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I always enjoy the wide variety of postcards which appear regularly from fflo. Tuesday, fflo posted about the "Best Wrong Answers" to LearnedLeague. These are a series of punchline-worthy responses to Jeopardy!-style questions. For example:

In photography, the overall brightness of an image is determined by the "exposure triangle" of aperture, shutter speed, and a third factor which is a measure of the sensitivity of the camera's sensor (or the film) to light. This third factor is known as what?

REMEMBERING TO TAKE THE LENS CAP OFF

Even though I got online before the WWW, I’d never heard of LearnedLeague, which is a very dedicated group of trivia fiends. Here’s what I found:

Like any tight-knit community, there’s a ton of jargon. Participants are called LLamas (the double L matching Learned League). Membership is by invite only, though there is some public content at
LearnedLeague.com

Some of the world-readable "Best Worst Answer" tallies follow the URL pattern

https://learnedleague.com/hist/awards/100.php

Where 100 references the season—I had some fun plugging in random numbers.

From season 97:

A Wind in the Door (1973), A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), and Many Waters (1986) continue the story first told by author Madeleine L'Engle in what 1962 novel?

3 REASONS TO HAVE HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE

Public, unofficial Learned League groups on Reddit and Facebook. More fun to be had from grazing the #BestWrongAnswers tag on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/bestwronganswers

I’m up near Rhinelander staying on Flannery Lake. I’ll be reveling in 15:45 hours of daylight on the summer solstice. Today there’s zero wind, while the second-growth white, yellow, and red pine trees are pumping out their jizz with enthusiasm. The lime-yellow grains appear darker as they overlay almost every square inch of the water, with wild swirls and eddies that extend many feet off shore until eventually the black surface reflects many puffy cumulus clouds in a light blue sky.

Lovely to look at, but not so great to breathe. At least we're not bedeviled by wildfire smoke.

( click for pic )

I’ve been a Karine Polwart fan for decades, which led me to her recent collaboration with Julie Fowlis and Mary Chapin Carpenter. "Looking for the Thread" mixes Scots Gaelic and US country and a little bit of rock’n’roll.

I was moved by this farewell from the POV of a dying satellite—can you tell me if this matches an actual satellite that circled our planet?

( Stream here on YouTube )

Or on SoundCloud or on Spotify.

( Lyrics in the cut )

99pi.org/adapt

Kurt Kohlstedt has spent ten years creating audio and print stories for the design podcast, 99% Invisible. He also co-authored the 99% Invisible City book.

Last year, 99pi’s Kurt Kohlstedt suffered a severe injury that incapacitated his right arm and dominant hand. In the aftermath, new everyday challenges led him to research, test, and evolve accessible design solutions. These experiences set the stage for Adapt or Design, a twelve-part project of 99% Invisible in three acts, available at the short link 99pi.org/adapt

The Adapt or Design series includes many groan-worthy puns related to hands; six essays exploring assistive designs for people with one functional hand; three design hacks and mods that helped Kurt manage long-term rehabilitation; and three final essays diving deep into adaptive writing technologies including a free one-handed "mirror keyboard" for Windows PowerToys.

While the first article posted in April, I just heard about it via the 99% Invisible podcast 630, where Kurt and Roman talk about all these things.

The Met Office’s Shipping Forecast Key announces weather conditions in 31 areas around the UK. For internet users, real-time info is now available for each area via a handy-drop down

But it's the radio broadcast which has soothed me on many an anxious evening. Here’s five hours worth: https://youtu.be/CxHa5KaMBcM

They use a highly structured, compact format limited to 370 words:

Time and Date of the active forecast being read
List Gale Warnings current around the British Isles
General Synopsis
Area Forecasts, within each
- Location
- Wind direction
- Wind speed according to Beaufort scale
- Precipitation
- Visibility
Inshore Waters Forecast

The Beaufort Scale provides vivid descriptions of different wind patterns, as befits a tool standardized before radio or photography. For example,

Wind force 5, also known as "Fresh Breeze," is 29-38 km/h or 19-24 miles per hour or 17-21 knots. You can recognize this force when Small trees in leaf begin to sway; crested wavelets form on inland waters. Moderate waves, many white horses. Probable wave height of 2.0 meters, 2.5 meters max, with a "sea state" of 4.

