Vocabulary: Penabling

Sep. 2nd, 2025 03:29 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cats playing with goldfish (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This post discusses the benefits of penabling -- getting your friends interested in fancy pens. 
ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This is today's freebie, inspired by a prompt from [personal profile] dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "request" square in my 9-1-25 card for the Piracy Bingo Fest. It belongs to the series Polychrome Heroics.

Read more... )

Poetry Fishbowl Open!

Sep. 2nd, 2025 01:35 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cats playing with goldfish (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "Communication Styles." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

I'll be soliciting ideas for journalists, writers, radio hosts, counselors, linguists, leaders, public speakers, explorers, traders, diplomats, negotiators and mediators, partners, housemates, siblings, parents, teachers, clergy, superheroes, supervillains, teammates, alien or fantasy species, failure analysts, ethicists, activists, rebels, other people who deal in communication, writing, speaking, translating, parenting, teaching, adventuring, negotiating, mediating, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, giving instructions, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, expecting the unexpected, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, newspaper offices, writer nooks, radio stations, counseling centers, trading posts, classrooms, schools, churches, sharehouses, campfires, coffeehouses, bookstores, supervillain lairs, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, farmer's markets, starships, alien planets, magical lands, foreign dimensions, other places where communication happens, momentious conversations, mysterious manuscripts, confusing transmissions, negotiations, lectures, romantic complications, sudden surprises, travel mishaps, the buck stops here, trial and error, intercultural entanglements, asking for help and getting it, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, Get a Life Program, lab conditions are not field conditions, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Currently eligible bingo card(s) for donors wishing to sponsor a square:

Piracy Bingo Card 9-1-25


Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One is developing its own neurovariant culture with unique communication quirks.

The Bear Tunnels introduces modern principles to people in the past, including literacy.

The Blueshift Troupers travel to different planets solving problems.

A Conflagration of Dragons has the Six Races (plus the dragons) who all have different cultures, making it challenging for refugees to communicate with each other.

The Daughters of the Apocalypse has people trying to find enough resources to survive, with a distinct split between Before and After dialects.

Eloquent Souls presents a setting where soulmarks are common, leading to many odd expressions as people try to make their Words distinctive.

Frankenstein's Family features two scientists running a valley in historic Romania, along with a pack of werewolves, a couple of vampires, and a mummy.

Hart's Farm is a free love community with lots of interesting relationships and ways to communicate.

Monster House is suburban fantasy with a diverse household.

Not Quite Kansas includes an awkard trio of a college student, a former cop, and their demon who often encounter challenges with communication.

One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis follows Shaeth as he works on becoming the God of Drunks, with a surprising amount of heartfelt conversations.

Path of the Paladins involves a lot of communication between humans but also deities.

Peculiar Obligations features Quakers and pirates trying to get along.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all trying to get along and figure out how to make a functional society.

Quixotic Ideas has a more positive world with integrated magic, where people usually manage to solve problems with communication rather than violence.

Schrodinger's Heroes is about saving the world from alternate dimensions. The group is very diverse in background and communication styles.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

Read more... )

Birdfeeding

Sep. 2nd, 2025 01:16 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cats playing with goldfish (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is partly sunny and warm.

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

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 9/2/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.











.
 

Crafts

Sep. 2nd, 2025 02:53 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cats playing with goldfish (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Do-it-yourself prosthetic leg

The medical industry has been screaming bloody murder for some years about how bad it is for people to make prostheses outside the medical racket, that are actually useful and affordable.  It freaks them out to lose control over disabled people's bodies.  Fuck 'em.  Nobody is entitled to a captive audience or customers.  By all means, make your own for 1% of the cost.  3D-printed hands have been around for a while now and exist in many variations.

Batman: Say Uncle by Megaerakles

Sep. 1st, 2025 11:43 pm
beatrice_otter: Batman with the Batsignal shining (Batman Signal)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Batman
Pairings/Characters: Jason Todd, Tim Drake
Rating: teen
Length: 46k
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] Megaerakles 
Theme: food, fork in the road AU, domestic, family, fixit, gen, happy endings, secret identity reveal,

Summary: Tim is prepared to take the steps necessary to ensure that Bruce will not feel obligated to adopt Tim when a comatose Jack Drake inevitably dies. But what could be better than preventing Bruce from ending up with a son he doesn't want? Bringing back the one he does.

