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trying to understand/explain bluesky basics (i.e. don't dump bluesky if you like some parts of it)

Okay so, first of all, this is kind of in response to some STUFF(tm) but I don't exactly know what it is because I have extremely strong filters/feeds/muting, and I don't want details either. But, basically, I vaguely heard that there was something, and I also got this issue of a newsletter (I don't remember why I signed up for it but that's neither here nor there) talking about ATproto stuff. So I went poking and found this in Northsky's FAQ:

We started contemplating this project after a petition to "enforce Bluesky's moderation guidelines equally" gained over 26,000 signatures and was ignored by Bluesky Trust and Safety. We were all deeply disappointed in this lack of response, and the subsequent unfollowing of every trans person by the Head of Trust and Safety. We saw the writing on the wall. (source)

And that didn't feel particularly great, so I bailed to a very kind fannish person's PDS (I'm very grateful! And will not disclose because it's up to this person who is on the PDS, etc.) And this is the important part: if you follow or interact with me on Bluesky, you will not notice that even happened.

So, this is my attempt to kind of explain all of this in basic terms so that people who have heard about the STUFF but maybe know less about ATproto and Bluesky than I do (and, to be very clear, I only know a small bit!) can use and access Bluesky in a way that they want.

( Read more... )

First draft posted on Discord Oct 5
Second draft posted here Oct 5 - need to add some more at marked sections, and formatting needs examining later, also credit fujocoded help and also missing "clients" (fourth thing)

Current Mood: sisyphus

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That Didn't Go As Planned: Title of my biography

Weekend was less productive than hoped, or at least less productive at the specific things I wanted to finish. Daughter ended up only being able to come on Thursday and I got stuck in a meeting until late. There's always stuff for her to pick away at, but the This-Needs-More-Than-Two-Hands jobs only got a couple of hours of dedicated time.

That was enough time to take off the old light fixtures and find out that the new ones I bought fit perfectly into the short narrow spaces available. Unfortunately the base of the new lights is a couple of centimetres smaller than that of the old ones - and the original installation was done by cutting holes in the walls that were of a size just barely able to be covered by the old fixtures. So once again I am fixing holes in plaster because apparently this is my life now.

This is mostly annoying because I have to turn the power off to the room because I'm working around dangling wires. So I'm plastering & painting with one hand and holding my phone up for light with the other. Somewhere around here I know I have some flashlights that are small enough I can hold it in my mouth so I can use both hands - but you think I can find them?

Then I looked at the bathroom and decided it looked really patchy so I slapped another layer of paint on it. Looks much better. The only thing left to paint is the doors.

To Do List: Tomorrow I will follow up with the engineer (AGAIN), and hit the hardware store. (Maybe I'll see if they have one of those headlamp deals.)

I should also call an electrician to install the two exterior lights, one was missed completely and the second was set up with an interior box instead of an outdoor one. I might also call the guy who installed the storm door for the kitchen and see if he can get one on the basement door because I am tired of flies and mosquitos coming in every time I open the door. It's a weird size, but he might be able to special order something.

And then I have a cancer screen that's way overdue, and my doctor sent me the name of a therapist she recommends that I should follow up on, and I started cleaning out my closet this weekend so I can start going through the stacks of boxes out of the top floor and finding homes for things. (So far I found two big bags of Darrell's old clothing and a whole-ass guitar I didn't know about.)

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Promptober 2025 Day 5: Shades of the Past

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Entry tags:

vital functions

vital functions

Reading. So many things. Or at least it feels that way. Unsure if actually So Many.

( Melzack & Wall, McRobbie, McGuire, Duncan, Stock )

( Cookbooks )

And I am now TWO months behind on Dreamwidth. TWO. Ahahahaha.

Playing. Several more rounds of Fluxx.

Tukoni: Prologue, "a point-and-click puzzle adventure" featuring beautiful botanical art. Very very much enjoyed this tiny snippet (a mushroom! that makes it rain! when you pat it!) and am mildly dismayed at the five-year gap between the release of this prologue and the subsequent demo of what will theoretically be a full game...

Cooking. ALSO SO MANY THINGS.

another recipe from East: chilli tofu
green beans in tomato sauce with fennel seeds, feta, and toast, loosely inspired by a thing out of the latest Ottolenghi cookbook (in the sense that I went looking for confirmation of my sense that the thing I was thinking of doing would work, found it, and promptly carried on with my intentions rather than the recipe I was distinctly less into)
smitten kitchen's vegetarian cassoulet, with the addition of Dubious Protein Chunks
a quince cake, which I made a lot of modifications to, and of which I am dubious, probably because of those modifications (but A seems to like it, so that's a win)
hazelnut and treacle Welsh cakes, leaving us with two remaining recipes of any interest in the tourist-tat Welsh cakes cookbook (cranberry + white chocolate is a no, as are the two recipes containing bacon; double choc chip is a maybe, and I'm willing to consider that Caerphilly + leek might have merits but A is distinctly more dubious)
soda bread! notable because (i) not sourdough, (ii) using the buttermilk culture I have successfully kept alive this time around (and have now refreshed), and (iii) I ignored all of the instructions about Handling It As Little As Possible and as a result it achieved Structural Integrity, which I usually do... not manage

