Peak breakfast pot

Jun. 4th, 2026 10:10 am[personal profile] nanila
nanila: (kusanagi: amused)
I’ve been making overnight oats in jars for the bloke and me since the start of the year, and have experimented with varying ingredients and quantities. I think I’ve finally found the balance I like best, so I’ve carefully documented this below in case I ever stop making them regularly.

  1. Base layer is 3 medium-sized strawberries, chopped into 1cm pieces. For the bloke, 4 tablespoons of oats, for me, 3 tablespoons.

  2. Shake the jar to mix oats and strawberries. This is especially important if using the jumbo oats (as shown here), otherwise I end up adding too much milk.

  3. Add milk to just below the top layer of oats. For him, whole milk, for me, oat milk.
    20260531_110730

  4. Add full-fat Greek yoghurt. For him, 3 heaping tablespoons, for me, 2. This helps to moisten the top layer of oats, and also gives a smooth layer between the oats and the crunchy bits at the top.

  5. Add Linwoods Milled Flaxseed, Sunflower, Pumpkin & Chia Seeds & Goji Berries. Two teaspoons for both of us. I used chia seeds on their own for a while, but I found that I didn’t much care for their crunchy texture and tendency to get stuck in my teeth even after soaking them briefly in water to activate their mucilaginous properties. This mixture is much nicer.
    20260531_111059

  6. Add 3-4 teaspoons of pomegranate seeds. These have the right balance of juice and crunch after the yoghurt layer.
    20260531_111233

  7. Finish with granola. I prefer the stuff that has freeze-dried strawberries mixed in. For him, 2 tablespoons, for me, one.

  8. Put lids on jars, store in fridge until morning. I find these fill me up sufficiently that I’m rarely hungry before lunch, although I often eat a banana around coffee time just to give myself a little boost.
    20260531_111425

(no subject)

Jun. 4th, 2026 09:46 am[personal profile] oursin
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
Happy birthday, [personal profile] starlady!

Tweet tweet

Jun. 4th, 2026 04:25 am[personal profile] viridian5
viridian5: (Sunglasses)
Since my laptop computer is nine years old and its fan cooling pad was only feeling lukewarm, I bought a new cooling pad to hopefully extend my computer's life. Plus, summer's coming.

+++

Previously, I thought my area's local birds were rock pigeons, mourning doves, sparrows, American robins, starlings, the occasional northern cardinal and blue jay, a woodpecker I can hear but have yet to see, and the very occasional hawk, but the sound ID function on my phone's Merlin app has let me know that within three miles of my Queens home in the last two weeks there have also been American redstart, gray catbird, chimney swift, northern mockingbird, barn swallow, and Carolina wren. I had no idea.
sovay: (Otachi: Pacific Rim)
We might not have spent the sunset at Marblehead Light if we had known that all five yacht clubs within earshot would fire off a salute of cannons in accordance with the naval tradition of evening colors in season, but on either side of the sudden harbor-rolling cracks of smoke it was a postcard of a sunset in the smelted oranges and wave-mirrored blues of a painted present from, partitioned by the nineteenth-century cast-iron skeleton of the light itself. [personal profile] spatch had wanted to take me to water after I had spent the previous day in the kind of pain where as soon as it eased off a little I passed out. We ate roast beef sandwiches parked at the Mystic Lakes and drove north once rush hour had died down.

I've brought silver to set you free. )

Home again with a bowl of noodles, I heard [personal profile] rushthatspeaks' irresistible report on Tokuzō Tanaka's The Whale God (鯨神, 1962), a radiation of Melville I had known nothing about. Rob and I have not yet caught up on the latest episode of Widow's Bay (2026), but last week when we marathoned the previous three we were delighted to confirm that in its remix of New England horrors, Shirley Jackson had unambiguously entered the chat. Hestia, our own lighthouse, was golden-eyed in the cat tree.

