Thursday, October 23rd, 2025 06:51 pm

Today I am thankful for...

  • Thunderbird, emacs, pandoc, LaTeX, CSS, and a blanket to put over the yak I had to shave. (But Unicode does not appear to have a yak emoji, which makes me sad.)
  • Linux, and the way it processes updates when I want it to. Also its ability to perform even rather drastic updates without making me stop what I'm doing and deal with them. With a few exceptions. *Glares at Firefox.*
  • Grocery stores that deliver.
  • Fresh noodles. Also, butter, mushrooms and shallots.
  • The local swans.

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Tuesday, October 21st, 2025 10:56 pm
Today Belovedest had to bust the teenagers for playing "the penis game" in the library.

[You say the word increasingly loudly, in turns, until someone loses the game by being told to cut it out or being asked to leave.]

The weather's getting colder, but I have evolved myself an outfit to wear outdoors for lounging while the weather's in the high 50s F -- my slightly ratty plush bathrobe underneath my much more windproof corduroy floor length duster. And the ta'al fingerless mgloves Mama knitted for me, in rainbow stripes. They're just the thing for keeping my hands warm while I'm on the phone.

I've discovered I do enjoy cauliflower "wings", even though I don't enjoy chicken wings.

The scooter has arrived. I am plotting how best to bedazzle it. It does have its own USB power outlet! It also has head and tail lights. It's better for approaching counters than the wheelchair, since the tiller is so close to me.

[personal profile] norabombay points out that given all the poorly supervised international visitors who have been in and out of the White House, they're going to have to take it down to the studs when they refit it for #48 to use. So the general devastation in the East Wing is small potatoes as far as outrage fodder. And anywhere that the last major update was 1947-ish must really need some yanking out of the century of the fruitbat.

My legs are doing better. In part this is because I stuck ibuprofen in my nightly pill box, since I'd been waking up with aching legs and shouting knees pretty consistently.

Medication: the medication definitely has some activity. The main activity seems to be that my appetite has been fading in and out of "did we recently have chemo?!" mode. I'm tempted to give myself a week off every few weeks.

Makeup: currently waiting on a liquid formulation of the eyeshadow that promised to match the eyeliner, because the color is fantastic and I want it in a wide brush. I guess the powder can work for blending it out. (The powder just does not want to cooperate and layer on thick enough to get the color shift effect, even with a wet brush.) My skin continues to behave itself better than my ability to use foundation; there are only a few spots where I want to color correct if I'm doing Full Battle Makeup.

Games: keeping up with all the Gems of War events is sometimes tiring, but it does make winding down my brain at night much easier than other things I could be doing.

Perfume: went through my massive perfume spreadsheet and filled in the formulation for all the BPAL (which is the same except for that one spray). Cracked myself up at some of the descriptions I've left. One particular exceedingly long-lasting one
Read more... )
Monday, October 20th, 2025 08:57 pm

OH THE HORROR! Infected cats are roaming the streets, turning humans into cats if they catch them! We must stay safe from this feline infection, but.... the cats are so cute.... so hard to resist... must pet floofiness....

Comment with a picture of a cat (real or fictional) to get your candy!

 
Sunday, October 19th, 2025 07:43 pm
It's been two years since I signed up for Yuletide, but I'm looking forward to it this year!

Thank you so much for writing for me, and I hope you also have a fantastic Yuletide exchange, whatever that looks like for you. I've included both what I particularly like about each canon and a couple of prompt ideas, but I'm up for anything that doesn't hit my DNWs and includes the characters.

General notes, things I love, my do not wants )
All Of Us Murderers - K.J. Charles )
Greta Helsing Series - Vivian Shaw )
England Series - K. J. Charles )
The Odyssey - Homer )
Sunday, October 19th, 2025 09:42 pm

Rough week. Mostly my fault. Stuff that should have been done weeks or months ago, having to be done at the last minute and not very well. Have I mentioned that I suck at getting things done?

Okay, I did finish my US income taxes a three days before the deadline. But not having looked at them for months I appear to have lost track of some paperwork. Or I never had it. I'll probably get my refund, then get a bill -- probably in a couple of years. If they ever notice. I'm not going to worry about it.

Should have started on N's author website months ago, along with the updates to hyperspace-express.com, which is actually the publisher's website. Should really have had the author site and the mailing-list automation done before the book went to the printer. Months before. Oops. It'll work, but it'll be awkward and not as good as it should be. We're still learning how to do this, of course, and I'm learning that I'm not nearly as competent as other people think I am.

And then there's the "personal alarm" fiasco. You see, N and G are out of the country for the next two weeks (family visit, then OVFF). N thinks (and I kind of agree) that I should have some kind of alarm pendant to wear, to easily call for help with. The first one we found -- a couple of weeks ago -- would have been perfect, except that the company is in Ireland and despite saying that they serve all of the EU I'd have to make my own arrangements with local emergency services.

