silveradept: Domo-kun, wearing glass and a blue suit with a white shirt and red tie, sitting at a table. (Domokun Anchor)
Let's begin with the understanding that many more people are using computing and the Internet than those who have able bodies. (And they're also trying to use public infrastructure as well.) So let's talk about what people think screen readers do, and what they actually do, and re-commit yourselves to building things that are accessible from the ground up, so that everyone can use a website, a document, or enjoy a picture that you have taken or created, even if they are not a sighted user.

Furthermore, Consumer Reports offers the easiest way to turn off LLM and other supposed "intelligence" features on your computers and devices, which we offer with the additional understanding that every time you update your device, you may have to repeat these steps, as many of the companies that have poured all this money into supposed intelligence are very put out when people turn them off, and will silently turn them back on every time you update.

As the population ages, the lack of information for people going through menopause means there's people to be exploited, according to plenty of companies that intend to do the exploiting. Because, after all, there's still a prevalent assumption that a woman loses all her value once she stops being able to breed the next generation. And an equally prevalent idea that you can just slap a purple color or the word menopause on anything, including a personal massager, and roll in the dough.

A plot of land purchased by the Cards Against Humanity game owners to stymie construction of a border wall was also used to obtain a settlement against SpaceX for trespassing and using the land without permission for their operations. For their troubles, those who contributed to the land purchase will receive a pack of CAH specifically about Elon Musk, owner of SpaceX and general blight upon humanity.

Thieves made off with several pieces of jewelry held by the Louvre museum, having used a truck-mounted ladder to climb the outside and then break into both windows and high-security cases to take the jewels.

A bunch of techbros put together a SlutCon, with the nominal idea of making sure that these bros would have practice at flirting and behaving acceptably toward women in potentially sexual or romantic situations. There were women there as "flirt girls" for the attendees to practice on. There were, of course, several tiers of VIP membership to get as well, which suggests, along with the article, that this may not have been so much about learning how to flirt and to treat women as people, but instead about treating romance and sex as a min-maxing experience and giving them more tools on how to do this. Which would make it more an enabling experience instead of an enlightening one.

Proving their willingness to commit to the bit, no matter how many obvious mistakes are being made nor how much harm it causes, A cisgender boy with a mistake on his birth certificate declaring him female is being barred from participating in boys' sports, boys' gym classes, and using the boys restroom, because the way the statute and policy have been written, they only count the original birth certificate as valid, even if the certificate has been amended since, or was issued in error, and the school says that genetic testing might help make the boy eligible for boys' sports, but it wouldn't be a guarantee. (And it would also be an expensive prospect for such things.) From the way the article is written, it sounds like the school is treating the boy like he's a trans boy and that they want him to be comfortable being the girl that his birth certificate says he is. So, in Arizona, the TERFs' greatest nightmare is coming to pass - there's a biological male allowed to play sports with females, share locker room facilities, and the school is actively facilitating it. Remarkable commitment to the bit over using any kind of common-sense measure, because they're so worried that someone else might use those same common-sense measures to make sure a child is playing in the correct sport for their gender.

The concept of the border as a religious object, because of the way that borders can exist in multiple spaces and frames at once, their liminality, and their way to delineate spaces.

And now a lot of politics bits. At least you can be assured you'r3e a terrorist now. )

Last out for tonight, Gary Larsen, of The Far Side, has apparently taken up making some new things, with digital drawing tools. Including one for the recently departed Dr. Goodall, showing her as having a reserved seat at a chimpanzee club.

The argument for allowing children to go play in the streets and on the sidewalks in addition to the parks and playgrounds, because the streets are often closer to home, and because the presence of play in those places is a pushback against the idea that streets and sidewalks are only meant for those going from one place to another.

