Category=Socializing}, I wanted to push through and hit the last item {Category=Play Music}, so I put together my flute (which I haven't touched in a decade or so) and started some scales. The fingers were willing, but the embouchure was weak. This is going to take some work. (The higher priority is replacing a harp string and getting it into tune, but ticking the box with the flute was easier.)

So now I have dinner almost ready and at least a couple entirely free hours before bedtime. I know this all sounds really busy, and I'm serious that I don't have to hit every category every day. But it was fun to manage it at least once in my first month.

goes right back to that breaking ball

May. 31st, 2025 06:36 pm
musesfool: a loaf of bread (staff of life)
[personal profile] musesfool
Recs update!

[personal profile] unfitforsociety has been updated for May 2025 with 13 story recs and 2 vid recs in 3 fandoms:

12 Batfamily
1 Star Wars
1 Avengers vid and 1 Star Wars vid

***

I bought some string cheese a couple weeks ago on sale and today I breaded and fried it into mozzarella sticks. So good to eat! So messy to clean up after!

I slept poorly again last night - I had to shut the window while it was raining, and I don't know if it's the barometric pressure that's been giving me these headaches, but I don't like it. At least this cool rainy weather meant I made it all the way through May without turning on the AC. It looks like I will probably start needed it next week though. Last year, I signed up for the thing where they charge you the same amount each month to smooth out the ups and downs, which I've grown to prefer to the $110 swings in my electric bill come summer.

In other news, I learned that there really is a cocoa shortage and I'm not imagining it. So I'm glad I stocked up from King Arthur. Unfortunately, the bag had a small tear in it, so everything in the box it shipped with was covered in a fine dusting of cocoa powder. 🤨 But I washed it all and transferred the cocoa into a ziplock so it's all nice and tidy now.

***

Climate Change

May. 31st, 2025 05:22 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Scientists believe penguin poop might be cooling Antarctica — here's how

In a paper published on Thursday in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, they describe how ammonia wafting off the droppings of 60,000 birds contributed to the formation of clouds that might be insulating Antarctica, helping cool down an otherwise rapidly warming continent.

New Year's Resolutions Check In

May. 31st, 2025 12:25 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
We made it to the end of May! \o/ If you have completed some of your short-term goals or subgoals, and/or you're still chugging away at your ongoing goals, then pat yourself on the back. You worked hard for that. We've also passed through of spring. If you're doing seasonal goals, hopefully you have finished the spring one(s), so you can look ahead to the summer batch.

This year I'm trying something new, continuing to track goals at the end of each month. So far it seems to be helping, so that's encouraging. I'm looking at my goal list more often and trying to keep ticking off more of them. The main drawback is that this update becomes more of a chore each month.

These are the previous check in posts:
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 4
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 10
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 17
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 24
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In February 28
New Year's Resolutions Check In March 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In April 30

Read more... )
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee
I've been given permission to share this but this was written for an audience of people working for/affiliated with LIGO, so some of these actions won't apply to e.g. general "normal" US citizens.

I will try to make phone calls Monday, but that depends on my being able to speak audibly over the phone (due to medical issues ongoing for ~nine months affecting my voice). I may be limited to emails and handwritten mailed letters. (Good thing I'm not a singer-songwriter?!)

Dear all,
Answering some questions, here are a few more details about US advocacy for science funding:

Please only send emails or visit Congree people if you are a US citizen or permanent resident (so you are talking to people you can vote for), and if you feel comfortable doing so.

You can find actual numbers for funding from different agencies in different states by selecting a state in this link: https://www.aps.org/initiatives/advocate-amplify/policy/support-federal-science-funding-budget (which provides a template letter too), or using data provided here: https://www.aps.org/initiatives/advocate-amplify/policy/dashboards

We have been collecting companies and institutions where graduate students and postdocs trained in LIGO with NSF funding have gone in here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13yMrZ9HdmjtDTxS7hr7quwGEX-j4Ri0TVjMk0hJmxms/edit?usp=sharing (the diversity of companies is a very effective message for Congress people)

You can find flyers with data about specific issues APS [American Physical Society] advocates for in Congressional Day Visits held in January; these can be used year-long, of course: https://cvd.aps.org/

Nothing beats a face-to-face conversation; meeting with your Senators’ and Representative’s offices is one of the most impactful actions you can take.
[This part is probably addressed to e.g. university faculty and so on rather than regular people.]

