Birds
Jul. 23rd, 2025 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ribirdnerd posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
birdfeedingI have a vacation week so I get to explore some new trails. Quite a few birds around home too the usual Jays, Doves, Cardinals, Sparrows. Titmouse Nuthatch are back too!
Crafts
Jul. 23rd, 2025 04:09 pmysabetwordsmithAs a general rule, grid-based patterns are transposable across all crafts that use them, such as cross-stitch, beading, knitting, and the newer diamond art. But badly_knitted pointed out that knitting stitches are slightly rectangular, so not all grid-based patterns will work for it unless designed for knitting. But every grid pattern I've seen for knitting has been square!
https://blog.tincanknits.com/2014/06/06/how-to-read-a-knitting-chart/
https://www.fibersprite.com/blog/how-to-modify-colorwork-patterns
This seems like a poor choice in terms of pattern construction. :(
However, it also occurs to me that knit stitches have a limited range of ratio, because they are near-square. The ratio might vary a little based on yarn thickness, but you don't see very tall and skinny stitches. So it should be possible to calculate what that ratio typically is (or perhaps 2-3 versions based on yarn thickness) and then how that affects a pattern. Changing a simple pattern would then be easier, and while changing a complex one might not, you could still calculate how much extra to add in order to cover the intended area (such as a sweater front). I don't have the math skill to do this, but I can see that it is doable.
badly_knitted pointed out that knitting stitches are slightly rectangular, so not all grid-based patterns will work for it unless designed for knitting. But every grid pattern I've seen for knitting has been square!https://blog.tincanknits.com/2014/06/06/how-to-read-a-knitting-chart/
https://www.fibersprite.com/blog/how-to-modify-colorwork-patterns
This seems like a poor choice in terms of pattern construction. :(
However, it also occurs to me that knit stitches have a limited range of ratio, because they are near-square. The ratio might vary a little based on yarn thickness, but you don't see very tall and skinny stitches. So it should be possible to calculate what that ratio typically is (or perhaps 2-3 versions based on yarn thickness) and then how that affects a pattern. Changing a simple pattern would then be easier, and while changing a complex one might not, you could still calculate how much extra to add in order to cover the intended area (such as a sweater front). I don't have the math skill to do this, but I can see that it is doable.
fic: The sort of beauty that's called human (Will/Bran, G for now, 2/?)
Jul. 23rd, 2025 03:40 pmlotesseThe sort of beauty that's called human (1927 words) by lotesse
Chapters: 2/?
Fandom: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Bran Davies/Will Stanton
Characters: Bran Davies, Will Stanton (Dark is Rising), Owen Davies, Herne the Hunter (Dark is Rising)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Loss of Parent(s), Immortality
Series: Part 4 of Wherein was bound a child
Summary:
Chapters: 2/?
Fandom: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Bran Davies/Will Stanton
Characters: Bran Davies, Will Stanton (Dark is Rising), Owen Davies, Herne the Hunter (Dark is Rising)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Loss of Parent(s), Immortality
Series: Part 4 of Wherein was bound a child
Summary:
“We have to go,” Bran said, his voice coming out hoarser than he’d expected. “Rhys called. Trouble with my da. A stroke.”
No more needed to be said aloud. They were going back to Wales.
RiP Nibbles, Nov 2021 - 20 July 2025
Jul. 23rd, 2025 08:26 pmnanilaAfter a gentle, slow decline into feeble old age, our beloved cranky gerbil, Nibbles, died last weekend.
( Description of pet death. )
I shall miss his almond-seeking nose boops. Rest well, Nibsy. Enjoy chasing your brother and Tiny the hamster in Small Rodent Valhalla.
( Description of pet death. )
I shall miss his almond-seeking nose boops. Rest well, Nibsy. Enjoy chasing your brother and Tiny the hamster in Small Rodent Valhalla.
arbitrary laws
Jul. 23rd, 2025 03:08 pmadrian_turtleI used to think the law of driving on the right side of the road was completely arbitrary. Socially determined, with no particular basis in any level of reality, but of course once it has been determined it becomes very important to abide by it. In a community where most people are right-handed, the choice is NOT arbitrary. When a right-handed driver is startled on a right-driving road (by, for instance, a bird hitting the windshield), their stronger arm tends to pull them off the road. On a left-driving road, that panicky flinch tends to pull them into oncoming traffic.