Eating. I have successfully worked out how to make Wagamama's current menu provide me with food I will actually look forward to, which is A Great Victory. Located the last of last year's seasonal Dark Chocolate With Raspberry and have been gently nibbling it. QUINCE. And another variety of apple from an abandoned neighbouring plot at the allotment; this one is Very Crunchy and Very Red but not particularly flavours.

(The tree that got planted so as to encroach on my plot is some kind of cooker, unsure which, because my usual approach to cooking apples is James Grieve from my mother's garden...)

Making & mending. I think that, inspired by some helpful answers on reddit, I have got my clicky fountain pen clicking reliably again? It was doing a thing where it wouldn't lock, and it was pointed out to me that probably the issue was going to be located in the knock not at the trap door, so I... wrote the pen dry, rinsed out the ACCUMULATED DUST OF THE YEARS (THANKS DADFORD ROAD), and since then it's been behaving beautifully. Long may it continue.

Growing. There are still tomatoes? Also kohlrabi. I only managed a single flying visit to the plot this week; at some point soonish I'm going to need to get A to take me over with the car so I can retrieve from the greenhouse the various peppers I'm hoping to overwinter. I do not appear to have been issued with a Non-Cultivation Order in this round of inspections, which is a very welcome surprise!

Observing. A has seen the bat! I have not seen the bat because I have been Preoccupied with Other Things (misc). But the bat has not yet put itself to bed for the winter. <3

Current Mood: starships were meant to fly
Current Location: near the lake they call Michigan

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Fannish 50 Challenge 2025: Post # 32: Postal Mail from Fen

Thank you kindly to my "interplanetary" friend

james who in September sent me a postcard that says Visit Beautiful Southern Enceladus: More Than 100 Breathtaking Geysers! The Home of "Cold Faithful"!

(For those of you who might think this is a place in California because it sounds like "Escondido" and "Encino" and other similar California location names..uhm...no...Enceladus is a moon of the planet Saturn.)

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Promptober 2025 Day 4: Potent Venom

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Entry tags:

tarot

Rook & Rose Pattern Deck has landed!

Gilt edges not pictured, largely because I couldn't wrangle a photo setup for them.

Current Mood: worried
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: practicing, a little work in the studio

Entry tags:

done,
links

Done Since 2025-09-28

Mixed, as usual. Four walks (which sounds good except that the total was only 2.9km), a little work on the HSX website (fixing a busted link counts, right?), and a little work in the recording studio (with disappointingly little to show for it). Pretty sure I'm not getting enough sleep, either, although it's been somewhat better now that I'm using the duvet and duvet cover (a bit of a weighted blanket effect?), and going to bed a little later.

Lots of difficulty with motivation. Nothing new there, either.

N and G are going to be gone for two weeks (plus a bit) at the end of the month. I have been looking into "personal alarm" buttons/pendants, in case I need emergency help. Somewhat problematic.

Here, have an amusing link: Portlanders mock Trump by posting pics of peaceful weekend activities in ‘War ravaged’ city | The Independent.

( Notes & links, as usual )

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crafts: spinning

latest spinning

Two-ply ramie handspun. I still have to BOIL it with soda ash to set the twist, but this will be going to

ilyena_sylph. ♥

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Destinies, February-March 1980 (Destinies, # 6) edited by Jim Baen

Pacifist Dorsai, space forts, duelling reviews, a rant about that mean Mr. Einstein and more in this issue of Destinies.

Destinies, February-March 1980 (Destinies, # 6) edited by Jim Baen

Eat Drink and Make Merry (Dear Creator)

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Moving into October

So the big personal news for this week is that I finally got a job interview to wrap up last week...back at the same company I've been contracting at for most of the last three years. Different manager though, and more interesting-sounding position. Seeing as I know the ropes pretty well, I'm getting the second interview this coming week and we'll see how it goes. If I get the offer, I have to take it since my former contracting company is paying for my unemployment and frankly, I'm not very up for eyeing the abyss of "what happens if unemployment ends/savings have to be burned through/the entire social safety net finishes unraveling." I've been through enough of that over the last 5 years.

