randomdreams

darkoshi

Fancy breads with neat designs:
Korovai
Kolach

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: covetous

darkoshi

Yahoo sent an email to users on June 25, stating "Starting soon, free Yahoo Mail accounts will include an industry-leading 20GB of storage".

It sounds like they are increasing the storage limit, yahoo! But upon reading the email again, I wondered about this part: "If your mailbox exceeds the new storage limit after it goes into effect..."

The storage limit is actually being greatly reduced:
Yahoo Mail Storage Shrinks from 1 TB to 20 GB: What You Need to Know - article by Zach Nonnemacher, Content Manager at ZeroBounce, August 5, 2025.

It doesn't affect me as I don't keep many old emails on the server. But other people probably interpreted it the same way I did at first. I understand Yahoo wanting to put a positive spin on it, but it is counter-productive if Yahoo wants users to check their usage and do something about it.
This page mentions a deadline, which the emails I received did not: Yahoo Mail Users Must Clear Space or Upgrade by August 27 to Avoid Losing Access

So users who are over the new storage limit likely got another email with clearer details.

.

I was curious about the etymology of that surname, "Nonnemacher".

According to one page which I won't even link to as it seems to be AI-generated make-believe,
The surname Nonnemacher is of German origin and is derived from the Middle High German word "nonne" meaning "nun" and "macher" meaning "maker" or "craftsman." Therefore, the surname Nonnemacher can be interpreted as "nun maker" or "maker of nuns." It is likely that the name originally referred to someone who made or repaired religious garments or objects used by nuns, or it could have been a nickname for someone associated with a convent or religious community.

The Ancestry.com explanation is rather different:

German: occupational name for a gelder of hogs from Middle High German nunne nonne ‘nun’ and by transfer ‘castrated hog’.
+ an agent derivative of machen ‘to make’.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022

What methods and tools do you use to castrate a pig?
Castrating Pigs
No use of anesthesia is mentioned on the above two pages; the below mention it, but it doesn't sound widely used in the U.S.
Castration of Pigs
Piglet castration

.

"Eunuch maker" seems a more logical term for a gelder than "Nun maker". So I wondered if the etymologies of "nun" and "eunuch" were related. But according to those links, they aren't.

girlgenius_main_feed

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20250813

The Girl Genius comic for Wednesday, August 13, 2025 has been posted.

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20250813

rebeccmeister

I am hoping to create a couple of themed photo posts from adventures in DC and surroundings. But before I get to that, here are some photos of our new catio, as we all enjoy it!

( more photos behind the cut... )

asakiyume

On Mastodon they have various hashtags with various writing-related questions, and today, a question on one of the hashtags was "On a scale of from 1 to 10, how safe is your world?" (by which they meant the world of your writing project).

Several people pointed out that you can't really average out safety over a whole world, and still more people pointed out that safety is always going to be a matter of "for whom?" No matter what genre you're writing, if you have multiple characters, they can't all have the same level of safety. A bacterium is a different level of threat depending on the strength of your immune system; oppressive politics always have a favored exempted few, etc.

And I had to laugh at our current age's fascination with quantification. On a scale of 1 to 10, sure.

My tutee has a green card. This makes her situation a lot safer than that of the dozen new employees I was in the company of the other day who were from Haiti. They all have a card showing temporary protected status. ... We know how secure that status is ... But for the time being at least, it makes them safer than people with no legal status at all.

I love what people do with the power of imagination: we create all sorts of things; we can create elaborate shared worlds called things like "the economy" or "nation-states." We joint-roleplay these so intensely that it becomes our reality. It's like a picture book I remember from childhood called Conrad's Castle, where a boy throws a stone up in the air and it sticks there, and then another and another, and soon he builds a whole castle up there. It all falls down when a hater says "Hey, you can't do that!" ... But then he says "I can too," and rebuilds it.

The larger shared worlds we imagine, like the various nation-states or the rule of law, or principles of humanitarianism--they can fall down just like Conrad's castle, and suddenly your status changes. We know this. We're seeing it all the time. For the shared worlds we want to flourish, we have to keep saying "I can too." As for the ones we don't like so much, we can maybe take out the stones one by one to build something we prefer.

Current Music: Deus King: Why

marycatelli posting in

books

Sanders' Union Fourth Reader by Charles Walton Sanders

Despite the titles, this is more recent than his New Fourth Reader. It repeats three or four readings from the earlier works, not all of them from the fourth reader.

Interesting nowadays chiefly for the views of edifying works and science of the time.

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3128/

Hey, so did you ever finish your video series about Cassie and the caterpillar morph? I loved the first three, but never ... no, sorry, I get it, this isn't the place. Sorry! Sorry.

https://xkcd.com/3128/

ranunculus

The Starlink setup has arrived (that was fast) and not a moment too soon. Last night I could not watch anything on streaming. About every 30 seconds or so my service would stall. I've called the roofer for help getting a roof jack mounted, so hopefully Starlink will be functional soon.
Why yes, I am making several changes that will materially improve quality of life. Stove, water pump, internet...

andrewducker

Day 1 of P1/P3
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

flwyd

Google has several mailing lists where a very specific type of humor is considered on-topic. One of my favorite is dedicated to filk, parody lyrics to popular songs. I've archived my humorous songwriting and poetry, some of which has appeared previously on this blog. And of course I had to write a song about my own departure.

Current Mood: quixotic
Current Location: Google Boulder
Current Music: Grateful Dead - Cassidy

conuly

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

********

Link

conuly

Watch on YouTube

************************

( Read more... )

ranunculus

For the last 3 decades I've been cooking on cheap stoves that is 1/2 a step up from the cheapest crap a slum landlord could buy. We had one at Bryant St, we have one at Henry St and I have one in Ukiah. They are so cheap that the stovetops never stay flat. They sag, so the fluid in the pan drains off to one side and the food cooks unevenly. No, it isn't possible to level up the stove, the stove -is- level, it is just the burners that aren't. One side of the pan burns, the other doesn't cook. The ovens have hot and cold spots, the insulation around the ovens is famous for disintegrating over time so the stoves leak heat into the kitchen wasting energy and cooking even more unevenly as time goes by.
I've been seriously lusting after a new, good quality stove for at least a decade. On and off over the last 3 years I've been doing research on stoves. Now that the house has a new roof, I'm getting a new stove. Nothing fancy, rather the opposite. It is the plainest 36 inch professional range I could buy. No computer, just knobs to turn. Not even a clock. It will work on propane and it will work when the power is out. With 6 burners, the range top is big enough to put two big canning kettles on without having to negotiate for space, which cannot be said of my current 30 inch stove. And it is made in USA. It is a Blue Star stove. I got a quote today and will probably order it tomorrow.
I was amused. Donald and I went to a store in Santa Rosa to see the stove and talk to a salesman about it. Now Donald is thinking of replacing the stove at Henry St which has all of the issues I'm struggling with here in Ukiah. He will need the 30" electric version as there is no room for a bigger stove.