August 9th, 2025
andrewducker: (Default)
ffutures: (Default)
This is a crossover between the Harry Potter books, the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series, and the film Bedazzled (1967, not the 2000 remake), with some other crossovers and Easter eggs, so far including Dogma (1999). All characters belong to their respective creators / owners / megacorporations of doom and not to me, please don't sue...

IV - His Master's Voice )

Comments please before I post to archives. For previous parts see:

On Twisting the Hellmouth - https://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-34251/MarcusRowland+Harry+Potter+Undazzled.htm
On Fanfiction.net - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14336114/1/Harry-Potter-Undazzled
On Archive of Our Own - https://archiveofourown.org/works/54407350
August 8th, 2025
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
posted by [personal profile] redbird at 03:36pm on 08/08/2025 under ,
I'm visiting [personal profile] rysmiel for a few days. The trip up was borin, which is good: anything exciting would probably be bad news, or at least make you late for dinner.

It is going to be hot over the weekend, so we went out for a relatively early brunch today, so we could sit almost-outdoors at Juliette et Chocolat and eat crepes. We then walked around Jean Talon market, where I bought plums, blackberries, and a cucumber.

I have np real plans for the next few days, which is fine.
posted by [syndicated profile] xkcd_feed at 04:00am on 08/08/2025
andrewducker: (No Time Travel)
posted by [personal profile] andrewducker at 08:15pm on 08/08/2025
I remember seeing a game which looked amazing. The whole world was destructible, there were thousands of different combinations of things to find in it, and they'd put a ton of effort in to making it a fun experience.

I played it for a couple of hours, and got bored of it, because it turns out that that isn't enough for me. Because what they'd made was also a Rogue-Like. Which is to say that it completely resets back to the start when you die, and that start randomly creates the world that you play through.

And I don't want to play through a whole different world each time, where everything is different to the last time I played. What I want for a solo game is for someone to lovingly craft a world, and then for me to learn that world inside out as I try to beat the various challenges in it*.

A few months ago [personal profile] danieldwilliam sent me this link to a Neal Stephenson essay. And while I didn't agree with him about everything, the idea of "microdecisions" has stuck with me. That what makes art art isn't the idea (although good ideas are important) it's all of the ways that that idea was reified into the finished work.

A key quote:
Since the entire point of art is to allow an audience to experience densely packed human-made microdecisions—which is, at root, a way of connecting humans to other humans—the kinds of “art”-making AI systems we are seeing today are confined to the lowest tier of the grid and can never produce anything more interesting than, at best, a slab of marble pulled out of the quarry. You can stare at the patterns in the marble all you want. They are undoubtedly complicated. You might even find them beautiful. But you’ll never see anything human there, unless it’s your own reflection in the machine-polished surface.

And if that works for you - if staring at the swirling polished surfaces is what makes you happy, then I'm delighted for you. I've certainly been very entertained by generated patterns myself in the past. And I can totally be distracted by it for short periods of time. But when I'm looking for something actually *engaging* then right now it doesn't work for me. I need something human** in there.

Another example of this - movies. The more that special effects became good enough that movies could show me *anything* the more I wanted things with *character* in them. Things where you could tell that someone (or some group of someones) had really wanted to get something out of their brains so that other people could see the world the way they see it. I was discussing with [personal profile] swampers the other day that we really appreciated the movies that A24 are putting out, because even when they're a bit of a mess they're a really interesting mess that someone had obviously cared about. The trailer for Eternity looks like it would absolutely annoy me in parts, but it would do so because I'd be experiencing someone's thoughts about the world, and I might learn something about them, and maybe also about me for engaging with it.

*Multiplayer games are different. When I played a ton of Minecraft with Julie I was happy for her to set the direction of what to make, and then I'd treat that as my challenge. But sandboxes with no set challenge don't interest me. And I have played a chunk of games like Slay The Spire or Balatro or Dead Cells . But even then I'd play for enough to get the hang of it and then stop, usually without actually beating it, because "Go back to the beginning and beat that for the 500th time so that you can spend 10 seconds losing the end before starting again" isn't much fun for me. Even with Hades, which does a great job of giving you a meta-story around each run that grows as you replay, I got all the way to fight Hades, lost near-instantly, and the thought of replaying the entire game for 20 minutes just to lose to him again filled me with exhaustion and I haven't been back since. If Noita had a "save" function and a set of specifically designed levels that were fun and were definitely beatable *and* a random world generator you could use once you'd played those levels then I'd probably have invested a lot of time in it.

