Shelving
Jul. 24th, 2025 08:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ranunculusrebeccmeister asked a very simple question about shelving. I wrote way, way to much about it, thus a cut.
( Read more... )
ranunculusrebeccmeister asked a very simple question about shelving. I wrote way, way to much about it, thus a cut.
Itch.io Is Having Its Strikethrough Moment
Jul. 24th, 2025 08:03 amelfLast night, bluesky exploded with the discovery that itch.io has delisted/shadowbanned pretty much all its "adult" games - they don't show up in a search anymore, even if you have the 'show me adult content' turned on, even if you are the game's creator.
They are still listed on the creator's pages; they are still in the bundles they've been in, and the "search title/author/tag" on the bundle pages still works.
Some games have been removed entirely - with a claim that they violate the TOS and therefore the creators can't receive payment, so itch will be just keeping their money thankyouverymuch.
After a mad scramble to figure out "what's going on and why," Itch mentioned payment processor issues on its Discord (which is going wild with drama; it does NOT have enough moderators for this), and eventually released a statement:
( Specific game info )
They are still listed on the creator's pages; they are still in the bundles they've been in, and the "search title/author/tag" on the bundle pages still works.
Some games have been removed entirely - with a claim that they violate the TOS and therefore the creators can't receive payment, so itch will be just keeping their money thankyouverymuch.
After a mad scramble to figure out "what's going on and why," Itch mentioned payment processor issues on its Discord (which is going wild with drama; it does NOT have enough moderators for this), and eventually released a statement:
We have “deindexed” all adult NSFW content from our browse and search pages. We understand this action is sudden and disruptive, and we are truly sorry for the frustration and confusion caused by this change.Itch instantly caved to their "Warriors for Innocence."
Recently, we came under scrutiny from our payment processors regarding the nature of some content hosted on itch.io. Due to a game titled No Mercy, which was temporarily available on itch.io before being banned back in April, the organization Collective Shout launched a campaign against Steam and itch.io, directing concerns to our payment processors about the nature of certain content found on both platforms.
( Specific game info )
lemons and spicy lemons
Jul. 24th, 2025 05:48 pmcimoreneI just realized that all my most favorite savory foods are based on lemon or lime. Also all the cocktails I've liked (though I don't try many because I'm not big on them). I also love every lime or lemon dessert I've had mostly, but they're not my favorites (my most favorite desserts are apple- or coffee-based). It's just weird that it took me so long to notice that.
Recent reading
Jul. 24th, 2025 12:35 pmgaladhirMaybe I should make a note of what I read, so they don't all blur into one.
Recently (in the last two weeks):
- The Masquerades of Spring, by Ben Aaronovitch
- A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, by T.Kingfisher
- Nettle and Bone, by T. Kingfisher
- Rose/House by Arkady Martine
Grandmother's Secrets by Rosina-Fawzia al Rawi
(1) is a novella in the Rivers of London series about Isaac Newton's line of British official government wizards. Starring Thomas Nightingale in a rare trip abroad to visit 1920s New York and hunt down the maker of an enchanted saxophone.
Very Bertie Wooster dancing the Charleston in a gay club, and it's the novella that reveals Nightingale to be asexual. A rare win for the aces :)
(2) is a children's book in which a young wizard whose only gift is for working with dough is forced to find out exactly what she can do with it when her kingdom is in peril.
It's very well written - the plot escalates smoothly and it keeps you reading without being too busy or hectic. The prose is powerful but doesn't intrude. I enjoyed it but didn't really connect emotionally.
(3) follows a slow and unworldly (third, spare, novice nun) princess as she makes/finds allies in a quest to rescue her sister from the sister's husband. He is the prince of a neighbouring, much more powerful kingdom, and having murdered their elder sister is now abusing the middle sister.
I enjoyed this one much more for its blend of realistic dynastic politics and weird wizardly powers. I liked the characters more too, and they combined with the excellent workmanship of the author in a way I almost had feels about. (Not quite - my feels don't get engaged much any more, sadly.)
(4) A dead man turns up inside a hermetically sealed house run by a powerful AI, and a detective goes inside the house to try to solve the murder. This turns out to be a mistake. I enjoyed Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan series (A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace) so I thought I might enjoy this too.
