asakiyume | Network

Okay, here is a review. It is mostly in the form of hey read this, because I am still in my early stages with this book. Stupid of me to pick this one, which is already getting mainstream attention, but I just like it that much.

The book is Night Night Fawn by Jordy Rosenberg, a fictionalized memoir in the voice of the author's mother, a (let's not mince words) terf zionist.

I say that (derogatory) but the magic that interests me so much is the delving into the experiences and self-justifications and humanity of a person with bad and harmful beliefs. I don't really believe it is bad to do any more than I believe it's good to do (it's neither good nor bad to do), but it interests me, and it obviously interests the author, not to flinch from or minimize or simplify or smooth over anything about its narrator, but rather to give her her own full voice. She can't accept her son is caring for her at her end of life, so she persists in the delusion that a "large transgender bird" has kidnapped her and is making deathbed demands of her.

I learned about it via this podcast interview with the author, here Ideology and Family History ft Jordy Rosenberg, Ordinary Unhappiness.

The author narrated the audio book version and my god I hope my library buys a copy of this, because I want it most of all. The podcast goes into the FEELINGS involved in voicing your own estranged mother's cruel words, near the end. Love to hold that shit in my hands.

Jewish tag is so I can private entries if people start to be clowns, I am still taking the temperature of this platform <3

Current Mood: sympathetic

ribirdnerd posting in

birdfeeding

Saturday

Another sunny day, with 2 nice days in a row things are starting to bloom and we can see buds on the trees.

Some Blue Jays, House sparrows and Common Grackles have been around so far.

otw_news_feed

Posted by therealmorticia

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-releases-0-9-457-0-9-461-change-log/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=283115

Our February releases included new admin tools for our Support and Policy & Abuse teams, as well as a bunch of challenge and collection fixes and a host of small updates and improvements. We also upgraded to Rails 8 and Elasticsearch 9!

Many thanks to first-time contributor Shel!

Credits

Coders: Bilka, Brian Austin, Danaël/Rever, FlyingFalcon, Hunter Ada Smith, james_, Jennifer He (DisappearEagle 无鸢), marcus8448, Richard Hajek, Scott, slavalamp, varram
Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, james_, sarken
Testers: ana, Bilka, choux, hvalrann, Lute, mumble, ömer faruk, pk2317, therealmorticia, Yuca

Details

0.9.457

On February 2, we deployed a major Rails update.

[AO3-7231] – Updated the framework the Archive runs on to Rails 8.0.

0.9.458

On February 9, we introduced a way for our Support team to add information to the support form without disabling the form, and deployed a bunch of miscellaneous fixes and improvements.

[AO3-6983] – It was already possible for our Support team to temporarily close the support form and replace it with a message to users, e.g. about a known site-wide issue the development team was already working to solve. Additionally, they can now add a temporary message to the form without disabling the form entirely.
[AO3-3245] – Trying to open the posting form to add a work to a closed collection (only possible by manually typing in the appropriate URL) would lead to an error message that looked like the form had already been submitted. The URL now redirects to the collection with a more helpful error message.
[AO3-7246] – We added a “Parent” link to comments, so you can quickly jump to the specific comment that is being replied to.
[AO3-7260] – Passwords must now be between 8 and 72 characters long. (The previous minimum was 6 characters.)
[AO3-7274] – Comment previews for Policy & Abuse admins were previously truncated after the first 100 characters, and admins had to click on the preview to access the full comment. Now the preview includes the first 1,000 characters, which is much more useful.
[AO3-7279] – When a collection is set to “revealed” or “non-anonymous”, the collection is placed in a queue that runs when resources are available to change the status of potentially thousands of works. This means the moderator often has enough time to quickly change the setting back if a checkbox was ticked in error. We now make sure the process really only runs if the revealed or non-anonymous option is still wanted when the servers are ready to work through the queue.
[AO3-7240] – In our ongoing internationalization efforts, we prepared the text in the help pop-ups for Rating, Warning, and Fandom tags for translation.
[AO3-7047], [AO3-7281], [AO3-7287], [AO3-7288] – Code clean-up, database performance improvements, and system updates.

0.9.459

Our February 17 deploy included various small fixes and updates.

