Monday, May 26th, 2025 09:18 pm
I was crossing the street at the park entrance with the dithery geriatric dog. One driver, a young man, was waiting patiently for the light to change. I noticed that he was driving a Buick or an Opel or something, with an oval radiator grille. There were white canine teeth fixed on the two sides of this mouth. Once we were safe, I turned and pointed down then gave the driver a thumbs up. He grinned and thumbs-upped back.
Monday, May 26th, 2025 08:45 pm
Pics

Monday, May 26th, 2025 08:09 pm
Here are some pics of the garden.




Monday, May 26th, 2025 11:00 pm

Posted by Samuel Pepys

Up by four o’clock in the morning, and fell to the preparing of some accounts for my Lord of Sandwich. By and by, by appointment comes Mr. Moore, and, by what appears to us at present, we found that my Lord is above 7,000l. in debt, and that he hath money coming into him that will clear all, and so we think him clear, but very little money in his purse. So to my Lord’s, and after he was ready, we spent an hour with him, giving him an account thereof; and he having some 6,000l. in his hands, remaining of the King’s, he is resolved to make use of that, and get off of it as well as he can, which I like well of, for else I fear he will scarce get beforehand again a great while. Thence home, and to the Trinity House; where the Brethren (who have been at Deptford choosing a new Maister; which is Sir J. Minnes, notwithstanding Sir W. Batten did contend highly for it: at which I am not a little pleased, because of his proud lady) about three o’clock came hither, and so to dinner. I seated myself close by Mr. Prin, who, in discourse with me, fell upon what records he hath of the lust and wicked lives of the nuns heretofore in England, and showed me out of his pocket one wherein thirty nuns for their lust were ejected of their house, being not fit to live there, and by the Pope’s command to be put, however, into other nunnerys.

I could not stay to end dinner with them, but rose, and privately went out, and by water to my brother’s, and thence to take my wife to the Redd Bull, where we saw “Doctor Faustus,” but so wretchedly and poorly done, that we were sick of it, and the worse because by a former resolution it is to be the last play we are to see till Michaelmas. Thence homewards by coach, through Moorefields, where we stood awhile, and saw the wrestling. At home, got my lute upon the leads, and there played, and so to bed.

Read the annotations

Monday, May 26th, 2025 08:41 pm
Candy and I hiked at Oil Creek this morning. The weather has changed (from damp and cold) and it's wonderful. Perfect for hiking. Not too hot, not cold, the sun has returned.

Some pictures from today: Read more... )
Monday, May 26th, 2025 08:28 pm
Is there an authoritative list of such things somewhere the public can look through?
Monday, May 26th, 2025 07:23 pm

That the place I was very glad to leave in my youth is now The Top Place to Visit in the UK, though I think 'visit' may be the operative word there, after all back in my day the foreign language students and other summer visitors had an entirely different vision of it. Street foodstalls and trendy bars, not to mention galleries, Not In My Day, though we did have the walks in nature and seascape.

***

(The person who asked about this could have found the info themself, it was really easy to find.) Stillbirths only had to be registered in England from 1927.

(This was the person who had found me as A Nexpert in a field I don't consider my main field of xpertise via Google AI. I was, in fact, able to provide quite a bit of information from the depths of Mi Knowinz. )

***

How to decode the less than intuitive citations in footnotes to Gould and Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine (1898 edition).

(Though I think the person asking the question to which this was actually the answer could possibly have given the matter a little thought and worked it out themself? Maybe not: maybe they have not had the years of dealing with Weird Citation Practices that are under my belt.)

***

Still got it for telling people Where To Find Archives....

Monday, May 26th, 2025 12:54 pm
Lizards have been somewhat fewer in the apartment complex than last year, and the other night I learned a possible reason: a Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia) couple have set up housekeeping on the back lawn next door! (No pictorial tax as yet: their nest, less than five feet from the curb, overlooks a back alley heavily travelled by garbage, service, and delivery vehicles as well as human pedestrians—meaning that they’re probably experiencing botherance enough without amateur paparazzi. (1)

Burrowing Owls are regarded as local mascots and rigorously protected here; standard procedure upon discovering an inhabited burrow is to erect a little designated perch for the owls and cordon it off, crime-scene style, halting any human construction until the young have left the nest.

(1) Rule of thumb is that if the owls are reacting to your presence, you’re too close; the risk of attracting gawkers is one reason that doxxing Burrowing Owls nesting on private property is frowned upon around here. Schools, museums, and other such facilities, however, will encourage on-site nesting, observable by remote cam.

I’m finding varying accounts of how capable they are of digging their own burrows, but certainly the owls prefer the convenience of found housing when they can get it, not only taking over burrows constructed by other animals but occupying such human artifacts as PVC pipes; it’s quite possible to build artificial burrows to attract them.
Thursday, May 29th, 2025 05:22 am
The Wikipedia article on the motif of the star and crescent gave a lot more information than I'd expected, but I still don't know why it's so associated with Islam in the present day.

