Reading List | Adventures with Kake

WARNING: Do not watch with mouth full.

Robots race, play football, crash and collapse at China's 'robot Olympics'

BEIJING, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China kicked off the three-day long World Humanoid Robot Games on Friday, looking to showcase its advances in artificial intelligence and robotics with 280 teams from 16 countries.
Robots competed in sports such as track and field, and table tennis, as well as tackled robot-specific challenges from sorting medicines and handling materials to cleaning services

Watching the evolution of robotics on a primitive planet is hilarious.

Current Mood: amused

ysabetwordsmith

Build an Emergency Food Supply List

There are several ways to build an emergency food supply to stock a survival kit and a “bug out bag”. While you can purchase specialized food products or a self-contained emergency preparedness kit, these can be costly and wasteful.

Instead, you can simply assemble shelf-stable foods that you already buy or preserve at home. Many canned, dried, and pickled foods are quite suitable for use in an emergency kit.

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

In particular, watch for sales. Anytime you see a shelf-stable food that you use, consider buying extra if feasible.

Current Mood: busy

kaberett

Ordered, at least, to pick up next week.

Indulgence is a writing slope off eBay with a lucky dip of writing utensils, one of which I am very cheerful about...

ysabetwordsmith

My fall order from American Meadows has arrived. :D Now I just need the weather to break so I can actually get out to plant things. If you're still shopping, this nursery has some stock of fall bulbs left and some of those are on sale.

Dangerous Mood Bearded Iris (lavender standards with near-black falls)

Montmartre Bearded Iris (purple with yellow edges)

Ziggy Reblooming Bearded Iris (yellow standards with burgundy-and-yellow streaked falls)

Current Mood: excited

ysabetwordsmith

Today is partly cloudy and sweltering. It rained a little last night.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

EDIT 8/19/25 -- I put out water for the birds. I've seen a male cardinal.

EDIT 8/19/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 8/19/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 8/19/25 -- I watered the barrel garden and the old picnic table garden.

EDIT 8/19/25 -- I watered the new picnic table and the septic garden.

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

Current Mood: busy

liv

This weekend one of my oldest friends got married, and my partners celebrated their 20^th anniversary with a Jewish blessing and wedding canopy. So I had a lovely lovely time, and also I'm very much reminded that there's a crowd of (mostly somewhat connected) people I've been friends with for most of 30 years and I should make more active effort to actually spend time with them because they are awesome.

( wedding squee )

I sort of want to see if I can make it to my brother's charity's ceilidh next week. But Friday evening events in Brighton when I have a bar mitzvah in Cambridge on Saturday are a bit unworkable. And although I enjoyed the dancing, what I want more of isn't mainly dancing, it's spending time with people. And waiting for my friends to have reunions in the form of weddings isn't very efficient! I'm amazed that there were even two weddings this year, with most of my circle being in our 40s.

jack has planned a bank holiday picnic next Monday; it will be fully outdoors, which is good for infection risk but possibly bad for enduring summer weather. But if you happen to be in Cambridge you're most welcome.

Current Mood: joyful
Current Location: Trinity Buoy Wharf, London, UK
Current Music: Praise the Lord, ye heavens adore him

oursin

This has me thinking (for that is the way I roll) 'who is the novelist that this has escaped from?': Alan Turing Institute accused of ‘toxic’ culture -

“The problems are deep-seated going back to the foundation,” said Lawrence. “If you create an institute that has a lot of money and spends that money on itself and a club of universities, you create a lot of politics.”

Could be a ponderous CP Snow tome, could be a Lodge or Bradbury send-up (Lodge of course already did academe/business collab, no?), or dear Sir Angus sniping acerbicly.

***

A more cheerful thing: Barbara Hepworth’s Sculpture with Colour saved for nation

***

More on heritage and reconstructing the past: The museum where history keeps repeating itself:

The easiest mistake to make in historical re-enactment is to create an era that never quite existed, by playing too closely to period. At Beamish, there is a real thoughtfulness given to how every age is a sort of palimpsest.

However, it doesn't appear that the author of this piece (known to me) has actually ridden in a sedan-chair (where would you get the bearers, even if a museum would let you try out one?): Jolted and Jumbled: Riding in a Sedan Chair in the 18th Century

***

And Dept, Here Comes the Silly Season:

This strikes me as in the fine old spirit of Stephen Potter and GamesManShip/LifeManShip etc: The Best Time I Pretended I Hadn’t Heard of Slavoj Žižek: One weird trick to frustrate the hell out of a Marxist bro:

My advice is intended only for special occasions. It is for when you have an itch to scratch, and that itch is called, “a puerile desire to get on other people’s nerves.” All you do is stonily deny any knowledge of a person or cultural touchstone that you should, by virtue of your other cultural reference points, be aware of.... The game works best when you choose something that is normally the prompt for a great deal of intellectual posturing, of talking in a loud, bored voice.... Don’t do this to anyone who will be hurt by it, as opposed to merely irritated.

(I think Potter's 'plonking' could be invoked here perhaps.)

Whereas this has escaped from the era of Ealing Comedy, surely? Daniel Jackson was just 14 when he and his friends saw a strip of forest between Serbia and Croatia, and decided to claim it. Now 20, he is the president of Verdis, but has been forced to live in exile:

[I]t seems that men are more inclined to start a new country: 70% of Verdis’s citizens, and all seven of its government ministers, are men. This is not because of any kind of meninist agenda, Jackson assures me, and it is something he would like to address, but “it’s a lot harder to find women who are interested in getting involved”.

We wonder how many of that 30% of the citizenry are girlfriends who have been signed up to the project....

jack

It works! I added a toggle to the running app I use Fitocracy to display paces instead of speeds.

The first time I've done anything on a regular android app, and the first time I've really edited an open source project.

Fitocracy was the only app that could show me current speed, average speed, and average speed for less than the whole run without unrealistic hoops. But i was annoyed the speeds were in speeds, not paces.

Hopefully that is just what I need myself. I will try to get it into the original project too as it seems like a worthwhile improvement.

discworldmud_devblog_feed

http://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/blog/blog.c?action=filter&blog=recent%20developments&id=1063

A witch named Brienna has taken up residence on Wall Street West in Sto Lat. Rumour has it that she can help you reverse any unfortunate tattoo-related decisions you might have made while inebriated (or even while stone-cold sober).

http://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/blog/blog.c?action=filter&blog=recent%20developments&id=1063

ysabetwordsmith

This is the freebie for the August 5, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from

siliconshaman. It also fills the "He Who Whispers" square in my 8-1-25 card for the Crime Classics fest. This poem belongs to An Army of One series.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

oursin

Happy birthday,

wandra!

ysabetwordsmith

Myanmar’s massive quake hints at bigger earthquakes to come

The massive 2025 Myanmar earthquake revealed that strike slip faults can behave in surprising ways. Using satellite data, Caltech researchers found the Sagaing Fault ruptured more dramatically than expected, suggesting faults like the San Andreas could unleash even larger quakes than history shows.

Never assume that the worst thing you know about is the worst thing that can happen.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is mostly sunny and sweltering.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few house finches and sparrows.

EDIT 8/18/25 -- I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 8/18/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen a hummingbird in the forest garden. I couldn't tell more detail than that, but presumably it is a rubythroat as that is the only kind typically found in Illinois. It may have been attracted to the water, or the robust colony of red salvia blooming in the barrel garden.

EDIT 8/18/25 -- I did a more work around the patio.

EDIT 8/18/25 -- I potted up 24 sweet cherry seeds.

EDIT 8/18/25 -- I watered the old picnic table and the patio plants.

EDIT 8/18/25 -- I watered the new picnic table garden.

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

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Writing
Read "For the Many" by Beepbird
How to not build the Torment Nexus
Affordable Housing
Moment of Silence: Terence Stamp
Climate Change
Birdfeeding
Robotics
Genetics
Birdfeeding
Crafts
Climate Change
Creative Jam
Philosophical Questions: Diversity
Today's Adventures
Early Humans
Birdfeeding
Follow Friday 8-15-25: Indie
Affordable Housing
Celebrate Love Your Bookshop Day
Birdfeeding
Vocabulary: Unintended Sidequences
Conservation
Birdfeeding
Poem: "To Allow in More Light"
Hard Things

Affordable Housing has 26 comments. Robotics has 46 comments. Food has 34 comments. "Philosophical Questions: Looks" has 49 comments. "Incompetence, Sloppy Thinking, and Laziness" has 75 comments.

summerofthe69 is open! You can see the calendar here and the current themes are Kinky 69 and Tropefest 69.

There are no open epics at present.

The weather is still sweltering here. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a mourning dove, a male cardinal, a fox squirrel, a skunk, and a bat. Currently blooming: dandelions, pansies, violas, marigolds, petunias, red salvia, verbena, lantana, sweet alyssum, zinnias, snapdragons, blue lobelia, perennial pinks, oxalis, moss rose, yarrow, anise hyssop, firecracker plant, tomatoes, tomatillos, Asiatic lilies, cucumber, yellow squash, zucchini, morning glory, purple echinacea, black-eyed Susan, yellow coneflower, chicory, Queen Anne's lace, sunflowers, cup plant, gladioli, firewheel, orange butterfly weed. Tomatillo and pepper have green fruit. Tomatoes, cucumbers, ball carrots, and groundcherries are ripe.

Current Mood: busy

spiralsheep

Emboldened by drinking Iron Tusk (the Oort Cloud Mariner was off), and feeling metal as a sidequence, I have unwisely decided to share my thoughts on the tendency to handmaidenly self-sacrifice: if you see me walking down the street, try not to cry each time we meet, just scroll on by....

Warning for oblique mention of suicide by self-sacrifice.

I was thinking about places we tour as spectators, as differentiated from times and places we might choose to live in.

Which in turn led me to wonder about fandom, and how much human behaviour has or hasn't been modified by the wider availability of (more-or-less accurate) information through mass media.

For example, many human cultures used to indulge in the supposedly voluntary mass sacrifice of young people at the death and burial of a cultural idol. Not only a loving partner, whose motive might be more understandable to us, but also multiple handmaidens (of any sex/gender). And I'm sitting here idly wondering if such spectacular "high status" (i.e. resource-hoarding) funerals were still de rigueur in our contemporary global cross-culture then how many young women would want to sacrifice themselves as a public display of grief at the death of a mass media idol or in the belief they'd accompany him to an enticing afterlife (as historically it was usually hims - or perhaps we have achieved equality of exploitation)? Would being one amongst hundreds or thousands of ghostly handmaidens, instead of a select few, encourage or discourage potential victims of self-sacrifice? Would their families and societies encourage or discourage them from joining the ghostly horde / hoard?

What about young warriors sacrificing themselves en masse at the funerals of their dead idols? As far as I know there isn't even a fashion for mass sacrificing virtual gaming characters to honour a fallen leader....

When did humanity change its mind about this previously widespread fashion for terminal self-sacrifice and why? Or is it merely better disguised now as millions willingly throw their lives onto the pyres of billionaires? I dunno, but I am interested in whether a fashion for young people to mass sacrifice themselves for a dead idol could ever return.

oursin

The Benson Diary by AC Benson review – musings of an Edwardian elitist:

His outlook is that of an Edwardian clubman; and indeed, the only England Benson knew well, apart from Eton, Cambridge and the court at Windsor Castle, was the smoke-filled rooms of Pall Mall, a world largely without women. Benson did not much like women and was not at ease with them, preferring the company of handsome young men. The editors go to great pains to argue that Benson, while certainly homoerotic, was not actively homosexual. But, really, who cares?
....
In truth, these diaries are a monument of misplaced scholarship.

Okay, I am jumping up and down going BURN! because one of the editors is someone who wrote a ghastly retro piece of work within my own Field of Endeavour which I had occasion to review back in the day.

(The Literary Review was kinder)

But also, while I guess Bensons are a minor fandom of mine, the diaries I would be interested in reading are those of Minnie (Sapphic romps at Lambeth Palace!) and of naughty Fred, EF Benson, author of the camp classics about Mapp and Lucia and the Edwardian bromance David Blaize. Though once attended conference paper claiming that the M&L novels were essentially romans a clef about his circle, so maybe he didn't need to write a bitchy diary as well.

I think we already had as much of AC as anyone would wish to know in that Goldhill volume on the family, which had a bit too much AC for my taste to begin with.

ysabetwordsmith

china_shop has posted "Writing meta: What Middles Are For." It's an excellent essay about story structure.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

beepbird has written "For the Many," a book about plurality / multiplicity. It is available at this post with links to download PDF or EPUB formats.

I know I have a bunch of plural people in my audience, and I write about some plural characters such as Damask in Polychrome Heroics or Bruce-and-Hulk in Love Is For Children (The Avengers), so I'm always watching for good resources on this topic. Go read the book. It is very clearly written and includes many practical descriptions of how to achieve healthy multiplicity. Many of the suggestions are good people skills for living in other communal contexts too. It's good to read if you have plural friends, so you don't hurt them, because society affords them little or no protection. If you want to know how to do something, listen to someone who's been doing it a while -- not an "expert" who has never done it.

Current Mood: impressed

ysabetwordsmith

How to not build the Torment Nexus

This week’s question comes to us from Will Hopkins:
When your job and healthcare depends on building the Torment Nexus, but you actually learned the lesson from the popular book Don't Build the Torment Nexus, how do you keep your soul intact and try to put less torment into the world?

I would add: when your survival requires a job, and most jobs involve building some form of Torment Nexus, be aware that your society is in the toilet, circling the drain. And it's not an accident for people to feel outright trapped in truly heinous jobs. That's what homeless people are for: so the boss can say, "Quit dragging your feet and build the goddamn Torment Nexus! Or do you want to be homeless?"

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Small Changes With Big Impacts in Dallas

On April 23, the Dallas City Council did something worth paying attention to.
They voted unanimously to approve a change to the city’s building code that allows up to eight dwelling units in three-story buildings under a modified version of the International Residential Code (IRC).

Multiplexes and small apartment buildings belong to the "missing middle" of affordable housing. They mix well with freestanding homes, particularly if you put them on the larger corner lots of a block. Imagine a block of mostly 2-3 bedroom houses with the corners holding a couple of small apartment buildings or multiplexes and a couple of bigger 4+ bedroom houses that could be for large families, sharehouses, boarding houses, etc. And some of those single-family homes could also have a garage apartment or a home business on the porch or garage. Such blocks exist in many of the towns near me, and they are awesome.

Current Mood: busy

Kake's Reading List

Robotics

Food

victory of the day is GLASSES

American Meadows Order

Birdfeeding

Weddings

Assorted things

Fitocracy paces

Youthful Indiscretion

Poem: "He Who Whispers"

(no subject)

Earthquakes

Birdfeeding

Monday Update 8-18-25

In which our heroine over-thinks self-sacrifice for fannish idols

For people who like this sort of thing, this is what they like?

Writing

Read "For the Many" by Beepbird

How to not build the Torment Nexus

Affordable Housing

Links

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December 2012

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