disneydream06

It's a beautiful day today - almost up to freezing point, clear and sunny. And it's supposed to get just above freezing this afternoon. I went for a shortish walk this morning (after using the rebounder for 45 minutes) and the sun felt really good on my face, which was the only part of my body that wasn't covered. When I got back I shoveled some of the snow that's in front of my car, and I plan to do a bit more tomorrow and then a bit more on Friday, and that should take me up to the front of the car. I estimate I did a strip about 3 feet by ten feet today.

I didn't have the best night last night, although it was slightly better than the night before. It took me longer than usual to fall asleep last night, then I woke up about 4:15 am and took a while to fall back to sleep. I'd barely fallen asleep when the cat started to do what sounded like tap dancing right above my head (on the ground floor) just after 4:30 am, and I didn't get back to sleep before the alarm went off. I would prefer it if she would play in the basement, because I don't hear her then and I know she won't get on the bed with me and disturb me that way. She is definitely not a lap- or bed-cat. Last night I heard a repeated mysterious soft bumping noise somewhere above me around 8:30 pm, and this morning my daughter told me it was the cat playing with/killing a mouse.

Yesterday afternoon Aria asked me to crochet a tiny blanket for one of her stuffed toys, so I started on that last night. Then Violet asked me to make her a crocheted square; she chose one from a few pictures of granny squares I've saved on my computer, and I started work on that this morning. These should both be quick projects.

susandennis

Will today be a $300 vet visit (scan and checkup and ALL CLEAR!!) or a $2,500 (scan and surgery) vet visit? Arugh. But the second hardest part is getting the gabapentin into Biggie and that has been done. Not easy. He takes 3 pills a day and I can pretty much get those into him without issue but the gabapentin is in a capsule and it just does not want to go in. But, it's now done and I still have all my fingers so that's a win?

He's currently passed out in the closet where I hope he stays because if he gets into one of his beds under my bed, it will be a bitch to get him out and into the carrier. It's 8:30 now and his appointment is 10:15.

I had a lovely swim this morning. I listen to music while I swim and most of my music is pre-concert stuff that was played on the radio so the songs are all about 3 minutes long. I do about 100 yards in 3 minutes (it's actually a little under that but hey, I'm rounding). So 100 yards per song. It's a nice way to count. FYI Katy Ledecki does more than 100 yards in 1 minute but I don't think she listens to music. hahahahaha

One of the guys I play volleyball with is Wally. Wally just turned 90. He'd be skiing again this winter if we had any fucking snow. He's a rather spry 90. Anyway, last weekend, his two great grandsons were here and they played in the pool and banged the volleyball around. He said they had a great time. I've been thinking about that. The kids are 13 and 15. Imagine two young boys being forced to visit really old people in a 'home' but, yet, getting to play with their great grandfather in the pool. What fabulous memories they will have.

And on the other end of the scale... when someone dies here they put out their photo with their birth and death dates. I always check their birth year to make sure they were way older than me. I was born in the 40's and usually it's 20's or 30's so whew. BUT this week some dude died who was only 4 years older than me. That's crossing a line there.

Guess I'll go do some chores til vet time.

gingeriana

-- Вы украли у меня полтора доллара! Это скам! Ворюги, преступники, мошенники! Я буду писать в налоговую, ВВВ, федералам! У меня сосед адвокат, очень профессиональный, чтоб вы понимали

-- К сожалению, вы не залогинены, я не вижу, кто вы. Скажите, пожалуйста, своё полное имя и имейл.

-- Имя? Имейл? Ага, щаз! Это мои личные данные, которые вы не можете спрашивать. Думаете я совсем дурачок и не знаю??

-- Без этих данных я не смогу найти вас в нашей...

-- Не дурите мне голову! Просто верните полтора доллара на вот эту карту!

И скидывает мне фото карты. С ОБЕИХ СТОРОН.

Чувак. Чуваааак. А хочешь, я с первого раза угадаю, за кого ты голосовал на последних выборах?

