Friday
Jan. 30th, 2026 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisLeft over from yesterday:
1. The IRS was a letter telling me not to forget to declare the $400 they paid me in interest as income. Bite me.
2. The screaming shelter in place thing turned out to be a test or mistake or something. After about an hour of radio silence, we got an email that didn't really explain it or give instructions. Turns out only 2 floors got the warning. The End. Lordhelpus if there ever really is a disaster.
Also I recently heard of several people who live here and currently have working guns in their apartment. It is against the rules and when you ask specifically (which I did) you are told there are none. So old people shooting rampage. Could be a thing.
I got up this morning and had some oatmeal and internet and then went and had a wonderful swim. No one but me and my music was excellent.
I need to go out today. Safeway - oatmeal and I forgetwhatelse but I have a list. And Hobby Lobby - Martha says some of my bunnies need to be brown, not white. Plus the current crop is eating up all my white yarn at an alarming rate. And I need a frame and a small shadow box.
I have a Wyze scale. I step on it in the morning and it measures everything. My weight, my BMI, my body fat, my muscle mass, body water, bone mass, etc, fuck, it probably measures the weight over everyone I talk to in a day and their attitude. BUT, at the bottom of the list, it gives me my metabolic age. I will be 77 in March of this year but Wyze tells me my metabolic age is 74. Wyze had 3 scales, I bought the middle one. Wonder if I had gone for the top of the line, they would have shaved another year or two off. I also wonder what age I'd be if I were not 100 pounds overweight and grossly out of shape. 50? or 40?
I started reading a book last night that had the most annoying character in it. I decided to give it one night before I gave up. And then, glory be! The annoying character went missing which seems to be the plot of the book so if she says gone the whole time, then maybe? But, what if I don't want her to be found will that kill the plot for me? I think I'll give it another night.
Endurance auto shit. And Endurance life insurance. I get 3 to 4 emails of these a day - they are so clearly spam - they don't even have alpha characters in their feakin' title. I mark them as spam every time and yet, Google still thinks they are not. I keep hoping they will go away and they keep not going away.
The Mariners announced their TV deal yesterday. There will be a cable channel and it will, likely, cost a fortune. There will be a channel add on for the streaming service - also no cost announced. BUT if all you want is Mariners - $20 a month or $100 a year. Since I paid $70 a month for the stupid add on and one year it was $100 a month, I think this is a heck of deal even if I will have to watch it on mute. And it is unclear how much more I will have to pay to get other games. I haven't decided if I'm still a Phillies fan or not :) I guess it depends on the price.
1. The IRS was a letter telling me not to forget to declare the $400 they paid me in interest as income. Bite me.
2. The screaming shelter in place thing turned out to be a test or mistake or something. After about an hour of radio silence, we got an email that didn't really explain it or give instructions. Turns out only 2 floors got the warning. The End. Lordhelpus if there ever really is a disaster.
Also I recently heard of several people who live here and currently have working guns in their apartment. It is against the rules and when you ask specifically (which I did) you are told there are none. So old people shooting rampage. Could be a thing.
I got up this morning and had some oatmeal and internet and then went and had a wonderful swim. No one but me and my music was excellent.
I need to go out today. Safeway - oatmeal and I forgetwhatelse but I have a list. And Hobby Lobby - Martha says some of my bunnies need to be brown, not white. Plus the current crop is eating up all my white yarn at an alarming rate. And I need a frame and a small shadow box.
I have a Wyze scale. I step on it in the morning and it measures everything. My weight, my BMI, my body fat, my muscle mass, body water, bone mass, etc, fuck, it probably measures the weight over everyone I talk to in a day and their attitude. BUT, at the bottom of the list, it gives me my metabolic age. I will be 77 in March of this year but Wyze tells me my metabolic age is 74. Wyze had 3 scales, I bought the middle one. Wonder if I had gone for the top of the line, they would have shaved another year or two off. I also wonder what age I'd be if I were not 100 pounds overweight and grossly out of shape. 50? or 40?
I started reading a book last night that had the most annoying character in it. I decided to give it one night before I gave up. And then, glory be! The annoying character went missing which seems to be the plot of the book so if she says gone the whole time, then maybe? But, what if I don't want her to be found will that kill the plot for me? I think I'll give it another night.
Endurance auto shit. And Endurance life insurance. I get 3 to 4 emails of these a day - they are so clearly spam - they don't even have alpha characters in their feakin' title. I mark them as spam every time and yet, Google still thinks they are not. I keep hoping they will go away and they keep not going away.
