Network | Kake

Some things that have happened while I have had a week off work:

1. I've got the hallway painted, FINALLY. It is not perfect, and the ceiling still needs doing, but the walls are done.

You have no idea of the relief I've felt since doing that. It's looked like such a fucking bomb site for so long, and now the walls look clean, and nice, and I don't feel embarrassed by it any longer. And it means I will feel more like inviting people to my house, which will only increase the more I get done.

Sure the stairwell and the landing still look atrocious, but I'm taking my wins where I can get them. And they will also be done sooner rather than later.

2. With doing the hallway, I realised that I've started this year in a much better place health-wise than I started last year, so I hope that's an indicator of how things will go.

3. I've done some sorting and tidying, and slowly am accruing myself more space through doing this.

4. Obviously my new PC came, so I used setting it up and playing on it as a reward for doing the hallway (not that I needed motivation). I am not looking for recs for games, as I have plenty already that I know I want to play (my Steam Wishlist is now nearly 100 items long, whoops?)

5. I finally deleted my twitter account yesterday, exactly sixteen years after I made it. I have been meaning to do it for some time, and not done because I either forgot, or was making excuses like only certain artists post on there or whatever. But it's gone now. I don't miss it.

6. There is no thing #6

Current Music: Starman - David Bowie

puddleshark

( Playing with the Photoshop Graphic Pen filter )

heleninwales

What with the snow and then Storm Goretti we hadn't been for a walk together all week. But yesterday we did one of our favourite forest walks in the Coed y Brenin, the one that starts in the village car park. The weather was cold, but otherwise good for walking. There were clumps of snow beside some of the tracks where the sun hadn't been able to reach to melt it, but the tracks themselves were free of ice.

The only photos of G I can ever take are a back view in the middle distance.

Sometimes the sun even came out! The forest was surprisingly busy considering the time of year. Perhaps people had had the same idea as us, namely to grab the chance before the next batch of bad weather rolled in? There are a couple of cyclists and a walker or two in the distance.

( More here... )

It was a good walk and I needed the exercise after being pretty sedentary over the Christmas period. I don't know when we'll get out again. Today is drier than forecast, but very windy. I don't like going out in high winds. There's too much danger from flying chunks of tree, falling branches and slates blown off roofs if I'm walking in town. I will have to venture out at some point because I need to post our daughter's birthday card. She's currently in Tenerife celebrating her birthday a little early. It's a special one this year as she's 50. How on earth can I be old enough to have a 50-year-old daughter?!

angrboda

Husband is currently putting the very final touches on the plastering in my room. I get to do the cleanup on wednesday and thursday. It works out pretty well actually, because I worked yesterday so I get thursday off instead, and I can just get it over with. He already hovered up most of the dust, so I'm already well helped there. Once that's done, he can paint it (still haven't fully settled on a colour), and then it's getting the new furniture, getting that installed and moving back in. Still haven't managed to have a go at those curtains, though.

It's not going to be today, because there's opera this afternoon. Andrea Chenier, which I had never heard of before, by Giordano, who I had also never heard about before. It was a bit uncertain whether or not we would go what with me having a one day weekend and all, but I was listening to it while at work yesterday and I thought it seemed pretty good. Plus, it's opera in the cinema, so it's a Met production and those are always pretty lavish and worth seeing.

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: enthralled

mabiana

Got the latest macrame project done last night:

As always, I completely underestimated how long it would take me. And how fed up I get with long threads always getting tangled up. ;-) At some point it's so long I have to work on these hanging on the door, and each time I take it down (so I can open and close when not working on it) the tangling up gets worse no matter how careful I am. Thus I am eager to just get it done in as few sittings as possible then. Also, I just wanted it finished before I have to go back to work on Monday (sigh) - there are several things I had planned and didn't manage to do, so it's satisfying to at least have been successful with the biggest project.

I have been thinking about this since autumn, but was stuck on how to get a decent sun and moon until I finally had the brainwave to just work in rings I had at home anyway and voila, perfect circles without any problems. The stars on the other hand I had thought to be the easiest initially, but it turns out to be quite hard to make a non-wonky star.

A possible next one will definitely again be done with more segments separated with more rods, so I can work with shorter threads. I have figured out how to hide moderately well behind certain knots when I have to attach a string because one got too short, but it is a bother and if you know it you will see it.

