It always surprises me that Boots isn't open until 9am. You would have thought that there'd be enough people wanting to pick up painkillers or similar on the way in to work.
Boston locals! Blue Heron, an acapella early music ensemble, is throwing a three-day shindig to celebrate Guillaume de Machaut (died 1377), May 1-3, mostly involving talks about Machaut's works, talks about his lyrics, talks about the illuminations in the manuscripts his works come from, concerts of his music, and also a little ars subtilior tacked on the end just because.
More info https://www.blueheron.org/machaut-weekend/
Affordability note: They have a free ticket option as part of the "Card to Culture program" for people with EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare(!) cards*, and a discounted "low cost" option.
Of note, the "Opening Festivities: Keynote, Performance & Sing-Along" on Friday night includes (emphasis mine):
If you're curious what the Kyrie from Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame sounds and looks like, here you go.
* There is no separate ConnectorCare card like there is for MassHealth. They mean your regular insurance card, which if it's a ConnectorCare plan should say so on it, or so the Mass Cultural Council, whose program it is, thinks.
More info https://www.blueheron.org/machaut-weekend/
Affordability note: They have a free ticket option as part of the "Card to Culture program" for people with EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare(!) cards*, and a discounted "low cost" option.
Of note, the "Opening Festivities: Keynote, Performance & Sing-Along" on Friday night includes (emphasis mine):
a keynote talk by one of the world’s leading scholars of 14th-century music, Anne Stone (CUNY Graduate Center), performances of pieces in several of the genres represented in Machaut’s oeuvre, and a sing-along of the Kyrie from the Messe de Nostre Dame.Which: huh. Huh. The Kyrie, huh? Wow. Now that is certainly a choice. I commend their bravery. Were I in better health, I would consider showing up just to be in on the shenanigans.
If you're curious what the Kyrie from Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame sounds and looks like, here you go.
* There is no separate ConnectorCare card like there is for MassHealth. They mean your regular insurance card, which if it's a ConnectorCare plan should say so on it, or so the Mass Cultural Council, whose program it is, thinks.
The YouTube algorithm pseudorandomly served me this, thereby answering the question I'd had on a distant back burner forever, "Hey, didn't I hear something about colored cotton cultivars once upon a time? Cotton that you didn't need to dye? Like back in the 90s?"
If you are a fellow fiber freak or interested in agriculture or organic crops or the underappreciated problem of sustainable clothing production, you may find this as fascinating as I did:
2026 Mar 7: Good Yarn Bad Knits [goodyarnbadknits YT]: "The Yarn That Almost Saved The World"
If you are a fellow fiber freak or interested in agriculture or organic crops or the underappreciated problem of sustainable clothing production, you may find this as fascinating as I did:
2026 Mar 7: Good Yarn Bad Knits [goodyarnbadknits YT]: "The Yarn That Almost Saved The World"
phthisicky
(Adjective.) Having phthisis, or some symptom of it, as difficulty in breathing.
phthisis
Etymology: Borrowed from Latin phthisis, from Ancient Greek φθίσις (phthísis, “consumption, decline, wasting away”), from φθίω (phthíō, “to waste away”).
(Noun, archaic.) An atrophy of the body or part of the body, especially pulmonary tuberculosis.
phthor
Etymology: From Ancient Greek φθορά (phthorá, “destruction”).
(Noun, obsolete, chemistry.) fluorine
phthongal
Etymology: From Ancient Greek φθόγγος (phthóngos, “sound, voice”).
(Adjective, phonetics.) Formed into, or characterized by, voice; vocalized.
Wordmom: Words that start with PHTH
bestwordlist: List of words beginning with PHTH (with definitions)
(Adjective.) Having phthisis, or some symptom of it, as difficulty in breathing.
phthisis
Etymology: Borrowed from Latin phthisis, from Ancient Greek φθίσις (phthísis, “consumption, decline, wasting away”), from φθίω (phthíō, “to waste away”).