Broken Dove: Chapter Eight

Jun. 4th, 2026 01:31 am[personal profile] penwalla
This is a weird chapter to review, because I do have a big complaint about the worldbuilding, but it's also a subjective complaint that I think other critics of this book may disagree with. Fair warning, these are my opinions, and today's is more opinion-y than most.

But first! Misogyny.

kind of a weird one )

Reading Wrap-up 5/26

Jun. 4th, 2026 07:06 am[personal profile] vamp_ress posting in [community profile] booknook
vamp_ress: (Default)
Wow, I read a lot of books in May. However, most of them were short, so it's actually not like I read more than I normally do. It just seems that way.

Mann, Thomas: Death in Venice. Penguin. 1991
After Buddenbrooks, this was my second Mann. It was not as addictive as Buddenbrooks, but certainly still a very good novella. I feel like Mann is so very good at describing the "summer vibe" - that very distinct feeling when you're on vacation and time seems somehow suspended. He does that both in Buddenbrooks and in Death in Venice. I've never seen that particular feeling described anywhere else so poignantly.

Taylor, Peter: A Summons to Memphis. Vintage. 1999.
Not a very successful outing as I felt I should have gotten more out of this book than I actually did. There is lot going on under the surface, but somehow I didn't connect with that subtext. 

DeLillo, Don: The Silence. Scribner. 2020.
Mhm, no. This is only 100 pages long and tries to be philosophical and dystopian, but it never spends enough time with any of the many topics and themes that get mentioned to feel in any way rewarding. And the dialogues were just ... baaaaaad. Oh, my.

Richardson, Kim Michele: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. Sourcebook Landmarks. 2019.
After Jojo Moyes' The Bringer of Stars my second novel about the Kentucky Pack Horse Library, which is an absolutely fascinating topic, but apparently no one is able to put that into a good novel. Any Americans here who could recommend something worthwhile on the subject of the Pack Horse Library? Is there a good non-fiction book where I could learn more about it? Novels don't seem to cut it.

Kopetzky, Steffen: Damenopfer. Rowohlt. 2023 (German)
Kopetzky writes interesting historical novels that are a little off the beaten path. This one is about an actual historical figure (Larissa Reissner), but most importantly it's about the cultural and political shift in Europe (Soviet Russia and Germany in particular) that took place in the 1920s. Very interesting if you like a good panorama - lots of name-dropping from Stalin to Nabokov included!

Lewis, Herbert Clyde: Gentleman Overboard. Boiler Press. 2021.
This was the highlight of the month, I enjoyed this a lot! It's a short novel about a gentleman (that detail is important) who goes on a sea voyage and falls off the ship. Instead of screaming for help he decides instead to not inconvenience anyone. Things will sort themselves out ... yeah, sure. This was half satire, half psychoanalysis. And the authorial voice was to-die-for. 

Forster, E. M.: The Longest Journey. Penguin. 2006.
Apperently, this was Forster's favourite amongst his novels. However, it feels a bit disjointed and never turned into a cohesive narrative for me. It had strong moments and scenes, but it smelled a little of Hardy to me in the sense that the plot was so terribly ill-fated. But again: Forster has a knack for really strong endings!

Mina, Denise: Rizzio. Polygon. 2021.
Not worth your time if you have even a passing knowledge of the Mary Stuart and Rizzio story. Denise Mina doesn't add anything new (apart from alluding to something going on between Rizzio and Darnley, because apparently we can't do without a queer angle nowadays). This read like barely fictionalised non-fiction. Or it read like gapfiller fanfic from someone just starting out in a fandom and trying something safe. Forgettable.

Brautigan, Richard: The Hawkline Monster. Canongate. 2017.
Absurd and funny. Quite possibly written while the author was either drunk or high or even both. But I was amused and laughed out loud several times, so that was a win. Also, it's short and therefore doesn't overstay its welcome. (Always a problem with humour - oftentimes it simply goes on for too long, which sucks the fun out of it.)


Community Thursdays

Jun. 4th, 2026 12:23 am[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
ysabetwordsmith: A blue sheep holding a quill dreams of Dreamwidth (Dreamsheep)
This year I'm doing Community Thursdays. Some of my activity will involve maintaining communities I run, and my favorites. Some will involve checking my list of subscriptions and posting in lower-traffic ones. Today I have interacted with the following communities...


* Commented on Just One Thing (03 June 2026) in [community profile] awesomeers.

* Commented on TV TUESDAY: TV PLUS in [community profile] tv_talk.

* Commented on Bees and Silver Slides in [community profile] everykindofcraft.

* Commented on just create - vote edition in [community profile] justcreate.

June's Bingo

Jun. 4th, 2026 12:30 am[personal profile] cornerofmadness
cornerofmadness: (Default)
from [community profile] allbingo's pride month

Open relationship Support Unconventional family structure Validation
Community center Queer anarchy Hope Growth
Gender envy Friendship Glitter Presentation
Inclusion Queer awakening *trips over an ace* Rainbow



And the hazbin hotel fest also at [community profile] allbingo I'll probably be combining them

Kappa Jerkass Has a Point Poltergeist "the last thing I want to do is spread misinformation"
"sorry starts to lose meaning after a while" "they clipped your wings" Berserk Button Elevator
"today was perfect" Holding Hands My Greatest Second Chance Garden
Embassy Hooker with a Heart of Gold Hellhounds "remember that lesson on boundaries?"
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
The following poems from the May 5, 2026 Poetry Fishbowl are currently available. Poems may be sponsored via PayPal -- there's a permanent donation button on my Dreamwidth profile page -- or you can write to me and discuss other methods. There are still verses left in the linkback poems "A Sense of Weather Changes," "The Loving Embrace of Night," "Generations of Cooks Past," "Homefree and Clear, " "One Bite at a Time," "Mishpocha," "Changing Your Nature," and "Besa."


"The Art of Morphological Derivation"
Summary: Words are humanity's most versatile tools.
25 lines, Buy It Now = $10

"Ĉiu Kreas Sian Forton"
Story Date: Evening of Monday, June 6, 2016
Summary: Shiv explores Esperanto words.
64 lines, Buy It Now = $32

The day had gone well, and
Shiv was pleasantly tired.

After supper, people were
gathering in clusters to share
stories or work on things that
didn't involve bending metal
.


"Lichengloss"
Summary: It's about the slow struggle of learning a new language.
29 lines, Buy It Now = $15

"Shoutengai"
Summary: Tokyo is famous for its shopping streets.
54 lines, Buy It Now = $20

"Tumbled Voices"
Story Date: Friday, August 29, 2014
Summary: Kenzie talks with Many Tongues about what makes a dialect or a language.
102 lines, Buy It Now = $51

Kenzie enjoyed listening
to the flow of language
around him, even though
he didn't know much yet
.


"Zakkyo"
Summary: These mixed-use buildings have commercial businesses on every floor.
40 lines, Buy It Now = $15

Good news

Jun. 3rd, 2026 10:35 pm[personal profile] cornerofmadness
cornerofmadness: (Default)
Not only did I get the you're fine see you in six months go-ahead from my cancer doctor, I also lost those 10 pounds I gained and my BP was 112/57.

Now considering I ate a lot last week I'm surprised and I think there is something to what's been knocking in my head. My increasing weight and blood pressure might be related to stress and cortisol levels. This isn't something we really test for often (more when we suspect adrenal tumors) now I'm off work a couple weeks and everything is going back to normal (for me)

I wasn't going to go to the mall since I'll be back on Saturday (the theater is at the mall) but my appointment was at 1 and I was back in my car at 140. I hit the comic book store and finally walked to this Chinese restaurant I've been wanting to go to for years (no parking but I always have to park in the garage and it was a good day to walk). And....it was closed for the week. Sigh. I went to the German place instead but it's still not even 3 pm so I go to the mall to Home Goods and now I have to take something back on Saturday. The clearance body butter. I assumed that was packing tape on it. No, I got it open (which is weird because I wasn't going to open it. I don't usually need it unless the heaters are on) and someone had broken the seal and dug a finger's worth out of the cream. Yep, no thanks.

