den | Network

Continuing from the earlier experiment, emotional support weaving with handspun weft:

weaving WIP

Tension management is a mess with this (experimental, non-destructive) setup but I figured I'd at least weave this warp, write this off as a learning experience (I did learn a lot) + disaster-mode "weaving" art therapy, and move on. :)

I also learned that I strongly dislike making very "loose," airy weaves structurally, so that's good to know about myself. I sometimes like them in fabrics made by machines/other people but I don't enjoy weaving them, so I'll avoid in the future!

dialecticdreamer

Mismatch
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1415
[Sunday, May 10, 2020, night]

:: Regrouping leads to an unexpected insight. Plans change. Part of the Edison’s Mirror universe. ::

The crowd followed Aidan to the front door of the garage apartment. Shandiin murmured, “Are the kids asleep?”

“Vic isn’t. He’s keeping watch over Ed, who may not have gone back to sleep. If he isn’t asleep now, we’ll just stay home during the day to that he can try to nap at least once.” Aidan paused, hand raised over the doorknob.

He stepped back. “It’s your home,” he began.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: awake

musesfool

Meant to post this earlier, but got distracted, but I'm back now! November 2025 recs update:

unfitforsociety has been updated for November 2025 with 11 recs in 4 fandoms:

* 7 Batfamily, 1 Batfamily/Criminal Minds crossover
* 1 The Bear, 1 Star Wars, and 1 Stranger Things

*

I also made a cute little chocolate cake with chocolate ermine frosting (pic). I'm happy with how it came out. It's just enough cake for 1 person for like 5 days (refrigerated).

*

Stranger Things, season 5, episodes 1 - 4!

( spoilers )

I think this "drop 4 episodes, then do another 2-3 episodes 2 more times" is the worst of all possible distribution patterns, but I guess Netflix will never do a weekly series, which I can honestly say after years of binge-watching seems preferable to me. But at least it's all within a month instead of half in August and half in November or whatever. As much as I dislike the amount of time it's taken for them to put out each season, I am still enjoying the show and want to see how it all wraps up.

*

Current Mood: ditzy
Current Music: Broncos vs Commanders on SNF

shadowkat

1.Could not manage to drag myself to my church today. It was cold and drizzling outside. The trees outside my window still have their leaves though. Did watch the sermon on my television set via You Tube. Once I figured out that I can still watch you tube videos on the big television set - I got hooked. They are free. There's ads. But still free. My tolerance for ads however is not high. But at least the ads don't interrupt church services - because that would be tacky?

The sermon was long and weirdly about combating racism, homophobia and xenophobia in Iowa. ( Read more... )

2. Watching Down Cemetery Road - the other series by Mick Herron, it's not as good as Slow Horses, although in a similar vein? It's British satire/mystery/thriller about the inept British Secret Service. (See people are the same everywhere - they are just as inept in Britain as they are in the US, and well everywhere else, national pride be damned. And British writers make fun of them.)

Emma Thompson is playing a private detective - who is sort of in the Gary Oldman role? With Ruth Wilson in the Jake Lowdon role, an art conservationist in over her head.

The set-up? Sarah (Ruth Wilson), after a building blows up near her house from an alleged gas explosion - she hunts for the little girl who survived the blast. When she gets a private investigator involved - things go a bit south, and she stumbles into more than she anticipated.

3. Inside with Michael Rosenbloom Podcasts (one of the better actor podcasters) interviewed Alison Mack, his former cast mate from Smallville, and former NXIUM cultist. She'd become the second in command. I watched it on Youtube on my television - and damn, it was moving. I cried during it.
( Read more... )

Alison Mack Interview with Michael Rosenbloom

Mack and Rosenbloom reiterate something I've long espoused - which is that people are more than one thing, and people for the most part aren't bad or good, they just do bad or good things? Our society has a tendency to demonize people not their actions. And Mack is right - our society is punitive and based on fear, and manipulates people with fear. I remember a prisoner at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary telling me once that prison was about punishment not rehabilitation. And freeing folks from it - doesn't help, because we don't prep them for the outside world, and we don't provide them with employment.

That's not to say that there aren't people out there that are evil, and have a brain make up that is different than ours - sociopaths and psychopaths...are hard to understand. But even those are capable of good and bad things...it's never simple.

At any rate - it's an interesting podcast, and worth the watch.

[I've not watched the NXUIM documentary (but I know what it entailed), although I think I may have seen the Spieldberg one "Why We Hate".]

***

It's been a quiet day. Did some watercoloring - didn't like the first painting, discarded it, working on another one. I don't know if I'll ever do anything with my paintings at the moment? Right now, just doing them for me.

Dinner was salmon, aspergus, celery and carrots - baked. Yesterday I made chili. This morning, a spinach, onion and feta cheese omelete with grits.
The grits took up the blood sugar.

