kellan_the_tabby

Today is cloudy and muggy.

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches. I also saw a male cardinal and a squirrel up in the trees.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 6/20/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

Current Mood: busy

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3105/

We're getting a lot of complaints from commuters who were routed onto a coaster, but the theme park patrons who spent hours stuck on an intercity line are also not happy.

https://xkcd.com/3105/

ysabetwordsmith

readera has a post about heat precautions regarding the heat dome. These are my additions...

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

scrubjayspeaks

“I thought fairy rings were supposed to grow where tree stumps were rotting,” he said, gazing out over the field, “or spots where something dead and buried was decaying.” She looked up from where she had been closely examining a rough line of fruiting bodies, then she guided him over to one edge that gave a better view. She swept her arm out to indicate a long, one might say draconic, curve as of a tail joining a vast body, picked out in assorted mushrooms, and grimly said, “Yes, exactly.”

---

LL#1267

ysabetwordsmith

We visited the butterfly gardens at the Charleston Library, on June 19 although this is dated 20 because it's after midnight. They were filled with birds, although I didn't manage to catch any pictures of them.

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

fayanora

I had a dream during my nap wherein someone mentioned a creature called a "butt spider," which they said was a spider that lives in one's butthole. I quipped back with "They're not spiders, they're crustaceans that look and act like spiders."

So that dream universe has butt spiders I guess, even though they're not spiders. Something to put on the tourism brochure, I guess, as a warning.

ysabetwordsmith posting in

followfriday

Got any Follow Friday-related posts to share this week? Comment here with the link(s).

Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die".

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today's theme is Highlander.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

We went out today and visited several nature places.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

We made this tonight. It turned out quite well. :D

( Read more... )

Current Mood: accomplished

questionable_content_feed

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5596

just a couple million

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5596

dialecticdreamer

Unwilling Trip
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1231

:: The kidnappers’ plans seem well thought-out. Toddlers, however, can wreck the most carefully planned events. Part of the Unfair Trades story arc in the Polychrome Heroics universe. ::

:: Pay Special Attention: While the topic of stranger abduction is a hot button grooved into the psyche of everyone in the Western world over the age of five, the danger to the children is in the moment minimal, and in the long term, will not be swept under the rug. Play therapy, changes in routine and security, and so forth, can be incorporated without adding to the twins’ trauma, and will all help reduce the effects of the incident in different ways. ::

With nothing left in the balloons, Ladon tucked the wadded up strings and caps in his pants pocket as he pushed the stroller through the one-way gate into the wide sidewalk that faced what seemed to be an acre of paved, well-maintained parking lot. The two paths parallel to the sidewalk marked off a total of four rows of angled parking spaces, and lollipop trees, bland and commercially landscaped, sat in the islands at the ends of the rows. Each tree was protected by thick wrought iron grates, peeking through a round center less than a foot across, and several muddy tire tracks over the outer edge of the nearest grate revealed that some drivers were either impatient or inconsiderate.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: amused

ysabetwordsmith

Today is Juneteenth.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

fayanora

Woke up to a double surprise. First surprise, that green bag of returnables I was waiting for finally processed. Second surprise: there were two bags processed. Which led me to this conclusion: that bag that processed on Sunday, which had me paranoid for a week that maybe I had forgotten the bag tag (even though I knew I hadn't), was a bag I completely forgot I had dropped off days before, and the timing of it being processed was entirely coincidental.

Yes, that's right: I have been doing enough hunting for returnables and enough of these green bags that I completely forgot about one of them, and its coincidental processing on the same day I dropped off two others had me anxious and paranoid over nothing.

I mean, I don't even remember that bag even now, after having deduced its existence from available evidence. Maybe if I go back through my posts here on DW, I could refresh my memory, but for now I'm not bothering. So just... wow. And I still have another bag to drop off!

Current Mood: surprised

thewayne

Scammers have found an interesting trick via Google ads, and thus far it only seems to work with them, no other online ad company. They buy an ad, for example, for Microsoft.com, that says 'Call us toll free at 805-xxx-xxxx' and it pops up as a banner at the top of the page!

