awesomeers | Member Posts

New tree genus discovered that is related to tomatoes and potatoes

Scientists have identified a rare Andean forest tree related to tomatoes and potatoes as a plant group never named before.

The discovery redraws part of the nightshade family and ties the tree to plant chemicals with medical power.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This year I've spotted multiple events and venues doing Three Weeks for Dreamwidth that are also banning Harry Potter and generative AI content. If someone wants to do this in their own event or venue, that's their choice. But when they do it in a way that makes it seem like a parameter of Three Weeks for Dreamwidth as a whole, that is not true and not okay. The one core activity of Three Weeks for Dreamwidth is blogging every day, on ANY topic.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

From

bookclub_dw:

"A MAGIC STEEPED IN POISON" DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

MAY 2026 BOOK: ALL SYSTEMS RED

Current Mood: busy

kaberett

Reading. I am up to AUGUST 2025 in my She's A Beast back-catalogue catch-up. Will I be able to read Anything Else At All Soon? Maybe?

Among several library holds that have now turned up (... ulp) I have technically started Run Towards the Danger (Sarah Polley), another memoir about embodiment, which I... suspect was recced via SAB one way or another. By "technically" I mean "I am a couple of pages into the preface, and trying to decide whether the formatting fuckery is worth sticking through".

Writing. So. many. e-mails. about. objects. and I have barely even Started the damn Object E-mails good grief.

Progress on Book also continues (look at me not using qualifiers!). Currently I am slightly going in circles about (1) how much background I need to give on why I think "biopsychosocial" can be a useful frame at least to the extent of providing structure for the first big chunk of the book, (2) what you've got to be very careful you're doing if you want that to be the case, and (3) whether I need to engage in depth with the goddamn philosophy of it all in re e.g. "it's not a model if it doesn't have predictive power" (which I am extremely inclined to sidestep by just......... calling it a frame).

Playing. ... we have tripped and fallen and are playing Librarian: Tidy up the arcane library. Initially we were co-playing with A doing most of the driving and me going LOOK THERE'S A PATTERN-- but then it became apparent that my ideal mode of gameplay (keyboard rather than controller, Manually Shelve Each Book Individually) is not compatible with A's (controller rather than keyboard, Use All The Magic). So I got a second copy. And have been playing through it merrily and slowly. To my amusement it turns out that my specific bullshit here............ gets you the rarest of the Steam achievements. (I am about 2/3 of the way through shelving, and things are speeding up substantially in more or less the same way as they do with jigsaw puzzles. This has eaten my brain and I really really need to do Other Things that are Not This but gosh it gets quiet in here when Allow The Brain To Just Focus. Will I do any further rounds of it? Unclear.)

Cooking. Continue to appreciate braised chickpeas in all their forms (still v keen on Adding A Tin Of Artichokes to the party).

Eating. Had my second hundoburger, which I had deferred until after E1, for the purposes of having an additional day where I didn't need to think about food. Also: STRAWBERRIES; bakery brunch (feat. both the bread pudding and the cardamom bun); ... almost certainly other things but the brain it says no.

Exploring. Bakery brunch featured a detour to visit a red horse chestnut I'd spotted from the bus on my way back from yesterday's hospital appointment, and also pointing out to A the pink bits on some of the flowers on the standard horse chestnuts on the way there.

Technically Finchley Memorial hospital, but mostly I got on a bus I was familiar with and played sudoku to keep myself vaguely calm, and then I managed to NOT panic and get onto a bus going in entirely the wrong direction by dint of it pulling out of the stop sufficiently far ahead of me there was no way I was gonna catch up with it, and then got the unfamiliar bus in the correct direction and... spent significantly more of that panicking quietly. There was definitely A Point at which, it having become apparent that the bus was On Diversion and Not Following Its Usual Route and None Of The Normal Stops Were Happening, I equally quietly Gave Up and decided this was simply going to be yet another hospital service I got discharged from for being disabled, BUT in fact that service TERMINATED at the hospital (and was the only one serving it!!!) so it did get there in the end. I would still prefer to not do that journey again please and thank you, even though I did per the above spot a convenient local red horse chestnut on the return leg, and for that matter several dramatic wisteria hidden from road level but NOT from upper-deck-of-bus level.

