fflo | Network

My goodness, all I wanted to do was set up e-mail reminders of vehicle tax, which I'd already managed to pay online. I already have my Government Gateway login details all set up, etc. But, no, I had to go through a whole other palaver involving setting up my GOV.UK One Login mobile app with a new account and photo ID and suchlike, before I could set up those reminders.

I'll give it to them that at least they don't change the system every year but a smoother migration to whatever the critical new functionality is than just set up an entirely new account would be appreciated.

(Of course, I have a separate login for the Scottish Government but that seems reasonable. Accessing any US Federal Government services is a pain without a US cellphone number.)

moon_custafer

Finished my fic for Yuletide a few hours before the deadline. I’ll still go back and tweak it a bit.

Looked up fanfiction for The Bacchae early this morning (mainly because I’d bought myself faux-leopard onesie pajamas last week) and these two, from Yuletides past, were especially good:

Bakcheios, orphan_account, Yuletide 2010 (several commenters compared this to Mary Reneault)

Honey and Roses, the_alchemist, Yuletide 2016 (Euripedes-Shakespeare crossover, English history AU!)

ETA—Just realized the_alchemist is the author of my 2024 Yuletide gift:
A Skyscraper Condemnation Affiliate (3356 words) by the_alchemist
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Village Green Preservation Society - The Kinks (Song)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: folk horror, Kinks lyrics, Village Greens
Summary:

Alex is just doing his job, attempting to acquire 5.37 metres of village green for his property developer boss. But something about the Village is not quite right …

oursin

Happy birthday,

hafren,

holli and

inchoatewords!

sonia

I made another appointment with the eye surgeon and went in this afternoon. I told her about the theory of my pupil getting bigger than the opening in the capsule, but she said no, it looks clear, she doesn't see any obstruction with the pupil enlarged, and my pupil isn't that big. Good to know! All sorts of variations in bodies.

I have been paying attention to when it's worse and tried to describe the direction of it but she didn't seem interested. She did honestly say she didn't know the cause, which I appreciate. Dry eye was her best theory, although I don't know why my eyes would suddenly be so much drier than before the procedure.

She offered to refer me out, so I have another name, and we'll see if I can get in to see him. I suspect I'm just going to have to live with it, but I'd at least like a better understanding of what changed.

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap251219.html

Long Shadows of the Montes Caucasus

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap251219.html

merriamwebster_feed

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/decorous-2025-12-20

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 20, 2025 is:

decorous • \DECK-er-us\ • adjective

Decorous is a formal adjective used to describe an attitude or behavior characterized by propriety and good taste.

// The ceremony was conducted with a decorous solemnity.

See the entry >

Examples:

“... Elizabeth reveals, later, that she felt she never belonged to the decorous world of parties and corsets and curls and feathers on the head ...” — Ryan Lattanzio, Indie Wire, 13 Oct. 2025

Did you know?

One of the earliest recorded uses of decorous appears in a book titled The Rules of Civility (1671): “It is not decorous to look in the glass, to comb, brush, or do any thing of that nature to ourselves, whilst the said person be in the Room.” This rule of thumb may be a bit outdated; like many behaviors once deemed unbecoming, public primping is unlikely to offend in modern times. Though mores shift, decorous lives on to describe timeless courtesies like polite speech, proper attire, and (ahem) covering one’s cough.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/decorous-2025-12-20

petra

Leitmotif of the year:
I can't focus on long things, but by all that's unholy, I can write limericks and drabbles! I wrote other things, too, but golly.

My best story of this year:
Stand back, I'm going to try science!, in which Obi-Wan accidentally gives Anakin a complex about his body, and Anakin 3D prints himself helpful things. This one is deeply silly, and yet affectionate.

My favorite and/or truest story of this year:
The leaves grow bright before they fall wins this one for me, with Anakin and Obi-Wan doing the Hades and Persephone dance, in their own particular, backward, inside-out and upside-down sort of way.

( Read on )

Current Mood: completist
Current Music: And a choir of archangels a-caroling come

twistedchick

Re renaming the Kennedy Center: Is a decision unanimous if a board member isn't allowed to dissent?

igenlode posting in

little_details

If my characters have made camp in a wood for the night while travelling on horseback, what will the horses be doing?

