mount_oregano | Reading

Minnesota House DFL leader Hortman, husband killed in apparent ‘politically motivated’ shooting; Sen. Hoffman, wife wounded

Authorities still searching for suspect in shooting of 2 Minnesota state lawmakers

Apparently he dressed up like a cop, because of course he did, and residents are advised not to open the door to police unless there are multiple officers present. I'd go one step further and say that you should never open the door to an unexpected official until you've confirmed that they're supposed to be there. If they are legit, they have an ID, and you have a phone number you can call - your local precinct, if they're cops, your gas company, whoever it is. (Uh. Maybe step out the back door to call if they say they're from the gas company. I mean, use your best judgment.)

conuly

If I'm typing a URL and I then use the scroll wheel to middle-click it in the address window it will open in a new tab rather than on the same tab I'm on.

Now, when I open a new tab by clicking a link to open a new tab it opens right next to the tab I'm on. If I do it via the address window or the new tab button then it opens all the way at the end of my tabs, which is annoying and disorienting if I'm not already all the way at the end.

Is there a setting, perhaps in about:config, that I can adjust to change this behavior so it always opens new tabs next to the one I'm on?

conuly

The last season of The Strange Case of the Starship Iris is finally here.

Okay, only the first episode so far (and two pre-season teasers) but... omg.

I've summed this one up for you all before as "Everybody is gay while fighting fascism in space" and "Turns out, fascism is both racist and inefficient", so yes, that does make it the perfect thing to listen to while heading out to protest. (Speaking of....)

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

( Read more... )

kevin_standlee

There is a fish and chips food truck that visits Fernley around once a month. For some reason, I typically get notifications of them coming here after they've already moved on to a different city. This time, I knew they would be here today, stopping at Big R Ranch & Home. As it happens, I needed to go there anyway. The water pump on the swamp cooler has stopped pumping. I think there's just been too much hard water build-up in it. Also, the pads into which the water is pumped have too much build-up in them. It's easier to just replace the pump and pads than to try and clean them. So I went over to Big R, bought the swamp cooler parts, and went outside to get some fish.

( On The Hook )

It was pretty good fish.

Current Mood: full
Current Location: Fernley, Nevada

ankh_hpl

Sovereign by C.J. Sansom

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The third in C.J. Sansom's Tudor mystery series featuring lawyer (& reluctant sleuth) Matthew Shardlake is a deep, twisty dive into Henry VIII's Progress to the North in autumn 1541 -- & his brief, doomed marriage to queen #5, Catherine Howard -- & at least one conspiracy based on documents threatening Henry's right to rule. Shardlake is officially on the Progress to process petitions to the King, but has a private assignment from Archbishop Cranmer to look after the welfare of an imprisoned consirator until he can be taken to London for interrogation.

When the first of several murders occurs & a box of papers goes missing, Shardlake finds himself entangled in increasingly desperate political snares . . . & even the threat of the Tower.

I listened to this one, & very much enjoyed it -- but at 583 pp. for the hardback print version, this one felt a little longer than it strictly needed to be. Sansom never lets the pace falter for long, however, & there are some disturbing moments in store for both Matthew & the reader. I will definitely be listening to the next in this series, because the continuing characters are at least as compelling as the complexities of plot.

Recommended for historical mystery fans fascinated by Tudor England, & not afraid of detail.

View all my reviews

marthawells

* Interview with Sue Chan, the production designer:

https://filmstories.co.uk/news/murderbot-designing-a-future-world-that-doesnt-look-like-alien/

“I started out by taking the most ancient societies on each continent – Etruscans, Asian, European, and African cultures,” Chan tells us. “I looked at the most fundamental motifs and gathered them into a bible, then asked my team to imagine 100 generations from now, when the diaspora of Earth have chosen to live together in society. How would they evolve a unified set of symbols? A language that really honours where they came from.”