I am finding it haunting, and I appreciate her attempts to construct intelligences that are not human, but this one feels a bit like there is no plot, just an experience. And it's not a particularly pleasant experience. Rose House is not a particularly likeable character, even if its murder was in self defense. (Or was it?)
(5) A non-fiction book, partially a treatise on the origin of belly dancing and partially an autobiography.
I appreciated this as coming from within the culture where raqs sharqi originated, and it is a beautiful memoir of the author growing up with the dance. It was interesting to think of it as a private, indoors thing done by the women of the household chiefly for each other
Quick question....
Jul. 23rd, 2025 04:32 pmconulyHow bad of a faux pas is it if you're filling out a job application in person and then realize after you hand it in that you've gone ahead and proofread it?
(Asking for a friend!)
*************************
( Read more... )
(Asking for a friend!)
( Read more... )
7/23/2025 Loop Road
Jul. 23rd, 2025 05:34 pmmrkinchI got started a little before 8 and walked out to the bench with a short detour up Laurel Canyon to the abandoned Red-breasted Nuthatch nest tree on return. It used to be full of birds, but it's late July, so. Sitting on the bench was great. The flycatchers are still around, as was a Black-headed Grosbeak but I heard no thrushes on the Canyon, only out by the main road, and no Wilson's.:( The locals were in active, nuthatches and finches, and the best thing: a pair of California Quail with two well-grown chicks! We haven't seen the pair in a couple of weeks and were wondering, but maybe they kept hidden while the chicks were tiny. ( The list: )
It was coyote day; there was a pair as I drove in to park and shortly a third crossed the road from the same direction. Later I looked down the trail to Loop Road and saw one walking north, different individual I cannot say. At least no one challenged me. (I just knocked on my oak desk; I really do not need that again!)
It was coyote day; there was a pair as I drove in to park and shortly a third crossed the road from the same direction. Later I looked down the trail to Loop Road and saw one walking north, different individual I cannot say. At least no one challenged me. (I just knocked on my oak desk; I really do not need that again!)
Mereth Aderthad Zine Now Available!
Jul. 23rd, 2025 10:56 pmdaughterofshadows posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
silwritersguild
In the early years of fandom, creators shared their stories, art, and other fanworks in handmade fanzines. Often printed on the cheap and assembled by volunteers at zine-making parties, these zines brought fans around the world in contact with each other and kept fan communities alive.
Honoring the tradition of our foremothers, when we planned Mereth Aderthad 2025, we wanted a fanzine to go with it. Works in the zine respond to the twelve presentations given at Mereth Aderthad.
We are very excited to make the Mereth Aderthad fanzine available to download for anyone who would like to check it out! The zine features thirteen stories, five poems, and nine works of art and was beautifully designed by Anérea. While some of the fanworks were heard at Mereth Aderthad, others are brand-new and available to enjoy for the first time.
You can download a copy of the Mereth Aderthad 2025 fanzine here!
The Brightness Between Us, by Eliot Schrefer
Jul. 23rd, 2025 09:52 amrunpunkrunA good old fashioned young adult novel about being stranded on an inhospitable planet and struggling to live off a steadily declining cache of resources. In one case, it's an alien world far in the future, and in the other, the dying Earth those colonists left, where the last inhabitants are about to extinguish themselves through nuclear war. Ah, children's lit.
This is actually a sequel to The Darkness Outside Us, but if you're a chaos demon you might be able to read this without having read the first. Partly because it stands on its own while gently reminding the reader what happened in the first book, but also because it fully retreads some of the same ground.
Because half of this book was telling me stuff I already, basically, knew, I was much more interested in the sections on the alien planet with its frontier survival vibes and foreign mysteries. I wanted to spend all my time there rather than on Earth, since I already knew that was a lost cause, and any new information we got in those sections could have easily been worked into the future segments and much of it, in fact, was. But it wasn't a chore to spend time with the original versions of Ambrose and Kodiak as they come to terms with the lies they've been told and try to undo some of the damage they caused, and together the two parts of this book tell a full story that comes to a satisfying conclusion, whether or not there's ever a third book in the series. But if there is, I'll be there.
