arduinna | Network

I have some questions for the nominators of the below fandoms! Please reply by Saturday, Sept 13, 11:59 AM EDT, or I'll choose how to handle them without input.

Note that this deadline does overlap with signups, which will open later today (Sept 11). So if you intend to sign up with any of these fandoms, you may want to wait a couple days - my apologies for the inconvenience!

Batman - All Media Types
There are various Batmans already in the tag set. Can this be merged into DCU (Comics)?

Digimon - All Media Types
Digimon Adventure
There are two overlapping Digimon nominations. Can the AMT nominator pick a specific version? And does the Digimon Adventure nominator mean the original anime or the 2020 reboot? (or does the fandom treat them interchangeably?)

Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games) is already in the tag set. Can this be merged with that, or can you pick a different specific version?

---

Tron - All Media Types
Tron: Uprising is already in the tag set. Can you pick a specific version?

The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Other Zeldas are already in the tag set. Can you pick a specific version?

Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
The TV show and video games are already in the tag set. Can you pick a specific version?

dine

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fennectik posting in

anime_manga

Seems one of my top favorites has gotten its third season. Crunchyroll unveiled the trailer a day ago and was wise not revealing much in terms of spoiling it the context. I can't wait to watch it all when I can see it.

Here's the link for said trailer

Spy X Family season 3 trailer

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Pet Shop Boys- So Hard

torachan

1. Most of the stuff is gone from the curb. Hoping someone will decide to take the chair, too.

2. Last night before bed, I took a bunch of stuffing out of my new pillow (filled up a gallon size ziploc bag) and that seemed much more comfortable/similar feel to when I first unboxed it and before it fully expanded. The fully expanded size was definitely too full for me. The filling seems to redistribute very well once some is removed, and doesn't leave it feeling lumpy. If I need to adjust further, I can, but for now this seems about right.

3. Ollie is so big...

lady_ragnell

I was doing quite well for myself and then a. I got stranded in the middle of a book I was enjoying for some stupid reason and b. got hit by a busy patch. Slightly under a month this time, anyway, and the books were largely enjoyable ones!

( Very chatty this evening apparently! )

Okay! Lots to say about a lot of those, apparently that's what comes of writing late in the evening after a long day!

mecurtin

When Purrcy is very happy to be next to a human he sits upright on his butt like a little guy, spreads his legs, & prepares to lick his belly & otherwise have a good time. He is extremely vulgar & the envy of all human males, I'm informed.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is sitting up like a human with a kind of dopey expressing on his face. Trust me, I've chosen the camera angle carefully.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is sitting up like a human with a kind of dopey expressing on his face. Trust me, I've chosen the camera angle carefully.

settiai

In tonight's game, ( the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off.

Current Mood: awake

cornerofmadness

So today I get woken up by Macy's credit card calling to tell me I missed a payment (I did. Well fuck)

Then I get a text from CVS back in Pittsburgh. They have two pills filled and waiting for pick up. I have zero pills on auto refill (hear the internal screaming yet) I don't have time to deal with them.

At work my vascular surgeon's people call me in great concern. 'Are you okay? WHY do you need more blood thinners? You have an active script.' There's me in front of my class going uh what? I never asked you for more blood thinners. CVS called us. They did WHAT? a) I don't need a refill yet b) I don't need a new script. I have like 3 months left on this one. OMFG CVS.

Later that same class the surgeon calls to reconfirm my appt tomorrow which great because I was going to call after class because I don't remember them asking for my birthday and wasn't sure they made the appt.

I spent all weekend redoing the links on my online portions of class. Still not working as it turns out. (this is where my soul left my body)

Got an email from the dean. Is your art project ready? Technically no. I did around for my bones to put in my piece...and realize the small animal bones I had I gave to wild life so now I'm over there digging for tiny bones while talking to the head of wild life about the fact we need to add a 200 level research class because in spite of this never happening before in 20 years I had a second student ask me about doing research as a sophomore. She's a h.s. student who'll graduate in may and will graduate college with her associates as well. She wants to go to OSU to their dental program and can I help her. Not this semester young lady. We're 3 weeks in but next semester you bet because I need more work but I can't hardly say no to someone who is begging to do this (unlike my usual senior who has to be corralled and forced).

I get bones. I come home and get all the leaves I preserved last year for this. In spite of following a YT tutorial none of them kept their color but they ARE pliable. So that's ready, leaves, moss, bones. By friday it'll be art.

Also I'm doing Ashes of Them, where I decided to burn some poetry in my sink and mix visible text with ash and a 'wedding ring.' What could go wrong here? Well the smaller version of the poetry burnt so fast it burnt the text. WAH. I had the larger version that I made by mistake. Burnt it but it's still too big (will reprint tomorrow after the company party.) Burn even more paper for more ash. Because art!

Wanna bet Dana gets banned from faculty/staff art show next year.

While home I call CVS in Pittsburgh and ask why they refilled my script. they can't tell me AND somehow my doctor sent my new script there. They claim they didn't call my doc about that script renewal.

I call MY CVS, ask them to transfer those scripts and all my others. We need the names of them scripts. I start telling her and she says 'call us back on the weekend.' OMFG. By the way WHY do you have my pills also auto refilled and waiting (who the fuck knows which ones, she couldn't tell me)? And why did you call my doctor.

we didn't do that. Uh huh

Then United Health Care called about other Dana. I go into my spiel. 'oh my, how did that happen? I'll take your number out of the system.' Uh huh. Yinz been saying that for four years now.