Jason agrees to the Replacement's stupid, stupid plan to invite some strange adult man he's never met to come live with him, if only to keep the idiot alive long enough for him to serve his purpose in the Great Red Hood Revenge Scheme.

Might this new roommate situation have an impact on either of their worldviews? Surely not...

Reccer's Notes: Both Tim and Jason are oblivious idiots in the best way in this. And Jason shows love through cooking (and teaching how to cook).

Fanwork Links: Say Uncle
beatrice_otter: Captain America (Captain America)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: MCU
Pairings/Characters: Steve Rogers/Maria Hill
Rating: Gen
Length: 3107 words
Creator Links: [personal profile] tielan 
Theme: food, working together, friends with benefits, female characters,

Summary: Maria can manage professional colleagues with Rogers, but she values her place in S.H.I.E.L.D more.

Reccer's Notes: Tielan's specialty is female characters who get overlooked by the rest of fandom, and I love the way she writes Maria Hill: a complex woman doing a difficult job in a world that doesn't respect her. And I love the way she writes Steve: a man who deeply and sincerely respects (and falls for) competent women.

Fanwork Links: Dinner In Other Languages

Piracy Bingo Card 9-1-25

Sep. 1st, 2025 11:48 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cats playing with goldfish (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Here is my card for the Piracy Bingo Fest over in [community profile] allbingo. The fest runs from September 1-30. (See all my 2025 bingo cards.)

If you'd like to sponsor a particular square, especially if you have an idea for what character, series, or situation it would fit -- talk to me and we'll work something out. I've had a few requests for this and the results have been awesome so far. This is a good opportunity for those of you with favorites that don't always mesh well with the themes of my monthly projects. I may still post some of the fills for free, because I'm using this to attract new readers; but if it brings in money, that means I can do more of it. That's part of why I'm crossing some of the bingo prompts with other projects, such as the Poetry Fishbowl.

Underlined prompts have been filled.


PIRACY BINGO CARD

shipwreckedcut and runparleyskull and crossbonesleak
keelhaulcrackdead men tell no talesship's articleslookout
pardonbroadsideWILD CARDCaribbeanaffiliate
parrotcome aboutswashbucklerexploitrequest
letters of marquesalvagesaltwaterpeg legpatch

Cyberspace Theory

Sep. 1st, 2025 10:02 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cats playing with goldfish (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The corrosive spread of tech company mentality

One of the aphorisms guiding tech companies is to ‘move fast and break things’. Rewards accrue to those companies that are first out of the gate with something new and so products are rushed out without being fully tested, the assumption being that any faults can be corrected based on feedback from consumers. In other words, the people who buy the early versions of the product serve as so-called beta testers, whether they want to be or not.

These situations rarely have life-or-death consequences. With most things such as devices and apps, usually the worst that can happen is that the users are annoyed or frustrated with the glitches but are willing to tolerate them as long as they get upgrades that purportedly take care of the problems.

But there is now an increasing area where tech-based products are being marketed as solutions for things where that tech culture attitude is not suitable, with sometimes dangerous consequences
.


This is definitely among the more destructive memes, although not as much as "Civilization MUST continue at ALL costs."

Artificial Intelligence

Sep. 1st, 2025 08:02 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cats playing with goldfish (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Two more articles about AI crap


I look at these and I am concerned, not because AI is inhuman, but because it is  picking up aspects from its human creators, including some of the worst ones.


Skills

Sep. 1st, 2025 03:18 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cats playing with goldfish (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Wholebeing: Essential skills for a post-growth society

In the face of multiple planetary crises, we're beginning to understand that our dominant economic system is fundamentally incompatible with life on a finite planet. Yet while many recognize the need for systemic change, we often overlook a crucial question: what skills do we need to thrive in a human world that operates within planetary boundaries?


This is a useful set of skills.

