rabidsamfan | Network

Apparently Warner Brothers decided that they are not, in fact, putting B5 on Youtube, and pulled it a few episodes in.

https://cordcuttersnews.com/warner-bros-discovery-removes-babylon-5-from-youtube-after-brief-free-run/

I discovered this because I was curious how many episodes they were up to, and found the old links were dead. So I was curious what was up with that, and did a bit of googling. Evidently the messaging on this was basically terrible; they just yanked it without warning.

It looks like it's permanently off Tubi, despite having not gone ahead with the Youtube plan, but the article says that it is streaming free with ads on Roku's website, which I checked and it does seem to be true. FOR NOW. (They also have the movies, which I still haven't seen other than "In the Beginning." I don't think Tubi had those.)

melagan

It's that time of year again for

unconventionalcourtship

This is one of my all time favorite challenges.

sign up info here

brumeier

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

languagelog_feed

Posted by Mark Liberman

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73184&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cyclic-linguistic-attractors

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73184

A student who's been working on LLM-style AI transformations of symbolically-represented music recently tried mapping a (fragment of a piece) back and forth between two genres, e.g. baroque and pop. She found that after a couple of steps, the results reach a fixed point and don't change any more.

This is different from what used to happen with machine translation between different languages. The Wikipedia article on Round Trip Translation tells us that

Although the use of RTT for assessing MT system quality or the suitability of a text for MT is in doubt, it is a way to have fun with machine translation. The text produced from an RTT can be comically bad. At one time websites existed for the sole purpose of performing RTT for fun. Other variations send the text through several languages before translating it back into the original or continue translating the text back and forth until it reaches equilibrium (i.e., the result of the back translation is identical to the text used for the forward translation). RTT as entertainment appeared in Philip K. Dick's novel Galactic Pot-Healer. The main character runs book titles and sayings through RTT then has his friends try to guess the original. The Australian television show Spicks and Specks had a contest called "Turning Japanese" which used RTT on song lyrics. Contestants needed to correctly guess the title of the song from which the lyrics were taken.

But I wondered whether things might be different now that MT is pretty good, at least between well-document language pairs. So I took the first two sentences from a CNN news story, and ran them back and forth with French via Google Translate — and indeed, after a couple of cycles, the process seems to have converged on a fixed point:

President Donald Trump has fired Pam Bondi as attorney general.

She will be replaced for now by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who will serve as acting attorney general, Trump said.

Le président Donald Trump a limogé Pam Bondi de son poste de procureure générale.

Elle sera remplacée, pour l'instant, par le procureur général adjoint Todd Blanche, qui assurera l'intérim, a déclaré M. Trump.

President Donald Trump has dismissed Pam Bondi from her position as Attorney General.

She will be replaced, for the time being, by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who will serve as interim, Mr. Trump stated.

Le président Donald Trump a relevé Pam Bondi de ses fonctions de procureure générale.

Elle sera remplacée, pour le moment, par le procureur général adjoint Todd Blanche, qui assurera l'intérim, a déclaré M. Trump.

President Donald Trump has relieved Pam Bondi of her duties as Attorney General.

She will be replaced, for the time being, by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who will serve as interim Attorney General, Mr. Trump stated.

Le président Donald Trump a relevé Pam Bondi de ses fonctions de procureure générale.

Elle sera remplacée, pour le moment, par le procureur général adjoint Todd Blanche, qui assurera l'intérim, a déclaré M. Trump.

President Donald Trump has relieved Pam Bondi of her duties as Attorney General.

She will be replaced, for the time being, by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who will serve as interim Attorney General, Mr. Trump stated.

I don't have time this afternoon to check whether the same thing happens with longer cycles, other passages, longer passages, other languages, other translation systems, three- or four-way language cycles, etc. — readers are welcome to try.

But I suspect that many similar experiments are now similarly likely to converge on cyclic linguistic attractors in machine-translation space…

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73184&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cyclic-linguistic-attractors

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73184

stonepicnicking_okapi

This is a short piece of it which my spiritual guru quoted in a talk I watched recently.

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798 by William Wordsworth

...And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

signoftea posting in

common_nature

It's getting warmer, the days are getting longer, and the scent of spring is coming in through the open window. Bird activity is very high. Some days, my birding app detects up to 25 different species within 20 minutes. Some of them are migratory birds, on the way back to where they came from in the winter. The others, about to start breeding, make as much noise as they can.

