mirlacca

Given all space and time, and all history and fiction, which offer of adventure would you be most likely to accept - and which one would you definitely decline?

ffutures asked.

Well, I'm tempted to say "none, because I'm chicken and would rather read about those adventures than experience them". But that would be a boring answer, and there are some which don't carry the risk of dying of smallpox or being turned into a Cyberman, one presumes. So, let's see....

Fictional: To get the obvious out of the way first: assuming that I'd live in a universe with the Doctor in it for real (the only universe worth thinking about, according to the Master, who ought to know), and that I would not live in one of those eras where one can google at least asome appearances of his which ought to give me an inkling about the risk travelling with him involves... I think I'd say yes if 'Thirteen offered me a trip with the TARDIS. She's not my favourite Doctor, but she conveys trustworthiness if she wants to, and even if I did manage to look up her companions, thehir rate of not just survival but lack of heartbreak (Yaz always excepted) at the end of their travels with her is promising. Most of the other Doctors would in real life make me think "nah, you seem to be interesting and/or crazy, but I wouldn't trust you to bring me home again".

I would definitely say no to Gandalf. Especially if I were in Bilbo's position. Firstly, stagemanaging an intrusion by loads of uninvited guests is just rude, and secondly, no way you're getting me anywhere near a real life dragon to be torched. No thank you. And that's before we're talking about the travel conditions. I can't ride, and while I do like long hikes, taking these in eras where I could get eaten by trolls... no, really not. I'm just not Burglar material.

Real: If I was dared as Nellie Bly was to travel around the world in 80 Days a la Jules Verne, with a newspaper paying for it, absolutely, I would have tried my best.

Would not have joined: any expedition involving the Artic. I like snow in winter, and I also like to ski, but I like it with the perspective of afterwards returning my heated apartment and being able to take a luxurious long hot bath. Not from the perspective of someone looking for the North West Passage on a sailing boat in the 18th century or someone racing to the Pole in the 20th century. I like my limbs unfrozen and uneaten, thanks.

The other days

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Munich

torrentfreak_feed

Posted by Ernesto Van der Sar

https://torrentfreak.com/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-secure-access-to-millions-of-pirated-books/

https://torrentfreak.com/?p=276172

Chip giant NVIDIA has been one of the main financial beneficiaries in the artificial intelligence boom.

Revenue surged due to high demand for its AI-learning chips and data center services, and the end doesn’t appear to be in sight.

Besides selling the most sought-after hardware, NVIDIA is also developing its own models, including NeMo, Retro-48B, InstructRetro, and Megatron. These are trained using their own hardware and with help from large text libraries, much like other tech giants do.

Authors Sue NVIDIA for Copyright Infringement

Like other tech companies, NVIDIA has also seen significant legal pushback from copyright holders in response to its training methods. This includes authors, who, in various lawsuits, accused tech companies of training their models on pirated books.

In early 2024, for example, several authors sued NVIDIA over alleged copyright infringement.

Through the class action lawsuit, they claimed that the company’s AI models were trained on the Books3 dataset that included copyrighted works taken from the ‘pirate’ site Bibliotik. Since this happened without permission, the authors demanded compensation.

In response, NVIDIA defended its actions as fair use, noting that books are nothing more than statistical correlations to its AI models. However, the allegations didn’t go away. On the contrary, the plaintiffs found more evidence during discovery.

‘NVIDIA Contacted Anna’s Archive’

Last Friday, the authors filed an amended complaint that significantly expands the scope of the lawsuit. In addition to adding more books, authors, and AI models, it also includes broader “shadow library” claims and allegations.

The authors, including Abdi Nazemian, now cite various internal Nvidia emails and documents, suggesting that the company willingly downloaded millions of copyrighted books.

The new complaint alleges that “competitive pressures drove NVIDIA to piracy”, which allegedly included collaborating with the controversial Anna’s Archive library.

Competitive pressures

According to the amended complaint, a member of Nvidia’s data strategy team reached out to Anna’s Archive to find out what the pirate library could offer the trillion-dollar company

“Desperate for books, NVIDIA contacted Anna’s Archive—the largest and most brazen of the remaining shadow libraries—about acquiring its millions of pirated materials and ‘including Anna’s Archive in pre-training data for our LLMs’,” the complaint notes.

“Because Anna’s Archive charged tens of thousands of dollars for ‘high-speed access’ to its pirated collections […] NVIDIA sought to find out what “high-speed access” to the data would look like.”

Anna’s Archive Points Out Legal ‘Concern’

According to the complaint, Anna’s Archive then warned Nvidia that its library was illegally acquired and maintained. Because the site previously wasted time on other AI companies, the pirate library asked NVIDIA executives if they had internal permission to move forward.

This permission was allegedly granted within a week, after which Anna’s Archive provided the chip giant with access to its pirated books.

“Within a week of contacting Anna’s Archive, and days after being warned by Anna’s Archive of the illegal nature of their collections, NVIDIA management gave ‘the green light’ to proceed with the piracy. Anna’s Archive offered NVIDIA millions of pirated copyrighted books.”

The complaint states that Anna’s Archive promised to provide NVIDIA with access to roughly 500 terabytes of data. This included millions of books that are usually only accessible through Internet Archive’s digital lending system, which itself has been targeted in court.

The complaint does not explicitly mention whether NVIDIA ended up paying Anna’s Archive for access to the data.

Additionally, it’s worth mentioning that NVIDIA also stands accused of using other pirated sources. In addition to the previously included Books3 database, the new complaint also alleges that the company downloaded books from LibGen, Sci-Hub, and Z-Library.

Direct and Vicarious Copyright Infringement

In addition to downloading and using pirated books for its own AI training, the authors allege NVIDIA distributed scripts and tools that allowed its corporate customers to automatically download “The Pile“, which contains the Books3 pirated dataset.

