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Posted by Bruce Schneier

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/12/upcoming-speaking-engagements-51.html

https://www.schneier.com/?p=71334

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:

I’m speaking and signing books at the Chicago Public Library in Chicago, Illinois, USA, at 6:00 PM CT on February 5, 2026. Details to come.
I’m speaking at Capricon 44 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The convention runs February 5-8, 2026. My speaking time is TBD.
I’m speaking at the Munich Cybersecurity Conference in Munich, Germany on February 12, 2026.
I’m speaking at Tech Live: Cybersecurity in New York City, USA on March 11, 2026.
I’m giving the Ross Anderson Lecture at the University of Cambridge’s Churchill College on March 19, 2026.
I’m speaking at RSAC 2026 in San Francisco, California, USA on March 25, 2026.

The list is maintained on this page.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/12/upcoming-speaking-engagements-51.html

https://www.schneier.com/?p=71334

profiterole_reads

Netflix's Wake Up Dead Man, the third Knives Out movie, wasn't for me.

The first one had an interesting mystery. I guessed a lot about the second one, but it was pretty fun and original. I also guessed a lot about this one and found it quite depressing. Plus, we didn't even see Benoit Blanc's husband again.

Nice cast, though, especially Kerry Washington and Andrew Scott. <3

scripsi

Glögg

Glögg is a Swedish mulled wine that has been drunk since at least the Middle Ages. The word comes from the older glödg, which simply means heated. Nowadays it is traditionally served in December. Though you can buy it readymade, I always make my own, as I find the bought stuff too sweet.

½ bottle brandy
1 bottle red wine
1 bottle port wine (I use the cheapest possible of all three bottles of alcohol, as the spices dominate the flavour.)
25 grams of whole cinnamon
10 grams of whole cardamon seeds
10 grams of whole cloves
300 grams granulated sugar
15 centiliters of water

Lightly crush the whole spices and mix with the brandy After 1-3 days, strain and mix the brandy with the red wine and the port wine. Dissolve the sugar in the water on low heat, and add to the alcohol. Now it’s done, and just needs to be bottled. Will keep for several years.

Serve heated in small cups with whole almonds and raisins. Usually with gingerbread cookies and ”lussekatter” (saffron buns) to eat with it. In Sweden you can buy special cups for it, but cups meant for Turkish coffee are the perfect size.

The discarded spices can be re-used in a simmer pot.

You can play around with the recipe, and add other spices. This year I added two star anises and two tonka beans, some black pepper and allspice. Vanilla bean and dried orange peel can also be added. And you can use any sugar you like, this year it was a mix of rock sugar and some tonka-infused sugar.

Gingerbread

Mix together:
150 grams softened butter
2 ½ dl sugar
Add
½ dl golden golden syrup
1 dl cold water

Mix together in another bowl
8 dl white flour
1 tbl ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cardamon
1 tsp ground clove
1 ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Slowly as the flour mix to the wet ingredients until a dough is formed. Cover the bowl and let it rest in the fridge overnight, at least for 12 hours. Remove about an hour before you plan to bake. Roll out very thinly, like 2-3 mm and cut out with cookie cutters. Heat the oven to 175C and bake for 6-7 minutes.

If you wish you can decorate with frosting. The traditional shapes of the cookie cutters are hearts, men, women, pigs and billy goats, but whatever shape you want is fine. I have collected a lot over the years, but my favorites are a pig and a man cutter that once belonged to one of my great-grandmothers, so it’s over a 100 years old.

TIP: These cookies are a hassle to move to the baking sheet as they are so thin. So I roll out the dough directly on a silicone baking mat so I don’t have to move them.

Knäck (Christmas Butterscotch)

This is a traditional Christmas candy. “Knäck” translates to crack, and beware, these are delicious, but can be hard on the teeth and fillings.

You need equal parts of full fat cream, golden syrup (or treacle) and sugar. I usually use 2 dl of each. Pour into a pot and heat until boiling, while constantly stirring. Adjust the heat so it doesn’t boil over and continue to stir. Cook until 126-130C, or until a drop of the mixtures, dripped into cold water, is easily formed into a ball. Traditionally poured into small (like 1,5-2 cm across) fluted paper cups.

