[Major Tom, a big grey tabby, is curled up in a (relatively) tiny ball, surrounded in all directions by sage green flannel sheets. He’s awake, though, and pointedly looking away from the camera.]
Over the years Tom has become more & more willing to skip the excuse that he’s cold, & simply demand to get under the covers because he wants a cuddle. I love this habit of his dearly (except for when he demands that I lift the covers, then stands there staring at me as if he has no idea why I’m doing that). He’s delightfully warm when it’s cold, & when it’s not, at least he’s got fur, so we’re not sweating on each other. He’s even learned that kneading on my skin will cause me to make displeased squawks, & thus, he mostly kneads on the sheets these days.
[Most of Tom is still under the covers, but his massive head is resting on my bent elbow. The flannel sheet is tucked in around his head.]
Usually when he’s done, he’s done, but sometimes he’ll extricate his head & then snuggle back in. I love this even more than the under-the-covers snuggles, except for the part where it’s very difficult to use my phone (taking this picture was NOT EASY). Which would be fine, except that he usually does this when I’m trying to get up, & if I put my phone down I’m going RIGHT back to sleep. Especially when there’s Tom cuddles!
[There’s a piece of plywood on my bed, the end propped up on a pallet board and a 2×4. Sitting on top of the board is my cordless drill, & also, a tomcat. He’s looking off to the side, because he clearly has nothing to do with any of this.]
Tom was also very helpful when it came to putting together the shelves that now sit under my kitchen table! & by ‘helpful’ I mean ‘I had to threaten him with trepanning by cordless drill before he would get out of my way’.
My friends, he tried to shove his face into the cordless drill. While it was running. Because I had this APPARENTLY RIDICULOUS theory that he would not wish to be very close to a running power tool. (He was fine. My nerves recovered eventually.)
[Tom is looking up, somewhat to the left of the camera, an extremely innocent expression on his face.]
… what?
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Started the day by biking down to Walnut Creek for some routine lab work. Dropped by Brioche de Paris for breakfast afterward combined with LHMP reading/note-taking. (My plan to reduce my "eating out expenditures" is being stymied by my current routine of doing LHMP reading in coffee shops. I'm not beating myself up about it, since I also combine it with my bike ride.) Texted the former co-workers to see if anyone wanted to meet up for lunch when I pop over to Berkeley Bowl tomorrow (since Wednesday is their on-site day).
When I brainstormed about how to structure my days in retirement, I came up with the idea of having a list of "activity categories" where I would try to regularly check off a certain number of different categories each day. (The point is the doing, not the checking off.) Most of them are things I'd been doing previously, though not on a close-to-every-day basis, like exercise, yard work, housework, LHMP reading, LHMP blogging, etc. But I added three categories for activities that had largely fallen off my routine: writing fiction (duh!), playing music, and--after some thought--working in non-English languages.
I'm still working on getting the first two into my routines, but yesterday I pulled out a Medieval Welsh text that I haven't previously translated (Owein) and started working through it. It helps that editions of Medieval Welsh texts generally have a glossary at the end, so in the event I don't know a word, I don't have to be going back and forth with a dictionary. But I was a bit surprised at how few items I had to check.
My current process is to copy out the original on every third line of a ruled notebook, take notes for vocab I had to look up, or verb forms I needed to work out on the second line, and write my translation on the third line. Out of two notebook pages, there were four words I didn't know, three I checked but had remembered correctly, and one verb form I needed to look up. There's also a passage where I know all the words, but I'm still working on the overall sense.
It helps that I'm intimately familiar with several of the branches of the Mabinogi, and the overall grammar and vocabulary of the medieval tales tend to be highly similar. (Also: I know the general shape of the literature.) But it was still gratifying to find that I could pretty much sight-translate 90% of the material. After I finish Owein, I want to try some poetry because I want to work up to translating a poem that doesn't appear to have an English translation published yet.
Given all the language study I've done across the decades, it's felt sad that I don't use most of it except as general background radiation. I'd like to brush up on my Latin, and I'd like to get a more formal grounding in reading French (at least academic French), which I can get the overall gist of, but don't have the grammar for.
