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Current Mood: gloomy

Entry tags:

walking,
weather

Saturday in the rain

Public

Despite the continuing grotty weather, I pushed myself out for a couple of walks today, meaning I've crept over 10,000 steps. Thanks to hurting my leg I haven't done that very often recently, but I wanted to get back to it and so I mostly feel being out in the drizzle was worth it! I did briefly think about posting a photo again – not a 365-style one, just something mildly interesting – but to be honest everything looks so dreary in these conditions that it's going to have to wait a few days.

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Early Humans

These 773,000-year-old fossils may reveal our shared human ancestor

Exceptionally well-dated fossils from Morocco capture a moment nearly 800,000 years ago, right at a major turning point in Earth’s magnetic history.

Fossils from a Moroccan cave have been dated with remarkable accuracy to about 773,000 years ago, thanks to a magnetic signature locked into the surrounding sediments. The hominin remains show a blend of ancient and more modern features, placing them near a pivotal branching point in human evolution. These individuals likely represent an African population close to the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Neandertals, and Denisovans.

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Birdfeeding

Today is sunny and cold. Much of the snow has melted.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 2/7/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I refilled the hopper feeder.

.

Entry tags:

software

Bye Bye Apple

One of the traditional MacOS features is a single dock, that appears at the bottom of one of your monitors. From time to time it moves to another monitor; it took me a year or two to figure out that the moves were not random, but happened when you moved your mouse too close to the bottom of some screen that didn't currently contain the dock. This would be interpreted as a request to move the dock to that screen, on top of whatever you were trying to do there.

The KDE equivalent is called a panel, and can contain more than just the sort of things MacOS puts in their dock. You can have as many panels as you want, on as many of your monitors as you want, even 2 or 3 on the same monitor if you prefer. They don't have to have the same contents - you can put a panel with clock and various status widgets on the top of your screen, approximating what MacOS has there, and a second panel at the bottom, with task bar and related items, approximating what MacOS has there. Or you can do what I did, and put all of these in one panel, at the bottom of the screen, but put such a panel on all the screens you have.

There are some glitches, and not all of them may be learning curve. But most of them involve configuring the extra flexibility MacOS lacks.

This morning I started the day on my Mac, taking advantage of Safari's existing history to conveniently reorder a product I'd just run low on. The dock made one of its unintended moves. That's been an aggravation approximately forever. But this time instead of snarling at Apple, I smiled happily at the thought that soon I won't be dealing with this any more.

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BTS Drabble Sequence: Prima Materia

***

Title: Prima Materia
Author:

kat_lair
Fandom: 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Pairing: Jeon Jungkook & Kim Namjoon | RM, Jeon Jungkook/Kim Namjoon | RM
Tags: Ambiguous Relationships, Drabble Sequence, Magical Realism, the Japanese MV for Blood Sweat and Tears, in particular whatever is going on with Namjoon, Jungkook and that drink
Rating: T
Word count: 5 x 500

Summary: Namjoon smells different, like the deep green ocean instead the streets.

Author notes: Written for

dreamersdare for

fandomtrees. DD’s prompt was “Anything that draws on the Japanese MV for Blood, Sweat and Tears, in particular whatever is going on with Namjoon, Jungkook and that drink.” I regret to inform you; I am not so much answering the essay question as I am talking around it. You know, like, 'focuses on the details but presents no actual arguments'. Was fun to write though :D

Prima Materia on AO3

( Prima Materia )

***

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: the living room of the Devil Girl House

Entry tags:

girls' night in

Tacoma Girl came over to the Devil Girl house. Mental note: she likes Friday night KEXP more than Groove Salad on SomaFM; much local hip hop ensued. And unlike the poorer parts of Tacoma in the aughts, I can pick up KEXP over the air at my house just fine.

She actually apologized for drinking all my beer. "Nonsense," I said. "That's why I bought it." Indeed, I get Kolsch if she's coming. It's pretty good, but not my fave, and I'm not supposed to use it for making rarebit.

Did not overindulge, except in cheese popcorn.

Entry tags:

GenPrompt Bingo: A Moment of Clarity/Understanding

AO3 Link | Hunting Gone Wrong (1144 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars [2008] - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Suicide/Suicidal Ideation
Characters: CC-1119 | Appo, Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Suicidal Thoughts, Child Murder
Summary:

Appo is on a death world, hunting, but maybe he was the prey... and the wrong one at that.

