ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the November 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from [personal profile] readera. It also fills the "The deeds of ordinary folks keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love." square in my 11-1-25 card for the Fairy Tales and Fantasy Stories Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with [personal profile] fuzzyred. It belongs to the Officer Pink thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Read more... )

Dwarves are partially color blind

Jan. 4th, 2026 08:54 pm
fayanora: qrcode (Default)
[personal profile] fayanora
Bringing Dwarves into the story a bit, for book 8. Pursuant to that...

"Sure, (Dwarves) could see well in the dark, but gemstones and precious metals don’t look very impressive in the dark, even to someone with dark-vision, especially since Dwarves were partially color-blind; they could see browns, some of the darker reds, some yellows, and gray/silver; in fact, the green light of the various glowing life-forms like the glow worms looked white to them. They had names for hundreds of shades of the most common earth tones, but when it came to gemstones, they needed help from surface dwellers with full color vision to identify most of them.

"They could usually tell gold apart from other metals, though since it was so soft, they’d never had much use for it themselves, initially. Once they figured out that making it into things could net them a LOT of resources in exchange, they had gotten really good at using gold to make things for surface-dwellers, with a little help from their surface-dwelling employees."

I'm struggling to figure out if this level of color blindness is realistic. First, is it possible? Second, would a species that lives entirely underground and rarely goes to the surface at all have any color vision at all?

Keep in mind they do have pretty strong dark-vision, but of course there's not really much color in the dark. Sure, they could use various light sources, they even have magical crystals that make light. But their eyes are very sensitive to light, and the light sources they scatter through their tunnels for their surface-dwelling friends and allies are very dim indeed. (Like glow in the dark tape.) Even a first-year student at Fae Springs could easily make a bright enough witch-light to blind a Dwarf, if only temporarily. I'm pretty sure they would need special glasses or a spell over their eyes to be on the surface in the daytime, as they would consider a full moon to be almost unbearably bright.

Poem: "A Heaviness of Heart"

Jan. 4th, 2026 09:47 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the September 2023 [community profile] crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by prompts from [personal profile] curiosity. It also fills the "Family" square in my 9-1-23 card for the Story Sparks Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with [personal profile] fuzzyred. It belongs to the Aquariana, Cuoio & Chiara, and Marionettes threads of the Polychrome Heroics series. It follows "Help Others to Grow Up" and "The Sound of Anguish," so read those first or this won't make much sense.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics with emotional mayhem. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes traumatic loss, traumatic stress, emotional agony, supporting character death, a crying man, an inept messenger, upset baby super-intellect, moment of panic, reference to past losses, unfairness, feeling unfinished, worry about a friend, exhaustion, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before deciding if this is something you want to read.

Read more... )
dialecticdreamer: My work (Default)
[personal profile] dialecticdreamer
More Input
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1a of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 291
[Monday, May 11, 2020, just after dawn]


:: Aidan returns, and finds Ed waiting for him. They have a conversation that the older man did not expect. Part of the Edison’s Mirror universe. ::




Aidan walked mechanically, though his metronomic precision suggested that his attention was not on the clear, well-maintained tarmac that led to the increasingly familiar driveway. He carried a bag in his left hand. The paper crinkled as his arms swung lightly in time with his steps.

The figure standing in the early dawn’s faint breeze, under the halo of the light mounted to one side of the front door of the converted garage apartment was much shorter than Aidan had expected.
Read more... )

Photos: Sunset

Jan. 4th, 2026 09:04 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Tonight I happened to glance out the window and spotted a colorful sunset. So I grabbed my camera and ran outside to take pictures. This gets me started on my goal of taking and posting photos at least once per season. \o/

Walk with me ... )

News

Jan. 4th, 2026 06:21 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Top 10 Positive News Stories of 2025

As 2025 comes to a close, we’re pausing to celebrate something truly special—the Top 10 Most-Loved Stories of the Year, as chosen by you, our Stay Positive News community.

These are the stories you clicked, shared, commented on, and carried with you. Stories that reminded us that even on hard days, goodness shows up—sometimes quietly, sometimes boldly, but always with heart.


ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Under the character notes for my poem "Help Others to Grow Up," [personal profile] greghousesgf has commented:

I remember seeing a poster in the Bart trains (local mass transit) talking about what to do in an emergency and one of the instructions was "comfort the dying". Frankly I don't know how some random person on the train who isn't a professional psychologist or something would be able to do that. I certainly wouldn't.


Nobody is obligated to help if they're no kind of first responder, which in this case to comfort the dying, would primarily be clergy. Remember that "Stay out of the way" is always a legitimate role in an emergency, and nobody has the right to criticize anyone for choosing that role. If the problem is simply a lack of knowing what to do, though, that is straightforward to fix by learning ways to help. It's good to think about such things in advance, because you never know when you might need to make that decision. Here are some basic ideas...