This informed the alphabet that can be seen in the decoration painted across the otherwise grey, corporate habitat the PresAux crew are leasing. At the same time, acknowledging how much of the crew is queer and polyamorous, the colours of the rainbow are also entwined into their decorations.

“All of that is mashed up but it has a fundamental logic to it,” says Chan.

* Interview with Akshay Khanna (Ratthi):

https://squaremile.com/style/akshay-khanna-murderbot-actor-interview/

I’m incredibly excited for people to watch Murderbot on Apple TV+. Sci-fi has been my favourite genre by a country mile forever, and being on a show like this has always been a career goal of mine. Frankly, I had too much fun filming that show, and getting paid to do it constantly felt like I was getting away with something on set.

And the show is just so good. I can confidently say it’s fantastic – and if you don’t like it, then I would gently tell you that it’s OK to be wrong sometimes.

* Interview with Sabrina Wu (Pin-Lee):

https://www.autostraddle.com/sabrina-wu-interview-murderbot/

And then once I got the role, I read the books and I was legit just blown away at how funny the books were. I just haven’t seen such a dry sarcastic sensibility with this kind of hero sci-fi stories. And then I also just really liked that it was in the tradition of I felt like Octavia Butler, where it’s like, “oh, this is a queer imagining of the future.” So I don’t know. I just thought it was a really sweet, funny, different world. I also, obviously every comedian who becomes an actor, their dream is to get to work on something with action to move beyond an It’s Always Sunny kind of comedy. I believe there was already an opportunity for me to be in a spaceship and shoot guns, and it just made me happy that it was genuinely funny source material.

* Video interview with Tattiawna Jones (Arada) and Tamara Podemski (Bharadwaj):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NllgfEekw9s

* And a video interview with Noma Dumezweni (Mensah)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZpigqUqZXQ

* and a video interview with Noma and David Dastmalchian (Gurathin)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=361cKOujISE

* And a video interview (with a transcript) with Alexander Skarsgard, Jack McBrayer, and Paul and Chris Weitz:

https://collider.com/murderbot-alexander-skarsgard-jack-mcbrayer-creators-paul-weitz-chris-weitz/

* And there is a profile of me in The New Yorker (!!)

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/do-androids-dream-of-anything-at-all

conuly

No, but I'd like to tell you that you urgently need a proofreader. Are you aware that you just made me answer the same question about my desired salary three different ways? Once was plenty enough! Also, why are you asking what currency I want it in, and since you are asking, why is one time US dollar at the top of the drop down and the other two times it's alphabetical under "United States"? Did you even look at this before posting, and once again afterwards?

(These people really urgently need help with this, but unless this is a Secret Test I guess telling them wouldn't help me much.)

Alternative answer to the question: "Yes, I'd like to tell you that I really need money, please give me some, with or without hiring me first."

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

( Read more... )

prettygoodword

polyamory (pol-ee-AM-er-ee) - n., the state or practice of having romantic or sexual relationships with multiple partners with the knowledge and consent of all involved.

Okay, so poly- means many rather than specifically large, but that's because operates on discrete rather than continuous sets. It comes from Ancient Greek polús, many, from a PIE root that meant both many and much, so agnostic on the discrete/continuum divide. As for the word, it was formed in 1992* as a derivative of polyamorous, which was coined in 1990 pairing it with Latin amor, love. Other words with poly- include polygamy ("many marriages"), which was used as a pattern for coining polyamory, and polyglot ("[speaking] many languages").

* Interestingly, the first recorded use is the proposal to create the Usenet group alt.polyamory.

Bonus prefix: I wanted to also use super- but it has many meanings other than just large, most related to being either over or above in literal or metaphoric ways. So it's a bonus.

And that wraps up a week of 'large' prefixes. While it's tempting to go onto a week of prefixes that are actually large/long, time to return to the regular mix next week.

---L.

mount_oregano

Snagglepuss, a pink lion, waving and smiling.