These allegations lead to new claims of vicarious and contributory infringement, alleging that NVIDIA generated revenue from customers by facilitating access to these pirated datasets.

Based on these and other claims, the authors request to be compensated for the damages they suffered. This applies to the named authors, but also to potentially hundreds of others who may later join the class action lawsuit.

As far as we know, this is the first time that correspondence between a major U.S. tech company and Anna’s Archive was revealed in public. This will only raise the profile of the pirate library, which just lost several domain names, even further.

—

A copy of the first consolidated and amended complaint, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is available here (pdf). The named authors include Abdi Nazemian, Brian Keene, Stewart O’Nan, Andre Dubus III, and Susan Orlean.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

https://torrentfreak.com/nvidia-contacted-annas-archive-to-secure-access-to-millions-of-pirated-books/

https://torrentfreak.com/?p=276172

torrentfreak_feed

Posted by Ernesto Van der Sar

https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-torrented-pirated-movies/

https://torrentfreak.com/?p=186926

zootopia 2 The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

Downloading content without permission is copyright infringement. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

This week we have one newcomer on the list. “Zootopia 2” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on January 19 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(1)	Zootopia 2	7.6 / trailer
2	(…)	The Rip	6.9 / trailer
3	(2)	Predator: Badlands	7.5 / trailer
4	(3)	Wicked: For Good	6.8 / trailer
5	(…)	Rental Family	7.7 / trailer
6	(6)	Avatar: Fire and Ash	7.4 / trailer
7	(…)	Dust Bunny	6.6 / trailer
8	(8)	Nuremberg	7.6 / trailer
9	(9)	One Battle After Another	8.1 / trailer
10	(7)	Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery	7.5 / trailer

Watch on YouTube

Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-torrented-pirated-movies/

https://torrentfreak.com/?p=186926

sholio

See Part One here.

4. Babylon 5, G'Kar & Londo, post-canon, spoilers
any, the minimum amount of communication needed for a fix-it AU
Originally posted here

( Slightly more than 3 sentences of overthinking )

5. Babylon 5, early season one
any, low-effort illustration of something important
Originally posted here

( More than 3 sentences of ambassadorial bickering )

6. Murderbot, MB + Gurathin
any, "I adore floating." (Peggy Guggenheim)
Originally posted here

( 3 sentences for a change! )

7. Murderbot bookverse, MB + Mensah + Mensah's family
any, snowstorm
Originally posted here

( 350 words of fluff )

8. Murderbot, TV or bookverse, Bharadwaj
any, fossil footprints
Originally posted here

( A lil Bharadwaj character study )

imhilien posting in

fandomweekly

Theme Prompt: #287 - Hot Water
Title: The Price of Water
Fandom: Babylon 5 (TV 1993)
Ratings / Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 180
Summary: John Sheridan gave up a lot to take charge of Babylon 5. But he gained some things too.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: chipper

ruric

Having said I'd try to be more consistent about the weekly check-ins I completely flaked on week 2!

HOME: progressing with the declutter and sorting out of 'stuff'. I'm #orjenise100-ing again but am about a week behind. However things are getting moved around, piled up, recycled, donated or dumped. My bedroom is looking slightly better and I aim to finish by the end of the month.

HEALTH: I spent far too much time closely following the news/being on social media at the end of week 2 and had to take some mental health time last week. There was a lot of sleeping involved and diving into rewatching comfort viewing when not napping.

LIFE ADMIN: I have ticked off a few thing - subscriptions reviewed and renewed/cancelled, the car got its MOT and they also valeted the inside and washed the outside! Money has been shuffled around, paid off a chunk of my 0% credit cards, set up some more savings. So yes - things have been ticked off that list!

DIGITAL DECLUTTER: email is still hovering around 11,000; have uploaded more things from tablet to dropbox, deleted a few apps and loads of images from my phone, then took a load more screen shots!

GARDENING/ALLOTMENTING: nope - too cold and/or wet.

COOKING/EATING: batch cooked for week 2, snacked my way through last week. Having gone on the 'must hibernate or melt down' spiral last week and sleeping/napping a lot I only really needed one meal a day.

READING/LISTENING: now reading Lessons in Desire, book 2 of the Cambridge Fellows Mysteries by Charlie Cochrane. Edwardian murder mysteries. She's describes her books as "mysteries with a dash of slash". They're the kind of suitably lightweight thing I need right now. Also pick up Audible again and finished The Hanging Tree (Book 6 of Rivers of London), A Rare Book Of Cunning Device (Book 6.5 of Rivers of London) and am now on Lies Sleeping (Book 7 of Rivers of London). I've downloaded the free Storygraph app to track reading and am also going to try and remember to update Goodreads.

WATCHING: Still not caught up on Stranger Things and have only managed one episode of Heated Rivalry. One advantage of the end of Stranger Things is the sheer volume of delightful interview clips of Jamie Campbell Bower that appeared all over my IG and the algo is still delivering. I've enjoyed watching those and may have also done a sneaky rewatch of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones because there is no downside to JCB Jace Waylanding it over my screen. In terms of comfort viewing I inhaled Stargate SG1 Seasons 1-3 which were pretty much playing consistently last week as I napped my way through the days. My comfort viewing is always going to be the Stargate series, Buffy and Angel, Higlander and Hercules plus Krycek eps of X-files. My usual raft of TV shows are coming back and I'm happy that Sanctuary - A Witch's Tale and The Hunting Party got second seasons.

