larryhammer | Network

The White Queen
by Philippa Gregory

This historical novel is set during the last couple of decades of the Wars of the Roses and is told mainly from the perspective of Elizabeth Woodville, Edward the IV's queen. They fall in love just about at first sight and get married privately, much to the chagrin of Edward's advisors. Still, Elizabeth and Edward have a successful marriage and produce ten children. Their reign is more rocky, as the York-Lancaster conflict persists. When Edward dies of a fever and Richard usurps the throne, Elizabeth and her children have to navigate a very dangerous and difficult future.
I liked this angle on the Wars of the Roses, given how it concentrates on the events behind and around the battles. Elizabeth is a compelling character. She is fierce in her love and loyalty for Edward and for her family. She is not inherently power-hungry, but once she has power, she is determined to keep it and grow it. She is also very determined to make sure her family gets the full benefit of her position. This does not always make her political life easy, but it does make her a force in the kingdom. Gregory adds a bit of magical realism by showing Elizabeth, her mother, and her daughter using folk magic to influence events, but leaves their efficacy ambiguous. It does add a cool aspect to the story, and a glimpse into how medieval people used and viewed these practices.

Current Mood: okay

torachan

1. Got my hair cut this morning. Carla wanted to get hers trimmed before her trip (she's going to Wisconsin for a week tomorrow for her aunt's 80th birthday) so it was the both of us and we decided to pop over to Universal Studios for lunch afterwards. The crowds were so low! If we'd stayed to go on any rides, almost everything was like 20 minutes or less, even the massively popular ones. As it was, we just had a nice lunch, spotted some characters, and came home.

2. Because of the haircut appointment, which was awkwardly timed for late morning, I just made today a WFH day. Did some stuff in the morning before we went, and then had a meeting later in the afternoon. I didn't really have a whole lot on the agenda for today anyway, so it worked out well.

3. Shake Shack is apparently having a Korean inspired menu right now, so we got the burgers with Korean BBQ sauce. They were so good! There's also a chicken sandwich and fries with kimchi powder and dipping sauce, and even a caramel gochujang shake, so if they've still got this stuff on the menu when Carla gets back from her trip, we're planning to try some of those as well. Actually now that I think of it, there's one near work, so I might just go over there for lunch one day...

4. Warming bed + stretching = best combo.

adafrog

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princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: cheerful

starandrea

My workplace requires the use of LLM as AI, so I pay particular attention to how it comes up in my hobbies. Every day is a chance to learn more than I knew before.

Will AI replace Chinese teachers | Chinese podcast #184, by Dashu Mandarin 大叔中文

Ben: I don't think I'll be replaced by AI; I'll be replaced by someone who knows how to use AI.
Richard: You'll be replaced by PeiPei.
PeiPei: Follow me!
Richard: If you can't beat them, join them, right?

Ben: 我是觉得呃我不会被AI取代但是我会被会AI的。
Richard: 你会被珮珮取代。
PeiPei: 跟着我干吧！
Richard: 对打不过就加入是吧？

tafadhali posting in

vidding

Title: Gimme Sympathy
Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Music: "Gimme Sympathy" by Metric
Pairing: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov
Summary: We're so close to something better left unknown

AO3 | DW | Tumblr

ysabetwordsmith

This poem was written outside the regular prompt calls, inspired by a discussion with

a_natural_beauty. It also fills the "WILD CARD: Denial" square in my 2-1-25 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. It has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72649&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=submissive-woman-or-bound-slave-interpreting-oracle-bone-forms-as-a-rorschach-test

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72649

We've been discussing the oracle bone form (late 2nd millennium BC) of nǚ女 ("woman; female"):

(WP)

I've always felt that it shows the profile of a submissive, kneeling female figure with her arms crossed in front of her (I say this after examining scores of variants of OB forms of 女).

Lately, however, some scholars have interpreted the oracle bone graph in radically different ways, e.g., the figure is a slave with arms bound in front of or behind him.

