drjon | Reading

Anyone care to guess how old Gideon is?
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

Today we had a kids birthday party in our house for the first time since Covid. 10 of them, mostly 5-6 year-olds. Every previous time we held it somewhere else - a soft play, a climbing centre, a kids gym - somewhere where we could turn up and let the kids run riot for an hour, then give them food for 45 minutes before the staff ushered us out and hosed the place down for the next party.

But Gideon decided, about 6 months ago, that he really wanted a movie-watching party. In pyjamas. This was because a friend of Sophia's had dome that at a nearby multiplex, and he thought it was the coolest idea ever.

I stressed about this for a bit, looked up the exorbitant cost, stressed about that for a bit (particularly because you're booking a whole screen, so it's quite expensive when your child only has about 8 people they want to invite), and then happened to mention to Gideon that we'd have to watch whatever the cinema was able to find for us. And he said "Oh, I only want to watch the Mario Galaxy movie." - which made things very simple, because we have a living room with a 65" TV and space for 10 kids at home.

Frustratingly, I reminded him of all of this about three weeks ago, and got a response along the lines of "Why would I want that? I never said anything of the kind. You must have been imagining things father, what an imagination you have."

So I let everyone else know that some people could watch the movie in pyjamas, but it wasn't mandatory. And then we prepped for the party yesterday - including not having a big cake (because Gideon doesn't like cake) - substituting with a bright pink doughnut for him to have his candle in and Minecraft cup cakes for all of the other kids.

Everyone turned up just fine today, and they seem to have had a lovely time - there was half an hour of frenzied running and screaming around the house to start with, followed by 80% of them watching the first 50 minutes of the movie, and then they split up around the house in small groups, some of them watching the movie, some of them playing with toys, and some of them sharing the three Minecraft-capable tablets/accounts that we have to have 5 minutes each playing together. The adults switched rooms depending on which room the children were occupying, and I actually got to have conversations with some of them - a first for most of them, as I haven't really met Gideon's friends' parents much before.

Gideon noped out around the two-hour mark, retreating to his own tablet. Everyone else lasted another half an hour, and then parents spirited their kids home, Gideon and Sophia enjoyed opening all the presents up, and the family have dispersed to recover individually around the house.

Overall, it was less stressful than I worried, I haven't had to clear any cake off the ceiling, and the most damage was from one of the kids working out how to change the Minecraft world to Creative, and then the others taking the opportunity to totally overbuild the starting area with various high-level nonsense. So, overall, a pretty successful small-child birthday.

andrewducker

1. Picking apart the effect of AI on jobs.: (tags:jobs ai )
2. How Thailand resisted colonization: (tags:history society Thailand )
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10. Why the UK's financial watchdog is warning Britons not to take AI investment advice: (tags:ai finance advice )
11. Young people with anxiety and ADHD to be offered taxpayer-funded jobs: (tags:jobs mentalhealth uk )

marthawells

Coming up on Sept 10 in College Station TX, I’ll be there with two of the Murderbot showrunners, Chris Weitz and Andrew Miano, hosted by the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives SF/F Collection:

https://library.tamu.edu/news/2026/08/murderbot-panel.html

This is a free event in Texas A&M’s Rudder Theatre.

***

I'll be at the LA WorldCon this coming weekend, and here's my schedule: https://guide.lacon.org/people/7898eca8/martha-wells

Separate from the convention, Kate Elliott and I will be doing an interview and signing event on Thursday, August 27 at 7:00 pm with our editor Lee Harris at the Huntington Beach Barnes & Noble.

https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062217872-0

***

And I'll be at ArmadilloCon in Austin on Saturday September 12: https://armadillocon.org/

elisem

(I grew up across the street from someone who started every conversation with "So otherwise then," as a preamble to the news of the day. I forget exactly which part of Europe/Eastern Europe his family's mother language had been, but it came out as "So odderwise den," which tickled my parents immensely.)

So otherwise then, the sewer repair man has rescheduled his estimate appointment from earlier this morning to a time which will be after the emergency drain cleaner person he located and scheduled for us will have cleaned the drain out so that the sewer repair man can tell us whether this will be a $4K, an $8K, or a $15K-$18K fix. (We knew a fix had to be done, and we can now handle paying for one, though of course it'd be preferable to have the lower cost option and be able to roll any extra money into the replacement of the fallen retaining wall and deteriorating front steps... which in any sensible plan is the order in which these things should be done.)

