Courses - May/June 2025
Jun. 7th, 2025 01:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smallhobbitFutureLearn
Italian for Beginners (Part 2 & Part 3) (Open University) I'm definitely learning something. If I really worked at it I'd learn more, but learning lots of vocabulary no longer appeals, so I'm working on the general repetition basis and some of it is going in.
Film Audience & Spectator Experience (Film Distributors' Association) I don't go to the cinema very often, although this year I have seen 'Conclave' and 'Mr Burton', but nevertheless this is a well-presented course, which I enjoyed doing and from which I learnt a little. It's also improved by having the main tutor responding to comments.
OpenLearn
Transport & Sustainability
A Level 2 science course, which I was delighted to be able to follow and do the calculations. An interesting look at different forms of transport and their relative sustainability, including being realistic about the current greener options.
Basic Science: Understanding Numbers
Continuing with the Maths theme. Quite interesting, but covers a lot of the ground I've done previously. I'm now looking at taking some Level 2 Maths courses, which should require rather more mental input, which is one of the reasons for my taking courses!
Understanding Autism
Another badged course. Well worth doing. Although I've had contact with people with autism and their needs before, I felt the course taught me a number of things. Within a church setting, it doesn't hurt to be aware of needs and be as accommodating as possible.
Italian for Beginners (Part 2 & Part 3) (Open University) I'm definitely learning something. If I really worked at it I'd learn more, but learning lots of vocabulary no longer appeals, so I'm working on the general repetition basis and some of it is going in.
Film Audience & Spectator Experience (Film Distributors' Association) I don't go to the cinema very often, although this year I have seen 'Conclave' and 'Mr Burton', but nevertheless this is a well-presented course, which I enjoyed doing and from which I learnt a little. It's also improved by having the main tutor responding to comments.
OpenLearn
Transport & Sustainability
A Level 2 science course, which I was delighted to be able to follow and do the calculations. An interesting look at different forms of transport and their relative sustainability, including being realistic about the current greener options.
Basic Science: Understanding Numbers
Continuing with the Maths theme. Quite interesting, but covers a lot of the ground I've done previously. I'm now looking at taking some Level 2 Maths courses, which should require rather more mental input, which is one of the reasons for my taking courses!
Understanding Autism
Another badged course. Well worth doing. Although I've had contact with people with autism and their needs before, I felt the course taught me a number of things. Within a church setting, it doesn't hurt to be aware of needs and be as accommodating as possible.
Get companies to stop advertising on GB News
Jun. 7th, 2025 01:58 pmrydra_wong posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
thissterlingcrewThe Good Law Project and Stop Funding Hate have teamed up to let you email companies which claim to support LGBTQ+ people while advertising on (virulently homophobic and transphobic) GB News:
https://action.goodlawproject.org/pick-a-side-hate-or-pride
https://action.goodlawproject.org/pick-a-side-hate-or-pride
Just One Thing (07 June 2025)
Jun. 7th, 2025 12:49 pmnanila posting in awesomeersIt's challenge time!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
Rec [vid]: 15th Doctor Leaked Scene With Dalek by TopHatCrew
Jun. 7th, 2025 12:45 pmparanoidangel posting in tardis_libraryTitle: 15th Doctor Leaked Scene With Dalek
Creator: TopHatCrew
Rating: Unrated, but I'd say this was General/All Ages
Word Count/Length/Size: 0:22
Creator's Summary: Worked super hard on this. Almost 20 hours of rendering time, 4 hours of CGI animation, 2 hours of sound work, 2 hours of compositing and did the voice myself. Hope you like it
Characters/Pairings: Fifteenth Doctor, Dalek
Warnings/Notes: None
Reasons for reccing: It's short and silly.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW_kRolrz0o
Creator: TopHatCrew
Rating: Unrated, but I'd say this was General/All Ages
Word Count/Length/Size: 0:22
Creator's Summary: Worked super hard on this. Almost 20 hours of rendering time, 4 hours of CGI animation, 2 hours of sound work, 2 hours of compositing and did the voice myself. Hope you like it
Characters/Pairings: Fifteenth Doctor, Dalek
Warnings/Notes: None
Reasons for reccing: It's short and silly.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW_kRolrz0o
Interesting Links for 07-06-2025
Jun. 7th, 2025 12:00 pmandrewducker- 1. "Free Roam" mode is Mario Kart World's killer app
- (tags:Mario nintendo games driving )
- 2. Low-calorie diets make you depressed
- (tags:diet mentalhealth depression )
- 3. "I serve school dinners at state schools and private schools - here's the difference"
- (tags:food money school england )
- 4. Robots are coming for mail-sorting jobs
- (tags:robots video viaKenny )
- 5. Well, CAN You Prove You're a US Citizen?
