catten yarn has entered the chat
Sep. 1st, 2025 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Still fussing with the settings on the wheel (especially how aggressive I want takeup). Cloud seems to think the e-spinner is purring.
Another SF RPG Bundle - Fragged Empire 2E
Sep. 1st, 2025 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Fragged2E

Briefly, Humanity has gone extinct 15,000 years in the future, and the heirs - eight bio-engineered species - have to pick up the pieces and "rebuild the galaxy".
While this edition is new, a January 2023 bundle offered the first edition and some other games as alternatives to D&D. The current version seems to be a playable system and is well presented - there are a few instances of the "men in heavy armour / women in tight revealing clothing" school of art, but it's not as ridiculous as some other examples I've seen. It's reasonably priced and I think it's worth a look if you like SF RPGs.
Wish World/The Reality War
Sep. 1st, 2025 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
( Are we still doing spoilers? )
Bundle of Holding: Fragged Empire 2E
Sep. 1st, 2025 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

The 2024 revised edition of Fragged Empire: fifteen thousand years in the future, humanity has gone extinct, but eight engineered species rule the wonders that remain.
Bundle of Holding: Fragged Empire 2E
Interesting Links for 01-09-2025
Sep. 1st, 2025 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
- 1. Big Tech Companies in the US Have Been Told Not to Apply the EU's Digital Services Act
- (tags:Europe USA socialnetworking regulation )
- 2. How far away is quantum computing from affecting current cryptography?
- (tags:cryptography quantum )
- 3. Why haven't quantum computers factored 21 yet?
- (tags:quantum mathematics )
- 4. What do AI fashion models mean for the future of beauty standards
- (tags:ai fashion beauty )
- 5. Why Labour Looking Into Changing The ECHR Matters
- (tags:Labour rights OhForFucksSake )
- 6. Who will win the Eternal Struggle?
- (tags:war funny )
- 7. The Qweremin (a qwerty theremin)
- (tags:music technology )
Code deploy happening shortly
Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png)
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Per the 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.
Clarke Award Finalists 2012
Aug. 31st, 2025 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
2012: O2 offers free wifi to multitudes, which I only now realize may be have been referenced in Kingsman, researchers determine that despite a century having passed, the Titanic remains at the bottom of the Atlantic, and in a glorious celebration of the effectiveness of the modern British educational system, doctors warn Britons not to drink liquid nitrogen.
Which 2012 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
0 (0.0%)
Embassytown by China MiƩville
21 (47.7%)
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
6 (13.6%)
Rule 34 by Charles Stross
32 (72.7%)
The Postmortal by Drew Magary
1 (2.3%)
The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper
6 (13.6%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2012 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
Embassytown by China MiƩville
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
Rule 34 by Charles Stross
The Postmortal by Drew Magary
The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper
Life with two kids: A matter of probability
Aug. 31st, 2025 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Except...that a few months ago we used the app Chwazi, where everyone puts their finger on the screen and then it picks someone (to be first player in a game, for instance). And Gideon loved it. So last weekend when I asked who should get out of the bath first he said "We'll play the finger game." - and I asked him if he'd be sad if he didn't win, and he said no, and then he and Sophia played it, and he lost, and I had to wash the hair of a sobbing child, who kept saying "I thought I would win!"
So this weekend, I asked him who was getting out of the bath first, and he said "Finger game!" and I said "Do you remember how sad you were?" and he said "Very sad!" and I said "So you should just choose." and he said "I have a plan, this time the person who loses will go first." And, of course, he won. And so, again, I had to wash the hair of a crying child who thought he'd found a way to beat probability.
All of which is to say that if you want to beat people at games of chance then I recommend 5-year-olds, who are both terrible at understanding it, and completely fail to learn from that.
Mississippi site block, plus a small restriction on Tennessee new accounts
Aug. 31st, 2025 12:28 pm![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png)
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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.
August 2025 in Review
Aug. 31st, 2025 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

I didn't win any awards in August but I did review 22 more works. James Nicoll Reviews is now 34 reviews away from its 3000th review.
August 2025 in Review
Always the Black Knight by Lee Hoffman
Aug. 31st, 2025 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Marooned on a backwater planet, a down-on-his-luck actor sets out to transform his new home. Will he survive success?
Always the Black Knight by Lee Hoffman
fiber redux
Aug. 30th, 2025 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Y'all. I'd missed an earlier message (thanks, FaceBook!) but I managed not to pick out sheep fleece (breed unknown). Due to the holiday weekend, this wasn't an in-person transaction, although I hope to return in a bitand be able to talk to the farmer in person!
...I am sitting on a few pounds each of alpaca (definitely huacaya, not sure if one is suri) and angora goat fiber a.k.a. MOHAIR. Mind you, I would have been very happy to work with raw WOOL.
Well, I'll be picking through vegetable matter and sorting this VERY SLOWLY for the rest of 2025 lol. :) I do own hand carders but I think I save my pennies for a drum carder for the holidays...