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threeforthememories is off to a great start! You have until January 24th to make your own post. I made mine today about my 2025.

2) Speaking of things to rec, saw the film House of Dynamite and thought it was wonderfully done –- except for the ending. ( Read more... )

I do think that its structure was helpful, given that just 10 minutes in there is a lot starting to go on, and it helped to have it reinforced with repeated elements.

3) Another yes from me was for the series The Beast in Me. This is mostly because I thought it was particularly well done. I'm not a big fan of the murderous husband/neighbor type thriller because they're always guilty and one of my DNW is gaslighting elements. But I thought this was a particularly well developed story and one with less "shocking twist!" than unexpected surprises that relate to character development.

4) The documentary about the making of Frozen 2 was very interesting, and rather surprising, in seeing how Disney approaches making an animated film. I'd think that -- given the costs and enormous amount of labor -- they would have a script nailed down before starting. And not just a draft, but one that had been run past the internal focus groups, had a table reading done by the cast, etc. Instead they scrapped tons of work from animators, some of which took them a year, because they kept veering back and forth on elements of the story, rewriting the central songs, etc. ( Read more... )

5) The re-release of the Beatles Anthology on Disney+ promised a new episode and remastered footage. It certainly looked very good, but as I'd seen it during its 1990s release, I noticed more about the big gaps in it. ( Read more... )

Poll #34076 Kudos Footer-555

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Kudos!
6 (100.0%)

https://myjetpack.tumblr.com/post/805545814364667904

Title: #BOOKCOPS Panel One: A uniformed officer approaches a man sittiong at at a bar, he is reading and has a glass of red wine: "Sir, I have reason to believe that you are engaged in "Performative reading" in a public space." Panel Two: "There's been a mistake, officer! I'm perusing the menu. I'm very indecisive!" says the man anxiously The officer says: "Perhaps I can assist, sir. I'm something of a "Foodie" myself." Panel Three: "No need. I've decided!" says the man looking terrified "Let me see that!" says ther officer as he grabs the menu. "As I suspected: 'Infinite Jest' Concealed inside a fake menu!" Panel Four: "It's a first offence, so I'm only going to shame you on social media." says the officer "Next time I'll throw the book at you!" The man sobs.

My latest Guardian Books cartoon

https://myjetpack.tumblr.com/post/805545814364667904

Posted by mugumogu

https://sisinmaru.com/2026/01/13/%e3%82%a6%e3%83%83%e3%83%89%e3%83%87%e3%83%83%e3%82%ad%e3%81%ae%e6%80%9d%e3%81%84%e5%87%ba%e3%82%92%e6%8e%a2%e3%81%97%e3%81%a6%e3%81%bf%e3%81%9f%e3%80%82i-searched-for-memories-of-the-wooden-deck/

https://sisinmaru.com/?p=33398

ボロボロになったウッドデッキの思い出を探そうと過去にさかのぼってみていたけど、予想外になかなか出てこない。ようやく出てきたのが、お庭に出たがっているまるはな。（2014年）この頃はあまり庭に出て遊んでいなかった時期 […]

https://sisinmaru.com/?p=33398

Public

346/365: Tollhouse plaque, Bewdley
Click for a larger, sharper image
This is the plaque that marks where the tollhouse once stood on the Wribbenhall (eastern) end of Bewdley Bridge. It was designed by Thomas Telford, as was the bridge itself, and built in the last years of the 18th century. Modernisation works in 1960 saw it demolished, despite a fairly energetic campaign by Bewdley Civic Society; the society put up this plaque and shaped paving in 2002. The only decent photo I can find of the tollhouse before its demolition is on this Facebook page, which should be visible without an account. (I haven't got one, after all!)

Current Mood: awake

The extra legs for my bed arrived late this afternoon. I have ascertained that they are the right length (not too long) and that they should be easy enough to fit, but I won't do it until tomorrow because I don't feel like dismantling my nicely made bed this evening.

We had a tiny amount of snow last night - just enough to lightly cover the roads and yards, but little enough that it was almost all gone by the middle of the day today. Then by the afternoon the temperature was about 5C/40F and there went the rest of it.

Funny story about Aria: she is far from a fluent reader yet, but this afternoon she was reading on the school bus and didn't realise the bus was at her stop until the driver called out to her. (My daughter picked up the other two from school because they were carrying their musical instruments, and they normally walk home on Mondays if they are not burdened with instruments.)

