After 3 rest days for leg soreness, I ran 9.75 miles today, i.e., 7.5 loops. I was hoping for more, but mentally for whatever reason, I struggled, and that was the best I could do. I got through a constant "This is not happening! What was I thinking??" by dint of:

- Loops 1-5: "Well, you don't want to stop *now*, do you? Just before we get to 10.5 miles?" "Right! Stopping now would feel bad." "Okay, so you can definitely do 4 loops, right?" "Right!" "Okay, 4 loops."
- Loop 5: "This is technically loop 4, because you stopped after loop 1 to go to the bathroom."
- Loop 6: "If you do one more loop, you'll be at what you did last time, minus half a loop. And if you do that loop, there's no way you're not going to do half a loop to catch up to last time. And last time was 8.2 miles, pretty respectable."
- Loop 7: "I can do this! I've got this!"
- Loop 8: SEND HELP.

I did half of loop 8, which put me at 9.75 miles. The idea was to finish loop 8, but hey. 9.75 miles is pretty good! Still a personal record.

I then walked the rest of the loop home (.75 miles), showered, breakfasted, walked to a friend's house (2.2) miles, got driven to a trail, and hiked (2.8 miles)*.

Time: My time seems to have been slightly better than last time: 9.8 minutes per mile, though there's some estimation in there, because I had to stop after loop 1 and go to the bathroom. Last time, it was just under 10.

I had stretched my right quads, and indeed they did not hurt anything like last time during this run. My right groin muscle was a bit tight, probably from the stretching. The worst was my left glutes, which I realized what's up with that: when my injured hamstring flares up when I'm sitting at the computer, I tighten my glutes to make the pain stop. It makes the pain stop, but it means that when I run, my right glute is *really* tight. And it's very hard to stretch that without messing up either my very fragile knee or my still-injured hamstring.

Hamstring continues to be strung, but much the same run after run, so I think I can keep going, I'm not making it worse. Next up: 11.7 miles (9 loops)???

* Before you get too impressed, though, the friend is 82 years old with heart trouble. She's not allowed to get her heart rate above a certain level. So we have to go really slowly and stop a lot. But she walks 3 miles a day, travels a lot, and is very mentally active (distinguished research professor still publishing in prestigious journals). So I hope we have her for a lot more years! <3

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Yesterday we cleaned the house early (caught up on 4 more back episodes of WTNV), then went out to see Project Hail Mary at the theatre. Both L. and I have read the book, and were anxious to see how its adaptation to film went. Personally, I really enjoyed it! For starters, it's just cinematographically beautiful—the visuals and music are stunning, the portrayal of the astrophage engines and the Petrova lines was gorgeous, and Rocky's unique form and movements were handled well. You can be drawn in and forget that a large portion of the film is Ryan Gosling talking to himself and/or a puppet. The science teacher tee shirt game was also on point! But I really appreciated - other than some serious trimming down/speeding up of timelines and having to avoid some of the more notably nerdy chemistry of the book - that the film stayed fairly true to the novel. Also, I read that some folks were annoyed by the pick of Gosling, but I thought he did justice to Dr. Grace's character, especially as the film went deeper. There are few overly goofy bits, but they were overshadowed by other aspects of the film. Anyway, definitely think it is worth the watch!

Today has been much more lackluster. Budget sheet, meal planning, and grocery shopping is out of the way for the week, and I have just wrapped up our 2025 taxes. Federal are filed and in queue, the state will have to be mailed physically since we don't qualify for any of the free e-file options. I do need to work on my next 3-month goals and updating my planner, which I'll do shortly once I finally put the laptop away for the day.

It has been a beautiful weekend out, but The Pollening has seriously started in. I used to berate myself for not doing more gardening and outdoor spring planting, but the current state of being unable to touch nearly anything that has gone outside and being unable to get in and out of cars or go for walks without a physical reaction reminds me why that is.

I recently tried downloading Hoopla to see if it offered more options than Libby, but for my local library, the answer is no. I thought there was a secret trick somewhere to getting access to more library offerings for free, but at this time the most I can find is links to getting a non-resident card for an annual fee. (I mostly use my local county library for e-book offerings, but their selection is limited in a lot of ways.) I am hoping to read along with a work-based book club that has kicked off, but also do not want to necessarily need to purchase everything they cover. I do have some Bookshop.org gift money available, but I have reserved that for fun/want to reads of my own choosing.

