Invasive species
Apr. 23rd, 2025 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Interesting Links for 23-04-2025
Apr. 23rd, 2025 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
- 1. I just donated towards the Good Law Project's trans rights fund. I urge you to do likewise.
- (tags:law CrowdFunding uk transgender rights )
- 2. Bigots who hate one group increasingly hate all of them. (bigotry now correlated 70% with conservatism)
- (tags:bigotry society USA psychology )
- 3. Gow long does it take to create a new habit?
- (tags:habits psychology )
- 4. The complex origin story of domestic cats: Research points to Tunisia
- (tags:cats prehistory archeology )
- 5. Edinburgh's second home council tax charge raises £2.7m
- (tags:housing tax edinburgh )
- 6. The Gruen Transfer is consuming the internet
- (tags:ux socialmedia )
Days of future past
Apr. 23rd, 2025 06:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Ethics
Apr. 22nd, 2025 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
“Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and further life—it is bad to damage and destroy life. And this ethic, profound and universal, has the significance of a religion. It is religion.”
—Albert Schweitzer, quoted in Albert Schweitzer: The Man and His Mind by George Seaver

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
(no subject)
Apr. 22nd, 2025 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I’m working in the back yard every day and it’s a bigger job than I thought. I’ve scaled back my expectations and am concentrating on flowers in pots. I have one tomato plant and we wish it the best, but have no high hopes. There is so much weeding to be done and I’m old and kinda lazy so I do a little bit every day. Plus the cats got out one day and now I have to watch for that. They both came back at traditional dinner time like they just drove home from the office.
The rainy season has tapered off and I’m just watching the weather and sun patterns in the yard this year. My bedroom gets a lot of afternoon sun so I’m thinking it’ll be hot in the summer. But not California hot for endless days.
I have not watched The Last of Us yet. I’m putting it off because it’s going to take an emotional toll. I dropped Acorn and they naturally added more episodes of two of my favorite shows immediately afterward, so I had to sign up again.
Roof, Trail, ETS
Apr. 22nd, 2025 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The roof is almost complete. Now we are waiting for the ridge vent materials. Apparently it will be a couple more weeks before they arrive, which is fine, there is no real rain in the forecast, and the roofers say that the roof is watertight in any case. Michael says my sprinkler pipes are done, but I haven't picked them up yet.
This morning Donald and I "brushed out" a trail. I had failed completely to drain the muddy swamp at the bottom of Buckeye pasture, it is still a churned up, gloppy mess so we needed an alternate route. Yesterday Carrie and I walked a path from the east Clover Flats gate down the canyon to a point just past the swamp. For years people have wound their way up and down the south side of the stream, dodging trees and low limbs. It is a really pretty area when you aren't ducking something. Unfortunately dozens of trees have been out competed by their neighbors, died and fallen or partially fallen, all along the route. Other trees have branched out to take their place. The resulting tangle of dead wood and new branches has effectively blocked all reasonable routes. Even the cows; who are masters of forcing their way through; had problems. I chainsawed while Donald cleared up for about 4 1/2 hours before I felt the trail was clear and would be nice to ride. This trail will make a great trail link across the bottom of Jungle Pasture.
We're the talk of the town
Apr. 22nd, 2025 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Retirement T-8 and counting
Apr. 22nd, 2025 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Sent out my retirement announcement (and celebration invite) at work. I've promised people jars of Heather's Retirement Marmalade as door prizes for as long as they last. (I made 2 dozen.)
Other than the SSA thing, all that's left is:
* last-day stuff at the job (turn in computer/badge, exit interview)
* convert 401K to IRA and select investment strategy (the exact details of which may depend on market details)
Oh, and close my last two investigations. One is in final review, the other is pending completion of some corrections.
(My "retirement checklist" also has some other items on it that aren't directly retirement related but it seemed useful to record them as official to-do items.)
Book Day...
Apr. 22nd, 2025 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This is quick, as things have been fraught, with a sick family member who doesn't do well with sickness.

BVC e-book | Kindle | Kobo | Nook |
Amazon paperback | Ingram paperback
Re-edited and reissued:
It’s now 1795, the rise of Napoleon, and Kim finds herself a guardian spirit for a twelve-year-old kid who will either become Kim’s ancestor . . . or the timeline will alter and Kim will vanish, along with the small, magical European country of Dobrenica.
Kim hates time travel conundrums, and knows nothing about kids. How is she going to spirit-guide young Aurelie, born on Saint-Domingue, with whom she has nothing in common?
From pirate-infested Jamaica to mannered England to Revolutionary Paris in the early 1800s, Kim and Aurelie travel, sharing adventures and meeting fascinating people, such as the beautiful and charming Josephine, wife of Napoleon.
Fountain pens at Eastercon meet
Apr. 22nd, 2025 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
( Details )
“Through him the gale of life blew high; / The tree of man was never quiet”
Apr. 22nd, 2025 07:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
what if a much of a which of a wind, e. e. cummings
what if a much of a which of a wind
gives truth to the summer’s lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
and yanks immortal stars awry?
Blow king to beggar and queen to seem
(blow friend to fiend:blow space to time)
—when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,
the single secret will still be man
what if a keen of a lean wind flays
screaming hills with sleet and snow:
strangles valleys by ropes of thing
and stifles forests in white ago?
Blow hope to terror;blow seeing to blind
(blow pity to envy and soul to mind)
—whose hearts are mountains, roots are trees,
it’s they shall cry hello to the spring
what if a dawn of a doom of a dream
bites this universe in two,
peels forever out of his grave
and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?
Blow soon to never and never to twice
(blow life to isn’t:blow death to was)
—all nothing’s only our hugest home;
the most who die,the more we live
---L.
Subject quote from On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble, A. E. Housman.
Back from Eastercon.
Apr. 22nd, 2025 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Regarding Earth Day
Apr. 22nd, 2025 06:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
"The Pollution You Breathe May Be Your Own"
Remains true.
Gradual greening
Apr. 22nd, 2025 06:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)