Question thread #144
Sep. 21st, 2025 03:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauamma posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_devIt's past time for another question thread!
The rules:
- You may ask any dev-related question you have in a comment. (It doesn't even need to be about Dreamwidth, although if it involves a language/library/framework/database Dreamwidth doesn't use, you will probably get answers pointing that out and suggesting a better place to ask.)
- You may also answer any question, using the guidelines given in To Answer, Or Not To Answer and in this comment thread.
The rules:
- You may ask any dev-related question you have in a comment. (It doesn't even need to be about Dreamwidth, although if it involves a language/library/framework/database Dreamwidth doesn't use, you will probably get answers pointing that out and suggesting a better place to ask.)
- You may also answer any question, using the guidelines given in To Answer, Or Not To Answer and in this comment thread.
Health and jobs
Sep. 21st, 2025 10:44 ammtbcMy weight remains much higher than it should be, indeed much higher than it was when I lived in Eastern Tennessee, but I am grateful that it at least seems to be remaining stable. In time, as I improve my diet and exercise, it may thus drift back downward. Also, on a health note, we just got our influenza vaccinations, paid for by the family medical coverage from my employer, Addepar. Somebody from Spire Global reached out to me to see if I'd like to work on a project there but, while I'd love to be working locally in Rust on space systems, they pay less and don't appear from the outside to be as pleasant a place to work at this time. With Addepar, at least I am getting to learn a little of complex financial instruments which is differently interesting.
My work is sometimes entertaining in further overloading the acronyms in my head. Recent examples include:
*I was born into 1970s Britain, the Troubles were in the news
†for instance, how much stock someone owns today should be what they owned yesterday plus buys less sells, we check that's so
My work is sometimes entertaining in further overloading the acronyms in my head. Recent examples include:
| acronym | what I first thought | what it meant |
|---|---|---|
| AMA | against medical advice | ask me anything |
| PTSD | post-traumatic stress disorder | position time-series data |
| UVF | Ulster Volunteer Force* | unit verification failure† |
†for instance, how much stock someone owns today should be what they owned yesterday plus buys less sells, we check that's so
The cost of family immigration to the UK
Sep. 21st, 2025 10:07 ammtbcI had mentioned our family visa fees. To give a clearer idea of how much the process costs to bring a family member to settle here in the UK, the full route from initial application to citizenship costs well over £8k in fees and well over £5k for NHS access during that period. That's per person, so tripled for R. and two kids. We get a bit of a discount because R.'s youngest is under eighteen but we're still looking on the order of £40k in total, and that's without legal fees which, if we were using a solicitor's team for the process, would probably increase it by half again. Of course, it doesn't cost the government anything like that much to process the applications, the equivalent process in the US is very much cheaper. Still, it strikes me that ability to pay the fees at all should be sufficient evidence of ability to support ourselves without resorting to public funds.
(no subject)
Sep. 20th, 2025 08:04 pmgreenstormThe last two days I rested, and spent some time gathering tomatoes from the garden before frost, to ripen indoors.
Today I visited with my high school art teacher who was driving through, and I taught pottery and more specifically handbuilding with slab templates.
Then I came home, passed out for three hours, and have now read two Li-Young Lee poems. His work keeps getting better. It isn't possible.
I was having trouble moving yesterday, just too much has happened in the last month, and to be honest today I couldn't remember where my blinkers and windshield wipers were half the time n the same truck I've been driving for years. My wrists were too weak to hold mugs easily the last two days. But I made it home. I slept in a ring of cats. And for a week I will rest, garden, and exist within the space of equinox.
Soon it may be time for another space of poetry, time to clean the chimney for winter fires, and time eventually to take up pottery at home again.
My art teacher wanted to reassure me that she thinks I've made a good life and she admires it and that I shouldn't feel bad about it. I told her that I don't think I'm supposed to like my life much -- I was supposed to be smart and do university well and high powered jobs -- but that I like myself and I like the life I've made. I told her the way she ran her class, letting me do what I wanted and being supportive, may have saved my life during that time. She showed me pictures of her 12 cats and we talked about my 5.
It's not that I don't like people. It's that I'm person-selective, like Avallu is, and didn't know it because I used to select so effortlessly.
The pottery studio was so full today, we have a new sculpture member and then there was the class (only 5 of the 6 came back, the 6th may have had some lung issues down there) and Rose dropped by some of the work she'd made at home and every surface was covered with people making such an array of objects with such a diversity of approaches that I could almost believe that humanity really is a diversity instead of an unbreachable duality, and that it was going to be ok.
( Read more... )
Today I visited with my high school art teacher who was driving through, and I taught pottery and more specifically handbuilding with slab templates.
Then I came home, passed out for three hours, and have now read two Li-Young Lee poems. His work keeps getting better. It isn't possible.
I was having trouble moving yesterday, just too much has happened in the last month, and to be honest today I couldn't remember where my blinkers and windshield wipers were half the time n the same truck I've been driving for years. My wrists were too weak to hold mugs easily the last two days. But I made it home. I slept in a ring of cats. And for a week I will rest, garden, and exist within the space of equinox.
Soon it may be time for another space of poetry, time to clean the chimney for winter fires, and time eventually to take up pottery at home again.
My art teacher wanted to reassure me that she thinks I've made a good life and she admires it and that I shouldn't feel bad about it. I told her that I don't think I'm supposed to like my life much -- I was supposed to be smart and do university well and high powered jobs -- but that I like myself and I like the life I've made. I told her the way she ran her class, letting me do what I wanted and being supportive, may have saved my life during that time. She showed me pictures of her 12 cats and we talked about my 5.
It's not that I don't like people. It's that I'm person-selective, like Avallu is, and didn't know it because I used to select so effortlessly.
The pottery studio was so full today, we have a new sculpture member and then there was the class (only 5 of the 6 came back, the 6th may have had some lung issues down there) and Rose dropped by some of the work she'd made at home and every surface was covered with people making such an array of objects with such a diversity of approaches that I could almost believe that humanity really is a diversity instead of an unbreachable duality, and that it was going to be ok.
( Read more... )
Not One of Us issue 84
Sep. 18th, 2025 07:18 pmasakiyumeI have a flash story in the current issue of Not One of Us, and what a great issue to be in! I'm sharing the table of contents with Patricia Russo, Sonya Taaffe, and Jeannelle Ferreira--all writers I've loved for a long time--along with Devan Barlow, whose work I've only gotten to know recently, but I enjoy, and others whose work is totally new to me but whose literary acquaintance I'm pleased to make, like Zary Fekete.
Let me share a little (and then a lot!) about my own story first, and then some about the other contributions. Mine is called "The Moon in His Eyes," about a young woman who marries a water buffalo, only to fall in love with the moon on her wedding night. Curious about what happens? Well, you can buy a copy of Not One of Us here.
... or, if you don't mind being read to... I read it aloud here. It's literally just me sitting in my study reading into my desktop computer's camera and microphone all in a single take because I know nothing of video editing and am much too lazy, at present, to learn.
And now let me say a few words about the rest of the zine.
( I really enjoyed this issue! )
So yeah! Get your hands on a copy of the zine here, and listen to me read "The Moon in His Eyes" here. ;-)
Let me share a little (and then a lot!) about my own story first, and then some about the other contributions. Mine is called "The Moon in His Eyes," about a young woman who marries a water buffalo, only to fall in love with the moon on her wedding night. Curious about what happens? Well, you can buy a copy of Not One of Us here.
... or, if you don't mind being read to... I read it aloud here. It's literally just me sitting in my study reading into my desktop computer's camera and microphone all in a single take because I know nothing of video editing and am much too lazy, at present, to learn.
And now let me say a few words about the rest of the zine.
( I really enjoyed this issue! )
So yeah! Get your hands on a copy of the zine here, and listen to me read "The Moon in His Eyes" here. ;-)
Mount Shasta and Entering San Francisco
Sep. 18th, 2025 06:58 pmyourlibrarian posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
common_nature
In our final few days we left Oregon, though stayed the night just outside its border in Mount Shasta. The mountain is clearly seen looming over the city but we could see it for many miles as we headed south and finally passed into California.
( Read more... )
Missing trumpet slide on bike path
Sep. 18th, 2025 10:09 ambettyw posting in davis_square Last night a friend got on the bike path by the Lowell St stairs/bridge carrying a trumpet, and one of the valve slides (U-shaped silver metal) fell off as he headed towards Davis. If you find it please let me know and I'll put you in touch with the owner.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Sex and Violence, Tech and Violence, and some genuinely neat stuff - Early September 02025
Sep. 17th, 2025 09:47 pmsilveradeptLet's begin here with celebrating fifty years of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and fifty years of what might be the most unique theatrical experience someone goes to when they go to see Rocky. (And the fact that while the thing on the screen stays the same when you go to see Rocky, everything else changes depending on where you are and what time it is.)
Organizations that fail to consider intersectionality in their diversity, equity, and inclusion will create things like employee resource groups that only capture a part of someone's experience and that elide the places where the intersectionality is unique and important. Which should make you unsurprised, but also horrified, that the Institute for Museum and Library Services budget is being given directly to propagandists for a project that will present a white man-centric view of history and demand that we all believe it as the sole and only truthful narrative of the United States.
James Dobson, creator of such abominations unto his God as Focus on the Family and the Family Policy Alliance, has gone to receive judgment at 89 years of age. Our world is far better off without him, and the damage that he has done to the world would take generations to heal if he were the only one doing his kind of damage. But like so many others, he has disciples and followers, and they will continue to perpetuate his damage into the world for generations to come.
A man who believed that violence was an answer, and who aggressively sowed the wind wherever he went, has reaped the whirlwind, killed by the violence he promoted, by a gun that he believed should have more rights than the people killed by it. He is no longer able to use his organization to promote and encourage harm to others.
( The fallout from such, and plenty of other things, inside )
Last out, Bohemian Rhapsody translated and performed in Zulu and with the visual and singing styles of several other African traditions. It's worth a watch and a listen, absolutely.
The concept of Queer Time, where the signifiers of "adulthood" like marriage, children, and houses are not achieved on any kind of regular time, if at all, and therefore queer adults have to find their own ways of demonstrating to the community that they are full grown-ass adults.
And the iconic Atari CX-10 joystick as a decanter for drinking, along with a couple of Atari-logo glasses.
(Materials viaadrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the meta_warehouse community, little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
Organizations that fail to consider intersectionality in their diversity, equity, and inclusion will create things like employee resource groups that only capture a part of someone's experience and that elide the places where the intersectionality is unique and important. Which should make you unsurprised, but also horrified, that the Institute for Museum and Library Services budget is being given directly to propagandists for a project that will present a white man-centric view of history and demand that we all believe it as the sole and only truthful narrative of the United States.
James Dobson, creator of such abominations unto his God as Focus on the Family and the Family Policy Alliance, has gone to receive judgment at 89 years of age. Our world is far better off without him, and the damage that he has done to the world would take generations to heal if he were the only one doing his kind of damage. But like so many others, he has disciples and followers, and they will continue to perpetuate his damage into the world for generations to come.
A man who believed that violence was an answer, and who aggressively sowed the wind wherever he went, has reaped the whirlwind, killed by the violence he promoted, by a gun that he believed should have more rights than the people killed by it. He is no longer able to use his organization to promote and encourage harm to others.
( The fallout from such, and plenty of other things, inside )
Last out, Bohemian Rhapsody translated and performed in Zulu and with the visual and singing styles of several other African traditions. It's worth a watch and a listen, absolutely.
The concept of Queer Time, where the signifiers of "adulthood" like marriage, children, and houses are not achieved on any kind of regular time, if at all, and therefore queer adults have to find their own ways of demonstrating to the community that they are full grown-ass adults.
And the iconic Atari CX-10 joystick as a decanter for drinking, along with a couple of Atari-logo glasses.
(Materials via
adrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the meta_warehouse community, little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
Aikido class recommendations?
Sep. 16th, 2025 05:13 pmgingicat posting in davis_squareMy younger kiddo, a high school senior, is interested in studying aikido. Any recommendations? I may have more specific questions later.
Thanks!
Thanks!