The week ahead looks fairly quiet, except I have a therapy appointment that I am looking forward to/very much need.

May you be safe, may you be healthy and well, may you be content, and may you find beauty and joy in your present moment. ♥

Mood::

productive

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1. What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?

LJ: In the late 1990s, various London-based bisexuals used a message board site whose name I can't currently remember. The particular one they created was called 'drunk bisexuals' - the founders were part of the section of the London Bisexual Group that stopped going to the group itself but still met up on Fridays at a nearby gay pub / an 'indie' club night, Popstarz.

The site had a load of problems (messages disappeared permanently after a semi-random time, for example) but it was where the people are - the eternal issue with the success or failure of a social media site.

One day, one of the Simons (there were at least five people called 'Simon' in the group, and they had Spice Girl nicknames) posted that soon no-one would be posting there, because everyone would have moved to LJ. They were right. Before long, a big chunk of the UK bi community was on it.

I bought a permanent account not long afterwards.

A large chunk of the UK bi people left for the evilFB when it arrived, but I still valued what was better about LJ (almost everything, apart from having fewer people I knew posting / reading!)

DW: the author of LJ, Brad Fitzpatrick, sold LJ to blogging company Six Apart in (checks) 2005. That brought problems - they started showing ads to people without paid accounts, for example. They sold it to a Russian company in 2007 (LJ was huge there) and that brought more.

When DW was announced, using revised LJ code, in 2008, I paid for a permanent paid account at the start without hesitation.

For years, I cross-posted DW posts to LJ. I stopped when the Russian LJ owners moved the servers to Russia and you knew that their security services had access to everything.

2. How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?

Not many. The one for discussing The Americans TV series was the last serious one.

3. Do you have a favourite community or one you check out often to see what's new?

No. The Americans ended its run years ago. A couple are on my default reading page but very rarely have anything new.

4. How did you pick your user name?

'Ian' was long gone on LJ. When looking through a list of lapsed .com domains around 2000, 'lovingboth.com' was available, so I registered it. It was also available on LJ, so...

With the move to DW, 'Ian' was available (and it's me) but partly to retain continuity with the LJ, this is the real account.

5. If you could change your user name, would you?

Breaking web links is just Wrong, and I think doing that would do that.

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Some of you may be interested in this.

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Today is sunny and hot. It is 85°F already. >_<

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, several brown-headed cowbirds, and a mourning dove.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 3/22/26 -- We hauled the first three garden bags to the old picnic table. It's 86°F now and too hot to do everything at once. :/

EDIT 3/22/26 -- We hauled the next three garden bags to the old picnic table.

The first grape hycacinth is blooming randomly in the middle of the house yard, pollinated by tiny native bees.

EDIT 3/22/26 -- I did a bit more work outside.

It's 87°F now, which is just ridiculous for March.

EDIT 3/22/26 -- We hauled the giant bag of raised bed soil to the side of the garden shed, where it's meant to fill in a hollow area.

EDIT 3/22/26 -- I put a few scoops of composted manure in each of the top and bottom row of large pots along the north side of the new picnic table. This back wasn't broken down as fully as usual. :/

.

Mood::

busy

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Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/wait-2

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Guess he's not buying the see-thru feel-thru corset either.

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/wait-2

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I thought I posted this before, but I'm not finding it.

A group of mainly women scholars and makers at the top of their fields gathered together to interpret and recreate the outfit and gifts that the suitor gave to the woman he's pursuing in the song Greensleeves. Fascinating look at history and the details of both the clothing and how to make it. The Greensleeves Project

The making of video

Watch on YouTube

And the result

Watch on YouTube

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Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-best-known-books-set-in-each-country-azerbaijan/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65693

See here for methodology, though NB that I’m now also using numbers from Storygraph. Books are disqualified if less than 50% of them is set in Azerbaijan.

These numbers are crunched by hand, not by AI.

Title	Author	GR raters	LT owners	SG reviewers
Ali and Nino	Kurban Said	9,761	1,033	835
Mobility	Lydia Kiesling	2,326	118	605
Caucasus Days	Banine	1,124	98	193
The Colonel’s Mistake	Dan Mayland	1,755	94	75
Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War	Thomas de Waal	830	127	56
The Orphan Sky	Ella Leya	553	69	137
Stone Dreams: A Novel-Requiem	Akram Aylisli	450	17	117
7 Seconds to Die: A Military Analysis of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the Future of Warfighting	John Antal	300	31	19

Well, it’s a very clear win for one of my favourite books, the mercifully short romance Ali and Nino by the enigmatic Kurban Said. It’s about an Azeri boy and Georgian girl who fall in love in Baku before and during the First World War and Azerbaijan’s first go at independence; global, local and family politics all intersect with a dramatic conclusion. Go get it. It also won when I did this exercise back in 2015.