(In joke mode, as a Cornell alum, I preferred the less clown show timeline when my jokey aggro rivalry feelings toward Harvard were "catchy well-respected Latin motto Ivy League p*nis envy" rather than rooting for Harvard. Sorry, Harvard folks!)

[adapted from cross-post to Tumblr]
I'm over a year late on CROWNWORLD. My agent and editor are aware. The book is not likely to get done soon despite my being under 10,000 words / 3 chapters from the finish line, because I'm too stressed and exhausted to soldier on.

The parts that I haven't discussed much if at all in public:

- My health cratered a few years ago. I wrote most of STARSTRIKE in all lowercase while seeking ways I could write flat on my back in bed without making the pain worse. I spent a year bedridden, getting 0-4 hours of sleep per night (not a typo); I only left the house for doctor's appointments or to vote.

- This included uncommon bad med reactions like the one that sent me to the ER with internal bleeding. I'm cautious about new-to-me meds for a reason.

- I was making good progress writing early in 2025 but then I had a concussion. I'm mostly recovered but my balance is still not 100%.

- A family member had multiple health crises that could have killed them.

- South Korea's president attempted an insurrection (a common interpretation) by declaring martial law in December 2024. Almost all my family is in South Korea. I couldn't even discuss it publicly because there was a nonzero chance that it would endanger my relatives. (I've been to a literature festival in Seoul under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Sport. They know I exist, and South Korea has a history of dictatorships, censorship, and brutal putdowns of protests.)

- I learned my father had a cerebral hemorrhage that same month. He's in South Korea. I'm in the USA. The unstable political situation in South Korea would have made any attempt to visit him unusually fraught.

- The Trump presidency. Unfortunately, chronic health problems curtail the kinds and amounts of activism I can physically do even before we get to being burned out.

- My husband works at LIGO, which won a Nobel Prize for the detection of gravitational waves predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. President Trump's proposed budget would (among many other things) cut funding for one of two LIGO sites, at which point why not defund both. (NSF budget news [science.org] but the link may be paywalled.) You need two gravitational wave observatories to verify a detection (triangulation/noise reduction).

What about other observatories internationally, you ask? There are two: VIRGO (Italy) and KAGRA (Japan). LIGO can detect out to ~150 megaparsecs, VIRGO to ~80 megaparsecs (best case), KAGRA to ~10 megaparsecs (best case). But space is volumetric, so for a comparison you need to cube these numbers.

LIGO's at ~3 million (let's call that 100% as a measuring stick). VIRGO's at ~500,000 (~20%). KAGRA is at ~1,000 (under 1% - worse by a couple orders of magnitude, in fact). These are estimates, but I've estimated conservatively.

Pictorially:
LIGO    **********
VIRGO   **
KAGRA   .


- This is a proposed US budget, not an approved one as of this writing, but if LIGO doesn't get cut, it's because something even more essential than basic research in astronomy/physics is axed (further).

- I am selfishly stressed about the possibility that my husband will lose his job. I'm on his health insurance, and did we mention my health? This has career implications for me as well if I become the primary breadwinner. If we knew for certain one way or the other, we could plan; but the uncertainty is wreaking havoc for pretty much everyone.

- I've had my books challenged and pulled from libraries for "DEI" reasons (Tiger Honor seems to be the usual "problem" due to the nonbinary protagonist; I don't think Phoenix Extravagant sold well enough to attract similar attention).

- A studio optioned Dragon Pearl but was stymied first by the Hollywood strikes (solidarity to the unions!) and then opted not to negotiate for another renewal because when shopping it around, the feedback was that a Korean space opera was too "DEI" to be a good investment in this political environment. (Whatever one's feelings about this, this is absolutely true in a business/economic sense.) So this makes career planning additionally selfishly fraught. Too bad I didn't go all in on het shifter romance? I started writing one! - het shifter romance is my favorite kind - and I loved it but somebody had a book contract to attend to.