BOOKS!

What I Just Finished Reading:

Solid Gold Murder - solid mediocre

Within the Darkness - a nonlinear fantasy jumping back and forth between 2017 and 1917, it was pretty good

The Secret of the Orange Blossom Cake - romance magic realism with a lead you want to slap into next week

What I am Currently Reading:

Wrong Side of the Grave - Bryna Butler mothman as an alien...she's local

What Moves the Dead - T. Kingfisher a very cool, queer coded retelling of the Fall of the House of Usher

What I Plan to Read Next: I'm so behind on my challenges. something for that

And finally August's reading. You know how I like to talk books so if you're interested in any of these let's talk

Ohio's Black Hand Syndicate: The Birth of Organized Crime in America true crime

Within This Darkness YA rural fantasy

Atlas of Unknowable Things gothic

Pantomime fantasy

A Dark and Deadly Journey historic mystery

The Wood YA rural fantasy

( under here for political crap )

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Hudson & Rex

kindkit

Still not king. Very far from being king, in fact.

I haven't posted here for a variety of tedious reasons, including: my laptop is barely creaking along, but I hate trying to type long posts on a phone; it was summer and the heat makes me miserable; not really feeling fannishly engaged and not wanting to bore you all with posts about my boring life; the general state of everything.

But all of you here are important to me, even when I go silent. So I'll keep trying not to go silent so much.

All right, first, the boring life stuff.

( health, job, OMG MY FUCKING JOB )

Fandom: Not much happening. I enjoyed the Murderbot TV show a lot and wrote a couple of short fics for it, but the fandom (on Tumblr) immediately started annoying the hell out of me.

I might do Yuletide, just to feel sort of fannishly connected.

Books: T. Kingfisher's latest, Hemlock and Silver, is pretty darn good. I've now read all of her books except the non-fantasy horror, which I'm just not feeling up to. Luckily she's releasing several more new books in upcoming months.

Other than that, I felt like I'd been reading a lot of popcorn books that I wasn't even enjoying, so I went to the other extreme and started Don Quixote, which I somehow have managed to not read despite having a Ph.D. in (English) Renaissance literature. So far I like it, but I'm not getting the greatness, if that makes sense? It's a mildly funny parody of chivalric romance. But I'm only about 100 pages in, so there's a lot to go and I'm presuming it gets more complicated. I did quite like the bit where the story veers into straightforward pastoral, with the shepherdess who makes the impassioned defense of her choice to remain single and her wish for men to leave her the hell alone.

My intermittent urgent to scrape the rust off my French has also returned, so I'm reading Camus's L'étranger for the first time since I was a college freshman. The Kindle app has a built-in French dictionary, which helps.

On the subject of popcorn books I didn't enjoy: I won't name names, but I read a romantasy that purported to take place in a midwestern university town in 1969, but somehow the atmosphere of the campus and the town felt very much like my time in grad school in the 1990s. There are many women professors and they're respected and treated as equals, people are writing dissertations on queer themes in medieval poetry, and the dive bar has stout on tap. Also, somehow, in a world where apparently there's no sexism, no racism, and little to no homophobia, with all the changed history such a state implies, the US is still waging war in Vietnam. Plus, it soon became apparent that only the first chapter had been properly revised and polished, because the prose got a lot worse after that. I finished reading it, but I'm annoyed about it.

TV: Watched the first episode of the 2014 British cop drama Happy Valley, which I'd heard was rough going. It was even more brutal than I expected, while simultaneously being ridiculously implausible, so I haven't watched more.

After the Corporation for Public Broadcasting got defunded, I canceled my Netflix subscription and started recurring donations to my local NPR station and a PBS station (not my local one, but the one in northern Minnesota where I grew up, which probably literally changed my life as a teenager). This gives access to a ton of PBS shows, so I watched the Finnish drama Isolated, about a remote island that suddenly loses all electricity and communications, and all contact with the rest of the world. It too was a not-entirely-satisfying combination of bleak tone and ridiculous plot, but I enjoyed it enough to watch the whole thing.

Podcasts: I mostly listen to nonfiction, because my listening time is my commute and I can't give a narrative the level of attention I'd need to really enjoy it. I recently started If Books Could Kill, with Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri. It's about terrible bestselling (nonfiction) books, what they call airport books, that bring misinformation into the mainstream and cause actual social damage. I started from the beginning, and targets so far include Freakonomics, Outliers, The Game, and The Secret. Sometimes their analysis could go deeper (especially into the underlying ideological positions of these books), but it's pretty good at debunking stealthy bunk.

Other listening: The Mountain Goats have a new song out called "Armies of the Lord," from their forthcoming album Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan. I don't entirely love the song, but I think it may need to be heard in its context--the album is apparently a full-on "musical," as John Darnielle calls it, with a complex plot etc.

Other, or, we take hope where we can find it: New Taskmaster season starting soon! New Knives Out movie in November! I find it . . . helpful to have things to look forward to, in times like this. However trivial they are.