Speaking of symbols made literal, here is a snake saved from eating its own tail. I don't know anything about snakes, but this does look like a vet's office, so if the vet thinks that hand sanitizer is the way to go then it's probably the way to go. (Also, I strongly suspect most of the people in the comments talking about how hand sanitizer to make a snake not eat itself is animal abuse or that the fact that the snake did this is a clear sign of animal abuse don't actually know any more about snakes than I do. If they're right, it's not because they really know.)

***********


Read more... )
Monday, May 26th, 2025 10:01 am
Happy birthday, [personal profile] aedifica, [personal profile] the_rck and [personal profile] thornsilver!
Sunday, May 25th, 2025 09:43 pm
This morning it was Mama Violet, not Prudence, who was put out when I not only brought out breakfast, but then continued down the stairs towards her in order to get the newspaper. I tried to reassure her by going around the opposite side of the car from where she took cover, but it was no good, she was too affronted and vanished. Hopefully it was her who polished off the food at noontime.

The dog refused to go walkies in the cool of the morning. Luckily it was mild enough to walk her when she expressed interest at 4:15 or so, and she took me on an epic exploration of this side of the park.
Sunday, May 25th, 2025 10:22 pm
DSC_0120.jpg
Seed Pod. Mixture of watercolor and markers.

I made sushi for Sunday dinner tonight. That's always a popular meal with everyone. I got out the Shut The Box game and we actually got Sebastian to play. He never plays. It was a momentous occasion. Jules played too. He's hard to get to play games most the time but not as hard as Sebastian. I think Shut The Box is a good game to draw people in. Everyone is moving little clacking wooden levers and the sound of the dice is attractive too. It's mostly all luck but there's some decisions that need made.
Sunday, May 25th, 2025 10:19 pm
Red sky at night, superheroes' fright.
Red sky in the morning, superheroes' warning.

Comics fans will either know or quickly learn why Wolfman and Perez are named here.

Scalzi? Here's why.

https://bsky.app/profile/scalzi.com/post/3lpzynapmmc2q
Tags:
Sunday, May 25th, 2025 11:00 pm

Posted by Samuel Pepys

(Lord’s day). To trimming myself, which I have this week done every morning, with a pumice stone,1 which I learnt of Mr. Marsh, when I was last at Portsmouth; and I find it very easy, speedy, and cleanly, and shall continue the practice of it. To church, and heard a good sermon of Mr. Woodcocke’s at our church; only in his latter prayer for a woman in childbed, he prayed that God would deliver her from the hereditary curse of child-bearing, which seemed a pretty strange expression. Dined at home, and Mr. Creed with me. This day I had the first dish of pease I have had this year. After discourse he and I abroad, and walked up and down, and looked into many churches, among others Mr. Baxter’s at Blackfryers. Then to the Wardrobe, where I found my Lord takes physic, so I did not see him, but with Captn. Ferrers in Mr. George Montagu’s coach to Charing Cross; and there at the Triumph tavern he showed me some Portugall ladys, which are come to town before the Queen. They are not handsome, and their farthingales a strange dress. Many ladies and persons of quality come to see them. I find nothing in them that is pleasing; and I see they have learnt to kiss and look freely up and down already, and I do believe will soon forget the recluse practice of their own country. They complain much for lack of good water to drink. So to the Wardrobe back on foot and supped with my Lady, and so home, and after a walk upon the leads with my wife, to prayers and bed.

The King’s guards and some City companies do walk up and down the town these five or six days; which makes me think, and they do say, there are some plots in laying. God keep us.

Footnotes

Read the annotations

Sunday, May 25th, 2025 03:06 pm
This book is about how the rise of tiny pocket computers has been bad for children. It goes after, not only the pocket computers, but social media and video games. The video games bit feels a little "old man yells at clouds" and reminds me of the concern trolling about metal music and rap music. It just feels like someone doesn't like video games and has not played them with their friends.

Chapters five, six and seven are probably the most important parts of this book. Chapter five talks about social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation and addiction.

Then chapter six insists that social media harms girls more than it harms boys. Basically, girls and boys use social media differently. The girls are more social online, and this can make disorders that are social worse. For example, eating disorders can become worse when girls engage in social media. If you are interested in girls sports, social media will be happy to send you down an anorexia rabbit hole. Self-harm can become worse when girls are discussing it. There are girls who do not have dissociative identity disorder acting like they have it because they see it on the internet, and it seems cool. The same thing happens with Tourette syndrome. Girls are more affected by visual social comparison. Their aggression is relational. They will harm each other's friendships to attack one another. Girls share emotions and disorders. It says that girls are more subject to predation and harassment, but I think we should worry about boys with this too because over the past few years there have been sextortion scams against teen boys that have led to suicide.

