Wild Cards checklist

Jul. 5th, 2025 09:35 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
This is much easier for Martin's New Voices series....

Read more... )
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Four works new to me. One is SF, two fantasy, and the magazine (which I have not yet looked inside) likely both. Two of the novels are series novels, one does not seem to me.

Books Received, June 28 — July 4



Poll #33326 Books Received, June 28 — July 4
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

FIYAH No. 35: Black Isekai published by FIYAH Literary Magazine (July 2025)
5 (50.0%)

Aces Full edited by George R. R. Martin (November 2025)
1 (10.0%)

Only Spell Deep by Ava Morgyn (March 2026)
1 (10.0%)

The Damned by Harper L. Woods (October 2025)
0 (0.0%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
9 (90.0%)

2025.07.05

Jul. 5th, 2025 07:06 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
Owning dog or cat could preserve some brain functions as we age, study says
Fish or bird ownership showed no significant link to slower cognitive decline in study with implications for ageing societies
Amelia Hill
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jul/05/dog-cat-ownership-could-preserve-specific-brain-functions-as-we-age-cognitive-decline

Trump is waging war against the media – and winning
Edward Helmore
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/jul/05/trump-attack-us-media

‘The vehicle suddenly accelerated with our baby in it’: the terrifying truth about why Tesla’s cars keep crashing
Elon Musk is obsessive about the design of his supercars, right down to the disappearing door handles. But a series of shocking incidents – from drivers trapped in burning vehicles to dramatic stops on the highway – have led to questions about the safety of the brand. Why won’t Tesla give any answers?
Sönke Iwersen and Michael Verfürden
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/05/the-vehicle-suddenly-accelerated-with-our-baby-in-it-the-terrifying-truth-about-why-teslas-cars-keep-crashing

US debt is now $37trn – should we be worried?
Simon Jack
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1lj8rmyn5eo

Strange dreams

Jul. 5th, 2025 07:18 am
brithistorian: (Default)
[personal profile] brithistorian

I practically never remember my dreams, but I remember part of last night's dream. Not enough to reconstruct any sort of plot summary, but enough to remember that it contained the following elements:

  • Heavy metal music
  • Low-quality animatronic dinosaurs
  • Luchador wrestling
  • Male menstrual cramps
  • Asshole bosses
  • The importance of proper pronunciation
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Though, upon reflection, it's surprising that this hasn't happened before in 30+ years of menstruation )

I'd say that was the worst thing to happen this weekend, but then I glanced at the news, and how do things keep getting worse? I thought we might at least get a reprieve over the holiday weekend, Congress would all go on vacation and not pass any terrible bills in the interim, but I guess not.

I'm not linking to it, not today. I know how to take a break, even if they don't. Take this article on amenorrhea instead.
sonia: Quilted wall-hanging (Default)
[personal profile] sonia
Kaval Park, a full-length documentary about Alexander Eppler, an extraordinary American musician who specialized in Balkan instruments, including the shepherd's flute known as a kaval. He lived in Seattle, and the documentary includes other Balkan dancers and instrumentalists from the community there, as well as interviews with Bulgarians who knew him. I don't often watch movies, and this was fascinating. He went to Bulgaria by himself when he was 14 years old to learn naval, while it was still a closed communist country!

Queer Dating Apps: Beware Who You Trust With Your Intimate Data by Em, staff writer for Privacy Guides. A thorough analysis, with the depressing conclusion that none of the dating apps are trustworthy with your private data, and suggestions for how to protect yourself if you use them anyway.

well ...

Jul. 4th, 2025 05:04 pm
calimac: (Default)
[personal profile] calimac
With the country in the state it's in, I needed something offbeat to commemorate Independence Day, and then YouTube dropped this in my lap:

Frank Sinatra sings "America the Beautiful"
(an impression by Mel Brooks)

Holiday

Jul. 4th, 2025 10:54 am
athenais: (blue tiger)
[personal profile] athenais
We will grill burgers and corn for dinner. I'm making potato salad right now and an apple pie later. Fireworks have been going off in my neighborhood for the last two weeks, tonight will just be more and louder. I don't feel like pretty colors and sparkles are the vibe right now, personally. I'm keeping my big feelings in check with the usual suspects: SF/F fandom, K-pop fandom, Chinese costume dramas, games on my Switch, music from around the world, trips to the ocean, dreaming of future travel.

I highly recommend K-pop Demon Hunters on Netflix to any of my friends who like animated movies and have been subjected to my ravings of the past three years. It's really fun, has catchy music, and you might find yourself recognizing some of the details of being a K-pop fan...or a demon hunter, I don't know all your secrets.