On my recent visit to London I learned the people there drive on the left side of roads and walk on the right side of sidewalks. I know such conventions don't have to make sense. The increased danger of driving cars on the left is pretty small. If cars and pedestrians both kept to the left, I suspect I would just chalk it up to Foreign Customs Are Different and it wouldn't itch my brain like this.
On my recent visit to London I learned the people there drive on the left side of roads and walk on the right side of sidewalks. I know such conventions don't have to make sense. The increased danger of driving cars on the left is pretty small. If cars and pedestrians both kept to the left, I suspect I would just chalk it up to Foreign Customs Are Different and it wouldn't itch my brain like this.
Climate Change
Jul. 23rd, 2025 02:24 pmysabetwordsmithSnowless winter? Arctic field team finds flowers and meltwater instead
New commentary reveals a dramatic and concerning shift in the Arctic winter.
Scientists in Svalbard were shocked to find rain and greenery instead of snow during Arctic winter fieldwork. The event highlights not just warming—but a full seasonal shift with major consequences for ecosystems, climate feedback, and research feasibility.
Here in central Illinois, it rained on Christmas last year. We would've had a white Christmas, except for climate change. That was just sad.
New commentary reveals a dramatic and concerning shift in the Arctic winter.
Scientists in Svalbard were shocked to find rain and greenery instead of snow during Arctic winter fieldwork. The event highlights not just warming—but a full seasonal shift with major consequences for ecosystems, climate feedback, and research feasibility.
Here in central Illinois, it rained on Christmas last year. We would've had a white Christmas, except for climate change. That was just sad.
Birdfeeding
Jul. 23rd, 2025 02:15 pmysabetwordsmith posting in birdfeedingToday is partly cloudy and sweltering.
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus a mourning dove.
I put out water for the birds.
.
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus a mourning dove.
I put out water for the birds.
.
Birdfeeding
Jul. 23rd, 2025 02:13 pmysabetwordsmithToday is partly cloudy and sweltering.
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus a mourning dove.
I put out water for the birds.
.
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus a mourning dove.
I put out water for the birds.
.
Bundle of Holding: Neon Lords
Jul. 23rd, 2025 02:16 pmjames_davis_nicoll
The all-new Neon Lords Bundle featuring Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland, the gonzo slime-punk post-apocalyptic cassette-future tabletop roleplaying game from Super Savage Systems.
Bundle of Holding: Neon Lords
The Brightness Between Us, by Eliot Schrefer
Jul. 23rd, 2025 09:52 amrunpunkrunA good old fashioned young adult novel about being stranded on an inhospitable planet and struggling to live off a steadily declining cache of resources. In one case, it's an alien world far in the future, and in the other, the dying Earth those colonists left, where the last inhabitants are about to extinguish themselves through nuclear war. Ah, children's lit.
This is actually a sequel to The Darkness Outside Us, but if you're a chaos demon you might be able to read this without having read the first. Partly because it stands on its own while gently reminding the reader what happened in the first book, but also because it fully retreads some of the same ground.
Because half of this book was telling me stuff I already, basically, knew, I was much more interested in the sections on the alien planet with its frontier survival vibes and foreign mysteries. I wanted to spend all my time there rather than on Earth, since I already knew that was a lost cause, and any new information we got in those sections could have easily been worked into the future segments and much of it, in fact, was. But it wasn't a chore to spend time with the original versions of Ambrose and Kodiak as they come to terms with the lies they've been told and try to undo some of the damage they caused, and together the two parts of this book tell a full story that comes to a satisfying conclusion, whether or not there's ever a third book in the series. But if there is, I'll be there.
Contains: queer dads; child harm and references to child death; wild animal harm/death; mental illness with intrusive thoughts; gun violence; nuclear apocalypse; climate disaster.
This is actually a sequel to The Darkness Outside Us, but if you're a chaos demon you might be able to read this without having read the first. Partly because it stands on its own while gently reminding the reader what happened in the first book, but also because it fully retreads some of the same ground.