Hunting Gone Wrong

They were being hunted, picked off one by one on this death world. Appo wasn't certain what he'd done to anger his Lord, but being sent to hunt a Force User had seemed easy enough on the data pad.

The reality was proving brutally different, and he was down to just two members of the original six that had followed him here to capture the rogue Force User for Lord Vader. Nor could he just comm for back up; the Exactor was pursuing the rag tag Rebels that had been in the system when they dropped.

Appo pulled up a map of the world, narrowing in on the fissure-laden landscape of this island. The Force User had taken out the other drop ship while they were in atmo before ditching from the ship and letting it crash. A small part of him decided it was rather fitting that they were all marooned, and Appo's chances of a pick up were a lot better than the Force User's.

TK-1138 let the world kill him, spooking at a noise and falling into one of the hissing fissures. Appo looked at the last surviving man of his squadron and ground his teeth inside his helmet. They might only be fleshborn, but he'd spent time fine-tuning the training that CC-2224 sent them out with.

They had to be the best to be 501st, after all. That had never stopped being true, from the before-times to now.

"Stay here, get the communication unit pieced together. Fleet should be back any time now."

"Yes sir."

Was the trooper relieved? Hoping Appo was the next victim? It didn't matter. Appo had to catch this karking —

The pain in his head came back, as that slip into his first language usually sparked it.

It was bad enough he held tight to his name.

He'd forgotten what it was like to hunt by himself. Even in his plastoid, it was easier to move and hide and track than when he was half-focused on keeping a squad alive.

He thought he was closing in on the Force User. He was fairly certain they were even injured. All he had to do was clear this climb, and he'd be close enough to be sure. Just a little more to climb —

— and a noise drew his eyes up, to see a face with white marks on bronze skin, blue and white marks on the horns and headtails alike, but eyes like his own staring holes into his soul.

The Jedi were traitors, manipulating the whole war, killing his brothers to cling to their power. The Chancellor said so, and he was their Supreme Commander. The General believed it. Appo followed orders, led the men up the stairs, and they started quartering the Temple, clearing out the traitors of all shapes and sizes.

It didn't matter that this one looked like the Commander. She'd been a traitor too. He brought his blaster up for a clean shot, waiting until she deflected two others to take his own.

He ignored the voice screaming in the back of his head that she had been just a kid.

Appo blinked at the bright light all around him, his concealing helmet (bucket, a piece of him remembered) gone, and him trussed him up as firmly as he'd meant to do to her once he caught the Force User.

She was tossing an EMP grenade in a hand, pacing in front of him.

Just as suddenly as she'd overcome him on the climb, she was there, kneeling in front of him.

"It would be more merciful to kill you," she said. "To you and to my father."

Clone dark eyes staring out of a face like hers.

"I don't feel like being merciful today." She clicked the detonator, and Appo's world disappeared for the second time in less than an hour, this time consumed by searing pain in his skull, the kind that came when he remembered the before times.

Vader's Fist.

Torrent Company.

Memories, like those of two different men, warred within him.

Torrent won.

He found himself retching up the nutripaste he'd been rationing himself since landfall. She at least tilted him with the Force so he didn't get it on himself.

Appo looked at her again, recognizing the hard jawline and set of the eyes as The Captain's trademark resolve. The lines of her marks might scream of the Commander, but he didn't think this one was going to try and make it all better like Commander Vod'ika had tried time and again, after the bad campaigns.

"So, when I take your binders off, I'm not going to stop you if you choose the easy way out," she said in a hard voice. "Didn't even know that kriffing monster still had any of you. Was supposed to be him I was facing down here."

"You… tried… to bait VADER?!" he asked, but of course a child of those two would be that brazen.

She didn't answer, just staring at him with unblinking anger at him for not being the right prey.

The easy way — he knew just what she meant, and as her features blurred with the earlier, rounder face of that child in the Temple, he thought he just might.

"You said your father," he managed to get out instead. "The Captain lives?"

"Somewhere out there. It's not like he and I could work together once I was old enough to go out on my own."

The binders fell away from him, and his gear was right there. A tiny piece of him suggested he go for his blaster, not to take the easy road, but to try and take her down, like he'd been told to.

