Mosquito dunks are selling out as bug season and 'bucket of doom' trend collide
Jun. 21st, 2026 04:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
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It could be a worse-than-usual mosquito season in some parts of Canada, and if you've scrolled social media for solutions, you may have encountered the "bucket of doom."
Governors general can no longer bill government for casual and business clothing
Jun. 21st, 2026 04:00 amcbc_topnews_feed
Rideau Hall changed its clothing guidelines during Governor General Louise Arbour's transition to office to explicitly state that viceregals cannot bill taxpayers for casual outfits or business attire.
A new fertilizer method mimics lightning — and could help farmers cut costs and emissions
Jun. 21st, 2026 04:00 amcbc_topnews_feed
It sounds like weird science and some have dismissed it as "snake oil." But an emerging technology for crop fertilizer is gaining interest amid an acute shortage of fertilizer caused by wars in the Middle East.
Abandoned tuna fishing gear smashes corals, harms wildlife in marine refuges, study finds
Jun. 21st, 2026 04:00 amcbc_topnews_feed
The tuna in your sandwich was likely caught with the aid of drifting rafts called fish aggregating devices (FAD). New Canadian research finds that abandoned FADs are smashing into coral reefs and endangering wildlife — even in marine protected areas. But there are ways to make tuna fishing more sustainable, researchers say.
The Weekly Challenge 378: Second Sum
Jun. 21st, 2026 09:03 amfiredrake_feedI’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved . (Note that this ends today.)
Sunday Word: Gracile
Jun. 21st, 2026 04:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sallymn posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
1word1dayadjective:
1 gracefully thin or slender
2 a less common word for graceful
3 of, relating to, resembling, or being a relatively small slender australopithecine (genus Australopithecus) characterized especially by molars and incisors of similar size that are adapted to a diet including both plant matter and animal flesh
Examples:
Hawkins misplaced horns and spikes, and some of his robust four-legged dinosaurs were actually gracile bipeds. (Yannic Rack, How a Victorian Dinosaur Park Became a Time Capsule of Early Paleontology, Smithsonian Magazine, August 2023)
The bright colors and gracile X-braces of the Eames House are written all across the Pompidou Center. (Thomas de Monchaux, The Original Shock of the Pompidou Center, The New Yorker, January 2022)
Early modern humans - more gracile, and perhaps quicker to adapt and take advantage of their environment - then migrated north from Africa to outpace and outlive the first Europeans. (Tim Radford, Neanderthal DNA may account for nicotine addiction and depression, The Guardian, February 2016)
Then from the window she could see the view over the formal gardens, the spindly avenues leading to the woods, the bouquets of gracile trees, all fine cold and faint against a sky almost colourless, tinged only with a timid flush of lavender. (Marjorie Bowen, Five People)
At a touch upon her shoulder Lilly turned, spun, rather, under high tension, to encounter the well-bred hesitancy of an exceedingly slender woman, a very small head set on the stem of a long, gracile neck, something hauntingly familiar in the somewhat heart-shaped face and the far-apart eyes that were considerably younger than the white hair which framed them. (Fannie Hurst, Star-Dust)
Springing up through that polychromatic flood myriads of pedicles - slender and straight as spears, or soaring in spirals, or curving with undulations gracile as the white serpents of Tanit in ancient Carthaginian groves - and all surmounted by a fantasy of spore cases in shapes of minaret and turret, domes and spires and cones, caps of Phrygia and bishops’ mitres, shapes grotesque and unnameable—shapes delicate and lovely! (A Merritt, The Moon Pool)
Origin:
'slender, thin,' 1620s, from Latin gracilis 'slender, thin, fine; plain, simple, meager' (source of French grêle), of unknown origin. Not etymologically connected to grace but often regarded as if it is. Perhaps a dissimilation of a word related to Latin cracens 'slender;' if so, perhaps cognate with Sanskrit krsah 'thin, weak,' Avestan keresa- 'lean, meager,' Lithuanian karšti 'to be very old, to age.' (Online Etymology Dictionary)
Midsummer!