I was sort of picturing them standing dozing together under a tree somewhere nearby -- possibly tied, possibly hobbled, possibly just being a herd together -- but poking around on the Internet suggests that if not shut up in a stable horses are actually quite active by night. (Which messes with the story, as quite apart from anything else nobody is going to be able to hear anything while keeping watch if the horses are busy foraging around!)

loganberrybunny

Public

322/365: Christmas carols, Stourbridge
I had to slog over to Stourbridge this morning for an unexpected and unwanted trip to the dentist. I'd felt a twinge and was concerned about it, but an X-ray didn't turn up any issues; fortunately it seems it was probably a combination of a sensitive tooth and maybe a seed getting temporarily stuck along a gum line during the day. Still, I had to shell out £27.40 it turns out I didn't really need to have spent – but the peace of mind was worth it in the end.

I lingered in Mary Stevens Park before heading home, as the Halesowen Brass Band (pictured) were playing Christmas carols outside the park's coffee shop. Since the weather was decent for December I hung around and sang a few myself. Since my teeth had been judged okay, I also popped into the café for a quick latte. It had been annoying to waste most of the morning on something I didn't actually need, but them's the breaks I suppose.

Current Mood: indifferent

summersgate

Jan and I were going to go to Paint and Sip this afternoon but cancelled. It's snowing. Not like a blizzard or anything like that but it just doesn't look inviting to be out there driving. Windy.

The windbreak plastic that Dave and I put up around the northwest sides of the chicken run last night doesn't go clear to the top of the wall. I figured that not much snow would come in up high by the overhanging roof but I was wrong. There's still some snow coming in. I might cut some more plastic and fill in at the top.

The goldfinches are very busy at the feeder. A Flurry of Goldfinches. The proper name for a group is a Charm of Goldfinches.

It snowed about an inch today. Dave and I walked the dogs to the creek before it got dark. Most of the previous snow had melted with the recent rain so the creek was high, and the snow we got today wasn't too deep for Rainy.

Dave's pile of rocks that he's collecting to make a wall.

fauxklore

I like writing letters. I also like sending greeting cards. I know I have holiday cards left over from past years, but I couldn’t find them in a quick look, so I bought a couple of boxes of cards. Normally, that would mean that the leftover cards would immediately show up right on top of other piles of stuff, but that hasn’t actually happened yet.

At any rate, I am intending to write holiday cards in the next few days. If you would like to receive one from me, please message me your address. Don’t assume I have it from a past year.

Legibility is never guaranteed, though I will try. However, I did get C's in penmanship in elementary school.

Also, in the unlikely event that I do run out of cards, you may get one of my famous February letters instead.

fauxklore

Yesterday (Thursday) was very busy.

I met up with Jessica for coffee and conversation (and to pick up postcards for the Women’s Storytelling Festival) in the morning. Apparently the secret to getting a table at De Clieu (a very good coffee place in Old Town Fairfax) is to go there on a weekday at 10 in the morning. We also talked a lot about books.

Then I ran over to Wegman’s for groceries. I’d have liked to have picked up some inari for lunch but the sushi section was fairly empty that early in the day. I did get most of what I needed, but forgot to look for marshmallow fluff. By the way, they have their Chanukah candles on sale, so I bought a box of the taller ones I like.

I managed to get home just before crafts group started. Unfortunately, I discovered I’d made a mistake in my Tunisian crochet afghan, so I had to frog a row and redo it. I also learned that Mauritius is now apparently a hot spot for modern dance. (One of the coordinator’s sons is a dance teacher and has been offered a job there.) It was, in my opinion, one of the most boring countries I’ve ever been to, but I was there back in 1998. They do have nice botanical gardens and an interesting national museum, but they also have an overdeveloped resort tourism industry, in my opinion.

There are a bunch of household things I should have done and I should have taken a nap as I had gotten up too early and been unable to get back to sleep. But, somehow, I didn’t manage to do any of that. Oh, well, I did manage to sleep in a bit this morning.

yourlibrarian posting in

shutterspeed

3 for the Memories' 2025 session will be open for posts on January 3, 2026 and will run for 3 weeks until January 24. Event participation is as follows:

1) Three photos only per person during each annual session. Members are encouraged to discuss the reason for their choices.

