vital functions

Jul. 13th, 2025 10:30 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Reading. This week I have mostly but not entirely been reading more murdery bot: Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse, Rapport, aaaand I've also immediately launched myself into yet another quick reread of All Systems Red because we finished watching the TV series and therefore I want The Murderbot Of My Heart Thank You.

However! I have also continued reading about nerves! I have now read the entire first chapter of Nerve and Muscle, supplemented by a bunch more Wikipedia, and I think I am starting to have a better mental picture of how all of this works? I am going into way more depth than required by The Project, really, I think, but I will be happier if I know what's going on at least to the extent that I understand a little more about what it means, physically, when it is explained that some migraine preventives target Type A nerve fibre and others target Type C (which in turn is why if you get partial relief from something that targets Type C it's worth at least experimenting with adding in something targeting Type A).

And I have also made a tiny bit more progress with The Age of Seeds, but... yeah, mostly Murderbot.

Watching. Murderbot! I will concede that "I need to check the perimeter" did indeed get me Right In The Feels. I still prefer my book-Murderbot but I am beginning to acquire a better understanding of why folk love this Murderbot too.

The fanvid Bohemian Like You, by [archiveofourown.org profile] kuwdora, via [personal profile] sholio, via [personal profile] recessional.

Cooking. Several new things! Aubergine larb with sticky rice and shallot salad, lavender & honey Welsh cakes out of the Welsh cakes tourist tat mini-book, coconut pancakes. Now officially over two thirds of the way through East (with another Several planned for this week coming).

Eating. TODAY WE WENT ON AN ADVENTURE TO SEE ONE OF MY UNIVERSITY FRIENDS. I don't understand how it has been somewhere in the vicinity of ten years since I last got my act together to see this friend in particular given the part where, you know, we live in the same city, BUT we sorted ourselves out to meet up at King's Cross today and in addition to talking solidly for the entire duration we had FOOD including:

  • Ruby Violet (maxi moo moo with hazelnut crunch & raspberry, rosewater and prosecco on the grass by the canal; hazelnut & hazelnut brittle, salted caramel & almond brittle, hot cross bun, raspberry ripple, and coffee mocha ripple brought home, those last two primarily for A)
  • for lunch I had a funghi ma po tofu from rice guys, and A had a veg biriyani from somewhere I'm not immediately managing to spot on the Canopy Market trader list
  • from Bread Ahead we brought home two doughnuts -- pistachio crème brûlée for me, and something involving honeycomb for A; I think this is quite possibly the first custard doughnut I have ever eaten and actually liked (though were I to buy from them again I'd skip the pistachios)

... and upon meeting up with said friend, they reached into their bag with an "oh before I forget--" and pulled out a jar of jam, which conveniently gave me an excuse to reach into my bag and pull out the jar of jam I'd brought to give them, so I have swapped one blood orange + cardamom for one cherry plum + vanilla, and I've not eaten it yet but I am very excited about doing so.

... also raspberries, gooseberries, redcurrants, jostaberries...

Exploring. We poked around Granary Square a bit to go with Meeting Friends; we came home with lots of stickers (I also got some washi tape from that first one...), a gorgeous bowl (which she was not charging that much for at the market, goodness), and a business card for Creature Crafts by Nat so I could send their details on to Interested Parties.

Growing. ... I spent a whole day at the plot mostly reading Murderbot? (And did also do some weeding, and some harvesting, and some watering, and some general pootling.)

Help the gacha got me

Jul. 13th, 2025 02:19 pm
volkameria: Matikanefukukitaru (UmaMusu) smiling at the viewer (pic#17957717)
[personal profile] volkameria
I thought with quitting Genshin Impact back in 2022/2023 (whenever they introduced the place Nahida is from, the green one) I was done with gacha games.

And then... Steam told me about Uma Musume. 
help. I'm hopelessly enthralled by coaching my horse girls on.

sunday later

Jul. 13th, 2025 04:53 pm
summersgate: (Default)
[personal profile] summersgate
DSC_0229.jpg
"Bring Rhythm to Care". Don't ask me what it means. Just some words that came to me after I saw the pictures together.

