Cemetery in the snow

Jan. 5th, 2026 05:17 pm
bookscorpion: This is Chelifer cancroides, a book scorpion. Not a real scorpion, but an arachnid called a pseudoscorpion for obvious reasons. (Default)
[personal profile] bookscorpion posting in [community profile] common_nature
I went to the cemetery today to take photos of all the snow we've been getting, and it was gorgeous. Even better, the snow came out - only for about fifteen minutes but it was magical
mrkinch: Erik holding fieldglasses in "Russia" (bins)
[personal profile] mrkinch
I'd gone by San Pablo Park a day or two ago and saw no one, but after last night's rain I checked again and found the Gull party in full swing. The entire field was covered in Gulls: Short-bill, Ring-billed, California. I cannot decide on numbers in a situation like this, maybe a thousand birds? Dunno. It's a phenomenon I love every time. There were also a few small flocks of Canada Geese here and there, and some Brewer's Blackbirds and European Starlings.

I continued down to park at Seabreeze Market Cove and crossed over to Berkeley Meadow. There was some water and a few ducks in the main pond, but still no one in the small peripheral ponds. The rain may only continue another day, so doesn't look like we'll get enough water for other ducks. The List: )

It was good to see a White-tailed Kite and a Belted Kingfisher. I did not to as far as North Basin nor did I try to skirt the flooding to take the East/West trail. If we get substantially more rain I'll go down again.
mrkinch: Erik holding fieldglasses in "Russia" (bins)
[personal profile] mrkinch
I tried walking in from 51st St and had good start along the connector trail. The tide was very high forcing small birds into a smaller area than usual. First bird was a Say's Phoebe trying to stay perched in the strong wind, while White-crowned Sparrows, a couple of Savannah Sparrows, and Yellow-rumped Warblers kept low in the bushes. A flock of Red-winged Blackbirds was looking for a place to land. But when I got out to the trail along the Bay I didn't last long; the wind was so strong I had to be very careful not to be blown over, and it seemed to be increasing. On return I walked next to the fence so at least I wouldn't be blown far. The list: )

Not the most fun I've had there.
dolorosa_12: (winter tree)
[personal profile] dolorosa_12
It's the end of my last day of holiday, and it snowed overnight! This was the absolute perfect end to what's been a delightful twelve days (made better by the fact that I didn't have to leave the house at 7am for a train commute that was likely to have been disrupted by the weather). I went to the pool for a final morning swim, and it was blissfully empty: I had the lane to myself, and swam 1km in twenty minutes. I also went for a little wander around town. All the children had congregated in Ely's sole grass-covered hill, and were tobogganing, having snowball fights, and making snowmen. Everyone was in a great mood. I took a lot of photos.

I skipped the second [community profile] snowflake_challenge prompt, but I'm back for the third: Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.

Love is a verb )

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #3

Jan. 5th, 2026 04:05 pm
scribblemoose: An crystal snowflake with bluish tones on a black background (snowflake)
[personal profile] scribblemoose posting in [community profile] snowflake_challenge
Introduction Post*
Meet the Mods Post
Challenge #1 * Challenge #2

 

 

 

Remember that there is no official deadline, so feel free to join in at any time, or go back and do challenges you've missed.

 


 

 

Challenge #3 )

 

 

 

And please do check out the comments for all the awesome participants of the challenge and visit their journals/challenge responses to comment on their posts and cheer them on.

 

And just as a reminder: this is a low pressure, fun challenge. If you aren't comfortable doing a particular challenge, then don't. We aren't keeping track of who does what.

 

 


two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

snowflake challenge 02

Jan. 5th, 2026 11:04 am
seraphikiss: (ithaqua 2)
[personal profile] seraphikiss
a bit of a late entry due to being sick. click here to see all of my snowflake 2026 posts!

