Situations Vacant in Port Pirie, November 1948
Dec. 5th, 2025 06:19 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
ciphermysteries_feedWhen writing up my Trove search notes for “instrument maker”, it struck me that I should hunt for lead-related jobs in the Adelaide Advertiser’s Situations Vacant listings for the first part of November 1948. Researchers have typically assumed that Carl Webb was living far away from Adelaide, but what if he had been working in … Read More →
The post Situations Vacant in Port Pirie, November 1948 appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.
Microplastics in oceans may distort carbon cycle understanding
Dec. 5th, 2025 01:04 pmphys_environment_feedChristmas music | Not-Christmas cake
Dec. 5th, 2025 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
umadoshiMy playlist is awfully random, really. I'm picky about Christmas music, but not in a way that follows much rhyme or reason. I like some boys' choir stuff. I mostly prefer older Christmas songs to more modern ones. But in practice, a lot of what I listen to is single-artist holiday albums, often by artists I don't really listen to otherwise. (The examples in my playlist so far are Annie Lennox and Sting and Idina Menzel, and maybe Mary Fahl counts, since I haven't heard any of her other solo work, just the old October Project albums where she was the lead vocalist.) If you have recs along those lines, feel free to throw them my way!
(Am I still entertained by the fact that Tori Amos put out a seasonal holiday album, uh...[*checks notes*] seventeen years ago? [WHY did I just date-check that?] Yep. Am I listening to it right now because it turned out that I enjoy most of it? Also yep. Still funny.)
(Would-be-funny-if-not-completely-horrifying: Every once in a while I remember Tom McRae saying that in the earliest days, his label thought his song "You Cut Her Hair" could be released as a Christmas track. "You Cut Her Hair" deals with the Holocaust. Very seasonal. Yes. o_o)
I guess it must've been back on the weekend that we made Smitten Kitchen's Mom’s Apple Cake, which was the first apple cake I was looking at a few weeks ago, but at the time we didn't have a tube pan on hand. (You can use a bundt, which we did have, but...I didn't opt for that.) It's very good. It's also LARGE. (Some went into the freezer.)
We cracked out the Burlap & Barrel Royal Cinnamon for it, and the cake is very cinnamony, but that presumably is at least equally due to the part where the cake calls for a tablespoon.
Top of the Charts: our most popular work in 2025
Dec. 5th, 2025 12:00 amour_world_in_datarss_feedIn which the Friday Five tempts me to break my posting fast
Dec. 5th, 2025 04:21 pmspiralsheepDespite representing my schools in multiple sporting events from the ages of 8-15, especially netball and athletics, I have no idea what events are currently in the Olympics. If I'd trained hard when I was younger I probably could've made it into one of the less popular events for the UK (my cousin did a sport at national level), not ski-jumping though because it's too challenging so Eddie the Eagles's's legend remains safe. :-D
2. What is the one song you always sing along to?
I sing along to almost everything, including scat singing classical instrumental music. I also sing signals to the birbs when I feed them, so they know I've put food out and wasn't merely gardening (but the robin follows me closely when I'm potentially exposing natural food too).
3. Do you wear a seatbelt in the car?
Yes, obv, why wouldn't I? Although, to quote the novel I'm currently reading about post-communist Eastern Europe: "They'd fastened their seat belts, an obvious sign that they weren't from around here."
4. Car, SUV or truck and why?
Feet, bus, train, pedals, trap/horse: in that order. In an apocalypse I'd steal a small electric vehicle with large wheels that could be charged by renewable energy and had reasonably available parts (tyres for a start!), so probably a bicycle and bike trailer.
5. Are you a good/bad driver? Explain.
I'm a good driver, but I'm now medically disqualified from driving on public roads (except farm machinery for which I have an exemption and vehicles that don't require a licence). I can drive multiple different vehicles with wheels numbering between one (wheelbarrow not unicycle) and many-many. Also, I've driven large farm machinery on narrow winding lanes and never squished anybody, which is proof of my good-drivingness. Lastly, I never drove a front-opening bubble car with no reverse gear into a wall while drunk and had to stay there all night until my friends found and rescued me in the morning, lmao.
6. And y'all? :-)
Just stuff
Dec. 5th, 2025 07:44 amsusandennisI'm thinking we drop the anti anxiety pill and see how that goes. And then also drop the other one and go back to the hyper expensive food. Expensive, yes, but easier over all. He's fine. He acts fine. He eats fine. He poops fine. He pees fine. He drinks plenty of water. He's fine.
Oh and the tofu litter? It's really really fine. I am never going back. It's cleaner with no dust or debris and I also feel like I need less of it to do the job.