In his The Orientalist: In Search of a Man Caught Between East and West, Thomas Reiss marshals the evidence that “Kurban Said” was born Lev Nussimbaum, apparently on a train in 1905, and grew up in Baku where his father was a minor oil magnate; his mother invited Stalin round for tea occasionally; when the revolution came they fled to Constantinople, then Paris, and finally Berlin; he died in Italian exile, aged just 37, Ezra Pound’s last-minute efforts to help him being all in vain; and his grave became the butt of a comic anecdote told by John Steinbeck. That summary does not do the story justice.

I’m not completely certain about Mobility, a story about the daughter of US diplomats based in Baku, who grows up to join the oil industry and comes back to Azerbaijan, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt.

Banine was the pen name of the Azeri-born writer Umm-El-Banine Assadoulaeff (whose name is spelt in modern Azeri as Ümmülbanu Əsədullayeva) who lived most of her life in Paris after the fall of independent Azerbaijan. Caucasus Days was first published in French as Jours caucasiens and has also been translated as Days in the Caucasus. It sounds rather autobiographical.

Dan Mayland has written four novels about a former CIA agent doing daring deeds in Azerbaijan and nearby countries. It’s fairly clear that the first of these, The Colonel’s Mistake, is mainly set in Azerbaijan. I disqualified the second, The Leveling, which seems to have large chunks set in Central Asia. The other two didn’t have enough support to qualify.

I am allowing Thomas de Waal’s Black Garden to qualify for the list because if you combine the bits set in Nagorno-Karabakh and the rest of Azerbaijan, you probably have a majority of the page count.

Ella Laya is a jazz musician from Azerbaijan who has built her career in the USA. Her novel The Orphan Sky is about a young woman musician in Azerbaijan during the Cold War.

Stone Dreams / Daş yuxular got its writer Akram Aylisli / Əkrəm Əylisli into a lot of trouble for its sympathetic portrayal of the Armenians expelled from Azerbaijan in the 1989 pogroms.

I don’t know much about 7 Seconds to Die, but the remarkable 2020 war very much deserves close analysis.

I disqualified a number of books which covered the Caucasus as a whole, because generally Azerbaijan will only take up around a third of those if they cover Armenia and Georgia as well. I hesitated a bit more over Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon (but its setting is mostly now in the Russian Federation); The Book of Dede Korkut, which comes very close in that most of the ancient epic stories are set in the Caucasus but in my judgement not quite 50% in today’s Azerbaijan; and the novels of Olga Grjasnowa, who is Azeri but sets most of her action in Germany among the Azeri community there.

Six of the next nine countries on my list are in Europe, but three are not, and we have a balanced run coming up: Portugal, the Togo, then Greece, then Israel.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-best-known-books-set-in-each-country-azerbaijan/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65693

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In which this teacher earnestly wants a word to substitute for "chink" in Midsummer Night's Dream, and one person suggests kink which doesn't mean the same thing.

And on the one hand, I'm sure they all have their hearts in the right place, but on the other hand, maybe they should collectively teach a different play instead. Shakespeare wrote plenty of comedies, just pick a different one off the shelf.

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Firefly is currently being let out on lush green grass for 1 1/2 hours twice a day. So far she isn't too fat...
This week she is in her white phase. I have a large pile of dirty brown hair to put into the compost.

Early Winter( pic )

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Posted by Vincent Bernat

https://vincent.bernat.ch/en/blog/2026-zsh-calculator

http://www.luffy.cx/en/blog/2026-zsh-calculator.html

I often need a quick calculation or a unit conversion. Rather than reaching for a separate tool, a few lines of Zsh configuration turn = into a calculator. Typing = 660km / (2/3)c * 2 -> ms gives me 6.60457 ms¹ without leaving my terminal, thanks to the Zsh line editor.

The equal alias

The main idea looks simple: define = as an alias to a calculator command. I prefer Numbat, a scientific calculator that supports unit conversions. Qalculate is a close second.² If neither is available, we fall back to Zsh’s built-in zcalc module.

