[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
p+B11 is aneutronic (although the side-reactions aren't) and B11 is comparatively abundant in the Earth's crust.

A novel approach to proton-boron 11 fusion.

Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks

Apr. 23rd, 2026 08:46 am
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


What transformed Cheradenine Zakalwe into the superlative Special Circumstances asset he is today?

Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks
[personal profile] rydra_wong
It is currently 50% off on Steam, which I believe is as good as it gets in the post-Elden Ring era.

*un-Babels your Tower*

Apr. 23rd, 2026 10:38 am
[personal profile] rydra_wong
I can STRONGLY rec Chants of Sennaar to anyone who enjoys deduction/puzzle games, and in particular the micro-genre of games that have translating a conlang (in this case, multiple conlangs) as their central mechanic.



Looks like Sable, plays like a cross between Return of the Obra Dinn and Heaven's Vault.

(It makes the excellent choice which Sable also made and which more indie games should go for, namely putting all your characters in face-hiding hoods or masks so you can completely avoid uncanny valley bad face animation and spend your resources on other things instead.)

Made my brain ache in a good way and made me feel clever. I did have to draw maps (my spatial orientaion is terrible, so others may not need to except for one specific maze-like area), and make assorted paper notes to solve various puzzles.

You have to not only successfully translate each language individually, but, later in the game, interpret conversations between pairs of languages. This requires knowing that the languages have different word order -- in a very simple way -- one language does object-first Yoda-speak, several languages vary in how they form plurals, etc., but you do have to be able to translate in a grammatically correct way, not just word by word.

And to get to the "true ending," the game requires you to go all out and "speak" the languages, by using a given language to correctly describe a picture you are given (with no text).

I admit I did get a tiny bit emotional when I made it to the end.

Has a subsidiary stealth mechanic, which I mostly enjoyed; near the very end of the game, it did briefly hit the point of requiring a somewhat quick response, but was still ultimately within the capacity of my abysmal reflexes. Nonetheless, it's not a zero-coordination-required game.

Daily Happiness

Apr. 22nd, 2026 08:02 pm
[personal profile] torachan
1. I had a WFH day today so we went down to DCA for lunch. It was such a nice day weather-wise (just the right amount of warm, lots of cloud cover for the most part but not just a grey sky) and the crowds were low. We had some delicious food from the Food and Wine Festival, which wraps up this weekend, and since it's been a month since we were there, there was lots of new merch to admire.

2. We were out for about five hours, which is the longest we've been away from home since we got back, and we were a little worried we might come home to another pee incident, but there was no pee! Jasper was super needy this morning (but he often is on mornings I work from home) and we had a good half-hour snuggle at my desk before leaving. He did hork on the sofa while we were out, but I would rather deal with a hundred incidents of vomit than a single pee incident, so while it wasn't ideal, it wasn't a big deal, either.

3. One thing I do not miss about Japan is the allergies. I have in the past decade or so developed some degree of allergies at home as well, having not ever had any growing up or in my early adulthood, but not to the degree that I get them in Japan. Before our trip, I think the weather here was bringing them out more as I did have some reactions many days, if not all, but I have been blessedly sniffle-free since getting back (though today my eyes are a bit stingy).

4. Molly's showing off her perfect snoot.

2026 Disneyland Trip #20 (4/22/26)

Apr. 22nd, 2026 06:26 pm
[personal profile] torachan
It's been exactly a month since we've been to Disneyland. Well, our Disneyland anyway. We had originally planned to go last weekend, but were still too worn our from our trip, so we put in for a mid-week trip today and went down for lunch.

Read more... )
[syndicated profile] erinptah_feed

Posted by Erin Ptah

Rereading the middle of Volume 3 (Seven Seas edition), which brings us to the end of Volume 4 (TokyoPop edition). This one has vampires in it! Good times.

As usual, I’m posting the individual reactions on Mastodon and Bluesky, then rounding them up in the blog. Previous roundups in my PSOH fandom tag. You can pick up the books with my affiliate links here.