2) Photos can be hosted at Dreamwidth or elsewhere, and should not be larger than 800 px width or height.

3) All three photos should be in the same post. Cut tags should be placed after the first photo.

3 for the Memories is not a competition, and entries are not being judged. Rather, participants are encouraged to share photos they took in 2025 that they find meaningful in some way or which represent how they experienced the year.

Questions? Visit the announcement post at

threeforthememories

bill_schubert

I've had Google Home Premium (what they call it today.. used to be Nest.. then something else.. Google randomly changes products to be sure we don't get too interested) since we first moved in. I've got the fore and aft Google cameras and have always had a time line across the bottom and could go back in time and see what just happened. It costs $100 a year for that and I use it a couple of times a month. So, maybe five bucks every time I want to see if that was just the Amazon guy that tripped off my doorbell cam (which also no longer has history).

So I let it expire as of today. Now I get to find out if I really care. A hundred bucks is, after all, not nothing. And do I really NEED to know what happened? It was nice to be able to go back and shoot screen shots of the Haloween kids but I can recycle those pictures from the last two years and no one will know. Or I could open the door and use my phone.

We'll see how it goes.

I do so hate Google's products. There is invariably 20 things I could care less about and one thing I want. GoogleTV is a good example. As is GoogleOne. Their explanations require more explanations and I end up going to Reddit to get an explanation of the second one. They are so wrapped up in their genius of marketing that I buy less and less from them. I don't think they care.

Makes me miss Microsoft.

Today was another typical Friday pickleball. There were 21 or so on three courts. I so suck at remembering names that of that 21 I can pin down maybe half. And these are people I see for a couple of hours 3 times a week.

But we have fun. I played OK. As usual flashes of brilliance but no consistency. I don't ever get much better and only occasionally care. I played two hours for three days in a row and feel fine. I could play tomorrow. That is a very good sign and, I think, much due to my not carrying around an extra 40 pounds.

As for my 'job' now days, I got this from Prolific:

This year, you’ve:

Completed 524 submissions
Spent a total of 6144 minutes sharing your time and expertise
Earned $1,306.22
Contributed to tasks and studies spanning 25 countries - that’s like travelling 144161 miles without ever leaving your seat!

It woks out to about $12/hour which is way better than it was a couple of years ago and many of those studies were pretty interesting. I did a lot of AI training (me training them) which was fun and interesting and, hopefully good for the world.

It will be interesting to see how this changes next year. I'm kind of in the rhythm of doing more studies now and I'm getting better ones so it feels worthwhile.

mtbc

Today is my first day of leave from work for over the Christmas break. This morning we sent the boys off back home to Asia to visit family, now it's just me and R. I am relaxing on the sofa with our dog L. while R. brings some sanity to the kitchen storage. I already feel my headspace increasing and have been getting some small postponed things done. Many more await.

I am quite good at sleeping. Given the opportunity, I can do plenty of it. This morning, I dreamt we lived somewhere else and I spied a sizable swirly unnatural-looking Weather Thing approaching, and turned to R. to strongly suggest that we leave the house now and drive elsewhere.

Again, I thought back to high school where one of my math teachers figured Cartesian coordinates for the vertices of a regular dodecahedron and, looking at one, I wonder what the straightforward strategy is for doing that. I like to think that enough staring and turning would help make it clearer. Now, this is where I wish I had a large desktop system with lots of PCI-e slots for used RTX 3090's or somesuch: it's the kind of thing I'm happy to try idly chatting to some opensource LLM about. It's not as if anything's riding on the answer. Perhaps they're rather better at classic book suggestions than anything analytic though.

I also got to wonder about mobile telephony. ( How might routing work? )

My mention of idly chatting to LLMs reminds me, I have three sizable pending purchases in mind: such a desktop AI system, a small laptop for use while commuting, and a cross-trainer. The interesting question is how to prioritize them though clearly the first there should actually be last while I cross my fingers for the bubble bursting. Also, I'm reluctant to spend too freely until I'm more ahead of the higher-interest debt.

In the meantime, I've found that, as usual, BBC iPlayer didn't exactly help me discover that there's recent Later… with Jools Holland to provide me with a somewhat alternative musical backdrop, albeit a considerably mixed bag of such. I've been enjoying ex-BBC's Stereo Underground recently which is also nicely varied. Given that it often plays the music of my childhood, it makes me wonder: I think of all the energy of especially some of the more punk-ish songs, and how exciting life seemed to me at the time, especially with books filling my head with new intellectual worlds to wrestle with. There's something there I'd be interested to recapture, about possibility and choice, about who I am and what I pursue. I may not quite know which destinations make sense but one of the many wonderful things about R. is how supportive they are.

dolorosa_12

Tomorrow is my birthday, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to use this week's open thread as a chance for all of us to do some good. Behind the cut, I'm going to recommend some concrete political actions for causes that matter to me — charities, campaigns, resources — and if you feel so moved, please do take the suggested actions.

Alternatively, use this prompt as a way to highlight in the comments causes and actions that matter to you. Two requests if you do take this latter option:

Be specific when describing your causes. If they are focused on a particular country or region within that country, name it, rather than expecting people to intuit that your cause is US-specific, limited to rural Australia, or whatever.

If you are asking people to part with their money, only recommend initiatives to which you have personally donated or would be comfortable donating. Organisations rather than individual fundraisers are generally safer in this regard.

( Charities, campaigns, resources )

Please do recommend your own actions in the comments.

oursin

I must admit, I was going, 'And today's Mandy Rice Davies' Well, He Would, Wouldn't He, Award, Goes to Him': Thrillers should be on UK school curriculum to boost reading, says Lee Child.

NB I'm not entirely sure Mr Child is up to date with what is currently on school syllabi and in school libraries, in particular on the basis of that Carol Atherton book, Reading Lessons I was reading recently....(on which I commented, 'how the teaching of EngLit has changed since My Day....'

Does he really think schoolkids get plonked down with David Copperfield in their tiny hands at an early age?

(I think I was, what, 13 and in the top stream at a grammar school when we first got it, and that was back in the Upper Neolithic when we had to read it chiselled on granite slabs. I suspect things have moved on since then.)

And my dr rdrz know me and that I am all for reading should be pleasurable and people should read what they like and children's reading should not be gatekept - hat-tip here to Mr Fischer at my primary school who was all 'Comics are not the devil, comics can be a good thing' which was pretty progressive for 1950 something.

But maybe I'm most in particular raising my eyebrows when A Particular Genre is being touted, and moreover, one that is, shall we say, bloke-coded?

I think he's making a lot of assumptions there about what kids will read and want to read, but what do I know, I was hyper-lexical from an early age.

$radiantfracture: Beadwork bunny head (Default)$

radiantfracture

I stumbled across this well-spell-crafted game whilst wondering around itch.io: The Daily Spell, a story about a sudden surge in magical beast manifestations in a fantasy city, told through daily word puzzles that resolve into the headlines of brief newspaper articles that advance the story. Quite delightful and very well done.

$rf$

chestnut_pod

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

Current Mood: giddy
Current Music: I'll Believe in Anything -- Wolf Parade

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap251218.html

Jupiter and the Meteors from Gemini

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap251218.html

sonia

Yesterday I worked up until it was time to bike over to my chiropractic appointment (20 minute appointment, a small amount of adjusting with an activator, mostly really good bodywork), biked back over the ridge between me and the lake, stopped at CVS for Opcon A but the lines were too long, ate a quick dinner, and biked across town for the Balkan dance night at Ashkenaz.

Biked across town for that last week, but last week it turned out they were having a Grateful Dead revival band instead, so I turned around and biked home.

This week, it was indeed the dance night, and I had a good time. My ankle felt solid, and I had enough stamina for the fast dances again. It felt really good! My ankle was a little achy on the bike ride home, but it didn't bother me today, so hopefully it was tendons being put under strain in a good way, for more healing. I used to think any tendon pain was a problem, but my PT swore up and down it could be ok.

