(no subject)

Feb. 21st, 2026 08:14 pm
shadaras: A phoenix with wings fully outspread, holidng a rose and an arrow in its talons. (Default)
[personal profile] shadaras
1.
I'm far enough from the coast that the blizzard spinning up to hit the Northeastern USA tomorrow/monday is ~only~ going to be a major storm, but still, man. Forecast of another foot of snow when not all the snow from the last big storm has been cleared? And this time wet snow and wind? It isn't going to be fun! I don't expect a power outage but it sure is a possibility, and I expect work to be cancelled on Monday because of this. (I wistfully hope for Tuesday as well but it doesn't seem likely in this industry; so long as the roads are clear-ish and the parking lot and site are plowed enough to get in, it'll be open.)


2.
Went to the other local dojo (not mine, but our cousin dojo; they're about the same distance from where I live now, but that was not always the case) this past Thursday out of "I have Energy right now and also god I miss people and the practice." Absolutely delighted all of them by showing up, and when I was like "yeah Thursday evening fits my schedule better right now" they were all "soooo you're gonna keep coming then?"

And, well, yeah. I will! I like those people! Also I'm going to be taking nidan in a few months and I should be taking class once a week at least in the lead-up to that, just to keep the practice in my body even if it isn't practice dedicated to that test. The sensei there will kindly give me some opportunities to practice with an eye towards the test, especially since his own yudansha like training with me, but it isn't something he needs to do. Neither is the yundansha offering to stick around after class to do specific training with me; that's out of the kindness of their hearts and friendship, and it is truly lovely.


3.
Sometimes I think about what "being good at X" means to me and then sigh about how yeah okay I am generally comparing myself to people who I personally perceive as being "good at X", which tends to mean "better than I am", which means that it is going to be a skewed perspective.

This brought to you by thoughts about cooking. xD.

Thought A: going "...wait if you're asking about salt because you normally salt your rice, please eat some before you do because I salt the rice water (a thing I hadn't realised you don't remember to do)" at a friend last night.

Thought B: ...yeah okay the ability to eyeball pancake ingredients and their ratios and make proper pancakes without needing to keep adding more wet/dry ingredients is a learned skill and speaks to Knowing Things About Cooking. (didn't add enough leavening agent but also I do not actually care if I eat flat pancakes xD they don't need to be fluffy so long as they're Good Flavor.)

Thought C: my belief that if I cook something I will like the thing I cooked even if I was going "idk this is probably a good combination of flavors/stuff" rather than following a recipe, and that the main thing keeping me from being better at cooking is "having more kitchen gadgets" and "bothering to look up recipes to follow instructions" and not "an inability to pull that off", is not a mindset that a lot of people have? I think? Which seems odd to me but I do just Like Cooking, even if it isn't a Major Hobby the way it is for some folk I know.


4.
I spent like all of Tuesday dead of migraine and didn't feel human until maaaaybe Wednesday evening but realistically Thursday morning when I woke up and was like "oh wow I was Out Of It". I am dearly hoping that this nor'easter blizzard isn't going to lead to something similar, but, well. It's the sort of thing that likely will anyway.


5.
Relatedly, I have not written much this past week because of brain being melty and also Doing Things With People. Weird.

But people are good, and I like hanging out with them once I get myself to actually Do That. Initiation/activation energy is the harder part than socialising, and I usually remember this consciously but that doesn't make it easier to apply that knowledge consistently.


6.
[personal profile] hafnia started running the short-form airship heist Eberron campaign I've been hyped about for like six months. xD Finally got to play my Warforged Cleric last weekend! And started getting a sense of the Eberron as it's interpreted for this campaign world, which also means starting to have feelings about what I want to do for the long-form campaign that'll happen after. (Half-Elf, wings, Mark of Detection. Normal stuff! Probably a soulknife rogue or a circle of the moon druid, possibly a bard of some sort; depends on LORE and also if I can bear to part from skillmonkey nonsense.)

The Warforged Cleric is a fun character, though, and it's always a joy to start playing a character and see them start turning into a Person rather than a Vague Concept. I hear that some people can plan things more? But nah, I write a sketch of backstory and a few prominent character traits and the rest can develop through play and interaction.

Conduit (it/its) is a Cleric who, like pretty much all Warforged, served in the Last War. Since the war ended, it and its squadmates have been building a Warforged enclave/outpost in the lower reaches of Sharn, and have recently been going "wait fuck there are organics who want to live here too because we've made a safe place" and realising that this requires More Money than they have. So Conduit, as one of the community leaders and someone oriented towards healing/caretaking anyway, is very willing to take a moderately sketchy job stealing an airship when it's offered.

