見晴台。Observation deck.

Oct. 13th, 2025 11:00 pm
[syndicated profile] maru_feed

Posted by mugumogu

楓の木に設置してある見晴台。みりは木登りの後、ここでよく寛いでいます。 This is the observation deck set up in the maple tree. Miri often relaxes […]
minoanmiss: Minoan version of Egyptian scribal goddess Seshat (Seshat)
[personal profile] minoanmiss posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom:
Marvel Cinematic UniverseCaptain America (Movies)Marvel (Comics)
Pairings/Characters: Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson
Rating: Gen
Length: 4,117
Creator Links: HSavinien on AO3
Theme: Medieval Jousting, warrior recognizing warrior

Summary: Sir Samuel meets another knight lately returned from war shortly before the Midsummer tournament.

Reccer's Notes: One of the things I love about historical fiction is getting the voice of the time right. One of the things I love about fanfiction is getting the voices of the characters right. This marvelous story does both and so much more.

Fanwork Links:Le Chevalier au Faucon
[syndicated profile] metafilter_feed

Posted by warriorqueen

"Ten years on, only fourteen of the ninety-four Calls to Action have been implemented." A series from The Walrus. CW: Residential schools, cultural genocide, abuse, child deaths, colonialism, racism

The whole series is worth a read, but some highlights: - There are more children in care now than at the height of residential schools - Governments would rather establish national holidays and rename buildings than address restitution - "We have to wonder: should we just abandon 'reconciliation' altogether?" Some background: Canada's residential school system was a deliberate and ongoing act of cultural genocide which provided a model for South Africa's apartheid, among other colonial structures of overt oppression. "The system began with laws before Confederation and was mainly active after the Indian Act was passed in 1876. Attendance at these schools became compulsory in 1894, and many schools were located far from Indigenous communities, in part to limit cultural contact. By the 1930s, about 30 percent of Indigenous children were attending residential schools. The last federally-funded residential school closed in 1997 [emphasis mine], with schools operating across most provinces and territories. Over the course of the system's more than 160-year history, around 150,000 children were placed in residential schools nationally. " (Wikipedia) In 1951, legislation was passed giving social workers and provincial governments the same powers as Indian agents, which lead to the "60s scoop." Story by story, Canada's news media built indigenous oppression (The Tyee, oldie but goodie) Murray Sinclair's recommendation on what Canadians can do for Truth and Reconciliation. (YouTube, CBC News) Murray Sinclair also, speaking on the discovery of mass graves of indigenous children, gives a précis on what they learned about residential schools, cultural genocide, and the stories of children who died in the schools. (YouTube, CTV News)

Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel

Oct. 13th, 2025 02:04 pm
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija


This book contains several elements which I like very much: it's epistolatory, it has mysterious ancient sophisticated machinery, and it involves very big size differences. I love miniature things and people, but I also love giants and giant things. This novel is entirely in the form of interviews, and it begins with a young girl walking in the woods who falls into a sinkhole, and lands in the palm of a GIANT HAND. (I can't believe that image isn't on the cover, because it's so striking and is also by far the best part of the book.) The gigantic hand is metal, and it turns out that there are pieces of a complete ancient giant robot scattered all over the world! What happens when the whole giant robot is assembled?

It turns out that what happens is yet another example of a great idea making a bad book, largely - AGAIN - by failing to engage with the premise! WHY IS THIS SO COMMON????

To be fair, this book has many bad elements which do not involve failing to lean into its premise.

The entire book consists of interviews by an unnamed, very mysterious person with near-infinite money and power. He is hiring people to locate the robot parts, assemble them, and pilot it. He also conducts personal interviews with them in which he pries into their love lives in a bizarrely personal manner. It's clearly because the author wanted to have a love story (he shouldn't have, it's terrible) and figured this was the only way to do it and keep the format, but it makes no sense. The interviewers do object to this line of questioning, but not in the way that I kept wanting them to, which would have been along the lines of "Don't you have anything better to do than get wank material from your employees? Drop it, or I'll go to HR."

The girl who fell into the hand grows up to be a physicist who gets hired to... I forget what exactly, but it didn't make much sense even when I was reading it. Anyway, she's on the project. There's also a badass female helicopter pilot, and a male linguist to translate the mysterious giant robot inscriptions. All these people are the biggest geniuses ever but are also total idiots. All the women are incredibly "man writing women."

Most annoyingly, the robot does not seem to be sentient, does not communicate, does not have a personality, and only walks for like 30 seconds once.

Spoilers! Read more... )

I feel stupider for having read this book.

It's a trilogy but even people who liked the first book say the returns steadily diminish.

I normally don't think it's cool to criticize people's appearances, but in this case, this dude chose to go with this supremely tryhard author photo.

no less beautiful for our variation

Oct. 13th, 2025 07:37 pm
[syndicated profile] metafilter_feed

Posted by sciatrix

Hopeful monsters. Morphospace. Mutation. Natural variation. Mutagenesis screens. Polymorphism. Deformity. Phenotype. Disease. Adaptation. Anomaly. Variant. Error. What defines the distinction between defect and difference? Between natural and unnatural? Between right and wrong? Over at The Node, disabled biologist Bethan considers developmental variation, disability, and societal categorization.

Comic Book Burnings Project

Oct. 13th, 2025 07:37 pm
[syndicated profile] metafilter_feed

Posted by marxchivist

The Comic Book Burnings Project. Documenting and mapping comic book burnings in America 1945 - 1955. Contains a news gallery, timeline and navigable map of documented comic book burnings.

From the web site:

"While comic books had been subject to criticism even before World War II began, those early critiques focused on the dangers they posed to the individual reader. After the war, comics became a scapegoat for American cultural and social insecurities in the new Cold War world: juvenile delinquency; crime; violence; sexual promiscuity; homosexuality; and more."

By 1955 it had culminated in many comic book companies going out of business and the comic industry self-censoring via the Comics Code Authority.

Ever wanted to make your own maze?

Oct. 13th, 2025 07:26 pm
[syndicated profile] metafilter_feed

Posted by chavenet

If you've tried, you might find it's not as easy as you might think. Draw just one long path, and it's too easy; draw lots of small ones and you'll often run into the same problem. If even a small maze is tricky to make, a massive one seems downright impossible — and yet pick up any puzzle book for children and you'll see pages upon pages of them. How do they do it? Enter Wilson's Algorithm.
[syndicated profile] metafilter_feed

Posted by kristi

Last June, thoughtful comedian Marc Maron announced he would be ending the podcast he's done twice a week for 16 years. He's been sharing some of his feelings about making time for himself and living through this transition in his Dispatches blog. Last week's episode, #1685, was just him, talking about the whole ride. Today he released the final episode, #1686. Eleanor Biggs, The Guardian: 'Like losing a friend': farewell to Marc Maron's pioneering podcast WTF. WTF at Wikipedia.

Dear Yuletide 2025 Author

Oct. 13th, 2025 11:09 am
thefourthvine: A weird festive creature. Text: "Yuletide squee!" (Yuletide Woot!)
[personal profile] thefourthvine
Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hi!

I am going to provide you with all the details I can, because that is who I am as a person. Thank you so, so much for writing in one of these fandoms. See you on the 25th!

Likes/DNWs and General Stuff )


Between Silk and Cyanide -- Leo Marks, Leo Marks, Forest Yeo-Thomas )


blink-182 )


Blue Prince, Worldbuildling, Simon P. Jones )


Nomads, Eileen Flax, Veronique Pommier )
[syndicated profile] askamanager_feed

Posted by Ask a Manager

I’m off today, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2014.

A reader writes:

I was in the awesome position of interviewing for two roles through recruitment agencies and receiving offers for both. Both roles were aware that I had another strong offer on the table, and negotiations started between myself and the two agencies.

As I was available immediately, both roles wanted me to start ASAP and had suggested start dates that were within a working week of the initial offer. Within a few days, I made my decision and I outlined my choice in an email to the recruiter of the role I was turning down.

The recruiter wanted to discuss the matter further and I declined. He indicated by email he was upset that I was turning down the role so close to the start date.

A month later, I received an invoice from the accounting team of the recruitment team – no other communication – just an invoice made out to me for $50 for a background check they had completed. I responded to the accounts team saying that I believed this cost was for their client, and as I had no relationship with them, it wasn’t an invoice for me personally (assuming it had been mistakenly sent to me as the subject of the background check).

