mtbc | Reading

I have physio tomorrow so I figured there was no need to go up to Loblaws today. I could go out to lunch or something in the last day of sun before the snow starts tonight. But my insides took exception to the lentil mush I've been eating, or to something, so no, not going out for sushi any time soon. Might as well get my prescription. And a good thing too, because as it turns out an amazing number of people didn't touch Sunday's snow and it's all glare ice now. Walking over that when it's covered with the 2-4 cm/ 1.5 inches forecast between now and Wednesday afternoon would not be fun. So shall take the Christie route if I go out at all, or just eat the cancellation fee. This winter, dear god, this winter.

But I do feel better for the walk and the sunshine. Had a cold brew coffee-- I can only drink coffee safely if it's cold, health benefits or not-- and watched my fellow golden agers trundle about, and read a Dr Priestley on the phone. Turned out to be a short story, not a novel, chiz chiz, but for a .99 purchase one mustn't complain. Somehow must get to the Art Gallery before next week when the show I want to see closes. But yanno, snow and the Spadina LRT not running till late Friday-- buses laid on but no thanks-- and rush hours. Maybe Saturday when temps soar to a sunny 5C if I can get up early enough.

fanf

https://dotat.at/@/2026-02-24-nsnotifyd-2-4-released.html

The nsnotifyd daemon monitors a set of DNS zones and runs a command when any of them change. It listens for DNS NOTIFY messages so it can respond to changes promptly. It also uses each zone's SOA refresh and retry parameters to poll for updates if nsnotifyd does not receive NOTIFY messages more frequently. It comes with a client program nsnotify for sending notify messages.

This nsnotifyd-2.4 release includes a new feature and some bug fixes:

The new -S option tells nsnotifyd to send all SOA queries to a specific server.

Previously, in response to a NOTIFY message, it would send a SOA query back to the source of the NOTIFY, as specified by RFC 1996.

(Typically, a NOTIFY will only be accepted from a known authoritative server for the zone. The target of the NOTIFY responds with a SOA refresh query and zone transfer. But it should avoid trying to refresh from one of the other authoritative servers which might not have received the latest version of the zone.)

Mark Felder encountered a situation where it would have been more convenient to fix the address that nsnotifyd sends SOA queries to, because the source of the NOTIFY messages wasn't responding on that address.

Since nsnotifyd is intended to work as glue between disparate parts of a system, it makes sense for it to work around awkward interoperability problems.
The nsnotify client program was broken and unable to create NOTIFY messages. D'oh!
I have adjusted the release process so that it works better with git archive and web front-ends that offer tarball downloads.

brithistorian

I don't expect much from Goodreads, but I was still surprised to learn that Goodreads members have named The Hunger Games as the "best book ever"!

maju

I'm getting really tired (literally and figuratively) from not sleeping well, or more accurately, not being able to sleep enough. I usually sleep well while I'm sleeping, but then I wake up too early or have trouble falling asleep in the first place. It seems to have been happening a lot more in the last few weeks and I have no idea why, since I'm not particularly stressed about anything and have almost zero responsibilities. This morning I woke up not much after 2 am and couldn't get back to sleep. I went to sleep last night a bit after 9 pm so I did get about 5 hours sleep, but it doesn't feel like enough. I've told myself that if I feel like it during the day I'll try to nap, but I hardly ever feel that tired during the day. Plus the girls are off school again so my chances of being woken up if I do fall asleep are good.

=========

A little while after I wrote the previous paragraph (but still before breakfast) I did almost fall asleep for a few seconds. Even that brief nap revived me, strangely, and I haven't felt tired for the rest of the day (so far).

After lunch I shovelled my car out; son in law had shovelled the rest of the drive and their two cars and I think he would have done mine eventually, but I feel bad leaving it to him so I got it done myself. I could tell that it had been windy because there was quite a lot of snow actually under the car.