Jun. 21st, 2026 08:24 amsmokingbootYesterday was my second piece of little work; Accompanying a group on a little walk around Ravencraig, telling them some of the stories of the area. There were three of us leading it; and how beautiful it all was, everything overgrown and the world full of wonder including a tiny little spider with a luminous green abdomen, shining like polished chysophrase. We told stories and were told stories too from the area's real historian-naturalist, who brough roe deer skulls and lead bullets from the old rifle range, and spoke of the return of the pine marten with its poo that apparently smells like parma violets. Up to the old cairn we walked, me wondering why it has never been formally explored - it doesn't even have a name - then back, all under blue sky and kind sun.
To any passing this way, I wish you all the magic of the season. Don't forget to leave a little milk/wine/whisky for the fairies!
Authors Interviewing Characters: Nicole Conn
Jun. 21st, 2026 06:42 ambooksbywomen_feedDESCENDING THIRDS In the high-stakes world of classical music, Alexandra von Triessen, a gifted but insecure pianist, navigates the cutthroat International Ketterling Piano Competition. Dazzled by the charming Sebastian D’Antonio, she finds herself drawn into a web of intrigue surrounding his enigmatic and estranged brother, Conrad. Just as Alexandra’s star begins to rise, a shocking […]
The post Authors Interviewing Characters: Nicole Conn appeared first on Women Writers, Women's Books.
I Am An Idiot
Jun. 21st, 2026 07:57 amsmallhobbit
Science
Jun. 21st, 2026 01:26 amysabetwordsmithScientists have brought back the legendary golden sea silk of antiquity—and revealed why its dazzling color can survive for centuries without fading.
Researchers in South Korea have recreated the legendary “sea silk” once prized by emperors, using fibers from a clam cultivated in Korean coastal waters. They discovered that its famous golden shine comes from tiny protein structures that reflect light rather than from pigments or dyes. Because the color is built into the fiber’s structure, it can remain vibrant for centuries.
4x3
Jun. 20th, 2026 11:27 pmolivermossI may make a few more, partially because I sometimes get annoyed at Connections categories being not always quite correct.
June in the Shenandoah Valley!
Jun. 21st, 2026 06:01 ambvc_feedMy sister Jo and I had academic parents, and we grew up in college towns in Virginia. She now lives in Richmond, Virginia. Last year we realized we hadn’t laid eyes on each other for two years. We decided we’d do a sister trip every year in June. This year, we drove about an hour west to Charlottesville, near the Shenandoah National Park.
First we embarked on winery tour. The mountainsides above the city are dotted with wineries and vineyards, and we took an Uber to two of them—Michael Shaps with expansive views of the valley and a lovely merlot, and Blenheim Winery, which is owned by Dave Matthews of the Dave Matthews Band. The latter features a glass floor that gives a view of the cellars and the barrels of wine.
Then we returned to the town where we lived 60 years ago when our dad was getting his doctorate. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get pictures of the tiny WWII-era tenement we shared with our many brothers. The university apparently didn’t recognize the historical significance of the house, and demolished the whole neighborhood to build a gym and parking lot.
Otherwise, the city has preserved a lot of this historic city, the home of our third president, Thomas Jefferson. He founded and partly designed the university central campus as an “Academical Village”. This is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s an epically beautiful campus: Red brick buildings, white columns, green lawns, extensive gardens, very Georgian and symmetrical.
Jo was a student here long ago, and showed me “the Lawn,” which is a long green lined with colonnaded pavilions leading to the Rotunda, which Jefferson modeled on the Roman Pantheon.
For almost 200 years, a few students have been privileged to live in tiny one room flats behind those colonnades. (Faculty had more substantial lodging above in the pavilions.) These were pretty primitive rooms—no bathrooms, no heat, no air conditioning. But getting chosen to live in one was a great honor. Now they have heat and air conditioning, but students still have to walk outside to go to the common restrooms.