The Mariners announced their TV deal yesterday. There will be a cable channel and it will, likely, cost a fortune. There will be a channel add on for the streaming service - also no cost announced. BUT if all you want is Mariners - $20 a month or $100 a year. Since I paid $70 a month for the stupid add on and one year it was $100 a month, I think this is a heck of deal even if I will have to watch it on mute. And it is unclear how much more I will have to pay to get other games. I haven't decided if I'm still a Phillies fan or not :) I guess it depends on the price.
🥤
Jan. 30th, 2026 11:44 amsoemandFrozen concentrated juice is being discontinued, taking with it the tiny, iconic
shorpsound of a can releasing its seal. That sound marked weekend breakfasts and thrifty kitchens for generations. Its disappearance feels like a small but strangely tender goodbye to a fading era.
snowflake days 13-15: community, fandom promo, and reflection on the challenge
Jan. 30th, 2026 10:37 amsixbeforelunch
Challenge 13: Talk about a community space you like.
My main fannish space right now is the Ad Astra Discord community. It's a good group of people, and great for talking all things Star Trek, with occasional digressions into other things. It's an OC-friendly community, almost everyone who posts there has a collection of OC characters and at least one OC-heavy series, and everyone is super supportive of other people blathering about their OCs and favs. Nicely inclusive of all of the Trek eras too.
Challenge 14: Create a promo and/or rec list for someone new to a fandom.
Can I interest you in Murder She Wrote? I don't know what I was expecting when I started watching it, but what I got is an intelligent, competent, woman-of-a-certain-age who is allowed to have a full and exciting life. And (with the exception of the pilot) she never gets romantically entangled. Men go after her, but she's clearly uninterested. The combination of being desired and deciding 'nah, I'm good' hits my id in just the right way. (It's not about turning the men down to be clear. There are actually two separate things going on. I love seeing an older woman being treating as an object of desire, and I love seeing any sort of woman being able to have a complete life absent romance. Either would be good. Both together is amazing.) Honestly, Jessica is pure wish-fulfillment fantasy with her cozy Maine home and her exciting trips and her best-selling writing career and her fancy outfits. I am here for it.
Oh, also there are murder mysteries and they're generally pretty good.
Challenge 15: How did the Snowflake Challenge go?
I sort of ran out of steam toward the end, but with everything that's going on both in my personal life and the world at large, it's hard to focus right now. I finished it, and interacted with people, and I had a good time. That's a win, especially right now.
Friday morning 10 a.m.
Jan. 30th, 2026 10:21 amrolanniFriday. Cloudy and sort of snowing. Cold.
Firefly has once again joined me on my lap to celebrate the happy lite and to look out over the long backyard. She even had a taste of my tea. Firefly has previously not liked tea, but Sprite used to demand a drop out of every cup, so it looks like she's found both Sprite and Belle's books.
I slept badly, and have been arguing with myself about whether or not I'm going to eat breakfast. I think I finessed that. Macaroni and cheese is breakfast, right?
Today the taxes take top billing, followed by writing my remarks for my talk next month. After that, we'll see.
How's everybody holding up?
Dictated to my phone
(no subject)
Jan. 30th, 2026 02:53 pmlapsaТот, кто хранит наших детей там, наверху
Бывает и с крыльями, но чаще - с хвостом и шерстью
Не в ангельском, нет, только в кошачьем пуху
Будет то место, где мы окажемся вместе.
Мне кажется, рай - это такой диван
Для всех наших псов и котов, без конца и края.
Господь посередке и у него в карман
Забрался котёнок. И боженька с ним играет,
Щекочет пером архангела. Только так.
Котёнок пищит, и когтит, и живёт, всё в норме.
Это не сложно - рай измерять в котах.
Сложнее не плакать при виде кошачьего корма.
27 мая 2024
(с)LaraR
Бывает и с крыльями, но чаще - с хвостом и шерстью
Не в ангельском, нет, только в кошачьем пуху
Будет то место, где мы окажемся вместе.
Мне кажется, рай - это такой диван
Для всех наших псов и котов, без конца и края.
Господь посередке и у него в карман
Забрался котёнок. И боженька с ним играет,
Щекочет пером архангела. Только так.
Котёнок пищит, и когтит, и живёт, всё в норме.
Это не сложно - рай измерять в котах.
Сложнее не плакать при виде кошачьего корма.
