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fuzzy matching: still a mistake
Dec. 18th, 2025 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettNo, internet, I guarantee you that 100% of the time that someone searches for explain pain supercharged, results they do not want are anything you think matches the string "explain paint supercharged". Hope that helps! Have A Nice Day!
(Still not anything like as annoying as fuzzy matching on a[b|d]sorb in GOOGLE SCHOLAR, but nonetheless Quite.)
Metamorphosis
Dec. 18th, 2025 04:40 pmanother_sky
Rec-cember Day 17: Wonderfalls
Dec. 18th, 2025 10:00 pmfalenaWonderfalls was a quirky, short-lived TV series about a twenty-something philosophy grad working a dead-end retail job in a souvenir shop in Niagara falls. Jaye is smart and ironic and damaged and has a meddling family. One day animal-shaped inanimate objects start talking to her, asking her to do things. The show is hilarious.
Here are some fic that do the tricky job of preserving the showw's humour and heart while letting us spend more time with these characters.
Homing Pigeon by ospery_archer. 7K words. Jaye hated losing arguments with inanimate objects. Especially when they got the last word by burning her trailer down, and her car with it.
Hot Duck by Yochan. 1.7K words.Jaye truly started hating life when her vibrator spoke up over the sound of the water rushing in her tiny shower. Now, not only was she well and truly crazy, the devil knew she owned a vibrator shaped like Ernie's rubber duckie.
I Wonder Why The Wonder Falls On Me by Zanne. 9K words. Crossover with Supernatural. Dean and Sam meet Jaye. Lolol.Surrender to Destiny" is a terrible catchphrase.
An now a festive gem: Jolly by Fox1013 1.8K. "I don't do festive," Jaye said. "It's like asking Mickey Mouse to do a striptease. It makes everyone uncomfortable."
The Pitt
Since on Day 16 I recced a threesome, I thought I might do another one: 86 Days, 87 Nights. 24 K. Robby/Abbot/Samira. There's lots of plot. Which makes sense as it's a fic that could be best described as Lost meets The Pitt. Fantastic.
The hoped-for silver lining of the Yona manga ending!
Dec. 18th, 2025 12:58 pmumadoshiI'm delighted both that this is happening and that it was announced so promptly on the heels of the manga ending. (;_;) As we learned from the second Fruits Basket anime arriving thirteen years after that manga ended, anything is possible, but it's sure nicer to have this sort of thing happen with a speed that makes more sense.
ANN says "sequel anime", which I'd imagine means it'll pick up where the first one left off, but how OAVs factor into that, I'm not even going to try to guess.
Hot day!
Dec. 19th, 2025 03:33 amtygerToday I did very little, because it was nice and hot! :D Obviously when it's nice and hot the best thing to do is to laze around like a giant cat!
...of course this means I have stuff to do tomorrow, and it's supposed to be like 35 tomorrow, but that's cooler than today was! (Also humidity at 50% which is. Ugh. Why.)
Priority list:
- Meds (I technically have enough until Tuesday, but since I'm going catsitting on Saturday... much rather go to my usual chemist!)
- Packing
- Washing (may be needed for packing, so should probably do first, but technically I can take dirty clothes with me, so lower priority)
We'll see how it goes, I guess!
I DID manage to get Steam and Discord installed on the new computer, so that's done at least! They're both a little dodgy - Steam install warned about missing a couple of packages, but it's running Terraria fine so fingers! Crossed!!, and Discord is technically a third party client, but that's because there isn't an official one for ARM, so hopefully that's fine. (Plz do an ARM build, Discord! I would've installed it if I could've!)
Also Steam sync is syncing my Terraria characters properly, yaaaaay! Can still play multiplayer while I'm away! A me is happy yesssss.
Back again
Dec. 17th, 2025 05:31 pmanother_skyWe had a few weeks of frigid, snowy weather, but now it's starting to melt. It's supposed to snow a little bit again on Friday but not much, then it's going to get a little bit above freezing again, so I don't think we're going to have a white Christmas after all. Which I suppose is better than the Christmas a few years ago where we had a legit blizzard. It took forever to get to Mom and Dad's house in those conditions.
B went back to work today, but only for a little while. His schedule has been quite cushy lately; he only works 7 days this month! He had a 4-day trip at the beginning of the month, then 11 days off, then this 3-day trip ending on the 19th, then he's off again until the beginning of January. We've spent a lot of time relaxing at home, having movie/game nights, going on a few shopping outings, and going out to dinner. We also tried the local prepared meal service earlier this week and ordered pot roast, chicken pot pie, white chicken chili, and rosemary focaccia bread). It was all excellent! Their Christmas menu was posted today and I'll definitely want to place an order since they're making beef wellington with a side of potatoes and green beans. It'll be nice to have a special meal for Christmas dinner without putting much work into it.