CREATING/LEARNING: two weeks of crochet club under my belt and I've finished the blanket I started in mid December. I now need to block the original granny square and Halloween blankets and stitch them together. Then I can start on the utterly mad boho blanket. I've signed up for a 3 week hexi-cardigan class (first session this coming Saturday and then 2 more later in Feb) and our teacher is also running a 1 day bag session on Sunday 1st Feb and an 5 week make a spring wreath session on Weds evenings starting 4 Feb. So its going to be a busy andcrafty start to the year.

CATS: all good.

VOLUNTEERING: first meeting went well - only 1 task to do from it.

SOCIALISING: nope. I was back at work week 2 and then a proper hermit last week.

WORK: enjoyed being back in the office from 5th onwards then was out last week.

Plan for this coming week - work from home Monday, Wednesday and Friday, two long office days Tuesday and Thursday.

calimac

Once the bargain basement of local community orchestras, the Saratoga Symphony has improved tremendously in recent years. They did a pretty good job with the obscure but enormous Busoni Piano Concerto a couple years ago, and brought back the same pianist, local star Tamami Honma, in the very famous and also very large Rachmaninoff Second Concerto for a concert in a nearby church which, contrary to Saratoga's tradition of wreathing their programs in complete obscurity, they advertised heavily.

Honma played in a clotted but compelling manner, and the orchestra surged effectively. Music director Jason Klein craftily put the concerto after intermission, so as to force the audience that had come for it to also hear the other major piece, Sibelius's Fourth Symphony. This is by all odds the most inscrutable of all Sibelius symphonies, and a real challenge for the orchestra: not that it's particularly hard to play, but that it's very hard to interpret coherently. But this worked pretty well, especially keeping the drive up in the finale, and technically it did quite well for the community orchestra level.

watersword

I am planning to go on a walking holiday in Europe in late 2026! I am very excited.

I know a few of y'all have done these, and I would love to get your advice and recommendations. The things I am primarily thinking of include, in no particular order:

organizing flights to and from the start point; I don't think the walking holiday company does this since I'm in the US -- I may have some complications and don't love the idea of sorting it out entirely on my own
what to wear on the daily hike & what supplies to carry with me

but I would be very grateful for suggestions of things to consider that I have not thought of! I have wanted to do this for a long time but I have not ever done it.

glitteringstars posting in

writethisfanfic

Hello!! Hope all is well!

How was writing today?

chazzbanner

I reminded

bluesail_tobyx today that we ate a meal at an inn in the Lauterbrunnen Valley. I had the traditional Swiss-German dish rösti - on the recommendation of Rick Steves!

It was wonderful. See here for tempting details:

Helvetic Kitchen

Traditional rösti is not made with raw potatoes, unlike hash browns.

And, by the way, yes, Rivendell.

Lauterbrunnen Drive & Listen

(click on the pull-down menu)

(you may want to turn off the music)

-

celli

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

musesfool

I used one of my Christmas gift cards to order a 12" carbon steel frying pan. I have a cast iron one but it is very heavy. I don't need it often, but when I do I'm always worried I'm going to drop it when it's full of hot food and I have to transfer it from stove top to oven or broiler, or vice versa. So we'll see how the carbon steel pan goes. I love the one I have for crepes, but it is much smaller and flatter.

It was top of mind this weekend because I decided to make this skillet chicken parm, but I was able to use my 10" (enameled) cast iron pan for it, which is more manageable, since I only had 2 chicken breasts. And it was pretty good! I made the Marcella Hazan simple tomato sauce for it and it worked out well. It's definitely easier than breading and frying a bunch of cutlets, and it gives a decent approximation of the best bits, which are the breading and cheese and sauce all melding together.

Then today I made this slow cooker creamy lemon chicken and it was okay - needed more lemon, imo, and also after reading the comments, I was prepared and added more cornstarch when the sauce didn't thicken much. I also thought it was weird that they want you to brown the chicken in butter first, but not saute the shallot and garlic. I didn't bother with searing the chicken, since generally I don't bother when I'm using the slow cooker, but I did saute the shallot and garlic first and added the dried herbs and let them sizzle for about 30 seconds before removing the pot from the stove and fitting it into the Instant Pot.

So it's been nice and cozy in here while the weather has been stupidly cold. Sadly, I have to go to a conference on Tuesday, when the high is supposed to be like 20°F. The agenda sounds interesting but I already told my boss if it was snowing I was staying home, but I don't think I can bail if it's just super cold but clear and dry. Who runs a conference in New York in January!? This is the time of year to be someplace warm. (Not that they would pay for me to go to a conference someplace warm! We're not even paying for this one - the tickets are comped because our head of HR is moderating a panel.)

I'm just glad I don't have to go out tomorrow, when it will be messy.

*

Current Mood: cozy
Current Music: Bears vs Rams on tv

tuftears

Behold, my first book! (said Tufty nervously)

A Star Trek-inspired novel featuring an engineer reliving her Academy days in an effort to escape a future life that is overworked and underappreciated… Too bad her captain is here to drag her back kicking and screaming.

Link here!

Now I am an actual author! Well, I had one publication credit before this, "Best in Show" actually had a short story of mine in it, but this is my first novel... And the first time I've managed to get a book all the way from outline to completed story, though I have a decent-sized number of novel-shaped objects I committed on the way to this point.

I owe

rowyn much gratitude for helping me refine the outline and doing first reading services! Plus much encouragement and advice about writing and self-publishing.

I had no idea that writing the book would be the comparatively easy part... compared to launching the book and then making announcements about it. ^.^;; Help, I am an introvert! Why do I have to address the public?

