ratcreature | Recent Entries

Of course it will be months still until there's a decent amount of daylight again, but it's getting better now. (in this hemisphere at least)

Though some clear skies would be much appreciated too. I mean, the theoretical 7 hours and 28 minutes daylight possible here today are meager, but not that awful if you actually got to see the sun. It's the perpetual overcast gloom that always drags me down in winter. Forecast for today says there's almost no chance to see the sun at all.

The actual number of hours it takes to achieve cookies is regularly vastly underestimated by cookie recipes. And I'm not talking ten minutes here, but a factor of three or so. On the upside I now have Zimtsterne and Vanillekipferln.

I watched the new Star Wars this afternoon, and overall I really enjoyed it. One non-spoilery thing I'm curious about, do you think the "Jedi" in the title is meant as singular or plural (or did you take it as ambiguous)? Because I noticed today that for German they translated it as plural. (I watched it in English, but eventually noticed German posters...) Seeing the English title earlier and more often, I myself had always assumed it to refer to just one.

Anyway, on to the spoilery parts of my post...

( cut for spoilers )

I made a small polar bear from yarn pompons. I followed instructions from a book for the pompons, but they used something called "chenille wire" for the ears (which I didn't have -- it seems like pipe cleaners in different colors made for crafts?) so I used small felt pieces, and I didn't have a bigger pearl for the nose either, so I used a fabric covered button, which was slightly larger and also blue rather than black. The eyes are also blue wooden pearls because I didn't have black. I didn't want to buy a bunch of new craft supplies to use up leftover craft supplies. It turned out okay and quite cute, I think.

( pictures of the result )

And now I don't have my tab groups anymore, and I have no idea from where I can at least retrieve the URLs as a list or something. :(

ETA: And I just discovered that the FlashGot extension also doesn't work anymore, and that was what allowed me to download the audio from dictionary sites such as dict.leo.org to put on my own flashcards for vocabulary revision. Is there any other way I can download these?

( cut to spare you if you aren't into other people's AO3 stats )

Crocheting an amigurumi dog turned out harder than I thought, even though I picked a pattern labeled "easy" in the instruction book I used. It does only use simple stitches, but you have to count stitches a *lot*. I lost my place several times and had to unravel stuff, even though I used a marker ring. And the whole thing took a lot longer than I expected.

But I got to a dog in the end that mostly looks like on the pictures. (It is this dog on the author's website.) I didn't bother adding the tiny barrel.

( pictures of my result )

Current Mood: accomplished

That was fun.

( cut for spoilers )

When I check Tumblr with the app it doesn't show me the posts in chronological order anymore but shows random stuff. I don't mean sponsored or recommended posts but old posts I've already seen.

Presumably they introduced some obnoxious "algorithm". I vaguely recall seeing something along the line mentioned as being rolled out, and that you could turn it off in the settings (because of course Tumblr turns on new crap by default rather than letting you opt-in, because it's Tumblr), but I don't see any such settings in the desktop version (and that dash still shows in proper chronological order). And I actually can't find any way to the settings in the stupid app at all.

If it doesn't even show me the new posts that makes the Tumblr app wholly unusable. Obviously if I bother to check Tumblr on a mobile device rather than waiting to be on a computer I want to see whether new things have been posted, not random posts. Argh.

I bought myself an Instant Pot, because I've seen quite a lot of slowcooker recipes around, and many people who are enthusiastic about that method. And also I eat a lot of grains and pulses which thus far I've just cooked the old fashioned way, but figure this device ought to make more convenient.

Anyway, because for years I did not own such thing I of course failed to bookmark all the applicable recipes I've seen around. Do you have favorite recipes?

Okay, so, while my picture is really harmless and cute, with a new Bucky (Winter Soldier) Bear and a battered old teddy bear in a new Captain America costume, the story Berceuse by wickedthoughts is Hydra Trash Party, so you need to check the tags, whether the kinks match yours, as my picture only reflects parts of it.

( a doodle for Berceuse by wickedthoughts )

After reading another article about how Neanderthals may have contributed even more to the genetic mix of modern humans outside of Africa than previously assumed, I've been wondering how these groups of humans would have seen each other.

Would they have actually thought the other group to be more different than other groups of their own "species"? (I'm actually not sure you can really call these human subtypes different species when they could and did reproduce with fertile offspring, but from what I gather the species concept overall just breaks down at certain points when you poke at it anyway.)

I mean, sure when you look at Neanderthal reconstructions they look somewhat different from us, but not different like a chimpanzee, and modern humans among ourselves also have quite a lot of variation (though I'm not sure how much of that had developed at what time), not just skin color, hair and eye color but facial features, size etc. leading to the whole "human races" construction, and the difficulty to get to a consensus that we are in fact all fundamentally the same. So if you are an early Homo Sapiens and see a Neanderthal would you think them really "other" or just somewhat "other" (i.e. like some unrelated other clan of Homo Sapiens)? They also had tools, fire and probably art too after all.

Of course we probably won't ever know, and afaik they haven't found sites of mixed groups that might be a sign that the mixing was even somewhat consensual. And there doesn't seem to have been that much mingling considering both kinds shared Europe several thousand years.