So you're browsing for whatever, and this page pops up and the URL looks completely legit, and there's a phone number just below the top of the page, do you trust it?

Well, looks like these days you shouldn't.

Might want to spread the word, and article, to your more gullible friends and older relations.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/06/tech-support-scammers-inject-malicious-phone-numbers-into-big-name-websites/

ysabetwordsmith

Today is partly sunny and mild. It rained yesterday.

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

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 6/19/25 -- We went out for a while and saw the library wildflower meadow, Fox Ridge, and the Charleston Food Forest.

EDIT 6/19/25 -- I refilled the thistle feeder that was half empty.

EDIT 6/19/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 6/19/25 -- I sowed 5 pots with yellow raspberries.

EDIT 6/19/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 6/19/25 -- I picked up sticks from the south side of the driveway and dumped them in the firepit.

Lots of fireflies are coming out. :D

EDIT 6/19/25 -- I picked up sticks from the North side of the driveway and dumped them in the firepit.

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

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

New butterfly species wows scientists: 'This discovery reveals a lineage shaped by 40,000 years of evolutionary solitude'

The Satyrium semiluna, or half-moon hairstreak, is a small gray butterfly that looks like a moth at first glance. The wildflower lovers are widespread across North America, from the Sagebrush steppe to the montane meadows of the Rocky Mountains.

But tucked away in the southeastern corner of Alberta, Canada, another colony of butterflies flaps across the Blakiston Fan landform of Waterton Lakes National Park.

Until now, they were thought to be a subpopulation of half-moon hairstreaks — until scientists made a phenomenal discovery: They were a new species of butterfly that had hidden in plain sight for centuries.

The researchers, who recently published their findings in the scientific journal ZooKeys, defined the new species as Satyrium curiosolus.

Current Mood: busy

mdlbear

Today I am thankful for...

My keyboard arriving last Friday without any problems. NO thanks to FedEx, which has failed to deliver m's keyboard to their home in Seattle. Twice.
Remembering a very little bit of how to sight-read.
Finally solving my audio input problem. NO thanks to Zoom and Audacity, which fail in entirely orthogonal ways to sanely handle my UA-25.
Thanks to them, however, for at least allowing the system default as a device. Differently, of course.

Linux command-line tools, including (but not limited to) Grep, Find, Ls, Sed, and of course Bash, for always being there when I need to do some trivial but off-the-wall bit of data-mining. Like listing all Thankful Thursday posts with fewer than four list items.

$ for f in ../2*/*/*thank*; do echo $(grep "li>" $f | wc -l) $f; done |grep ^[2-3] 
  3 ../2019/09/12--thankful-thursday.html
  3 ../2020/06/05--thankful-friday.html
  3 ../2020/06/25--thankful-thursday.html
  3 ../2021/04/25--thankful-sunday.html
  3 ../2022/02/24--thankful-thursday.html
  2 ../2025/01/03--thankful-thursday-addendum.html
  2 ../2025/06/12--thankful-thursday.html

NO thanks to 2025!me for continued procrastination., and NO thanks to 2022!me, for letting the MakeStuff/music toolchain languish with no maintenance and inadequate documentation, making it way harder than necessary to put a two-song concert set online. Which might get done this week.

Current Mood: grateful
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: not on line yet