This morning, I think I'll go out and get some smaller cash. I never need 20 dollar bills. When I do need cash, it's ones and fives. There is a little Christmas fair this morning to raise money for something. But Martha has a table so I have to go. If I want to buy something, it's much more considerate to have exact change and all I have are 20's. To today is a good excuse to go get some usable money. I set up the Chase account for this very reason but have yet to take advantage. The closest Chase branch is very close.
It's cold and rainy but not nearly cold enough for ice so no big obstacle for going out and the car needs to stretch its tires.
A Date In December
Nov. 29th, 2025 10:30 amao3_sky_high_movie_feedby Ultra
More than a year after they began dating, Will & Layla have called it a day... which leaves an opening for another friend to become a lover this Christmas.
Words: 658, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English
Series: Part 5 of Ultra's OTP Advent Calendar 2025
- Fandoms: Sky High (2005)
- Rating: General Audiences
- Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
- Categories: F/M
- Characters: Warren Peace, Layla Williams
- Relationships: Warren Peace/Layla Williams
- Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Past Will Stronghold/Layla Williams - Freeform, Friendship/Love, Friends to Lovers, Understanding, Christmas, Christmas Presents
The 2025 Whatever Holiday Gift Guide, Day Five: Charities
Dec. 5th, 2025 01:46 pmscalziwhatever_feed
For the last four days, the 2025 Whatever Gift Guide has been about helping you find the perfect gifts for friends and loved ones. But today I’d like to remind folks that the season is also about helping those in need. So this final day is for charities. If you’re looking for a place to make a donation — or know of a charitable organization that would gladly accept a donation — this is the place for it.
How to contribute to this thread:
1. Anyone can contribute. If you are associated with or work for a charity, tell us about the charity. If there’s a charity you regularly contribute to or like for philosophical reasons, share with the crowd. This is open to everyone.
2. Focus on non-political charities, please. Which is to say, charities whose primary mission is not political — so, for example, an advocacy group whose primary thrust is education but who also lobbies lawmakers would be fine, but a candidate or political party or political action committee is not. The idea here is charities that exist to help people and/or make the world a better place for all of us.
3. It’s okay to note personal fundraising (Indiegogo and GoFundMe campaigns, etc) for people in need. Also, other informal charities and fundraisers are fine, but please do your part to make sure you’re pointing people to a legitimate fundraiser and not a scam. I would suggest only suggesting campaigns that you can vouch for personally.
3. One post per person. In that post, you can list whatever charities you like, and more than one charity. Note also that the majority of Whatever’s readership is in the US/Canada, so I suggest focusing on charities available in North America.
4. Keep your description of the charity brief (there will be a lot of posts, I’m guessing) and entertaining. Imagine the person is in front of you as you tell them about the charity and is interested but easily distracted.
5. You may include a link to a charity site if you like via URL. Be warned that if you include too many links (typically three or more) your post may get sent to the moderating queue. If this happens, don’t panic: I’ll be going in through the day to release moderated posts. Note that posts will occasionally go into the moderation queue semi-randomly; Don’t panic about that either.
6. Comment posts that are not about people promoting charities they like will be deleted, in order to keep the comment thread useful for people looking to find charities to contribute to.
All right, then: It’s the season of giving. Tell us where to give to make this a better place.
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smithsonian_history_feed"Dognitive Science" again
Dec. 5th, 2025 11:29 amlanguagelog_feedFollowing up on "Pets with Buttons", it's clearly time to return to "Dognitive Science" and catch up on the relevant literature.
Large, contain multitudes, do not wish to brag
Dec. 5th, 2025 11:01 amoursinPeople asking me last night 'what do you/are you working on?'
Duh. I flannelled and gave the general field, rather than saying: I completed my PhD over 30 years ago, I have published 6 books, 3 co-edited volumes, and getting on for 70 articles and chapters, have done assorted meedja appearances, have lost count of the reviews I've done -
Not to mention the website, the blog, the assorted things that fall into the category of other -
'My Deaaar, it's all a long story and rather complicated' and my most recent publication was not even in my field, it was being a sort of Litry Scholar.
Thing is there were some persons of maturer age there who were, I gathered in conversation, getting back into the academic swing, so I might have been doing that, rather than trying to get back up out of something of a trough?
Did mention, apropos of cute cuddly spirochaete, that I had worked on History of Loathsome Diseases of Immorality: but gee, I am large, I contain multitudes, and I have been going a long time.
ETA
Not that I consider the organisers of 'prestigious World Conference on Women’s Health, Reproduction,and Midwifery, scheduled for 08-10 June 2026, in Paris,France' to really Know Who I Am since they are begging and pleading for my attendance on the basis of my 'remarkable work' a recent review of a book on the history of abortion.