I finished a project!
Dec. 17th, 2025 08:15 pmwatersword
I have finished the daisy which covers the tea stain on this t-shirt! I am very proud of myself.
Satin stitch, French knots, stem stitch, and fishbone stitch.
Melismatic
Dec. 17th, 2025 08:03 pmstonepicnicking_okapi...melismatic [mel-iz-mat-ik]
adjective
In a musical style that allows several notes to be sung to one syllable of text.
---
Today was a red letter day because I learned this word from jazz man today when we were talking about (and listening to) Handel's Messiah. I think this is the first time in a long time I've actually been taught a new word by someone face-to-face.
Into the Void
Dec. 17th, 2025 07:36 pmstonepicnicking_okapi2. Yesterday I completed 12 workouts of at least 30 minutes at the Y during the month of December (so 12 workouts in 16 days, not bad) and so I earned this T-shirt.
3. All my Xmas cards and gifts are in the mail as of today (20 total). I hope they reach their destinations. I am receiving yours, too. So thank you to anyone who's sent them my way. I will send individual thanks when I have more than one brain cell to rub together.
4. My next challenge is taking air force guy to his granddaughter's wedding and reception on Sunday. I hate weddings but I will be happy of the extra hours come payday.
5. I feel like I have the best collection of Christmas detective/mystery short story anthologies in the English language.
Here is an audiobook version of one of these anthologies. Listen before the copyright fascists at Youtube strike it down.
Woe (and cheering myself up)
Dec. 17th, 2025 10:29 pmrmc28I am the stage of being ill with a cold where it feels like I will never be well again, I barely even remember what it is to not cough, and all is doom. Woe, woe is me. [From experience, this stage is usually about two days before I actually get fully well, but try telling my feelings that.]
(brought to you by having to miss yet another hockey practice tonight, the penultimate one of the year, and being sad about it)
Cheering myself up with the news that Heated Rivalry comes to the UK on 10 January. I am going to be very normal about it. Meanwhile I await a delivery of Rick Riordan books from my dealer the buddy who got me into them, and Instagram is doing its usual creepily-accurate targeting, supplying me with Yorkshire Percy Jackson and advertising a PJ musical in Peterborough next spring.
online life for 2026
Dec. 17th, 2025 11:09 amtozkaSo:
1. Switch back to posting on DW as my main journal (external blog will close)
2. Move website from pixietails.club to tozka.fyi (partly to save money on the domain renewal cost lol)
2b. Website will be more for evergreen content and not so much tracking content. So pages like a list of what I read this year will be deleted from public and kept private instead, but all my tutorials and fanlistings will still be there.
3. Self-host RSS feed reader (done), link collector (done)
4. Set up Obsidian as my personal hub (done). This'll be where I keep my tracking stuff, personal data, whatever.
So basically be a little more private with my info, be more proactive with keeping my own data, and settle back in to the communities I want to engage with.
I liked having my own little blog domain but it felt very exposed, which made me not want to post. Dreamwidth is more cozy! Even if I post in public here, I don't feel like the eyes of the entire internet are on me. Also tbh when I posted from my blog first it didn't give me an incentive to come over here and actually read my friends page, so I've gotten very behind on my correspondence.
Further changes: I want to get away from AI intrusions a bit more, so I've installed Linux on my main computer (Manjaro) and deleted Windows entirely.
And while I've stopped using most social media besides Mastodon, I still visit Facebook a lot for the groups. I'm going to make it a priority to join and engage in forums instead.
with an open smile and with open doors
Dec. 17th, 2025 06:04 pmwychwoodAlso: honestly what sort of bullshit is it that you can't get Microsoft Forms to send an email to the person who filled out the form with their details in! That's been, like, basic form functionality for at least fifteen years, and it's all very well saying "oh well you can do it with Power Automate", but that is much more complicated than ticking a "send submissions to user" box and requires access to a whole separate system plus someone to set up all the permissions for you to use whatever Outlook mailbox, etc etc etc...
Anyway. I have three? four? forms that my boss wants me to have up and running before Christmas. Now I've got all the accesses and permissions configured that should hopefully be possible, which is good because I did promise...
On the home front, I have now ordered all the remaining Christmas presents I can do before Christmas Day itself (why do so few places allow you to buy gift-cards to ship on a particular date!), wrapped all the physical things I already have, sorted out the last grocery delivery before Christmas so I won't accidentally starve, and checked in with my siblings to discover that other people have been working on the stocking presents for my parents, and what isn't bought is at least planned.
I built a beautiful tracking spreadsheet that shows what each parent is getting, calculates how much each of us has spent, and checks that against the notional budget for hopefully easier working out who owes what to whom once we're done. And so far no one has got super mad at me for being "bossy" or declared refusal to participate, which is unfortunately what tends to happens. I'm trying to back off now while we're still OK!
