Snowflake Challenge
Dec. 29th, 2025 05:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithHappy Snowflake Season to all! As we prepare to kick off the 2026 ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
snowflake_challenge, please feel free to promote this event within your own circles. You are welcome to use any of these new banners for that. The community page also has icons.
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snowflake_challenge, please feel free to promote this event within your own circles. You are welcome to use any of these new banners for that. The community page also has icons. ( Read more... )
Computing woes when your main computer is a laptop
Dec. 29th, 2025 01:50 pmcimoreneWhen I bought this laptop, it was mostly because I have to spend so much time in the dining room with a cat away from my desktop setup. I didn't intend it to REPLACE my desktop, though. The desktop has a much larger hard drive and a large ssd, even though the motherboard is older. I didn't transfer all my media directories because that computer was still there.
Buuuut then my motherboard finally kicked the bucket and the desktop wouldn't boot at all. Since I was only turning it on every few months, replacing it did not seem urgent and I didn't feel like looking up the specifications I would need to follow in ordering a replacement motherboard (to be compatible with my compact case and be good for installing Linux on... etc).
Except then the LLM "generative AI" (it's not AI) bubble got so big that datacenters started buying up all the computer components as well as sucking up all the drinking water, and now motherboards are very expensive and they just keep getting MORE expensive.
At dinner the other day (we ate with BIL's family the night before last) our teenaged niblings were talking about Nvidia and how their nerd friends are shocked and full of condemnation for Nvidia's actions and how everybody should sell their Nvidia stock and also how their nerd friends are also stuck putting off building new PCs for the foreseeable. I assume some of them are going to have to cave since they are gaming, which is probably a bit harsher on their systems than I am on my little laptop. I didn't quite comprehend the nature of Nvidia's scam, partly because I was the only one there who hasn't read a news article about it apparently, and partly because I probably stopped paying attention mid-sentence a couple of times, but I gathered that everybody hates it.
So now my main computer is my beloved laptop, Nenya, a Lenovo ThinkBook 14 (I used a ThinkPad for work and they really are great, but they cost a lot more and I don't really need to be able to throw my laptop off a cliff..., so I scaled down to one of their slightly less sturdy lines), about 3 years old now. And I don't have all my files on her - my music collection, most notably. I just have the last set of songs that I had transferred to my phone before my desktop died. Nenya still has the Windows install she came with in case of emergency, but she dual boots and I have been using Linux Mint whenever I didn't need to log in with Windows in order to like, buy media files with DRM on them, or whatever.
In the last six months or so, the mouse started being way worse, and I found out that replacing its batteries or using a corded mouse didn't help. The trackpad was also bad, but not as bad as the mouse. It was enough to prevent me from using Nenya to fill my design blog queue, but streaming video doesn't require a lot of mouse movement. However,waxjism had occasion to borrow her and ask me more specifically about the mouse issue, and we finally reinstalled the OS and upgraded to Linux Mint 22.2 Zara, the latest LTS release from last month. (I have preferred LTS releases for the last decade or so because I am much less willing to go through the hassle of reinstalling than I used to be in my early 30s.) I'm not positive about the mouse issues so far - the trackpad is better by default, but I noticed it getting laggy when I had a ton of tabs in Firefox open. Maybe Firefox is hogging processor or something.
Buuuut then my motherboard finally kicked the bucket and the desktop wouldn't boot at all. Since I was only turning it on every few months, replacing it did not seem urgent and I didn't feel like looking up the specifications I would need to follow in ordering a replacement motherboard (to be compatible with my compact case and be good for installing Linux on... etc).
Except then the LLM "generative AI" (it's not AI) bubble got so big that datacenters started buying up all the computer components as well as sucking up all the drinking water, and now motherboards are very expensive and they just keep getting MORE expensive.
At dinner the other day (we ate with BIL's family the night before last) our teenaged niblings were talking about Nvidia and how their nerd friends are shocked and full of condemnation for Nvidia's actions and how everybody should sell their Nvidia stock and also how their nerd friends are also stuck putting off building new PCs for the foreseeable. I assume some of them are going to have to cave since they are gaming, which is probably a bit harsher on their systems than I am on my little laptop. I didn't quite comprehend the nature of Nvidia's scam, partly because I was the only one there who hasn't read a news article about it apparently, and partly because I probably stopped paying attention mid-sentence a couple of times, but I gathered that everybody hates it.
So now my main computer is my beloved laptop, Nenya, a Lenovo ThinkBook 14 (I used a ThinkPad for work and they really are great, but they cost a lot more and I don't really need to be able to throw my laptop off a cliff..., so I scaled down to one of their slightly less sturdy lines), about 3 years old now. And I don't have all my files on her - my music collection, most notably. I just have the last set of songs that I had transferred to my phone before my desktop died. Nenya still has the Windows install she came with in case of emergency, but she dual boots and I have been using Linux Mint whenever I didn't need to log in with Windows in order to like, buy media files with DRM on them, or whatever.