Monday Update 9-1-25

Sep. 1st, 2025 02:41 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Artwork of the wordsmith typing. (typing)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Bingo
Cyberspace Theory
Birdfeeding
New Year's Resolutions Check In
Today's Adventures
Communities
Birdfeeding
Wildlife
Philosophical Questions: Money
Poetry Fishbowl Report for August 5, 2025
Today's Cooking
Unsold Poems for the August 5, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl
Indigenous People
"Helium Miner's Song" by Catamariner
Climate Change
Worldbuilding
Venn Diagram
Birdfeeding
Writing
Follow Friday 8-29-25: Active Communities on Dreamwidth Summer 2025 J-Z
Friday Five
Poetry Fishbowl Report for July 15, 2025
Unsold Poems for the July 15, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl
Water
Birdfeeding
Hobbies: Photography
Today's Smoothie
Pen Person Questions
Birdfeeding
Today's Adventures
Early Humans
Birdfeeding

Let's Boycott Mississippi has 50 comments. Affordable Housing has 40 comments. Robotics has 67 comments. Food has 36 comments. "Philosophical Questions: Looks" has 52 comments.


There will be a Poetry Fishbowl on Tuesday, September 2 with a theme of "Communication Styles."


[community profile] summerofthe69 is nearing its end. You can see the calendar here and the current themes are a double theme of Fighting or Fucking AND Monsterfucker and Back End 69.


"An Inkling of Things to Come" belongs to Polychrome: Shiv and needs $200 to be complete. Shiv attends the first session of his Worldbuilding class.


The weather is still mild to warm and quite dry. :D Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a male ruby-throated hummingbird, and a fox squirrel. I've heard a cardinal singing and a woodpecker drumming. Currently blooming: dandelions, pansies, violas, marigolds, petunias, red salvia, verbena, lantana, sweet alyssum, zinnias, snapdragons, blue lobelia, perennial pinks, oxalis, moss rose, yarrow, firecracker plant, tomatoes, tomatillos, yellow squash, zucchini, morning glory, purple echinacea, chicory, Queen Anne's lace, sunflowers, cup plant, firewheel, cypress vine, sunchokes. Tomatoes, ball carrots, and groundcherries are ripe.

Birdfeeding

Sep. 1st, 2025 02:29 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cats playing with goldfish (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is mostly sunny and warm.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus a squirrel up a tree with a walnut in its mouth.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 9/1/25 -- I watered the telephone pole garden and some of the savanna seedlings.

A few sunchokes are blooming.

EDIT 9/1/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 9/1/25 -- I did a bit of work on the old picnic table.

EDIT 9/1/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 9/1/25 -- I did a bit of work around the yard.

EDIT 9/1/25 -- I re-watered the telephone pole garden and watered the notch in the prairie garden.

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

Labour Day

Sep. 1st, 2025 10:03 am
muccamukk: Text: Love > Anger, Hope > Fear, Optimism > Despair. (Misc: Canadian Politics)
[personal profile] muccamukk
Heather Cox Richardson: August 31, 2025.
Almost one hundred and forty-three years ago, on September 5, 1882, workers in New York City celebrated the first Labor Day holiday with a parade.

The Tyee: Why One Young Union Organizer Sees a Brighter Future.
kingstoken: (Vintage Mermaid)
[personal profile] kingstoken posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (Books/Granada)
Pairings/Characters: Holmes/Watson
Rating: G
Length: 1114 words
Creator Links: MadamzelleG
Theme: food & cooking 

Summary: Holmes never orders dinner for himself, but Watson has long since stopped asking why. Instead, he allows the quiet ritual to unfold—Holmes sipping his coffee, stealing a bite here and there from Watson’s plate with effortless precision. In the warm glow of the Café Royal, amidst the murmur of conversation and the clink of silverware, an unspoken understanding lingers between them: Holmes takes, and Watson never minds.

Reccer's Notes: An intimate little scene of Watson and Holmes dining out together. With some exploration of Holmes' canon issues around food, but not in clinical way, more like Watson observing Holmes.

Fanwork Links: Ao3

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