findingfriends | Member Posts

It's baffling how like, 99% of all Pokémon ROM hacks are just so poorly balanced; almost all of these hacks feel like they exist solely to fuck with Nuzlocke runners, while ignoring the fact that most people playing these hacks aren't doing Nuzlocke runs. When you give damn near every Pokémon a perfect Super Effective counter to their weakness they otherwise wouldn't have, you're not increasing the challenge, you're just increasing the amount of time somebody has to spend trial-and-error learning your goofy, nonsensical fucking movesets. It's just more grinding and more swapping between teams. I'm not going to do that. As soon as I realize that shit is just massively tilted because some nerd wants to huff his own fumes and fuck with Nuzlocke runners on YouTube, I'm going to drop it and move on.

Like, it's one thing if you want to do that for gym battles, but having that shit on Pokémon just in the wild is obnoxious when you're trying to level up your goddamn Pokémon. You shouldn't have to keep swapping them out for them to gain EXP because they can't survive against Pokémon they otherwise would be able to withstand. It's not making it harder, it's just padding out time.

ysabetwordsmith

Ugandan Coffee Growers Shrug Off Drought Thanks to Regenerative Agriculture

Among the rolling hills of Uganda’s Masaka region, robusta coffee plants are producing larger, tastier yields thanks to a pilot program utilizing regenerative agriculture to battle droughts or erratic rainfall.

A catch-all term for a variety of growing techniques as simple as mulching to as complex as cover cropping, regenerative agriculture is especially useful in the coffee belts where nutrient-poor tropical soils and heavy rainfall make erosion a real threat to productive crops.

Of course regenerative farming works. Nature knows how to compensate for common problems. Humans just need to quick fucking up those processes.

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Current Mood: busy

linky

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Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Take Me Higher - V6

galadhir

The lady who has run Shimmyfest for years, using it as a vehicle with which to raise money for Dementia UK and other charities, has decided that this year will be her last year.

This is a blow because there is nothing else in the area that combines a really modest ticket price, a wide guest-list, and two good workshops with professional teachers.

In fact there is nothing like it left in the area at all, except the smaller haflas that are put on by individual teachers for their particular classes.

So guess who decided that it couldn't be that hard to do, and volunteered to organize an Ely belly dance festival for midsummer next year, (along with a lovely lady who is much more experienced in this sort of thing.)

Couldn't be me, surely?

Anyway, we're in the process of finding a venue atm. We have small halls which will signal a very modest ambition, but will cost £120 all in, or a nice large hall with pub and cafe nearby, which is likely to come in at £370 but may indicate that we are attempting to go bigger and better.

That might revivify what seemed to be a slightly fading franchise. Or it might just cost us everything we might have raised in tickets.

I didn't expect the most important decision to come so early!

ysabetwordsmith

Today is partly cloudy and warm.

I fed the birds. I haven't seen much activity yet.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 7/10/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen a few sparrows and house finches plus a male cardinal.

EDIT 7/10/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 7/10/26 -- I watered the new picnic table garden. I picked two more yellow pear tomatoes. The first sunflower in the septic garden is blooming -- medium height, medium-small single flower, yellow petals.

EDIT 7/10/26 -- I watered seedlings in the savanna.

EDIT 7/10/26 -- I watered plants in the house yard.

.

Current Mood: busy

the_siobhan

Yesterday I had decided I would dig in the yard if my back was good, and go to the farmer's market if it wasn't. Then around 2 PM I thought Why is it so dark in here? and looked at the window just in time for the thunder to start. So I didn't do either.

Did start dragging around the stuff in the living room to make a yoga space. Did some editing on finished story and wrote a few new sentences.

Day 10 Tally

china_shop

Day 9 Tally

china_shop

badly_knitted

glinda

trobadora

sylvanwitch

goddess47

cornerofmadness

sanguinity

dswdiane

the_siobhan

( past tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.

conuly

Watch on YouTube

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

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ysabetwordsmith

Today's theme is NCIS.

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Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

An artificial cell with a full lifecycle has been created for the first time

SpudCell can feed, divide, and even outcompete its siblings. It's not truly alive, its creator tells us, but it could still transform the bioengineering world.

That does actually meet my criteria for life, specifically because it can reproduce its genetic code and evolve. Also, that is the point where you should not be doing this experiment on a planet with a biosphere. You do those in space or a heavenly body without life on it. Just in case there is a containment breach or hazardous development, you don't want to risk anything dangerous getting loose.

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Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today we went up to Danville.

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Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Scientists Have Found Climate-Resistant Coral Reefs Around the World Totaling the Size of Wisconsin

A sophisticated AI-powered examination of coral reef resistance extrapolated into the future found that there’re about 64,000 square miles of coral reefs on Earth that could still be resisting climate change by 2050.

The common theory states that CO2 emissions create a greenhouse effect which warms the seas which causes coral reefs to bleach or even die, yet there are environments—as GNN has frequently reported—where corals seem to be more resilient.

It would be nice if Earth didn't have to reinvent reefs again, and could keep this version.

Current Mood: busy

theradicalchild

I got an Upwork job offer but the guy wanted me to post a review on Amazon and I told him I couldn't and it was against site policy, and he blocked me. Whatever.

Pest control came, and I had to empty out my kitchen and bathroom cabinets, and he did his thing. He gave me three hours to wait for everything to dry, so I went to Taco Bell for lunch and went swimming at the city park pool.

I got that book on children's facts I have to evaluate on Upwork and have begun going through it, and I noticed some repeated pages that I've photographed to show the client. I'm still waiting for them to link me to the form that I need so I know what else to specifically evaluate.

Current Mood: okay

theradicalchild

From

thefridayfive:

1. What would you do right now, if money were not an issue?
Travel to state and national parks in Texas.

2. What would you do for the next three years, if money were not an issue?
Live as I'm doing now, since I'm unable to regular work due to my disabilities, but I have support.

3. What is bringing you the most joy right now that requires little or no money?
AI art, I guess.

4. What types of things do you find enjoyable that require no money?
AI art, writing stuff.

5. Is there anything you've been meaning to do for a long time, but put off because of money?
Not much, really.

Current Mood: okay

babycoric_boygirl

CW: discussion of familial abuse.

So, I'm afamilial, which basically means that I don't feel familial love, as in the love that people feel that's specifically familial. I can care about family members, but it's in the ways I'd care about friends or acquaintances. There's not really a separate category for me.

This makes me confused when people are okay with their family members being horrible people, when they're determined to 'keep the peace' or whatever. This is understandable when they are all you have, but if you have friends? Hell, a whole friend group?

The only reason I communicate with certain family members is because I have nobody else. If I had actual healthy friendships? I'd cling to that and stop caring as much about the bonds that hurt.

And maybe if I had good friends I'd be able to at least partially heal some of my familial ones, with the healing being possible because I'd feel safer setting boundaries and I'd be able to talk about my past trauma without the fear of everyone in my life gaslighting me.

My issues with family are so intense that I didn't realize familial love actually existed as its own thing until I saw a post on Tumblr about being afamilial. Before that, I assumed familial love was just an unhealthy form of friendship plus a scary power dynamic filled with coercion and threats, spoken and unspoken.

Family has always been a cage to me even when it felt good, so I don't understand why anyone would prioritize the cage. I don't understand why people would tolerate bullshit when they have good people who actually genuinely care around.

And I get that there's nuance, that some people have been manipulated. However, this post isn't me trying to criticize, this post is simply me stating that I struggle to understand. I struggle to understand society's toxic views around the (mostly) social construct that is family. And it hurts.

It hurts watching people use the same dumb flawed arguments against me over and over. It hurts when I wonder if my toxic family members are dumb simply because they aren't autistic, because they've never faced the pain that comes from being fundamentally misunderstood.

I'm so tired of the society I'm trapped in.

