supergee | Reading

This poem is spillover from the February 3, 2026 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by

janetmiles. It also fills the "Respect Limits" square in my 2-1-26 card for the Valentines Bingo fest.

"Books That Bite Back"

Some books are easy reading,
while others really are not.

There are the vindaloo cookbooks
and the guides to growing hot peppers.

There are the essays about ethics
and the history books written by losers.

There are the comparative religion texts
and the papers on quantum mechanics.

Just like food that commands respect,
there are books that bite back.

Current Mood: busy

conuly

Watch on YouTube

You can watch episode 1 here.

Also, since I have a few videos:

( Hobey Baker, probably gay hockey player from the early 20th century )

***

( Curling and all the nitty-gritty )

***

( The magnetic shadow effect )

james_davis_nicoll

Seven quick tabletop roleplaying games for two players

Bundle of Holding: Bundle for Two 4

conuly

(Mission Rejected, if you're curious)

and they took the time at the start of the most recent episode to talk about a charity in Minnesota that will bring food safely to people. I don't have the name of the charity, it's not on their website right now.

But what really struck me is that they spent a few minutes on this and never once mentioned or even alluded to why some people might need food to be delivered safely.

I'm not sure what I think about that, but I'm sure I don't like it much.

******************************

( Read more... )

arlie

I got my first performance issues on the Ubuntu system this morning. Culprits appeared to be Steam and Firefox.

Steam took a bit of killing - after I closed all the windows I could find, it was still running, and using enough cpu cycles to have 2 processes highly visible on top. I applied "kill" (not "kill -9") to the one that seemed more likely to be the main one (name didn't include anything like "helper"). There was a flash or redraw on the right monitor, as if it was getting rid of a buried or invisible window, and things improved.

Note to self: do not leave Steam running overnight, and do double check with "ps" or "top" after I think I've shut it down.

Firefox is still using more cycles than I'd prefer, even while I'm not doing anything in any firefox window - i.e. it's windows calling home, updating themselves, and generally using my cpu resources for their own purposes. Kubuntu/Firefox doesn't appear to have the ability to semi-easily identify the offending web page possessed by MacOS/Safari, where their system monitor program will show something about the web page, not just that the offender is a web content sub-processs. So identifying which pages not to leave open will be a bit more difficult - I'll have to kill overly active web content processes by pid, and hope this leaves evidence like a dead window/tab, or an error message in a window or tab. (At least, I presume that the processes that show in top as "Isolated Web Co" and "Web Content" are the equivalent of safari/macos' web content processes, intended to prevent the main safari (or firefox) process from hanging when a single web page is a hyperactive pig hog.)

Other than that, I'm having essentially the same issue with every single game I've been able to run - the screen resolution I got by default is fine for every other type of task I've tried so far, but anything that displays text in a graphic window, presumably as graphics, comes out just a bit fuzzy, straining my elderly eyes. I don't really want to change global scaling to alleviate this, as I'm enjoying the large amount of text space I can fit on my two monitors,courtesy of what I think is improvements going from X11 to Wayland. Also, a naively chosen scaling factor might appear less crisp than the one the installation process chose for me.

Ah well, nothing is ever perfect. It's still way better than Pop!_OS, and often more congenial than modern MacOS, though I really didn't want to deal with performance issues this morning before coffee. (For the record, I rebooted 2 days ago, after installing some updates, so I don't think this was up-too-long bitrot.)

amaebi

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

lsanderson

ICE

Inside Minnesotans’ moonshot to cover rent for their immigrant neighbors
The need for emergency rental assistance is bigger than a GoFundMe, but that’s not stopping residents from trying.
by Trevor Mitchell
https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2026/02/inside-minnesotans-moonshot-to-cover-rent-for-their-immigrant-neighbors/

Maine shaken by ICE raids as backlash threatens Republican Senate control
Workers and unions condemn ICE operation as ‘horrific’ as pressure builds on Susan Collins, facing re-election this year
Michael Sainato
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/09/maine-ice-raids

Whistle becomes key tool in protests against Trump’s ICE crackdown
Protesters have been blowing whistles to alert people to agents’ presence – and that has upset figures on the right
Adam Gabbatt
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/09/whistle-protest-trump-ice

The Minnesotans trapped at home, too terrified of ICE to go outside: ‘Our house is like a jail’
The surge of federal immigration agents has forced many families to remain inside for weeks, living in fear of roving ICE patrols snatching people off the street
Maanvi Singh in Minneapolis
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/feb/09/minnesota-ice-immigration-deportation-raids ( Read more... )

oursin

Too busy trying to extend their lifespans to, you know, actually Have A Life?