- I am sad for the US wrecking ball clown show and I am sad for everyone everywhere who is affected by the US wrecking ball clown show. ("Lying low" politically is a lost cause when one is a semi-public figure.) I am, perhaps controversially, of the opinion that the despot playbook of North Korea and past South Korean dictatorships ought to be assiduously avoided, not enshrined as some asshole US administration's hashtag life goals. But I'm just a science fiction writer, not a politician, so what do I know.

Any impact to me is unimportant in the grand scheme of the world. My job is producing entertainment fiction and it's by definition nonessential. My household will lurch along; I'm not in financial distress. But I am selfishly stressed out of my mind and likely to spend June 2025 writing bad music, badly playing 16-bit videogames, badly designing/coding a visual novel and/or graphic novel only half a dozen friends will ever see. Maybe I will scribble at the het shifter romance without any intention of writing well, but rather stress relief, and continue moseying toward music composition/orchestration. Under better circumstances, this would make a nice mini-vacation; but these are not better circumstances.

My failings as a writer and human being are well known at this point; but if the book isn't delivered in June, that's why. It's not much of an apologia. Y'all stay safe and take care of yourselves and each other out there.

Note: I had planned to just delete this journal as having served its function but here we are.
[syndicated profile] plaidder_tumblr_feed

plaidadder:

plaidadder:

plaidadder:

Help with cross stitch pattern making

Hello fellow fiber arts people. Does anyone know if there is a tool out there that can be used to turn an image into a cross-stitch pattern (which would also translate the colors into colors of thread)?

Thanks everyone! Stitchfiddle premium has done the trick. Now I just have to execute. Ha ha.

Current stats on this project:

Number of colors of DMC thread I used in my most complicated recent cross stitch project: 50

Number of colors of DMC thread in this StitchFiddle-enabled pattern: 75

Number of colors of leftover DMC thread from previous project that are also called for in this project: 5

I am enjoying learning how to use Stitchfiddle and one of the things I’m learning how to do is reduce the number of colors without losing definition. It is time-consuming but oddly rewarding. Maybe I can get this thing down to 50 or at least 70.

Here’s an update on the project, for those who care:

  • First of all if you want to use this program you really have to pay for premium. Most of the features I’m going to talk about below are only for premium. But it’s like $5 a month, which I consider great value for what you get.
  • I have reduced the number of colors to around 60, partly by figuring out how to use the “merge” function. It is slightly counterintuitive but once you get the hang of it it’s a godsend. Merge allows you to replace one color–let’s say, a color you don’t have–with a different one already in your project. So for instance if you decide that 25 shades of brown are unnecessary and you can get by just fine with 20, you can use merge to replace, say, Very Dark Brown Beige with Dark Brown Beige.
  • In general, the ability to edit the chart while you work on it is a game-changer. Not only does this help reduce unnecessary complexity, but for this project in particular it’s been very helpful in translating the style of the art on which it’s based. I’m using an image from a webcomic/graphic novel and Stitchfiddle did not appreciate the importance of keeping the drawing lines relatively clean and doing pointilist blurry nuance (its default) in the colored-in areas. I’m correcting this as I go, comparing the chart to the target image, and I’m really glad to be able to do that.
  • PROGRESS TRACKER! There’s a feature you can enable which will semi-gray-out the chart (not till you can’t read the symbols) and then you can click on the squares to light them up as you stitch them. You can enlarge the chart to your heart’s content. Finally, an easy way to see what you’ve done and how that relates spatially to what you haven’t done. The downside of course is that you need to display the chart on a fairly large screen, which means I’m tied to the computer, but honestly this is so much easier and more effective than crossing off squares on a paper pattern.
  • Realizing that I cannot keep this from PJ I showed them what I was doing. They are genuinely excited about this. Which means I now have to finish it.

Birdfeeding

May. 31st, 2025 12:06 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is partly sunny and mild.

I haven't fed the birds yet.  I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.  Recently the house finches have been all over the thistle feeder.