I always write these LJ/DW entries in my Google Drive account before posting. Violet has been borrowing my computer to write things in my Drive account because she doesn't have one of her own, so now I have documents with intriguing names like "DESERT RUNNING", and "LAMMA PAGAMA MYSTETRYS" (her spelling isn't great yet), and "MYTHICAL CREATURES: nessie". (All titles verbatim.) The only one I've read is the one about Nessie, because she told me not to read the others, but I'm tempted. This morning Eden decided she wanted to write something, so now there's a document with her name on it, but I know there's nothing written in it yet because she sat there for ages waiting for inspiration to strike - and it didn't.

The girls have another snow day today, so their father took them to the mall for a while after lunch while their mother was having a meeting.

thewayne

Naomi has licensed her work and it has borne fruit. A tabletop RPG has been produced by Magpie Games and has been released on Kickstarter. And is now fully funded! The campaign has 30 days to go, over 800 backers, and the $50,000 goal has exceeded $111,000!

You can get the digital-only edition for $29.

As a quick description, think the campaign against Napoleon - with dragons. Mainly from the British side. There's a good description on the KS page. The dragons speak and are very intelligent. There are several books in the series, I don't know how many as I kind of fell off the wagon.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/magpiegames/temeraire-the-roleplaying-game/

susandennis

I knew/hoped I was over paying my estimated taxes last year. With the selling of the house, particularly, and the semi flaky CPA I had to work with - who didn't even give me the estimated tax amount until I had to ask twice, I was in a better safe than sorry situation.

Last night I got an email from a different CPA at the firm (I haven't had to deal with flaky at all this year), asking how I wanted to handle my $5000 refund!! Whoa. The email explained that it is enough to cover estimated takes for this year with a $1,300 overage - did I want to just pay up and then get the overage into my checking account?? FUCK yeah!!!! So. Taxes paid for this year's return. Taxes paid for next year's return. Enough cash to pay the CPA and still some left over? At least enough to pay for a couple of Biggie's vet visits. Yafuckinghooooo! What a load off. No details yet. I expect they will come today but that is a big relief. And from here on own my tax situation will be totally simple Simon. Nice.

Tuesday, house cleaning day. Yeah.

I've been rewatching Season 1 of The Pitt, before I watch Season 2. I'm still reading Dark Ride by Lou Benney and it's a great read. It has not gone where I thought it would which makes it even better. I'm a little more than half way through and already thinking I want to slow down the read to make it last longer.

The Mariner game is on TV today which will be fun.

I am so relieved about those damn taxes. I didn't even realize how stressed I was.

lydamorehouse

Ramadan has just started and my Signal group is having trouble finding enough protectors to fill evening slots. My Food Communists are talking about a $40,000 shortfall that may end their ability to feed people in hiding. March 1 is looming for people who haven't been able to pay rent and are facing evictions. Yet, local politicians are declaring victory and telling people it's time to "go shopping."

Meanwhile, ICE is still being tracked throughout Saint Paul (and presumably Minneapolis, but I don't have access to those Rapid Response groups). Reports that I've seen seem to indicate that the majority of the activity has moved out to the less well organized smaller towns and suburbs. Though the "sexy" part of the resistance--the gas in the streets, the violent confrontations--has dried up, the danger to our immigrant communities is far from over. There is zero sense that ICE is actually leaving. They have switched to quieter, more subtle tactics. They've gone further afield. But make no mistake, they are very much still here.

Last night I went to a Singing Resistance meeting for an action that took place this morning. I managed to miss this morning's action because my GPS decided that it wanted to autocorrect Street to Avenue! VERY DIFFERENT, GPS! In fact, a very important distinction!!! So, I ended up getting lost in downtown Minneapolis long enough to miss the gathering time. But, what was interesting to me is that these Singing Actions have, in the past, brought thousands of people into the streets. Famously, they sang songs encouraging ICE agents to defect outside of some of the hotels hosting them. The action today was for rent relief and trying to get the city officials to consider a temporary rent moritorium, something they were very willing to do during COVID, but which they seem less willing to do for Black and brown folks (shocking, I know!) At any rate, I went to the pre-planning/song rehersal last night with

rachelmanija who is visiting right now and... it wasn't an empty church, but it also wasn't standing room only. The organizers kept saying, "I think more people will join us tomorrow." Well, I wasn't able to. I sure hope other people did. Otherwise, it's going to be pretty sparse. They will not fill City Hall, like they hoped.