On my drive home that cardiologist I don't like called me. This is the second time his office has done this. Last time it was his NP, this time it was him, just checking in with me. It was unexpected. How are you feeling? Did you know your holter monitor study was normal (yes we already talked about this but obviously you didn't put it in your note) When will you be coming back to see me? August (unless I change that)

What I Just Finished Reading:
The Faraway Inn - a cozy fantasy (portal) set in Vermont. a really sweet YA cozy fantasy. I enjoyed it to pieces


The Gay Disaster Detective Agency - one of my arcs. I usually like Lev AC Rosen but this isn't working for me. Yeah there are better gay books out there for Pride month. Go read Rosen's Evander Mills series instead (but it is post WWII so it's not exactly happy gay stuff)


The Kindness of Strangers - another arc that wasn't for me


What I am Currently Reading:


Our Sisters Keeper - a very weird own voices black magic setting in the 1920s, has some serious creepy vibes



The Death Card - currently struggling to get into it




What I Plan to Read Next: some of my looming arcs


May's Reads - I didn't read as much as I would have liked to. But as always if you want to talk about any of them, please let's do it.


Dungeons and Danger cozy mystery

That Which Feeds Us Sapphic horror (set in Hawai'i)


Hooked on Murder cozy mystery

The Colour Out of Space Horror manga (Lovecraftian)

We Burned So Bright dystopian (with mature gay couple)


Death al Dente mystery


Lumine Volume One fantasy graphic novel

Impure Blood Volume 1 steampunk graphic novel

Links: The doing is the point

Jun. 3rd, 2026 07:48 pm[personal profile] sonia
sonia: Quilted wall-hanging (Default)
The machines are fine. I'm worried about us. by Minas Karamanis.
Alice can now do things. She can open a paper she's never seen before and, with effort, follow the argument. She can write a likelihood function from scratch. She can stare at a plot and know, before checking, that something is wrong with the normalization. She spent a year building a structure inside her own head, and that structure is hers now, permanently, portable, independent of any tool or subscription. Bob has none of this. Take away the agent, and Bob is still a first-year student who hasn't started yet. The year happened around him but not inside him. He shipped a product, but he didn't learn a trade.


Appearing Productive in The Workplace from No One's Happy.
The reckoning will not be subtle. The firms still doing the work properly will be in a position to charge for it. The firms that have hollowed themselves out will discover that what they hollowed out was the thing the client was paying for.


The AI Bubble from No One's Happy.
The reason none of them can stop is that the investment, the revenue, and the justification for the next investment are the same transaction. If Microsoft reduces its OpenAI commitment, it loses one of Azure’s largest customers, the AI revenue line that justifies $192 billion in capex, and the earnings growth that holds its stock price — all at once. The same logic binds Alphabet and Amazon to Anthropic: the equity position and the cloud contract are the same bet, and unwinding one unwinds both.


Funny but serious, Chieng issues an AI warning to grads by Liz Mineo, Harvard Staff Writer.
He continued, “Whatever your chosen profession is, please don’t let AI rob you of the fun part of it. Your generation’s upcoming battle won’t be humans against AI; that’s at least two months away. … It’s going to be people with substance versus people with shallow knowledge. It’s going to be mastery versus faking it. It’s going to be people with good taste versus tacky. I trust you will put in the work necessary to be on the right side of those battles.”


Quality in the Age of Slop by Sinclair Target.
This blog post is very long and almost entirely about the 1974 bestseller Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. It is also about AI—there will be some juicy takes, pinky swear—but those familiar with ZAMM should consider themselves warned. [...]

Quality is related to caring because once you care, once you are interested, you have a vantage point from which to make Quality judgments. These Quality judgments (e.g. "Is this good code?") are based in part on the romantic mode of understanding and so within the classical mode alone aren't defensible. But they are necessary, because in the moment-to-moment work on the machine, there are thousands of facts you could consider, thousands of alternative threads you could follow, all equally valid in the classical mode, and the only way to make any sense of it all is to apply a Quality-focused version of Occam's Razor.

