“People on the Move” – SCA Communications Officer
Aug. 26th, 2025 08:36 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
The SCA Inc. Board of Directors has appointed Kelly McKinnon (she/her/hers) as the next corporate Communications Officer for SCA Inc.
The full announcement of the position is found at https://www.sca.org/news/people-on-the-move-communications-officer/. Comments are strongly encouraged and can be sent to SCA-comments@sca.org.
You can also mail comments to:
SCA Inc.
PO Box 66347
Scotts Valley, CA 95067
Untitled for Three Jigakkyu [music]
Aug. 24th, 2025 07:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
2025 Aug 11: Open Reel Ensemble: "Tape Bowing Ensemble - Open Reel Ensemble":
磁気テープを竹に張って演奏する民族楽器「磁楽弓(じがっきゅう)」三重奏による調べですThis is a trio performance on the “JIGAKKYU,” a traditional folk instrument made by stretching magnetic tape across bamboo.
ETA: I want to state for the record, contrary to what a lot of commenters on YT are saying, it is not that what is cool here is just how wackily innovative it is to use a reel-to-reel this way. The only reason this is going viral is because of how musically good it is; nobody would care about it otherwise, and I submit for evidence the half century plus of prior art of abusing reel-to-reel recorders in the name of music-making you have probably never heard of, because a lot of it wasn't very compelling as music so nobody ever brought it to your attention. What's most shocking here is how musical it is, and how they use the innovation to do something new in music recognizable as such. It isn't good because it's innovative; it's innovative because it's good.
As far as I am concerned, the great problem for electronic music has always been what I think of as the Piano Problem: the music is made by operating a machine, so there's a machine between the performer and the music. Great pianists master operating the machine so beautifully they make the machine disappear. But this is what makes piano playing hard. So much of what we love in music is its organicness, the aspects of it which are so beautifully expressive because of how intimately the performer's body interacts with the instrument.
Heretofore, the only ways to bring that kind of sound to electronic instruments were to use breath controlled midi controllers (electronic woodwinds), use an electromagnetic interface (e.g. theremin), or get really fantastic on keys. Or give up and embrace the mechanical nature of the instrument and use it for repertoire the excellence of which does not rest in expressiveness (q.v. Wendy Carlos' Bach recordings).
This instrument conclusively brings the organicness of bowing and all its delicate expressiveness to electronica. The result is simply gorgeous and I hope this creative vein is further mined.
East Kingdom Toybox Vision and Guidelines
Aug. 24th, 2025 02:13 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
The East Kingdom toy chest is a wonderful tradition that serves many purposes. We think it would be useful to state what we see as the function of the toy chest so that it is clear how it affects the donation guidelines.
The toy chest is a way to interest and involve the youth in the proceedings of court. It also helps the youth feel like they have a place in, and a connection to, the SCA. Finally, the toy chest helps to provide entertainment for the youth during court.
There are no guidelines as to who can participate in the toy chest as that is up to the individual and their parents to determine when they have outgrown the activity. Generally speaking, youth who are in the age range to be considered for a Tyger’s Cub and younger are the main participants. This means the chest needs to have a variety of items in it that appeal to children from babes in arms to young teenagers.
Here are the guidelines for donations to the East Kingdom Royal Toy Box
-Donations should have at least 12 of the item being donated
-Donations should be connected to the SCA in some way
-Donations should not be messy
-Donations should not be loud (please no bells)
-Donations should be for varied age ranges and interests.
-No religious or holiday items
-No donations that include dowels under ¼ inch diameter (Youth have been know to break thinner ones and start fight with the broken sticks)
-Donations do not have to be toys. Games, books, and accessories are all excellent items
-Donations need to fit in the box
Any toy that was gotten from a past toybox and is no longer wanted may be returned to the toybox coordinator as long as it doesn’t violate any of the above guidelines except for quantity of item
If you are not sure about an item, ask!
YIS
TRH’s Toy Box Coordinator, Lady Deirdre Grenewode
Messing with about:config
Aug. 22nd, 2025 08:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
In this case, the problem was actually my browser, not my operating system. I updated Firefox and disabling the AI chatbot was no longer sufficient; I had to disable a new integrated AI summary pop-up. (A profoundly annoying one. I am very disappointed in you, Firefox.)
Now, the thing I originally set to false was browser.ml.chat.enabled. This disabled the AI chatbot.
