Not much to say, so have a photo

1 December 2025 00:48
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[personal profile] loganberrybunny
Public


303/365: Restored building, Bewdley
Click for a larger, sharper image

Nothing special, just a nicely restored building in Stourport Road. The River Severn is a few metres out of shot to the right.

Bingo

30 November 2025 17:40
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
I have made bingo down the N column of my 11-1-25 card for the Fairy Tales and Fantasy Stories Bingo. I also made 8 extra fills.


N1 (The deeds of ordinary folks keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.) -- "The Universal Assent to the World" (Polychrome Heroics: Officer Pink)
N2 (elves) -- "Revealing Itself at Its Most Brilliant" (Polychrome Heroics: Eric the Elven King)
N3 (WILD CARD: brownie) -- "Better Than Living Alone" (Monster House)
N4 (shadow) -- "Unicornis Memento Mori" (The Freaks Club)
N5 (Once Upon a Time) -- "Better Than a Million Dollars" (Alien Romance)

B4 (Fairy Ring) -- "Time and Relative Dimensions in Magic" (Doctor Who)

I1 (The Nightingale) -- "The Impermanence of Light and Life" (The Freaks Club)
I3 (Very little worth knowing is taught by fear.) -- "To the Rational Mind" (Doctor Who)
I4 (solitude) -- "Company in Solitude" (The Freaks Club)

G1 (vision) -- "A Vision That Visits Us" (The Freaks Club)
G2 (journey) -- "The Coracle in the Forest" (standalone)
G5 (I didn't want power. All I wanted was control. Over my life.) -- "A Clear Path of Freedom" (standalone)

O3 (fairies) -- "The Heart to Change the World" (Polychrome Heroics: The Big One)
thewayne: (Default)
[personal profile] thewayne
This is... interesting. In October, an A320 operated by Jetblue was en route from Cancun to Newark when it suffered an unexpected loss of altitude. It made an emergency landing in Miami. No injuries or damage to the aircraft. The FAA directive reported that the October flight "experienced a malfunction in its elevator aileron computer (ELAC), which is a computer that controls the plane’s pitch or nose angle. Airbus believes that solar flares—intense and concentrated streams of electromagnetic solar radiation—may have corrupted the data and caused the ELAC to malfunction, suddenly sending the aircraft plunging down."

The article goes on to say "The fix for the issue is a relatively quick revert to earlier software before the planes can fly again, except for some jets that may require a complete hardware replacement." (emphasis mine)

Now, this raises some questions. First, why does reverting the software to a previous version fix the problem? Obviously reinstalling software would fix a corruption issue, unless there was hardware damage, in which case you'd have to replace the hardware and then reinstall the software. Since you're reverting the software, that implies that the older software had some self-healing features that could detect if something had damaged the program and it could reload part or all of itself from safe storage, not unlike error-correcting memory. And personally, if I were designing software for aviation that would fly on aircraft, I'd like to have this feature. I have no idea if their software can do this.

But this is the big question: if the software can self-repair, WHY WOULD SUCH A FEATURE BE REMOVED? Clearly such a feature would take a lot of resources, both occupying computer memory (overhead) and processing power (CPU resources) with its monitoring. BUT THIS IS A FIELD WHERE YOU WANT BOTH BELT AND SUSPENDERS! I just don't get why you would dumb-down a program.

The other question is why the computer doesn't have increased shielding? Granted, you cannot completely shield equipment in aircraft against high-energy particles, it's just not practical. The particles are too energetic, the weight and size of such shielding would be prohibitive. And because aircraft fly at high altitude, you don't have as much atmosphere acting as an attenuator, slowing down the particles a little bit. This is why living at high altitude, such as Russet and I do at 9,000', people have increased rates of thyroid problems and cataract formation: we are exposed to harsher sunlight and more directly hit by higher energy sunlight, where as people living at sea level get the full benefit of a skyful of air slowing things down.