Read more... )

Early Humans

Jan. 4th, 2026 03:03 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This ancient fossil could rewrite the story of human origins

A seven-million-year-old fossil may rewrite human origins, showing our ancestors were walking upright far earlier than anyone expected.

Scientists may have cracked the case of whether a seven-million-year-old fossil could walk upright. A new study found strong anatomical evidence that Sahelanthropus tchadensis was bipedal, including a ligament attachment seen only in human ancestors. Despite its ape-like appearance and small brain, its leg and hip structure suggest it moved confidently on two legs. The finding places bipedalism near the very root of the human family tree
.


This makes sense given how many primates are capable of walking on two legs and do so whenever it offers them an advantage. With the potential already there, all it would take is an environment where bipedalism worked better than other methods -- like Africa's growing savannas.

Birdfeeding

Jan. 4th, 2026 02:32 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is mostly cloudy and cool.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a large flock of sparrows and a starling.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 1/4/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 1/4/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 1/4/26 -- We did a round of fridge-cleaning.

EDIT 1/4/26 -- I started raking around the firepit, and got about a quarter of the way around.  The plastic leaf rake does slightly better with leaves than in the parking lot with leaves and sticks, but still not as good as a metal rake.

EDIT 1/4/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 1/4/26 -- I spotted the tail end of a very pretty sunset, so I grabbed my camera and shot a few pictures.  :D  It is 4:58 now and nearly dark.

I am done for the night.
thewayne: (Default)
[personal profile] thewayne
There's so much that can be talked about that you just can't talk about everything that's problematic. Such as Congress having the power to declare war, and that being ignored: he decided he was going to be God Emperor and he's getting away with it. Or having a completely feckless House of Representatives not doing their job of enforcing Checks and Balances. But I'd be typing all day and still be getting nowhere.

So I'm just going to focus on one point. Let's talk about Venezuela's natural resources.

OIL. Natural gas. BAUXITE. GOLD. Hydroelectric power.

The USA doesn't have bauxite, which is kinda critical for producing aluminum, and aluminum is needed in pretty much every manufacturing industry. Canada has vast gobs of bauxite, but the moldering orange residing at 1600 Pennsylvania who pretends to be an intelligent life form kinda pissed off the Canadians with his antics coming out of the gate once he was sworn in last January. I doubt Venezuela has aluminum refineries, and and it takes a long time to build aluminum refineries, not to mention the transmission lines and other infrastructure, and you need civil stability to do that. Military pacification does not ensure civil stability.

Gold. Well, he needs something to cover up all those Home Depot decorations that he's hot gluing all over the Oval Office.

And oil. Let's talk about oil.

As we have seen with his gross tax on the American people through tariffs, he doesn't understand diddly squat about economics. He thinks that by seizing all this oil - Venezuela has some of the largest oil reserves in the world - that the USA will become hugely wealthy. And by the USA he means his oil buddies.

There's a problem with that thinking.

For oil to be hugely profitable, it has to be trading high. And it ain't. There's only one oil company particularly interested in developing Venezuelan oil, I believe it's Chevron, I could be mistaken.

Here's oil averages for the last decade:

Year WTI Approx Avg Price / Brent Avg
2015 ~$48 / ~$52
2016 ~$43 / ~$44
2017 ~$50 / ~$54
2018 ~$65 / ~$71
2019 ~$57 / ~$64
2020 ~$39 / ~$42
2021 ~$68 / ~$70
2022 ~$94 / ~$101
2023 ~$78 / ~$82
2024 ~$76–80 / ~$80–82
2025 (partial) Roughly mid $60s to low $70s possible average (based on Brent average ~72 as of mid-year)

Right now it's trading at around $60 a barrel, which is around the break even point. Oil isn't very profitable right now, and with the increase in EVs and renewables, plus forecasted growth in nuclear generation, it's hard to see huge increases in the future. You always have big seasonal fluctuations at the pump, but that doesn't always reflect changes in the barrel price - that's just gouging to get consumer dollars as they travel for holidays.

Demand for oil and renewables is eating its lunch, which is possibly why he ordered the shutdown of off-shore wind farms, aside from his idiotic hatred of them.

Now, was Maduro not a good guy? Sure. He rigged elections, he was running a black fleet doing oil trades for Iran. Was he a narco trafficker? I don't know about that, regardless I don't think he was remotely shipping fentanyl into the USA via small fishing boats and certainly the USA is not serious about dealing with its own drug problems. But if you're going to go around imposing regime change on people who rig elections, why is Putin still in power? Why did the Castros rule for so long? There're lots of examples around the world of similar countries where people seized power. Let's talk about Bush v. Gore right here in our own country where the Supreme Court cut short a recount.

It's a nasty argument that rarely turns out well. Don't force regime change from the outside, don't try to impose democracy. A quote come to mind: 'Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.'

We know how well imposed regime change works. We can see how peaceful Iraq and Afghanistan are these days, I'm sure Venezuela will have a similar calm transition.