But, this seems to be part of a trend. I'd noticed the day after it was announced that ICE was pulling out, my Food Communists was almost ghostly. Plenty of bags of groceries still needed filling, but the number of volunteers that showed up to do the work was less than half of the normal amount. More people have showed up since, but we are nowhere near our previous number. It seems to be the regulars and the die-hards again--although thankfully the Veterans for Peace are still guarding the doors for us.

I ran into some neighbors yesterday when I was walking home from the Communists and they were returning from a daily protest. They also noticed a significant lack of bodies. People were still there, but the crowd was thinner. It's worrying because we are all still very much holding our breaths.

I guess people are buying into the idea that we won and that it's all over. I mean, I would very much like that to be true? I'm just not sure it is and it's disheartening to see that the energy could not, in fact, be maintained. Maybe people are just taking a breather. I hope that's the case.

oursin

'I'm so glad I didn't die with the measles when I was little!'

Thinking a bit further about that education meme and the line You were in relatively good physical and mental health.

Well, on the one hand, I had my vaccinations for smallpox, diphtheria and whooping cough all in order at a young age.

I did, however, get measles, chickenpox and mumps once I started school and they were going around. And in those days if you had an infectious disease you were obliged to stay off school for a designated quarantine period (and return your library books to the Public Health Department for fumigation).

I think scarlet fever was still around though rare, and I have a vague recollection of some child at the school actually dying from it?

Polio vaccination only came in when I was 7 or 8.

I suffered from severe tonsillitis until they removed them when I was 6, I am not at all sure, in the light of present thinking on the subject, that this was necessary, but it was very common.

In less dramatic health interventions, I mention the free codliver oil, orange juice and milk bestowed by a munificent government.

I am a little surprised, in retrospect, that my short sight wasn't picked up through testing at school, but in fact my mother noticed me squinting at things and took me for an eye-test.

I feel that I had fair amounts of time off from school being ill one way and another (besides the aforementioned epidemic diseases and operation) - not to mention the appendectomy and its after-effects when I was at uni - but that this didn't have any major adverse impact.

At the grammar school I was tagged for remedial exercises to do with the way I walked (on the outsides of my feet?): am not sure this had any effect whatsoever.

My migraines were not identified as such.

Period pains were after the way of womanhood, pretty much.

On the whole, relatively good health. A certain amount of mental stress, especially at uni.

conuly

And I'm getting paid for every last one of them, including the 6 hours when the house slept and so did I. Normally, we're not actually supposed to sleep on an overnight shift - but almost everybody really does, so it's more like "don't get caught" - but c'mon.

For everybody at home, leaving without a replacement is not simply a fireable offense but an actual, factual crime. Also, I'm not sure how I would've gotten to the bus. I mean, it's right outside the door, and buses were running all night, but man, it was brutal out there. We needed a little shoveling, and neither I nor manager wanted to shovel, so we had to wait for the neighbors to get their sidewalks and then sorta patch us into theirs. (The transportation issue is also why I'm not blaming any coworkers who didn't come in. It was impossible. I genuinely don't think that this was a fixable issue, Staten Island got a lot of snow.)

In retrospect, what probably ought to have been done would have had to have been done in advance:

1. Manager should've taken as much discretionary money as possible, agreed to let staff order Chinese or whatever for two, three meals - something that reheats nicely - and offered to pay all our carfare home in advance, and then used that to straight up bribe at least one extra staff member to stay over the storm. With three of us, we could've had one on each floor and also could've more easily arranged sleeping shifts so somebody was awake at all times.

2. She also should've called up the families of those residents who frequently go home for an overnight and asked if they'd take their relatives from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. That's suboptimal for a lot of reasons - there's a reason they all live in a residence instead of with their families! - but it would've lightened the burden on us significantly if we'd had even just our two or three easiest residents away visiting their sisters and brothers.