John brought up a box of fanzines I've been keeping since the 80s and I don't recognize the top half of them. I am not sure if they're unusual and therefore something to put out on a fan table somewhere as freebies, I assume not, but I'm not throwing them out. It's just one box. I was expecting to feel nostalgia, but instead I just feel distanced from my own history. Huh. Well, maybe down at the bottom I'll see stuff from my friends. I have no idea why I collected these.

For those at BayCon this weekend I hope you have a great time!

July 4th

Jul. 4th, 2025 11:55 am
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
Jay Kuo takes a break from chronicling the regime's crimes to share some honest hope for today, and the days and months ahead:

https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/celebrating-independence

2025 52 Card Project: Week 26: Cold

Jul. 4th, 2025 10:11 am
pegkerr: (Deep roots are not reached by the frost)
[personal profile] pegkerr
Everything this week got cancelled.

I had a miserable cold.

That was my week.

Image description: A hand pours tea from a teapot into a cup. Lower left corner: a pot of honey. A couple of cough drops lie to the side of the teacup. Behind the teacup: a Dayquil/Nightquil pack of medicine. Left: a woman blows her nose into a Kleenex.

Cold

26 Cold

Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

2025.07.04

Jul. 4th, 2025 08:30 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
Palmer's Bar to close after serving beers for 120 years on West Bank
The bar didn't give a reason for its closure, but said it will have a "jam-packed" calendar and "plenty of time to party and say farewell" before shutting the doors.
Author: Samantha Fischer
https://www.kare11.com/article/entertainment/palmers-bar-to-close-after-serving-beers-for-120-years-on-west-bank/89-0c845523-e6cc-4fed-8be2-82e7540144cc

Trump’s Medicaid cuts are coming for rural Americans: ‘It’s going to have to hit them first’
Experts worry the tax-and-spending bill will gut healthcare and hospitals, especially in states like North Carolina
Jessica Glenza and George Chidi
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/04/rural-americans-medicaid-cuts-trump-bill

Trump’s big bill achieved what conservatives have been trying to do for decades
Chris Stein
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/03/trump-spending-bill-conservatives-law Read more... )
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Ninety years after her grandmother's family was stalked by a witch, international student Minerva Contrera's studies land her in a similar position.


The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

On to Westercon

Jul. 3rd, 2025 11:27 pm
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[personal profile] kevin_standlee
I got away from home at 5:30, but immediately had to stop for fuel because I forgot to refuel last night. I also stopped in Reno to grab a breakfast sandwich, Donner Summit for the rest area, Colfax for coffee and a restroom, Lodi Junction to refuel, Livermore for coffee, and Fremont to buy Kayla some nail polish remover because she forgot to pack some, before getting to the Marriott about 1:30 PM. That's really good time for me. I managed to miss Reno and Sacramento's rush hours, and when I reached the Bay Area, I was going against the holiday get-away traffic.

Moving In )

I am not sure if I'll post much about the convention while it's going on. Friday in particular is super-busy, with the Preliminary WSFS Business Meeting online at 9 AM, and the Opening Ceremony of BayCon/Westercon at 1 PM, followed by Site Selection opening at 2:30 PM. Furthermore, I personally am not going to be around the convention. I've delegated everything to Kayla. And I'm clearly not going to get enough sleep, which is bad.

Every time I run something

Jul. 3rd, 2025 10:34 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
I embrace new tools. In Fabula Ultima, for example, the order in which characters go in combat varies. I found it hard to keep track of who'd gone, so I went out and got poker chips and little round labels. Now, I can just toss the chips representing characters into a bowl once they've gone. Order!

OK, except it turns out I can't tell blue from green under the ceiling light in the room where I DM and the names on the labels need to be bigger.
sonia: Quilted wall-hanging (Default)
[personal profile] sonia
When I was 21 years old, my parents came out to visit me in California. My father is an audiophile, and he went with me to buy my very own stereo system with separate receiver, double tape deck, CD player, a stereo cabinet to put all that in, and speakers to hear it all. I had a big tape collection back then, mostly copied from his folk music records. The speakers are Advent Prodigy Towers, approximately a foot square and 28" high, with pecan wood on top and black grilles on the front.

I got rid of the tapes in this move back to California since I never listened to them anymore, but the same stereo system, cabinet, and speakers came back with me. I did replace the CD player about 10 years in, because apparently they changed the CD encoding over time and it stopped working.

My favorite thing to do with the stereo system since 2008 is to run my computer audio through it and play mp3s for folk dancing. I love the feel of the music through big speakers, and the audio quality is way better than the smaller portable speakers that big dance groups used.