Sunshine Revival #4

Jul. 13th, 2025 03:27 pm
used_songs: (Default)
[personal profile] used_songs
Challenge #4

Fun House
Journaling: What is making you smile these days? Create a top 10 list of anything you want to talk about.

1. Ellita
2. Feeling hopeful about work (but also nervous)
3. Watching Ted Lasso with E (y’all were SO right! Thank you for encouraging me to stick with it)
4. My plants/garden
5. Sitting in the hammock with Ellita and talking with E
6. Having the time and energy to read
7. HEB Peach Guava sparkling water
8. Postcrossing
9. Changing up my work wardrobe
10. Having my ear piercings reopened so that I can wear earrings again

Birdfeeding

Jul. 13th, 2025 03:02 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy, mild, and damp -- so cloudy that the light is dim.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows and house finches plus a pair of cardinals.

I put out water for the birds.

It's starting to drizzle.











.
 

(no subject)

Jul. 13th, 2025 03:31 pm
missizzy: (Default)
[personal profile] missizzy
This was one of those weeks in our household. Events included my mother's consultation over her denture, which now won't be fixed until mid-August at the earliest, and her computer getting hit by a very scary virus, albeit one the IT people were able to remove very quickly once they remoted in. Meanwhile, I spent it trying to get a second refill of my bentyl after the I failed to get the first, even though the USPS website claimed it had been delivered. The way the post office has been going lately, I would have much rather gone to pick it up in person, but that proved impossible when Kaiser has no pharmacies open on weekends closer than Woodbridge! I got the email saying it shipped today, and I just have to hope it actually shows up this time. I've had to reduce my doses, and I'm currently trying to figure out the results of that.
I spent the weekend watching Wimbledon. I ended up turning off the ladies singles final, because that was just painful, but enjoyed the men's and both doubles finals.

Marketplace Books

Jul. 13th, 2025 02:06 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
For fans of the Marketplace series of kinky books by Laura Antoniou, the author has the rights back

Bucky Benny and Dwight

Jul. 13th, 2025 07:54 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

My parents showed me a picture of their new garden gnomes. They found one playing the drums first and got it, and then my mom found these others to make the rest of the gnome band.

My dad pointed to each one and told me, "Bucky the drummer, and the singer is his brother Benny, and then there's their friend Dwight." He's so funny, such a quiet guy but he comes up with these goofy things sometimes. Mom was mocking him for this. He just went along, telling me the names of "all my gnomes in the backyard, Paul and Tessa together. And I can't remember what the other two names are..."

I didn't know they had any gnomes, and it turns out they have a whole crowd now! With names!

(no subject)

Jul. 13th, 2025 11:23 am
lycomingst: (Default)
[personal profile] lycomingst
We’re having a spate of hot days, 100F/37C, then it will cool down. The mobile home park had to shut down the water on Friday as something broke. The system is old and a piece needs replacing and it needs hunting down.. Management had to choose between no water and telling everyone to keep a faucet open to regulate the pressure. They decided on the latter one which is painful to anyone who lived with drought. But better than no water.

I have strawberries ripening, actually strawberries. I have to hang pots on the fence because those I had in pots on the ground got munched on. I keep them there as decoys. The tomatoes are soso. I think I watered too much. Or this type doesn’t grow as tall as I am used to. But the cucumber has a flower on it and soon I will have a round, light green ball of a cucumber.

Even the butterfly bush plant I got from the Arbor Day Society is growing and I thought I killed that.

'murica

Jul. 13th, 2025 07:17 pm
elisi: He's a Freudian cesspool of random impulse and deep insecurity. There's no one who can control that. (Homelander)
[personal profile] elisi
Can't remember where I came across this, but thought I'd share:

Who Goes MAGA?