OP: Hey, looking for a board book series from when I was a kid! It was traditional fairy tales and fables, and the part I really remember is the illustrations! I'm sure if I see those illustrations I'll know it's the right book!
Me: Care to describe these illustrations? Even a little? Were they brightly colorful or more muted, or maybe black and white? Were they realistic or cartoony?
OP: Oh, they looked similar to the hare and the tortoise board game! Like, when I saw that I first thought it was the books!
Me: Oh, I guess you're gonna make me google that instead of providing a link, cool.
Guys, it turns out there are at least five different editions of this game, each one with a totally different art style.
Meanwhile, on a different thread on the same post:
Other Commenter: Could it be Aesop's fables?
Me, silently: WTF, buddy? That's not a suggestion.
OP: Oh, no, it was more colorful than that!
Me, a bit less silently: WTF? Like... what edition are we talking about? You need to help us help you!
Three months into Donald Trump's second term, it's becoming clear to foreign leaders that a visit to the Oval Office can come with a high risk of public embarrassment. As the BBC reports, such meetings often turn into spectacles of criticism, provocation, and even humiliation:
The latest example came during South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's visit. In a highly choreographed episode, Trump ambushed his guest with dimmed lights, a dramatic video presentation, and numerous media clippings. The presentation centered around discredited claims of a "white genocide" in South Africa - allegations that white farmers were being systematically targeted and killed.
When a journalist asked Trump what it would take to convince him these claims were false, Ramaphosa responded first, calmly suggesting the US President "listen to the voices of South Africans". Trump then asked a staff member to dim the lights and turn on a television to "show a few things" to the South African leader.
Sitting quietly nearby was Elon Musk, the South African born billionaire and Trump adviser, observing the exchange.
One one my biggest worries about VPNs is the amount of trust users need to place in them, and how opaque most of them are about who owns them and what sorts of data they retain.
A new study found that many commercials VPNS are (often surreptitiously) owned by Chinese companies.
It would be hard for U.S. users to avoid the Chinese VPNs. The ownership of many appeared deliberately opaque, with several concealing their structure behind layers of offshore shell companies. TTP was able to determine the Chinese ownership of the 20 VPN apps being offered to Apple’s U.S. users by piecing together corporate documents from around the world. None of those apps clearly disclosed their Chinese ownership.
https://savewot.com/take-action/save-wheel-of-time-petition/ -=-=-=-=-=-=- Reposting: My opinion on adaptations: A lot of fans of ANY book series get very emotional, negatively, with live action adaptations. I think this happens because they get too invested in the idea. The adaptation becomes personal on an astonishing level.
Don't get me wrong -- I have some series that are so foundational to my life that I have very strong feelings for them, but when I'm looking at someone else's adaptation of them, it's not MY book experience that is being shown. It's the showrunner/ producer/ whomever's.
And, as such, I look at these things almost like a gift someone has given me. I might like it. I might hate it. I might be utterly baffled why they bothered. But it doesn't affect my experience of the foundational book. They are separate things entirely.
‘There’s no chance an American will laugh’: Tim Key on his very British new film and the US Office sequel The idiosyncratic comic’s sprawling CV includes poetry, Alan Partridge and a spell in a pigeon costume but his latest career destination might be his most unlikely yet – Hollywood Rachel Aroesti https://www.theguardian.com/global/ng-interactive/2025/may/25/tim-key-interview-ballad-wallis-island
Speaking of symbols made literal, here is a snake saved from eating its own tail. I don't know anything about snakes, but this does look like a vet's office, so if the vet thinks that hand sanitizer is the way to go then it's probably the way to go. (Also, I strongly suspect most of the people in the comments talking about how hand sanitizer to make a snake not eat itself is animal abuse or that the fact that the snake did this is a clear sign of animal abuse don't actually know any more about snakes than I do. If they're right, it's not because they really know.)
I am pleased to report that the 14th Penric & Desdemona novella is complete in first draft, as of this afternoon. About 36K words at present.
There is still a ways to go till it's ready for e-publication. It lacks both final title and cover at the moment. The title, I've learned on previous outings, is really needed first to bring the cover into the right focus. Also the artist Ron Miller has not yet had a chance to read the full manuscript, which Ron generally does, bless him.
Title is still circling the field. "Penric's take your kids to work day goes wrong" is alas too long, and jokey, if accurate. "Penric's Ox" is too easy to confuse with "Penric's Fox", and besides the livestock is not really the core of the tale. Best and default candidate so far is the double-edged "Penric's Lessons", although that feels as if it would be better saved for some collection. Growf. I hope something snappier will emerge during the test-reading/editing/wait for the cover phase.
It's been pretty interesting to replace the typical lone-wolf magical protagonist living out his angsty extended adolescence with an actual mature adult embedded in a functional family, and see what that does to genre expectations. My first vision of the older Penric, back before I started all this, was more in the former mode. I'm glad I dropped back and started him at his beginning with what became "Penric's Demon" -- he's a much more engaging character now.
No, I don't know anything yet about Blackstone or SubPress. AFAIK, they've not yet been informed the story exists, though my agent will take care of that soon. But I prefer to have it in final, tidied-as-possible form before submitting it for subrights sales.
And now I'm going to go take the evening goofing off.
It feels like it's been a busy week. I have actually gotten a few things
done. (Some of them today, which doesn't really count.) Most notably,
making travel arrangements to get to D.F.D.F..
It's also been a good week for finding stuff, including an obituary for my father, written by his friend and co-worker Walter
Slavin [pdf]. Also, a box containing a small carpet, two plastic bins
of memorabilia, and a number of old hard drives (which need to be
looked at and erased before being discarded) that I thought had
been left behind,
You'll also find the Epic v. Apple Contempt order, which is epic in more ways than one. I
haven't had that much fun reading a court order since SCO v IBM. It's
worth an extended quote:
In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous
business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at
every turn chose the most anticompetitive option. To hide the truth,
Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath.
Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the
Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief
Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him
otherwise. Cook chose poorly. [...] The Court refers the matter to the
United States Attorney for the Northern District of California to
investigate whether criminal contempt proceedings are appropriate.
O! My sweet summer child: ‘Roadmap for corruption’: Trump dive into cryptocurrency raises ethics alarm The president’s hawking of $Trump memecoin has sparked a firestorm of criticism over potential influence buying Peter Stone in Washington https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/25/trump-crypto-corruption-ethics
Can Pope Leo retain US citizenship while leading a foreign government? US state department says on website it may ‘actively review’ status of Americans who ‘serve as a foreign head of state’ Associated Press https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/25/pope-leo-us-citizenship
A note to anybody who wants to read this: I get the impression that we're supposed to think that the "original" book was written with prose so purple it might as well have been in grape-scented marker. The effect can be a little much, but hey, at least nobody gazes outward with a glint in their silvery orbs, limpid, lambent, or otherwise! But yeah, if you aren't able to get into it within a chapter or two, that's not going to improve itself.
I liked it, but to be fair, I like most things I read.
Oh, one more warning - somebody at Goodreads was going on about the fact that the author either misunderstood or willfully misused the term "Ladies in Waiting" for this book. I don't quite agree that it's something to get so annoyed about, but we've all got our thing. I don't like books which have potatoes in pre-Columbian Europe (or not!Europe). You'll all be pleased to note that I observed no potatoes in this book.
But time moves on. What, exactly, do you call "realistic contemporary fiction" once it's no longer contemporary? It's not exactly historical fiction either, since writers of historical fiction generally make specific choices in bringing the past to life, ideally with few or no whoppers of mistakes.
I sometimes say "then-contemporary", but... well, it sounds a bit silly, doesn't it?
(On a related note, it looks like now people are less likely to say "issues book" and more likely to say "social issues book", is that accurate? I'm not loving a change that involves using more words to get to the same meaning, but okay.)
She can put weight on her foot, but after she walks for a while she doesn't want to. Still, it's recovering pretty rapidly, that's the important thing.
The fourth BETA build for the FreeBSD 14.3 release cycle is now available. ISO images for the amd64, i386, powerpc, powerpc64, powerpc64le, powerpcspe, armv6, armv7, aarch64, and riscv64 architectures are FreeBSD mirror sites.
It's fully online this year, but it's still on. I've already been on one panel, dealing with acespec identities and representation, and I've got another Sunday. I'll be attending at least a couple more between now and then. But seriously, I *need* this four-day weekend. I took today off deliberately, given it's WisCon weekend, and con or not, that was absolutely the right call. Good gosh.
I intend to be up and out early tomorrow, the better to get to the farmers market and back again before the 10 AM panels happen. Wish me luck? :P
My opinion on adaptations: A lot of fans of ANY book series get very
emotional, negatively, with live action adaptations. I think this happens
because they get too invested in the idea. The adaptation becomes personal
on an astonishing level.
Don't get me wrong -- I have some series that are so foundational to my
life that I have very strong feelings for them, but when I'm looking at
someone else's adaptation of them, it's not MY book experience that is
being shown. It's the showrunner/ producer/ whomever's.
And, as such, I emotionally look at these things almost like a gift someone
has given me.
I might like it. I might hate it. I might be utterly baffled why they
bothered. But it doesn't affect my experience of the foundational book.
They are separate things entirely.
Now, on to THIS cancellation:
Dammit.
"For whatever reason, Amazon has renewed Rings Of Power despite its massive
decline in viewership, while cancelling the wildly superior Wheel Of Time.
Truly, I will never understand the decisions these streaming executives
make."
...Sure, there are many ways that Wheel Of Time could have been better.
While there was no feasible way to stick to the letter of the source
material, a lot of the changes were definitely questionable, even in Season
3..."
[If you watched all of the first season and were baffled by the ending, that's because one of the main characters quit entirely after covid lockdown with no warning. They had to take out all his plot points with zero time for adjusting to the change.]
"Some Very Bad News For ‘Wheel Of Time’ Season 4 As Amazon Does The
Unthinkable"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2025/05/23/some-very-bad-news-for-wheel-of-time-season-4-as-amazon-does-the-unthinkable/
USS Stein was underway when her anti-submarine sonar gear suddenly stopped working. On returning to port and putting the ship in a drydock, engineers observed many deep scratches in the sonar dome’s rubber “NOFOUL” coating. In some areas, the coating was described as being shredded, with rips up to four feet long. Large claws were left embedded at the bottom of most of the scratches.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Summer squashes are always hit or miss with me. I plant at least one every year and then take what comes (or doesn't). Today I had two good sized squashes and picked one. (There's also a clump of volunteer squash in a bed I'm not actively using, but they're from seeds that were in the compost heap, so who knows what the genetics are!)
I'm getting a good handful of blueberries at least once a week and there will be a solid gooseberry crop in another month or so. The currents are taking the year off, but are healthy. Artichokes are done for the year. Tomatoes are setting but not yet ripe.
This week started off with spending a couple days at my dad's place to take him to a couple appointments and do some shopping. (My brother, who lives there, is currently waiting on cataract surgery and isn't driving.) He has other options for rides, but I want to get over there more often now that I have time, so it works out.
Wednesday the electrician came over and got all set up for replacing my electrical panel. The replacement happened in a single day on Thursday, and since I was off biking and having a routine medical check-up for the first half of the day, the lack of electricity wasn't as much of a bother. (There was a pre-appointment survey about my exercise habits, so it was a nice touch to show up sweaty in my biking clothes.)
Replacing the electrical panel meant temporarily moving the not-built-in-but-fastened-to-the-wall shelves on that wall where all my bins of fabric and crafting supplies live. So in addition to taking the opportunity to wipe down the shelves and bins, I'm also doing a sift-through of the contents. This is reminding me that when I moved in I did a fair amount of "let's just stuff this in a plastic tub and put it on a shelf."
I've been meaning to do a second round of "let's invite people over to take away things I'm not likely to use". The first round was SCA camping gear. The second round will be craft supplies. So I need to go through everything and identify what I want to keep, what I want to prioritize actually finishing, and what I'm happy to re-home. I can probably combine it with a little "come over and see if you want these books I'm getting rid of." My goal is to boil it down so that "tools and small supplies" will fit in the cabinet in the craft room, while "fabric and large supplies" go on the garage shelves. Part of that will be actually completing some projects that currently take up space.
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