shadowkat: (Default)
shadowkat ([personal profile] shadowkat) wrote2025-06-07 08:40 pm

A swiftly turning planet..with people struggling to communicate

CNN Aired An Exclusive Live Broadcast of the Broadway Play: Good Night and Good Luck - adapted for the stage from the film of the same name. The reason they aired it is made clear upon the airing - at the very end, Edward R Murrow, the CBS News See it Now broadcaster who famously took on McCarthy, during the Black List and McCarthy Hearings, stands front and center in front of a screen displaying multiple screens of the news. He states in a halting speech, enunciating each word, with a slight tremor to his voice, "we've seen what happens when power goes unchecked, that's not the question before us now, the question is - what will you do about it?"

I was thinking as I was watching it live on MAX (I no longer have access to CNN), that evil is like a spider, sitting in the dark corner of the room, smoking a cigar, wih a red top hat and tails smirking. And asking in a whisper of a voice, low and barely audible, "what do you want?" And indicating with a smile - "come into my parlor my dear and I shall give it to you, with a price of course".

It's insidious, and shadows egos. Self-importance. Self-righteousness. Power. Fame. Fortune. Wealth. Beware the righteous, and the self-important, and most of all the arrogant and narcissistic hunting awards and acknowledgment and power.

I don't know what I personally can do to check the power or stop it. I've been pondering it. I can write, I can post, I can draw, I can paint, I can do my job at a public agency. And I can hope people listen.

People aren't very good at listening? Have you noticed that? Too busy thinking about themselves or what they are going to say next or how they'll respond. Too filled up with thoughts to hear...ones that lie outside of their own minds and brains. I tell people a story and they tell me their own back again, and mine....slides off unheard, lost somehow within theirs? The meaning gone. And they tell me theirs and I tell them my own, and it happens all over again from the other side - with their story being lost.

I did social group therapy once - and we were for the most part forced to listen, but everyone tended to flounder at it. Either they'd ask pointed questions, correct the person's choice of words or syntax or speech (which isn't listening by the way - it's judging, and helps no one), interrupt, direct the conversation to themselves, provide advice, try to fix whatever it was, dismiss it as already solved or playing the victim, but seldom did they listen.

And once on a fan discussion board - we fell into a discussion about writing carefully, and I thought - no that's not the problem here or not that alone, we also need to learn how to read carefully. And people don't? Too busy reading quickly, flying through or past the text, to see it clearly let alone truly comprehend it? Now, for example, raise your hand if you just skimmed this passage and oh so many others? Be honest? How many have you skimmed, jumping over words and phrases and reacting to a sentence here or a paragraph there - but not seeing the whole? I know I do. Try a little experiment, if you will? Read just one paragraph of a post, or the unhidden bit. Then take a moment, and read the rest later, has your opinion of it changed?

We live in an age of content overload, and we surf and read and look at so many things simultaneously. Texts fly by. Our memory of them fleeting or garbled. And more often than not - people just read blurbs. If I post something with information below a "cut tag" - how many will read what's below the tag, and just respond to the top of the post? Losing the point of it. Or respond to the post, without reading the comments below? We don't read carefully - and most mistakes are made because of it. They were on the discussion boards. 90% of the arguments online are the result of "miscommunication" or the inability to politely ask for clarification prior to snarking, judging or condemning.

I think the flaw in the human brain is a tendency to assume everyone thinks the same and perceives things the same? When no one does? And well...a failure to communicate as a result?

**

You'll have to excuse me, I'm exhausted. But the weather is shifting, and I'm hurting less all of a sudden - which means the arthritis isn't being pinged by the human weather vane.

I'm also frustrated with my fellow humans. And perhaps with myself and my own limitations. And a touch depressed, no more than a touch, as a result. But hey at least I don't hurt as much as last night. So maybe the back brace is helping?

It's a warm spring evening. The sky has cleared of clouds, and it's sliding towards dark, from twilight. Nine PM on the East Coast. But I can still see puffs of cloud moving slowly across the pale blue sky, lit from within by moonlight. Our swiftly turning planet in the vacuum of space, surrounded by stars and galaxies which far too many of us take for granted as we bumble upon it babbling and gurgling at one another as is our way.


flemmings: (Default)
flemmings ([personal profile] flemmings) wrote2025-06-07 08:45 pm
Entry tags:

(no subject)

I thought they might have cancelled Open Tuning because of the air quality, but no, they seem to have had fewer venues this year. And next door was mercifully not one of them, so hurray.

Ventured out in the early evening to the laundromat with socks and underwear, which I normally do at home, but maybe should wash in hot water once every year or so. Laundromat was blissfully empty save for a woman clearly doing a week's worth of family laundry. Alas, one reason it was empty may have been that the coin machine was out of change, and all I had was four toonies and 1.25 in the coins the machines do take. Inflation being as it is, they should make a washing machine that takes toonies, but that day is not yet. So I put my clothes back in their hamper, came home, and washed them in the basement as always. Shall hope the underwear on the basement lines doesn't mold, and shall stick the rest of it on the outside lines tomorrow.
alethia: (GK Doc)
Alethia ([personal profile] alethia) wrote2025-06-07 05:13 pm
Entry tags:

The Pitt Fic: Lay Claim (Abbot/Robby, NC-17)

For once posting at a reasonable hour!

Lay Claim (5022 words) by Alethia
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jack Abbot/Michael "Robby" Robinavitch
Characters: Jack Abbot (The Pitt), Michael "Robby" Robinavitch, Emery Walsh
Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Complicated Relationships, Possessive Behavior, Porn
Summary:

After Jack and Robby finally got serious, it came as a surprise.

When a patient's sister returned in the morning—bearing donuts and a smile that was half-chagrined, half-determined, her thank you note including a phone number—Jack was flattered. He was still charting, long past when he should have gone home, but he was glad he stayed. Not because of the phone number, though that was always a nice ego boost. But because of Robby. The way Robby's eyes went flinty when he realized why the woman was there. His smile tight. Shoulders tense. On the surface, perfectly polite. In reality, a storm.

Jack never expected Robby to be possessive.

eratoschild ([personal profile] eratoschild) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-06-07 05:45 pm

Trails of Cold Steel: Moon Door IV: Beyond

Fandom: Trails of Cold Steel
Pairings/Characters:
Laura S. Arseid/Duvalie, Ines/Ennea, Victor S. Arseid/McBurn
appearances by other assorted Cold Steel characters and hints of other ships Rating: M
Length: 22442 words
Creator Links: Rosie_Rues
Theme:
Grief/Mourning, Dreamsharing, Recovery, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, changing roles in life, loss of limb
Summary: With the Great Twilight over, Duvalie follows Laura home to Legram. She's not entirely sure why she's here, or when she's going to leave, but she can't bring herself to regret her choice.

Meanwhile, Victor's dreaming of the only man in the universe still willing to offer him a challenge...

Reccer's Notes: While I have read this fic several times, the most recent was some time ago, I always remember it as being roughly half of one ship and half of another- I note this here because one of those ships is M/M. In my rereading, I see the balance is more 2/3 to 1/3, with the bulk of it being the theme-compliant Laura/Duvalie, who begins as something of a lost and reluctant guest in Laura's home in the wake of the loss of the woman who saved her. The emotional metamorphosis of Duvalie's canonical hostility towards Laura- already very much blunted as the story opens, turn to friendship and later towards attraction is an absolute treasure. There are many smaller moments of many relationships of varying sorts between her and otter female characters throughout the story, some of which absolutely beg for stories of their own.

The M/M ships is Victor/McBurn, and they are a prominent part of the story- really a story occurring in parallel, but separately- until it suddenly isn't. While I don't want to dwell on them in this post as they are not germane to the theme, it bears mentioning that they are there in case they would turn anyone off from reading. But I will say that their development is quite astounding, a sword master who has lost an arm, a god who has lost his world and any connection to it and what they become to each other.

This fic deals with grief in many forms, over many different kinds of loss, from loss of friends, comrades in arms, loss of a limb, loss of connection to oneself and an entire world. It's all very sensitively written, and even the absolutely fantastical loss of a god from another dimension with his entire world somehow becomes much less fantastical than one might expect.

There are also themes of many different changes in life that come with time passing and with dealing with these griefs. Oh, and the very cracky-sounding, but utterly sincerely dealt with coping with the shock of learning that your father is banging the demon god from another dimension. (that needs to be a tag, ok)

This is just one of my favorite ever fics, by one of my favorite authors.
Fanwork Links: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45897169
Neatorama ([syndicated profile] neatorama_feed) wrote2025-06-07 03:57 pm

Pet Zebra Escapes, Wanders Suburbs in Tennessee

Posted by John Farrier

A week ago, a man in central Tennessee acquired a pet zebra from a zebra dealer in Texas (of course). It promptly escaped the next day. Zebras are hard to domesticate, so perhaps the zebra did not think of his new residence as a home.

The owners, Taylor and Laura Ford of the town of Christiana, call the zebra "Zeke." But the people of the internet, who have been following the week-long pursuit of the zebra, who is appropriately dressed in prison stripes, "Ed."

As of yesterday, Ed remains at large. But Rutherford County Sheriff's deputies are tracking it with a drone.

Neatorama ([syndicated profile] neatorama_feed) wrote2025-06-07 03:47 pm

Track Star Somersaults to Victory after Tripping

Posted by John Farrier

USA Today reports that Brooklyn Anderson, a junior student at a state-wide track and field competition in Oregon, stumbled at the end of a 100-meter hurdles race.

Even though she was in the lead, that fall probably would have ended her competitiveness in the race. But Anderson, relying on her background in gymnastics, turned the fall into a double somersault. Watch this video of her making the impossibly smooth rolls across the finish line.

Anderson was able to cross the finish line a split second before any of the other runners were, thus securing a first place finish and a time of 14.93 seconds.

-via ABC 7 News

Neatorama ([syndicated profile] neatorama_feed) wrote2025-06-07 03:32 pm

HMS Zubian--A "Frankenship" Built out of Halves of Two Damaged Ships

Posted by John Farrier

A 2020 article in the magazine Naval History describes "Frankenships" -- ships that, like Frankenstein's monster, are built from parts of other destroyed or damaged vessels.

HMS Nubian was a Tribal-class destroyer that was built in 1909 and torpedoed by a German u-boat in 1916 and lost her bow. HMS Zulu, a destroyer of the same class, hit a German mine in 1916 and lost her stern.

Engineers at Chatham Dockyard reasoned that, since the two ships were of the same class, it would be feasible for them join front half of Nubian to the back half of Zulu and put this new vessel into service. Thus the Royal Navy's Zubian --a name derived from those of her parents--was born in 1917. She would serve until disposed of in the postwar culling of the Navy 1919.

-via US Naval Institute

chazzbanner: (corgi bunnybutt)
chazzbanner ([personal profile] chazzbanner) wrote2025-06-07 06:38 pm
Entry tags:

I haz .. you know :-)

I have internet again! I hope I won't have to write from "local branch library" again unless I want to-!

In honor of my pleasure at being restored to my usual routine (with a reminder to do those things I missed!) here's Peter Capaldi on the Word in Your ear podcast/videocast:



PS, the tech came half an hour earlier than the window started!

-
siria: (the pitt - dr robby swag)
this is not in the proper spirit of rumspringa ([personal profile] siria) wrote2025-06-07 07:30 pm

2511 / Fic - ER

bend your branches down
ER | ~4700 words | Luka/Carter(/Gillian) | Thanks to [tumblr.com profile] trinityofone for betaing. Set during ER 9.22, "Kisangani." Some lines of dialogue taken directly from the episode.

(Also on AO3)

Gillian said, 'You should join me and Luka tonight.' )
AO3 works tagged 'The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells' ([syndicated profile] murderbot_ao3_feed) wrote2025-06-07 09:18 pm

[Podfic] Connection Test Start

Posted by Mousek

by

"SecUnit has told Senior Indah it is open to further work, but only if the work is really weird. When a research transport from an unfamiliar non-corporate political entity called Trellin arrives at Preservation Station and starts throwing strange errors within seconds of contact, SecUnit is tasked with figuring out what the hell is wrong with that ship. (A lot. A lot is wrong with that ship. One, it’s not ART. Two, it’s kind of an asshole anyway. Three, it has feelings. And morals. And that last one might be the worst.)

Set post-canon for Time to Orbit: Unknown, between Fugitive Telemetry and Network Effect for The Murderbot Diaries. HEAVY spoilers for TTOU - if you haven't read it and don't want to be spoilered on some very major developments near the end, you should get on the normal spaceship before reading this story. Spoilers for TMBD are lighter - mostly what position SecUnit is in between book 6 and book 5. Lighter sci-fi than TTOU, about TMBD level."

Words: 28, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Series: Part 1 of [Podfic of] The Nameless Fanfic

AO3 works tagged 'The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells' ([syndicated profile] murderbot_ao3_feed) wrote2025-06-07 07:20 pm
AO3 works tagged 'The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells' ([syndicated profile] murderbot_ao3_feed) wrote2025-06-06 07:01 pm

Discomfort

Posted by tea_time_t

by

It is a hot, humid day out, and Murderbot refuses to take off its jacket. Amena comes to the rescue.