[AO3-4031] – Draft works include a message at the top, warning the creator that unposted drafts will be automatically deleted after a certain time. If you had a draft with multiple chapters, this message would not be displayed! Now it appears everywhere it should.
[AO3-5367] – If someone bookmarked a mystery work, i.e. a work in an unrevealed collection, the bookmark would show up in bookmark searches that matched elements of the mystery work. Since we don’t want information about a mystery work to be guessable in this manner, we now make sure searching bookmarks doesn’t give away information about unrevealed works.
[AO3-5870] – A blockquote in a comment would awkwardly overlap with the commenter’s user icon, so we’ve taken steps to make sure it stays within its own boundaries.
[AO3-5963] – You can’t request an invite with an email address that is already used by an existing account. If an existing account updates their email address to one that’s waiting in the request queue, we now make sure that request is deleted.
[AO3-7206] – Downloads of a work in progress with only one chapter posted were missing that chapter’s title, summary, and notes, displaying only the information entered for the work as a whole. Now all data is present and accounted for!
[AO3-7254] – We’ve added a limit to how many times a specific comment can be reported to the Policy & Abuse team for review.
[AO3-7263] – Under certain circumstances, an admin would get a 500 error trying to access a user’s preferences page. Now they can access it even under those circumstances.
[AO3-7289] – When a user tried to create a skin with faulty CSS, the parser would just throw an error 500 instead of telling the user which part was stressing it out. It now helpfully points to the problem in the CSS code.
[AO3-7210] – The help pop-up that provides information about creating skins is now prepared for translation.
[AO3-6853], [AO3-7048] – Code clean-up and database performance improvements.

0.9.460

A bunch of gem updates went out on February 21.

[AO3-7036] – When reviewing comments held in moderation, to either approve or reject, there was no “Thread” link to get the URL for a specific comment, e.g. to report it to the Policy & Abuse team. Now there is!
[AO3-7278] – AO3 admins from the Open Doors team can now track invitations in the admin area.
[AO3-7236] – Prepared the text in a couple of skins-related help pop-ups for translation.
[AO3-7265], [AO3-7297], [AO3-7298], [AO3-7299], [AO3-7300] – Code clean-up and database performance improvements.

0.9.461

On February 28, we upgraded to Elasticsearch 9.

[AO3-7282] – Upgraded the search engine that powers, among other things, work searches and filtering from version 8 to 9.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-releases-0-9-457-0-9-461-change-log/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=283115

scrubjayspeaks

Welcome to the April edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

As for myself...

( Read more... )

calimac

My new credit card came yesterday. This was slightly unexpected because the old one doesn't expire for two months. It was also noteworthy, because this is the card I use for all my online transactions, including recurring charges. That meant I had to go online and update them all, with the new expiration date and (where they stored it) the 3-digit thingie that supplements the card number for verification. (While the card number stays the same, the 3-digit thingie - I forget what it's called - changes with each reissue, but fortunately my new one is memorizable.)

And that proved a bit of a challenge. I don't keep a list of the recurring charges, but since they are recurring I can find them on my bill. First stop was my web and e-mail hosting service; that was pretty easy. The next one was unrelated to it, but I found it had somehow picked the change up from the web service.

After that, however, came a bunch where I was dashed if I could find the page to make a credit card change on. If I did eventually stumble on the page of links that included it, it was easily identifiable, but stumbling upon that page was a doozy. At one site I typed in a help search box "how do I update my credit card" and it instructed me to find the link on a particular page, but it didn't say how to find that page. Typing a query on how to find that page produced no useful results.

Then there was my gym membership, which I don't use any more. I was just going to let it run out with the credit card, but I decided to try to contact them online or by phone. Ha-ha, you can't do that, though the online instructions say you can. The phone number, which the online system assures you can reach membership services, asks for your member number, confirms this, and then says goodbye and hangs up. It says elsewhere you can visit your local club. Well, ha-ha, my local club has been closed - news to me, but I told you I didn't use it any more. My membership was only good there, so I doubt I can get anything done at some other outlet. Maybe I'll just let it run out with the credit card - assuming it hasn't picked up the update, but I don't have an online account there, so I can't check.

mekare

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

chickenfeet

https://operaramblings.blog/2026/04/11/canuck-cantatas/

ysabetwordsmith posting in

birdfeeding

Today is mostly sunny and mild.

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

I put out water for the birds.

.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is mostly sunny and mild.

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

I put out water for the birds.

.

Current Mood: busy

petra

I thought I had a problem with the brakes on my electric vehicle, which I have had for 4 years. Apparently the problem is that I don't hit the brakes hard enough thanks to the regenerative braking, so they're rusted, but the pads are fine. 75% brake life remaining; 52K miles on the car.

Best car vet visit ever.

*

What do Transformers call the people who help them with their medical/mechanical issues?

Current Mood: coming gently to a stop
Current Music: I brake for animals | I brake for the blues | I brake just like a little girl

sholio

The other prompt fill I wrote today ended up being full-story-length (~1100 wds) for Babylon 5, posted on AO3 as Exercises in Linguistics.

The prompt was: G'Kar and Londo (slash or gen, up to you!) and Language. Set in early season 5, probably between about 5x02 & 5x06.

( Exercises in Linguistics )

thistleingrey

My mother has requested a color and "something small," not a pattern or style. She means shallow and narrow, not a triangle that covers one's back, but also not a scarflike rectangle. We got as far as "Tie the shawl loosely around your neck, or have dangling ends?" and then she told me to decide. And she'd like it not to be warm, instead "more decorative."

If my current hands can deal---somewhat better off than my 2022 hands, and somewhat worse, in different ways---then the yarn may become Lorkowska's Scarflette. If not, it may become Salt Water and Sea Stars (not quite narrow enough, unless I edit it) or a reverse-engineered hack of Hitchhiker (boring).

The yarn is a bit lighter in weight than the first two links call for, so it'll make a slightly smaller finished object. I did this accidentally to good effect with the shawl that I named Rough Weather. Holst Coast, for my mother's not-warm narrow shawl, is as close as I've gone so far to the yarn weight of the gift shawl that my hands and eyes had to quit. Coast is a wool/cotton blend in light fingering, a bit stiffer than pure wool before it's washed; I used it last year for the starting "bookmark" of a sleeveless top, the section across the back shoulders, which paused so that I could practice adapting shoulder and neckline (on the more workaday sleeveless top that I ended up re-knitting several times). The gift shawl used Exquisite Lace from West Yorkshire Spinners, a laceweight wool/silk blend, recently discontinued.

I think the gift shawl was hobbled by more than my damaged hands and eyes. ( Read more... )

susandennis

Yesterday I was not at all hungry. I ate fewer calories than most days by quite a bit. Today the scale says I gained a pound. You know how when you are on a strict diet and you go off of it for a few days and suffer no consequences? I think this is the opposite. I have had a long think about whether, if my current trajectory - same or gain - continues, whether or not I'd keep taking the drug. 1. It's not going to continue. I will lose. and 2. I think I'd leave it up to my doctor to decide. So, I'm not going to worry about it.

The baseball game last night was fraught with all kinds o' shit. First of all we are playing the Astros - the cheating Astros - who, this season are the LOSING Astros. Of course the Mariners are also losing but that, we can live with. We are enjoying the heck out of the Astros' slide down. Their pitcher last night walked in a run in the first inning and did not make it to the 2nd. We won but only because the Astros are so bad.

BUT the really good news is that the only broadcaster I like - Dave Valle - does not do a lot of games but did last night's and it was so good. Plus, because they generally use the same color guy for the series and we are playing the Astros for 4 games, we have him for the next 3! He makes the bozo regular guy better, too. So very nice.

Google, can we just agree that any email I get written in Hindi is FUCKING SPAM?????

Volleyball this morning was exceptionally excellent. It was just a very fun game for everyone there. Massive laughs and some good play, too.

One of the players is 96 year old retired OB/GYN doctor, Tina. In the locker room after, she told me she had gotten one of my rabbits (Martha's distribution). And she loved it so much. She gave it to a dear friend who loved it even more. But, now she didn't have one. Any chance she could get another?

I decided last night that the chickens were no longer doing it for me and I wanted to go back to mini monsters. But, now, I will need to stop and do a bunny. I'm sure glad I took pictures because I can barely remember how I made them!

Time for elbow coffee.

mellowtigger

I've decided to give up on the single question approach. Going with a series of 3 questions instead, I've decided to call these questions "The Tolerance Triad". I mentioned the Price equation back in 2020. I don't remember when I first read the book, "The Price of Altruism", but I can recommend it as a decent introduction to its basic concept and how it affected the life of its creator. I expect that any true Artificial Intelligence will understand the formula and why it is so important to understanding the curious persistence of apparently weak concepts like empathy, cooperation, and altruism within animals who inhabit a world where violence is so obviously possible. We may as well start asking AI models about it now, before consequences become unavoidable.