This is now very long, so I'm going to stop now. Apologies for any typos, but I'm feeling too lazy to go back and edit.

kronette

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anne_d

It hangs around outside Dr Emily’s kitchen window. She took this photo of it against the full moon. ( Hidden for non-arachnid fans )

galerian_ash posting in

bethefirst

Half the writing time for this flash round has already flown by, which means there's now only a week left to add your fic(s) to the collection! How is it going, guys? I wish you all the best of luck with finishing on time!

starwatcher posting in

fandom_checkin

This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Wednesday, September 10, to midnight on Thursday, September 11. (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #33598 Daily Check-in

This poll is closed.
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 26

How are you doing?

I am OK.
13 (50.0%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now.
13 (50.0%)

I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single.
9 (34.6%)

One other person.
13 (50.0%)

More than one other person.
4 (15.4%)

Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

otw_news_feed

Posted by callmeri

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-releases-0-9-420-0-9-426-change-log/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=267918

Over the past month, we rolled out behind-the-scenes upgrades and quality-of-life improvements across the site, including the addition of username links and chapter numbers to kudos and comment emails, respectively. We also made some major privacy and security enhancements, such as removing the email, birthday, and location fields from profiles and checking new passwords against known data breaches.

Special thanks and welcome to first-time contributors anna, Liz Watkins, Riya K, and theamandawang!

Credits

Coders: Abhinav Gupta, anna, Amy Lee, Bilka, Brian Austin, Ceithir, Connie Feng, Domenic Denicola, EchoEkhi, Hamham6, kitbur, Liz Watkins, marcus8448, Riya K, sarken, Scott, slavalamp, talvalin, theamandawang, weeklies
Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, Ceithir, HamHam6, james_, lydia-theda, marcus8448, redsummernight, sarken, Scott, weeklies
Testers: Allonautilus, ana, Anh P, Aster, Bilka, Brian Austin, calamario, choux, Dre, Keladry, Lute, lydia-theda, Pent, redsummernight, Runt, Sanity, sarken, Teyris, therealmorticia, weeklies, wichard

Details

0.9.420

On July 15, we massively improved the user search used by admins.

[AO3-6565] – We’ve improved the user search feature available to admins by moving it to Elasticsearch and adding the ability to search by past email addresses and usernames.
[AO3-7042] – Instead of redirecting to the main Collections page, we now give a 404 error if you try to access the collections page for a nonexistent user, work, or collection.
[AO3-7004] – We’ve added a database index to make it faster for database admins to search for comments using a specific guest name.

0.9.421

Following some email-related changes in our July 24 deploy, embedded images are now always stripped from comment emails, and usernames in kudos emails now link to the users’ dashboards.

[AO3-3154] – When you receive a kudos notification email, the names of users who have left kudos now link to the users’ dashboards.
[AO3-6060] – Even though they no longer had access to tag comment pages, former tag wranglers would still receive email and inbox notifications of replies to their old tag comments. This was both annoying and confusing, so we’ve stopped it from happening.
[AO3-6746] – If you changed your username or pseud name and you had some chapters that you co-created with another user, the chapter bylines would not always get updated with your new name. We’ve changed this so the cache is refreshed more reliably.
[AO3-6929] – The list of gift exchange sign-ups visible to collection maintainers now includes the pseud and username of signed-up users, instead of just their pseud.
[AO3-7011] – Using the Tab key to navigate in desktop Safari used to select hidden inputs, causing the focus indicator to temporarily disappear. We’ve fixed it so only visible links and inputs receive focus.
[AO3-7032] – If you tried to add your email to the invitation queue when it was already part of the queue, you would see two copies of the same error message. Now it only shows the error once.
[AO3-7065] – We fixed some intermittent failures in the automated tests for the bookmark importing tool used by Open Doors.
[AO3-7052] – We did a schema dump to capture what the current data structure looks like before we upgrade to Rails 7.2.
[AO3-7053], [AO3-7054], [AO3-7067], [AO3-7068] – We updated a whole bunch of gems and GitHub actions: reviewdog/action-rubocop, awalsh128/cache-apt-pkgs-action, nokogiri, and thor.
[AO3-5352] – We prepared the preface of work downloads that are attached to work deletion emails for translation.
[AO3-7001] – As an anti-abuse measure, we now strip embedded images from comment notification emails even when image embeds are enabled on the site itself.

0.9.422 & 0.9.423

On July 28, we made a number of small improvements all around the site. There were some issues while deploying these changes, so we did another release to fix it all up on the same day.

[AO3-5609] – We stopped sending subscription notifications for works hidden by admins, since hidden works are inaccessible to other users.
[AO3-7006] – When a comment contains an HTML list, the list numbers or bullet points no longer overlap with the commenter’s icon.
[AO3-7024] – You’ll no longer get an incorrect success message if you mark items in your inbox as read without selecting any comments.
[AO3-5476] – We cleaned up some unused code in the works controller.
[AO3-7064] – We updated the gems we use for automated testing.
[AO3-7072] – We updated the unicode gem to solve some issues with developing the AO3 software on Macs with Apple Silicon chips.
[AO3-5346] – Collection maintainers get an email notification when matches in a gift exchange have finished generating. We’ve improved the text of this email and prepared it for translation.
[AO3-6484] – We made a small change to the code that generates the HTML class names we use for hiding work blurbs by muted users. We were hoping this tweak would improve performance, but unfortunately it had no effect, so we’ll have to try again.
[AO3-6997] – If an Open Doors archivist tries to leave kudos while logged in to an archivist account, they’ll get an error message telling them to log in with their personal account instead.
[AO3-7015] – Work blurbs now contain an invisible code comment with the work’s update date, to make it easier for developers of third-party tools to automate downloads from index pages like tags, bookmarks, and search result listings.
[AO3-7021] – To make it easier to filter or search using work languages, we’ve added the language codes on the Languages page.
[AO3-7057] – We now provide any applicable error messages when an admin attempts to send an invitation directly to an email and something goes wrong.