It’s very popular to add chopped blanched almonds as the last step before pouring, though personally I don’t care for that. But for the amount above, you would need about ⅔ dl unchopped almonds.

marycatelli

This week's prompt is:
island 🏝️

Anyone can join, with a 50-word creative fiction vignette in the comments. Your vignette does not have to include the prompt term. Any (G or PG) definition of the word can be used.

skygiants

On a lighter Parisian note, I read my first Katherine Rundell book, Rooftoppers, which I would have ADORED at age ten but also found extremely fun at age forty!

The heroine of Rooftoppers is orphan Sophie, found floating in a cello case the English Channel after a terrible shipwreck and adopted by a charming eccentric named Charles who raises her on Shakespeare and Free Spirited Inquiry. Unfortunately the English authorities do not approve of children being raised on Shakespeare and Free Spirited Inquiry, so when they threaten to remove Sophie to an orphanage, Charles and Sophie buy themselves time by fleeing to Paris in an attempt to track down traces of Sophie's parentage.

Sophie is stubbornly convinced she might have a mother somewhere out there who survived the shipwreck! Charles is less convinced, but willing to be supportive. On account of the Authorities, however, Charles advises Sophie to stay in the hotel while he pursues the investigation -- but Sophie will not be confined! So she starts pursuing her own investigations via the hotel roof, where she rapidly collides with Matteo, an extremely feral child who claims ownership of the Paris roofs and Does Not Want want Sophie intruding.

But of course eventually Sophie wins Matteo over and is welcomed into the world of the Rooftoppers, Parisian children who have fled from orphanages in favor of leaping from spire to steeple, stealing scraps and shooting pigeons (but also sometimes befriending the pigeons) and generally making a self-sufficient sort of life for themselves in the Most Scenic Surroundings in the World. The book makes it quite clear that the Rooftoppers are often cold and hungry and smelly and the whole thing is no bed of roses, while nonetheless fully and joyously indulging in the tropey delight of secret! hyper-competent! child! rooftop! society!!

The book as a whole strikes a lovely tonal balance just on the edge of fairy tale -- everything is very technically plausible and nothing is actually magic, but also, you know, the central image of the book is a gang of rooftop Lost Kids chasing the haunting sound of cello music over the roof of the Palais de Justice. The ending I think does not make the mistake of trying to resolve too much, and overall I found it a really charming experience.

cakewrecks_feed

Posted by Sharyn

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/sunday-sweets-polar-opposites-2025

There are few things in this world that can be stated with absolute certainty, but two of them are:

(By Jen's Party Cakes)

1) This polar bear is freakin' adorable...

and

(By CMNY Cakes)

2) These penguins ROCK!

Well, if penguins and polar bears are so great separately, doesn't it follow that they'd be even better together?

(By Cakes by Roxanne)

"But, wait!" someone will say, "You can't put polar bears and penguins together! They're from different poles! They are, in fact, polar opposites."

Well, someone -- can I call you "someone?" -- I say if we can put a man on the moon, then we can find a way to get these kids together!

We just need to find a mode of transportation.

Maybe the penguins could hitch a ride with an orca:

(By The Chocolate Moose)

...or grab the tail of a bright blue whale:

(By Cakes by Maylene)

A jolly gentleman with a recently emptied sleigh might stop by with friends and take a few penguins home for a visit:

(By Cakes by Samantha)

Or perhaps this cool chick will take a wrong turn using Apple Maps and stumble into a penguin colony:

(By Choccywoccydoodah)

Of course, if you think it might be too hard to get a polar bear to pull a sled full of penguins, we could always ask some sled dogs:

(By The EvIl Plankton)

Who knows? They might be tired of running around Alaska.

But maybe we're being too complicated. The penguins could just hop a ship:

(By Charm City Cakes)

They wouldn't even have to dock. Just pull up alongside a handy iceberg!