The newsreaders develop a very soothing rhythm—so consistent that many people have created "better sleeping through weather awareness" content on YouTube.

For radio nerds like me, nothing finer than this 30 minute deep dive: The Shipping Forecast: A Beginner’s Guide

The Secret History of Font Piracy

Today LinusBoman talks about font theft. Back in the 1990s I worked in a desktop publishing service bureau. Font foundries were still using a pricing model based on industrial customers with several blocks worth of printing presses and thousands of books. Font piracy was so widespread as to be fundamental. Good times—Linus brings it all back with an excellent news hook: how the unavoidable you wouldn’t steal a car message that scolded at the start of every VHS or DVD used a pirated font. Pro captions, silent title cards subdivide the video into eight sections.

Watch on YouTube
( or stream 21 minutes here )

Linus Boman is so my type of design nerd. More about him at TimesNewBoman.com

Kevin B Parry animates himself doing impossible things

Watch on YouTube

( stream six minutes of amazing here )

Audio is instrumental music. I invite you to write image descriptions; here are the first three:

Kevin in red hoodie stands in corner, falls slowly to ground — at moment of impact human becomes eight red balloons, bouncing lazily
Big cardboard boxes in empty room. Kevin stands behind one of them, jumps into the air and then into the box. His body sinks in and he’s suspended by his armpits — at the same time as his legs push up from inside another box
Leaning on a counter, Kevin slides his right hand along the corner towards the camera, and then his hand detaches and begins to slide all the way to the end of the counter, where he drums his fingers. Then the fingers slide back to his arm.

Watch Kevin on all the platforms: https://lnk.bio/kevinbparry/

Visual ASMR

Anthony Howe of HoweARTdotNET sculpts stainless steel into "kinetic sculpture," installed outside and set in motion by the wind. Most comprise a circular metal structure atop a 10 to 20 feet curved column. The circle supports four to eight rings that rotate perpendicular to the circle. Each of these rings is decorated with assorted shapes, including discs, commas, sticks, flaps, and blades. The rings are staggered so that the motion seems infinitely various; the shiny stainless steel creates cascading light and sparkles as it moves, along with the illusion of interlocking gears moving forward and backward at the same time.

If you’re at all photosensitive, scroll on by — do not open this "details" arrow

Many static pictures to admire at https://www.howeart.net

55 seconds of very flashy kinetic sculpture video, no audio

On day one, she was beautiful, and brave, and ready to cuddle. She was underweight, so her sleek black-and-brown body just fills an oval bed. Staring right at the camera with hope and trepidation, her stuffed alligator rests in front.

( Click for pic )

Today was her last day.

( Euthanasia, generally described )

Someday I may again add to the cornucopia of excellent reading reports available here on Dreamwidth. In a previous life, enjoying these posts would also add to my teetering TBR pile. Now I get vicarious thrills from how folks’ reading made them feel. In particular:

chestnut_pod
https://chestnut-pod.dreamwidth.org/?tag=books+are+the+meaning+of+life&skip=30

dhampyresa
https://dhampyresa.dreamwidth.org/tag/reading+wednesday

rivkat doesn’t tag and does post many, many great reviews
https://rivkat.dreamwidth.org

runpunkrun
https://runpunkrun.dreamwidth.org/tag/book+report

Any recent DW entry with the tag "books" https://www.dreamwidth.org/latest?tag=books

Self-rec: mostly reviews, but also about the mechanics of reading https://jesse-the-k.dreamwidth.org/tag/reading

Reading-focused communities
readingtogether
booknook

Let me know whose reading reviews you enjoy....

