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I'm mo, I'm in my 30s, I'm from the US midwest but have spent more of my adult life outside the US than in it. As of 2019 I am also Dr. Mo, as I finally completed a PhD in agronomy and rural development. There may be occasional Ranting About Agriculture posts.
One of these days (soon, I hope) I will get back to actually writing more. Fic posts are usually public, some personal posts are locked. Ask if you want access (commenting here is fine).
( fic things )
On trigger warnings: I do a pretty good job (i hope!) of tagging the things that're on AO3. Stuff that's only here/LJ I tend not to tag specific trigger warnings, although for stories that I think are particularly in need of such, there are usually warnings in the intros, and pretty much everything's below a cut anyway. If you're wondering if something is going to bother you (trigger-wise or anything else-wise), please feel free to message me to ask.
R stuff pseudo-xpost
Jul. 21st, 2021 04:04 pmSomeones on tumblr asked about R packages (particularly for ecology) and I wrote up a thing.
I am too lazy to xpost properly right now so here is a link
I am too lazy to xpost properly right now so here is a link
still not dead
Oct. 10th, 2020 04:08 pmbut I have been scolded by my bosses about how i need to be more productive and make sure i'm doing a full person-day's work every day so we can meet the grant objectives for NSF before this job is over the beginning of April.
so stress levels are high, opinion of self is negative, energy is low and I will in all likelihood continue to be Not Around for the foreseeable future
so stress levels are high, opinion of self is negative, energy is low and I will in all likelihood continue to be Not Around for the foreseeable future
I wrote a thing?
Jul. 1st, 2020 04:08 pmActually, I wrote 2 fics for The Witcher, based mostly on game canon with a little bit of show and book canon as seasoning probably.
They're about Peta, who was a little girl Geralt found on the streets in Novigrad and brought to Kaer Morhen without realizing she wasn't a little boy.
( Part 1: in which Peta is GOING to be a witcher, godsdammit )
( Part 2, in which Peta goes back to Novigrad and a friendly female sex worker helps her figure out some shit )
They're about Peta, who was a little girl Geralt found on the streets in Novigrad and brought to Kaer Morhen without realizing she wasn't a little boy.
( Part 1: in which Peta is GOING to be a witcher, godsdammit )
( Part 2, in which Peta goes back to Novigrad and a friendly female sex worker helps her figure out some shit )
open source videoconferencing
Apr. 2nd, 2020 11:58 amBecause this seems like something people here might be interested in: Jitsi Meet lets you set up your own server for video conference calls, or they have an in-browser setup that appears to be pretty straightforward to use here, you create a meeting and then get a link to share, with the option to add a password.
Apparently in addition to the various "zoom bombings" there's some concern about the security of zoom in general.
(I am fine, btw, as much as one can be in all the craziness, I just haven't had the Brain to write posts and I expect this condition to persist for a while)
Today in computing mysteries
Feb. 24th, 2020 05:56 pmso for some reason my linux laptop hates R. This is confusing because:
- the specs on this machine are similar to my 2015 MacBook Pro, which runs R without issues beyond occasional slowness (same 8GB of RAM, similar processing speed iirc, both SSD drives)
- this machine runs similarly computationally intensive python code quite cheerfully
HOWEVER
- when using RStudio, my R session kept crashing anytime it dealt with large arrays
- so I switched to R in a Jupyter notebook (well, technically Hydrogen in Atom but that’s essentially the same thing) and that froze the whole machine until it was done working
- I have not done anything super complicated in straight up command line R from a terminal, but at this point I doubt that’d make much difference. also, that would be a shitty long-term solution regardless
I have 2 questions for anyone who knows wtf I'm talking about:
1. WHY?
2. Can I make R work better? How?
Alternatively, I could apparently set up a remote notebook server on my mac and access it on my linux laptop, but that sounds like an even bigger pain in the ass.
(relatedly, I configured my mac (which is no longer a laptop due to screen issues that means it needs an external display) to allow me to SSH in remotely, and to test that it was working I installed a terminal emulator (Terminus) on my phone which now means that I can execute R scripts to process multiple gigabytes of data... FROM MY PHONE. Which is the most hackerish thing ever and I am vastly amused by it)
- the specs on this machine are similar to my 2015 MacBook Pro, which runs R without issues beyond occasional slowness (same 8GB of RAM, similar processing speed iirc, both SSD drives)
- this machine runs similarly computationally intensive python code quite cheerfully
HOWEVER
- when using RStudio, my R session kept crashing anytime it dealt with large arrays
- so I switched to R in a Jupyter notebook (well, technically Hydrogen in Atom but that’s essentially the same thing) and that froze the whole machine until it was done working
- I have not done anything super complicated in straight up command line R from a terminal, but at this point I doubt that’d make much difference. also, that would be a shitty long-term solution regardless
I have 2 questions for anyone who knows wtf I'm talking about:
1. WHY?
2. Can I make R work better? How?
Alternatively, I could apparently set up a remote notebook server on my mac and access it on my linux laptop, but that sounds like an even bigger pain in the ass.
(relatedly, I configured my mac (which is no longer a laptop due to screen issues that means it needs an external display) to allow me to SSH in remotely, and to test that it was working I installed a terminal emulator (Terminus) on my phone which now means that I can execute R scripts to process multiple gigabytes of data... FROM MY PHONE. Which is the most hackerish thing ever and I am vastly amused by it)
(x-post of my very long answer to a question someone asked me a month and a half ago)
fractalpaladin asked: do you have any recommendations for people trying to learn more about how societies organize around agriculture? tumblr seems to think Permaculture is the Solution to Everything, and yeah it's nice-sounding, but if i want to have a decent handle on the actual scale of problems vs solutions, where would a good starting place be?
Apollo the Dog has learned that he is allowed to have boundaries over the past several months, so he has decided to have ALL OF THE BOUNDARIES, to the point where he's suspicious about any human who isn't my sister, brother-in-law, or me. (I will not pretend I'm not chuffed that I make the cut)
This means he really doesn't trust my parents. When we got here, he'd give them a wide berth, or watch from behind one of His People. The first time the siblings left to visit his family (who lives half an hour or so from here), he got very protective of me, kept putting himself between me and them, even growling if they got too close. When my parents left and came back, he barked at them like they were intruders.
Since then, they've been working on earning his trust through patience, love, and bits of ham. He's started letting Mom pet him, so long as one of His People is around. My dad is still Scary--he's a big guy with a deep voice--but Apollo got up the nerve to take some ham-bits out of his hand yesterday. Then he ran over to hide behind me and looked at me like "am I okay?" (I told him he was a Very Good Dog and gave him lots of pets)
We got here on Saturday. Today is Friday, and when we were all eating breakfast at the table, Apollo walked over by my dad's chair and asked for pettings. Cautiously. My siblings left after breakfast, and he was only a little concerned, rather than tense and scared. He's currently snoring by my feet.
"How many years of loving will it take for him to trust people?" my mom asked. "Or do you think he'll always be a little broken?"
"I don't know," I told her. "He'll probably never be the most carefree dog in the world, but he's getting better."
This means he really doesn't trust my parents. When we got here, he'd give them a wide berth, or watch from behind one of His People. The first time the siblings left to visit his family (who lives half an hour or so from here), he got very protective of me, kept putting himself between me and them, even growling if they got too close. When my parents left and came back, he barked at them like they were intruders.
Since then, they've been working on earning his trust through patience, love, and bits of ham. He's started letting Mom pet him, so long as one of His People is around. My dad is still Scary--he's a big guy with a deep voice--but Apollo got up the nerve to take some ham-bits out of his hand yesterday. Then he ran over to hide behind me and looked at me like "am I okay?" (I told him he was a Very Good Dog and gave him lots of pets)
We got here on Saturday. Today is Friday, and when we were all eating breakfast at the table, Apollo walked over by my dad's chair and asked for pettings. Cautiously. My siblings left after breakfast, and he was only a little concerned, rather than tense and scared. He's currently snoring by my feet.