This surely will not have Consequences!

The next session (for my group; this is being run for a few different sets of players) is tomorrow, in a feat of "wow everyone has two weeks in a row free?" that is rarely managed xD The Consequences will begin coming to roost then, I'm sure, and force all of the PCs (who have no particular attachment to each other) to interact more and give a shit about something other than the coin and their personal lives.


7.
In utterly unrelated fannish things, I am excited for the Witch Hat Atelier anime! It has a full trailer and an air-date now! It is making me want to reread the manga, especially since I think I'd have an even better time with it going in with expectations of "slow-burn story about insular mage cults" rather than "cute slice-of-life mentorship story". (It is both of these things. I like both of these things. Only hearing about the latter when the former begins taking a greater share of the plot is a very ??? thing to experience when one binge-reads manga.)

anyway here's the trailer!

Friday Five: Random Edition

Feb. 21st, 2026 05:08 pm
ofearthandstars: A single tree underneath the stars (Default)
[personal profile] ofearthandstars
From this week's [community profile] thefridayfive:

When did you last...

1. Scrounge for change (couch, ashtray, etc.) to make a purchase?
Hmm, good question, and I'm not sure I could give a definitive answer. I often rely on my card to make purchases, and have a little pocket on the back of my phone case where I keep it and my license, so I don't have to carry other things around. So I rarely ever have cash, much less change, unless I'm making a day of things and take my shoulder bag. The shoulder bag is where loose change and gift cards go to die and then wait for their messiah (and I am not a very good one.)

2. Visit a dentist?
I went to the periodontist just last week for a check-up. And I go again for a cleaning in a few weeks. I actually like the dentist/periodontist because you sit back and let someone else take care of you for a bit.

3. Make a needed change to your life?
I broke a pattern on June 6, 2025, just as I did on June 6, 2006, but there's still work to be done there.

4. Decide on a complete menu well in advance of the evening meal?
We meal plan every week on Sunday, then buy our groceries and hopefully (fingers crossed) do not need to leave the house again for food stuffs until the following week.

5. Spend part of the day (other than daily hygiene) totally/mostly naked?
This feels like it should have a spicier answer, but I can't remember doing this for any part of my adult years. I have always been self-conscious and am also cold-natured, so I'm usually clothed in some way.

Book Bingo: February 2026

Feb. 21st, 2026 04:29 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: books (books)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
I am doing the book bingo set up by [personal profile] kingstoken. More information here: https://kingstoken.dreamwidth.org/122578.html



I'm attempting to fill each square with a different author so only 4 squares at the moment.

B-3: Figures Without Facial Features on the Cover: A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin. The next-to-final book in the Inspector Rebus mystery series. Rebus is a Scottish detective with every single cop stereotype present. The plot starts off with a domestic violence case involving a cop and leads to police corruption and, in the end, Rebus attempting to murder his archnemesis crime boss.
B-4: Pet/Animal Companion: And to All a Good Bite by David Rosenfelt. This is in the Andy Carpenter mystery series. He's a defense lawyer who also runs a dog shelter in Patterson, New Jersey. The plot involves a case, a client falsely accused of a crime, and art forgery and a dog named Rebus. Full of quirky characters. Audiobook narrated by Grover Gardener.
G-2: Author You've Never Read Before: The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. In the romantasy genre. A sheltered librarian has to flee a capital city in revolution with contraband spell books. She flees with a sentient, talking plant to her home island. Audiobook narrated by Caitlin Davis
O-5: Job/Profession in the Title: The Secret Hangman by Peter Lovesey. This is a Peter Diamond mystery, a police detective in Bath (UK). The case involves couples being hanged. Diamond is a widower who starts dating again. Audiobook narrated by Simon Prebble.

*resurfaces*

Feb. 21st, 2026 01:37 pm
hindsightseeing: ([OUAT] Birthday Brooding)
[personal profile] hindsightseeing
Belated thanks for the birthday wishes -- they were very much appreciated!

Finished editing the WIP o'Doom (and nearly a full week ahead of schedule!), so will hopefully be a little less AWOL for... well, until the next ill-advised fic idea hits, I suppose.

For now, though: that educational meme that's been going around recently.

Cut for Questions! )
sonia: Quilted wall-hanging (Default)
[personal profile] sonia
Your phone edits all your photos with AI - is it changing your view of reality? by Thomas Germain. "From simple enhancements to hallucinated facial features, modern phones choose how our memories will look."

