almostwitty | Reading

1. Plug-in solar power could be in UK shops within months: (tags:solarpower uk GoodNews )
2. What is a polite way to say "I have to poop" as a woman? (the responses are hilarious): (tags:funny women society poo )
3. Even Scotland's richest back higher taxes on the wealthy, poll finds: (tags:polls tax wealth Scotland )

I wonder at what birth year over half of people have never seen a western.

Obviously very young people won't - but if we look at people age 25-40, who have had a chance to watch a bunch of movies, I wonder if outside of classic movie afficionados you'll have seen many people see any. The last minor resurgence would have been Tarantino's Hateful Eight and Django Unchained, and I don't think either of those were that massive. Before that you're probably back to Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven, which is now around 35 years ago.

Which would mean that the main cultural touchstone for young people would be Red Dead Redemption 2, released in 2018 and the 4th best-selling game of all time.

(Curiosity triggered because in the most recent University Challenge nobody recognised John Wayne.)

andrewducker

The kids are watching an episode of SpongeBob where he's failing to write an essay. It is, frankly, stressing me the fuck out.

andrewducker

It always surprises me that Boots isn't open until 9am. You would have thought that there'd be enough people wanting to pick up painkillers or similar on the way in to work.

andrewducker

1. Some Divorce Trends That Aren't Leaving Your Partner Mid-Hike: (tags:satire funny relationships murder )

mesona posting in

addme

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: The tropics

Name: Mint

Age: 22

I mostly post about: Daily life and hobby updates

My hobbies are: I enjoy Vocaloid music, Vtubers, Anime/manga, literature, birdwatching, knitting and crochet, playing rhythm games. I'm also a programmer and may bring up tech stuff occasionally. I'm learning to draw.

My fandoms are: Current hyperfixation is NBA (go Nuggets). I keep up with F1 casually. I follow paleontology and aviation news. Currently reading JJBA, Chainsaw Man, slowly watching Dark Winds. Check my About Me sticky for the full list of stuff.

I'm looking to meet people who: Are also writing personal journals and forming community. Besides that, people who write or read more structured content. Such as personal journal, hobby updates, recipes, guides, media reviews, short stories. Bonus if you're posting outside of America (I'm from Southeast Asia myself).

My posting schedule tends to be: Few times a week.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Obviously don't be bigoted, though I assume most people on this site aren't. Probably won't come up often, but I'm not a big fan of people who post inflammatory or reactionary takes.

Before adding me, you should know: I will probably be posting about experiences with mental/physical health stuff, as I am AuDHD and am working through cPTSD. It won't be my main topic, but just a heads up that some of my posts will be heavy, and they'll have a content warning if they are.

andrewducker

1. Earth's first mass extinction may have been far worse than believed: (tags:extinction prehistory paleontology )
2. People using AI to give law advice finally reaches Scotland.: (tags:ai law scotland )
3. Denmark was preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland in January, with military support from France, Germany, and Nordic nations.: (tags:war usa norway germany france denmark )
4. This perfectly encapsulates why I won't surf the web without an ad-blocker: (tags:advertising web newspapers )
5. How *did* a multi-storey car park get built in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle?: (tags:edinburgh cars history )
6. Waymo self driving cars are 13x safer than humans: (tags:safety automation driving cars )
7. Police Scotland announce they don't want trans people to report any crimes: (tags:transgender LGBT bigotry OhForFucksSake Scotland )
8. The change that made lighthouses work much better - and why it drove the keepers mad. (Lots and lots of mercury): (tags:mercury light history safety ships )
9. Gen Z is broke, stressed and exhausted - but boomers won't accept it: (tags:stress society doom )

andrewducker

Nice mist on Arthur's Seat this morning.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

andrewducker

1. "Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don't rewrite an Iran missile story": (tags:iran israel journalism gambling ohforfuckssake )
2. Subnautica 2 Publisher Followed ChatGPT's Advice On How To Break The Law: (tags:law ai games OhForFucksSake )
3. Nvidia's Next-Gen Photo-Realistic Lighting looks, frankly, amazing: (tags:games lighting nvidia video )
4. Regression, Not Progress: A Response to World Athletics' Return to Sex Testing: (tags:gender testing OhForFucksSake women LGBT transgender biology )
5. Have some simple but inspiring images about growth through making mistakes: (tags:inspiration visualisation )
6. Almost 25 years ago, a war game exercise had an Iran-stand in use asymmetric warfare to obliterate a US military force. So they re-ran it to force a US victory.: (tags:usa military ohforfuckssake iran games )

andrewducker

I do wish that polls wouldn't ask if people thought that the PM was handling something "Well" or "Badly". Because two people answering "Badly" might mean completely different things by it.

Also, me saying "Immigration is important to me" means the opposite of what a Reform voter would mean by it.

