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sea_changed!
sea_changed!Robby has managed to put in a temporary fix for the site errors and things failing to refresh or not showing up where they should! The permanent fix is going to need Mark's experience, and unfortunately -- seriously, this literally never fails -- Mark has been on an international flight all day, because of course he has. (Never. Fails. He and I are not allowed to both take vacation at once.)
The site will work just fine with the temporary fix in place, things just might be a little slow here and there. We'll keep you updated.
We're aware of site traffic issues and are working to fix them for the people who are having problems! (The tactics the damn bot traffic uses are endlessly shifting, and they're really good at looking like real traffic, sigh.)
Last week's bread held out pretty well, up until the point it became a dried out solid brick.
Friday night supper: sorta-nasi goreng with yellow bell pepper and Calabrian salami.
Saturday breakfast rolls: grated apple, with Marriage's Golden Wholegrain Bread Flour and maple syrup.
Today's lunch: baby carrots roasted in sunflower + toasted sesame oil, right at end sprinkled with sugar and mirin; baby courgettes white-braised with ginger rather than star anise, no sesame oil; green beans steamed with fennel seeds then tossed in olive oil + tarragon vinegar with a little chopped red onion; large flat mushrooms marinated for approx 30 mins in 50/50% tamari and mirin boiled with with a dash of sesame oil and star anise, then healthy-grilled for 5 minutes or so.
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Sinister Syndicate of Space by John C. Wright
Book 8 of Starquest.
Plots thicken -- and converge. Spoilers ahead for the earlier works.
( Read more... )
Book 8 of Starquest.
Plots thicken -- and converge. Spoilers ahead for the earlier works.
( Read more... )
Gene editing has the power to alter the trajectory of human evolution for ever; the direction it takes will depend on who wields the editing tools. “There is no public funding available for researchers in the space,” Tie explains. “Everything is privately funded.” It’s up to entrepreneurs to demonstrate the potential benefits for humankind, she says, so regulators may soften their hardline stance and allow them to rewrite human DNA.
O gee, we wonder why that is, and whether that is because it is flim-flam.
Also, just look at the people who are funding this, and we think that this is the C21st equivalent of Citizen Kane trying to make his mistress an opera star.
And as for this, I don't think she can really get away from it?
“Eugenics is a very heavy word,” Tie says just before taking questions from the floor. “I would prefer to stop throwing that word around.”
Can't help thinking this is another version of that thing I posted earlier this week about the supposition that you can make a quick 'n easy path to Big Desirable Scientific Breakthrough -
- and somehow I have been thinking all week about Charles Darwin moseying around the Galapagos, and over the subsequent decades gradually evolving the theory of evolution....
Unfortunately 'The Big Idea' on AI children as the future of reproduction is not yet online.
I also think of the fairly parlous state even in relatively advanced countries of women's ability to reliably control their fertility, have high-quality safe obstetrical care, etc, issues around children' nutrition, early years care, education....
But I guess these things do not have a gosh-wow factor.
France overturns law classing people as property – 178 years after it abolished slavery
Have been for some considerable time casting sceptical glances at the whole liberte egalite fraternite thing, because that third element did seem rather to circumscribe the application....
(And also the historical tendency to consider that o-la-la, they were far more sorted in matters erotique - a good deal of this was surely the perception of gents Britannique en vacances, surely.)
I was a bit stunned by this: Argentina’s ‘European’ self-image under renewed scrutiny after racist incidents in Brazil, but agreeably surprised to find that Brazil (which was very late to abolish slavery) has a law of 'racial insult'. Although it has significant racial problems.
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dw_maintenance May. 28th, 2026 04:10 pm)
denise posting in dw_maintenance May. 28th, 2026 04:10 pm)It's been a while since we've done a full code push rather than just hotfixes for bugs, so we are well overdue! Depending on availability, we're aiming to do one sometime soon; we'll let you know specifics once we've worked out good timing for everyone who needs to be available.
However! The reason it's been so long is we kept trying to get some of the stuff that's pending to "really finished" instead of just "mostly finished", and then we once again looked around and went "oh no, this is a really big code push with a lot of changes". Those make us nervous, because while we do a lot of testing ourselves, y'all are really creative in how you use the site and we inevitably find a bunch of edge cases when we let you loose on new code with your real-world data!
So, if folks have some spare time in the next few days, it would be a huge help if you could spend half an hour or so using the site the same way you normally do but with the "Site-Wide Canary" beta features flag turned on. Canary mode is a sort of "live testing" mode: it's your real data, but running the most up-to-date code.
