vivdunstan

Myanmar’s massive quake hints at bigger earthquakes to come

The massive 2025 Myanmar earthquake revealed that strike slip faults can behave in surprising ways. Using satellite data, Caltech researchers found the Sagaing Fault ruptured more dramatically than expected, suggesting faults like the San Andreas could unleash even larger quakes than history shows.

Never assume that the worst thing you know about is the worst thing that can happen.

Current Mood: busy

jesuswasbatman

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

kaberett

( tada )

cosmolinguist

Counseling after work today was about how I'm doing well in some ways -- I said I'm finally getting that much-needed holiday, we'll be away for nine days; she asked me how long it's been since I had that long a vacation; I said I didn't know if I ever had. (Turns out I probably have, but the fact that I legitimately couldn't think of any of those occasions is indicative (and that's partly because they're trips back to Minnesota and visiting family isn't really time off).)

So I talked about how fortunate I feel that I have the stability to do that: this is the first time I've had the money and the ability to have time off; before I either had time or money but never both at the same time.

But I also talked about how badly I spiraled on Saturday when some gloomy news about the Twins of all things. (tl;dr: billionaires ruin everything. The hope that things would improve when the team sold to different billionaires has been snatched away; the current ones are keeping the team and it's very clear they're going to starve it of funds -- bad teams make more money than good teams and this family believes they need money right now. They don't share the view that beat writers and podcasters and fans of the team have which is that a sportsball team is a civic institution; for them it's just a way to make money. Like Gleeman started his article the other day, "It's hope that hurts the most." Or as I learned it from English pals: "I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.") I was like I don't have a dog any more, awful things are happening in the country I'm from, I couldn't go back for my grandma's funeral or my family, work has been so stressful all year, in sky even manage to organize a hookup...and now I can't even have baseball as a little fun escapist thing??

So am I doing pretty good or pretty bad?? I feel bad about feeling bad, being aware that my bad-feelings are floating on a sea of basic-okayness and worrying that I'm being insufficiently grateful for it. But my counselor said that it's not like one is true and one is false; both can be valid.

I guess it's part of leveling up Maslow's hierarchy: once you get the basic shit sorted out you do start caring more about that higher-level shit. I didn't expect that to happen automatically; indeed against my will but it seems to have. I don't want to lose track of the fulfilment I do have. But also basic stuff isn't taking up all my time/mental capacity any more so I have to figure out what else to do with my adult life.

moon_custafer

After a week and one day, which isn’t quite my all-time record. As usual, the explanation is “we feel you wouldn’t be a good fit.” I wish I could understand exactly what I did wrong—talk too much? Not enough? Look nervous? Look unserious? I feel like I go through life with a neon sign hovering above my head that says NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE and no clue how to turn it off.

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3130/

I dropped my phone while trying to search, and I tried to unlock it from up here, so can you also search for screen repair places?

https://xkcd.com/3130/

ysabetwordsmith

Today is mostly sunny and sweltering.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few house finches and sparrows.

EDIT 8/18/25 -- I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 8/18/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen a hummingbird in the forest garden. I couldn't tell more detail than that, but presumably it is a rubythroat as that is the only kind typically found in Illinois. It may have been attracted to the water, or the robust colony of red salvia blooming in the barrel garden.

EDIT 8/18/25 -- I did a more work around the patio.

EDIT 8/18/25 -- I potted up 24 sweet cherry seeds.

EDIT 8/18/25 -- I watered the old picnic table and the patio plants.

EDIT 8/18/25 -- I watered the new picnic table garden.

As it is now dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

rachelmanija

13-year-old Hannah, who lives on a tiny island off Seattle, is excited for her first babysitting job. Then a giant earthquake hits, cutting the island off from the mainland... and leaving Hannah alone in charge of two kids in a devastated landscape.

Hannah is not having a good day. She was recently diagnosed with asthma, forcing her to drop out of soccer and always carry an inhaler. Her best friend Neha, a soccer star, is now hanging out more with another soccer girl than with Hannah. Hannah forgets to bring her inhaler with her to school, and her mom doesn't turn around the car to get it as Hannah is desperate not to be late. When she arrives for her babysitting job after school, minus her inhaler (no doubt looming ominously on the mantelpiece at home, along with Chekhov's gun), she gets in a huge fight with Neha over text and the girls say they no longer want to be friends...

...just as a giant earthquake hits! Hannah gets her charges, Zoe and Oscar, to huddle under a table (along with their guinea pig) and no one is injured. But the windows break, the house is trashed, and the power, internet, and phones go out. The house is somewhat remote, an all-day walk from the next house. What to do?

Hannah is a pretty realistic 13-year-old. She's generally sensible, but makes some mistakes which are understandable under the circumstances, but have huge repercussions. She enlists the kids to help her search for her phone in the wreckage of the house, and Zoe immediately is severely cut on broken glass. The kids freak out because their mom (along with Hannah's) is on the mainland, and Hannah calms them down by lying that she got a text from their mom saying that she's fine and is coming soon. The next morning, she lets Oscar play on some home playground equipment. Hannah checks the surrounding area, but doesn't check the equipment itself. It's damaged and breaks, and Oscar breaks his leg. So by day one, Hannah is having asthma attacks without her inhaler, Zoe has one arm out of commission, Oscar is totally immobilized, and there's no adults within reach.

Well - this is a HUGE improvement on Trapped. It's well-written and gripping, the events all make sense, and the characterization is fine. It was clearly intended to teach kids what can happen during a big earthquake and how to stay as safe as possible, and the information presented on that is all good.

But - you knew there was a but - as an enjoyable work of children's disaster/survival literature, it falls short of the standards of the old classic Hatchet and the excellent newer series I Survived.

The basic problem with this book is that it has a very narrow emotional range. For the entire book, Hannah is miserable, guilty over her friend breakup and the kids getting hurt, worried about her parents, and desperately trying to keep it together. The kids get hurt so seriously so early on that they never have any fun. Even when Hannah tries to feed them S'Mores to cheer them up, nobody actually likes them because they're not melted!

The I Survived books have much more variety of emotional states and incidents, as typically the actual disaster doesn't happen until at least one-third of the way into the book. The kids have highs and lows, fun moments and despairing moments and terrifying moments. This book is all gloom all the time even before the disaster! Hannah eventually saves everyone, is hailed as a hero, and repairs her friendship, but we don't get that from her inner POV - it's in a transcript of a TV interview with her.

The information provided in the book is very solid, but I would have preferred that it didn't have BOTH kids get injured because of something Hannah does wrong. (That is not realistic! ONE, maybe.) It also would have been a lot more fun to read if the kids' injuries were either less serious or occurred later. The situation is desperate and miserable almost immediately, and just stays that way for the entire book.

Still, there's a lot about the book that's good and there should be an entertaining book that provides earthquake knowledge, so I'm keeping it. But I'm not getting her other book about two girls lost in the woods.

ysabetwordsmith

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Writing
Read "For the Many" by Beepbird
How to not build the Torment Nexus
Affordable Housing
Moment of Silence: Terence Stamp
Climate Change
Birdfeeding
Robotics
Genetics
Birdfeeding
Crafts
Climate Change
Creative Jam
Philosophical Questions: Diversity
Today's Adventures
Early Humans
Birdfeeding
Follow Friday 8-15-25: Indie
Affordable Housing
Celebrate Love Your Bookshop Day
Birdfeeding
Vocabulary: Unintended Sidequences
Conservation
Birdfeeding
Poem: "To Allow in More Light"
Hard Things

Affordable Housing has 26 comments. Robotics has 46 comments. Food has 34 comments. "Philosophical Questions: Looks" has 49 comments. "Incompetence, Sloppy Thinking, and Laziness" has 75 comments.

summerofthe69 is open! You can see the calendar here and the current themes are Kinky 69 and Tropefest 69.

There are no open epics at present.

The weather is still sweltering here. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a mourning dove, a male cardinal, a fox squirrel, a skunk, and a bat. Currently blooming: dandelions, pansies, violas, marigolds, petunias, red salvia, 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. Tomatoes, cucumbers, ball carrots, and groundcherries are ripe.

Current Mood: busy

skygiants

Obviously this is officially old news now but of the novels on the Hugo ballot [that I read], the one I personally would have best like to see win is Adrian Tchaikovsky's Alien Clay -- in contrast to The Tainted Cup, which felt to me like a novel of craft but not ideas, Alien Clay felt like a book where the science fiction worldbuilding on display was really skillfully and inventively married to the broader themes and ideas that Tchaikovsky wanted to explore in the book.

Alien Clay is a science fiction gulag novel; the protagonist, Anton Daghdev, is a dissident academic who's been life-sentenced to work on one of the few planets reachable by humans so far discovered to harbor alien life -- and, as Daghdev learns when he arrives, even possible evidence of ancient alien civilizations, though none of the planet's present inhabitants seem particularly sentient.