(Oops. Just noticed there is still a bit of cut off string on the floor in front of the door. Lalala ;-) )

oglaf_comic_feed

https://www.oglaf.com/true-crime-fiction/

dine

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

conuly

when you finally confess your love to the guy you've been pining after for half your life, and it turns out that you have a perfectly aligned and complementary set of kinks? Nobody has to compromise and agree to sometimes do the thing they're not that into or, conversely, never do the thing they're totally into. Nobody's turned off by the mere thought of any of it, every conversation is an ongoing saga of "yes, and".

I guess that's one more advantage of being fictional!

***********

( Read more... )

calimac

So I'm reading this book, An Immense World by Ed Yong (Random House, 2022), about animal senses, some of which are very different from our own. (But what kind of book about animals says virtually nothing about cats?) And this chapter concerns the sense of temperature, and this section is discussing animals which live under extreme temperatures.

When scientists study these so-called extremophiles, they tend to focus on adaptations like heat-reflecting hairs in their bodies or self-made antifreeze in their blood. But such adaptations would be useless if an animal's sensory system were constantly screaming it it, triggering feelings of pain. If you want to live in the Sahara, or at the bottom of the ocean, or on a glacier, you'd better tweak your sense to like it.
This concept is intuitive, and yet when we watch extremophiles, from emperor penguins braving the Antarctic chill to camels trekking over scorching sands, it's easy to think that they are suffering throughout their lives. We admire them not just for their physiological resilience but also for their psychological fortitude. We project our senses onto theirs and assume that they'd be in discomfort because we'd be in discomfort. But their sense are tuned to the temperatures in which they live. A camel likely isn't distressed by the baking sun, and penguins probably don't mind huddling through an Antarctic storm. Let the storm rage on. The cold doesn't bother them anyway.

I hope I don't have to ...

sholio

I don't think I posted about this at the time, but there was an absolute odyssey involved in getting the original batch of B5 script books that I ordered.

The original process was this:

I'd known about the existence of the B5 script books vaguely for a while, but hadn't really thought of buying them before. In October, when I came back from traveling, I googled it and found a massive site called "B5 Books" that had authorized editions of all the B5-related books available, which was a lot of them, not just the script books but tons of other stuff as well.

They had closed yesterday.

But wait! They were staying open through the weekend (like 2 more days) because they'd had technical issues. So I splurged and ordered an absolute ton of books (about 2/3 of the total script books out there, mainly focused on episodes I especially wanted to read about). I would have preferred to order just one to find out a) what the books were like, and b) what their customer service was like, but ... closing in 2 days! So I gave them my credit card info for a quantity of books that I don't want to think too closely about.

A month went by.

I got a shipping notice and a tracking number, and and then a box arrived .... with 2 books in it.

I contacted customer service (a bit nervously, in the hopes they'd still actually answer). To their credit, they were very quick to respond; evidently there was a second tracking email I hadn't received for some reason, for the box with most of the rest of the books in it. (They sent me a free digital book to make up for the emotional distress, too - they were really nice.)

This was back in December, and I was leaving on the 13th, Saturday, so I periodically checked the tracking info for the box. It showed up in Fairbanks over the previous weekend, and showed that it was supposed to deliver on Monday.

Monday came and went. About mid-week, the tracking info showed that it had traveled out of Fairbanks again. (Why??) I had visions of the box going all the way back to the sender for some reason. Meanwhile, I had planned to spend the last couple of days before I left diving into my new books, but as the week ticked down and it continued to tease me ... I guess not. Finally, on Friday, I got an actual "out for delivery" notice, and then a notice that a "pick up at post office" slip had been left. Also, Friday was our last day of actual mail delivery (we'd put a hold on it until after Christmas that started on Saturday and went for 2 weeks, i.e. about the amount of time that the post office will hold a box - you know, this box with $100s of books in it). I was headed to the airport Saturday afternoon, but I figured it should be possible to stop by the post office on the way.

I picked up the mail.

No slip.

I thought, okay, maybe I picked up an early batch (yesterday's? our mailbox is on the highway and both the mail delivery and our collection of it is kind of haphazard) so when Orion got home a few hours later, I asked if there had been a slip in the mailbox.