27 мая 2024
(с)LaraR
Film post: Le Mans, Shortcut to Hell (1970)
Jan. 30th, 2026 11:37 amloganberrybunnyPublic
I'd never heard of this Italian film, and given the title and date I assumed it would be a low-budget shocker with lurid sex and crashes, "traxploitation" if you will. In fact I enjoyed it more than I thought I would – but you really do have to like the era's motorsport. The story of a former champion coaching a young charger to drive a new car developed by an old guy from motorsport's pioneering days isn't very original. The human interest stuff about relationships (the US title was the supremely boring "Summer Love") isn't that interesting either. But there is so much racing footage, from real tracks (Jarama, Monza etc) and with interesting angles including on-board cameras.
It's Formula One style racing, not Le Mans style; in fact, Le Mans is only relevant right at the start – be warned that there's real period footage of the 1955 disaster as a brief plot point, including the shot that most fans of that era's sportscar racing have seen of Pierre Levegh's Mercedes flying into the crowd. Fortunately we don't see any tragic details directly. The film is recommended heavily for those into 1970 F1 at the start of the "wings and sponsors" era. It may be a bit of a slog for others. I'm giving it a decent rating as I am in the category that enjoys extended racing footage. A pity the English subtitles on the version I saw were clearly made by someone who knew little about motorsport, but oh well! ★★★
Le Mans, Shortcut to Hell (1970)
I'd never heard of this Italian film, and given the title and date I assumed it would be a low-budget shocker with lurid sex and crashes, "traxploitation" if you will. In fact I enjoyed it more than I thought I would – but you really do have to like the era's motorsport. The story of a former champion coaching a young charger to drive a new car developed by an old guy from motorsport's pioneering days isn't very original. The human interest stuff about relationships (the US title was the supremely boring "Summer Love") isn't that interesting either. But there is so much racing footage, from real tracks (Jarama, Monza etc) and with interesting angles including on-board cameras.
It's Formula One style racing, not Le Mans style; in fact, Le Mans is only relevant right at the start – be warned that there's real period footage of the 1955 disaster as a brief plot point, including the shot that most fans of that era's sportscar racing have seen of Pierre Levegh's Mercedes flying into the crowd. Fortunately we don't see any tragic details directly. The film is recommended heavily for those into 1970 F1 at the start of the "wings and sponsors" era. It may be a bit of a slog for others. I'm giving it a decent rating as I am in the category that enjoys extended racing footage. A pity the English subtitles on the version I saw were clearly made by someone who knew little about motorsport, but oh well! ★★★
(no subject)
Jan. 31st, 2026 03:51 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
farsidecomics_feedEmbedded in Styrofoam “shoes,” Carl is sent to “sleep with the humans.”
(no subject)
Jan. 31st, 2026 03:51 amfarsidecomics_feed“Ha! Figured you might try escapin’, Bert—so I just took the liberty of removin’ your horse’s brain.”
(no subject)
Jan. 31st, 2026 03:51 amfarsidecomics_feed“Hey! Ernie Wagner! I haven’t seen you in, what’s it been—twenty years? And hey—you’ve still got that thing growin’ outta your head that looks like a Buick!”
(no subject)
Jan. 31st, 2026 03:51 amfarsidecomics_feed“Well, I dunno, Warren … I think your feet may be uglier than mine.”
🌖
Jan. 30th, 2026 05:04 amsoemandMy wife’s off on her skis, chasing the quiet of a clear winter dawn. With the full moon only two days out, she won’t need a headlamp — the snow practically glows on its own.
Meanwhile, I’m holding down the fort in my usual fashion: a mug of coffee in hand and a duvet pulled up like a loyal sidekick. Some mornings are meant for adventure; others are meant for staying warm and caffeinated. Today, we’ve got both covered.
Meanwhile, I’m holding down the fort in my usual fashion: a mug of coffee in hand and a duvet pulled up like a loyal sidekick. Some mornings are meant for adventure; others are meant for staying warm and caffeinated. Today, we’ve got both covered.
Follow Friday 1-30-26
Jan. 30th, 2026 01:13 amysabetwordsmith posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
followfridayGot 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".
Hagley
Jan. 29th, 2026 11:22 pmloganberrybunnyPublic
363/365: Hagley station footbridge
Click for a larger, sharper image
I was in Hagley briefly this morning, and it was chillier than it looks in the photo so I made sure I got on with things! I'd forgotten that despite being only a large village it has two Co-ops! One at each end of the High Street, each owned by a different co-operative society. Very strange. The picture shows the footbridge at Hagley station, which was built in 1884 by the Great Western Railway and restored in 2012. If you're a model railway person you may just recognise it as one which was used as a model for one of Hornby's products. The train disappearing into the distance is the one I'd just alighted from.