П.С. : Кому-нибудь надо что-нибудь купить в Интернете? ;)

loganberrybunny

Public

I don't currently have the bandwidth to deal with the stuff going on in UK politics right now, so instead I'll tell you something really boring. I was at Merry Hill (a shopping centre) today and my phone notified me that I could have a bottle of Coke Zero for a quid at Costa. So I went to the branch I usually use there (on top of Next) and it looked fine. Then I saw the sign saying "Our card machine is not working; our staff will be pleased to direct you to the nearest ATM." Irritatingly, I didn't have a pound coin – this is rare for me, since I almost always have a bit of cash on me as several shops in Bewdley are cash only.

So I plodded off to another branch of Costa at the other end of the shopping centre. No problem in getting my Coke this time, and everything went okay. A table of pensioners nearby who seemed to think everyone within ten miles needed to hear their conversation, but nothing worse than that. (These people didn't have terrible hearing, as they could talk quietly when they wanted. They just didn't want.) Anyway, I sat around for half an hour and drank my drink, and then I carried on with the other stuff I'd gone to Merry Hill to do. And if you've read all this stuff, you probably deserve some kind of medal! ;)

Current Mood: tired

asakiyume

I'll post about things other than reading one day, but [movie!Aragorn voice] today is not that day.

I finished Elizabeth Acevedo's Family Lore, which I continued to love right to the end. The characters were so complete and multifaceted, and I liked them all. The places--rural Dominican Republic, capital of Dominican Republic, New York City, felt real and three dimensional. And Acevedo's way of observing things, whether it's the way two birds leave a tree branch or a person rubbing the indentations glasses make on each side of their nose--wonderful. And there are moments like this:

"I know it's too soon, but I love you. I have for a long time." And the silence in her body that followed was the most peace she'd ever known. There was no disclaimer on his declaration. And in the years since, she might have heard a fib or two in his voice about nonsense, but the truth of his love always cut through with clarity.

And I just started Gary Paulsen's The Cookcamp, drawn by

osprey_archer's write-up. During World War II, a five-year-old boy goes to live with his grandmother, who's a cook for a workcamp of men building a road from Minnesota to Canada. Truly beautiful writing here, too:

[The men] sat roughly to the tables, all of them big as houses, the boy thought. They sat to the tables and his grandmother brought heaping platters of pancakes and motioned to the boy to bring the big bowls of biscuits, which he did. Then she brought the huge enamel pot of coffee from the stove and sure enough each man turned his cup over--his hands so big the cup looked like a baby cup--and blew in it and held it up for coffee ... They made [the boy] think of big, polite bears.

Really nice, and as Osprey Archer promised, it's going to be a very quick read.

Current Music: Silversun Pickups: The Royal We

james_davis_nicoll

Aisha's unique senses could help the empire escape the ecological crisis the empire has inadvertently engineered. Too bad dynastic security requires her death.

The Girl from the West (Kokun, volume 1) by Nahoko Uehashi (Translated by Cathy Hirano)

eve_prime

Today I had lunch with my friend Z! Usually we meet when J is out of town, or when it’s warm enough to sit outside, but this time when J was out of town I had a cold, at first, so I didn’t invite her. Today we met up at the neighborhood bar, which used to have better food, but it was still okay. We talked for more than two hours.

I was tired after that, so before resuming work I watched the first half of a Hallmark movie called Missing the Boat. The two have missed their connection with a cruise ship in Sicily and have to get back ASAP for career reasons. The male lead is one of my favorite Hallmark actors, so I thought it would be fun, but so far the two of them are mostly just stressed and yelling, and they aren’t showing all that much of Sicily either. Not much of a romance, at least not yet!

shirebound

Happy Birthday,

ancalime8301 and

frolijahfan! I hope this is a lovely day for both of you.

mific

The usual sample of some of my seasonal cards. Hopefully they've all arrived by now, or will very soon. This year I decided to paint people freehand (which means they're all a bit wonky) and then name them after less well known minor deities - it's called the Small Gods series. I had fun, anyway - it's always good to get back into watercolours again (although I use them more like gouache), after mostly working in Procreate the rest of the year. Embellished with metallic paint in various colours, gold, and silver, for a festive touch. Hopefully you can see the sheen a little in the way I've photographed them.