Apart from ageism, sexism, the economy and so forth, the main obstacle to me getting at least up to the interview stage is that my kitty Shu requires shots on a very regular schedule a couple of times a day, plus regular feedings--the cats are on a raw meat diet due to being allergic to chicken and somewhat delicate tummies so I can't just pop food in a feeder and let them fend for themselves. Paying my catsitter to come in a couple of times a week just so I can go into an office to make a manager feel more secure isn't particularly viable, not to mention the costs of gas and commuting. So it has to be full WFH and those IT gigs in my skillset are few and far between right now. Given all that, please wish me luck!

What's the backup plan? Well, I'm doubling down on publisher meetings, trainings related to book production and marketing and whatever I can glean from startup support/culture that is somewhat relevant to Queen of Swords Press. Today, for instance, I went to an Entrepreneur Expo at the Central Library and got some useful thoughts from one of the folks I talked to (from the county's Elevate program for small biz startups). I think she will probably be more useful for immediate advice than the guy I spoke to at St. Thomas a couple of weeks ago, and she did say that she wanted me to touch base with her soon. Last week was a couple of marketing workshops and a publisher meetup. Monday is a meetup for the the queer small business app we're now underwriting, Everywhere is Queer. Oh, and I added some events. And we're putting out a new book this month - Running Dry by M.Christian (gay vampires with a twist!) is up for preorder now. I'm also starting to add Jana's boxes to my Ko-fi shop, along with sundry services you can hire me for.

I've got some writing and teaching plans that I'm working on as well, including, you know, books. Unfortunately, some of the teaching venues I taught at before are no longer viable the way they were before or have shifted directions in ways that do not play to my strengths. So more research, more pitching, more work all around. But next month, there's paid grant vetting and I just turned in another article so I can start pitching more of those.

On the bright side, I'm making progress on patching concrete around the house foundation and almost succeeded in patching the leaking pipe. I've managed to clean out and shift some stuff in the house so that none of the heating vents are blocked any more and there's a bit more space to move around. Next up, tripping hazards and things that make it harder to clean (like books in weird places, etc.). Shu is relatively stable, Ma'at is great and I've been vaxxed and all that good stuff. I'm doing a lot of cooking from scratch and some preserving and such. All in all, as long as I don't look at the news, I'm doing reasonably well, under the circumstances.

Fingers crossed that it's the same for all of you right now!

Current Mood: amused

Gromphadorhina portentosa

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Entry tags:

la maladie tm,
life

Aten't dead

Wish I could blame being tired on giving platelets earlier this week, but no, it is La Maladie TM. And the less said about that the better.

Things I've been enjoying recently:

- L and I finished watching Arcane recently and now I have brainrot.

- T and I are watching Andor (currently on s2e3). It's fine? With occasional moments of great, but somehow I expected more. Hype got me, mea culpa.

- The colours of K-Pop Demon Hunters made my brain go brrrrrrrrrr.

- I've fallen back into the SCP Foundation hole, to no one's surprise. My hole, made for me, etc. I wonder if I could make a rec list?

- The pilot for Knights of Guinevere was fun!

- The first 5 seasons of the White Vault podcast (I've not listened to more yet). I'm not sure it does anything new with eldritch beings but it is well done.

- Did I ever do a proper rec post for the music of The Mechanisms? I should.

- October means it's Short Box Comics Fair. As ever I don't know where to start.

- The two issues of the Sing O Muse zine.

- The Missing Madonna is a true crime podcast mini-series that's not about murder.

There should be more. But alas.

Anyway, soon the yuletide tagset will be out and that's kind of like a rec list, innit?

Current Mood: amused

Interspecies Communication

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Fall, leaves, fall by Emily Brontë

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

*********

Link

Some saved up videos

( Fake Emergencies )

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( Common moon mistakes )

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( The Insane Biology of: The Pangolin )

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( The Most Dangerous Escalator in Rome )

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( Backyard Squirrelympics )

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( Apparently, the dog dancing championships are a thing? )

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( The Assassin's Teapot Is Weird )

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( All The Non-Passenger Trains in the NYC Subway )

There's a Dunkin Donuts by my house

And every once in a while I end up there during the morning rush, which I try to avoid, and find somebody else bitching about how they "always" mess up their order and "always" take forever.

This is true, by the way - or, maybe not literally always true, but frequently true - but all the same, every time I hear the incessant whining I want to turn around and say "You knew what it was like when you placed your order!"

It's not like they're the only place to get coffee and a breakfast sandwich that's not your own home. There are three corner stores, every once of which will be happy, or at least willing, to make your standing order every day or week or however often you like. There's McDonald's right there, there's Wendy's right there, there's a Dunkin Donuts on the boat and another one just down Bay a bit, if you drive. Or, as I said, you can go home and make your own coffee for faster and cheaper, but you didn't do that, so you can't really complain that you're getting exactly what you obviously expected!

(It is my lack of whining, I think, that always gets me out of there a smidge faster. Should they be more efficient? Should they make fewer mistakes? Should I be able to order a muffin without fear that it'll be a bit raw in the middle? Yes to all three, and I've stopped ordering muffins! But they're close and I don't have to cook it myself, and I imagine that's why everybody else is there, so whatever.)