Growing. A took me to the allotment this afternoon! The josta is setting quite a lot of fruit and the cherry is even managing some despite my utter failure to water them! I put some marigold seeds in the ground in between rows of broad beans though this is clearly futile because the red ants are already Very Definitely farming on them; the oca in the bottom half of that bed are starting to come up despite the utter lack of watering, as above; none of the seedlings at home died while we were away; ... I did some weeding?

Observing. BABY BIRDS incl. cootlets going WHEEK WHEEK WHEEK all the way up and down the river; the Egyptian goslings are now at the stage of mostly having vaguely competent adult plumage coming in but still managing to turn into balls of ungainly fluff when they sit down; a second batch of coot eggs is being Definitively Incubated. We did not see the duckle again but we did see a very small starling. It was a very pleasant brunch down by the aqueduct.

ysabetwordsmith

Why the U.S. struggles to track heat deaths and protect people from extreme temperatures

A new analysis has revealed that the United States cannot reliably count heat deaths or identify who must act when temperatures turn dangerous.

That failure can turn a clear forecast into a patchy response, leaving protection to depend on local records, budgets, and authority.

TL;DR -- People don't give a shit.

However, there are things that any individual, organization, or town can do about this even in the absence of effective government or societal action.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is partly sunny, windy, and cool.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 5/3/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 5/3/26 -- I planted the lantana in a pot and the lady's mantle in the strip herb garden.

EDIT 5/3/26 -- I planted the ice plant in the mauve pot and put it on the old picnic table.

The weather has turned cloudy with howling wind. >_<

EDIT 5/3/26 -- I planted the hoary vervain in the wildflower garden.

I've seen a fox squirrel at the hopper feeder.

EDIT 5/3/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

codyne

I got my van back last Wednesday, finally, yay! My kind neighbor gave me a ride up to pick it up, so that worked out very well.

Now I'm getting the van ready for my next trip, which will be May 7. With exactly one week to get the van dewinterized, cleaned up, systems checked out, and supplies loaded, I knew time would be tight, but I figured as long as there were no issues that came up, I'd be able to get ready in time. And fortunately, everything has been going smoothly. I dewinterized and sanitized the fresh water system on Thursday, Friday I checked out all the systems to make sure everything was working, cleaned inside the cupboards, drawers and surfaces, and loaded up all the supplies that usually stay in the van, like tools and kitchen ware and bedding. Yesterday I started stocking the kitchen with food and making a shopping list for tomorrow.

Today, I'm mostly resting. Might take out a few more kitchen items and go through my backpack/briefcase to make sure I've got all the power cords and trip info and notebooks and so on that I'll need. Maybe do a load of laundry.

Tomorrow or Tuesday I'll make a run into town for groceries and money and whatever else I might need. Wednesday, load up clothes and toiletries and such. Then Thursday, off I go! I'll join up with J&J in Pennsylvania on the last two stops of their winter travels.

I've also been thinking a lot about my plans to see BTS in August. That will be the complete opposite of my camping trip and I keep getting things confused in my head. ("Need to remember to fill the cat's water fountain before I go... No, I'm taking Davey with me, that's for BTS when I'm only gone overnight...")

I'm hearing horror stories about hotel/travel/crowd issues with the BTS concerts that have happened in the US so far -- people getting scammed on tickets, hotels cancelling confirmed reservations at the last minute to resell the rooms at higher rates, people standing in line for hours and still not getting into the stadiums on time, merch selling out in a few hours. I'm getting a bit nervous for my plans. I reserved a hotel and parking at the stadium when I got my sad little single ticket in the 300s in the presale, and thought I was all set, but I hear people saying "If you want merch, be ready to line up at 8 AM!" and "Get in line by 4 PM to get into the stadium!" and "Hand out your freebies before you line up, they might not let you into the stadium with extra bags!" and... I remember how my plans for Jin's concert went awry, and that was only an arena show. I thought I'd corrected for that with my current plans but I don't know.