0.9.424

On August 5, we deployed another batch of miscellaneous fixes.

[AO3-5025] – The Tag Wrangling committee can now use the Rich Text editor to edit the Wrangling Guidelines pages.
[AO3-7076] – We fixed some unwanted shadows that Chrome was adding to radio buttons and checkboxes.
[AO3-7088] – We fixed some flaky automated tests related to importing works from LiveJournal.
[AO3-7074] – We removed some unused CSS from our default site skin.
[AO3-6580] – We updated the account creation confirmation page’s title from “Create Registration” to “Account Created” so that it’s clearer you’ve successfully made an account.
[AO3-6818] – When an admin bans an email from being used for guest comments, that email is now also banned from requesting invitations.
[AO3-7026] – When we run a spam check on edited comments by new users, we now tell the spam checker that it’s an edit.
[AO3-7046] – We migrated the subscriptions table so it can hold more rows and we won’t run out of room in the future.

0.9.425

On August 19, we deployed an important change to account security that checks new AO3 passwords to see if they’ve been part of a known data breach. We also began allowing CSS variables in site skins.

[AO3-7073] – To better protect users’ privacy, we’ve removed the preferences and fields to display emails, birthdays, and locations on user profiles.
[AO3-7091] – We stopped using fixtures in our integration tests.
[AO3-7098] – We updated cache-apt-pkgs-action again.
[AO3-7099] – We bumped the version of actions/checkout – a utility that helps run automated tests on our code – from version 4 to version 5.
[AO3-3071] – Comment emails now include the chapter number, so you don’t have to follow the comment link to know where exactly it was left.
[AO3-7087] – To improve account security, we updated our password change process to prevent users from choosing passwords that are known to be compromised on other sites. (If you missed our post back on World Password Day, we also have some tips for keeping your AO3 account secure!)
[AO3-7090] – We changed links in emails to be HTTPS instead of HTTP.
[AO3-7093] – We added an automated test to make sure the fixtures used for seeding development databases result in valid records.
[AO3-7094] – We now allow limited use of CSS custom properties in site skins! You can find more information in the skins help text.

0.9.426

We upgraded to Rails 7.2 on August 26.

[AO3-7058] – We updated our version of Rails from 7.1 to 7.2.
[AO3-7095] – We added more example admin and user accounts with a greater variety of roles to our basic development dataset, which will make it easier for coders to work on things that require specific access levels.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-releases-0-9-420-0-9-426-change-log/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=267918

senmut posting in

no_true_pair

Title: Multi-verse Slide 2
Fandom: Transformers [G1 & Bay Movies]
Pairing/Characters: Midnight & Scion [OCs]
Content Notes: None
Prompt: September Ten - 5 & 7 - a little R & R

( While we do have records )

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6823 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 25 secrets from Secret Submission Post #974.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

melagan

I adulted the shit out of today. W00t! Some of it was kinda-sorta accidental (in the right place at the right time) but stuff got done so that totally counts.

This is worthy of celebrating.

Poll #33597

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 20

View Respondents

I should celerbrate by....

View Answers

Reading (porn)
3 (15.0%)

Writing (porn)
4 (20.0%)

Having a glass of wine (while reading or writing porn)
19 (95.0%)

The only reason you don't see coffee on this list is because it would be my sixth cup of the day.

lifehacker_feed

Posted by Jake Peterson

https://lifehacker.com/tech/we-already-know-how-much-faster-the-iphone-17-is?utm_medium=RSS

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source.

The iPhone 17 series has left the realm of mere rumor. Apple announced its four new iPhones at yesterday's "Awe Dropping" event—the iPhone 17, iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max.

All four use the company's new A19 chip, though different models come equipped with different versions of it: The iPhone 17 uses the base model A19, while the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max use the A19 Pro. The iPhone Air has an A19 Pro, but it's a "binned" chip. There's a lengthy explanation of what that means, but in short, the Air uses a weaker version of the A19 Pro, so it isn't quite as powerful as the version you'll find on the Pros.

While Apple frequently touts how powerful its newest iPhones are, they're never all that specific about it, especially during their big keynote announcements. The company likes to compare the new iPhones to random older iPhones, like saying the iPhone 17's A19 chip is 1.5 times faster than the A15 Bionic in the iPhone 13. But Apple doesn't usually put up the raw numbers to compare performance directly. For that, we turn to benchmarking.

Benchmarking tests offer a standardized way of testing a chips' CPU (central processing unit) and GPU (graphics processing unit), and comparing their performance against other chips. Geekbench is a popular option for benchmarking, and tests a few different things: the performance of tasks that require one core of the CPU; performance of tasks that require multi-cores; and the "Metal" test, that benchmarks GPU performance.

