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Punk ([personal profile] runpunkrun) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-06-16 08:46 am
Entry tags:

Round 176 Theme Poll

Poll #33259 round 176 theme poll
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 7

Pick the next theme of fancake:

Books & Writing
3 (42.9%)

Protest & Revolt
2 (28.6%)

Working Together
2 (28.6%)

Language Log ([syndicated profile] languagelog_feed) wrote2025-06-16 01:06 pm

Unicode CJK Unified Ideographs Extension J and the nature of the sinographic writing system

Posted by Victor Mair

Submitted by Charles Belov:

I've been browsing through the proposed Unicode 17 changes, currently undergoing a comment period, with interest. While I don't have the knowledge to intelligently comment on the proposals, it's good to see that they are actively improving language access.

I'm puzzled that some new characters have been added to the existing Unicode CJK Unified Ideographs Extension C (6 characters) and Unicode CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E (12 characters) rather than added to a new extension. But the most interesting is the apparently brand-new Unicode CJK Unified Ideographs Extension J, with over 4,000 added characters.

I found the following characters of special interest:

– 323B0 looks like the character 五 with the bottom stroke missing.
– 323B3 looks like an arrangement of three 三s – does it possibly mean the same as 九?
– 32501, while not up to the character for biang for complexity, is nevertheless quite a stroke pile: the 厂 radical enclosing a 3 by 3 array of the character 有
– 3261E is the character 乙 in a circle, which doesn't look quite right to me as a legit Chinese character
– 326FB seems sexist to me: three 男 over one 女
– 33143, similarly to 32501, has ⻌ enclosing a 3 by 3 array of the character 日

Alas, macOS does not yet support the biang character, so I can't include it in this email. Hopefully someday.

Character additions

VHM:

Note that, as it has been since the beginning of Unicode, CJK gobbles up the vast majority of all code points (see Mair and Liu 1991).

What is this fact telling us about the Chinese writing system, particularly in comparison with other writing systems?  How does one account for this disparity?  What is the meaning of this gross disparity?

The average number of strokes in a Chinese character is roughly 12.

The average number of strokes in a letter of the English alphabet is 1.9.

The average number of syllables in an English word is 1.66 (and 5 letters).

The average number of syllables in a Chinese word is roughly 2 (and 24 strokes).

The average number of words in an English sentence is 15-20.

The average number of words in a Chinese sentence is 25 (ballpark figure; see here)

Chinese has more than 100,000 characters.

English has 26 letters.

Total number of English words;  over 600,000 (Oxford English Dictionary)

Total number of Chinese words: a little over 370,000 (Hànyǔ dà cídiǎn 漢語大詞典 [Unabridged dictionary of Sinitic])

und so weiter

 

Selected readings

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-16 09:48 am
Entry tags:

Clarke Award Finalists 2001

2001: Labour narrowly wins a second overwhelming victory, Simon Darcount finds his calling, and Jeffrey Archer distracts people from that time he was accused of stealing three suits.

Poll #33257 Clarke Award Finalists 2001
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 26


Which 2001 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
17 (65.4%)

Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle
13 (50.0%)

Cosmonaut Keep by Ken MacLeod
8 (30.8%)

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
10 (38.5%)

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
9 (34.6%)

Salt by Adam Roberts
4 (15.4%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read,, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2001 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle
Cosmonaut Keep by Ken MacLeod
Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
Salt by Adam Roberts
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
marthawells ([personal profile] marthawells) wrote2025-06-16 08:42 am

Another Murderbot interview

In ‘Murderbot,’ an anxious scientist and an autonomous robot develop a workplace-trauma bond

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2025-06-13/murderbot-episode-6-alexander-skarsgard-noma-dumezweni


Leading a TV series is a first for Dumezweni, who has previously been cast in smaller roles. She wasn’t convinced by the initial pitch at first because sci-fi hasn’t traditionally had a lot of major roles for actors of color.