God of Circuses	God of Ink	God of Extroverts

God of Dramatic Entrances	God of Jump Scares	God of Drizzle

God of Sweaters	God of Naps	God of Woad

God of Flirts	God of Sparrows	God of Nostalgia

soemand

My wife should get her wish until about February 15, when the weather finally turns milder and whatever snow we have left for XC skiing starts to disappear. As for me, I’m perfectly happy indoors right now, sketching out my tape‑deck setup and getting ready to dive back into making mixtapes. Winter priorities, right?

I do need to shift gears soon, though, because boat‑maintenance season is creeping up on me. There’s a whole list of little fixes and tune‑ups waiting, and if I don’t get ahead of it now, spring will arrive with a vengeance and I’ll be scrambling to catch up.

ranunculus

I now have five dozen cells happily growing seeds. Some of those cells just have a couple of peas in them, but others are more densely planted. Very soon some of that stuff is going to have to be pricked out and moved to the greenhouse. ( Read more... )

merriamwebster_feed

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/diaphanous-2026-02-04

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 4, 2026 is:

diaphanous • \dye-AF-uh-nus\ • adjective

Diaphanous is a formal word used to describe fabric of a texture so fine that one can see through it. Diaphanous is also sometimes used figuratively to describe something characterized by extreme delicacy of form.

// The bride looked radiant in her floor-length gown and diaphanous veil.

See the entry >

Examples:

"With a bright pattern set on flaming crimson and a diaphanous petticoat underneath, the dress fits her perfectly." — David Wingrave, Harpers Magazine, 24 Oct. 2025

Did you know?

What do the words diaphanous, epiphany, fancy, phenomenon, sycophant, emphasis, and phase all have in common? The Greek word phaínein shows more clearly in some of these words than in others, but it underlies all of them. The groundwork for diaphanous was laid when phaínein (meaning "to bring to light, cause to appear") was combined with the prefix dia- (meaning "through"). From that pairing came the Greek diaphanḗs ("transparent"), parent of the Medieval Latin diaphanus, which is the direct ancestor of the English word.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/diaphanous-2026-02-04

calimac

John Scalzi found himself in the Epstein files. (It was a reference to his "Lowest Difficulty Setting" essay in an article included there.)

It occurred to me to look up Tolkien, because I'm historically beholden to look up Tolkien in everything. And besides a couple of references in clippings included there, he's quoted in an e-mail sent to "undisclosed recipients" by someone named Will Ford. I don't know who that is; probably not William Clay Ford Jr. of the eponymous motor company, as according to Wikipedia he's called Bill, not Will.

Anyway, it's from a daily "tidbits & quotes" e-mail, and among the entries is: "The road goes ever on and on..." - J.R.R. Tolkien. Probably one of his better-known lines (the poem it comes from has been set to music an amazing number of times), but what it means in this context I can't say.

dandylover1

Hello, Dear Readers. I have no music today, and sadly no Sullivan without Gilbert yet (that will be tomorrow), but I do have some huge family news of a good kind. After what seemed like a million phone calls and enough paperwork to build a house with, my parents have gained custody of A and D! This is not adoption or foster, but it is permanent custody. It was actually quite funny how it happened. Mom received a call from her lawyer, saying that she, Joanie, and the boys were required for a virtual meeting with the judge at three thirty. This was at about ten after three, so they had very little time to prepare, but they made it. Then, they literally had to sit through two court cases. I didnt even know such a thing was allowed, but I guess theyre public, so anyone can listen in. Lets just say that one of the people acted completely out of line, and fortunately, her husband, who was extremely respectful and calm, received custody of their children. Anyway, it was almost four thirty by the time our family was called, and their case took ten minutes if that! It was probably because they had all the correct paperwork. The judge just wanted to confirm that they were qualified, etc. But now, this is all behind us and we can get on with our lives!

