thursday books delayed by flooding

Jul. 30th, 2026 12:22 pm
landofnowhere: (Default)
[personal profile] landofnowhere
(My original plan was to write this last night while on the train, but flash flooding at my destination delayed my travel, so I'm writing this on the rescheduled train. I haven't fit in much reading this week, but still writing a short update so as not to get behind.)

Terre des Autres, Sylvie Bérard. A shorter installment this week; the planetary politics continue to be dark but with glimmers of hope. I'm really curious how this is going to end, and exactly how grim it is going to be.

Bernhard Riemann: His Life and Wondrous Mathematical Legacy, David E. Rowe Still interesting, I'm most of the way through the "life" section, which is a bit slow going because Riemann is mostly being depressed and proving theorems. I enjoyed the letter from Richard Dedekind to his sister saying "I have this friend Riemann who is brilliant but super depresssed and hates to feel that he's causing trouble for others, can you try to help him out?" Unfortunately this did not work. (Someone write a book-length biography of Richard Dedekind plz?) This week's fun tidbit is the forgotte ncomposer Hans Sommer, who had a mathematical career before his musical one, and was a student in the first lecture class Riemann taught at Gottingen.. Here's the first movement of his piano quartet .

Down to the wire

Jul. 29th, 2026 11:01 pm
wayfaringwordhack: (Default)
[personal profile] wayfaringwordhack
 I can't believe we have only one more day left in Lebanon.  I have sooooooo much to do tomorrow and am going kind of crazy with it all.  I will be so glad when it is over.

I got some kind of virus due to all the fatigue and stress in addition to my lowered immunity following the surgery  (it gets confused with ringworm, but can't think of the name right now and too tired to look it up), but thankfully it isn't making my life too difficult.  Just feeling like it is one of those par for the course things, like running out of gas for the stove (happened yesterday; and the "camp stove' gas we were getting by on ran out today); running out of water right in the middle of my last load of laundry (happened this morning); having a leak when we unplugged to the washing machine to hand it off to the lady who bought (also happened this morning).  And this isn't even touching on all the aggravation involved in selling one's belongings, specifically of the nature of "Oh, I want that; reserve it for me."  And then two weeks later, right before you are going to, you know, leave the country, and you reach out to ask when said person will pick up said expensive, cumbersome item, they tell you, "Oh, sorry. I guess I should have told you that I am not taking it." Ya think!?  La ti da.

But lots of good things have happened, like helpful, kind friends and sweet goodbyes.  Who knows when--or if ever--we will see any of these people again, but the community was great while we were here, and we are thankful for that.   Also great is that our landlord is OK with our cleaning lady coming Monday (instead of today) to really clean the house.  So much easier for her, and less stress for me, than having her do it while I have stuff everywhere that needs packing.  Thank God for small mercies...that might not be that small, actually, in the scheme of things (scheme of things being my sanity and stress levels.😂)

Hope to be making more cheerful, relaxed posts soon.

_______
ETA:  Someone bought the bunkbed that Miss Inconsiderate didn't take, and maybe someone will take the couch today.  Talk about being down to the wire.

It's Wednesday, let's talk books!

Jul. 29th, 2026 10:27 am
florianschild: A close-up of Daria from the animated cartoon show. Her glasses show an animated reflection of burning flames (Default)
[personal profile] florianschild
Hi, friends! I did sort of disappear and I regret that. I want to be here. I just get overwhelmed sometimes by life. My last post, aside from my 2025 reading retrospective, was over a year ago! If you're curious, here are some big things that happened since then:


  • My daughter turned 2

  • I got a job offer from my old company, agonized over it because I loved my current job AND my old job (I know, talk about problems!), and finally accepted the offer

  • Started my new/old job

  • Took my two-year-old on a plane for the first time and had an amazing vacation in Charleston

  • Casually began house hunting and found an amazing house and unexpectedly got our offer accepted (yay!) then spent the next 2-3 months focused on buying and moving into said house

  • Got our old house cleaned up and listed for sale, then navigated that awful process (still ongoing)

  • My daughter turned 3

  • Took my three-year-old on a plane for a 5 hour flight from Pennsylvania to San Diego. The trip was awesome but took so much out of all of us

  • Attended my TWENTY YEAR high school reunion



This might not seem like a lot for some people, but for me that is a ton of upheaval and I'm adjusting to it, but slowly. It's all good stuff though for the most part! Now for the books...

Wednesday Reading



Just Finished


Chenneville by Paulette Jiles
This one was a recommendation from my parents and it sounded cool, but was ultimately very dull. The plot was soooo slow and the payoff was absolutely not worth it.