Posted by Psyk

https://archiveofourown.org/works/77583746

by Psyk

Talia has been recovered by the telepath Underground Railroad, and has been freed from the sleeper personality. Initially desperate to return to Babylon 5, she is then devastated to learn that it has been over a year since she left. Finally, she has the chance to go back, and to reconnect with Susan. But life there has moved on in the time she was away, and it appears that Susan has grown close to a Ranger, a man called Marcus Cole.

Words: 4573, Chapters: 1/4, Language: English

Fandoms: Babylon 5 (TV 1993), Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: F/F
Characters: Susan Ivanova, Talia Winters, Michael Garibaldi, John Sheridan, Marcus Cole (Babylon 5), Lyta Alexander
Relationships: Susan Ivanova/Talia Winters

https://archiveofourown.org/works/77583746

A pot of curry only gets better after a night or two in the fridge. The spices settle in, the flavour deepens, and by the time you reach the last portion it feels like a small victory. I finished mine tonight, wishing there were just one more bowl tucked away in the back.

https://qr.ae/pCZEPA

Question: How many Democrats are pro-Maduro?
Reply: Zero.

Back in my uni days, I took a class in cognitive science that was one of my favorite courses. One of the many, many things we talked about in class was the difference between abstract thinkers and concrete thinkers.

This difference appears to be architectural, a consequence of how your brain is wired, not a matter of choice or education.

Concrete thinkers see the world in strict black and white terms. They have difficulty drawing indirect connections between things, struggle to see multiple perspectives, and tend to hold an all or nothing, with-us-or-against-us mentality.

Abstract thinkers understand complex associations, can understand multiple perspectives at the same time, and can see second and third order relationships between things.

And crucially, abstract thinkers can understand concrete thought patterns, but generally speaking, concrete thinkers seem physically incapable of understanding abstract thought patterns.

So here’s the thing:

Abstract thinkers are capable of grasping multiple ideas at once. Like, “Maduro is an illegitimate totalitarian ruler with an authoritarian bent who presided over an illegitimate government” and also “a unilateral move to depose Maduro is illegal under international treaties and morally wrong.”

Concrete thinkers be all like “you’re either good or your bad, and if you’re bad you deserve anything bad that happens to you, anyone who says Maduro shouldn’t have been kidnapped must live and support Maduro.”

Abstract thinkers be like “no, you can believe a person is bad and also believe that breaking the law to kidnap that person is bad too, both of those things can be true at the same time.”

Very interesting, I wish we had classes available here on such a topic. I'm not sure how much I agree with it being a structural thing vs an education thing, I'd want to see some information on that, I'd be open to discussion.

I can certainly see where some conservative people whom I know/knew had problems with abstract thinking. I think I would hazard to say that concrete thinkers might be more easily persuaded by ideologues since they would be more likely to present their arguments and ideas in more concrete 'for or against' terms with straw man arguments that appear harder to refute.

Personally I've never had problems to easily see and argue multiple sides of an argument. When I first started working here at the university, around 20 years ago in the computer lab, we had one guy who had a degree in philosophy, and we had a security guard who was an ex-cop and a former preacher, and another who just liked discussing things in a lively fashion. And we had these informal round tables where we'd argue the issues of the day, going around and round, picking up and discarding different viewpoints. It was tremendous fun. But it only lasted about a year before I left and the group broke apart.

I know I definitely prefer to associate more with abstract thinkers, they're much more fun to talk and argue (more in a discuss way, not combative ) things with.

jequirity [juh-kwir-i-tee]

noun

1. the scarlet and black seed of Indian licorice used in India and other tropical regions for beads in rosaries and necklaces and as a standard weight, also known as rosary pea
2. Indian licorice

examples
1. Late though it was, in the laboratory Kennedy set to work examining the dust which he had swept up by the vacuum cleaner, as well as the jequirity beans he had taken from Mrs. Anthony's jewel-case. The Treasure-Train by Arthur B. Reeve
2. The French oculist, Dr. de Wecker, was the first to employ jequirity for this purpose, in the form of a 24 hours’ maceration of the seeds, 10 grams to 500 grams of water.The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines by T. H. Pardo de Tavera

origin
Portuguese jequiriti, jequirití, perhaps of Indic origin; akin to Hindi rattī ratti

Posted by JBanana

https://proxy.vulpes.one/gemini/freeshell.de/gemlog/2026-01-12_Outage.gmi

My capsule was unavailable for a while. I guess I should expect that sometimes when I rely on someone else to run the box. It's generally pretty solid, so no complaints.

I'm also recovering from my health outage. I tried working from home today, and it wiped me out. Too much concentration required. While I've been off work my project hasn't been completed by a colleague. Damn!

One thing I tried while having to spend a lot of time in bed was writing some C code for the first time this millennium. I forgot the painful verbosity of manual memory management. I quite enjoyed the challenge though.

#outage
#C

back to gemlog

https://proxy.vulpes.one/gemini/freeshell.de/gemlog/2026-01-12_Outage.gmi

Developer: Human Soft
Publisher: THQ
Genres: Action, Platformer
Release Year: 2001

Introduction

It’s been a little bit since I looked at a good ol’ licensed Game Boy Advance game. I like looking at these games given how they tend to be short experiences—perfect for an otherwise uneventful afternoon.

Anyway, we have a tie-in game for the movie “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius”, which gave us the cartoon series “The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius” that was one of the major cartoons represented in the Nicktoons Unite game series. So how does our Jimbo fare in one of his first video game appearances?

( Read more... )

Posted by Greg Ross

https://www.futilitycloset.com/2026/01/12/heeschs-problem/

https://www.futilitycloset.com/?p=72530

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heesch_number_2_minimal_polyomino.svg — Image: Wikimedia Commons

The dark polyomino at the center of this figure, devised by Craig S. Kaplan, has an unusual property: It can be surrounded snugly with copies of itself, leaving no overlaps or gaps. In this case, the “corona” (red) can be surrounded with a second corona (amber), itself also composed of copies of the initial shape. But that’s as far as we can get — there’s no way to create a third corona using the same shape.

That gives the initial shape a “Heesch number” of 2 — the designation is named for German geometer Heinrich Heesch, who had proposed this line of study in 1968.

Shapes needn’t be polyominos: Heesch himself devised the example below, the union of a square, an equilateral triangle, and a 30-60-90 triangle:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heesch_1.svg — Image: Wikimedia Commons

It earns a Heesch number of 1, as it can bear only the single corona shown.

Can all positive integers be Heesch numbers? That’s unknown. The Heesch number of the square is infinite, and that of the circle is zero. The highest finite number reached so far is 6.

https://www.futilitycloset.com/2026/01/12/heeschs-problem/

https://www.futilitycloset.com/?p=72530

Audio and transcript here.

Kat Spada: Today, I’m talking to Rachel Manija Brown, a writer who’s published over 30 books, and opened up Paper & Clay Bookshop in late 2024. Rachel, will you tell me about why you decided to open a bookshop?

Rachel Brown: I had never intended to open a bookshop. I always thought it was one of those idle daydreams that people who love reading and books have. I never planned to actually do it because I didn’t think it would be successful—they frequently go out of business. But after I moved to Crestline, which is a very small town in the California mountains, the little town did not have a bookshop.

It had a shop that was kind of a bookshop. I would say about ten percent of its inventory was books, but it was primarily gifts and herbs and crystals and things like that. But it had a really great atmosphere, people loved it, the people who worked there were really great. And all the kids in town used to hang out there, especially the queer and trans and otherwise kind of misfit kids. And I used to hang out there.

[When it went] out of business, I was so sad at the idea of the mountain losing its only bookshop. Especially the thought that all the queer, trans, bookish, and otherwise misfit teenagers, like I had once been, were going to lose their safe space.

I started daydreaming about opening it myself, and I thought, I love this idea so much, maybe in a couple of years when I have actual preparation, I’ll open a bookshop. Then I realized it was at was such a good location, that I would never get that good of a location again. It’s smack in the middle of the tourist district, every person who visits Crestline walks right past it.

Unfortunately, this was all while I was in Bulgaria for a month. So, I spent some time frantically trying to take over the lease, which was extremely difficult from another country. I couldn’t take possession of the shop until November 1st, and I really wanted to open it in time to get all the Christmas customers. And I have a tiny house, so I couldn’t really buy very much, because I had no place to put it. So I took possession of the shop on November 1st, and I opened on November 14th.

I've posted the rest of the edited transcript below the cut. ( Read more... )

https://lifeinroseland.livejournal.com/1372712.html

Happy birthday John.

https://lifeinroseland.livejournal.com/1372712.html

It's disheartening to see the current folk scene in my hometown faltering. I'm feeling vaguely annoyed by these new releases that seem to lack both musical depth and lyrical wit. We have such an incredible legacy of artists here; the raw talent exists, yet the output feels uninspired. I truly hope our local songwriters rediscover their creative edge soon.

https://lifeinroseland.livejournal.com/1372632.html

Source: the net

https://lifeinroseland.livejournal.com/1372632.html

after a few false starts, my mindset is coming together to move on some of the challenges and experiments i've set for 2026.

/reading more/ is again at the top of my list, and while i may set a concrete goal to a year-long total, it will be small to make sure i'm not pushing quantity over quality. the first finished book of 2026 was /in the mouth of madness/ (sutter cane), which was a decent read with a few surprises along the way.

i'm currently reading /a gentleman in moscow/ (amor towles) and it's a MUCH slower read than i anticipated. i'm enjoying it tremendously — the language is lovely and makes me linger — but i keep waiting for more to happen. even if the external action is a bit slow, the inner world keeps me engaged. plus, there are gems like this:

"But when the Count opened the small wooden drawer of the grinder, the world and all it contained were transformed by that envy of the alchemists—the aroma of freshly ground coffee.
In that instant, darkness was separated from light, the waters from the lands, and the heavens from the earth. The trees bore fruit and the woods rustled with the movement of birds and beasts and all manner of creeping things."

~

today and tomorrow are pretty quiet days, so i'm hoping to get some cleaning done, bread made, and writing down on paper. i was thinking about tackling the kitchen for a full reorganization and declutter, but i'd more than today and tomorrow for that task, so i'll backburner it until....later.
stay shiny, people. xo

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/puma-select-rachel-robertson-for-2026-f1-academy-season.3QnsyaHKwFrBILwAAtjbdu

Rachel Robertson will make her full-time step up F1 ACADEMY for the upcoming season, with the Scottish racer set to represent the series’ Official Partner PUMA on the 2026 grid.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/puma-select-rachel-robertson-for-2026-f1-academy-season.3QnsyaHKwFrBILwAAtjbdu

Public

This really shouldn't be the case but as far as I can tell, I am in at least the top 5% (maybe even considerably smaller than that) of people regarding knowledge of what went on during the production of The Last House on the Left. I have achieved this not through formal expertise or through special access, but by merely:

1) Going through the DVD/Blu-ray extras systematically
2) Reading all of David Szulkin's making-of book
3) Spending more than three minutes searching for evidence

Given Last House was the film that launched Wes Craven's career in horror, it is absolutely absurd how useless the horror and cinema media have been, for decades, in interrogating what happened away from the fictional story. Wes Craven himself should have been asked far more searching questions than he was.

This criticism applies to cinema academics too. It's deeply ironic, in a bad way, that there have been so many people writing papers and articles about the way Mari is portrayed in the story from various progressive and feminist viewpoints, yet almost none writing about the serious abuse by men of the real young woman who played Mari.

The fact that the most likely place to find details of what Sandra Peabody endured is in listicles is a terrible indictment of how badly so-called "serious" horror and cinema media have failed.

Current Mood: discontent

I buy primroses and pots full of bulbs as soon as they are available, it does so much for my mood to have them where I can see them from the couch. I have daffodils, grape hyacinths, a couple of different hyacinths and these netted irises.

Current Mood: chill
Current Music: Baldur's Gate 3 soundtrack

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January 2026

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Page Summary

yourlibrarian - Three for the Memories Open Until January 24th
myjetpack_feed - My latest Guardian Books cartoon
maru_feed - ウッドデッキの思い出を探してみた。I searched for memories of the wooden deck.
loganberrybunny - Tollhouse plaque
maju - (no subject)
babylon5_feed - Just Like Heaven
soemand - Leftovers
thewayne - Another interesting post from Quora, this one on thinking styles and Maduro
stonepicnicking_okapi in 1word1day - Monday Word: Jequirity
jbanana_gemlog_feed - Outage 🚧
supermario128 - Gus: “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius” For Game Boy Advance
futilitycloset_feed - Heesch’s Problem
rachelmanija - I got interviewed about Paper & Clay Bookshop
roseland_feed - (no subject)
soemand - 😔
roseland_feed - (no subject)
liminal_space - all my dreams are real
formula1_dot_com_feed - PUMA select Rachel Robertson for 2026 season
loganberrybunny - The failure of the horror and film media
bookscorpion in common_nature - Spring Flowers

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