Still haven’t figured out who “Madam C” is. Keeping an eye out…

Cover art of D with a globe full of orcas

“Chapter 16” is the second Flowers and a/the Detective mini bonus.

Last time, Leon only actually saw a plant. This time, the flowers are hot ladies! Oh no.

Leon shows up while D is distracted by pet shenanigans, and:
TP: I’m sorry, Detective, but could you please take care of feeding T-chan and Pon-chan?
SS: I’m sorry, but could you please supervise T-chan while Pon-chan eats?

T-chan thrown under the bus by the SS translators, aww.

A rare scene where SS has the slangier translation, Leon reacts to meeting the first flower:

TP: You’re..beautiful!
SS: Whoa. Hottie!

Back to SS being more-formal, when D tries to explain the situation:

TP: Detective, she’s not interested in your name. Can I make this any clearer for you?
SS: I implore you to accept her love.

Slang usually works better with Leon. Formal tends to work better with D, but in this case I’m not sure it does justice to his not-at-all-hidden irritation with Leon.

TP has a moment of D lamenting “If my sister finds out…!”

SS just has him grumbling about the flower. Guess there was a word that could be translated as “her”/”woman” or “sister” depending on context? Or it was supposed to be the flower who has a sister?

I don’t remember how I took this on first reading, but the accidental foreshadowing of “D has a sister?!” must have made waves in the fandom…

Props to SS for having D outright call Leon a “bumblebee.”

From the way it’s drawn, seems like the hot flower gals just dump pollen all over him and then immediately disappear. But there’s got to be a full-on R-rated AU about this somewhere. (I know the fandom never had a notable het contingent, but the TP translation includes asides about Leon thinking D is mad because he’s jealous — you could get plenty of mileage out of that!)

Chapter 17: Dracula:

With the main character going by “Count D”, you knew there had to be a “-racula” chapter at some point.

The Chief describes the victims of a mysterious blood-draining killer:

TP: The guy only kills Asian men, usually in their twenties or early thirties.
SS: The victims are all Asian men aged seventeen to twenty.

…Okay, all the D relatives look much younger than their ageless selves, but “early-thirties human” is a much more believable lookalike than “17-year-old human.” This manga is happy to lean into plenty of weird kinks, but “D being jailbait” isn’t actually one of them!

Speaking of weird kinks, this chapter marks Leon’s second experience of “bursting in to find D pinned on a couch, being sexily menaced, by a beautiful man who wants to eat him.” This time, D dramatically throws himself into Leon’s arms, so the intruder leaves in a swirl of rose petals.

Poor Leon is gonna get some kind of complex, at this rate.

Leon explains about the “vampire” serial killer, and we get this exchange:

(TP)
Leon: Considering the sort of company you keep…[untranslated sfx] You probably know him.
T-chan tries to chomp him, captioned: What does that mean?!

(SS)
Leon: Not like any of this is new territory for you! [Heh heh heh] You’ve had some real freaks after you. Like that cannibal.
T-chan’s caption: Who’re you calling a freak?!

Yesss, good. The original didn’t make it clear that Leon was personally negging T-chan.

Too cute in both versions:

(TP)
D (sparkling): I wonder, Detective Orcot, if you will be so good as to stay and protect me forever? Or perhaps at least overnight?
Leon (making a ._. face): I’m going home.

(SS)
D (sparkling): Are you here to protect me then, Detective? All day and alllll night?
Leon (._.): Nah. I’m goin’ home.

D follows this up with a “nyeh!” gesture, Only SS translates the sound effect of Q-chan doing the same “nyeh!” gesture.

(Hey, chat, you know the “not just a cute mascot animal” reveal we’re eventually going to get with Q-chan? Do we think Akino had actually planned that from the start? Because I’m suspicious.)

The return of definitely-not-a-vampire rose-petal guy…now bearing gifts to woo D away from Leon! SS team once again winning in the “researching specific terms” department:

TP: The finest vintage red wine of this century, scented like the sweetest red rose covered in morning dew…And his favorite treat, La Primvell’s strawberry-covered chocolate cake.

SS: Crimson Baron Girod de L’Ain roses, which bloomed with the morning dew. Red wine from the Tokaj region, of this century’s best vintage. And, of course, his grandfather’s favorite strawberry and chocolate cake from La Primavera…

Oh, sweet, those are the specific roses on the cover art for this (original release) volume!

Baron Girod de L'Ain rose

“Tokaj” is familiar from HDM, it’s the source of several plot-relevant wine bottles. TIL that “Tokay” is a specific Lyra’s World transliteration, not the one used in our world.

Can’t find a specific 19th-century “La Primavera” that Grandpa D would’ve been into. It’s just the name of a bunch of different bakeries in Spanish-speaking countries/communities.

Leon studying a photo in the pet shop dated 1938, with all-familiar faces:

TP: Immortal, my ass. The only thing that’s immortal is Elvis.
SS: Such a monster can’t actually exist!!

The next panel is a group of pets ominously watching him. Which is a much better ironic follow-up to “no such thing as monsters” than “no such thing as immortals.”

The Elvis reference is funny, though. Fic about Elvis secretly being a pet, please?

Akino’s art style has a pretty limited range of faces. Normally that’s not a problem — it’s easy to tell characters apart when you add hairstyles, clothing, and general plot context.

It’s a problem here, though. “Dramatic realization! These two characters, who are supposedly different people, have the same face!” — yeah, of course? Was that supposed to be foreshadowing?? That’s how Akino draws every attractive professional adult woman!

I like the villain addressing our D as “Third.” (Happens in both translations, though not always in the same panels.)

(Extra note: Is this chapter the first real confirmation that our D is a lookalike descendant of Grandpa D? It’s what he always claimed, but of course, that’s what an immortal would claim. Here we get two actual immortals, who knew Grandpa D, both agreeing on “you really are a different, younger guy.”)

She’s in vampire-bat form when Leon hears her speak:

TP: Your reputation precedes you…
SS: Ugh. Your hunches are sharp, I’ll give you that.

Leon got chastised for “doing things based on gut instinct instead of solid research” earlier in the chapter (and it’s been a recurring theme all series). Good on SS for making this an explicit callback.

Leon has his first moment of fully believing D isn’t human. D calls his bluff with (summarizing, not typing out both versions) “if you shoot me with that non-silver bullet, and I die, you’ll know I’m not a vampire.” Leon calls that bluff by aiming and cocking his gun at D’s heart…the tense standoff is only broken by Q-chan, flying in front of the gun, squeaking and waving his lil’ arms.

Fascinating translation difference in the fallout:

(TP)
Leon: Bah! All this vampire stuff is bullshit!
D (grumpy face, thinking): He really would have…

(SS)
Leon: Feh! This is stupid. There’s no such thing as vampires!
D (grumpy face, thinking): Coward.

Leon reflecting on the guy who hit on D (they made friends, and it turned out he wasn’t the killer, now Leon is trying to convince himself he wasn’t a vampire either):

TP: And his tears certainly seemed normal enough. He was no more of a monster than I am.
SS: And he’d surely never cry over a love that pure. No way any of that bunk is real.

I think TP hits better in this one.

Leon on a pet shop couch, surrounded by pets whose human forms he can't see, including a Q-chan playing with his hair

Above: Last page of the chapter (not an official version, this is the Ruthless Night scanlation).

…so, the bat-winged lady in the Playboy Bunny outfit is definitely “how Akino planned Q-chan’s humanoid form to appear” at this point, right? This splash image also has a Q-chan watching from D’s shoulder, but I don’t think this is a reveal that there are two Q-chans! There’s no other panel where we see two of them next to each other!

[personal profile] erinptah

Rereading the middle of Volume 3 (Seven Seas edition), which brings us to the end of Volume 4 (TokyoPop edition). This one has vampires in it! Good times.