When I got home I sent a couple of emails I hadn't had time to send earlier, thought about what to post, and turned around and fell into bed. I didn't realize until this morning that I had missed a day. Oh well!

Today, I worked up until time for my weight training lesson (good thing it's just down the block!), came home, ate a Go Macro bar and fed the cat, and then my friend was here to pick me up to go to his mini-golf birthday party. It was fun to hang out with his friends. And I actually won, even though I have no technique. Depth perception really helps!

We got home late, so I only ran part of my zoom Balkan dance group, and then chatted with my friend. Now I am writing to you folks with my cat curled in my lap, and then I will take a short hot bath with epsom salt in hopes of avoiding being very sore tomorrow.

Sore or not, I'm really enjoying picking up heavy things and putting them down again. I like the present-moment body awareness when the weight is heavy enough to have my full attention, but not too heavy.

Tomorrow I'm working, and I have an eye doctor appointment in the afternoon, and then I'm seeing Kitka in concert in the evening. Hopefully not with my eyes dilated. 'Tis the busy holiday season!

Wishing everyone a Happy Hanukkah. We need all the light we can get!

merriamwebster_feed

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/veracity-2025-12-19

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 19, 2025 is:

veracity • \vuh-RASS-uh-tee\ • noun

Veracity is a formal word that can refer to truth or accuracy, or to the quality of being truthful or honest.

// The jury seemed not to doubt the veracity of the witness.

See the entry >

Examples:

"Raise your hand if you've been questioning the veracity of real events, news stories and images posted on social media lately. It used to be we'd have to tiptoe around a minefield of hoaxes only once a year, on April 1. But thanks to the proliferation of misinformation spawned by artificial intelligence, every day on the internet is an exercise in judgment and media literacy." — Laura Yuen, The Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator, 9 Oct. 2025

Did you know?

Veracity has been in use since the early 17th century, and we can honestly tell you that it comes from the Latin adjective vērāx, "truthful," which in turn comes from the earlier verus, "true." Verus also gives us the words verity ("the quality of being true"), verify ("to establish the truth of"), and verisimilitude ("the appearance of truth"), among other words. In addition, vērāx is the root of the word veraciousness, a somewhat rarer synonym and cousin of veracity.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/veracity-2025-12-19

china_shop

Da Qing and young!Zhao Yunlan wrapped in blankets, with the title "Teaching the way of the Cat".

Image: colour pencil sketch of a black cat wrapped neatly in a blue blanket, and a young man (Zhao Yunlan) sprawled/face-planeted under a red blanket, with his feet sticking out the bottom and one sock fallen off. He is holding a lollipop.

notes

* Perspective is really hard. ;-p
* Still avoiding drawing faces.
* I think my attempt at Da Qing is on a par with Guo Changcheng's notebook sketch, but in my defence, that is one weird-looking cat. ;-)

bill_schubert

Toby went to the salon today.

fflo

Hello.

CURRENTLY FEATURING
the
Postcard of the Day

(a feature involving a postcard on a day)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

For another postcard thing, see
my old postcard poems tumblr or
its handy archive.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I'm currently double-posting here & at livejournal. Add me and let me know who you are, and we can read each other's protected posts.

======================

"What was once thought cannot be unthought."

-- Möbius, The Physicists

=======================

December 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Page Summary

Page generated Dec. 29th, 2025 03:57 pm

Your Source for 'Ff'lo

a compendium of that and this, but not necessarily in that order

Network

Accessing His Majesty's Government services online

Saturday Report

(no subject)

Seeing starbursts update

Long Shadows of the Montes Caucasus

decorous

Story Index 2025

New Substack post

Horses at night

Carols carols carols carols

friday

Holiday Cards

An Errandy Day

Three for the Memories Coming Back Next Month!

Experiment

Miscellany

Friday open thread: concrete political actions, birthday edition

Just a tad narrowing the recommendation there, Lee, dude?

The Daily Spell

HR S1E5

Jupiter and the Meteors from Gemini

Busy busy dance dance

veracity

(no subject)

Toby's Mohawk update

Hello.

December 2025

Page Summary