Well, days in the life of a fledgling writer!

classichorrorreddit_feed

Posted by /u/TheHowlingMan20

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicHorror/comments/1qgnu4f/king_kong_vs_godzilla_1962_a_crossover_before/

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962): A Crossover Before Crossovers Were Cool

submitted by /u/TheHowlingMan20
[link] [comments]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicHorror/comments/1qgnu4f/king_kong_vs_godzilla_1962_a_crossover_before/

classichorrorreddit_feed

Posted by /u/Apart-Mention2270

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicHorror/comments/1qgnlzx/great_scene_with_bela_and_boris_from_the_raven/

Great Scene with Bela and Boris from The Raven (1935)

submitted by /u/Apart-Mention2270
[link] [comments]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicHorror/comments/1qgnlzx/great_scene_with_bela_and_boris_from_the_raven/

james_davis_nicoll

One potlight is still illumination.

kaberett

Reading. Small progress on Index, A history of the (Dennis Duncan); quite a lot of Wrangling My Terrible E-mail Situation feat. skimming geochemistry abstracts; flipped through some of the latest batch of Alex Was Sad cookbooks; also some more poking to see if there's, like, An Official Formulation of CBT-(for-)I(nsomnia), and came to the conclusion that the reason I can't find it is that there isn't. Exactly.

Writing. Alas I have not made sufficient progress this week to announce that the number at the front of the wordcount of The Putative Book has got bigger, BUT I have spent a bunch of time tinkering with ideas and asking you lot things, so. Maybe. Maybe this will be the week the second complete reworking of the introduction actually takes shape.

Playing. I continue with Squardle (via vass) and, despite its shortcomings, Metaflora (via ewt). Sudoku remains The Special Interest Of The Moment.

Cooking. It has been a Weird Week for food because A and I have mostly not been eating together (because A has been unwell and mostly not eating), but: another dal variant for my breakfasts (thereby also ticking off another item on the Cook The Cookbook project list), and lots of minor variations on Leon's ~superfood salad~ from days of yore.

Making & mending. Technically progress on glove and learning continental knitting; in practice I'm probably going to frog it and have Attempt #3 At Tension.

Growing. Lemongrass is germinating! Lithops are germinating?????

At home: the overwintered bell peppers and ancho chilli are turning Ripe Colours. The overwintered jalapeño is extremely unwell and I should... do something about that. Both orchids continue Determinedly Making Flower Stems.

At the plot: I MADE IT TO THE PLOT, Project: Bulk Up The Spinach Seed is progressing, and I have done a tiny bit of weeding and infrastructure (mostly taking down last year's growing supports...). At some point I will want to kick the things that are currently in the propagator out of the propagator in order to sow the next batch of seeds, but they'll get a little longer yet.

And more saffron keeps appearing in the various places it's planted on the patio, though I sincerely doubt any of it will flower...

sholio

1. MASH, Margaret
any, I'll be damned if I wash my hair in cold water.
Originally posted here

( 3 sentences of bickering )

2. Stranger Things, Robin/Vickie
any, and your friend steve
Originally posted here

( Actually it's 4 sentences )

3. Babylon 5, Londo & (or possibly /) G'Kar
any, get your dog on a leash
Originally posted here

( Went way over 3 sentences on this one )

ladygriddlebone posting in

fandomweekly

Theme Prompt: #287 - Hot Water
Title: Fanning the Flame
Fandom: Avatar (Cameron movies)
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Varang seeks a sign. Pre-canon.

( Fanning the Flame )

maju

After two or three inches of snow yesterday, we had another two or three this morning. As a result, it's ethereally beautiful outside right now. I'm always disappointed when the snow either starts melting or rain washes it away and the snowy trees turn back into just bare trees again.

Eden was given a small knitting kit for Christmas: wool, needles, and instructions to knit a stuffed tea cup. (It's very cute and I'm tempted to make one for myself.) This morning she asked me to help her get started on it, which meant starting with teaching her the basics of knitting. The instructions included a section for those new to knitting, including how to cast on, but unfortunately they chose to teach the long tail method of casting on which even I have never mastered. There are so many easier methods which work perfectly well; I have no idea why someone would choose the most complicated for a beginner knitter. I cast on some stitches for Eden and then started teaching her how to do the knit stitch. She successfully completed two stitches and then declared she had to go and do something else - and never came back, even though she seemed very pleased with herself for the two stitches she had done.

troisoiseaux

Read Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura, a novel in loosely connected short stories exploring the premise of a world where each living and each dead person has one chance (per direction) to connect with someone on the other side. Most of the stories are focused on individual examples of such meetings— a lonely, painfully shy woman requests to meet with a popular celebrity who recently died; a resentful eldest son apparently seeks to meet with his late mother about the family business but really wants the conversation they failed to have while she was alive; a teenage girl who believes she caused her best friend's fatal accident seeks a meeting out of guilt and grief; a man tries to contact his fiancée who disappeared years before, not knowing if she's even dead— but the last story is about the "go-between" who facilitates them, tying together the proceeding stories and casting everything in a new light. ( ... )

Read Constructing a Nervous System by Margo Jefferson, a fragmentary, fascinating mix of memoir and cultural criticism into her story of coming of age as a Black woman and writer, told through a lens of the "gentlemen-dandies of jazz and cabaret" - and, later, soul and funk - she "collected ... as alter egos", Ella Fitzgerald, Gone With the Wind, Bing Crosby, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ike and Tina Turner, the books of Willa Cather, a side-by-side reading of George Eliot's The Lifted Veil and W.E.B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk, Nina Simone, Josephine Baker, and more. (As Jefferson explains, "This book was inspired and driven by the art of others. The scope, the daring, and the cost of that art have shaped and influenced me.") She weaves in snippets of real and imagined conversations, evocatively described play-by-plays of musical performances, and commentary on what she considered adding in or taking out or revising versus what actually made it into the book; she rewrites and reinterprets other writers' poetry. It's everything and the kitchen sink and it's so good.

In books in progress: picked up Émile Zola's Thérèse Raquin on

osprey_archer's recommendation, and have been lowkey liveblogging my reading experience in the comments. Have read at least a chapter of War and Peace every day— I've hit the first "war" part— and, since my last post, made at least one short story's worth of progress each in Damon Runyon's Guys and Dolls and Other Writings and China Miéville's Three Moments of an Explosion. And I'm halfway through the full set of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim graphic novels I got for my birthday/Christmas... I contain multitudes, etc.

In other media, highly recommend this vid of 2025 in movies and TV, although it did make me realize how few new movies/shows I actually watched last year— I recognized a number of movies/shows, but only caught two I actually watched (Sinners and Wake Up Dead Man), and I have no idea where maybe half to 2/3 of the clips were from?? Incredibly well-edited vid, though.

Current Music: Time Machine - Autoheart

cimorene

We made a simple oven pan of roasted root vegetables, chicken, and lemon, which we've eaten many times, but it came out extra delicious, partly just from a larger, juicier lemon.

This got me thinking. I love lemon bars and two near-identical recipes from my childhood for lemon tea cookies and lemon muffins. But I've never been really impressed with a lemon cake, and I wonder if it's just that it could be lemonier? The intensity of lemon meringue pie is nice, but I don't fully love the texture combination.

Maybe a lemon meringue cake? Or some other dessert that combines lemon curd or custard with something cake- or cookie-like?

jreynoldsward

I’ll start out by saying that I’m not a big fan of any of the books read recording platforms. Setting a number of books to read for the year feels to me like a competitive activity, which…reading has never been that for me. Though I’ve tried. For a couple of years I set reading goals in Goodreads and…ick. I didn’t enjoy the process of needing to chronicle everything I read, especially since I am one of those voracious readers who prefers to curl up with a book rather than watch TV. It's just my thing.

But reading goals, reviewing everything I’ve read, just feels like a chore. That said, by not recording my thoughts about some of my reading, I somewhat miss out on dialogue about what people are reading, the impact of my reading on what I’m thinking, and the like. I end up scratching my head and going “I know I read that book, I know I found it impactful, but I can’t remember why.”

So what the heck. I’ll give talking about what I’m reading a try, but…unlike in past years, I’m not going to capture it all. Nor am I going to tie myself down to a mandatory, you must post about this schedule. That gets back into making posts about what I read into a chore. I’m also limiting these posts to Dreamwidth and Substack, because that’s where most of the dialogue about reading seems to be happening in my circles these days.

With that, here goes, a brief look at what I was reading in mid-January, 2026.

I finished Alix Harrow’s The Everlasting last night. It was one of those books that, once I started reading, I kept on going until I finished it. What also helped was that I started reading fairly early in the evening.

As for the book? What a ride. A mixture of Faerie and time travel, with commentary on power. But there were some interesting twists along the way, including how the two powerful women in the story interact and what their actual relationship is. Add in the male scholar who at first observes but then gets drawn into the story and that throws in some more power dynamics. Ultimately, though, this is a story about how national myths get made and twisted to serve the powerful. It’s well-written, with the voice of fairy tale.

I admire it—and yet. There’s something distancing about the voice. I can’t explain it, but perhaps that’s because it’s about deconstructing a national myth more than it is about the individual characters—at least that’s how it reads to me. I like it, but something about it niggles at me.

The night before, I read Desert Cabal, by Amy Irvine—a meditation on and dialogue with Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. Irvine engages with Abbey’s problematic aspects and the fruit of his popularity—as shown by the hordes descending upon Moab and Arches National Park. Ironically, by writing as he did about the desert, Abbey inadvertently unleashed the very same national park industrial complex he rails against in his work. Irvine illustrates some of these tensions using the method of a very Abbey-esque dialogue.

I came across a recommendation for this work in a Substack post about unrecognized literary outdoorswomen which…echoed a feeling I had fifteen years ago that I was tired of just reading about the guys in the outdoors. The guy interaction with the outdoors. The guy experience. I’ve been seeing more outdoorswomen writing over on Substack and decided it was time to blow the dust off of my own attempts to write about the outdoors. Reading Irvine was just one start, enough that I might write about my own reflections on Abbey.

And, finally, I read Glen Cook’s latest Black Company book, Lies Weeping. I like Cook and I love the Black Company, but damn. Cook has this habit of ending books on cliffhangers and this one is no exception. That plus, along with Croaker, there are references to the origins and history of Lady and Soulcatcher that I know I’ve read before. I went digging through my Black Company books to discover that I’m missing one—and it appears that’s the one which may hold the sequence Cook describes repeatedly that gives us clues as to which Senjak sisters those two are. All the same, I’ll keep on reading each Black Company book as they come out.

I have some other books I’ve been reading slowly. I just finished rereading Anthony Trollope’s An Editor’s Tales and may pair it with Dorothy Parker in reflecting how in spite of computers, social media, and what-have-you, the more that publishing changes, the more it remains the same. I’ve also been wading through the revised and expanded Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien and, well, there’s some interesting stuff in there. No surprises that Tolkien was a rather conservative Catholic and it shows in his correspondence. But the other piece that shows up is the impact of health and the day job on his work. Interestingly, in responding to a request about Gollum, he expounds on inheritance and family dynamics in the Shire with some surprising egalitarian notions about heads of family (for example, the married heads are viewed as equal with equal authority, and if the man passes first, the title does not pass down to the next male heir but is assumed by his wife until her death).

I do have a winter tradition of rereading Discworld until I get sick of it (I like Discworld but can only take so much of it) and Earthsea in the big pretty book. I’ve finished Discworld and will be picking up Earthsea in the coming week. I just need to sort through the pile of to-be-read books so that I have a good place to put it.