But we all survived! My replacement actually showed up at midnight last night! But she declined to wake me on the grounds that I wasn't going home at midnight, and she was quite right. And then another staff member showed up this morning, and 90 or 100 minutes later my bus finally showed up. (And yes, I do insist on getting paid for that last hour and a half as well. I wasn't just sitting around, I was doing laundry, and supervising on the basement so that everybody else could handle the upper floors, and walking the guys out to their van so nobody slipped on ice.)

I'm home now, I showered, and I have the rest of the week off, off, off. Yay me!

If this happens again, I'm bringing a change of clothing.

dewline

I'm skipping that. I have my mental health to preserve and plenty of other good people are risking their own to make sure that anything I absolutely need to know from that event will get to me.

Current Mood: busy

oursin

Happy birthday,

donnaq!

poliphilo

Our daffodils are coming into their strength. I planted a load in '24 and a load more in '25. They're my favourite flower- at least in part because they start appearing in the wintriest time of the year. I see the first daffodil and think, "And now it's Spring!"

We've had no snow in Eastbourne- we rarely do, but we have had lots of rain. We were driving up Seaside on Sunday and there was water mushrooming out from an overtaxed drain and flooding the road.....

We've floated the idea that Wendy should take over our garden and grow vegetables. It would be a win-win arrangement. We need someone to take the garden in hand and she needs somewhere to grow things. I'm not a gardener. I plant shrubs and bulbs and then more or less let them get on with it. Also I cut the grass- but I'd be happy for there to be less grass to be bothered with. So long as she leaves the daffodils in place she can have a free hand.

There seem to be fewer pigeons about. Maybe they're off sourcing nesting sites. There are however rather more gulls because Roselands with all its chimney stacks is a nesting site. I love pigeons, I love gulls, I only wish we attracted more of the smaller birds than we do.....

shadowkat

Good news? The storm has more or less ended and with it - my vertigo or so it appears. (I'm not tried to lie down flat as of yet, so hopefully it won't flare up when I go to bed.) So I will probably manage to navigate the mounds of snow to make it into work tomorrow. I don't really have an excuse - since I've got snow boots, and I take the subway, and it's located in the Financial District. Now, if I still worked in Jamaica and had to take the Long Island Rail Road into work that would be a different story - at last report, it was still suspended.

I'll probably make it in and not have a lot to do - because half my work place will be snowbound out on Long Island, including my boss. Although per Outlook - I think they all worked remotely. I couldn't. Vertigo was too bad. It's better now. I'm hoping it continues to improve. God, I hate vertigo.

Below is a "privileged education meme" that vaguely reminds me of a game I once played at church. If you were given certain opportunities - you advanced, if not you took two steps backwards. Myself and my friend at the time MD (who is a Black woman) were both ahead, as were a few young Black women and young men, while the old white British guy, his white Jewish wife, and the old white guys born in the 1940s were at the back. It seemed to divide itself more along class and generational lines then race?

( Privileged Education Meme )

Off to find something for dinner.

flemmings

Good heavens. Sun! Blue skies! Brightness! Yeah, I did think the leaden winter would bring me down forever for a bit back there. But of course, with time sense so wonky, it was only a week ago that we last had sun. But that was a pale washy sun and this is glorious gold and blue. Of course it's because a cold front is blowing in. Made it out to Fiesta without much pain: the flurries of last night were indeed flurries even if they coated the sidewalk. But now must go down to the basement to turn taps on against tonight's -14C.

Long range forecast says things will warm up by mid-March. Really can't wait.

Was woken this morning before I wanted to be by a robo phonecall saying Pay your Enercare bill. That's my hot water heater. Bill comes in at month's end, I pay it immediately, what's your problem, Enercare? (I do not like them. Ages back I signed with them for my gas on an equal billing scheme and wondered vaguely why my gas bills were always so high, because I couldn't quite reconcile the total price with usage. Many many years later saw an article comparing prices and found Enbridge was something like 10% cheaper. Thus good-bye Enercare, except for the damned heater.) Tried to go back to sleep and was jerked awake by robo Bell phone call-- or someone purporting to be Bell-- saying technicians would be installing fibre optics in my neighbourhood please book your call now. I already have Bell fibre. Screw that. But by then I was completely awake, so started on my morning routine. Oh, and when I checked my bank account just in case, oops, looks like I didn't pay Enercare last month. OK, fine. Now paid up and another bill will come in Wednesday-ish.