The King is Dead by Naomi Libicki
This was a book that was on my "Currently Reading" for almost a year because I just couldn't work up enough interest to pick it up. I finally forced myself to get through it because there was one character I cared about and I wanted to see how it ended for his sake. There were things I did enjoy in this book, but I wanted it to be amazing and it just wasn't.

We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune
I freaking loved this book. It's short but packs a huge punch. I had so many thoughts and feelings as I was reading this and I enjoyed how each little chapter is like it's own fascinating vignette. The overall story was sad and sweet, with a side of science and philosophy. I think my favorite part about this book was the inevitability of the disaster. So often I've experienced disaster stories where the story is about how humanity solves the crisis and narrowly avoids extinction, but in this case it was very much understood by all the characters that there is no getting out of this. So where do things go from there? In a very interesting and poignant direction, that's where.

Currently Reading


Fouth Wing by Rebecca Yaros
I'm on the bandwagon! I'm buddy reading this with several work friends. I do NOT like the audiobook at all, but I'm dealing with it since I couldn't get an ebook copy. I'm on the waitlist for the ebook version of book 2.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
My classic for the year. I'm working on it pretty slowly, despite a strong start. It's definitely very readable and fun but certain sections have been dragging a bit lately.

When I Dare to Be Powerful by Audre Lorde
I picked this up as my souvenir book while in San Diego because it was super small and slim. I love it so far, Audre Lorde is a beautiful writer and every sentence could be a profound standalone quote.

Up Next


The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel, MD and Tina Payne Bryson, PhD
As my daughter neared her third birthday, I started to notice some behavioral concerns that I'm hoping this book might help me address. I want to help her learn to cope with disappointment and change because those seem to trigger the biggest emotional reactions (meltdowns, really).

The Anniversary by Alex Finlay
My hold is coming up soon and I'm excited because one of my nebulous reading goals this year is to read more new releases and popular books. So far I've read 2 books that were published this year and 2 that were published in 2025.

I also found a new book tracking site that I'm kind of obsessed with: Hardcover.app (referral link). It has so many cool features and the UI is really nice and intuitive. I was a diehard Goodreads addict for years until I decided not to support Bezos. I tried so hard to love Storygraph as much as I loved Goodreads, but I found the UI sooo hard to navigate and it just never clicked with me. Hardcover is *chef's kiss* perfect and I adore it. I'm so happy there.

How Are You? (in Haiku)

Jul. 27th, 2026 08:32 pm
jjhunter: multiple watercolor butterflies flying (butterfly flock)
[personal profile] jjhunter
Pick a thing or two that sums up how you're doing today, this week, in general, and tell me about it in the 5-7-5 syllables of a haiku.

=

Signal-boosting much appreciated!

a deluge of reveals

Jul. 27th, 2026 10:13 am
shadaras: A phoenix with wings fully outspread, holidng a rose and an arrow in its talons. (Default)
[personal profile] shadaras
[community profile] taggle creators revealed earlier this afternoon! This post is purely a list of things I made for it. (the links all say 'by anon' because I put this together ahead of time, due to: leaving the apartment right when reveals were scheduled for.) xD Organized by media type and length. The vast majority of these are for [personal profile] hafnia, for the simple reason of: I didn't want to stop and think about who I was gifting things to during this game and knew she'd enjoy it all. <3


Fic (OW x3, Star Wars x1) )


Art (OW x7, Fairy Tales x1) )


Podfic (OW x3, FatT x1) )


While I'm here, two other OW fics that I don't think I've mentioned getting revealed (due to both being for events with long cycles between posting and creator reveals) that I'm fond of:

Blood on the Dance Floor, original work, pre-slash f/f vibes, 4.7k. Casefic at a ball, sort of, where a detective gets into the ball because she's close friends with a noble scion who doesn't really like balls but is happy to use her name to help her friend solve a mystery.

Her Sword in Her Sheath, original work, established middle-aged f/f, 4.7k. Havgarad, chief of her clan, rewards her war leader for successfully capturing a new fortress to use as their clan's den after their old home was wrecked by a wyvern.

hop

Jul. 26th, 2026 07:16 pm
house_wren: glass birdie (Default)
[personal profile] house_wren
A few days ago there were 4 very large bucks in the field behind the house. This is rare, although my neighbor often sees groups of them.

A fawn saw a baby bunny and approached it slowly, with halting steps. The fawn got close enough to sniff it before the bunny noticed and hopped into the shelter of the grasses.