No. You can't tell it was written by AI by Segun Famisa.
In this essay, I will argue that, your favourite “tells” that a document was produced by AI, at best, is wrong, and depending on your position, in life, at worst, is dangerous and harmful.[...]
So who trained [AI]? A lot of the early training, data annotations and other manual processes, happened with cheap labour in African countries. There are multiple sources that have revealed the hidden economy of workers that big-tech outsources these kinds of tasks to African countries with unstable political situations, weaker workers rights, and cheap labour.


Curious about how LLM's actually work? So What's The Next Word Then? by Matthias Kainer does a good job of explaining it, with diagrams. Via Martin Fowler's blog.

Acting ethically in an imperfect world by Jürgen Geuter describes and addresses Cory Doctorow's defensiveness about using LLMs.
I appreciate a lot of work Cory Doctorow has done in the last decades. But the arguments he presents here to defend his usage of LLMs for this rather trivial task (which TBH could probably be done reasonably well with traditional means) are part of why the Internet – and therefore the world – looks like it does right now. It’s a set of arguments that wants to delegitimize political and moral actions based on libertarian and utilitarian thinking.


GenAI has an Alignment Problem by Richard George.
But the mundane reality is much simpler: LLMs fail to effectively solve the problems we have, while creating a vast new class of problems to be solved. They are, ultimately, completely mis-aligned with our needs, and incompatible with the society we live in.



Relatedly, why AI isn't actually helping software companies. Dax Raad just dropped the most honest take on AI productivity written up by JP Caparas.
everyone's talking about their teams like they were at the peak of efficiency and bottlenecked by ability to produce code
here's what things actually look like:
- your org rarely has good ideas. ideas being expensive to implement was actually helping
- majority of workers have no reason to be super motivated, they want to do their 9-5 and get back to their life
- they're not using AI to be 10x more effective they're using it to churn out their tasks with less energy spend
- the 2 people on your team that actually tried are now flattened by the slop code everyone is producing, they will quit soon
- even when you produce work faster you're still bottlenecked by bureaucracy and the dozen other realities of shipping something real
- your CFO is like what do you mean each engineer now costs $2000 extra per month in LLM bills"


The only developer productivity metrics that matter by John SJ Anderson.

1. How often does the team routinely ship new versions of the software they build?
2. How often do things break when the team ships a new version?


Giving University Exams in the Age of Chatbots by Lionel Dricot.

A programmer's loss of identity by Dave Gauer.
The social group I still identify with shares my values. We value learning. We value the merits of language design, type systems, software maintenance, levels of abstraction, and yeah, if I’m honest, minute syntactical differences, the color of the bike shed, and the best way to get that perfectly smooth shave on a yak. I’m not sure what we’re called now, "heirloom programmers"?
"Acoustic" programmers (like guitars)? "Thought-powered" programmers (like gas-powered cars)? I'm not ready to be an heirloom yet!

AI Data Centers: Power-Hungry, Water-Thirsty, and Rare-Earth Reliant by Daniel.

started enjoying reading lately

Feb. 21st, 2026 09:44 am
michifugu: Utena sweat (Mahoako - Hiiragi Utena)
[personal profile] michifugu

Lately I've been buying books!
A lot of books, i guess. i don't know why i suddenly started enjoying reading, but it's a good thing since now i have a better hobby instead of doomscrolling.

Although i did say i wanted to try reading to help me focus and stop doomscrolling, it was hard at first because my mental health has been kind of in shambles. but taking my meds does help me stay focused and less distracted.

Anyway, i don't think i'll read anything too crazy for now. i've just been buying a lot of english classic books and works by classic authors to get started.

i'm also planning to get more non-fiction books to diversify my reading.

Music: Joyful song on skates

Feb. 20th, 2026 03:24 pm
sonia: Quilted wall-hanging (Default)
[personal profile] sonia
Bend Your Knees (for NPR's Tiny Desk contest) live at Southgate Roller Rink - Henry Mansfield

Somehow it's the drummer who impressed me the most. Which instrument do you think would be the hardest to play on skates?

Jazz by Toni Morrison (1992)

Feb. 20th, 2026 05:08 pm
pauraque: drawing of a wolf reading a book with a coffee cup (customer service wolf)
[personal profile] pauraque
Opening in the days of the Harlem Renaissance, the first page of this novel states the culmination of its story: A door-to-door cosmetics salesman shot his eighteen-year-old mistress, and then the salesman's wife crashed the funeral to try to stab the girl's corpse. Why? The reader wants to know, and so do many of the characters. The book offers answers only indirectly, taking a sprawling path into the characters' pasts, where their families came from, and the intergenerational trauma of the slavery era that's still in living memory at this time.