dewline

I assume there's a more thorough recording of Mr. Schwank's testimony before the US Congress available on YouTube?

https://bsky.app/profile/factpostnews.bsky.social/post/3mfknbgfzcd2f

Current Mood: angry

maju

We had a blizzard overnight. I couldn't hear anything down here in the basement, but my son in law said it was very noisy with the wind blowing around the house. It was apparently blowing in all directions, as the windows on all four sides of the house are partly covered with snow. It's still snowing, although it's a bit hard to tell the difference between snow falling and snow being blown off trees etc by the wind. Of course the girls have another snow day, and I suspect they will have a delayed start tomorrow.

My son in law has been working to clear some paths at the side of the house leading out to the cars; he needs to clear enough space so the girls can walk out to the school bus tomorrow, but his work is made very difficult by the mountain of snow thrown up by the snow plough at the top of the driveway.

I feel like I'd only just got my car completely shovelled out after our last big snowstorm and now there's snow banked up all around it to the level of the bottoms of the doors. Luckily just yesterday I moved it forward several inches so I don't have to think about moving it again for about a week.

oursin

And I'm not at all sure it's culture-neutral, hmmmm?

Okay, I had parents who had books in the house and read to me and once I could read took me to the local library to get tickets for the children's department.

No children's museums that I recall but visiting the rather dull local one attached to the public library, and visits to local sites of historical interest.

My primary school was not, I think, particularly distinguished - suspect that the year there were a whole four of us passed the 11+ was Memorable - but there were some good teachers.

I don't know how one calibrates into all this my mother knowing the teacher of Infants 1 and asking her about whether I could go to school once I had turned 5 (having an autumn birthday) and her saying, oh, send her along, on account of my mother thinking I was entirely ready.

And then the Head saying I should do the 11+ technically a year early - (which was not a given, people did get kept back)

Going to a fairly academically-intense girls' grammar school, where I did get the odd spot of class-hassle, I realise in retrospect (including from horrid Mrs B of the really weird ideas about sex), where I was marked out as university material and my parents exhorted to keep me on the sixth form -

Which they were entirely happy to do.

So yes, I was I suppose supported on my academic journey. But some of that was external factors, like the existence of that extinct phoenix, full student grants.

susandennis

I had the best swim this morning. I woke up ready to go and just enjoyed the heck out of it. Funny how some days are don't wanna and some are Move Over Katie!

Steroid shots make my foot feel instantly better for a couple of days and then there are about 3 days of back to ouch before it starts working for good. Then in about a week, it will turn black and blue and stay that way for about a month. We are back to the ouchy part. But I was able to walk to the pool and back so, not horrible.

When I redid all my mp3's, I dumped them into folders - 30 files in each folder. Zero curation. I think Karen Carpenter had a beautiful voice but the current batch I'm listening to is about 25 Karen Carpenter songs and that's really more than anyone needs in a row. So I'm now swapping out for the next folder of 30. This batch has no clues. The files are named 1.mp3 and 2.mp3 so no telling what the fuck is on them. Come Wednesday - the next lap swim day - I'll probably be begging for more Karen Carpenter.

spacefem solved my Hazelnut coffee problem. Syrup! Amazon is bringing me a small assortment of small bottles of sugar free coffee syrup - Hazelnut, Carmel and Vanilla. I put the Hazelnut k-cups out in the elbow with a sign that says FREE. They were gone before I got back from my swim.

I have a plastic shoebox full of batteries. I have a few C's. a few D's. A fuckload of AA's. Some buttons - various sizes. A couple of really weird ones and 1 AAA. What do I need right now? 2 AAA's, of course. Sigh.

Another Paramount+ treat. One of my all time favorite sit coms. No one watched it but me, I think so it only lasted 2 seasons but now both seasons are on Paramount+. Superior Donuts. Good cast - phenomenal writing. Still very fun. I'm treating myself to an episode a day.