In my own news, I'm having trouble with my birth control prescription again. Last month, they said insurance wouldn't pay for it until February. This made sense, since I am not taking the fake pills and was three weeks early by regular standards. My doctor is fully aware of this. We asked if we could pay out of pocket, and they said yes. Then, they called back and said that our local store wasnt in stock, so my parents had to go to three other stores. Finally, they gave Mom the box. But when they brought it home and took it out of the bag, it was the rings! I havent been on that since October, and it wasn't even my doctor who prescribed that but the pharmacist at Walmart! This was Walgreens! So they had to go back, return the ring, and get the pills, which, it turns out, I was reembursed for. They gave me Apri, not Isibloom, but that was totally fine, as they are the same and are interchangeable. This was just enough for three weeks, until my full three-month supply would be ready in February. Now, I'm on my final week of pills, and they're saying that the prescription couldn't be refilled because the doctor cancelled it! I know as a fact that she didn't. She wouldn't without telling me and I certainly never called to change anything, since this is working very well for me. Tomorrow, I must call them, yet again, and fix this, so that I can have a new batch of pills for this coming Sunday! All this over birth control!

On a much happier note, I love my new arrangement, at least as far as the warmth. I've been asking Alexa (via my Echo Dot) what the temperature in the bedroom (downstairs) is and she has been saying fifty six degrees! Needless to say, I am very glad to be up here. Plus, if I get up early enough, I can have breakfast with my parents! Most things, as they say, have a silver lining.

Today, I found a fascinating page that I must add to my list of links about fashion. It is actually about clothing through the centuries and features, among other things, Beauty in the Bronze Age Minoan & Mycenaean Fashion, Ancient Greek Clothing, The Roman Toga, Clothes in Medieval England, Clothes in the Elizabethan Era, and Clothing in the Victorian Era. This is going to be very interesting, indeed, though they very clearly left several eras out.

Clothing Through History

https://www.worldhistory.org/collection/317/clothing-through-history/

Now, it's off to bed. Maybe, I'll sneak in an aria or two by Schipa or Tagliavini. One or the other is usually great for relaxing if I'm not listening to something classical by Haydn.

simplyn2deep posting in

1word1day

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

CAPTCHA (noun)
CAPTCHA Or captcha [kap-chuh]

noun, Digital Technology.
1. an online test designed so that humans but not computers are able to pass it, used as a security measure and usually involving a visual-perception task: Site visitors must solve the “distorted text” CAPTCHA before posting comments.

2. a computer program that generates such tests.

Origin: First recorded in 2000–05; C(ompletely) A(utomated) P(ublic) T(uring) (Test to Tell) C(omputers and) H(umans) A(part); inspired by capture ( def. )

Example Sentences
OpenAI’s safety tests for ChatGPT-4 revealed that AI has already developed the ability to scam human users into helping them pass Captcha tests.
From MarketWatch

That’s great, and I want that, but sometimes I want entertainment, style and originality too, and all of those things exist in this exciting, economical tale of a woman who can’t get past a CAPTCHA.
From Salon

In the short term, Tools for Humanity plans to generate revenue by offering its iris-based system as an alternative to security technologies like CAPTCHA, the photographic test that is used to sort humans from spam accounts.
From New York Times

The testers found that the system could potentially hire a human to defeat an online Captcha test, lying that it was a person with a visual impairment.
From New York Times

Researchers recently showed that one system was able to hire a human online to defeat a Captcha test.
From New York Times

james_davis_nicoll

I just got email from Fig's owner that Fig (who I owned from 2012 to 2017) passed away this evening. Cause unknown. My impression is Fig just didn't wake up.