Reading

Entry tags:

science!

more on visual culture in science

This morning I am watching the lecture I linked to on Tuesday!

At 6:53:

Here is an example of how the Hubble telescope image of the Omega nebula, or Messier 17, was created, by adding colours -- which seem to have been chosen quite arbitrarily -- and adjusting composition.

The slide is figure 13 (on page 10) from an Introduction to Image Processing (PDF) on the ESA Hubble website; I'm baffled at the idea that the colours were chosen "arbitrarily" given that the same PDF contains (starting on page 8) §1.4 Assigning colours to different filter exposures. It's not a super clear explanation -- I think the WonderDome explainer is distinctly more readable -- but the explanation does exist and is there.

Obviously I immediately had to stop and look all of this up.

(Rest of the talk was interesting! But that point in particular about modern illustration as I say made me go HOLD ON A SEC--)

the sock

I used to always put out a sock/sack of thistle/nyjer seeds for the finches. Then, last year, I didn't. I ran out of both seed and sock, and never got around to replacing them. This year, I had the sock, but didn't actually get any seed until after the snow fell. So it's been a week and a half, and nobody has touched it. Normally, the goldfinches love it, with the occasional house finch partaking. This year, I haven't seen a goldfinch in several weeks, and the house finches aren't touching it. I'm wondering if the goldfinches migrated away after finding no food.

Entry tags:

endometriosis

[surgery] one year on!

I continue extremely grateful to no longer have ureteric stents.

( a bit of stock-taking )

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christmas countdown 2025

11th December

It's nice to have a crib in the house and you'll see mine in a few days. The best place to buy one is in church, they have them in different designs and at different prices. But you don't need to spend money, you could just make basic figures from cardboard. After all the original stable wasn't fancy so your cardboard figures will fit with that.

Current Mood: busy

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Birdfeeding

Today is cloudy and chilly.

I fed the birds. I haven't seen much activity today though.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/11/25 -- It snowed quite a bit today.

Current Mood: festive
Current Music: I won't even ask for snow

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Make my wish come true - due South drabble, Food Bank Thank-You

ride_4ever just let me know about a donation, so I wrote:

Make my wish come true (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: due South
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski
Characters: Benton Fraser, Ray Kowalski
Additional Tags: Drabble, Christmas Fluff
Summary:

Ray observes a holiday tradition.

*

If you donate 25 USD in cash or in kind to a food bank or food pantry, tell me about it and I'll write for you!

Current Mood: the SAD is winning
Current Music: Why are they complaining? It could've been raining!

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holiday cards

Cards will not arrive in time for the holidays

Happy "It's December Tenth" to all who observe it.

I have not written my Dark Outside pieces yet, far less addressed and sent the mail, so I will send cards When I Get To It.

I am still going to write for people; it'll just be in your email inbox come Solstice, not your physical mailbox come whenever. People who just wanted cards will get cards at some date TBD.

Entry tags:

New community > comicsfanfiction

comicsfanfiction

Community Description:

comicsfanfiction is for any comic book fanfiction including comic strips, webcomics, and graphic novels. Any rating is accepted. Feel free to post your old or new works!

side-tracks off side-tracks

One of the things I found yesterday, while getting distracted from transcription by regretting not having taken History and Philosophy of Science (or, more accurately, not having shown up to the lectures to just listen), was some tantalising notes on the existence of a four-lecture series entitled Visual Culture in Science and Medicine:

Science today is supremely visual – in its experiments, observations and communication, images have become integral to the scientific enterprise. These four lectures examine the role of images in anatomy, natural history and astronomy between the 15th and the 18th centuries. Rather than assessing images against a yardstick of increasing empiricism or an onward march towards accurate observation, these lectures draw attention to the myriad, ingenious ways in which images were deployed to create scientific objects, aid scientific arguments and simulate instrumental observations. Naturalistic styles of depictions are often mistaken for evidence of first-hand observation, but in this period, they were deployed as a visual rhetoric of persuasion rather than proof of an observed object. By examining the production and uses of imagery in this period, these lectures will offer ways to understand more generally what was entailed in scientific visualisation in early modern Europe.

I've managed to track down a one-hour video (that I've obviously not consumed yet, because audiovisual processing augh). Infuriatingly Kusukawa's book on the topic only covers the sixteenth century, not the full timespan of the lectures, and also it's fifty quid for the PDF. I have located a sample of the thing, consisting of the front matter and the first fifteen pages of the introduction (it cuts off IN MID SENTENCE).

Now daydreaming idly about comparative study of this + Tufte, which I also haven't got around to reading...

