andrewducker: (Default)
[personal profile] andrewducker
Right now (7:30am) it is 14 degrees outside.

It is 24 degrees in our bedroom, despite the windows being open all night. Humidity is 92%.

This afternoon it will rise to 26 degrees. I'm glad the office has air conditioning. I'm not looking forward to tonight.

(no subject)

Jul. 10th, 2025 11:33 pm
skygiants: the aunts from Pushing Daisies reading and sipping wine on a couch (wine and books)
[personal profile] skygiants
I mentioned that I did in fact read a couple of good books in my late-June travels to counterbalance the bad ones. One of them was The Pushcart War, which I conveniently discovered in my backpack right as I was heading out to stay with the friend who'd loaned it to me a year ago.

I somehow have spent most of my life under the impression that I had already read The Pushcart War, until the plot was actually described to me, at which point it became clear that I'd either read some other Pushcart or some other War but these actual valiant war heroes were actually brand new to me.

The book is science fiction, of a sort, originally published in 1964 and set in 1976 -- Wikipedia tells me that every reprint has moved the date forward to make sure it stays in the future, which I think is very charming -- and purporting to be a work of history for young readers explaining the conflict between Large Truck Corporations and Pugnacious Pushcart Peddlers over the course of one New York City summer. It's a punchy, defiant little book about corporate interest, collective action, and civil disobedience; there's one chapter in particular in which the leaders of the truck companies meet to discuss their master plan of getting everything but trucks off the streets of New York entirely where the metaphor is Quite Dark and Usefully Unsubtle. Also contains charming illustrations! A good read at any time and I'm glad to have finally experienced it.

第四年第一百八十二天

Jul. 10th, 2025 07:19 pm
nnozomi: (Default)
[personal profile] nnozomi posting in [community profile] guardian_learning
部首
卩 part 2
却, but; 卷, to roll; 卸, to unload pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=26

词汇
温暖, warm (pinyin in tags)
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-3-word-list/

Guardian:
别人怕你,你却不应该怕自己, other people are afraid of you, but you shouldn't be afraid of yourself
只要和你在一起,活也好,死也好,都很温暖, as long as I'm with you I don't mind if I live or do, it's all warm

Me:
我爱吃春卷。
他的手总是很温暖。
innitmarvelous_og: (Dreams & Mayham Mod)
[personal profile] innitmarvelous_og posting in [site community profile] dw_community_promo
image host





+++
About the comm.
 
 
It's one part dream.
One part disaster.
And absolutely 100% fandom.
It's Your OTPs/Fandoms combined with our chaos.

Challenge(s) 2025:

Challenge 1: Hodge Podge A new challenge idea I came up with all sorts of things to get players rolling out the fills and scoring points!

Sign up: July 3 Rd to July 19th @
8PM EST / 12AM GTM
Opening Date: July 20
Closing Date: October 12

I hope to have a variety of challenges in this comm, but they make take some time for me to figure out as I don't want to copy other comms out there. I have an idea or two for an abbreviated challenge after this one and I'll be working on getting it ready go if you guys want to play with me again after this round

-

Dexter (2006-2013)

Jul. 10th, 2025 11:30 am
runpunkrun: richie tenenbaum with a shaved head and sunglasses, text: let's fuck this up (let's fuck this up)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
Once upon a time, I watched the first five seasons of Dexter and then stopped for whatever reason. Recently I saw it was on Netflix and thought I should finally finish the series and I might as well start at the beginning so as to maximize the amount of time I could spend not having to think about anything else in the world except for what a selfish asshole Dexter is and how much I love Deb.

Previously on Dexter...

Spoilers for the series )

Aurendor D&D: Summary for 7/9 Game

Jul. 10th, 2025 12:22 am
settiai: (Siân -- settiai)
[personal profile] settiai
In tonight's game, the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off.

第四年第一百八十一天

Jul. 9th, 2025 10:42 pm
nnozomi: (Default)
[personal profile] nnozomi posting in [community profile] guardian_learning
部首
卩 part 1 jié
卫, hygiene/to protect; 印, to print/to engrave; 危, danger; 即, immediately pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=26

语法
Using 吧 and 吗
https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/

词汇
围, to enclose; 范围, range; 周围, around pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-3-word-list/

Guardian:
正当防卫, justified self-defense
没事吧, are you okay? [my candidate for “most commonly spoken line in cdramas”]
我可以确定这些乱线的根源仍然是围绕着圣器围绕着烛九他们一帮人, but I can be sure that the source of these crossed wires surrounds the Holy Tools and Zhu Jiu and his hangers-on.

Me:
打印机又坏了,破机器!
别太围绕,给人空间。

(no subject)

Jul. 9th, 2025 07:20 pm
skygiants: Enjolras from Les Mis shouting revolution-tastically (la resistance lives on)
[personal profile] skygiants
When [personal profile] kate_nepveu started doing a real-time readalong for Steven Brust & Emma Bull's epistolary novel Freedom and Necessity in 2023, I read just enough of Kate's posts to realize that this was a book that I probably wanted to read for myself and then stopped clicking on the cut-text links. Now, several years later, I have finally done so!

Freedom and Necessity kicks off in 1849, with British gentleman James Cobham politely writing to his favorite cousin Richard to explain he has just learned that everybody thinks he is dead, he does not remember the last two months or indeed anything since the last party the two of them attended together, he is pretending to be a groom at the stables that found him, and would Richard mind telling him whether he thinks he ought to go on pretending to be dead and doing a little light investigation on his behalf into wtf is going on?

We soon learn that a.) James has been involved in something mysterious and political; b.) Richard thinks that James ought to be more worried about something differently mysterious and supernatural; c.) both Richard and James have a lot of extremely verbose opinions about the exciting new topic of Hegelian logic; and d.) James and Richard are both in respective Its Complicateds with two more cousins, Susan and Kitty, and at this point Susan and Kitty kick in with a correspondence of their own as Susan decides to exorcise her grief about the [fake] death of the cousin she Definitely Was Not In Love With by investigating why James kept disappearing for months at a time before he died.

By a few chapters in, I was describing it to [personal profile] genarti as 'Sorcery and Cecelia if you really muscled it up with nineteenth century radical philosophy' and having a wonderful time.

Then I got a few more chapters in and learned more about WTF indeed was up with James and texted Kate like 'WAIT IS THIS A LYMONDALIKE?' to which she responded 'I thought it was obvious!' And I was still having a wonderful time, and continued doing so all through, but could not stop myself from bursting into laughter every time the narrative lovingly described James' pale and delicate-looking yet surprisingly athletic figure or his venomous light voice etc. etc. mid-book spoilers )

Anyway, if you've read a Lymond, you know that there's often One Worthy Man in a Lymond book who is genuinely wise and can penetrate Lymond's self-loathing to gently explain to him that he should use his many poisoned gifts for the better. Freedom and Necessity dares to ask the question: what if that man? were Dreamy Friedrich Engels. Which is, frankly, an amazing choice.

Now even as I write this, I know that [personal profile] genarti is glaring at me for the fact that I am allowing Francis Crawford of Lymond to take over this booklog just as the spectre of Francis Crawford of Lymond takes over any book in which he appears -- and I do think that James takes over the book a bit more from Richard and Kitty than I would strictly like (I love Kitty and her cheerful opium visions and her endless run-on sentences as she staunchly holds down the home front). But to give Brust and Bull their credit, Susan staunchly holds her own as co-protagonist in agency, page space and character development despite the fact that James is pulling all the book's actual plot (revolutionary politics chaotically colliding with Gothic occult family drama) around after him like a dramatic black cloak.