- (tags:usa citizenship )
- 6. Women warned weight-loss jabs may affect contraception
- (tags:drugs contraception weight )
OVFF hotel
Jun. 7th, 2025 06:48 ammadfilkentist posting in filkOVFF has a new hotel: the Airport Marriott Hotel in Columbus. They say room rates and a reservation code will be available soon.
A mostly-free day
Jun. 7th, 2025 10:31 amrmc28I'm playing an ice hockey game tonight in Cambridge, a charity fundraiser between Warbirds and Tri-Base Lightning. But until then I have a strangely unscheduled day. I might sleep or read or something.
I could post about what I've been up to lately!
Work:
- spoke on a panel about effective 1:1s, it seemed to go well
- played my usual Senior Tech Woman role for a colleague's recruitment panel, and am happy that our preferred candidate has apparently just accepted. (a frustrating number of timewasting applicants more or less obviously using LLMs to write their applications and generate their free-text statements on suitability for the role; I really resent having to wade through paragraphs of verbose buzzword bilge to ... fail to find any evidence they actually know how to do the job)
Hockey:
- KODIAKS WON PLAYOFFS on the bank holiday weekend oh yes they did. So proud of the players, and definitely earned my share of reflected glory managing the team this season and running around half the weekend. League winners, Cup winners, Playoff winners, promotion to Division 1 next season, utter delight.
- Very much an Insufficient Sleep weekend, we topped off the playoff win with a night out in Sheffield, I got back to my hotel as the sky was getting light, good times.
- Kodiaks awards evening last night: lots of celebration of the hard work and lovely camaraderie of this group of players, A and B teams both. I got to announce and hand out the B team awards, and I received a really nice pair of gifts for me as manager: a canvas print of a post-final winners photo, and a personalised insulated travel mug (club logo and MANAGER on it). I love this team.
- I'm still enjoying also playing with Warbirds, and have now been to a few summer Friday scrimmages run by Tri-Base. I went to a couple of Friday scrims at the end of last summer and felt everyone was very kind but I was pretty outclassed. I'm pleased to feel like I'm keeping up a bit better now after training a lot harder this last season.
- I trained three days in a row this week (Warbirds Monday, Haringey Greyhounds tryouts in Alexandra Palace on Tuesday, Kodiaks Wednesday) and that was Too Much and I was pretty sore Wednesday evening and Thursday. Rest days are important even if I am much improved in fitness compared to this time last year.
Other:
- I did a formal hall at my old College! Using my alumna rights and having a nice evening hanging out with old friends (who were the ones to suggest the plan). Good times, will do again but probably not this term.
- I had an excessive number of books out from Suffolk libraries that needed returning, so I did a flying visit to Newmarket by bus last Saturday, this turned out to be the cheapest/quickest way across the county border. I managed to stick to my resolution not to borrow any more physical books but slipped and fell on the "withdrawn books for sale" stand. Managed to only come home with four.
- I did a little indoor cricket the Friday before playoffs (it's now finished due to exam period), and some nets practice last Sunday, but I keep being too busy to actually play any of my team's games. I'd like to do more nets practice though, that was intense but also felt like I was beginning to improve.
- I did a little table tennis with Active Staff but that's also now suspended for exams. I'm considering getting a cheap set of bats and balls for me and the family to go use at the local rec ground, or in the free indoor tables at the Grafton Centre.
Coming up: my summer is full of ice hockey camps and tournaments (Prague, Hull, Sheffield, Biarritz) and my old club Streatham have just announced all their summer training sessions will be "Summer Skills Camps" open to all interested WNIHL players, so I'm looking at going to London regularly again in July and August.