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Snow, slush, semi-melt: nasty weather, basically. But still went out to physio, shoving the walker through the recalcitrant berms. Something passed along the sidewalks at one point earlier: there were tire tracks a metre wide that hadn't cleared the slush but pushed it to either side, and in the middle a clear patch maybe a foot/ 30 cm wide ie not wide enoough for the rollator. Bobcats don't do that. I don't know what does that but it's remarkably inefficient. Thought the bobcats must have done Christie at least so took the side street over and no, no they had not. Was in fact worse than my street. But I pushed on, noting that-- cult though they may be-- the Jehovah's Witnesses alone had shovelled their frontage, and then the smoke house at the corner. Am sure this expedition counts as exercise, so go me.

Finished, I went over to Loblaws who hadn't shovelled either, obviously thinking the clear path under their overhang was sufficient to anyone's needs, and if one had to push through a sea of slush to get to the walkway, well, too bad. I hope I never have to use a wheelchair, even a motorized one. Of course there's still home delivery, and if Blawblaws persists in not having turkey roll, I may use it.

Coming home people either had shovelled or were shovelling, including in front of the vacant lot that will someday, in the far future, be yet more condos. I thanked the shoveller nicely, who grinned back at me and asked how I was doing. Obviously dire conditions bring out the best in Trawntonyans.

Finished Nancy Mitford's bio of Mme de Pompadour finally, so can put with the donatable books. Charles Finch, The Hidden City and Kashiwaba Sachiko's The Village Beyond the Mist. The last being a veeeery distant ancestor of Spirited Away, the only semi-common element being the character who turned into Yubaba. Also did a fast skim of Witches Abroad as a library ebook because I wanted something to read at the restaurant and Kobo is iffy on the phone.

Also finished the first set of Phantom Moon Tower side stories, some of which are parseable and some of which, um, aren't.

Then bought a couple of Dr Priestleys for the tablet because I need to get back to the bike machine. Though now am tempted to just reread Lords and Ladies and maybe Maskerade. This is hibernating 'line of least resistance' weather, and I have vodka and a comfy sofa. A pity to waste that on, say, the biography of Da Vinci.

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Birdfeeding

Today is cloudy, windy, and chilly.

I fed the birds. I've see a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/10/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 12/10/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/10/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Entry tags:

christmas countdown 2025

10th December

I changed my mind about what today's picture was going to be. I went shopping in Lichfield this morning and in the big supermarket they had a postbox topper. It's quite simple compared to many but still a nice one, three or four trees on top and a few snowflakes round the edge.

The picture's not very good, the background is too busy, but you can get the idea.

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Every day I'm shovelin' [^1]

By the time today ends I will have shoveled our driveway and ways at least four times over the course of two days. We're finally getting a new garage door and opener, having needed one for several years. We had to wait for a non-standard-sized door to be ordered[^2], then once it arrived, we scheduled the installation for yesterday. Then, the night of the day before yesterday, it started snowing.

Yesterday morning, I called the garage door company to see if they would need to reschedule because of the weather. The woman I spoke to sounded almost amused by the idea. Since then, I have shoveled:

Yesterday morning, so I could get our vehicles out and the technician could get his truck to the garage.
Yesterday evening, so the technician could get his truck out of the driveway and I could get our vehicles back in.
Early this morning, so I could get our van out and go to the doctor. This included shoveling the huge piles that the snow plows had deposited at the end of the driveway.
Later this morning, when I got back from the doctor, I had to shovel the rest of the driveway so we can play vehicle Tetris[^3] and the technician can finish the garage door.

It's currently snowing, but not as hard as yesterday, so I may or may not have to shovel again when the technician has to leave this evening. Plus, I'll have to shovel the end of the driveway again when the city plows the sidewalks, which may or may not happen today. So I guess this winter's definitely giving me my exercise!

[^1] If you recognized the musical reference in the title, I'd like to offer my sincere apologies. If you didn't, please don't go looking for it — I doubt you need an earworm, and I'd prefer that you not think ill of me.

[^2] Because of course our house required a non-standard-sized door.

[^3] Right now we're forbidden to park on the street, so that the plows can run. When the technician gets here, A. and I will have to back our vehicles out of the driveway, then he'll back his truck up the driveway to the garage, then we'll pull back into the driveway. Then we'll have to do the whole thing in reverse when he leaves.

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Birdfeeding

Today is partly cloudy and cold.

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a male cardinal.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/9/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 12/9/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/9/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/9/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Entry tags:

christmas countdown 2025

9th December

Yesterday was a decoration I didn't like, today's is one I do. We put it up on the mirror in the hall every year.

I don't know how long we've had the top, wicker ring, it may even go back to my childhood. The lower, felt ring is newer. My sister-in-law made it for us years ago and it seemed to go well with the other one.

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on pain of pain

a confession: today I have bought two more translations of Descartes

Item the first: the 1972 Harvard University Press Treatise of Man, translated by Thomas Steele Hall. This translation is quoted by two of the other books I'm working with, Pain: the science of suffering by Patrick Wall (1999), and The Painful Truth by Monty Lyman (2021). It is also an edition that, as I understand it, contains a facsimile of the first French edition (1664, itself a translation of the Latin published in 1662). My French is not up to reading actual seventeenth-century philosophy, but being able to spot-check a couple of paragraphs will be Useful For My Argument.