Chapter seven on boys is more vibes-based. Boys are not engaging socially on the internet. They are watching a bunch of YouTube and playing video games. Haidt leans heavily into Johann Hari's book Stolen Focus that I reviewed here about two years ago. This chapter has graphs, but it is vibes-based because they did not actually find evidence of pocket computers harming boys in the literature. There is some discussion about how boys fail to launch, and hikikomori, a Japanese term for man children who hide in their rooms and come out at night when the rest of the family is asleep. There is a section on boyhood without real-world risk that was common in boyhood before. Mary Pat Campbell, an actuary, likes to discuss "the fatal stupid period" where boys are taking the type of risks that lead to their own deaths. The age range that she is discussing is probably in the early twenties while the one that Haidt is discussing is in the teens. Anyway, the chapter on boys discusses a lot of addictions that are not real like "video game addiction" and "porn addiction." I mean, people can choose not to control themselves with this stuff and can get into repetitive habits, but classifying a bunch of this as addiction feels like people should be exerting some self-control. Haidt mentions that the research on video games shows that video games have benefits.

Then in Chapter 8, he talks about spiritual degradation, and how people should have spiritual practice. This is the type of Haidt nonsense that drives me up the wall. If you think spiritual practice is important, then let us know what spiritual framework you are working in. A lot of people are honest about what religion they are operating in but Haidt always has a spiritual view from nowhere in his books. There was a graph with an x-y-z axis in this chapter to make it feel more science-y. My son was looking over my shoulder and made fun of it. The x axis was closeness. The y axis was hierarchy, and the z axis was divinity.

Chapter 10 is asking for laws, and it mentions that the Age Appropriate Design Code was passed in the UK. Then it mentions the US Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). A lot of people were concerned about KOSA because some implementations seem to want companies that are doing bad things with user data to collect more user data on children. Haidt proposed that the information be gathered by a third party, but having a third party gather the information does not reduce the risk of a database of children's information being out there. He suggested blockchain could fix this problem, but I am not sure how blockchain could fix this problem. This chapter discusses how congress has been pretty useless on passing laws related to tech, and he is correct on that one.

This book seemed very tech-forward for a book that is telling you to keep your kids away from phones. It is talking about blockchain and AI as if these are useful things. It is talking about the metaverse as if it is a positive thing. And some of this stuff like the metaverse has not actually proven to be useful in any way at all. With AI, it is just too soon to tell, and we probably should not be throwing AI at kids just to find out if it is useful or if they are going to be using it to generate porn.

Chapters 11 and 12 about what schools can do and what parents can do were a lot stronger than some of the earlier chapters.

The Facebook whistleblower testimony from Frances Haugen was mentioned in this book, and that was some of the stronger stuff about the ages of kids Facebook is collecting information on.

There are probably a lot of people doing research on Human Computer Interaction who have studied the behavior of teens online, but the folks who worked on this book did not look into any of that it seems. I think it would have been stronger if they looked into some of the research in that field.
Tags:
Sunday, May 25th, 2025 06:00 pm

Last week's bread seemed to be holding out but got very dry and was eked out with the rolls.

Friday night supper: the rather ersatz 'Thai fried rice' with Milano and Napoli salami.

Saturday breakfast rolls: eclectic vanilla, something like 60:40 strong white/white spelt flour (end of bag of the latter).

Today's lunch: venison crumble, with this diced ragu which is more or less rather more finely diced than usual venison, cooked in a moderate oven in red wine with shallots and garlic and a few juniper berries for a couple of hours and then a crumble topping of 2:1:1 strong wholemeal flour/strong white flour/pinhead oatmeal + butter + seasoning + crushed coriander seeds (I think I made rather more of this than I usually do) spread on and baked in somewhat hotter oven for a further 30 minutes; served with Boston beans roasted in pumpkin seed oil with fennel seeds and splashed with gooseberry vinegar, and baby pak choi stirfried with star anise.

Sunday, May 25th, 2025 11:53 pm
It's late Autumn and getting colder so I threw together a crumble topping for the big pot of stewed apples I'd made. It worked really well - mostly luck as I ad libbed it.

Apples
: washed, cored, chopped small but not peeled, stewed with a cinnamon stick and 3 cloves, a few squeezes lemon juice and raw sugar. Add as little sugar as possible so it's sweet, but still a little tart. Simmer well until the skins are soft, about 30 min.
(Equivalent vol. of about 8 Granny Smith apples although half of mine were sweeter red-striped ones)

Crumble:
1.5 cups rolled oats
1.5 cups rolled oats blended to a coarse flour
4 Tbsp butter, cut up and rubbed in until the mix is a crumble

Then mix in
0.5 tsp salt
1 cup shredded dessicated coconut
0.75 cup chopped walnuts
0.75 cup brown sugar

Remember to get the cloves and cinnamon stick out! (or use powdered spices). Top the stewed apples with crumble and bake for 30 min at 180C (355F) with a foil cover. Then remove foil and give it a last few min uncovered. I had it with cream, also great with Greek yoghurt. Or ice-cream if you like it sweeter!

This made 5 crumble serves and used about 1/2 of the apples - I had the rest of the apples with yoghurt for a few breakfasts.