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[personal profile] peaceful_sands posting in [community profile] bitesizedcleaning
Welcome to the September Stampede - the 10 minutes a day bite-size cleaning challenge that lasts from 1st to 30th September.

This is supposed to be a low-stress challenge - if you miss a day, it doesn't matter, if the day's challenge doesn't suit, repeat the day before or start on the next day's. With the exception of two days, the challenges should take about 10 minutes, if you want to spend longer that's great, judge by your personal available time and energy.

To make it easier to take part and not be held up by time differences and days when I'm not able to post, all challenges will be posted in the table below the cut to aid both those taking part and the daily poster.

The majority of the challenges should be adaptable e.g. clean a flat surface - desks, kitchen worktops, bathroom cabinets, floors, tables would all work. Similarly for clean a vertical surface, any of the following (and no doubt others) would count - windows, wall tiles, mirrors, doors. Cleaning a drawer can just as easily be a box of things or any other kind of container or a cupboard. You pick whether you work in one area of your home for the month/until it's finished or work in a different area each day. If you want to repeat a task e.g. cleaning a drawer until the full set of drawers is sorted and cleaned, go for it.

My biggest request for the month is that, whenever you can, you join in the chat - even if you haven't done the day's challenge come and cheer for others. We're here for the ups and downs this month so you can tell us when you're struggling as well as celebrate your successes. (If anyone thinks all this looks familiar, may I commend you on your memory and confess that yes, it is cribbed from last year's post :) )

Daily Challenge Table shown below the cut )

And so today's challenge is to spend 10 minutes cleaning a flat surface.

Just to give you all the heads up - I'm not sure how often I'm going to be able to make a post so each time I will post the whole chart so that you can keep track of the challenges - feel free to comment on the most recent post at any stage with as many days progress as you can.

Good luck and have a great September.

110 Mira (KPop Demon Hunters) Icons

Aug. 31st, 2025 10:59 pm
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[personal profile] chocolatefrogs posting in [community profile] fandom_icons



Fit check for my napalm era!

Don't be afraid of the stars

Sep. 1st, 2025 01:56 pm
copracat: alia from Children of Dune, eyes bright blue, strands of hair blowing across her face (alia)
[personal profile] copracat
I'm at the penultimate episode of Coroner's Diary and there are simply too many cinnamon rolls of the kind who die tragically. I am on melodramatic tenterhooks for the second, third and fourth couples. If it all goes too pear-shaped I am watching A Dream Within A Dream again.

In other news my copy of Hetty McKinnon's latest, Linger, has arrived. Coronation cauliflower and chickpeas is calling to me.

Code deploy happening shortly

Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Per the [site community profile] dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

yuletidemods: A hippo lounges with laptop in hand, peering at the screen through a pair of pince-nez and smiling. A text bubble with a heart emerges from the screen. The hippo dangles a computer mouse from one toe. By Oro. (Default)
[personal profile] yuletidemods posting in [community profile] yuletide_admin
It’s time to start thinking about Yuletide! Here is our schedule for this year. Please note that the time of some deadlines has changed from last year. This may mean the date in UTC has also changed, or that the date relative to your own time zone may have changed.


2025 Schedule

Monday 15 to Friday 26 September: Nominations (end 9pm UTC 26 September)
Tuesday 14 to Friday 24 October: Sign-ups (end 9pm UTC 24 October)
Sunday 26 October: Assignments out (may be earlier)
Wednesday 10 December: Default deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 17 December: Assignment deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 24 December: Main collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 25 December: Madness collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 1 January: Author reveals, end of event (9pm UTC)

Please check back closer to the time if you want to be sure about deadlines! Deadlines in other timezones may be closer than they appear. If your region has a seasonal time shift during the above dates, your relationship to the deadline will also change. We recommend using timeanddate.com to check when each deadline is for you before it occurs.

New Year's Resolutions

We just sent an email to everyone who took part in Yuletide 2024 and who needs to complete a New Year's Resolution story before signing up again.

We use the email that's associated with your AO3 account. This is a good time to check what that email is! If you have any doubts about whether you received it, you're welcome to check your status with us by emailing yuletideadmin@gmail.com. Please include your AO3 name.

Who needs to complete a New Year's Resolution

If you took part in Yuletide and defaulted after the default deadline, or you submitted an incomplete story at the posting deadline, or you defaulted in Yuletide twice in a row, we generally ask you to complete a New Year’s Resolution story before you sign up again.

See the rules for defaulting on AO3

If you defaulted in a previous year, we will not have sent you a new reminder. We issued a general amnesty for ordinary defaults before the 2023 round, but if you were told you needed to complete a NYR due to turning in a placeholder story or a similar problem, you are probably still on our NYR list. Please check with us if you aren’t sure!

