[pain] oh this book is bad

Nov. 29th, 2025 08:59 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

The terrible hyphenation one can reasonably attribute to a failure to invest in subject specialist proof readers (or possibly any proof readers at all, good grief).

The wildly ahistorical nonsense about the history of medicine? Less so. I begin to understand why there isn't a references section, and I've only made it as far as page 7 before needing to stop and shriek about it and also stare at a wall for a bit...

Saturday

Nov. 29th, 2025 11:48 am
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[personal profile] susandennis
I think the reason I still go to elbow coffee on Saturday mornings is that it is a very easy way to just check in without having to engage or make a big to-do. I take my knitting and listen to the mostly boring and absurd conversation and keep my trap shut. It's easy. Martha and Bonny and Jan and I stay after to clean up and catch up and I think that's really the value of the whole thing.

My moving the hub yesterday did not fix the problem. Finally today, I checked the Amazon Skills review of the app that is failing and found the problem. The October AWS outage fucked up the handshake that runs between the app and Alexa. And since the hub has been replaced with a newer one, there will be no fix. This controls a group of switches that fit over my on/off toggles and enable me to have Alexa turn off the room lights or the under counter lights or the closet light. No one else makes anything close so having this work as designed is pretty critical to the operation. I blew the $25 and ordered the new hub. It arrives on Monday and, hopefully, fix the issue. Until then, I'll just have to get off my ass and go to the switch to turn the lights on or off - like a fucking cave man. Geesh

Fortunately, I will have time since I have no other plans today. My stuffing was so excellent, it's even good cold and I have about enough turkey, stuffing and cranberry jelly for one excellent sandwich. And enough cheesy mashed potatoes, ham and fried okra for one excellent dinner.

I am set.

20251129_113944-COLLAGE

Check-In Post - Nov 29th 2025

Nov. 29th, 2025 08:17 pm
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[personal profile] badly_knitted posting in [community profile] get_knitted

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.


This Week's Question (courtesy of [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith): When learning a new art or craft, do you prefer level-grinding the basics, skipping ahead to the cool techniques, or a mix of both?


If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!



trying to get around it

Nov. 29th, 2025 02:41 pm
somedayseattle: scared baby (Default)
[personal profile] somedayseattle
Took a ride over the Emergency Orthopedic place today to give them a peek at my swollen soles (swollen soul?). They did not see me because they do accept not Medicaid. What?! Who doesn't accept Medicaid??? I feel that somehow Trump is behind this.
umadoshi: (pork belly (chicachellers))
[personal profile] umadoshi
Reading: Since last weekend, I've finished reading Rebecca Mahoney's The Memory Eater and read Susan Cooper's Over Sea, Under Stone and Aster Glenn Gray's The Wolf and the Girl, and [personal profile] scruloose and I finished listening to Network Effect. (One Murderbot audiobook left to go! At least until whenever the new one comes out next year.)

I'd never read any of The Dark is Rising [series] before, but a while back I got the whole set in an ebook bundle, and this week I remembered to actually ask around about which part of people read seasonally (or if it's the whole thing) and confirmed that winter solstice is indeed the season in question. So I expect to take a stab at reading The Dark is Rising [book] in a few weeks.

Seasonally related: Llinos Cathryn Thomas has a new seasonal novella out, All is Bright, which I understand can just be read like any other book but is written to work as an Advent countdown, one chapter a day. Hopefully I'll remember to start that on Monday, alongside whatever else I pick up next.

Watching: Having finally finished Network Effect, [personal profile] scruloose and I dipped back into Silo season 2 last night. Three whole episodes down now!

I also succumbed to anticipatory fandom hype and watched the first two episodes of Heated Rivalry. I can't say I'm in love, but it looks like it's only six episodes total, so I expect I'll keep on with it. [Content note: the sex scenes are fairly graphic, at least by my fuzzy impression of standards for a mainstream show.] I have zero familiarity with the book, so no idea what's going to happen or how it is as an adaptation.

[Via The Rec Centre: "How ‘Heated Rivalry’ Became the Internet’s Favorite Show — Before It’s Even Aired".]