As the alias built-in uses = as a separator for name and value, we need to alter the aliases associative array:

if (( $+commands[numbat] )); then
  aliases[=]='numbat -e'
elif (( $+commands[qalc] )); then
  aliases[=]='qalc'
else
  autoload -Uz zcalc
  aliases[=]='zcalc -f -e'
fi

With this in place, = 847/11 becomes numbat -e 847/11.

The quoting problem

The first problem surfaces quickly. Typing = 5 * 3 fails: Zsh expands the * character as a glob pattern before passing it to the calculator. The same issue applies to other characters that Zsh treats specially, such as > or |. You must quote the expression:

$ = '5 * 3'
15

We fix this by hooking into the Zsh line editor to quote the expression before executing it.

Automatic quoting with ZLE

Zsh calls the accept-line widget when you submit a command. We replace it with a function that detects the = prefix and quotes the expression:

_vbe_calc_accept() {
  case $BUFFER in
    "="*)
      typeset -g _vbe_calc_expr=$BUFFER # not used yet
      BUFFER="= ${(q-)${${BUFFER#=}# }}"
      ;;
  esac
  zle .accept-line
}
zle -N accept-line _vbe_calc_accept

When you type = 5 * 3 and press ↲, _vbe_calc_accept strips the = prefix, quotes the remainder with the (q-) parameter expansion flag, and rewrites the buffer to = '5 * 3' before invoking the original .accept-line widget. As a bonus, you can save a few keystrokes with =5*3! 🚀

You can now compute math expressions and convert units directly from your shell. Zsh automatically quotes your expressions:

$ = '1 + 2'
3
$ = 'pi/3 + pi |> cos'
-0.5
$ = '17 USD -> EUR'
14.7122 €
$ = '180*500mg -> g'
90 g
$ = '5 gigabytes / (2 minutes + 17 seconds) -> megabits/s'
291.971 Mbit/s
$ = 'now() -> tz("Asia/Tokyo")'
2026-03-22 22:00:03 JST (UTC +09), Asia/Tokyo
$ = '1 / (40 rods / hogshead) -> L / 100km'
118548 × 0.01 l/km

“That's the way I like it!” says GrandpaSimpson — The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I like it! ― *Grampa Simpson*, A Star Is Burns

Storing unquoted history

As is, Zsh records the quoted expression in history. You must unquote it before submitting it again. Otherwise, the ZLE widget quotes it a second time. Bart Schaefer provided a solution to store the original version:

_vbe_calc_history() {
  return ${+_vbe_calc_expr}
}
add-zsh-hook zshaddhistory _vbe_calc_history

_vbe_calc_preexec() {
  (( ${+_vbe_calc_expr} )) && print -s $_vbe_calc_expr
  unset _vbe_calc_expr
  return 0
}
add-zsh-hook preexec _vbe_calc_preexec

The zshaddhistory hook returns 1 if we are evaluating an expression, telling Zsh not to record the command. The preexec hook then adds the original, unquoted command with print -s.

The complete code is available in my zshrc. A common alternative is the noglob precommand modifier. If you stick with to instead of -> for unit conversion, it covers 90% of use cases. For a related Zsh line editor trick, see how I use auto-expanding aliases to fix common typos.

This is the fastest a packet can travel back and forth between Paris and Marseille over optical fiber. ↩︎
Qalculate is less understanding with units. For example, it parses “Mbps” as megabarn per picosecond: ☢️
```
$ numbat -e '5 MB/s -> Mbps'
40 Mbps
$ qalc 5 MB/s to Mbps
5 megabytes/second = 0.000005 B/ps
```
↩︎

https://vincent.bernat.ch/en/blog/2026-zsh-calculator

http://www.luffy.cx/en/blog/2026-zsh-calculator.html

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One determined man struggles to save humanity from the mutant scheme to avert doomsday.

Ring Around the Sun by Clifford D. Simak

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Posted by Daily Otter

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2026/3/22/disaster-otter

You can’t tell me this doesn’t have the same energy as this old meme - and more so when you know the mischief behind it! Via MTSOfan:

Piper was torn. As I squatted on the other side of the window, she wanted to interact with me. On the other hand, she'd had a quarrel with her roommate, Luani. She wanted to watch what he was doing.

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2026/3/22/disaster-otter

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It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!

Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

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Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/ten-years-on-three-thoughts-only-one-of-them-being-mine/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65946

Just a few thoughts for the day:

My friend David Garrahy, who was injured in the airport bombing:

Being the target of a terrorist by David Garrahy

null

Read on Substack

A very moving interview with the driver of the Metro train what was bombed, with video interview.

Tremendously moving interview with Christian Delhasse, the driver of the Metro train that was bombed in the 2016 terrorist attacks in Brussels, ten years ago today. He feels personally responsible; he was physically uninjured, but his life was destroyed. www.standaard.be/binnenland/c…

— Nicholas Whyte 白怀珂 (@nwhyte.bsky.social) March 22, 2026 at 9:05 AM

My own thoughts, written the following day:

Losers

As I said then, I am proud of this country, which I now call my own, which finds its way to solutions through peculiar paths, and sometimes combines superficial surliness with a silent determination to just get on with things. I’m also proud of the European project, which is about building and sustaining a vision based on transcending past conflict. I am not interested in hearing the views of those who want to open new conflicts. They are losing. We must win.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/ten-years-on-three-thoughts-only-one-of-them-being-mine/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65946

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https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/waarom-we-nu-wel-zuinig-moeten-doen-en-meer-groene-energie/

Het Internationaal Energie Agentschap zegt dat we zuinig aan moeten doen vanwege de oorlogen in het Midden Oosten. Ministers in Den Haag zeggen dat het niet hoeft, want er zijn hier geen tekorten (!). Doet wel erg denken aan ‘COVID blijft in Brabant’. Kennelijk een Nederlandse traditie!
Maar, natuurlijk komen die tekorten ook naar ons toe, de benzine is nu al stervensduur. Maar heeft het zin om nu in de zomer slim met energie te doen?

https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/waarom-we-nu-wel-zuinig-moeten-doen-en-meer-groene-energie/

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Weekend was crazy busy, and I ended up with a spoons crash on Sunday midafternoon. Ended up skipping church.

It was a really good weekend, though.

Mind you, it's now quarter to ten and I'm not yet in bed.

Going now.

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My seeds arrived from Select Seeds.

Painted Tongue 'Select Superbissima Mix' (seeds)

Yarrow 'Flowerburst Red Shades' (seeds)

Coreopsis 'Corusco Cream-Red' (seeds)

Mood::

busy

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My Prairie Moon seed order arrived today. :D

Early Figwort (seed)

Late Figwort (seed)

Common Ironweed (seed)

Purple Love Grass (seed)

Lead Plant (seed)

Mood::

busy

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Is there a retelling of Sleeping Beauty (the general plotline, not the ballet specifically) in any media that deals with the whole castle being asleep for a hundred years?

Like, I assume that A Castle is a significant economic unit, and having it fuck off behind a hedge for five generations, and then pop back into life has some effects on the surrounding countryside? (I guess in the ballet they put the whole kingdom to sleep? WHICH I ALSO HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT!)

Like your daughter is a maid in the castle, then poof! behind a hedge! But then she's back to meet her great grand nieces?

What if you had a financial relationship with the castle?

What if the neighbouring duke or whatever wanted your land? I assume he'd just take it, at that point, but then poof! the castle's back?

But also, the fey showing up and doing things seems to be normal and expected in this universe, so maybe people are just used to it, and have contingency plans for people stuck sleeping behind a hedge for five generations?

Anyway, is there like a novel that deals with this? If not Sleeping Beauty directly, then something similar, where it's a whole bunch of people forming a significant political and economic unit essentially yeeted out of time for a hundred years?

(Hard no on anything that involves the rapey version of Sleeping Beauty.)

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A Bug's Life

9.75 miles

Weekend update 2,428

Apparently questions for a Friday, on a Sunday

An Anti-ICE App?

Birdfeeding

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Wait

Music: The Greensleeves Project

The best known books set in each country: Azerbaijan

So here's this thread

Firefly

Calculate “1/(40rods/hogshead) → L/100km” from your Zsh prompt

The equal alias

The quoting problem

Automatic quoting with ZLE

Storing unquoted history

Ring Around the Sun by Clifford D. Simak

Disaster Otter

Just one thing: 22 March 2026

Ten years on: three thoughts (only one of them being mine)

Waarom we nu WEL zuinig moeten doen, en door moeten met groene energie

weekend

Select Seeds Order

Prairie Moon Order

tangent from the ballet questions

September

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21 1	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30