New update added the AI summary pop-up every time I clicked on a link. The internet suggested that the thing I needed to disable to deactivate the entire integrated AI was browser.ml.enable, so I set that to false.
This did not get rid of the AI summary pop-up.
Rather than go hunting for more precise instructions, I went "hey, browser.ml seems to be common thread here; I wonder what else is under browser.ml?" As it turns out, a lot of things, some of which are bolded and all of which are named descriptively enough that you can tell what their deal is. One of these things is browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled, which seemed like it might be thing I was trying to get rid of. So I set that to false and went back to click on some links.
No pop-up.
I am cautiously optimistic that this has fixed the problem.
(Yes, this is extremely basic problem-solving. But it's unusual for me to actively problem-solve my computer rather than go find a ready-made solution on Reddit.)
Court Report: Great Northeastern War
Aug. 21st, 2025 05:38 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
Being the Court of Their Majesties Ryouko’jin & Indrakshi held on July 12th , A.S. LX (2025) in the province of Malagentia at Great Northeastern War
Court Heralds: Lærifaðir Grim the Skald, Aesa Ormstunga, Kay Leigh Mac Whyte, Nuada MacLemsie. Kirsa Oyutai, Muirgel Bera, Alysius Sartore
Reporting Herald: Lærifaðir Grim the Skald
•Rémy d’Pont du Corbeaux: Award of Arms. W: Trian O’Bruadair, C: Diamond Stone, I: Octavia Valeria
•Quentus Quintillius Mortis: Order of the Silver Rapier. W: Bo of Malagentia C&I: Camille des Jardins
•Elias of Malagentia: Order of the Silver Rapier & AoA. W: Bo of Malagentia C&I: Mickel von Salm
•Bera Jórudóttir: Award of Arms. Scroll: Philippa Dyvill
•Thallos of Brighton Manor Scholastica: Rabbit and the Moon.
•Gabrielle of Stonemarche: Award of Arms. Scroll: Kay Leigh Mac Whyte (aka Vanna del Bianca)
•Marielle D’Arya: Rabbit and the Moon.
•Edward Sae Ulfr: Order of the Silver Wheel. W: Bo of Malagentia, C: Camille des Jardins, I: Christine Violet
•Seshmetka: Award of Arms. W: Eseld, C&I: Sitt al-Gharb ha-niqret Khazariyya (Khaza)
•Maud Attewode: Order of the Silver Brooch. Scroll: Philippa Dyvill
•Sigrida Arnsdottir: Order of the Silver Brooch. Scroll: Úlfarr Gylðir
•Embla Knutrdottir: Order of the Laurel. W: Nicol MacDonnaghaigh, Carving: Sage Elan de Janvier, Runes by Thorbjorn Grimulfsson
•Sugawara no Naeme: Order of the Laurel. Scroll: Collette d’Avignon
•Galen D’Arden: Order of the Silver Tyger. Scroll: Amalia Von-Ostrand
•Solomon of Acre: Order of the Silver Tyger. Scroll: Violet Hughes
•John Badger: Award of Arms. Scroll: Sabine di Sandra
•Morwenna O Hurlihie: Rabbit and the Moon.
•Thurayyā bint Sitt al-Sirr-, known as Melmyra: Order of the Silver Crescent. Scroll: Octavia Valeria
•Vargus Ulfr: Court Barony. W: Aislinn Chiabach, C&I: Cwenthryth Wine (Cwen)
•Magnus Surtsson: Order of the Silver Brooch. C&I: Robert dwe Makminne, W: Eyia Refr
•Um Ishaq Sara Bint Abu-Zakariya aka- Sara: Order of the Silver Brooch. Scroll: Zahra de Andaluzia
•Octavia Valeria: Order of the Maunche. Scroll: Lijsbet van Catwiic
•Carmelina da Vicari (She/Her): Order of the Laurel. W&C: Caitríona inghean Ui Shíodhacháin, I: Galefredus
•Aurelia Colleoni a’Buccafurno (She / Her): Order of the Laurel. Scroll: Marcus Atilius Pansa
Other Business
•The Event Stewards were thanked for their service
•Katerina Falconer De Lanark and Alastor Tucker announced the Pennsic Rapier Heroic and Melee Teams
•Ludovic of Carolingia announced the Unbelted Champions Team
•Ryan Mac Whyte announced the Archery Champions Team
•Moira Brown announced the results of the Brewing Roundtable.
•Tove ran the toybox to the delight of the populace
•Hrefna Eriksdottir’s Silver Tyger Scroll (from Pennsic 51) was presented in Court.