The troubling rise of longevity fixation syndrome: ‘I was crushed by the pressure I put on myself’

One is actually surprised that this guy does in fact go for an evening out in a restaurant with his husband, even if he does exhaustively research it first and pre-order (and then melt down when it comes to him RONG):

He painstakingly monitored what he ate (sometimes only organic, sometimes raw or unprocessed; calories painstakingly counted), his exercise regime (twice a day, seven days a week), and tracked every bodily function from his heart rate to his blood pressure, body fat and sleep “schedule”. He even monitored his glucose levels repeatedly throughout the day. “I was living by those numbers,” he says.

One wonders if there is any place for Ye Conjugalz with hubby or is that losing Precious Bodily Fluids and all the other ills once ascribed to sexual indulgence.

And, indeed, tempted to say, it just feels like living for ever....

With a side of, austere regimes have been followed by religious devotees for centuries but that was for life everlasting in the next, not this, right?

But, honestly, surely it is possible to lead a healthy life which is not actually purgatorial - see also this Why has food become another joyless way to self-optimise?. Thinking back to the delicious healthy nosh at Grayshott of beloved nostalgic memories - along with the lovely treatments etc.

Okay, there are some dietary things I do because I do not particularly have to think about them, but that is because I made certain decisions back when, and e.g. I have my nice tasty home-made muesli of a morning with its healthy oats and linseed and nuts and it is an established pattern but it is a pleasure to eat.

Current Music: BeeGees, Stayin Alive

conuly

Or is something up with the create entry page?

james_davis_nicoll

What elements do you look for when browsing the shelves?

What Lures Readers Into Picking Up an Unfamiliar Book?

bruce_schneier_feed

Posted by Bruce Schneier

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/02/llms-are-getting-a-lot-better-and-faster-at-finding-and-exploiting-zero-days.html

https://www.schneier.com/?p=71569

This is amazing:

Opus 4.6 is notably better at finding high-severity vulnerabilities than previous models and a sign of how quickly things are moving. Security teams have been automating vulnerability discovery for years, investing heavily in fuzzing infrastructure and custom harnesses to find bugs at scale. But what stood out in early testing is how quickly Opus 4.6 found vulnerabilities out of the box without task-specific tooling, custom scaffolding, or specialized prompting. Even more interesting is how it found them. Fuzzers work by throwing massive amounts of random inputs at code to see what breaks. Opus 4.6 reads and reasons about code the way a human researcher would—looking at past fixes to find similar bugs that weren’t addressed, spotting patterns that tend to cause problems, or understanding a piece of logic well enough to know exactly what input would break it. When we pointed Opus 4.6 at some of the most well-tested codebases (projects that have had fuzzers running against them for years, accumulating millions of hours of CPU time), Opus 4.6 found high-severity vulnerabilities, some that had gone undetected for decades.

The details of how Claude Opus 4.6 found these zero-days is the interesting part—read the whole blog post.

News article.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/02/llms-are-getting-a-lot-better-and-faster-at-finding-and-exploiting-zero-days.html

https://www.schneier.com/?p=71569

andrewducker

calimac

Yes, I’m in Portland, and this concert in the large and old-fashionedly ornate (it doesn’t have restrooms, it has “lounges”) Schnitzer Concert Hall downtown turned out to be the perfect way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon. Music Director David Danzmayr led his crackerjack orchestra through Anna Clyne’s Color Field, a typically imaginative Clyne work with some evocative open harmonies, and concluded with a thoroughly robust rendering of the Ravel orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, in which the tuba struggled a little in “Bydlo, “ but there were otherwise no problems. The orchestra has newly acquired a custom-made bell, and this clanged out like nothing you’ve heard before in the grand conclusion.

But the highlight of this concert came in between: the Bruch Violin Concerto, and it wasn’t the highlight just because the estimable Gil Shaham was soloist. I just heard this concerto last month from San Francisco, and the soloist was smooth-toned but rather characterless, while the orchestra was even bland and dull. Not this time. Here we heard why this is one of the most popular concertos in the repertoire. The orchestra was as burstingly robust as they would be in Pictures, and Shaham, though I’ve heard him perform wonders before, was simply amazing, a standing rebuke to plainer soloists. Every note had character, and his mostly high and dry tone varied tremendously, including some of the tenderest soft passages that could still be heard over the orchestra. Thrilling.

amaebi

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ysabetwordsmith

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Buffalo Seed Company Order
Science
Birdfeeding
Website Updates
Early Humans
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Pregnancy
Artificial Intelligence
Birdfeeding
Website Updates
"An Inkling of Things to Come" is now complete!
Follow Friday 2-6-26: London
Economics
Food
Birdfeeding
Community Thursdays
Wildlife
Birdfeeding
Cuddle Party

Safety has 43 comments. Food has 44 comments. Wildlife has 36 comments. Food has 64 comments. Robotics has 135 comments.