Pros:
- Daghdev has devoted his life to the alien studies and now he has the opportunity to do the most compelling, cutting-edge work in the field!
- also, unlike the other two options, Kiln's atmosphere will not immediately kill a human experiencing it without protective gear

Cons:
- it's a gulag
- with a correspondingly high fatality field fatality rate
- many of the other people in the gulag, arrested before Daghdev, are suspicious that he might have been the one that sold them out to the regime
- although Kiln's atmosphere will not IMMEDIATELY kill a human without protective gear, Kiln's weird, vibrant and enthusiastic ecosystem is extremely eager to find a foothold inside human biology, and what happens to the human body after it becomes exposed to Kiln's various [diseases? symbionts? parasites? TBD] seems Extremely Unpleasant
- and -- perhaps worst of all -- a major cornerstone of the regime's philosophy is the notion that humanity is the highest form of life in the universe, and all alien life will, eventually, by divine destiny, tend inevitably towards a bipedal humanoid form, which means that all the compelling, cutting-edge scientific research that's being performed on Kiln will inevitably be warped and transformed into a shape that suits the regime before anyone else can ever see it

Through the course of the book, Daghdev's attempts to figure out what's going on with the Kiln aliens and their hypothetical and hypothetically-vanished Civilization-Building Precursors on a planet that seems antithetical to human life intertwines with his attempt to survive and find solidarity in a penal colony that seems, well, antithetical to human life. I think readers will probably vary on how relatively depressing they find this experience.

rachelmanija thought it was pretty bleak; meanwhile,

genarti was impressed by how fun it was to read, All Things Considered. I'm more of

genarti's mind on this one -- for me, Daghdev's own profound intellectual fascination with the world of Kiln counterbalanced the grimness of the gulag and gave even the most depressing parts of the book a needed spark -- but I do think it really depends on personal taste and calibration. Either way, the whole thing ends in a one-two punch of a solution that I found really satisfying on both a speculative-biological and thematic level.

oursin

The Benson Diary by AC Benson review – musings of an Edwardian elitist:

His outlook is that of an Edwardian clubman; and indeed, the only England Benson knew well, apart from Eton, Cambridge and the court at Windsor Castle, was the smoke-filled rooms of Pall Mall, a world largely without women. Benson did not much like women and was not at ease with them, preferring the company of handsome young men. The editors go to great pains to argue that Benson, while certainly homoerotic, was not actively homosexual. But, really, who cares?
....
In truth, these diaries are a monument of misplaced scholarship.

Okay, I am jumping up and down going BURN! because one of the editors is someone who wrote a ghastly retro piece of work within my own Field of Endeavour which I had occasion to review back in the day.

(The Literary Review was kinder)

But also, while I guess Bensons are a minor fandom of mine, the diaries I would be interested in reading are those of Minnie (Sapphic romps at Lambeth Palace!) and of naughty Fred, EF Benson, author of the camp classics about Mapp and Lucia and the Edwardian bromance David Blaize. Though once attended conference paper claiming that the M&L novels were essentially romans a clef about his circle, so maybe he didn't need to write a bitchy diary as well.

I think we already had as much of AC as anyone would wish to know in that Goldhill volume on the family, which had a bit too much AC for my taste to begin with.

malada

When President Zelensky (and half of Europe) meet with tRump this week I have a suggestion for them: flatter him a little with a proposal - Trump Tower Kyiv. Hand the assignment off to some grad students and whip some quick 3-D renders and a few posters, that shouldn't take much time at all. Promise him luxury suites, fine dining his name in big gold (plated) letters big enough that they can be seen from Moscow. You could start construction now digging the foundation (he doesn't have to know it's for emergency bomb shelter).

It's all BS of course but it will stroke his ego. Give him a little personal skin in the game. If he likes it and starts siding with Ukraine you can stall the completion by complaining about Russian bombing. Bombing *his* big beautiful building. If he turns it down, no loss.

Just don't mention Epstein files. That's our job.

Current Mood: cynical

scifirenegade

Between Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast and Demy's Donkey Skin, I think the French are pretty good at adapting fairy tales. Both are gorgeous, but have very different energies, yet they both work and embrace the fairytale logic in a way that, say, current-Disney would never.

The Beast was the king in Donkey Skin, which I thought was amusing. And "Catarina da Nova" and the guy who played Maxence in Demoiselles de Rochefort were there too. Crossover when?