Item the second: Descartes: Key Philosophical Writings, translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (1997). This doesn't contain Treatise on Man, but it's the translation of Meditations on First Philosophy that's quoted in The Story of Pain by Joanna Bourke (2014).

Meanwhile the Descartes essay, thus far composed primarily but not solely of quotations from other works, has somehow made it north of 4500 words. I think it might even be starting to make an argument.

( Read more... )

I am resisting the urge to try to turn this into a Proper Survey Of Popular Books On Pain, because that sounds like a lot of work that will probably involve reading a bunch of philosophers I find profoundly irritating, and also THIS IS A TOTAL DISTRACTION from the ACTUAL WORK I AM TRYING TO DO. But it's a distraction that is getting me writing, so I'll take it.

Entry tags:

(no subject)

The art gallery with the trompe l'oeil painting now has an artist who does houses in fresh acrylic colours and boy do I want one of those. I'm a suck for houses in paintings, so much so that people have commented on it. The three Yoshitoshi up the stairs all suggest houses with their verandahs; the Albert Franck my sister passed on to me when she moved into her apartment is a street scene; the fake Franck in the front room is a view of the back of some very Toronto houses; the Evening at Kuerner's Wyeth print in the bedroom has a house, the only light in that brown autumnal landscape; even the Foxfires at Musashino in the side room shows the far off thatch roofed houses, which many printings black out. Yes I have other prints with no houses (Hiroshige's lumberyards, Hasui's Magome, Petit's Mt. Fuji) but those synchronise with colour schemes. Houses are what I want. But I already have a large picture of a house, a watercolour that needs to be reframed except that, when framed, I can't see it properly. And those acrylics cost: 5000 for the smaller 12x16 inch ones, probably over 10,000 for the large ones. But still...

In other news, if one turns on the overhead lights in the middle room, one finds the ID fallen on the floor under the table and half underneath the carpet. So all is well on that front. My fridge does still leak if it's opened but that I can live with until spring. Got out before the worst of the snow fell and have vodka and coolers enough to see me through to next week, so shall hibernate until then.

Current Mood: giggly

Entry tags:

A Guessing Game- First and Last Lines

I've thought of another game, hoorah! It might be fun around Christmas time?

Take your last 5* fanfics and copy their first and last lines. We have to guess what the story is about!

*you can go back as far as you like to find fanfics where it's not obvious what's happened. I certainly had to😅

I thought of this game, it's a Kitarella Original TM. 😜

My answers:

1. (first) On the morning of New Year’s Eve, Bez woke up feeling rather dizzy and wobbly, which was surprising.

(last) “He’s my team mate now. I'm sure I can matchmake.” He winked.

2. (first) As Doyle was flung away from the explosion, Cowley’s words ran through his mind—they’ve developed some kind of superweapon, be careful of side effects.

(last) “Normal. Yeah right.” They laughed, in their usual way this time, and went into Doyle’s flat to dry off.

3. (first) “We have to do it, Avon!” snapped Blake. “Otherwise we won't get the vital information about the Federation.”

(last) The crew members ran over to the bracelets, and then teleported back to the ship as fast as they could.

4. (first) “All this is beneath me you know,” said Jimmy as he cleaned Mr Branson’s boots in the boot room that morning.

(last) “No. No, I—” But he didn’t get to say any more than that because Jimmy pushed him against the cold, scratchy wall and gave him a very thorough kissing, so Thomas was sure this wasn’t a distraction technique or just teasing.

5. (first) “Will you kiss me, Jase? I'm dying, I just want some human comfort.”

(last) “I'll just turn on the old charm, they won’t be able to resist,” Jason said breezily, and staggered off towards the column of smoke, shifting Aurelius around as he walked, and getting slapped on the chest whenever he stumbled.

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Birdfeeding

Today is sunny and quite cold.

I fed the birds. I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a male cardinal.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/8/25 -- While we were out, we saw a small flock of white birds with long necks. They may have been swans or geese. Trumpeter swans are the largest of those found in Illinois and tend to hold their necks straight, which these were doing, and the juveniles are gray, which I also saw. Tundra swans are similar but smaller. The pictures of geese are stockier with much shorter necks, so I'm thinking we saw swans.

Entry tags:

rl_25

(no subject)

Fingers crossed, my freezer seems to have stopped leaking into the fridge area.

Only now I've lost my new Ontario ID card. It was supposed to be on the kitchen table and it isn't. No, actually, it was supposed to have been in my wallet, which will learn me to put things back where they belong the minute I finish gazing at my strange unnatural beauty. Am not up to doing the Lost please replace routine, and certainly not in December. Of course I cut up my old one and threw it out. Let's hope there are no elections in the near future.