When you run a benchmark through Geekbench, your results are posted to the site's database. That means whenever a new device is announced, it's only a matter of time before benchmarking data appears there for those devices. As GSMArena reports, it seems some A19 and A19 Pro tests have already been run. These tests give us an early look at the performance of the new chips, and an idea of how much Apple has improved them over previous generations—at least on paper.

As the phones, and iOS 26 itself, are not officially out yet, take these numbers with a grain of salt. With that said, here are the preliminary results.

iPhone 17

The A19, again found in the iPhone 17, scored a 3,608 in the single-core test, and 8,810 in the multi-core test. That represents an 8% jump over the iPhone 16's single-core score of 3,317, and a 7% jump over its multi-core score of 8,198. The A19's GPU scored a 37,014 on the Metal test, a more than 33% increase when compared to the iPhone 16's score of 27,702. The test results show that the iPhone 17 has 8GB of RAM.

iPhone Air

The iPhone Air runs an A19 with a six-core CPU and a five-core GPU—one less than the iPhone 17 Pro, as this is a binned chip. GSMArena reports that it scored a 3,674 in the single-core test and 8,824 in multi-core. That's not much higher than the standard A19, though the results show Apple included four extra gigabytes of RAM in the Air over the iPhone 17.

Turning to the GPU, the Air scored a 37,743 on the Metal test. That represents an improvement of just under 2% over the A19. While you'll likely notice some gains if you're coming from the iPhone 16, or even the 16 Pro (more on that below) the Air isn't going to outperform the 17 much—even with its binned A19 Pro.

iPhone 17 Pro

While the iPhone Air's binned A19 Pro chip seems barely improved over the iPhone 17's A19 chip, the 17 Pro starts to show some advantage—at least in GPU. The A19 Pro in the iPhone 17 Pro scored 3,523 in single-score and 9,028 in multi-core. That's a lower single-core score, and only a slightly higher multi-core score, which is certainly interesting. In theory, the lower-performing A19 and A19 Pro chips could yield slightly faster results in single-core tasks, while the Pro could beat the bunch a bit in multi-core tasks.

However, things get more interesting when it comes to the A19 Pro's GPU—The chip achieved a Metal score of 44,342, 17% over the iPhone Air, and nearly 20% better than the iPhone 17. That's not all that surprising, seeing as the Pro has six GPU cores compared to the Air's five. Compare all that to the iPhone 16 Pro's scores of 3,447 in single-core, 8,576 in multi-core, and 32,673 in Metal. It's only a 2% bump in single-core and 5% in multi-core, but more than 35% in Metal. Not a bad gain.

iPhone 17 Pro Max

If you want the best possible performance in an iPhone, the Pro Max is usually the model to get. It seems the 17 Pro Max is no exception: According to these initial Geekbench results, the 17 Pro Max's A19 Pro chip received a 3,781 single-core score, 9,679 multi-core score, and 45,657 Metal score. Those, of course, are the highest scores of any of the iPhone 17 series. The single-core score is not dramatically higher than the other phones, and the multi-core score isn't a huge jump: The most dramatic difference there is between the iPhone 17 and the 17 Pro Max at just under 9%.

That said, the Metal score is pretty impressive. It's less than 3% better than the 17 Pro, but it's nearly 21% higher than the Air, and over 23% higher than the iPhone 17. We can see improvements from the iPhone 16 Pro Max's 3,430 single core, 8,502 multi-core, and 32,665 Metal scores. That's 10% improvement in single-core, nearly 14% in multi-core, and nearly 40% in Metal. There's no denying the 17 Pro Max is the phone to beat when it comes to graphics processing potential.

You can look up any iPhone model you want on Geekbench's database and compare its scores to the iPhone 17 series' early scores listed here. Obviously, the older you go, the better the gains are going to be. For what it's worth, comparing the iPhone 17 to the iPhone 13 shows a 71% gain in single-core and 79% gain in multi-core—not quite the 150% improvement Apple advertises. Perhaps there's something missing from the early scores here, or maybe Apple is using a different internal metric. We'll just have to see when testers benchmark the released iPhones running the public build of iOS 26.

https://lifehacker.com/tech/we-already-know-how-much-faster-the-iphone-17-is?utm_medium=RSS

siderea

I don't know who needs to know about this, but:

I just discovered the Android app "Periodically". It's described as an "event logger". It's for keeping track of when a recurring thing has happened, and figuring out what the average time is between occurrences. You just keep it updated each time the event happens, and it will do the math for you to figure out the frequency, and even give you a notification when it predicts the event is likely to happen again. If you're tracking more than one thing, it will try to suss out correlations for you.

I mention because twenty five years ago or so, I needed exactly this functionality and could not find any application that would do what I needed, so I wrote a thing for myself, and since then a lot of people I've mentioned it to have wondered where they can get one like it. Mine was Mac/Palm Pilot, so not of much use to most people, especially these days.
Lo, somebody seems to have realized the need for this functionality, and brought it to the market. So I thought I'd mention.

Now, in this day and age, a lot of people, especially in the US, are concerned with security. Especially if they're tracking something to do with their health. This app is not specific to health, so nothing about it immediately reveals that it is storing health information on casual inspection; you could use some sort of other term for whatever health condition it is you are actually tracking. So, for instance, If you were tracking how often your migraines happened, you could call that "new box of cereal".

