Here at Casa Sibyllea, we're using a few online tools to navigate The Smog.Most useful so far has been https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current which is an animated map of the continent that shows an hourly prediction of where the smoke will actually be when for the next day or two … | Continue reading
This is a rumor, but a pretty good one run in the Washington Post:2026 Jul 16 5:06 pm EDT: WaPo: "Lettuce supplier identified as potential source of cyclosporiasis outbreak": The CDC has linked the Taylor Farms produce supplied to Taco Bell to the outbreak of the parasitic illnes … | Continue reading
Meteorology Youtuber Ryan Hall Yall has just issued a severe weather warning alert that is not at all reflected in the weather forecasts from either NOAA or the textual forecast from the Canadian government, but which does match what is in Weather.com's forecast for southern Queb … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1901776.html[Previously: ALERT: Cyclosporiasis Outbreak Nationwide]There's a subtle fault I've noticed about how a lot of people are thinking about Cyclospora, the organism causing the outbreak of cyclosporiasis.People, such as over … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1901288.htmlHeads up, Americans! Ever wonder why human feces are not used as fertilizer in agriculture? You're about to find out! ALERT: Stop eating raw leafy greens, herbs, berries, snow peas, and scallions. Maybe other produce. … | Continue reading
The CT scan found my body has "small accessory spleens", which, speaking as a medievalist: oh of course my body turns out to have little ADUs for melancholia. My SCA persona is nodding along – least surprising medical finding ever.(Apparently this is not all that uncommon, and m … | Continue reading
So, unfortunately, it dawned on me only about ten hours after getting home from the ED (i.e. after I had slept) that the condition my symptoms most match is a thoracic aortic aneurysm, and in the ED I had been asked none of the relevant diagnostic or risk questions for TAA, nor d … | Continue reading
Early Monday morning I went to the emergency department with mild but inexplicable and persistent chest pain and shortness of breath to find out if I was having a heart attack.Apparently not. I made a point of not going to the closest hospital, but to one I knew from my own pati … | Continue reading
(h/t conuly)This longform article is framed as being a "ha ha isn't it wacky NASA hired a lingerie company for the Apollo missions". Ignore that. It turns out to be about an organizational culture clash around documentation and specification requirements that will speak to all … | Continue reading
This is legitimately one of the most alarming things I've heard about AI. I can see no lie.2026 Apr 6: Alberta Tech [YT]: "Vibe Coding is Gambling" [56 seconds]: comments | Continue reading
Polka-dotted extraterrestrials with prehensile toes and monster groove have come to save humankind with virtuoso looped microtonal rock in compound time signatures.Look, based on that description, I wouldn't have given this the time of day myself either, but there's a reason thes … | Continue reading
Boston locals! Blue Heron, an acapella early music ensemble, is throwing a three-day shindig to celebrate Guillaume de Machaut (died 1377), May 1-3, mostly involving talks about Machaut's works, talks about his lyrics, talks about the illuminations in the manuscripts his works co … | Continue reading
The YouTube algorithm pseudorandomly served me this, thereby answering the question I'd had on a distant back burner forever, "Hey, didn't I hear something about colored cotton cultivars once upon a time? Cotton that you didn't need to dye? Like back in the 90s?"If you are a fe … | Continue reading
[requires both audio and video]Jonasquin on YT (previously) has written a wholly original motet in the 16th century style after Desprez upon the cantus firmus "Seven Nations Army", for the words of Psalm 10, verses 2, 3, 7-11.Comment would be superfluous.2026 Mar 20: Jonasquin YT … | Continue reading
I knew that other contemporaneous cultures than those of Europe had unfathomably higher numbers of books than Europeans did, but I didn't know about this in retrospect obvious reason why:2026 Mar 19: Dwarkesh Patel feat. Ada Palmer [DwarkeshPatel YT]: "Why Medieval Books Cost as … | Continue reading