•Raziya bint Rusa announced the Arts and Sciences Champions Team
Phone, again [me, tech]
Aug. 21st, 2025 05:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
On Saturday night, I noticed something dangling from the corner of my cell phone, which immediately struck me as odd, as there's no aperture in the protective gel case there for something to get stuck. Well, there's not supposed to be. On further inspection, I discovered the corner of the gel case no longer fit over the corner of the phone, and some random shmutzig had gotten wedged... between the back plate of the phone and the rest of the phone, to which it was no longer attached along the bottom. Pressing it back down didn't work: something in the middle of the phone was causing resistance to closing the phone.
Lo, verily, my phone's battery was pregnant.
Some of you who follow me on the fediverse might be thinking, "Wait, didn't you just replace a phone, the battery of which swelled up?" Lol, yes: late April. That was my work phone. This is my personal phone. Lolsob.
So, being a proper nerd, I went right to iFixit to order myself a battery. Whereupon I was stopped by something that did not bode well. I entered my phone's model information and iFixit, instead of telling me what battery to buy, alerted me that it is not possible to determine what kind of battery my phone took from the outside.
It turns out that the OnePlus 9 G5 can take one of two batteries, and which one a given OnePlus 9 G5 takes can only be determined by putting eyes on the battery which is in it.
Well, okay then: I clicked through the helpful link to read instructions on how to pull the battery on a OnePlus 9 G5. I read along with slow dawning horror at exactly how involved it was and how many tools I would have to buy, and made it to step twelve – "Use a Phillips screwdriver to remove the ten 3.8 mm-long screws securing the motherboard cover. One of the motherboard cover screws is covered by a white water ingress sticker. To unfasten the screw you can puncture the sticker with your screwdriver." – of thirty and decided: fuck this, I will hire a professional.
(I think maybe it was a fortunate thing that I went through the prior fiasco with trying to change the battery on the Nuu B20 5G, first, because it softened me to the idea of maybe I don't have to service all my electronics personally myself.)
Alas, it was late on a Saturday night and all the cell phone repair places around me were closed until Monday.
Fortunately, I had a short day Monday and would be getting out of work around 5:30pm. I called ahead to a place that is open to 7pm to ask if I needed an appointment and whether they did OnePlus phones. There was a bit of a language barrier with the guy who answered the phone, but he said no appointment was necessary and whether they could fix my phone would entail putting eyes on it, and please try to come before 6pm to give them time to fix it before they close.
So after work, Mr B took me there, and we presented the phone. Dude got the back of the phone the rest of the way off the phone with rather more dispatch that I would be have been able to, and pretty quickly discovered that he was in over his head. Credit where it's due – "A man's got to know his limitations" – he promptly backed off, and told me to bring it back tomorrow when the more-expert boss was in.
I'm slightly irritated that we made the unnecessary trip instead of him saying, "Oh, a OnePlus, come tomorrow when our OnePlus expert is in", but it did give me the extra time to do more thorough backing-up. I have never managed to get Android File Transfer to work, nor any a number of alternatives; snapdrop.io would only do single files at a time, not whole directories, and, weirdly, Proton Drive, both app and website, doesn't allow uploading whole directories from Android either.
Finally, I saw a mention that the Android app Solid Explorer "does FTP". I wanted to make a local backup to my Mac, but, fuck it, I have servers, I can run FTP somewhere just to get my files backed up off my phone. Imagine my surprise on opening up the "FTP" option on Solid Explorer and discovering it wasn't an FTP client it was an FTP server. Yes, the easiest way I found to exchange files between my Android phone and my MacBook Pro was to put an FTP server on my phone.
Worked fine. My FTP client on my Mac sucks, but I'll solve that another day. (Does Fetch still exist?)
Mr B and I discussed it and decided he'd bring the phone in the next day, Tuesday, to spare me the hike. He returned with the phone, still with the back off, and the news that they had discovered, as I had, you have to get at the battery to even figure out which battery to order. And that he was told that the battery would be in by 3pm the next day (Wednesday). The only surprising thing here is that they could get the battery that fast.
So, today (Wednesday), after 3pm, Mr B took my phone back for a third visit, and they attempted to install my new battery.
It was the wrong battery.
( Hwaet! The saga continues... )
Admin: Patreon: What fresh hell #728, #729 [Patreon]
Aug. 20th, 2025 04:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Last thing first. Investigating the other thing, I discovered this. I'll just cut and paste what I submitted as a ticket to Patreon:
I took a break of a few months, and when I came back my fees spiked. What gives?I have received no response.
I just did a month (July 2025) that extremely similar to last January (2025): similar revenues (466.19 vs 458.50), similar patrons (160 vs 162). According to my "Insights > Earnings" page, my total fees went up from 11.4% to the astounding 14.6%. Drilling down, most of that is an eye-watering 3% increase of the payment fees (5.8% to 8.8%). There was also a minor increase of Patreon's platform fee from 5.6% to 5.8%.
That represents a FIFTY-TWO PERCENT INCREASE in processing fees, and a 28% increase in fees over all.
Care to explain? Was there some announced change in payment structure or payment processor fees I missed?
But the other thing is this: Patreon has dropped my business model.
Apparently by accident.
When I went to Patreon to create the Patreon post for my latest Siderea Post at the end of July, I was confronted with a recent UI update. In and of itself it wouldn't have been a problem, but, as usual, they screwed something up.
They removed the affordance for a post to Patreon to both be public and paid. The new UI conflated access and payment, such that it was no longer possible to post something world-accessible and still charge patrons for it.
I found a kludge to get around it so I could get paid at all, and I fired off a support ticket asking if it was possible but unobvious, or just not possible, and if it was not possible, whether that was a policy or a mistake. I have received very apologetic reply back from Patreon support which seemed to suggest (but not actually affirm) it was an unintentional:
From what we've seen so far, the option to make a post publicly accessible while still charging members for it isn't possible in the new editor. Content within a paid post will only be available to those with paid access, and it won't show up for the public.So it's not like the reply was, "Oh, yes, it was announced that we wouldn't be supporting that feature any more," suggesting, contrarily, they didn't realize they were removing a feature at all.
Other creators have reported this same issue, and I want to reassure you that I've already shared this feedback with our team. If anything changes or if this feature is brought back, I'll be sure to keep you in mind and let you know right away.
The support person I was corresponding with encouraged me to write back with any further questions or issues, so I did:
Hi, [REDACTED], thanks for getting back to me. I have both some more questions and feedback.I got this response:
1) Question: Am I understanding correctly, that the new UI's failure to support having publicly accessible paid posts was an oversight, and not a policy decision to no longer support that business model? Like, there's not an announcement this was going away that I missed? As a blogger who often writes about Patreon itself, I'd like to be able to clarify the situation for my readers.
2) Question: Do you have any news to share whether Patreon intends to restore this functionality? Is fixing this being put on a development roadmap, or should those of us who relied on this functionality just start making other plans? Again: my readers want to know, too.
3) Suggestion: If Patreon intends to restore this functionality, given the way the new UI is organized, the way to add the functionality back in is under "Free Access > More options" there should also be a "charge for this post" button, which then ungrays more options for charging a subset of patrons, defaulting to "charge all patrons".
4) Feedback: The affordance that was removed, of being able to charge patrons for world-accessible content, was my whole business model. I'm not the only one, as I gather you already have discovered. In case Patreon were corporately unaware, this is the business model of creators using Patreon to fund public goods, such as journalism, activism, and open source software. My patrons aren't paying me to give them something; my patrons are paying me to give something to the world. Please pass this along to whomever it's news.
5) Feedback: This is the sort of gaffe which suggests to creators that Patreon is out of touch with its users and doesn't appreciate the full breadth of how creators use Patreon. It is the latest in a long line of incidents that suggests to creators that Patreon is not a platform for creators, Patreon is a platform for music video creators, and everybody else is a red-headed stepchild whom Patreon corporately feels should be grateful they are allowed to use the platform at all. It makes those of us who are not music video creators feel unwelcome on Patreon.
6) Feedback: Being able to charge patrons for world-accessible content is one of a small and dwindling list of features that differentiated Patreon from cheaper competitors. Just sayin'.
7) Feedback: I thought you should know: my user experience has become that when I open Patreon to make a post, I have no idea whether I will be able to. I have to schedule an hour to engage with the Patreon new post workflow because I won't know what will be changed, what will be broken, etc. It would be nice if Patreon worked reliably. My experience as a creator-user of your site is NOT, "Oh, I don't like the choices available to me", it's that the site is unstable, flaky, unpredictable, unreliable.
Hi Siderea,Several observations:
Thank you so much for your thoughtful follow-up and for sharing your questions and feedback in such detail.
To address your first question, I can’t speak to whether this change was an oversight or a deliberate policy decision, but I can confirm there hasn’t been any official announcement about removing the ability to charge members for world-accessible posts. If anything changes or if we receive more clarity from our product team, I’ll be sure to keep you updated.
At this time, I also don’t have any news to share about whether this functionality will be restored or if it’s on the development roadmap.
I know that’s not the most satisfying answer, but I want to reassure you that your feedback and suggestions are being shared directly with the relevant teams. The more we can highlight how important this feature is for creators like you, the better.
Thank you as well for your suggestion about how this could be reintroduced in the UI—I’ll make sure to pass that along, along with your broader feedback about the impact on creators who fund public goods. Your perspective is incredibly valuable, and I just want to truly thank you for taking the time to lay it all out so clearly.
If you have any more thoughts, questions, or ideas, please let me know, and I’ll be happy to take a further look. I appreciate your patience and your willingness to advocate for the creator community.
All the best,
[REDACTED]
0) Whoa.
1) That is the best customer service response letter I've ever gotten, for reasons I will perhaps break down at some other junction. But it both does and does not read like it was written by an AI. I didn't quite know what to make of it, until someone mentioned to me the phenomenon of customer service agents at another org using AI to generate letters, and then I was like, oooooooh, maybe that's what this is. Or maybe not. Hard to say.
2) Though [REDACTED] could not confirm or deny, it sure sounds like an accident, but one that impacts such an uninteresting-to-Patreon set of creators that they can't be arsed to fix it, either in a timely way or at all.
3) "The more we can highlight how important this feature is for creators like you, the better." is a hell of a sentence. Especially in conjunction with "...along with your broader feedback about the impact on creators who fund public goods.". Reading between the lines, it sure sounds like the support people have been inundated by a little wave of outraged/anguished public-good posters, and the support people, or at least this support person, is entirely on the creators' side against higher ups brushing them off. Could be a pose, of course, but, dayum.
So that's what I know from Patreon's side.
The kludge I came up with for the post I made at the end of July is that I used another new feature – the ability to drop a cut line across a Patreon post where above it is world readable and below it is paid access only – to make a paid-access only post where 100% of the post contents are above the cut line.
Please let me know if it's not working as intended. This unfortunately has the gross effect of putting a button on my new post saying "Join to unlock".
So.
In any event, I strongly encourage those of you following me as unpaid subscribers over on Patreon to make sure you're following me, instead, here on Dreamwidth, because Patreon is flaky.
I will make a separate post with instructions as to all the ways to do that. You can get email notifications of my posts (either all or just the Siderea Posts), follow RSS and Atom feeds, get DM inbox notifications, and, of course, just follow me on your DW reading page, all on/through Dreamwidth, anonymously and completely free.
Sinners & Stardust Assaults
Aug. 19th, 2025 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This is, incidentally, where radical-feminism-type thinking leads us: when you believe that all sexual harm comes from The Penis, you wind up in a position where you don't believe it's assault when women do it to men, and... it absolutely can be, and from the descriptions this isn't even questionable. It is absolutely assault. And given that bit with the AirTag, some techno-stalking as well. (Imagine if he didn't have an iPhone; he might never have known about that part, and that part could have been incredibly dangerous.)
July 2025 President’s Report Now Available
Aug. 17th, 2025 01:06 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
Read the report here:
https://www.sca.org/news/july-
Comments are strongly encouraged and can be sent to:
SCA Inc.
PO Box 66347
Scotts Valley, CA 95067
Refrigerator Pickles
Aug. 15th, 2025 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
- sterilization of equipment
- proper canning technique
- proper measurement of salt, acid, and/or sugar, possibly including fiddly fermentation (aka luck with microorganisms).
And they last for months to years, and are very salty/sour/sweet.
Refrigerator pickles, on the other hand, need much less care and can taste much less extreme -- but they last weeks to months rather than months to years. And they need to be refrigerated, hence the name.
Over the last few days I have been turning local cucumbers into fair imitations of half-sours, garlic dills, bread-and-butter pickles, and the weird one which I call "boring pickles" -- salt, vinegar and turmeric, nothing else. Half my household likes them on sandwiches. They resemble the ones that low-end fast-food burger joints use.
And, for really near-term consumption, about three liters of chopped salad (the kind called, variously, Arab, Israeli, Shirazi, Serbian, Kachumber...) which I estimate will last three days.