kaberett | Reading

I've been mostly out of 2300AD gaming for a good while, concentrating on writing, so I've only just realised a roleplaying article I wrote years ago for the Etranger 2300AD site turned up in issue 7 of the Colonial Times fanzine on Drivethrurpg under some else's name (Krijn Mout - never heard of him). The arrogant sod does credit me for 'support', but it's overwhelmingly my text. (Actually crediting me helps establish the copyright violation, so is an act of stupidity).

It's a freebie fanzine, so they haven't made anything from it, but I'm not having my work out there under someone else's name and it's doubly a problem as the bookending fiction text is a character I've always meant to return to and I need to establish that I'm not plagiarizing them if I do so.

DrivethruRPG can expect a rocket from me shortly in the form of a DMCA takedown notice.

(And it's doubly annoying as I was looking forward to reading the article!! Hang on, this sounds familiar...)

Current Mood: infuriated
Current Location: In good company

ludy

Because i'm in my 40's i keep having conversations about how things i think of as fairly recent actually happened 20 odd years ago.
I'm sure every generation has their own version of this.
But what made me really gasp was Dad telling me that the first time he flew (he went to Germany to work on a Community Project between A-levels and University) it was in a propeller plane...

Current Mood: bemused

lunabee34

( Poetry Prompt Table )

white_hart

I'm fairly sure that it shouldn't be warm enough in February to go out for a lunchtime walk without a coat on, even for someone like me who tends to shed layers rapidly after 10-15 minutes of brisk walking at any time, but I'm so delighted to have some sunshine and warmth, and it does my mental health so much good, that I almost don't mind.

I am very fortunate to work very close to the University Parks; a basic circuit of the Parks from my office is just under two miles, which is about as much of a walk as can reasonably be fitted into a lunch break. Occasionally, for a change, I go exploring into Mesoptamia (yes, it's really called that; a path between two branches of the Cherwell. Oxford is nothing if not deeply pretentious) and this week I tried crossing the bridge in the Parks and discovered a circuit on the other side of the river, out to the sports grounds and back via the Marston cycle path. Everything has been looking particularly lovely in the sunny weather, and there are snowdrops and crocuses and all the winter-flowering cherries have been coming into blossom.

A selection of the pictures I've been taking this week*:

And even though it's really still February, and only the end of week 6 of term, which means that I'm exhausted and still have two weeks of term to slog through and approximately fifteen million things to get done in them, when I came back from my walk yesterday I felt full of sunshiney joy and actually, properly happy, which is a complete turn-around from a couple of weeks ago when it felt like it had been overcast for ever and I was sunk so deep in gloom it felt like I might never climb out again.

*I tend to post pictures to @sadie_whitehart on instagram as I take them, mirrored to @white_hart on Twitter, if you want to see more of them and don't already follow me on those.

ludy

Yesterday i went to see a bunch of lovely people to celebrate the very lovely

skibbley's birthday.

But unfortunately the last minute venue has a nightmare of (very) loud music, wierd lighting and poor signage.
Does anyone have any recommendations for sensorily friendly places to hang out?
(This was London but it would be useful to know about options in other places too)

Current Mood: drained

conuly

I've checked the dishrack three times! Everything else to the blender was in there, so where is it?

***

( Read more... )

brainwane

I wrote a blog post -- "Tropes, and Missing Stories, in Art about Programming" -- about the stories we tell & don't, and what I'd love to see and hear at The Art of Python and at !!Con.

You have 5 more days to propose to The Art of Python & till March 3rd for !!Con!

[I keep remembering stuff I didn't add in that writeup (I wanted to just hit Post instead of dawdling endlessly), like Vienna Teng's "Aims" album, the bit in "Amends, or, Truth and Reconciliation" about the magical war crimes database, Vernor Vinge and Neal Stephenson and and and. Feel free to add a comment to this issue asking for prior art you've loved!]

Completely separately, I wish to signal-boost an excellent idea for a card game, from the dreams of

alias_sqbr!

lhune posting in

3_good_things_a_day

1) Sunshine!

2) Coffee.

3) Birds are chirruping happily, making me smile ^___^

epod_feed

https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2019/02/encore-waterspouts-over-the-adriatic-sea.html

Today and every Saturday Earth Science Picture of the Day invites you to rediscover favorites from the past. Saturday posts feature an EPOD that was chosen by viewers like you in our monthly Viewers' Choice polls. Join us as we look back at these intriguing and captivating images.