The previously expected ICE enforcement surge never materialized. Curious.I wonder if this just means they're short-staffed. Or perhaps distracted.(I also wonder if somebody made a judgment call not to try what they did in MN in MA, but have largely rejected the notion. It wou … | Continue reading
Just hit play.(All about the sound, but visuals also nice.)2026 Mar 18: Benn Jordan [BennJordan YT]: "I'm here to disrupt the finance synthesizer scene." comments | Continue reading
Debate is raging on BSky if this is deliberate wit or accidental idiocy.(h/t user mlyp.bsky.social) comments | Continue reading
I have been kicking around a post idea for something like a year or a year and a half, but I've been torn between wanting to write it as a post (and tell you things) and wanting to ask for solutions.Mr. Bostoniensis and I have been trying to consolidate our household, and the Bra … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1897060.html[Content Advisory: info that may be US government classified and controlled unclassified info leaked to news outlets, within. Actual status is unclear to me.]Cuba has been effectively under siege by the US since at least … | Continue reading
2026 Jan 20: ApasheOfficial on YT [music video]: Kyiv by Apashe & Alina Pash comments | Continue reading
If you live in the BosWash Corridor, especially in NYC-to-Boston, you need to be paying attention to the weather. We have an honest to gosh Nor'easter blizzard predicted for the next 3 days, with heavy wet snow and extremely high winds – the model predicts the damn thing will hav … | Continue reading
Hey, does anybody happen to know the answer to this question?Back when Mr B and I started doing joint grocery orders, I started analyzing our budget like you do. In the course of doing so, I discovered something I hadn't realized: about a third of my "grocery" budget wasn't food … | Continue reading
Overheard on Reddit, u/Itsyademonboi: Sorry, Nazis are from Germany under Adolf Hitler, what we have here is Sparkling Fascists. comments | Continue reading
For those of you in the parts of the US for whom an ice storm is predicted and who have no idea of what that is except that it means it will be cold:1) If you have an ice scraper to clean the ice off your car, have it inside with you, not in the car. Because at a sufficient leve … | Continue reading
Hey, Americans! Do you live around or south of the Mason-Dixon line? If so, your weather report for later this week is shaping up to be a bit exciting. Looks like Actual Winter will be visiting places that historically have been poorly prepared for this sort of thing, i.e. TX, … | Continue reading
I found this intriguing. YouTuber KnittingCultLady, who is an Air Force veteran and author about two books on military culture from the standpoint of cults(!), put out this rather frustrated video clarifying how members of the military respond to illegal orders. The tl;dr is th … | Continue reading
(h/t hudebnik)Two things: this is a thing that has happened, I have a read on what it is that nobody else seems to have come up with.1) The thing that happened:2026 Jan 16: NYTimes: "Thousands of Chinese Fishing Boats Quietly Form Vast Sea Barriers" by Chris Buckley, Agnes Chang … | Continue reading
This was it. This was the week that America admitted America is going fascist – which is to say has gone fascist, i.e. has had its government seized by fascists with broad fascist support for imposing fascism which it is now doing with zeal, i.e. has an acute case of fulminant f … | Continue reading
This is blackly hilarious and absolutely worth a read.Leftist journalist Laura Jedeed showed up at an ICE recruiting events to do scope it out and write about what she found. What happened next is... eye widening.2026 Jan 13: Slate: "You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The … | Continue reading
2026 Jan 14: NYT: "Renfrew Christie Dies at 76; Sabotaged Racist Regime’s Nuclear Program" by Adam Nossiter. "He played a key role in ending apartheid South Africa’s secret weapons program in the 1980s by helping the African National Congress bomb critical facilities." Renfrew Ch … | Continue reading
Heads up, locals! Observers report evidence of ICE/DHS activity preparing for an operation in MA, imminently.2026 Jan 13 5pm: u/rarelighting in r/Boston: Boston quietly prepares for an ICE surge, points at:2026 Jan 13: Axios: Boston quietly prepares for an ICE surge by Mike Deeh … | Continue reading
"What I 'erd, this nobby, 'iz bird got fingered over a tin o'beans, only shot the poor cow, didn't they? So, like, everybody's tooled up, an'..." – V for Vendetta, Alan Moore & David Lloyd, 1988 comments | Continue reading
2026 Jan 6: Görkem Şen (Yaybahar on YT): Yaybahar III NadiriThe description text: The essence of gold was rare, he conquered with his virtue, offered his gifts and fell behind the sun...Dedicated to the soul of my dear friend's father, Nadir Oğuz... I am surmising that "Nadiri" m … | Continue reading
Interesting:2025 Dec 31: DwarkeshPatel YT fea. Sarah Paine: Human Rights Killed Communism - Sarah Paine:BTW, that's Sarah C. M. Paine, until very recently the William S. Sims University Professor of History and Grand Strategy and the Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History, … | Continue reading
"...but it turns out, mining is fun."2025 Dec 26: Engineer Everything (user Engineer.Everything-i5g) on YT: Shall I go still deeper? #engineering #Minecraft #tunnel #mining #constr... comments | Continue reading
2025 Nov 14: Jonasquin on YT: "Bridge over Troubled Water but it's a Renaissance Madrigal | Feat. Tabea Bös":There's more where that came from:• Let It Be (a Renaissance Madrigal) | Feat. Anna Petrtylová • 'Enjoy The Silence' by Depeche Mode in the style of a madrigal by Carlo Ge … | Continue reading
2025 Dec 24: ScienceDaily [press release?]: "Scientists reverse Alzheimer’s in mice and restore memory": By examining both human Alzheimer's brain tissue and multiple preclinical mouse models, the team identified a key biological failure at the center of the disease. They found t … | Continue reading
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Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1891517.htmlThis is part of Understanding Health Insurance Introduction A Health Plan is a Contract The Three-Stage Model ⇐ You are hereThe Three-Stage ModelWhen you have health insurance, you have a contract (health plan) with the … | Continue reading
So, I, uh, got my RSI/ergonomics debugged!* I then promptly lost two days to bad sleep due to another new mechanical failure of the balky meat mecha and also a medical appointment in re two previous malfunctions. But I seem back in business now. The new keyboard is great.Patro … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1890494.html0.Hey Americans (and other people stuck in the American healthcare system)! Shopping for a health plan on your state marketplace? Boy, do I have some information for you that you should have and probably don't. There's … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1890011.htmlThis is part of Understanding Health Insurance Introduction A Health Plan is a Contract – You are hereHealth Insurance is a ContractWhat we call health insurance is a contract. When you get health insurance, you (or so … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1889543.htmlPreface: I had hoped to get this out in a more timely manner, but was hindered by technical difficulties with my arms, which have now been resolved. This is a serial about health insurance in the US from the consumer's p … | Continue reading
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1888828.htmlHey, Americans and people living in the US going through open enrollment on the state ACA marketplaces who haven't yet enrolled in a plan for 2026!Just about every state in the union and DC (but not Idaho) proudly touts a … | Continue reading
Very shortly after I posted my recent request for pointers on 3D printing education – a request which was occasioned by my getting excited over my new and improved typing capability courtesy of my new NocFree ergonomic keyboard and wanting to make it a peripheral – my shoulder/ba … | Continue reading
I see that I didn't note last year's Annual Introverts Liberation Feast. Perhaps I wrote a draft that I never got around to posting. It was something of a grueling deathmarch. Because my physical disability makes me largely unable to participate in food prep or cleaning, it al … | Continue reading
I want a widget that doesn't exist so I might be stuck designing it for 3D printing. I have never done this before. For design software, I gather both Onshape and TinkerCAD are available for free. Anybody with experience have opinions which I should start with? I have never u … | Continue reading