(By Highland Bakery)

...and voilá!

See, now that I've explained how we could make this work, it's not all that far-fetched, is it?

So the next time you find yourself taking a little vacation way up north...

(By Nice Icing)

...and you see this gang hanging out together:

(By The Couture Cakery)

Chillax. It's totally cool.

May your Sunday be super cool!

*****

I need y'all to see these super adorable scarf hoods - with built-in pocket mittens!

3-in-1 Animal Hat, Scarf & Mitten Combo

You can choose from lots of colors and styles, from just ears and paws to full animal heads on top. Click the link to see the rest, I especially love the fox & leopard.

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/sunday-sweets-polar-opposites-2025

james_davis_nicoll

I was a bit surprised to come across this as Hartwell wasn't really the go-to editor where women's SF was concerned. An interesting snapshot of SF in a sixteen-year period. The end is the fall of the American republic. Not sure what was significant about 1984.

( Read more... )

james_davis_nicoll

One very small step for a man, one giant leap for Her Majesty's Government.

Cold War in a Country Garden (Dilke, volume 1) by Lindsay Gutteridge

siderea

Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1891517.html

This is part of Understanding Health Insurance

Introduction
A Health Plan is a Contract
The Three-Stage Model ⇐ You are here

The Three-Stage Model

When you have health insurance, you have a contract (health plan) with the insurance company that says that for the duration (the plan year) of the contract, you will pay them the agreed upon monthly fee every month (the premium), in exchange for them paying for your health care... some.

How much is "some"? Well, that depends.

To understand what it depends on, you have to understand the three-stage model that health plans are organized around.

This three-stage model is never described as such. It is implicit in the standard terms (jargon) of the health insurance industry, and it is never made explicit. There is no industry term (jargon) for the model itself. There are no terms (jargon) for the three stages. But health insurance becomes vastly easier to understand if you think about it in terms of the three-stage model that is hiding in just about every health plan's terms (agreements).

( Read more: 12,170 (sic!) riveting words about health insurance in the US] )

This post brought to you by the 221 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

hudebnik

For the first time this year. (Technically, I saw a dusting of snow on the ground two days ago, on Thursday's bedtime dog-walk, but neither of us had seen it fall, and it was gone by morning.) There appears to be an inch or two on the ground now. Not much more is forecast to fall, so it's just enough to be pretty without posing a major heart-attack or navigation danger.

Yesterday afternoon I retrieved the snow shovel, ice-breaker, ice-melting-salt, and solar-powered Xmas-tree-looking sidewalk-lights from the garage, exchanging them for the leaf-rake, the soil-tilling morningstar, and the spade, none of which I think we'll need for a few months. The sidewalk-lights have been shoved into the ground, and all but one of them lit up successfully last night. Between those, the cone of white lights on the climbing-vine trellis in the front yard, and the fresh coat of snow, it actually looks like a proper Christmastime.

On the schedule for today: wrap Christmas presents, cook, eat, play some music, watch something seasonally appropriate on the tube.

spikedluv

I hit Price Chopper and the Bakery while I was downtown. I actually got breakfast at the Bakery this morning and picked up some GCs there, in addition to my weekly order of Boar’s Head deli meat.

I visited mom, did two loads of laundry, hand-washed dishes, went for a couple walks with Pip and the dogs, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and scooped kitty litter. I stopped at Stewart’s on the way home from mom’s (for gas and milk). I mailed a couple more cards at the Post Office and stopped at the library to pick up a book.

I picked up the poinsettia that I ordered from the school band to support Ireland (Sister A dropped it off at mom’s) and am on a new candle scent for the holiday, pine instead of cookies. *g*

I did not have to cook supper because tonight was the garage Christmas dinner at The Bear’s, which is an awesome restaurant. We’ve been going there for years. The meal is served family style, but starts with an appetizer course and a soup or salad course, and is followed by dessert. We get a platter of prime rib (with potatoes and baby carrots) and a platter of Chateaubriand. (I prefer the prime rib.) [And there are plenty of leftovers for people to take home, so I won't have to cook tomorrow, either!]