Loved the 2009 Emma miniseries. Rewatched Wings. The new Bridget Jones was better than I expected.

Current Mood: trying not to panic lol

ysabetwordsmith

china_shop has posted "Writing meta: What Middles Are For." It's an excellent essay about story structure.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

beepbird has written "For the Many," a book about plurality / multiplicity. It is available at this post with links to download PDF or EPUB formats.

I know I have a bunch of plural people in my audience, and I write about some plural characters such as Damask in Polychrome Heroics or Bruce-and-Hulk in Love Is For Children (The Avengers), so I'm always watching for good resources on this topic. Go read the book. It is very clearly written and includes many practical descriptions of how to achieve healthy multiplicity. Many of the suggestions are good people skills for living in other communal contexts too. It's good to read if you have plural friends, so you don't hurt them, because society affords them little or no protection. If you want to know how to do something, listen to someone who's been doing it a while -- not an "expert" who has never done it.

Current Mood: impressed

ysabetwordsmith

How to not build the Torment Nexus

This week’s question comes to us from Will Hopkins:
When your job and healthcare depends on building the Torment Nexus, but you actually learned the lesson from the popular book Don't Build the Torment Nexus, how do you keep your soul intact and try to put less torment into the world?

I would add: when your survival requires a job, and most jobs involve building some form of Torment Nexus, be aware that your society is in the toilet, circling the drain. And it's not an accident for people to feel outright trapped in truly heinous jobs. That's what homeless people are for: so the boss can say, "Quit dragging your feet and build the goddamn Torment Nexus! Or do you want to be homeless?"

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Small Changes With Big Impacts in Dallas

On April 23, the Dallas City Council did something worth paying attention to.
They voted unanimously to approve a change to the city’s building code that allows up to eight dwelling units in three-story buildings under a modified version of the International Residential Code (IRC).

Multiplexes and small apartment buildings belong to the "missing middle" of affordable housing. They mix well with freestanding homes, particularly if you put them on the larger corner lots of a block. Imagine a block of mostly 2-3 bedroom houses with the corners holding a couple of small apartment buildings or multiplexes and a couple of bigger 4+ bedroom houses that could be for large families, sharehouses, boarding houses, etc. And some of those single-family homes could also have a garage apartment or a home business on the porch or garage. Such blocks exist in many of the towns near me, and they are awesome.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Famous actor Terence Stamp has passed away. He was best known for his role in two Superman movies ("Kneel before Zod!") but performed in many other roles as well.

Carry on the Work:

Acting -- how to articles from wikiHow

The Creative Writer's Ultimate Guide to Science Fantasy

How to Study Voice Acting: A Step-by-Step Guide

Current Mood: pensive

ysabetwordsmith

Unprecedented climate shocks are changing the Great Lakes forever

Heat waves and cold spells are now more common on the Great Lakes, according to U-M research, with implications for the region's weather, economy and ecology.
Extreme heat waves and cold spells on the Great Lakes have more than doubled since the late 1990s, coinciding with a major El Niño event. Using advanced ocean-style modeling adapted for the lakes, researchers traced temperature trends back to 1940, revealing alarming potential impacts on billion-dollar fishing industries, fragile ecosystems, and drinking water quality.

Current Mood: busy

aurumcalendula

Joe Baby is now on Amazon. It's not a particularly good movie imho, but I liked Dichen Lachman in it and would love to see a followup of some sort with her in the same role.

Joe Baby kinda reminds me of Dex Parios and I'm kinda delighted that, going by the Goodreads blurb of the title in question, someone took a book with a male main character and decided to adapt so said character's a queer woman (going by the preview of the first four chapters, Heather Stanton in the movie is Cornell Stanton in the book, so it's possible the main character's also queer in the book but I don't feel like buying the ebook to find out).

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Page generated Aug. 19th, 2025 04:42 am

Network

Earthquakes

Strange New Worlds 3:5-6

tada for the week

How am I doing, anyway?

aaand I’ve been let go

Predicament

Birdfeeding

The Disaster Days, by Rebecca Behrens

Monday Update 8-18-25

(no subject)

For people who like this sort of thing, this is what they like?

A small suggestion for Zelensky

Flims and Sries

Writing

Read "For the Many" by Beepbird

How to not build the Torment Nexus

Affordable Housing

Moment of Silence: Terence Stamp

Climate Change

(no subject)

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August 2025

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