kengr

$mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)$

Not sure what to make of this week. I was not as productive as I need to be, and only got out for walks three times -- four only if you count the 200m taking a bag of mostly cat litter out to the garbage bins at the end of the block. On the other hand, The Black Blood of the Earth, brought back from the US by m, and I had a really good, long video call with E on Thursday.

On the gripping hand, m left for the UK yesterday, to look at colleges and to see whether they like it there. They took their cat, Cricket, which means one less litter box to clean next time I'm on my own here, and also that I'll be able to let Ticia out of my room more (she and Cricket don't get along). But we never did the recording that we'd wanted to do for the Kaleidofolk album. But at least I remembered what I'd read last year about needing a leash and harness for Cricket, so that they could run her carrier through the X-ray, in time for G to order one.

I didn't do as much work on the business websites (HSX and N's author site) as I'd wanted to. But I did do some, and enough of it in time to support N's book release. (And realized that I ought to make a portfolio of the websites I've built, if only for historical purposes and bragging rights.)

Have some links: people are having funerals for the world's melting glaciers, and DO NOT turn to an AI chatbot for therapy.

On the positive side, though, Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity (three hours' worth every day). And here's the William Tell Overture Finale on Musical Tesla Coils.

You're welcome.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Current Mood: worried
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: William Tell Overture Finale on Musical Tesla Coils (see post)

ysabetwordsmith

Grand Prairie Friends Acquires New Property- Warbler Bend

Grand Prairie Friends (GPF) is thrilled to announce the purchase of Warbler Bend, a meandering 110 acres along the Embarras River in Coles County (IL). This purchase expands the Conservation Land Trust’s existing Warbler Ridge Conservation Area, now totaling almost 1,400 acres. Warbler Bend is GPF’s second property north of Highway 130, joining Warbler Bluff, located on Harrison St. Rd (Charleston).

Over the last decade, GPF has restored more than 1,200 acres at their Warbler Ridge Conservation Area including the addition of 90,000 trees, nine acres of wetlands and hundreds of acres of pollinator fields.

Connected to Lake Charleston to the north, and Fox Ridge State Park to the south, Warbler Ridge Conservation Area began in 2015, to connect these three landscapes to create an over 4,000 acre contiguous corridor for wildlife, natural habitats and public natural space for the community.

I am so excited! More riverfront!

Current Mood: excited

daily_illuminator_feed

http://www.sjgames.com/ill/a/2025-11-09

For those hoping to spark inspiration for your GURPS Illuminati campaigns, I present not one, but two ideas from one story from SFGate:

It turns out the mysterious object that hit a plane at 36,000 feet was not space debris (say, from an orbital mind-control laser), but probably from a "weather balloon" .

Please update your corkboard yarn accordingly.

– Steven Marsh

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

http://www.sjgames.com/ill/a/2025-11-09

ysabetwordsmith

displacementdiaries -- Displacement Diaries
A reflective space for journaling life abroad, family complexity, grief, and personal growth.
Displacement Diaries is a reflective space for journaling life transitions, grief, family complexity, and experiences abroad. This community is for those who write about survival, emotional upheaval, and the slow work of rebuilding one’s life. Longform personal narratives, introspective essays, and memory-based storytelling are welcome.

For my friends who are from afar, or forced away from home, or may become so.

Current Mood: busy

fayanora

One of my favorite little things I love about my Ravenstone series is scenes wherein Vedya's anti-bullying network, the Chalikar, are shown to be doing their job and helping others in various ways. While primarily being an anti-bullying organization, they do other helpful things as well. In book 7, in the chapter I'm currently writing, the readers find out the Chalikar runs a year-round program to provide various things for needy students. In this case, providing suitable formal attire for students whose family was either too poor or just didn't provide it for some reason. But it's mentioned they also provide shoes, other clothes, books, and other things as needed. Funded largely by the Ravenstones, but not entirely by them.

Now that I think about it, I might have the Chalikar run a fund-raiser for the program.

dumbingofage_feed

Posted by David M Willis

https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-16/01-not-so-smooth-criminals/helicopter/

https://www.dumbingofage.com/?p=19910

https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-16/01-not-so-smooth-criminals/helicopter/

https://www.dumbingofage.com/?p=19910

fayanora

You know how in some media there are blind people depicted with eyes that are 100% white, no irises or pupils visible? Does anyone know if that ever actually happens IRL, or if it's just a weird trope with no basis in reality?

ysabetwordsmith

Today we visited the Charleston Food Forest, Coles County Community Garden, and Lake Charleston. These are the lake pictures, thus meeting my fall goal for birdwatching / leafpeeping. (Begin with the food forest, community garden.)

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

Today we visited the Charleston Food Forest, Coles County Community Garden, and Lake Charleston. These are the community garden pictures. (Begin with the food forest. Continue with the lake.)

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today we visited the Charleston Food Forest, Coles County Community Garden, and Lake Charleston. These are the food forest pictures. What started out as a beautiful fall day, sunny and cool, clouded over by the time we got out of the house. So the lighting isn't great, but at least the pictures look okay. (Continue with the community garden and the lake.)

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

Engineers built a drifting wheelchair for an injured colleague.

Given how crappy the official medical equipment is, and how expensive, I'm delighted to see people making adaptive equipment on their own.

Current Mood: busy

chanter1944

Wet, slushy, sloppy snow is not out of the ordinary. Neither is bracing wind. Bleh! Very glad I made the last outdoor farmers market of the year this morning, before the weather went the expected route on us.

