jjhunter: Watercolor of daisy with blue dots zooming around it like Bohr model electrons (science flower)
[personal profile] jjhunter
Let's take a breath for poetry. It is April, and as good a time as any for a collaborative poetry fest. Please find below a starting stanza or two of a brand new haikai (what's a haikai, you ask? Think extended haiku: alternating stanzas of 5-7-5 and 7-7). Comment with a following stanza to build on that seed. Someone (most likely me) will respond with another stanza, and so on and so forth throughout the day.
===

daffodil focus
bell song, valdrome, pheasant's eye
live stained glass glory

_

The Political Is Very Personal

Apr. 22nd, 2025 01:12 pm
heron61: (Amerika The Vile)
[personal profile] heron61
I’m looking at the various options for what my partner and I can do and what is likely to happen with the US, and I find this seriously depressing, so I’d love if anyone reading this could provide alternatives or reasons that they think some of the unlikely possible options are actually pretty likely (and why).

Option 1 Fleeing Fascism: My best guess is the US slides into full on fascism, somewhere between Hungary and Nazi Germany, and after my mother dies (likely in the next year or so, she’s 90) my partner and I flee the US, likely not to Canada unless it looks likely that 47 won’t invade, so our options are Portugal (you can buy your way in with money we’ll have from my mom), or New Zealand (same). The problem is I utterly hate the idea of having to leave Portland and our friends, but I’m not too keen on living under fascism either.

Other options (I’m saying how likely I think they are, if you disagree, please let me know, and also why):

Option 2 Social and economic collapse: 47 and Musk are idiots who aren’t remotely careful, so this seems like a real option that seems somewhat likely, but I’m uncertain , I also find this far superior to option 1, in large part because while it will suck, people won’t be disappeared to Central American torture prisons, and it likely won’t last that long. I’d expect the states to pick up the pieces and we might even end up with the US balkanizing.

Option 3 Military coup/civil war: If 47 (as he seems very likely to do) invades Canada or Greenland, or both, some portion of the US military will likely refuse to attack NATO allies. If it’s enough, we get a military coupe, which is terrible, but also a serious improvement, since I’d expect them to push for free elections soon. OTOH, if only some of them refuse we could easily end up in full on civil war. I think the overall option is moderately likely, but have no idea which way things would go, and in the case of a full-on civil war, I would want to be on another continent.

Option 4 Low Violence Popular Uprising: This has happened in numerous nations; enough people take to the streets and the leaders flee. I’d love for this to happen here, but I also firmly believe it won’t. The US lacks that sort of hard-core protest culture. It could easily happen in France, I don’t believe it will happen here.

Option 5 Free elections: I think this is only slightly more likely than a successful popular uprising. It’s been 3 months, 47 will have been in power for almost 22 months for the mid-term elections, and the Republinazis have shown themselves to be absolutely fine with eliminating democracy. Blue states may or may not keep far elections, but red and many purple states won’t.

Option 6 Succession: This is my strong preference – either for the West Coast to join Canada or to become its own nation, and in either case, I’d never need to worry about sharing a nation with the powerful wealthy elites in hard core red states like Alabama, Idaho, or Iowa. The problem is that attempting this either results in an ugly civil war that our side loses, or someone needs to seize nukes and a way to deliver them. I expect that in CA at least there is at least some discussions about this, but I have absolutely no idea how likely I think this is.

I don’t see any other remotely likely options, and I really don’t like the likely ones other than 1-3. What do you think?
[syndicated profile] dorktower_feed

Posted by John Kovalic

This or any DORK TOWER strip is now available as a signed, high-quality print, from just $25!  CLICK HERE to find out more!

HEY! Want to help keep DORK TOWER going? Then consider joining the DORK TOWER Patreon and ENLIST IN THE ARMY OF DORKNESS TODAY! (We have COOKIES!) (And SWAG!) (And GRATITUDE!)

[syndicated profile] smbc_comics_feed

Posted by Zach Weinersmith



Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
The thing I miss most about the 90s is the ability to time travel.