Besides Earthsea, there are several other book-related blogs I want to write, and keep putting off because of perceived time constraints. I’m almost finished with a deep dive into the Mitford sisters, inspired by starting a reread of Jo Walton’s Small Changes trilogy because they play a role in those books, under a different name. I’ve read some primary work by Nancy and Jessica, a biography of all six sisters, and have a couple more books to go (all through library loan). And then there’s the book about the blending of French classical dressage with the vaquero tradition.

See why I don’t want to record what I’ve read? It becomes a chore, and these occasional blogs are not meant to be a chore. Rather, they are reflections on what I’ve been reading and thinking about, and might even want to…discuss.

thistleingrey

1a. I've bought the Stoorstålka "advanced" and "professional" kits after all, for practicing basic Baltic pickup with zero context.
( recent tries at weaving )

3. Weaving as a diversion has paused. The process of warping a second inkle attempt and weaving it off has shown me that my vast ignorance crosses understanding how something can function and getting one's fingers to do it at a strange angle. In sport-weight cotton yarn, most of my 2" = 5 cm band looks as neat and even as the stuff that Etsy-shop vloggers show themselves making on Instagram or TikTok; I'm a fumbling beginner with peripheral neuropathy only for starting and ending. Sew the ends under, and no one would see---but learning to make tidy starts and finishes is more than my current hands could endure.

I dipped back into weaving specifically to practice being a beginner at something. Having learned a few things since I was a knitting beginner (almost 20 years ago) regarding dexterity, mobility workarounds, how other people do various fibercrafts including forms of weaving, and how plant and animal fibers behave, the on-ramp for my hands-on weaving is quite short. Like, that's it, I'm already into an objectively intermediate stage, and my hands cannot do what would need doing there.

4. Crocheting has always been tougher on my joints than knitting, or rather, my best refinements over time of self-accommodation for each craft succeed better for knitting. Weaving at narrow output (tabletop, backstrap, inkle) demands less of any individual body part than crochet or knit because it's better distributed across many parts---but weaving wants specific actions that need fingers, not fingernail-substitution or the use of an external tool.

I can tie square and surgeon knots with my nails (lacking usual-range fingertip sensation), but the junk comm packets I wrote about a few years ago, whereby since #2020 my brain or central nervous system directs a limb to do something and it fails to report back timely, or CNS forgets momentarily that the limb exists---junk buildup is still a thing. Trying to weave more, doggedly doing more by eye, would mean accumulating more of a junk backlog than I have the capacity to expel (nap/resting self-accommodations). Weaving and laptop typing and food prep occupy the same bucket, just about. So, weaving drops out, at least for now.

(Knitting is still fine in moderation.)

philomytha

I started writing this ages ago as a treat for a horror exchange, though I can't now remember for whom or which exchange - if it sounds like something you might have requested, it's probably for you! It grew out of all proportion - it was going to be about 500 words - and picked up all kinds of other things including some of my experience of Berlin, and after a great deal of wrestling with the ending I have finally finished it. I was going to think of a cleverer title for it, this one was because I was listening to 'Bonnie Jean Cameron' a lot while writing it, but I accidentally posted it with this working title (which is slightly better than the other working title of Horror Soulbonding) and decided to let it stick.

Title: aye blythe blink
Content: angst with a happy ending, nightmares, hallucinations, soulbonding as horror, Biggles/EvS, 11k words
Summary: Biggles starts to have strange nightmares. Algy looks for a solution.

( the only thing they could recommend )

classichorrorreddit_feed

Posted by /u/GaryWray

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicHorror/comments/1qggi7n/my_versions_of_3_fifties_movie_monsters_the_angry/

My Versions of 3 Fifties Movie Monsters - The Angry Red Planet, The Day The World Ended, I Married A Monster From Outer Space / Sculptures by Gary Wray (me) 2015

submitted by /u/GaryWray
[link] [comments]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicHorror/comments/1qggi7n/my_versions_of_3_fifties_movie_monsters_the_angry/

senmut posting in

communal_creators

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

sholio

threesentenceficathon is back! (And the first post is already on 43 pages of comments. Amazing.)

heresluck

Hi, yes, I know I haven't posted fannish stuff in more than two years but

sisabet has just posted a Heated Rivalry vid and if you have any interest in the show at all you should go watch it right now because it combines "silly" and "unexpectedly moving" in a way that is absolutely perfect for this show.

(I watched HR with

kass a couple of weeks ago when I was visiting her and we did a lot of chatter and analysis in person, so I don't know that I have anything to post about the show aside from "it's delightful and I'm really glad that it exists, and the showrunner, bless him, appears to know exactly what he's doing, and all of those things make me really happy.")

badly_knitted posting in

get_knitted

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.

This Week's Question: What are your crafting goals for 2026?

If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

rachelmanija

One rainy day Kanade, a high school student, finds a mouse-sized cat in his room. It's a fairy cat or "palm-sized cat!" They are elusive magical creatures which sometimes adopt humans, but mostly behave like ordinary cats. Only extra-tiny!

