Dreamwidth Open Source Bridge 2014 coordination

Expanding on one of the things I mentioned yesterday: for Pain Project reasons, I'm interested in knowing what you learned about atoms at school, and roughly what age you were. I'm especially interested in whether (and when) you were exposed to the Bohr model (there's a nucleus, with electrons orbiting around it at fixed distances) and the current consensus model (electron orbitals defined as regions where an electron is most likely to be found).

( Read more... )

Celebrating. A's birthday!

Reading. ( Rogerson, Rundell, McGuire, Clarke, Duncan, Scalzi, Hermé )

I also: remain up to date with Dreamwidth; worked through a brief pain management course for Youth, as background reading.

Writing. The Document continues to be expanded a little every day. It is now over 4000 words.

Playing. A bit of The Bridge, "a 2D logic puzzle game that forces the player to reevaluate their preconceptions of physics and perspective", which sounded like it might be about the right speed for me given that we'd just enjoyed playing through the Monument Valley series, and which instead for the most part does not seem to fit into my brain terribly neatly and is also weirdly evocative/reminiscent of Braid (lonely dude in a suit) while also being kinda... gay? possibly? I can't tell yet? Anyway we've played through I think the first four levels and might or might not continue.

We have also engaged in some Spirits -- mostly A playing and me watching, because I am not feeling up to timing problems and having to keep pressing Esc also feels overwhelming, but I have been Providing Commentary and enjoying watching the process of TURNING MUSHROOMS INTO CLOUDS to HELP THE LEAVES GET HOME.

We have also been playing (independently) sudoku, & grousing about each other's incomprehensible approaches to solving things, and then I nerdsniped A with a specific puzzle & they went to look up Theory And Strategy Of Sudoku, and I may yet get around to uh actually looking up the approach named "jellyfish"...

Elsenet vass has introduced me to Squardle.

Cooking. One spice mix, and subsequently one recipe from East featuring a vegetable I think I have not previously consciously eaten (Jerusalem artichokes). Another batch of medlar sticky toffee pudding as A's birthday cake; I think that in fact one cannot tell the difference between medlar that has not been jellied and medlar residue from jellying, at least in this setting. Also, turns out you can successfully add beetroot to the red cabbage and cauliflower udon noodles thing. Oh, and pineapple fried rice, which A had somehow never previously encountered???

Eating. We were both, on Friday, quite tired and sad. The internet brought us Pizza Express. It was good.

Making & mending. I FINISHED A GLOVE. I WOVE IN THE ENDS. Now to cast on glove #2 of that pair...

Growing. Both orchids seem to be putting forth flower stems! And I have sown lemongrass, pineapple physalis, and (not expecting any of these to actually germinate) some lithops I was sent as a gift a while ago...

Reading. ... I think I genuinely have mostly just been stubbornly catching up with Dreamwidth (at time of writing I am UP TO DATE). No, wait, I did also (via oursin) end up reading several articles about the contents of Oliver Sacks' papers and personal archive, most of which was not hugely surprising given the results of some of my previous digging, but which has resulted in me reaching the firm decision that I shan't be citing any of his examples that can't be extremely independently verified. (Thoughts about case histories for public consumption continue.) And finished one of the Periodicals I'd had sitting around, and gleefully dumped it in the recycling!

I acquired a new book (passingbuzzards flagged up that Craft Wars #2 Dead Hand Rule came out recently; apparently I've been hiding so comprehensively from my e-mail that I presumably have a Max Gladstone Newsletter languishing somewhere in there) but it is not yet on the ereader. (And downloaded a Toby Daye short from Patreon, but that's not going onto the ereader until I have stitched it into the giant whole-series single ebook). I now also have two books sitting around in Libby. So! Next up Vespertine, then Rooftoppers, then maybe I settle down with Index, A History of the and actually finish it? Since I am no longer focussing primarily on pain reading? Because...

Writing. ... the document is over 3000 words long. At the moment most of what I'm writing falls into one of two categories: structure/scaffolding, and Words I Will Definitely Be Deleting because they're currently extremely note-to-self and will require significant expansion. But there are paragraphs! And I've written a little every day so far this year (except today, which I will rectify before I put the laptop down)! (The bar for Tick This Off My List is a single word.)

Playing. As of a little earlier this evening I have All The Inkulinati Steam Achievements, admittedly by Alt+F4ing my way through the Master run (i.e. flouncing most times I was about to lose a fight) ABOUT WHICH I FEEL BAD but probably not bad enough to go back through and do it Properly.

We have also finished Monument Valley 3, we think, in that we have All The Achievements... but we were a bit confused by the way it just sort of... trailed off after completing the Hall of Memories. I am sort of anticipating a further expansion, I think?

Cooking. This evening I decided I was Sad and that we were going to have Pineapple Fried Rice. A had not previously experienced this, and was... perplexed. Also mulled apple juice, starting with apple-and-ginger and eventually adding apple-and-pear to the problem.

Eating. Highlight: Lebkuchen and mulled apple juice from a flask (well, insulated mug) at the obelisk near the square water. Have also been Greatly Indulged with avocados, and enjoying them enormously.

Exploring. Visited the square water! Which was frozen, at least at the surface! There were excellent frost patterns on moss and also shelf fungi! Several of the trees had been decorated! Excellent stonk, v pleased. Earlier in the week we did a shorter stonk (... it now occurs to me that this is probably a family-specific usage...) around some of the back roads and enjoyed Ongoing Illuminations.

Making & mending. I have fixed Adam's glove????????? I have now made approximately nine tenths of a glove for Adam?????????? I need to actually do the thumb, but after giving up on the mitten flap in disgust after winding up ripping it back Multiple Times, this time around I ripped it back even further and then Grimly and Obsessively Counted, and... it worked??? (Promptly had to frog the bind-off as well, though, having forgotten a key instruction; I checked my notebook and was dismayed to find no notes on the obvious solution there, until I triple-checked the pattern and discovered that that would be because the obvious solution is literally a part of said written pattern...) Maybe I'll get the other one done in time for April (and before they've spent a year on the needles). Maybe.

Growing. CAN CONFIRM: MYSTERIOUS YELLOW HABANERO IS TRINIDAD PERFUME. Curry leaf cutting not dead yet. Have utterly failed to get any seeds sown this week despite Best Intentions but I have at least made the propagator more approachable, and ordered minimal Bonus Seeds (and indeed opted out of bonus bonus seeds altogether, good job me).

Observing. Robins, on my bike and at the square water. Corvids misc. Several excellent sunsets! And the almost-full moon framed perfectly in the not-exactly-an-alley the building front door disgorges into the middle of, which I made A go back outside to take a look at when they got home from work on Friday.