When I was 10 years old, before a measles vaccination had been developed, the adults knew an epidemic was coming, and sure enough, I got sick, very sick.

Among my many bad memories of measles was waking up one night in a pool of vomit while hallucinating from a high fever. I remember my mother coming to clean me up, and as she cleaned up the bed, I sat on a bench in the corner of my room.

While I waited, Snagglepuss, a cartoon character I liked, a pink lion, came to sit and talk with me. He was comforting, calming, even a little funny, and he genuinely made me feel better and feel safe.

A few days later, as I thought about it, I appreciated Snagglepuss talking so soothingly to me when I really needed comfort, but the whole thing was obviously a hallucination. (I had other, very unpleasant hallucinations that night, too.) What puzzled me was the way I had imagined his personality, very unlike the TV persona. Normally he was a smart-aleck, even.

Much, much later, I realized that yes, I had been hallucinating, but not the way I thought. Through my mental haze, I hadn’t recognized the kind person providing such gentle, loving care, but in retrospect I could distinctly identify his personality. He had been my father.

Dad in his college days as a football lineman.

conuly

Well, that kinda covers the gamut of illness there, so maybe figure it out?

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

( Read more... )

conuly

( Read more... )

kevin_standlee

As Kayla headed out for breakfast this morning, she snapped a photo of the "Strawberry Moon," which if I'm reading right is about the largest the Moon will appear in our sky for a long time.

( Moon Over Fernley )

The camera phone is of course not very good for taking this sort of picture.

LiveJournal continues to show a 403 Forbidden error.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Fernley, Nevada

sartorias

It's very poignant to be here again. I'm in Minneapolis so rarely that I can still distinguish each visit, but the overall sense is one of extended memory, that is not just of my own, but of anecdotes from my mother and grandmother about their lives here, my grandmother as a (very) young adult, and my mother as a kid.

Not all the memories of mine are good--the week we spent in Bloomington ranged from weird to horrific, the axis we kid spun around was the sound of my mother crying in the bathroom when my bio grandfather started his daily drinking and turned into a monster. We kids at least escaped with his bio kids (our age, his second marriage) but mom couldn't escape--we had the car.

The city that was best to them all (though mom only got to visit, never got to live there) was Red Wing. I adore that place! There's something so peaceful about Red Wing. And extended memory is very complete, as we heard ALL the stories about life on the farm, etc. But it wasn't idyllic--my grandmother and her older sister had to go--that was the conditions my great-grandmother accepted when she remarried in order to save the farm, around 1930, with the Depression really digging in. The man said he could abide the two younger girls but the sixteen year old (my grandmother) and her older sister had to get out and find their way on their own. Which they did, in Minneapolis, waiting tables.

Anyway I'm here for a con. I came a day early, knowing that getting in at one in the morning would leave me a zombie for a day. The weather is perfect--cool and cloudy. I think I'll go out for another walk.

prettygoodword

maxicab (MAKS-ee-kab) - (Hong Kong) n., a minibus used as a shared taxi.

Maxi- gets used to indicate something larger than typical. Its etymology is less direct than others so far -- created in English by clipping maximum on the model of how mini- was apparently clipped from minimum (narrator: it wasn't, it was clipped from miniature). Maximum itself is from Latin maximus, the superlative of magnus, great, making it a cognate with mega-. Other words with maxi- include maxipad ("large [sanitary] pad") and maxiskirt ("large/long skirt," specifically ankle-length).

---L.

green_knight

Anyone can be shouty, edgy, and black.

There seems to be more than one band with a pink logo, but this song surely features the most metal instrument of all times:

the recorder.

Watch on YouTube

(For Germans: This is Torfrock. Brings back memories. I got there via Platt folk songs: Dat Du meen Leevsten büst -> Nakich bün ick gor nich mehr so schmuck (from recommendations - c'mon, I had to listen to that [*]) -> other Torfrock songs -> WTF???)