azurelunatic

* Shelves are fairly well stuffed. The other brackets have arrived, so we can go get more boards and tiny hardware at our convenience.
* There is now Shelf in the living room. Things are going in it.
* Household tidying progresses.
* Today I filled boxes for 13 weeks of my morning and evening pills. It feels like it took less time than usual, but I think that's a trick of the light. I think I usually start later in the day, and keep going until it's dark. It took about four and a half hours; I try to allocate at least 5.
* This means that I've got pills packed until sometime in September. Go, me?
* Juneteenth is tomorrow!
* Turns out that being a director at a certain kind of non-technical organization means that you spend evenings face-down in the user interface level of a misbehaving database. I am chockablock with sympathy.
* Yellface is adorable, and likes to spend the part of the day when I'm awake but still in bed sitting on my legs.
* Had games and pizza with friends last week; they've got a young-ish teeneager placed with them right now. She wasn't up for games but she did appear to fill her water bottle. Luna-cat is very curious about new people and apparently charged her, which was off-putting. I faded early.
* I got some new bras; I'll have to add pockets but the test wear was promising!
* Nobody told me about the dragons in The Priory of the Orange Tree, everyone just mentioned the lesbians.
* There's a new serial at

the_comfortable_courtesan!!!

thewayne

The European Union, on top of France's recruiting efforts, is investing €500 million to lure displaced/disaffected American scientists to the other side of the pond. France has a head-start, having begun their program pretty much as soon as the Ketamine Kid and his goon squad started axing programs. The EU amount is about $570m USD, I'm not sure how many jobs that represents. What they need to do is relax visa restrictions to allow people to move without having direct job sponsorship: give them longer to find employment if they can't fall in directly to their recruitment program.

This paragraph makes me wonder if this program replaces the French program:
"The plan, originally proposed by the French government, also proposes creating long-term “super grants” for outstanding researchers, to provide them with financial stability; these would last for seven years. The program also plans to double the amount of financial support available this year for those who decide to move to the European Union."

I'm not really clear on the matter. But since they're not likely to be looking for telescope operators, we're not likely to fall into this program.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/05/europe-launches-program-to-lure-scientists-away-from-the-us/

Japan's program is throwing a cool ¥100 billion ($693 million) into the program. Meanwhile, Great Britain is throwing a whopping £50 million ($67 million) to attract top talent!

I can see Japan increasing their spend as they have a serious population problem: a shortage of young families with children. By bringing in more scientists, they may well give extra priority to those that might shore up that base, giving long-term benefit to the country.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/16/japan_has_a_yen_for/

Profile

kellan

The Vagabond Tabby

June 2025

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Page Summary

ysabetwordsmith - Birdfeeding
xkcd_feed - Interoperability
ysabetwordsmith - Heat
scrubjayspeaks - Lake Lewisia #1267
ysabetwordsmith - Photos: Charleston Library Butterfly Gardens
fayanora - Butt spiders
ysabetwordsmith in followfriday - Follow Friday 6-20-25
ysabetwordsmith - Follow Friday 6-20-25: Highlander
ysabetwordsmith - Today's Adventures
ysabetwordsmith - Recipe: "Chicken Stir-Fry with Mushrooms and Swiss Chard"
questionable_content_feed - Anh Has A Fanclub
dialecticdreamer - Unwilling Trip (part 1 of 1, complete)
ysabetwordsmith - Happy Juneteenth!
fayanora - Well *that* sure is interesting.
thewayne - Interesting new scam: address bar shows whatever .com, but the phone number lies!
ysabetwordsmith - Birdfeeding
ysabetwordsmith - Wildlife
mdlbear - Thankful Thursday
azurelunatic - More tiny excitements
thewayne - In addition to France, the EU and Japan are recruiting American scientists

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Page generated Jun. 21st, 2025 01:07 am

speaking the truth

even when my voice trembles

Reading

Birdfeeding

Interoperability

Heat

Lake Lewisia #1267

Photos: Charleston Library Butterfly Gardens

Butt spiders

Follow Friday 6-20-25

Follow Friday 6-20-25: Highlander

Today's Adventures

Recipe: "Chicken Stir-Fry with Mushrooms and Swiss Chard"

Anh Has A Fanclub

Unwilling Trip (part 1 of 1, complete)

Happy Juneteenth!

Well that sure is interesting.

Interesting new scam: address bar shows whatever .com, but the phone number lies!

Birdfeeding

Wildlife

Thankful Thursday

More tiny excitements

In addition to France, the EU and Japan are recruiting American scientists

Profile

June 2025

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