The next day, I received an email from the recruiter directly, who informed me that as I had behaved unprofessionally and without integrity, as an act of good faith I should pay this “insignificant amount” rather than ask the (very large international) agency to absorb it.

I wanted to write a strongly worded response about my ideas of professionalism, but I am going to sit on it for a day or two. Ironically, if he had emailed me and outlined his point of view earlier – without attacking me – I probably would have paid the invoice out of feelings of guilt/good faith.

So am I obliged to pay this? And if I’m not obliged, should I pay it to save face professionally?

What the flying F?

Um, no, you should not pay this. Just like they should not pay for your interview suit or your time spent interviewing or the Xanax I will use to calm my slightly crazed laughter after reading this letter.

Background checks are a normal cost of doing business for recruiters. There are a few industries where applicants are expected to pay for their own (teaching can be one), but those are (a) rare and (b) disclosed ahead of time. That second part is the real tell here — you don’t spring costs on people after the fact that they never agreed to. That’s not how this stuff works. People have to agree to it up-front; you can’t decide to charge them later because you’re bitter.

This dude sent you an invoice in a weirdly misguided attempt to penalize you for turning down an offer (and losing him his commission). That’s unprofessional, hostile, and out of touch with what’s okay to do.

There’s nothing unprofessional about turning down an offer — and that goes double when you were totally up-front with him throughout your deliberations. You’re under no obligation to accept an offer (just like they were under no obligation to make you an offer).

He sucks, you have no obligation to pay this, and you certainly shouldn’t pay out of guilt or to save face. In fact, that would be the opposite of saving face — it would be agreeing that you’d done something wrong, when you haven’t.

Ignore the invoice, ignore his letter, and never work with this agency again. As for sending a letter back to him, I’d skip that entirely … but if you must send a response, send it to someone above him; there’s no need to engage with someone who has already demonstrated that he’s hostile and irrational.

Read an update to this letter here.

The post I turned down a job offer and now the recruiter is invoicing me appeared first on Ask a Manager.

darkjediqueen: (Default)
[personal profile] darkjediqueen posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Title: Wanting Something
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Explicit Sex
Fandom: S.W.A.T.
Relationships: Donovan Rocker/Molly Hicks
Tags: Getting Together, Unexpected Meeting
Summary: Molly wanted something, she got it. Just not from who she thought it was going to be.
Word Count: 3,699


Penultimate day of voting

Oct. 13th, 2025 04:32 pm
[syndicated profile] metafilter_feed

Posted by joannemerriam

Vote here for Metafilter's new Board of Directors. Voting ends tomorrow, Tuesday, October 14th, 2025, at 11:59pm Eastern. Timeline. History. Discussion.

how can I be more assertive at work?

Oct. 13th, 2025 02:59 pm
[syndicated profile] askamanager_feed

Posted by Ask a Manager

I’m off today so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2017.

A reader writes:

Every since I was a small child I’ve been praised for how nice I am, how likable I am, how good I am with people. In many ways, this is a positive thing. I think of it as a skill that takes effort, but is very useful. However, as I’ve started working professionally I’ve run across a problem. I have a really hard time telling people when they are being awful. I can do normal job-related criticism fine – “please make sure you proofread for typos next time,” etc. – but when it comes to more emotionally turbulent conversations or anything with conflict, I completely freeze up. I have whole conversations ready to go in my head, but I can’t get them out because I know it will hurt people’s feelings and that goes against every fiber of my being, even though I know those people need their feelings to be hurt because they are being awful!

I want to move up in my field, and if I succeed in my goals I’ll end up being responsible for several hundred employees. Logically I know that even if people like me less in the moment, they’ll respect me more in the long run if I can have tough conversations and be firm when necessary, and the people that will resent me are people I don’t want to work with anyway, but how do I convince my mouth and my adrenaline that conflict isn’t something to be avoided?

For example, the last job I worked on, the supervisor directly above me either didn’t remember or didn’t care to know my name and instead called me “baby girl” the entire time. I thought about what to do and decided the next time he said it I would reply, “Actually it’s Jane,” which seemed like a clear shutdown without anyone who heard it being able to accuse me of overreacting as would happen if I said “that’s misogynistic, you asshole, enjoy dying alone with four ex wives who hate you,” which was my internal monologue. But when it happened, I just froze up, and couldn’t do it because my adrenaline started going crazy. How do I stop that or work through it and say what needs to be a said in a confident, non-panicky way without feeling like I’m going to die?