Householding: We've ordered a new upright freezer for the garage, since the current one is still being cranky. Once we've swapped the new one in (ETA: next weekend), [personal profile] scruloose may take a stab at repairing it; that might've been the first step if it had been an appliance that's not full of food that needs to stay frozen, but with no idea what we would've done with said food during the attempt and troubleshooting and repair, and given how busy they've been lately, it wasn't a good choice right now. If they're able to fix the old one, we should be able to rehome it with someone who needs one.

Cooking: We did indeed make the Smitten Kitchen Roast Chicken with Schmaltzy Cabbage last weekend, and it was really good. I've been pleased about how many vegetables it turns out I can find palatable in some situations, but I think this was the most actual enjoyment I've had from one. (The cabbage didn't do as well as a leftover the next night as the chicken itself did, but was still fine.)

Stray things

Nov. 29th, 2025 05:25 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin

I suppose it's remotely possible that there's someone with a similar name to mine for whom this would be a relevant conference:

The ITISE 2026 (12th International conference on Time Series and Forecasting) seeks to provide a discussion forum for scientists, engineers, educators and students about the latest ideas and realizations in the foundations, theory, models and applications for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research encompassing disciplines of mathematics, econometric, statistics, forecaster, computer science, etc in the field of time series analysis and forecasting.

in Gran Canaria. But this looks like another of those dubious conferences spamming people very generally.

***

I have discovered a new 'offputting phrase that, found in blurb, causes you to put the book down as if radioactive': 'this gargantuan work of supernatural existentialism' - even without the name of the author - Karl Ove Knausgård - who has apparently moved on from interminable autofiction to interminable this.

***

A certain Mr JJ, that purports to be an Art Critick, on long history of artistic rivalries (between Bloke Artists, natch):

Shunning competition makes the Turner Prize feel pointless. It may be why there are no more art heroes any more.
Artistic competition goes to the essence of critical discrimination. TS Eliot said someone who liked all poetry would be very dull to talk to about poetry. Double header exhibitions that rake up old rivalries are not shallow, but help us all be critics and understand that loving means choosing. If you come out of Turner and Constable admiring both artists equally, you probably haven’t truly felt either. And if you prefer Constable, it’s pistols at dawn.

Let us be polyamorous in our artistic tastes, shall we?

***

I rather loved this by Lucy Mangan, and will be adopting the term 'frothers' forthwith:

I like to grab a cup of warm cider and settle down with as many gift guides as I can and enjoy the rage they fuel among people who have misunderstood what many might feel was the fairly simple concept of gift guides entirely. I am particularly fond of people who look at a list headed, say, “Stocking stuffers for under £50” and respond by commenting on how £50 is a ridiculous amount of money to be spending on a stocking stuffer. They are closely followed in my pantheon of greats by those who see something like “25 affordable luxuries for loved ones” and can only type “Affordable BY WHOM?!?!” before falling to the ground in a paroxysm of ill-founded self-righteousness. On and on it goes. I love it. Never change, frothers. You are the gift that keeps on giving.

***

Further to that expose of freebirthers, A concerned NHS midwife responds to an article about the Free Birth Society

Black Friday

Nov. 29th, 2025 10:36 am
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[personal profile] walkitout
I carefully bought my tickets yesterday, and bought nothing at the museum and ate only at home. But I failed at Buy Nothing, because I ordered the enterprise over at the Lego website, and I paid for parking when I went to the MFA. I don’t know if any of the other things I will ultimately be financially responsible count as “me buying something” (family members using family credit card for entertainment and groceries).

We did NOT put a tree up (yet)! Instead, R. and I did Duo and I walked with M. and had a delightful phone chat with K. and then we went to the Rachel Ruysch exhibit at MFA. It was absolutely wonderful. I highly recommend it. She was an amazing artist and this exhibit is a first ever opportunity to see this kind of overview, and then also the exhibit is structured really well, with lots of explanations about the showy flowers and the amazing bugs, work by her sister and their teacher and one of her inspirations. There’s a substantial amount of explanation / depiction of career trajectory and tons of historical context provided as well.