I started reading Killing Floor.

Temps started out at 23.0(F) (and went down to 21.7 before I left the house) and reached 36.1 (that I saw). It was pretty nice for the drive to the restaurant.

Mom Update:

Mom was doing okay when I visited. ( more back here )

shipperslist

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

freyjaw

First, I have two versions of one carol, then another carol.

Deck the halls with catnip mousies
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Wreck the tree and blame the doggies
Fa la la la la, la la la la...

Wreck the Halls

Wreck the halls and steal the ribbons.
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Christmas time`s such fun for kittens.
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

We like to help you with the wrapping.
Fa la la, la la la, la la la.
No fair do it when we`re napping.
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

So many gifts beneath the tree.
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Is there a present just for me.
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Rip the wrap to sneak a peek.
Fa la la, la la la, la la la.
Is it a fuzzy toy I seek.
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas my Human gave to me.....

Twelve cans of tuna.
Eleven furry cat toys.
Ten shiny ribbons.
Nine cat dancers.
Eight bowls of cream.
Seven goldfish swimming.
Six litter boxes.
Five...catnip...mice.
Four scratching posts.
Three cat treats.
Two cozy beds.
And a deluxe new cat tree.

Silent Mouse

Silent mouse, little gray mouse,
How you creep, round my house.
Don't you know you're a plaything to me,
Don't you know I'm your enemy.
Better get out while you can,
Better get out while you can.

Silent mouse, little gray mouse,
Still you creep, round my house,
I'm so tired of your squeaking,
Tired of hearing folks shrieking,
This will be your last warning,
Better get out while you can.

Silent mouse, little gray mouse,
All is calm, round my house.
From your hole you silently crept,
From the shadows I silently leapt.
I can sleep in peace,
I can sleep in peace.

Current Mood: full
Current Location: In the recliner
Current Music: NHK-World Newsline

lhune posting in

3_good_things_a_day

1) Meeting up with 2 of my cousins and my uncle (and my parents) to celebrate various birthdays (and perhaps a new house?)

2) Going out for dinner at a place where they have a wood burner (I love those things but can’t have them at my place)

3) I’m loving the new Doctor Who Spin-off on BBC ^__^

muccamukk

Eighty years before this year, WWII ended.

Eighty years before WWII ended, the American Civil War ended.

So we are as far away from (or as close to) WWII, as the people in WWII were from (or to) the Civil War.

IDK, it's interesting to think about. Something Elizabeth Samet has written about, a bit, too.

I only wrote a very short version of that fic where Steve Rogers was a civil war vet, who was frozen until Tony from Iron Man Noir found him, but I was always fond of that idea.

elisem

Um.

I tried to write an intro for this, but all I can do is gesture incoherently. No, I wasn't a Baldy, I wasn't a skinhead, but the milieu affected my life for Reasons. If you watch this documentary it may give you a better understanding of (some of) what made Minneapolis in the 80s what it was. Or maybe you were there too, and this will be an interesting tour of byegone days.

I really want to get together and share stories of those times. For now, here, have a pretty good documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=8BSDZ1DIEIQ

senmut

~ Simone Ashley in a suit - gif set
~ Cate Blanchett in a suit - photo
~ Halle Bailey looking like a real life barbie doll - photos

~ James Stewart and Hedy Lamarr in COME LIVE WITH ME (1941) - gif set
~ Narnia: The Magician's Nephew in production - wiki link
~ let's talk about Emperor Palpatine's last week leading up to the conclusion of Episode IV - text post

~ Modern day chatelaine with tutorial - pictures and text
~ Better late than never (Saiyuki [Manga]) - fic link
~ A doctor starts seeing patients as people and taking notes - text post, poignant

~ Hellboy cosplay - video
~ Art by Science - video

archersangel

i read once that people really didn't care if they had a white christmas (a.k.a snow on christmas day) until Bing Crosby sang the song white christmas in the movie holiday inn & then people started looking forward to having one and getting annoyed when they don't get it.