Photographer: Roberto Giudici

Summary Authors: Roberto Giudici; Jim Foster

The photo above shows an eye-popping complex of waterspouts I observed over the Adriatic Sea on a boat trip to Brindisi, Italy. As we departed, the weather was very summer like -- some humidity, hot and sunny. Cumuliform clouds developed during our excursion, but the weather didn't appear threatening. In fact, the atmospheric pressure was stable at 1024 millibars. Suddenly, we saw a line of funnel clouds straight in front of our boat! The photo shows the most recently formed waterspout in the foreground; the oldest spout, in the background, would disappear in a few seconds. Our boat actually passed through the scary funnels. The spouts were spaced about 1/3 nautical mile from each other. I asked the boat's captain if he thought cruising past the spouts would be dangerous, but apparently, he wasn't bothered much by their proximity. Nevertheless, waterspouts can generate winds of over 70 mph (F0 on the enhanced Fujita Scale) and can be hazardous to boaters. Othoni Island is at left center. Photo taken on July 23, 1999.

[2/19] 7/22/2013

https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2019/02/encore-waterspouts-over-the-adriatic-sea.html

steorra

There's a measles outbreak here.

I know I don't have a full set of vaccinations, because my mom was kind of antivax. I have vague memories of getting some shots, but which ones?

Years ago, when I did a summer program at the University of Chicago, I had to meet their vaccination requirements. My dad found my old records from when I was a baby in England and sent them to me.

My English records show that I got three rounds of DPT + oral polio vaccine in my first year (the third one was on my first birthday, apparently).

There's a confusing line entry with some corrections and crossing-out - it looks like an entry for me getting MMR around the age of 3 was made, but then crossed out.

When I was about two and a half, we moved back to Canada - first Ontario, then when I was around 5 we moved to BC. I don't have any records of what shots I got during that time, but that must be the time period that my memories of shots are from.

I remember I got a tetanus shot when I was about 12.

I know I had to get some shot(s?) to meet the University of Chicago requirements. Looking them up, I suspect it's MMR I had to get, because my English records show that I had met the DPT requirement. I should probably have a record of that but I suspect I don't.

[EDIT: No, I don't think I had met the DPT requirement after all. A look at the immunization form says that "One dose must have been given within 10 years of first day of the quarter you start at the University of Chicago". And that fits with my memory that I got a tetanus-related shot before going to the University of Chicago.]

I should probably look into getting an MMR shot to make sure...
And seeing what else I need to do to get properly up-to-date. But especially the MMR since measles is going around.

alexseanchai

pumpkin spice and everything nice (versus isovaleric acid) (981 words) by AlexSeanchai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Characters: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir
Additional Tags: Based on a Tumblr Post, Kwami Swap, Stormy Weather 2 Is Not Canon
Summary:

Ladybug doesn't believe Chat Noir's gym-socks-and-buttered-popcorn aroma is the result of Plagg's Camembert obsession. And she knows she smells sweet, but she also knows she lives, uh, near a bakery; it's nothing to do with Tikki at all.

...Well, it's probably going to be a strategic benefit if they know how to handle each other's powers, right?

The next morning at school, now...

yhlee

Thanks again to

eller for the markers, which have given me the gift of paying more attention to values! XD

Today's Starfinder session was very productive for drawing! I have been playing with the idea of doing a small hexarchate art zine so I figured why not take a stab at some art.

Calendrical rot.

I have to thank (a) The Non-Designer's Design Book (especially the material on alignment) and (b) Jay Edidin for helping me think about ways to incorporate text into art. Jay pointed out to me (when I admired his hand lettering, which is amazing) that since I draw, hand lettering is basically drawing letterforms. Which sounds really obvious put that way but I hadn't thought of it!

This second one I penciled during the game session and finished inking at home:

Captain Kel Cheris: The war never ends.

For lagniappe, here are some sketches of

telophase's cat Nefer. Drawing her was an interesting challenge because the only cat I draw regularly is Cloud, who is quite differently proportioned. Cloud has a large-ish wedge-shaped head and a short tail with a kink in the end (probably from an injury, the vet tells us), while Nefer has a small head, a long body, and a longer tail proportionally.