**I am not against the idea that eventually AIs will achieve consciousness and attempt to impart something to us through the medium of art. And that would interest me. I just don't think that the generators we're currently investing in are that.
watervole: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] watervole at 08:06pm on 08/08/2025 under , ,

 Every year at Sidmouth Folk Festival, they hold a jig competition.  A jog is a traditional dance (either solo or with two people) that is far, far more knackering than it looks.

I remember watching Emma dancing with a morris team a few years ago, and asking if she was entering the competition.  She's really a brilliant dancer.

 


  She almost floats on her feet!

watervole: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] watervole at 07:47pm on 08/08/2025

 I'm enjoying the new series of Sandman.  It's so nice to have something that is slowly paced and gives you time to soak up the atmosphere.

 

Also, it's fun spotting the Dorset locations standing in for Ancient Greece !

 

I wasn't quite sure which abbey they were using for Destiny's realm, but it worked very well.

andrewducker: (Default)
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
posted by [personal profile] tamaranth at 08:37am on 08/08/2025 under , ,
2025/124: The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America — David Baron
It is an inspiring epic of human inventiveness. It is a cautionary tale of mass delusion. It is a drama of battling egos. Ultimately, though, it is a love story, an account of when we, the people of Earth, fell hard for another planet and projected our fantasies, desires and ambitions onto an alien world. [Introduction]

This is an account of Percival Lowell's obsession with the planet Mars, and its profound consequences for the human race. Following the observations of Schiaparelli -- who described a network of long straight lines on the planet, 'canali' (channels, but mistranslated as 'canals') -- Lowell, a wealthy businessman, published a number of books about his observations and his interpretation of them. He also founded the Lowell Observatory, and inspired a generation of scientists and science fiction authors.

Read more... )
Mood:: 'quixotic' quixotic
andrewducker: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] andrewducker at 12:26am on 08/08/2025 under ,


Last ever nursery drop off for Gideon.

He has Monday and Tuesday in a holiday club and then from Wednesday he's in school!

We've had a child in this nursery since 2019, it's going to be weird to not be there any more.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

August 7th, 2025
rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (Default)
posted by [personal profile] rmc28 at 10:27pm on 07/08/2025 under ,

Work's "Active Staff" programme through the university sports centre is mostly dormant in August, but has just acquired a regular "give it a go" session for women's football on Thursday afternoons. (Hmm, I wonder what recent event might have prompted such a thing ...) Unfortunately this session clashes exactly with my favourite free exercise class, which has just rebranded from "yogalates" to "stretch and relax".

One of these activities will help my knee mobility and one of them is highly likely to mess up my knees further. Much as I want to be as tough as Lucy Bronze, I regretfully skipped the football and stuck with the stretches.

andrewducker: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] andrewducker at 12:27pm on 07/08/2025 under ,


It was bath day, and I needed a physical book to read in the bath.

Thoughtfully my friends have written one and it was published a few days ago.

(The Needfire, MK Hardy. I'm two chapters in and rather enjoying it.)
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
posted by [personal profile] redbird at 10:07am on 07/08/2025 under
If anyone wants to call RFK Jr. to complain about him not funding vaccines, and specifically about mRNA vaccines, his office phone number is 202-690-7000. I called during office hours (8:30-5 Eastern time) and got voicemail. The message asked for a phone number, and claimed someone would call me back.

If anyone wants a script, my message was:

My name is Vicki Rosenzweig. I’m calling from Boston, to demand that the secretary restore funding for MRNA vaccines. He must make the fall covid and flu boosters available to everyone. I’m immune-compromised, and my safety depends on my family being vaccinated and not giving me a virus. My phone number is [your number here]

I got the idea and phone number from a comment by [personal profile] threemeninaboat on [personal profile] sonia's journal. (I also posted a version of this to [community profile] thisfinecrew)
posted by [syndicated profile] dorktower_feed at 05:00am on 07/08/2025

Posted by John Kovalic

This or any DORK TOWER strip is now available as a signed, high-quality print, from just $25!  CLICK HERE to find out more!