NGC 6302: The Butterfly Nebula
Jun. 7th, 2025 05:13 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
apod_feed
The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often
Recommendation: love is an affliction by WerewolvesAreReal, ST:TOS Hanahaki Disease
Jun. 7th, 2025 12:15 ampetraI deeply enjoyed reading a Star Trek: The Original Series story in which Hanahaki is nonfatal and limited to Vulcans. I enjoyed it all the more because I didn't read the tags beyond noting that it's General Audiences and No Warnings Apply. Having now read the tags and finished the story, which ends hopefully, I recommend that you give the story a try if the idea of Spock coughing up flowers of unrequited love appeals to you -- but page down and skip the tags, unless there are common pairings in the fandom that you need to avoid.
love is an affliction
love is an affliction
Nominations Clarification #2
Jun. 6th, 2025 11:23 pmjustmarriedmod posting in justmarriedexchangeGentle reminder to disambiguate relationship nominations (add the fandom name in parentheses behind your nomination). This will help us approve your tags faster.
The tagset currently has nominations for both North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell and North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell|UK TV. Nominators, would you rather keep book nominations and TV nominations separate (in which case I will duplicate nominations currently under the umbrella tag into both sub-fandoms), or would you rather combine them under the single Gaskell|UK TV tag?
I've already heard from the book-only nominator (thank you).
The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Celeborn/Galadriel (Tolkien)
Celebrían/Elrond Peredhel
Elrond Peredhel/Ereinion Gil-galad
Frodo Baggins/Rose Cotton/Sam Gamgee
Please nominate under a specific media type (books, movies, animated series?)
Star Wars - All Media Types
Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker (SW)
Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Vader (SW)
Please nominate under the specific instalment (Original Trilogy, Sequel Trilogy, Clone Wars, Rogue One?).
The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Nominations have been accepted under Marvel Cinematic Universe.
X-Men (Movieverse)
Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier (X-Men Movieverse)
Please nominate under Original Timeline Movies or Alternate Timeline Movies.
Creator's Choice of Fandom
Male Character/Male Character (CCoF)
Any Female Character/Any Male Character (CCoF)
Sorry, we aren't accepting Creator's Choice of Fandom in this exchange.
La Nonne Sanglange (opera) - Charles Gounod
Google search turns up an opera named 'La Nonne Sanglante'. Is that what you meant?
The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Link/Mipha (Legend of Zelda)
Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Please nominate under a specific media type (individual game, manga, movie?).
Doctor Who
The fifteenth doctor/Rouge (Doctor Who)
Please nominate under Doctor Who (1963) or Doctor Who (2005).
The tagset currently has nominations for both North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell and North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell|UK TV. Nominators, would you rather keep book nominations and TV nominations separate (in which case I will duplicate nominations currently under the umbrella tag into both sub-fandoms), or would you rather combine them under the single Gaskell|UK TV tag?
I've already heard from the book-only nominator (thank you).
The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Celeborn/Galadriel (Tolkien)
Celebrían/Elrond Peredhel
Elrond Peredhel/Ereinion Gil-galad
Frodo Baggins/Rose Cotton/Sam Gamgee
Please nominate under a specific media type (books, movies, animated series?)
Star Wars - All Media Types
Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker (SW)
Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Vader (SW)
Please nominate under the specific instalment (Original Trilogy, Sequel Trilogy, Clone Wars, Rogue One?).
The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Nominations have been accepted under Marvel Cinematic Universe.
X-Men (Movieverse)
Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier (X-Men Movieverse)
Please nominate under Original Timeline Movies or Alternate Timeline Movies.
Creator's Choice of Fandom
Male Character/Male Character (CCoF)
Any Female Character/Any Male Character (CCoF)
Sorry, we aren't accepting Creator's Choice of Fandom in this exchange.
La Nonne Sanglange (opera) - Charles Gounod
Google search turns up an opera named 'La Nonne Sanglante'. Is that what you meant?
The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Link/Mipha (Legend of Zelda)
Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Please nominate under a specific media type (individual game, manga, movie?).
Doctor Who
The fifteenth doctor/Rouge (Doctor Who)
Please nominate under Doctor Who (1963) or Doctor Who (2005).
Roast Lamb à la Nagi + Leftovers Thereof
Jun. 7th, 2025 11:30 amhighlyeccentricLast Sunday I had lamb, but had to go get more ingredients before I could make Nagi's slow-roasted middle eastern lamb shoulder. I ended up running too late to make it in a slow-cooker, and still short a few items, so I had-hocked it a few ways. The leftovers turned out amazing though, kept going all week.
( Spiced Lamb Shoulder )
Nagi serves hers with lemon herb couscous. I (being gluten-intolerant) recommend basmati rice, cooked with at least half the liquid being stock. You may wish to add sultanas to the rice.