I work in an entry-level job a creative, heavily male-dominated field that is infamous for its sexism and its nepotism. It’s a giant part of the culture to rely on word of mouth, and hire people based on recommendations rather than resumes, so being liked and keeping professional relationships alive is a really important skillset, especially for a woman, but I don’t want to be treated like a doormat and I want to be a leader and it feels like this is holding me back. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

The crux of this is to figure out why calmly asserting yourself feels so rude to you.

It’s definitely true that lots of people have trouble navigating particularly awkward situations, but “hey, please call me Jane” is straightforward enough that the fact your adrenaline is firing so hard makes me think there’s something pretty deeply rooted happening here.

I’m curious about what type of communication you saw modeled in your family when you were growing up — and what lessons you learned about how you should talk to people. Any chance that the parent you identified most closely with wasn’t especially assertive on their own behalf either? Or that you were taught as a kid that things went more smoothly if you didn’t advocate for yourself? Or even that you were outright penalized for asserting yourself?

It might sound like overkill to suggest therapy, but what you’re describing speaks to fundamental ideas about your value and about what you are and aren’t allowed to bring to your interactions with other people. It might be worth digging into some of the underlying beliefs here with a therapist, who can help you figure out where you picked up these beliefs and how you can get rid of them.

But meanwhile — or if that sounds totally off-base to you — there are some concrete things you can do on your own as well.

First and foremost, it’s important to realize that the picture you have in your head of how these conversations will go is probably really different than how they’ll go in reality. Very, very few people are going to blow up if you say “Actually, please call me Jane” or “hey, can you turn your music down while I’m on this call?” Those aren’t inflammatory requests, and they’re not going to sound like attacks or like outrageously presumptuous demands. It might help to think about times you’ve seen other people make similar requests, and really focus on the reaction they received, which was probably not disgusted indignation or hostility. They probably received responses like “sure, sorry about that” or “yes, of course!” — and you will too.

Also, it’s worth thinking about the emotions you’re bringing to the situation. Sometimes when people are reluctant to address a problem, they let it go on for so long that their irritation builds and by the time they do speak up, they’ve become far more frustrated than the situation really warrants. That makes it feel like an even bigger deal in their minds, and they’re more likely to sound confrontational when they finally do say something. But if they’d just addressed it matter-of-factly when the problem first started, it never would have gotten to the point of feeling so adversarial. So speaking up sooner rather than later can actually help these conversations feel less fraught.

And speaking of things feeling adversarial: If you don’t have a lot of experience speaking up for yourself — or good models for how to do it effectively — your internal calibration for tone can be way off. You genuinely might not realize that these conversations can be calm and matter-of-fact, and that can be a huge problem because tone really matters! When you assume it’s going to be a Big Deal to the other person, and when it feels risky and emotionally fraught, or when you’ve let something go on so long that now you’re really pissed off about it, your tone is more likely to be confrontational. That makes the other person more likely to react accordingly … which then of course will reinforce your reluctance to speak up in the future.

But when you genuinely believe that what you’re saying is no big deal — that of course you have the right to ask to be called by the correct name or to ask someone to keep it down while you’re on the phone — your tone is more likely to sound calm, matter-of-fact, and even cheerful. And if it is, the other person is more likely to respond in kind.

If you know someone who gets this right — who calmly speaks up without coming across as a jerk — pay attention to how they do it and what kind of response they get. Plus, by paying attention to their tone, their wording, and their timing, you’ll be able to call on that model in the future when you need it.

One more thing to keep in mind: Most reasonable people actually want to know if they’re doing something that bugs you. Wouldn’t you be mortified if you found out that you’d been inadvertently annoying your coworker for months and she hadn’t told you? Most people would be. So from that perspective, it’s actually a kindness to speak up about this stuff (as long as you do it politely).

And of course, when it comes to people you manage, it’s much more than a kindness: if you avoid those conversations with them, it could end up affecting their performance, their evaluations, their raises, and their professional reputation. Most people want their managers to be up-front with them when those things are at stake.

