Basic Income

Aug. 11th, 2025 04:47 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
In a new pilot program, this city will give homeless young adults $1,200 in cash every month for two years

According to the Stanford Basic Income Lab, universal basic income is a periodic cash payment that is given to individuals unconditionally, requiring no work requirement or sanctions to access.

And as various nonprofits and cities across the country experiment with basic income programs, most have found that the money received is largely used to pay for the basic essentials many Americans struggle to afford.

A new pilot program in Boston, Massachusetts wants to find out if the same trend applies for a specific demographic: young adults facing homelessness
.

Read more... )

Monday Update 8-11-25

Aug. 11th, 2025 03:03 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Artwork of the wordsmith typing. (typing)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Spider Apocalypse
Activism
Fossils
Birdfeeding
Safety
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Thinking
Safety
Moment of Silence: Jim Lovell
Birdfeeding
Follow Friday 8-8-25: Icons
Today's Adventures
Inventions
Fossils
Birdfeeding
Bigotry
Birdfeeding
Good News

Food has 34 comments. "Philosophical Questions: Looks" has 48 comments. "Incompetence, Sloppy Thinking, and Laziness" has 75 comments. "Not a Destination, But a Process" has 148 comments.


[community profile] summerofthe69 is open! You can see the calendar here and the current themes are Alternate Sexy Parts 69 and Kinky 69.


There are no open epics at present.


The weather has been sweltering agan. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a mourning dove, a house wren, a male cardinal, and a fox squirrel. Currently blooming: dandelions, pansies, violas, marigolds, petunias, red salvia, wild strawberries, verbena, lantana, sweet alyssum, zinnias, snapdragons, blue lobelia, perennial pinks, oxalis, moss rose, yarrow, anise hyssop, firecracker plant, tomatoes, tomatillos, Asiatic lilies, cucumber, yellow squash, zucchini, morning glory, purple echinacea, black-eyed Susan, yellow coneflower, chicory, Queen Anne's lace, sunflowers, cup plant, gladioli, firewheel, orange butterfly weed. Tomatillo and pepper have green fruit. Wild strawberries, mulberries, tomatoes, and cucumbers are ripe. The second crop of blackberries and the ball carrots are ripe.

Magpie Monday

Aug. 11th, 2025 02:49 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
[personal profile] dialecticdreamer is hosting Magpie Monday with a theme of "Change." Leave prompts, get ficlets!

Change is an immutable element of the universe.

Today, let’s make change our goal. Call it the theme. Big or small, quiet and subtle or dramatic and incontrovertible, what change do you want to see? In the world? In a story with an unsatisfying moment (or worse, ending)?



Birdfeeding

Aug. 11th, 2025 02:10 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is mostly sunny, humid, and hot. The sky is blue with fluffy white clouds.

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

EDIT 8/11/25 -- I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 8/11/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 8/11/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 8/11/25 -- We reeled up the garden hose. Yay. Yay.

I am done for the night.

Prize-winning Paper

Aug. 11th, 2025 06:53 pm
purplecat: A painting of Alan Turing (General:AI)
[personal profile] purplecat
Do you recall this paper (which is also summarised in this article in the Conversation) about which a YouTube video was made?

Well it's just gone and won the journal's best paper award.

I continue to think one should be wary of indulging in futurism and remain glad I managed to keep the words "Rogue AI" out of it.
badly_knitted: (Rose)
[personal profile] badly_knitted
 


Title: What Friends Do
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Author: 
[personal profile] badly_knitted
Characters: Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan.
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Setting: Derek.
Summary: For once, Reid is the one saving Derek.
Written For: Challenge 399: Amnesty 66 at 
[community profile] fan_flashworks, using Challenge 16: Role Reversal.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Criminal Minds, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
A/N: Triple drabble.
 
