Follow Friday 4-28-23: Babylon 5

Today's theme is Babylon 5.

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Three Weeks for Dreamwidth: Hummingbirds

Three Weeks for Dreamwidth runs April 25-May 15. This year, I'll be posting about birds in honor of birdfeeding. Today's topic is Hummingbirds.



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Different Maps

Here's a look at different maps, and if you're wondering why Mercator is so popular, this is why.  Here's another comparison of different projections.

The most important thing to remember is that if you want an accurate image of the continents and major bodies of water, look at a globe.  No matter how you try to flatten that, it will always get distorted, so for accuracy you need a ball.  Here are 15 online versions to play with.  Shop for globes.

Another important thing to remember is maps are made by people, and people are influenced by beliefs.  This is a nuisance if you only have one map.  But we don't.  We have many thousands of maps.  They go back for thousands of years -- tens of thousands, if you credit some prehistoric artifacts that probably are simple maps of a local area.  So you can watch things change over time. Time Maps is a good source for historic cultures waxing and waning.  Deep time maps show the prehistoric Earth at various times.  We can also project far into the future.  Satellite maps are useful for exploring different physical perspectives.  Here are some interesting alternative maps.  This page has 100 maps showing different things.  These are old hemisphere maps.

Once you have looked at dozens or hundreds of maps, showing different times and places and topics, you stop thinking in terms of the "isness" of maps.  You become more aware of the fact that the Earth is, actually, almost all fluid  with a very thin crunchy crust on top.  And human cultures are even more fluid than that.  Any map is really just a snapshot, an idea of an instant.  In Russian class we used to joke about updating the maps in our textbooks with markers because the borders kept changing.

The only thing that really matters about a map is how useful it is for what you're trying to do right now.  Some maps are good for planning a route, others for tracking wildlife or extrapolating political evolution.  No map does everything equally well.  You're lucky if you can find a really good map for one thing.  So don't get too hung up on maps, or a map.

Read "If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You"

This is dark in places, but the core of it is a really sweet relationship between a superhero and a bodybuilder. 

Poetry Fishbowl Report for April 4, 2023

Our theme this time was "Non-standard Identities." I wrote from 1:15 PM to 4 AM, so about 11 hours 45 minutes, accounting for lunch and supper breaks. I wrote 2 poems on Tuesday and another 6 later in the week.

Participation was down by half, with 7 comments on LiveJournal and another 42 on Dreamwidth. A total of 11 people sent prompts. There were no new prompters.


Read Some Poetry!
The following poems from the April 4, 2023 Poetry Fishbowl have been posted:
"Mrs. Opportunities, Ms. Nomers, and Miss Takes"
"Sucked Backwards into an Eddy"

"Against All Odds" (Eloquent Souls, March 2023 Creative Jam)


Buy some poetry!
If you plan to sponsor some poetry but haven't made up your mind yet, see the unsold poetry list from April 4. That includes the title, length, price, and the original thumbnail description for the poems still available.

This month's donors include: nsfwords and Anthony Barrette. There were no new donors. There are 3 tallies toward a bonus fishbowl.


The Poetry Fishbowl has a landing page.

Barbie with Down Syndrome

Mattel has released a Barbie with Down Syndrome.

I didn't think it would sell well, but apparently it is already selling out. That says nice things about a doll market that is often vicious. If you can't find a Barbie, there are other dolls with Down syndrome.

I've written about Barbie history before, several times. I did an article on Goddess Barbie. I had a list of fantasy Barbie/Ken pairs with Barbie as the dominant role and Ken subordinate.

I've also written about dolls as representation in "To See a Doll of Yourself" and sex dolls as people in "A Dangerous Thing to Be a Doll."  "A Haven That Purifies Emotions" introduces a man with Down syndrome as a genetic counselor, and his wife is an art model.

Crowdfunding Project Update: Fujoshi Guide to Web Development

The Fujoshi Guide to Web Development is down to the last 3 days of its fundraiser. If you've been meaning to back it, now's the time. It's fully funded already, if that's something you've been waiting for. The first three stretch goals have been met, and next up is the $15,000 one.

I backed it at the hardcopy level. I don't code, but I want other people to have the tools, in hopes they'll make something better than the corporatescape the web has turned into.  Also the art is adorable, and I like supporting artists.


If you're new to the project, see "Why I Contributed to FujoGuide" by enigmalea  or a quick summary from the Kickstarter page ...

The Fujoshi Guide to Web Development
Help us put the means of website production back into the hands of those best suited to receive them: fandom people.

$13,777 pledged of $10,000 goal
285 backers
3 days to go

The Fujoshi Guide to Web Development is a series of zines/books featuring anthropomorphized versions of programming languages and concepts (aka gijinka), each one engineered from the ground up to cater to the sensibilities and interests of transformational fandom (that is, people who create fanfiction, fanart, meta, and more).

In short, we've turned the most important topics in web development into hot, shippable blank-ish slate characters modeled after popular tropes in the "cast full of pretty boys"/otome genre. And now, we’re going to use them to teach everyday fans (and beyond) how to make their own websites, collaborate with each other, and breathe new life into the internet.

Birdfeeding

Today is sunny and warm. It never did rain last night. :/ It's a rather dry spring here, which does not bode well for summer.

Before lunch, I hauled water to the two patches of seed that I sowed yesterday.

After lunch, I fed the birds. I've seen several sparrows, two blue jays, a male cardinal, and a brown thrasher.

I planted the round-leaved dogwood in the forest yard near the driveway. It's covered but I still need to mulch and water it.

EDIT 4/28/23 -- I mulched and watered the round-leaved dogwood.

I've seen a pair of cardinals in the forest garden.

EDIT 4/28/23 -- I planted the pagoda dogwood along the north edge of the savanna. It's covered but I still need to mulch and water it.

EDIT 4/28/23 -- I planted the downy serviceberry along the north edge of the savanna, and covered it. Then I mulched that and the pagoda dogwood, and watered both.

This concludes planting from the Prairie Moon order.

As it is now dark, I am done for the night.

Atkinson Hyperlegible Font

The Braille Institute is offering a font, Atkinson Hyperlegible, designed for people with impaired vision and free for everyone to use.  Its typography features make it clean and easy to read, with distinctions between commonly confused symbols.  So for instance, "p" has a straight tail while "q" has a curled tail.  Many of the same features appear in dyslexic-friendly fonts, so if you're a fan of those, you might like this one too.