Sunshine Challenge #4
Jul. 13th, 2025 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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sunshine_revival's next challenge is:Fun HouseBirds always make me smile, so let's do a bird list! To narrow it down a bit, I'll talk about a few of the birds I only got to know after I left San Francisco and moved to New England. The order is going to be arbitrary because of course all birds are equally fantastic, but I'll play along with the top 10 theme.
Journaling: What is making you smile these days? Create a top 10 list of anything you want to talk about.
Creative: Write from the perspective of a house or other location.
( Top Ten New England Birds [photo heavy] )
Well, I'm (probably?) hired pending the results of this background check
Jul. 14th, 2025 01:09 pmconulyand completion of orientation. They really are taking anybody with a pulse, as judged by the extremely detailed list of instructions for appropriate behavior during orientation. I'd be more insulted, but that's good for me, I really need a job. If they had higher standards they would hire somebody with formal work experience, or at least an associate's degree.
(Don't think I've stopped applying other places, mind you, but I'm really not in a position to be picky, either.)
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( Read more... )
(Don't think I've stopped applying other places, mind you, but I'm really not in a position to be picky, either.)
( Read more... )
Brick
Jul. 12th, 2025 05:26 pmprofiterole_readsNetflix's German movie Brick was intriguing. People end up stuck in their building when a mysterious black wall suddenly surrounds it.
I thought the explanation at the end was solid (movies like that tend to either leave you without an explanation or have an explanation so basic that no explanation would have been better).
Matthias Schweighöfer (Ludwig Dieter in Army of Thieves, Jack of Hearts in Heart of Stone) stars in this.
I thought the explanation at the end was solid (movies like that tend to either leave you without an explanation or have an explanation so basic that no explanation would have been better).
Matthias Schweighöfer (Ludwig Dieter in Army of Thieves, Jack of Hearts in Heart of Stone) stars in this.
The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association
Jul. 13th, 2025 10:59 amconulyWell... if you're interested in reading a book about how living in an over-privileged Connecticut town is terrible and nobody should ever do it (especially if that's going to intersect badly with their terrible childhood) then this is a book you'll like. I preferred Dreadful - the realism : magic ratio in this book leaned a little too realistic, also, I just do not believe that the only school choices are a. fancy schools for wealthy overachievers that have massively high standards and high stakes testing b. xenophobic schools with very low standards and c. homeschooling. Even if there are no public school options there still have to be artsy fartsy schools for wealthy people who know that their kids cannot do the pressure cooker thing starting in kindy.
Trying to read Dogs of War
Jul. 12th, 2025 01:52 pmconulyAdrian Tchaikovsky is amazingly hit-or-miss for me, but this looks like it's coming up "hit". The sapient arthropods are a swarm of bees. If there are any spiders, I haven't met them yet!
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (2006)
Jul. 11th, 2025 09:36 ampauraqueIn this first book of a hard SF trilogy, nanomaterials expert Wang Miao is recruited to help investigate the suicides of several prominent scientists. His inquiries lead him to a strange VR video game called Three Body, in which the player is challenged to solve the mystery of why the game's simulated world keeps falling victim to unpredictable changes in climate that cause its civilizations to inevitably collapse. Interwoven with the book's near-future narrative is a story of the past, in which an astrophysicist who lost everything in Mao's Cultural Revolution is assigned to a secret military base that she comes to realize is dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life. These two seemingly unrelated threads come together to reveal a multilayered conspiracy of world-ending stakes.
I had this on my TBR list for so long that I'd completely forgotten what it was about, and I think that worked out well for my experience of it. I never knew where it was going to go next, and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Liu has a flair for creating epic set pieces of jaw-dropping cinematic scope that nonetheless follow naturally from the speculative science. I consumed a lot of popular science media in the 2000s, specifically, so for me the science in this book felt... oddly nostalgic? Not that it's obsolete, necessarily, but the particular preoccupations of that era and what was cutting-edge are strongly represented here. It made me want to go read a Brian Greene book.
The translation by Ken Liu reads nicely and I appreciated the informative but not excessive footnotes helping with some points about Chinese culture and history. I love that they let him write an afterword about the translation process!
The book is definitely more interested in ideas than people, and it's particularly weak on female characters. I was not entirely surprised to hear that the Netflix adaptation makes some of the male characters women, including Wang Miao. (I guess it also changes the nationality of a lot of characters, which makes less sense to me since the Chinese setting seems crucial to the book's themes, but I haven't actually watched the adaptation so it's not for me to say how well it works.)
I do plan to continue with the trilogy, though I have a suspicion that it might turn out to be too pessimistic in its outlook on the future for my taste? But I guess it depends on where the story ends up. My library hold on the second book just came in.
I had this on my TBR list for so long that I'd completely forgotten what it was about, and I think that worked out well for my experience of it. I never knew where it was going to go next, and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Liu has a flair for creating epic set pieces of jaw-dropping cinematic scope that nonetheless follow naturally from the speculative science. I consumed a lot of popular science media in the 2000s, specifically, so for me the science in this book felt... oddly nostalgic? Not that it's obsolete, necessarily, but the particular preoccupations of that era and what was cutting-edge are strongly represented here. It made me want to go read a Brian Greene book.
The translation by Ken Liu reads nicely and I appreciated the informative but not excessive footnotes helping with some points about Chinese culture and history. I love that they let him write an afterword about the translation process!
The book is definitely more interested in ideas than people, and it's particularly weak on female characters. I was not entirely surprised to hear that the Netflix adaptation makes some of the male characters women, including Wang Miao. (I guess it also changes the nationality of a lot of characters, which makes less sense to me since the Chinese setting seems crucial to the book's themes, but I haven't actually watched the adaptation so it's not for me to say how well it works.)
I do plan to continue with the trilogy, though I have a suspicion that it might turn out to be too pessimistic in its outlook on the future for my taste? But I guess it depends on where the story ends up. My library hold on the second book just came in.
Dept. of Birthdays
Jul. 9th, 2025 08:06 pmkaffy_rHey, masakochan !
I hope you've had a Happy Birthday, and may the coming year be good for you. I'm glad I know you!
masakochan !I hope you've had a Happy Birthday, and may the coming year be good for you. I'm glad I know you!
Dept. of Stupid
Jul. 9th, 2025 07:10 pmkaffy_rJust When You Think It Couldn't be More Stupid
Now come six proofs that you can have the IQ of a broken toaster and still make it to Washington D.C.
From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; four U.S. House Representatives from Minnesota, and two from Wisconsin, sent a letter to the Canadian Ambassador to the U.S.
Their subject? The smoke from Canadian wildfires that were coming south and preventing people in their states from enjoying outdoor summer activities.
Seriously.
Since I would not be surprised in the least if you've already started snickering, sure that I'm having you on, here's the story. It's not behind a paywall, I swear. And it notes with a perfectly straight face, the smoke from U.S. wildfires heading northward. The "Are you actually humans, or malfunctioning Chat GPT programs?" is unspoken.
These six examples of Darwin's Law are either fully aware of the fatuous asininity exhibited in this letter and are doing it to ingratiate themselves with Dear Leader or to their own MAGA constituents ...
... or they're really that stupid.
JFC. Once I would have laughed merrily at this. Today I'm perilously close to weeping.
Now come six proofs that you can have the IQ of a broken toaster and still make it to Washington D.C.
From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; four U.S. House Representatives from Minnesota, and two from Wisconsin, sent a letter to the Canadian Ambassador to the U.S.
Their subject? The smoke from Canadian wildfires that were coming south and preventing people in their states from enjoying outdoor summer activities.
Seriously.
Since I would not be surprised in the least if you've already started snickering, sure that I'm having you on, here's the story. It's not behind a paywall, I swear. And it notes with a perfectly straight face, the smoke from U.S. wildfires heading northward. The "Are you actually humans, or malfunctioning Chat GPT programs?" is unspoken.
These six examples of Darwin's Law are either fully aware of the fatuous asininity exhibited in this letter and are doing it to ingratiate themselves with Dear Leader or to their own MAGA constituents ...
... or they're really that stupid.
JFC. Once I would have laughed merrily at this. Today I'm perilously close to weeping.
Points for honesty in this job description....
Jul. 11th, 2025 11:20 amconuly"Why work here?"
"Weekly pay!"
Yup, that's why I would like to apply for any and all jobs!
(On a side note, A has been sending me a lot of job links today. I'm a bit inundated, but I somehow don't think that "Great, please don't send them to me, just fill them out with my resume for me" is going to go over very well.)
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( Read more... )
"Weekly pay!"
Yup, that's why I would like to apply for any and all jobs!
(On a side note, A has been sending me a lot of job links today. I'm a bit inundated, but I somehow don't think that "Great, please don't send them to me, just fill them out with my resume for me" is going to go over very well.)
( Read more... )
Sunshine Revival Challenge #3
Jul. 9th, 2025 12:14 pmpauraquesunshine_revival's next challenge is:Snack ShackWhen I was growing up, the most coveted summer treat was universally acknowledged to be the It's-It. This is an ice cream sandwich made with soft oatmeal cookies, coated in a thin layer of chocolate. It was invented in San Francisco in 1928 and for decades it was sold only at the local amusement park Playland at the Beach. The Playland era was before my time, though; now It's-Its are sold prepackaged in stores and from roving food trucks all over the Bay Area.
Journaling prompt: What are your favorite summer-associated foods?
Creative prompt: Draw art of or make graphics of summer foods, or post your favorite summer recipes.
I didn't realize until I moved away that It's-Its are made by a local company and nobody outside California had heard of them. I also didn't realize what a weird name they have until I tried to explain to other people what they were. "Itsits? What does that even mean?" I guess it made sense in the context of the 1920s when everyone was talking about "it girls" and having "it." (The movie It starring Clara Bow sounds like a horror title now, but it didn't in 1927!)
As a kid I never questioned it. The origin of the name did not matter. All that mattered was sitting on a sunny park bench after waiting patiently in line at the food truck, and finally biting into your precious It's-It, which instantly started melting, and trying to contain the ice cream in the flimsy crinkly plastic but always failing, having it drip all over your hands as it squeezed out from between the cookies with the chocolate coating cracking into melty bits. Pure summer childhood bliss.
You can actually order It's-Its online if you're in the US, and I've read that in recent years they've been selling them at brick and mortar stores outside California, though I haven't run into any in the wild. I've been told that they're pretty good even if the mere sight of them does not overwhelm you with nostalgia.
Got a callback
Jul. 9th, 2025 11:57 amconulyAsked where I lived, was concerned that the answer is "Staten Island". FFS, it's not Siberia!
I need to start telling people I'm moving in with a friend in Tribeca. Just straight up lie.
I need to start telling people I'm moving in with a friend in Tribeca. Just straight up lie.
I've applied to a bunch of NYC government jobs today
Jul. 10th, 2025 02:20 amconulyJust went through the website and applied to everything I meet the minimum qualifications for, for what good it may do.
They could, in theory, save my information from one application to the next. They don't do that. They could also not require me to answer "where did you hear about this?" every time - but the joke's on them. "I went to your website and clicked on every job where I meet the minimum qualifications" is not an option, so I've just been lying and saying "hiring event" because that's the first choice. They will get no useful data from me, no thank you!
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They could, in theory, save my information from one application to the next. They don't do that. They could also not require me to answer "where did you hear about this?" every time - but the joke's on them. "I went to your website and clicked on every job where I meet the minimum qualifications" is not an option, so I've just been lying and saying "hiring event" because that's the first choice. They will get no useful data from me, no thank you!
( Read more... )