Calcium Carbonate

Is everywhere in my life! It’s always underneath since Wisconsin was a seabed for billions of years. It’s usually under my wheels when I’m traveling because I like to stay on the sidewalks. It makes my toothpaste gritty to help clean my teeth. It’s a pretty yellow stone in my jewelry (aka aragonite or calcite). For better tea I filter it out of my hard water, then I take three capsules a day (with magnesium) to help my bones stay strong.

My Subconscious Was On It

I slept poorly last night—waking up every 90 minutes, and diving back in to the same dream: it was Saturday, I had to make up my seven pillboxes, and there wasn’t a drug in the house. Of course I forgot to take my bedtime meds.

I want to believe that I can outwit scammers, but even true cybersecurity experts like Troy Hunt have been fooled. I'm tech support for some of my age-mates, so I needed to write this anyway, so I'm sharing it.

Just got an SMS/text in Messages on my iPhone

( screenshot )

which claimed

1-727-241-1788
Text Message • SMS Apple Notice: A charge of $157.89 was deducted from your Apple ID via Apple Pay. If this was not done by you, Call support now 1-833-869-3310.

This failed the “smell test” five ways

SMS not iMessage. Apple invented the iMessage protocol to provide Apple-specific features, including fun visuals. All other platforms now have fun visuals, and Messages can send via other protocols, but when Apple contacts me, iMessage appears above the text.
Lacked official Apple info. When Apple contacts me via Messages, I see an official Apple Badge such as the white and gray items with Apple logos in the image.
Message via wrong channel. Apple emails me receipts; I didn't find the dollar amount in my email. I have my Credit Union push a notification whenever my Apple Pay–credit card gets charged, and I didn’t receive any notice from them.
No Apple Pay charges at official site https://support.apple.com/en-us/118212 explains how to check all Apple Pay charges from the web with any device, as well as specific instructions from an Apple device. No charge appears there.
Wrong terminology. Apple changed the branding on usernames. It used to be "Apple ID," but it changed to "Apple Account" in June 2024.

How do you recognize scams?

Thanks, sonia, for linking me to

exponentile

https://www.bellika.dk/exponentile

a highly soothing browser-based game that combines "match 3" and "2048." Be warned: I've spent more than an hour playing since I clicked that link yesterday. It's rewarding because, as sonia said,

It’s nice to spend time in a little world with defined rules and low stakes.

When you play on mobile, you can swipe the tiles to switch.

Thanks, resonant, for writing this explicit and sensual first kiss that's so delicious!

Due South, Fraser/RayK, explicit, 2045 words

Think But This And All Is Mended

My mental health therapist is retiring. In the next few weeks I'm scheduled for "brief consults" with possible successors.

I've got a couple questions prepared, and I'd love to know what I don't know to ask.

Have you interviewed therapists? Was there a question/comment which proved useful (or harmful)?

A Statistically Significant Love Song

from HenrikWidegren featuring Johanna Körner Berglund with excellent subtitles in 11 languages!

watch on YouTube or

( stream it here )

(thanks to the Ask.Metafilter thread on Songs about data or statistics)

I was listening to Lingthusiasm, (the podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics) and Gretchen plugged an old yet still-wise blog post. While her advice is particularly helpful for graduate students, it also applies to SF cons and any context where you’re a fan and want to actually communicate with the presenter.

How to interact with someone who’s just given a talk - A guide to academic conversations

The key thing to realize is that most of the time, you know more about the speaker than they know about you, so you need to start the conversation and you get to pick what it’s about.