Today's News:

2025.04.22

Apr. 22nd, 2025 09:26 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
Northfield residents warned of elevated levels of manganese in drinking water, advised to use bottled water or filter
Emily Baude KSTP
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/northfield-residents-warned-of-elevated-levels-of-manganese-in-drinking-water-advised-to-use-bottled-water-or-filter/

Rice crisis: Japan imports grain from South Korea for first time in more than 25 years
Japanese consumers who used to treat foreign-grown rice with scepticism have been forced to develop a taste for it amid domestic shortage
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/22/japan-south-korea-rice-import-crisis

Experts talk realism of Conclave movie: ‘Gets a lot of the details right’
After the death of Pope Francis, experts weigh in on how much the real-life papal election will mirror the hit Oscar-winning movie
Adrian Horton
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/22/conclave-movie-pope-francis

How an American businessman lost his job and found himself in an old French vineyard
One day, life as a finance consultant stopped making sense for Peter Hahn, so he took to organic winegrowing in the Loire instead
Genevieve Fox
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/apr/22/how-an-american-businessman-lost-his-job-and-found-himself-in-an-old-french-vineyard

US to impose tariffs of up to 3,521% on south-east Asia solar panels
Ahead of a global summit in London comes a warning that lessons on energy security have not been learned
Julia Kollewe
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/22/us-huge-tariffs-south-east-asian-solar-panels-energy-summit

Gold hits $3,500 for first time as US dollar sinks to three-year low
With many stock markets in the red and Dow Jones headed for worst April since 1932, gold could even reach $4,000
Julia Kollewe and Graeme Wearden
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/22/gold-hits-3500-us-dollar-sinks-three-year-low-stock-markets

Ex-US senator's wife convicted in gold bars bribery scheme
Brandon Drenon
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70zlj8dpn8o

Show us your mussels! A mouthwatering trip to Vigo, Spain’s seafood capital
The Galician city on the Atlantic coast has the EU’s largest fishing port, which provides its many bars and restaurants with a spectacular trawl of oysters, clams and mussels
Fiona Dunlop
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/apr/22/food-trip-to-vigo-galicia-spain-seafood-capital

The extraordinary rise of bakery tourism: ‘People travel from all over the world. It’s mind-blowing!’
Beer crawls are out and bakery crawls are in, with people arranging whole days, weekends or even holidays around the search for the perfect loaf or croissant
Chris Marshall
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/apr/22/the-extraordinary-rise-of-bakery-tourism

2025 Sony World Photography Awards: Winners revealed
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qww2rv0y0o

The Big Idea: Heather Tracy

Apr. 22nd, 2025 03:23 pm
[syndicated profile] whateverscalzi_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

Any author can tell you that events in their own life can have an impact on their fiction. As we learn in Heather Tracy’s Big Idea for Only a Chapter, sometimes those events have a bigger impact than we might have expected.

HEATHER TRACY:

When I began writing what would become Only a Chapter back in 2015, the working title I had then was “Faceless Man.” I knew I wasn’t going to call the book that, but I couldn’t come up with anything better. I still have several drafts of the original version saved with that name on my computer.

The big idea for the original version of the book came from dreams I had in high school through college of a faceless man who would do huge romantic things like fly me on a private jet to New York City to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway with the original cast, then he proposed. The dreams were always very vivid, and I could always tell the man was wearing a tuxedo, but I could never see his face. Sometime after dating my now-husband for a while, I realized that when he and I originally met at my senior prom, he was wearing a tux. In different ways, a lot of the things in my dreams did happen, but much less sensationally. For instance, before he proposed, he took me to see a local production of A Chorus Line.

In “Faceless Man,” Clare had these dreams, they pointed her to this dream guy, and that was about it. The story was fun, but pretty flat. There wasn’t enough heart. There wasn’t enough tension. I put the book to the side for almost nine years.

Then, after completing breast cancer treatment in early 2023, big idea number two hit me (seriously, I can never have just one big idea for these things): What would happen if Clare had breast cancer, but also, what would happen if she didn’t? What if the story had two timelines with the ways her life could go if that dreaded phone call went two different ways? I had obviously been contemplating this scenario in my own life and thought it would be therapeutic to work it out through my fiction.

The final version of the book still has the faceless-person dreams, but this time, they’re different depending on the timeline. Clare’s bisexual, and in one timeline the dreams start pointing her toward a male, and in the other a female. In the timeline where she has breast cancer, the cancer diagnosis and story are my own, though fictionalized slightly to work within the confines of the narrative.

Oh, and the title? When I announced on social media that I had breast cancer back in 2022, I said on social media that “Cancer is only going to be a chapter in my life, and not the whole story.” Thus, Only a Chapter was born.


Only a Chapter: Amazon|Space Wizard

Author Socials: Bluesky|Facebook|Goodreads|Instagram

Today’s Adventures in Dentistry

Apr. 22nd, 2025 03:14 pm
[syndicated profile] whateverscalzi_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

1. Whoops2. It's fine, I'm fine, I'm going to the dentist literally right now to have it fixed3. When you lose a crown and put it under your pillow, the tooth fairy does not leave you so much as a nickel, in what world is this even remotely fair

John Scalzi (@scalzi.com) 2025-04-22T12:26:48.222Z

Ever have that dream where your teeth fall out? Well, it’s not a dream in my case; last night, while chewing, one of my crowns tried to escape. Fortunately I realized what was happening before I bit down, and therefore saved the thing for the appointment my accommodating dentist arranged for me this morning.

The good news is the crown is now safely back in my head; the less great news is now this formerly-permanent crown is a temporary, and I have to go back in a couple of weeks to get a new permanent crown. Dentistry is confusing, y’all.

Anyway, that’s been my last 15 hours. How are you?

— JS

Foxfire, Esq. by Noa (October)

Apr. 22nd, 2025 09:08 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Retired superhero turned lawyer, Naomi "Foxfire" Ziegler pursues a wrongful death case involving a fire, a young superhero and a host of shifty housing corporations.

Foxfire, Esq. by Noa (October)

I won the lottery

Apr. 22nd, 2025 01:32 am
calimac: (Default)
[personal profile] calimac
Oh, relax, it was only $50; but nothing like this has ever happened to me before, and I've never seen a description of what actually happens when you do, so I'm writing about it here.

At Easter, our niece passed out scratch-off lottery cards as a kind of party favor. I got two of them. One of them I couldn't figure out the instructions for, so after scratching off most of its surface in a futile attempt to understand it, I threw it out. The other made sense, though. It had two 4x4 squares showing various occultish tokens - The Rooster, The Mermaid, The Hand, The Cello, etc - and another section which you'd scratch off to reveal a list of 14 more tokens. Match those up with the ones in the squares, which you could scratch off to keep track, and if you got four in a row on a square you win the amount printed at the end of the row.

According to the lottery's website, 1 in 44 tickets in this game win $50, so it isn't that rare. The instructions say take a small-win ticket to any lottery agent to redeem. So Monday morning I went to a local 7-11 that sells lottery tickets.

What would they do? Would they painstakingly verify that the tokens I'd scratched off on the square matched the ones in the list? Would they demand to know where I'd bought the ticket? (I don't know where she bought them.) Would they make me fill out the name/address/phone/email form on the back of the card?

No, none of those. The guy scratched off an unmarked section of the card, which I guess confirmed it was a winner, and also revealed a barcode which he scanned, probably to let the state know he was on the hook for the money, and then he handed me $50 in cash from the register. That's it. No ceremony, no Bob Barker or anything like that. I gave some of my largess to the homeless guy on the stoop outside.

I've never bought a lottery ticket, but I'm willing to try one if it's given me. This is about the fourth time that's ever happened, and the first one that's come up a winner however petty. These tickets cost $10 each, and I'm sure our niece spent a lot more than $50 to acquire her stash. So that explains where all that lottery money comes from, and that's why I'm not buying any tickets.
vivdunstan: (benny)
[personal profile] vivdunstan
Onto another one, and this is a relisten for me. As I wrote on Gallifrey Base back in June 2010:

"Timeless Passages is indeed wonderful. I've only heard Benny on audio in some of season 3, Timeless Passages, the Diogenes Damsel, and the Companion Chronicle story. Of these Timeless Passages is easily my favourite, and requires no prior knowledge. And it's *so* timey-wimey :) I just love it."


And my feelings haven't changed, though I've now heard way way more Benny audios than I had back then. Timeless Passages is a quite superb Benny audio, and a brilliant piece of scifi storytelling. Totally standalone, so you don't need to have listened to any of the other Benny audios. As is often the case this one has a very small cast, but they are used superbly, very well acted and written, and the story keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. A tightly plotted mystery box of a timey wimey puzzle set inside a giant library. What's not to love about that?

It's a rare Benny audio from this era still available to buy from Big Finish on CD, but also in DRM-free download. £5.99 plus shipping if ordering by post. If you hear just one Benny audio, this is the one I'd recommend by far.

Haikai Fest: "Circadian Cueing"

Apr. 21st, 2025 08:29 pm
jjhunter: Gray-faced sheep with dreambubble reading 'dreamwidth' against a blue background; sheep's body is 'opal' (opal dreamsheep)
[personal profile] jjhunter
Let's take a breath for poetry. It is April, and as good a time as any for a collaborative poetry fest. Please find below a starting stanza or two of a brand new haikai (what's a haikai, you ask? Think extended haiku: alternating stanzas of 5-7-5 and 7-7). Comment with a following stanza to build on that seed. Someone (most likely me) will respond with another stanza, and so on and so forth throughout the day.
===

even single cells
know the daytime sync and sleep
for wake tomorrow

_

April 2025

S M T W T F S
   1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 2223242526
27282930   

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Apr. 23rd, 2025 04:06 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios