Photo cross-post
Feb. 22nd, 2026 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewducker
Spent the afternoon at Hugh and Meredith's, where Hugh showed Sophia
how his 3d printer works (and how he makes 3d dungeons out of foam).
Very cool stuff, and they both enjoyed their souvenirs.
Original
is here on Pixelfed.scot.
Daily Happiness
Feb. 21st, 2026 08:47 pmtorachan1. So nice to get back to my routine at home. I tried my best to stick to the things I could while away but it's not the same and it's definitely a source of stress.
2. Carla got some frozen char siu fried rice from Trader Joe's and it's really good. Making fried rice from scratch is an easy meal, but I wouldn't mind keeping a bag of this in the freezer for times we feel like something even easier.
3. A moth got in the house the other day and Carla was able to get some really great pics of Ollie when he was laser focused on the moth.
2. Carla got some frozen char siu fried rice from Trader Joe's and it's really good. Making fried rice from scratch is an easy meal, but I wouldn't mind keeping a bag of this in the freezer for times we feel like something even easier.
3. A moth got in the house the other day and Carla was able to get some really great pics of Ollie when he was laser focused on the moth.
Weekly Reading
Feb. 21st, 2026 04:24 pmtorachanRecently Finished
The Reyes Incident
I think I got this on some sort of ebook sale. It feels like the sort of thing where I'd be like "well, it's free or just a dollar, so I'll take a chance". It wasn't great, though. Interesting premise about a woman who comes to the police station with a story of killer mermaids who ate her friends. The writing just wasn't great, though.
Another Appalachia
Memoir about a queer Indian woman who grew up in West Virginia, where her dad had taken a job as a company doctor for one of the chemical companies there in the 70s. I liked this.
A Skinful of Shadows
Set in the 1600s during the English civil war, the MC is the bastard of a powerful family who all have the ability to see ghosts and host them inside themselves. When her mother dies, she is taken in by the family, who it turns out, like to keep bastards close in the event that they need a ghost host, becaue the currently living members of the family are all host to multiple ghosts each, of dead family members. In some cases the host is too weak and becomes completely taken over by the ghosts. This was a neat premise and an enjoyable read. I have never not liked anything by Francis Hardine that I've read, and this was no exception.
Paying the Land
Non-fiction graphic novel about First Nations people in the Northwest Territories. The author is white, but he spent a lot of time interviewing people and it's basically like an illustrated interview. Very interesting.
Hen na E vol. 4
Ojisama to Neko vol. 16
The Reyes Incident
I think I got this on some sort of ebook sale. It feels like the sort of thing where I'd be like "well, it's free or just a dollar, so I'll take a chance". It wasn't great, though. Interesting premise about a woman who comes to the police station with a story of killer mermaids who ate her friends. The writing just wasn't great, though.
Another Appalachia
Memoir about a queer Indian woman who grew up in West Virginia, where her dad had taken a job as a company doctor for one of the chemical companies there in the 70s. I liked this.
A Skinful of Shadows
Set in the 1600s during the English civil war, the MC is the bastard of a powerful family who all have the ability to see ghosts and host them inside themselves. When her mother dies, she is taken in by the family, who it turns out, like to keep bastards close in the event that they need a ghost host, becaue the currently living members of the family are all host to multiple ghosts each, of dead family members. In some cases the host is too weak and becomes completely taken over by the ghosts. This was a neat premise and an enjoyable read. I have never not liked anything by Francis Hardine that I've read, and this was no exception.
Paying the Land
Non-fiction graphic novel about First Nations people in the Northwest Territories. The author is white, but he spent a lot of time interviewing people and it's basically like an illustrated interview. Very interesting.
Hen na E vol. 4
Ojisama to Neko vol. 16
Interesting Links for 21-02-2026
Feb. 21st, 2026 12:00 pmandrewducker- 1. Full scan of 1 cubic millimeter of brain tissue took 1.4 petabytes of data, equivalent to 14,000 4K movies
- (tags:brain scanning )
- 2. The political effects of X's feed algorithm (a swing to the right of nearly 5%)
- (tags:politics socialmedia USA twitter )
- 3. What happens when you don't proofread your emails
- (tags:language epicfail funny )
My motor cortex learning to play Dark Souls
Feb. 21st, 2026 09:07 amrydra_wongcan, to some small degree, be simulated by a blindfolded person trying to push buttons while someone else shouts confused and panicked instructions at them:
(Except that these guys mastered jumping WAY faster than I did.)
It's hilarious and delightful to me to watch people having an experience of Dark Souls which is not wholly unlike mine. In a weird way I feel kind of #represented.
In later vids, they have (like me) discovered the joys of the halberd as adaptive technology for people who are bad at spacing and aiming.
(Except that these guys mastered jumping WAY faster than I did.)
It's hilarious and delightful to me to watch people having an experience of Dark Souls which is not wholly unlike mine. In a weird way I feel kind of #represented.
In later vids, they have (like me) discovered the joys of the halberd as adaptive technology for people who are bad at spacing and aiming.
Supernatural vid: Life is a Highway (the 20th anniversary vidding project)
Feb. 20th, 2026 11:45 pmsholioCannot BELIEVE I still have an SPN icon!
Anyway ... I first started making fanvids for fun in 2002, but I began posting them on LJ in 2006, and since 2026 is therefore my 20th anniversary of posting the first one (#what) and I've been wanting to get more of them on AO3, I decided to make that a project for this year!
So here's my 2006 one and only Supernatural vid, Life is a Highway.
This isn't the first one I put online, but of the 2006 vids I think it's probably one of my favorites and a good one to start with. Contains clips up to late season one because that's all I'd watched at that point and most of what was available. Here's the original LJ-imported-to-DW post. Please enjoy this dive intoan alternate reality a moment in time when season one of Supernatural was literally All There Was.
IIRC, I was making these earliest vids on a really old copy of Adobe Premiere that I had absconded with from my college computer lab in the 1990s.
Also posted on AO3.
If you want a 12 Mb download in 2006 quality, you can download it here!
Also, an interesting bit of context on the 20th anniversary vidding project - I discovered recently that I uploaded a bunch (most? all?) of my older vids to Vimeo in 2016 on the private setting, so apparently I was planning a *10th* anniversary vidding project, but got derailed somehow. What is time.
Anyway ... I first started making fanvids for fun in 2002, but I began posting them on LJ in 2006, and since 2026 is therefore my 20th anniversary of posting the first one (#what) and I've been wanting to get more of them on AO3, I decided to make that a project for this year!
So here's my 2006 one and only Supernatural vid, Life is a Highway.
This isn't the first one I put online, but of the 2006 vids I think it's probably one of my favorites and a good one to start with. Contains clips up to late season one because that's all I'd watched at that point and most of what was available. Here's the original LJ-imported-to-DW post. Please enjoy this dive into
Some notes if you'd rather read them afterwards
Obviously at this point all I have is the exported file rather than the original vidding files (as this was at least 5 computers ago) so 2006 quality is what you're getting, including some slight wonkiness with jerky video and slightly odd cropping (I was screencapturing the video, which explains both the slight borders that occasionally appear - I got a lot better at cropping later - and a few instances of jerkiness as my 2006 computer struggled to render the video). The credits also include my original 2000s-era LJ name, which some of you may remember.IIRC, I was making these earliest vids on a really old copy of Adobe Premiere that I had absconded with from my college computer lab in the 1990s.
Also posted on AO3.
If you want a 12 Mb download in 2006 quality, you can download it here!
Also, an interesting bit of context on the 20th anniversary vidding project - I discovered recently that I uploaded a bunch (most? all?) of my older vids to Vimeo in 2016 on the private setting, so apparently I was planning a *10th* anniversary vidding project, but got derailed somehow. What is time.
Daily Happiness
Feb. 20th, 2026 11:03 pmtorachan1. I am back home! The flight was delayed by about an hour (I first got a notification just after I'd left the store and was waiting for my uber that it would be delayed by about half an hour, but at that point I was not about to change my plans so I figured that would just give me extra time at the airport to eat dinner, but then after I got to the airport it was delayed again), so from the time of leaving the store to arriving at home, I actually could have driven in about the same time. :p Oh well. I like that the flight itself is so short, but the associated airport rigamarole, not to mention having to get an uber each way, is kind of a pain.
2. It looks like there's no more rain forecast for down here. I saw they're supposed to get a few days of rain next week up north, and originally it was saying down here, too, but now we're not going to be getting it, I guess. I am tired of rain, so glad to hear it.
3. Tuxie is probably glad there's no more rain coming, too.
2. It looks like there's no more rain forecast for down here. I saw they're supposed to get a few days of rain next week up north, and originally it was saying down here, too, but now we're not going to be getting it, I guess. I am tired of rain, so glad to hear it.
3. Tuxie is probably glad there's no more rain coming, too.
Fantasy story with loner male knight and cross-dressing female page
Feb. 21st, 2026 12:41 pmalias_sqbrI didn't watch Dunc and Egg but Cam did, and he found himself thinking about how fun it could be to have a story where a somewhat loner knight (disgraced/unproven/just antisocial, whatever) takes on a determined and surprisingly knowledgable page, who he eventually realises is a girl in disguise, and they have Adventures (but no romance, preferably)
He asked if I knew of any stories like that, since it feels like a really obvious premise, and I felt like I must have seen something along those lines by Tamora Pierce/ Mercedes Lackey etc but nothing came to mind. eg the Alanna series has the crossdressing page part but not the loner knight, Kel doesn't have the cross-dressing, etc.
So I come to you! At this point we're mostly just curious if it exists at all, but actual recs are definitely not unwelcome. Books/tv/movies, whatever.
He asked if I knew of any stories like that, since it feels like a really obvious premise, and I felt like I must have seen something along those lines by Tamora Pierce/ Mercedes Lackey etc but nothing came to mind. eg the Alanna series has the crossdressing page part but not the loner knight, Kel doesn't have the cross-dressing, etc.
So I come to you! At this point we're mostly just curious if it exists at all, but actual recs are definitely not unwelcome. Books/tv/movies, whatever.
Wuthering Heights Review
Feb. 20th, 2026 11:59 pmpandarusJust come back from watching “Wuthering Heights”. I’m not mad about it, in either sense. Here be incoherent thoughts:
- it’s a 2 hour long music video: glib, flamboyant & silly.
- the child actors were GREAT. Bless them. Cracking work, really sad that the story scooted forward to the adult actors so fast.
- I love Margot Robbie & I mean no disrespect when I say ( Read more... )
- it’s a 2 hour long music video: glib, flamboyant & silly.
- the child actors were GREAT. Bless them. Cracking work, really sad that the story scooted forward to the adult actors so fast.
- I love Margot Robbie & I mean no disrespect when I say ( Read more... )
Interesting Links for 20-02-2026
Feb. 20th, 2026 12:00 pmandrewducker- 1. Looksmaxxing: Myth Vs. Fact
- (tags:funny trends beauty society bodyimage )
- 2. An excellent break down of the EHRC trangender toilet case, and the High Court findings. It is, as you might expect, a mess.
- (tags:law transgender uk lgbt )
- 3. Sizing chaos - an incredibly visualised look at how and why women's clothes sizing is a mess that lets down half of all women
- (tags:women clothing visualisation OhForFucksSake history society )
- 4. Psychology of Gen X Parents (I feel called out. Or described. Or something)
- (tags:psychology demographics history video )
- 5. What is Going on with Colorectal Cancer in young people?
- (tags:cancer age statistics )
Daily Happiness
Feb. 19th, 2026 09:34 pmtorachan1. It sprinkled a little this morning but otherwise did not rain. Very windy, though, and cold! My clothes were not made for the piercing wind. Also even though there’s been rain, I’m in air conditioned buildings too much and feeling really dried out. Definitely will be glad to get home tomorrow.
2. I don’t like having to eat out for every meal, but I’ve been able to try a lot of new places. I’ve been trying to stick to places we don’t have at home (with the exception of Shake Shack yesterday). This morning I went to Philz Coffee for breakfast and got a breakfast burrito (decent) and an amazing cashew latte. Lunch was at a pizza place called Arthur Mac’s, which had good pizza and super delicious sweet potato tater tots. For dinner I went back to the same food hall as yesterday and at at Super Duper Burgers, where I had a burger with a fried egg on top (tasty but messy), jalapeño cheese fries, and a strawberry chocolate shake.
3. I have trouble sleeping a lot of the time so I’m always worried about sleeping somewhere other than my own bed, but I slept all right last night. I’m exhausted again today so hopefully won’t have much trouble again.
2. I don’t like having to eat out for every meal, but I’ve been able to try a lot of new places. I’ve been trying to stick to places we don’t have at home (with the exception of Shake Shack yesterday). This morning I went to Philz Coffee for breakfast and got a breakfast burrito (decent) and an amazing cashew latte. Lunch was at a pizza place called Arthur Mac’s, which had good pizza and super delicious sweet potato tater tots. For dinner I went back to the same food hall as yesterday and at at Super Duper Burgers, where I had a burger with a fried egg on top (tasty but messy), jalapeño cheese fries, and a strawberry chocolate shake.
3. I have trouble sleeping a lot of the time so I’m always worried about sleeping somewhere other than my own bed, but I slept all right last night. I’m exhausted again today so hopefully won’t have much trouble again.