Okay, they do offer partial support for accommodation and registration, and brekkers and lunch at the conference (this implies, o horrors, breakfast sessions).
What if my boys could mean the world to me and I could matter too
Dec. 5th, 2025 05:27 ambeansideIn exciting news, Jess finally decided that they'd like to get a picture with Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, who are voice actors from the Transformers movies, so we went ahead and got that. That'll be on Sunday, followed by the Transformer's panel. I don't think we're doing anything tonight, since we probably won't get in til late. Instead, we'll spend tomorrow there, and see all the shit we can see. And we'll probably leave after the panel on Sunday for the long haul home.
We'll see how it goes, I guess. I don't know how much stamina we have, but we'll go for it.
Yesterday was good. We drove to Sibley for Jess' post op, got there early as usual and were done about 10min before the actual appointment time. We were pulling out of the garage as it was hitting Jess' appt time. Not any huge traffic either way, which was nice. Pretty smooth. Then we took the puppy for his walk, and I worked for half a day.
Work was busy and a bit chaotic as it always is this time of the year. We're trying to get in a kiddo for a long appointment, which is not going well so far. We had one, they couldn't take it, so we're back to figuring things out.
After that, it was a trip up to Hunt Valley for my tattoo. It wasn't as bad as I was fearing. My last tattoo was done by an apprentice 20 years ago, and I get the feeling that he was heavy handed. I managed to hold rock still, and we got it done an hour and a half early. I was expecting to be there til 8:30, but was done at 6:52pm. I had to shift a few times, but I did that while she was switching needles or adding more colors.
Anyway, meet Owlbert the Owlbear.
I love him so much!
Done by Ronie at Layer3 Collective, same as Jess' tattoos.
Right now, he still feels like a mild sunburn. But that is not unexpected after having someone basically flay the top few layers of skin for 2 hours.
It's weird. I've always gotten tattoos to commemorate things. This is the first one I've gotten that is just kind of random. Not particular commemorating anything, just wanted it. It's kinda cool. Since Ronie wanted some D&D art for her portfolio, she gave me a discount. The total tattoo cost $250. Jess' last one was I think $400.
Ronnie uses Saniderm, so I don't have to fuck with it, except to change the dressing tonight. Then I can put on the second one and leave it til Sunday night. Which is handy, since we're going to be at the con.
After that was one, I slept like a rock. Fell asleep early and did not stir thereafter. It was nice, especially after getting up early to go to Sibley.
Okay, on that note, it's time for me to go forth and get myself together. I still have a bit of packing to do! Everyone have a most excellent Friday!
The Day in Spikedluv (Thursday, Dec 4)
Dec. 5th, 2025 05:48 amspikedluvI did a load of laundry, hand-washed dishes, ran a load in the dishwasher, went for several walks with Pip and the dogs, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and scooped kitty litter. I finished up chili for supper and made cornbread. (The chili was not my best, disappointing.)
I stopped at the library to pick up a book. Our library didn’t have the new In Death book yet, so Librarian #2 (not the head librarian), who has already read the book, took it out from a different library where she also works, for me. I need to get that book read quickly and take even better care than usual since it’s not even signed out under my name. There was a surprise book that I had actually requested waiting for me, too.
I hung my wreath! Wreaths used to come with a little wire thingy that you could loop over the hanger, but no more. I had to wait to get a piece of wire from the garage to use.
I lit my scented candle, turned on the few Christmas ornaments that light up, and put the shuffle on my old iPod that barely works these days so I could listen to Christmas music and did a good number of Christmas cards! Very pleased with myself.
I started the new In Death book I got today and Zoo Tampa was my background tv in the evening.
Temps started out at 30.2(F) and reached 30.9. When I got home around noon, it was 29-something and just kept hovering in that vicinity, 28, 29, 30 . . . It was also very windy. Very. We weren’t supposed to get any snow, but suddenly I’m getting warnings for snow squalls from TWC app. We got enough snow that I had to go back out and shovel after supper clean-up, while Pip was out blowing open the trails again. (Between the snow and the wind, the trails had gotten pretty clogged in certain places.) It had already fallen to 15 degrees by that point, so it was chilly out, and still windy.
Mom Update:
Mom was doing the same, sadly. She’s still eating, thankfully, but not all of it is sitting well. She tucked herself away in her ‘den’ where she is hidden from seeing what the weather is like because she didn’t like seeing more snow coming down, and watched a Hallmark movie that she enjoyed, then her usual Love Boat and Mama’s Family. *g* One of her friends from work called her, which was nice.
Social justice must guide global ecosystem restoration for lasting success, say researchers
Dec. 5th, 2025 05:00 amphys_environment_feed