That's about it for the plot. What this manga is actually about is showing an incredibly adorable tiny cat being an incredibly adorable tiny cat. It's an incredibly adorable manga. Proof:

classichorrorreddit_feed

Posted by /u/RN483

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicHorror/comments/1qgdmba/the_price_is_right/

submitted by /u/RN483
[link] [comments]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicHorror/comments/1qgdmba/the_price_is_right/

runpunkrun posting in

fancake

Photograph of a young Asian girl using a manual typewriter in an office and looking very serious as she stares straight into the camera. Her black hair is slicked into a low ponytail and her round glasses are so big they extend past her face. She's wearing a shirt and tie and an adult-sized yellow blazer that fits her like a dress, almost as if she has been shrunk. Text, in a typewriter font: Crack Treated Seriously, at Fancake.

oglaf_comic_feed

https://www.oglaf.com/mancy/

cmk418 posting in

fandomcalendar

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

susandennis

I've been obsessively reading the reddit wegovy sub (which is rather shockingly interesting and supporting and scumless) and have learned that if I do my usual wake up and go play 2 hours of volleyball without eating or drinking anything, it might not feel great. So I'm gathering options. One option, of course, is to wake up earlier and get coffee and breakfast. That is not yet off the table. But, I also bought some crustables yesterday - honey and peanut butter - to munch on the way and just now I'm baking some egg muffins. Eggs, cheese, sausage crumbles... that I can keep in the fridge, nuke and eat on the way. I also bought some protein shakes but I'm not hopeful they will be anything other than disgusting. (However, that's how I felt about oat milk on oatmeal and I was dead wrong there.)

I went to turn on the dishwasher last night and saw that the sealant at the bottom of the door was nearly completely gone. So I placed a work order and turned it off. I'll run it today when I'm awake and can stop it if it leaks. I'd really not like to go back to washing dishes but I'd rather than than mopping floor.

I did not leave my apartment after the game started but did check the score. Ooops. Sad to be a 49er fan. I am happy not to live in the condo any more. Seahawks fans are not lovely to have in your neighborhood - especially when the team is winning. They are not in their own neighborhoods so they feel free to act like wild animals and the cleanup is always painful. I do not miss it.

Today I have plans to do the usual. Jigsaw puzzle in the elbow, TV and knitting. But also I plan to pack up all my shoes. I have paper grocery bags to put them in and I can store them on the floor on the far side of the bed. Then on Friday morning, I can take down all the hanging clothes and plop them onto the bed. I did get a note from Closets by Design to expect the install to take an hour and a half and they will be here before 11.

Ok the muffins are done.

My goal was to make them in the most simple manner possible. So. I took the silicone molds and placed them into the air fryer pan. I sprinkled in some frozen sausage crumbles. Then I added a layer of shredded cheddar cheese and poured in some eggbeater and cooked it at 350 for 20 minutes. Straight out of the oven they weren't bad. They need a few more sausage crumbles, a bit more cheese and a little bit less egg. But, I need to taste them after they have been fridged and then nuked to be sure. But, this could clearly be a viable option. It was sure easy and the only dishes dirtied were the molds and a fork I used to stir the ingredients in each muffin mold.

I turned on the dishwasher about 15 minutes ago. No leaking so far. Whew.

chickenfeet

https://operaramblings.blog/2026/01/18/laughing-out-lonely/

james_davis_nicoll

A deranged President sets his eyes on Canada and Scandinavia, forcing one senator to consider the prospect of contemplating the preliminaries to action.

Night of Camp David by Fletcher Knebel

haebin

Hello my dear ones. Thank you so much for being here and reading the next chapter. But first, I will explain a little bit what is going on, I think.
In this chapter, a new character appears who will play an important role later in the story.

This character is Linet, a young maid in a sexual relationship with Teárlach.
Their relationship is characterized by very intense, rough sex, but it occurs with Linet's consent, as I'm placing her within the realm of BDSM. This means we're entering the darker aspects of sexual experience, which are nevertheless based on Linet's consent.

I've done a lot of research on this topic, and I hope I'm meeting the needs of the sub/dom community (BDSM).

It's up to you whether you choose to read this chapter or not. Whatever you decide, please take care of yourself. ♥

Content Warning: Blowjob, Deepthroat, Dirty Talk, Dom/Sub

( The Mistress of the Shadowland, Second Book, The next Chapter )

Current Mood: depressed.
Current Location: home.
Current Music: Baldur's Gate 3 OST

torrentfreak_feed

Posted by Ernesto Van der Sar

https://torrentfreak.com/storm-chasers-sue-meta-for-ignoring-repeat-infringements-of-popular-accounts/

https://torrentfreak.com/?p=276103

cyclone It is rare for a “legal threat” made in a news article to actually materialize into a class-action lawsuit years later, but that is precisely what has happened with Brandon Clement and his fellow storm chasers.

Back in 2022, we reported on the “never-ending stream of infringements” these independent videographers were facing on Facebook and Instagram.

At the time, Clement was deeply frustrated with a system where billions of views were being siphoned off by “copyright hijackers”. He warned them that legal action might be needed to force a breakthrough, asking copyright lawyers to reach out.

Fast-forward to January 2026, and that early warning has escalated into a class-action complaint filed in a Texas federal court. The lawsuit accuses Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta Platforms, of various types of copyright infringement.

Meta Fails to Take Down Infringing Videos

Filed by a group of extreme weather videographers, whose content often spreads virally, the complaint alleges that Meta often fails to enforce its own terms, which prohibit copyright infringement.

The complaint

In this case, the plaintiffs are not referring to an occasional takedown notice that was ignored. The plaintiffs claim to have sent ‘hundreds of thousands’ of notices over the years, and the lawsuit identifies hundreds of specific DMCA requests that Meta allegedly ignored or improperly handled.

“Despite submitting compliant DMCA take-down requests, Meta, for various improper reasons, failed to take-down the unauthorized uses of Plaintiffs’ various works by the Infringing Users,” the complaint reads.

Allegedly, the content that was not removed by Meta could often be linked to popular accounts that presumably earned the social media giant significant revenues.

“Meta, without providing any reasoning, has numerous times incorrectly determined that a conflicting party with millions of followers has ‘won’ a video ownership conflict as to certain videos, which then precludes Plaintiffs from using Rights Manager to locate infringing uses for their copyrighted videos,” the complaint notes.

According to the complaint, Meta temporarily blocked one of the videographers from using its “Rights Manager” takedown tool because they were “misusing this feature by going too fast.

