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Here is Monday's Modem Problems from Matthew McAndrews:
( Matthew McAndrews' Modem Problems #2261 - Ponies - September 1st, 2025 )0.
With all the eager discussion of the possibility of Trump dying in office, I am in the delicate and unfortunate position of not actually being in favor of it.
Don't get me wrong. I, too, would enjoy to seeing something very bad happen to Trump. What I'd best like is him getting his just deserts – ideally being arrested, indicted, tried, found guilty, sentenced, having appealed, the appeal failing, appealing again, having that appeal fail, petitioning the POTUS for clemency and it not being granted, him being duly executed by the state as the traitor to the Republic and the Constitution he was proven to be. I'm not generally a big fan of capital punishment, but I am in fact willing to make exceptions; he seems to think he's an exception to a lot of things, and here I would agree with him.
But that's not going to happen, not in this time-line, and it's probably for the best that it doesn't.
Perhaps he will simply keel over dead, and I confess I will take at least a little bitter satisfaction in it.
And it's certainly not that I don't wish us all to be spared even another moment of this Trump presidency. Of course I do.
Alas, as much as I hate to crush the pleasant fantasy of us being redeemed by the deus ex machina of artheriosclerosis finally doing its job and carrying off our oppressor: Vance is worse. Much, much worse.
1.
( It's perhaps understandable that you would not realize this.... Read more [6,770 Words] )
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Last weekend, I went down to Tobias Music for their Taylor Custom Event, where they showed off a lot of custom Taylor variants. This was on Sunday, because the Fretboard Summit was in Chicago on Saturday, so the store was closed for the show and many people were in town. A bunch of the Taylor guitars that had been there came out to Tobias for the Sunday event.
I had gotten there early, because I wanted to take a look at the 517 and 717 Gold Label guitars that released recently. They are very nice guitars. Of course, I already own a 717e Builders Edition that I bought back in 2019. And while I was looking at those, the Taylor sales rep pulled a guitar out for me to look at. It was *also* a very nice guitar.
After the show was over, I went into the Taylor room to check on a model that was hanging on the wall there and confirmed that it sounded like I expected it to. And then I asked the owner, Paul, if I could take another look at the guitar that the Taylor sales rep had pulled out for me to look at earlier.
A few minutes later, I was sitting in a chair with that guitar, a 517 Gold Label, and a 717 Gold Label, playing them against each other to see what everything sounded like. And I liked the guitar that the sales rep had pulled out better.
It happens that the last person to play that guitar had been Andy Powers, the Master Guitar Designer for Taylor. I was the next person. And the guitar went home with me.
I cannot tell you what that guitar is right now. I'll get around to it.
In the meantime, adding that guitar to the collection caused me to exceed the maximum reasonable (or perhaps unreasonable) number of guitars that I owned, so one of them would have to leave. It is my second-oldest Taylor, the 710ce-l9 short-scale limited edition with an Englemann spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides. It is a lovely guitar, but I have not played it very much at all since I got the 717 (also spruce and rosewood), so it has gone down to Tobias Music on consignment and should eventually make its way onto their website.
And the new guitar is sitting in my office now, along with my 326ce and my 326 Baritone-8.
I have a lot of guitars.
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dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.
There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.
I1 (Somebody at the Door) -- "No Faster or Firmer Friendships" (Polychrome Heroics)
I3 (As If by Magic) -- "To Allow in More Light" (Monster House)
I4 (Someone from the Past) -- "An Inkling of Things to Come" (Polychrome Heroics: Shiv)
N4 (He Who Whispers) -- "He Who Whispers" (An Army of One)
G2 (Family Matters) -- "When You Learn to Read" (Polychrome Heroics: Big One)
G3 (Before the Fact) -- "Where You Find Light" (Polychrome Heroics: Big One)
G4 (Deep Waters) -- "The Most Precious Heritage" (Polychrome Heroics: Rutledge)
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1901
[End of March 179-]
:: As they get ready for the day, Trokhym throws a small twist in their previous plans. Part of the “Lost Son” story arc in the Frankenstein’s Family universe. ::
Laszlo woke very early. His eyelids flung themselves upward as his lungs heaved eagerly for the crisp springtime air. He washed in cold water, frigid but not bearing a skin of ice, and dressed carefully. Tucked into the vardo, he brushed his hair and braided the queue, just to make it harder for David to grab at it.
The thought made him freeze.
The memory, blurred by more than a decade, softened into wistfulness.