You know, he should stop shit posting on Untruth Social right now - it's probably blocking the call from the Nobel Committee.

Done Since 2025-12-28

Jan. 4th, 2026 07:56 pm
mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)
[personal profile] mdlbear

Not a great week. It starts with my mother's 105th birthday -- she died a little before her 100th -- and ends with my 50th wedding anniversary -- the last one Colleen was alive for was our 45th.

The New Year's Eve/Day Zoom filksing was a high point -- I sang 9 songs. It went on for almost another day after I left. R was online too, so I got to hear him sing a little; we decided that this could count as our holiday video chat if we didn't get arouond to an official one. OTOH because I don't plan well and don't multitask at all, there were undoubtedly a number of things that should have been done before year's end that weren't.

In the category of things that ought to be done soon, see this Post by @rahaeli.bsky.social — Bluesky " I strongly suspect, from all these signals, that Sberbank is preparing to either sell the outside-Russia part of LJ if they can find a buyer, or shut it down if they can't. " -- so back up everything you care about from LJ to DW, if you haven't already, or import it all into DW. I did that several years ago.

As for links... Maduro 'captured and flown out' of Venezuela, Trump says -- it's been suggested that Venezuela should return the favor. How We Came To Know Earth | Quanta Magazine's special issue on climate, including A Biography of Earth Across the Age of Animals.

Notes & links, as usual )

Done This Week

Jan. 4th, 2026 10:56 am
scrubjayspeaks: hand holding pen over notebook (done this week)
[personal profile] scrubjayspeaks
Well, it took until Monday before I started feeling even remotely human again. And it wasn’t until Thursday that I started feeling like I could do much by way of activities. It’s disappointing, though I suppose I didn’t have much planned for my vacation that needed high physical activity. It’s just that I had hoped to rest in a way that involved being conscious slightly more often. Also, it meant mum was left doing all the work. I don’t feel guilty, because it wasn’t my fault, but I do feel upset.

I tried out the vacuum sealer I got second-hand from work. Neither of us was feeling in the mood to plow through the massive quantity of yule log cake we had left. So I sliced it up, lightly froze it for stability, and then vacuum sealed it into sets of two or three slices. It seems to have worked great. And now I have emergency cake rations in the freezer!

We had another couple of storms roll through. Solid rain, though not as apocalyptic as I expected or as other places got. The weeds are at least knee high, but it’s never dry enough to mow or weed whack, so, uh, guess we just live in a jungle now...

Lewisia: 6 new pieces written (all caught up), January posts queued

Day job: none hours

Cooking: vacuum sealed yule log slices

Cleaning: hauled the tree out of the house

Crafting: bought some more stickers (shoutout to KeyMonster) and turned them into magnets again, made a little more progress on attaching patches

Gardening: started making a shortlist of seeds to buy

Reading: Strangers in Paradise XXV #1 & #2 (oh no, you mean all the other series are connected too??? I am never going to be done reading Terry Moore, am I?), We Need Your Art by Amie McNee (I liked it, I think, it’s a bit different from the usual advice, which I appreciate), also, I’m reading each day’s passage from John Darnielle’s This Year: 365 Songs Annotated

Watching: out of a desperate desire to actually set aside time to watch things I want to see, I have resorted to creating a Pacemaker plan for watching shows, adulthood is hell...

Listening: a clutch of Louie Zong albums--Oneiric Ocean (sounds like lost tracks from the E.V.O. game soundtrack), Spyglass (more of the fun collage stuff he does), and Rain in the Valley (just beautiful)

Playing: started dabbling with Moonlighter--oh, I’m so bad at real-time combat, but I will make an attempt

Clock Mouse: 583 words through the end of the year, switched to doing planning work--30 minutes

Other: purged three email inboxes with extreme prejudice (╬▔皿▔)╯

Poem: "The Sound of Anguish"

Jan. 4th, 2026 03:32 am
ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the September 2023 [community profile] crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by prompts from [personal profile] curiosity. It also fills the "Rescue / Recovery" square in my 9-1-23 card for the Story Sparks Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with [personal profile] fuzzyred. It belongs to the Aquariana, Cuoio & Chiara, and Marionettes threads of the Polychrome Heroics series, and follows "Help Others to Grow Up."

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics with emotional mayhem. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes traumatic loss, traumatic stress, supporting character death, a crying man, an inept messenger, reference to past losses, upset baby super-intellect, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before deciding if this is something you want to read.

Read more... )

Politics

Jan. 4th, 2026 02:35 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
So today, America's craziness reached a new frenzy...


What’s Happening in Venezuela? Start Here

US forces struck multiple military and civilian targets in Caracas and nearby cities, and captured Maduro. Here’s what we know at this point.


Sovereign countries are not supposed to violate each other's borders or leadership, outside of properly declared war; and that's largely about defense because war of aggression is also forbidden at this time. But people have largely quite caring about those rules, which is a growing problem.

Read more... )

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