Community Thursdays

Jan. 15th, 2026 01:15 am
ysabetwordsmith: A blue sheep holding a quill dreams of Dreamwidth (Dreamsheep)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This year I'm doing Community Thursdays. Some of my activity will involve maintaining communities I run, and my favorites. Some will involve checking my list of subscriptions and posting in lower-traffic ones. Today I have interacted with the following communities...


* Replied to a post by [personal profile] fox_in_me on [community profile] addme.

* Posted "How to use habit science to help you keep your New Year’s resolution" in [community profile] goals_on_dw.

* Commented under the January 14 Just One Thing post in [community profile] awesomeers.

Poetry Fishbowl Update

Jan. 14th, 2026 08:58 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The Call for Themes is still open if you want to suggest topics for early 2026. Now's the time, because I hope to post the poll on Thursday.

Birdfeeding

Jan. 14th, 2026 11:59 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy, windy, and cold.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 1/14/26 -- We saw a flock of geese flying mostly north.   

Cuddle Party

Jan. 14th, 2026 12:48 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Everyone needs contact comfort sometimes. Not everyone has ample opportunities for this in facetime. So here is a chance for a cuddle party in cyberspace. Virtual cuddling can help people feel better.

We have a cuddle room that comes with fort cushions, fort frames, sheets for draping, and a weighted blanket. A nest full of colorful egg pillows sits in one corner. There is a basket of grooming brushes, hairbrushes, and styling combs. A bin holds textured pillows. There is a big basket of craft supplies along with art markers, coloring pages, and blank paper. The kitchen has a popcorn machine. Labels are available to mark dietary needs, recipe ingredients, and level of spiciness. Here is the bathroom, open to everyone. There is a lawn tent and an outdoor hot tub. Bathers should post a sign for nude or clothed activity. Come snuggle up!

ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the September 6, 2022 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by [personal profile] chanter1944 and [personal profile] dividedbyblue. It also fills the "She had to learn it for herself." square in my 9-1-22 card for the Land of Oz Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by [personal profile] fuzzyred. It belongs to the Iron Horses thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes the aftermath of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, a survivor of mad science experiments, race-based rivalry, paperwork war, rude language, Dr. Bernhardt is always a warning, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

Read more... )

Vocabulary: Mountweazel

Jan. 13th, 2026 05:25 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Mountweazel [mount-wee-zuhl]

noun
1. a decoy entry in a reference work, such as a dictionary or encyclopedia, secretly planted among the genuine entries to catch other publishers in the act of copying content.

(More details on [community profile] 1word1day)

Snowflake Challenge 7: Self-Love

Jan. 13th, 2026 05:01 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Snowflake Challenge 7: Self-Love

LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

While we’re busy celebrating fandom, it’s good to remember to celebrate ourselves, too. Fandom is all of us! I know it’s often easier to talk about what we like about other people than it is to talk nicely about ourselves, but challenge yourself here
.


A gold snowflake ornament is nestled amidst pine boughs

Read more... )

Early Humans

Jan. 13th, 2026 02:49 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Discovery shows early humans were much more advanced hunters than previously believed

On stone arrowheads left in a South African rock shelter, researchers found 60,000-year-old traces of plant poison.

A team working in Sweden and South Africa analyzed quartz tips from Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

A residue on one artifact can be a fluke, but repeats on older and newer arrowheads are harder to dismiss.



*laugh* Hominids helped wipe out 98% of land animal body mass. What did scientists think, all they were doing was running up and stabbing megafauna until it dropped dead? Yeah, no. Arrow poison. Channel traps, pit traps, cliff traps. Fire. Collecting scat to frame one predator for encroaching on another predator's territory, then watching them shred each other and sneaking up to dispatch the weakened loser.

"Work smarter, not harder" has been the hominid strategy for millions of years.

Snowflake Challenge

Jan. 13th, 2026 02:47 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
... is scheduled to appear at 4PM Eastern time, which is 3PM Central time -- so 10-15 minutes from now. It's a planned variation, no need to worry.

Snowflake Challenge: A pair of ice skates hanging on a wood paneled wall. Pine boughs with a few ornaments are stuffed into the skates.

Space Exploration

Jan. 13th, 2026 02:42 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This strange form of water may power giant planets’ magnetic fields

Water pushed to planetary extremes turns into an exotic, electricity-conducting solid — and it’s far stranger than scientists ever imagined.

At extreme pressures and temperatures, water becomes superionic — a solid that behaves partly like a liquid and conducts electricity. This unusual form is believed to shape the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune and may be the most common type of water in the solar system. New high-precision experiments show its atomic structure is far messier than expected, combining multiple crystal patterns instead of one clean arrangement. The finding reshapes models of icy planets both near and far
.

Birdfeeding

Jan. 13th, 2026 01:55 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy and cool.

I fed the birds. I've seen a flock of sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 1/13/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 1/13/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 1/13/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 1/13/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a pair of cardinals and a starling. I heard a woodpecker but didn't see it.

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

Artificial Intelligence

Jan. 13th, 2026 03:18 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Researchers poison stolen data to make AI systems return wrong results

Researchers affiliated with universities in China and Singapore have devised a technique to make stolen knowledge graph data useless if incorporated into a GraphRAG AI system without consent.


I'm reminded of how alchemists would leave out a critical detail, or make a substitution, so that nobody could steal and reproduce their work.

Communities

Jan. 12th, 2026 10:47 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
[community profile] pluralquestions  -- Discussing plural existence

Welcome to the Plural Questions community! A lot of existing plural communities on Dreamwidth are inactive. We all have a lot to gain from talking to each other, so Plural Questions was created to encourage community discussion around plural experiences. Interactions are encouraged- please comment, post to the community, etc! Get your voice out there! Discussion questions will be posted every now and then, but please feel free to add your own questions or post about your lived experiences.


If you've been following [personal profile] lb_lee and [community profile] pluralstories then you might like this new community.

Magpie Monday

Jan. 12th, 2026 09:22 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
[personal profile] dialecticdreamer is hosting Magpie Monday today with a theme of "Loose Threads." Leave prompts, get ficlets!

Read more... )
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
These poems are spillover from the January 6, 2026 Poetry Fishbowl. They were inspired and sponsored by Anthony Barrette. They also fill the "Up the River" square in my 1-1-26 card for the Public Domain Day Bingo fest. These poems are the first batch in the collection Haiku for Natural Monuments of Japan.

Read more... )

Poem: "Fight Less, Cuddle More"

Jan. 12th, 2026 08:09 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the January 6, 2026 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by [personal profile] janetmiles. It also fills the "Soup to Nuts" square in my 1-1-26 card for the Public Domain Day Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the Big One and Mercedes threads of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Read more... )

Poem: "Hemma Bäst"

Jan. 12th, 2026 07:54 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Family and horse in front of barn (Hart's Farm)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem came out of the January 6, 2026 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from [personal profile] nsfwords and [personal profile] wyld_dandelyon. It also fills the "Cup of Coffee" square in my 1-1-26 card for the Public Domain Day Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by [personal profile] janetmiles. It belongs to the series Hart's Farm.

Read more... )

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