Maps tells me it's a 2-1/2 hour drive to MetLife from here. Which is a laugh. I'm thinking four hours, if past experience with traffic to that area holds. My hotel has a 3 PM check-in. I was thinking if I leave at 10 AM I should get to the hotel by 2 PM. Possibly earlier, possibly later, but around 2 PM. If my room isn't ready yet, I can hang out and get something to eat and maybe meet some other ARMYs. Check in at 3 PM or sooner, then head over to the stadium. Hand out freebies for an hour, try to buy some merch, find my gate and get in line around 4 PM. Hand out more freebies and hang out with ARMYs in line. Once inside, depending on whether there's time and whether or not I managed to buy anything outside, check out the merch. Then find my seat and turn on my ARMY bomb and get ready to go!

As far as merch goes, there's one thing I really really really really want: the brick-red city jersey that is only available on site (can't be preordered for pickup at the venue). I also really want the charcoal-gray member jersey (SUGA version), also only available on site. There will be merch booths outside and inside the stadium, so I can try both places but if the merch lines are hours long outside, I will have to wait to try inside, and just hope there's time and they don't sell out before I get a chance.

I have thought about trying to go down the night before, so I can just spend the whole day at the stadium on concert day, but hotels are already sold out, so that's not likely to be possible. Or just getting up at, like, 6 AM and heading down early on the day. Would that work? What time will the stadium parking lot be open? Would I be able to go straight to the stadium and go back to check into my hotel later? Can I check into the hotel online or at, like, midnight when I finally get out after the concert? Should I try to park at the Secaucus station and take the train to the stadium? Ack!

I keep reminding myself that the concert is not until August and there's plenty of time to work all this out. Right now, I just need to concern myself with my camping trip which is in FOUR DAYS. But my brain cannot help working overtime on both plans, and getting them all muddled.

ravensilversea

AKA Thing I Think Would Be Funny to Have In-Game, But Would Piss Off A Lot of Gamers

- The ghost should be able to push the pins on the voodoo doll if you're holding it near them
- They should give us a map with a gas stove that the ghost can interact with. Comes with a chance of death by gas or explosion if you leave it on for too long :)
- There should be a really rare chance to spawn in on a map with no ghost and the reporting option for it to be like "Cat" with the heavy implication that all the haunting shit was literally just the homeowners' cat
- Mimic should give all the evidence for the ghost type it's mimicking plus its own evidence (whether that's its own set of three, a random pick from its three evidence to be a fourth evidence, or the random ghost orbs we get already)

Additional, less evil thoughts:
- We should get a backpack as a loadout option
- The fact checking off ghost orbs as acquired evidence auto-eliminates mimic in the journal is evil. I will forget that is an option

Current Mood: mischievous

ysabetwordsmith

thecookbook,

creative_cooks,

fresh_haul,

recipecommunity,

veg_life, and

vegansofdreamwidth.

Three Weeks for Dreamwidth April 25-May 15

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

silveradept

The 2025 Most Banned and Challenged List for the American Library Association is out, and the most telling statistic in the report is not what books are there, or what justifications their censors gave for the censorship, but that fully 92% of challenges recorded by ALA originated in pressure and political groups, lawmakers, and administrators. Less than 3 percent of challenges were issued by individual parents. What brings all these boys to the yard? Well, think about it: Capitalists want to enclose the commons and turn it private, so they can control it and force it to their will, and the United States Public Library is a commons.

Billionaires and the wealthy who want to say that their superintelligent AIs will eventually go rogue are also trying to genetically engineer humans to be smarter than those superintelligent AIs, and just about everywhere you look that they've put their money into, it isn't into things like trying to make healthier people, it's trying to make the children of the wealthy into having all the genetic advances and traits, and the rest of us will just be left behind by their super-genius statuses.

Given that these are people who like to post manifestos about they are already the superior people in the superior culture and we all have to bow down to them and let them do whatever they want, I think this is definitely one of those situations where trust is less than the distance someone could throw.

The public bench seems humble and ubiquitous, and yet it is neither, with a long history and significant amounts of contention involved about public seating and which members of the public are allowed to be seated. When benches aren't being removed, they're often having their architecture turned hostile to try and prevent people from sitting for long or for using a bench as a place to catch a nap or to sleep off the ground for a night. Because the cause of the problem is placed in the bodies of the people who might not have a house to go home to, or whose life activities are related to crime and vice because they have no other opportunities to make a living. Those doing the placing, of course, do not believe they are doing anything wrong, or worse, callously believe that they are not obligated in any way to any other person but themselves, and therefore, they are allowed to dictate who they want to see and what they want to be reminded of in their public spaces.

The goal of liberalism is to make all bodies invisible in the eyes of the law, but the way that people are liberated from oppression and bindings often imposed by law is through mutuality. Law has a role to play in this situation, and often that role is in highlighting and making highly visible the bodies that it considers to be illiberal. Law can lay foundations for others to implement toward mutuality, but as we have seen, and as the article-writer points out, law cannot require anything by itself, and those who have been chosen to interpret and enforce law are often the ones deciding for or against mutuality.

( More of men behaving badly, and the repercussions of having let men behave badly in the past )

Last out for tonight, a reminder to put accessibility into your social media as much as possible, so please provide transcripts, describe your images, and the like, so that everyone who's on your social media or enjoying the content can access it..

And A project that is offering clinicians and others guides on thinking of seemingly disparate conditions in people as constellations because of the likelihood of their co-occurrence with autism or ADHD. And to think of them as constellations because trying to treat one of them well might exacerbate another.

(Materials via

adrian_turtle,

azurelunatic,

boxofdelights,

cmcmck,

conuly,

cosmolinguist,

elf,

finch,

firecat,

jadelennox,

jenett,

jjhunter,

kaberett,

lilysea,

oursin,

rydra_wong,

snowynight,

sonia,

the_future_modernes,

thewayne,

umadoshi,

vass, the

meta_warehouse community,

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.)

Current Mood: cranky
Current Music: MEUTE - What Else Is There?

ysabetwordsmith

The “big one” might not come alone: Double West Coast earthquake threat

Two of the most dangerous fault systems on the U.S. West Coast may be more connected than scientists once thought. New research suggests the Cascadia subduction zone and the San Andreas fault can “sync up,” triggering earthquakes within minutes or hours of each other. This rare “synchronization” could dramatically increase the scale of a major West Coast disaster. Instead of one massive quake, multiple regions could be hit at nearly the same time.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today we attended the Sheep to Yarn to Quilts festival up in Amish territory.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: happy

ysabetwordsmith

Reducing air pollution has triggered something worse that scientists didn't predict

Scientists have determined that “marine cloud reflectivity,” caused by cleaner air, has dropped by roughly 2.8 percent per decade across the North Atlantic and Northeast Pacific.

Together, those regions span about one-seventh of the planet’s surface, making even small changes in brightness significant on a global scale.

A solution-caused problem. O_O Well, that sucks.

Current Mood: busy

kaberett

Today I have:

successfully navigated some unfamiliar-to-me public transport with only the normal amount of panic
MADE IT TO THE GYM post-unfamiliar-public-transport (having been Indisposed this morning, when I had planned to--)
- achievement unlocked: asked to borrow a pair of dumbbells from a much-stronger-than-me human For One Set while they were resting (because warm-up); they were a delight
- achievement unlocked: politely asked the human in the next rack if I could have the yellow plates they... seemed highly unlikely to use
... tripped and fell into Computer Game instead of doing most of the afternoon/early evening things I had grand plans about...
and we UNFUCKED THE KITCHEN SOME, good job us.

(Everything is still very much a post-event disaster, but. Made food ate food made a stand against the forces of entropy. It Is Well.)

ravensilversea

Fandom: Honkai: Star Rail
Rating: T
Tags: Modern AU, Drabble, Slice of Life, Libraries, Ambiguous/Open Ending
Prompt: 2026 May Drabble Challenge Day 2: Demon
Summary: March browses the shelves of her library
Notes: Title is from Don't Go Into the Library by Alberto Ríos
Ao3

March slides her finger along book spines, absently reading the titles: Your Guardian Angel and You, Connecting with the Spirit Realm, Demon Summoning for the Lovelorn… Who comes up with this stuff?

She pulls the last book off the shelf, strokes the cracked leather cover, traces the blocky title written in gold, and shrugs. It’s not like she has anything better to do tonight, and who knows? Maybe she’ll summon someone tall, dark, and devilishly handsome. She giggles at the thought.

Ah, who is she kidding? It’s probably just some mish-mashed Latin and strange-looking symbols. Nothing’s going to actually happen.

Current Mood: mischievous

nanila

Do you like to spend time outdoors?

Yes! I like walking, hiking and swimming outside. I don’t get to do any of those things often enough, but when I do, they make me very happy.
What is your favorite flower?

Whichever ones are currently in bloom. Right now it’s the tulips, and an iris just opened so for a few days it will be them as they're ephemeral. The roses are getting ready to go as well, and all of our rose bushes are bursting with buds this year which is nice to see.
Any favourite warm weather activities?

Gardening for hours, and then sitting on the lawn afterward with a refreshing cold beverage, admiring my handiwork and planning what to do next.
Have you ever kept a garden? If so, what did you grow?

Yes! I’m not really the architect of our garden. The layout is all the bloke’s handiwork. I like weeding, trimming, and helping out the flowering plants and veg he chooses.
Do you know how to swim?

Yes, but not particularly well. I do wish I’d had proper swimming lessons as a child. Both my children swim very well because of their lessons, and Humuhumu has done lifesaving courses too.

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny and chilly.

I fed the birds. I've seen a large flock of sparrows and house finches, a male cardinal, and a fox squirrel.

EDIT 5/2/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 5/2/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

fauxklore

Busy traveling - so far, the Channel Islands and a couple of days in London

Now in Swindon at the Fforde Fiesta

I'll be home Wednesday night

ysabetwordsmith

This year during Three Weeks for Dreamwidth, I'm writing about reading as a way of becoming an expert in a given subject. Read Part 1: Introduction to Becoming an Expert, Part 2: Architecture, Part 3: Dance, Part 4: Music, Part 5: Painting, Part 6: Poetry, Part 7: Sculpture.

Three Weeks for Dreamwidth Part 8: Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution is a skillset for peacefully sorting out disagreements between people. Individual aspects include body language, communication skills, cooperative decision-making, coping skills, emotional awareness, mediation, negotiation, and problem-solving. The goal is to find a win-win solution, or if that is not possible, at least something that everyone can live with. Sometimes you may identify a need for additional resources, reorganzing things, or other stuff that could take a while to accomplish. Conflict resolution is effective when it diffuses the tension of the moment and identifies at least one practical step toward reducing or avoiding future conflicts over the same issue. It's okay if that takes multiple rounds to fix fully. All people experience conflicts sometimes, but different cultures handle this in different ways. Dreamwidth has no conflict resolution communities per se, but you might explore

common_nature,

goals_on_dw, or

thankfulthursday for a few of its subskills.

Three Weeks for Dreamwidth April 25-May 15

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

People have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.

Should governments make laws to protect people from hurting themselves?

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

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