“Usually I’d come in and play the receptionist,” she says. “I love to watch sci-fi. But I wondered: Who am I going to be in this sci-fi world?”

However, once she learned more about the world and the character, the actor changed her mind.

“It was an absolute joy to discover that there was nothing that Chris and Paul had to change to make it representational,” Dumezweni says. “It’s lovely not to have to fight for people’s positions in the world based on their skin color.”




ETA: Wanted to add this one real quick from BlueSky:

Vestal Magazine: Noma Dumezweni -- Off Canvas

https://www.vestalmag.com/noma-dumezweni


Set in a near future where the line between machine and human is increasingly blurred, Murderbot explores themes of identity, autonomy, and what it truly means to be alive through the eyes of a self-aware security android. Adapted from Martha Wells’s beloved The Murderbot Diaries novels, the series blends gripping sci-fi action with sharp, witty humor. At the heart of the story is Noma Dumezweni’s portrayal of Dr. Ayda Mensah, the thoughtful leader of a pacifist civilization struggling to uphold her community’s ideals amid a universe dominated by corporate greed and political tensions. Noma brings to the role a grounded strength, embodying the delicate balance between idealism and pragmatism as her character wrestles with the burdens of leadership and moral compromise. The parallels between Noma and Ayda run deep: both choose to lead with heart, courage, and conviction. “Your head will try to talk you out of that feeling of expansion. It will tell you, ‘You can’t do this,’” Noma says. “Trust your body, trust your instinct. Your body knows the truth.” That instinct and bravery have guided her career, from becoming the first Black actress to portray Hermione Granger on stage, a landmark moment for representation in theater, to winning two Laurence Olivier Awards and becoming a beacon of inspiration for a new generation of actors. Like Ayda, Noma has forged a path not only of leadership, but of quiet, transformative power.

Lovely photos in this!
John Hawks ([syndicated profile] johnhawks_feed) wrote2025-06-16 11:21 am

How evolution became a uniquely American controversy

Posted by John Hawks

Black and white historic photo of people at a book display outdoors with a large banner reading "Anti-Evolution League: The Conflict Between Hell and the High School"
Selling literature at the 1925 trial of John Scopes in Dayton, Tennessee.

Next month I’ll be heading to Dayton, Tennessee, for the centennial of the “Trial of the Century”, the case of Tennessee v. Scopes. The good people of Dayton and the Rhea County Historical Society are putting on a weeklong series of events to commemorate the trial, described at the Scopes100 site. As part of the events, they’ve invited me to come and share the current picture of human evolutionary science. On July 16 and 17 I’ll be part of a symposium taking place in the historic Scopes Trial Courtroom.

I’m really looking forward to this event. With the rapid changes in the science of human origins, I’ve got a lot to talk about!

The Scopes Trial defined a turning point in the social history of evolutionary science. It was the first of many flareups of conflict among people of faith, school boards and legislatures, scientists and educators. With this history of conflict, many of my colleagues in anthropology and biology see a rigid antagonism between scientific approaches to humanity’s history and religious traditions.

I don’t really share that point of view.

I enjoy talking with people of all denominations and backgrounds to share what I have seen as a scientist. The fossil, genetic, and archeological evidence are so strong. Most people just don’t know how much evidence there really is. What I’ve found is that people are always fascinated at the discoveries, and big discoveries are unfolding at a faster rate today than ever before.

Over the next month I’ll be preparing for the centennial. There are some great sources on this topic, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Summer for the Gods by Edward Larson. I’ll be reflecting on some parts of the history that stand out to me from today’s point of view, and also thinking about were the science of human origins has come, and where it’s going.

In this post, I’ll look at the background of the trial.

The anti-evolution movement in the U.S. did not emerge naturally from religion of the late nineteenth century. It was built by design.

I appreciate all subscribers who help spread the word about my writing and research in human origins.