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Entry tags:

books received

Books Received, September 27 — October 3

Twelve books new to me. Four fantasies, one horror, one non-fiction, and six (!) science fiction works, of which at least four are series instalments.

Books Received, September 27 — October 3

Poll #33688 Books Received, September 27 — October 3

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 57

View Respondents

Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Children of Fallen Gods by Carissa Broadbent (December 2025)
3 (5.3%)

Enchanting the Fae Queen by Stephanie Burgis (January 2026)
8 (14.0%)

The Language of Liars by S. L. Huang (April 2026)
22 (38.6%)

We Burned So Bright by T. J. Klune (April 2026)
20 (35.1%)

We Could Be Anyone by Anna-Marie McLemore (May 2026)
7 (12.3%)

These Godly Lies by Rachelle Raeta (July 2026)
3 (5.3%)

The New Prometheans: Faith, Science, and the Supernatural
15 (26.3%)

Every Exquisite Thing by Laura Steven (July 2026)
4 (7.0%)

The Infinite State by Richard Swan (August 2026)
6 (10.5%)

Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky (June 2026)
24 (42.1%)

Moss’d in Space by Rebecca Thorne (July 2026)
19 (33.3%)

Platform Decay by Martha Wells (May 2026)
42 (73.7%)

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

Cats!
39 (68.4%)

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Birthday in Maui

I spent my birthday on my own in Maui after the conference I attended there, and I had a brilliant time.*

My birthday treat to myself was a boat trip to Molokini crater to snorkel with the fishes, and to Turtle Town off Wailea Point to swim with the sea turtles. I got really lucky with the weather, and Cap'n Doug sailed us around the far side of Molokini so we could see the sea bird nesting sites. Then we pulled into the harbour and we were allowed to jump in the water. I don't have a waterproof camera and I also don't feel too secure snorkeling without a boogie board in hand, so I've no photos of that. But the visibility was incredible, like I remember from Hanauma Bay as a kid. I saw a tube fish and a giant parrot fish. I followed her around for a bit, listening to her chomp the coral and seeing her make sand. I saw wrasse and tangs, sea urchins and crabs, and of course the legendary Humuhumunukunukuapua'a, from whom Eldest gets her moniker. It's colourful, pugnacious, and territorial. Mmhmm.

[Approach to Molokini crater.]

[Seabird nesting sites round the back of Molokini.]

Turtle Town offered excellent fish viewing in the water as well, although to be honest it was much better watching the turtles from the boat as the view was clearer and they got quite close to the bow, where you're not allowed to snorkel.

[Sea turtle next to the tour boat.]

There were lots of older retired couples on the boat - because who else can afford $200+ plus tips for a five hour boat trip - and I could see them looking sidelong at me until finally when we were eating lunch someone sidled up to me and after some desultory introductions, asked if I was scared to travel alone. Hahaha. Nope! Very happy by myself, tyvm.

I pootled back to the hotel in the convertible Mustang** I’d hired with the top down, although “pootled” doesn’t feel like quite the right word for travelling in an absurdly ostentatious car. I had a shower to get all the sand off, liberally slathered on the after-sun, and got dressed again. I had a couple of chats with family and friends. I got myself a cold drink at the 808 market and wandered down to watch my last Maui sunset on this trip.

I got changed into a nice dress and spoke to the family before hopping in the car again to take myself to dinner: Isana in Kihei. I ingested a heroic quantity of nigiri (choice bits pictured below) and part of a silly cocktail (because driving, and that thing was strong).

( Sushi under the cut because raw fish isn't everyone's cup of tea )

I plucked up the courage to ask my waiter a very odd question. I explained to him that I’d grown up in Hawai’i, and I had happy memories of eating something we called “stinky pickle sushi” which you obviously cannot put on a menu in a nice restaurant. After he’d finished guffawing, I explained that it was pickled daikon radish in a maki roll. He said he would go ask the chef if he knew about this.

Two minutes later, he returned, placed a small black dish in front of me, and said, “Yes, chef is from Japan, he knows this ingredient. Is this it?” I popped the bright yellow rectangle into my mouth and clapped my hands with joy. The waiter returned to place my stinky pickle nori roll order. And that, my friends, was my final brave birthday treat to myself: procuring a sushi roll I have not tasted for over twenty years.

[Behold: stinky pickle maki]

* Sorry, family! We would have had a brilliant time together, too. But this conference happens during the school year, and so I was on my own. I love you guys. I also love time to myself.
** I actually wanted to hire the Mazda Miata but they didn’t have any, and also the hire car person said my giant battered old Briggs & Riley suitcase would not have fit in the boot anyway.

THE END.