erratio | Reading

43 ready-to-play Old School modules.

Bundle of Holding: Advanced Adventures MEGA (From 2023)

The play park we're waiting for a dentist appointment in has WiFi.

(It's got a building in it owned by the council leisure service to sell ice creams and manage the tennis courts next door.)

james_davis_nicoll

Delta Pilots Avoid Mid-Air Collision with US Air Force B-52 bomber

james_davis_nicoll

2006: J. Richard Gott III’s methodology suggests 80-year-old Queen Elizabeth will live until somewhere between 2032 and 2066, a European heatwave sets a record that will surely stand in perpetuity, and Profumo’s demise at an advanced age reminds Britons of the dire consequences for politicians of scandal… nil.

Poll #33385 Clarke Award Finalists 2006

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 37

View Respondents

Which 2006 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Air by Geoff Ryman
12 (32.4%)

Accelerando by Charles Stross
26 (70.3%)

Banner of Souls by Liz Williams
9 (24.3%)

Learning the World by Ken MacLeod
13 (35.1%)

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
6 (16.2%)

Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
7 (18.9%)

Bold for have read, italic for intend to read,, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2006 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Air by Geoff Ryman
Accelerando by Charles Stross
Banner of Souls by Liz Williams
Learning the World by Ken MacLeod
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds

cosmolinguist

I am too full of feelings to work today.

I've been slacking lately, and the work that only I can do is building up. Which is just another thing to stress about.

The feelings today are about seeing the Zillow link for my grandparents' house, now up for sale. Just looking at the photos last night and the little "3d tour" that let me more or less walk around it again...I miss it so much.

And I'm really sad I can't go back to help my aunts (not my mom, who limits her involvement to continual refusals to be involved with this process at all while gripping about it constantly) clear it out.

I can so clearly imagine D and I flying back, him renting a car again, and just spending a few days doing some heavy lifting for my body and no doubt for my emotions too. It feels so plausible and easy. But it's also so distant because it's so impossible.

We're getting toward late summer, a time of year that will never feel right to me without a week of being around corn taller than I am, root beer floats, county fairs, black diamond watermelons, the fluffy summer clouds and the starry summer nights under wide horizons.

And every single time I went back I visited my grandparents' house, the roses next to the garage, the yard where I played so much as a kid... Where we spent every Christmas Eve, the adults playing cards until after midnight. Where we had to stay that summer when my mom was so sick she wasn't allowed to be far from the hospital and then I (6 years old I think) got chicken pox and my brother (who would have been 4) got some kind of intestinal bug and my grandma had to look after all of us. Where I listened to so many baseball games on the radio with my grandpa.

I knew every time I visited might be the last time I'd see my grandparents or then my grandma. But I never thought I'd visit that house for the last time without even knowing it.

andrewducker

1. Lighthouse of Alexandria rises again as 22 massive blocks resurface from the seafloor after 2,000 years: (tags:history light sea architecture egypt archeology )

james_davis_nicoll

It seems venerable Canadian game company RAFM has shut down.

james_davis_nicoll

Watch on YouTube

james_davis_nicoll

Finally, a publisher willing to preserve the last few male writers, who as we know are rarer than trilobites, more delicate than orchids, and more precious than... well, you know.

As of 2021, 50.45% of authors within the US are women and 49.55% of authors are men.

andrewducker

Sophia, it seems, just likes hanging around.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

james_davis_nicoll

An assortment of disco-era fantasy stories.

Basilisk edited by Ellen Kushner

cosmolinguist

This morning I read something attributed to Agatha Christie:

As life goes on, however, it becomes tiring to keep up the character you invented for yourself, and so you relapse into individuality and become more like yourself every day. This is sometimes disconcerting for those around you, but a great relief to the person concerned.

I've been watching people at the more recent stages of leaving bad marriages and seeing them tell themselves or be told the same things I was told when that was me: I look forward to seeing who you will become is what I remember from this time.

And...I appreciate I have literally transed my gender since then. And gotten my first white-collar job. But...I also feel like I haven't changed. I am still bad at relaxing, at having hobbies and I fear this is because enjoying my free time requires more self-driven impulse than I seem to have (except in circumstances where it's terribly inconvenient, I have many and strong impulses there!).

The idea of "relapsing into individuality" is so interesting to me because this makes it sound so easy that overcoming it takes work. Divorce gave me every license to shed "the character I invented for myself," but I just feel like I don't have anything left once I did.

I don't exactly feel bad about this, but I do feel curious about it.

andrewducker

1. Online Piracy Almost Died. Now It's More Popular Than Ever.: (tags:video piracy TV football manga viaSwampers )

andrewducker

I have an under-counter integrated fridge/freezer. (Integrated in this case meaning that it's got a door on it, and is embedded in the cupboards).

I want to replace it with a free-standing one - i.e. one that will simply sit in the gap.

The various places I've looked at so far that do a delivery and also take away your old fridge only have options to replace an integrated fridge with an integrated fridge. Or a free-standing with a free-standing. Apparently they use different teams for each of these.

AO.com told me that I need to entirely remove the old one. John Lewis told me that they'd just send it out and hope that the free-standing fridge people happened to have the right tools with them, which doesn't sound ideal.

So, I could do with some advice on getting an integrated fridge/freezer removed and taken away. Preferably in the form of "Call these guys, they are vaguely* competent and cheap."

Anyone got any experience?

*I'm willing to settle for vague competence when it comes to removing things. Installing things is a different matter...

james_davis_nicoll

Four works new to me. three novels, one TTRPG supplement. Two appear to be fantasy, one SF, and one is a mystery (by an author famous for their fantasy). Two appear to be stand-alone and two are series.

Books Received, July 12 — July 19

Poll #33375 Books Received, July 12 — July 19

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39

View Respondents

Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

The Bloody and the Damned by Becca Coffindaffer (April 2026)
12 (30.8%)

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Sea Wardens of Cothique by Dave Allen, Dominic McDowall, Michael Duxbury, Jude Hornborg, Naomi Hunter, Steven Lewis, Simon Wileman, et al (4th Quarter, 2025)
1 (2.6%)

Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur by Ian McDonald (February 2026)
18 (46.2%)

Enola Holmes and the Clanging Coffin by Nancy Springer (February 2026)
11 (28.2%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
28 (71.8%)

cosmolinguist

Me: starts to type "transmasc"

Me: thinks Wait is that right? More precisely, what I want to talk about here is people who take testosterone. Of course I don't want to imply that trans = hormones, but I also am not talking about all people with testosterone-dominant endocrine systems, the group I'm talking about is specifically those of us...on our second...puberty...

Me: types "second-puberT"

james_davis_nicoll

In case you've been waiting for an update for the last seven years...

Checking in on Our Old Friend, Barnard’s Star

james_davis_nicoll

Terrible life choices gave Connie Lam a mountain of debt. The most recent poor decision left her as the lead suspect in a murder case.

Club Contango (Tracerverse, volume 2) by Eliane Boey