EDIT 5/31/25 -- I fed the birds.  I've seen a grackle and a robin.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 5/31/25 -- I pulled and trimmed weeds around the purple-and-white garden.

EDIT 5/31/25 -- I pulled and trimmed more weeds around the purple-and-white garden.

EDIT 5/31/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 5/31/25 -- I pulled and trimmed more weeds around the purple-and-white garden.

EDIT 5/31/25 -- I pulled and trimmed more weeds around the purple-and-white garden.  I am most of the way around the outside now.

EDIT 5/31/25 -- I finished trimming weeds around the outside of the purple-and-white garden. 

EDIT 5/31/25 -- I started trimming weeds inside of the purple-and-white garden. 

I've seen a male cardinal and a male fox squirrel.  Several sparrows were splashing in the red birdbath.  I've seen a skunk on the patio.

EDIT 5/31/25 -- I started trimming weeds inside of the purple-and-white garden.  \o/

EDIT 5/31/25 -- I watered the patio plants.

Privet is blooming, with a heavy, honeyed scent, a little salty.

I've seen two bats flying around the edges of the yard, and the first several fireflies.  :D

May 2025 in Review

May. 31st, 2025 10:33 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


22 works reviewed. 12 by women (55%), 9 by men (41%), 0 by non-binary authors (0%), 1 by authors whose gender is unknown (5%), and 9 by POC (41%)... and I really need to redo how I track incoming books.

More details here.

Books received will be tonight. Long shift I have to get to.

2025.05.31

May. 31st, 2025 07:56 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
‘Breakthrough’ breast cancer therapy can slow advance of disease and prolong survival
Study shows combination treatment for aggressive breast cancer delays advance by average 17 months and chemotherapy by two years
Andrew Gregory Health editor, in Chicago
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/31/breakthrough-breast-cancer-therapy-can-slow-advance-of-disease-and-prolong-survival

Trump says he fired National Portrait Gallery chief in latest conflict with arts
President says director Kim Sajet has been fired but experts suggest president does not have legal grounds to do so
Robert Mackey
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/30/trump-fires-kim-sajet-national-portrait-gallery-director

Want to see where Trump’s tariffs are leading US business? Look at Georgia
The political swing state has a $900bn economy, with hospitality, industrial manufacturing – and movies
George Chidi in Atlanta
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/31/georgia-business-trump-tariffs

Four queer business owners on Pride under Trump: ‘Our joy is resistance’
As the first Pride month under Donald Trump’s second presidency approaches, LGBTQ+ businesses are stepping up
Jenna Zaza
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/31/pride-queer-business-owners

Tourist damages two of China’s terracotta warriors after jumping fence
The man ‘pushed and pulled’ the ancient clay warriors and damaged them to varying degrees, said authorities
Agence France-Presse
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/31/tourist-jumps-into-chinas-terracotta-army-damaging-ancient-warriors

Four tips for home care, from vacuuming your mattress to … cleaning your dishwasher?
I tried some of the advice from Kyshawn Lane of the wildly popular Instagram account Weekly Home Check
Buy an exclusive print from our Well Actually series
Madeleine Aggeler
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/may/30/four-tips-for-home-care

Are seed oils really bad for you?
Jessica Bradley
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250530-are-seed-oils-really-bad-for-you

Never before seen images of our Universe
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0lf3qdj/never-before-seen-images-of-our-universe

Loretta Swit, who played ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan on MAS*H, dies aged 87
The actor, who won two Emmy awards, was best known for being one of longest-serving cast members on the hit series
Associated Press
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/may/30/loretta-swit-actor-dead
seleneheart: (Default)
[personal profile] seleneheart
The Body in the Garden by Katharine Schellman



Blurb:
London 1815. Newly widowed Lily Adler returns to a society that frowns on independent women, but she's no stranger to the glittering world of London's upper crust. She's back in town and eager to have a renaissance with friends, particularly with Lady Serena Walter--from their school days--determined to create a meaningful life for herself even without a husband. She expects scandal, gossip, and secrets. What she doesn't expect, as she's visiting Lady Walter is a dead man laying in her garden.

