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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-19 07:36 pm

Pool Update

[personal profile] fuzzyred has closed the pool.  I don't have the full list of sponsored poems yet, just the early ones are already marked.  

The Holiday Poetry Sale itself is still open through the end of Friday.  Far as I know, Coracle Shores and Crystal Wood are still available as they weren't on any target lists.  If more folks buy stuff and there are overlaps, we'll figure it out as we go along.
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-19 07:18 pm

Safety

The western U.S. Tried to stop wildfires and it backfired

After a century of stopping fires, much of the West is now dangerously overdue for them.

Much of the western U.S. is overdue for wildfire, with decades of suppression allowing fuel to build up across millions of hectares. Researchers estimate that 74% of the region is in a fire deficit, meaning far more land needs to burn to restore healthy forest conditions. Catching up would require an unprecedented amount of controlled and managed fire.



I told you so.

Read more... )
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-19 07:15 pm
Entry tags:

Today's Cooking

Today I made crockpot shrimp boil with potatoes, onion, baby corncobs, and shrimp.  It was okay but not exciting.  The Old Bay seasoning was more heat than flavor, so I used a little of that then added a bay leaf, oregano, and thyme.  An interesting experiment but not worth repeating. 
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-19 03:21 pm

Wildlife

Ancient oceans were ruled by super predators unlike anything today

Long before whales and sharks, enormous marine reptiles dominated the oceans with unmatched power. Scientists have reconstructed a 130-million-year-old marine ecosystem from Colombia and found predators operating at a food-chain level higher than any seen today. The ancient seas were bursting with life, from giant reptiles to rich invertebrate communities. This extreme complexity reveals how intense competition helped drive the evolution of modern marine ecosystems. Interestingly, a warm climate with high, shallow seas is exactly where Earth is headed via climate change. After the Anthropocene extinction, many niches will lie open, waiting for new species to claim them.
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-19 03:19 pm

Birdfeeding

Today is mostly sunny and chilly.  It rained off and on all yesterday but has stopped now.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/19/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 12/19/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/19/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

I carried 4 logs from the driveway pile to the patio rack.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.
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yourlibrarian ([personal profile] yourlibrarian) wrote in [community profile] shutterspeed2025-12-19 12:49 pm

Three for the Memories Coming Back Next Month!



3 for the Memories' 2025 session will be open for posts on January 3, 2026 and will run for 3 weeks until January 24. Event participation is as follows:

1) Three photos only per person during each annual session. Members are encouraged to discuss the reason for their choices.

2) Photos can be hosted at Dreamwidth or elsewhere, and should not be larger than 800 px width or height.

3) All three photos should be in the same post. Cut tags should be placed after the first photo.

3 for the Memories is not a competition, and entries are not being judged. Rather, participants are encouraged to share photos they took in 2025 that they find meaningful in some way or which represent how they experienced the year.

Questions? Visit the announcement post at [community profile] threeforthememories
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Cimorene ([personal profile] cimorene) wrote2025-12-19 02:15 pm
Entry tags:

More about the Golden Age detective fiction context of Wake Up Dead Man

I've been thinking about Wake Up Dead Man some more even though I haven't gone and looked up the list of books, because I am not ready to purchase new ebooks yet, and that's what I'll have to do for the ones there I haven't read before.

Meanwhile though, I have been rereading some Agatha Christie. I am not exactly a giant Christie fan, but I have read most of Agatha Christie's works (and usually multiple times) because I like Golden Age mystery as a genre and my MIL was a superfan, so I have had convenient access to paperbacks of Christie's works.

And I realized with a start yesterday that while the setting and setup in Wake Up Dead Man is in some respects is EXTREMELY typical of Golden Age detective fiction, in another it's very very unusual - Some spoilers )
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-19 03:33 am

Follow Friday 12-19-25: Languages and Linguistics

Today's theme is Languages and Linguistics. There are many posts on Dreamwidth in different languages, but it doesn't have a sort function for them, and communities rarely list it in their Interests. If you know any more communities or bloggers relevant to this topic, please share them in a comment.