Nope!

So now my package is on hold at the post office, I GUESS, with no ability to redeliver and our mail delivery not starting until after the approximate return to sender date. We hunted all around the mailbox just in case it had been dropped. No slip.

I ended up printing out the tracking number and taking that to the post office on our way to the airport, and that DID work and they DID have the box and I got it, YAY. (Orion said that the slip spontaneously showed up in the mailbox when he was headed home after dropping me off, so WHO KNOWS what was up with that.)

Anyway, all of that ended up working out in the end, and I enjoyed the books so much that I went on Amazon to see if I could find used copies of the ones I didn't have. I ordered a few more, and I just checked the shipping info and discovered that one of them - from a 3rd party Amazon seller - was sent via Fedex and supposedly delivered on Thursday afternoon, i.e. 2 days ago.

Guess what I don't seem to have!

Orion says that Fedex often leaves deliveries in random places around the yard - he's found them on piles of construction supplies, left at the door of the shop instead of the house, etc. Inauspiciously, it snowed a few inches last night, so everything is covered with fresh snow. Also, it was dark. Still, we took flashlights and went and hunted high and low in all the places that a package might be, ranging from likely (covered with snow beside the door) to unlikely but possible (at the doors of the various outbuildings like the greenhouse, on top of random vehicles in the yard) to the highly unlikely (at our road sign, in our mailbox). Not a single sign of it! I don't know if it was delivered to some other house, mistakenly marked as delivered when it's actually fallen under the delivery truck seat, or if a very soggy B5 book is going to turn up four months later when the snow melts, but seriously, WHAT EVEN. I've never had a book go missing like this in all the time I've been ordering used books off Amazon!

Anyway, further updates from the B5 script books are coming soon, and maybe I'll have this particular book eventually, or maybe not.

swingandswirl

Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

RL got a little nuts, but I'm determined not to let this fall by the wayside, so have a belated Day 4 post.

Challenge #4: Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page

Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!

The instructions for this one confused me, and I don't really do social media, so instead, I thought it would be fun to link some of my favourite fic/art exchanges!

Despite my sometimes Cursed Exchange Luck, I really do love taking part in exchanges. They've gotten me some of my favourite fics ever, and pushed me to write things I never would have otherwise. Here's a list of all the exchanges I'm taking part in this year:

fffx

The Five Figure Fanwork Exchange! You get five months to write either 2 5k or 1 10k fic, or equivalent art. (Has the five month period ever stopped me from leaving it until the last minute? Nope. But we live dangerously 'round these parts.)

ficinabox

Possibly my favourite exchange ever. You commit to writing 10k, or doing an equivalent creative activity... but it can be split up into a mind-boggling variety of mediums, from AITA posts to CYOA games to literal knitted things. One year I'm going to lose my mind enough, recipient willing, to write 10k entirely in drabbles.

highadrenalineexchange

The converse of FFFX - you get two weeks to write 10k. I was somehow insane enough to do Pride and Prejudice fic my first go-around with HAX, and the two-week deadline was the only reason I managed to get out of my own head enough to do it, lol.

worldbuilding_exchange

I utterly adore worldbuilding, so it's no surprise that an exchange based on it is my catnip. If the exchange somehow allowed me to nominate JUST the first four Harry Potter books, I'd be in heaven, lol.

rule_63

Genderbends are another of my very favourite things, and the main fandoms I'm in - HP, Avengers, Superbat, Numb3rs, and Star Trek - have amazing potential when it comes to male-to-female genderbends. Plus, honestly, girls are just more interesting, lol.

idproquo

I am a firm believer in, and defender of, idfic. I also live in the AU where Marvel made no movies after the Avengers and Harry Potter is an unfinished four-book series with no movies, lol.

This year, I also want to take part in

seasonsofdrabbles ,

everywoman , if it's running, and

halfamoon . We'll see how things go.

snickfic

For movie analysis and behind-the-scenes info. (Boy has Youtube been a pain in the butt for me the last couple of days. I assume they're duking it out with my adblock. Ugh.)

Rian Johnson Breaks Down a Scene From 'Wake Up Dead Man'. I rewatched the movie on Christmas and then really enjoyed watching this. Johnson talks a lot more than just the specific scene.