363/365: Hagley station footbridge
Click for a larger, sharper image
I was in Hagley briefly this morning, and it was chillier than it looks in the photo so I made sure I got on with things! I'd forgotten that despite being only a large village it has two Co-ops! One at each end of the High Street, each owned by a different co-operative society. Very strange. The picture shows the footbridge at Hagley station, which was built in 1884 by the Great Western Railway and restored in 2012. If you're a model railway person you may just recognise it as one which was used as a model for one of Hornby's products. The train disappearing into the distance is the one I'd just alighted from.
Rabbit Hole Thursday Part II
Jan. 29th, 2026 05:46 pmrolanniAnd my tablet has arrived. Thank you, Robert of FedEx for ringing the bell, and wishing me a good day. Screen signed and package inside. 11:37 am
#
New tablet. OMG so cute!
Of course, I have no idea what I'm doing and I'll need to find a translation for what the icons mean, but I repeat: OMG so cute!
Ahem.
So, after a brief, doting new-parent, delay, dinner is in the oven -- a chicken breast patty with a slice of mozzarella on top, and crushed tomato sauce on top of that, under a tin foil hat in the oven.
Leftover peas for veggies, I think, and maybe a slice of bread.
Yeah, that sounds like lunch...
#
Well. Speaking of rabbit holes. I sat down with the Boox, which has made Many Assumptions about how people deal with their devices. I've managed to figure out how to annotate, which is, along with the e-ink tech, what I wanted the thing for, so that's a plus. Having figured it out, I'm not sure how useful it will be, but it's early days.
I increased the font, monkeyed with the refresh rates, got the stylus paired, and a bunch of all those other things that you do when you get a new device. I'm still a little hazy on what the symbols on the navigation bar mean, but I halfway solved that by changing them out for symbols that I recognize.
I'm baffled by the absence of what is to me a recognizable home screen, but there's probably a way to finesse that, too. Later.
The biggest frustration so far is that the on-board manual ain't on-board. It helpfully gives you an address where the document ought to be on the device, but it's not there, and the web download instructions simply make no sense. Oh, and I just tried that address from this machine, and there isn't a manual for the B&W Go-7, which would explain why it can't be downloaded, hey?
Well.
Tomorrow is, they say, another day. However, I really can't play with my new toy all day tomorrow. No, I mean that.
I did a second go-over of the tax questionnaire, but I didn't make my phone call, so that'll have to happen tomorrow.
The cats have been checking in on me. Tali has made it her habit to join me here in the business office after lunch, which is very pleasant. Rook usually checks in a couple times, but he really does love his basket back on Steve's desk. It's funny that Firefly will use the basket on my desk -- last known as Trooper's Basket -- but neither of the new kids use it anymore, though they liked it a lot when Grandpa was still with us.
So, I guess that it's for the day.
Everybody stay safe.
I'll check in tomorrow.
Calgary 1999
Jan. 29th, 2026 05:30 pmsoemandOld hotel and stables. Dive bar separated by glass door from high end blues bar with Hammond b3 organ.
Some Good News
Jan. 29th, 2026 12:05 pmjacober_calcAnd some good news to report.
Last Friday both my DM15c from Swiss Micros and a Nagoya 16 inch whip VHF/UHF antenna were delivered to my home. The calculator, as noted in my earlier post, was meant to be a Christmas present and was ordered from Switzerland weeks before, but was held up somewhere with Canada Post and came about 2/3rds in January.
The antenna is a highly suggested addition to my Baofeng 5RM handheld radio that I have been using to get familiar with traffic and repeaters in my local area. The antenna itself is wonderful and works very well. Now I am slowly working on my amateur radio license so that I can engage in some of the interesting nets that happen regularly. So far I've been tracking a Canada-wide net that takes place across a series of repeaters every weekday morning at 8 am in addition to a local net with repeaters all across the island. These nets are great because people give a short blurb about what they are up to for the day or what the weather is like where they are which is particularly interesting, even just to listen to. Another one that I've found and have enjoyed being around to listen to each evening is the Insomnia Net which takes place on a network spanning the whole continent called the WIN system. They do trivia starting at 10pm every single day of the year and people from all around Canada and mostly the United States check in and share answers. There are regulars that are fun to listen to and wait for checking in and newcomers every night. I can't wait to be a newcomer myself and check in whenever I am available.