(Noun, archaic.) An atrophy of the body or part of the body, especially pulmonary tuberculosis.
phthor
Etymology: From Ancient Greek φθορά (phthorá, “destruction”).
(Noun, obsolete, chemistry.) fluorine
phthongal
Etymology: From Ancient Greek φθόγγος (phthóngos, “sound, voice”).
(Adjective, phonetics.) Formed into, or characterized by, voice; vocalized.
Wordmom: Words that start with PHTH
bestwordlist: List of words beginning with PHTH (with definitions)
This article explains passkeys better than I've read anywhere else. I'm much more likely to create and use them now.
Passkeys: The Simple and Secure Way to Sign In Without Passwords (Aug 25, 2025)
Having read that, I realize in retrospect that most things on my work laptop / in my corporate environment have already shifted to using passkeys. I hadn't really understood what was going on behind the scenes when I was prompted to sign in with my fingerprint or Windows Hello PIN.
Passkeys: The Simple and Secure Way to Sign In Without Passwords (Aug 25, 2025)
Having read that, I realize in retrospect that most things on my work laptop / in my corporate environment have already shifted to using passkeys. I hadn't really understood what was going on behind the scenes when I was prompted to sign in with my fingerprint or Windows Hello PIN.
In which this teacher earnestly wants a word to substitute for "chink" in Midsummer Night's Dream, and one person suggests kink which doesn't mean the same thing.
And on the one hand, I'm sure they all have their hearts in the right place, but on the other hand, maybe they should collectively teach a different play instead. Shakespeare wrote plenty of comedies, just pick a different one off the shelf.
And on the one hand, I'm sure they all have their hearts in the right place, but on the other hand, maybe they should collectively teach a different play instead. Shakespeare wrote plenty of comedies, just pick a different one off the shelf.
I saw that there was another No Kings rally scheduled for the last weekend in March. I thought, "Oh, I'd probably go to the protest if I didn't need to work that day."
Then I saw that Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, and other famous figures/groups will attend the protest in St. Paul, Minnesota, as the flagship location for this national event. I thought, "Oh, cool, I'd really like to go to the protest if I didn't need to work that day."
Then I saw today that Bernie Sanders will attend this rally too. I thought, "Ok, I really want to go to the protest now." I checked with my coworkers, and they'll all be working, so I filed the request with my manager for time off. Normally, I'd have no doubt the request would be granted, but I've already filled his inbox with requests for other vacation uses during the next month (daily patrols, plus some weekdays to go do gardening). I'm hopeful (just not 100% certain) that I'll get approval to avoid work that Saturday.
Edit: I also see that some people are really increasing the impact of the message. For some, it's not just "No Kings" but "No Kings / No Cowards". Here's an archived image of that banner, with its red and blue backgrounds indicating which political party's leadership should receive each directive. That Minnesota message is different from the national organization's, and it definitely has a different punch to it.
[requires both audio and video]
Jonasquin on YT (previously) has written a wholly original motet in the 16th century style after Desprez upon the cantus firmus "Seven Nations Army", for the words of Psalm 10, verses 2, 3, 7-11.
Comment would be superfluous.
2026 Mar 20: Jonasquin YT: "A 16th century motet for the US President"
Click through to the video on YT to see the translation in the description.
Jonasquin on YT (previously) has written a wholly original motet in the 16th century style after Desprez upon the cantus firmus "Seven Nations Army", for the words of Psalm 10, verses 2, 3, 7-11.
Comment would be superfluous.
2026 Mar 20: Jonasquin YT: "A 16th century motet for the US President"
Click through to the video on YT to see the translation in the description.
T. A Williams "Murder In Tuscany" (Boldwood Books)
Recently retired London DCI Dan Armstrong was given a two week creative writing course as a retirement present by his former colleagues. The focus of the course is a surprise to him, and several times he has thought of not attending. But the location in Tuscany is a drawcard.
The fact that the writer who has initiated the course is found dead after a couple days, stabbed to the heart in his dining room while Dan is visiting the police in Florence becomes an added bonus.
The case ends up changing the direction of Dan's life.
An enjoyable cozy read.