Last week's Poetry Fishbowl went well. I am still writing.

The 2026 Rose and Bay Awards are now open for excellence in crowdfunding. It's time to vote for your favorite projects!

The award period for eligible activities spans January 1-December 31, 2025.
The nomination period spans January 1-January 31, 2026.
The voting period spans February 1-February 28, 2026.

These are the handlers for the 2026 award season:

Art: gs_silva Nominate art! Vote for art! (4)
Fiction: fuzzyred Nominate fiction! Vote for fiction! (3)
Poetry: gs_silva Nominate poetry! Vote for poetry! (4)
Webcomic: curiosity Nominate webcomics! Vote for webcomics! (5)
Other Project: curiosity Nominate other projects! Vote for other projects! (4)
Patron: fuzzyred Nominate patrons! Vote for patrons! (5)

"An Inkling of Things to Come" is now complete. Shiv and his classmates finish their first worldbuilding session.

The weather has been frigid here, but is slightly less cold than it was. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large flock of sparrows, one female and three male cardinals, and a starling.

Current Mood: busy

weofodthignen

A beautiful clear day, and the dog spent much of the day sunning in the backyard, but as forecast, a chilly wind came up in late afternoon. The chance of rain is extremely small until mid-week.

dewline

Does anyone know if this movie is still "in print"?

Noting the cast list including Paul Gross, Mary Walsh, Henry Czerny, Louis del Grande, even Harvey Kirck!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buried_on_Sunday

Current Mood: surprised

dreamshark

.... by buying a new scale. The one on the right. OMG when did balance beam scales get so HUGE???

So of course instead of tackling the backlog of Important Projects waiting for my attention, I spent a happy hour or two with Google AI trying to answer that question, and figure out just how old that little scale really is.

Well, about 50 years old, it turns out. Not only are these cute little "waist-high" models no longer made, this one is EXTRA SPECIAL! The classy orange-on-black numbers identify it as the premier "High-Visibility" version of Health-O-Meter model 230 (1975-1982). And that funny little bubble-level is actually a high-end feature making the reading more accurate than the usual swinging pointer in the modern one. Well, originally, anyway. It's not terribly accurate now, which is why I bought that ungainly replacement.

But it's a rare Vintage Collectible, G-AI enthused! Sure it weighs 5-6 pounds high, but "to a collector, a 5lb error is just a 'mechanical adjustment' needed. They will love the exterior aesthetics much more than the internal accuracy." So if anybody knows a collector of vintage scales who might like this, please let me know. Or if you want to try fiddling with the innards or rebalancing the arm with a couple of small magnets, it's yours.

G-AI volunteered the following "Adoption Bio" if I want to try listing it on Nextdoor or something:

This is the rare, compact 3-foot "Professional Home" Hi-Visibility model featuring the iconic orange-on-black numbers and a built-in bubble level for perfect floor adjustment. It’s an all-metal tank in great cosmetic shape for its age, though it currently weighs consistently 5–6 lbs heavy (likely due to internal "character" and 50 years of service). Perfect as a stylish vintage gym piece, a theater prop, or for a tinkerer who wants to "zero it out" with a few taped nickels!

ysabetwordsmith

... arrived today! :D They always send a surprise extra packet of something, this time 'Evening Sun' sunflower, which looks to be a cultivar that produces medium-size flowers in shades of red. That ought to be fun.

Current Mood: busy

elynne

Next chapter will be posted Sunday, Feb. 22. I'm still trying to get back into my writing stride so I can post once a week again, but I'm not quite there yet--though getting closer, I think!

( Read more... )

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Page Summary

ysabetwordsmith - Poem: "Books That Bite Back"
conuly - Nobody told me there was a new episode of
james_davis_nicoll - Bundle of Holding: Bundle for Two 4
conuly - I was listening to an audiodrama
arlie - State of the Kubuntu System
amaebi - Emailing my senators
lsanderson - 2026.02.09
oursin - Yet the exchange rills Of young dog blood gave but a month's desires.
conuly - Is it just me?
james_davis_nicoll - What Lures Readers Into Picking Up an Unfamiliar Book?
bruce_schneier_feed - LLMs are Getting a Lot Better and Faster at Finding and Exploiting Zero-Days
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 09-02-2026
calimac - concert review: Oregon Symphony
amaebi - I write to CoreCivic
ysabetwordsmith - Monday Update 2-9-26
weofodthignen - D.O.P.-T.
dewline - Movies: Buried on Sunday
dreamshark - I lost 6 pounds in 5 minutes!
ysabetwordsmith - Buffalo Seed Company Order
elynne - Dreams of Dead Stars, Part III, ch. 24: On the Clothing of Champions

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