Survival of the fittest

When Charles Darwin first published his work—the Origin of Species in 1859, followed by Descent of Man in 1871—he did indeed rouse antipathy and resistance from many religious leaders both in Europe and North America. The famous public debate between Thomas Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in 1860 was the best known example of disquiet that was very widespread.

A mere generation later, by the 1880s, attitudes among scientists and many people who were prominent in society—including religious leaders—had transformed toward acceptance and accommodation of evolution.

On the scientific side, zoologists, botanists, and natural historians found evolution to be an enormously productive way to look at their subjects. The evidence of common descent of species is and was overwhelming.

Even so, not all were convinced about Darwin’s idea of natural selection. Many thought this too weak and too slow. Some favored an older explanation, Lamarckian inheritance, as the most important mechanism for evolution—one that Darwin himself thought likely to apply in some cases. This led some scientists to distinguish the idea of evolution from the specific mechanism of natural selection, which they called Darwinism.

On the societal side, academics, political leaders, and leaders within some religious groups saw much in Darwin’s ideas that appealed to them. The slogan “survival of the fittest”, coined by the sociologist Herbert Spencer, was emblematic of a widespread attitude about competition of people within society, which became known as “Social Darwinism”. Darwin himself had written about competition among races as part of his ideas of human evolution.

Many Christian leaders and thinkers followed these developments in science and worked to find new alignments between such modern ideas and their beliefs. They reinterpreted Bible verses and old traditions in light of natural history. This approach, shared by denominations like Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Catholics, by the 1900s was known as “modernism”. It kept religion relevant for many people who might otherwise have turned toward agnosticism.

Rise of a movement

But the world was changing, nowhere faster than in the United States.

Through the turn of the twentieth century, millions of new immigrants arrived in America. At the same time, cities were growing and drawing migration from rural areas nationwide, especially the beginning of the Great Migration of Blacks from the rural South into northern cities. Wage work in factories was supplanting agriculture and skilled trades, challenging traditional family structures as young people moved to the cities for work. The fastest-changing social forces grew with the financial and industrial power of the cities of the Northeast. The old North versus South political divide was realigning toward an urban versus rural one, pushing people of the Great Plains and mountain West politically toward the Democratic Party.

Three massive interrelated phenomena rose in the midst of these forces: Progressivism, Fundamentalist Christianity, and William Jennings Bryan.

It was Bryan more than anyone who saw how a crusade against teaching evolution could galvanize people and pressure state legislatures on other issues. He transformed this social issue into a political cause that would span a century.

William Jennings Bryan with arms outstretched
William Jennings Bryan in 1908. Photo: Library of Congress

Born in Illinois, Bryan came to prominence in Nebraska politics and became the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 1896, 1900, and 1908. He went down to defeat in all three elections, but his great skill in speechifying and his knack for championing issues that unified Democrats from different regions, held the strong loyalty of the party. He retained great influence in the 1912 nomination contest, which Woodrow Wilson won with Bryan’s backing. As a result, Wilson made Bryan his Secretary of State—a position that the isolationist Bryan resigned in 1915 as he saw Wilson angling toward entry into the First World War. After leaving office, Bryan set his sights on two crusades: the old cause of Prohibition, and the newer one against Darwinism.

Bryan railed against the idea of “survival of the fittest”. He saw that Social Darwinism led almost inexorably to eugenics, which was gaining enormous support in the 1910s and 1920s across the country among scientists and progressive policymakers. Bryan recognized eugenics as brutal and degrading, and opposed sterilization laws and other measures sponsored by eugenicists. For Bryan, the concept of human evolution reduced humans to the level of animals in direct contradiction to Biblical teaching.

In this, Bryan rode the wave of the newly born Fundamentalist movement. Launched from the pulpits of energetic pastors like the Minnesota Baptist William Bell Riley, Fundamentalism was an interdenominational reaction to the “modernist” doctrines of other denominations. The movement’s principles were encapsulated in a multi-author series of essays titled The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, which commented on current social issues through literal interpretations of Bible verses.

As I began reviewing this history, it struck me how young the Fundamentalist movement was in 1925. The Fundamentals appeared between 1910 and 1915. The establishment of the World Christian Fundamentals Asssociation, launching the national coordination of churches that were part of the movement, was in 1919.

The anti-evolution crusade was not an isolated issue. Fundamentalists campaigned for policies and measures that they saw as defending families, like prohibition of alcohol and opposition to jazz music and racy movies. They saw immigration, especially from non-Protestant regions of the world, as disrupting social and moral harmony.

Education as flashpoint

Up to the turn of the twentieth century, churches were the largest supporters and organizers of education. Where public schools existed, they had curricula in which the Bible and religious concepts had an honored place. High school-level education was rare; only a small fraction of boys and hardly any girls attended this level.

By turn of the twentieth century states poured more and more funding into public school systems. America was seen as a “melting pot” of immigrants from many nations, and the place tasked with assimilating immigrant children was the growing system of public schools. State legislatures invested in high schools, and attendance through the 1910s and 1920s rapidly grew. Professors from institutions like Yale and the University of Chicago wrote modern curricula and textbooks full of progressive educational theories.

In the field of biology, the modern curriculum meant evolution.

William Jennings Bryan argued that parents and local leaders, not distant professors, should determine what the public schools should teach. Acting with the WFCU, he lobbied state legislatures around the country to ban the teaching of evolution. The campaign spread across more than a dozen states, with its first victory in Oklahoma in 1923, where the law prohibited textbooks that taught Darwin’s theory.

In Tennessee, the anti-evolution legislation was known as the Butler Act, for its sponsor John Washington Butler. Butler worried that children would reject Biblical teaching about creation, after learning about human evolution in schools. The act specifically singled out human evolution as forbidden within classrooms of the state. The act was signed into law by Tennessee Governor Austin Peay on March 21, 1925.

“It shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the universities, normals, and all other public schools of the State ... to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”—Butler Act, passed in 1925

Bryan had privately urged against including penalties in the law. People had a respect for schoolteachers and he understood that prosecuting them would raise opposition to laws meant to shape and restrict curriculum. Nonetheless, the Butler Act prescribed fines up to $500 for violations.

This penalty opened the door to challenges in the court system. The new American Civil Liberties Union, itself founded in 1920, saw the freedom of inquiry imperiled by laws that would restrict discussion of subjects like evolution in classrooms. Immediately after the passage of the Butler Act, the ACLU began to run advertisements in Tennessee newspapers, offering legal representation to any teacher who wanted to challenge the new law.

Human evolution on trial

With the passage of the Butler Act, the stage for the Trial of the Century was set. The clash that unfolded in Dayton, Tennessee, would pit Bryan personally against the scientific community and the most notorious trial lawyers in the country, Clarence Darrow. It would end with Bryan’s unexpected death in Dayton days after the trial’s conclusion.

“The radio audience was fortunate,” says Williams. “They were able to hear William Jennings Bryan stand up near the microphone and say that he was going to defend the Word of God against the greatest agnostic and atheist in the United States. That was compelling radio.”—American Experience

The circus that would eventually unfold, complete with trained chimpanzees and folk songs, was absolutely typical of the 1920s. Still, the degree of nationwide attention was unprecedented. I’ll get into the media coverage in my next post.

To conclude this one: I’ve taught human evolution in several parts of the United States. My long-term positions as a student, postdoc, and professor have been in Kansas, Utah, Michigan, and Wisconsin. I’ve also lectured all over the country, and have been interacting with a wide range of folks online for more than twenty years. Even so, many parts of this history were new to me.

As someone who teaches and researches human evolution, I’m asked about American creationism almost more than any other social issue. People in other countries find it puzzling why the United States has so much controversy about teaching evolution.

The emergence of Fundamentalism was tied to the anti-evolution crusade. Among the many social issues championed by pastors and others active in the movement, the fight against teaching Darwin was the most distinctive. Turning the issue into a legislative battle on a local and state level added strong solidarity, sending a message that the faithful could create change by flexing their political muscle. It helped the movement appeal to more and more believers from mainstream churches, who were often disillusioned by the more liberal thinking by their own ministers and pastors.

It’s a tension that we still see today, and that’s why evolution has remained a contentious issue in education for a century.

People surrounding a wooden stage with railing, William Jennings Bryan seated at left from overhead view, Clarence Darrow standing at right, with table and other court officials.
Clarence Darrow (standing) and William Jennings Bryan (seated, with fan) on stage outside the Rhea County Courthouse in 1925.

Notes: There has long been less acceptance of biological evolution in the U.S. than in Europe or Canada. Even so, that difference has often been exaggerated, and it is diminishing. In the most recent surveys, only 17% of Americans profess to believe that humans did not evolve from earlier forms of life.

References

Larson, E. J. (2008). Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion. Hachette UK.

Levine, L. W. (1987). Defender of the Faith: William Jennings Bryan, the Last Decade, 1915-1925. Harvard University Press.

Marsden, G. M. (2022). Fundamentalism and American Culture. Oxford University Press.

Masci, D. (2019, February 6). Darwin in America. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/02/06/darwin-in-america-2/

Monkey Trial | American Experience | PBS. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2025, from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/monkeytrial/

Paid subscribers and founding members provide valuable support to enable this site to continue featuring new research.

bluedreaming: (pseudonym - catbear)
ice cream ([personal profile] bluedreaming) wrote in [community profile] fan_flashworks2025-06-16 06:49 am

Hyouka (Kotenbu): Fanfic: the liveliest fruit

Fandom: Hyouka (Kotenbu)
Rating: G
Length: 300 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: The title is from A FEW PROPOSITIONS WITH BIRDS AND TREES THAT
THE POET CONCLUDES WITH A REFERENCE TO THE HEART
by Ruy Belo, translated by Richard Zenith.
Summary: In which Oreki’s low-energy lifestyle is once again thwarted by Chitanda’s curiosity.

Read more... )
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beanside ([personal profile] beanside) wrote2025-06-16 05:47 am

You'll keep staring at the ground, you always do when they get their time with you.

I am for no apparent reason, very sleepy today. I could have dozed for another hour easily. I'll wake up eventually, but I really slept very soundly last night, and another hour would have been nice.

I had a nice day yesterday, first with lunch, where I had a steak bigger than my head, topped with a big scoop of crab imperial. There's still about two thirds of it left, because with the Rybelsus, I can't eat a ton at a sitting. The food was SO good. We got a takeout for my sister, a burger (her choice) and she said it was amazing. It looked pretty tasty.

Then, it was home to relax and feed the puppy before game. Game was super fun, even though it was mostly set up for the next arcs. It's one of my special favorite games, so I was really psyched to play it.

I had a little burst of madness yesterday and signed up to DM another campaign. It's called The Crooked Moon, and it's a folk horror game that looks super cool. I'm looking forward to trying it out. I limited to six people but feel horrible about the people who got excluded. I did it fair, and did a drawing, using a random wheel to remove people. I had to whittle it from 10 people to 6, which was a big cut. If it goes well, I'll run a second game when we finish for everyone who didn't make it.

Today, it's back to work. It's sure to be a busy one. Hoping for a nice not too crazy week. And I'm hoping that they get back to me quickly about the application.

And on that note, time for me to get dressed! Everyone have an amazing Monday!
Futility Closet ([syndicated profile] futilitycloset_feed) wrote2025-06-16 06:27 am

Note Taking

Posted by Greg Ross

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ut_Queant_Laxis_MT.png

Where did the familiar syllables of solfège (do, re, mi) come from? Eleventh-century music theorist Guido of Arezzo collected the first syllable of each line in the Latin hymn “Ut queant laxis,” the “Hymn to St. John the Baptist.” Because the hymn’s lines begin on successive scale degrees, each of these initial syllables is sung with its namesake note:

Ut queant laxīs
resonāre fibrīs
ra gestōrum
famulī tuōrum,
Solve pollūti
labiī reātum,
Sancte Iohannēs.

Ut was changed to do in the 17th century, and the seventh note, ti, was added later to complete the scale.

ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-06-16 12:42 am

Reverse Benchmarking

This video describes an instance of reverse benchmarking in restaurants.  Instead of trying to mimic what other people do well, identify what they do badly and do that  well. 


I routinely use this in my writing.  I look for things that other people do badly or not at all, then I write those things.  Also I never have the patience to wait around for 20 years while other folks work through the whole identity literature process.  New trait?  Trait-having hero!  Done.  This is how I wind up with things like An Army of One (neurodiverse characters making their own culture), The Bear Tunnels (Native American time travelers), The Moon Door (women with disabilities who become werewolves), The Ocracies (everything but monarchy), The Origami Mage and Path of the Paladins (ace heras), P.I.E. (a hera who doesn't fall for a jerk), Polychrome Heroics (superpowers that involve more than crime and crimefighting), and The Steamsmith (a black, genderqueer, British, steampunk engineer).  

Go ahead, throw me prompts for things that nobody is doing well, or doing at all, in any relevant prompt call.  We can fill that gap together.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-06-15 11:32 pm

Worldbuilding

How to Color Your Map Using SCIENCE!

Sketching out a map for a setting can be a lot of fun. Drawing a map gives you a bird’s-eye view of the world, a way to spatially organize plot arcs, and can be a great piece of artwork in its own right. But like most works of fiction, the creator should remember to keep it as believable as possible. This might be less important or less possible for unrecognizably alien worlds. Maps of Earth-like settings, however, can benefit from following some basic rules. Forests, tundras, deserts and plains don’t appear arbitrarily. These biomes are located where they are on Earth due to the way air and water circulate in the atmosphere – and any Earth-like world should follow the same basic rules for its atmosphere that Earth does.

But who wants to spend time researching atmospheric science just to know which parts of their map to color green, brown, or beige? Well, I do, so let me save you some trouble by relaying what I’ve learned
.

Read more... )
conuly: (Default)
conuly ([personal profile] conuly) wrote in [community profile] agonyaunt2025-06-16 01:21 am

I know what I think, but I honestly don't know what anybody else will think

DEAR ABBY: My 40-year-old daughter is on weight-loss injections and a no-sugar diet. I offered to bake her a sugar-free cheesecake, and she agreed, but she asked me to make a "tester" cake three days before. I explained that the cake has a lengthy preparation process, involving a very slow bake in a water bath and 12 hours chill time. I suggested she wait, but she insisted, so I made it early. She cut a slice of it and exclaimed how great it tasted.

Three days later, I baked and decorated a carrot cake to use as her "official" birthday cake, since the sugar-free cake had been cut and wouldn't look nice in photos. (Carrot is her children's favorite.) I hosted everyone at an expensive restaurant, gave her French perfume and a weekend getaway.

When we returned from the dinner, my daughter angrily said, "Get in here so we can cut this stupid cake, which I can't eat!" I was shocked and confused. She said I shouldn't have made a cake of a flavor she dislikes, but I pointed out that she had the sugar-free cake, too. Apparently, she had expected me to bake a second sugar-free cheesecake. I chewed her out for being ungrateful. Was I wrong? -- UNAPPRECIATED IN CALIFORNIA


Read more... )
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conuly ([personal profile] conuly) wrote in [community profile] agonyaunt2025-06-16 01:12 am

(no subject)

Dear Annie: I'm 63 years old, and I live alone in a quiet little house with my dog, Rosie. I like to sit on the porch in the evenings and watch the sun go down, but lately the silence feels heavier than it used to.