Recommended toppings:
( Yoghurt sauce )
( Ful Medames )
Serve: Lamb on a bed of rice, with roast vegetables and the two dip/sauces.
Leftovers 1: Same thing, minus the yoghurt if you're taking it to work to reheat. If carrying it in a container to reheat, do include an orange wedge, and a dash of extra water, to infuse with the rice.
Leftovers 2: Ful Medames on celery sticks, as a component of Girl Dinner / Picky Tea.
Leftovers 3:
( Lamb and Feta Pizza )
Leftovers 3b: Leftover pizza.
Leftovers 4, which I made at the same time as the pizza:
( Spiced vegetable and bean soup )
Leftovers 4b: soup. Mix yoghurt sauce through if you're taking it in a container to work.
Leftovers 5: Wraps/soft tacos/thingy with fuul medames and lamb. If you have leftover mushroom / zucchini from the pizza, toss that in here. Add avocado if you have any.
Leftovers 6: at this point just "uses for ful medames", but ful medames mixed with Jack M's banana chili ketchup makes a good spread base for breakfast burrito.
This has been: a week of lamb and things that go with lamb.
( Spiced Lamb Shoulder )
Nagi serves hers with lemon herb couscous. I (being gluten-intolerant) recommend basmati rice, cooked with at least half the liquid being stock. You may wish to add sultanas to the rice.
Recommended toppings:
( Yoghurt sauce )
( Ful Medames )
Serve: Lamb on a bed of rice, with roast vegetables and the two dip/sauces.
Leftovers 1: Same thing, minus the yoghurt if you're taking it to work to reheat. If carrying it in a container to reheat, do include an orange wedge, and a dash of extra water, to infuse with the rice.
Leftovers 2: Ful Medames on celery sticks, as a component of Girl Dinner / Picky Tea.
Leftovers 3:
( Lamb and Feta Pizza )
Leftovers 3b: Leftover pizza.
Leftovers 4, which I made at the same time as the pizza:
( Spiced vegetable and bean soup )
Leftovers 4b: soup. Mix yoghurt sauce through if you're taking it in a container to work.
Leftovers 5: Wraps/soft tacos/thingy with fuul medames and lamb. If you have leftover mushroom / zucchini from the pizza, toss that in here. Add avocado if you have any.
Leftovers 6: at this point just "uses for ful medames", but ful medames mixed with Jack M's banana chili ketchup makes a good spread base for breakfast burrito.
This has been: a week of lamb and things that go with lamb.
Fandom50: #15
Jun. 6th, 2025 07:46 pmsenmutAlmost the end of a decade in 1989. Revolutions, crackdowns, changes in power ... look, 1989 left a mark on my psyche. Evidently I was escaping into the cinema as much as I was to the roller rink, judging from me opening 20 tabs even with me being picky. Going to narrow that down some. Okay, 11 in the final cut.
( kinda grouped in genre broadly )
( kinda grouped in genre broadly )
(no subject)
Jun. 6th, 2025 08:18 pmskygiantsA while back, lirazel posted about a bad book about an interesting topic -- Conspiracy Theories About Lemuria -- which apparently got most of its information from a scholarly text called The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories by Sumathi Ramaswamy.
Great! I said. I bet the library has that book, I'll read it instead of the bad one! which now I have done.
For those unfamiliar, for a while the idea of sunken land-bridges joining various existing landmasses was very popular in 19th century geology; Lemuria got its name because it was supposed to explain why there are lemurs in Madagascar and India but not anywhere else. Various other land-bridges were also theorized but Lemuria's the only one that got famous thanks to the catchy name getting picked up by various weird occultists (most notably Helena Blavatasky) and incorporated into their variably incomprehensible Theories of Human Origins, Past Paradises, Etc.
As is not unexpected, this book is a much more dense, scholarly, and theory-driven tome than the bad pop history thatlirazel read. What was unexpected for me is that the author's scholarly interests focus on a.) cartography and b.) Tamil language and cultural politics, and so what she's most interested in doing is tracing how the concept of a Lemurian continent went from being an outdated geographic supposition to a weird Western occult fringe belief to an extremely mainstream, government-supported historical narrative in Tamil-speaking polities, where Lost Lemuria has become associated with the legendary drowned Tamil homeland of Tamilnāṭu and thus the premise for a claim that not only is the Lemurian continent the source of human origins but that specifically the Tamil language is the source language for humanity.