If that is the case, how do we get to "woman; female", which nǚ 女 (during the last three millennia), both by itself and as the radical (Kangxi no. 38) of hundreds (681) of other graphs having to do with women or feminine affairs / characteristics as it has indubitably signified during the last three millennia?

So I asked Axel Schuessler, the foremost etymologist of Old Sinitic, how he would interpret the oracle bone forms of nǚ 女. He replied:

Chinese writing is sometimes like a Rorschach-test, everyone can see something different in the characters.

Here is my take: the OB graph shows a figure seen from the side. The figure is kneeling. This breast interpretation has never convinced me. What I see is a shoulder with arms, elbows extended to the sides. The top line of this ‘breast’ configuration shows the shoulder (with the stroke starting at top right) with the woman’s right arm curving down around her torso, the bottom line shows the left arm curving around the torso (again: from a side perspective). The arms/hands meet in front of the figure. This is exactly the pose found in theater performances when a woman is facing a person of authority showing respect, kneeling, arms extended with elbows out, hands coming together in front of her. In these gestures the hands wind up on top of each other or curled together like fists, if memory serves. Perhaps one can also find this position in paintings. I don’t see any hint of bound hands or slavery.

The graph for ‘mother’ 母, with the two dots that are really supposed to prove the breast theory. Again, I see this completely differently. Sometimes, a graph is created by using an existing one and then adding a dot or dots, strokes as diacritic for distinction. Sometimes the dot has the purpose of filling an area, like in 日, 月, 本. So 母 has the dots to indicate that 女 ‘woman is not intended, but ‘mother’.

Anyway, this is a good Rorschach test.

—–

PS: à propos graphs being like Rorschach tests: the interpretation says sometimes more about the viewer that the graph itself. This graph meaning ‘woman’ makes people (naturally) look for anatomical markers, i.e. breasts; those living in a modern left ideology look for oppression of women everywhere and promptly find it, hence woman as slave.

I wish I could find paintings or photographs where you see a woman in exactly this kneeling pose with elbow pointed outward, hands joined, that made me immediately think that this is exactly what the OB have captured with a few strokes.

I think this is the sort of painting Axel had in mind:

Selected readings

"Women's script wins in the end" (1/19/26)
"Women's writing: dead or alive" (10/2/20)
"Misogyny as reflected in Chinese characters" (12/25/15)
"Women's words" (2/2/16)
"Pinyin memoirs" (8/13/16)
"Nüshu" Wikipedia

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72649&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=submissive-woman-or-bound-slave-interpreting-oracle-bone-forms-as-a-rorschach-test

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72649

nestra

Wow, I only made one post last year? I'm here every day, reading, so I keep up with anyone still posting here.

I didn't put up the Yuletide polls this year. Just didn't have the oomph. It's been an oomph-sapping kind of year or so, hasn't it? (Fuck me -- just looked it up, and it's literally the one-year anniversary of that shitbag's inaguration.)

ANYWAY. Fun stuff. Things I have posted since...a while ago.

( 911 )

( Heated Rivalry )

The Pitt

Bet

So as you can see, I'm generally obsessed with those three things. Putting more silliness and gay porn into the world.

hannah

It's been well below freezing all day, and the only time I've spent outdoors was the pair of bike rides to and from the gig location, which itself is barely a 20 block ride. It was more than enough for my fingers and ears to get uncomfortably chilled, though I take it as a point of pride that continuing to mask up means my nose and mouth are just fine. I'm still thinking often on how safe I am for this cold snap - a safe place to sleep, hot water, layers to bundle up. Mostly, the tiredness comes from having rearranged a fairly sizable home library's substantial fiction section, up and down a stepladder, picking up armfuls of books over and over, and it's not digging a ditch, but between hours of that and the cold, I'm feeling pretty wiped.