And this popped up in my suggested on youtube:



Also, this is fascinating:

Trump’s mass deportation is backfiring
Money quote:
And all told, Trump’s second term has actually led to the most sympathy for migrants on record in the 21st century, per Gallup. Fully 79% of Americans now say immigration is a “good thing,” compared with 64% last year.

[ SECRET POST #6764 ]

Jul. 13th, 2025 02:10 pm
case: (Default)
[personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6764 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 37 secrets from Secret Submission Post #968.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Secret Society of Super-villains #1

Jul. 13th, 2025 06:26 pm
iamrman: (Nightbutt)
[personal profile] iamrman posting in [community profile] scans_daily

Writer: Gerry Conway

Pencils: Pablo Marcos

Inks: Bob Smith


A Manhunter clone gathers together some of the DC Universe's greatest villains. And Captain Boomerang.


Read more... )

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Vol. 1

Jul. 13th, 2025 01:26 pm
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Vol. 1 by Kanehito Yamada

Prologue: the hero and his companions -- one the elf Frieren -- are honored for the defeat and death of the Demon King. They watch a meteor shower and Frieren speaks of seeing it in a better place to view, in 50 years.

Read more... )
spikedluv: (summer: sunflowers by candi)
[personal profile] spikedluv
I'm pulling these out and posting them separately (out of order of when they were actually read) or my Wednesday post will be Very Long.


Book 58 of 2025: Lantern in the Lighthouse (The Inn at Holiday Bay) (Kathi Daley)

Enjoyable story. spoilers )

Marshmallow fluff, but that’s all I was expecting, so I’m giving it five hearts.

♥♥♥♥♥



Book 59 of 2025: Hint in the Hashtag (The Inn at Holiday Bay) (Kathi Daley)

Pretty good. spoilers )

I mostly enjoyed this story; I’m giving it four hearts.

♥♥♥♥



Book 60 of 2025: Pawn in the Pumpkin Patch (The Inn at Holiday Bay) (Kathi Daley)

Good book. spoilers )

I enjoyed this story and am giving it five hearts.

♥♥♥♥♥



Book 61 of 2025: Secret in the Santa (The Inn at Holiday Bay) (Kathi Daley)

Good story. spoilers )

This story was enjoyable enough that I’m giving it five hearts despite the inconsistency.

♥♥♥♥♥

More Murderbot Articles

Jul. 13th, 2025 11:41 am
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
[personal profile] marthawells
A really thoughtful essay on Murderbot: ‘Even If They Are My Favourite Human’: Murderbot Just Explained Boundaries

https://countercurrents.org/2025/07/even-if-they-are-my-favourite-human-murderbot-just-explained-boundaries/

“I Don’t Know What I Want”: The Line That Changed Everything

In the final moments of the season, Murderbot says: “I don’t know what I want. But I know I don’t want anyone to tell me what I want or to make decisions for me. Even if they are my favourite human.”

This is not a dramatic declaration. It is confusion wrapped in clarity. A sentence that holds discomfort and self-awareness in equal measure. It reflects a truth often ignored in stories about intelligence and emotion: that it is okay to not know, as long as that unknowing belongs to the self. In a world that constantly demands certainty, this line opens up space for uncertainty without shame.



* And a great interview with Alexander Skarsgård!

https://collider.com/murderbot-finale-alexander-skarsgard/

So, it just wants to start fresh and get away, and figure out who it is and what it wants. It doesn't really know that. I quite enjoyed that Murderbot didn't end up having answers to all the questions or knowing exactly what it wants. It's more messy and complicated than that. But it definitely knows that it needs to find its own path and make its own decisions, to make its own mistakes, and not have the Corporation or anyone tell it who it is or what it wants.

Farsi/Persian Speaker Needed!