I was scheduled for a colonoscopy and had to cancel because I couldn't keep the prep down. That was fun.

Not sure if it's due to chronic pain or anxiety or the inconvenient colonoscopy prep or that I read the news, but I can't seem to focus on anything.

Thank you all for your posts.

Bring Matt Damon Home 2026

Jul. 25th, 2026 11:54 pm
dhampyresa: Paris coat of arms: Gules, on waves of the sea in base a ship in full sail Argent, a chief Azure semé-de-lys Or (fluctuat nec mergitur)
[personal profile] dhampyresa
Also known as "The Odyssey". It was an okay movie (not great, not terrible, just fine). I think I just don't really jive with Nolan's style. Everything is always so much greige manpain. I did cry at Argos, though, because of course I did. ARGOS BEST BOY

When Ulysses murders unwanted houseguests it's heroic, but when I, Polyphemus

I know archery is Ulysses' Thing, but there wasn't a single slinger in the entire movie. Also sometimes these alleged Ancient Greeks wore pants. None slingers with left pants. Wild.

Speaking of archery, the set up for the twelve axes was SO BORING. Also, I may be crazy but I feel like there's a proper way to string a bow and nobody was doing it.

If you had told me one Trojan-War-pivotal character in this movie never gets their face shown, I can't say I would have guessed Agamemnon. Lupita Nyong'o is amazing as both Helen and Clytemenestra.

I guess Nolan is making up for using "I am Become Death [etc]" twice in Oppenheimer by not having Ulysses say the "I am No one" line. Also missing: the olive tree bed, any god that isn't Athena, any Greek actors.

There was a trailer for Villeneuve's 3 Dune 3 Messiah beforehand so when Zendaya first showed up berating Ulysses I was like "Wazzup Chani!"

I don't understand how anyone can confuse sheep wool for dry twigs???

I guess Telemachus decided to stop over in Wuxia land for his costume at the trial.

I really liked how creepy Tiresias was and there was an unexpected amount of body horror going on at Circe's place.

Nobody (except Calypso) ate a single goddamn fish in this entire movie about being stranded at sea and I am fucking baffled.

So we're just gonna namedrop the Bronze Age collapse as it's allegedly happening? Okie dokie, then.

Ulysses: We'll sail into the west
Me: Do you want to be in Dante's Inferno? This is how you get in Dante's Inferno!

Absolutely batshit choice to end this movie by declaring nobody knows how to write anymore. The invention of the alphabet is contemporary to the Bronze Age Collapse!
landofnowhere: (Default)
[personal profile] landofnowhere
Terre des Autres, Sylvie Bérard. I skipped last week, so I've read two more long sections of this; two more stories from this planet inhabited by sentient lizards and human settlers who are at war with each other, about individuals trying to reach out across the divide. It is very good, but also very dark -- the stories are really interested in exploring the notion of otherness. The obvious comparison is The Martian Chronicles, which I have not reread since I was traumatized by it at age 9, but maybe I should.

La Passe-Miroir Tome I: Les Fiancés D'Hiver, Christelle Dabos. Although I do hope that one day Francophone book club will get to this, I realized there was no reason to wait and I could just reread this. It is as good as I remembered -- and it does actually end at a satisfying point in the protagonist's character arc -- but also the series gets even better with the next book (alas that I am now traveling and couldn't find my print copy of Tome II in the luggag). Also Dabos really likes to whump her protagonist.

Bernhard Riemann: His Life and Wondrous Mathematical Legacy, David E. Rowe. A new mathematical biography where the historical context is relevant to my other interests! The writing style could stand to be a bit more polished (there's a bunch of awkward repetition) but the material is certainly interesting. In the background section on Dirichlet (who, as regular blog readers will know, married Rebecka Mendelssohn, younger sister of the more famous Felix and Fanny) there's a fun tidbit:

"Gert Schubring informed me of a family letter from February 1833, written to Julius
Schubring (1806–1889), who was a close friend of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy; Schubring
wrote the libretto for his Oratorio Paulus. Schubring and his bride-to-be were then living in
Berlin, and while he was away she attended a masquerade ball thrown by the Mendelssohn
family. In this letter, she described the costumes of various prominent participants: Felix
dressed as a harlequin and Rebecka as a sack. She was also introduced to a mathematician
who was dressed like a telegraph pole, being tall and thin. Since she had no idea how to spell
his name, she wrote it phonetically as “Diryklee.” This little anecdote confirms that Dirichlet’s
name was pronounced in Berlin with ‘ik’ rather than an ‘ich’ sound. "

(Elsewhere in the book it's explained that prior to the introduction of the electric telegraph, "telegraph" would have referred to an optical telegraph, like Pratchett's clacks, .)

one small step!