( Read more... )
There’s a moment, usually around the seventh open tab, when your brain lets out a quiet scream. Not loud. Just a gentle, exhausted howl from somewhere behind your eyeballs. You've read ten headlines, watched half a video, skimmed three opinion pieces, checked your email, ignored two messages, and now you can't remember what you were doing in the first place. Welcome to the modern infoscape. It's busy, it's loud, and it's eating us alive.
( Read more... )
This year I'm trying something new, continuing to track goals at the end of each month. So far it seems to be helping, so that's encouraging. I'm looking at my goal list more often and trying to keep ticking off more of them. The main drawback is that this update becomes more of a chore each month.
These are the previous check in posts:
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 4
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 10
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 17
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 24
New Year's Resolutions Check In January 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In February 28
New Year's Resolutions Check In March 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In April 30
New Year's Resolutions Check In May 31
New Year's Resolutions Check In June 30
New Year's Resolutions Check In July 31
( Read more... )
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches. I heard a cardinal singing but didn't see it.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 8/31/25 -- I watered the irises.
EDIT 8/31/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 8/31/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 8/31/25 -- I took out the hose and watered the new picnic table and septic gardens.
A male ruby-throated hummingbird dive-bombed me while I was out with the hose. Hopefully he'll go back and drink from the droplets on the plants. :D I heard a woodpecker drumming but didn't see it.
EDIT 8/31/25 -- I watered the patio plants, old picnic table, barrel garden, goddess garden, and other house yard plants.
A sphinx moth tried to lick me, and then visited the impatiens and other flowers on the old picnic table. :D
Cicadas and crickets are singing.
We got the hose reeled up and put away.
As it is now dark, I am done for the night.
A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.
The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.
In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.
The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.
Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.
Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.
Amusingly, I'm wearing a goldenrod-yellow T-shirt with a corncob and the caption "This is my crop top." (It's full length.) I got at least half a dozen compliments on it. :D I bought it earlier this year at another event, definitely a good choice for fall festivals.
( Read more... )
But we did manage to get Calvin the Dog the last of his puppy shots, so that's one thing down. And Gretchen has signed him up for obedience training classes starting next week, which is also good.
Given our experience today, Gretchen has ordered a harness for the puppy, because his collar is not very good at staying on and he is highly resistant to following the leash to get into the car. Or *out* of the car, neither of which is good, but which is better than it will be as he gets larger and harder for me to lift. He is already large enough that no one *else* in the house is going to be able to lift him.
Go team!
As I write this, however, as the new part-time engagement coordinator for a small community farm, I’m laughing at the comedy of errors. I’m not afraid, because this is the first job I’ve ever had that treats me, first and foremost, like a person.
( Read more... )
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1629
[End of March 179-]
:: Part of the “Lost Son” story arc in the Frankenstein’s Family universe. ::
By the time the last drips of sunshine leaked from the clouds scraped by the shadows of the tall trees, the vardo was parked close to the leeward side of the small house, barely twice as wide as the vardo and only a little longer. Laszlo had split two of the six logs into firewood, stacking it in the drying pile where Rebeka had pointed, among the towers of green hardwood. On the windy side of the house, chimney style stacks took up most of the space that might be used for a garden. Rebeka had quickly identified the towers of hardwood, as tall as she was, and pointed out the newest, half-finished one. Piles of loose branches took up the corner farthest from the house, and a pile of wood chips beside it was nearly half its height.
Laszlo returned from the errand to find Rebeka in discussion with Troknym, talking about a book. He listened eagerly, until he realized that her hands were shaking as she tried to peel potatoes. “I can help,” he offered, motioning toward the potatoes.
( Read more... )
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.
EDIT 8/30/25 -- I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 8/30/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 8/30/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 8/30/25 -- I potted up 10 Ginger Gold apple seeds.
EDIT 8/30/25 -- I watered the apple seeds and the new picnic table plants.
I've picked several groundcherries today.
Cicadas and crickets are singing. I saw one firefly; it's cool for them and terribly dry.
As it is now dark, I am done for the night.
Every day, a man walks to a news stand and pays for a copy of Pravda, unfolds it, looks at the front page, and throws it in the trash. Every day he does this, for months, until finally the news seller asks the man, "So what is it you are looking for on the front page every day?"
"I'm checking for an obituary."
"Comrade, the obituaries aren't on the front page."
"Oh, this one will be."
... The little house I mentioned yesterday, all 625 sq ft of it, sold for $1.2 million in 2021. On a listing price of $950K. Listed as 1 bedroom and 2 full baths, which I think is a "can't be bothered" error by the realtor. Well, it's gone now.