lirazel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lirazel) wrote2025-11-16 06:44 pm
lirazel) wrote2025-11-16 06:44 pmEntry tags:
fic: muscle and blood
muscle and blood (10003 words) by Lirazel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Melissa "Mel" King/Frank Langdon
Characters: Frank Langdon, Melissa "Mel" King
Additional Tags: Post-Season/Series 01, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Appalachian Frank Langdon, trailer trash (affectionate) frank langdon, Frank Langdon's Daddy Issues, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, Protective Melissa "Mel" King
Summary:
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Melissa "Mel" King/Frank Langdon
Characters: Frank Langdon, Melissa "Mel" King
Additional Tags: Post-Season/Series 01, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Appalachian Frank Langdon, trailer trash (affectionate) frank langdon, Frank Langdon's Daddy Issues, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, Protective Melissa "Mel" King
Summary:
Frank’s biological father is a non-entity, Mel decides, either in actuality (as in Frank doesn’t ever think about him) or at least in his relationship with her (as in he does think about him but doesn’t want to discuss it), so she’s honestly forgotten that he even exists until the day they walk out of PTMC towards the parking lot and a sudden, rough voice says, “Frankie,” and Frank goes so stiff beside her that it scares her.
Frank never talks about his dad.
Elizabeth Perry (watersword) wrote2025-11-16 06:41 pm
watersword) wrote2025-11-16 06:41 pm(no subject)
Yesterday's treadmill session was the longest yet and incredibly boring, even with A Court of Fey and Flowers distracting me. I ended up with the beginning of a blister and no willpower left to resist the prospect of samosas and saag paneer at the Indian restaurant down the block, but honestly $45 for three meals is pretty reasonable.
And then I was awake from 4:30 to 6:30 and am not happy about it. But I made decent hash with fried eggs for breakfast and put the cast iron re-seasoning in the oven alongside a packet of garlic, and made a small pot of cranberry applesauce with red wine on the stove, and sent the robovac trundling around my bedroom, so I rescued my Sunday from a pretty dismal start.
Yet again I have to go to campus more than once this week, and this can only end badly.
Ysabet (umadoshi) wrote2025-11-16 01:38 pm
umadoshi) wrote2025-11-16 01:38 pmEntry tags:
Weekly(ish) proof of life: reading (no notes), weather, and butter chicken sadness
Reading: Recently finished: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (Schwab, V.E.), Confidence (Frumkin, Rafael), and Hemlock & Silver (Kingfisher, T.).
Currently reading: Still working through Almost Everything: Notes on Hope (Lamott, Anne) and most of the way through Metal from Heaven (Clarke, August).scruloose and I have passed the halfway mark on listening to Network Effect, and haven't watched anything since that's occupying our "watch/listen to something together" time.
Weathering: Well, the weather sure has noticed it's November! This is not the first gray wet day we've had, and while yesterday kindly didn't rain on us when we went out erranding, it was down near the freezing mark (and had gone below overnight).
Eating:scruloose and I have a delicious go-to Indian place, but both it and our fallback spot too universally have onions in everything for them to be good choices for Ginny, so periodically when she and Kas are over we gamble on an Indian spot that none of us have tried. ( butter chicken sadness )
Currently reading: Still working through Almost Everything: Notes on Hope (Lamott, Anne) and most of the way through Metal from Heaven (Clarke, August).
scruloose and I have passed the halfway mark on listening to Network Effect, and haven't watched anything since that's occupying our "watch/listen to something together" time.Weathering: Well, the weather sure has noticed it's November! This is not the first gray wet day we've had, and while yesterday kindly didn't rain on us when we went out erranding, it was down near the freezing mark (and had gone below overnight).
Eating:
scruloose and I have a delicious go-to Indian place, but both it and our fallback spot too universally have onions in everything for them to be good choices for Ginny, so periodically when she and Kas are over we gamble on an Indian spot that none of us have tried. ( butter chicken sadness )
skygiants (skygiants) wrote2025-11-15 10:48 am
skygiants) wrote2025-11-15 10:48 amEntry tags:
(no subject)
I am extremely belated in actually posting about Taiwan Travelogue -- I know that I read it before June, because in June was when I was talking about it with recognito and he said 'oh I think it's an Utena riff' and I was like ?? ?!?! !!!! aj;dlkfjs;l of course it's an Utena riff. (recognito's post about it here.)