How to fulfil the requirement

Stories written for the purpose of re-qualifying for Yuletide must be posted to the New Year's Resolutions 2025 collection before you sign up to Yuletide 2025. They must be over 1,000 words, written for a specific person's past Yuletide prompt, and given to that person. You can write for any Yuletide 2024 prompt, or you can choose an older Yuletide prompt as long as the fandom in which you write is small enough to still qualify for Yuletide (that is, there are fewer than 1,000 fics on AO3 that are in English, complete, and over 1,000 words long).

Purpose of New Year's Resolutions

The NYR system exists for several reasons:
  • It's an incentive to encourage people either to default early, or, to push on through and post something

  • It works as a warm-up, or as practice, or as a way of proving to yourself you can finish a story to a prompt

  • It's a contribution to the project of getting more stories written in tiny fandoms

  • It's a way of ensuring that past prompts don't get entirely forgotten.


If you had to default in a past year, we are aware that this may have been for a carefully-considered reason or in a difficult time. Needing to complete a NYR does not mean we think you're terrible. Even members of the mod team have needed to write NYRs in the past. We hope you use it as an opportunity to write something you enjoy.

People are also welcome to write NYR stories just for fun! The collection will stay open for late fills until Yuletide 2025 sign-ups close (approx Oct 24).

2024 prompts



Prompts for Yuletide 2010-2024 can be found through the relevant individual collections and the NYR collections (see the Yuletide parent collection).

Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits | Discord


Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.

"Giant" ebook sale, Aug 29th only

Aug. 29th, 2025 12:12 pm
starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
[personal profile] starwatcher posting in [community profile] ebooks
 

"Giant" is their description, not mine, but they tout 1,500 books on sale.

Note that you can select different retailers in the top drop-down menu, and specific genres in the list to the left.

Sale ends at "midnight." They never say which midnight, but I suspect it's one of the U.S timezones, which are UTC-5 to UTC-8.

Pass this on wherever you like.

 
denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

I'll start with the tl;dr summary to make sure everyone sees it and then explain further: As of September 1, we will temporarily be forced to block access to Dreamwidth from all IP addresses that geolocate to Mississippi for legal reasons. This block will need to continue until we either win the legal case entirely, or the district court issues another injunction preventing Mississippi from enforcing their social media age verification and parental consent law against us.

Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry. We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Netchoice have been fighting for you had a temporary setback last week. We genuinely and honestly believe that we're going to win it in the end, but the Fifth Circuit appellate court said that the district judge was wrong to issue the preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the state from enforcing the law requiring any social media website (which is very broadly defined, and which we definitely qualify as) to deanonymize and age-verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.

Netchoice took that appellate ruling up to the Supreme Court, who declined to overrule the Fifth Circuit with no explanation -- except for Justice Kavanaugh agreeing that we are likely to win the fight in the end, but saying that it's no big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime.

Needless to say, it's a big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime. The Mississippi law is a breathtaking state overreach: it forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses Dreamwidth from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents, to save that highly personal and sensitive information, and then to obtain a permission slip from those users' parents to allow them to finish creating an account. It also forces us to change our moderation policies and stop anyone under 18 from accessing a wide variety of legal and beneficial speech because the state of Mississippi doesn't like it -- which, given the way Dreamwidth works, would mean blocking people from talking about those things at all. (And if you think you know exactly what kind of content the state of Mississippi doesn't like, you're absolutely right.)

Needless to say, we don't want to do that, either. Even if we wanted to, though, we can't: the resources it would take for us to build the systems that would let us do it are well beyond our capacity. You can read the sworn declaration I provided to the court for some examples of how unworkable these requirements are in practice. (That isn't even everything! The lawyers gave me a page limit!)

Unfortunately, the penalties for failing to comply with the Mississippi law are incredibly steep: fines of $10,000 per user from Mississippi who we don't have identity documents verifying age for, per incident -- which means every time someone from Mississippi loaded Dreamwidth, we'd potentially owe Mississippi $10,000. Even a single $10,000 fine would be rough for us, but the per-user, per-incident nature of the actual fine structure is an existential threat. And because we're part of the organization suing Mississippi over it, and were explicitly named in the now-overturned preliminary injunction, we think the risk of the state deciding to engage in retaliatory prosecution while the full legal challenge continues to work its way through the courts is a lot higher than we're comfortable with. Mississippi has been itching to issue those fines for a while, and while normally we wouldn't worry much because we're a small and obscure site, the fact that we've been yelling at them in court about the law being unconstitutional means the chance of them lumping us in with the big social media giants and trying to fine us is just too high for us to want to risk it. (The excellent lawyers we've been working with are Netchoice's lawyers, not ours!)

