vivdunstan: Photo of me from Melrose Grammar School plus NHS thanks (nhs)
([personal profile] vivdunstan Sep. 1st, 2025 09:58 pm)
September 2025 is Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Month. This is a devastating diagnosis for anybody and their family to cope with. It's what my Dad died from, after a very sudden diagnosis, when the disease was already well advanced. An extremely cruel and under appreciated disease. For more information, see the Action for Pulmonary Fibrosis website.
purplecat: The Fifteenth Doctor (Who:Fifteen)
([personal profile] purplecat Sep. 1st, 2025 07:22 pm)
I went into Wish World/The Reality War knowing it was likely to be a hot mess and I was not wrong.

Are we still doing spoilers? )
vivdunstan: Art work for the IF Archive including traditional text adventure tropes like a map, lamp, compass, key, rope, books a skull, and a sigh referring to grues (interactive fiction)
([personal profile] vivdunstan Sep. 1st, 2025 05:38 pm)
IFComp 2025 is now open for judging. There are 85 new interactive fiction games and stories in there. Free to play. Judging runs until October 15th.

This year the UK's Online Safety Act and very recent developments in it have posed considerable challenges to the IFComp organisers and IFTF folks. They have navigated their way through it as best as they can. But currently 24 of the 85 games are geoblocked to all UK players. Until a few days ago it was going to be all 85 ...

More details of the approach taken are in the IFComp blog at https://blog.ifcomp.org
vivdunstan: Part of own photo taken in local university botanic gardens. Tree trunks rise atmospherically, throwing shadows from the sun on the ground. (Default)
([personal profile] vivdunstan Sep. 1st, 2025 04:40 am)
I use Hobonichi paper planners, both an A5 page-per-day larger model, and a smaller slim diary. And today sales open for the 2026 season, so it's a bit of a buying frenzy time for Hobonichi users. Some things do sell out quickly.

This year again I went with Art From The Heart in Harrogate, who get in most of the range. And start selling at 3AM UK time on 1st September to match sales opening in Japan. It was a tenser purchasing experience with AFTH than last year, when I managed to check out in just a couple of minutes. This time it took me 10 minutes just to add 3 items from my wishlist to my basket, then another 10 minutes to go through formal check out. The site was extremely busy with UK customers this year in the minutes after 3AM, and very much not coping well. But it did work albeit slowly (and after an hour was back to speed). And I think I've got all my items. One of my items sold out at AFTH not long after I bought it, but I think I have it. Quite a lot of other things have since sold out there too.

The main Hobonichi shopping website in Japan was also as usual struggling at 3AM (11AM Japanese time) today. With many fraught people placing their direct orders. But I was glad to avoid that this year. I also worry too much with my generalised anxiety disorder about the round the world courier delivery after, and am much happier getting something coming in the post (tracked service) from Yorkshire to me in Scotland.

Sales of Hobonichi to US customers are problematic this year. Tariffs are causing restrictions on the combinations that Hobonichi offer, and increasing the cost. As is the stopping of the generous de minimis duty exemption. Which as someone in another country that very happily charges import duties I have boggled at. For US people looking to buy Hobonichi items from US stockists many deliveries to retailers are held up in customs, extra complicated by the tariff situation.

I'm just relieved to have hopefully got my items. Even if it was extra fraught compared to 2024.
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
([staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm)

Per the [site community profile] dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

I woke up in the early hours of this morning from an intense bad dream. But when I described it to D this morning as "my usual 2025 nightmare...my friends and I fighting in the streets," he made a perfectly understandable but inaccurate assumption: "what, like a fight club?"

No, I said, not fighting each other. Fighting nazis.

But being very silly about which of our friends we could best in physical fights ("well P's out, she has a broken leg" "...do we have to fight each other?"), while snuggling in bed on the one morning a week I don't have to get up as soon as I'm awake, did a great job of dispelling the visceral misery the dream left me with.

Saved from angst by silliness, this feels like the story of my life these days heh.

([personal profile] cosmolinguist Aug. 30th, 2025 11:11 pm)

After an intensely frustrating morning for [personal profile] diffrentcolours which upended our plan for today, and after a stressful and frustrating evening yesterday too, I suggested he might like to go see the new Fantastic Four movie, because I know he'd been wanting to do that and it seemed like a nice treat when I really wanted a nice thing to happen for him.

It's good to see a movie about how important global cooperation on building infrastructure and sharing resources is!