This app defaults to local-only data storage on your Android device, and the developer claims that it only collects "app activity" for analytics, and shares nothing with third parties. It outputs CSV and has an option to back up to Google Drive.

I haven't tried it myself, but it has a rating of 4.6 stars out of five on the Play Store.

Reviewers on the Play Store note that tracker apps that are specific to the kind of event – such as health- specific loggers – often have needless complexity, and often some weird ideas about graphic design. They praise this app for its clean, elegant look and simple, effective functionality.

In addition to its obvious applicability to episodic health conditions, it strikes me as potentially extremely useful in one of the trickier parts of prepping: figuring out one's burn rate of resources. I think I might trial it to help me figure out how often I should expect to have to buy a fresh bale of toilet paper and how long the big bottle of ibuprofen will last me.

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Posted by Beth Skwarecki

https://lifehacker.com/tech/pixel-watch-compared-to-new-apple-watches?utm_medium=RSS

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Apple recently announced the features coming to the new Series 11 and Ultra 3 Apple Watches. We have highlights here of what was in that announcement, and everything we know about the Apple Watch Ultra 3, if you're still catching up. But if you’re ready to dive into the details and are wondering how those specs stack up with Pixel watches, including the Pixel Watch 3 and the upcoming Pixel Watch 4, here’s a comparison.

Display type and brightness

The new Apple Watch Ultra 3 has the most impressive display of all the watches I’ll discuss here today. Wide-angle OLEDs make the screen visible from more angles, and the LPTO3 technology means it draws far less power. These features mainly benefit the always-on display, since now even the inactive version of the display will be able to update every second, and you’ll be able to easily see the display without raising it to your wrist. Peak brightness is 3,000 nits.

The Apple Watch Series 11 doesn’t have the every-second updates, but it does include wide-angle OLEDs to be more visible when viewed at an angle. Peak brightness is 2,000 nits.

The Pixel Watch 3 has neither of those new features, but it does have a bright display at 2,000 nits. The Pixel Watch 4, due on store shelves in October, uses a domed display and has a peak brightness of 3,000 nits.

Battery life

The Apple Watch Ultra has always had an impressive battery life compared to other models of Apple Watch, and the Ultra 3 is no exception. The Ultra 3 has a 42-hour battery life, according to Apple, extending to 72 hours in Low Power Mode.

The Series 11 gets up to 24 hours in regular use, extending to 38 hours in Low Power Mode.

The Pixel Watch 3 gets 24 hours in regular use, and 36 with Battery Saver—nearly identical to the Apple Watch Series 11. The upcoming Pixel Watch 4 improves on that, with 30 to 40 hours of regular use (depending on which size watch you’re looking at) and 48 to 72 hours with Battery Saver.

Health and fitness features

The new Apple Watches will finally have a sleep score, which is a feature that the Pixel watches have long had through the Fitbit app (which is its native app for health features). This isn't a particularly useful metric, since it can't be validated; I wouldn't put too much stock in any app's sleep score. But Apple shows that it's catching up to other devices by offering an easy-to-read score instead of just separate metrics.

Apple also plans to introduce notifications for signs of high blood pressure, assuming it gets the needed regulatory approval. (Whoop recently got in trouble with the FDA for implementing an unapproved blood pressure feature; Apple is being more careful.) Pixel watches don't have any blood pressure features, although it's not clear whether smartwatches are any good at blood pressure monitoring in the first place.

The latest version of Apple's WatchOS comes with Workout Buddy, a voice that delivers AI pep talks during your workouts (assuming your iPhone is new enough). Pixel watches don't have this, but the Pixel Watch 4 will include an AI fitness coach as part of a premium-tier Fitbit subscription. The subscription is $9.99/month, and you get six months free with a new device.

Connectivity

The Apple Watch Series 11 and Ultra 3 both have connectivity with 5G networks and LTE in their cellular-capable models. The Apple Watch Ultra 3 also features satellite messaging, so that you can reach emergency services and notify your friends and family even without a cellular connection.

The Pixel Watch 3 only has 4G LTE in its cellular-capable models, but the Pixel Watch 4 has a Satellite SOS feature as well.

Pricing

The Apple Watch Series 11 starts at $399 for the 42-millimeter size, and $429 for the 46-millimeter size. The versions with cellular connectivity are $100 more.

The Apple Watch Ultra 3 starts at $799 and comes in one size, 49 millimeters.

The Pixel Watch 3 starts at $249 for the 41-millimeter size and $299 for the 45-millimeter size. As with its Apple counterparts, the versions with cellular connectivity are $100 more.

The Pixel Watch 4 starts at $349 for the 41-millimeter size and $399 for the 45-millimeter size, and again, the cellular versions are $100 more.

https://lifehacker.com/tech/pixel-watch-compared-to-new-apple-watches?utm_medium=RSS

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pauraque

As I was cross-checking Le Guin's short stories to make sure I had access to all of them, I realized I was missing "Selection" which is a story written during the period covered by The Wind's Twelve Quarters but not included in it. The going assumption seems to be that Le Guin left it out because she didn't like it, but the editor of the monthly sci-fi magazine Amazing Stories liked it enough to print it in the August 1964 issue. You can buy a copy of this issue for about five US dollars, which happens to almost exactly track inflation from its cover price of 50 cents. So... I bought one! And since I bothered to do that, I figured I'd read the whole thing and report my findings.

( Notes on the issue and what's in it )

My comments on the stories contain spoilers.

"The HoneyEarthers" by Robert F. Young

A scuzzy rich space dude tries to horn in on his son's young wife... or does he??

Said rich space dude is Aaron Price, who owns a company that harvests water from Saturn's rings. His spoiled son Ronny leaves his wife Fleurette, and Aaron tries to manipulate him into not going through with the divorce by threatening to turn him in for tax evasion. Ronny flees the planet, and Aaron, who's been lusting after Fleurette for years, takes her to a romantic resort on the moon, where he finally reveals the truth: He is a time traveler, and Ronny isn't his son, but his younger self with "space fugue" amnesia brought on by a traumatic incident where he almost died working on the Saturn water-harvesting project. We don't get a super clear picture of Fleurette's reaction to this, but she basically runs like hell, which is the only part of the story that makes any sense.

I disliked this novelette so much it was hard to get through it. The SF elements are boringly infodumpy, the time travel plot is unnecessarily complicated and confusing (my synopsis simplifies it a LOT), the interpersonal drama plays like a bad soap opera, and the prose is so painfully overwrought and filled with clumsy metaphors that I occasionally wondered if it was satire. "The girlish dress she was wearing began below her shoulders, and the firelight had already fallen in love with her smooth clear skin. Meadow flowers grew around her, and her mouth had the redness of the wild raspberries that grew in the fields of his youth. Spring resided in the dew-brightness of her eyes; her cheeks held the hue of frost-kissed leaves." (This character is human, so I don't believe he meant her cheeks were green, though I don't know what he did mean.) I guess we're supposed to think Aaron's behavior towards Fleurette is okay in the end because it turns out he is secretly her husband, but for most of the story we see him as her father-in-law, so he comes off like a disgusting creep. The way the author chooses to constantly emphasize how young and girlish and naive Fleurette is made my skin crawl. I had never heard of this author before, and at the end of this story I was relieved to depart from his presence.

"Selection" by Ursula K. Le Guin

On a colony planet where a supercomputer matches everyone to their genetically and socially optimal spouse, a woman is displeased with her match.

Joan doesn't have any specific reason to dislike Harry, she just finds him annoying and is pretty pissed to be stuck with him, though he likes her well enough. One day they're out skiing and Harry gets in an accident and breaks his leg. Seeing him vulnerable changes Joan's perspective on him and they end up happy together after all. The punchline: We go back to the guy who runs the matchmaking program, and find out that the supercomputer is far too busy with mission-critical processes to actually match the colonists up, so when nobody's looking he just draws names out of a hat.

This story was amusing but pretty slight. I saw the ending coming a mile away since there wasn't really anywhere else it could go, at least not for a writer who obviously isn't going to come out in favor of eugenicist arranged marriages. The execution could be better, but the idea that there are no predestined perfect matches and that relationships are what you make of them is a sensible one that I broadly agree with. I don't see any obvious reason why Le Guin wanted to bury this story; the prose is a little rough (by her standards, mind you, not by the standards of, say, Robert F. Young) but I don't think the story is significantly worse than the weaker entries in The Wind's Twelve Quarters. But as a writer I do understand that sometimes you look back at particular pieces and cringe for reasons that may not make sense to anyone else.

"Valedictory" by Phyllis Gotlieb

A trainee in a time travel project visits herself as a child.

Her childhood was hard, but she doesn't say how, nor does she have a clear picture of what she hopes to accomplish. She imagines she might tell her younger self to hang on, that things will get better. But when she sees herself at recess, singing and playing in spite of everything, she realizes how deeply she'd underestimated her own resilience, and returns to her present without saying anything to herself at all.

This story hit me like a truck and left me in tears. You don't need to know exactly what the protagonist's struggles have been, because the author taps into a universal truth for those of us who went through a lot of shit when we were younger—no matter what happened, we survived it and we're still here. The prose is clear and evocative, and a light touch is used with the speculative premise so it doesn't overwhelm the character work.

This was by far the best story in the issue and I'd be interested to read more by the author. Has anyone read her stuff?

Essay: "Mort Weisinger: The Superman Behind Superman" by Sam Moskowitz

Moskowitz profiles the editor of Superman and related comics.

This pretty extensive biography details how Weisinger got his start in science fiction, writing stories and editing fan and pro zines, before becoming instrumental in the growth of the superhero genre. I'm not a comics person so this wasn't of strong interest to me, but in the pre-Wikipedia age I'm sure it was nice to have a well-researched piece on an important figure from the fandom.

I did enjoy the recounting of the time in 1933 when Weisinger's mentor and co-editor Allen Glasser sold a story to Amazing that turned out to be plagiarized, causing the magazine's then-editor to freak out and refuse to work with anyone associated with Glasser. In turn this led Weisinger to shun Glasser and start his own zine with ~~blackjack and hookers~~ other friends. The drama! (I also liked Moskowitz's description of Glasser as "a slightly older scientifictioneer." There's a word we should bring back.)

"Furnace of the Blue Flame" by Robert Rohrer

In a post-apocalyptic future, a hero battles a dictator who controls the people by suppressing knowledge.

The dictator claims to use magic, but the hero recognizes his powers as forgotten technology—the titular Furnace is a nuclear reactor which he uses to torture dissidents with radiation poisoning. The hero leverages forbidden scientific knowledge to sabotage it and break his control.

This was well-written, well-paced, and it held my attention. I appreciated that it didn't dance around pretending to be fantasy for longer than necessary. I thought it was interesting that the villain's stated motivation is to prevent a reignition of the wars that devastated civilization. He thinks if he can just terrify everyone into absolute obedience, war will never come again. I also thought it was smart to have the hero fully understand the risks of bringing technology back, believing that power must come with an ideology of mercy. The old fashioned sword-and-sorcery style of storytelling with a noble manly hero is played very straight, and that left me cold, but I'd say the piece is successful on its own terms even though it's not really to my taste.

"Zelerinda" by Gordon Walters

Two men, one with psychic powers, search for alien life on a planet with a weather system of liquid metal instead of water.

It's hard to write a synopsis of this novelette because nothing happens in it. Various plot elements are introduced and none of them go anywhere. The psychic guy is afraid of being found out and locked away in a psionics research lab, but that never happens and his abilities have no impact on the mission. His brother was investigating the planet before them and disappeared, but they never find him, dead or alive. They think they find a structure, but it's just a cave. They come up with different theories about how life could exist on this world, but they're all wrong. There are no aliens, it's just a dead world with weird weather. The end.

This story is so long and so pointless that when it ended I felt actively angry that my time had been wasted on it. It takes ages for them just to get to the planet—why did we need all those scenes of the psychic guy being woken up to come to an emergency meeting and their boss waffling on forever??—and when they get there the search for life is full of unnecessary detail and repetition. The writing style also grated on me, especially the overly verbose and self-consciously "clever" dialogue. All the characters sound the same (just like the narrative voice, in fact) and have no development or real conflicts. You could write "liquid metal weather" on a post-it and get as much out of it as I got from this story.

Review column: "The Spectroscope" by Robert Silverberg

Silverberg reviews Starswarm by Brian Aldiss, The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, Ninth Series ed. Robert P. Mills, and Escape on Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Starswarm takes previously published stories and retcons them into a connected narrative with some edits and linking commentaries. Silverberg finds this project "misguided and lamentable" and the commentary "sententious and ponderously coy" but he likes a few of the stories as stand-alones.

He gives a glowing review to the Fantasy and Science Fiction anthology, naming "Flowers for Algernon" first among the standout entries and calling the book "a must for a science fiction library."

Silverberg had apparently panned Burroughs' other works as "unmitigated trash" and "subliterate claptrap," so it is with some sheepishness that he admits to liking Escape on Venus for its more lighthearted comic tone. "Mitigated trash and literate claptrap, I suppose—but fun to read."

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Annie: I met my husband three years ago, about eight months after he lost his first wife of 20 years. Their marriage was often toxic, and she was very abusive toward him. After she passed, he was ready to move on.

Right away, I knew something wasn't right with my husband. In his mid-50s, he was having short-term memory issues, falling frequently and struggling with his mental health. After seeing his health care provider and enrolling in the Veterans Affairs health care system, we discovered he had suffered multiple traumatic brain injuries during his time in the Army. That diagnosis led to him becoming a 100% service-connected disabled veteran and allowed him to receive the care he needed for a better quality of life.

His family, however, waged a war against me for helping him, accusing me of manipulating and "brainwashing" him. My husband has distanced himself from them, and we're no longer on speaking terms. My husband has a lot of anger toward them as he suffered for decades without their help or support.

His parents, who live in another state, are elderly and in poor health. I fear that if he doesn't reconcile with them before they pass, he will resent me. I love my husband with all my heart, and this has been a hard road. I just want the very best for him, unconditionally. Any advice? -- Wife on the Defensive

( Read more... )

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agonyaunt

DEAR ABBY: My daughter, "Violet," lives about two hours away. She and her mother (my wife) do not get along. Violet was always a rebellious, independent wild child, as well as the source of a lot of family problems. Violet and I also were estranged until we recently reconciled.

Yesterday, she sent me an email inviting me to lunch to celebrate my birthday. When I told my wife about the invitation, she responded, "Do what you want" in a tone and with a facial expression which said: "Go ahead, but if you do, you'll be sorry."

I have tried to reconcile these two women I love without success. My wife tells me she loves Violet but doesn't like her, although she would like to have a better relationship with her. Violet tells me she blames her mother for her PTSD (her unofficial diagnosis) and wants nothing to do with her.

So do I go to lunch with my daughter and incur the wrath of my wife for what she would consider a betrayal, or do I decline the invitation from my daughter and risk alienating her again? -- IN THE MIDDLE IN NEW JERSEY

( Read more... )

settiai

Autumn starts in about a week-and-a-half, and the first day of fall is on a Monday this year. Which, you know, kinda bodes well for new beginnings in my mind since it's the first of the work week at least. And, considering how things have been going so far in September, I feel like I really need a set point for a fresh start.

So, you know, Mabon works fairly well for that.

Things have been pretty chaotic in my life the last year or two for a variety of reasons, and I think that I'm going to force myself to set up a strict daily schedule to start following again come September 22. I won't stick to it forever, but I've found in the past that the structure really does help me even if it's just for a month or so to get me back in the habit.

Now I just have to force myself to start thinking about a set schedule that will work for me while still having some flexibility for when things don't go quite as planned...

Current Mood: hopeful

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