[*] There's an English language folk song, 'I just don't look good naked anymore' of which this is riffing off. And in typical Torfrock manner, it's a lot more direct. ('schmuck' is an adjective used for attractive people, so... yeah. I still understand a fair bit of it. Not all, though, which is annoying.).

Watch on YouTube

Current Mood: amused

kevin_standlee

Another 3 AM start today. Things went okay, but by the time we got to Noon PT, I was done. I laid down and slept for several hours before being awakened by yet another phone spammer. Because of the nonprofit corporations on whose boards I sit, I'm targeted by sales calls that assume that all corporations have millions and millions of dollars to spend, and have a difficult time contemplating all-volunteer organizations with no employees and no reason to spend vast sums of money on their services. After all, isn't it illegal to not make a profit?

Anyway, I hope to get caught up on sleep tonight and put in an ordinary work day tomorrow.

I'd cross-post this to my LiveJournal, but I'm getting 403 errors trying to open LJ.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Fernley, Nevada

asakiyume

It's a cold, surreal post-apocalyptic world, plagued by meteor showers, crumbling apartments patrolled by tigers, one where former tar-spreading technicians repurpose themselves as morning soup sellers. Bobby is wakened by a knocking at his door. He doesn't open it, but he's told, through the closed door, that Belle-Medusa, an immensely huge jellyfish, needs his help. Belle-Medusa has a library of scents in her memory, but they're mainly ocean scents. She wants Bobby to collect and convey land scents to her:

In truth, she only had one passion anymore: she collected smells. Aromas, perfumes, whiffs, and scents of all types. She numbered them and she put them in tiny special cases in her memory, in a classification system that nobody, apart from herself, was able to understand.

For this purpose, Belle-Medusa has already "plugged into" Bobby. There are various ways he can convey the scents to her, but the way he settles on is to plunge his face into water and speak them.

I had my cheek pressed against the windowpane. Just under my nose, fed by the steam that escaped from my mouth, the frost drew branching ice wisps, which imprisoned the dust. If I had had to specify the smell that lingered on the surface of the glass, I would have spoken of a dusty ice floe, of frozen goose down, of dark sherbet. Wait, I thought, maybe I could send that to Belle-Medusa, in order to check that the communication between us is well established.

I left my observation post. I groped my way to the bathroom and I filled the sink with what flowed from the faucet, water that carried with it cubes and needles of ice. Before immersing my face, I had to stir it with my hand so as not to use the end of my nose to break the film threatening to form ... I sank my head into it to my ears.

"It's me, Belle-Medusa," I said.

( Heh, this got long. Let's put in a cut. )

It's a strange and wonderful story, and I recommend it. I read it in an anthology called XO Orpheus: Fifty New Myths, edited by Kate Bernheimer and published in 2013. The anthology was lent to me by a friend who had picked out that story especially for me to read because (I'm flattered to say), they said it reminded me of the story of mine they'd read--and also, I suspect, because the story's important to them: it's entered their vocabulary. They talk about their scent library. The other stories in the collection look promising too; while I'm borrowing the book, I think I'll read some more.

It also exists as a 64-page standalone publication, but only in its original French, as Belle-Méduse. For the anthology, the translation was done by Sarah and Brian Evenson.

*Manuela Draeger is a fictitious author, a librarian whose stories are intended as distraction for children in containment camps. The author of her world is Antoine Volodine ... which is in turn a pen name of the writer Jean Desvignes.

Current Location: Manu Chau: Mr. Bobby (Playing for Change version)

just_ann_now

Partly sunny and warm; not quite summer weather yet but working up to it!

What I Just Finished Reading

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear, by Seanan McGuire. I'm not a fan of McGuire's writing (though I enjoyed reading her LJ, back in the day) but when I saw the cover of this I knew I could save it for a "Chosen for Its Cover" prompt, and I did! This was for Read Broader.