Bah

Jun. 3rd, 2026 09:37 pm[personal profile] days_unfolding
days_unfolding: (Default)
Overslept until almost 9 AM. Good, my CPAP said that I had eight hours.

Got my groceries delivered. A neighbor stopped by to see the dogs. He asked if he could come in the yard, and I said yes, so he came in and gave the dogs Milkbones. Gracie was jumping on his back and licking his ear. He said that he saw the sticker that Urbana Parking put on my car, so I explained the situation. He thought that was ridiculous.

I signed up for the Saturday Books 2 Prisoners session. I need to get back in the groove.

I bought some small round plastic containers in which to freeze mashed potatoes. I’ll have hamburgers and mashed potatoes for lunches or dinners.

Showered and am wearing a short-sleeved shirt, capris, and sandals. It feels good.

I looked for a very small ceiling fan for upstairs and found an 11 inch one that might work. I need to measure. Damn, it’s hot up here. The downstairs stays cool. Actually, I put two fans on and that helps.

Piano went well. I need to work on reading ahead, so Gemini gave me some suggestions on how to practice that. My teacher just said to go slower. I might ask my pianist friend for suggestions.

I’m not going to get the recycling out tonight. I got the hose partially disentangled and watered my plants. But I need to feed the fur faces (done) and feed myself. My meeting about the fall trip was rescheduled to 9 CDT.

Zara is one cool cat. Oliver insists on coming into her room when she eats because he wants to eat her leftovers. But Zara will eat calmly with him in there. Oh, and she snuggled up to me during my piano class.

I’m thinking of buying a used Windows 11 laptop for the music room. But I want to copy my mom’s drafts of emails off of the current laptop first. I need a portable hard drive.

Well, that sucked. I received a message that the trip meeting was going to be at 7 PDT, not 6, which is 9 my time. But when I logged in, they were ending the meeting. Plus, there was a lot of static. I did get an answer about my suitcase. They told me to call them, but that also, they will send emails with all the information. But bah. But I admit that I'm lucky to take the trip.

I need to do a little more laundry before I sleep and put it on the rack. (That sounds like I’m torturing my clothes.) I want to get to bed at a decent hour because I have an online meeting for a committee for which I’m a liaison.
catherineldf: (Default)
Melissa Scott and I have been hard at work pulling together this year's version of the Pride StoryBundle.It will go live tonight and run through July 3rd. You can get 3 titles at the $5 level or all 16 titles at the $30 level and designate a portion of your purchase price (no cost to you!) for Rainbow Railroad, an international nonprofit that works with LGBTQ+ folks fleeing persecution. Needless to say, their services are needed more than ever right now. On average, we raise between $700 and $1000 for Rainbow Railroad every year so we hope to hit the high end this year. 
What's in the Bundle?
  • My Wolves of Wolf's Point books from Queen of Swords Press, Silver Moon and Blood Moon. Coming out a midlife, found family, menopause and lycanthropy! I won an Alice B. Reader's Award last year and these books were part of that. Blue Moon (Book 3) is moving along and I hope to have an update soon.
  • Melissa Scott's Master of Samar (Candlemark & Gleam)- gripping standalone gay fantasy with her usual brilliant writing and world-building.
  • J. Warren's gay science fiction novel, Worldburner (Queerspace Books). Like great queer space opera? We got you covered!
  • Office of the Lost by J. Scott Coatsworth and Kim Fielding (indie published). Hilarious gay romantic fantasy about opposites attracting.
  • We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2024 edited by Ryka Aoki and Charles Payseur, Embodied Exegesis: Transfeminine Cyberpunk Futures edited by Ann LeBlanc and Finding Echoes by Foz Meadows, all from Neon Hemlock. Lots of brilliant queer short fiction and a novella that's got a lot of buzz.
  • Running Dry by M.Christian (Queen of Swords Press). Chris' last published novel - stylistic, atmospheric, suspenseful tale of gay vampires on a roadtrip from hell.
  • Was by Geoff Ryman (Small Beer Press). A classic!  Generally considered to be one of the best gay fantasy novels ever written, Ryman brings together three different characters all drawn into version of the Wizard of Oz for their own reasons and needs.
  • Of the Emperor's Kindness by Chaz Brenchley (Wizard's Tower Press). A sapphic fantasy of manners by a master of the craft.
  • Yoke of Stars by R.B. Lemberg (Tachyon Publications). Birdverse tale about how language shapes this queer-normative world.
  • Reclaimed by Seth Haddon (Blind Eye Books). Mystery, high stakes and a romance between a gay man and a trans man.
  • The Rosewood Penny by J.S. Fields (Space Wizard Fantasy). Sapphic epic fantasy!
  • I Want That Twink OBLITERATED! edited by Trip Galey, C.L. McCartney and Robert Berg (Bona Books). Fun, pulpy anthology of tales of villainy thwarted and more.
  • Wolf's Path by Joyce Chng (Atthis Arts). A single author collection featuring queer poetry and prose, art and autobiography.
Hope I have piqued your interest! The annual StoryBundle is generally a big boost to the participating authors and presses, in additional to producing some fine reading material, so we hope you'll be picking it up.

Pool Days, 3/3

Jun. 3rd, 2026 05:31 pm[personal profile] canyonwalker
canyonwalker: Hangin' in a hammock (life's a beach)
The past few days have been pleasantly warm. After feeling down that I couldn't motivate myself to get out to the pool on Sunday I wondered whether my chances were better than 50/50 of going on Monday. I'm glad to say I did get out to enjoy the pool on Monday— and on Tuesday and Wednesday, too!

Enjoying a swim in the pool (Jun 2026)

Monday was the warmest of the recent three days. The pool water was surprisingly warm; I could walk right in. Edited to add: This was the first time I've used the main pool in 8 months!

Yesterday was a tad cooler and I didn't find it enjoyable to swim or wade so I hopped out and soaked in the hot tub instead, then enjoyed the warmth on a patio chair. Today was the same. Hawk said the pool water was warm again, but I'd already set my expectation on "It'll be too cool to swim, I'll just enjoy the hot tub" so straight into the hot tub I went.

Welcome, Greenfinch!

Jun. 3rd, 2026 06:28 pm[personal profile] thewayne
thewayne: (Default)
[personal profile] greenfinch is a new DW friend to me and they live in the northwestern German state of Bremen. They spent the last 20 years living in the UK and recently returned to Germany.

Hi there!
musesfool: close up of the Chrysler Building (home)
So as you may have surmised from my posts over the years, I've been a sports fan all my life. I'm pretty well versed in baseball, football, hockey, and used to follow tennis as well, but I've only ever been a playoffs basketball fan, though since the Knicks have been in the playoffs the last couple of years, I've become more familiar with them (I was pretty familiar with the Ewing-era Knicks, because all my college friends were into basketball, and the spring/summer of 1994 when both the Rangers and the Knicks were in the playoffs was pretty memorable), so I didn't actually need this, but I did think it was pretty funny: The Knicks Are in the Finals. Act Like You've Been Here Before. #Go New York go New York go!

*

(no subject)

Jun. 3rd, 2026 05:57 pm[personal profile] aelfgyfu_mead
aelfgyfu_mead: Daniel from Stargate SG-1 in a suit and tie (Daniel SG-1)
Happy birthday to [personal profile] archersangel! May it be a good one with many happy returns!

Work it baby!

Jun. 3rd, 2026 05:29 pm[personal profile] ursulas_alcove
ursulas_alcove: Robin of the hood woodcut (Rock On!)
Rome wasn't built in a day. But, I have made progress. Sweet potatoes are planted. 18 fit in the bed. Was hoping for 36, but this is what I have space for. Perhaps next year, I'll do 2 beds worth. I'll have to find a couple more grow bags to put the rest of the slips into.

Sweet Potatoes

Upgrading the cinderblock bed took way longer than anticipated. Last year I had grid walls. The tomatoes did poorly. I put in a cover crop over winter. I added worm castings and coconut coir. Five Amish paste tomatoes got planted under the yellow fabric mesh. There are no clouds so protection is necessary. I also planted 2 kinds of carrots and will probably put in a 3rd when I find more boards. Basil went in next to the leeks. I have orange thyme on the edge. Now that the blocs are mostly level, I can add soil and pop in a few more flowers like alyssum or marigolds. That's the plan anyway.

New Frame this year

The jungle of cleavers is being beaten back a little each day. Spinach still needs to be blanched and frozen. I finally got a bag of last year's tomatoes out of the freezer. YAY! Tomato jam is cooling in the kitchen. It goes great on grilled cheese sandwiches. It can be used as a meat marinade. So many uses!

Tomato Jelly

Beets got transplanted from my soil blocks. Since the spinach was done and starting to bolt, a nice shady location opened up. Eight new beet plants to be harvested much later in the season.

Spinach out; Beets in

If I hadn't been pressed for time, I would have done some eco-printing with the grape leaves from wild vines I pulled. But, I am running really late this year.

Coreopsis
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)

I am going to lead, moderately emphatically, with: this is not a recommendation for this book (which in any case I haven't finished). The strapline is "how successful couples turn conflict into connection"; it was published in 2024. As [personal profile] recessional has pointed out to me, some of what's going on is that their target audience is specifically people who are treating each other shittily but don't want to break up/divorce/etc, and do want to learn to do better, but don't have the tools for how.

I, however, am very much coming from a perspective of being much more inclined to push for, if not breakups, the idea that there exists unacceptable behaviour one gets to just nope out over, and also of the tradition of DBT workbooks where there is a heavy emphasis on explicitly acknowledging, out loud, with your words, that the shit you just did is not okay.

All of this having been said, there are two things about this book (so far) that I Must Share.

The first is about a tool the (Schwarz) Gottmans' research group uses. Their research group, for context, is called the Love Lab.

Much of the data and observations about couples in conflict in this book comes from our decades of work in the Love Lab and from other important and groundbreaking observational studies by ourselves and other researchers. But now we are getting even more sophisticated and granular information from the AI we trained with John's emotional coding system, called SPAFF, short for Specific Affect Coding System.

... the second, I say, moving swiftly on, is that a little further on in the book I have encountered a genuinely new-to-me evopsych argument: that because of evolutionary pressures it is men who get Extremely Emotional very quickly, and take a long time to calm back down and reach a point where they can engage rationally again!

... At this point: He's flooded. She's flooded. Both hearts are hammering hard; adrenaline is zinging through their veins. Stan's physiological response has ratcheted up and overwhelmed him even faster than Susan's, and he'll take a lot longer to come down from it.

Here's why: For evolutionary reasons having to do with protecting the tribe and hunting dangerous animals for food, our prehistoric male ancestors gained a survival advantage by being able to quickly mount and sustain an adrenaline-packed response to danger. Those with this rapid response were better able to fight off enemies and hunt for food, and because they were better survivors, their genes were more likely to get passed down and eventually inherited by our men today. That kind of enduring fight-or-flight response might have helped Stan's distant ancestors survive, but it isn't doing him any favors now.

tl;dr for all that I regularly kind of want to throw it across the room there are some amazing moments in this thing. I'm only about halfway through! WHO KNOWS what wonders await me!!!

Cyberspace Theory

Jun. 3rd, 2026 03:26 pm[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
The internet peaked in 2008

The year is 2008. You don't know it yet, but the internet will never again be as accessible, searchable, interoperable, or durable as it is right now. Profit motive, the tragedy of the commons, and malicious self interest are beginning to conspire to erode all of the best parts of the online world, and it will only get worse from here. Here are some of the highlights of your regular online experience that the people being born today won't even realize were taken from them:


Aaaaand now I'm homesick again.

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