So a couple of questions linger over this. Reloading an older version of the software shouldn't take long: after it's reloaded, the flight crew will have to confirm the ELAC system is functioning as expected. And if it doesn't load properly, it's probably due to damage to said system and the plane will have to be taken out of service pending replacement of the computer. Disruptions to air travel to accommodate things like this will cost the airlines a lot of money and result in hordes of angry passengers whose travel plans are being disrupted.

https://gizmodo.com/how-solar-flares-could-have-corrupted-an-airbus-plane-2000693690

第四年第三百二十六天

1 December 2025 08:12
nnozomi: (pic#16332211)
[personal profile] nnozomi posting in [community profile] guardian_learning
部首

己, self; 已, already; 巴, noun suffix pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=49
巾 parts 1-5
巾, cloth/towel; 币, money/currency; 市, city/market; 布, cloth/to declare; 帅, handsome/cool/commander-in-chief; 帆, sail; 师, teacher; 希, to hope; 帕, handkerchief; 贴, to adhere; 帘, curtain; 帝, emperor; 带, to wear/to bring/belt; 席, seat; 帮, to help
pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=50

语法
1.9 Negatives: 不 vs 没
1.10 二 vs 两
1.11 Can: 会 vs 能
https://www.digmandarin.com/hsk-1-grammar

词汇
败, defeat; 打败, to defeat/to be defeated; 失败, failure
办事, to handle affairs/to work
包裹, package; 包含, to contain; 包括, to include; 红包, red packet (gift of money)
薄, thin (as opposed to thick)
宝, treasure; 宝宝,宝贝, baby; 宝贵, valuable; 宝石, precious stone
保密, secrecy/confidentiality; 保守, conservative; 担保, to assure
pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-4-word-list/

玩玩
Lu Hu, 限时礼物; Wang Leehom and A-Lin, 最好的地方; Zhou Shen, 爱丽苏卿.

已经十二月了,怎么办。我觉得最近疲惫的人生病的扔悲伤的人比较多,好好照顾自己啊,别勉强!
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[personal profile] rebeccmeister
...were laundering the shower curtain, and harvesting worm dirt from the worm bin.

This is the first major harvest since I built Worm Bin Bench II. We've been adding and adding stuff to it, and by now it has (had) so much worm dirt in it that it really needed to be harvested. In the past, when harvesting worm dirt out of the old bin, I would bring the bin outside and carry out my work on the back porch steps, in bright sunlight. This bin is a little too big for that sort of thing, and also it's cold out there, so I had to come up with a new method: scooping dirt into a plant tray to sort it out then and there.

I think the hardest part was tracking down a hand trowel to scoop the dirt with. I eventually found one that has a wood handle that was stuck inside a bag of potting soil that was sitting out next to the outdoor compost. The trowel was exceptionally rusty and slimy, but those things didn't really matter for this purpose. I should probably get a nicer trowel for home use one of these days.

The new method worked well.

Sorting dirt from worms

Well, with one small exception: it attracted the curiosity of the cats.

Martha inspects the worm bin

Martha inspects the worm bin

That, by itself, is fine, except that Martha decided she wanted to see about walking along the top edge of the open lid. That, by itself, also turned out to be fine, if mildly precarious, except for when she went to leap off, and the physics of the situation dictated that the lid came flying down. Thankfully, I anticipated that happening and caught the lid before it smashed into anything.

I gave a bunch of the houseplants all a generous helping of the freshly harvested worm dirt. Hopefully they like it. History suggests they will.

Other than that, I have mostly been grading student papers, or procrastinating from grading. The cats have been helping. Witness:

Trapped by cats

George in the cave

I suppose it's fine to have a relatively uneventful weekend. That won't make me enjoy grading papers, however.
[syndicated profile] fictionmachine_feed

Posted by Grant Watson

Hayashi Kaizo’s 1986 directorial debut To Sleep So As To Dream is a jaw-dropping exercise in nostalgia, post-modernist reflection, and cinema history. What makes it particularly impressive is that Hayashi was self-trained: while most Japanese directors worked their way up from director’s assistant to fully-fledged film-makers, Hayashi learned as he went and created a bona fide work of art in the process. The film, which did play a number of international festivals at the time, remained largely unknown outside of Japan until the release of Arrow Film’s excellent bluray edition. They should be commended for raising its profile so effectively. This is brilliant, idiosyncratic stuff.

A young woman named Bellflower has been kidnapped. Her grandmother, a retired silent film performer, hires a private detective to track down the parties responsible and exchange Bellflower for the ransom.