And what about the radical politics, anyway? Brust and Bull have absolutely done their reading and research, and I very much enjoy and appreciate the point of view that they're writing from. I do think it's quite funny when Engels is like "James, your first duty is to your class," and James is like "well, I am a British aristocrat, so that's depressing," and Engels is like "you don't have to be! you can just decide to be of the proletariat! any day you can decide that! and then your first duty will be to the proletariat!" which like .... not that you can't decide to be in solidarity with the working class ..... but this is sort of a telling stance in an epistolary novel that does not actually center a single working-class POV. How pleasant to keep writing exclusively about verbose and erudite members of the British gentry who have conveniently chosen to be of the proletariat! James does of course have working-class comrades, and he respects them very much, and is tremendously angsty about their off-page deaths. So it goes.

On the other hand, at this present moment, I honestly found it quite comforting to be reading a political adventure novel set in 1849, in the crashing reactionary aftermath to the various revolutions of 1848. One of the major political themes of the book is concerned with how to keep on going through the low point -- how to keep on working and believing for the better future in the long term, even while knowing that unfortunately it hasn't come yet and given the givens probably won't for some time. Acknowledging the low point and the long game is a challenging thing for fiction to do, and I appreciate it a lot when I see it. I'd like to see more of it.
runpunkrun: Dana Scully reading Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' in the style of a poster you'd find in your school library, text: Read. (reading)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
In paperback, this makes a thick graphic novel worthy of the name. The greyscale art is simple but expressive, and you quickly get a feel for Mags and her Abuela and their small desert town near Joshua Tree. Mag's childhood friend is back in town with her cowboy boots and pinhole camera and stirring up feelings that Mags can't let herself have because she's tied to her home and the secret in the basement that's bleeding her dry.

A tender story about learning to love yourself so you can accept the love others have for you. The art's limited use of color highlights childhood memories and photographs, but comes out in full force for the happy ending.

Contains: butch/transfem romance; death of a grandparent; and, separate from the romance: infidelity, stalking, emotional manipulation, threats of suicide, gun violence.

第四年第一百八十天

Jul. 8th, 2025 06:31 pm
nnozomi: (Default)
[personal profile] nnozomi posting in [community profile] guardian_learning
部首
卜 bǔ
占, to occupy; 卡, to get stuck/card/car; 卧, to lie down pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=25

词汇
为, to act as/become; 为了, in order to; 变为, to change into; 称为, to be known as pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-3-word-list/

Guardian:
龙城大学还真是卧虎藏龙啊, Dragon City University really has a lot of talent in hiding
你是为了钱还是为了名, did you do it for money or fame?

Me:
等一下,你卡住了,我再打视频。
为了拥有你,我什么都敢做。
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
Especially while it's at 75% off in the sale, making it 62p:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/406150/Refunct/

For anyone who might want to sample some easy platforming with a very very low entry threshold.

Chill and rather lovely environment (okay, probably depends on you liking brutalist architecture, but still -- there's a day-night cycle! there's sunshine! the water is gorgeous! the music is gentle!) with no time pressure and no penalties for failing a jump hundreds of times (except that, at worst, you fall in the water and have to swim about and haul yourself out again).

N.B. Most reviews describe this as a half-hour game, and there are achievements for speedrunning it in under 8 minutes or under 4 minutes.

It took me over five hours of playtime to beat it, which should be indicative of the co-ordination and skill levels I'm working with here. And yet it did not at any point feel stressful or humiliating for me. It felt like a pleasant, relaxing environment in which to fail repeatedly and experiment.

It started at a level low enough that I could manage it, and then had a really satisfying difficulty curve. If I was stalling on the next objective, I could still run and parkour round the environment purely for fun (and sometimes ended up working out how to pick off the optional achievements in the process).

Towards the very end, I started to think that the last jumps might just flat-out exceed the limits of what I am currently capable of, and it felt like if that did happen, I would still be able to walk away pretty happily having already got way more than 62p's worth of enjoyment out of it.

Will absolutely be playing it again.