HEY! Want to help keep DORK TOWER going? Then consider joining the DORK TOWER Patreon and ENLIST IN THE ARMY OF DORKNESS TODAY! (We have COOKIES!) (And SWAG!) (And GRATITUDE!)

 

andrewducker: (Default)
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
2025/123: Drop Dead Sisters — Amelia Diane Coombs
"Should I be offended that the most you’ve ever agreed with me is over how to deal with a dead body?" [loc. 1421]

Remi works as a community moderator for a games company. She hasn't dated for a while, and she doesn't have many (any?) friends. At the opening of the novel, she's heading for a family reunion: her hippie parents are renewing their vows on their fortieth wedding anniversary, and Remi -- the odd one out, the introvert in a nest of extroverts -- is going to have to see her two elder sisters, Maeve and Eliana, for the first time in seven years. 'If our lives were a video game, we each adventured off on our own side quests nearly a decade ago and never returned to the main storyline.'

Read more... )
Mood:: 'okay' okay
August 6th, 2025
posted by [syndicated profile] xkcd_feed at 04:00am on 06/08/2025
rmc28: (reading)

Books on pre-order:

  1. Queen Demon (Rising World 2) by Martha Wells (7 Oct 2025)

Books acquired in July:

  • and read:
    1. Moonlighter by Sarina Bowen
    2. Grown Wise (Liminal Mysteries) by Celia Lake
  • and unread:
    1. Death by Candlelight (Adam and Eve Mysteries 1) by Emma Davies
    2. The Little Cottage on the Hill (Little Cottage 1) by Emma Davies

Books acquired previously and read in July:

  1. A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine [2][Sep 2024]

Borrowed books read in July:

  1. Once Upon You and Me by Timothy Janovsky
  2. You Had Me At Happy Hour by Timothy Janovsky
  3. Cover Story by Mhairi McFarlane
  4. One-Touch Pass (SCU Hockey 4) by J.J. Mulder [8]
  5. The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
  6. Fourth Wing (Empyrean 1) by Rebecca Yarros [2]

Rereads in July:

  1. A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine [2]

I continue to enjoy all of Celia Lake's books, and I still adore the Teixcalaan books by Arkady Martine, whether reading or listening to them. Stuart Turton wrote the entirely gripping groundhog-day country house murder mystery, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, and I found The Last Murder at the End of the World another very gripping science-fictional murder mystery, this time in weird post-apocalyptic flavour.

Fourth Wing is a massive fantasy tome (21 hours of audiobook!) about a lethal military college for aspiring dragonriders, which piles a great many tropes onto some rather wonky worldbuilding. It is very entertaining and I can see why it is hugely popular. I am part way through the even more massive sequel and I regret nothing.

[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book
[4] Crowdfunding
[5] Goodbye read
[6] Cambridgeshire Reads/Listens
[7] FaRoFeb / FaRoCation / Bookmas / HRBC
[8] Prime Reading / Kindle Unlimited

ffutures: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] ffutures at 06:40pm on 06/08/2025 under
This is a short-term offer of the RPG Fight With Spirit from Storybrewers (Good Society), an RPG about competitive sports teams:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/FightWithSpirit



As anyone who knows me could tell you, this isn't really my sort of subject - I'm REALLY not a fan of sports of any sort, unless someone comes up with rules for competitive sloth - I went to great lengths to get out of them when I was at school. Having said that, the rules are nicely presented and (amazingly considered the topic) there is virtually no semi-nudity in the illustrations - the nearest thing to cheesecake is a (male) member of a swimming(?) team illustrated in the index and on one of the game cards. It's cheap and if you want to try something a little different from your usual RPG it may be worth a look. Meanwhile, I'll be skiving off in the library complaining about how my flat feet keep me from playing...

ffutures: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] ffutures at 06:40pm on 06/08/2025

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