The prose style of this book really worked for me and did a lot of the heavy lifting of drawing me into the story. It's lyrical and artistic without ever sacrificing readability. If there's a bit you don't understand, you will understand it in time, but first we have to go back to the beginning of another character's story and circle back around to connect to the main plot—and it does always connect. I think this is the meaning of the title; the book is not about jazz music, but it has the shape of jazz in the way it can state a melody, wander off and explore for a while until you've almost forgotten what song it is, and then return very satisfyingly before passing it off to another player in the ensemble.

I found this book in a free box and then it sat on my shelf for years (shout-out to [personal profile] lebateleur, my read-books-we-already-own accountability buddy!). It has a lot of underlining, highlighting, and marginal notes from whoever had it before, pointing out themes of dehumanization, rehumanization, and the necessity of deep context for understanding. They underlined "Something else you have to figure in before you figure it out" and also wrote it in pen on the title page. On multiple pages they wrote "Jazzonia" in the margin, by which I assume they meant the Langston Hughes poem.
Jazzonia (1926)

Oh, silver tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

In a Harlem cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
Lifts high a dress of silken gold.

Oh, singing tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

Were Eve’s eyes
In the first garden
Just a bit too bold?
Was Cleopatra gorgeous
In a gown of gold?

Oh, shining tree!
Oh, silver rivers of the soul!

In a whirling cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
biteshelter: Drawing of a white cat with a bow tie (Default)
[personal profile] biteshelter

As someone adjacent to IndieWeb and FOSS circles, I see discussions of tech adoption in my feeds often.

There are two arguments (or categories of argument) I’ve started collecting notes on because of how often I notice them. This is my attempt to process those notes. I’m curious to know what thoughts other people have on these ideas.

The first argument says that people naturally want to personalize tools that are part of their daily lives, and thus “healthy” personal computer usage includes using software and services that enable choice. The other argument says that people only use computers because they have to, so the tool’s effect on their lives should be minimized and thus streamlined as much as possible. That means avoiding customization and setting clear expectations for how software should be used.

The question this raises for me is: What does it mean for a computer to be personal right now? That is, what does a computer look like when it’s fit for the purpose of belonging to someone?

Read more... )

[community profile] thefridayfive

Feb. 20th, 2026 05:57 am
grimmrow: <lj user="phantastu"> (Default)
[personal profile] grimmrow
When did you last . . .

1. Scrounge for change (couch, ashtray, etc.) to make a purchase?: It's been years since i"ve done this. I mostly just use my debit card now. I rarely withdrawl cash.

2. Visit a dentist?: It's been a couple years. I need to visit one.

3. Make a needed change to your life?: I want to walk again, but it's going to take a few months until I'm rid of someone.

4. Decide on a complete menu well in advance of the evening meal?: I do that all the time. I have a menu sitting beside me right now.

5. Spend part of the day (other than daily hygiene) totally/mostly naked?: Yesterday and tonight. lol

WIP Wednesday on a Thursday!

Feb. 19th, 2026 11:16 pm
kittkestra: a closeup of a kestrel (Default)
[personal profile] kittkestra
Alas, still no real progress to report.

However, I at least felt *excited* to write today! Unfortunately that excitement came while I was at work, did not really last after getting home, and also still has not come along with much inspiration to work on any particular project. Even so, it's better than nothing, and better than I've felt for about a month, now.

I think a lot of what I'm excited for is more... the desire to be excited. I want the overwhelming enthusiasm and inspiration that seemed to come easily when I was younger. The ideas that really did seem to come from an endless supply, and enthusiasm that meant those ideas occupied my thoughts nearly constantly. Sometimes it was only a burst of a day or two, sometimes it was the same story for months or even into years. It's been about... 10-15 years now since I last really remember having that sort of "live, breathe, sleep the story" feeling, and I still long for it. At this point, I think it's perhaps something I've outgrown, rather than simply an ebb in my creativity.

There's a pull to go back to one of my fanfics, one that was once a source of that exact feeling a long time ago. There's also a pull to try to find that sort of obsession for an original work.

Even if I can't capture that kind of excitement, just the desire to feel that way is a welcome change from the last several weeks, where I've struggled to even care about writing. I haven't turned it into actual writing yet, but I hope that I'm able to before too long.

