I'm confused about Palestine and Gaza
Jul. 29th, 2025 06:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
(I'm not against it, but the government seem to be presenting it as somehow connected and I feel like I'm missing something.)
Life with two kids: Design on the dancefloor.
Jul. 29th, 2025 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
At which point she grabbed her cousin and they've spent the last half an hour decorating the dancefloor and designing tickets.
No dancing has yet occurred.
Photo cross-post
Jul. 28th, 2025 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
We've gone on holiday on purpose!
(Us, my brothers, our families, my parents, and their dogs. Seven
adults and five kids altogether. Staying in a rented house half an
hour out of Southampton for a week.)
Original
is here on Pixelfed.scot.
Bundle of Holding: Apocalisse & Inferno
Jul. 28th, 2025 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

English-language ebooks of Apocalisse and Inferno, the Acheron Games campaign settings based on the Book of Revelation and the Divine Comedy for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition and compatible systems.
Bundle of Holding: Apocalisse & Inferno
Jumping Jet Packs! Five Stories From the Golden Age of Personal Flying Devices
Jul. 28th, 2025 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Surely we should all have harness copters by now?
Jumping Jet Packs! Five Stories From the Golden Age of Personal Flying Devices
Clarke Award Finalists 2007
Jul. 28th, 2025 09:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Which 2007 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Nova Swing by M. John Harrison
9 (64.3%)
End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
3 (21.4%)
Gradisil by Adam Roberts
3 (21.4%)
Hav by Jan Morris
7 (50.0%)
Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet
0 (0.0%)
Streaking by Brian Stableford
0 (0.0%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2007 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Nova Swing by M. John Harrison
End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Gradisil by Adam Roberts
Hav by Jan Morris
Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet
Streaking by Brian Stableford
Reforming the WSFS committee elections
Jul. 26th, 2025 04:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I wrote in 2022 that the election system used by WSFS should be changed. At present, the rules for electing the Mark Protection Committee, the body charged with ensuring that the intellectual property of WSFS is protected, are set out in Standing Rule 6.2:
Voting shall be by written preferential ballot with write-in votes allowed. Votes for write-in candidates who do not submit written consent to nomination to the Presiding Officer before the close of balloting shall be ignored. The ballot shall list each nominee’s name. The first seat filled shall be by normal preferential ballot procedures as defined in Section 6.4 of the WSFS Constitution. There shall be no run-off candidate. After a seat is filled, votes for the elected member shall be eliminated before conducting the next ballot. This procedure shall continue until all seats are filled. In the event of a first-place tie for any seat, the tie shall be broken unless all tied candidates can be elected simultaneously. Should there be any partial-term vacancies on the committee, the partial-term seat(s) shall be filled after the full-term seats have been filled.
I warned that this carries the risk that a single faction with roughly half of the total votes could win every single seat and squeeze out other viewpoints.
My warning has come dramatically true.
Books Received, July 19 to July 25
Jul. 26th, 2025 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Eight works new to me. Mostly novels but there are two tabletop roleplaying rule books in there. Four are fantasies (including the ttrpgs), one seems to be horror, one non-fiction, and two are SF. Four could be said to be series books and other four appear to be stand-alone.
Books Received, July 19 to July 25
Which of these look interesting?
Stone and Sky by Ben Aaronovitch (July 2025)
34 (59.6%)
The Adventure of the Demonic Ox by Lois McMaster Bujold (July 2025)
33 (57.9%)
They Call Her Regret by Channelle Desamours (February 2026)
4 (7.0%)
Sky on Fire by E. K. Johnston (July 2025)
15 (26.3%)
The Rainseekers by Matthew Kressel (February 2026)
10 (17.5%)
Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game, Gamemaster’s Guide by Dominic McDowall and Pádraig Murphy et al (Q1 2026)
4 (7.0%)
Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game, Player’s Guideby Dominic McDowall and Pádraig Murphy et al (Q1 2026)
4 (7.0%)
Starlost Unauthorized by D G Valdron (October 2024)
18 (31.6%)
Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)
Cats!
36 (63.2%)
The Whisperer in White by Y. R. Liu
Jul. 25th, 2025 08:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

A young hunter's carelessly loosed arrow earns her imprisonment under the supervision of a mage.
The Whisperer in White by Y. R. Liu
Interesting Links for 25-07-2025
Jul. 25th, 2025 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
- 1. Google's new AI deciphers missing Latin words in ancient Roman inscriptions
- (tags:ai history rome )
- 2. Why English doesn't use accents on its letters
- (tags:language english uk france history writing printing )
- 3. What Parents of Boys Should Know
- (tags:children gender emotion )
- 4. How Subaru cars were marketed to lesbians
- (tags:LGBT lesbians marketing cars history video viaSwampers )
Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee
Jul. 24th, 2025 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

A look at four men (and the women in their lives) who shaped American SF.
Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee
Interesting Links for 24-07-2025
Jul. 24th, 2025 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
- 1. 45% of microplastics come from tyres
- (tags:plastic environment )
- 2. UK wealth tax: high risk and anti-growth
- (tags:economics taxes uk )
- 3. Cuba becomes 22nd country to move to self-id for gender change
- (tags:GoodNews LGBT transgender Cuba )
- 4. Starmer's response to far-right protests exposes Britain's moral decline
- (tags:UK racism politics OhForFucksSake )
- 5. Shocking Video Captures Calm Police Officers Handling Situation Nonviolently
- (tags:usa satire video violence police )
- 6. How does Britain's pension predicament compare with other countries
- (tags:pensions comparison )
Life with two kids: 7 year olds like certainty.
Jul. 23rd, 2025 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
"The good people should stay good and the bad people should stay bad."
Bundle of Holding: Neon Lords
Jul. 23rd, 2025 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

The all-new Neon Lords Bundle featuring Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland, the gonzo slime-punk post-apocalyptic cassette-future tabletop roleplaying game from Super Savage Systems.
Bundle of Holding: Neon Lords
Five SFF Stories About Editing and Storing Memories
Jul. 23rd, 2025 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

From magical memory wipes to space-based mind erasure...
Five SFF Stories About Editing and Storing Memories
The Color of the End: Mission in the Apocalypse, volume 1 by Haruo Iwamune
Jul. 23rd, 2025 09:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Fifty years after the Great Disaster, special investigator Saya searches for survivors. There are a few... but none are human.
The Color of the End: Mission in the Apocalypse, volume 1 by Haruo Iwamune
Interesting Links for 23-07-2025
Jul. 23rd, 2025 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
- 1. Labour has brought back Section 28, here's how it will harm children
- (tags:children education Labour OhForFucksSake bigotry transgender UK )
- 2. The Louder the Monkey, the Smaller Its Balls, Study Finds
- (tags:monkeys genitals science )
- 3. Labour ministers lying about Scottish water quality to make it look like privatisation isn't the problem
- (tags:Scotland UK England Labour lies water privatisation )
- 4. French Press Association journalists in Gaza are starving to death
- (tags:Israel gaza Palestine OhForFucksSake journalism food )
- 5. metabolite produced by gut bacteria is a driver of atherosclerosis, the disease behind most heart attacks and strokes.
- (tags:heart disease microbiome )
- 6. Why Facts Don't Change Minds in the Culture Wars—Structure Does
- (tags:belief discussion communication )
- 7. The US is erasing women from the top ranks of the military
- (tags:usa military misogyny OhForFucksSake )
- 8. Why you can't color calibrate (deep) space photos
- (tags:space colour photography )
- 9. Countries across the world see food price shocks from climate extremes
- (tags:food prices doom globalwarming )
- 10. If somebody is doing a good thing, and you try to force them to do a different, better thing, they usually end up doing neither
- (tags:communication management organisation )
- 11. Whites-only communities are spreading in the USA
- (tags:USA racism )
Tarnsman of Gor (Gor, volume 1) by John Norman
Jul. 22nd, 2025 08:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

In this ERB pastiche, unremarkable academic Tarl Cabot reinvents himself as a man of action on the counter-Earth, Gor. There's much less BDSM than the series' reputation would lead one to expect.
Tarnsman of Gor (Gor, volume 1) by John Norman
Interesting Links for 22-07-2025
Jul. 22nd, 2025 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
- 1. HS2 was doomed to be a mess before it began, say insiders
- (tags:hs2 uk regulation trains planning epicfail )
- 2. Is it cake? M&S vs HMRC tax edition
- (tags:uk tax food cake viaSwampers )
- 3. In a Major Reversal, the World Bank Is Backing Mega Dams
- (tags:hydroelectric investment renewables )
- 4. UK's Biobank, the biggest human imaging study scans its 100,000th volunteer
- (tags:uk mri health research )
- 5. ChatGPT advises women to ask for lower salaries
- (tags:ai inequality women pay OhForFucksSake )
Things I love about the modern world #7946
Jul. 21st, 2025 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
(It's got a building in it owned by the council leisure service to sell ice creams and manage the tennis courts next door.)
Clarke Award Finalists 2006
Jul. 21st, 2025 08:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Which 2006 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Air by Geoff Ryman
20 (37.0%)
Accelerando by Charles Stross
37 (68.5%)
Banner of Souls by Liz Williams
14 (25.9%)
Learning the World by Ken MacLeod
19 (35.2%)
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
10 (18.5%)
Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
10 (18.5%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read,, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2006 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Air by Geoff Ryman
Accelerando by Charles Stross
Banner of Souls by Liz Williams
Learning the World by Ken MacLeod
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
I never have to do anything straightforward (fridge/freezer edition)
Jul. 20th, 2025 11:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I want to replace it with a free-standing one - i.e. one that will simply sit in the gap.
The various places I've looked at so far that do a delivery and also take away your old fridge only have options to replace an integrated fridge with an integrated fridge. Or a free-standing with a free-standing. Apparently they use different teams for each of these.
AO.com told me that I need to entirely remove the old one. John Lewis told me that they'd just send it out and hope that the free-standing fridge people happened to have the right tools with them, which doesn't sound ideal.
So, I could do with some advice on getting an integrated fridge/freezer removed and taken away. Preferably in the form of "Call these guys, they are vaguely* competent and cheap."
Anyone got any experience?
*I'm willing to settle for vague competence when it comes to removing things. Installing things is a different matter...