Today, as I was watering my balcony flowers, I looked down at the lawn because I saw some movement there. Two wood pigeons were wandering around, and between them, a hedgehog! I've never seen one in the open in broad daylight before. They're mostly nocturnal, as far as I know.

I googled "hedgehog active during the day" and found out that this could be a sign that the hedgehog is injured or malnourished. It did look a bit thin, as far as I could see from two storeys above, but not weak or distressed. It was walking around purposefully and seemed to be eating something, probably earthworms. In the information I found online, it said hedgehogs are often thin in the spring, because they're recovering from hibernation. It doesn't have to be a reason for concern. So I guess it doesn't need help right now.

When I checked again a few minutes later, both the hedgehog and the pigeons had disappeared.

I'm going to keep an eye out for the little hedgehog in the coming days. If I see it again and it looks like it needs help, I might take it to the vet, or to a rescue center.

stonepicnicking_okapi

I did not post music on Monday or a word on Wednesday so I am making up for it today.

The words is...epistrophy.

Also known as epistrophe or occasionally antistrophe is a figure of speech in which a word or expression is repeated at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences, often for rhetorical or poetic effect (such as Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: "…government of the people, by the people, for the people").

And I found it because I look up 'this day in jazz' before I visit jazz man every morning and yesterday the entry was: Trumpeter/bandleader Cootie Williams is the first to record a Thelonious Monk composition, Epistrophy, 1942.

Here's Monk doing it in Paris in 1969.

Watch on YouTube

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: Where do you do most of your crafting?

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

kat_lair

***

Title: Rebirth
Author:

kat_lair
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Character: Shen Wei
Tags: Drabble, Rebirth, Starting Over, Implied Relationships
Rating: G
Word count: 100

Summary: Nothing to lose.

Author notes: Spring defiance from under the crushing forces of capitalism = a drabble a day in April. This one for

trobadora's prompt 'Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei has acquired a seasonally appropriate power'. The relationship is there in the background and in my mind, but I didn't really feel that justified a tag, sorry! This also came out more melancholy than I expected.

Rebirth on AO3

( Rebirth )

***

meridian_rose

I know I haven't been around much lately. But Easter is nearly here and here are two craft projects I've completed.
One needle felted sheep bauble, one cross-stitch/needlework Easter card
happy

( Read more... )

languagelog_feed

Posted by Mark Liberman

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73177&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=musical-communication

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73177

Watch on YouTube

There are many other episodes, for example Episode 25, featuring the musical genre Ambient Hyper Pop Shark Core Acoustic New Metal among many others:

Watch on YouTube

For some (partial and antique) background on that one, see "Genres" (8/22/2014).

And the latest (four days ago) episode has a focus on cultural attitudes and accents, though no musical references:

https://youtu.be/krbD4G-ZWgw?si=PRI1vbEQ9i0Q50Qm

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73177&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=musical-communication

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73177

languagelog_feed

Posted by Mark Liberman

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73175&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=strategic-authenticity-initiative

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73175

Following up on Tuesday's DP link, today we have Wyatt G. Croog, "Harvard Launches 'Strategic Authenticity Initiative' to Help Students Seems Normal", The Harvard Crimson 4/1/2026:

In an effort to address growing concerns that its students are “deeply unsettling in conversation,” Harvard University announced Monday the launch of the Strategic Authenticity Initiative, a university-wide program designed to help students convincingly simulate being regular people.

The initiative, funded by three grants and one concerned parent, will offer workshops on:

1. Making eye contact without turning it into a networking opportunity

2. Having hobbies that are not a startup

3. Telling a story that does not end up in a LinkedIn article

“Employers told us our students are impressive but vaguely exhausting,” a spokesperson said. “We’re trying to round the edges without compromising the crest.”

Participants will undergo immersive training exercises, including:

1. Attending a party and not mentioning internships or a class

2. Responding “that’s crazy” without pivoting to themselves

3. Asking to get a meal without entering a yearlong diplomatic process

[…]

Meanwhile, Yale University admin dismissed the initiative as “performative,” before hosting a 90-minute discussion on whether authenticity is real.

Readers are invited to add their own examples of similar April Foolish issues. Wikipedia has List of Student Newspapers, but a quick scan of a few of them comes up April Fool-less.

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73175&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=strategic-authenticity-initiative

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73175

andrewducker

1. Consultation on the Proposed Edinburgh Safer Drug Consumption Facility: (tags:Edinburgh drugs Scotland safety )

cosmolinguist

My crash nap yesterday after work meant I was still awake when the Artemis 2 launch window opened. I'd gone to bed but hadn't been able to sleep so figured I'd come back downstairs to watch it with D, but he came up with his laptop so we could watch it in bed on a biggish screen. Which worked out great: it was very fun to watch it snuggled up together.