Nosferatu (2024) Kill Count. This movie has really grown on me, and this is one of my favorite Kill Counts that Dead Meat has done in a while. Eggers goes so hard, which means a ton of juicy behind-the-scenes details I didn't know. Maybe time for a rewatch soon.

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260110.html

Jupiter with the Great Red Spot

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260110.html

swingandswirl

So one of my friends has been bugging me to read Casey McQuiston's Red, White, and Royal Blue for years.

I resisted, partly because it felt a little too close to RPF for me to feel comfortable (I know posh British men have like five acceptable names but still) and partly because... well, I'm not a fan of the British monarchy, even a fictional version, for very obvious child-of-colonialism reasons.

And then this morning my buddy complained, once again, about the idiot sheltered Tamil Brahmin boy in the RWRB discord's latest terrible take, which was that India does not have racism. (As someone who remembers seeing a front-page ad in the newspaper of record offering a free whitening cream with purchase of soap that had the tagline 'We're sending some compliments your way', AHAHAHAHA.)

So I made a half-joking comment about that I should finally read RWRB so I could join the discord and back her up next time the idiot idioted. And lo and behold, I had a free afternoon and an available copy of the book, so... why the hell not?

And y'all, I feel like such a damn idiot. Because this book, once I let go of my grudge about the names? Was actually really good. The writing is top-notch, the characters are complex while still being fun, and the story balances escapism and realism really well, especially when it comes to the depiction of the monarchy. It's even making me want to see the movie, which is not a thing I say often.

So yeah. Five out of five stars to Casey McQuiston's Red White and Royal Blue, and a reminder to not judge books by their covers, lol.

senmut

AO3 Link | One Two THREE Force Born?! (1609 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker, Mace Windu, Sheev Palpatine | Emperor Palpatine | Darth Sidious
Additional Tags: Crack Treated Seriously, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Kriffing Sith Plans
Summary:

It's Padmé with the nightmares, and a plan to head it all off.

One Two THREE Force Born?!

Padmé Amidala was a woman on a mission. Anakin might be completely in a panic over the pregnancy but she was going to head this off. It was just too convenient that she was now being plagued with dreams of her own death, the very night after an unavoidable dinner with the man she had a growing distaste for.

And, deep where she would never tell her husband, she had a nasty suspicion he was trying to shove Anakin off a cliff of irredeemable violence. The Chancellor might not have commented on her state, but his eyes were not as easily fooled by their shared heritage of concealing fashion.

Today, she was going to go enlist the aid of the Jedi, while Anakin was tied up being the poster boy of the GAR. She had all of her diplomatic shields in place, and had the perfect cover story to do this with.

After all, with Jedi having lost so many, surely the Force would be interested in adding a few more children to the future.

Vokara Che was every bit as imposing in her domain as Anakin had said. However, her status as a long time ally had convinced Master Fisto to bring her down to the Healer's Wing. She had pleaded with him, and the healer, that there could not be a father, not when she was a mature woman who knew how to guard against such!

"You were correct that the pregnancy is heavily Force-influenced," Vokara said after several minutes of making Padmé wonder if the healer was going to break her constructed version of events. "You are carrying two very healthy, very Force-active fetuses."

Two. TWO?!

She was not going to faint like the damsel of a holo-drama. "Thank you, Master Che. Given my precarious positioning within the advocates for peace, and past attempts, I could not, in all honesty, acquire medical aid in the typical fashion. Given how my dreams are affected, and having such strange hunches of late, I turned to your Temple in hope."

"A wise choice." For a long moment, Vokara held her eyes, and Padmé knew that the healer was not actually buying the spontaneous pregnancy. A twitch of the lekku, however, indicated the secret was safe. "These hunches, I believe that Master Windu should possibly help sort them out with you."

Oh. Well, that might be the right way to go as well.

Kit, even before the appointment in medical had ended, had gone to find his age-mate. He did so in one of the botanical rooms. "Master Windu," he began. "And Master Yoda," he added to be polite, despite the ancient peering at one of the plants intently.

"Hmm," came over top of Mace's cautious "Master Fisto", and Kit grinned a little that his creche-mate had already detected the mild mischief Kit was feeling.

They all needed a little bit of amusement.

"Senator Amidala has come, and is being tended to by Master Che," Kit began, and both men looked sharply at him. "I do wonder about that old prophecy that was discussed when Master Jinn found a boy on a desert world with no father… as she is here to see about a Force-induced pregnancy as well."

Yoda's ears went flat, Mace's eyes narrowed, and Kit merely smiled.

Mace looked at the woman who had been a solid ally, and the subject of not a small part of gossip. He did not, for a moment, believe the story of no father, but in her political setting, it was for the best to go along with it.

"Master Che said you have been plagued by hunches of late, ones that play out true."

He set a mild tisane in front of her, and took a second one for himself.

"I think the Force has concerns about the path we are on, despite recent developments. After all, if the Count has been neutralized, and Master Kenobi is on the trail of their general… who will keep the momentum up to line pockets with war money, and build such sizable powers through war-time legislation?" Amidala asked, meeting the man's eyes squarely. "I am all but certain you and your peers have had the same intuitions."

Was she — had she —

Maybe Skywalker had been more circumspect than Mace had believed. For all that Amidala was firmly an adherent of a peaceful resolution, her physical and vocal cues were running in tandem with the Council's own suspicions.

"Perhaps we are looking in that same direction," he said.

"If the other Sith, the one Dooku spoke of on our side, is out there, I am certain he would try to harm those touched so firmly by the Light Side as ones fathered by the Force," Amidala told him. "I shudder to think of what such a being might have done had they had access to your Knight Skywalker for all the years of this phantom menace over us."

That, Mace decided, was both accusation and… an invitation to look more closely at how the cards were laid out.

And he had to admit she had a point.

"Anakin!"

"Chancellor."

"I do hope the scandal hasn't harmed your friendship with the Senator."

"What scandal?"

The exchange, handled in the hearing of several itinerant reporters, brought their elder statesman up short, until someone added the right question.

"That she's pregnant with no father in sight," the reporter with blood money in his pockets called out.

"You really think Senator Amidala would stoop to such petty, low-brow nonsense?" Anakin asked them, in his best 'are you kidding me' voice, and he caught the frown on his old 'friend'. He was so glad Saesse Tiin had been able and willing to explore the past several years in his head. "She's having children as the will of the Force, and we Jedi take that kind of thing very seriously."

He then kept walking, leaving the Chancellor stewing, the reporters trying to digest how to spin this, and a feeling that he could not have handled it that way without the Council all suddenly intent on supporting him. He didn't know what had changed there, but he couldn't wait to tell Obi-Wan all about it.

And the Force Twins, because he had to admit, he really hadn't had a lot of time, and they both used precautions.

Chancellor Sheev Palpatine was in a fury. He had primed the well perfectly, and somehow… somehow every insinuation and control he'd put in place had been cut off in the Chosen One. All because of some insane story concocted by the woman that had long since outlived her usefulness.

Any day now, that wretched Kenobi would be returning, and Sheev would have to find a different way to acquire everything he wanted… unless he acted now? He went to his desk to find the comm unit. He needed to provoke the right circumstance, to make it clear he was saving them from the Jedi, but what would it take?

The comm lit up in his hand.

What?

With the Force, he flipped the hood of his cape up, securing it to conceal his features, and turned it on.

"What do you know, that frequency is picked up, Commander," came the very annoying, should-be-dead voice of the Togruta menace. He hastily turned it off, throwing it into the back of the locked drawers.

The knocking at the door that came next, including a call of 'Coruscant Security' sent chills down his back.

He wondered idly if his own Master had felt this the night Sheev had gleefully murdered him.

Mace pinched the bridge of his nose, then looked over at the newest Master of the Council who was pretending he didn't want to hurry out and see a certain Senator. He then looked at Kenobi, who was waiting to be briefed on how and why the Chancellor had been killed in the midst of being served with detention papers.

"A tip from an ally told us to double check Skywalker for undue influence," Kit said, looking entirely too merry in the telling.

"Padmé," Anakin offered cheerfully. "She's having Force twins."

Mace did not groan. It really did sound like Skywalker believed that.

"Removing that," Saesee said, "let us more clearly see the shape of a possible end game, orchestrated to cast us all as traitors."

"Meanwhile, Skywalker's commander had been working on another angle of the endgame," Agen said.