(Materials via [personal profile] adrian_turtle, [personal profile] azurelunatic, [personal profile] boxofdelights, [personal profile] cmcmck, [personal profile] conuly, [personal profile] cosmolinguist, [personal profile] elf, [personal profile] finch, [personal profile] firecat, [personal profile] jadelennox, [personal profile] jenett, [personal profile] jjhunter, [personal profile] kaberett, [personal profile] lilysea, [personal profile] oursin, [personal profile] rydra_wong, [personal profile] snowynight, [personal profile] sonia, [personal profile] the_future_modernes, [personal profile] thewayne, [personal profile] umadoshi, [personal profile] vass, the [community profile] meta_warehouse community, [community profile] little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)

Recent reading

Oct. 31st, 2025 11:05 pm[personal profile] troisoiseaux
troisoiseaux: (reading 10)
Read Clever Girl by Hannah McGregor, part of the Pop Classics series of bite-sized nonfiction/novella-length essays about whatever pop culture its contributors have childhood nostalgia for or otherwise find worth revisiting— this one, as you might guess, is about Jurassic Park. It's a little more self-serious than the other ones I've read (on Jennifer's Body and the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games), with chapters subtitled things like "The Queer Erotics and Feminist Monstrosity of Velociraptors" and "Settler Colonialism, Dinosaur Ecology, and the Violence of Discovery"; I'm not entirely persuaded by all of McGregor's arguments for a queer, feminist reading of Jurassic Park, but that's what's great about movies, right? Different viewers get different things out of them, and for McGregor, it was a way of embracing one's sense of otherness and coping with grief.

Finished Stephenie Meyer's Twilight-from-Edward's-POV official fanfic rewrite, Midnight Sun, and I have some thoughts:
- This was definitely more interesting than original flavor Twilight, mostly because it's more overtly supernatural; in the original, Edward keeps insisting he's a dangerous monster who literally lusts for Bella's blood, but the reader mostly just sees him sparkle and run really fast.

Read more... )

In other media, Florence + The Machine has a new album out, including a song about transforming into a kraken and eating the haters, so that was a Halloween treat.

(no subject)

Oct. 31st, 2025 11:36 am[personal profile] radiantfracture
radiantfracture: Beadwork bunny head (Default)
I am trying to remember a quotation that may or may not exist.

It is a bit like Kiss of the Spider Woman's "This dream is short, but this dream is happy."

Something like "this is a (something) story for bad times."

Any contenders?

{rf}

Windy and Chilly

Oct. 31st, 2025 02:29 pm[personal profile] oracne
oracne: turtle (Default)
Happy Halloween! It's great weather for it today, very windy with a chill in the air. The forecast warned that decorations should be secured against gusts!

I am not sure where my focus is but it does not appear to be in my neighborhood this week. I'm glad the weekend is almost here.
sovay: (Haruspex: Autumn War)
Happy Halloween! Having not slept for a variety of stupid reasons, I am appearing this year as the world's most tired Green Man.

podcast friday

Oct. 31st, 2025 07:17 am[personal profile] sabotabby
sabotabby: (possums)
HAPPY SPOOOOKY DAY and blessed Samhain if that's your thing.

This week's podcast episode sure is spooooooky! It's It Could Happen Here's "Occulture, William S. Burroughs, and Generative AI," and the moment that title popped up in my feed, I knew I'd be talking about it (even though I Don't Speak German covered Mother Night, this week, which is my favourite Vonnegut book. Maybe I'll talk about that one next week). 

I had never heard of the Occulture conference, which is...what you think it is. As a good little Marxist materialist, I am not a chaos magick practitioner or believer as such except that definitely magic and the occult are a terrain we should not cede to the enemy so I am not not a chaos magick believer, y'know? At the very least as a philosophical and narrative system it's something that I'm quite interested in.

And of course for all his being one of the most Problematic Faves of all my Problematic Faves—he killed his wife ffs—I never really got over my teenage obsession with William S. Burroughs. As the episode points out, he's lumped in with the Beats but more properly belongs with the Surrealists (and the Dadaists) in terms of what he was doing. And y'all know how I feel about the Surrealists and the Dadaists. So there's an unexpected amount of discussion of Burroughs as a magickian at the the conference and his techniques (some of which were extremely funny, such as cursing a restaurant that took his favourite thing off the menu) and particularly his use of technology to channel the non-human.

Which brings me to the argument that I get into way too fucking much, which is "well isn't GenAI basically the same as cut-up poetry," and that's apparently something that was asked repeatedly at this conference. Spoiler: No it is not. Like, neither artistically nor magickically, which is a relief as that wasn't necessarily where the discussion might have gone. The short version has to do with Third Mind theory, which is quite interesting, and again, I feel there's a much more materialist explanation for why it's not the same but I also appreciate the occultist explanation. 

Anyway it's a big meaty feast for my special interests and apparently there will be a second part dropping this weekend, so yay!

swan_tower: (Default)
It seems fitting for Halloween that the traditional fifth-Friday New Worlds Patreon theory post should focus on weird critters -- but in this case, real ones! Let's talk about drawing inspiration for science fictional and fantasy species from the aliens we share a planet with: comment over there . . .

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/HJO91g)

Thursday Recs

Oct. 30th, 2025 08:45 pm[personal profile] soc_puppet posting in [community profile] queerly_beloved
soc_puppet: Dreamwidth Dreamsheep with wool and logo in genderflux pride colors (Girlflux)
Thursday recs time, let's go!


Do you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!

Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!
shadowkat: (Default)
1. Now, I've got an X-ray scheduled for next Tuesday along with the doctor's appt. They went ahead and scheduled it for me. Nice of them. Means getting there earlier - but that's okay. Hopefully, it's nothing but a sciatic nerve and arthritis. Friday, Monday, and Tuesday are doctors visits - oh well at least they are all in the same location. I wish it was closer to the subway stations, but it could be worse. Ten blocks isn't that bad. (Ten-Fifteen minute walk, with sciatica and a bad knee - it may actually be a twenty minute walk, I should give myself more time to get there.). I could take a car service - but I've neither the patience or the funds for it. Also they stress me out.

I'm collecting doctors again. Appear to have slight hoarseness tonight - thinking allergies? Also, hoping I've managed to avoid digestive issues by having tuna fish on gluten free sourdough deli toast, with small salad, cucumber, celery and carrot sticks. Did have a greek yogurt bar and chocolate for desert.

2. I really wish the fund-raising charity folks would stop sending me stuff? the stuff I've acquired from fund-raising folks ) (I figure if I put this out there into the Universe, they will?)

3. FB neighborhood page shot out a link regarding those pesky proposals on the ballot, which I shared with my brother. [Those ballot proposals took my cubicle mate by surprise, along with a bunch of others.] Now, we know how we're voting on those vague as mud ballot proposals. (Yes, I'm voting - it's a major election for NYC City - because of the mayoral race. The race is between Cuomo, Sliwa, and Zohran Mamadani. After losing the Democratic primary, Cuomo is running as an Independent, and Sliwa is running as a Republican (he was the only candidate running for Republican). The conservative newspapers are trying to get him to pull out - which of course he won't.
Oh, the drama.

4. Lots of torrential rain fall today. (Outside of Super being unable to turn off bedroom radiator today - I wasn't affected.) So, southeastern Brooklyn had flooding in various spots. They posted a ton of photos on FB of the various spots that had been flooded around Ditmas and Flatbush in Brooklyn. Kesington for the most part was fine - when I got home - mainly because they had fixed the gutters.

Flooding in NYC, West Chester, Long Island, and New Jersey

Flooding in BedStuy

Bedstuy Brooklyn Flooding

Post on Ditmas Neighborhood Page: "Cortelyou Road is flooded. If your car is parked near Tribeca Pediatrics you should move your car. The water is rising and is almost to the top a sedan's tires.

Never mind. Someone just cleared the drain. It's all good."

It really is just a gutter problem.

ME: Are we still on for the radiator valve switch off?
Super: We had flooding in 3 building basements.
Me: Okay, not today then. Maybe next week?
Super: Okay, thanks.

I hope the basement apartment is okay. Although, honestly, you'd have to be desperate or nuts to live in a basement apartment in NYC.

***

Eh, I'll catch up on memage tomorrow.

Have a photo instead.

conuly: (Default)
and omg those cultists are so needy. They can't feed themselves, so you're constantly trying to keep them in berries and fish, and they complain about everything!

"There's no place to poop, build an outhouse!" (You're an animal, poop on the ground!)

"I want to eat a poop sandwich!" (Uh, okay, but why do I have to make it!?)

"Oh, that grass gruel made me sick!" (Get back to work!)

"I'm sick of your lies!" (Welp, time to perform another human sapient sacrifice of a, uh, willing victim!)

Seriously, who's running this cult, you or them?

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


Read more... )
sovay: (Sovay: David Owen)
For nearly the first time since the Cape, I slept. It required me to spend hours after midnight waiting for my body to get the unconsciousness memo and then repeat the process this morning after a doctor's office called back at the crack of business, but construction has been precluded by the recurrent nor'easter rain and it worked. The dreams were nothing to write home about, but at least I had them. And then we had a mild power outage, but still. Sleep! I could get used to it.

A Reminder re: Politics

Oct. 30th, 2025 11:10 am[personal profile] dewline
dewline: "Worst President Ever!" in Russian (Russian politics)
Putin has organized the automation of psychological warfare.

unpopular opinions

Oct. 30th, 2025 06:02 am[personal profile] yhlee
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
Saying that the creative process of creation/conception for a story/novel MUST START with character/goal/motivation is complete fucking nonsense. You will usually need it in the END PRODUCT (modulo weird edge cases like Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men), but that doesn't have to be the inception.

cf. composing music, where this would be like saying to a composer: you MUST ALWAYS start FIRST with a melody or you MUST ALWAYS start FIRST with a harmonic progression or you MUST ALWAYS start FIRST with instrumentation etc. No??? You can start in any of a number of places and still wind up with music???

There are times you need to start with $XYZ because of the use case (if writing for a string quartet, that constrains your instrumentation, ranges, techniques).

But when writing music, I can START in ANY of these places (not a complete list) (and have done so at various points):

- instrumentation
- tempo
- time signature
- harmonic progression
- a rhythm
- a vibe
- key/mode/etc
- melody or leitmotif
- structure/form (e.g. theme and variations, ternary form)
- a transformation (e.g. diminution, retrograde)
- articulation(s) to feature
- trolling ("What if I rewrote Swan Lake's theme in 5/4?")
etc

You're not going to be able to tell which one from the RESULTING MUSIC as an end product.

For that matter, watching web/comic creators talk about story ideation is fascinating. A bunch of them start with "I drew this cool character, but who are they? what is their story?", which is absolutely not my process since I don't visualize, but it's a perfectly cromulent process!
conuly: (Default)
This is the first thing
I have understood:
Time is the echo of an axe
Within a wood.


**********


Link
conuly: (Default)
Boo.

(Wait, and also nearly Halloween! Boo!)

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


Read more... )
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
I committed a mini-album on Bandcamp of Trailures and Other Fiascoes (= "failure trailers"). Hybrid orchestra instrumental music because mopey foxmoth can't sing.

(I know voice lessons exist but for medical reasons, sore throat for over a year; singing is contraindicated.)



(This is accumulated composition/production from the past few months; I'm bowing out of a bunch of things currently due to ongoing health stuff. I don't want to discuss health details further, thanks!)

Minnesota fraud investigation

Oct. 29th, 2025 06:24 pm[personal profile] otter posting in [community profile] thisfinecrew
otter: (Default)
I'm not even sure what to ask, say, or do about this.

I have services from an ARMHS worker and provide services via IHS and PCA. It's about half of my monthly income.

"The Association of Residential Resources in Minnesota, which represents 200 organizations that provide disability services, said pausing payments for the Medicaid programs could “destabilize an already fragile care network.”

“Pausing payments to legitimate providers for up to 90 days is not an accountability measure, it’s an existential threat to the care infrastructure that keeps Minnesotans with disabilities safe, housed and supported in their community,” ARRM CEO Sue Schettle said in a statement.

Among the 14 affected programs: Integrated Community Supports, Nonemergency Medical Transportation, Peer Recovery Services, Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services, Adult Day Services, Personal Care Assistance/Community First Services and Supports, Recuperative Care, Individualized Home Supports, Adult Companion Services, Night Supervision, Assertive Community Treatment and Intensive Residential Treatment Services.

https://minnesotareformer.com/briefs/walz-pauses-payments-for-14-high-risk-medicaid-programs/
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
(Via [personal profile] sovay and [personal profile] asakiyume.)

1. Lust, books I want to read for their cover.

I'm pretty sure I originally picked up Little Women (an abridged edition) when I was eight years old because of the cover. (It's this edition.) This sparked an Alcott obsession.

2. Pride, challenging books I finished.

Ulysses, maybe? (I read it via dailylit.com, in small email installments every day.)

3. Gluttony, books I've read more than once.

I don't do that as much these days as when I was younger, but sometimes I'll listen to an audiobook that I've previously read in print. I've done that recently with Rosemary's Baby (read by Mia Farrow) and Little Rabbit by Alyssa Songsiridej. Back in the day, I reread Marge Piercy's Vida and Braided Lives, and some of Marilyn Hacker's poetry books, among others. (ETA: I reread Dracula via Dracula Daily a couple of years back, long after my first read of the novel. I'm currently rereading Frankenstein. Also, it occurs to me that I've reread some novels for panel discussions. Joanna Russ's The Female Man springs to mind.)

4. Sloth, books that have been longest on my to-read list.

I don't have a to-read list, but I have owned quite a few books for decades without reading them. Sometimes I eventually get rid of them, but others I keep if I still think I'll want to read them. That category includes: The Madness of a Seduced Woman by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer (I hauled that book from Los Angeles to the UK and back again) and (more recently) The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers.

5. Greed, books I own multiple editions of.

Diane di Prima's Loba, Samuel R. Delany's The Motion of Light in Water, Judy Grahn's The Highest Apple, and Joanna Russ's On Strike Against God. (The editions differ in terms of what material they include.)

6. Wrath, books I despised.

An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson. A dark-academia Carmilla set in the 1960s should have been a lot of fun. I know some people really liked this book, but I couldn't get past the raging anachronisms. I suspect the book was originally set in the '90s or '00s, but then the author added some miniskirts and no one bothered to check the references--for example, mentions of Anais Nin books that hadn't come out yet, and a reference to Sylvia Plath "first editions" (when her books were new). Also, it somehow never occurred to anyone involved that no one talking about a telephone before the age of cellphones would call it a landline.

7. Envy, books I want to live in.

I suppose when I was a kid, I would have liked to hang out with the March sisters or Sherlock Holmes? But the prospect of living in the 19th century stopped being appealing at some point.

I defragged a zebra

Oct. 29th, 2025 04:14 pm[personal profile] readinggeek451
readinggeek451: green teddy bear in plaid dress (Default)
My first new plush in over a year is a zebra. With the colors sorted to make it run faster.

plush zebra with the colors sorted instead of mixed

(not my joke)

emotional support dyeing?

Oct. 29th, 2025 10:43 am[personal profile] yhlee
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
hand-dyed handspun yarn

A test batch to see how the colors come out. Next I start measuring out and doing this more systematically.

Three-ply handspun wool yarn.

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moon_custafer: neon cat mask (Default)
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