As usual, I’m posting the individual reactions on Mastodon and Bluesky, then rounding them up in the blog. Previous roundups in my PSOH fandom tag. You can pick up the books with my affiliate links here.

Still haven’t figured out who “Madam C” is. Keeping an eye out…

Cover art of D with a globe full of orcas


Bundle of Holding: Voidrunner's Codex

Apr. 22nd, 2026 03:28 pm
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


The complete Voidrunner's Codex Full Digital Box Set, the spacefaring expansion from EN Publishing for the Level Up! tabletop roleplaying game and Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition.

Bundle of Holding: Voidrunner's Codex
[syndicated profile] erinptah_feed

Posted by Erin Ptah

Leif & Thorn
Lamb to Lion (wallpaper | Liana | worksafe)
Good night boop (art | Leif/Thorn, Tiernan | worksafe)
Three men and a Baby in White (art | Leif/Thorn/Kale, Mulberry | worksafe)
Hunters Violet and Rowan (art | Violet, Rowan | worksafe)

Cosmic Princess Kaguya
Thousands of years (art | Kaguya, Yachiyo | worksafe)

Moon Knight
Birthday moon boys (art | Jake/Marc/Steven | worksafe)
Cute when you’re bossy (art | Marc/Jake | worksafe)
Three of a kind (art | Steven, Marc, Jake | worksafe)

Moon Knight/other Marvel
Travels by Knight, chapters 17-19 (fic | MoonScarab polycule, Avengers friends | T)
Business of Witch, chapter 12-15 (fic | Wanda, the Minimoffs, assorted witches, Elias | T)
Lofn of New Asgard (art | Lofn, Thorn | worksafe)

This Week in Leif & Thorn:

Sveta struggles with losing her husband, Dagny struggles with losing her fake dad, featuring limited-palette prison-camp nightmares.

Search maintenance

Apr. 22nd, 2026 09:19 am
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Happy Wednesday!

I'm taking search offline sometime today to upgrade the server to a new instance type. It should be down for a day or so -- sorry for the inconvenience. If you're curious, the existing search machine is over 10 years old and was starting to accumulate a decade of cruft...!

Also, apparently these older machines cost more than twice what the newer ones cost, on top of being slower. Trying to save a bit of maintenance and cost, and hopefully a Wednesday is okay!

Edited: The other cool thing is that this also means that the search index will be effectively realtime afterwards... no more waiting a few minutes for the indexer to catch new content.

~Love that for you.

Apr. 22nd, 2026 03:32 am
[personal profile] zarla
OKAY gonna make the Tomodachi post, haha. Well it's not complete, I found out how to batch-edit to get them all to a smaller size and all, and I got up to like 660 caps before I figured I should just post what I had lol. 660 caps is kind of a lot. MEMORIES OF THE OLD SCREENCAP ADVENTURE DAYS...

Anyway, I also put together all the little clips I recorded of them into one Youtube video so you can see them all pretty easily. A lot of the fun of Tomodachi is hearing their weird little Mii voices as they talk which you can't get across in screencaps. |D Also their little movements are super cute too!



In particular I think Temmie's voice is very cute, haha. Gaster's voice is incomprehensible which was an idea I stole from Robyn but it's SO GOOD

ANYWAY LET'S GO

Who will make the cut )

Alright that's enough for now lol.

lj post

Daily Happiness

Apr. 21st, 2026 08:29 pm
[personal profile] torachan
1. Today was my first day back at work at the office. Lots of meetings and not a lot else, but since I did all my catching up yesterday, that was fine. I'm planning to work from home tomorrow (and maybe Thursday?).

2. I asked Carla to make hummus for me today while I was at work, since I usually make some on the weekend to have for weekday lunches but hadn't gotten to it, and she did make it for me, but also first mistakenly opened a can of pinto beans instead of chickpeas, so she made refried beans and we had that with some more tacos for dinner as there's still plenty of carnitas and fresh tortillas from yesterday, and they were both delicious and the perfect amount for two servings. (Though we still have more taco fixings, so if there had been more, we could have finished them up later this week.)

3. There was a decent chance of rain today but it pretty much didn't rain. No rain at all in Gardena where I was, and Carla said there was a little dampness on the ground mid day but that was it. I really have had enough to rain for now, so I'm glad.

4. I spotted Tuxie in an unusual place the other day (in the neighbors' front yard). He seemed startled to see me, too, lol.

spring ephemerals

Apr. 21st, 2026 07:47 pm
[personal profile] rilina
Spring is springing around these parts! I have decked out my back porch hayracks with pansies, alyssum, and daffodils, even though I know I'll be pulling them out in a month for summer flowers. The spring color is worth it after a long winter. I'm growing zonal geraniums from seed under the grow lights in my home office, so the summer containers will be much cheaper than the spring ones. Maybe next year I'll finally grow my own pansies to save some money.

Meanwhile, it's a veritable daffodil party in the yard. The succession starts with the cheery mini yellow Tête-à-Tête, followed by the tall white and yellow Ice Follies, then the fluffy double Lingerie, and finally some demure yellow and orange Cornish Dawn. In the backyard, there's a little stand of Golden Echo under our cherry tree. None of the newly planted purple tulips are open yet, though they are showing a hint of color. A couple of the old yellow and red tulips have popped up despite everything, though they've also mostly been beheaded by squirrels or rabbits. The early crocus met a similar fate, though I got to enjoy them for a few days before they disappeared overnight into a critter's belly. I should probably stick with daffodils. 

In the fall I also planted some blue Siberian squill, which was all very pretty until I learned that it's terribly invasive, so I went outside and dug it up while it was blooming. Sigh. Hopefully I got ahead of that problem.

Spring also brings some less welcome ephemerals, namely lesser celandine, which is really nasty stuff. There are two giant patches in the backyard. I realized what it was too late last year (there's a short window to treat it because it's an ephemeral), so I've been doing my best to eradicate it this year, though I suspect it will be a multi-year effort that involves herbicide. I am mostly opposed to herbicide, but I make exceptions for invasive plants, since stopping their spread feels like the greater good. (I do spot apply it with a foam brush since that's a more controlled application than a spray.) I've been pulling out black swallow-wort ever since I moved here--that's just mechanical removal by digging--but last year I also used herbicide to kill a tree of heaven and a white mulberry that had sprouted up on the property line. There's something else on the property line that is suspiciously green and cheery for this early in the spring, so I suspect I may need to deal with that soon. The folks on the other side of that property line really neglect their side yard, which is where most of our invasives come from. Though I did convince them to cut down the white mulberry by pointing out that it was growing way too close to their foundation. 

One of the gardening people that I follow in Instagram has said she's no fun at parties because she knows too much about invasive plants. I kinda get it.

What signs of spring have you been enjoying?
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
And I know 700 pages PDFs are a vote-loser.

Any of my reviews from 2025 that people especially liked?

Hugo Finalist Votes 2022 - 2026

Apr. 21st, 2026 06:30 pm
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
                  2022   2024   2025   2026   
Novel             1151   1420   1078   1153
Novella            807    962    739    807
Novelette          463    755    394    414  
Short Story        632    720    610    507
Series             707    677    621    687
Graphic/Comic      340    457    265    362
Related            453    775    431    479
Dramatic, Long     597    763    610    650
Dramatic, Short    386    490    451    471
Game               --     334    298    357
Editor, Short      319    530    322    305
Editor, Long       182    254    162    234
Pro Artist         233    270    214    228
Semiprozine        312    338    334    324
Fanzine            243    286    243    224
Fancast            384    693    376    370
Fan Writer         368    363    329    308
Fan Artist         230    180    186    176
Poem                --     --    219    202
Lodestar           451    345    268    244
Astounding         416    349    341    290

December 2018

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