"Leading him and Tano to turning up a plan to make the man expose himself, using the very tools meant to kill us all," Kit said, "by triggering a comm device he should not have had while we were keeping him very securely under comm surveillance with Naboo's and CorSec's cooperation."

"How did you get CorSec to agree to such?" Kenobi asked.

"Amidala implied that she had noticed a malevolent presence while dining with the man, and could they please keep it under wraps that there could be such a threat near the center of government?" Shaak Ti said, eyes dancing with mirth.

"A very tidy end, I suppose." Kenobi then looked at Mace with a deadpan face. "So, how are those prophecies handling the idea of three Force-fathered children?"

Mace did not, as he wanted to, flip the man's hood over his head with the Force.

Padmé smiled, despite fatigue, as she held her daughter, and Anakin held her son. Eventually, they might admit the farce.

Then again, listening to Anakin telling Luke all about the wonders of what the Force could do…

… maybe it was better to leave it at this. What really mattered was that they were all saved from the Sith.

muccamukk

Yes, from me.

IDK if you can see

CBCSports in other countries, but they're currently playing my preferred type of figure skating (the recent nationals), which consists of:

Individual single short programs (long programs are usually too long for me to want to watch a single dance routine, and I also don't want to watch hours and hours of the stuff).

Of just the top competators (so I don't have to feel bad when they fall down or do poorly, also see above about attention span).

With the music directly onto the broadcast (rather than echoey rink music).

Without commentary, except maybe a few notes before the dance starts (because I neither know nor care what a triple toe loop or whatever is, and equally do not care if the skater did a double instead.)

Anyway, youtube has figured this out and is giving me random Canadian children gliding around the ice.

(Randomly my only sports icon relates to cricket.)

juan_gandhi

Сегодня дисциплинированный такой день был. Всё по расписанию. Только не хватило 15 минут чтоб досмотреть видео про "разговорный французский, сейчас уже лень.

Когда ходил гулять, стояла теплынь и сырость. Теплынь - это 23 градуса. А сырость я люблю, извините. Гулял, слушал немножко Наки, немножко Шейтельмана, а в-основном эту ахинею Жюля Верна про полёт на воздушном шаре. Шар этот у них ещё над озером Чад расклевали какие-то большие стервятники, а в конце вообще за ними гнался талибан. Но ничего, перелетели речку Нигер (что ли), оказались братцы в Сенегале, а там, вместо жены французского посла, их тепло встретили французские военные. Ладно, мне же надо что-то слушать, попроще.

Посмотрел занятный фильм Relay, что tima присоветовал. Там такой классный пуштун играет. Пуштуны вообще киногеничны, да и чисто по-человечески интересные люди.

Потом задул такой ветер на местности, до 51 км в час. У меня что-то брякало где-то, как будто цинковый тазик где-то вывешен. Что-нибудь на трубе, наверно. Кстати, в камине надо опять пошурудить, там понападало опять божьих коровок откуда-то. Не топить же камин теперь. Да и смысла нет, уже почти весна, и 23 градуса тепла днём. В Нарнии тоже тепло, так я там замазывал потолок потихонечку. Хотя... послезавтра будет -3, а в пятницу будет -6. Тады ой.

Что в мире творится, хоть святых выноси. Иран всё ещё не это. Но мы же надеемся? На твиттере про Иран всякие фейк видео гонят, просто ужас. Да и вообще мир становится миром фейков.

Кстати, этот придурок Трамп, если хочет купить гренландцев, то надо серьёзные деньги предлагать. 30 тыс в год каждому, на 100 лет. Это всего-то чуток больше того, что Америка выплачивает Египту за его поведение. Сдаётся мне, что за 30 тыс в год гренландцы могут и продаться. Или нет. А за 60?

hitokage

Snowflake #4: Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page

instructions unclear ... so have some podcats! No links, look them up on your pod-catcher of choice. Or don't, it's entirely up to you.

99% Invisible - general nerdery. In theory, this is an architecture podcast, but it's so much more than that. Started off on the actual radio with episodes starting at ~5min and slowly getting longer over time as they moved firmly into Podcast full time. I'm still working my way through the archive, but worth the deep dive.

Rachel Maddow Presents - political history and commentary. I highly recommend all of them, but her latest, Burn Notice, feels especially important right now. It's US history we aren't taught but probably ought to be.

You Are Good - film commentary. I've fallen behind due to The Horrors. They've got an eclectic mix of films they've discussed from a "how we feel" perspective and it's always interesting, even if I'm not that familiar with the film in question.

American Hysteria - pop culture. Chelsey has sometimes fallen into the white leftist trap of talking out their ass, but they generally mean well and are trying to de-construct America's moral panics of past and present in good faith.

Astonishing Legends - paranormal/supernatural investigation. Pay attention to episode length before jumping in on this one - true episodes are usually around 1-1.5hours with some installments running as long as 4 hours and some stories being told over 3-4 parts. I've been listening to this one for over a year now and I'm still in the archives because of how long the episodes are. XD

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: ATEEZ - BOUNCY (K-HOT CHILLI PEPPERS)

cahn

So I'm going to talk about one of my major fandoms (that I don't usually talk about here), shiny things, because I can! (I started this post more than a month ago and it is high time to actually finish and post it.) In particular, I want to talk about diamond simulants and lab diamonds (although there's also very recently been some cool stuff about lab sapphires too). The funny thing is, I've never been a super fan of diamonds in general. I mean, I'm not going to say no to them! they are very shiny, and they have some cool dispersion (splits light into component colors, like a prism, so you get little rainbow flashes if it's cut well), and I love that they're super hard and come in octahedral crystals, but I have always been a colored stones kind of kid. But! In the last ten years there have been a ton of developments in this fandom relating to diamond simulants and lab diamonds, which I think is very neat.

First I want to define what I'm talking about.
Natural diamonds / earth-mined diamonds are diamonds that occur naturally in the Earth's crust and are mined from the ground.
Diamond simulants are not diamonds, but other substances that look enough like diamonds that they are used in jewelry that might otherwise use diamonds. I'll talk about cubic zirconia and moissanite as diamond simulants later on.
Synthetic diamonds / lab diamonds are chemically identical (*) to natural diamonds but are made in a lab.

( Apologies if you happen to love diamonds, but I find the whole natural diamond thing kind of obnoxious in several ways. )

( Brief discussion of cubic zirconia, and the rise of moissanite )

( The rise of lab diamonds )

( Lab ruby/sapphire: Some recent cool news on the lab sapphire front )

( Photos )

(*) There are little things that can be different, so generally speaking lab diamonds can be distinguished from natural diamonds by a laboratory, but basically they're both made of carbon and look identical, especially if you have the same "grades" in one as another.
(**) When I refer to "carat" in the context of diamond simulants in particular, I will always be referring to "size of an ideal-cut diamond," which is about 6.5mm in diameter for a round diamond. Simulants will have different weights than a carat, of course, but generally the industry refers to a "1 ct moissanite" as something that mimics a 1 ct diamond, even though the corresponding cubic zirconia will actually be heavier than a carat and the corresponding moissanite will be lighter! Of course, "carat" when referring to colored stones just directly means the weight of that stone.
(+) www.diamondcz.co.uk came along in 2004, importing well-cut cz from China, and took well-cut cz from a relatively expensive niche market to super cheap!
(***) And even less (<~$300/ct last I looked) if you're willing to deal with Chinese companies directly -- it turns out there are whole subreddits devoted to both moissanite and lab diamonds that have instructions on this.
(****) Also emerald and garnet! Lab emerald in particular is a very big thing, very popular these days among people who buy lab gems, though emerald is not as much my thing so I don't know as much about it. Lab garnet can also be doped to get a lot of different colors, which is fun. Emeralds can't be made by the super cheap processes so they've taken a couple of decades longer to get cheap enough to be popular, but nowadays you can easily get them cheaply.

Kake

we may pick him up on channel two

Crow

A rare fine day

(no subject)

Ooooooo

(no subject)

True Crime Fiction

here I am. what are your other two wishes?

Gosh, isn't it great

quotation

I am rapidly concluding that the B5 books are CURSED

Snowflake Challenge Day 4

youtube recs

Jupiter with the Great Red Spot

Never underestimate the power of spite, y'all.

Fic: One Two THREE Force Born?!

Random Sports Stuff

белый дыбр

3262. Snowflake #4: Recs

Simulant and synthetic diamonds (and others)

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December 2023

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