Contains: queer dads; child harm and references to child death; wild animal harm/death; mental illness with intrusive thoughts; gun violence; nuclear apocalypse; climate disaster.
This is actually a sequel to The Darkness Outside Us, but if you're a chaos demon you might be able to read this without having read the first. Partly because it stands on its own while gently reminding the reader what happened in the first book, but also because it fully retreads some of the same ground.
Because half of this book was telling me stuff I already, basically, knew, I was much more interested in the sections on the alien planet with its frontier survival vibes and foreign mysteries. I wanted to spend all my time there rather than on Earth, since I already knew that was a lost cause, and any new information we got in those sections could have easily been worked into the future segments and much of it, in fact, was. But it wasn't a chore to spend time with the original versions of Ambrose and Kodiak as they come to terms with the lies they've been told and try to undo some of the damage they caused, and together the two parts of this book tell a full story that comes to a satisfying conclusion, whether or not there's ever a third book in the series. But if there is, I'll be there.
Contains: queer dads; child harm and references to child death; wild animal harm/death; mental illness with intrusive thoughts; gun violence; nuclear apocalypse; climate disaster.
carnivorous pitcher plant
Jul. 23rd, 2025 12:00 pmpauraque posting in common_natureWhile hiking in a conserved wetland, I saw an informational sign about native pitcher plants. I had no idea we had these in New England; I always thought of carnivorous plants as a tropical thing. But I took a look around and they were certainly there!
This appears to be Sarracenia purpurea which has a lot of names in English, including Common Pitcher Plant. The specialized leaves form cup-shaped traps with nectar at the bottom that attracts bugs, which can't escape and are digested to provide nutrition for the plant. In this species the traps sit on the ground, and I don't know if I would have noticed them if I hadn't been looking.
( pitcher plant flower and habitat (2 photos) )
This appears to be Sarracenia purpurea which has a lot of names in English, including Common Pitcher Plant. The specialized leaves form cup-shaped traps with nectar at the bottom that attracts bugs, which can't escape and are digested to provide nutrition for the plant. In this species the traps sit on the ground, and I don't know if I would have noticed them if I hadn't been looking.
( pitcher plant flower and habitat (2 photos) )
Reading Wednesday
Jul. 23rd, 2025 08:12 amsabotabbyCurrently reading: Bread and Stone by Allan Weiss. Where we last left our hero, he'd shipped off to the Great War in a fit of youthful idealism. It went about as well as you think. One really good and interesting narrative choice here is that the focus isn't on the grinding misery and trauma (though there is plenty of that too) but that so much of war is spent waiting, most people tend to run from gunfire and explosions rather than towards them, and the contribution of a single individual doesn't amount to very much. William experiences the kind of thing I've often felt at protests where you spend a lot of time standing around and don't feel like you've done anything. He returns to a vastly different Canada than he left—too late to say goodbye to his mother, who has died in the influenza epidemic despite being about the only person around who takes pandemic precautions. His father has gone back to the mines and sold most of the family farm, leaving his brother to deal with the rest. His aunt and uncle are cash-strapped and can't find him work. He instead goes to Winnipeg with his pro-union war buddy who promises him work. But times are tough everywhere, and he's instead drawn into movements of unemployed and underemployed workers, both the organizing committee of the general strike, and the veterans association, whose membership broadly supports a strike but whose leadership does not.
This book is immensely detailed—I imagine drawn from primary sources. There was a lot written at the time so someone willing to put in the effort really could get every single bit of infighting and discussion that happened in all of the organizations that were around at the time. It's impressive. It doesn't make for the most action-packed reading, but if you are really interested in the period (which I am) this is better than any non-fiction text I've read about it.
I also quite like how William is not particularly a reliable narrator or an admirable person. He's certainly idealistic, but he's an absolute himbo with a number of blind spots, especially when it regards women and immigrants. At the core of this book there's a very similar sort of debate as we see today—does the left cave to populist sentiments around marginalized groups, or does it stand its ground? (Basically, the returned soldiers tend to be pro-strike but anti-immigrant, which the elite politicians, business owners, and journalists use to drive a wedge in the movement.) The book's narrative comes down solidly on the "stand your ground" side, though...history is history and we know the strike lost.
This book is immensely detailed—I imagine drawn from primary sources. There was a lot written at the time so someone willing to put in the effort really could get every single bit of infighting and discussion that happened in all of the organizations that were around at the time. It's impressive. It doesn't make for the most action-packed reading, but if you are really interested in the period (which I am) this is better than any non-fiction text I've read about it.
I also quite like how William is not particularly a reliable narrator or an admirable person. He's certainly idealistic, but he's an absolute himbo with a number of blind spots, especially when it regards women and immigrants. At the core of this book there's a very similar sort of debate as we see today—does the left cave to populist sentiments around marginalized groups, or does it stand its ground? (Basically, the returned soldiers tend to be pro-strike but anti-immigrant, which the elite politicians, business owners, and journalists use to drive a wedge in the movement.) The book's narrative comes down solidly on the "stand your ground" side, though...history is history and we know the strike lost.
Cows, Travel, Chena
Jul. 22nd, 2025 09:29 pmranunculusIt is terribly quiet at the house tonight. The cows moved out yesterday. They are over on the entrance road reducing the fire danger along the road. As a bonus they will clean a lot of the grass out of the ditches. Clover tends to grow well in our nice wet (in winter) ditches and the cows always enjoy it. Less grass in the ditches means less weed whacking for me this fall. I miss the noisy bellowing as mamas and calves communicate. I don't miss the flies and dust. In a couple of days, when they have eaten down the sides of the road they will be off to Cody's home ranch for the summer. They won't return till some time in late October or November. There won't be new grass for them yet, but Cody always leaves some pastures ungrazed so there will be feed in winter. Cows are amazingly efficient at turning dead grass, even if it has been rained on a lot, into food.
Hunter and Maddie came over today to see the garden setup. Hunter will be helping take care of the garden and Firefly while I'm gone to Santa Cruz this weekend.
Chena had a visit to the vet today. She has had a little, but very persistent issue with her eye. Both eyes are a little irritated, but the right one often has a very slight infection, judging by the yellowish discharge (tiny amounts). This did not resolve with eye wash, and was slight enough to come and go a bit. She now has eye drops twice a day for a week. She was much better with the vet than in previous visits, barely growling at all, and enjoying lots of treats. Right now she is lying limply in the living room, probably feeling the effects of vaccinations against Leptospirosis (especially easily spread in streams here, also is endemic) and kennel cough. We will be traveling to Alaska in October so she needs to be up to date on that kind of thing. She is negative for heartworm. YAY!
A few days ago I tested my camping mattress to see where the air leak was. Sadly it was along at least a foot of the seam, and that is not really repairable. The mattress is quite old as is our second one. So I ordered two new ones which came today. They weigh about half what the old ones did, roll up into a far smaller carrying container, and they self inflate a lot better. I though the one I tried was quite comfortable. The old ones were always super comfortable.
Hunter and Maddie came over today to see the garden setup. Hunter will be helping take care of the garden and Firefly while I'm gone to Santa Cruz this weekend.
Chena had a visit to the vet today. She has had a little, but very persistent issue with her eye. Both eyes are a little irritated, but the right one often has a very slight infection, judging by the yellowish discharge (tiny amounts). This did not resolve with eye wash, and was slight enough to come and go a bit. She now has eye drops twice a day for a week. She was much better with the vet than in previous visits, barely growling at all, and enjoying lots of treats. Right now she is lying limply in the living room, probably feeling the effects of vaccinations against Leptospirosis (especially easily spread in streams here, also is endemic) and kennel cough. We will be traveling to Alaska in October so she needs to be up to date on that kind of thing. She is negative for heartworm. YAY!
A few days ago I tested my camping mattress to see where the air leak was. Sadly it was along at least a foot of the seam, and that is not really repairable. The mattress is quite old as is our second one. So I ordered two new ones which came today. They weigh about half what the old ones did, roll up into a far smaller carrying container, and they self inflate a lot better. I though the one I tried was quite comfortable. The old ones were always super comfortable.