In the last six months or so, the mouse started being way worse, and I found out that replacing its batteries or using a corded mouse didn't help. The trackpad was also bad, but not as bad as the mouse. It was enough to prevent me from using Nenya to fill my design blog queue, but streaming video doesn't require a lot of mouse movement. However,
waxjism had occasion to borrow her and ask me more specifically about the mouse issue, and we finally reinstalled the OS and upgraded to Linux Mint 22.2 Zara, the latest LTS release from last month. (I have preferred LTS releases for the last decade or so because I am much less willing to go through the hassle of reinstalling than I used to be in my early 30s.) I'm not positive about the mouse issues so far - the trackpad is better by default, but I noticed it getting laggy when I had a ton of tabs in Firefox open. Maybe Firefox is hogging processor or something.Online Housekeeping
Dec. 29th, 2025 02:14 amysabetwordsmithThis checklist of online housekeeping originally came from sunshine_challenge (which is now sunshine_revival). (See the 2023 version.) I am updating it for the snowflake_challenge in January 2026.
( Read more... )
sunshine_challenge (which is now sunshine_revival). (See the 2023 version.) I am updating it for the snowflake_challenge in January 2026.( Read more... )
Monday Update 12-29-25
Dec. 29th, 2025 12:18 amysabetwordsmithThese are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Friending Policy 12-28-25
Transformative Works Statement 12-28-25
Poem: "Incompressible"
Poem: "A Stronger Woman"
Wildlife
BirdfeedingPoem: "Tenacity, Creativity, and Bravery"
Communities
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Government
Photos: Lights on the Prairie Part 2
Photos: Lights on the Prairie Part 1
Today's Adventures
Birdfeeding
Poem: "Genuinely Sufficient Resources"
Follow Friday 12-26-25: Learning
Poem: "The Heart to Change the World"
Poem: "Technique, Timing, and Leverage"
Read "The Fëanorian Zine"
Climate Change
Friending Meme
Birdfeeding
Vocabulary: Bokeh
Poem: "A Human Scale, Full-Featured Settlement"
Food
Birdfeeding
Cuddle Party
Food has 47 comments. Trauma has 46 comments. Affordable Housing has 78 comments. Robotics has 119 comments.
The 2025 Holiday Poetry Sale has closed, with a massive amount of material to post. It will take me a long time to get it all online, so please keep an eye on the sale page.
Watch forsnowflake_challenge to open on January 1. This panfandom activity is one of Dreamwidth's biggest events and a great time to make new friends.
Watch forthreeforthememories to open on January 3. It features your top three photographs from the past year.
"An Inkling of Things to Come" belongs to Polychrome: Shiv. It needs $72 to be complete. Shiv and his classmates discuss magical weather, magical geography, natural resources, plants and animals, history, and other aspects of worldbuilding.
The weather was mild for most of the week, but today it stormed. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a flock of mourning doves in the ritual meadow, and two fox squirrels running through the trees.
Friending Policy 12-28-25
Transformative Works Statement 12-28-25
Poem: "Incompressible"
Poem: "A Stronger Woman"
Wildlife
BirdfeedingPoem: "Tenacity, Creativity, and Bravery"
Communities
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Government
Photos: Lights on the Prairie Part 2
Photos: Lights on the Prairie Part 1
Today's Adventures
Birdfeeding
Poem: "Genuinely Sufficient Resources"
Follow Friday 12-26-25: Learning
Poem: "The Heart to Change the World"
Poem: "Technique, Timing, and Leverage"
Read "The Fëanorian Zine"
Climate Change
Friending Meme
Birdfeeding
Vocabulary: Bokeh
Poem: "A Human Scale, Full-Featured Settlement"
Food
Birdfeeding
Cuddle Party
Food has 47 comments. Trauma has 46 comments. Affordable Housing has 78 comments. Robotics has 119 comments.
The 2025 Holiday Poetry Sale has closed, with a massive amount of material to post. It will take me a long time to get it all online, so please keep an eye on the sale page.
Watch for
snowflake_challenge to open on January 1. This panfandom activity is one of Dreamwidth's biggest events and a great time to make new friends.Watch for
threeforthememories to open on January 3. It features your top three photographs from the past year."An Inkling of Things to Come" belongs to Polychrome: Shiv. It needs $72 to be complete. Shiv and his classmates discuss magical weather, magical geography, natural resources, plants and animals, history, and other aspects of worldbuilding.
The weather was mild for most of the week, but today it stormed. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a flock of mourning doves in the ritual meadow, and two fox squirrels running through the trees.
Friending Policy 12-28-25
Dec. 28th, 2025 11:45 pmysabetwordsmithDue to requests for a friending policy, and different ways that people use friending tools online, I have done my best to describe my parameters. (See the 2020 version.)
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Transformative Works Statement 12-28-25
Dec. 28th, 2025 10:46 pmysabetwordsmithPeople keep clamoring for this sort of thing. Ideally, everyone should have a "blanket statement." While I don't have a stance on many of the points, it seems useful to post the ones where I do have a stance. (See the 2020 version.)
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Poem: "Incompressible"
Dec. 28th, 2025 10:13 pmysabetwordsmithThis poem came out of the January 2, 2024 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "When You're Smiling" square in my 1-1-24 card for the Public Domain Day Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Foster Fiasco thread in the Polychrome Heroics series.
( Read more... )
dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "When You're Smiling" square in my 1-1-24 card for the Public Domain Day Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Foster Fiasco thread in the Polychrome Heroics series.( Read more... )
Poem: "A Stronger Woman"
Dec. 28th, 2025 05:58 pmysabetwordsmithThis poem is spillover from the July 1, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from fuzzyred, see_also_friend, and wyld_dandelyon. It also fills the "Put me down!" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Fortressa thread in the Polychrome Heroics series.
( Read more... )
fuzzyred, see_also_friend, and wyld_dandelyon. It also fills the "Put me down!" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Fortressa thread in the Polychrome Heroics series.( Read more... )
Wildlife
Dec. 28th, 2025 04:41 pmysabetwordsmithThe deep ocean has a missing link and scientists finally found it
Hidden in the ocean’s twilight zone, mid-sized fish are quietly powering the food web from below.
Scientists have uncovered why big predators like sharks spend so much time in the ocean’s twilight zone. The answer lies with mid-sized fish such as the bigscale pomfret, which live deep during the day and rise at night to feed, linking deep and surface food webs. Using satellite tags, researchers tracked these hard-to-study fish for the first time. Their movements shift with water clarity, potentially altering entire ocean food chains.
For every thing like this that scientists discover, many more critical connections remain unknown to modern science -- and that's why changing "one little thing" in an ecosystem often has bigger, unexpected impacts elsewhere.
Hidden in the ocean’s twilight zone, mid-sized fish are quietly powering the food web from below.
Scientists have uncovered why big predators like sharks spend so much time in the ocean’s twilight zone. The answer lies with mid-sized fish such as the bigscale pomfret, which live deep during the day and rise at night to feed, linking deep and surface food webs. Using satellite tags, researchers tracked these hard-to-study fish for the first time. Their movements shift with water clarity, potentially altering entire ocean food chains.
For every thing like this that scientists discover, many more critical connections remain unknown to modern science -- and that's why changing "one little thing" in an ecosystem often has bigger, unexpected impacts elsewhere.
Birdfeeding
Dec. 28th, 2025 03:00 pmysabetwordsmithToday is cloudy, windy, and cool.
I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 12/28/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 12/28/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/28/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
It started raining, and the sky is weird colors, so I am done for the night.
I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 12/28/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 12/28/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 12/28/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
It started raining, and the sky is weird colors, so I am done for the night.
Poem: "Tenacity, Creativity, and Bravery"
Dec. 27th, 2025 11:02 pmysabetwordsmithThis poem is spillover from the October 3, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from mama_kestrel and see_also_friend. It also fills the "There are many flavors of outcasts here." square in my 10-1-23 card for the Fall Fest Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Eric the Elven King thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.
( Read more... )
mama_kestrel and see_also_friend. It also fills the "There are many flavors of outcasts here." square in my 10-1-23 card for the Fall Fest Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Eric the Elven King thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.( Read more... )
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Communities
Dec. 27th, 2025 09:12 pmysabetwordsmithThe City That Refused to Stay Dying
This Indiana city is no longer defined by what it lost, but by what its residents are building today.
Instead of waiting for a master plan or a single catalytic investment, Keen began assembling homes and vacant parcels one by one. He helped launch the Portage Midtown Initiative and the South Bend GreenHouse, restored neglected homes, cultivated community gardens, and supported local builders learning to tackle small projects themselves. He often refers to these lots collectively as his “farm.”
This approach can work in many cities.
This Indiana city is no longer defined by what it lost, but by what its residents are building today.
Instead of waiting for a master plan or a single catalytic investment, Keen began assembling homes and vacant parcels one by one. He helped launch the Portage Midtown Initiative and the South Bend GreenHouse, restored neglected homes, cultivated community gardens, and supported local builders learning to tackle small projects themselves. He often refers to these lots collectively as his “farm.”
This approach can work in many cities.