Not the book I expected to be reading! but I'm not at all mad about how things turned out! the prose is so dry that it was definite work to wade through but the rewards were real; the author has another whole book about Tamil language politics and part of me knows I am not really theory-brained enough for it at this time but the other part is tempted.
Also I did as well come out with a few snippets of the Weird Nonsense that I thought I was going in for! My favorite anecdote involves a woman named Gertrude Norris Meeker who wrote to the U.S. government in the 1950s claiming to be the Governor-General of Atlantis and Lemuria, ascertaining her sovereign right to this nonexistent territory, to which the State Department's Special Advisor on Geography had to write back like "we do not think that is true; this place does not exist." Eventually Gertrude Meeker got a congressman involved who also nobly wrote to the government on behalf of his constituent: "Mrs. Meeker understands that by renouncing her citizenship she could become Queen of these islands, but as a citizen she can rule as governor-general. [...] She states that she is getting ready to do some leasing for development work on some of these islands." And again the State Department was patiently like "we do not think that is true, as this place does not exist." Subsequently they seem to have developed a "Lemuria and Atlantis are not real" form letter which I hope and trust is still being used today.
lirazel posted about a bad book about an interesting topic -- Conspiracy Theories About Lemuria -- which apparently got most of its information from a scholarly text called The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories by Sumathi Ramaswamy. Great! I said. I bet the library has that book, I'll read it instead of the bad one! which now I have done.
For those unfamiliar, for a while the idea of sunken land-bridges joining various existing landmasses was very popular in 19th century geology; Lemuria got its name because it was supposed to explain why there are lemurs in Madagascar and India but not anywhere else. Various other land-bridges were also theorized but Lemuria's the only one that got famous thanks to the catchy name getting picked up by various weird occultists (most notably Helena Blavatasky) and incorporated into their variably incomprehensible Theories of Human Origins, Past Paradises, Etc.
As is not unexpected, this book is a much more dense, scholarly, and theory-driven tome than the bad pop history that
lirazel read. What was unexpected for me is that the author's scholarly interests focus on a.) cartography and b.) Tamil language and cultural politics, and so what she's most interested in doing is tracing how the concept of a Lemurian continent went from being an outdated geographic supposition to a weird Western occult fringe belief to an extremely mainstream, government-supported historical narrative in Tamil-speaking polities, where Lost Lemuria has become associated with the legendary drowned Tamil homeland of Tamilnāṭu and thus the premise for a claim that not only is the Lemurian continent the source of human origins but that specifically the Tamil language is the source language for humanity.Not the book I expected to be reading! but I'm not at all mad about how things turned out! the prose is so dry that it was definite work to wade through but the rewards were real; the author has another whole book about Tamil language politics and part of me knows I am not really theory-brained enough for it at this time but the other part is tempted.
Also I did as well come out with a few snippets of the Weird Nonsense that I thought I was going in for! My favorite anecdote involves a woman named Gertrude Norris Meeker who wrote to the U.S. government in the 1950s claiming to be the Governor-General of Atlantis and Lemuria, ascertaining her sovereign right to this nonexistent territory, to which the State Department's Special Advisor on Geography had to write back like "we do not think that is true; this place does not exist." Eventually Gertrude Meeker got a congressman involved who also nobly wrote to the government on behalf of his constituent: "Mrs. Meeker understands that by renouncing her citizenship she could become Queen of these islands, but as a citizen she can rule as governor-general. [...] She states that she is getting ready to do some leasing for development work on some of these islands." And again the State Department was patiently like "we do not think that is true, as this place does not exist." Subsequently they seem to have developed a "Lemuria and Atlantis are not real" form letter which I hope and trust is still being used today.
LEGO Party!
Jun. 6th, 2025 07:18 pmsettiaiOne of my friends helped design this game! Elliot, who I've been playing D&D with since 2017, has been working on a top secret project for several years now, and he finally got to admit that this was it because the trailer dropped this afternoon.
Honestly, it looks like a lot of fun. And unlike Mario Party, it's not system locked so you and anyone you're playing with can be on different devices. Considering the huge number of game assets that he designed? I'm so very proud of him.
Random Guardian meme and pic
Jun. 7th, 2025 11:17 amchina_shopI was just clearing out my screenshot folder and re-found some things I made a couple of years ago during the Guardian rewatch. They amused me, so: repost!
:D
[Tumblr post #1 | Tumblr post #2]
:D
[Tumblr post #1 | Tumblr post #2]