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

[community profile] snowflake_challenge question #2: Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!



i have a 10 year old fur baby! her name is sally, and she's the sweetest cat in the whole world. she has watched me endure so many hardships, from my first breakup to graduating high school. she has always been there for me when i needed someone by my side.

an orange, black and white calico with green eyes looking into the camera with a disapproving expression.
monkiainen: (78 fluent in idiot)
[personal profile] monkiainen posting in [community profile] smallfandomfest
Title: Missing him
Artist: [personal profile] monkiainen
Fandom: Eureka
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Nathan
Rating/Category: Gen
Prompt: Missing him
Notes/Warnings: Click for a bigger picture



selenak: (VanGogh - Lefaym)
[personal profile] selenak
Well, it depends of course both on your physical fitness, time at had and whether you define "around Munich" as "within the city itself and its immediate surrounding era" , or whether an hour away from the city in the direction of the Alps also counts. I shall therefore start with the easy ones and go f or a grand climax of a mountain tour. ;)

Within the city of Munich, nice to walk even if your knee or foot should still trouble you:

1) Nymphenburger Park. The park surrounding Nymphenburg Palace. In addition to being a nice park, it has four tiny little mini cottage-palaces within, all Rokoko, and they're open in later spring, summer and early autumn. (The central palace itself isn't half bad, either, but that wasn't asked.) There's both a reasonably good coffee shop and an actual restaurant for the hungry and exhausted. One can reach the park via streetcar.


2) Der Englische Garten / The English Garden . Largest park in Munich, and I do mean large. Offers something both for easy strollers and people wanting to exhaust themselves. One of the modern attractions, the surfing wave of one of the rivers, is currently gone and the cause of much acrimony between the city administration and the surfers. Another attraction reliably shocking or enticing a certain brand of tourist is the fact that in summer time, a lot of Bavarians come here topless to sun themselves on the lawn. Architecture-wise, there is a nice "Chinese Tower" around one of the most popular beer gardens exists, and a Japanese Tea House, but mostly, like a park should be, it's trees, trees, trees, and large lawns. One can take both short and loooooong walks, depending on the time. Because of the size of the park, there are several entrance points close to subway stations available.

3) Olympiapark : what it says on the label. Originally created for the 1972 Olympic Games. Still very very popular to walk or jog through. The arena within it is very popular for concerts (I saw both Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen there.) Offers, among other things, a nice view over the city and to the Alps from one point. One of the starting points for hiking can be reached via subway.


Still within Munich, but incorporating the suburbs:

4) Isarauen/ Isar shore. From where I live in Munich, cutting through the Englischer Garten to the Isar shore means you can then turn left or right and in either case can do some really nice and lengthy hiking. If you go left, you eventually end up in Freimann near the arena where our football (soccer to Americans) club Bayern München plays, i.e. a place of much ire and admiration, depending how you feel about that club; due to the arena, there is of course a subway connection, so what I do is walk along the Isar to the arena and then go home by tube. Conversely, if you go right, you first walk in the general direction of the city centre and can see our Bavarian parliament building on the other side of the river, then in the middle of the river the Deutsches Museum (one of Germany's foremost science museums), then if you walk on you're leaving the centre behind and head towards the belt area. Most of the way is an appealing mixture of (mostly) trees and architecture. Though if Itake a really long hike, I take the Isar shore road from the opposite direction, i.e. I take the subway to Thalkirchen, where the Munich zoo is, and walk back from there in the direction of the centre. Hardcore hikers and bikers can go even further by S-Bahn and walk or drive back from Wolfratshausen.

Both Isar walks are something for when you have half a day or longer to spare.


Far Over The Misty Mountains:

5) One of my absolute favouriite hiking spots from all time is reached via train from Munich. One takes the train to Schliersee (that's about an hour), then hikes from Schliersee to the Gindelalm, from the Gindelalm to the Neureuth Alm, and from there it's possible to go down to either Tegernsee (town) or Gmund (also located at the Tegernsee lake). They both have a train station and you can take the train back to Munich, which again takes an hour. Now you don't need to be a hardcore Alpine sportswoman or -man to do this - it's not that difficult a way, upwards and downwards - but it does take at least two hours, usually more, to reach the first Alm. So this is only an option if you have the entire day to spare.

The other days

Book fortune-telling meme

Jan. 5th, 2026 02:57 pm
nanila: from <user name=pne>'s barcode generator (assimilated)
[personal profile] nanila
via [personal profile] antisoppist

  1. Grab the nearest book.
  2. Turn to page 126
  3. The 6th full sentence is your life in 2026.


The first book nearest me is Metallurgical Assessment of Spacecraft Materials and Parts by Barrie D. Dunn (1996).