I've never put together a Lego set. I've thought about it but resisted knowing that it's likely a rabbit hole for me. Plus now I have bunnies to make 3 a day and I'm on track so far. And then I have to sew pockets onto my swim robes. I have projects. I don't need more. Plus, there are all those hours that

spifikins stole from me when she introduced me to that fucking arrow app.

shadowkat

So the snowstorm was/is Bomb Cyclone - which I learned ages ago from an allergist -will play havoc on anyone with sinus issues.

A bomb cyclone according to the National Weather Service is : "or the meteorological term "bombogenesis," refers to the central pressure of a low-pressure system dropping at least 24 millibars within 24 hours.

Most bomb cyclones happen off the East Coast, which typically sees about one of these intense storms each year. In the Northeast, they form when there’s a sharp temperature contrast usually between a cold continental air mass meeting the warmer waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

This temperature difference, combined with a strong jet-stream disturbance that forces air upward, sets the stage for bombogenesis. Many nor’easters actually fall into this category, as cold air from Canada collides with the warm Gulf Stream, creating a perfect recipe for explosive storm growth."

The reason it plays havoc on sinus issues - is the barometric pressure drops. The fluid in the head shifts - placing pressure on the inner ear, resulting in vertigo.

It gave me non-stop vertigo, which I've been battling with prescription Dramamine to combat dizziness and nausea. It's kind of like seasickness, if you've never experienced it? But on land.

I went to bed, lay down, the room began to spin, frak that, I slept sitting up. As long as I was upright, not moving my head too much, I was fine. I'm hoping it is gone by tonight. It should be - since I think it is storm related.

Oh well, it could be worse - I could be homeless with vertigo, or stuck in an airport or bus depot with it, and no pills to take for it. (They work just not as well as I'd like? Work better when it is mild and well, we aren't in the middle of a bomb cyclone, and I didn't have a cold the previous week. But they did keep the nausea and vomiting at bay.)

The storm is still going by the way. It's been going since roughly 10 pm last night. Although it's no longer a blizzard.

Currently or as of 10 a.m. Monday (it's about 11:42 AM now and yes still snowing):https://www.nbcnewyork.com/weather/weather-stories/how-much-snow-totals-inches-nyc-long-island-nj-accumulation-blizzard/6467598/

It's shut NYC down almost completely. The Mayor was smart though - he cancelled all schools, declared a travel ban, and the Governor informed government agencies to keep all non-essential employees home, for remote work, if possible. They have a Full Snow Day for the first time in years (no remote), public transportation has shut down in places, and the travel ban was extended to about 6pm. It's 31 F, and feels like 6 F.

( Transit Adjustments )

https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2026/02/23/what-s-open-closed-nyc-snow-storm-feb-2026

[ETA: The travel ban in NYC has been lifted, but with the caveat that people should drive slowly and with caution.]

"As of 10 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 22, more than 11,200 flights in and out of the U.S. were canceled or delayed.

In the New York City area, disruptions were widespread. At John F. Kennedy International Airport, 42% of departing flights were canceled, along with 7% delayed. Incoming flights were hit even harder, with 63% canceled and 2% delayed."

- https://www.lohud.com/story/weather/2026/02/22/nyc-airports-hit-by-massive-cancellations-ahead-of-blizzard-see-live-flight-status/88762935007/

Vertigo hasn't gone, unfortunately, but the medication has helped a bit.

So how's your day going so far?

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Mark T. B. Carroll

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February 2026

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Mark Carroll's Journal

thoughts and questions

Reading

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nsnotifyd-2.4 released

Low expectations, but apparently not low enough...

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Naomi Novik's Temeraire stories get the Kickstarter TTRPG treatment!

Tax Man

Turning Away

As Rose Red said in the Katy books -

Well, I spent 40 hours at work

About The Vulgarian's 2026 State of the (Dis)Union Speech?

Interesting Links for 24-02-2026

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Nature Notes

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On Trumpist ICE "Training"

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That educational privilege meme thing

Monday

Snow bound - and struggling with vertigo...

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February 2026

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