Canary mode always does have a few glitches -- there may be missing text strings or errors about missing database properties, which is a limitation of how we run it. We don't need to know about those, but anything else weird that you run into, leave a comment with what you were trying to do and the error message you got.
I'll repeat that the "here be dragons" caution that's on the beta features page: some things may be broken, so don't use it for when you're doing something important. But a few more eyeballs on it before the push will help the push go more smoothly for everyone.
For folks who want to concentrate on what's changing, we haven't finished the second code tour of what's going to be in this push, but the ffirst one has a good chunk of what's going to be going live. (We'll get the second half done ASAP!)
However! The reason it's been so long is we kept trying to get some of the stuff that's pending to "really finished" instead of just "mostly finished", and then we once again looked around and went "oh no, this is a really big code push with a lot of changes". Those make us nervous, because while we do a lot of testing ourselves, y'all are really creative in how you use the site and we inevitably find a bunch of edge cases when we let you loose on new code with your real-world data!
So, if folks have some spare time in the next few days, it would be a huge help if you could spend half an hour or so using the site the same way you normally do but with the "Site-Wide Canary" beta features flag turned on. Canary mode is a sort of "live testing" mode: it's your real data, but running the most up-to-date code.
Canary mode always does have a few glitches -- there may be missing text strings or errors about missing database properties, which is a limitation of how we run it. We don't need to know about those, but anything else weird that you run into, leave a comment with what you were trying to do and the error message you got.
I'll repeat that the "here be dragons" caution that's on the beta features page: some things may be broken, so don't use it for when you're doing something important. But a few more eyeballs on it before the push will help the push go more smoothly for everyone.
For folks who want to concentrate on what's changing, we haven't finished the second code tour of what's going to be in this push, but the ffirst one has a good chunk of what's going to be going live. (We'll get the second half done ASAP!)
Or, doing those things I ought to have done/been doing already, maybe.
Well, not quite that, but it was one of those days when after several days of flopping around feeling that not much was getting done and general apathy not entirely attributable to the weather I actually -
Rang the dental practice to reschedule my hygienist appointment because now Condoms Are Go it's less convenient than it was.
Okay, this only came up yesterday anyway: a younger scholar got in touch (prompted by former colleague) over thing they are doing and hoping for input if not actual collaboration from me, and I am not sure about collaboration but feel I could advise, and maybe, blurb or something?
Also, is yonks since was in contact with former colleague so emailed them.
While I was on email roll contacted person i/c archive I did research in some while ago and am contemplating doing a piece on fruits of my research about any constraints on quoting the material.
Sat down to beginning writing what I am intending saying about the Powerpoint slides for Condom Talk.
Did some updates for website.
Had some technical communications re talk.
Phew.
What I read
Dorothy Richardson, Interim (Pilgrimage, #5) (1919) for online reading group. Less dentistry in this one, but Canadian doctors.
Vonda McIntyre, The Curve of the World - which, well, my bar for her is set high, and one does wonder if maybe she would have worked more on this had she had the time, but it was still pretty good, even if there was a bit of an air of thought-experiment about the possibilities of cultural exchanges at the period. Points for having ageing (textually indicated to be menopausing) protag, and the seafaring party includes a pregnant woman.
Mick Herron, Nobody Walks (2015), thriller set in the Slough House universe and with various known characters mentioned but a stand-alone about unrelated characters. Not bad.
On the go
Still Persuasion, but very nearly there.
Still dipping in to Violet Hunt's Tales of the Uneasy - possibly her strength lay in the creepiness lurking within human relations, because I'm not sure she's really up there with her horror contemporaries?
Up next
There's a new Slightly Foxed.
Kill the Villainess, Vol. 6 by Haegi and Your Your April
Spoilers ahead for the earlier volumes.
( Read more... )
Spoilers ahead for the earlier volumes.
( Read more... )
It is torrid today in London, my dearios.
And I have booked myself to go to an in-person seminar at the Institution With Which I Have The Honour to Be Associated later this afternoon, o joy.
Somebody is presenting on a couple of fairly obscure early C20th progressives/sexologists whom I have also done a spot of work on, so feel a bit obliged to turn up.
Also, it is the time for applying for renewal of fellowship, so showing one's face about the place may be A Good Idea.
In other news I have actually managed to acquire an in-person GP appointment apropos of the knee issue for next week at a reasonable sort of time of day, after only a day and a bit of keeping going back to the practice site....
Pirate King of Star Patrol by John C. Wright
Starquest book seven. Spoilers ahead for the earlier volumes
( Read more... )
Starquest book seven. Spoilers ahead for the earlier volumes
( Read more... )
.