Anyhow, the sewer repair man is very helpful and we are grateful, and likewise to the emergency drain cleaner.

So that's our morning here at Lindenhaus. So how's by you, den?

elisem

In an essay published on Medium, in reaction to a New York Times guest essay about Gay vs. Queer, James Dale said:

"We don’t win by figuring out who to leave outside. We only win we when we stand as one."

This is what I wrote back:

THANK YOU. That's the heart of it. Figuring out who to leave outside has always been a practice encouraged by fear and weakness. Strength is standing with each other. Even when we don't understand each other sometimes. Even when we disagree with each other sometimes. Even when we cordially dislike each other sometimes.

Nobody's expendable. Nobody's expulsion can be the price of our freedom.

Though I do understand the occasional impulse with every fiber of my came-out-in-the-1970s being. And it's not a new feeling. When I was doing a lot of bisexual/queer activism in the 80s and 90s, someone showed me a quote attributed to someone during the furor over Radclyffe Hall's book THE WELL OF LONELINESS. Supposedly the someone, who was also queer, said in a letter to a friend, "It is, in a way that is particularly inconvenient at the present moment, not a very good book."

Preference, whether for words or other things, varies. Taste varies. Approach varies.

What doesn't vary is the need to back each other up, to stand together when it counts.

That's what I posted as a reply, and there's a part I want to unfold a little more here.

Standing up for each other, even while personally side-eying this and that and the other thing, is one of the important practices of activist work. It's really hard to do sometimes. (And some people just have a genius for being annoying AF.) But I do not have to completely understand someone to defend their civil rights, and so forth.

(If I have to, I repeat the bit about "in a way that is particularly inconvenient at the present moment" through gritted teeth, and then get on with doing whatever accords with principles, respect, and solidarity.)

Have you had this sort of thing happen to you? How challenging was it?

andrewducker

Apparently someone in this house is very very old.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

andrewducker

1. Making things easier for people who need it makes them easier for everyone: (tags:disability children writing tools design )
2. UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada condemn Israel's West Bank settlement project: (tags:Israel UK Germany France Canada Palestine Italy )
3. Scientists Release Biggest 2D Map of the Universe: (tags:space )

elisem

Pretty sure I used up my entire supply of exclamation points in the previous post.

elisem

(Since I'm recuperating from this concussion, I'm making things easy by recycling parts of this earlier explanation of what the good ship BIRTHDAY PARTY is, how it works, and so forth. Welcome!)

Welcome aboard the Good Ship Birthday Party! It's been a while since there's been a proper birthday cruise, and I'm turning 66 today, so it's time for fun again. Also it's the best way to do a birthday party right now, seeing as how a virtual ship lets things like posting and reading happen asynchronously, which helps tremendously with being overwhelmed with sudden exhaustion or Too Much Delight All At Once.

Come on and join the fun! Feel free to bring imaginary comestibles to add to the potluck, yah? Wear whatever flamboyant or quiet garb you like. If you prefer to hide out happily in the library, you're in luck, as this ship is equipped with an excellent one -- and please do take an imaginary book home with you, as a memento of the day.

Oh, hey, somebody asked about virtual gifts. If you have a recommendation for something you like a lot, readable or watchable or listenable (I got new headphones and will need to test them out - I am a happy hard-of-hearing Lioness!) please do leave me a recommendation or two. This is a great chance for me to find new things to read or listen to or look at or watch. Thanks!

And if you want to share a memory of some adventure or fun moment we had together, that would also be lovely. The concussion recuperation and my mental filing system are resulting in discovery of old things lately, if you know what I mean. What did we get up to in days of yore? Remind me?

Welcome abord! Thank you for coming to help me celebrate!

Current Location: on the bounding virtual main etc

pauamma posting in

dw_dev

It's time for another question thread!

The rules:

- You may ask any dev-related question you have in a comment. (It doesn't even need to be about Dreamwidth, although if it involves a language/library/framework/database Dreamwidth doesn't use, you will probably get answers pointing that out and suggesting a better place to ask.)
- You may also answer any question, using the guidelines given in To Answer, Or Not To Answer and in this comment thread.

andrewducker

Children dropped off at school, Jane and I are off to breakfast at Mortonhall garden centre, then a walk in the hills, then later on going to a comedy show at the Fringe.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.