kevin_standlee: (Lisa)
kevin_standlee ([personal profile] kevin_standlee) wrote2025-09-02 07:02 am
Entry tags:

Dispatch from Vienna

I haven't been writing much about Lisa's trip because parts of it were not that great, but as we head into the last couple of weeks, I'm happy to report that something has gone well. Lisa asked if I could get her a hotel reservation in Vienna, which is convenient to Munich. It turns out that IHG has two hotels in their Garner brand (relatively new brand, Europe only, and I think they're using it for their acquisition of existing hotels unlike the new-builds like Holiday Inn Express). After some study, I found that I could book a room at the Garner across the street from Vienna HBF for a lot fewer points than the ill-starred HIX in Lucerne. (IHG thankfully refunded me the points from that stay.) Lisa reports the hotel is nice — much nicer, including nicer staff, than that one in Switzerland. She's visiting a local railroad museum and other attractions, and sounds happy.

She may do one more trip before flying home in a couple of weeks. She has an ambition to visit the smallest country in the world that does not have a railway station — at least an active station attached to the rest of the adjacent railway network. We'll let you know if that turns out. Meanwhile, I'll leave you to puzzle over which country we're talking about.
mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)
mdlbear ([personal profile] mdlbear) wrote2025-09-01 10:17 pm
Entry tags:

Done Since 2025-08-24

Subject: Done Since 2025-08-24 Tags: done, links, Music: Millcon4! Mood: tired Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag

This is a day late because of both MillCon this weekend, and the end of the month. It's also going to be a bit short on narrative, because the con report deserves its own post, and also because it's 9pm and the trip back was nine hours by three trains and two taxis.

Kaleidofolk's half-hour concert set consisted of: Toolmakers, Life Cycle Of Flowers, Lord Of The Buffalo, Ship Of Stone, Bells Of Norwich, and Millennium's Dawn. We'd wanted to include Staying Home Tonight but didn't have time for it. Sunday night I sang Windward and The Shuff That Dreams are Made Of.

Not exactly a link, but under Thursday you'll find both my packing checklist, and a list of stuff I should have taken but didn't.

Notes & links, as usual )

mdlbear: Three rabbits dancing (rabbit-rabbit-rabbit)
mdlbear ([personal profile] mdlbear) wrote2025-09-01 09:14 pm

"Rabbit rabbit rabbit!"

Welcome to September, 2025!

marycatelli: (Galahad)
marycatelli ([personal profile] marycatelli) wrote2025-09-01 12:30 pm
Entry tags:

from "The Rock"

The lot of man is ceaseless labour,
Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder,
Or irregular labour, which is not pleasant.
Read more... )
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
Mark Smith ([staff profile] mark) wrote in [site community profile] dw_maintenance2025-08-31 07:37 pm

Code deploy happening shortly

Per the [site community profile] dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
Denise ([staff profile] denise) wrote in [site community profile] dw_news2025-08-31 12:28 pm

Mississippi site block, plus a small restriction on Tennessee new accounts

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

marycatelli: (Default)
marycatelli ([personal profile] marycatelli) wrote2025-08-31 11:08 am
Entry tags:

vignettes

This week's prompt is:
easy 🌄

Anyone can join, with a 50-word creative fiction vignette in the comments. Your vignette does not have to include the prompt term. Any (G or PG) definition of the word can be used.
kevin_standlee: Kevin after losing a lot of weight. He peaked at 330, but over the following years got it down to 220 and continues to lose weight. (Default)
kevin_standlee ([personal profile] kevin_standlee) wrote2025-08-29 01:57 pm
Entry tags:

Not Completely a Clean Break

Some of you will have noticed that my habit of nearly-daily updates stopped around Worldcon. You can probably guess why.

Meanwhile, Kuma Bear posted an update on their travels in Europe, as their trip heads into the final two weeks. Earlier today, I booked a hotel room for them in Vienna, thanks to all of the IHG points we accumulated between her travel and mine in July and August. Fingers crossed that the Garner Hotel in Vienna is as nice as the photos and reviews make it out to be.
marycatelli: (Default)
marycatelli ([personal profile] marycatelli) wrote2025-08-29 12:41 pm
Entry tags:
starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
StarWatcher ([personal profile] starwatcher) wrote in [community profile] ebooks2025-08-29 12:12 pm
Entry tags:

"Giant" ebook sale, Aug 29th only

 

"Giant" is their description, not mine, but they tout 1,500 books on sale.

Note that you can select different retailers in the top drop-down menu, and specific genres in the list to the left.

Sale ends at "midnight." They never say which midnight, but I suspect it's one of the U.S timezones, which are UTC-5 to UTC-8.

Pass this on wherever you like.

 
mdlbear: Wild turkey hen close-up (turkey)
mdlbear ([personal profile] mdlbear) wrote2025-08-29 06:24 am

Thankful... well, it was Thursday when I wrote it...

Today I am thankful for...

  • My convoluted method of syncing passwords using GPG and git. Also that it actually worked the first time I tried it. (If it hadn't worked I would NOT be thankful.)
  • Catching our trains.
  • The new Framework 12 laptop, Lilac, working well enough to get stuff done.
  • The bright orange Eagle Creek backpack/briefcase/shoulder-bag, which is turning out to be unexpectedly usable. Would be nice if it had bottle pockets, but since it can be used in several different orientations it's probably for the best that it doesn't.
  • Being able to do a lot of work without an internet connection.
  • Having a debit card that Bunq would accept for a top-up. It varies. Also, having had the sense to save CCVs in the info file.
  • Many good practice sessions with my bandmates and travel companions N and m.

marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
marycatelli ([personal profile] marycatelli) wrote2025-08-28 05:01 pm

The Perks of Being an S-Class Heroine, Vol. 2

The Perks of Being an S-Class Heroine, Vol. 2 by Grrr and Irinbi

The isekai continues. Spoilers for the first one ahead.
Read more... )
isis: (craptastic squid by scarah)
Isis ([personal profile] isis) wrote2025-08-28 10:19 am
Entry tags:

Chicken Jockey from Minnesota

Perhaps you're having the worst day in a week of worst days. Here's your remedy:



(she is ten years old! I adore her! The world adores her!)