All of this means we've made the extremely painful decision that our only possible option for the time being is to block Mississippi IP addresses from accessing Dreamwidth, until we win the case. (And I repeat: I am absolutely incredibly confident we'll win the case. And apparently Justice Kavanaugh agrees!) I repeat: I am so, so sorry. This is the last thing we wanted to do, and I've been fighting my ass off for the last three years to prevent it. But, as everyone who follows the legal system knows, the Fifth Circuit is gonna do what it's gonna do, whether or not what they want to do has any relationship to the actual law.

We don't collect geolocation information ourselves, and we have no idea which of our users are residents of Mississippi. (We also don't want to know that, unless you choose to tell us.) Because of that, and because access to highly accurate geolocation databases is extremely expensive, our only option is to use our network provider's geolocation-based blocking to prevent connections from IP addresses they identify as being from Mississippi from even reaching Dreamwidth in the first place. I have no idea how accurate their geolocation is, and it's possible that some people not in Mississippi might also be affected by this block. (The inaccuracy of geolocation is only, like, the 27th most important reason on the list of "why this law is practically impossible for any site to comply with, much less a tiny site like us".)

If your IP address is identified as coming from Mississippi, beginning on September 1, you'll see a shorter, simpler version of this message and be unable to proceed to the site itself. If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would.

On a completely unrelated note while I have you all here, have I mentioned lately that I really like ProtonVPN's service, privacy practices, and pricing? They also have a free tier available that, although limited to one device, has no ads or data caps and doesn't log your activity, unlike most of the free VPN services out there. VPNs are an excellent privacy and security tool that every user of the internet should be familiar with! We aren't affiliated with Proton and we don't get any kickbacks if you sign up with them, but I'm a satisfied customer and I wanted to take this chance to let you know that.

Again, we're so incredibly sorry to have to make this announcement, and I personally promise you that I will continue to fight this law, and all of the others like it that various states are passing, with every inch of the New Jersey-bred stubborn fightiness you've come to know and love over the last 16 years. The instant we think it's less legally risky for us to allow connections from Mississippi IP addresses, we'll undo the block and let you know.

justmarriedmod: (Default)
[personal profile] justmarriedmod posting in [community profile] yuletide
[community profile] justmarriedexchange is a marriage-themed multifandom exchange for marriage tropes of all kinds: convenient, accidental, undercover, arranged, forced, and so on. The requirements are 1500 words for fic, clean lineart on unlined paper for art, and a complete recording of 1500 words or 10 minutes for podfic.

We have some post-deadline pinch hits, currently due August 29th 11:59PM UTC (countdown), or negotiable.

PH 48 - Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon), Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon), 黄金の太陽 | Golden Sun Series, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)

PH 49 - Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, 鸣潮 | Wuthering Waves (Video Game), Limbus Company (Video Game)

If you might be interested in one of these pinch hits, you can find more details or claim the pinch hit at the post here. Thank you very much!
bethbethbeth: The Earth (Misc Earth (bbb))
[personal profile] bethbethbeth
On May 8th, I offered to read the first five books people recced - assuming they were available (preferably from the library) - and I'd give a short review [https://bethbethbeth.dreamwidth.org/701769.html].

This is the ninth recced book review.

America (1986), by Jean Baudrillard (recced by Hannah on dreamwidth)

(Note: I read this at least a month ago, but I forgot to post the review!)

America is two entirely different books. If I hadn't felt compelled to complete America (I started it four times before I could move beyond the fifth page), I would have given up the ghost by the end of chapter one. There's no denying that it's beautifully written, poetic, philosophic, deeply thoughtful at times. I have no particular problem with his critique of America - even in what he sees as its "banality." But god, did it feel pretentious and oddly incoherent for the longest time.

It's also weirdly racist. when it most tries to be anything but, and so much of it feels just...wrong. Take his observations of New York City, for example. Yes, much is "fast" about NY - both literally and metaphorically - but of all things, cars aren't the things that are faster (those of you who have experienced an Uber taking 20 minutes to drive from 2nd Avenue to 8th Avenue know what I mean). And eating alone in New York? It isn't incredibly "sad" as Baudrillard suggests... far more often it's a way to feel a moment of pleasurable solitude in a city of so many millions of people.

Some of what I perceive as wrongness in the book could be that Baudrillard is writing about the America of the 80s, yet treating it as if that's all there is of the America of past and future instead of it being a snapshot of time. Or it could be as simple as the translation missing the point at times (although, I suspect that's not the case). But one way or the other, this America seems not just subjective, but far too often like a work of fiction.

There are also an incredible number of similes...sometimes a half dozen per page. :)

Anyway, once America hits the "Utopia Achieved" chapter, it morphs into something both readable and insightful. I'm not sure how that happened. It might possibly have been magic.

I'm not entirely sure it made up for the first 3/5 of the book, however.

A3! Act Addict Actors

Aug. 24th, 2025 04:09 pm
bluapapilio: shinichi and kaito kid from detective conan (dcmk kaishin)
[personal profile] bluapapilio posting in [community profile] fandom_icons
  

⭐ x40 A3! icons here!
tanaqui: Illumiinated letter T (Default)
[personal profile] tanaqui posting in [community profile] ebooks
From August 23-25, Narratess is hosting an Indie Book Sale featuring HUNDREDS of fantasy, sci fi and horror titles!

Every book will be $2 OR LESS and there are also bundles on itch.io.

Browse the sale at https://indiebook.sale

Tokusatsu Femslash Prompt Meme

Aug. 21st, 2025 11:06 am
linky: Rinne and Renge together. (Gotchard: Rinne/Renge - MV)
[personal profile] linky posting in [community profile] girlgay
Flint and Magine looking at each other lovingly while holding hands. There is text in the upper left corner saying Tokusatsu Femslash Prompt Meme.

Description: A multimedia femslash prompt meme for all tokusatsu series and films. From Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, Power Rangers, Ultraman, Kaiju, Sukeban Deka, and even the most obscure Showa-Era toku out there you can think of. If it's in the tokusatsu genre, it's welcome!
Schedule: August 20th until October 31st.
Links: [community profile] tokufemslash | Prompt Meme Post | Comm Rules and Guidelines | Ao3 Collection | Squidgeworld Collection | Superlove Collection
bethbethbeth: (Bears Bike Outing (obsessed1))
[personal profile] bethbethbeth
Helpful hint if you're becoming more disabled as you age or as a condition progresses (i.e., if you're new to seeking travel assistance): figure out what sorts of thing are challenges for you in your day to day life, and see how the airports you'll be using can help.

In my case: I have relatively bad arthritis (some weeks worse than others), use a cane, have balance issues and intermittent vertigo.

The two airports I used (O'Hare in Chicago and Sea-Tac in Seattle) are usually both on the lists of reasonably accessible airports (guides, braille elevator signs, etc), and both had free wheelchairs. This would have been great given the extremely long terminal hallways without moving sidewalks, but unfortunately, it was too late by the time I found out.

Knowing about the free wheelchairs would have been especially useful when I was heading home. The TSA lines were wildly long at Sea-Tac and even though I explained my difficulty with standing in lines to SeaTac staff, I was told I had to go to the regular line (note: a roving TSA agent ended up - unprompted (although I probably looked bedraggled :D) - moving me to a faster line, but once you invoke a disability, accommodations should be made as a matter of course.

My return trip from Sea-Tac (after 5 days of hobbling around WorldCon) was also problematic given the inclines between each gate in Terminal D. Why do you have to trudge uphill with teenagers sitting on the side ledges, hanging their legs over the banisters? I shall probably never know.

Plus, there was no seating accessible to me at SeaTac. All the chairs would have been perfectly comfortable for me to sit in, but my cartilage-light knees & my vertigo won't usually allow me to get up facing forward without something to touch for balance in front of me once I'm up. I usually need to turn sideways to get up from a chair (unless it's a relatively tall chair) and touch the back for balance (unless I'm sitting next to a wall), which isn't possible with rows of freestanding chairs that all have armrests and all face each other. In my case, I found a lovely guy at the gate next to my departure gate (my gate personnel weren't there yet) who basically stole a wheelchair (the basic airport wheelchairs are just hard chairs on wheels with movable armrests, i.e., my favorites) and brought me to my departure gate, leaving me to sit in the stolen - and oddly comfortable - chair next to something I could use for balance later for the next hour. This was great, but it took me 25 minutes finding somebody to help)

Note: when I was heading to Seattle, O'Hare's departure gate did have chairs without armrests which made it easy for me to stand up without tipping over onto my face. I don't know whether having some chairs without armrests are part of ADA compliance, but even the lobby for O'Hare's car rental and bus pickup facility had a few of those. Thank you, O'Hare.

On the plus side, there were gender free bathrooms at O'Hare (single user) and at SeaTac (including multi user). I only used the one at SeaTac and the stalls all had full-length doors, which - let's be real - all public restrooms should have. I did overhear a youngish girl - maybe 12? - expressing shock to her slightly older sister about that, but then her parents said "Go in and pee. Our flight's going to be boarding soon." Good work, parents,

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