R.F. Kuang: Yellowface (Book Review)

Jul. 8th, 2025 04:08 pm
selenak: (Damages by Agsmith01)
[personal profile] selenak
Very entertaining satiric novel set in and about the publishing industry. Our first person narrator, June (white), is a writer with a debut novel which didn't make a splash and won't even, so her agent tells her, get a paperback edition, in stark contrast to her college friend Athena Liu's (American Chinese) work: Athena has three novels already published, just secured a Netflix deal and celebrates that and finishing the first draft of her newest work with June when she dies an accidental death by pancake. June doesn't just dial 911. She also makes off with Athena's manuscript, about which only she knows, edits, rewrites and publishes it. Presto, success, at last! ! But wait! There's no lack of sharp-eyed foes waiting, social media is truly a jungle, and June might be her own worst enemy....
Very vague spoilers ensue )

The novel has the right kind of length for this story - which is to say, less than 400 pages - so the various buildings up of suspense - will June get away with it being the big, but not the only one - are not drawn out too long, and there's not a gigantic cast of characters. Said characters reminded me of comedy of manners types - very stylized, often types for certain ways of behaviour - fittng the satire format. The only other thing of R. F. Kuang's I'd read before was Poppy War, a fantasy novel of a very different type, so I'm impressed by her range. Otoh, if Poppy War was so grim that I emerged emotionally exhausted and sure I would go through the experience again (while being glad I had done so in the first place), Yellowface felt like a slick writty automaton which you observe once and marvel at its cleverness but don't feel the need to do it again. But I will certainly continue to keep out an eye for this author.
renay: photo of the milky way from new zealand on a clear night (Default)
[personal profile] renay posting in [community profile] ladybusiness
Well, I made a reading list last month...how did I do? Read more... )

第四年第一百七十九天

Jul. 7th, 2025 06:38 pm
nnozomi: (Default)
[personal profile] nnozomi posting in [community profile] guardian_learning
部首
十 part 5
南, south; 博, learned pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=24

语法
Using 吗 and 呢
https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/ma-ne/

词汇
危害, harm; 危险, danger pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-3-word-list/

Guardian:
大学研究生还有博士生都是龙城大学毕业的, I got my master's and my doctorate both from Dragon City University
沈巍呢? what about Shen Wei?
你知不知道危险两个字怎么写, do you even know how to spell danger?

Me:
南方人的口音不一样。
虽然他的表情很凶,但是实在他没有危害。

Post-D&D Crash

Jul. 7th, 2025 06:42 pm
settiai: (D&D -- settiai)
[personal profile] settiai
Welp. The last few days were certainly exhausting.

Don't get me wrong, the long weekend of D&D was a ton of fun, and I'm very glad that we managed to pull it off. That said, it was extremely draining on me even after I spent as much time as possible prior to it trying to charge my internal batteries. By the time we ended yesterday afternoon, my spoons were long gone.

Since I had to get up early to catch the bus to E&Z's place (which was on the weekend schedule the entire time since Friday was a holiday) and then it was usually 1am or so before I made home at night, I didn't get nearly enough sleep pretty much the entire time. Especially since I record summary videos for this game, so I had to get that done at night before I could go to bed.

I ended up taking a nap after I made it home yesterday, and the only thing preventing me from doing so tonight is that I know it will be better to push through and go to bed early instead. If I nap now, I'll be up half the night.

And then work today made things even more fun, but that's a story for another post. 🙃

ETA: Or, you know, I could decide take a nap after all because it hit 7:30pm, and my brain had completely stopped functioning. I'm still tired, so hopefully I'll be able to fall asleep at a decent hour despite the nap.

#660, Bashō

Jul. 7th, 2025 08:50 am
runpunkrun: john sheppard and teyla emmagan in uniform and standing in a rocky streambed (hold the stillness exactly before us)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
a dragonfly
unable to settle
on the grass
     -1690

Translation by Jane Reichhold.

俳句 )

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