Poll #33956 white christmas

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

View Respondents

do you want snow on christmas day?

View Answers

yes
2 (50.0%)

no
0 (0.0%)

it doesn't matter
2 (50.0%)

do you live in a place where it could snow on christmas?

View Answers

yes
3 (75.0%)

no
1 (25.0%)

fred_mouse

surgical recovery continues apace. The incision has mostly healed, although the knot of dissolving stitches at one end got caught when I was trying to clean it and pulled it slightly open, so I've now cut off the knot, put a fancy steri-strip over it to hold it together, and a little circular sticking plaster over that. Internals still noticeably sore, externals are itchy; have been putting 'scar therapy gel' on which seems to help (it was in the cupboard; I do not know what any of the ingredients are). I see the surgeon on Tuesday for follow up.
reviewers comments for my candidacy proposal are in (received late on Friday). I'm not actually sure what the next step is -- I'll work it out tomorrow. I think it said 'no edits' which is a surprise, given that I have been reading and annotating weekly since submitting, and there are a lot of 'this could be clearer' and 'what did you mean here?' notes. Also, I found another answer to one of the reviewers questions from the presentation about why books and not films/tv, which is that I'm hoping to get a wider range of cultural influences (and I have a paper from Italy in which almost all of the TV/movies that the kids reported was from the USA, which very much supports my 'this would be an issue' argument)
there was an HDR and supervisors lunch run by the school I'm in on Monday. This was very interesting and I met a lot of people. Including one who I was unsurprised to discover is an acquaintance of Youngest. Very queer (not very surprising) and neurodiverse (should not have been surprising) bunch that I met.
weather has been Warm. To the point that artisanat has been volunteering to put the air-con on.
There have been some changes to the mix of South Asian grocers on High Road. One of the two north of Bunnings has gone (and the one still there no longer stocks palak paneer in their shelf-stable preprepared meals; not the regular nor the tofu/vegan option. They do, however, still have some vegan options). There is a new one that is further south than the ones I was aware of -- nearly to where the petrol station is. To the point that it is still so new that not all the shelves are stocked; we couldn't find the box meals there at all, but we had to rush because we ran out of time. Thus there are still three that I'm aware of.
Monday's rehearsal I went with the intention to play pizzicato, which was mostly fine, but I got there to discover the C string broken (spare was at home) so had to transpose some of the work up an octave, which ah, that needs practice. As does one of the sections we hadn't got to that I'd failed to realise has a lot of fast notes.
craft has stalled
reading - one of these week's I'll get around to doing another reading post. Over on the Book Club of Habitica Discord I've joined the TBR Bingo challenge for Dec/Jan and set myself a bingo card of 16 books from my 'paused' list. So far, I've finished 1, which is progress but not as fast as I want.

sovay

Apparently I can no longer re-toast myself a signature half pastrami, half corned beef sandwich from Mamaleh's without spending the rest of the evening singing the same-named hit from a 1917 American Yiddish musical. The Folksbiene never seems to have revived it and if the rest of the score was as catchy, they really should. (I am charmed that the composer clearly found the nickel conceit tempting enough to revisit in a later show, but that line quoted about the First Lady, didn't I just ask the twentieth century to stay where we left it?)

At the other end of the musical spectrum,

spatch maintains it is not American-normal to be able to sing the Holst setting of "In the Bleak Midwinter," which until last night I had assumed was just such seasonal wallpaper that I had absorbed it by unavoidable dint of Christmas—it's one of the carols I can't remember learning, unlike others which have identifiable vectors in generally movies, madrigals, or folk LPs. Opinions?

Thanks to lunisolar snapback, Hanukkah like every other holiday this year seems to have sprung up out of nowhere, but we managed to get hold of candles last night and tomorrow will engage in the mitzvah of last-minute cleaning the menorah.

P.S. I fell down a slight rabbit hole of Bruce Adler and now feel I have spent an evening at a Yiddish vaudeville house on the Lower East Side circa 1926.