What surprised me most was how broad the effective angle of view is on most of these paintings (broader than many other artists of the time, right from the beginning) and how Ruysch clearly was consciously pushing that angle of view wider over most of her career. After her mid-life reduction in productivity, her return was to a slightly reduced angle of view, but a big jump up in dimensionality / immersiveness. By her last painting, she has a boldly curved line for the bottom edge of the table that now has a corner jutting out towards the viewer instead of being placed straight on the edge. That downward curve straightens out if you move back just a little bit, and the painting clicks into 3 dimensional focus. It’s subtle, remarkable, and utterly unexpected.

The backdrops on the forest floor paintings have some really delicious ambiguity to them. In at least one instance, it is recognizably a painted canvas hanging from somewhere above, as if in a display or on a stage. Are we intended to believe them as the fading background or are we intended to see this as more of the setpiece? How did Ruysch sort her viewers, based on what they saw and how they reacted to it? The discourse of the heavily programmatic paintings done by her instructor (and his generation) had taught everyone to consciously look for theme and setting to ascertain the moral of the painting (often signaled by the title). We don’t read sermons but we do still sometimes read the comedies of manners and occasionally stage the plays of this and related eras in other empires. It is delightful to wonder about all that in a vase of flowers from all over the world, wilting and being crawled on and around by lizards and snakes and beetles and the actual dead bodies of butterflies.

Just One Thing (29 November 2025)

Nov. 29th, 2025 01:37 pm
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[personal profile] nanila posting in [community profile] awesomeers
It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

(no subject)

Nov. 29th, 2025 12:28 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] ethelmay!
highlyeccentric: Arthur (BBC Merlin) - text: "SRSLY" (SRSLY)
[personal profile] highlyeccentric

From The Mandarin: Santow tips the bucket on AI slop

In a landmark speech delivered to the Sir Vincent Fairfax Oration in Sydney on Thursday, former human rights commissioner and now sought-after ethical adviser and academic Ed Santow delivered a serious wake-up call to assorted artificial intelligence cheer squad leaders and positivity meme flunkies.

Santow is positive about AI but also highly aware of its impact on societal functions, governance, and culture.

In a tightly woven speech that planted a deep stake in the necessity of the retention of knowledge and memory, Santow argued that “history matters on its own terms”, and its interpretation is also powering the next version of what we know as language models dip into the well.

“As AI disrupts our economy, politics, society and environment, I will make three arguments today:

AI might seem like it comes from the future, but it learns from the past, and so it also anchors us to that past.
Our history — or rather our choices about the versions of history that are recorded and remembered — influences how AI takes shape.
It is not enough that we expose AI systems to a ‘more accurate’ view of history; we must also draw the right lessons from history if we are to avoid repeating the mistakes and injustices of the past,” Santow said.
Exposure of AI to better feedstock is a difficult topic because, in large part, it assumes that the quality of inputs will self-correct problematic outputs. Yeah nah.

“Throughout history, we have built machines that are born like Venus — fully formed. When a car rolls off the production line, all it needs is a twist of a key or the press of a button, and it will work as intended. This is not true of AI,” Santow argued.

“AI systems start as ignorant as a newborn — perhaps even more so. A baby will search for its mother’s breast even before the baby can see. An AI system possesses none of a baby’s genetic instincts. Nothing can be assumed. All knowledge must be learned. The process of teaching an AI system — known as ‘machine learning’ — involves exposing the machine to our world.”

There’s a further problem, too, and it’s a systemic one. As internet pioneers like Vint Cerf noted, the great tech behemoth has trouble retaining both memory and history.

“The regime that should be in place [is] one in which old software is preserved; hardware can be emulated in the files so we can run old operating systems and old software so we can actually do something with the digital objects that have been captured and stored,” Cerf said in 2018.

“Think of all the papers we read now, especially academic papers that have URL references. Think about what happens 10, 20, 50 years from now when those don’t resolve anymore because the domain names were abandoned or someone forgot to pay the rent.”

That’s now happening.

But the warnings are at least a decade old.






I am wary of the about-face in my thinking on Large Language Models. Right through my time in lit academia, I was unusually positive about LLM and its uses in my field. I do not have the skillset, for instance, to work with or for Digipal, but I find their stuff REALLY COOL. It was something of a frustration to my mentors (and me, tbh) that the kind of literary scholarship I wanted to do just... didn't call for these kinds of digital tools. Even in the literary composition realm - while I encountered some truly un-informed uses of LMMs - I was significantly more willing than most literature scholars to believe that LLM linguistics could make findings as to authorship, at least on a "more likely than not" level.