Because half of this book was telling me stuff I already, basically, knew, I was much more interested in the sections on the alien planet with its frontier survival vibes and foreign mysteries. I wanted to spend all my time there rather than on Earth, since I already knew that was a lost cause, and any new information we got in those sections could have easily been worked into the future segments and much of it, in fact, was. But it wasn't a chore to spend time with the original versions of Ambrose and Kodiak as they come to terms with the lies they've been told and try to undo some of the damage they caused, and together the two parts of this book tell a full story that comes to a satisfying conclusion, whether or not there's ever a third book in the series. But if there is, I'll be there.
Contains: queer dads; child harm and references to child death; wild animal harm/death; mental illness with intrusive thoughts; gun violence; nuclear apocalypse; climate disaster.
carnivorous pitcher plant
Jul. 23rd, 2025 12:00 pmpauraque posting in common_natureWhile hiking in a conserved wetland, I saw an informational sign about native pitcher plants. I had no idea we had these in New England; I always thought of carnivorous plants as a tropical thing. But I took a look around and they were certainly there!
This appears to be Sarracenia purpurea which has a lot of names in English, including Common Pitcher Plant. The specialized leaves form cup-shaped traps with nectar at the bottom that attracts bugs, which can't escape and are digested to provide nutrition for the plant. In this species the traps sit on the ground, and I don't know if I would have noticed them if I hadn't been looking.
( pitcher plant flower and habitat (2 photos) )
This appears to be Sarracenia purpurea which has a lot of names in English, including Common Pitcher Plant. The specialized leaves form cup-shaped traps with nectar at the bottom that attracts bugs, which can't escape and are digested to provide nutrition for the plant. In this species the traps sit on the ground, and I don't know if I would have noticed them if I hadn't been looking.
( pitcher plant flower and habitat (2 photos) )
Wednesday wishes that certain institutions did not insist on doing business by phone
Jul. 23rd, 2025 03:54 pmoursinWhat I read
Finished This House of Grief, which is not the sort of thing I normally read much of (grim true crime in Australia) - and I started it and it languished for a bit and then I was reading it on the train and it became compelling, and I had to finish it before going on to anything else.
Sally Smith, A Case of Life and Limb (The Trials of Gabriel Ward Book 2) (2025), which was absolutely lovely, just so good.
Then got back to Selina Hastings on Sybille Bedford, which was a competent enough biography -
- except, I then read Norma Clarke, Brothers of the Quill: Oliver Goldsmith in Grub Street (2016) and she just does so much with context and making a literary living and Irish identity in the English literary world and issues of status and class and so on. And okay, part of that is because there's actually not a lot of reliable material on Goldsmith, so it makes sense to look at him in this wider view - and as part of the bro culture of the time (I admit this was rather less appealing than her earlier studies of women of the same era).
- so I looked back and thought there were quite a lot of questions around Sybille and what it meant to her to have all those affairs with women and yet be a bit iffy about claiming Lesbian identity - not to mention the economics of her situation - and class and nationality and so forth. But I guess that wasn't the book she was writing.
Then read Anthony Powell, The Valley of Bones (1964), which is sort of the male equivalent of those women's novels of the early stage of WW2 when it's all waiting round and preparation rather than anything actually happening.
On the go
Picking things up and putting them down, trying to decide what to read next.
Up next
Vide supra.
polyanthus
Jul. 23rd, 2025 07:44 amprettygoodwordpolyanthus (pol-ee-AN-thuhs) - n., any of various hybrid garden primroses (Primula × polyantha, sometimes listed as Primula polyantha) having clusters of variously colored flowers.
Thanks, WikiMedia!
Originally a hybrid cross between the common cowslip (Primula veris) and the common primrose (P. vulgaris), now bred on its own in pretty much every color pattern there is. Taken around 1630 from New Latin, where it was coined from Ancient Greek roots poly-, many + ánthos, flower.
---L.
Thanks, WikiMedia!
Originally a hybrid cross between the common cowslip (Primula veris) and the common primrose (P. vulgaris), now bred on its own in pretty much every color pattern there is. Taken around 1630 from New Latin, where it was coined from Ancient Greek roots poly-, many + ánthos, flower.
---L.
Five SFF Stories About Editing and Storing Memories
Jul. 23rd, 2025 10:01 amjames_davis_nicoll
From magical memory wipes to space-based mind erasure...
Five SFF Stories About Editing and Storing Memories