Jul. 20th, 2026 06:28 pm
tsuki_no_bara: (Default)
[personal profile] tsuki_no_bara
happy moon landing day my lovelies! go outside after dark (or do it now if you're reading this when it's dark where you live) and take a second or three to remember aldrin and armstrong and collins and look up at the moon and think "oh that's beautiful".

scroll down this article for the reminiscence of an australian woman who was seven at the time and didn't have to go to school so she could watch the moon landing.

in other good news, congrats to spain on winning the world cup. good job, guys. i hope your celebration was epic. i bet it was back home. :D

and in other space news apparently astronomers have discovered space sugar on a giant gas&dust cloud in the milky way. yum.

now i'm going to see if the grocery store around the corner has moon pies.

DWFO Fifteen!!!

Jul. 20th, 2026 09:48 am
shivver: (musicspheres)
[personal profile] shivver
The Doctor Who Fan Orchestra published the Fifteen medley!!



I'm pretty amazed that they managed to mix everything within a month of the submission deadline. I had tons of fun practicing and performing this, and I learned a lot about microphones and recording. I'm especially chuffed to have gotten a chance to perform the newest version of the theme (which might very well be my favorite version of it).

Yes, I'm playing in this. Yes, my name's in the credits. No, I didn't submit a video and am not shown in this video.


Info on the project:

Stephen Willis, the project coordinator, arranged this orchestral medley of music from the most recent seasons of Doctor Who, then invited musicians across the world to participate. Each musician was sent the sheet music and recorded their part in time with a click track, and Stephen mixed the recordings to create the final production. Participants could also send in a separate video of them performing their part, to be used in the final video.

This is the list of songs in the medley:

"Ruby in the TARDIS" -- theme for the companion Ruby Sunday
"Fifteen" -- theme for the Fifteenth Doctor
"Finetime" -- background music for the episode "Dot and Bubble"
"Joy to the World" -- background music for the episode "Joy to the World"
Doctor Who theme -- the most recent arrangement of the Doctor Who heme

All of the music except for the Doctor Who theme was written by Murray Gold and originally performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. The Doctor Who theme was originally written in 1963 by Ron Grainer and realized by Delia Derbyshire, and the version performed here was arranged by Murray Gold.

Off to the races

Jul. 20th, 2026 12:03 pm
wayfaringwordhack: (Default)
[personal profile] wayfaringwordhack
 One of the things Sprout wanted to do before leaving Lebanon was to attend the horse races.  Every Sunday* afternoon, there are races with free entry (at least for us, but J said he thought he saw some people paying) at the hippodrome, right beside the French ambassador's residence.  It was a nice experience in that it was a very "local" thing to do.  There was one other "mouzoungou"** besides us and only one other woman (with a head covering) besides S and me. We saw four races, and only one of them had five instead of four horses.  The men were very excited, cheering on their horses, hoping to cash in on their bets.  

We weren't betting.  I tried to cheer on the underdogs, but the odds always went up and one time my pick came in second and the last race, it won.

Sprout was happy with the outing, even though she had decided, as she told us that very morning, that perhaps supporting races wasn't a very ethical thing to do since the horses aren't always treated well.

Ti'Loup was having a great time looking at the boards, gleefully relaying the odds to us with every fluctuation. I think Farmer Boy enjoyed it at first, but he would have left before it was over if it was up to him.

___________
* When there were bombings in Beirut, they cancelled them, and the first Sunday after we got back from France (May 30), there was no race, even though there hadn't been strikes in a couple of weeks.

**Mouzoungou was the term for "foreigners" in Shimaoré, the language of Mayotte.
shadaras: A phoenix with wings fully outspread, holidng a rose and an arrow in its talons. (Default)
[personal profile] shadaras
hm didn't intend it to be this long since the last post, but! so it goes sometimes.

I think that this gets to more interesting and exciting things as it goes on, but I'm biased. xD (tl;dr: the last bit of this post is about sign-ups opening for [personal profile] hafnia's new D&D campaign and I'm hype and want more people to join if they're interested in D&D!)

1.
Heat domes suck and I spent most of the heat dome period with migraines and thus quite out of it.

2.
My birthday was earlier this month! My twin happened to be nearby because he was visiting a friend of his, and once he was reminded that this visit was a week before our birthday he extended his stay so that we could meet up on our birthday. (He's still on his visit, actually, because he's enjoying hanging out with that group of people so much and doesn't have any need to return to the west coast where he usually is.)