"How many years of loving will it take for him to trust people?" my mom asked. "Or do you think he'll always be a little broken?"
"I don't know," I told her. "He'll probably never be the most carefree dog in the world, but he's getting better."
birthday fic-bit
Dec. 1st, 2019 06:05 pmsome scribbles for ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lilalanor on her birthday
5 years post-war, Finnick lives AU. Finnick and Annie POVs, 100% trauma-recovery fluff, 0% plot of any kind. Accidentally got longer than I meant it to. sorrynotsorry
( fluff, longish )
siderea pointed me to this epic-length tweet thread from Sarah Taber on twitter, about agrarian romanticism in Star Trek here, thank you threadreader
Here is where I admit to having only a passing knowledge of Star Trek, so I can't judge that side of things, but I do think the future agricultural policy questions are interesting.
I mostly agree with most of what she says, like "why is there still monoculture corn in Iowa?" and "How can the Picards get away with inefficient irrigation on a vinyard?" and "how, exactly, are you organizing land ownership and management because this seems less tech-utopia-future-y and more neo-feudalist weird shit?"
Some Good Things
Nov. 27th, 2019 11:18 amh/t to rydra_wong for pointing me to this t-shirt:
which came in the mail while I was looking after this guy, seen here looking very proud of himself for killing his toy REAL DEAD in several vicious tug-of-war matches:
Apollo the dog belongs to my sister and her husband, he's a shelter dog with puppy-PTSD and I adore him. See his Tumblr tag for additional dog-flailing.
He's recently started actually playing with his sister Artemis the cat, who was a stray and then adopted my brother-in-law, 6 months or so before they adopted Apollo. When Apollo first came, he was terrified-slash-aggressive with the cat, so he mostly stayed downstairs, and she mostly stayed upstairs, and they occasionally had staring contests when she came down. Artemis has been intent on getting Apollo to play with her, so they've gone from "can't be within sight of each other" to "will sit in same room ignoring each other" to "she flops down and play-hits him, he jumps up like ???????????" to now they'll chase each other around the house. The other night she was sitting on one side of the kitchen, he raced up to her, tail wagging, she looked at him for a minute, then smacked him, he ran away. Repeated 2 or 3 times, until my brother-in-law got out his phone to try to take video when OF COURSE they stopped. But everyone seemed to be mostly enjoying themselves, and it was super cute. The cat is still very definitely In Charge, as cats are wont to be.
It's very nice to be able to borrow my sister's pets sometimes but not have the responsibility of having other living creatures relying on me.
Although! I do now have one living thing I am full-time responsible for: an aloe plant I got from the Quaker Meeting a month or so ago, living happily so far on the kitchen counter near a window. It's planted in a tupperware with a missing lid that I stabbed holes in with a knife, with dirt I stole (with a spoon) from the landscaping outside my apartment. (I am very bad at indoor plants, which is sort of ironic given both my field and the fact that my mom has a whole ass jungle in the living room every winter. I'm fine with OUTDOOR gardening, I just kill all houseplants!) Basically, while plants are less commitment than pets, they're still a commitment and I am still acting like I'll probably be moving in 15 minutes even though I've only moved once and traveled very little since the end of 2016. So An Plant That Is Mine is actually kind of a step.
Maybe by the time I'm 40 I'll be able to convincingly impersonate an Actual Grown-Up. Or I'll go live in a shack in the woods. Either one seems fine.
I wrote some fic
Nov. 5th, 2019 10:05 pmMake your own world (27659 words) by kawuli
Chapters: 6/?
Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age (Video Games)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Male Adaar/Dorian Pavus, Male Adaar/Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, (eventually)
Characters: Male Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Male Adaar (Dragon Age), The Iron Bull (Dragon Age), Dorian Pavus, Mage Inquisitor - Character
Additional Tags: Inquisitor Backstory, shitty family feelings, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
New chapter! In which Dorian and Asaaranda get drunk together (a couple of times), yell at each other (several times), and eventually kiss.
Chapters: 6/?
Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age (Video Games)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Male Adaar/Dorian Pavus, Male Adaar/Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, (eventually)
Characters: Male Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Male Adaar (Dragon Age), The Iron Bull (Dragon Age), Dorian Pavus, Mage Inquisitor - Character
Additional Tags: Inquisitor Backstory, shitty family feelings, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
New chapter! In which Dorian and Asaaranda get drunk together (a couple of times), yell at each other (several times), and eventually kiss.
PSA: Haymarket Books 90% off ebooks sale
Nov. 4th, 2019 11:41 amHaymarket Books has all ebooks 90% off until Nov 11.
Haymarket is an old-school lefty publishing house, with all the pros and cons that entails. There’s stuff there by Rebecca Solnit, Naomi Klein, and Howard Zinn, plus some interesting-sounding titles like “Capitalism and Disability” and “Things That Make White People Uncomfortable”
Most of these are $1-$2 right now, so it might be worth adding a couple new things to your to-read pile.
So, I just finished Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach thanks to recommendations from kaberett and rydra_wong
Holy shit.
A brainwrangle
Oct. 17th, 2019 11:26 amI think I've figured out (part of) why I keep avoiding new TV shows/books/other media that I would probably like, AND ALSO why I'll suddenly be unable to continue watching series I have started and enjoyed (and will instead watch/listen to dumb shit I don't like so much as just not hate)
and it's obvious while also being vaguely /head tilt? really brain?
but anyway, media-things I care about might cause me to Have Feelings
Having Feelings is exhausting
therefore I will watch a thing where the only feeling it's likely to cause is "annoyance at dumb thing" but is at least entertaining enough to keep my brain from wandering off and getting stuck in the You Are Terrible morass
(there's also the 'by the time I'm done with work I'm too low on Brain for anything more difficult than Consuming A Media while playing phone games' problem but that's a whole other Thing)
(another xpost-from-tumblr ag stuff ramble)
First off, dude, slash-and-burn is not the preferred nomenclature.
…but really though. Better terms: shifting cultivation, swidden agriculture, long-fallow systems…probably some others I don’t know about
Second off, cultivated/wild is not a binary. “Wild” land preeetty much doesn’t exist in places where humans can live. Where humans live, they manage the land around them in ways that change that land: burning it, grazing animals on it, cutting down trees for timber and firewood, harvesting wild fruits and nuts and stuff – “wilderness” kind of goes in the same category as “noble savage.”
So. Here’s what shifting cultivation looks like. I’m going to use the example of a village in Mali, because I am uh, extremely familiar with the area.
( insert xkcd COMPILING! comic here as explanation of why this happened today )
First off, dude, slash-and-burn is not the preferred nomenclature.
…but really though. Better terms: shifting cultivation, swidden agriculture, long-fallow systems…probably some others I don’t know about
Second off, cultivated/wild is not a binary. “Wild” land preeetty much doesn’t exist in places where humans can live. Where humans live, they manage the land around them in ways that change that land: burning it, grazing animals on it, cutting down trees for timber and firewood, harvesting wild fruits and nuts and stuff – “wilderness” kind of goes in the same category as “noble savage.”
So. Here’s what shifting cultivation looks like. I’m going to use the example of a village in Mali, because I am uh, extremely familiar with the area.
( insert xkcd COMPILING! comic here as explanation of why this happened today )
I grew up on stories of the Dust Bowl.
( a story about soil, or, if you will, my agronomic testimony )
( a story about soil, or, if you will, my agronomic testimony )