[… snip …]

(a)s someone who has now been on the receiving end of occasional fangirling, I find it endearing but also I don’t always know what to do with it. It’s super helpful if you can set us on the course of having an actual conversation, rather than putting me into the weird position of “why yes, I agree, I am awesome.” It’s always nice and safe to start with “I enjoyed your talk” but follow that up with something concrete.

https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/145122859819/how-to-interact-with-someone-whos-just-given-a

NetflixIsAJoke offers Comedian Fern Brady, discussing whether neurodivergence is truly a superpower, with accurate open captions

( stream here )

taylortomlinsoncomedy Taylor Tomlinson workshops her jokes with her therapist, good onscreen captions

( stream here )

Keith-Schacht spotlights nifty gizmos and thingamabobs, like this tractor magnet which creates stable levitation. I find the one-word-at-a-time captions are just this side of annoying flashing lights.

( stream here )

remnantglow has compiled a database

tinyurl.com/oldgaySF

cataloguing every single older queer science fiction book I've managed to track down, consisting of just over 200 titles with LGBT characters/themes & by LGBT authors, spanning over a century (1880-2000)

The database can be filtered by representation, subgenre, whether the book is currently in print, and more; additionally, it includes my own ratings & brief thoughts on the ones i have read, if anyone needs a suggestion on places to start! (or feel free to shoot me an ask for a more personalized recommendation)

Atkinson Hyperlegible Updated

Couple years back I squeed about a lovely new font designed for maximum accessibility. I’m delighted to report it’s been updated to Atkinson Hyperlegible Next and Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono. Now it’s available in six weights—light, regular, medium, semibold, bold and extra bold, plus italic versions of each, for a total of 12 faces. (I was able to use the AO3 site skin wizard to cobble together AO3 Hyperlegible, but I haven’t replumbed the Dyslexic skin I mentioned then.)

Thanks to a post in ebooks, I installed Atkinson Hyperlegible on my Kobo Libra 2 e-ink reader.

Awesome Due South Fan Comics

petra not only writes excellent limericks and drabbles to your prompts, they frequently recs great stuff. Today it was gjdraws’s Try sometimes (and you might find) is a wonderful 7-page comic coda to s4, e8 Good for the Soul. Cheery and detailed full-color images capture the confusion and delight when Fraser meets RayK.

You can view all the Due South art on tumblr or on the AO3!

As befits a fandom old, they've got two pseuds trq and gjdraws

"We’re All Going to the Conclave Larp"

(I wish I could thank whoever linked me to this excellent essay from Adrian Hon)

The tragic passing of Pope Francis combined with the recent movie Conclave has turned minds to the notion of a Papal conclave larp. Think of the clothes! The pageantry! The intrigue! The voting! A Papal conclave larp is such a good idea, in fact, that it’s already been done many times.

[… snip …]

But the most impressive and rigorous conclave larp must be Ada Palmer’s annual event at the University of Chicago.

https://mssv.net/2025/04/22/were-all-going-to-the-conclave-larp

SF writer David Levine reports on a 3-day speed-run of Dr. Palmer’s Papal Larp before Chicago WorldCon back in 2022:

But by the end of the day I had found my feet and made good progress, and in particular I had set up a marriage between Alfonso and Joanna the Infanta of Castile, an excellent match which would create a strategic alliance between Ferrara and Spain. All that remained was to work out a few details about the dowry; the union would be finalized (meaning that Jo Walton would affix the cards representing the bride, groom, and dowry to the marriage contract with the Holy Stapler) first thing in the morning. I spent the night strategizing about how to exploit the relationship.

The next morning: disaster! I had a huge pile of mail, including a bloodstained letter from my brother the Duke which said, in effect, “It was, it was, it was… aaaaaaargh.” My brother had been assassinated by his younger brother Fernand (who had always hated Alfonso and me), who now squatted on the throne. So much for the alliance with Spain!

https://daviddlevine.com/2022/09/pope-larp-report/

ETA: 24 May 2025 correct pronouns

Declaration of Interdependence from queerspacepunk (aka emmett)