Current Mood: pessimistic

linky

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Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Take Me Higher - V6

yarnandglue

I found a bottle of "Don't Wine - Yukon Do It!" from OPI's fall 2004 Canadian Collection in a big bag of miscellaneous nail polishes at Goodwill. It's a really beautiful color. The base is a dark purple-y red and it's full of bright pink shimmer in direct light. One of those elevated reds that were so popular in the 1990s-200s. It's hard to photograph but here's the best photo of the pink shimmer I could get:

(Ignore the slight bald spot on my thumb. Most vintage nail polishes are thinner than modern ones so things like that are inevitable :P)

linky

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Current Mood: tired

larissa

hello, it's me.

i haven't wanted to update lately because frankly my mental health has been Not Great. i have not accomplished much of anything past playing too much final fantasy xiv. which, i've gotten some of my long-term goals done there (i finished the pteranodon grind at last, for example), but it's come at the cost of playing anything else. so much for my goal of one jrpg a month... june went by without me touching anything but ffxiv, alas. as much as i'd like to continue the trails series, i've had no will whatsoever to work on playing them.

at least i've been reading again. i stalled out reading a few months ago; despite enjoying the book i was reading, i got into a slump and couldn't pick it back up. in an effort to get back to reading something, i started rereading a bunch of ff7 longfics i had saved on my kindle, and it's helped me to get back into it. hopefully i can return to published fiction soon.

in more positive news, my gsc lightning figure finally arrived yesterday, and she's gorgeous.

( cut for image )

i'm over the moon. the pose is based on one of my favorite lightning artworks ever (see icon) and to have it as a physical piece in my apartment makes me so happy. she's a lot bigger than i expected, even having read the product description. she's alone on the shelf right now because i have yet to unpack the rest of my lightning figures, but hopefully i can get to that soon. (at one point i had a complete collection of lightning figures; i no longer do, but i have most of them.)

anyway, that's about it for now. it's been rough lately; i just haven't had the will to do much other than mindlessly play ffxiv. it's a comfort game for a reason, but, uh, there comes a point where it's too much. so wish me luck, i suppose.

Current Music: The Chase — TPR

ysabetwordsmith

Today is partly cloudy and warm.

I fed the birds. I haven't seen any activity yet.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 7/9/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 7/9/26 -- We went up to Champaign-Urbana today. There were so many flocks of geese and nearly-adult goslings! :D Some of them were mixed ages, like one much younger gosling among older ones. I think the rough breeding season made some families merge. We also saw a murder of crows in one parking lot. I cawed at them and they all turned their heads to stare at me. At twilight, I think I saw a nightjar flying overhead, or more precisely, I heard the "peent, peent" call they make and looked up and spotted a bird.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

the_siobhan

Normally on Wednesday nights I have a workout of some kind - I have a stationary bike and some hand weights. Yesterday I decided on the two birds strategy and went out back to dig in the drainage pit. I managed just about an hour before my back told me I was done for the day.

I'm mostly moving rocks glued together by mud so it's a massive pain the ass. And heavy. And dirty. Also it's still very wet in there so there were about 20 mud daubers in the hole with me. Also moving mud out so helping out in theory, but it meant having to be very careful where I was swinging feet and shovel.

And then I decided that if my back was bitching I should finally get on that yoga plan so I dug out a mat and did a short session after my shower and another one when I got up this morning. The evening one was fine but the morning one was a sticky sweaty mess because the AC hadn't really kicked in for the day, so now I'm thinking about ways to rearrange the living room where it's much cooler. If I have a permanent set up in front of the TV I'm much more likely to do it than having to move chairs out of the way in my office.

After all that I got a couple of paragraphs of writing in before bed. Not much but I'll take it.

(Also it is compulsory to sing Diggy Diggy Hole while hefting rocks out of the pit. I don't make the rules.)

Day 9 Tally

china_shop

Day 8 Tally

china_shop

badly_knitted

trobadora

goddess47

sylvanwitch

cornerofmadness

sanguinity

dswdiane

the_siobhan

( past tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.

Finding Friends

Pokémon ROM hacks.

Agriculture

Fannish Fifty #35: Ultraman Day! (And Past Ultraman Live Pics)

Sparkles & Shimmies

Birdfeeding

Write Every Day: Day 10

A video to get you through some trying times

Follow Friday 7-10-26: NCIS

Science

Today's Adventures

Wildlife

Pests

The Friday Five, 7/10/2026

afamilial feelings

Fannish Fifty #34: Ultraman Tiga Collection (So Far!)

Don't Wine - Yukon Do It!

Community Thursday

a belated update

Birdfeeding

Write Every Day: Day 9

Preview