Now off to choir!
Reading Wednesday 12/17/25 | Has anyone listened to the Queen's Thief audiobooks?
Dec. 17th, 2025 12:42 pmumadoshiAnd not that recent, but I did finish Anne Lamott's Almost Everything: Notes on Hope not terribly long ago.
What I am Currently Reading: Llinos Cathryn Thomas' Advent novella All is Bright, one chapter per day. And
scruloose and I are a few chapters into the audiobook of System Collapse.What I Plan to Read Next: Very possibly The Dark is Rising, with solstice nipping at our heels.
Bonus TV note:
scruloose and I have finished season 2 of Silo!When we finish System Collapse, that'll be the end of Murderbot listening until sometime after the new book comes out. Listening to the audiobooks together has cut way into our shared TV watching, but does have the advantage of being easier to drop in and out of if we don't have a lot of time in an evening, so I've been trying to see what our iteration of Hoopla has that
scruloose might be into. It does have Gideon the Ninth, which they might get a kick out of, but that's a significantly longer book, and we already had to check Network Effect out twice to get through it.Last night it occurred to me that the Queen's Thief books are on the shorter side, and lo, Hoopla has them all! Have any of you listened to them? Any comments on how their reader is? It remains possible that finding out that I really like the Murderbot audiobooks isn't a sign of anything other than that I like that narrator in particular. ^^;
A Successful Day
Dec. 18th, 2025 02:17 amtygerI did things today! Three things!
- Made this year's pav!
- Played multiplayer Terraria
- Checked in on the new computer. Has a few weirds, but I think they're just new computer teething problems weirds, and the Budgie desktop is working just fine! :D (Though the Ubuntu one doesn't have access to the fuzzy clock, which is sad, that one's fun. I expect that it's the difference between Debian-based and Arch-based distros that's doing it, though I might poke it more later.)
New computer still needs a lot of personalising, but I think I'll do most of that when I'm catsitting - got SO many projects at home, but I can only take a few with me, after all! Will attempt to get Discord and Steam installed tomorrow, though, so I can test it. (Already got a big heads up that I should not download Steam via the snap store, apparently it's not well maintained and will fuck things up. Installing it via the download on their website is just fine though. Perks of knowing someone who knows the distro!)
Tomorrow I think I'm gonna start packing. Mainly so I can see if I need to do washing (answer: almost definitely yes), but also I'm going for a couple of weeks this time so it's a bigger problem if I forget something like, say, my toothbrush...
But first it's time for nappy naps! Yes! :D
Life lived in dot points
Dec. 17th, 2025 09:17 pmfred_mouseThe damn things continue to overlap
- surgeon appointment: nothing new, but the margins on what was removed aren't big enough, back in surgery - that's my Friday.
- the next step in the candidacy paperwork was in fact not my responsibility, and I now have an email to say I've passed that hurdle (here it is called 'Milestone 1').
- Last Monday rehearsal of the year was this week; I tried bowing for one line of very long/slow notes and ow, nope, not yet. Was, however, good support for the other viola player, including singing some of the bits where the viola has the melody. We had a new violin player! I hope they come back, they seemed to be having fun.
- Today was my last day on campus for the year. I will be working some over the shutdown, because I'm supposed to have my ethics drafted by mid January, and I still don't know what I don't know. Treated myself to curry and a fizzy drink for lunch.
- Finished Building a second brain (Tiago Forte), which I've gained some useful ideas from. Recommended if you are needing a way to organise the information that is coming in to your life; not elsewise.
- Youngest went bouldering with co-workers on Monday, and is learning yet again about not relying on hyperextended elbows to do the work (their grip strength isn't, and their forearms hurt "weirdly")
- have woken up twice this week having done Something Stupid in my sleep. Monday it was the right hip not quite in the right place (went back in during rehearsal, I staggered in looking awful, I gather) and today it is something with the muscles of the right shoulder and halfway down the back -- I could barely move the shoulder this morning, and it has settled down to 'about half the time one or more muscles are spasming'.
FIC: Southern Emor's countryside (Tempestuous Tours)
Dec. 16th, 2025 01:45 pmduskpetersonThe borderland covers all the land from the black border mountains to the capital, but once you are beyond the region close to the mountains, vineyards will disappear and villages will begin to grow to the size of towns. The countryside here is more peaceful and more settled. At several points, you will cross bridges or take ferries, for Southern Emor's web of rivers crisscrosses the countryside. If you have time, you may wish to hire a riverboat to explore the remainder of Southern Emor, especially its towns and east coast ports.
[Translator's note: The protagonist of Death Mask takes a trip over that countryside during a less happy time.]