It is a simple, rather archetypal premise. What makes the film so distinctive is how it is itself a largely silent picture, shot in black and white with limited sound effects and dialogue. The villains of the piece declare themselves to be M Pathe & Co, one of Japan’s original four film production companies. The detective’s investigation follows a highly artificial trail of riddles and puzzles. Finally, all of the story elements appear linked to a strange silent movie serial that was never completed.

To Sleep So As To Dream exercises a deliberately vague and unfamiliar relationship with history and period settings. Some elements are drawn directly from turn-of-the-century silent cinema. Others seem inspired by the 1920s or even the 1950s. Historical elements are sometimes based on fact, but more often are invented by Hayashi Kaizo. The standard conventions of Japanese silent cinema are broadly observed – there is even a lengthy sequence depicting a live band and narrator accompanying an in-universe silent movie screening – but ultimately the rules are observed in the main so that Hayashi can break them someplace else. It is a knowing pastiche, but it is also a carefully composed deconstruction of its key elements. There have been a number of well-developed takes on silent cinema in recent decades, notably Rolf de Heer’s Dr Plonk (2007) and Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist (2011). To Sleep So As To Dream predates them both, and feels superior to both. It is an exceptional and original artistic work.

A highlight of the film’s cast is genuine silent film actor Fukamizu Fujiko, who retired from acting for 45 years before returning here. She is joined by Yoshida Yoshio, an actor whose career started in 1951; this would be his final film role. Likewise with Kusajima Kyoko, particularly effective in a small role as a comb-seller. Her career started in 1939. Sano Shiro pitches his performance as private detective Uotsuka perfectly, giving a heightened turn with plenty of odd little idiosyncracies. Otake Koji offers excellent comedy value as Uotsuka’s plucky assistant Kobayashi.

This is a truly superb and innovative feature. Its inventiveness is hugely impressive, and it successfully swings back and forth between charming comedy and a deeply melancholic sense of drama. Critically, it maintains an open attitude to its story and characters. One may question by its conclusion what it all meant, and no doubt different viewers are going to have different answers to that question.

History

30 November 2025 15:10
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Signatures meant more in Mesopotamia than they do now − what cylinder seals say about ancient and modern life

In essence, a cylinder seal was a small sculpture that served a crucial utilitarian purpose: signing documents. It was generally made of a precious or semiprecious stone such as lapis lazuli, agate or chalcedony. Images and texts were engraved into the stone with a technique called intaglio. Notably, these engravings would need to be made in reverse of how the markings would look when it was used.

When rolled on a moist clay tablet, these engravings left low-relief markings, signifying that the object’s owner authorized the written document. In this respect, a cylinder seal’s impression is the ancestor of modern handwritten and digital signatures.


Read more... )

Birdfeeding

30 November 2025 14:28
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy and cold.  Yesterday it snowed copiously, which wiped out our plans for Small Business Saturday.  :(  It was pretty for a while though.  Then it rained.  Then it froze again.  O_O  Now the snow looks a week old and there is plate ice over the road and parts of the patio.

I fed the birds.  I hung up a peanut suet cake.  I've seen one female and three male cardinals plus a dark-eyed junco.  :D  This is the first I've seen of my little snowbirds this year; the juncos are cold-weather birds here and don't appear in summer.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 11/30/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 11/30/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 11/30/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen two female cardinals and the three boys again.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.
 

Done Since 2025-11-23

30 November 2025 20:43
mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)
[personal profile] mdlbear

Mixed. A couple of minor high points, including a very nice Thanksgiving (observed) dinner yesterday evening, but enough lows to more than compensate, plus enough problems with both my health, and my abject failure to get those across during my appointment Friday morning, to throw me into a tailspin that I still haven't fully recovered from. Oh, and Leslie Fish died yesterday. There's another bit storythere, too, but it'll wait for another day.

Three walks. One guitar practice, Friday, but after spending the day in a funk it lifted my spirits a litte, as did a little more Dutch on Duolingo. I take what I can get. The top quote of the week, from Paradox of hedonism - Wikipedia:

Happiness is like a cat, if you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you; it will never come. But if you pay no attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing against your legs and jumping into your lap.

Apparently the same thing applies to sleep. But it's only 20:48, so I have two hours, more or less, before I have to not-try to put that into practice. If the cats will let me. But I'll stop here, incoherent as this post is, because between now and then I have to compose an email to my doctors. (Or at least their clinic. It's complicated, and a large part of Friday's trainwreck was because I didn't know how complicated it had gotten while I wasn't looking.)

Why Nature will not allow the use of generative AI in images and video So apparently Nature abhors AI.

How about ending with The Illustrated Version of “Alice’s Restaurant”?

Notes & links, as usual )

Dreamwidth Points

30 November 2025 13:46
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Dreamwidth is running its December points event.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.


If you're gift-shopping for anyone on Dreamwidth, or you wish to support a favorite community here, points or paid time offer a great way to do that. Now is also a good time to buy them for yourself. Support the platform that keeps us connected here.

New Year's Resolutions Check In

30 November 2025 03:31
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
We made it to the end of November! \o/ If you have completed some of your yearly goals, and/or you're still chugging away at your ongoing goals, then pat yourself on the back. You worked hard for that. We are now well into autumn. If you're doing seasonal goals, share what you're working on for this winter.

This year I'm trying something new, continuing to track goals at the end of each month. So far it seems to be helping, so that's encouraging. I'm looking at my goal list more often and trying to keep ticking off more of them. The main drawback is that this update becomes more of a chore each month.

These are the previous check in posts:
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 4
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 10
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 17
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 24
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In February 28
New Year's Resolutions Check In March 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In April 30
New Year's Resolutions Check In May 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In June 30
New Year's Resolutions Check In July 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In August 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In September 30
New Year's Resolutions Check In October 31


Read more... )

fuckin white people

30 November 2025 11:17
sabotabby: (furiosa)
[personal profile] sabotabby
 The City of Toronto decided to, at the request of Black Lives Matter six years ago, rename a bunch of places that were named after Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville (1742-1811). Many important landmarks here, including a major street and two subway stations, are named after this guy (as well as a small town and many other streets around Ontario).

Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville (1742-1811), was a wealthy British white man who was in favour of the "gradual abolition" of slavery, which is to say that over half a million Africans who might have otherwise been freed were instead trafficked during the delay.

Many, many people are suddenly amateur historians defending the life and beliefs of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville (1742-1811), the beauteous sound of the syllables upon the tongue, the importance of remembering history (textbooks no longer exist, you see, and Wikipedia was never invented) and the cost to the city of the renaming. These same people have never, to my knowledge, issued a single complaint about Gichi Kiiwenging being renamed to York and later to Toronto, constituting a massive act of disrespecting and forgetting history and culture and a financial cost still borne by today's Anishinaabowen. They probably even call the Skydome the Rogers Centre now!

Is this act symbolic and pointless? Kinda. Black Lives Matter also asked, famously, for the police to be defunded, but this year the police budget got a 3.9% raise, ballooning to a princely $1.22 billion, at a time when violent crime continues to fall. I think that's a more important demand! I also think that the new name of the subway station is stupid. However, as a Jewish person, I wouldn't like to be walking down a street named after Hitler, so I do think it's a nice symbolic gesture to call it something else.

All I can say is imagine being so white and having so few problems that you have suddenly started caring about Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville (1742-1811)!
[syndicated profile] jaysbrickblog_feed

Posted by Jay Ong

The blueprint of LEGO’s Architecture theme is about to undergo a bit of a refresh with the introduction of 21064 Paris – City of Love, a brand new format that blends the LEGO Architecture Skyline collection with Postcards. It’s a brand new design language for LEGO Architecture, which leans on its heritage of celebrating some […]

The post Review: LEGO 21064 Paris – City of Love appeared first on Jay's Brick Blog.

puddleshark: (Default)
[personal profile] puddleshark
Swanage Pier 1
Swanage Pier.

No shortage of visitors to Swanage on a glorious Sunday in November. The seafront was almost as busy as it is in summer, with people strolling in the sunshine. A few brave souls swimming in the sea, or using the new sauna before swimming. Brrrr. But at this time of year the beach belongs to the dogs. Happy dogs hurling themselves into the sea, looning around on the sand, greeting each other with wagging tails. A slightly more adventurous walk than I intended )

November 2025 in Review

30 November 2025 10:29
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


21 works reviewed. 11 by women (52%), 10 by men (48%), 0 by non-binary authors (0%), 0 by authors whose gender is unknown (0%), and 8 by POC (38%).

Book by book, closer to aleph null.

November 2025 in Review

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