It's been a year since we were last in the same place, and it was good to see him again. Went to a natural history museum, got food, saw mutual friends. A nice day trip for me.

3.
[community profile] taggle happened! I created 16 things for it, which I'll link after creator reveals. Overall a good creative time, if not the best timing for me personally. Looking forward to next year.

4.
Readercon also happened! I was only out there on Saturday, but it's always a good time and nice to see friends.

chatter about panels under the cut! )

I also picked up some anti-AI pins from the Clarkesworld booth, since they were handing them out for free, and gave one to my friend who was also there and managed to look at all the vendor tables except that one. xD It was very important to me that they have one because I sometimes feel like half of their job is trying to tell people why using AI in academic contexts is foolish.

Also fun: As I was leaving, being spotted by someone who recognised where my shirt was from (Friends at the Table, c/W mecha shirt) and chatted with me about FatT a bit in delight at seeing another fan.

5.
I had my hysterectomy yesterday! Yay! It's done! It's gone! The doctors were all very impressed that I could remember and say "I'm getting a complete hysterectomy with bilateral salpingectomy, preserving the ovaries" without any prompting every time they asked me (which five or six different people did) what procedure I was there for. One asked me if I was in a medical field and I was like "no I just got told this and remembered it", a feat that I do not find impressive but apparently is.

Honestly in a lot of ways the hardest part was just. Not eating beforehand. I got to the hospital at 11:15am and hadn't eaten since dinner at like 7:30pm the night before. Which, as things go, is not a huge problem at all.

Everyone was very nice! I felt very well-taken-care-of in the hospital! And by my friend who brought me home while I was like "look the worst symptoms of waking up after this feel more like migraine than like anything else" and considering that they were banished by "lie down in a dark room for a couple hours", that vibe seemed quite accurate. I've yet to need pain meds beyond ibuprofen/tylenol, though they did give me some oxycodone just in case.

My cat is very happy that I'm at home for her to snuggle on, too. <3

6.
[personal profile] hafnia and I have scheduled BESTIE HANGOUTS VISIT, finally, and so in just over a month I'll be flying out to visit her. <3 Beach! Attempting to befriend cats! Actually playing ttrpgs we've been meaning to play for at least a year! Other good and important things!

7.
[personal profile] hafnia is also starting up a new D&D campaign! It is open for new people to sign up for and join!

I'm delighted by this, because I've vastly enjoyed the last one she ran (it's more or less how we became besties, so, y'know) and it's super exciting that this one is gonna be getting off the ground—I've been hyped for it for like two years, since she first started talking about what would come next.

If you've ever been interested in giving D&D a shot, I highly recommend [personal profile] hafnia as a GM. She's deeply invested in helping new players learn the game and answering any questions you might have, and in making sure you're set up to have a good time while playing.

If you're uncertain about playing or feel like you might not be around enough to commit to a campaign, please don't worry about it! This is a campaign set up as a series of interlinked one-shots and people are expected to play in one game every few months, and not always with the same group of other players (though people whose free time often lines up will generally see more of each other). (There's also text chat and text RP for those who find that fun, but it's not required!)

This campaign uses the Eberron campaign setting as a starting point, so it's fantasy magitech in a city that I always find reminds me of San Fransisco (look, if you're like "we have a limited bit of land next to water and are building up, though with magic support for going higher than otherwise" I'm gonna think of SF...), wherein society at large is figuring out how to rebuild and what they want to be now that a hundred-year-war has ended. The setting contains robots, airships, magical trains, and Houses blessed with magic tattoos that help them try to gain a monopoly on specific kinds of business.

The campaign will start at 1st level and if you're consistent with playing has the chance to take characters to level 20. All characters are part of a detective agency working as private investigators, and the themes of the game include a lot of mystery and noir vibes.

[personal profile] hafnia runs games entirely over discord voice chat using theater of the mind. e.g., we aren't using battle mats, you don't need to show anyone your face, and if you aren't sure about if you can do something you can ask and get an answer.

The vibes are heavier on story than on combat, and the narrative will be shaped by player actions. What we do has an effect on the story. What we're interested will show up more. Any NPC we decide we like will be brought to the forefront whether or not the GM understands our choices, because the point is for all of us to have fun and enjoy this story that we're telling together.

If you're new to D&D (and/or Eberron), [personal profile] hafnia and the other experienced players will happily help you understand all the mechanics and what bits of lore actually matter. If you have questions, please ask!

If you want to sign up, here's the google form!

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