Hard Things

Jul. 23rd, 2025 01:02 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Life is full of things which are hard or tedious or otherwise unpleasant that need doing anyhow. They help make the world go 'round, they improve skills, and they boost your sense of self-respect. But doing them still kinda sucks. It's all the more difficult to do those things when nobody appreciates it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our accomplishments and pat each other on the back.

What are some of the hard things you've done recently? What are some hard things you haven't gotten to yet, but need to do? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your hard things a little easier?

Nanotechnology

Jul. 22nd, 2025 04:03 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Goodbye plastic? Scientists create new supermaterial that outperforms metals and glass

New method aligns bacterial cellulose nanofibrils, enabling high-strength multifunctional bionanocomposites.
Scientists at Rice University and the University of Houston have created a powerful new material by guiding bacteria to grow cellulose in aligned patterns, resulting in sheets with the strength of metals and the flexibility of plastic—without the pollution. Using a spinning bioreactor, they’ve turned Earth’s purest biopolymer into a high-performance alternative to plastic, capable of carrying heat, integrating advanced nanomaterials, and transforming packaging, electronics, and even energy storage
.


I am amused to see someone exploring the non-glamous applications of nanotechnology. Yes, this can work. Any time you're growing something, you have to make sure it can't get loose and cause problems, but organisms really do excel at making useful materials. Remember, conventional plastic comes from petrochemicals, which started out as ancient plants.

Birdfeeding

Jul. 22nd, 2025 03:59 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is partly sunny, humid, and hot.  It drizzled a bit yesterday.

I fed the birds.  I haven't seen much activity yet.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 7/22/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 7/22/25 -- I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a pair of mourning doves.

EDIT 7/22/25 -- I trimmed around the garden under the contorta willow tree.  A few things are far enough from the trunk that I might need to move them closer in.

I am done for the night.

Game: Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

Jul. 22nd, 2025 02:02 pm
isis: (medusa)
[personal profile] isis
I finished the game, yay! As I've mentioned before, this is a spooky atmospheric puzzle game, very stylized in grayscale with splashes of red, and a sort of phase-shifted overlay effect that makes everything look a little unreal. You play as a mysterious woman who has come to a mysterious hotel full of locked doors somewhere in Europe (Italy? Austria? Germany?) in 1963, at the request of a mysterious man for reasons of ??? The gameplay is very simple: you move with either a controller stick or arrow keys, and you have a single action button to interact with whatever is highlighted in front of you, or if nothing is, to bring up your "introspection" screen that includes inventory, "photographic memory" (images of everything important you've interacted with, text from books/documents/signs you've seen, etc), and "mental notes" which is where your quests, so to speak, show up, e.g. "Unlock room 1957" or "Broken elevator?" The game manual - once you find it :-) - is minimal, and a lot of the game consists of figuring out how you need to figure out the game. The story also makes little sense and is mostly vibes until you accumulate more information, as putting the story together is in some sense the point of the game.

The puzzles are mostly a matter of figuring out codes to open locks (doors, safes, puzzle boxes, computer logins) based on information that is usually near the lock, but may require extra information from books, letters, or other documents in order to transform into the needed code. Some things rely on Greek letters or Roman numerals; some rely on perspective or rotation or other transformation. Usually if I couldn't figure something out, it meant I didn't have the necessary auxiliary information, though sometimes I had it but didn't realize it was the missing piece.

I found the overall game structure really interesting, in that it's sort of separated into informal stages where there are a number of places you can go and things you can do (and a few things you can't do yet and can't figure out at all, e.g. a statue with a hole in it where obviously something is meant to go but you don't know what, or a room you can see but not enter) and within that, you can do things in any order you like, it's completely nonlinear. And then either something you do triggers an event which opens up additional places you can go/things you can do, or you solve a puzzle that gives you a key (possibly literally) to open up a new area. However, sometimes (probably often!) you receive access to a new area before you've solved everything in a previous area, though in order to fully progress the game you'll need to go back and solve whatever you missed. My brother and I compared notes occasionally, and marveled at how we often did things in completely different orders! For example, there's one area called the "Quiz Club" where you have to answer questions about in-game things in order to progress, and to get to it, you need to solve a puzzle that you have access to from fairly early in the game. My brother got there long before I did, because I missed that puzzle entirely until much later, but he was only able to answer a few of the questions, since he hadn't encountered the answers yet; by the time I got there, I was able to get through the whole thing fairly easily.

I did a bit more than 95% completion (there are some optional things you can do, some of which I chose not to) and finished in about 25 hours, which is probably dead slow, but I'm a slow gamer. I have 9 pages of notes - the facts and diagrams are of course saved in "photographic memory", but I wrote some things down so I could refer to them while in the game without having to access it (and sometimes it's not available, so you have to either remember or take notes). Also a few photos I took with my phone, heh.

The game is pretty inexpensive on Steam and goes on sale periodically (at the moment it's $17.49). As I mentioned in one of my updates, there is a really excellent hint guide on the steamcommunity.com site, which gently nudges you in the direction you should be thinking in order to solve the puzzles, rather than providing answers. You can pet the dog! You can drink espresso (after solving a certain puzzle...)! If you like puzzle games of this sort, I recommend this game!

Costume Bracket: Round 4, Post 7

Jul. 22nd, 2025 07:33 pm
purplecat: Romana 1 from Doctor Who (Who:Romana 1)
[personal profile] purplecat
Two Doctor Who companion outfits for your delectation and delight! Outfits selected by a mixture of ones I, personally, like; lists on the internet; and a certain random element.


Outfits below the Cut )

Vote for your favourite of these costumes. Use whatever criteria you please - most practical, most outrageously spacey, most of its decade!

Voting will remain open for at least a week, possibly longer!

Costume Bracket Masterlist

Images are a mixture of my own screencaps, screencaps from Lost in Time Graphics, PCJ's Whoniverse Gallery, and random Google searches.

Green Building

Jul. 21st, 2025 10:49 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Scientists invent 'living' concrete that heals its own cracks with sunlight

Jin and fellow researchers used two key materials: Cyanobacteria, which turns air and sunlight into food, and filamentous fungi, which produce minerals that seal the cracks.

The microbes survive on just air, light, and water, and when paired together, are able to grow and produce crack-filling minerals in concrete. At least, that’s what Jin’s latest research, published in Materials Today Communications, concluded.

Birdfeeding

Jul. 21st, 2025 03:16 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy and warm. It rained yesterday.

I fed the birds. I haven't seen much activity yet.

EDIT 7/21/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 7/21/25 -- I refilled the thistle feeder.

EDIT 7/21/25 -- I planted 3 pots with 12 sweet cherry seeds.

It's been drizzling on and off.

EDIT 7/21/25 -- I potted up a white peach seed.

EDIT 7/21/25 -- I was going to go back out, but the drizzle has increased to light rain.

EDIT 7/21/25 -- I picked 3 red cherry tomatoes and 2 blackberries.

I saw a skunk out in the yard, not on the patio, and it scrammed when it saw me. That's what I'm aiming for: we stay out of each other's way. They're welcome to the farther parts the of the yard away from the house.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Climate Change

Jul. 21st, 2025 02:02 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The Ice Age Echo That Erased Entire Civilizations (The 8.2K Event)

Around 8,200 years ago, the Earth experienced a sudden climatic crash now known as the 8.2k event. Triggered by the collapse of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and a massive outburst from Lake Agassiz, it dumped freshwater into the North Atlantic, disrupting the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Temperatures dropped 1–3°C globally for over a century. Monsoon systems weakened, rainfall declined sharply in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. The result: failed crops, abandoned Neolithic settlements, and major cultural shifts across regions like Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Sahara.


This gives a stark look at how even robust, resilient systems can collapse under the pressures of an unpredictable environment. Modern civilization is fragile more than resilient. And the AMOC is faltering again.

Monday Update 7-21-25

Jul. 21st, 2025 01:00 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Artwork of the wordsmith typing. (typing)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Permaculture
Conservation
Early Humans
Creative Jam
Birdfeeding
Recipe: "Dark Chocolate Brownies with Raspberry Spread"
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Productivity
Permaculture
Survival Skills
Self-Care
Birdfeeding
Current Events
Fireflies
Fruit Trees
Permaculture
Volcanoes
Follow Friday 7-18-25: Homestuck
Hobbies: Makeup Art
Conservation
Safety
Invasive Species
Birdfeeding
Anthropocene
Earthquakes
Evolution
Poem: "Beautiful, Damn Hard, Increasingly Useful"
Paleontology
Smoothie King
Birdfeeding
Good News

"Philosophical Questions: Looks" has 46 comments. "Not a Destination, But a Process" has 147 comments. "The Democratic Armada of the Caribbean" has 96 comments. "Incompetence, Sloppy Thinking, and Laziness" has 65 comments.


Last week's bonus fishbowl went well. Writing is slow, but I have drafts of a triptych to thumbnail shortly.


[community profile] sunshine_revival is running through July. See the schedule, meet the moderators, and use the master post to navigate the event. Meet new folks in the friending meme. Spread the word!

Sunshine-Revival-2025-Banner-3.png

* Sunshine Revival Challenge 1: Light
Poem: "The Pleasure of Escaping the Responsibility"

* Sunshine Revival Challenge 2: Tunnel of Love
Poem: "Legs of Grass, Feet of Flowers"

* Sunshine Revival Challenge 3: Food

* Sunshine Revival Challenge 4: Fun House
Poem: "The Bee Tree's Gift"

* Sunshine Challenge 5: Carnival Barker

* Sunshine Revival Challenge 6: Game Night
Poem: "A New Twist"


[community profile] summerofthe69 is now open! You can see the calendar here and the current themes are and Greater Than 69 and Sopping Wet.


There are no open epics at present.


The weather has been hot and wet here. It rained again yesterday. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a pair of cardinals, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel. I've heard red-winged blackbirds, wrens, and a woodpecker without seeing them. Currently blooming: dandelions, pansies, violas, marigolds, petunias, red salvia, wild strawberries, verbena, lantana, sweet alyssum, zinnias, snapdragons, blue lobelia, perennial pinks, impatiens, oxalis, moss rose, yarrow, anise hyssop, firecracker plant, tomatoes, tomatillos, Asiatic lilies, cucumber, yellow squash, zucchini, morning glory, purple echinacea, narrow-leaf mountain mint, black-eyed Susan, yellow coneflower, wild bergamot, chicory, Queen Anne's lace, sunflowers, cup plant, gladioli, firewheel, orange butterfly weed. Tomatillo and pepper have green fruit. Wild strawberries, mulberries, tomatoes, and cucumbers are ripe. Peas are winding down. The first crop of blackberries is done.

labingi: (Default)
[personal profile] labingi
Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor was one of the books recced to me on DW recently, and I'm currently almost done with it. Let me start by saying that it was an excellent rec. It's everything I asked for, and it has completely served its purpose in diverting me from our real world; I have generally enjoyed reading it.

I don't especially warm to it as a novel, however, and I've been in an interesting and invigorating discussion of it with [personal profile] rocky41_7 on [community profile] books. I ended up pretty much writing meta I'd planned to write in the comments over there, so I'll post it here too.

Context: [personal profile] rocky41_7 has been rereading the book with a newfound appreciation and feeling of now understanding why it is so beloved. Reasons why - and I agree all those things are there and are good - include a truly good/well-intentioned hero, realistic politics, realistic supporting characters, and breaking fantasy conventions. I find the book lacking in character development and plot/character arcs, however. Below (with a few, fairly minor spoilers), I explain why with some reference points to other stories, which may contain some very light spoilers.

My Reply to rocky41-7's reply to my reply to their post. Read more... )

Conservation

Jul. 20th, 2025 10:38 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The genius invention that made peace with lions

A 12-year-old boy invented a system of lights that mimicked human patrols, thus shooing lions away from homes and livestock. This reduced interspecies conflicts, allowing lions to coexist peacefully with humans and their livestock.

Think about how humans and wildlife interact. Where there are dangerous conflicts as above, seek to understand each other's behavior and how small changes can reduce or eliminate conflicts so that all species can live and let live. Watch for effective solutions and spread them.

Poem: "A New Twist"

Jul. 20th, 2025 04:13 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem was written for the Sunshine Revival Challenge 6: Game Night. It also fills the "Dodge" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo Fest. It belongs to the series Love Is For Children.

Read more... )
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Sunshine Revival Challenge 6: Game Night

Journaling prompt: What games do you play, if any? Are you a solo-gamer or do you view games as a social activity?

Creative prompt: Write a story/fic around the theme "game night".

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so
.

Sunshine-Revival-Carnival-2.png

Read more... )

Early Humans

Jul. 20th, 2025 02:24 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
11,000-year-old feast uncovered: Why hunters hauled wild boars across mountains

Ancient Iranians hosted epic feasts with wild boars that had been hunted and transported from distant regions. These animals weren’t just dinner—they were symbolic gifts. Tooth enamel analysis revealed they came from different areas, suggesting early communities valued geography in gift-giving. The event took place even before agriculture began, hinting at deeply rooted cultural traditions.

Creative Jam

Jul. 20th, 2025 02:22 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The July [community profile] crowdfunding Creative Jam is open with a theme of "Heroism -- Real or Perceived."  Come give us prompts, or claim some for your own inspiration.


What I Have Written




From My Prompts



Birdfeeding

Jul. 20th, 2025 02:11 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy and warm.  It rained yesterday.

I fed the birds.  I haven't seen much activity, but heard a squirrel chattering.

EDIT 7/20/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 7/20/25 -- It rained copiously this afternoon, and is still thundering occasionally.

I am done for the night.

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