So then another interesting question is of course whether the later Neanderthals were aware that they were slowly going extinct. I imagine they must have been on some level, as their groups got rarer and modern humans more numerous, but then each group might think it a local problem?

I feel like there should be more speculative fiction about this. The examples with Neanderthal appearances I've read were either older (like Auel) and/or more like SF with alternate timelines where they didn't die out (like Neanderthal Parallax) and such.

...but the worst is that I accidentally keep "liking" posts even though my finger was nowhere near the "<3" button. And then I have to "un-like" things and then I fret about whether maybe people notice.

I'd just leave it, but in general I just don't favorite fic or text posts on Tumblr, nor gifsets or cute videos, just drawn artwork.

Current Mood: annoyed

Normally I download fanfic from AO3 into Calibre with that FanFicFare plugin, because that is very convenient and imports all the meta data.

However as of the most recent update (to 2.17.1) it won't download locked content anymore. I get an error that it can't log in, even though my password hasn't changed and I can log in via browser. It also still downloads non-locked fanfic form AO3 without problem. Does anyone else have this problem?

ETA: Googling found me some recent message board posts by the FanFicFare creator, explaining that AO3 has changed its login process to disallow automated tools to download locked stories. That is inconvenient.

In the little bit over a year since I last did this the news got of course even worse, and yet I still seem unable to just limit myself to looking at fluffy animal pictures.

Still with ticky boxes for everybody who can't decide what to be most anxious about:

Poll #18679 why ratcreature should only look at pictures of fluffy baby animals, 2017 ed.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

View Respondents

Which inescapable disaster/crisis/calamity do you think is most likely to lead to your demise?

View Answers

nuclear armageddon! started intentionally by horrible politicians
6 (26.1%)

nuclear armageddon! but brought on by pure stupidity, like someone misinterpreting some screen and/or pushing the wrong button
5 (21.7%)

the next high mortality rate pandemic will come for sure, possibly via climate change mosquitoes
3 (13.0%)

no pandemics needed, I'll die of some treatable condition, not able to afford medicine, thanks to the health system crisis/collapse
7 (30.4%)

I'll die in a riot/civil unrest brought on by an ongoing global economic crisis/collapse in general
4 (17.4%)

I'll die in a riot/civil unrest brought on by the economic crisis/collapse following Brexit in particular
1 (4.3%)

I'll die in a riot/civil unrest brought on by some rampaging "alt-right" mob that felt slighted on the internet
4 (17.4%)

the climate change catastrophe will kill me through a grand disaster
4 (17.4%)

climate change will kill me slowly through failing crops and the like
8 (34.8%)

climate change will kill me fast but in a boring way through some horrible heat wave or such
6 (26.1%)

I'll die because thanks to the global water crisis I won't be able to afford clean drinking water
3 (13.0%)

I'll die in some armed conflict brought on by the above (or other) ecological disasters
3 (13.0%)

I won't die from any of the above disasters directly, but while fleeing from it
2 (8.7%)

terrorism! I'll be blown up by some shadowy terrorist organization
1 (4.3%)

terrorism! some deranged mob will lynch me as "terrorist"
0 (0.0%)

terrorism! but it's my government who will dispose of me as "terrorist"
0 (0.0%)

my government's malicious policies will kill me without them bothering to label me as "terrorist"
7 (30.4%)

crime! I'll end up as a victim in a crime statistic
0 (0.0%)

crime! but as a victim of the "tough on crime" policies, like tazered to death or shot by police and the like
0 (0.0%)

a meteorite will kill me in a huge extinction level event, but at least I have the consolation that everyone else will be dead along with me
1 (4.3%)

killer robots will get me
1 (4.3%)

killer robots will get me, but it will be an accident (less Terminator, more self-driving cars gone wrong)
4 (17.4%)

I'll get killed by the zombie apocalypse
0 (0.0%)

I'll get killed by the zombie army I raised to protect myself, falling victim to dramatic irony
1 (4.3%)

and so on and so forth... (civilian nuclear disaster! genetically modified crops! (lack of) bees!...)
8 (34.8%)

Recently I often fail to add fanfic I've read to my Pinboard bookmarks, but still manage to click the bookmark button on AO3.

I feel like there ought to be some (semi-)automated way to get my AO3 bookmarks into a format that Pinboard could import. Ideal would be if canonical tags became Pinboard tags but not the Tumblr-style tags and it could recognize duplicate bookmarks already in my Pinboard.

Does anyone know of an AO3 add-on script or such that would harvest and reformat your bookmarks there into a bookmark file that then could be used by Pinboard? I can't be the only fan who'd find that useful.

Current Mood: lazy

Yer a Wizard, Parser! by takumiismypatronus. Slash, Kent Parson/OMC (8586 words)
Check Please!/Harry Potter
This was such a fun crossover, and somewhat unusually for Harry Potter crossovers it is not AU for either canon.

I watched Spider-Man: Homecoming this afternoon, and it was a lot of fun.

( cut for spoilers )

For example I really like the "fish out of water" trope in stories, but I also have a pronounced embarrassment squick. Unfortunately far too often the former is peppered with the latter. So I end up being lured into reading stories and then have to put them down frequently because I just can't deal. That doesn't make for an immersive reading experience. I wish I could just bring myself to power through the squicky bits rather than taking breaks.

I'm wondering what the English equivalent for the German "Aktionismus" is.

In German this is a usually pejorative term to describe activities somebody (often people in a position of power but accountable to the public, more rarely subordinates under pressure from above) undertakes to be visibly seen as "doing something" to address a problem, but the actions are not well thought out, unlikely to really solve or improve the situation, but are (at least from the perspective of the speaker making the charge of something being "Aktionismus") done wholly or partly to provide cover against the accusation of inactivity or indifference.

Like when you hastily implement "security theater" measures against a real security threat, because you can't think of any actual solution to improve security for real, but not doing anything and admitting to having no solution would be politically very costly. Opponents then might accuse you of "Aktionismus".

So "Aktionismus" is a general term for hasty, thoughtless responses of this type, used by opponents of the actions. It is often coupled with "blind" as in "blinder Aktionismus" to emphasize the lack of plan or vision to arrive at a real solution.

It is similar to the accusation that something is merely a "symbolic action" but that implies more a deliberate gesture lacking concrete results, whereas "Aktionismus" is more of a harmful flailing around.

"Aktionismus" has also some sort of specialized meaning for some performance art movement from Vienna, and apparently the word "actionism" exists in English in the translation for that Austrian art, but it doesn't seem to be used in the colloquial sense. But clearly this is a common phenomenon (and accusation) in politics, so there ought to be an English term.

Wonder Woman has finally opened here this week so now I have watched it. It's actually the first of the recent DC films I bothered to watch.

It was a lot of fun! Though I very much wanted to throat-punch the guys sitting two seats to my right who would not stop talking. WTF. Since they did not sit directly next to me I couldn't even shush them. What kind of obnoxious person does that in a cinema?

Also the slow motion fight scene inserts got on my nerves very quickly. I suppose it does allow to see dramatic fight poses clearly or something, like you would in a comic panel, but the effect did not work for me.

So I watched Alien Covenant. I liked that much less than Prometheus. Maybe because it was more of an Alien film in that ( spoilers )

That was quick. It didn't even last a year (not counting the closed beta period). Not that I'm particularly surprised, because I signed up last summer when you could join, but then ended up almost never using the site.

Also, despite having an account, I did not even get an email from them about this. Though I think I may have disabled even import site update messages when I clicked "unsubscribe" back in April on the mails I got back to back about free plushies and pizza parties or some such crap, even though I had been fairly sure in my account creation that I didn't want promo messages.

But frankly the way site messaging was handled there was one of the problems that made the site unusable for me. Even now when I log in I do not see any closing message prominently in my notice box, just a whole bunch of "recommended for you" stuff. I had to click on the Imzy group to see their announcement from May 24th, and only learned about it now by accident after seeing talk elsewhere.

Apparently the final closing date is June 23rd. But I don't have any content there, so I'm not bothered.

Is there some sort of big current wank/kerfuffle going on right now that I've been totally oblivious to? Somehow I never notice these things even if I'm in a fandom at the time they are happening.

I've seen vague references while browsing my network reading list, but as is usual for me I couldn't connect it to anything. They could maybe be referring to the YOI wank that was even featured in this week's OTW newsletter. (A wank I incidentally also missed happening on Tumblr, but then I'm not into YOI though it appears on my dash from time to time because I'm into Check Please! and there is overlap in fans.)

But I'm not sure. I always miss these things.

Current Mood: confused

I watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2 today, and overall it was fun, though it did hit my embarrassment squick a couple of times. And as in the first part, Marvel's space mythology and setting is confusing.

Also it's not like I especially needed another daddy issues story. It's not that I dislike them as such, but more variety for the heroes' issues would be nice.

BTW, has this opened in the US this week too? I haven't seen any posts about it.

So I've imported my LJ to DW in 2009 and consistently crossposted from DW since, so if I rerun it now, and only import comments, will that work out like you'd want it to? I.e. I get a backup of all the newer comments on the LJ entries added to my DW entries, but older comments won't be duplicated?

Current Mood: fretful

Going to your bookmarks on AO3, that you tagged with "To Read" for later, only to see a blank "This has been deleted, sorry!" placeholder in your list. :(

...to find a new WIP update notification in your mail and then, when you go to read it, AO3 is down.

Current Mood: thwarted

Why is there an annoying, pixelated, pooping horse on my Tumblr dashboard? It is not even April 1st yet. How can I make it go away? Why is Tumblr doing these things?

I have a new android tablet and I want Chrome to display my tabs like my old tablet does. That one displays tabs like on a desktop, with a tab-thing showing the title at the top and all are sort of in the same window like in a desktop browser. My new tablet does the annoying mobile browser display, where there is the little square next to the url that shows a number. Both tablets have Android 6 and the same Chrome so surely there has to be an option somewhere to tell Chrome how it should display its tabs, and yet I can't find it anywhere. And nothing that I tried putting into Google was any help either.