The sentence is: "Special fibres giving more options in strength, stiffness, light weight, and endurance against heat have been developed (Klein 1988)."

The chapter containing it discusses composite materials and ways to control their properties. The thing that makes me happiest about that particular sentence is the use of the Oxford comma.

The second book nearest me is The political diaries of a chief whip by Simon Hart (2025).

The sentence is: "It feels like authority is ebbing with every hour."

The chapter containing it is titled "April 2021-January 2022" and I think we probably all remember painfully well the fiasco that was the handling of pandemic restrictions to which this sentence clearly relates.

Cue hollow laughter as I realise the sentence is applicable to both work and home life. Particularly with a teenager and a tweenager incessantly challenging boundaries.

BALL x PIT

Jan. 5th, 2026 09:06 am
sineala: Mac laptop whose Apple logo has no bite (Young Wizards reference); text reads "my other Mac is a manual" (Young Wizards: My Other Mac)
[personal profile] sineala
As I think I have mentioned, I usually attempt to finish games before posting about them, but I suspend this rule when the game is clearly designed to be an unholy timesink. I'm not actually sure this game has an end. Or a plot.

I bought BALL x PIT during the Steam winter sale, which I mention because it is theoretically still the Steam sale for a few more hours and I don't want to deprive anyone else of the sale opportunity, although the game is reasonably cheap anyway. It is the new hotness of "roguelite games that have combined roguelite meta-progression with some other genre of popular game," most recently exemplified by Balatro (roguelite poker), Vampire Survivors (roguelite bullet-heaven, which is of course a variant of bullet-hell shooters) and my beloved Slay the Spire (roguelite deckbuilder, and, yes, I am counting down the months until the sequel hits Early Access; I would count down the days if they had said anything more specific than "a Thursday in March").

So BALL x PIT is a roguelite version of Breakout. Or Pong, I guess, if you prefer. You shoot bouncy balls at enemies. The balls have powers like poison and lightning and whatnot. You level them up and then combine them to make different balls with more powers. In between levels you retreat to your base, which is full of buildings and resources and so on that you arrange in order to have balls bounce around them with maximum efficiency like if SimCity were pinball, and then you build buildings that buff your characters. They have this gameplay loop down solid. It's fun.

Anyway, I am posting because I wanted to mention the accessibility options, since I watched a bunch of streamers and read a bunch of reviews, could not figure out if I could play this, bought it anyway, and then discovered I could.

So you can play this game either with keyboard/mouse or with a controller. If you're playing with keyboard/mouse, it's WASD to move and mouse to aim/fire, my least favorite control scheme. If you're playing with a controller, it's left stick to move, right stick to aim, right trigger to fire. (There's an option to aim in the direction of movement, but sadly only if you're using a mouse.) I will say that you can play this while not being especially great at aiming, because the balls will eventually bounce approximately where you want -- it's not like playing an actual shoot-'em-up.

You can remap the controls if you need to (Settings > General, then scroll down) but for me the most useful general thing is the ability to turn autofire on, which you can do while playing. Your character slows down a bit if you turn this on, but there are buffs during the game to bring your movement speed up, so it's not so bad. Then you just need to aim and move (and not fire), and I can do left and right stick with one hand if I have my 8bitdo Lite SE controller.

However, there are points where this game becomes an actual bullet-hell shooter. You can shoot down some projectiles, but not all of them, and the boss of the first stage -- for example -- shoots a bunch of intricate projectiles that you do in fact have to just dodge. Now, I bought this game anyway and figured I was just gonna die a lot, because I can't dodge worth a damn, but it turns out the devs thought of that! Under Settings > General, turn on "Allow slower movement speed."

The regular game has three movement speeds you can cycle through while playing, which I knew, and I nearly didn't select this option in the settings because I figured this was how you opted into that, but it turns out the three regular speeds are there anyway. What this option does is turn on super-slow "1/4" and "1/2" speeds so you have five speeds to choose from. Yay!