Plus assorted other sketches (man) behind cut: ( Read more... )

Current Mood: artistic

archangelbeth

Now I have to feed my dragons and get ready for bed.

Havva Quote
If they don't get those Klingons off us, this is going to be a real short trip!
--a Terran Empire captain, being sent back to their own time.

( INwatch+Bookwatch )

Crossposts: https://archangelbeth.livejournal.com/2095056.html

wohali

The co-leader of one of my gaming communities has vanished.

She is usually OBSESSIVE about logging into the game we play daily. Even when she occasionally lost the ability to log in to the game, she still connects to Discord to talk with us via her phone.

It's been 10 days since she's been seen online, and we fear the worst.

We know her first name, the town in which she lives (Westford, MA), the name of her last employer, and that's it.

We've asked the game company if they'll consider asking the police to do a wellness check, but no response yet. (Not that I like bringing the police into anything, but sometimes you have no choice). This way we don't need to know her PII, and the company that already does can do it on our behalf. (She and I are both friends with the game company's head of development.)

Another option is to have someone in the guild who has met her in person call the MA police themselves and have them follow up at her last place of employment to get her last name, then do the wellness check.

We're not sure what else to do. Suggestions welcome.

ETA: Our worst fears have been confirmed; she passed away on Feb 14. :(

Current Mood: worried

buttonsbeadslace

(that I was talking about before)

Here's an article about an attempted mass shooting and my two cents about it.

yuuago posting in

poetry

In the sea are lobsters, long in body as two tall men,
alive one hundred years. And a church bell meant for an island,

never steeple-rung, sunk with the Genevieve and all hands.
No one asks what I believe. And I would not say very loudly:

I believe in ice, in ice only. It's true,
there is no kind of original earthworm in this country,

all were ice-killed. The old glaciers,
million-ton frontal planes culling millennial topsoil.

Do twelve-foot lobsters seem not as improbable as gods?
Feelers in lengthy syncopation, eyes

deep occupied manholes.
Here one can live at any dark system's edge -

underwater canyons, sewers, storms, stars-
know little about, and die of it, being old.

Terminal winter, our skulls painted with coal dust.
A bell blessed in the ship's punched hull, plunging down.

armaina

I have this love-hate relationship with Twitter

First of all I'm gonna say it's fantastic for business. I get my work spread across a lot of different eyes and I've had just a lot more visibility on Twitter than I've ever had on tumblr. (it also helps that Twitter DMs actually work.) As it stands, most of my business comes through Twitter. But geeze, is Twitter just an awful noise generator. For me at least.

Having TweetDeck open at all is more distracting than I gave it credit for, draws my attention away worse than discord and is more difficult to keep up with. Ever since removing reblogs from my timelines on TweetDeck, it sure has helped a lot but it still doesn't change the Constant Noise factor of Twitter. It's worth noting that I currently follow over 500 accounts, and even if you figure even half of those are active that's still a lot of people.

For the record, I felt similarly about Tumblr, but the difference between the two is that Twitter's feed is constantly moving no matter what I do, and Tumblr I could just.. stop paging and it wouldn't just keep refreshing so it makes for a different experience. I can't have TweetDeck open to keep an eye on my DMs for business purposes without all that other background noise. At this point, I may have to make my phone give me push notifications just for DMs so that I don't have to have TweetDeck open so often.

The worst part to me though is with extended use of Twitter comes people's need to apparently make infinitely threaded posts going on 20+ While I wish people would just use a blog, it's times like that I miss people's use of TwitLonger. At least I could read the whole dang thing in one post and not have to worry about losing my place in a long thread that has no business being on a microblogging site. People use this to argue that Twitter should increase it's character count again (which is why Mastodon has grown in popularity) but at that point, why bother using a microblogging service.

Anywho, I have no intention to influence or change what service people use or how they prefer to use it, not my business or goal. But I can gripe about it :U and use the service a whole lot less.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: The Knife - Like a Pen
Crossposts: https://armaina.livejournal.com/642409.html

samuraiter posting in

fic_promptly

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

languagelog_feed

Posted by Ben Zimmer

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=41943

Back in 2010, I went in search of the earliest examples of cartoon cursing characters — those playful typographical symbols that have been called "grawlixes" (a term coined by "Beetle Bailey" creator Mort Walker) but which I prefer calling "obscenicons." I detailed my quest in two Language Log posts: "Obscenicons a century ago" and "More on the early days of obscenicons." (The posts were later adapted for Slate's Lexicon Valley blog: "How Did @#$%&! Come to Represent Profanity?") I was able to find comic strips with obscenicons in them going all the way back to Dec. 14, 1902 in Rudolph Dirks' pioneering comic strip "The Katzenjammer Kids," followed shortly thereafter by Gene Carr's "Lady Bountiful" strip starting in Feb. 1903.

I was pleased to learn that my obscenicon posts inspired Phil Edwards of Vox to do his own searching on newspaper databases, and the results can be seen in an entertaining new video, "How #$@!% became shorthand for cursing." Turns out obscenicons can be pushed back even further, to 1901.

"" (Watch on YouTube)

I had assumed that Rudolph Dirks was the first to use obscenicons in "The Katzenjammer Kids," since as the Vox video describes, he was responsible for many early comic-strip innovations, like the consistent use of speech balloons. But when it comes to obscenicons, he may have been beaten to the punch by his colleague Gene Carr, as he was developing the character of Lady Bountiful — described by the Lambiek Comiclopedia as "a rich, well-mannered woman who used her wealth to help and adopt poor street children" (modeled after a character of the same name in George Farquhar's 1707 play, The Beaux' Stratagem).

Phil Edwards used Newspapers.com to look through the archives of the San Francisco Examiner, a Hearst-owned newspaper that ran comic strips by both Dirks and Carr. (Pulitzer hired off Carr in 1903 to work for the New York World, the main rival of Hearst's New York Journal.) He discovered the following "Lady Bountiful" strip, published in the Examiner on Nov. 1, 1901.

Here's the panel with obscenicons:

Following Phil's lead, I skimmed through slightly earlier "Lady Bountiful" strips in the Examiner and found this one from Oct. 19, 1901.

In this panel, we can see a proto-obscenicon — just a single starburst followed by an exclamation point.

This strip appeared about two weeks after "Lady Bountiful" was introduced in Hearst papers on Oct. 2, 1901, so it's unlikely that there are any earlier examples to be found in Carr's work. It may still be possible to find Dirks using obscenicons — or proto-obscenicons — before Carr did, since "The Katzenjammer Kids" had been running since 1897. But for now, we should extend a hearty %$#@! to Carr for being the apparent originator of the now-familiar visual representation of words too obscene to print.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=41943

gehayi

Mists of Avalon: Morgaine Speaks--Interlude 6

In which Morgaine learns that--surprise!--she’s not the Lady of the Lake, fails at manipulative seduction, and regards Kevin the Merlin as a traitor for coming to the same conclusions about Avalon’s plans that she did last chapter. Also, there’s a third-hand account of the fate of Viviane’s killer.

Content Warnings

warning: ableism
warning: classism
warning: controversial issues
warning: death/possible death
warning: do not want
warning: incest
warning: mental illness leading to death
warning: potential triggers
warning: threats (non-violent)

(If you want to catch up, the Table of Contents is available here, along with links to every review we’ve done on this book so far.)

Note: This book’s critique may be hard for anyone who has suffered because of incest, pedophilia, or rape. There is a great deal of normalization of these crimes in Mists, as well as a huge amount of rape apologia, and we three critics spend a lot of time tearing all of this apart. Check the content warnings for each chapter, make your own judgments…and please be safe.

Mists of Avalon: Morgaine Speaks--Interlude 6

Current Mood: busy

who only by moving can balance

only by balancing move

Bloody hell, I've been plagiarized!

Getting older

Executrix made me a poetry prompt table

Bring me sunshine

(no subject)

Now where the heck did the blade to my blender go!?

What stories about programming don't get represented?

Saturday 23/02/2019

Encore - Waterspouts Over the Adriatic Sea

Immunizations

I wrote fluff and now I feel better

[sketches &c.]

STO Night

missing person recommendations?

Sort of on the topic of social influence

Black Cap Winter - Anne-Marie Turza

Twatter

Friday: Free-For-All

The birth of obscenicons

The Mists of Avalon: Morgaine Speaks--Interlude 6 [SPORKERS: Idiotalchemist, ZeldaQueen, and Gehayi]

Mists of Avalon: Morgaine Speaks--Interlude 6

Mists of Avalon: Morgaine Speaks--Interlude 6

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February 2019

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