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vivdunstan: Part of own photo taken in local university botanic gardens. Tree trunks rise atmospherically, throwing shadows from the sun on the ground. (Default)
([personal profile] vivdunstan Aug. 30th, 2025 09:29 pm)
Any folks out there have good experience of no alcohol ciders? I'm going to have to stop drinking Aspall Draught Cider with my weekly pizza takeaway. The alcohol + big dinner combo is causing too many IBS type problems (sorry if TMI!). So I'd like to switch to preferably zero alcohol cider instead, that I can enjoy a pint of. Though not one that tastes just like fizzy apple juice. Any suggestions? The Aspall Draught that I usually drink is quite a light medium sparkling cider. Not like a strong Somerset or even scrumpy type cider. Any tips would be very gratefully received. Thanks folks! P.S. These would need to be things I could get easily in the UK, preferably in our local supermarket.

P.S. Martin got me a Thatchers Zero bottle to try for starters. I will be trying that next time around!
purplecat: The Second Doctor holding his diary (Who:Books)
([personal profile] purplecat Aug. 30th, 2025 08:37 am)

Cover for the Doctor Who Past Doctor Adventure Palace of the Red Sun by Christopher Bulis.  Picture of a domed palace with four pointy turrets.  The silhouettes of two figures, one in a long dress and one in a shorter one walk down an avenue of upright trees to the palace.  Everything is in oranges and yellows.

Another blank in my memory. The back makes it sound like there is an underlying quest style narrative which, as I recall, is common in Bulis' works.
([personal profile] cosmolinguist Aug. 29th, 2025 09:16 pm)

A transgym friend has shared this most delightful link in the groupchat and we all told each other what animals we can move with different exercises.

D is chest pressing a mature wombat! G can leg press a fledging Pacific walrus and chest press a female emperor penguin! I am chest pressing a Spotted Serengeti Hyena and my shoulder press is a Young Male Puma! F can lift a Svelte Wilderbeast with his legs!

I love this, it's so whimsical -- it's not about lifting a goose or a horse or any "normal" everyday animals and the specifics are adorable: a fledgling walrus, a female penguin, a mature wombat!

And it's a fun way to share without anyone knowing exactly what numbers anyone else is talking about which makes it so much more safe and accessible and not about gainz or orthorexia or whatever other failure modes we regular gym-goers are prone to.

And it's not as if it's without aspiration! I was told "Keep it up and soon you'll be picking up a Desert Bighorn Ewe and putting it down with authority"!

purplecat: Black and White photo of production of Julius Caesar (General:Roman Remains)
([personal profile] purplecat Aug. 29th, 2025 06:30 pm)

The foundations of a long oblong stone brick roman building showing the pillars that once supported the hypocaust.
Housteads Roman Fort
choco_frosh: (Default)
([personal profile] choco_frosh Aug. 29th, 2025 11:43 am)
Just sent out a dozen emails to senior executives on behalf of one of my bosses.

Why am I not surprised that the only one who's replied so far was the one woman on the list?
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([syndicated profile] kathleenjowitt_feed Aug. 29th, 2025 02:02 pm)

Posted by kathleenjowitt

A white and black cat sleeps on a stone floor under a full length banner showing Sir Isaac Newton

We visited Isaac Newton’s apple tree a couple of weeks ago. It’s in the orchard of his childhood home, Woolsthorpe Manor, a couple of miles off what’s now the A1, the Great North Road. These days it’s a couple of hours’ drive from Cambridge (we started a little further north than that). It would have taken considerably longer in Newton’s day; nevertheless, he made the journey.

Woolsthorpe is a lovely place. It’s in the care of the National Trust now, and they’ve managed to find a satisfying balance between hands-on science and palpable history. The volunteers (apparently there is no shortage) are a mixture of enthusiastic students and gentle retirees.  It’s not exactly quiet – it couldn’t be, with children spinning balls down funnels and laughing at distorting mirrors and all the rest of it – but it feels extraordinarily peaceful. You wouldn’t think there were lorries hurtling north and south just over there. This cat was snoozing away happily in the café; later we saw it touring the yard, seeking homage from the other patrons.

I hadn’t twigged that the reason that Newton was sitting under an apple tree at his family home in the first place was that the University of Cambridge had been closed. If I’d known the year – 1665, see if you’re faster than me – I’d probably have made the connection. Bubonic plague. He was self-isolating, we might say now. Lucky to be able to do so, of course. I was conscious of a fellow-feeling: I too ended up leaving Cambridge to find a garden of fruit trees when our epidemic struck, although that was March, not apple season, and that was just the way things worked out for us.

Newton’s Cambridge was different from mine, too. He’d still be able to find his way around the city centre, and no doubt he’d be fascinated by much of what has appeared since his time. He wouldn’t have encountered tourists, or the Silicon Fenizens. It would have been much smaller, less crowded, but still a heck of a culture shock after Woolsthorpe.

And it’s interesting, isn’t it, how that massive breakthrough struck not in the intellectual ferment of the university, but in the peace of the orchard. There’s something to be said for not being where the action is.

azdak: (Default)
([personal profile] azdak Aug. 29th, 2025 02:20 pm)
I've had my eye out for some time for a fanvid that sums up Alias Smith and Jones for general audiences (I wouldn't recommend that anyone over the age of about 10 actually watch the series - it's the kind of thing where you really have to be a kid and imprint on it in order to appreciate it), but I would like to find something that gives even a little sense of its appeal. Thanks to the vagaries of the youtube algorithm, however, it wasn't until today that one finally showed up, immediately followed by two pretty close runners up, all three by the same vidder, RHCinderella (who along with her cowboy stuff also has a very good Hornblower vid). The first is called Missing Road and pulls off the remarkable trick of taking little moments scattered through 50-odd episodes and structuring them so that you not only get a summary of the series' main premise, you also get served up in 4 short minutes the kind of psychological insight into the characters that only long hours of obsessive fannish watching can glean from canon.



The second vid is completely different. It recontextualises clips from Alias Smith and Jones and Maverick to build a story around Kenny Rogers' The Gambler, and does it brilliantly. I've never seen an episode of Maverick, but after watching this, I've decided to commit to watching at least one. I note that while canonically Maverick did not teach Heyes to play poker, Doylistically he clearly inspired his hat (same showrunner, so I really don't think it's a coincidence).



The third vid, All the Gold in California, does a grand job of capturing the light-heartedness and humour of the series, not to mention the frustration of repeatedly coming close to a fortune but always having it slip between your fingers. This is probably the most "realistic" of the three in the sense of straightforwardly reflecting canon.



So there you have it, from no suitable vids to three (well, two and one bonus for those not too turned off by old TV westerns). You pays your money and you takes your choice.
([personal profile] cosmolinguist Aug. 28th, 2025 09:21 pm)

The winner of today is [personal profile] angelofthenorth who, when I realized at the bus stop on the way to the gym that I'd forgotten to grab my headphones, lent me hers (she was going swimming and couldn't use them anyway).

The gym playing Happy Radio (which includes plodding song in minor keys with depressing lyrics!) is bad enough but today it had Smooth FM on! Who wanted to get their reps in while the Carpenters sing "every shalalalala"?!

The Calvin Harris albums on my phone did a pretty good job of drowning out them and Celine Dion and so on.

But when some guy had just swiped my kettlebell when I put down next to my foot so I could rest before my last set (my gym doesn't seem to have very high awareness of sets... or putting things back where they belong so people can find them and not trip over them -- it's a lot more about young men showing off for each other -- so I appreciate he saw someone staring into space and figured any nearby equipment had been abandoned), and just as I was finishing the final set with the next-size-up kettlebell that the universe was apparently telling me it was time for, a new song started and I thought to myself no, I draw the line at that fucking Chris Isaak song, I'm done.

I left just in time to miss both buses home and get sworn at by a scrote on an e-bike for not getting out of his way when I hadn't seen his black-clothed black-bike no-lights ass coming right at me in the dark on the sidewalk. But I still think I left at just the right time!

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The award winning paper I mentioned next week, actually had a sequel. In The human factor: Addressing computing risks for critical national infrastructure towards 2040 we performed a similar exercise of asking a number of experts about risks to Critical National Infrastructure arising from computing developments and synthesising the results.

I am honestly, happier with this paper, I thought we had a better range of genuine expertise in the people we talked to, and a more focused area of consideration. We had a little trouble with the third referee, who thought our experts were wrong about Quantum Computing and that we should rewrite the paper so they gave the answer the referee thought was correct. Our experts did not think Quantum Computing was among the biggest risks to be considered in the next 15 years - but instead thought there were a number of issues relating to human factors (sophisticated phishing, difficulty tracing the cause of problems and poor incident response in complex situations).
vivdunstan: Test card (television)
([personal profile] vivdunstan Aug. 28th, 2025 06:32 pm)
There’s a digitally remastered version of the BBC Narnia various TV series coming out in November. Complete with new documentary. Instant preorder for me!

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Continuing my listen, and another enjoyable instalment in this Big Finish series.

This was a tightly written drama, set in the middle of a war, across multiple locations. Though on the downside I was a little puzzled at times in the audio format determining which side of the fighting I was listening to.

There are some nice narrative experiments here, some really nice touches that let Lisa Bowerman shine as ever as Benny. And a storyline that kept me gripped. Though I was a bit confused later on re what had just happened. And also frankly rather surprised when the story finished inside an hour. I'm used to overly loose Benny audios.

And bonus points from me for the "I couldn't possibly comment!" from Miles Richardson.

([personal profile] cosmolinguist Aug. 28th, 2025 08:34 am)

I took yesterday off work, probably inadvisably so close to big deadlines but it gave me a chance to meet someone and do ridiculous things I'd need a filter that I don't have any more to describe here in more detail. The tl;dr is that my brain and body feel much better and I slept for eleven hours last night.

Now to get back to work and catch up quick...

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