The calculator is truly wonderful. It is a credit card sized version of the hugely popular HP15C RPN advanced-scientific calculator. It is not as thin as a credit card, you cannot fit it into a wallet and no would you want to really. The height and width of the device is credit card sized, roughly the width of the LCD screen from the original device. It has very nice upgrades include a new, much faster processor that emulates the old NUT processor of the HP device. You can also choose two different speeds for this processor to extend battery life when not doing intensive calculations. The LCD screen is a very large and clear dot-matrix display which several font options designed by the Swiss Micros team.
Even more wonderful is a two-line display option that shows two of the four RPN stack registers on the display at all times. This is great because you can see the two figures being manipulated by an operand and I like to use the two-lines for answers that programs produce to provide more context. For example, for my g-force braking program, the user can input speed in km/h and the desire g-force experienced by passengers and the program produces the time in seconds for the brake event in the y-register and the braking event distance in m in the x-register. Both items are useful for learning and planning and both can be displayed upfront and clearly in a two-line display.
The calculator also has a library of units for conversions and common constants used across several scientific disciplines. This is an exceedingly nice feature packed into such a small device. Which brings me to the whole point. I already own a DM32 RPN calculator that has an even more beautiful and large four-line display and a way more processor with way more precision for intense mathematical calculations in the palm of one's hand. But the DM32 is not really meant for the field, not for me at least. It it a home device or an office device but not an in the bus, on the road, out and about kind of device. But the very small DM15c is such a device. The perfect everyday carry that packs a very powerful punch.
And that's all about that I have by way of good news for the moment.
Last Friday both my DM15c from Swiss Micros and a Nagoya 16 inch whip VHF/UHF antenna were delivered to my home. The calculator, as noted in my earlier post, was meant to be a Christmas present and was ordered from Switzerland weeks before, but was held up somewhere with Canada Post and came about 2/3rds in January.
The antenna is a highly suggested addition to my Baofeng 5RM handheld radio that I have been using to get familiar with traffic and repeaters in my local area. The antenna itself is wonderful and works very well. Now I am slowly working on my amateur radio license so that I can engage in some of the interesting nets that happen regularly. So far I've been tracking a Canada-wide net that takes place across a series of repeaters every weekday morning at 8 am in addition to a local net with repeaters all across the island. These nets are great because people give a short blurb about what they are up to for the day or what the weather is like where they are which is particularly interesting, even just to listen to. Another one that I've found and have enjoyed being around to listen to each evening is the Insomnia Net which takes place on a network spanning the whole continent called the WIN system. They do trivia starting at 10pm every single day of the year and people from all around Canada and mostly the United States check in and share answers. There are regulars that are fun to listen to and wait for checking in and newcomers every night. I can't wait to be a newcomer myself and check in whenever I am available.
The calculator is truly wonderful. It is a credit card sized version of the hugely popular HP15C RPN advanced-scientific calculator. It is not as thin as a credit card, you cannot fit it into a wallet and no would you want to really. The height and width of the device is credit card sized, roughly the width of the LCD screen from the original device. It has very nice upgrades include a new, much faster processor that emulates the old NUT processor of the HP device. You can also choose two different speeds for this processor to extend battery life when not doing intensive calculations. The LCD screen is a very large and clear dot-matrix display which several font options designed by the Swiss Micros team.
Even more wonderful is a two-line display option that shows two of the four RPN stack registers on the display at all times. This is great because you can see the two figures being manipulated by an operand and I like to use the two-lines for answers that programs produce to provide more context. For example, for my g-force braking program, the user can input speed in km/h and the desire g-force experienced by passengers and the program produces the time in seconds for the brake event in the y-register and the braking event distance in m in the x-register. Both items are useful for learning and planning and both can be displayed upfront and clearly in a two-line display.
The calculator also has a library of units for conversions and common constants used across several scientific disciplines. This is an exceedingly nice feature packed into such a small device. Which brings me to the whole point. I already own a DM32 RPN calculator that has an even more beautiful and large four-line display and a way more processor with way more precision for intense mathematical calculations in the palm of one's hand. But the DM32 is not really meant for the field, not for me at least. It it a home device or an office device but not an in the bus, on the road, out and about kind of device. But the very small DM15c is such a device. The perfect everyday carry that packs a very powerful punch.
And that's all about that I have by way of good news for the moment.