I think next time I go, I'll bring a canned coffee with me. See about heading this off ahead of time.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Mr Brightside - The Killers

i_like_the_stars

3 sentence ficathon is happening LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOO time to be SO cringe (Hazbin Hotel brain rot curse) time to get FUNKAAAAYYYYYY ouuuuuu YEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH LET’S GO BITCHESSSSSSSSSS YEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH I’M HYPE I’M SOooOOOOO HYPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

musesfool

The conference was interesting, if maybe 1 panel too long (it ended at 4:55 pm, but the last panel was...not great, imo), though the lunch options were, to me, appalling. (Many people ate and enjoyed the sandwiches but there was not one that I would eat. I made do with salad, chips, and cookies.) My boss and I both felt validated by some things being mentioned that we already do and some that we are planning to do (if the new board chair approves), so that part was good too.

It was hard to get up (it was hard to sleep, knowing I had to get up 90 minutes earlier than usual), but I did it. I also saw two fun signs on the way: "Lube Entrance" and "You can ship anything." As

devildoll said when I told her, I'll take AO3 tags for $200, Alex. *g*

Now I'm going to try to stay awake for another hour and then go to bed because I am le tired.

*

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Get a Grip - Semisonic

rolanni

A new post of possible interest to those who are participating in the Liaden read-along

siderea

I found this intriguing. YouTuber KnittingCultLady, who is an Air Force veteran and author about two books on military culture from the standpoint of cults(!), put out this rather frustrated video clarifying how members of the military respond to illegal orders. The tl;dr is they will follow orders of ambiguous legality, and refuse to follow orders of obvious illegality, and what is obviously illegal may not be what civilians think.

2026 Jan 18: KnittingCultLady on YT: Some Examples of Recent Malicious Compliance from the Military, ALSO Listen Carefully To My Words:

Watch on YouTube

She doesn't put it this way, but it sounds from what she says that what makes something obviously illegal is that it resulted in a courtmartial or other nigh-universal condemnation when tried previously. Orders that are for doing things that are war crimes by the letter of the law but which did not result in prosecution or other negative consequences for the perpetrators when done in the past do not trigger the sense that they are illegal, e.g. if it was okay for Bush to seize Noriega, then clearly it must be legal for Trump to seize Maduro.

torachan

Universal Studios has short hours during the off season, making it inconvenient to go for dinner on weeknights, but today we had an opportunity to go for lunch since we were sort of partway there.

The park wasn't crowded at all, but all the good parking was taken, so we had to park at the ET parking structure, which is at the far end of CityWalk, but at least that meant we got a nice walk to and from the park as well as inside.

( Read more... )

ysabetwordsmith

Thanks to a lot of work by

fuzzyred, you can now read A Poesy of Obscure Sorrows on its own landing page. :D This series of linguistic poetry uses novel words presented in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

Current Mood: accomplished

flemmings

Made it to the dentist. Did not die, though I thought I might while waiting on College St for my cab. Wind tunnels at -10C will get you wind chills of -22, whatever that may be F, because 'forking freezing' is not a scientific measurement. Driver kept yawning since extreme cold also leads to somnolence. Am yawning now at quarter to six. Which may be fallout from the dentist or may be tiredness from getting up this morning when I first woke up. Seems I need the extra hours I get from sleeping in.

Cabs always come early so I had an hour to kill. Intended to get something from Tim's and then found I'd forgotten the toothbrush and paste I'd carefully put in a bag for this eventuality. Well, fine, shall mail that parcel I've had ready for weeks since there's a post office in the same building. Had the photo of my QR code for overseas customs declaration. But as ever the PO scanner couldn't read it and a 1 o'clock line was forming behind me. So I went to the side and filled out the form again on my phone-- and let me say, people who live on their phones must have different keyboards or smaller fingers than I, because writing anything on my android is a fiddly heartbreaking exercise. This goes double for Japanese addresses, but in the end my phone was completely readable. So this is what I'll do in future. Asked the clerk what people do who don't have smartphones and she said They just don't send parcels. I begin to lose sympathy for Canada Post. We won't mention sending anything to the US, with customs to be paid in advance via one app only. The customs thing is their current administration (quae delenda est) but I think the mandatory app is pure Canuck bureaucracy.

kaberett

( Read more... )

trobadora

What I did during my lunch break: assemble Ikea shelves \o/
What I didn't do during my lunch break: write /o\

(And then the entire afternoon was non-stop meetings until smoke came out of my ears.)

Today's writing

A little more than an alibi sentence, but not much more.

WED Question of the Day

Poll #34101

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 18

View Respondents

I find ...

View Answers

shorter fic easier to write than longer fic
11 (61.1%)

longer fic easier to write than shorter fic
4 (22.2%)

something else (see comments)
3 (16.7%)

I mostly write ...

View Answers

drabbles and ficlets (<1k)
2 (11.8%)

short fic (1-3k)
5 (29.4%)

medium length fic (3-6k)
4 (23.5%)

longer fic (6-10k)
4 (23.5%)

long fic (10-20k)
0 (0.0%)

very long fic (20-50k)
0 (0.0%)

epic fic (>50k)
2 (11.8%)

I often write ...

View Answers

drabbles and ficlets (<1k)
9 (56.2%)

short fic (1-3k)
12 (75.0%)

medium length fic (3-6k)
8 (50.0%)

longer fic (6-10k)
7 (43.8%)

long fic (10-20k)
3 (18.8%)

very long fic (20-50k)
1 (6.2%)

epic fic (>50k)
3 (18.8%)

Tally

( Days 1-15 )

Day 16:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 17:

alightbuthappypen,

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 18:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

cornerofmadness,

luzula,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora

Day 19:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora

Day 20:

china_shop,

trobadora

Let me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)

matsushima posting in

pineisland

CHOOSE SOMETHING YOU LOVE AND CREATE A MINI MOOD COLLECTION OF THREE (or more) ITEMS THAT EVOKE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT IT.

Title: Winter Bones
Fandom: TSUBASA: RESERvoir CHRoNiCLE
Characters: Fay D Fluorite (my love)
Prompt:

snowflake_challenge Challenge #10 /

fanmix_monthly Challenge #1: Everything Old is New Again
Notes: Fay is and always will be my one true anime love
Notes #2: For anyone coming here from

snowflake_challenge, if you made a fanmix, please feel free to x-post it to

fanmix_monthly!

Link: 🔗

( why do I need anyone else when I can break the sky myself? ♫ )

Current Mood: fangirly

calimac

So I wrote about the conference on Clark Ashton Smith that I attended. I've now had the chance to follow a link that I took note of during the panels. It's a (virtually?) complete file of Smith's writings online. If you've never tried his writings, here's your chance. One story of his that I found searingly memorable will make a bracing introduction to whether Smith is an author for you. Unusually for Smith, the main character of this one is the hero, not the villain, but nothing goes well for anybody in this story. I'm reminded as much of Tiptree's "The Last Flight of Dr. Ain" as of anything else by this story.

ribirdnerd posting in

birdfeeding

A bit of snow and cold over the long weekend kept the birds busy. We ended up with just 4.5 inches even though it snowed on and off all day and night Sunday plus into early Monday morning.

Blue Jays, Tufted Titmouse, Morning Doves, Cardinal, House Sparrows, Woodpeckers and Carolina Wren were all around. One night I saw 2 Deer walking down the street, the next night 3 Coyotes

The snow stuck to the tree branches making a great winter scene. This is a view of the small trail right near my house.

beatrice_otter

so why. why why why. Do I so often come across fic where the author clearly a) doesn't have any idea how far apart two places are, or how to get from one to the other, and b) never thought to check google maps?

Just read a fic where one character is thinking that "it's only an 8-hour plane ride!"

and. I have driven basically between those two places.

It's a 6-hour drive unless traffic is really bad. if you hit the most congested bits exactly at rush hour, it might take you 8 hours. to drive.

Flying? Well, if you were starting at a small regional airport and needed to make a connection, it might take you four hours.

I actually mind this shit more than the big stuff. The big stuff is hard to research. Google Maps is really really quick and easy.

goddess47 posting in

sweetandshort

Title: An Unexpected Discovery
Author:

goddess47
Character(s): John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagen
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: PG
Length: 442 words
Warnings: none

Notes:

For

mcsheplets prompt #138 - missing

For

sweetandshort January 2026 prompt - queen

Summary:

"Grab your shit and go!" John ordered in a hiss.

An Unexpected Discovery on AO3

atlas_obscura_places_feed

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/benjamin-harrison-gravesite

Benjamin Harrison tomb

Come for the criminal; stay for the POTUS!

Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) was the 23rd President of the United States (POTUS) and grandson of 9th POTUS William Henry Harrison. His tombstone says he was a “lawyer and publicist.” He was also a grizzled war veteran, ending up as Brigadier General of the US Army. He then became an Indiana state senator, then POTUS, being preceded and succeeded by Grover Cleveland. Feel free to look him up and see how busy and popular he was as president. While he was running for a second term in 1892, his dear wife Caroline died in the White House of tuberculosis. She was buried back home in Indiana at Crown Hill. Benjamin decided to be buried by her side nine years later, eschewing the grandeur of burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Outlaw John Dillinger is also buried at Crown Hill. Many people visit him without paying their respects to somebody who actually deserves respect. So when you visit Crown Hill Cemetery, make it a point to see the tomb of Benjamin Harrison, Indiana’s first (and, so far, only) POTUS.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/benjamin-harrison-gravesite

atlas_obscura_places_feed

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/waitzstrasse

Bollard with visible car impact marks.

Waitzstraße, located in western Hamburg’s upscale Othmarschen district, seems at first a peaceful, leafy street. This one-way stretch, with a strict 6 mph (10 km/h) speed limit and cautious drivers, should be a safe environment. Yet, for two decades, an uncanny number of vehicles, about 30, have collided with the windows of shops, cafés, banks, and hair salons. The media call it Germany’s most accident-prone shopping street, while locals joke the frequent slapstick mishaps are a curse.

In 2015, the city installed heavy concrete blocks to prevent crashes. Despite their solidity, these barriers failed to stop cars from hitting storefronts; some even pushed blocks into windows, causing more damage. By 2023, slim, deeply anchored steel bollards replaced them. The line of bollards gives the street an almost anti-terrorist security appearance, sharply contrasting with the usual tranquility. While they protect shops, incidents still occur with cars hitting the bollards instead of windows.

Reports offer a clue: the average age of drivers involved is 75. This is no coincidence. Waitzstraße hosts a remarkable concentration of medical practices, with local reports estimating around 65 within just over 1,300 feet (400 meters), making it one of Europe’s densest clusters. Many older visitors arriving in oversized cars for brief appointments have mistaken the gas for the brake, tumbling into storefronts. Diagonal parking, stress, slower reflexes, and medication effects have further increased the risk of accidents.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/waitzstrasse

atlas_obscura_places_feed

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bauvais-amoureux-house

Bauvais-Amoureux House (Exterior)

The Bauvais-Amoureux House is the kind of architectural oddball Atlas Obscura readers secretly (loudly) root for: a 1792 French colonial home built poteaux-en-terre—“posts in the earth”—meaning its vertical log walls are literally structural and planted like stubborn teeth in the soil. It’s a survivor from a town that had to move and rebuild after the Flood of 1785, and it sits near le Grand Champ—among the nation’s oldest continuously worked farmland—like it’s keeping watch over the old field still. Even in a country stuffed with “historic homes,” this one hits different: only five poteaux-en-terre houses are known to remain in the United States, and three of them are right here in Sainte Geneviève.

Then the story swerves from “rare building technique” into “human lightning in a bottle.” In the 1800s it became home to Pélagie Amoureux, who was born enslaved and remained enslaved for 27 years—until love and stubborn courage helped pry open a door history tried to keep locked. She married a white man while still enslaved in 1830, was manumitted along with their son two years later, was forced to live separately from her husband until 1852 when they bought the house, and she fought desperately (and successfully) after his death to keep the home in their name. Pélagie’s struggles left a vortex of latent energy that only recently became kinetic.

It’s a story that strikes right at America’s guilty conscience, and one that struck a match under Pélagie descendant, Don Strand, where—with Academy Award–winning director Ben Proudfoot—they turned the house into the the “set” of Pélagie X, a short biopic that doubles as a revolt against historical erasure. The Pélagie X site that the film accompanies is built like a toolkit as much as a tribute: it points people to church registers, census records, court and county documents, and other research breadcrumbs, and it even expands outward into community memory work like compiling African American burial data from local cemeteries—turning a historic house visit into a gateway drug for genealogy.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bauvais-amoureux-house

atlas_obscura_places_feed

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/anderson-abruzzo-international-balloon-museum

The exterior of the Anderson Abruzzo International Balloon Museum.

The Anderson Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum, which opened its doors in 2005, features exhibits that include fascinating artifacts, some of which date back to air travel’s earliest days: The first hot air balloon flight and the first gas balloon flight both took place in Paris in 1783.

Few, if any, museums start with an accidental death. Yet two such tragedies make up the first entries in the timeline of this Albuquerque museum, a center dedicated to exploration through ballooning. But rest assured, a visit to this museum is truly an uplifting experience.

Two renowned Albuquerque balloonists, Maxie Anderson and Ben Abruzzo, completed the first nonstop transatlantic gas balloon flight in 1978. Tragically, Anderson was killed in a balloon accident in Germany five years later. Two years after that, Abruzzo died when a plane he was piloting crashed near Albuquerque.

It’s in their memory that this museum is named, and Albuquerque is a natural home for it, as the city has been hosting the annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta for more than 50 years. The museum offers views overlooking the Balloon Fiesta’s official launch field.

The museum’s architecture, by Studio SW, suggests an inflating balloon on its side and boasts a tensile fabric roof and an inflated balloon in its 75-foot-tall gallery. There are balloon simulators and various exhibits inside, plus balconies, roof decks and a plaza for watching the private balloon rides offered by local businesses.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/anderson-abruzzo-international-balloon-museum

the_shoshanna

I'm in Massachusetts visiting friends and family, and the US border guard was even brusquer and more unfriendly than the one the last time I crossed the border. They used to be reliably genial-while-professional, and now they're barking grumpy questions at me -- and I'm a white English-speaking US citizen with a NEXUS card (pre-screened, "trusted traveler"). A Canadian friend who drove across the border last year said that guards were going down the line of cars waiting to approach the booth and pulling people out to interrogate them on the side of the road, and who'd a thunk it, everyone they pulled out was brown. (When I crossed yesterday, I was the only car in sight, which I'd love to think was because Canadian travel to the US is way down, but probably had more to do with the extremely bad weather forecast that day. I managed to get south of the storm band before it hit, though.)

My obsession with Heated Rivalry continues, though I'm trying hard not to be That Fan at people. I have successfully recommended it to two board members at my church 😈 A friend I'll spend a week with this summer wants to watch it with me then, so I have that to look forward to, and there's a chance I'll get to watch it with other friends this weekend, if they're interested. Meanwhile I'm reading a lot of fic, but also freely DNFing anything that isn't working for me, whether for characterization or bad grammar or spelling it "Rosanov."

["Why, oh why, do people keep incorrectly capitalizing dialog-tag fragments like this?" She wailed. -- I mean, I know why they do it: because autocorrect sees the punctuation ending the quotation and thinks the dialog tag is a new sentence, and the writer is foolishly trusting autocorrect over the evidence of every published text they've ever read. But it drives me nuts; my sense of the flow and pacing of a sentence is very much guided by its punctuation, and this is like hitting a pothole every time.]

Geoff and I have started the new season of The Pitt, and certainly I'm liking it so far! It's interesting how much less chaotic the ER seems than it was in the first couple episodes of the first season. I'm very curious about all the characters they've introduced (and about where Mateo, the World's Hottest Nurse™️, is), and I love seeing Whitaker now a fully qualified MD with his own little ducklings following him around. (Is he still living with Santos?) I don't see an overarching plot yet ~~other than "just how suicidal is Dr. Robby?"~~ but/and I'm looking forward to seeing where it's going.

chickenfeet

https://operaramblings.blog/2026/01/20/transoceanic/

ysabetwordsmith

Cow are the latest animals observed using tools, reopening the debate about animal intelligence

Researchers report the first documented case of tool use in cattle, based on a Swiss Brown cow named Veronika who doesn’t just grab an object and rub it against herself.

She chooses the “right” part of a tool for the job, changes her technique depending on where she’s scratching, and repeats those choices in a way that looks consistent and intentional.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith posting in

birdfeeding

Today is sunny and cold.

I fed the birds. I've seen a flock of sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 1/20/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 1/20/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen at least one starling.

EDIT 1/20/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

We brought in more firewood to stack beside the stove.

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

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Current Mood: busy

james_davis_nicoll

Further developments here.

A routine bus trip from New York City to D.C. took a harrowing turn for passengers last night (Monday) when the driver reportedly decided to ditch their intended destination for a journey into the unknown.

askamanager_feed

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/01/am-i-wrong-to-be-put-off-that-my-former-employee-didnt-tell-me-she-was-listing-me-as-a-reference.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34983

A reader writes:

Twice in the past year, I’ve been asked to provide a reference for a former report, “Enid.” I hired Enid in mid-2019 and she reported to me until mid-2021 when my role changed. I think she left the organization at the end of 2022. She was an incredible employee: shining in the position and tapped on the shoulder for extra projects that highlighted her skills. Absolute pleasure to work with in every way.

In February 2024, Enid asked if I could be a reference for her, and I was happy to oblige. I did so, provided a positive reference, and let her know afterwards. We’ve not had contact since.

Just last month, I received a voicemail saying that Enid has listed me as a reference, and could we arrange a time to talk. Different organization, different position. This one had an added layer of security questions, as well as standard interview questions. As Enid was a great employee, I was happy to oblige, but … she never asked me about this. I’ve had zero contact with her since she asked for the reference in 2024 and I confirmed it had happened. This new reference had a very high security clearance attached to it, and one of the first comments the interviewer made was to please keep this confidential from Enid. I should have asked if it was the content or the entire discussion, but I am erring on the side of caution and not reaching out to her at all. I did not tell them that she had not contacted me about this; they may have been able to read between the lines, however (“I am on medical leave, so I don’t have access to specific dates …” “I haven’t connected with Enid very recently …” “My leave started before Enid left so I don’t know her exact reason for leaving …”).

So, now to my questions.

• Am I wrong to expect a courtesy heads-up before being used as a potential reference for each round of job applications? Enid has shared my personal phone and email, as I am on medical leave — I told her this in February 2024. My medical situation could have worsened in the interim and made it impossible for me to provide a reference now. However, ignoring that, I am still a little put out that I had no warning.

• Just to sound incredibly old, “in my day” we would have sent a quick thank-you after somebody told us “I gave you a positive reference” and I was mildly put out when Enid didn’t do that in February 2024. Do I need to update my etiquette expectations to this century?

• Is it appropriate to reach out to Enid about this? And if so, how should I word it, considering how infrequently this occurs, and that the most recent occurrence was confidential for security reasons? She was an amazing employee and I will always be able to give that reference positively, but to me this gap in alerting me to the possibility of somebody reaching out feels like a misstep she should know about.

It’s happened a few times over the years where I’ve been used as a reference without being asked. It surprises me each time, and I guess I would appreciate some general guidance around if it’s ever appropriate to bring that fact to the attention of the caller. If it matches the working patterns of the individual, I have less qualms mentioning it.

Yes, ideally people would give you a heads-up when they’re offering you as a reference — but there are reference checks that go outside of the list provided by the candidate and contact previous managers whether they were suggested as an “official” reference or not. That’s especially true of jobs with a heavy security clearance component. So first and foremost, Enid may not have had any idea that this job was going to contact you, and you should not penalize her for it. If she was amazing employee, you should give her an amazing reference and be happy to do it, end of story.

It’s also true that people do sometimes offer references without alerting the reference that it’s coming … and honestly, that’s not something to hold against them either! It’s in the candidate’s best interests to alert you — so they know you’re available, and so you have time to organize and refresh your thoughts and don’t sound confused or taken off-guard when you get the call — but that doesn’t mean that they’re wronging you if they don’t do it. It is considered a professional nicety to give references a heads-up — but many people job-search so infrequently or don’t go delving deeply into job-search advice that they don’t even realize that’s expected. Or they think that the initial “yes, of course you can put my name down” covers them permanently. The convention that it’s best to alert references on every fresh round of job-searching is just a convention, and it’s not one everyone is aware of. So it’s a really mild faux pas at most, not a significant misstep.

If you prefer that people handle it differently, you can of course tell them that! It’s fine to say, “By the way, I wasn’t expecting the call — I’m always happy to give you a reference, but I can do a better job if you let me know if might be coming so I have time to organize my thoughts.” (You can’t say that in this case because you were asked to keep the reference check confidential — although frankly you may or may not truly be bound by that — but you can say it generally.)

And yes, Enid should have thanked you for the earlier positive reference — it’s smart for her to do that just from a basic relationship maintenance perspective — but I don’t think that’s a huge misstep either. It’s a social/business nicety that she skipped — but ultimately, she was an excellent employee and part of your job as the manager of an excellent employee is to continue to attest to that even if she forgets to thank you.

I think something that’s muddling your thinking here is that you’re conflating “things that are smart for a candidate to do” with “things that a candidate must do.” It’s smart for Enid to check in with you before listing you as a reference, and it’s smart for her to thank you when you tell her you gave her a glowing reference (because relationship maintenance with people who give her glowing references is beneficial to her) … but her not doing those things just means she’s skipping some relatively minor stuff that would be in her best interests, not that she’s slighting you in any way.

The post am I wrong to be put off that my former employee didn’t tell me she was listing me as a reference? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/01/am-i-wrong-to-be-put-off-that-my-former-employee-didnt-tell-me-she-was-listing-me-as-a-reference.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34983

rebeccmeister

This is just a blog post to whinge about having to complete paperwork, which takes time and brain capacity that I'd rather be using for other things, like SCIENCE.

I'll get over it eventually. A certain amount is necessary, anyway.

oursin

At which I was able to make a couple of minor contributions.

Reason why serving soldiers a very small statistical minority in divorce statistics pre-1914 (post then increased massively....): there were huge restrictions on how many could marry 'on the strength' so there were fairly few actually married in the first place. Mi knowinz on this partly from Victorian fiction (I think it features in one of Charlotte Yonge's) but mostly from Being A Historian who had to do with the Contagious Diseases Acts.

Also able to make some comments apropos of preserving archives of relevant organisations and the problems of digital records.

A lot of oh dear less change than one would like to imagine took place over time in matters of divorce, family disruption, domestic abuse, gendered assumptions, etc etc: but also, a sense that, in fact Back in The Past when women may not have had much agency, they were nevertheless using what they could get, e.g. separation law, protection orders, and various legal intricacies.

Also wondered how far they were able to manipulate (or the law was actually based on) certain patriarchal assumptions, which is what I found when reviewing book by one of the major contributors - i.e. that deserting husbands were falling down on doing patriarchy like they should, bad boy, no more right of coverture if your wife goes through a fairly cheap and simple legal procedure, post-1857.

Also there was a lot of archive love going on!

ysabetwordsmith

Here's an interesting observation:

Hey ding-dongs, let’s have a chit-chat about Ablaut reduplication.

If you have three words, the order usually goes 'I-A-O.'
-tic-tac-toe

If there are only two words, ‘I’ is the first and the second is either ‘A’ or ‘O.’
-click-clack
-King-Kong

I can think of a few exceptions, like "bone-dry," and more rhymes like "helter-skelter." Some like "merry-go-round" seem to follow a similar high to low pattern.