Words: 1407, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

AO3 works tagged 'The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells' ([syndicated profile] murderbot_ao3_feed) wrote2025-06-06 04:28 am

Seven Seconds in Hell

Posted by TempusPetrichor

by

"SecUnit?" Mensah repeated.
"Yes, Ca—" Captain? "Yes, Dr. Mensah."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Are you all right?" She asked.
"I–"
I didn't know. Why was she asking me that? And why didn't I know?

Murderbot thinks it's still a danger to the team. Mensah tries to convince it otherwise.

Words: 2793, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

AO3 works tagged 'The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells' ([syndicated profile] murderbot_ao3_feed) wrote2025-06-04 09:04 pm

Voices From Preservation Alliance and PSUMNT

Posted by thelongestway

by

The TMBD counterpart to Voices From The Pegasus Constellation—a collection of short stories from Preservation and PSUMNT characters other than SecUnit. Similarly to the previous such collection, characters and tags updated as stories get published.

Note that, same as before, these short stories are placed in different points of the main continuity and are best read one at a time! Links to the relevant stories are given chronologically in the main storyline.

Words: 3639, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Series: Part 6 of The Nameless Fanfic

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal ([syndicated profile] smbc_comics_feed) wrote2025-06-07 06:44 pm

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Biology

Posted by Zach Weinersmith



Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
The explanation of the Fermi Paradox is no beings who practice internal fertilization are to be invited to the galactic party.


Today's News:
Visual Capitalist ([syndicated profile] visualcapitalist_rss_feed) wrote2025-06-07 10:02 pm

Mapped: Electric Vehicles Per Capita by U.S. State

Posted by Jeff Desjardins

See this visualization first on the Voronoi app.

Map showing EV registrations per capita by state in the United States

Mapped: Electric Vehicles Per Capita by U.S. State

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

  • California leads the country with over 3,000 EV registrations per 100,000 residents.
  • Washington, Hawaii, Oregon, and Colorado also show strong EV adoption per capita.
  • Southern and rural states lag significantly in electric vehicle registrations.

EV Adoption is Highly Regional

By the end of 2023, 36% of all U.S. electric vehicle registrations were in California alone—an outsized share given the state represents just 12% of the population.

To understand regional adoption patterns, USAFacts compiled state-level data from the U.S. Department of Energy showing electric vehicle registrations per 100,000 residents.

Mapped: EVs Per Capita by State

The table below shows the number of EVs registered per 100,000 people in all 50 states and the District of Columbia:

RankStateEV Registrations per 100,000
1California3025.6
2Washington1805.4
3Hawaii1685.9
4Oregon1421.9
5Colorado1404.7
6Nevada1379.4
7New Jersey1348.8
8Arizona1138.6
9Vermont1129.3
10District of Columbia1103.4
11Utah1078.5
12Maryland1050.4
13Florida1023.9
14Massachusetts983.3
15Virginia902.9
16Connecticut818.0
17Georgia771.1
18Delaware744.9
19Illinois741.2
20Texas689.9
21New Hampshire659.5
22New York622.2
23Minnesota591.4
24North Carolina588.5
25Oklahoma563.5
26Rhode Island542.3
27Pennsylvania498.6
28Maine489.3
29Michigan454.2
30New Mexico452.0
31Tennessee427.7
32Idaho406.3
33Missouri398.1
34Ohio391.4
35Wisconsin385.3
36Montana373.4
37South Carolina357.8
38Kansas353.7
39Indiana349.6
40Alaska346.1
41Nebraska318.6
42Iowa259.8
43Kentucky237.5
44Alabama231.6
45Arkansas214.2
46Wyoming184.9
47South Dakota169.3
48Louisiana164.6
49West Virginia143.6
50North Dakota111.7
51Mississippi110.4

California tops the list with 3,026 electric vehicles per 100,000 residents. That’s more than twice the per capita registrations of Washington (1,805), the next highest state.

Hawaii (1,686), Oregon (1,422), and Colorado (1,405) also rank in the top five—each benefiting from supportive EV policies and infrastructure investments.

Where EVs Are Still Rare

Mississippi recorded just 110 EVs per 100,000 people in 2023—the lowest in the country. Other low-ranking states include North Dakota, West Virginia, and South Dakota, each with fewer than 200 per 100,000.

Many of these states face hurdles such as limited charging infrastructure, longer travel distances, and fewer incentives for EV ownership.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

See how many EVs the world will have in 2030 with this visual showing projections of EV types, country totals, and more.