Saturday mishmash--household stuff, dyed hair [and work stuff], and a few links
Dec. 13th, 2025 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
umadoshiLuck was not with us in the first attempt at clementines this year. (The batch we got are far from inedible, at least, but...not very good.) They're such a gamble these years. :/
Our new freezer arrived a week ago, and the plan is to finally get it in place today oncescruloose gets back from a market run. That hasn't happened yet due to a combination of factors and timing, the biggest of which is the fact that it'll require shifting some things out of the garage onto the driveway to make room for us to work with two upright freezers in play. (scruloose is going to take a stab at moving the old one out of its place without emptying it, via a hand cart, but we have no idea how likely that is to actually work. It'd sure be convenient, though.)
My hair is dyed! It is. Um. Very dark. By which I mean it's not so much dark purple as "functionally black with some purple highlights that are probably some of my silver hair, but there's less of that than there is silver, so it's a little confusing". Oh, well. It looks fine, other than maybe making me look a bit washed out, and I don't much care about that.
(I might care more when I finally getscruloose to take a headshot of me to send HR at Dayjob so they can update my long-expired work pass. [Part of why I decided to finally just go ahead and dye my hair was in the name of having it done for this photo.] These days, the process involves just filling out a form and emailing that and a photo that meets their technical requirements to the department handling passes and also to my boss, presumably so the boss can look at the photo and confirm "yes, that is the employee in question". But this means we can make potentially-endless attempts at getting a photo I don't hate, and honestly, if I can live with the horror of my provincial ID photo, I can probably live with just about anything.)
A few links:
--mrissa's annual lussekatter posts are always good for my heart.
--Jenny Hamilton's "Anatomy of a Sex Scene: Heated Rivalry Edition" (covering ep. 1-2).
--"‘Pushing Daisies’ Season 3 In The Works, Says Creator Bryan Fuller".
Our new freezer arrived a week ago, and the plan is to finally get it in place today once
scruloose gets back from a market run. That hasn't happened yet due to a combination of factors and timing, the biggest of which is the fact that it'll require shifting some things out of the garage onto the driveway to make room for us to work with two upright freezers in play. (scruloose is going to take a stab at moving the old one out of its place without emptying it, via a hand cart, but we have no idea how likely that is to actually work. It'd sure be convenient, though.)My hair is dyed! It is. Um. Very dark. By which I mean it's not so much dark purple as "functionally black with some purple highlights that are probably some of my silver hair, but there's less of that than there is silver, so it's a little confusing". Oh, well. It looks fine, other than maybe making me look a bit washed out, and I don't much care about that.
(I might care more when I finally get
scruloose to take a headshot of me to send HR at Dayjob so they can update my long-expired work pass. [Part of why I decided to finally just go ahead and dye my hair was in the name of having it done for this photo.] These days, the process involves just filling out a form and emailing that and a photo that meets their technical requirements to the department handling passes and also to my boss, presumably so the boss can look at the photo and confirm "yes, that is the employee in question". But this means we can make potentially-endless attempts at getting a photo I don't hate, and honestly, if I can live with the horror of my provincial ID photo, I can probably live with just about anything.)A few links:
--
mrissa's annual lussekatter posts are always good for my heart.--Jenny Hamilton's "Anatomy of a Sex Scene: Heated Rivalry Edition" (covering ep. 1-2).
--"‘Pushing Daisies’ Season 3 In The Works, Says Creator Bryan Fuller".
I'm Hatin' It
Dec. 13th, 2025 05:53 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
pennyarcade_feedI was listening to a Satanic cultist talk about how people don't like AI ads once they find out that they're AI ads. His response wasn't to not make AI ads; that would be too straightforward a path. No, what he suggested was to make AI ads in an animated or cartoonish style so that the artifacts of their dark labor - the human beings they falsified - were more difficult to perceive. I've sat here watching this blinking cursor for a few moments now, replacing the filament in my mind, trying to figure out what kind of language I should be extruding next, how to respond to that in a way that won't land me in jail. I can't do it.
(no subject)
Dec. 12th, 2025 09:06 pmysobelChewy has a "Chewy Claus" thing around this time of year where you can help your pet(s) write a letter to Santa. How good they've been, whether they prefer treats or toys, and a free-answer "what would you ask for if you could have anything".
Last year I did it and at the end of December got a "sorry the sleigh missed you, here's a coupon code if you want to buy anything". And supposedly they donate food to pets in need for every letter submitted, so why not.
This year, I did it ... and today a box came addressed to Phoebe and Loki. (!!)
There was a dog toy that was a "lunch box" with a rope handle, and a green apple plushy and a juice-box plushy with Velcro to attach to the front of the lunchbox. Al three items contain squeakers. (So far, they are still intact, though the white parts of the juice box are rather, erm, dingy. That tends to happen with her toys, but it's impressive for 8 hours.)
There was a cat toy that was sushi themed (including a green wasabi packet) and has catnip in. Loki is mostly nocturnal these days but I put them in a cat bed that sits on my bed and when I came back in later, one was on the floor... so either he loves it or hates it, lol. Also a food purée treat thing similar to churu, though he's iffy about food.
There was an ornament, metal I think, with a sleigh and presents and "Chewy Claus 2025", which is now on my desk tree.
And there was a card with the cutest illustration of Chewy Claus helpers, and a handwritten note wishing them holiday cheer.
I'm a little astonished because I honestly hadn't expected to get anything, but it was a cute surprise!
Edit: Loki definitely likes. I may regret having them on the bed at the same time I am... lol
Last year I did it and at the end of December got a "sorry the sleigh missed you, here's a coupon code if you want to buy anything". And supposedly they donate food to pets in need for every letter submitted, so why not.
This year, I did it ... and today a box came addressed to Phoebe and Loki. (!!)
There was a dog toy that was a "lunch box" with a rope handle, and a green apple plushy and a juice-box plushy with Velcro to attach to the front of the lunchbox. Al three items contain squeakers. (So far, they are still intact, though the white parts of the juice box are rather, erm, dingy. That tends to happen with her toys, but it's impressive for 8 hours.)
There was a cat toy that was sushi themed (including a green wasabi packet) and has catnip in. Loki is mostly nocturnal these days but I put them in a cat bed that sits on my bed and when I came back in later, one was on the floor... so either he loves it or hates it, lol. Also a food purée treat thing similar to churu, though he's iffy about food.
There was an ornament, metal I think, with a sleigh and presents and "Chewy Claus 2025", which is now on my desk tree.
And there was a card with the cutest illustration of Chewy Claus helpers, and a handwritten note wishing them holiday cheer.
I'm a little astonished because I honestly hadn't expected to get anything, but it was a cute surprise!
Edit: Loki definitely likes. I may regret having them on the bed at the same time I am... lol
The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson
Dec. 12th, 2025 01:45 pmrachelmanija
After a wet-bulb heat wave kills thousands in India, the UN forms an organization, the Ministry for the Future, intended to deal with climate change on behalf of future generations. They're not the only organization trying mitigate or fight or adapt to climate change; many other people and groups are working on the same thing, using everything from science to financial incentives to persuasion to terrorism.
We very loosely follow two very lightly sketched-in characters, an Irish woman who leads the Ministry for the Future and an American man whose life is derailed when he's a city's sole survivor of the Indian wet-bulb event, but the book has a very broad canvas and they're not protagonists in the usual sense of the word. The book isn't about individuals, it's about a pair of phenomena: climate change and what people do about it. The mission to save the future is the protagonist insofar as there is one.
This is the first KSR book I've actually managed to finish! (It's also the only one that I got farther in than about two chapters.) It's a very interesting, enlightening, educational book. I enjoyed reading it.
He's a very particular kind of writer, much more interested in ideas and a very broad scope than in characters or plot. That approach works very well for this book. The first chapter, which details the wet-bulb event, is a stunning, horrifying piece of writing. It's also the closest the book ever comes to feeling like a normal kind of novel. The rest of it is more like a work of popular nonfiction from an alternate timeline, full of science and economics and politics and projects.
I'm pretty sure Robinson researched the absolute cutting edge of every possible action that could possibly mitigate climate change, and wrote the book based on the idea of "What if we tried all of it?"
Very plausibly, not everything works. (In a bit of dark humor, an attempt to explain to billionaires why they should care about other people fails miserably.) Lots of people are either apathetic or actively fighting against the efforts, and there's a whole lot of death, disaster, and irreparable damage along the way. But the project as a whole succeeds, not because of any one action taken by any one group, but because of all of the actions taken by multiple groups. It's a blueprint for what we could be doing, if we were willing to do it.
The Ministry for the Future came out in 2020. Reading it now, its optimism about the idea that people would be willing to pull together for the sake of future generations makes it feel like a relic from an impossibly long time ago.
Update [me, health, Patreon]
Dec. 12th, 2025 06:49 amsidereaSo, I, uh, got my RSI/ergonomics debugged!* I then promptly lost two days to bad sleep due to another new mechanical failure of the balky meat mecha and also a medical appointment in re two previous malfunctions. But I seem back in business now. The new keyboard is great.
Patrons, I've got three Siderea Posts out so far this month and it's only the 12th. I have two more Posts I am hoping to get out in the next three days. Also about health insurance. We'll see if it actually happens, but it's not impossible. I have written a lot of words. (I really like my new keyboard.)
Anyways, if you weren't planning on sponsoring five posts (or – who knows? – even more) this month, adjust your pledge limits accordingly.
* It was my bra strap. It was doing something funky to how my shoulder blade moved or something. It is both surprising to me that so little pressure made so much ergonomic difference, and not surprising because previously an even lighter pressure on my kneecap from wearing long underwear made my knee malfunction spectacularly. Apparently this is how my body mechanics just are.
Patrons, I've got three Siderea Posts out so far this month and it's only the 12th. I have two more Posts I am hoping to get out in the next three days. Also about health insurance. We'll see if it actually happens, but it's not impossible. I have written a lot of words. (I really like my new keyboard.)
Anyways, if you weren't planning on sponsoring five posts (or – who knows? – even more) this month, adjust your pledge limits accordingly.
* It was my bra strap. It was doing something funky to how my shoulder blade moved or something. It is both surprising to me that so little pressure made so much ergonomic difference, and not surprising because previously an even lighter pressure on my kneecap from wearing long underwear made my knee malfunction spectacularly. Apparently this is how my body mechanics just are.
Choosing Health Insurance: HSAs: FYI re bronze, catastrophic plans [healthcare, US, Patreon]
Dec. 12th, 2025 06:17 amsidereaCanonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1890494.html
0.
Hey Americans (and other people stuck in the American healthcare system)! Shopping for a health plan on your state marketplace? Boy, do I have some information for you that you should have and probably don't. There's been an important legal change affecting your choices that has gotten almost no press.
Effective with plan year 2026 all bronze level and catastrophic plans are statutorily now HDHPs and thus HSA compatible. You may get and self-fund an HSA if you have any bronze or catastrophic plan, as well as any plan of any level designated a HDHP.
2025 Dec 9: IRS.gov: "Treasury, IRS provide guidance on new tax benefits for health savings account participants under the One, Big, Beautiful Bill"
If you are shopping plans right now (or thought you were done), you should probably be aware of this. Especially if you are planning on getting a bronze plan, a catastrophic plan, or any plan with the acronym "HSA" in the name or otherwise designated "HSA compatible".
The Trump administration doing this is tacit admission that all bronze plans have become such bad deals that they're the economic equivalent of what used to be considered a HDHP back when that concept was invented, and so should come with legal permission to protect yourself from them with an HSA.
Effective immediately, you should consider a bronze plan half an insurance plan.
( Read more [3,340 words] )
This post brought to you by the 221 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.
Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!
0.
Hey Americans (and other people stuck in the American healthcare system)! Shopping for a health plan on your state marketplace? Boy, do I have some information for you that you should have and probably don't. There's been an important legal change affecting your choices that has gotten almost no press.
Effective with plan year 2026 all bronze level and catastrophic plans are statutorily now HDHPs and thus HSA compatible. You may get and self-fund an HSA if you have any bronze or catastrophic plan, as well as any plan of any level designated a HDHP.
2025 Dec 9: IRS.gov: "Treasury, IRS provide guidance on new tax benefits for health savings account participants under the One, Big, Beautiful Bill"
Bronze and Catastrophic Plans Treated as HDHPs: As of Jan. 1, 2026, bronze and catastrophic plans available through an Exchange are considered HSA-compatible, regardless of whether the plans satisfy the general definition of an HDHP. This expands the ability of people enrolled in these plans to contribute to HSAs, which they generally have not been able to do in the past. Notice 2026-05 clarifies that bronze and catastrophic plans do not have to be purchased through an Exchange to qualify for the new relief.
If you are shopping plans right now (or thought you were done), you should probably be aware of this. Especially if you are planning on getting a bronze plan, a catastrophic plan, or any plan with the acronym "HSA" in the name or otherwise designated "HSA compatible".
The Trump administration doing this is tacit admission that all bronze plans have become such bad deals that they're the economic equivalent of what used to be considered a HDHP back when that concept was invented, and so should come with legal permission to protect yourself from them with an HSA.
Effective immediately, you should consider a bronze plan half an insurance plan.
( Read more [3,340 words] )
This post brought to you by the 221 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.
Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!
more on visual culture in science
Dec. 12th, 2025 11:04 amkaberettThis morning I am watching the lecture I linked to on Tuesday!
At 6:53:
Here is an example of how the Hubble telescope image of the Omega nebula, or Messier 17, was created, by adding colours -- which seem to have been chosen quite arbitrarily -- and adjusting composition.
The slide is figure 13 (on page 10) from an Introduction to Image Processing (PDF) on the ESA Hubble website; I'm baffled at the idea that the colours were chosen "arbitrarily" given that the same PDF contains (starting on page 8) §1.4 Assigning colours to different filter exposures. It's not a super clear explanation -- I think the WonderDome explainer is distinctly more readable -- but the explanation does exist and is there.
Obviously I immediately had to stop and look all of this up.
(Rest of the talk was interesting! But that point in particular about modern illustration as I say made me go HOLD ON A SEC--)
AAM: "I will confront you by Wednesday of this Week"
Dec. 11th, 2025 09:37 amminoanmiss posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
agonyauntContent advisories: drunkenness, groping, unarmed violence, chaos, epic holiday partying.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
I've gone beyond confused
Dec. 10th, 2025 05:56 pmmickeymCan someone please explain to me how it is ANY of Donnie's business if I apply for/take out a loan (or do anything at all, for that matter)? Matthew made the mistake of mentioning something he and I are looking into, thinking Donnie was asking about that, and now she's all concerned that we're going to buy out of our lease and thus leave her homeless.
If she was truly worried about being homeless, maybe she shouldn't 1) walk out of a job without having another one lined up; 2) look for full-time employment, rather than the part-time job she finally started (yesterday; she fucking QUIT her job back in, I don't know, October?).
Then she looks at me and says, "Kim, have you ever taken out a loan?"
I know she sees me as this old, washed up woman who doesn't ever have enough money to pay what always seems to need to be paid. But once upon a time, I owned my own home! Or, well, was paying on a mortgage that my name was on. I've had car loans. I've had personal loans. And then apparently, after saying that she felt she was spoken to badly (she was, and I apologized, because I did get snippy, but Jesus), when Matthew went back to drop one of their cats back into their room, she told him that I shouldn't put the loan in his name, because he doesn't have a good track record with paying things.
It is absolutely none of her business. Any of it. Any of my life. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
She works tomorrow. I'm looking forward to not having her here in the house for four hours.
xposted to Dreamwidth and Livejournal; read/comment wherever works best for you :)
If she was truly worried about being homeless, maybe she shouldn't 1) walk out of a job without having another one lined up; 2) look for full-time employment, rather than the part-time job she finally started (yesterday; she fucking QUIT her job back in, I don't know, October?).
Then she looks at me and says, "Kim, have you ever taken out a loan?"
I know she sees me as this old, washed up woman who doesn't ever have enough money to pay what always seems to need to be paid. But once upon a time, I owned my own home! Or, well, was paying on a mortgage that my name was on. I've had car loans. I've had personal loans. And then apparently, after saying that she felt she was spoken to badly (she was, and I apologized, because I did get snippy, but Jesus), when Matthew went back to drop one of their cats back into their room, she told him that I shouldn't put the loan in his name, because he doesn't have a good track record with paying things.
It is absolutely none of her business. Any of it. Any of my life. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
She works tomorrow. I'm looking forward to not having her here in the house for four hours.
xposted to Dreamwidth and Livejournal; read/comment wherever works best for you :)
side-tracks off side-tracks
Dec. 10th, 2025 11:08 pmkaberettOne of the things I found yesterday, while getting distracted from transcription by regretting not having taken History and Philosophy of Science (or, more accurately, not having shown up to the lectures to just listen), was some tantalising notes on the existence of a four-lecture series entitled Visual Culture in Science and Medicine:
Science today is supremely visual – in its experiments, observations and communication, images have become integral to the scientific enterprise. These four lectures examine the role of images in anatomy, natural history and astronomy between the 15th and the 18th centuries. Rather than assessing images against a yardstick of increasing empiricism or an onward march towards accurate observation, these lectures draw attention to the myriad, ingenious ways in which images were deployed to create scientific objects, aid scientific arguments and simulate instrumental observations. Naturalistic styles of depictions are often mistaken for evidence of first-hand observation, but in this period, they were deployed as a visual rhetoric of persuasion rather than proof of an observed object. By examining the production and uses of imagery in this period, these lectures will offer ways to understand more generally what was entailed in scientific visualisation in early modern Europe.
I've managed to track down a one-hour video (that I've obviously not consumed yet, because audiovisual processing augh). Infuriatingly Kusukawa's book on the topic only covers the sixteenth century, not the full timespan of the lectures, and also it's fifty quid for the PDF. I have located a sample of the thing, consisting of the front matter and the first fifteen pages of the introduction (it cuts off IN MID SENTENCE).
Now daydreaming idly about comparative study of this + Tufte, which I also haven't got around to reading...
How I Make Comics
Dec. 10th, 2025 05:48 pmpennyarcade_feedI had a few people come up to me at PAX Unplugged last month and ask for more behind the scenes videos of the comic making process. I know I personally enjoy this sort of content from other artists but I rarely think about doing it myself. Well I remembered yesterday or at least I remembered after doing the rough sketch. You can watch the full video below!