A tiny snippet from a lovely thread

i want to be asked to come over and help put my friend's kids to bed as casually as they might text their spouse and ask them to pick up milk on the way home

i want to stop and pick up milk for another friend because i know their spouse hates the grocery store

i want to buy fruit that i dont like because it's on special and i know people who do

i want to pass lemons over the fence and to take my neighbours bins out when the forget

i want group chats instead of rideshare apps, calls in the middle of the night because someone's at the hospital, lonely or hungry or both

i want to do the dishes in other people's houses, extra servings wrapped in tinfoil and tea towels so it's still warm when you drop it off, a basket of other people's mending by my couch

i want to be surrounded by reminders that 'imposing' on each other is what we were born to do

https://queerspacepunk.tumblr.com/search/interdependence

Today I learned there are graphic resources—icons and banners—on the Archive of Our Own!

https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Banners%20*a*%20Icons/works

(Sadly AO3’s metatags don’t create RSS feeds, so I can’t add one here.)

New DW community for people who archive information from the web: datahoarders

timeasmymeasure provides resources for would-be archivists without tech skills: https://datahoarders.dreamwidth.org/3299.html

Of particular interest to me:

AO3 Downloader: a life-saver for any person who has thought, "God, I wish I could download all of my bookmarks, but that would take sooo long to do individually." Another Github download which is saved by its thorough instructions!

Yesterday I accompanied MyGuy to his colonoscopy. We entered a small room with a surgical bed, vitals station, the now-ubiquitous bedside computer, and a parking space for me. After he donned the hospital gown, nursing staff connected him to the vitals station, and started a saline drip. They wheeled him off to the procedure while I waited in the cubicle. I distracted myself with some Sherlock fanfic.

Suddenly the door was opening. An unfamiliar nurse was wheeling a complete stranger backwards into the space—I asked should I remove my husband’s clothing if someone else was using the room. She said, “Of course not, he will be putting them back on in a few minutes.” Seeing my puzzled face, she said, “Don’t you recognize him?” I was still stunned—who were these people? She swung the bed around so I could see his eyes. The estranged swirl of jamais vu vanished, and I saw his lovely face, his smile enhanced by recent doses of fentanyl and midazolam.

All went well, and 45 minutes later we were in the taxi back home. I’d read of the vu triplets—presque, déjà, jamais—in Catch-22 when I was a teenager, but this was my first experience of jamais vu.

Very disconcerting—have you experienced this?

Thanks, minoanmiss, for introducing me to a channel of very funny cooking videos. Much of bignibbles humor is visual: for example, he uses rubber hands and feet to stroke the ingredients, and an SD card to pry open cans. In this case, the final Clitheroe open-faced sandwich is a dead ringer for a vulva, with the lips sculpted from layers of ham, an olive for a clitoris, and cream cheese for the healthy secretions. On-screen accurate captions with those annoying backlights.

https://youtube.com/shorts/jt_akkdz_dg

( stream here )

LettersLive features UK celebrities reading strange letters which somehow raises money. Here’s Benedict Cumberbatch reading a complaint letter about a gent who’s deploying a blow dryer to remove the moisture from his generative undercarriage. Autocraptions maybe 90% accurate.

https://youtu.be/yht39xcyvdk

( stream here )

ElleCordova is back with another hilarious and carefully written skit between and among groups not known for their speaking skills. Last time it was fonts; now it’s punctuation marks! On-screen perfect captions.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ky0yoo7_y0o

( stream here )

Stepped out for a pro-democracy demonstration this noon at our highly photogenic state Capitol square.

( more details )

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adventures with Jesse the K

Recently

The Secret History of Font Piracy

Kevin B Parry animates himself doing impossible things

Visual ASMR

My Subconscious Was On It

exponentile

A Statistically Significant Love Song

How to interact with someone who’s just given a talk - A guide to academic conversations

Atkinson Hyperlegible Updated

Awesome Due South Fan Comics

"We’re All Going to the Conclave Larp"

Adaptive Tech Resources

Disability Culture

Dreamwidth Tools

Subscription Filters

Style Credit