Many high-achieving students have occupied these rooms, and Edgar Allan Poe was probably the most important, at least to me—my master’s thesis was an analysis of three of his “women buried alive” stories. Now Poe was not a successful student. Oh, he did do well in his studies, becoming the top student in both French and Latin. But his foster father refused to send him enough to pay his bills, and he turned to gambling. After only a year, he was woefully in debt and had to drop out.
Before he left, Poe etched a poem into the window glass in Room 13. (Of course the master of horror would live in #13.)
O Thou timid one, let not thy
Form rest in slumber within these
Unhallowed walls,
For herein lies
The ghost of an awful crime.
It’s not known what the awful crime is (maybe his expulsion?). But the room is preserved as a mini-museum with furnishings in the style Poe would have used.
Next post, I’ll describe another memorial to the history of the campus—The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers (MEL).
Watch
Jun. 21st, 2026 01:51 amviridian5
I did a photo run last night and have posted 16 window display photos from it; more to come another day. These are window displays with a Supergirl movie theme and a Bloomingdale's series in orange and blue celebrating the New York Knicks' win. I noticed that some of the mannequins in the Supergirl displays aren't the super skinny sylphs I more often see in windows these days. I like.
You can see them at my Flickr.
I also got a shot of the newly renovated Grand Army Plaza, Pulitzer Fountain, and Pomona again, while Pulitzer is actually working as a real fountain. At 2 a.m. for nobody, as opposed to Monday afternoon for the day crowd in full sunlight.
[#303] THE ONCOMING STORM (LOGAN MCRAE SERIES)
Jun. 21st, 2026 03:48 pmm_findlow posting in fandomweeklyTitle: The oncoming storm
Fandom: Logan McRae series by Stuart MacBride
Rating/Warnings: M.
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1,000 words
Summary: Logan has been dragged into doing the dirty work for Aberdeen's biggest crime boss.
( Read more... )
(no subject)
Jun. 21st, 2026 05:25 amapod_feed
What if you could see the entire sky -- all at once -- for an entire year?
Father’s Day Secrets
Jun. 21st, 2026 12:22 ampost_secret_feed
I got these text messages from my dad after my mother confessed he wasn’t actually my biological dad. I’m 31 years old and this is the first I knew of it.
More to me then any jewel that can be found, love always Papa
This is the last Christmas card I ever got from my dad. He had a fatal stroke on the day before Christmas 5 years ago. He was right – I’ve had some amazing adventures since – a doctorate, a Fulbright, a ton of travel, lots of love and now totally ready to work on the toughest of problems.
Ironically, I also don’t sleep much… My research assistants always laugh when I send them emails at 3 am. But I’m dreaming up solutions to problems and they just can’t wait…
—email—
Hi Frank,
I’ve been following PostSecret now for over a decade and this is my first e-mail to you.
I’m writing in response to one of the Father’s Day secrets. The one that says the dad wasn’t a good man to his son when he was young, but that he’s trying to do better now and it’s hard. I wanted to let him know that he shouldn’t stop trying to find ways to connect. Please be patient and please don’t stop trying. The nature of any relationship is built on much more complex circumstances than can be realized without time, effort, understanding, and forgiveness. Your son needs time to work through his experiences and feelings too, and hopefully he’ll get there (and maybe he won’t). Either way, don’t stop showing up in all the little and big ways.
Oddly, I discovered PostSecret when my dad and I were asked to do voice-overs for one of the promo videos for the “A Lifetime of Secrets” book release. The secret he read was about fatherhood. Mine was about fate. Years later, when I went to visit the PostSecret exhibit at the National Postal Museum, the secrets we read were displayed right next to each other. I started crying right in the middle of the museum. I’ve attached them to this e-mail. Truly, it’s all in the little things. If you can’t read them the first ones says, “If you’re waiting for a sign. . . this is it. Do it. It will be amazing. The other postcard read, “I LOVE HER ANYWAYS” and on the other side was a black and white sonogram with the words, “I know she’s not mine.”
The post Father’s Day Secrets appeared first on PostSecret.