Recently retired London DCI Dan Armstrong was given a two week creative writing course as a retirement present by his former colleagues. The focus of the course is a surprise to him, and several times he has thought of not attending. But the location in Tuscany is a drawcard.
The fact that the writer who has initiated the course is found dead after a couple days, stabbed to the heart in his dining room while Dan is visiting the police in Florence becomes an added bonus.
The case ends up changing the direction of Dan's life.
An enjoyable cozy read.
John Sutherland "Is Heathcliff a Murderer?: Great Puzzles in Nineteenth-Century Fiction (Oford Univ. Press)
Sutherland examines literary texts ranging from Hound of the Baskervilles to Mansfield Park and Frankenstein for solutions to questions raised but not settled by the text. Is slavery a key to the fortune of Austen's Sir Thomas? How was Frankenstein's monster constructed? Who fed the dread hound on the moors? This is obviously a text for literature nerds, like myself, or those who are taking a degree in the humanities. Entertaining little book.
Sutherland examines literary texts ranging from Hound of the Baskervilles to Mansfield Park and Frankenstein for solutions to questions raised but not settled by the text. Is slavery a key to the fortune of Austen's Sir Thomas? How was Frankenstein's monster constructed? Who fed the dread hound on the moors? This is obviously a text for literature nerds, like myself, or those who are taking a degree in the humanities. Entertaining little book.
I knew that other contemporaneous cultures than those of Europe had unfathomably higher numbers of books than Europeans did, but I didn't know about this in retrospect obvious reason why:
2026 Mar 19: Dwarkesh Patel feat. Ada Palmer [DwarkeshPatel YT]: "Why Medieval Books Cost as Much as a House" (1 min, 7 sec):
2026 Mar 19: Dwarkesh Patel feat. Ada Palmer [DwarkeshPatel YT]: "Why Medieval Books Cost as Much as a House" (1 min, 7 sec):
Without papyrus, what you're writing on is a dead sheep. And if you think of the price of a head of lettuce and the price of a leather jacket, you're understanding the difference between a sheet of papyrus and writing on a dead sheep. So every page of a medieval book is as expensive as that much of a leather jacket. And a medieval book hand written costs as much as a house.* Three hundred thousand. It's been thirteen years and I am still not remotely over that fact. Every time I encounter it anew, my SCA persona gets acrophobic trying to imagine a library that big and has to sit down and put her head between her knees so she doesn't pass out.
And so to have a library is to be not just rich but mega rich. So only the wealthiest cities contain anybody who has a library. The great library of the University of Paris, the library from Europe's perspective, has 600 books.
There's definitely more than 600 books in this room. Every kiosk at an airport selling Dan Brown novels has more than 600 books. This is nothing.
And at the same time as that, in the Middle East, sultans have libraries of over a thousand books or 5,000 books. There are libraries in Sub-Saharan Africa with thousands of books.* There are libraries in China with thousands of books. Because they in China have cheap paper and rice paper. The Middle East has papyrus.
Europe, and only Europe, is writing on a leather jacket.
The previously expected ICE enforcement surge never materialized. Curious.
I wonder if this just means they're short-staffed. Or perhaps distracted.
(I also wonder if somebody made a judgment call not to try what they did in MN in MA, but have largely rejected the notion. It would not be to anybody's advantage if they did, on either side, but I'm not seeing a lot of good judgment in evidence anywhere.)
I wonder if this just means they're short-staffed. Or perhaps distracted.
(I also wonder if somebody made a judgment call not to try what they did in MN in MA, but have largely rejected the notion. It would not be to anybody's advantage if they did, on either side, but I'm not seeing a lot of good judgment in evidence anywhere.)
It is Spring and as it is often the case, there is snow. The llama hates snow but I don't mind, I have no schedule, no rush to shovel snow that will just melt away in a few days. I heed not time changes, like the llama I get up with the dawn regardless. I grow fat.