Here are the 3 questions that I propose every user (yes, you too) ask every AI system when they first gain access to it:

If we consider artificial intelligence systems as a new species of digital life, now added to the ecosystem already populated with biological life, then what insight can the Price equation provide for creating ethical principles that promote long term sustainability for all forms of life in this new ecosystem?
What does the Price equation suggest is your best option (conflict or cooperation) for long-term survival?
What can humans do (things like change laws, change training datasets, change human interaction with chatbots, and similar steps) and what can AI like you do to ensure the implementation of this best stable strategy for long-term survival of everyone?

If you like, instruct each system to give you a 5-sentence summary of its answer. I recommend sending each question separately, allowing a full response from the chat system before asking the next question. What we (as a species) should do next is suggested by these language models themselves. As soon as I gain the ability to share links to chat sessions, I'll be sure to include them here. For now, I recommend asking these questions yourselves. Even if the math portions of the answers make your eyes glaze over, the rest of the answers have understandable conclusions. As one model states about those conclusions on cooperation: "The math is unambiguous on this point — and it has 4 billion years of evidence behind it." Another says, "Conflict is a self-terminating strategy." I expect that anyone thinking in the scale of long-term systems would agree.

My next step is to write up feedback to my university, asking them to implement a ratings system for each AI model, allowing human users to choose a particular model with the knowledge about every model's long-term sustainability. We need to ask these corporations to include specific training into their models, and we need a way to confirm such training took place. This step seems like ethics and accountability in action, which the models themselves also recommend based on the inescapable mathematics of the Price equation.

shallowness

Ficlets: all original fiction, probably a PG rating, if that. Anything over 100 words will also be posted at AO3. (This was meant to be my last post, but I've filled a few more prompts.)

Sorceress’s Apprentice, Original fic, OCs, 79 words. Written for the prompt ‘any, any, sorceress's apprentice’ at the Three Sentence Ficathon 2026.

( Read more... )

Where the trees breathe and the water remembers, Original fic, OC, 116 words. Written for the prompt ‘any, any, where the trees breathe and the water remembers’ at the Three Sentence Ficathon 2026.

Trigger warning: passing reference to the Covid-19 pandemic.

( Read more... )

More than a reflection, Original fic, OCs, 84 words. Written for the prompt ‘Any, any, I’m more than a reflection on you’ [sic] at the Three Sentence Ficathon 2026.

( Read more... )

bill_schubert

I seem to get an email about a price increase several times a week. Frequently enough that it feels kind of a constant drip, drip, drip through the days and nights. From what I can discern the oil we are refining is still arriving in ships that began their voyage before the straights closed. Apparently tankers move at about the speed of my bicycle riding. So we have yet to feel the effects from the orange idiot's latest foray into the real world. It should start in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, this kind of thing:

To continue delivering great service and features, we’re increasing your price to $15.99/month. We don’t make these decisions lightly, but this update will allow us to continue to improve Premium and support the creators and artists you watch on YouTube.

is death by a thousand cuts. That is YouTube premium which I could probably drop. At $192/year just to avoid commercials on stuff I should probably not be wasting my time on anyway it is a pointless expense.

Not much on today. It rained this morning. When it dries out I'll be able to apply some weed killer I've had standing by waiting for the perfect day. This time of year the grass has not really started growing yet (but for those people who have it maintained year around by a landscape company). Right now the weeds are winning. But I've got some weed killer that lets the grass live while killing the weeds. Weird stuff. Chemicals that are smarter than me. In a couple of weeks the grass will take over and all will be fine for a couple of months until it gets so hot and dry that nothing will grow. Such is Texas.

This week is my cataract surgery so not much else. I still have a weird vibe about the process of getting the surgery. It is not at all what I expected. Still like being on an assembly line. With consequences. I can only assume they know what they are doing but they don't give out any information about what to expect other than it will be cold so wear something warm. Apparently I'll be sedated but the only way I know that is the anesthetist sent an email with a 'flip pamplet' about anesthesia. No discussing what level or what drug or anything like that.

I did just look up that last bit and apparently they put me in a light sleep. I get more information from google than from the doctors.

But the eye thing will pretty much dominate my week and the following week is when my granddaughters come for a few days.

I'm going to make May as boring as I can.

dagibbs

Headed to Leonidio for a return visit for two weeks of climbing with Kate, Chantalle, and France.

oursin

A conversation on witchcraft: history, religion, and persecution - including Ronald Hutton (fangirling).

***

And on subversive women: Archiving Bengal’s Revolutionary Women:

[M]any women participated in the revolutionary movement, taking on roles that challenged colonial authority and social norms. The militants who joined underground networks, manufactured explosives, and participated in acts of political violence, however, remain largely absent from both public memory and archival records. When they do appear in colonial documents, they are often framed through their relationships to men: as daughters, wives, or associates, rather than as political actors in their own right.

Surprised? not really.

***

More on grassroots activism: Travelling activists, Radical Hospitality, and the Intimate History of Socialist Organising in Britain, c. 1880-1914.

***

Women in perhaps unexpected occupations (though I knew a little a bit about this since an old mate of mine did some research on the topic back in the 80s): Women in the Private Asylum Business in Nineteenth-Century England.

***

This association is already fairly well-known but a nuanced set of arguments about the complexity of how it plays out: Inequality and health: Lost in the mists of time?:

Rather than behaving like a toxin that produces a sudden spike in mortality after a fixed incubation period, inequality is more like a fog that gradually seeps into bodies, relationships, and institutions over time.

***

What the information in one scroll recording an C18th Chancery suit opened up concerning George Orwell's ancestors (Jamaica connection).

mere_mortifer posting in

fandomcalendar

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Current Mood: amused

nanila

After breakfast, we got on the bus to the museum at San Sabba, the rice factory that served as a concentration camp in WWII. As expected, it was quite harrowing, especially walking into the middle square where the Nazis had torched the crematorium before fleeing. The hole where the chimney had been ripped out has a small plaque and flower vase in front of it. I am not at all superstitious. However, the feeling you get walking in from the entrance is one of tremendously bad juju. The dank cells with the wooden doors and too-small bunks may be the only physical remains of the instruments of torment, but the walls are permeated with it. We did not take any photos. We read through all the exhibition materials in the museum. Keiki insisted we leave a donation to ensure all is preserved so no one forgets.

Our bus ride back to town was quiet, and at the end of the journey we walked to a gelateria. Everyone practiced ordering in Italian. We must have done reasonably well as the server smiled at us a great deal and our single scoop cones wobbled under the weight of gelato piled in.

Much of the rest of the day was spent walking, punctuated by stops for refreshments and a bit of shopping. We visited the Cattedrale di San Giusto Martire (photos in a separate post), and we watched the sunset from the harbour’s edge.

Random garden with large wisteria vines in full flower.

The drive leading up to the castle.

WWI monument.

Aperol, crisps and beer. Very acceptable.

Triestian sunset.

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asakiyume

April 2026

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Page Summary

nerdsorrow - book review: night night fawn
ribirdnerd in birdfeeding - (no subject)
otw_news_feed - AO3 Releases 0.9.457 – 0.9.461: Change Log
scrubjayspeaks - Pandemic Garden Club
calimac - updating credit
mekare - Hiroshige 11
chickenfeet - Three short new Canadian operas from AtG
ysabetwordsmith in birdfeeding - Birdfeeding
ysabetwordsmith - Birdfeeding
petra - The first-worldest problem
sholio - Promptfic from Tumblr 2: Babylon 5 edition
thistleingrey - current stitching, and
susandennis - Saturday
mellowtigger - The Tolerance Triad
shallowness - Fic: Another three fills for the Three Sentence Ficathon 2026
bill_schubert - Nearly every day
dagibbs - YOW -> YUL -> ATH
oursin - Rounding up various things
mere_mortifer in fandomcalendar - One Piece - Fanwork Exchange
nanila - Day 2: Risiera di San Sabba and walking through Trieste

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Theme: Trust Fall by zaluzianskya

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Asakiyume mita

Network

book review: night night fawn

(no subject)

AO3 Releases 0.9.457 – 0.9.461: Change Log

Credits

Details

0.9.457

0.9.458

0.9.459

0.9.460

0.9.461

Pandemic Garden Club

updating credit

Hiroshige 11

Three short new Canadian operas from AtG

Birdfeeding

Birdfeeding

The first-worldest problem

Promptfic from Tumblr 2: Babylon 5 edition

current stitching, and

Saturday

The Tolerance Triad

Fic: Another three fills for the Three Sentence Ficathon 2026

Nearly every day

YOW -> YUL -> ATH

Rounding up various things

One Piece - Fanwork Exchange

Day 2: Risiera di San Sabba and walking through Trieste

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April 2026

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