Which is of course a very unfair way to begin this post because it's many other things besides an Utena riff- primarily of course a story about colonization and power relations, as told through gender and appetite. Taiwan Travelogue is a book that presents itself as a translation from the Japanese into Taiwanese -- which I of course then read translated into English, another layering into the text -- of a Japanese writer's journal of her time in Taiwan, 1938-9. She's there to promote her book, not to promote the project of Japanese Imperial Expansion, of which she certainly does not really approve! and which she is not going to propagandize, except in the ways that she can't help but propagandize it! and she wants to experience the real Taiwan, most notably Real Taiwanese Food. Aoyama's major passion in life is eating, she is a tall young woman with a huge appetite, and the tour guide experiences that have been prepared for her are not sufficient to her desires.
Enter Ong: Aoyama's new entry point into Taiwan, a quiet young woman from a mysterious background who, unlike her other assigned translator, is willing to not only take Aoyama off the beaten path to Unapproved Culinary Experiences but also to provide additional culinary experiences at home in her lodgings. Whatever Aoyama hears about, she wants to eat. One way or another, Ong makes it happen. Ong, it turns out, is the only person Aoyama's ever met who can eat as much as Aoyama can; Aoyama feels a deep connection to her, is desperate for some sense of genuine reciprocal emotion, but no matter what she tries, moving from their employer/employee dynamic into something genuine seems impossible. From Aoyama's point of view, she's always reaching out, and Ong is always slipping away, putting up a barrier. As Ong sees it -- well, whatever she's trying to tell Aoyama, Aoyama does not understand.
The metaphor of colonialism as played out through the inherent power imbalances of a failed romance is not a new theme and plays out more or less as expected here, though it's relevant that this is a book about A Lesbian: one of the things that the text wants to explore I think is how being, in your own mind, in the position of an underdog and an outsider makes it harder for you to see the ways and situations in which you are neither of those things. But really what I found most striking about the book is not the central relationship at all, but the food. The book has a lot of dishes in it, and every dish has a context and a history: the ingredients come from somewhere, the way it's made has a certain history to it, the way it's made in one location differs from the way it's made in a different location, and Ong always takes care to explain why. The portrait of the impact that colonization by Japan has had on Taiwan is largely drawn through detailed descriptions of changing recipes. The book made me very aware of how hungry I am for material culture in my fiction! ... and also it just made me normal hungry.
recognito and he said 'oh I think it's an Utena riff' and I was like ?? ?!?! !!!! aj;dlkfjs;l of course it's an Utena riff. (recognito's post about it here.) Which is of course a very unfair way to begin this post because it's many other things besides an Utena riff- primarily of course a story about colonization and power relations, as told through gender and appetite. Taiwan Travelogue is a book that presents itself as a translation from the Japanese into Taiwanese -- which I of course then read translated into English, another layering into the text -- of a Japanese writer's journal of her time in Taiwan, 1938-9. She's there to promote her book, not to promote the project of Japanese Imperial Expansion, of which she certainly does not really approve! and which she is not going to propagandize, except in the ways that she can't help but propagandize it! and she wants to experience the real Taiwan, most notably Real Taiwanese Food. Aoyama's major passion in life is eating, she is a tall young woman with a huge appetite, and the tour guide experiences that have been prepared for her are not sufficient to her desires.
Enter Ong: Aoyama's new entry point into Taiwan, a quiet young woman from a mysterious background who, unlike her other assigned translator, is willing to not only take Aoyama off the beaten path to Unapproved Culinary Experiences but also to provide additional culinary experiences at home in her lodgings. Whatever Aoyama hears about, she wants to eat. One way or another, Ong makes it happen. Ong, it turns out, is the only person Aoyama's ever met who can eat as much as Aoyama can; Aoyama feels a deep connection to her, is desperate for some sense of genuine reciprocal emotion, but no matter what she tries, moving from their employer/employee dynamic into something genuine seems impossible. From Aoyama's point of view, she's always reaching out, and Ong is always slipping away, putting up a barrier. As Ong sees it -- well, whatever she's trying to tell Aoyama, Aoyama does not understand.
