work cons
Mar. 9th, 2026 08:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
echanI went to so many restaurants in Pasadena! I'm quite proud of my success on that. I think my favorite this year was Mr Mushroom -- fantastic burgers, even with the sweet pickles (whyyy).
I saw some coworkers, current and former, a couple times. It was good, and it was awkward. I'm really not a hallway track, hang around and talk, sort of person, with anyone. (Probably not a coincidence that the best interaction was in a panel room before a talk, and not in a hallway.) But also, I want to do better at preparing in advance things to talk about -- it often feels like my mind puts everything off limits for sharing, unless I do a deliberate mental inventory and flag specific things as safe talking points.
The most common themes, in the talks I went to, were "AI is like an overenthusiastic book-smart intern" and data lake houses (like a data lake and a data warehouse but better). A lot of general industry insecurity -- the job board seemed almost entirely folks looking for work, with very few posts about open positions. (Percona is hiring, but everyone knows DBAs are a strange sort.)
Later this year PyCon the Python con is in Long Beach, and I don't much work with Python these days but a programming con sounds fun, probably. Monitorama is coming back sometime soon, also. Dunno if dates will conflict, or what work will pay for, will need to figure that out.
tenor viola followup
Mar. 9th, 2026 10:04 pmjazzfishOkay, so, clefs. If you've seen piano music you know how it's got two staffs, one for the right hand / high notes and one for the left / low notes. The staffs have a squiggle on the left end of them: the high one has a sort of loopy thing and the low one has a sort of 7 or 2 with a couple of dots. These are clefs, specifically treble clef and bass clef. They tell you what pitch the notes on the staff represent.
Technically the symbols are a G clef and an F clef: the spiral at the centre of the treble squiggle is always on a note that's a G, and the two dots on the bass are always on a note that's an F. Technically if you put the symbols on other lines you'd indicate different pitches. In practice, these days nobody does that, and 'G clef' and 'treble clef' are synonymous, as are 'F clef' and 'bass clef.'
Violin music is written in treble clef. Cello music is (mostly) written in bass clef. The range of notes you can easily play on those instruments more or less coincides with what you can easily write in those clefs without egregious use of extra ledger lines for notes above/below the staff.
There's also another clef symbol. The C clef symbol looks like a capital B, and the middle of the two humps is always on a note that's a C. It's used to indicate two uncommon clefs. Alto clef gets used for viola music and nothing else as far as I know, and tenor clef gets used for cello music that's off in the upper registers of the cello. Alto clef is... honestly I don't know what its relation to treble clef is, other than "lower," I think it's a sixth lower? Maybe a seventh? I don't read treble clef very well so I don't really know.
Tenor clef is a fifth higher than bass clef. This makes it really convenient for cello music. The strings on a cello (or violin or viola) are a fifth apart, so if you're used to reading bass clef for cello then tenor is the same thing just one string up.
A viola is a fifth lower than a violin, and an octave higher than a cello. If you put 'octave strings' on a viola, it plays the same notes as a cello. A tenor viola is an octave lower than a violin, and a fifth higher than a cello.
Which means it can natively play music in tenor clef. Hence the names.
Here endeth the classical music neepery for the day.
Shoulda stood in bed
Mar. 9th, 2026 07:38 pmrolanniFirefly and Rook did their best to get me to go back to bed this morning, but I was adamant.
Well. My weather-delayed CookUnity order arrived five minutes ago, and all the meals, of course, are "use by 3/11." So, I'm guessing I'll find out how well a couple of these freeze.
The ice packs were still solid and the meals are cold, so I'm guessing they'll be OK to eat.
Today was not the most productive day ever. I should actually have gone back to bed this morning, but I fixed that by taking a two hour nap. Still not feeling top o'the world, but at least I'm less weepy.
Tomorrow, is Errands, finishing up with needlework.
The ice in the driveway is gone, just in time for the temps to plunge into the high 30sF on Wednesday. Now, I need to figure out what parts of this enormous, but extremely well-insulated, box are recyclable.
On that note -- everybody have a good evening. I'll check in tomorrow.
Another RPG bundle - Age of Ambition
Mar. 9th, 2026 06:47 pmffutureshttps://bundleofholding.com/presents/Ambition
I'm not familiar with the rules system, but it looks reasonably playable and layout is good. If you get the complete bundle you're getting a lot for your money including numerous worldbooks and adventures, and the setting is novel enough that players ought to find it interesting.
Links Extra: More data than you ever wanted.
Mar. 9th, 2026 09:47 amandrewduckerI was chatting to a couple of friends last week, and realised that I really fancied having one of those "bar chart race" videos for my links, showing what had been the most popular links over the last 21 years that I've been saving links (to Delicious, and then Pinboard).
So I downloaded the JSON blob of my whole link history, used some PowerShell to slice and dice it into a CSV, and uploaded it to a site that converts a bunch of data with dates into a bar chart race. And voila:
Unsurprising to see "Europe" break the top 20 in 2017. Followed a year later by "OhForFucksSake".
Both files available here, for the very curious.
The List of Shame
Mar. 9th, 2026 04:22 am![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
denise posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_advocacyThis (very long, sigh) list is accurate to the best of my knowledge as of 8 March 2026, but it may not include every bill that's been introduced in every state. (I've used a few different lists plus my own "searching until I got too depressed to continue" to assemble it, excluding laws I think have absolutely no chance of passing but including laws where I think there's still even a slight chance.) If you know of one that isn't on the list, please let me know in the comments!
These are state laws only. I'm concentrating on those because you can find lists of bad federal bills more easily, but all the lists of state bills I know of are industry-gated or limited-distribution. If you don't have a preferred source for finding out about bad federal legislation about the internet, Bad Internet Bills (from Fight for the Future) and the EFF Action Center are a great place to start!
This list is only counting social media bills; I am not including bills that don't apply to us because they're modeled on the app store/OS age signal model legislation or bills that deal with age verification for other services like chatbots or "AI companions", because I'd go completely off the rails and resort to just screaming incoherently when the list passed a hundred items. I will try to update this at least quarterly, or whenever the Magic 8 Ball says there's a rapidly moving bill that you need to yell at people about.
( The Current Hall of Shame )
vital functions
Mar. 8th, 2026 10:57 pmkaberettReading. I confess I have tripped and fallen into a special interest and am therefore currently primarily working my way through the archives of She's A Beast. BUT.
- This was all kicked off by A Physical Education: *, Casey Johnston, *inhaled; more comprehensive notes on this topic currently part way through being typed up.
- I am also about half way through (reading!) LIFTOFF: Couch to Barbell, also Casey Johnston, and am having fun starting to play with moving my body in ways.
- Continuing the theme of Moving Bodies In Ways and What Even Are Muscles, I have also started Science of Pilates (Tracy Ward).
- I also continue to work my way through What Is Queer Food?, John Birdsall, and am nearly done. Probably more thoughts on this at some point in the upcoming week.
Writing. Words continue to, very slowly, go up.
Listening. More Hidden Almanac. Very close to being caught up to the point I've theoretically listened to with A (some of which I wound up being asleep during)...
Playing. Inkulinati Exploders run on Master difficulty continues. We have now broken a quill (DEMONS :|) but we do continue to progress...
Another round (well, most of one) of The Little Orchard, this time with The Child deciding that we SHOULD turn the Bothersome Crows back over and put them back...
Cooking. New recipe! Meera Sodha's leek & chard martabak. Unlikely to make again but not sorry to have made.
Exploring. Adventures this week have included:
- Wood Green Mall, which contains PRIDE STAIRS, and the Community Diagnostic Centre, which contains GIANT WATERFOWL MURAL
- the walk between Wood Green underground station and Wood Green Mall, feat. ACORN BOLLARDS
- went for a bit of a Cross Walk one evening earlier this week (brain said AAAAAAH) and discovered along the way a fantastic white-with-pink-stripes camellia
- generally Going Out To Run Errands is currently accompanied by Many Flowers and that is nice, actually
Observing. flowersss.
Sir Gawain Fucks the Green Knight
Mar. 8th, 2026 03:52 pmalexxkayKym Deyn
![[bsky.social profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_other.png){kind=small}
kymdeynThis is a sheer indulgence on my part, but it turns out I never actually shared the poem here, so:
Sir Gawain Fucks the Green Knight
Here’s a tale ripe for telling. Can’t say where I heard it first—in pretty French or Dutch. Perhaps as a young lady walking ‘longside the Rijn. I’ll spin it for you in an English tongue, fine as frost on lace, sweet as malmsey wine. So it goes that young Gawain, strength kissed into his limbs, fresh as the bright dawn, comes trembling down to the Green Chapel. You’ve heard this tale, I know. His breath makes peach fuzz in the air, fear into him like worm to apple. Christmas Morn is too soon, time is short. You have your own life to save, he says, picking through thorn and bough to an ivy-clad cave.
The creature is the Jack O’ the Glen / forest prince / the wood’s own laughter. Beard of lichen and eyes like dark elder. I need not repeat their exchange—my boy’s flinching heart—a songbird in a rattled cage. It is after the blows are dealt, he asks, what god is worshipped in these green trees? Boy, the Knight replies, boy, were you not just down on your knees?
The Knight is the tang of sap / bark rough and petal soft / everywhere leaves scatter / easily crushed / Gawain clings / hardly knows what he clings to / he is the forest and the flower / a turmoil of roots / where god and tree meet and melt / the birch the oak the fern the deer / mushroom maggot crow / here Gawain is branch and bud / blow returned for blow
https://bsky.app/profile/kymdeyn.bsky.social/post/3mgdgomties26
How Are You? (in Haiku)
Mar. 8th, 2026 01:54 pmjjhunter=
Signal-boosting much appreciated!
Timely Notes
Mar. 8th, 2026 09:47 amrolanniWhere were we?
Ah. Sunday. Time Change Day. I Ignored All The Advice, and went to bed late last night, because magic show, and slept past the new-normal waking time of 6 am by the Old Clock to 7 am OC, putting me well behind Everything.
For Calibration Purposes, it is as I write this sentence 9:21 am New Clock.
May I just say that it's a good thing I don't have to leave the house tomorrow. Or today.
Weather is currently cloudy, drizzly, and warm. I'm hoping today will be the coup for the ice field at the bottom of my front steps. I need to do something about that, though Exactly What escapes my imagination at the moment -- it forms every year and it's a death trap, getting deathier and trappier the older I get.
Last night's magic show was enjoyable. I did meet the magician very briefly as he toured the house before-show, in his melant'i as "stage manager". I had somehow failed to understand that I had a seat in the Very First Row, odd-side. I was in sort-of the middle, with a family of three sitting to my left and filling out the row.
The "stage manager" stopped by, hunkered down in front of our "group" of four, and asked us for our help. It seemed that a big part of Michael's show was telepathy-based, including calling cards that people were thinking of. The Ace of Spades, according to the "stage manager" had been coming up in people's thoughts just way too often, and our help was solicited in thinking about other cards.
He then pulled out a deck of cards, fanned them and offered them to me. "Pull a card, look at it, but don't show it to anybody -- put it inside the folds of your brain and just really think about it hard. Then give the card back to me. OK? OK!"
I chose a card (the ten of spades; I believe my prohibition against sharing that information expired at the end of the show), assured the "stage manager" that I had it firm in my mind, and he repeated the exercise with the people to my left. Then he left, telling us most earnestly to think hard about our card.
I mention here, because I noticed it, that those were very thin, slick cards.
When the magician came on-stage, and after a brief smoke, he called the daughter of the family to my left to think about her card. He then drew it on a pad of paper. The three of diamonds! Ta-Da!
And we were off.
A good time was, I believe, had by all, and I eventually wandered my way home to resuscitate my cats, who had all expired of hunger in my absence.
Today, I write, and do laundry. In fact, the first load is drying, and the second is washing. I wish I could say the same about the WIP.
I'm drinking my first of what I believe will be many cups of tea on the day, and I really ought to find something to eat.
How's everybody doing today?
We won!
Mar. 8th, 2026 08:04 amrmc2812 games into our 20-game season, Kodiaks 2 finally notched up a win! We beat Lee Valley Vampires 1-0 last night. That single goal was scored with about ten minutes to go, and it was a long ten minutes, and especially a long last minute on the bench after my final shift, waiting to see if we'd do it. I was literally crying in the post-game huddle and handshake line. This team, this team that we dragged into existence in the face of multiple obstacles, this amazing bunch of women. We won, we won, we won.
( Read more... )