So -- after I put off deciding for way too long -- I wound up with something that on the surface looked okay, and could ship quickly. But when it arrived, I found out that there was no two-way voice communication in the pendant -- you have to be where you can talk through the base station. Non-starter, in this house. I tried to tell the installer to take the damned thing back, but he kept repeating the same line about pressing the button if I fell over (pantomiming a heart attack). I'll keep it as backup until N and G get back, then we'll bring it back and get our key back.

Meanwhile, suspecting that something like that might be the case, I had already ordered a smartwatch (Samsung GW-7) which will probably do what I need it to -- it has fall detection and emergency calling. It would work better if I had a Samsung phone, but Google's watches are twice as expensive. So some of its myriad of features won't work.

And of course that's assuming I can actually wear the thing without it hurting. There are reasons why I stopped wearing a wristwatch 50 years ago.

Something good came out of that fiasco, however. N and I were over at StudiOjo, for one last coaching session before N and G's trip, to discuss our changing plans for recording (which I'll talk about later in the week). N mentioned that, in order to get the personal alarm, they were going to want a local friend or neighbor who could go over and check on me. So now we have a local friend, just a short walk away.

Linkie! Go watch The Nine Billion Names Of God - short film - YouTube. Very well-done adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's story.

Notes & links, as usual )

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Thursday, October 16th, 2025 04:08 pm

Today I am thankful for...

  • Having gotten some important things done (taxes, medical alarm), though just barely in time. NO thanks for procrastination.
  • Mario, of StudiOjo. Also, having a recording studio within easy walking distance.
  • Public transportation.
  • Sleep (what I get of it).
  • Insight.
  • Dreamhost.

NO thanks for getting old. Sure, it beats the alternative. But it still sucks.

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Tuesday, October 14th, 2025 08:59 pm

A Note on Windows 10

I want to talk about something boring, that most of you don't want to think about, but it's important so please stay with me.

Today, Windows 10 died but, like most deaths in IT, it will persist in an undead state, shuffling around for likely the rest of our lives. This is a VERY big problem.

When Microsoft stops supporting an operating system, the operating system continues to work - it just can't get patches. For decades, I've been in conversations like But I only use my computer to read my email, I don't need to upgrade, do I? From a security perspective, my answer was You really should upgrade, but I get it, money is always tight. You might be okay for a while.
This is no longer true - for a few reasons. We live in a confluence of changes:

  1. AI is making finding new vulnerabilities much more quickly than before. In the past, a critical vulnerability in Windows 7 or XP could take several months to find, and even then, it was hard to exploit. Today, we have AI finding all sorts of issues in just a few hours and — worse — chaining them together to make it very easy to take over a machine.
  2. The browser wars are back, but not like they were. How often have you see the little button in your browser saying that you should really update it. How often do you click that button? I work in information security and even I don't always click it when I should. If you are running a vulnerable browser on a vulnerable operating system, you are one click away from an attacker having access to everything.
  3. No one just checks email. They go to social media, they go to Amazon and eBay, they sometimes check their bank and retirement accounts. This means that your attacker can see your social media, buy things on your credit cards, and take money directly out of your accounts.
  4. We live in a interconnected society at a time when some groups in that society are being targeted by those in power *and* where other groups are emboldened by those in power to collect data to further target people. Whether it's in the form of doxxing, informing the police, reporting people and businesses to ICE, or direct surveillance by authorities, access to your computer does not just place you at risk — it places everyone you communicate with on that device at risk — family members, friends, social groups, political groups, whatever. A vulnerable computer risks everyone.

We can no longer rest on the idea that we are not interesting enough to be surveilled or attacked. We all have risks to ourselves and to others.

This is a long way to say that, if your computer does not support upgrading to Windows 11, you *really* have to stop using it. (Or install Linux on it, but that's a whole other discussion.) If you can use your phone or tablet for a month, there will some really good deals on laptops in mid-to-late November. If you can't, and money is tight, Dell and CDW have outlet stores that will be somewhat reasonable.

What you can't do, however, is to keep using that Windows 10 machine. It may be undead, but it's time to kill it all the way and move on to something better.


Addendum from [personal profile] pauamma:
Comments are and will remain screened, but I cannot and will not promise that your IP address if commenting will remain hidden. Exercise due caution.

Sunday, October 12th, 2025 01:37 pm

A couple of good things happened, but I also procrastinated way too much, which increases the stress level for this week. So does that make it a good week or a bad week? Maybe not.

So let's start with the good stuff for a change: N's book, The World as It Ought To Be, has been published! The eBook can be had right now from Smashwords, which has a free sample you can read online. My signal boost post from yesterday lists more sellers. Go take a look -- it's hopepunk, solarpunk, protopian gentle fiction, and if you're a fan of [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith's ​Terramagne poems, you'll probably like it.

Also, according to pv magazine International, Solar tops [the] EU power mix in June with [a] record 22% share. And I got my flu and pneumonia jabs, to go with CCOVID last week.

Somewhere in between, I had a gastroscopy Wednesday -- I'll find out the results this coming Friday. I don't expect really bad news, but they sent me away with a prescription for a proton pump inhibitor.

On the down side, I've procrastinated a whole lot, with the result that the HyperSpace Express website needed some fast work, and needs more this week. So do my US federal income taxes. Our plans for the Kaleidofolk studio album are slightly up in the air at this point, only in part because I haven't been practicing enough. And I still don't have a medical alarm pendant.

If time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once, it's not working! And I'm not helping.

And on the way down side, of course, the US is still in the hands of a fascist regime led by a convicted felon and his gang of thugs and unindicted traitors, and I'm extremely worried about my friends and family members who are still there. Not to mention the planet.

Notes & links, as usual )

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Saturday, October 11th, 2025 09:14 pm
There's a new power scooter out, the Golden Buzzaround Carry-On HD. The HD part is important. This is the heavy duty one, which is also first-in-class lithium ion battery scooter. But that's not what this entry is about (and the scheduled arrival date is Tuesday).

Since the scooter was backordered and not going to arrive in time for the Michigan trip, I ordered a (not too expensive for the specs) power wheelchair off Amazon. The choice was partly informed by the advertised shipping time: two days. Plenty of time for it to arrive. And then I watched the shipment crawl over what was clearly ground transport, likely because of the battery. Eventually the package arrival date got down to our departure date. Meanwhile, I was paralyzed with anxiety about the trip, and was barely able to pack. At least I was able to make checklists for when I eventually unfroze on the day of departure.

FedEx said my power chair would arrive between 1 and 3. This was inaccurate, and at some point the forecast switched to "end of day".

When it hadn't arrived by 4, we loaded into the car with my upright (unpowered) walker. At the last minute as we fled out the door, I thought our snack supply looked a little too small and grabbed a random bag to toss a few more things into. As we pulled out of the neighborhood I called the airline accessibility services line to report the change. Which took a little while, as I had to explain that no, I hadn't "changed my mind" about bringing the power wheelchair, the reason I wasn't taking the power wheelchair was because it hadn't arrived yet, so I couldn't take it. At that point I got the appropriate amount of sympathy.

Within the MINUTE I told the very nice customer service person goodbye, Alex spotted the FedEx truck.

By that point Silver and I were on I-5, but with a very nice turn off opportunity. (Silver had taken that specific route because it's a pain in the ass to get over another couple lanes that quickly and in traffic.)

So we went back, we thanked the Bastard profusely and profanely, with the double thumb-tap to the lips (both of us, simultaneously). Silver offloaded the walker and onloaded the chair while I talked to the airline accessibility department again and tried to figure out what the battery voltage was. The footrests fit into the duffel bag with the extra snacks, just as if I had planned it intentionally. I asked Silver to empty my padded tote bag, so we could use it for the battery.

We got to the airport on time for all of that.

I got the best of both worlds: chair coming with me, but since the battery wasn't charged we checked the main body of the chair at the Special Services counter and got wheelchair service through the airport. Security was less of a zoo than usual because we went through the wheelchair lane instead of the endless maze. I got pornoscanned for the first time.

That got us to the gate an hour earlier than we'd intended.

I was very glad to have the power chair with us, as it made some of the bits that would have been excessively strenuous much much better. Silver got used to lifting the thing into the back of their mom's SUV, and eventually we banged our heads on the car less often.

Coming back, it wasn't quite as easy going through security since I was still new at steering the chair and we didn't have the professional chair-pusher to finesse security. (No, not the ateva way.) We gate-checked the chair. I checked in with the two wheelchair-pushers who met us at the Seattle end of things, and assured the one who was waiting for me that I had my chair (as Silver cussed gently at the footrests).

And when we eventually got home, Yellface cussed us both out like I've never seen her cuss before. She was Peeved! That we! Had Abandoned! Her!!!!

I have since decked it out with retroreflective tape, electroluminescent wire, and a miniature disco projector meant for a bike.
Saturday, October 11th, 2025 02:30 pm

If you've been following this blog for the last year you will have run across references to our little publishing business, HyperSpace Express (often abbreviated HSX). And you may have noticed that my housemate N has been writing a book. IT'S FINISHED!

Go take a look at The World as It Ought to Be -- Stories from a protopian future, by Naomi Rivkis.

It's protopian rather than utopian -- sixteen linked short stories about ordinary people building a world that doesn't suck.

Protopia (n.) A world that is not perfect, but is getting better; one that is on the long arc toward justice, carried by human hands.

Come visit for a while in The World As It Ought to Be: )

Buy it now from Smashwords (which has a free sample you can read online). It's also available at Kobo, Apple, and Barnes&Noble. Kindle and dead tree editions are coming in a few weeks.