A few years ago I realized the music was getting fuzzy. I took the front grille off, and the foam around the woofers was completely perished. I carefully unhooked them, put them in my bike trailer, and took them to a small audio store where a crusty older guy took them in and promised to repair them. A week or two later I biked back, picked them up, hauled them home, and reassembled the speakers. They sounded great! (Apparently this was in 2014.)

After the move back to California, the audio started dropping out unpredictably from one of the speakers when I was dancing. I tried swapping out the cable from the computer to the receiver, and swapping the speaker cables. Finally it got bad enough that I decided after 30+ years it was time to replace the speakers.

I did some online research and picked out some speakers that I wanted to check out at Best Buy. (I wonder if that's where I bought my system in the first place!) Then I started thinking about having new electronics off-gassing in my living room, and how I would get rid of the old speakers. I took off the grilles and unscrewed the woofers to take a look at them. The foam still looks good. I disconnected the clip that held in the woofer on the one that's been dropping out, and reconnected it.

I put it all back together and the audio hasn't dropped out since. Maybe the clip got jarred during the move? It didn't look wrong, but at least it's behaving better now. Which is good, because the one local audio repair place I found didn't return my message, and the new speakers I was interested in don't look nearly as nice as the old ones. The thought of new & improved electronics is exciting, but I love how my speakers sound and I'm glad they're not dead yet.

Dept. of Fare thee well, Democracy

Jul. 3rd, 2025 01:33 pm
kaffy_r: Image of personified Death with scythe (Death's definitee)
[personal profile] kaffy_r
They Did It

I mean, there was no way it wasn't going to pass, but it's still like a knife twist, like salt in the wound that knife left, like the laughter of the people who brought knives and salt to the scene.

Motherfuckers. Murderers. 


chirps

Jul. 3rd, 2025 10:23 am
calimac: (Default)
[personal profile] calimac
Chirp. It was the smoke detector in our bedroom, waking us to inform that the battery needed to be replaced. Or so we thought. Upon inspection, it turned out the battery couldn't be replaced on this one. You had to buy a new detector. Wait for the hardware store to open for the morning, then find one of the same model, so it fit on the same brackets. Sort of. Anyway, it's up and alert now.

Boom. That, I presume, was the sound of the warehouse full of fireworks exploding after it caught on fire, a couple days ago. Although it was after hours and out in the countryside, seven people were reported missing. It may be a while before this can be put out; fireworks keep exploding. At least one local town had been relying on those fireworks for its July 4th show, which has been canceled. Be careful out there.

Smof. It means ... well, it means someone experienced in running science-fiction conventions. One such has written that the unopposed bid for the next Worldcon up is woefully unequipped to do its job. This is the sort of thing smofs often say about Worldcon bids, whether or not it turns out to be true. The smof recommends voting No Award, er I mean None of the Above, so that the Worldcon Business Meeting will decide what to do. Reading the very serious comments on this post, I decided it was better not to post my snarky comment, which would have been, "Maybe we should put the Worldcon on a boat." But I'm not sure how many readers will have been around long enough to remember what that's a reference to.
Update: Worldcon bid in question has responded with a puff piece. This does not instill confidence.

Meow. A cat walking in front of my monitor, hoping for an early breakfast, made it difficult for me to read the announcement of the impending publication of Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats. This is apparently a collection of unpublished or obscure pieces, many of them whimsical, rather than e.g. an omnibus of Catwings.

Speaking of cats ... This was on xkcd a few days ago:

2025.07.03

Jul. 3rd, 2025 07:03 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
A Wisconsin brewery owner wants to shut down Fourth of July parades, both in Minocqua, where the brewery is located, and across the nation. Kirk Bangstad “says he ‘will not allow this town to comfortably celebrate its most important event of the year’ because he believes he’s been targeted by city officials,” according to Bring Me The News. Via MinnPost
https://bringmethenews.com/wisconsin-news/wisconsin-brewery-owner-plans-to-disrupt-parade-over-feud-with-officials

Scientists warn US will lose a generation of talent because of Trump cuts
Political interference and chaotic cuts to staff, programs and grants at the National Science Foundation are producing ‘devastating consequences’
Nina Lakhani
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/03/national-science-foundation-trump-cuts

New Orleans teacher fired by Catholic school for being gay says ‘it’s just time’ for discrimination to stop
Mark Richards was fired from St Francis Xavier school after an obituary identified him as his late husband’s widower
Ramon Antonio Vargas in New Orleans
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/03/new-orleans-teacher-mark-richards Read more... )
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