The metaphor of colonialism as played out through the inherent power imbalances of a failed romance is not a new theme and plays out more or less as expected here, though it's relevant that this is a book about A Lesbian: one of the things that the text wants to explore I think is how being, in your own mind, in the position of an underdog and an outsider makes it harder for you to see the ways and situations in which you are neither of those things. But really what I found most striking about the book is not the central relationship at all, but the food. The book has a lot of dishes in it, and every dish has a context and a history: the ingredients come from somewhere, the way it's made has a certain history to it, the way it's made in one location differs from the way it's made in a different location, and Ong always takes care to explain why. The portrait of the impact that colonization by Japan has had on Taiwan is largely drawn through detailed descriptions of changing recipes. The book made me very aware of how hungry I am for material culture in my fiction! ... and also it just made me normal hungry.
yourlibrarian (yourlibrarian) wrote2025-11-12 03:32 pm
yourlibrarian) wrote2025-11-12 03:32 pmEntry tags:
Snow No One Seemed to Be Expecting
1) Maybe given that Sunday morning's snow was light and disappeared when it hit the ground, no one was expecting it to stick. But it sure did. As a result, our complex had not salted stairs or sidewalks and had not plowed parking lots. And the local roadways hadn't been either.
The stairs had snow 2 inches deep on them, so I descended carefully Monday morning. The snow was very powdery so it brushed off the car easily. Funny thing though, the snow came from the southeast side. The other side of the car? Completely clear, no snow at all. ( Read more... )
I was thinking of how booking your own appointment online is rarely the convenience it's supposed to be. It's never worked for me at my medical group because I can't do it without inputting a mobile number. When I was trying to do it for car maintenance appointments, it would turn out the appointments didn't sync with the in-office calendar they had. And here, had I spoken to a person they would have known the doctor wouldn't be in on Monday at all.
2) Watched a multi-episode documentary on Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. I suspect that the various revelations would be unlikely to emerge with any living subject, or without the sort of research that went into it while they were still alive. ( Read more... )
3) First posted over at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tv_talk, Paramount has just cut 1000 jobs and 1000 more job cuts are expected. They want to reach "$2 billion in expense cuts across the company." That's more than most companies and some countries are worth.
Job cuts after an acquisition aren't surprising. It usually happens in a frenzy, and some positions come back once the losses start leading to problems. But a line in this news story, as well as another article coming out the same day, made me start thinking about where big cuts are likely to come from.
"More than 800 people — or about 3.5% of the company’s workforce — were laid off in June, prior to the Ellison family takeover. At the time, Paramount’s management attributed the cuts to the decline of cable television subscriptions and an increased emphasis on bulking up its streaming TV business. In 2024, the company eliminated 2,000 positions, or 15% of its staff." (emphasis mine) ( Read more... )
4) Speaking of TV habits, a study about people's searching behavior finding content on streamers indicated 46% of those surveyed are having more trouble finding what they want, and are more willing to cancel their subscriptions because of the difficulties. Searching time can run from 12 to 26 minutes. Many users also use the Internet to find information rather than the apps themselves.
The answer for many companies is to embed more AI with an eye to making their services able to answer general questions as well as viewing related ones.
5) More streamers are using pause ads. Personally I don't mind these, especially if they only take over the screen as an opt-in feature. I pause stuff often for different reasons, and as long as the ads aren't interrupting my viewing, they can have the screen.
That said, there are plans afoot to use AI to tie ads into the show action as well as localize your viewing. "Amazon has begun to offer the format to local and regional advertisers, says Jenn Donohue, director of local ad sales at Amazon Ads. Commercials from regional banks or community grocery stores can often be extremely meaningful to viewers, she says, and “there’s nothing more important than making it very relevant to the experience that I’m having as a viewer.”"
The stairs had snow 2 inches deep on them, so I descended carefully Monday morning. The snow was very powdery so it brushed off the car easily. Funny thing though, the snow came from the southeast side. The other side of the car? Completely clear, no snow at all. ( Read more... )
I was thinking of how booking your own appointment online is rarely the convenience it's supposed to be. It's never worked for me at my medical group because I can't do it without inputting a mobile number. When I was trying to do it for car maintenance appointments, it would turn out the appointments didn't sync with the in-office calendar they had. And here, had I spoken to a person they would have known the doctor wouldn't be in on Monday at all.
2) Watched a multi-episode documentary on Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. I suspect that the various revelations would be unlikely to emerge with any living subject, or without the sort of research that went into it while they were still alive. ( Read more... )
3) First posted over at
tv_talk, Paramount has just cut 1000 jobs and 1000 more job cuts are expected. They want to reach "$2 billion in expense cuts across the company." That's more than most companies and some countries are worth.Job cuts after an acquisition aren't surprising. It usually happens in a frenzy, and some positions come back once the losses start leading to problems. But a line in this news story, as well as another article coming out the same day, made me start thinking about where big cuts are likely to come from.
"More than 800 people — or about 3.5% of the company’s workforce — were laid off in June, prior to the Ellison family takeover. At the time, Paramount’s management attributed the cuts to the decline of cable television subscriptions and an increased emphasis on bulking up its streaming TV business. In 2024, the company eliminated 2,000 positions, or 15% of its staff." (emphasis mine) ( Read more... )
4) Speaking of TV habits, a study about people's searching behavior finding content on streamers indicated 46% of those surveyed are having more trouble finding what they want, and are more willing to cancel their subscriptions because of the difficulties. Searching time can run from 12 to 26 minutes. Many users also use the Internet to find information rather than the apps themselves.
The answer for many companies is to embed more AI with an eye to making their services able to answer general questions as well as viewing related ones.
5) More streamers are using pause ads. Personally I don't mind these, especially if they only take over the screen as an opt-in feature. I pause stuff often for different reasons, and as long as the ads aren't interrupting my viewing, they can have the screen.
That said, there are plans afoot to use AI to tie ads into the show action as well as localize your viewing. "Amazon has begun to offer the format to local and regional advertisers, says Jenn Donohue, director of local ad sales at Amazon Ads. Commercials from regional banks or community grocery stores can often be extremely meaningful to viewers, she says, and “there’s nothing more important than making it very relevant to the experience that I’m having as a viewer.”"
Poll #33829 Kudos Footer-550
This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8
Want to leave a Kudos?
elisi (elisi) wrote2025-11-12 08:50 am
elisi) wrote2025-11-12 08:50 am
Entry tags:
Guess who is going to a concert???
I booked the tickets back in March and it's been this future event for so long that it seems impossible that it's actually today.
Dimash arrived in London two days ago and immediately went to CNN to do an interview:
See you on the other side... 🎶🎤🎵
Dimash arrived in London two days ago and immediately went to CNN to do an interview:
See you on the other side... 🎶🎤🎵
snickfic (snickfic) wrote2025-11-11 11:13 am
snickfic) wrote2025-11-11 11:13 amEntry tags:
movies
A lot of meh here.
Crash (1996). A man and his wife get involved in the car crash fetish scene. I really don't think "erotic thriller" is adequate preparation for this movie, but then again I'm not sure what is. I recently saw this described as "a series of sex scenes separated by car crashes," and that's about right.
I liked:
- The completely normalized polyamory. This married couple get off on fucking other people and telling each other about it, good for them.
- That it was a lot gayer than I expected, especially for 1996. Both m/m and f/f scenes (even if the latter felt a bit out of nowhere).
I was disappointed by:
- James Spader. THIS is James Spader? This is the guy everyone is low-key obssessed with? This gormless Zach Gilford lookalike?
- How we open with the wife, but the husband gets all the development, and she just gets pulled along in his wake. She seems to enjoy it, but I wanted to see her take some initiative, too.
- Somehow I'd osmosed that there was like car-related body mod stuff, like Cronenberg's version of Tetsuo: The Iron Man. The one gal with the leg brace was not really sufficient for my tastes.
--
Predator: Badlands (2025). A Yautja runt goes on a quest to kill an unkillable monster to avenge(?) his brother's death at his father's hands, and ends up teaming up with a Weyland-Yutani synth (Elle Fanning) with no legs.
This is by the same guy who directed Prey, Dan Trachtenberg. The writing felt more obvious and more cobbled-together than that movie, probably because it was trying to do more. I got tired of people stating the same obvious story beat multiple times.
I think this is the first time the Yautja have been humanized to nearly this degree, right? I've only seen Prey and the AvP movies, so I may be missing some lore. I'm not sure what I needed from a race of big game hunters was daddy issues, but otoh murderous patriarchy does go hand in hand with the big game hunting, I guess. IDK, I wanted the Yautja in general and our specimen in particular to be weirder.
However, I eventually enjoyed Thia the synth, who has a kind of anti-Gamora/Nebula relationship with a fellow synth. It passed the Bechdel test, good job! And the movie had some fantastic deadly alien fauna. Just completely bonkers creatures that want to kill you in the most unlikely ways. A+.
--
Die My Love (2025). A woman (Jennifer Lawrence) moves with her husband (Robert Pattinson) to his rural family home, has a baby, and has a mental breakdown.
My impression of this movie from the trailer was that this was maybe about a couple's relationship slowly escalating to bonkers attempted murder. (Pattinson's presence definitely contributed to my impression of it being bonkers.) There was no baby in the trailer I saw, and if there had been I wouldn't have gone to see it. That said, I don't know that it was ABOUT motherhood or post-partum depression or about the marital relationship. Frankly, I cannot confidently say what it was about. The choice of first and last shots suggest it's about the house?
I can't say it's not bonkers, but more in terms of its storytelling choices than its content as such. The timeline is weird and confused, but not in an interesting way. We learn literally nothing about the main character's background until about the 80% mark. (She was orphaned at age 10? Might be good to mention that earlier??)
Some of what we see on screen probably isn't happening. The ending, where she walks naked into a forest fire, I feel almost certainly didn't happen. There's a recurring theme where she prowls around on the ground but also might be pretending to be a horse? Also there's a horse that just wanders around and which they hit with their car at one point? (To be fair, it's not the first movie this year where a thematically significant horse just wanders through now and then. Looking at you, On Swift Horses.)
To be honest, JLaw was the biggest draw of this movie for me, and I did get plenty of her. It's a JLaw showcase, and I also enjoyed Sissy Spacek in a supporting role. But overall, man. I ventured outside my usual genre, and I had regrets!
Crash (1996). A man and his wife get involved in the car crash fetish scene. I really don't think "erotic thriller" is adequate preparation for this movie, but then again I'm not sure what is. I recently saw this described as "a series of sex scenes separated by car crashes," and that's about right.
I liked:
- The completely normalized polyamory. This married couple get off on fucking other people and telling each other about it, good for them.
- That it was a lot gayer than I expected, especially for 1996. Both m/m and f/f scenes (even if the latter felt a bit out of nowhere).
I was disappointed by:
- James Spader. THIS is James Spader? This is the guy everyone is low-key obssessed with? This gormless Zach Gilford lookalike?
- How we open with the wife, but the husband gets all the development, and she just gets pulled along in his wake. She seems to enjoy it, but I wanted to see her take some initiative, too.
- Somehow I'd osmosed that there was like car-related body mod stuff, like Cronenberg's version of Tetsuo: The Iron Man. The one gal with the leg brace was not really sufficient for my tastes.
--
Predator: Badlands (2025). A Yautja runt goes on a quest to kill an unkillable monster to avenge(?) his brother's death at his father's hands, and ends up teaming up with a Weyland-Yutani synth (Elle Fanning) with no legs.
This is by the same guy who directed Prey, Dan Trachtenberg. The writing felt more obvious and more cobbled-together than that movie, probably because it was trying to do more. I got tired of people stating the same obvious story beat multiple times.
I think this is the first time the Yautja have been humanized to nearly this degree, right? I've only seen Prey and the AvP movies, so I may be missing some lore. I'm not sure what I needed from a race of big game hunters was daddy issues, but otoh murderous patriarchy does go hand in hand with the big game hunting, I guess. IDK, I wanted the Yautja in general and our specimen in particular to be weirder.
However, I eventually enjoyed Thia the synth, who has a kind of anti-Gamora/Nebula relationship with a fellow synth. It passed the Bechdel test, good job! And the movie had some fantastic deadly alien fauna. Just completely bonkers creatures that want to kill you in the most unlikely ways. A+.
--
Die My Love (2025). A woman (Jennifer Lawrence) moves with her husband (Robert Pattinson) to his rural family home, has a baby, and has a mental breakdown.
My impression of this movie from the trailer was that this was maybe about a couple's relationship slowly escalating to bonkers attempted murder. (Pattinson's presence definitely contributed to my impression of it being bonkers.) There was no baby in the trailer I saw, and if there had been I wouldn't have gone to see it. That said, I don't know that it was ABOUT motherhood or post-partum depression or about the marital relationship. Frankly, I cannot confidently say what it was about. The choice of first and last shots suggest it's about the house?
I can't say it's not bonkers, but more in terms of its storytelling choices than its content as such. The timeline is weird and confused, but not in an interesting way. We learn literally nothing about the main character's background until about the 80% mark. (She was orphaned at age 10? Might be good to mention that earlier??)
Some of what we see on screen probably isn't happening. The ending, where she walks naked into a forest fire, I feel almost certainly didn't happen. There's a recurring theme where she prowls around on the ground but also might be pretending to be a horse? Also there's a horse that just wanders around and which they hit with their car at one point? (To be fair, it's not the first movie this year where a thematically significant horse just wanders through now and then. Looking at you, On Swift Horses.)
To be honest, JLaw was the biggest draw of this movie for me, and I did get plenty of her. It's a JLaw showcase, and I also enjoyed Sissy Spacek in a supporting role. But overall, man. I ventured outside my usual genre, and I had regrets!
elisi (elisi) wrote2025-11-11 07:32 am
elisi) wrote2025-11-11 07:32 amEntry tags:
Remembrance Day 2025
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Elizabeth Perry (watersword) wrote2025-11-10 11:10 am
watersword) wrote2025-11-10 11:10 am(no subject)
Realized after my most recent gym session that I'd been misreading the training plan and I have accidentally skipped about half a training session so far, and sessions are going to take longer than I thought. Whoops. The good news is, I also realized that this is a great opportunity to watch Dropout, give that reading on my phone at a 3mph pace is not super comfortable. So fingers crossed I actually like Dimension 20!
I made squash dumplings and banana bread and if I can make myself get off the couch, will bake gâteau invisible and a fresh loaf of bread. How is it possible that I picked up my CSA box on Friday, went to the farmer's market on Saturday, got some groceries Sunday, and yet I still need to buy more ingredients for food? Also I would like a gold star for excavating the frozen bananas, it is really hard to keep weird-shaped things like whole bananas organized neatly, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
yourlibrarian (yourlibrarian) wrote2025-11-08 07:39 pm
yourlibrarian) wrote2025-11-08 07:39 pmEntry tags:
What We Don't Want
1) Amazon plans to deploy automated translation of books into non-English languages.
2) Chances are so many past shows have been cancelled due to inaccurate measurements. While that's no longer true for streaming content, it still is for cable and broadcast. ( Read more... )
3) Alarming stats about AI slop: "There's a streaming platform called Deezer... And they're one of the very few platforms that... actually set up a AI detection algorithm..And back in January, they reported that 10% of those [new] songs were AI generated, and they don't allow them on the platform. But then a few months later in April, they said 18% of the songs...delivered were AI generated. And just a few days ago, the September report came out and the number is up to 28%. And so I think ... we're just not even given a choice about whether we wanna see this or hear this stuff or not."
4) When reading this article about how people given the right information refuse to change their wrong take in the face of evidence, I was reminded of an unpleasant encounter this week. The writer of the article concludes that this is a social media issue, but I think it's worse than that. Social media has exacerbated behavior where people always have to be right. ( Read more... )
5) Yet what a difference it makes when an employee makes an effort to help. I had a WalMart gift card which I knew worked because I had used it in May. A few months ago when picking up other meds and groceries I tried to use it. It wouldn't scan. I asked for help and after trying it a few times, the clerk said I'd have to go into a regular cashier line because only they could input the card number. Given the line and having to rescan everything, I just paid with credit and left. ( Read more... )
2) Chances are so many past shows have been cancelled due to inaccurate measurements. While that's no longer true for streaming content, it still is for cable and broadcast. ( Read more... )
3) Alarming stats about AI slop: "There's a streaming platform called Deezer... And they're one of the very few platforms that... actually set up a AI detection algorithm..And back in January, they reported that 10% of those [new] songs were AI generated, and they don't allow them on the platform. But then a few months later in April, they said 18% of the songs...delivered were AI generated. And just a few days ago, the September report came out and the number is up to 28%. And so I think ... we're just not even given a choice about whether we wanna see this or hear this stuff or not."
4) When reading this article about how people given the right information refuse to change their wrong take in the face of evidence, I was reminded of an unpleasant encounter this week. The writer of the article concludes that this is a social media issue, but I think it's worse than that. Social media has exacerbated behavior where people always have to be right. ( Read more... )
5) Yet what a difference it makes when an employee makes an effort to help. I had a WalMart gift card which I knew worked because I had used it in May. A few months ago when picking up other meds and groceries I tried to use it. It wouldn't scan. I asked for help and after trying it a few times, the clerk said I'd have to go into a regular cashier line because only they could input the card number. Given the line and having to rescan everything, I just paid with credit and left. ( Read more... )
Poll #33818 Kudos Footer-549
This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7
Want to leave a Kudos?
yourlibrarian (yourlibrarian) wrote2025-11-05 01:19 pm
yourlibrarian) wrote2025-11-05 01:19 pmEntry tags:
Things Completed
1) nacramamo has ended and for the time being so has my jewelry making. I made more than I posted about, although there was a lot of that, too. Just a reminder that everykindofcraft remains open for everyday work in progress, completed or stalled.
2) Finished a few shows, such as Perry Mason on HBO. I can see why it was cancelled. It was ambitious and fairly well written, and I thought the character backstories made sense. However, it liked to roll around in the noir aspects rather too much, which I think affected the pacing in S1. I prefer S2. I also think you could watch S2 on its own. ( Read more... )
3) Finished both seasons of House of the Dragon. Am looking forward to S3. I can see why Game of Thrones would have drawn people in. I love a complicated political story with various competing interests, which is what this is. Add in the important female protagonists and it's interesting to follow the zigs and zags.
4) For those with pets, the same things are happening surrounding vet care, supplies and even services as with a lot of other industries – buyouts, stripping services to the bone, and reduction of care. "As with human health care, billionaire consolidators aim to extract big coin on veterinary services, pushing expensive tests and pricey interventions, instituting aggressive billing and collection, and focusing on cost-cutting on the service side, including squeezing wages from employees....These vulture investors typically collect management fees on all transactions, strip out profitable assets (including real estate), call the shots in terms of major decision-making in the practice, and charge fees for monitoring them, even as some of the companies they acquire spiral into bankruptcy. “It’s like setting the fire, being paid to put out the fire, and collecting the insurance on the fire all at the same time."
5) The issue of news avoidance or indifference isn't a new one, but what I found interesting in this was the breakdown of who actually sought out news or made it part of their routine:
MSNBC viewers: 72% active
CNN viewers: 71%
Seniors (65+): 69%
Daily Twitter users: 69%
Strong Democrats: 67%
White college grads: 67%
Fox News viewers: 66%
White collar workers: 66%
MAGA Republicans: 64%
Given this is a recent study I find this to be relatively unsurprising, as it leans towards politically engaged and even fanatical ideologues, who are the only people I can imagine being able to tolerate most of the news these days. Seniors are also unsurprising as they have traditionally been the biggest news consumers, partly due to time, but also because they have the most time to be politically engaged and are the most reliable voting bloc.
This also leads to a logical reversal in more passive news consumers: ( Read more... )
nacramamo has ended and for the time being so has my jewelry making. I made more than I posted about, although there was a lot of that, too. Just a reminder that everykindofcraft remains open for everyday work in progress, completed or stalled.2) Finished a few shows, such as Perry Mason on HBO. I can see why it was cancelled. It was ambitious and fairly well written, and I thought the character backstories made sense. However, it liked to roll around in the noir aspects rather too much, which I think affected the pacing in S1. I prefer S2. I also think you could watch S2 on its own. ( Read more... )
3) Finished both seasons of House of the Dragon. Am looking forward to S3. I can see why Game of Thrones would have drawn people in. I love a complicated political story with various competing interests, which is what this is. Add in the important female protagonists and it's interesting to follow the zigs and zags.
4) For those with pets, the same things are happening surrounding vet care, supplies and even services as with a lot of other industries – buyouts, stripping services to the bone, and reduction of care. "As with human health care, billionaire consolidators aim to extract big coin on veterinary services, pushing expensive tests and pricey interventions, instituting aggressive billing and collection, and focusing on cost-cutting on the service side, including squeezing wages from employees....These vulture investors typically collect management fees on all transactions, strip out profitable assets (including real estate), call the shots in terms of major decision-making in the practice, and charge fees for monitoring them, even as some of the companies they acquire spiral into bankruptcy. “It’s like setting the fire, being paid to put out the fire, and collecting the insurance on the fire all at the same time."
5) The issue of news avoidance or indifference isn't a new one, but what I found interesting in this was the breakdown of who actually sought out news or made it part of their routine:
MSNBC viewers: 72% active
CNN viewers: 71%
Seniors (65+): 69%
Daily Twitter users: 69%
Strong Democrats: 67%
White college grads: 67%
Fox News viewers: 66%
White collar workers: 66%
MAGA Republicans: 64%
Given this is a recent study I find this to be relatively unsurprising, as it leans towards politically engaged and even fanatical ideologues, who are the only people I can imagine being able to tolerate most of the news these days. Seniors are also unsurprising as they have traditionally been the biggest news consumers, partly due to time, but also because they have the most time to be politically engaged and are the most reliable voting bloc.
This also leads to a logical reversal in more passive news consumers: ( Read more... )
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Elizabeth Perry (watersword) wrote2025-11-05 10:53 am
watersword) wrote2025-11-05 10:53 ambourgeois me and bourgeois you
I bravely confronted the treadmill at the gym and am pleased to report that I was overly cautious about both the speed and incline settings (I am 100% terrified of faceplanting when I use a treadmill), so next time I will push both a little bit, as well as sticking to the slightly higher resistance on the erg. Half-marathon walking, here I come! (I do not give a single fuck about running a marathon, half or otherwise, but I have a planned trip that will mean a lot of walking on a lot of hills on successive days, and I would like not to die while doing so.)
Having some fuckin' feelings about this week's Life is a Sacred Text and my birthday and the choices I've made in my life and the consequences of those choices. And having some bonus feelings about ![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
velveteenrabbi_feed's True North and Sarah Kendzior's essay from November 2016 and my (access-locked) response back then. Of course, I am also having a lot of much less complicated feelings about the various elections results (Schadenfreude and sincere pleasure in an outcome? Put that chocolate in my orange marmalade!), and that is a great way to start the day.
There is a new Dessa EP and of course I love both tracks and am hoping for the annual Doomtree site sale in December so I can throw money at every CD they have in stock. The Brother Cadfael mysteries are excellent bath reading in between Aubreyad novels, although the identical teenage heterosexual romances begin to grate after a few; I finished Sharon Shinn's Twelve Houses series, which was largely enjoyable, and am going to embark on Helen Dewitt's The Last Samurai, having discovered it has no relationship to the 2003 movie, directed by Edward Zwick. (I cannot recommend Dewitt's The English Understand Wool highly enough. It is exquisite.)
elisi (elisi) wrote2025-11-05 07:23 am
elisi) wrote2025-11-05 07:23 am
Entry tags:
Hey, good news!
And Cuomo was a gracious loser, congratulating Mamdani and telling people off who were booing! I had forgotten what that looked like.
And then youtube suggested this, and it's wonderful:
Josh Johnson Gives Impromptu Speech About AI and Algorithms during set in Rochester, NY
ETA: Oh and Josh Johnson also has a whole bit about this election:
:)