I do *not* envy anyone running the marathon tomorrow...! The snow isn't expected to stick, but still.

Current Mood: bemused
Current Location: an RL snow globe

dialecticdreamer

An Off Day
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 2184
[December 2016]

:: Elisabeth Finn has many things to accomplish, but her body just isn’t cooperating. Several people offer subtle (and not so subtle) assistance. Written for the October of 2025 Feathering the Nest event, prompted by

callibr8, and posted for everyone to enjoy, with my deepest thanks. Part of the Finn Family and the Mercedes story arcs in the Polychrome Heroics universe. ::

Doctor Elisabeth Finn peeled her eyes open slowly, feeling sticky gunk clinging to each eyelash as they separated. When her eyes focused, or tried to, her temples began to pound. Scraps of light slipping over the top of the drawn curtains in the bedroom stung her eyes like frosty wind.

One hand flopped to cover her eyes as she groaned. Then, the existence of daylight registered in her sluggish brain and she pushed the quilt off of her body.

The air in the warm room slammed into her and gooseflesh rose instantly, even on the tops of her feet and the skin on her elbows. Elisabeth groaned.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: weird

ysabetwordsmith

Common pesticides may cause testicular damage and lower sperm counts

Widespread farm pesticides may be quietly undermining male reproductive health.

A decade-long review by George Mason University researchers reveals growing evidence that neonicotinoid insecticides—the world’s most widely used class of pesticides—may harm male reproductive health. The findings, based on 21 animal studies, show consistent links between exposure and reduced sperm quality, hormonal disruption, and testicular damage.

This will be useful to people seeking to ban or limit harmful pesticides. Perpetrators may not care about the environment or other humans, but they almost certainly care about their own virility. Similarly victims who are lethargic about other health threats may rally over this one.

Current Mood: busy

conuly

Except I think that my pupil distance was 56 instead of 55, and also the bridge seems a bit flimsy. That, I don't like, but it may be my amorphous anxiety talking.

In other news, Moonpie has completely scratched and licked up her nipples and now they're bleeding and infected, and apparently the vet prefers to do a blood test at this age, but as the blood test is $400 we declined. (E asked if I thought they judged us for that, lol, sweetie, I always think everybody judges me for everything, but that's not a rational mindset, so no, upon reflection I don't think that. We're hardly the only family to make petcare decisions based on affordability, and even if they do judge us, great, they can pay for this bloodwork themselves.) Also, NYC now mandates a new vaccine for cats and dogs. They can mandate what they like, but they can't make people follow that law. However, after the vet explained that this disease spreads pretty easily and now is spreading to humans, in whom it can cause kidney and/or liver failure, I decided, reluctantly, to make vaxxing the cats a priority. Which means full vet appointments for each one and new rabies shots as well. It's not going to be a quick process, is what I'm saying. (And we still need to replace those water heaters before they break!)

******************************

( Read more... )

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny and cool, a beautiful fall day.

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 11/8/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 11/8/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 11/8/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 11/8/25 -- We went to the Charleston Food Forest and Coles County Community Garden, where I gathered more seeds.

We also stopped by Lake Charleston in search of migratory birds, which was largely a bust. :/

EDIT 11/8/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

As it is now dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

lois_mcmaster_bujold_feed

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/26174530-penric-s-labors-in-japanese

Retitled Masquerade in Lodi and other novellas. (Which contains "Masquerade in Lodi", "The Orphans of Raspay" and "The Physicians of Vilnoc".)

This came last week, forwarded from my agent possibly in a fit of housecleaning. My author's copies of foreign editions drift in late, erratically, or not at all. (Translation copyright appears to be 2023, near as I can tell.) Anyway, excellent cover art again more-than-hinting that the artist actually read the stories, or at least the title story.

The challenge of how to represent the invisible entity Desdemona is interestingly solved with a sort of magical-monkey-on-his-back creation, which is... not-wrong. And it captures delightfully how Pen felt being dragged through that memorable night in Lodi by the unexpected saint of his Order.

Ta, L.

posted by Lois McMaster Bujold on November, 08

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/26174530-penric-s-labors-in-japanese

assignedmale_feed

https://assignedmale.tumblr.com/post/799658069881700352

https://assignedmale.tumblr.com/post/799658069881700352

pilliadventure_feed

Posted by pillia5_wp

http://pilli-adventure.com/?p=10706

sorry to be late , I was out of town

http://pilli-adventure.com/?p=10706

sp2_feed

Posted by rkmilholland

https://somethingpositive.net/2025/11/07/november-7-2025/

https://somethingpositive.net/?p=1199

First Comic Previous Comic Next Comic Today’s Comic Latest Updates

Oh, hey. A table top rpg I did art for is funding on BackerKit. The Cryptid Show has reached goal, but there’s a new stretch goal where I get to do more illustrations. Consider backing it so I can give you more “delightful” creatures like these. -R.

https://somethingpositive.net/2025/11/07/november-7-2025/

https://somethingpositive.net/?p=1199

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kengr

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Grand Prairie Friends

November 9, 2025: How Many Illuminati Plot Threads In One Story?

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The Chalikar

Helicopter

Question for anyone who knows the answer

Photos: Lake Charleston

Photos: Coles County Community Garden

Photos: Charleston Food Forest

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when it's midway through autumn in Wisconsin

An Off Day (part 1 of 1, complete)

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Well, I like them well enough

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Penric's Labors in Japanese

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Devil part 2 (filler)

November 7, 2025

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