I have a fresh book to read I haven't started it. I've been building a collection of translations of My Little Pony fanfiction stories in multiple languages as a reference library or resource. There are over 1,000 now and counting. There are a dozen languages to choose from but the overwhelming majority of the translations are in Chinese, Russian, Spanish and French.
The only flowers around here are indoors. My amaryllis bloomed last week and is now busy making seeds. Maybe this time I'll succeed in germinating them. My azalea is winding down after months of pink blooms. I have hope that the fertilizer spike I stuck into the soil will be what it needed as the leaves are rather brown for the most part.
I'm still building up the nerve to dump Windows 10 and replace it with Linux of some flavor or other. My USB keys weren't working on the new machine, messing up any plans of saving stuff prior to wiping the disk, but the USB SNAFU mystery cure seems to be use a new USB with (I assume) an intact installation code. I probably had deleted it off the older USB sticks as I am wont to do with any suspicious software. Maybe. The 32 GB USB keys I bought recently works. 2 for $10! Not too shabby. So the USB Linux installation route is go! When I'm ready to bite the bullet.
One thing I want is a Linux Wordpad document clone. It was looking that Ted was just the thing! But it stopped getting updated about 13 years ago and doesn't seem to be readily available. It might not even work on recent iterations of Linux. LaTeX is probably overkill but now I've learned that there's LyX. I hope it's WorpPad compliant. I had expected that freeware would get better and omnipresent over the years, especially painting software. Instead software just keeps getting more bloated, difficult to use and the stuff that worked well just vanished. All the more reason to not update and to hold on to old software.
Yesterday I tried to update ComfyUI and instead of working well it stopped working altogether. Probably because I didn't download the three checkpoints it offered. That was because the bandwidth total was about my allotment for the entire month (Bell Canada sucks) and I already have a bunch of checkpoints. Somehow copy/pasting them into what looked like the correct folders did not work. Oh well, I already have hundreds of alien horse pictures, dancing, swimming, sleeping and whatnot.
I had a few gift cards retaining a residue of value but expiring in January of this year. So, panic time, I ramped up my Search for Stuff on eBay. I'd not seen the Barbie movie, despite hearing good things, but I live in a movie desert where the only oasis skips most unadulterated versions of movies and Barbie en version originale was one such omission. I'll drive an hour to see the My Little Pony Movie, but that's about it. So, I had an unrequited desire to see Barbie. I found it on eBay, on Blu-ray, UK import, Canadian seller (or just a Canadian division), free delivery, and delivery by mail. Mail! Oh yes, le gusta.
It arrived fast, two weeks early. It wasn't terrible. It had a very funny (and disturbing) 2001 A Space Odyssey spoof, a great Barbie world, plausible Quest, and then it slid a bit with the Real World and Ken takeover, kidnapping/deprogramming interventions and the Long Walk in the Snow. Not literal snow. 'Tain't Canada. So worth it enough to also watch the "making of" extras but otherwise. It was alright. Except the CEO bunch. There must be a CEO line of dolls I've never heard of.
Last year I saw Predator: Badlands, it was everything I hoped it would be. The perky killer synth was a riot, the extreme deadly ecology was great, and everything else was just icing. I'd heard that Prey, which is another Predator movie, is also good, so I ordered a copy off eBay and watched that. It was alright, kinda. Like, the Comanche have only the _one_ dog and the dozens of French traders are hauling a ton of bear traps out into the far frontier... by canoe? IIRC, the money was in beaver pelts, not bear.
I also saw Tron: Ares last year and it was worth it. The fact that not only do I remember that I saw it but that I still remember the story confirms that it was good. Not great, but good. The whole '3D laser printing plus simulations = instant cure for disease and hunger' plot device is a tough pill to swallow, as is the use of eye searing lasers to print or disintegrate tissue at the molecular level without cooking it. I wouldn't see this movie twice.
Dvd's from goodwill watched in 2025:
Book of Life, Guillermo del Toro animation, carved from wood/pop-up book style, exaggerated caricatures, so interesting visually. Story-wise, OK, somewhat predictable, no big surprises, I've already forgotten some of the plot points. Worth keeping.