Just like he'd been told to murder children. And atrocities that made that pale in comparison, ever since the day he followed his General into haran.

"What's the hard way?" he asked, and that got a blink, then a flex of the too-small lekku.

"I take you to a rehab specialist, away from the fighting, and you figure out if you can make peace with the man that chip made of you."

"Will he come there? Or her — kriff." The face and lekku had gone hard all over again on the pronoun. "She's gone?"

"It's why I joined up. He lived, when she didn't come back to us. And I'm not going to stop until he goes down."

"Small part of getting off this rock?"

"Got that covered." She turned to start walking down the easy side of the rise.

A few minutes later, he was following, with just the weapons and rations, hard as it was to leave the armor's protection behind.

She didn't say a word, and he kept following. Maybe, in her, in what she offered as the hard way, he'd find a way to his honor again.

Entry tags:

books received

Books Received, January 31 — February 6

With two books new to me, this just barely qualifies as books received. One SF, one fantasy and the SF novel is from a series.

Books Received, January 31 — February 6

Poll #34194 Books Received, January 31 — February 6

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 22

View Respondents

Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

A City Dreaming by Maurice Broaddus (June 2026)
8 (36.4%)

Lord of the Heights by Scarlett J. Thorne (July 2026
5 (22.7%)

Some other option (see comments)
1 (4.5%)

Cats!
18 (81.8%)

How is the effective temperature going to be even LOWER at noon than it is now!?

What witchcraft is this?

****************

( Read more... )

The Dreamer by Dulcie Deamer

The wave yearns at the cliff foot: its pale arms
Reach upward and relapse, like down-dropped hands;
The baffled tides slip backward evermore,
And a long sighing murmurs round the sands . . .

My heart is as the wave that lifts and falls:
Tall is the cliff—oh! tall as that dim star
That crowns its summit hidden in a cloud—
Tall as the dark and holy heavens are.

The sad strange wreckage of full many ships
Burdens the bitter waters’ ebb and flow:
Gold diadems, like slowly falling flames,
Lighten the restless emerald gulfs below;

And withered blossoms float, and silken webs,
And pallid faces framed in wide-spread hair,
And bubble-globes that seethe with peacock hues,
And jewelled hands, half-open, cold and fair.

Sea creatures move beneath: their swift sleek touch
Begets sweet madness and unworthy fire—
Scaled women—triton-things, whose dark seal eyes
Are hot and bloodshot with a man’s desire.

Their strange arms clasp: the sea-pulse in their veins
Beats like the surf of the immortal sea—
Strong, glad and soulless: elemental joys
Bathe with green flame the sinking soul of me.

Downward and down—to passionate purple looms,
Athrill with thought-free, blurred, insatiate life,
Where the slow-throbbing sea-flow sways like weed
Dim figures blended in an amorous strife—

I am enclasped, I sink; but the wave lifts,
With all its freight of treasure and of death,
In sullen foamless yearning towards the height
Where the star burns above the vapour-wreath;

And a deep sob goes up, and all the caves
Are filled with mourning and a sorrow-sound.
The green fire fades: I rise: I see the star—
Gone are the triton arms that clipped me round.

Hope beats like some lost bird against the cliff—
The granite cliff above the burdened wave,
Whose fleeting riches are more desolate
Than gems dust-mingled in a nameless grave . . .

When all the wordless thirsts of Time are slaked,
And all Earth’s yearning hungers sweetly fed,
And the Sea’s grief is stilled, and the Wind’s cry,
And Day and Night clasp on one glowing bed—

Oh! in that hour shall clay and flame be blent—
Love find its perfect lover, breast on breast—
When dream and dreamer at the last are one,
And joy is folded in the arms of jest.

****

multifandom icons.

Fandoms: Bad Behaviour, Heated Rivalry, Legend of the Seeker, Maxton Hall, Nancy Drew, One Trillion Dollars, Saved by the Bell, Shadow & Bone, Stranger Things, The Expanse, The Wheel of Time, Twinkling Watermelon, Warrior Nun, We Were Liars, What It Feels Like for a Girl, Y Golau

rest HERE @

mundodefieras

The Blue Pool revisited

Still raining. Will it ever stop? Probably. And even if it doesn't, the willows and the alder won't mind, and I suppose Spring will find a way, eventually. The daffodils in my garden are sulking. Not one flowering early. Even the little 'Tête-à-tête' daffs are saying "Nothing doing".

