D&D night
May. 28th, 2025 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silver_chipmunkSlept late and didn't get up til after 12:00. Then I had breakfast and coffee, and decided what to do for the day.
Eventually I decided to go into Flushing to get my apartment key copied. I texted RK to make sure he would be able to come and check on the pets while I'm in Ohio, and he can, so I need toy make a spare key.
So I showered and dressed, and headed in to the hardware store on Main Street. I got the key copied, it is a very small, very much for Chinese hardware store, and they only charged $1.50 for the key, which is nice.
After that I decided that since I was in Flushing, I should check out the place I spotted awhile ago that advertises face waxing. It's next to Duane Reade, so I figured that's pretty convenient for me.
So I walked up Main Street, and got to the place. It's on the third floor and no elevator, which was a bummer, but I went up and found a nice looking salon, with reasonable prices, so I got my face waxed.
Then I took the bus home, and decided to do some cleaning in the apartment. NOt a whole lot, but enough to make it look better.
Then after that I puttered around, read a little, and texted the Kid, and just hung out to=il 7:00 when I Teamed the FWiB.
We talked til 8:00 when I had my D&D game. We fought more skum, and found a secret door to what is the last part of this adventure module. No game next week, fortunately it's been postponed for various people who will be otherwise occupied, including me. It's the day I fly to Ohio.
After the game I fed the pets and had dinner, more leftovers from Memorial Day. Delicious.
Then I started here, and here I am.
Gratitude List:
1. The FWiB.
2. RK.
3. Got the key copied.
4. The rain wasn't bad.
5. My D&D group.
6. Waxed face.
Eventually I decided to go into Flushing to get my apartment key copied. I texted RK to make sure he would be able to come and check on the pets while I'm in Ohio, and he can, so I need toy make a spare key.
So I showered and dressed, and headed in to the hardware store on Main Street. I got the key copied, it is a very small, very much for Chinese hardware store, and they only charged $1.50 for the key, which is nice.
After that I decided that since I was in Flushing, I should check out the place I spotted awhile ago that advertises face waxing. It's next to Duane Reade, so I figured that's pretty convenient for me.
So I walked up Main Street, and got to the place. It's on the third floor and no elevator, which was a bummer, but I went up and found a nice looking salon, with reasonable prices, so I got my face waxed.
Then I took the bus home, and decided to do some cleaning in the apartment. NOt a whole lot, but enough to make it look better.
Then after that I puttered around, read a little, and texted the Kid, and just hung out to=il 7:00 when I Teamed the FWiB.
We talked til 8:00 when I had my D&D game. We fought more skum, and found a secret door to what is the last part of this adventure module. No game next week, fortunately it's been postponed for various people who will be otherwise occupied, including me. It's the day I fly to Ohio.
After the game I fed the pets and had dinner, more leftovers from Memorial Day. Delicious.
Then I started here, and here I am.
Gratitude List:
1. The FWiB.
2. RK.
3. Got the key copied.
4. The rain wasn't bad.
5. My D&D group.
6. Waxed face.
Blood Over Bright Haven, by M. L. Wang
May. 28th, 2025 10:28 amrachelmanija
Sciona, the first woman ever admitted to the University of Magic, takes on Thomil, a janitor from a discriminated-against culture, as her lab assistant, and they both learn dark secrets about their world.
Thomil is introduced when his clan makes a desperate run across deadly ground to get to the safety of a city surrounded by a magical shield. The shield protects against bitter cold and the deadly Blight, which randomly zaps and dissolves people, but the area around the city is particularly Blight-infested. Only Thomil and his baby niece survive. When they arrive, they find that the city natives hate their race and has consigned them all as a permanent underclass.
Ten years later, Sciona, a well-to-do young woman in the city, is preparing for her magic exam to try to get into the sexist magic university, which no woman has ever passed. Though she does pass, all the male mages but her mentor hate her and hassle her. The only other person who's even remotely nice to her is Thomil, the janitor, who is assigned as her lab assistant as a cruel joke. But though Sciona is racist and classist, and Thomil is mildly sexist in an oblivious way, they find that they kind of get along...
Wang has an engaging, easy-read style for the most part, the intros to the two main characters are quite compelling, and despite the heavy-handed axes of privilege themes, Thomil and Sciona have a nice dynamic.
I said "for the most part." The exception is the magic system, which I think is basically computer programming via magic typewriters (spellographs). The wizards program a spell to access a specific area of the magical Otherrealm (which they can't see or sense in any way, so they're just plotting points on a grid) to grab magical energy or matter from it. But we get MUCH more detailed and lengthy descriptions of it, from long explanations to actual spells:
CONDITION 1: DEVICE is 15 Vendric feet higher than its position at the time of activation.
ACTION 1: FIRE will siphon from POWER an amount of energy no lower than 4.35 and no higher than 4.55 on the Leonic scale.
ACTION 2: FIRE will siphon within the distance of DEVICE no higher than 3 Vendric inches.
If and only if CONDITION 1 is met, ACTION 1 and ACTION 2 will go into effect.
The first half is Sciona and Thomil working on various spells, interspersed with very heavy-handed commentary on colonialism, sexism, and how Sciona totally gets feminism when it applies to her personally but is oblivious to all other isms. Sciona is an awful, self-centered person and Thomil is mostly perfect. Almost exactly halfway through, there is a shocking reveal. At least, it shocked many readers. It did not shock me.
( Read more... )
Despite what the plot description sounds like, Sciona and Thomil do not have a romance beyond occasional sexy feelings. It's a magical dystopia/dark academia, I think similar to Babel (which I could not get very far into) but less anvillicious in that it does not have literal footnotes saying stuff like "This is a racist comment and racism is bad." (In the bookshop, I have Blood Over Bright Haven tagged "If you like Babel you will like this.") Sadly for M. L. Wang, this comparative subtlety got them some reviews on Goodreads accusing them of condoning Sciona being a bad person and endorsing her beliefs.
I did not care for this book but I can see how it would work for many readers, especially if they're shocked by the twist at the halfway mark.
Wednesday has had more equestrian-products-related spam
May. 28th, 2025 06:03 pmoursinWhat I read
Vivian Shaw, Strange New World (Dr Greta Helsing, #4) (2025): somehow did not like this as much as the preceding volumes in the series.
Anthony Powell, Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (A Dance to the Music of Time #5) (1960).
Latest Literary Review.
Discovered entirely by happenstance that Robert Rodi's scathingly irreverent comedies of manners set largely in Chicago’s gay demimonde' are now available as ebooks at exceedingly eligible prices (I read them in the 90s/early 00s from the local library) so have downloaded all those and also:
Bitch In a Bonnet: Reclaiming Jane Austen from the Stiffs, the Snobs, the Simps and the Saps (vol 1) (2014), which collects and expands on his blogposts on Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park. which was quite addictive, the sort of thing I thought I'd be dipping into and in fact read end to end, even while dissenting from his take on Fanny Price and muttering that he was not exactly au fait with the discourse on JA's views on the slavery question.
On the go
This was perhaps at least partly motivated by coming to the point in Dragon's Teeth where we get the Reichstag Fire and its consequences, and Lanny is caught in the middle of a whole mass of cross-currents while trying to save those of his friends who think that they will surely be all right....
Bitch In a Bonnet vol 2 (2014): covers Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.
Up next
Well, KJ Charles, Copper Script is allegedly due to drop tomorrow....
Signal boost: Claims of Hidden AI Bots on Discord: An Explanation
May. 28th, 2025 05:50 pmvriddythebiballerina wrote up a really nice explanation of what is going on with the hidden AI bots on Discord, with links and citations, explaining what the bots can and cannot do.The image editing tools being discussed here are user applications. These particular applications are more visible due to being promoted by Discord, but they operate the same as other third-party user applications. The individual user has to choose to enable these applications, and choose which images they use them on, entirely at their discretion. It is functionally equivalent to saving the image to one's computer and uploading it on another website.Link: Claims of Hidden AI Bots on Discord: An Explanation
A user application cannot read content in a server of its own accord, and thus cannot "scrape" a server for AI training data.
I've seen people in Discord servers share User IDs (a string of numbers) to ban them, and then more people showing up with even more IDs to ban. I don't know if in the backend, the server owner can see the "name" of the user being banned this way (and then confirm that it's an AI bot name), but for me that reminded me a bit too much of when Twitter users had to share blocklists for bots and those lists then had legitimate users added to them in order to silence them. Either way, as per the article, the banning does nothing as the app can still be added AND the bots only see the data that a user specifically shares with them (like a photo a user explicitly uses with the app).
I also appreciated the pointers to Discord's terms around using data for AI training, which I wasn't aware of. Very informative post.
Beta-reading on Ellipsus
May. 28th, 2025 07:32 amvriddyThat's another post that was due back in January ;) I mentioned that I'd asked beta-readers if they would be up for trying out Ellipsus with me for beta-reading the Cursed Witch. Unfortunately, after a couple of them agreed and started, I ended up having to ask folks to use another platform.
I know a few people in my circles are using Ellipsus for writing - if some of this information is out of date, let me know! From extracting the beta-reader comments and feedback this month, I think the pieces that are deal-breakers for me are still present. I still massively support Ellipsus and the stance they're taking against generative AI. We need more small independent writer-friendly companies like this.
As an additional note, if you stay subscribed to the email "welcome" sequence after joining, at the end they send you a friendly email from one of the co-founders asking for feedback, which I did share. I received a very gracious reply explaining what they were working on at the moment and when they'd hopefully get to these issues. I understand the need to prioritise, and I'm totally rooting for them.
Having said that, here's why Ellipsus didn't work for me for beta-reading compared to a tool like GoogleDoc or LibreOffice.
Finding the changes
( Read more... )
Can't see both comments and in-text suggestions at the same time
( Read more... )
Email stuff, minor and a bit annoying though not a deal breaker
( Read more... )
So that's been my experience! The third one can be avoided with some email filtering, but from starting to incorporate comments and feedback from beta-reading this month, I believe the two deal-breakers are still a problem. However, this is all for a very specific, "beta-reader" use case rather than actual writing. I understand Ellipsus is an amazing GDoc replacement for that use case, and excellent for real-time collaborative writing. If you've been looking for GDoc alternative for your writing, one that doesn't feed your work to an AI training corpus, consider it!
And if you're using Ellipsus already, would love to hear about your experience so I can understand better what it does well and less well, and more easily recommend it when applicable to people looking for a new tool :)
Mary Oliver: "Red Bird", "Invitation"
May. 28th, 2025 11:56 amhalfcactus posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
poetry2 poems from Mary Oliver's Red Bird collection.
Red bird came all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else could.
Of course I love the sparrows,
those dun-colored darlings,
so hungry and so many.
I am a God-fearing feeder of birds.
I know He has many children,
not all of them bold in spirit.
Still, for whatever reason—
perhaps, because the winter is so long
and the sky so black-blue
or perhaps because the heart narrows
as often as it opens—
I am grateful
that red bird comes all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing can do.
Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistle
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for the sheer delight and gratitude—
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in this broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
Red Bird
Red bird came all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else could.
Of course I love the sparrows,
those dun-colored darlings,
so hungry and so many.
I am a God-fearing feeder of birds.
I know He has many children,
not all of them bold in spirit.
Still, for whatever reason—
perhaps, because the winter is so long
and the sky so black-blue
or perhaps because the heart narrows
as often as it opens—
I am grateful
that red bird comes all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing can do.
Invitation
Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistle
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for the sheer delight and gratitude—
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in this broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
Did very little today
May. 27th, 2025 10:42 pmsilver_chipmunkI got up around 11:00 after waking up at 10:00. I had breakfast and coffee, and put in a small Shipt order. Among other things I got small Command hooks, to hang some things. mashfanficchick called while I was doing the order and gave me some ideas. Ze flew to Ohio to see Dani and family today.
While I was waiting for the Shipt order I hung the Flowers of Van Gogh poster, using Command poster strips I already had.
The Shipt order arrived and I put it away. Then I used the Command hooks to hang the plaque I mentioned the other day, that Oldest Brother gave me, and a picture I bought in the winter at the Bryant Park Holiday Shops. I have another picture I wanted to hang today but I think it's too heavy for these hooks.
I went to the bedroom and read. Last night I finished Remembered Death, and today I started There is a Tide, which I sadly seem to have already read. I shall reread it anyway.
I puttered online a lot, and ate leftovers from the picnic. Then at 7:00 I Teamed with the FWiB. We talked til 8:00 when I had my Al-anon meeting, which was small, me and M and S.mashfanficchick texted me to let me know ze arrived safely and was picked up by Dani and Winnie.
After that I had more picnic leftovers, and went to the bedroom and played solitaire til pet feeding time.
And that was the day.
Gratitude List:
1. The FWiB.
2.mashfanficchick had no travel issues (other than a suitcase wheel breaking)
3. Shipt.
4. Command products.
5. Good books.
6. Leftovers.
mashfanficchick called while I was doing the order and gave me some ideas. Ze flew to Ohio to see Dani and family today.While I was waiting for the Shipt order I hung the Flowers of Van Gogh poster, using Command poster strips I already had.
The Shipt order arrived and I put it away. Then I used the Command hooks to hang the plaque I mentioned the other day, that Oldest Brother gave me, and a picture I bought in the winter at the Bryant Park Holiday Shops. I have another picture I wanted to hang today but I think it's too heavy for these hooks.
I went to the bedroom and read. Last night I finished Remembered Death, and today I started There is a Tide, which I sadly seem to have already read. I shall reread it anyway.
I puttered online a lot, and ate leftovers from the picnic. Then at 7:00 I Teamed with the FWiB. We talked til 8:00 when I had my Al-anon meeting, which was small, me and M and S.
mashfanficchick texted me to let me know ze arrived safely and was picked up by Dani and Winnie.After that I had more picnic leftovers, and went to the bedroom and played solitaire til pet feeding time.
And that was the day.
Gratitude List:
1. The FWiB.
2.
mashfanficchick had no travel issues (other than a suitcase wheel breaking)3. Shipt.
4. Command products.
5. Good books.
6. Leftovers.
cats: tomcat shenaniganry
May. 27th, 2025 03:32 pmkellan_the_tabby
[Major Tom, a big grey tabby, is curled up in a (relatively) tiny ball, surrounded in all directions by sage green flannel sheets. He’s awake, though, and pointedly looking away from the camera.]
Over the years Tom has become more & more willing to skip the excuse that he’s cold, & simply demand to get under the covers because he wants a cuddle. I love this habit of his dearly (except for when he demands that I lift the covers, then stands there staring at me as if he has no idea why I’m doing that). He’s delightfully warm when it’s cold, & when it’s not, at least he’s got fur, so we’re not sweating on each other. He’s even learned that kneading on my skin will cause me to make displeased squawks, & thus, he mostly kneads on the sheets these days.
[Most of Tom is still under the covers, but his massive head is resting on my bent elbow. The flannel sheet is tucked in around his head.]
Usually when he’s done, he’s done, but sometimes he’ll extricate his head & then snuggle back in. I love this even more than the under-the-covers snuggles, except for the part where it’s very difficult to use my phone (taking this picture was NOT EASY). Which would be fine, except that he usually does this when I’m trying to get up, & if I put my phone down I’m going RIGHT back to sleep. Especially when there’s Tom cuddles!
[There’s a piece of plywood on my bed, the end propped up on a pallet board and a 2×4. Sitting on top of the board is my cordless drill, & also, a tomcat. He’s looking off to the side, because he clearly has nothing to do with any of this.]
Tom was also very helpful when it came to putting together the shelves that now sit under my kitchen table! & by ‘helpful’ I mean ‘I had to threaten him with trepanning by cordless drill before he would get out of my way’.
My friends, he tried to shove his face into the cordless drill. While it was running. Because I had this APPARENTLY RIDICULOUS theory that he would not wish to be very close to a running power tool. (He was fine. My nerves recovered eventually.)
[Tom is looking up, somewhat to the left of the camera, an extremely innocent expression on his face.]
… what?
originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!
Saying, what no flagellants - then thinking, actually, might be preferable
May. 27th, 2025 06:06 pmoursinWas alerted to Zoom seminar I must have signed up for ages ago and not put into my diary, with link, approx 30 mins before it was due to happen.
Well, that was interesting and informative: 'Protest and Identity Formation in the Time of Covid: The UK in Historical Context', if ultimately rather grim.
Given that I am in the cohort that thinks the response of The Powers That Be was very much in the Day Late and a Dollar Short ballpark and marked by gross ineptitude even where corruption was not in play, I had not realised how much there was resistance based on the belief that it was an excuse for the imposition of The Iron Heel (and this crisscrossed a wide spectrum of beliefs).
And a lot of the evidence for that was actually not widely reported.
And one observes that there are doubtless differences between the overall picture and the impact of immediate local policing practices.
But looking at what one might consider the wider penumbra of the panic (the torching of 5G towers e.g.) I was reminded (I would be, wouldn't I) of some of the episodes in Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millenium, especially as the speaker invoked the Black Death as a comparison point for epidemic + social upheaval.
A Waltz in the Garden - AU Dracula & Mina Tale - Inspired by Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
May. 27th, 2025 09:42 amearthspirits posting in historiumFandom: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Characters: Dracula, Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra + Original Characters.
Pairing: Dracula / Mina
Era: 19th Century
Era: 19th Century
Title: A Waltz in the Garden
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,256
Summary: At a summer dance, Mina meets an intriguing stranger.
Note: I created this romantic little tale to honor Bram Stoker and World Dracula Day - May 26. On this day in 1897, his novel "Dracula" was first published.
Distraction
May. 27th, 2025 10:41 ammelagan
I might have ideas aplenty, but when it comes to sitting down and putting the work into it....
This post is an excellent example. I could have pulled up my current WiP but oh-no instead I hunted down a picture of distracted prairie dogs for this post.
*headdesk*
It's a very fine line between distraction and procrastination.
Memorial Day
May. 26th, 2025 10:18 pmsilver_chipmunkGot up this morning after somewhat broken sleep. Got out of bed at 10:30, had breakfast and coffee, then showered, washed my hair, and dressed. I wore my Old Navy flag tee shirt, and the flag silk scarf (not real silk) that came from Oldest Brother.
Was originally supposed to meetmashfanficchick at around noonish, but ze was held up by busses being canceled due to a Memorial Day parade near zer father's, where ze was staying. So I took my time getting ready.
Left the apartment at a bit before 1:00, and got to the Starbucks near zer a bit before 2:00, where I waited for zer.
We met up and went to the apartment and got ready for our picnic. We had lots of good stuff, largely fruits, vegetables and cheese. We packed a blanket and I had my folding chair. We went to Forest Park, and found a nice shady spot, and settled down.
By very pleasant coincidence zer friend Matt-Rob happened by, and he stopped, and stayed with us for the afternoon. So there were three of us, and that was nice. We talked and ate, and had a good time.
Finally it got to be about 6:30, and getting chillier. We packed up and said good bye to Matt-Rob, and headed back to the apartment.
We got there just in time to catch the very end of the Mets game, a 2-1 win over the White Sox.
I stayed talking til 8:30, then I Ubered home.
The FWiB has gotten his IMac working again, and we were able to Team. Though it turns out that Teams is not compatible with IMac, and he had to use the IPad, while using the IMac to look things up. But we got to see each other, which is the main thing.
Then it was pet feeding time, so I fed the pets, and got started here.
A satisfying day.
Gratitude List:
1. The FWiB got his computer fixed.
2. The many who died for this country.
3 Forest Park.
4. Good food.
5. My cat.
6. Friends.
Was originally supposed to meet
mashfanficchick at around noonish, but ze was held up by busses being canceled due to a Memorial Day parade near zer father's, where ze was staying. So I took my time getting ready.Left the apartment at a bit before 1:00, and got to the Starbucks near zer a bit before 2:00, where I waited for zer.
We met up and went to the apartment and got ready for our picnic. We had lots of good stuff, largely fruits, vegetables and cheese. We packed a blanket and I had my folding chair. We went to Forest Park, and found a nice shady spot, and settled down.
By very pleasant coincidence zer friend Matt-Rob happened by, and he stopped, and stayed with us for the afternoon. So there were three of us, and that was nice. We talked and ate, and had a good time.
Finally it got to be about 6:30, and getting chillier. We packed up and said good bye to Matt-Rob, and headed back to the apartment.
We got there just in time to catch the very end of the Mets game, a 2-1 win over the White Sox.
I stayed talking til 8:30, then I Ubered home.
The FWiB has gotten his IMac working again, and we were able to Team. Though it turns out that Teams is not compatible with IMac, and he had to use the IPad, while using the IMac to look things up. But we got to see each other, which is the main thing.
Then it was pet feeding time, so I fed the pets, and got started here.
A satisfying day.
Gratitude List:
1. The FWiB got his computer fixed.
2. The many who died for this country.
3 Forest Park.
4. Good food.
5. My cat.
6. Friends.
TIL
May. 26th, 2025 07:23 pmoursinThat the place I was very glad to leave in my youth is now The Top Place to Visit in the UK, though I think 'visit' may be the operative word there, after all back in my day the foreign language students and other summer visitors had an entirely different vision of it. Street foodstalls and trendy bars, not to mention galleries, Not In My Day, though we did have the walks in nature and seascape.
***
(The person who asked about this could have found the info themself, it was really easy to find.) Stillbirths only had to be registered in England from 1927.
(This was the person who had found me as A Nexpert in a field I don't consider my main field of xpertise via Google AI. I was, in fact, able to provide quite a bit of information from the depths of Mi Knowinz. )
***
How to decode the less than intuitive citations in footnotes to Gould and Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine (1898 edition).
(Though I think the person asking the question to which this was actually the answer could possibly have given the matter a little thought and worked it out themself? Maybe not: maybe they have not had the years of dealing with Weird Citation Practices that are under my belt.)
***
Still got it for telling people Where To Find Archives....