 


Ficlet: A Practical Gift

Aug. 11th, 2025 06:24 pm
badly_knitted: (J & I - I Want You)
[personal profile] badly_knitted
 


Title: A Practical Gift
Author: 
[personal profile] badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 620
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Ianto has something for Jack, but how will Jack react to it?
Written For: 
[personal profile] topaz_eyes’s prompt ‘Any, any, you’ve got a brand-new key’, at [community profile] threesentenceficathon.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
 



Does anyone remember Victorious

Aug. 11th, 2025 01:00 pm
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[personal profile] mrsluigivargas
Best Friend's Brother came on shuffle the other day and I suddenly started thinking about how this song could apply to Luigi/Peach. With the best friend in question being Mario, of course, in light of recent events. Sure, Luigi's not a "punk rock drummer and he's 6 foot 3," but liberties are generally taken with these things so its fine!

But honestly I think it's fun. Mario would love to be the stepping stone someone uses as an in with Luigi, for a change, instead of the opposite. Though he'd probably quickly get exasperated at Peach's inaction, haha. And meanwhile Luigi would have no idea about Peach's crush until Mario spells it out for him, mostly because he registered "pretty girl" and immediately ruled himself out, not knowing Peach was totally Down Bad. And even then he wouldn't believe it until Peach said it herself. And it would take a few moments longer for him to realize nobody's joking.

Ultimately, this reminds me that I need to write more Luigi/Peach sometime. They're super underrated!

Magpie Monday for August of 2025

Aug. 11th, 2025 09:04 am
dialecticdreamer: My work (Default)
[personal profile] dialecticdreamer
Welcome to the Magpie Monday prompt call for August of 2025!

Change is an immutable element of the universe.

Today, let’s make change our goal. Call it the theme. Big or small, quiet and subtle or dramatic and incontrovertible, what change do you want to see? In the world? In a story with an unsatisfying moment (or worse, ending)?
Read more... )

(no subject)

Aug. 11th, 2025 10:44 am
shadowhive: (Ashton Blood on the drums)
[personal profile] shadowhive
Before I get into the main thing of the post, Uk people there’s gonna be MCR shows in London next year (details here) and tickets go on sale Friday morning.

I’m probably gonna give it a miss? Going to London is a hassle and it feels like the process will just be stressful. And, well, practically and emotionally I don’t feel I could go alone. But if anyone else is gonna try I wish you luck.

(I’m also still annoyed Waterparks just has one show in London too why does London have to get everything)

Anyway, onto the main post topic, which is about the film All The Gods In The Sky, which is a film that just came to shudder this past week. Here is the description, which is pretty vague.



It’s one of those descriptions that’s vague enough that could go anywhere but what caught my eye was the poster on imdb which is pretty decidpving for two reasons. One it makes out like tentacles feature prominently (there is an octopus in two scenes but that’s it) and the other is it makes out like the main female character is black which she is very much not.

Before I get in my main thoughts though there is a technical issue with it. The film is French so it’s subtitled. However there is an issue with the subtitles. Several times they’re just… not there. Simon has a conversation with his boss and his boss says a few sentences of dialogue but only one word is subtitled. A social work shows up and I hear her say telephone but that’s not translated at all. Also sometimes some subtitles flash up and go too quick. Like it’s not a deal breaker, you can still follow along with the story, but it does feel odd.

Thoughts under the cut, so they’ll get spoilery.

Read more... )

Plan today is mostly to:
*go on a Donkey Kong Bananza to finish the tempest layer
*Fic some
*read some

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy

Aug. 11th, 2025 01:33 am
quailfence: Pencil drawing of a prosecutor's badge from Ace Attorney on lined paper (ace attorney)
[personal profile] quailfence

So, two days ago (on the 9th) I finished playing the Apollo Justice Trilogy. And honestly, I'm not sure how to review it - I started playing it over a year ago, and only just finished it, so I don't remember a ton about AA4 and the like. Part of it is that I was taking university classes and therefore had less time/wasn't able to fit it into my schedule as well, but I think another part of was that I found it hard to just get myself to play the game - I finished Metaphor: Refantazio while playing the trilogy, and that game was like a hundred hours and took me a month, month and a half to beat. (Speaking of, I really need to redo my review of that - it's pretty vague and generic, I think because I was afraid of spoiling stuff) I also wonder if it's just Spirit of Justice specifically that I was having problems with - I remember getting through AA4 and Dual Destinies pretty quick. That being said, I do remember having fun when playing the games, especially AA4, and I did enjoy the characters and most of the case plots, I'm just not sure if I like how they were told, if that makes sense? Also, I think I really WANTED to like these games going in, and also was very spoiled on them, so that probably affected my perception of them

Anyway, I find giving ratings hard, so I don't usually do them, but I'd say that the Apollo Justice trilogy is a ??/10 for me. If you're a fan of the original trilogy, I'd suggest at least trying them


Humor

Aug. 10th, 2025 11:38 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This made me laugh.

The True Self

soc_puppet: The Pokémon Ditto against a purple background; text above announces "Ditto was caught!" (Ditto was caught!)
[personal profile] soc_puppet
I've been playing this game for just over a week now, and already the difficulty scaling is past where I find the rewards worth it. Most of the puzzles are around difficulty level 4 to 6 now, and I'm just not figuring enough of them out in the time limit I'm given. I'll still get some yarn when I finish the designated three puzzle set, but if I fail any of the puzzles, it's the lower quality yarn—even though the point total from all the puzzles, failures included, is higher than when I was playing the games on their lowest difficulty.

If I were getting more yarn per try, it might be worth it to me to keep playing. If the timers were more generous, it might be worth it to me. If I could choose which puzzles to play and which yarn to work towards, or if the difficulty scaling were a bit slower, it might be worth it to me. But at this point, I'll probably just play a few more days out of sunk cost fallacy driven hope, and then try to forget I even bought the damn game. Which is a shame, because I'd really love to have some sort of apartment-decorating game with the mechanics from the main room that I loved so much.

Honestly, I'd originally bought this game with the hopes of playing some of the puzzles with my niblings, but with how the game's set up, I'm not sure I'd even be able to reach all of the games, let alone be able to play in a way that didn't leave all of us frustrated in the end.

This disappointment aside, if Nintendo ever decided to put out a simple version of Voltorb Flip that works the same way as it does in HGSS, maybe for $2 or so, I'd buy that in a heartbeat. (They won't, they'd want to microtransaction and dark pattern the hell out of it, but that doesn't stop me from wanting it!)

Spider Apocalypse

Aug. 10th, 2025 10:45 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This article mentions seeing no grass spiders in a place that typically has them. 

Then I realized that I haven't seen any this year either.  Usually we have one every couple of feet here, so many it's hard not to step on the webs.  They're barely visible most of the time, unless covered in dust or rain or dew.  I may simply not have noticed them.  But with the ongoing insect apocalypse, it is concerning.  I have have seen other spiders spinning webs, though.

What are your spider populations like?

Spooky in here

Aug. 10th, 2025 11:33 pm
cornerofmadness: (Default)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness
I had my writerly ways nearly done, the browser crashed and for a second time the blog did NOT save a draft. I'll do that another day.

And my title isn't a lie. It is spooky. I went down to microwave something and the whole lobby/halls were empty. Just a few hours ago it had been bustling with all the steampunkers. Now it was like we were never there.

This morning went really well if you can ignore the low energy/half the people already mentally checking out. I went to a make your own tea blend thing. I've always wanted to do this with Adagio (still do) I wouldn't have called this a workshop really. It's like here's the tea, here's the mix-ins, go for it. I'll let you take 1 ounce for the 10$ you paid.... I mixed up whiskey black tea with some lapsang sou chong, added in cacao shells, ginger and cinnamon with a sprinkle of elderflower and called it Husk. I haven't tried it yet.

The next panel was by my friend Leanna on Poe and mesmerism. I very much enjoyed that. I thought I had an hour for lunch but no. The Victorians and the supernatural in literature was next. 15 minutes into it, no one showed and I thought well maybe since all the other talks were at the half hour not the top of the hour maybe the speaker was mistaken (wondering if it was Leanna since this is her forte). Someone went to find staff and next thing we know (it was a packed room) Leanna swoops in. No, this wasn't her panel. That person bugged out without telling anyone (how to get uninvited next year) and like I said it's Leanna's thing. She did well.

I said goodbye after that because the final panels had no interest for me. I headed out to Evergreen Cemetery to find Jennie Wade's grave (the one civilian death in Gettysburg) That was easy. There were other cool graves. and some fun names, can't remember them all but there was Solomon Toot, someone named Zephaniah and a mausoleum bearing the name Ball-Dickson (yes I became 12). Also found one mausoleum entirely in Italian.

From there I rolled down the street (past the hotel I usually stay in with my brother and SiL because it's in walking distance to all the interesting stuff. This con hotel is about 3 miles out) and stop at Mr. G's home made ice cream and texted my chocolate peanut butter to my brother to taunt him ( he loves it) God made the chocolate drip on my shirt in retailation.

Then I went to the battlefield to get pics of some of the monuments. After that it was dinner and I went to GarryOwen's Irish Pub. It was metered parking only (but I found plenty) and it's old fashioned meters, only takes quarters. I forgot about that. Then I remembered in some states handicapped tags can park for free. I google it. In PA I can do that for one hour so up goes my tag and in I go for the crab imperial 'poutine' (fries, cheese and the crab imperial in the place of the gravy) Tasty but SMALL for the price (ended up stopping at Sheetz for a hot dog to round out the meal, really goes together). I also had an Earl Grey Sour, gin, lemon juice and earl grey simple syrup. I think it needed a strong earl grey taste (I need to try making this syrup)

I was going to go ghost hunting but I'm exhausted and there was a writers' meet up on Discord tonight. I did that instead and got a little writing done before Discord fucked up and that was that.

Here's what I would have mentioned on the writerly ways: Always be on the watch for story fodder (Well Gettysburg is good for that) As I pulled into the Sheetz there was a man on the corner holding a nearly full sized cross and he had a microphone/transmitter with him. He started haranging people. As I was pumping gas, he was screaming at two women in a car at the redlight. JEZEBEL! You're whore like your mother. JEZEBEL JEZEBEL. You need to find God. Better hope you don't die tonight or you'll be in hell you diseased JEZEBEL.

Holy shit.




On to Hershey tomorrow.

And sometime this week I WILL catch up with comments (if there is any blog post you think I need to see, send it to me)
dialecticdreamer: My work (Default)
[personal profile] dialecticdreamer
Darkness and Discoveries
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1578
[End of March 179-]


:: Laszlo, Kálmán, and the baby arrive at the castle. With one problem well on the way to being solved, the adults brainstorm solutions to the long-term needs of the newest resident of the village. Part of the “Lost Son” story arc in the Frankenstein’s Family universe. ::




Color leached out of the leaves and the soil, wiped away as the shadows lengthened. Kálmán was the first to slow his horse, but Laszlo quickly followed suit. After a few more minutes, the younger man called, “Hold for a moment. Let me light the lantern. I can take both reins and lead the horses, and we can probably keep to a human trot. I want Raisa safe in front of a fire with a full belly as quickly as we can manage.”

“We can’t risk your horses,” the priest protested, but he accepted the reins of the second horse. His brow furrowed. “Why haven’t you named them, since you were so quick to name Raisa?”

Safely on the ground, Laszlo got the lantern lit with a few familiar motions, then raised it high to gauge a route forward. “I haven’t named them because, like Gregory’s mules, I don’t consider that I own the animals. I haven’t found names that fit them, yet, but they don’t seem to mind.”
Read more... )

Activism

Aug. 10th, 2025 09:10 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
How To Make Your City Stronger With 4 Hours and a Shovel

Last month, members of Livable Lynchburg, a Strong Towns Local Conversation group, joined a walk audit alongside city staff, regional planners, and transit officials. At the corner of 12th and Polk, they noticed two stretches of sidewalk that were so overgrown they were nearly impassable.

Read more... )

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