(Sadly, in addition to recovering from emergency surgery, I'm also dealing with a fairly nasty lingering cold. I already overdid it a few times and I think set the recovery back a bit; I'm trying to truly take it easy for a little while longer, because that seems to be the thing that's helped the most... even when I feel like I'm wasting time.)

Miss you, Mark

Feb. 19th, 2026 10:11 pm
mistressofmuses: Image of nebulae in the colors of the bi pride flag: pink, purple, and blue (Default)
[personal profile] mistressofmuses


The one good thing about not being able to go on the trip with Taylor and mom was that it meant I was in town for Mark's memorial.

It was organized at one of the main goth clubs, for a couple hours before the club night itself.

There was an amazing turnout - so, so many people came out. While many are people we don't personally know, many of them are people I recognize from "back in the day," when we were out at the clubs three+ nights a week.

They set up a table with all of the merch he had left. Mostly Voicecoil, but a little bit of Gravity Corps and even some Synapse stuff. It was all "pay what you want, please just take it." We chipped in some money for the fund for his roommate, and took some shirts and stickers and things.

There was a slideshow of all the pictures of him that people had shared. They had a mic set up so that people could go up and share stories about him. Lots of people did. So many about what a colossal asshole he could be—and was, lol—but also how despite that, he was also very kind and inspirational and supportive to so many people. So many people had stories about the times they saw him when the performance was off, or at least turned down. We concluded basically every story with a hearty shared "FUCK YOU, MARK SOUSA!" toast.

(I cried. Several times.)

I think he would have loved it.

And there were plenty of jokes about how much he absolutely would have loved having so many people gathering together to focus on him. And so many people did! But it breaks my heart that he maybe didn't know how important he was to so many people.

PJ, his partner of 16 years (though they had broken up), gave us the bust of him in the picture above. She thanked us for always being such strong supporters of all of his projects, and good friends to him. Another of his friends had designed and printed the little busts. It's also how Mark would want to be remembered, ha.

I miss him, and am still having a hard time fully believing that he's gone.

The festival coming up in May replaced Voicecoil on their lineup poster, though they'll also have a memorial for him at the event. That hit me hard. As delighted as I of course was for the headliners at the festival, getting to see him as one of the openers was one of the many things I was so looking forward to. It's hard to realize that... there aren't any more Voicecoil shows. I'm so glad for all the ones we went to, all the times we did hang out with Mark at the club or at his house or after a show... but I really wish there was another. And another. And another after that. I still don't feel ready to think of the last show as the last one.

(no subject)

Feb. 19th, 2026 07:20 pm
thedarlingone: black cat in front of full moon in dark blue sky (Default)
[personal profile] thedarlingone
[community profile] fic_rush is open! For the next 72 hours, please join us anytime at [community profile] fic_rush_48 and comment on the latest hourly post about your projects, progress, lack of progress, research, "research"... It's been a pretty quiet place lately but we're always happy to see new people!
michifugu: Hinako blush (Kitakawa - Hanamura Hinako)
[personal profile] michifugu


Ok guys, it’s been a while since my last media overview thread back in December. After being busy with some IRL stuff, I’m finally able to write my 2026 media overview!

I’ve been engaging with a ton of different media lately, so let’s get into it. Also, sorry in advance if I don’t include images — I’m honestly too lazy lol.


Read more... )

 



stonepicnicking_okapi: heart shaped tree (hearttree)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
Come Let Us Be Friends by Sarah Lee Brown Fleming
Come, let us be friends, you and I,
E’en though the world doth hate at this hour;
Let’s bask in the sunlight of a love so high
That war cannot dim it with all its armed power.

Come, let us be friends, you and I,
The world hath her surplus of hatred today;
She needeth more love, see, she droops with a sigh,
Where her axis doth slant in the sky far away.

Come, let us be friends, you and I,
And love each other so deep and so well,
That the world may grow steady and forward fly,
Lest she wander towards chaos and drop into hell.

To a Friend who sent me some Roses by John Keats
As late I rambled in the happy fields,
What time the sky-lark shakes the tremulous dew
From his lush clover covert;—when anew
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields:
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,
A fresh-blown musk-rose; ’twas the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew
As is the wand that queen Titania wields.
And, as I feasted on its fragrance,
I thought the garden-rose it far excell’d:
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me
My sense with their deliciousness was spell’d:
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea
Whisper’d of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquell’d.
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