(As far as I can tell, this does not lock you out of achievements; you can get an achievement for completing a level even if you have fought the boss at half-speed. I don't know if there are any locked achievements for completing a level at a specific speed, in which case those are probably still locked.)

So it turns out that I can definitely mostly dodge projectiles in the boss fight in a bullet-hell game at half-speed and that there's still quarter-speed available if I need it. I hadn't seen any of the reviews mention this setting, so I thought I would bring it up. You too can play BALL x PIT even if your reflexes are not usually up to par for bullet-hell shooters!

SFBB15: Check-In Reminder

Jan. 5th, 2026 08:51 am
sfbbmod: (small fandom bang moderator)
[personal profile] sfbbmod posting in [community profile] smallfandombang
If you missed the post when it went up, it’s time for our third author check-in and first artist check-in. The check-in period will be open through Wednesday, January 7. Please remember that these check-ins are mandatory and that there are now penalties for disappearing without a word, therefore if you need to drop out please contact me, do not just skip checking-in.

So, if you haven’t yet checked-in, please head on over to the check-in posts and do so now:

Author Check-In No. 3 Post | Artist Check-In No. 1 Post

Don’t forget to watch or track the community so you see important posts!

Thank you!

(If you can't see the post, then I ask you to remember the first rule of Small Fandoms Bang, which is 'join the community!')
lobelia321: (Default)
[personal profile] lobelia321
This was very readable. I had high expectations (looking at you, Heated Rivalry) so some disappointment was perhaps inevitable. More review )Cross-posted from Goodreads.

2026 Book Log

Jan. 10th, 2026 06:57 am
sabotabby: (books!)
[personal profile] sabotabby
Fiction

1.The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann
2. Invisible Line, Su J. Sokol

Too cold

Jan. 5th, 2026 01:06 pm
cimorene: A drawing of a person in red leaving a line of blue footprints in white snow (winter)
[personal profile] cimorene
We've had a cold snap, and we also were dogsitting for four days, which is a hassle because we still have to keep the cats separated from each other and they're both afraid of the dog (who is a sweetheart, but very anxious and clingy), and the dog always has a persistent smell of artifical perfume from my BIL's house that threatens to overwhelm me if it gets too close to my face.

The dog left yesterday, though, and the cats are both extremely relieved. It's still below freezing outside (-13° C/+9° F), so I'm just moving around the house from blanket to blanket basically. Like the cats, actually. And it's still January and every day is a depressing struggle for that reason, although the sun did break through the clouds today.
gravemind: Green symbol white background (Default)
[personal profile] gravemind posting in [community profile] little_details
Hello! I have three questions, all about the work of trauma/critical care/acute care surgeons in the US:

1) Would it ever be feasible for a TACS attending at an academic Level I trauma center to take semi-regular lunch breaks when on day shift (obviously assuming there’s no major trauma needing resuscitation and/or immediate operation, and assuming they have adequate support from residents, etc.)? What if it was decreed necessary by their doctor or their psychologist?

Narratively the goal here is to get the character outdoors near the hospital at a regular-ish time for ~30 minutes at least a few days a week, on at least some weeks. Judging from what I’ve read from people in this specialty on reddit it sounds as though this might (???) be achievable at some hospitals, especially if their setup happens to be rotating weeks of ICU / non-ICU trauma / EGS / admin-and-research, but given the apparent prevalence of hospital workers in acute care specialties not getting any breaks whatsoever I really can’t tell.

2) At what point is the TACS attending no longer involved in a patient’s care if the patient ends up requiring a long-term (at least several months) hospital stay to recover? Would it be as soon as the patient is stable enough to be out of the ICU? My understanding is that since trauma surgeons are largely doing non-surgical critical care and may often be in charge of the ICU they might be managing an operative trauma patient for a while post-op, but I’m not clear on at what point that patient stops being their problem.

3) To whom would a TACS attending (again, at an academic Level I) report to within the hospital hierarchy? Would it be the chief of the trauma service(?) (And would that person be the same or different from whoever they would need to clear FMLA leave or vacation time with?)

Any information or corrections on any of this greatly appreciated! Thank you!