Written on the Dark, by Guy Gavriel Kay. Character-driven, lovely prose, loosely based on historical events of which I knew little, a very enjoyable weekend read. For A to Z Authors.

Cold, by Drew Hayden Taylor. I know that Stephen Graham Jones is pretty much the king of Indigenous Horror right now, but I've noped right of his books, so for this subgenre it's Taylor for me. Well told story, great characters. For A to Z Authors.

Making Amends by Nisi Shawl. This is another one of these novels composed of related short stories, difficult to do well. An introduction explaining how it all ties together didn't really help me. For Read Broader - Woman Author.

Hijab Butch Blues, by Lamya H. Ok, this is where Read Broader really shines - I do read pretty broadly, but let's be honest, there's little reason for a 71-year-old white cishet woman to pick up this book. But I did, and I'm so glad. Lamya H wrote so movingly about her faith and how it relates to her daily life, fear of coming out in an unsupportive culture, the search for meaningful relationships. Definitely one of the best books I've read this year. For Read Broader - LGBTQIA+ Author. (And now I'm fearful for Lamya H's safety; I haven't found anything recent about her, but it's added to my list of things to worry about.)

What I Am Currently Reading

Everything I read last week was pretty weighty, so I'm taking a break with a cozy mystery, The Retired Assassin's Guide to Country Gardening, by Naomi Cuttner. It's like Murderbot (or Owlet's Bucky) retiring to a small town and meeting up with the Thursday Murder Club. I wasn't going to apply it to any challenge, but I just discovered that it can go in A to Z Titles, so there it is. Much fun!

What I Am Reading Next

Yet another Adrian Tchaikovsky coming out tomorrow! Bee Speaker. (I keep hoping against hope he'll write the origin of the Bug People, some of my favorite books of all time. I guess the yoga is helping my
flexibility in keeping every crossed *grin*

Question of the Day: What's blooming? Many things, but my favorite right now is larkspur, from a packet of mixed wildflower seed. It seeds itself, comes in multiple colors, and is just so joyful out there:

green_knight

I wanted to make a post about shiny math rocks, and will do so at a later time, but my experience has been marred a bit by customer service issues.

( Same problem, different solutions )

Current Mood: disappointed

prettygoodword

megafauna (MEG-uh-faw-nuh) - n., large animals, esp. relatively large for a particular region, period, or habitat; (outdated) animals large enough to be seen with the unaided eye.

Ancient Greek mégas meant great/large/mighty, cognate with Latin magnus and English much, is the source of today's prefix, which got a popularity boost for being used in the metric system to mean a million-x unit (though the scaling is modified to 2²⁰ in computing contexts). The most recent ice ages were known for animals that were larger than their modern counterparts, which is the most common use for megafauna that I meet. The term was coined in 1876 by Alfred Russel Wallace, though it was not commonly used until the 1920s. Other words with mega- include megaton ("a million tons") and megabrew ("large-batch beer").

---L.

Profile

mount_oregano

https://sueburke.site/

Navigation

June 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Page Summary

Style Credit

Base style: Heads Up by momijizuakmori
Theme: A Brighter View by zaluzianskya and skylark_photos

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jun. 14th, 2025 09:12 pm

Mountain Climbers

Reading

(no subject)

Weirdly specific firefox question

OMGOMGOMG!!!!

Something Fishy

My Goodreads review: Sovreign

Murderbot Day

"Is there anything you'd like to tell us about yourself?"

polyamory

What was that hallucination?

"I think the protagonist had hay fever or maybe yellow fever, I'm not sure which"

Finished Prodigy

Mooned

Minneapolis

maxicab

The true meaning of Metal

Some Sleep is Good

Wednesday reading: Belle-Medusa, by Manuela Draeger*

What Am I Reading Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Of Dice and Bots

megafauna

Profile

Navigation

June 2025

Links

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags