Go read this if you want cues on how to respond and you live in the States:
https://flamingsword.dreamwidth.org/496875.html
https://flamingsword.dreamwidth.org/496875.html
Tags:
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
Amplifying this tonight, just in case it can get to someone who really needs to see it:
https://elainegrey.dreamwidth.org/990198.html
https://elainegrey.dreamwidth.org/990198.html
(![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kaberett Jun. 10th, 2025 11:29 pm)
kaberett Jun. 10th, 2025 11:29 pm)Two things:
I keep (especially post-surgery, cotemporal with relearning how to walk) finding more small ways that how I've been doing my various physio exercises isn't quite right. This is a good thing! Isn't it fascinating to be learning more about embodiment and how my body works and how I can best deploy my various muscles!
Up until the hypermobility clinic, all the physio I was ever prescribed made me worse, not better.
It abruptly dawned on me, all at once, that the subtlety of the changes I'm making with adjusting how I'm shifting my weight around and so on and so forth? Are almost certainly not actually externally visible. Like, yes, people not understanding hypermobility and problems with it was also Definitely A Problem, but -- the part where I'm still, mm, not necessarily fixing things but certainly developing them, finding places where even with What The Hypermobility Clinic Told Me To Do I wasn't getting quite right... well, the hypermobility specialists clearly went "eh, good enough", and in terms of the effects on my ability to Things I think they were clearly demonstrably provable correct, but -- yeah, okay, sudden understanding of some of just how difficult it would have been to correct some of this stuff.
(I'm very sure that all my various epiphanies will turn out to be about things that still aren't quite right, that I can still refine further -- I'm having an extended phase of that with Pilates right now -- but this is a good thing, actually. It's really nice to have such clear evidence that I'm getting to know and understand myself better.)
I mentioned privately last week that I'd been accepted for enrolment into the Canadian Dental Insurance Plan. The one that our federal government hired Sun Life to administer for everyone earning less than C$90K/year and not already covered by their employer or their province?
That one.
I finally got the card in the papermail from Sun Life today.
Orange and pink and white plastic.
It's just hitting me now that, after over three decades of paying out of pocket by instalments for my dental health basics - exams, fillings and repairs of same, that sort of thing - I no longer have to worry about that part of my life's financial juggling. It's already covered through my federal income tax from now on unless I land a sufficiently lucrative job with its own coverage.
Hoping it all works out.
That one.
I finally got the card in the papermail from Sun Life today.
Orange and pink and white plastic.
It's just hitting me now that, after over three decades of paying out of pocket by instalments for my dental health basics - exams, fillings and repairs of same, that sort of thing - I no longer have to worry about that part of my life's financial juggling. It's already covered through my federal income tax from now on unless I land a sufficiently lucrative job with its own coverage.
Hoping it all works out.
Tags:
Hobbies can sometimes lead to useful transferable skills.
Decades ago, I ran a commercial postal RPG called 'Delenda est Carthago' It even won an award.
I employed several people over the years - one interview was with a Dr Who fan, the kind who knew every detail of pretty much every episode.
That was what got him the job - it demon stated his ability to get involved with a fantasy world and to learn all the relevant details. And he turned out to be a very good GM.
My daughter hs a volunteer at Little Woodham - the 17th century replica village. She's become a dab hand at entertaining the visitors with leather-working demonstrations, all sorts of interesting historical facts and also by organising groups of children into being the crew of a canon! (I gather the kids absolutely love it, even the ones who get 'killed' by standing in front of the barrel when loading it, etc.)
Turns out that this is a transferable skill also. It was her time at LIttle Woodham that got her an interview with a company doing coach tours (she has a bus-drivers licence, but that wasn't the critical element). They were looking for someone could entertain the passengers as well as drive them safely.
Monday Passenger: "You're very knowledgeable. How long have you been doing this? It must be a couple of decades."
Lindsey: It's my first day...
She'd done a lot of research and stacked up anecdotes about all the places they would pass en route. A bridge Winston Churchill fell off as a boy; another bridge that had a Civil War fight where a dozen cavalry held off around 200 infantry, stuff about Lulworth Castle, etc.
So, if you ever take a coach tour from Bournemouth rail/coach station to the Jurassic Coast, maybe you'll meet her!
Tags:
There were a lot of those too!
( soooo many photos )
Also, The Boy's photo gallery is here, and if you see my photos are cool, you ain't seen nothing yet.
( soooo many photos )
Also, The Boy's photo gallery is here, and if you see my photos are cool, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Tags:
Today (Tuesday)
- second day of uni - more focused. Met two other PhD students, and a said hello to another who didn't actually talk to me, so I'm not sure if they are staff or student (we are in a locked office space, because of research reasons, which is quite nostalgic. The card scanner makes the same beep as the ones at the Telethon Institute did)
- I'm kind of keeping up with other parts of my life, but not in any way that makes it look like I have my shit together. The lounge has a teetering mound of clean washing, there is a pile of stuff on the bed I need to sort before I can go to sleep (by which I think I mean 'dump back on the floor'). I've taken some of the necessities in to the new office, and tomorrow I'll organise a locked cubby for keeping things in, which means I can bring any books in that make sense.
Yesterday
- Didn't quite make it to bed before 11pm last night, but it was close. Awoke naturally at 6:50am, which meant that I could relax for a little bit and laze about until the alarm went off. I didn't, in the end, getting up after about 2 minutes, and getting in the shower.
- Past me had a work day morning packing checklist, which was greatly appreciated this morning, as there were a couple of things that I would otherwise have forgotten. There are a couple of items that I've managed to misplace, and maybe I'll have time to sort them tonight, but I'm not optimistic about that. I was enough slow getting ready that I missed the 7:45am bus, so artisanat dropped me at the train station. Youngest gave me two options for public transport from there--either the circle route (longer, relies on Leach Hwy not being clogged), or train to Canning Bridge and either the 100 or 101 bus. I did the latter, and once I found the right stand at the interchange, got the first bus that came past.
- Good meeting with supervisors, I have ideas of what is to come. I spent more time sorting out logging in to things than I had allowed for, including a trek to the library IT help desk, where it turned out that what I was assuming was one problem turned out to be four separate issues, one of which was solved by changing my password in Outlook. I also went and asked questions of the Library Helpdesk person, who gave me a personalised tour of all the things on the Library Webpage that might be of use to me, and pointed at things to follow up.
Sunday
- Went boating on the river with buggs_jenny, their partner P, and their parents (G, K). This was a somewhat last minute invite, they organised for there to be a kayak for me to use, and I had a lot of fun. I hadn't allowed for the timing of how it would all fit together with the fact that it was a recorder group Sunday so it was a bit of a rush to head off and I didn't help with the clean up. I now have to work out how to get involved and go more often (this is not an every weekend thing; I could at best do the off weeks from recorder) given that the car we are looking to sell is the one with the roof racks, but I can't get our kayak on to it on my own. Although, having said that, it is some years since I've moved that kayak and I have no idea how heavy it is relative to my current strength--it is possible that all the shoulder work that I've been doing would be enough.
- Recorder with G and ariaflame; L has injured their shoulder and P isn't yet back from visiting their sibling in the eastern states. G is now calling us the A minors; I gather this is a joke that is related to the name of another group they are in. We worked through several trios that I'm not sure that aria has seen before, with some swapping around of parts so that they were sight-reading the easier of the C recorder parts (ie. soprano or tenor).
- Dinner with chaosmanor. One of those weeks where it turns out that we have gone through the veggie stash much faster than usual, and I under measured the amount of cabbage to cut to fill the gap for the stir fry. Fortunately, chaosmanor wasn't all that hungry, artisanat was out dancing and got dinner there, and Youngest and Eldest are able to raid the fridge if they are still hungry. And I had had one serve of each of the options at afternoon tea at recorder - G had made two things, and aria had brought one, and I have no ability to resist that kind of temptation. Particularly when G had made a serving specifically for me, because they had made a Bakewell tart (which is similar to the version I make but didn't have coconut in, which might mean that I've conflated two recipes) but had realised at the last minute that their pastry wasn't GF, and had cooked a generous serve in a ramekin.