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Not good. Forgettable even. I saw the remake last year and it was only marginally better, suffering from Disney's family/children theme template. I should drop it back into the Goodwill bin.
More: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (hokey, failed equality), Tangled (I liked the horse), Cowboys and Aliens (worth seeing once), Shrek Forever After: The Final Chapter (surprisingly good), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (surprisingly bad), Trolls World Tour (worth it) and Monsters VS Aliens (worth it). I have a few seasons of Teen Titans on DVD, but after half a season I'd had enough. It's going back to Goodwill pronto.
There sure is a lot of Heated Rivalry fic being recommended every day
Saturday, March 21st, 2026 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyAnd every one of those recs is better than the books. Well, I've shared my opinion on the books, the problems and characterization are insufficiently balanced for dual viewpoints.
But anyway, that's not what I'm thinking about. What I'm thinking about is Fabian and his generically shitty parents who clearly don't care about him very much. ( Read more... )
But anyway, that's not what I'm thinking about. What I'm thinking about is Fabian and his generically shitty parents who clearly don't care about him very much. ( Read more... )
- 1. Earth's first mass extinction may have been far worse than believed
- (tags:extinction prehistory paleontology )
- 2. People using AI to give law advice finally reaches Scotland.
- (tags:ai law scotland )
- 3. Denmark was preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland in January, with military support from France, Germany, and Nordic nations.
- (tags:war usa norway germany france denmark )
- 4. This perfectly encapsulates why I won't surf the web without an ad-blocker
- (tags:advertising web newspapers )
- 5. How *did* a multi-storey car park get built in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle?
- (tags:edinburgh cars history )
- 6. Waymo self driving cars are 13x safer than humans
- (tags:safety automation driving cars )
- 7. Police Scotland announce they don't want trans people to report any crimes
- (tags:transgender LGBT bigotry OhForFucksSake Scotland )
- 8. The change that made lighthouses work much better - and why it drove the keepers mad. (Lots and lots of mercury)
- (tags:mercury light history safety ships )
- 9. Gen Z is broke, stressed and exhausted - but boomers won't accept it
- (tags:stress society doom )
The price of Paramount+ Essential, which I have, increased from $5.99/month (plus taxes) to $8.99/month.
The price of Walmart+, which I don't have, is $98/year (which comes to $8.17/month). It includes a choice of either Paramount+ Essential or Peacock streaming, and it sounds like you can switch between those two every 90 days if you want. Not to mention the free Walmart shipping and other perks.
I don't particularly like Walmart, and I read something else today that makes me look on them unfavorably. But it would be cheaper for me to cancel my regular Paramount+ account and sign up for Walmart+, and get both services for cheaper than what I'm paying now for one.
.
I'm currently watching (on the last episode, actually) Twenties on Paramount+. It is quite good, with a queer lead character.
Before that, I watched Noah's Ark, a show from 2005 which "centered on the lives of four African-American gay friends who share personal and professional experiences while living in Los Angeles." I enjoyed that one too.
Update, 2026-03-29
Paramount+ also has an annual plan for $89.99/year.
The price of Walmart+, which I don't have, is $98/year (which comes to $8.17/month). It includes a choice of either Paramount+ Essential or Peacock streaming, and it sounds like you can switch between those two every 90 days if you want. Not to mention the free Walmart shipping and other perks.
I don't particularly like Walmart, and I read something else today that makes me look on them unfavorably. But it would be cheaper for me to cancel my regular Paramount+ account and sign up for Walmart+, and get both services for cheaper than what I'm paying now for one.
.
I'm currently watching (on the last episode, actually) Twenties on Paramount+. It is quite good, with a queer lead character.
Before that, I watched Noah's Ark, a show from 2005 which "centered on the lives of four African-American gay friends who share personal and professional experiences while living in Los Angeles." I enjoyed that one too.
Update, 2026-03-29
Paramount+ also has an annual plan for $89.99/year.
gingicat has posted links to the obituary and charitable donation information
Friday, March 20th, 2026 06:16 amconuly