Read more... )
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-18 11:57 pm

Poetry Fishbowl Update

[personal profile] fuzzyred will be closing the pool around midday Friday. The sale itself lasts until the end of Friday. If you're still shopping the Holiday Poetry Sale, now's the time to make your choices!
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-18 03:36 pm

Dinosaurs

Italy makes a surprising discovery ahead of the Winter Olympics: dinosaur tracks

On Tuesday, Italian officials announced the discovery of thousands of dinosaur tracks on "nearly vertical dolomite walls" in Stelvio National Park, a protected area in the central Alps of northern Italy.
[---8<---]
"The tracks, preserved in excellent condition despite the altitude, show traces of toes and claws imprinted on the walls when they were tidal flats at the end of the Triassic," the Natural History Museum says. That period spanned 252 to 201 million years ago.

Della Ferrara notified authorities of his findings, setting paleontological research into motion. Preliminary analyses suggest most of the tracks came from "herbivorous prosauropod dinosaurs" — the long-necked creatures that predate enormous sauropods like the ones depicted in the "Jurassic Park" franchise.


Read more... )
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-18 01:37 pm

Birdfeeding

Today is cloudy, chilly, windy, and wet.  It's drizzling now.  At least all the snow and ice melted off though.

I fed the birds.  Unsurprisingly I haven't seen any.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/18/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 12/18/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

It's been raining off and on all day.  It was raining so briskly in the afternoon that not all the outside tasks got done.  Fortunately it's just drizzling now so I finished up what I could.  I haven't seen any wildlife all day, which is sensible of them.

The sky has been so cloudy all day that it was perennially twilight.  At sunset, the sun hit a band of less clouds, so now 3/4 of the sky is bizarre shades of orange-purple.  The road is wet and catching the last light of day like a ribbon of gold.

I am done for the night.
 
tcampbell1000 ([personal profile] tcampbell1000) wrote in [community profile] scans_daily2025-12-18 12:32 pm

Despot, Dome Scandal: JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE #3-4 (JLI 38)



JLI #16-17 introduced the Queen Bee and her alliance with Jack O’Lantern. In that first appearance, she was all poise and grace. Despite her chilling games of mind control, she also exuded a false warmth that snared lovers and allies and disarmed her enemies.

In her second appearance, the warmth is gone. It’s true what they say: holding high political office ages people before their time.

But why won’t certain office-holders DIE of old age already? )
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Cimorene ([personal profile] cimorene) wrote2025-12-18 03:08 pm

Aggressive trees and greenery

The last time [personal profile] waxjism rearranged plants she put the three biggest ones - trees, they are trees - all at the west livingroom window.



Left to right (above) are Benjamin the ficus benjamina or weeping fig - inherited from Wax's granny and at least 25 years old; Jules Feiffer the pachira aquatica or money tree - bought as a baby from a nursery because I really wanted it (love the braided trunk) between 2014-2016, so it's pretty old, but it's only ever grown up and it never gets any fatter and barely has any roots; and Nelly the Hibiscus × rosa-sinensis, known colloquially as Chinese hibiscus, China rose, Hawaiian hibiscus, rose mallow and shoeblack plant - this was MIL's pride and joy and I think Wax said it's older than her, so probably at least 50 now. Jules especially is apparently crazy about the light there, even though the grow light died and Wax replaced it temporarily with a normal lightbulb. The window is a jungle.

The north window shelf is covered with three Thanksgiving cacti, two dormant orchids, a philodendron Henderson's Pride, and a polka dotted begonia. This shelf has been more cluttered at times, but it still gives a very strongly planty impression.
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-17 08:28 pm

History

This 8,000-year-old art shows math before numbers existed

Over 8,000 years ago, early farming communities in northern Mesopotamia were already thinking mathematically—long before numbers were written down. By closely studying Halafian pottery, researchers uncovered floral and plant designs arranged with precise symmetry and numerical patterns, revealing a surprisingly advanced sense of geometry.


People learned to count and do math, sometimes rather sophisticated math, long before they got around to writing numerals or equations.  As for geometry, it's very easy to obtain workable patterns that scale well by examining nature.  Fibonacci sequence and fractals both yield very useful parameters.
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ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-12-17 06:22 pm

Birdfeeding

Today is partly sunny and chilly.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a male cardinal.