End of November Mememage

30. Do you have any special plans for December?

Not really? I plan on taking some time off. And getting a PT evaluation next week. Also, maybe getting tickets to Brooklyn Botanical Gardens Light Show.

I don't do much for Xmas - so it's not that stressful for me. I have minimal decorations, and only a few gifts to buy.

ranunculus

The last four days have been riding days. The weather is glorious, sunny and just the right temperature. I started with a very short session, then worked in the arena for two days before going out on a trail ride with Carrie and Juno. Firefly was all fired up today, full of energy and impatient to go, go, go. We worked on quiet and walking. I bet she is sore tomorrow. Even with all that energy Firefly was really pretty good. She is paying attention, has learned to walk ON the trail and is gaining confidence. She is very attuned to weight and leg aids which is lovely. At the top of Fairview Hill I got off and walked down. No sense in arguing with the horse all the way down the hill.
Here is Firefly after a good grooming.

ranunculus

The very last of the fall color is starting to fade, but not these leaves, seen here glowing in the late afternoon sun.

( More... )

fbhjr

( Read more )

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

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.

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

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:

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

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

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 )

Current Mood: tangled
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: Hope Eyrie

oursin

Last week's bread almost held out - lasted pretty well, but not quite to the end of the week.

Friday night supper: penne with bottled sliced artichoke hearts.

Saturday breakfast rolls: Tassajarra method, approx 50:50% Marriage's Light Spelt and Golden Wholegrain, maple syrup, raisins, turned out rather well.

Today's lunch: partridge breasts with a rub of salt, 5-pepper blend, coriander seeds and thyme, panfried in butter and olive oil, deglazed with white wine; served with kasha, buttered spinach and sugar snap peas stirfried with garlic.

oglaf_comic_feed

https://www.oglaf.com/goat/

sistawendy

I went to the Mercury briefly last night, briefly because I started yawning even before 2300, even with a nap and extra caffeine yesterday. I spread the news about my impending surgery, natch.

But what really got my attention was

jengalicious's ex, who arrived alone. Nobody even spoke to him that I saw. Sure, I've been coming alone to the Merc for twenty-three years, but I always find someone to talk to. If this becomes a trend I may dance a stompy or spider-plucking jig. Dude, have you tried not being a terrible person? It's a choice.

Oh: Frankie & Jo's oatnog flavor – vegan "ice cream", if you'll recall – is pretty great! Ah luv me some egg nog, and this is the kind I could share with, for example, the Tickler.

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House
Current Music: "Mal de Mer", The La Bora Tree

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

cakewrecks_feed

Posted by Sharyn

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/sunday-sweets-dark-beauties-2025

There's really no such thing as a "typical" wedding cake anymore.

So today, we're going to give in to our dark sides a little.

We have to start with classic black, right?

(By Hey There Cupcake, California)

Stunning, hand-painted black.

Of course, there are a lot of dark choices beyond black. How about this gorgeous teal number?

(By Have+Some+Cake, United Kingdom)

The rich color, offset tier, and hand-painting really put this one over the top.

Or maybe you'd prefer a forest that isn't at all forbidding.

(By Immaculate Confections, United Kingdom)

In fact, I'd call it enchanting.

This red cake was inspired by Melisandre, the Red Priestess from "Game of Thrones."

(By Candytuft Cakes, Ireland)

It doesn't need to cast a glamour to be beautiful. Wow.

Then there are the times you just want to burst onto the scene and yell, "Ta da!"

(By Kuchen Diva, Switzerland)

Ta da!

The "origami" is edible wafer paper. So clever.

This purple cake isn't exactly a shrinking violet:

(By Dolce Lusso Cakes, United Kingdom)

Those are handmade sugar orchids; I like how the gold leaf really makes them pop.

And look at all the different textures on this stunner:

(By Foxtail Bakeshop, Oregon)

Quick. Somebody knit me this cake!

The baker went for a crumpled metal effect on this steampunk-inspired cake, very funky cool:

(By Sylwia Sobiegraj The Cake Designer, Ireland)

Plus it took me a second to realize only two of the roses are sculpted; the middle one is hand-painted.

Proving yet again that steampunk doesn't have to be brown!

Not that there's anything wrong with brown, of course...

(By Cove Cake Design, Ireland)

Mmm. Do you think that's chocolate? I think it's chocolate. Does anyone have a fork so I can check? And maybe some milk?

But I digress...

Let's end with a splash of deep, dark color:

(By The Cocoa Cakery, Canada)

I think I'm in love.

These cakes certainly prove there's no reason to be afraid of the dark.

Isn't that Sweet?

*****

And from my other blog, Epbot:

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/sunday-sweets-dark-beauties-2025

asakiyume

I don't like to go longer than a week without posting, but I just did! So this is me waving hello. The reason for the absence is family stuff: my dad is finally moving somewhat closer to me (and very close to my younger brother), plus the Tall One has also been moving. Stressful and time consuming.

Thanksgiving included a clogged main pipe out of my dad's (soon to be former) house, where we'd gathered for the day. This necessitated an emergency plumber! Plus there were some shenanigans with the turkey roaster that delayed the turkey. "It's our toilet-less, turkey-less Thanksgiving," joked Little Springtime. But in the end the emergency plumber fixed the clog and the turkey finished cooking, and people's spirits remained relatively high, so it can be categorized as a Fun Tale of Obstacles Overcome rather than A Horrible Time. (It became that once we knew a plumber was coming. Hero of the story: the plumber.)

Wakanomori brought an Edo-period board game that he'd put together from images available online, and we played it. It's Genji Monogatari-themed: you march around the board and land on different chapters from the Tale of Genji, and each square comes with a poem--not from the Tale of Genji but from the makers of the game. Plus gorgeous ink paintings. Very aesthetic and allowed for a good review of the happenings of the story--or introduction to them, for several people present. (Not sure if anyone's read it from beginning to end. Maybe Wakanomori has.)

james_davis_nicoll

An academic's dismal prospects are transformed by a magical umbrella.

The Incredible Umbrella (Incredible Umbrella, volume 1) by Marvin Kaye

joshreadscomics_feed

Posted by Josh

https://joshreads.com/2025/11/sunday-is-for-large-bearded-men/

https://joshreads.com/?p=47823

Comics Curmudgeon readers! Do you love this blog and yearn for a novel written by its creator? Well, good news: Josh Fruhlinger's The Enthusiast is that novel! It's even about newspaper comic strips, partly. Check it out!

Mary Worth, 11/30/25

Ahh, the moment we’ve all been waiting for: when Ian returns from his weeks-long “teachers conference” and confronts the bird who has taken his place and reduced him to a mere “friend” of the household. This bird was perfectly nice to Mary when she came over, so he obviously isn’t strictly speaking aggressive towards newcomers; rather, he just instinctively recognizes Ian as his main antagonist going forward and has decided to go on the attack from a position of strength as the current possessor of the disputed territory. I’m glad this week’s Sunday Mary Worth Quote® is from David Mamet, because that implies that the dialogue that ensues after the final panel is just a nonstop stream of colorful obscenities.

Pluggers, 11/30/25

Why is this plugger looking so depressed? Nobody’s making him eat that pie. Nobody’s making him work as a mall Santa either, unless you count his underfunded retirement account as “someone,” I guess. Still, you’d think he could at least spend a minute to enjoy the pie.

https://joshreads.com/2025/11/sunday-is-for-large-bearded-men/

https://joshreads.com/?p=47823

mellowtigger

If any regular readers here (whether you currently even have a Dreamwidth account or not) would like a regular Paid account for a year, then send me a private message from your Dreamwidth account through the Inbox. I will send you a gift subscription.

This post from Dreamwidth admins reminded me of their tradition of encouraging gift subscriptions at Dreamwidth. This FAQ page explains the benefits of Paid versus Free accounts. I don't really understand the point system, so I'm sticking with the Paid offer for this year.

oursin

Happy birthday,

smw!

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den

April 2023

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Page Summary

yhlee - emotional support fiber
dialecticdreamer - #47 Mismatch (part 1 of 1, complete)
musesfool - it's picked by the veteran
shadowkat - Sunday is busy pondering differing perspectives...
ranunculus - Firefly
ranunculus - Early winter
fbhjr - Holiday with friends
thewayne - Airbus issues recall of over 6,000 A320 aircraft for software rollback
rebeccmeister - Today's bonus vacuuming chores... [housekeepery, status, cats]
mdlbear - Done Since 2025-11-23
oursin - Culinary
oglaf_comic_feed - Goat
sistawendy - Nun savors a schadenfreude sandwich.
james_davis_nicoll - November 2025 in Review
cakewrecks_feed - Sunday Sweets: Dark Beauties
asakiyume - update
james_davis_nicoll - The Incredible Umbrella (Incredible Umbrella, volume 1) by Marvin Kaye
joshreadscomics_feed - Sunday is for large bearded men
mellowtigger - a gift year at Dreamwidth
oursin - (no subject)

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emotional support fiber

#47 Mismatch (part 1 of 1, complete)

it's picked by the veteran

Sunday is busy pondering differing perspectives...

Firefly

Early winter

Holiday with friends

Airbus issues recall of over 6,000 A320 aircraft for software rollback

Today's bonus vacuuming chores... [housekeepery, status, cats]

Done Since 2025-11-23

Culinary

Goat

Nun savors a schadenfreude sandwich.

November 2025 in Review

Sunday Sweets: Dark Beauties

update

The Incredible Umbrella (Incredible Umbrella, volume 1) by Marvin Kaye

Sunday is for large bearded men

a gift year at Dreamwidth

(no subject)

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April 2023

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