My daughter, who is in her 30s, moved to Texas with her husband about a year ago -- and since then, she hasn't spoken to me. Not a text, not a call, not even a holiday card. I send messages, reach out on birthdays, even mailed her a little photo of Rosie wearing a birthday hat.

I know there's something from her childhood that she's struggling with. Something painful that she believes I didn't protect her from. And the truth is, maybe I didn't. Her father died 26 years ago, and we were both trying to survive the grief in our own ways. I was overwhelmed and didn't always see what was right in front of me. I've tried to say I'm sorry, in words and gestures, but she's built a wall I haven't been able to get through.

Some days, I want to get in the car and drive the 800 miles just to knock on her door and see her face. Other days, I wonder if I should just give up and let her have the distance she clearly wants.

How does a mother keep loving her child from afar when the door has been shut so firmly? Is there anything I can do to open it again -- or do I have to learn to live with the silence? -- Grieving But Still Reaching Out


Read more... )
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-06-15 11:55 pm
Entry tags:

Recipe: "Pretzel Bread Grilled Cheese Sandwiches"

Tonight we made grilled cheese with the pretzel bread that we bought recently at the Marshall Farmer's Market.  It turned out really well.  :D

Read more... )
torachan: arale from dr slump with a huge grin on her face (arale)
Travis ([personal profile] torachan) wrote2025-06-15 09:32 pm
Entry tags:

Daily Happiness

1. I walked up to the neighborhood grocery store this morning thinking to buy some roast beef for a sandwich for lunch but on my way there I remembered they have grills out in the parking lot on the weekend and sell sandwiches and meat there. I was worried it might be cash only and I didn't have cash, but they take your order and you just take the order sheet inside and pay at the register, then pick your food up outside, so I got a tri-tip sandwich and it was so good. It was also huge, so I had half for lunch and half for dinner. Planning to get it again next weekend when Carla's back so we can split it.

2. Speaking of which, Carla will be home tomorrow night. Her flight's getting in around 9pm, so I am going to head down to Disneyland after work and then down to the airport after that (she's flying into the airport in Irvine because it's much more chill than LAX).

3. The Little Tokyo store was able to open up today with no issue. I doubt there were a whole lot of customers, and the curfew is still in effect so we have to close at 6:30pm until that's lifted, but I'm very glad we were able to open and that there was no damage to the store (not even any graffiti, apparently). I'm going to stop by tomorrow and check things out, since I don't have any meetings or anything planned for earlier in the day.

4. All tucked in!

mrkinch: Erik holding fieldglasses in "Russia" (bins)
mrkinch ([personal profile] mrkinch) wrote2025-06-15 09:00 pm

6/15/2025 Inspiration Trail

It was cold and foggy in Berkeley this morning but only cold up on the Trail. Had I known I might have tried to go up earlier, but it was an hour after dawn when I started my list. For most of the morning the migrant breeders were quiet and invisible; eventually I heard the expected warblers and a Blackheaded Grosbeak, but no vireos and no buntings. Highlights were, again, a few MacGillivray's songs but not right on the Trail, and one, possibly two Blue-gray gnatcatchers. I apparently traded in Western Wood-pewee for Western Flycatcher.:) Wish I could have heard both. The list: )

I'd treated my pants and socks with Permithrin and the weeds seemed to have been whacked in spots but kind of halfheartedly. I still had to flick a couple of ticks off my pant legs, so better but not great.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-06-15 11:09 pm
Entry tags:

Today's Smoothie

Today we made a smoothie with:

1 cup Brown Cow vanilla yogurt
about 1 to 1 1/2 cups fresh seedless watermelon chunks
about 2/3 cup frozen strawberries
1 teaspoon lime juice

The result is bright pink and on the thin side, with a notable watermelon flavor.  I think next time I'll add a frozen banana. 
snickfic: Meg Cas kiss closeup (Meg Cas)
snickfic ([personal profile] snickfic) wrote2025-06-15 08:52 pm

Movie roundup!