Lily happened to overhear the man just minutes before he was shot: young, desperate, and attempting blackmail. When she finds out Lord Walter bribes the investigating magistrate to drop the case, Lily is worried, and becomes the only one with the key to catching the killer.

Aided by Navy Captain Jack Hartley and heiress from the West Indies Miss Ofelia Oswald, Lily sets out to discover whether her friend's husband is mixed up in blackmail and murder. The unlikely team sets out to conceal their investigation behind the whirl of London's social season, but the deceased knew secrets about people with power. Secrets that the powerful have desire and influence to keep hidden. Now, Lily will have to uncover the truth, before she becomes the killer's next target.


This is the first mystery in the series - setting the place an time more than the following books. We get more of Lily's backstory and grief over the loss of her husband, and her initial friendship with Ofelia as well as her working relationship with Simon Page. Very enjoyable.
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
which is a soap opera with many of the trappings of a space opera. Interestingly, the show never comes down with a final opinion on whether or not it's a bad thing for those little planets to get absorbed by the empire/space UN or not - the protagonists mostly feel like it's awful, but almost everybody they meet who isn't from their home planets seems to think that it hardly matters who technically rules the planet so long as somebody does. But most of those people either have no context to claim an informed opinion or are themselves from the PSA, so....

On a different note, I continue to hold the opinion that their deceased friend may have had strong convictions, and he died for his beliefs, and he might even have been as remarkable and amazing as the two protagonists seem to believe, but he also sounds like a lot. Like the sort of person who doesn't want to get a cat because of abstruse concepts of moral philosophy that nobody cares about but him, but who sure is willing to keep arguing about it until they cave from sheer exhaustion, and then presumably keep arguing because they ought to have caved due to agreeing with his position.

************


Read more... )

Philosophical Questions: Country

May. 31st, 2025 12:57 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
People have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.

If you could start a country from scratch, what would it be like?

Like this. :D

"The Evolution of Society as a Whole"

"The Most Effective Weapons"

May Monthly Post

May. 31st, 2025 12:54 am
ysabetwordsmith: Bingo balls (bingo)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This is the May community post for [community profile] allbingo. What were your bingo activities during May? What are your plans for June?

For May we had:
[new] Colors Bingo Fest hosted by [personal profile] silvercat17
Inspired by the kind of prompts in [community profile] rainbowlists, this is a bingo format challenge based on creative color names and related concepts.
Posting will be from May 1-31.

For June we will have:
[new]
Pride Fest hosted by [personal profile] drabblewriter
Celebrate ALL the orientations!
Posting will be June 1-30.


Bingo

May. 30th, 2025 11:57 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
I have made bingo down the N column of my 5-1-25 card for the Colors Fest bingo. I also have 4 extra fills.

N1 (true colors) -- "Show My True Colors" (Polychrome Heroics: Farce)
N2 (all that glitters is not gold) -- "Liberosis" (A Poesy of Obscure Sorrows)
N3 (WILD CARD: deep blue sea) -- "Ruling from Beneath" (Polychrome Heroics: Kraken)
N4 (silver-tongued) -- "Heartspur" (A Poesy of Obscure Sorrows)
N5 (riot of color) -- "Cause a Riot of Color" (Polychrome Heroics: The Big One and Shiv)

B4 (the green stuff) -- Cookie Jar Terrarium Part 2: Planting

I5 (grey area) -- "A Lens of Ice" (Polychrome Heroics: Rutledge)

G3 (caught red-handed) -- "The Care and Feeding of Supervillains" (Polychrome Heroics: Dr. Infanta and Kraken)
G4 (pale imitation) -- "The More Bizarre It Gets" (Polychrome Heroics: Trichromatic Attachments)

(no subject)

May. 30th, 2025 11:23 pm
skygiants: Rue from Princess Tutu dancing with a raven (belle et la bete)
[personal profile] skygiants
The Boston Ballet production of Maillot's Romeo et Juliette has turned out to be not only my favorite Boston Ballet production that I've seen so far but also tbh one of my favorite Romeo and Juliets full stop. It is Taking Swings and Making Choices and some of them are very weird but all of them are interesting.

we're just gonna go ahead and cut for length )

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