Jul. 13th, 2025 09:33 am
doranwen: female nerds, rare and precious (Default)
[personal profile] doranwen posting in [community profile] yahoogroups
While we can use any language skill (there are tabs in over a hundred different languages!), we have a particular need for help with Farsi. Google Translate expects it to be written in its version of the Arabic script, but much of the Farsi on Yahoo Groups was written in the Latin alphabet, which Google Translate won't process for that language. (My last attempt was guessed as "Bengali" despite being clearly Farsi, and was naturally rendered as almost complete gibberish.) This means we absolutely need a native speaker to read the text and tell us what's being said.

Are you able to do this? Do you know someone who can? Please pass this request on and let them know to check out our Discord server to volunteer their help.

One of the Unknown groups currently being worked on is in Farsi and we're stuck without help from someone who can read it.

Murderbot

Jul. 13th, 2025 03:30 pm
[syndicated profile] fromtheheartofeurope_feed

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

I was one of the three people in fandom who bounced off All Systems Red, the first of the Murderbot stories. I ranked it last in my 2018 Hugo ballot, even though it clearly caught the Zeitgeist and won Hugo, Nebula and Locus.

But we loved the Apple TV series which has been released over the last few weeks. Alexander Skarsgård is great as the Murderbot, and sparks very attractively with the hapless humans who it is guarding, led by Noma Dumezweni as Mensah; meanwhile the show-within-a-show of Sanctuary Moon, starring John Cho as Captain Hossein, is beautifully realilsed. A great run of ten episodes, and I may go back now and read the stories with more sympathetic eyes.

sunday

Jul. 13th, 2025 10:50 am
summersgate: (Default)
[personal profile] summersgate
DSC_0227.jpg
Fragments.

I got up very early this morning, took care of the animals and then went back to bed. Had a long involved dream about the woods down by the creek and how it had been turned into a playground with lots of things to climb on and play on. The people I was with (not sure who they were) were going to climb up on a super giant slide that had multiple parts to it. To get up to the top it had many disconnected ladders that were dangling from chains. Each higher ladder was harder and harder to reach, till the last one in the dream I just could not reach. I was thinking to myself, why did I even want to DO this? I couldn't do it. I couldn't go forward and I couldn't go back. So I woke up. I'm pretty sure the dream has to do with my worry about how the behavioral health volunteer job is going.

Having Sunday dinner here as usual. Salmon and vegan burgers. I still need to make macaroni salad.
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
- "Terrorism": having difficulty comprehending that I live in a time when Labour leader Keir Starmer and his starmtroopers have decided to crimialise peaceful protest as "terrorism", including 100 or so people from across the UK arrested and facing 14 years in prison each as "terrorists" because they held up marker-pen-on-cardboard signs reading "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action."

People holding handwritten cardboard signs reading, "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action."

- Decided to celebrate something I love everyday.
9: The clouds I saw from a peak hour traffic jam were fabulously fluffy cumulus sky-sheep.
10: Wizo the Fleming. His name. And his son Walter fitzWizo. Both C12th. That is all. P.S. Pembrokeshire Council have wisely decreed the creation of a Wizo Trail for cyclists.
11: 7.30am tuneful recorder playing in an otherwise silent neighbourhood (no cars). I'm imagining an enchanting Good Neighbour of the faerie folk, but around here it was probably a bearded old hippie, lol.
11: a female Large (Cabbage) White butterfly, Pieris brassicae, flew across in front of my face then perched on the hedge next to my head so I could observe it about a hand length away, and note its wing patterns and antennae colours in detail.
11 bonus: my front lawn was suddenly full of happy, laughing, shrieking, playing people (mostly young). Get ON my lawn! Curtains were closed so I didn't twitch them to find out if anyone was in dress-up but there are usually one or two.
12: brief visitation in my home by a large patterned brown moth that was one of those "why aren't day-flying moths called butterflies?" beauties.
13: just laying in bed very early this morning, half-awake, and knowing I didn't have to get up. Mmm.

- Birb log: whenever I see the new taxonomy for Jackdaws I think about that redditor who people mocked for years for saying Jackdaws weren't crows / Corvus or whatever it was they said.

Birb log  )

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Mark T. B. Carroll

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