Too Fast

In addition, Meta also allegedly acted as the ‘judge and jury’ by making fair use determinations, often without providing any legal reasoning or an opportunity for the creators to appeal.

One of the videos referenced in the evidence list was shot and copyrighted by Max Olson, covering a 2022 storm surge. A watermarked clip featuring more than two minutes of this footage was posted on Facebook by Ariana News. It remains online today, after Facebook effectively brushed aside the infringement claim by citing fair use.

Information shared with TorrentFreak shows Facebook’s full response below. Despite the length of the clip and the original creator’s watermark, the company claims it is not clear whether the video infringes any copyrights.

Facebook’s response

Leaked Documents as a Smoking Gun

The complaint lists more than 200 specific instances where Meta allegedly failed to act. In doing so, it also mentions various popular accounts by name, some of which the videographers see as persistent infringers with millions of followers.

One of the examples
canal

To further bolster the allegation that Meta willingly ignores abuse, the complaint cites leaked documents that were reported by Reuters last November. These documents showed that fraudulent advertising was a multi-billion-dollar revenue stream for Meta.

While this is not directly linked to copyright infringement, it reportedly revealed that scams of small advertisers would be shut down after eight warnings, while so-called ‘High Value Accounts’ could accrue more than 500 strikes before Meta would take action.

This allegedly shows that Meta can sometimes prioritize its own profits over protecting the legitimate interests of others. The plaintiffs believe that this also applies to their case.

Infringements and Damages Claims

The plaintiffs accuse Meta of failing to properly respond to DMCA takedown notices, which means that it no longer should be able to claim Safe Harbor protection. In addition, the company’s alleged arbitrary fair use determinations make it liable for direct copyright infringement too.

“Meta has failed to comply with the take-down requirements under the DMCA and its own intellectual property policies regarding repeat infringers, indicating gross negligence in its legal compliance which is essential for a company with Meta’s reach, capabilities, and level of sophistication.”

“Meta’s failure to effectively enforce its own copyright policies indicates de facto willful infringement,” the complaint adds.

The lawsuit includes various claims, including direct copyright infringement, contributory infringement, vicarious infringement, and inducement. The videographers don’t ask for a specific damages amount, but with potential damages of $150,000 per work, this can easily run into the millions of dollars.

Meta has yet to respond formally to the complaint, but it is expected to contest these allegations to the best of its abilities.

—

A copy of the class action complaint, filed this week at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, is available here (pdf).

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

https://torrentfreak.com/storm-chasers-sue-meta-for-ignoring-repeat-infringements-of-popular-accounts/

https://torrentfreak.com/?p=276103

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mirlacca

Ashley McConnell

December 2025

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Page Summary

selenak - January Meme: Adventure in Time and Space to Accept or Decline
torrentfreak_feed - ‘NVIDIA Contacted Anna’s Archive to Secure Access to Millions of Pirated Books’
torrentfreak_feed - Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 01/19/2026
sholio - 3 Sentence Ficathon, part two
imhilien in fandomweekly - [#287] THE PRICE OF WATER (BABYLON 5 - TV 1993)
ruric - Week 2/52 and 3/52 roundup!
calimac - concert review: Saratoga Symphony
watersword - walking holiday!
glitteringstars in writethisfanfic - Check In: Day 18
chazzbanner - Röti
celli - Completed BTS Fic: sentinel/guide speed dating
musesfool - settling into a good one in the snow and the wind
tuftears - Book Launch: The Timecrossed Engineer: Back to School
classichorrorreddit_feed - King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962): A Crossover Before Crossovers Were Cool
classichorrorreddit_feed - Great Scene with Bela and Boris from The Raven (1935)
james_davis_nicoll - Technically I am not breaking the rule against me sitting in the dark in 161
kaberett - vital functions
sholio - 3 Sentence Ficathon, part one
ladygriddlebone in fandomweekly - [#287] Fanning the Flame (Avatar)
maju - (no subject)
troisoiseaux - Weekend reading
cimorene - Lemony desserts lemonier?
jreynoldsward - Periodic Sunday Book Summaries--Installment One
thistleingrey - cutting the warp
philomytha - Fic: aye blythe blink
classichorrorreddit_feed - My Versions of 3 Fifties Movie Monsters - The Angry Red Planet, The Day The World Ended, I Married A
senmut in communal_creators - Mark the dates!
sholio - OOooooo
heresluck - insta-rec: sisabet, "Naked in Manhattan"
badly_knitted in get_knitted - Check-In Post - Jan 18th 2026
rachelmanija - Fairy Cat, by Hisa Takano
classichorrorreddit_feed - The Price is right.
runpunkrun in fancake - Theme Reminder: Crack Treated Seriously
oglaf_comic_feed - Mancy
cmk418 in fandomcalendar - Halfamoon 2026 is 2 weeks away!
susandennis - Protein in the morning
chickenfeet - Laughing Out Lonely
james_davis_nicoll - Night of Camp David by Fletcher Knebel
haebin - The Mistress of the Shadowland, Second Book, The next Chapter
torrentfreak_feed - Storm Chasers Sue Meta for Ignoring Repeat Infringements of Popular Accounts

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Style: Ivory Alcea for Mobility by branchandroot
Resources: Mitsuba Aoi

Page generated Jan. 21st, 2026 11:00 am

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Authors Sue NVIDIA for Copyright Infringement

‘NVIDIA Contacted Anna’s Archive’

Anna’s Archive Points Out Legal ‘Concern’

Direct and Vicarious Copyright Infringement

The most torrented movies for the week ending on January 19 are:

Meta Fails to Take Down Infringing Videos

Leaked Documents as a Smoking Gun

Infringements and Damages Claims

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