Paid a reduced price out-of-season visit to the Blue Pool, for old time's sake, but it was pretty grim. I should have stuck to my resolution never to visit again.

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

Interesting Links for 07-02-2026

1. Only 3% of people post toxic messages online. But they produce 1/3 of the messages.: (tags:discussion psychology harrassment )
2. Grima Wormtongue's links to Saruman the White 'didn't raise alarms' during vetting process: (tags:lotr politics uk satire )
3. Epstein Backed 'Billionaires' Dinner' Network of Prominent Anti-Trans Figures: (tags:LGBT transgender bigotry OhForFucksSake )

Entry tags:

Crossed #7

( You're about to view content that the poster has marked as potentially inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: busy

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Philosophical Questions: Pregnancy

People have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.

How would society change if men were able to get pregnant and men and women both had an equal chance of getting pregnant?

Abortion and birth control would be free and legal everywhere. Family leave would be generous. Childcare would be free. It would be a lot better all around.

Olympics

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Watched A Man on the Inside with Jenn

That's a pretty good show, although she ruined it by guessing all the plot twists.

( Teensy spoiler for second season )

*******************************

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Artificial Intelligence

"Is AI more important than climate?"

When the BBC recently asked Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai whether the build-out of AI is more important than climate, the question briefly cut through the hype that usually surrounds the AI boom. Pichai acknowledged that AI is dramatically increasing energy in ways current systems “can’t fully cope.”

Another way in which humanity is too stupid to stop sawing off the branch we're all standing on.

AI is not more important than the climate, it is just the latest threat to the climate. AI is a massive energy hog that we cannot afford at a time when we need to be cutting emissions as fast as possible. The most effective way to do that is to use less energy. AI is the opposite of helpful in this regard.

( Read more... )

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JLE/Scavengers Crossover: JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE #15-16 (JLI 54)

Keith Giffen, Gerard Jones, and Bart Sears do this whole storyline. Warning for OTT violence and nuclear apocalypse. Which, okay, is another kind of OTT violence.

The Silver Sorceress and Bluejay have blamed their world’s destruction on nuclear weapons. They neglected to mention the gang of badass villains who set those weapons off.

Five of those villains are still hanging around their dead world. When they lose their last living human prisoner, they’re on the verge of turning on each other. Lucky for them, that’s when the Silver Sorceress stumbles back into town. From her comings and goings, they know she’s found a new world for them to conquer.

( She tries telling them she just went on a coffee break, but they know that’s bullshit because they destroyed all the coffee shops too. So you see why they’re irritable. )

(no subject)

1. Ah, protest songs throughout the ages that are still relevant today and we've all been rediscovering out of..I don't want to say desperation?

This one was written in 1941 by Irving Berlin and it works just as well today for ahem, someone else (albeit someone who is basically the same guy - Berlin wrote about, just in the 21st Century).

"When that man is dead and gone" by Irving Berlin

Watch on YouTube

And here's When that Man is Dead and Gone as sung by Mildred Bailey in 1942.

"The world is hell for you and me, but what a heaven it will be when that man is dead and gone, we'll go dancing down the street and kissing everyone we meet...When that man is dead and gone, what a day to wake up upon, what a day to smile upon when a certain man is dead and gone."

It's kind of on the nose? But it made me happy listening to it five to six times. (Honestly, I'd like to go ONE day without hearing anything about that man, at all. I get emails about him. He's in the news. My Boss mentions him. Right now he's threatening to withdraw Federal funding if they don't put is name on Penn Station instead of the name Penn Station. Sigh. I really despise fascism.]

2. Started watching Buffy S7, Episode 16 (?) - Storyteller - it does NOT improve with age. ( Read more... )

3. It's going to be bitterly cold this weekend. Dropping into below 0 territory with wind chills. Which is kind of dangerous in NYC. NYC doesn't have the infrastructure for the lower temperatures. Lots of above ground trains. Homeless population. Ferries. Etc. Also, there's a lot of apartment complexes that don't have great heating.

I'm fine. Although...I'm very happy that I cancelled my hair appointment on Saturday morning - and rescheduled it for President's Day (it's supposed to be warmer on that day.)