Sinners (2025). Twin brothers return from organized crime in Chicago to open an all-Black juke joint in their hometown in Mississipi with their cousin Sammie playing the blues as entertainment, and then vampires.

I held off reviewing this after I saw it the first time because I wanted to process and see it again, and honestly after seeing a second time I don't know what I can possibly add to what's already been said. This is an absolutely gorgeous movie, amazing music, all the acting is great, all the relationships are compelling. Director Ryan Coogler has packed so many interesting historical angles and so many themes that it's a challenge to unpack them all, but a fun challenge. I am especially compelled by all the depictions of religion, Christan and otherwise, and how that intersects with the spiritual power of music as depicted in the film.

Some bits I particularly liked:
- The Chinese immigrants running stores in the Mississippi delta
- The difficult and heart-breaking situation of Hailee Steinfeld's character, who is one-eight Black
- How much Ryan Coogler loves cunnilingus
- Stack's hand tremors, presumably from WWI nerve gas
- How incredibly shippy the MBJ twins are. "You're the best part of me" and "I'm nothing without you." !!!
- The fact that it's set in 1932 and the Depression isn't mentioned even once, presumably because these people's lives were already scraped to the bone. (This movie has got to be Coogler's response to O Brother Where Art Thou, right? Also set in Mississippi during the depression, also full of diagetic music, also featuring the Klan, there's even a scene here driving along the road passing a chain gang. The Black blues player in that movie could BE Sammie Moore from Sinners; even the timeline would line up okay.)

Anyway, this movie is incredible. You absolutely should see it.

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Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes (2021). German psychedelic horror(?) film. The official one-line blurb is something like "A couple visit the rundown castle they've inherited and become trapped in the reality that only exists within its walls," which sounds very cosmic horror, and I guess maybe it's not NOT that? But boy is it a lot of other things too. There might be reincarnating gods? At one point spoiler ) and then there's another hour of movie.

It's very low-budget and definitely not what I came for, but it's a trip. Comps might be Triangle if it gave up on trying to make sense or, from a different angle, A Bucket of Blood (1959). If this sounds like your jam, it's worth giving a try.

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Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025). A young woman visiting the grand opening of Not The Space Needle in the 60s has a premonition of disaster and saves the lives of everyone there; decades later, her granddaughter starts have recurring nightmares of that night and realizes that death is coming for her and all her family members who should never have been born.

This is my first FD movie, which I saw solely on the logic that it was free (or "free," because I have a Regal subscription) and I needed something fun and cheesy. And this was indeed that! All the characters were reasonably likeable, and some of the deaths were quite inventive. This movie makes a LOT of hay out of body piercings, and the entire sequence with the MRI machine was inspired. I also really enjoyed everything with the long opening sequence in the 60s and found the young woman very charming. That was probably my favorite part of the movie, actually.

I would not say this was a good movie. For one thing, I have become That Horror Fan, because I found a lot of the CGI pretty annoying and kept wishing for some practical effects for the deaths. I also was entirely unpersuaded by the poor man's version of Laurie Strode and family from Halloween 2018. The generational trauma was all tell, no show, and even the plot logistics with the grandma didn't make a lot of sense given other information we have.

Still, yeah, a cheesy fun time.
File 770 ([syndicated profile] file770_feed) wrote2025-06-16 02:45 am

Pixel Scroll 6/15/25 There Are Two Types Of Man: One Has A Pixel, The Other Scrolls

Posted by Mike Glyer

(1) CERTIFIED PRE-OWNED SECUNITS. Security has never been more affordable says Apple TV+. “Murderbot — Get Your Own SecUnit Today!” (2) GUARDIAN SFF REVIEWS. Guardian critic Lisa Tuttle’s new “The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup” … Continue reading
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-06-15 10:41 pm
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Listen to "The Singing, Ringing Tree"

This sculpture is made of pipes that sing when the wind blows over them.  It's weird to see one made out of metal.  I'm used to live ones that open their holes as a means of summoning their pollinators.