Ultimately, though, when the potential for even mild conflict is causing this much worry, it’s almost certainly less about the specific conflict at hand and more about something a whole lot bigger. So really do think about therapy, as an investment not only in your career but in your quality of life too.

Originally published at New York Magazine.

Read an update to this letter here.

The post how can I be more assertive at work? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

The 2025 Nobel Science Prizes

Oct. 13th, 2025 03:21 pm
[syndicated profile] metafilter_feed

Posted by pwnguin

The 2025 Nobel Prizes have been awarded.

The Nobel Prize in Medicine 2025 was awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance. Scientific American has a short explainer. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for he discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit. Scientific American is on the scene with an explainer YouTube short. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 was awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yaghi for the development of metal–organic frameworks. Another SciAm explainer, should you desire more knowledge. The Nobel Prize in Economics 2025 was awarded to Joel Mokyr for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress, and to Peter Howitt and Philippe Aghion for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction. No videos explaining the research to laymen yet, but the day is young! Bonus Tom Lum has a pair of Shorts explaining the Ignobles and the winner of the Ignoble in Physics in detail.

Online dating: Now even more sucky

Oct. 13th, 2025 02:43 pm
[syndicated profile] metafilter_feed

Posted by Bella Donna

From The Guardian: Where once daters were duped by soft-focus photos and borrowed chat-up lines, now they're seduced by ChatGPT-polished banter and AI-generated charm. Dating app fatigue is nothing new; for all its promise of convenience and unlimited choices, the gamified nature of finding love in the app age has, over the years, left many users feeling disposable. And, as AI becomes an ever more present feature of modern life – embedded into everything from healthcare systems to online grocery shopping – it's adding yet another layer of digital artifice to the search for love.

In a landscape where text-based communication plays an outsized role in the search for love, it's perhaps understandable that some of us reach for AI's helping hand – not everyone gives good text. Some Chatfishers, though, go to greater extremes, outsourcing entire conversations to ChatGPT, leaving their match in a dystopian hall of mirrors: believing they're building a genuine connection with another human being when in reality they're opening up to an algorithm trained to reflect their desires back to them.
[syndicated profile] metafilter_feed

Posted by Faintdreams

1 Hour 48 Minutes and 48 Seconds of spooky Chiptunes: SLYT - (Youtube) From the vifdeo Description: " 100% genuine 8-bit chiptune music from real Game Boy games, hand-curated for a spooktacular beep boop Halloween party. Track numbers are according to the soundtracks hosted on Zophar's Domain, which is the source of all audio data. "

As 0xabad1dea, the videos creator and curator notes: " Why is there an entire video game dedicated to tormenting the Smurfs with their phobias? I have no idea, but it was a real blessing to this undertaking... " Enjoy

Countdown to No Kings

Oct. 13th, 2025 02:28 pm
[syndicated profile] metafilter_feed

Posted by subdee

MONDAY: Share this exact post so everyone can join the challenge. TUESDAY: Turn social media yellow. WEDNESDAY: Get high-visibility voices talking about the movement. THURSDAY: Take It Offline FRIDAY: Remind everyone it's happening tomorrow. SATURDAY, October 18th: SHOW UP

What is No Kings? According to Matt Stoller, it's "a rally next week in D.C. involving a bunch of unions and normie liberal Democratic groups that want to tax the rich, and it is drawing some sharp criticism from the GOP, who are calling it terrorism." However, far from being "a rally in DC" this is a nation-wide movement with over 2500+ different planned actions. Robert Reich has advice for those attending, including 1) stay peaceful, 2) have fun, 3) be clear this is about saving our democracy, 4) use the opportunity to push for change in the 2026 midterms, our best shot at ousting the MAGA types and giving Congress the votes to hold hearings and investigations. More on the Frog as symbol of resistance: There is a cottage industry of MAGA influencer types going to Portland, starting fights with the non-violent protesters there, and crying viewpoint discrimination when they get arrested by police for disturbing the peace. We reject this narrative and so do grand juries in DC, Chicago and Portland, who are in several cases refusing to indict protestors. See you on Saturday!
Page generated Oct. 14th, 2025 03:58 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios