agathisfelis | Reading

soc_puppet posting in

Buckle in, everyone, this is going to be a long one!

One of the things that has made Tumblr wildly popular with fandom is its unlimited image hosting capacity. Content, Tumblr eventually put limits on, but number of total images (rather than images per post) and size of images? Not so much.

Unfortunately, that's one of the big reasons why Tumblr is basically hemorrhaging money: Because data is expensive, and image data is much more so than text data, mainly because it's a lot more data. That number just goes up with gifs and videos, the former especially being a favorite on Tumblr.

The ways to get money to run a social media site on the internet are basically venture capitol (the investors will want their money back someday, somehow), selling user data (doesn't everyone love ads and hate privacy?), and users directly paying for services (in this economy?).

Dreamwidth started from a foundation of prioritizing privacy and user freedom, and that meant that they compromised on image hosting in order for their users to truly be the main focus of this site. A dedicated user base pays to keep Dreamwidth running, and while there's a price rise on the horizon, we've managed to keep Dreamwidth's doors open with just our own money for sixteen years now.

So what does this have to do with icons? Well, with the limited image hosting options in Dreamwidth's budget, they're one of the main ways we use images at all—and Dreamwidth users make the most of them!

( Hold up; what exactly IS an icon? And what do you mean by 'make the most of them'? )

( How do I get and upload icons? )

Is that it?

Well, it's everything I can think of, at any rate! But you might have questions that I haven't covered. This is a great place to ask them! I may not have the answers, but odds are decent that someone here will be able to point you in the right direction.

One last favor before I go...

Dreamwidth users, if you've got favorite icons, show them off in the comments! I think it would be great to be able to share examples of just how fun and creative we can get with this medium, and this seems like the perfect opportunity 😉 Reply to your own comment if you have more than one, or to other people if the icon fits, so it's not just a mass of top-level comments.

As for any newcomers, if this post gets enough comments, you may get a chance to try out another one of Dreamwidth's features; at 50 comments, comment threads will collapse to keep loading time down and limit data transfer costs. Towards the topmost comment, at the bottom of the comment below which everything gets folded up, there's a clickable option to Expand the thread. This will open up and display all of the comments below that for you! The thread will collapse back down if you click away, though.

If this post doesn't get that many comments but you still want to try it out, I'd recommend checking the latest post at

dw_news. (Incidentally, if you have a Paid account, there's an option to expand all the comment threads at once at the top of the comment section. Pretty neat, yeah?)

Thanks, everyone, and I hope this post was helpful! I'm going to go collapse for a while now 😅

winterfirelight posting in

gardening

This past weekend the weather was lovely, so I took on the project of taking out the massive, invasive butterfly bush that was planted by the previous owners. It's been on the to do list for ages, and I'm very happy to have it finally done! We've so much more space now, and we won't have to worry about constant pruning to keep it from growing over the garden path. I thought for sure I was going to have to take up part of the path to dig it out, but somehow the roots were positioned such that it barely disturbed the path at all. I did relocate a number of strawberries and a few bulbs, but I had been planning on moving them anyway, so no loss there.

I also cleared out dead growth from the square plot and found a lot of new calendula coming up, which is always exciting to see. I'm hopeful that I won't need to plant anything new in that bed, and that everything will have either self-seeded or will come back up on its own as the weather warms. My goal is to have most of the garden full of perennials and self-seeding annuals so I've less to do in terms of planting every year, but there's still lots of space to fill, so it'll be a couple of years yet before that's realized.

And in the backyard, I got the nettle potted up! It would be exciting to see that flourish this summer - safely far away from places people walk, and helpfully contained so as not to cause A Problem. I still want a few more pots out there for other aggressive spreaders - I have lemon balm I need to relocate from the front, and various other seeds in the mint family I'd like to plant without them taking over.

Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

Today is mostly sunny and mild. :D

The stump grinder guy has come and gone. He did an excellent job. The stump in front of the garden shed is gone and the hole mostly filled, though I'll add some top soil to smooth it out more. The east path is nearly smooth, might need a bit of raking. I'm particularly impressed that a ring of daffodils around the plump stump is still there! I had expected to lose those, so the precision is noteworthy. The parking lot is also nearly smooth. He got right up to the edge of the sidewalk and rock wall, although he advised there are some buried rocks and concrete that we didn't know about. I may need to rake some areas, and certainly need to see about removing the last stubs from the sidewalk to recreate that defensive zone. My partner Doug plans to drive over the parking lot to press it down some before ordering a load of fresh gravel to top it. Progress!

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches. Cardinals are singing.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 3/19/26 -- I put about half a bag of topsoil into the hole in front of the garden shed to smooth it out. That may need more later after it settles, but it'll do for now.

EDIT 3/19/26 -- I filled a flat of 12 pots with potting soil and in each pot I planted 5 seeds of short landrace marigolds. These are similar to Shithouse Marigolds but shorter. If I can get them growing well, I can save money buying nursery marigolds. I covered them with a plastic tub to serve as a greenhouse. I still need to label them though.

EDIT 3/19/26 -- I labeled the marigolds.

I checked the east path. It doesn't really need anything but grass seed. We'll need to buy a big bag of that. Recommended time for spring sowing is late March to mid-April.

I checked the parking lot. I picked up a few pieces of junk that were churned up, but it's also pretty good. I do need to work on clearing more of the sidewalk, but a lot of that will just be brushing dirt off it.

EDIT 3/19/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 3/19/26 -- I started working on the sidewalk again. Much of what covers it is just loose dirt that needs to be scraped off. Some is still packed dirt and roots.

EDIT 3/19/26 -- I watered the seeds under tubs.

It's 71°F now. Over the next few days, it's supposed to reach 80°F. 0_o

EDIT 3/19/26 -- I started the process of topping up troughs on the new picnic table. I want to finish those first six with the self-mulching potting soil.

EDIT 3/19/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 3/19/26 -- I finished topping up the troughs. I'll need to get more American Countryside potting mix. I like how it self-mulches. Soon I'll be planting peas in these. My plan this year, instead of putting the peas in their own container, is to space them out so they fertilize other plants. We'll see how that works.

While the deep freeze killed a fair amount of things, much has survived. Crocus have already put out new flowers. The bluebell leaves weren't as damaged as I expected. More squills are blooming.

It is 7:20 PM and not quite full dark. This was my first after-supper yardening session. :D

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

probablynotbees posting in

newcomers

EDIT: Thank you all for the guidance! I think I've got a pretty good understanding now.

Hello all!

I'm very new to Dreamwidth (showed up with the latest wave of Tumblr ex-pats) but thinking about using it to post some of my media-criticism thoughts that I've been collecting in a private journal for the last year or so.

However, I want to make sure I can tag these appropriately, so I have some questions.

1. What's the etiquette for posting tagging discussion of a piece of media that paints it in a negative light?

On Tumblr, it's often considered rude to bash something in its main tag, so if I wanted to make a post criticizing the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I'd tag it something like #mcu hate so that it doesn't show up in the main #mcu tag where people are trying to enjoy their thing.

(I'm primarily asking because I have some quite critical pieces about Harry Potter.)

2. Does Dreamwidth allow users to block tags? Is this something I should anticipate when tagging entries?

On Tumblr I'd tag something like #eating disorder / to hide it from people who are avoiding that topic, including the slash so that the tag isn't searchable (on my own blog or in general). Is that a thing here?

I think that's all I've got for now, but I'll probably think of more later.

ysabetwordsmith

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...

* Posted "Tutorials" on

getting_started.

* Posted "Gaming" on

girlgamers.

* Posted "Ostara" on

goddessfolk.

* Posted "Birdfeeding" on

birdfeeding.

Current Mood: busy

soc_puppet posting in

newcomers

This is a reproduction of a post I already made on Tumblr, but with that platform's future once again uncertain, I figured it'd be good to copy over here, as well.

Together with figuring out what to even post, one of the things that sucks about moving social media and/or blogging platforms is not knowing if there will be enough activity for you at the new place. Be it from old friends, new friends, or interactive communities, there’s a lot of ways you could find activity at a new place, but finding at least two of those categories can be tricky in itself.

Luckily, Dreamwidth has a few shortcuts for you already!

Adding new people to your reading page and finding new friends:

addme: Straight up a place to find new “mutuals” on Dreamwidth, with no particular focus; a good place to start!

addme_fandom: Same as above, but with a specific fandom focus! Interested in a particular fandom right now and want more people to talk about it with? Here’s a good place to find fellow fans!

findingfriends: Similar to the addme communities but with a more in-depth approach, including things like posting style and what sort of interactions you’re looking for. Takes more brain power than the addme comms, but I imagine that the connections result in a higher level of compatibility.

Newcomers' Introduction and Friending Meme: A very in-depth adding meme, hosted by

newcomers! Includes a spot near the top for other platforms you're on, so it might be useful for finding Tumblr mutuals.

fandomcalendar: This is a community dedicated to announcing fandom events, which can include fandom-specific friending memes. (I’ll be linking this one again later, as well.)

Getting started on Dreamwidth:

newcomers: A community dedicated specifically to helping Dreamwdth newcomers find their way around on a new site! I believe it was launched around the time Cohost was being shut down, so a lot of the people there now are Cohost “refugees”, but it’s still a good place to start.

the_great_tumblr_purge: A community dedicated specifically to Tumblr refugees, started around the time of the new content restrictions in 2018. If you've got questions specific to being former Tumblr user, this might be a good place to ask them, though Newcomers is also happy to help.

dw_news: The official Dreamwidth news community. I highly recommend following this one and the next one, which will help you keep up with what’s going on around Dreamwidth. DW News typically only posts a few times a year, but maybe that’ll change if a bunch of new users come by...

dw_maintenance: Keep up with the mechanical goings-on at Dreamwidth! If there’s a planned site outage or if DW is updating code, you can find out more here; if there’s something funky going on at Dreamwidth but the site is generally still usable, it’s also a good place to check.

dw_advocacy: Want to know more about how Dreamwidth is fighting for our rights? Follow this community to keep tabs on what bad bills Dreamwidth and NetChoice are battling, and if there's anything you can do to help!

Things to do on Dreamwidth:

dw_community_promo: The official Dreamwidth community for promoting Dreamwidth communities! People will promote new communities here, as well as events going on in established communities. A good place to find out about new things in general.

followfriday: A place to share links to check out once a week. Did you find a cool community that you want more people to know about? Link it in the comments here! The host,

ysabetwordsmith, shares a themed post every week with posts, events, and communities related to said theme.

justcreate: A place where you can talk about things you’re working on. There’s a weekly check-in/reporting post, but sometimes people also organize body doubling sessions and other productivity-boosting things.

queerly_beloved: An anti-exclusionist queer space to get together and talk about all things queer, including intersectional matters. Hosts a weekly recommendations thread, but more and other content is very welcome!

allbingo: Do you like filling out bingo cards for just about anything? This community is for all things bingo cards, fandom related and otherwise! Put together a bingo card for making mood themes, post topics, or even bird watching (featuring your local feathered friends), and share your results!

Fandom things to do on Dreamwidth:

fandomcalendar: I linked this above, and I’m linking it again: Want to know about fandom events that are going on at Dreamwidth? This is a good place to do it! It’ll also fill up your reading page in a hurry; you might be surprised at how many events are going on at Dreamwidth, or are at least connected there!

fictional_fans: A community for all fans and fandoms. If you’ve got a post you want to make about fandom in general, or a specific fandom that doesn’t have its own community, this might be a good place to check out.

fandom_on_dw: Pretty much the same as above, honestly, but it’s good that there’s more than one place that hosts this kind of thing!

Anything else?

Search Interests: Individuals and communities can have lists of things they’re “interested in”. If more than one person has that thing listed, it may turn into a hyperlink that you can click to find other accounts with! You can also use the Search Interests function pretty much the same way. Simply type “cats” into the search bar, hit enter, and a bunch of accounts that have “cats” listed as an interest will pop up! Click through the various tabs at the top to separate accounts out into individual users, communities, and more.

The Latest Things Page: Literally the latest things posted publicly anywhere on Dreamwidth. There’s a list of commonly used tags at the top, if you want to narrow things down at all, but in the mean time, it can be pretty neat to see what J. Random Dreamwidth User just posted about! This is about the closest Dreamwidth gets to surfing random tags on Tumblr.

The Explore Tab: Useful links for Dreamwidth in general. In addition to linking to the Latest Things Page, it can take you to a random account, the FAQ page, and more! Worth checking out if you’re feeling lost.

Most Useful Communities list, as curated by

ysabetwordsmith; this has a lot of other options that I either didn't know about, or didn't feel like I had room to include; this post is already longer than I like to go without a cut tag or two 😅

The comments on this post: People in this community are pretty helpful, and that includes sharing their own suggestions in the comments! If you have something specific you're looking for, you might even ask for help here; who knows, we might just have a good lead for you!

And that’s all I can think of at the moment! This should help you get started at least, and help fill out your reading page a bit.

soc_puppet posting in

newcomers

Hello again! With Tumblr's latest brush with implosion, it seems the tutorial writing bug has bitten me again. Today, I'm finally going to talk about uploading and sharing images on Dreamwidth!

Dreamwidth has given all users a certain amount of image storage to use: Free users get 500 MB, Paid users get 1.5 GB, and Premium Paid users get 3 GB.

There's two ways to upload images directly to Dreamwidth.

The first option has a fair number of steps, but it's the one I know the most about and the one I'm best able to help with.

( Option One )

The second option is to post an image by email, which I have to admit I haven't tried myself yet.

For Option Two, the first thing you need to know here is that it's possible to post to Dreamwidth by email; IIRC, it was

silvercat17 who made the tutorial I used to get that set up, but I can't seem to locate it at the moment 😩 I'll edit this post to add in a link if that changes, though! In the mean time, you can check out Dreamwidth's official FAQ entries about how to get it set up over here. If you post an entry by email, you can attach an image as a file to the email, and it will automatically be uploaded to Dreamwidth and included in the post! It won't necessarily have any particular title or description included, though, so you may want to visit Manage Images to edit that.

And those are the basics of uploading images to Dreamwidth! Culturally, Dreamwidth users tend to either share larger images as a thumbnail, or to put them under a cut (Dreamwidth's "Read More"), but otherwise this should cover what you need to know.

But maybe I'm wrong about that! Feel free to ask any questions in the comments of this post, and I'll do my best to clear things up (and then edit the post to include the information). You can also check Dreamwidth's official Media FAQ and see if your question is answered there.

ysabetwordsmith

Earth's changing climate is harming crop diversity exactly where the security of global food production needs it most

A new study warns that if global warming surpasses 1.5°C, vast regions could lose critical crop diversity, heightening the risk to worldwide food security.

Researchers predict that about one-third of global food production may be in jeopardy due to higher temperatures, underscoring how climate change is expected to reshape agriculture, especially in vulnerable low-latitude countries.

You know what? I think they're barking up the wrong tree here. Humans have done FAR more damage to the foodstream than climate change has so far. I'm sure climate change will get around to that, but it's late to the party. Humans have already discarded many traditional crops because they don't lend themselves to commercial growing, drastically limiting the typical diet.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny, less cold, with a light breeze. This is a huge improvement. :D

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I did a bit of work outdoors.

The mower has been picked up for its spring tuneup.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I picked up more junk from the parking lot.

I've seen a lot more sparrows and house finches, plus a fox squirrel.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I started trying to unearth the edge of the sidewalk bordering the parking lot on the south side. It is exhausting, and must be done before the stump-grinder guy arrives early tomorrow. D:

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I hacked away at the east end of the sidewalk. There are still several feet of the middle buried.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I continued hacking at the sidewalk edge.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I did more hacking at the sidewalk edge. I think it's about as good as I can get it. There's a big patch in the middle that I couldn't clear due to roots and brush, but at least the edge is more-or-less visible at both ends.

I've seen a male cardinal at the hopper feeder.

EDIT 3/18/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Everyone needs contact comfort sometimes. Not everyone has ample opportunities for this in facetime. So here is a chance for a cuddle party in cyberspace. Virtual cuddling can help people feel better.

We have a cuddle room that comes with fort cushions, fort frames, sheets for draping, and a weighted blanket. A nest full of colorful egg pillows sits in one corner. There is a basket of grooming brushes, hairbrushes, and styling combs. A bin holds textured pillows. There is a big basket of craft supplies along with art markers, coloring pages, and blank paper. The kitchen has a popcorn machine. Labels are available to mark dietary needs, recipe ingredients, and level of spiciness. Here is the bathroom, open to everyone. There is a lawn tent and an outdoor hot tub. Bathers should post a sign for nude or clothed activity. Come snuggle up!

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This is today's freebie, inspired by a prompt from LJ user My_partner_doug.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is cloudy and cold. At least the howling wind stopped.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

Many of the plants that were sprouting have died from the hard freeze. :/ Some still look fine though. At least some of the sprouts in my jug and tub greenhouses have survived.

EDIT 3/17/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 3/17/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a large flock of sparrows and two male cardinals.

EDIT 3/17/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED. Thank you for your time and attention. Please keep an eye on this page as I am still writing.

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "anything goes." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

Stuck for ideas? You can find prompts by ...
* browsing planned poems for Aquariana and the Maldives, The Big One, Broken Angels, Calliope and Vagary, Officer Pink and Turq, Pips and Joshua, or Shiv. (Some of these I've already done, so they're not all up to date, but others I haven't done yet.)
* browsing my Serial Poetry page for favorite threads or characters.
* browsing series with recently created landing pages: Artists of Destruction, Coracle Shores, Crystal Wood, Strike of the Thunderbirds, The Wandering (on the Serial Poetry page), Iron Horses, Peculiar Obligations, Not Quite Kansas.
* browsing my QUILTBAG list, Romantic Orientations in My Characters, Sexual Orientations in My Characters, Gender Identities in My Characters, or My Characters with Disabilities for favorites.
* naming a poetic form you'd like to see written.
* picking a prompt from my current bingo cards: National Crafting Month Bingo 3-1-26
* picking some from the Bingo Generator prompt lists.
* looking up fun tropes on Fanlore.
* choosing an unusual word.
* plugging a favorite topic into your search engine and choosing a picture that looks interesting.
* anything short. I could especially use short poems today as other prompts are likely to run long.
* standalone ideas, if you're a fan of that rather than series.

What Is a Poetry Fishbowl?

Writing is usually considered a solitary pursuit. One exception to this is a fascinating exercise called a "fishbowl." This has various forms, but all of them basically involve some kind of writing in public, usually with interaction between author and audience. A famous example is Harlan Ellison's series of "stories under glass" in which he sits in a bookstore window and writes a new story based on an idea that someone gives him. Writing classes sometimes include a version where students watch each other write, often with students calling out suggestions which are chalked up on the blackboard for those writing to use as inspiration.

In this online version of a Poetry Fishbowl, I begin by setting a theme; today's theme is "anything goes." I invite people to suggest characters, settings, and other things of any type. Then I use those prompts as inspiration for writing poems.

( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )

Current Mood: busy

capri0mni

Because of the latest Tumblr Update regarding Reblogs and Replies

I with be disabling both options, and cross-posting all my longer Original Blog Entries to my Dreamwidth Journal at Capri0mni.dreamwidth.org/.

I will include a link to all such cross-posts at the end of each Tumblr entry. If you wish to converse with me there, you are free to do so anonymously (no need for a Dreamwidth account). Note that all anonymous replies will be screened and invisible to everyone but me until I release them. Your IP address will also be logged. And if you are abusive to myself or anyone else, I will not hesitate to block you.

capri0mni

Because Tumblr has orders of magnitude more traffic, and I couldn't keep up with conversations on both sites simultaneously.

That will be changing as of today.

Yesterday, Tumblr changed the way it organizes conversations, making it more like Twitter, and making it impossible for the author of a post to keep track of who's sharing their work, or what they're saying in reply to it.

(If I wanted a Twitter-like experience, I would have gotten a Twitter account! [or Bluesky, or wherever])

So from here on in, I will be blocking all Tumblr reblogs and replies by default, and cross-posting my longer, more thought-out entries here. I'll put a link to the Dreamwidth versions at the end of the Tumblr posts, so if people want to comment can do so where I can see and filter them.

(I'm currently working on a behemoth of a post on the Bechdel test, and working out other metrics for representing marginalized identities in storytelling (whether fiction or nonfiction) -- most notably, on a personal level, disability representation.

ysabetwordsmith

The Kotlin Crisis: Earth’s first mass extinction may have been far worse than previously believed

Fossils of the first sea creatures, long assumed to have vanished before a major mass extinction about 550 million years ago called the Kotlin Crisis, have now been found and are providing new details about that time period.

This discovery transforms what once looked like a routine species decline in Earth’s early history into what may be the first catastrophic extinction in animal history.

Second, actually, after the Great Farting Oxygen Event changed the atmosphere from reducing to oxydizing -- almost everything died, except a few archaea that found anoxic refuges and a few organisms that figured out how to use oxygen. But most people forget about that one.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is cloudy and frigid, spitting snow and howling wind. :/ It stormed last night.

I fed the birds. I've seen a small mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus several cardinals.

I put out water for the birds.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Poem: "Colorful Opportunities"
Tool Use
Cyberspace Theory
Birdfeeding
Science
Today's Adventures
Urbana Free Library Seed Exchange
Wildlife
Creative Jam
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Pictures
Communities
Safety
Today's Adventures
Gardening
Birdfeeding
Crafts
Follow Friday 3-13-26: Love
Friday Five
Crafts
Birdfeeding
Ethnic Studies
Community Thursdays
Poem: "To Understand Water"
Cyberspace Theory
Science
Today's Adventures
Safety
Birdfeeding
Science
Prairie Moon Order
Select Seeds Order
Hard Things

Linguistics has 44 comments. Philosophical Questions: Pregnancy has 60 comments. Safety has 54 comments. Wildlife has 48 comments. Food has 67 comments.

There will be a Bonus Fishbowl on Tuesday, March 17 with a theme of "anything goes." Think back over your favorite ideas that haven't fit a prompt call yet; you can suggest whatever you want in this one.

March Meta Matters Challenge banner

marchmetamatterschallenge is running this month. See my tracking post and the first check-in post.

The weather has been erratic here. We've had warm days. Yesterday was cold with howling wind, then pouring rain; today it snowed a bit and is still howling wind. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel. Red-winged blackbirds have been singing overhead. Currently blooming: crocuses, snowdrops, winter aconite, miniature irises, daffodils, squill.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This is the freebie for the March

crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by the "tape" square in my 3-1-26 card for the National Crafting Month Bingo fest. It belongs to the series Arts and Crafts America.

"Colorful Opportunities"

Tape is a material
that is always full of
colorful opportunities.

It can make borders and
frames on scrapbook pages.

It stripes the handles of
tools for easy identification.

It flags pages for future reading.

It makes cute cutouts for
decorating boxes and books.

Tape holds hobbies together.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today my partner Doug asked me to remove a bunch of staples for him. I first looked for my staple remover but couldn't find it. Instead I grabbed the tiny screwdriver that I got from Power Plus at the Home and Garden Expo. It actually worked better. Because it's swag, the screwdriver tip is very thin and narrow. That made it a lot easier to slide under the ends of the staples to open them, then slide under the wide part of the wire to twist it loose. Staple removers typically have very thick teeth that can be difficult to get under the wire. So this is now my staple remover of choice, and will live in my office drawer. :D

What most people call luck or opportunity is, in my observation, largely situational awareness. I needed a tool; I thought about what would work; I used what I had. And then I noticed that it worked better than a dedicated tool from the past. A small discovery, but it makes my primate brain very happy.

Current Mood: pleased

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March 2026

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Agathis Felis

Secular Witchcraft with a side of Animism

Reading

Dreamwidth and Icons

Clearing Out

Birdfeeding

Couple questions about tagging etiquette

Community Thursdays

Finding Friends and Things to Do on Dreamwidth

Uploading Images to Dreamwidth

Science

Birdfeeding

Cuddle Party

Poem: "Who Once Knew Better Words"

Birdfeeding

Poetry Fishbowl Open!

The latest addition to my Tumblr Sticky Intro post (also a Tumblr x-post)

Confession: I've been neglecting my Dreamwidth journal in favor of Tumblr

Fossils

Birdfeeding

Monday Update 3-16-26

Poem: "Colorful Opportunities"

Tool Use

Profile

March 2026

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