New blog post in which I asked ChatGPT to write some code for me; it went about as well as can be expected (TLDR; it mostly worked but smelled very bad): https://www.sweharris.org/post/2025-06-10-chatgpt-oauth/
What went before ONE: All righty, then!
In my small, as yet uninvaded by Marines corner of the US, where it is cloudy, cool, and damp, I did go see the chiropractor, which was good, because back pain had continued escalating, until I was forced to sacrifice one of my precious Meloxicams to stem the pain and it was exactly like throwing a snowball at Hell.
I'm not gonna lie: getting smacked with a hammer in precisely the places I hurt most wasn't fun. OTOH, the relief was damn' near immediate. I came home, threw down some muscle relaxants, in order to get ahead of the cycle, got an ice pack and laid down in the bed, where I was immediately joined by Rook in what may be his first solo nursing gig. When I woke up, he was still curled against my knee, and I had Firefly and Tali bracketing my hips, so obviously this was considered a Serious Event by the care staff.
I have another appointment with the chiropractor tomorrow afternoon, but the absence of pain is a benediction, as ever.
I'm out for the rest of the day, obviously, but hope to be functional tomorrow.
Everybody stay safe.
Oh! Someone had asked about my neighbor: I've seen him round and about, though not to talk to -- so I guess he's Clearing Stuff Out.
'night
What went before TWO: The names! The names! Obviously, I knew about the Sasanoa, but Upper Hells Gate and Hockomock have somehow eluded me for 35 years...
Cruise the upper Sasanoa River through Upper Hells Gate into serene Hockomock and Montsweag Bays. These tidal channels connect the Sasanoa River, Back River, and Sheepscot Rivers and once served as the primary rout for transportation between coastal communities like Bath, Wiscasset, and Boothbay. Their brackish waters host abundant fish and wildlife and serve as beautiful backdrops for photography opportunities. -- Maine Maritime Museum Tours
Tuesday. Mizzling and cool. Trash and recycling are at the curb. It would be nice if it didn't rain on one Trash Day so I could finish getting the Winter Boxes out of the garage before it's Winter again.
Breakfast was oatmeal with inclusions. Lunch may well be the leftover pretend chicken parm.
I am sneezing. Happily my back does not hurt this morning, so I may do so with impunity.
Follow up with chiropractor at 3 today; sewing at 5 (or, really, whenever I get there); grocery shopping after. In-between, one's duty to the cats, and the work of the house. I could, yanno, throw in a load of laundry, if I'm feeling particularly ambitious.
Two of the cruises offered from the Maine Maritime Museum hit the six lighthouses along the Kennebec River, and, Readers, I Am Tempted, because there's no other way I'm going to be able to view these lights. All I need to do is figure out if I can cope with two to three hours trapped with strangers and their kids on a tour boat, and what I'm going to do about not burning to a crisp.
Last night, the cats and I finished up Season 1 of Ncuti Gatwa's Dr. Who, and, having now seen the Whole Arc, I applaud Mr. Davies' storytelling (yes, yes, I know; y'all are experts on Everything Who; allow me my discoveries in their own time). Firefly Did. Not. Approve. of Suketh. She threw herself onto the couch and aggressively snuggled against my side, purring, and occasionally looking up at me. I had to assure her several times that Ruby would Fix It, with help from the Man Person.
Ah. And today marks 300 days of traveling with Perry Wink in Finch. A melancholy celebration in its way, but, hey -- any excuse for a party.
The younger staff members are playing tag in the back hall; Trooper is asleep on the co-pilot's chair.
Have a picture of the rose bush:
The sudden, shocking, return of Shockwave Reader. Will the living envy the dead?
From This Day Forward by John Brunner
Tags:
2025/088: The Walled Orchard — Tom Holt
...how Athens came to have the most pure and perfect democracy the world has ever seen, in which every man had a right to be heard, the law was open to all, and nobody need go hungry if he was not too proud to play his part in the oppression of his fellow Greeks and the judicial murder of inconvenient statesmen. [p. 46]
I owned a paperback copy of this novel -- actually two novels in one volume, Goatsong and The Walled Orchard -- for many years but did not read it. Suddenly, recently, the time was right and I was very much in Ancient Greek mode: and I am now much more familiar with the glories of Classical Greece, and the horrors of the Sicilian Expedition, than I was before. (See, for instance, Glorious Exploits.)
The narrator of the duology is Eupolis of Pallene, a gentleman farmer and writer of comedies, from his childhood survival of the plague, which left him scarred and ugly, to his old age. Entwined with the Peloponnesian War and the Sicilian Expedition are the triumphs and disasters of Eupolis' career as a dramatist and his ongoing feud with rival playwright Aristophanes( Read more... )
(dewline Jun. 9th, 2025 10:58 pm)
dewline Jun. 9th, 2025 10:58 pm)I found out today - or was reminded today, I'm not entirely sure as I've downloaded resources from the IAU on the subject of star names in the past year and then neglected to review them carefully - that in 2015, a star in Monoceros - HD 45652 - was named "Lusitânia", in connection with their Name ExoWorlds programme. The one known planet orbiting it is named "Viriato". For the purposes of the projects I'm working on with the Tranquility Press fanfic gang, it's in Klingon space as of 2240-2410.
I love that this astronomical naming process is picking up speed in my lifetime!
I love that this astronomical naming process is picking up speed in my lifetime!
Tags:
Fine
Change is a
Crucible
And I am on fire;
The world burns
So hot
Nothing false in me
Can escape the flame
(and i hope
to survive it
i pray)
If we are
Any of us
To be okay
Ever again
We must rise in truth
Within the funeral pyre
Of our failures.
This is—
Tags:
After I found some issues with my benchmark which invalidated my previous results, I have substantially revised my previous blog entry. There are two main differences:
A proper baseline revealed that my amd64 numbers were nonsense because I wasn’t fencing enough, and after tearing my hair out and eventually fixing that I found that the bithack conversion is one or two cycles faster.
A newer compiler can radically improve the multiply conversion on arm64 so it’s the same speed as the bithack conversion; I've added some source and assembly snippets to the blog post to highlight how nice arm64 is compared to amd64 for this task.
Books on pre-order:
- Queen Demon (Rising World 2) by Martha Wells (7 Oct 2025)
Books acquired in May:
- and read:
- Copper Script by KJ Charles
- Red Boar's Baby by Lauren Esker
- and unread:
- The Wrath & The Dawn by Renée Ahdieh [3]
- The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan [3]
- Kidnap on the California Comet by M.G. Leonard & Sam Sedgman [3]
- Betrayal (Trinity 1) by Fiona McIntosh [3]
Borrowed books read in May:
- The Good Thieves by Katherine Rundell
- One Christmas Wish by Katherine Rundell
- You Have a Match by Emma Lord [2][6]
I continue to not read much (by my standards). I did not manage to read any of the physical books I had out of the library until they needed to be returned, and I've got several half-finished books in progress. (Oh, and in writing this I've realised I already have the Renée Ahdieh book in ebook, and haven't read it there either!)
[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book
[4] Crowdfunding
[5] Goodbye read
[6] Cambridgeshire Reads/Listens
[7] FaRoFeb / FaRoCation / Bookmas / HRBC
[8] Prime Reading / Kindle Unlimited
This is an offer of the 2nd edition of Green Ronin's Adventure Game Engine FRPG with supplements:
https://bundleofholding.com/p
This is a well-regarded system and the rules are easy to learn, mostly similar to the previous release and broadly compatible with other games from Green Ronin such as The Expanse. One of the supplements covers one a fun subgenre, technofantasy - adventures in a world where magic and forgotten technology are pretty much interchangeable. I'm probably not going to be playing it, since I OD'd on the genre in the seventies and eighties and got fed up with some aspects of fantasy adventuring, but it's relatively cheap and I think it's worth a look if you're interested.
https://bundleofholding.com/p
This is a well-regarded system and the rules are easy to learn, mostly similar to the previous release and broadly compatible with other games from Green Ronin such as The Expanse. One of the supplements covers one a fun subgenre, technofantasy - adventures in a world where magic and forgotten technology are pretty much interchangeable. I'm probably not going to be playing it, since I OD'd on the genre in the seventies and eighties and got fed up with some aspects of fantasy adventuring, but it's relatively cheap and I think it's worth a look if you're interested.
Tags:
Tags:
.