In part, that is because in first-year English I was assigned some readings (in a sub-unit module on functional linguistics for literary studies) which looked at how forensic linguistics, focused not only on easily-identifiable dialect words but on patterns of "filler" words and sentence structure, had demonstrated throughout the 90s that Australian police were influencing interview records, particularly from Indigenous subjects, in ways which ranged from outright fabrication to shaping/skewing interview reports.** The case made by pragmatics is that individual speakers' uses of function words, sentence structure, etc, are shaped by context (e.g. are you or are you not a policeman), but can also, with sufficient corpus, be distinguished among individuals. I don't really see any reason to suppose that Billy Shakes is any more unique than the wrongfully convicted Mr Kelvin Condren, or that imitators of/collaborators with Billy Shakes would be less detectable to an algorithm than false police reports. Oh, there are other factors - can't use punctuation for early modern texts, because the printers did that part; medieval texts have layers of author, scribe, oral retellings and subsequent copyings, etc. I've never yet encountered such an identification that I'd hang my hat on as absolutely conclusive out of nowhere, but such studies never come out of nowhere and texts always have some context you can look at. Likely enough to work with? Sure.

I am very wary, therefore, of my current tendency to reskeet dunkings upon AI, sweeping statements about the "word association machine", etc. There are, in addition to fascinating historical uses of LLMs, very important practical ones! I would like to see those continue and be improved upon!***

I don't think I'm 100% wrong about generative LLMs producing "slop" at the moment, that's pretty clear. But I am concerned that I'm plugged in to a social media feed of academics and wonks who not only see all the current problems but also seem to be unaware of or walking back on the previously attested promising uses. So. I am not recirculating nearly as much as I read, and I am trying to weight my reading via sources like The Mandarin, rather than via Academics Despairing or other versions of the BlueSky Hot Take mill.

The article above says that Santow is "positive about AI". I rather wish it had covered what Santow is positive about, because from what they've quoted from him as to the things to be wary of, he seems to have a nuanced grip on things.

* A stand-out was a linguist using the out-of-copyright editions in the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, apparently unaware how much editorial shaping went into them, or that they are not at all up-to-date, or, upon quizzing by one of my colleagues, that the poetic texts might predate the manuscripts and differ significantly from spoken English at the time of the manuscript composition while also not reflecting spoken English of the putative poem composition date.

** I don't have my 2005 syllabi to hand anymore, more fool me. I do not think that the article we were given was Diana Eades, "The case for Condren: Aboriginal English, pragmatics and the law", Journal of Pragmatics 20.2 (1993) 141-162, but it definitely cited that article and Condren's case. Condren is a QLD case and I think the article I read was about a cohort of WA police transcripts - but that article I just cited is useful in that it has a good-enough overview in the unpaywalled abstract to illustrate my point.

*** For instance, PHREDSS, the system which monitors presentations to NSW emergency departments and produces a read-out with alerts of Public Health Interest, is an LLM. You can find a fairly readable evaluation of its use in regional NSW in relation to large gatherings and public health disaster response on the Department of Health and Aging's website. What I know from my Sources in stats is that the surveilance model is designed specifically for how emergency departments use language and record presentations, and then even the simplest-seeming uses for public health are looked at by experts in both this kind of stats, and epidemology.
The example I was given by my Sources was "pneumonia": in 2020, every day our good friend PHREDSS delivered unto the NSW government its ED data, tagged by presenting condition and location. Pneumonia was a leading indicator for COVID-19 at the time. However, someone has to check and weed out the "person didn't actually drown but they got water on the lungs" kind of pneumonia. (Given what I now know about the frequency of aspiration risks in the elderly and people with chronic illnesses, it's not going to be the surfing accidents that are the main reason you need a human to look at it: it's that if you get a statistical spike in pneumonia admissions from aged care homes in X region, you could be looking at a viral outbreak or you could be looking at some systemic failure of care leading to a whole bunch of elderly people aspirating and it not being addressed appropriately, leading to pneumonia.) This 2015 article looks at the ED-side data capture problems relating to "alcohol syndrome", and whether such data has "positive predictive" value for public health, if this sort of thing tickles your brain.

Courses - November 2025

Nov. 29th, 2025 10:28 am
smallhobbit: (Default)
[personal profile] smallhobbit
FutureLearn

Discover Contemporary Chinese: A Taster Course (Chinese Plus)

Following on from the OpenLearn basic Chinese course, I thought I'd look at this one.  I had hoped it would be a good introduction, but it was well over my head, concentrating on the main courses which the taster was promoting, without providing any assistance.  Even if I'd had some basic Chinese I doubt this would have persuaded me to take a further, paid, course with them.


OpenLearn

Getting Started with German 2 and Getting Started with German 3
Continuing with my aim to at least understand something of German when we're there.  Some of the sections were interesting and helpful, others were not within my general interests, so probably irrelevant, since I'm unlikely to want to know the German for something I don't talk about in English.

Introduction to Planetary Protection
I found this very interesting, although why astronomy appeals to me I have no idea.  It covered all sorts of areas: avoiding bringing potential contamination back from other planets and similar bodies, together with not contaminating planets our spacecraft visit.  In addition there was the clear thought that what we learn from these planets etc should be knowledge available for all and not simply exploited by the powerful.

The Gut Microbiome: Balancing the Body
The importance of what we consume and how it's important to maintain a good balance in our gut microbiome.  Apart from the general biology (which begins to go over my head), there's the effect that other areas can have, including genetics and ageing.  I need to tweak my diet, I think.

Open House

Nov. 29th, 2025 07:53 am
poliphilo: (Default)
[personal profile] poliphilo
 A bunch of creatives got together in 2008 to celebrate the opening of the Towner Gallery by forming an organisation called Eastbourne Artists. It's still going strong- and promotes (among other things) a twice yearly Open House event- with artists throwing open their houses, galleries, workshops etc to visitors. Earlier this year we discovered in informal conversation that a whole lot of us Quakers were practising arts and crafts on the sly and decided to join in and fill the Meeting House with our stuff and open it on the day. 

And the day has come. We were down at the Meeting House yesterday afternoon, making it look as much like an art gallery as we could- and today I- and several others- will be curating the result.

One thing we really want to show off is the wall hanging we commissioned from the women's art collective- Studio 11 +. We gave them the room to work in for free and they gave us the completed work- a sweet deal. I love it when there's mutual gifting and no money changes hands. The work- called Into the Light: The Quaker Way- was completed and installed a week or two back. 

IMG_8636.jpeg

I'm showing five of my watercolours. I'd like to have shown some of my AI work- if only because it's more recent- but I'd rather not get into the debate about whether it's art or not.....

Knitting...

Nov. 28th, 2025 08:40 pm
koshka_the_cat: Beach! (Default)
[personal profile] koshka_the_cat
I knit 5 rows yesterday. I just picked up my knitting tonight...
shadowkat: (Default)
[personal profile] shadowkat
Somewhat accomplished? I managed to get laundry done, switched out my torn padded bed pad, for the new less padded but not torn one. The torn had to be thrown out - it's not salvageable, unfortunately. I loved it - but can't find a similar one. Took out the recyclables. Washed the linens - it was mainly just the linens. Only two loads. So not that expensive.

Played more Mahjong. I lied when I said I don't like games? I do, but it depends on the game, and who I'm playing with. I can play that one for hours. Except it lies when it says it doesn't have ads - it does. Worse, to get out of the ad, I often have to offload and reload the game.

I also managed to schedule my flu shot for tomorrow. (I don't get the side-effects outside of a sore arm - I think I have a VERY strong immune system? But I'm doing it on Saturday morning, just in case.) Other goal is to clean out foyer closet and put up my Xmas lights in the window (if I can find them, I may need to get new ones), and the little Xmas tree with its lights, and take away the Thanksgiving decorations. Sent off Xmas list to family members, waiting on theirs.

Apparently sisterinlaw and niece's Thanksgivings included a Nantucket Pie. It's basically a fruit upside down cake with cranberries. I don't like cake and I like it even less now that I require substitutions, so I'm glad I had my pecan and pumpkin choices.

Watching Dancing with the Stars - which has some excellent dancing this season. Read more... )

Dinner was left-overs. Breakfast was fried eggs over spinach leaves, lemon, and grits. I combined Breakfast and Lunch.

Angel S1 Re-Watch - Episode 2 - Are You Now or Have You Ever Been

I remember being less than thrilled with this episode the first two times I saw it. But now, I see a lot of interesting things in it that I'd not seen before. Weirdly, I find I appreciate it more without the echo of others in the background or my desire to compare it against Buffy. The two shows are very different series, with different goals and aims. Distance helps, I think?

cut for length )

Question a Day Mememage - November

Catching up on the Mememage - I'm dreadfully behind.

24. Do you have throw pillows/cushions around the house?

Yes. Although apartment.

25. Is lunch a snack, a light meal, or your main meal of the day?

Snack or light meal - I'm not a lunch person. I even skip it sometimes on weekends.

26. On National Cake Day – what is your favourite cake?

Flourless Chocolate Cake - which is technically the only cake I have any longer.

Or

Angel food, but I haven't found much in the Gluten Free versions. It's hard to find. I like it because it is light, and can serve it without icing. Also butter mochi cake, which is kind of similar.

27. Have you ever slept in socks at night?

Yes, and I always end up kicking them off in the middle of the night. So I don't.

28. November is part of World Vegan Month – have you tried any vegan food this month?

Yes. My chocolate chip cookies that I get from Insominac Cookies are vegan.

Not a small repair [projects, sewing]

Nov. 28th, 2025 08:30 pm
rebeccmeister: (Default)
[personal profile] rebeccmeister
My Buy Nothing Day activity: working on mending my wool Nebraska Sandhills Randonneurs jersey, which I now notice has moth damage in addition to the wear and tear just repaired. Sigh. Most likely I need to do a very thorough round of wool management.

My wool cycling jerseys all seem to wear out in the armpits first, so this repair will be an experiment to learn if extra reinforcement will work and be sufficiently comfortable. I have only completed 1 of 2 armpits so far on this jersey, and I have a second jersey in the queue now.

Buy Nothing Day activity: mending a wool cycling jersey

While it will not have the same appearance as it did originally, there is no mistaking the point that time has been invested in maintaining this jersey instead of throwing it “away” (wherever that is). I have seen a number of similar sorts of repairs on wool garments in museums.

But along with that I also remember reading about how many of the old, tired wool mittens of yore would eventually just get shredded up into wool felt. There will come a point where that will be the most appropriate outcome, but I am hoping for at least a few more years before then.

Update [me, health]

Nov. 28th, 2025 04:54 pm
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[personal profile] siderea
Very shortly after I posted my recent request for pointers on 3D printing education – a request which was occasioned by my getting excited over my new and improved typing capability courtesy of my new NocFree ergonomic keyboard and wanting to make it a peripheral – my shoulder/back went *spung* in the location and way I had had a repetitive strain injury a decade+ previously.

*le sigh*

I'm back to writing ("writing") slowly and miserably by dictation, because all of my other forms of data entry aggravate this RSI. (This explains how rambly and poorly organized the previous post was and this one too will be.)

I'm going to try to debug my ergonomics, but it remains to be seen whether I can resume typing.

Thanksgiving came at an opportune time, because it took me away from computers for a day. But I had wanted to get another post out before the end of the month. We'll see what happens.

So, uh, I had been going to post about how I have worked back up to something like 80%, maybe 90%, of my keyboard fluency on the NocFree. Eit.

Thanksgiving dinner

Nov. 28th, 2025 09:06 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

A little while ago [personal profile] angelofthenorth had offered to cook a thanksgiving dinner with some of my usual recipes.

Fuck thanksgiving as a concept, obviously, but an excuse for a fancy meal is always welcome.

So I found the handwritten notes-to-self that constitute my versions of pumpkin pie and scalloped corn, and she made those tonight with a delicious veggie haggis, roast new potatoes, turnips, carrots and parsnips, and what would've been mashed swede except we didn't mash it.

I helped, doing chores like chopping the pumpkin and washing dishes. It was fun. At one point when I was drying a mixing bowl and about to put it away, she said "we make a good team!" That was nice to hear!

Everything was delicious. It's so annoying that I stull have a headache that has come and gone all day, because I have no spoons to say more.

kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Spotted in today's book, with just as much of a medical theme as you might reasonably expect:

... biopsy-
chosocial...

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