This because of reporting of how many people think that Starmer is handling the Iran situation well or badly. When I can guarantee that some of the "badly" think we should be bombing Iran right now, and some think that we shouldn't be involved even slightly.

andrewducker

This is from a post made here on Facebook. I'm copying it here, with the permission of the original author, so that people off Facebook can see it.

I had the pleasure of Terry’s company on a week-long Writer’s Retreat twice, in 1990, as part of a company of eight interesting people in Diss, Suffolk.

Terry later came to my wedding and gave me a proof copy of ‘Lords and Ladies’ as a wedding gift! I had never read his books before I met him, so I began with ‘Wyrd Sisters’ - and have carried on reading them ever since.

When he learned I was meeting up with Terry again, my local Librarian shouted ‘Oook!’ and collected up every book by Terry which he had in the Library, and asked him to sign them. This amused Terry - and shocked other participants! "You shouldn't write in Library Books" etc...

Terry and I were both reading Henry Mayhew’s ‘London labour and the London poor’ at the time.

I asked Terry to make a list of other books which he found inspirational. Here they are:

‘The Evolution Man’ by Roy Lewis.

‘The Specialist’ by Charles Sale.

‘The Canterbury Tales’ by Chaucer.

‘Fairy Tales’ by Charles Perrault.

Jacqueline Simpson’s folklore books.

Everything by J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis.

‘The Wind From the Sun’ by Arthur C. Clarke.

‘Cold Comfort Farm’ by Stella Gibbons (my favourite book).

‘Mistress Masham’s Repose’ and the Arthurian Trilogy by T H White.

I also add the new series of novels set in St Mary’s by Jodi Taylor, of whom I am a keen fan, and strongly recommend. Terry told Jodi how much he liked her writings. Start with ‘Just One Da*ned Thing After Another’ and carry on enjoying!

Edit - I forgot 'The Moomins' series!

raytheraven posting in

addme

Current Mood: mellow

Name: Harper

Age: I was on LJ in the early 2000s if that tells you anything

I mostly post about: IRL things currently, but I might post thoughts about media I consume or happenings in the world occasionally. I don't really post fannish things often even though there are fandoms I enjoy. Most of my journal is currently public.

My hobbies are: reading, tinkering, learning languages (Spanish primarily), video games, listening to podcasts and being in nature when the weather and my body allow for it.

My fandoms are: Star Trek (TNG, DS9, VOY primarily), Baldur's Gate 3, Dungeon Crawler Carl, The Orville, The Sims and similar games (I am so excited for Paralives y'all).

I'm looking to meet people who: Post about their lives and passions. I enjoy hearing about hobbies and interests, even if they aren't my own.

My posting schedule tends to be: I strive for at least weekly, sometimes more sometimes less.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Racism, sexism, transphobia, queerphobia, fundamentalism or anything supporting the fascists.

Before adding me, you should know: I'm neurodivergent and mostly anti-AI. LLM technology has its place, but in its current form I feel it has been actively harmful for humanity and is being used as a giant grift by tech oligarchs. It is most definitely not a replacement for human created art and knowledge.

andrewducker

1. 'Buffy' Reboot Dead at Hulu: (tags:Buffy TV )
2. The Life Cycle of Money: (tags:money )
3. A Guide to Terms of Address for British Nobility: (tags:monarchy language uk )

andrewducker

Following yesterday's illness, I was vaguely hoping that he would stay asleep through the night. Alas:

12:05
"I need a wee"
Took him to the toilet.
"Daddy, my tummy hurts"
Gave him some medicine
"Do you want to be in pyjamas or just straight back to bed?"
"Back to bed"
And then he closed his eyes.

12:20
Thundering footsteps "Daddy, I feel sick"
Told him to go to the toilet. Kept him company, got him a bucket.
He wasn't sick.
Persuaded him to take the bucket to bed.
Sat on the floor next to his bed until he closed his eyes.

12:35
More thundering steps
"Daddy, my arm and leg hurt"
By the time I'd found him medicine he was asleep again.
But woke up again and let me give him some Calpol.

03:30
"I'm hungry" (not surprising as he didn't eat yesterday)
We agreed on cream cheese crackers.
He ate ⅘ of the cracker and drank some juice and passed out again.

06:30
"I checked the light coming under the curtain and it's morning time"
I told him to go play games on the Switch downstairs.
Fifteen minutes later I could still hear him wandering about and I hadn't heard any game noises.
Went to check on him and he told him that he'd found various points around the house where the floor isn't flat.
Got him settled with the Switch, and then went back to bed and stared vacantly at my phone for an hour, before getting up to face the day.

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Happy Saturday!

I'm going to be doing a little maintenance today. It will likely cause a tiny interruption of service (specifically for www.dreamwidth.org) on the order of 2-3 minutes while some settings propagate. If you're on a journal page, that should still work throughout!

If it doesn't work, the rollback plan is pretty quick, I'm just toggling a setting on how traffic gets to the site. I'll update this post if something goes wrong, but don't anticipate any interruption to be longer than 10 minutes even in a rollback situation.