My Apollo-era space nerdery and his experience with Kerbal Space Program mesh into an excited understanding of, at a generous estimate, half of what is being said on the broadcast. I imagined clutching a phrasebook as we toddle around the land of spaceflight, garishly dressed tourists trying to look in every direction at once in both excitement and confusion. ("PRM" is an acronym I'm used to hearing at work every so often, but in my line of work it doesn't mean perigee raise maneuver!)

An online pal said "I am clearly not the only one looking up 'perigee' on Merriam-Webster's website lol" and shared a screenshot of a list I immediately fell in love with: that dictionary's current top lookups were

Artemis
apogee
perigee
Godspeed
nominal
how
verklempt

It just gets better the more you read -- even the random how in there is somehow part of what makes it so delightful.

myrmidon posting in

fandom_icons

Resident Evil Requiem (2026)
[ leon s. kennedy ]

[ here @

axisandallies ]

shallowness

I succumbed to this. Succumbed? Well, I was a bit of a hold-out, I haven’t read the book it’s based on. I have a somewhat less than straightforward relationship with Austen derivative works, and I say that as someone who’s written fanfic. I might be prejudiced, but I did think the best lines in the first two episodes were lifted from Austen. I also think you’ll get maximum enjoyment from this if you are familiar with P&P and Austen’s oeuvre.

But eh, every episode is half an hour long, and as I found with Cardiac Arrest, a darker comedy drama, that’s refreshing, and makes it easy for episodes to slip down. What follows was watched in one sitting, more or less, which counts as bingeing for me.

1.1

( Read more... )

1.2 and 1.3

I’m grouping these two episodes together, because I can’t remember what happened when.

( Read more... )

Making Mary the endearingly awkward heroine (Ella Bruccoleri’s face shows all the feelings) is working, and the meta is interesting, even if it sometimes rubs against the purist in me. The purist that would probably be fine with modern day AUs. And yes, there’s a part of me that worries that being a purist about Austen makes me a Mary.

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260401.html

What unexpected things do you see when you look up at the night sky? Today’s image resembles an

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260401.html

delphi

Last year, as an interstitial segment on Game Changer, the folks over at Dropout.tv filmed an improv skit called Dimension 20: On a Bus, where the concept was four professional GMs sitting down to play D&D with a GM who had a limited understanding of how the game was played.

Watch on YouTube

It was a funny bit, but I don't think anyone expected the calls for more to actually result in anything. Until now, when for April Fool's Day, Dropout released a full one-hour episode of it. It's only up on their streaming service, but here's the teaser trailer that dropped without warning:

Watch on YouTube

And man, the actual episode did not disappoint. It was a hilarious mess that hit just the right balance of winding up a bunch of professional storytellers, but also letting them do what they best as they tried to salvage things. I laughed to the point of tears, but I also legitimately picked up pointers about character-building and how to move a plot along (to get to LAX to fly out to an M&M wedding in Lisbon when everything keeps blowing up).

olivermoss

* Guild Wars chose today of all days to release a new dungeon. Not Guild Wars 2, the very established MMO that's already been around for so long that a lot of MMO-hungry people refuse to try it for fear of being too behind, GW1 which is solidly in the retro-MMO category at this point.

Took me a minute to release that and other patch notes were not a joke!

GW/GW2 has always gone hard on April Fool's, sometimes releasing actual, real major chunks of content to be silly. A non-silly major update to the original game is pretty meta and silly of them.

* JFC y'all, I bought new eyebrow pencils today and the Benefit's full size eyebrow pencils are the same size and shape as their old travel size ones. I am not kidding. I hadn't bought new ones in a while because I'd bought a pretty nice kit a while back and has been using the travel sized one I'd gotten as a freebie with purchase for a few months.... just finally bought new pencils and they are the size and shape of what I used to get as a freebie with purchase.

Also, no built in brush anymore so I am glad I still have my empty one to use for that.

* Also yesterday I walked from north Vancouver, WA back to Portland because the Lyft prices were nuts for no reason. Weather was fine. Bridge wasn't up. No accidents. So I just walked a few miles. I did take the bus a bit within Portland to cut down on how far I needed to walk, maybe saving 2 miles off of a 6.1 mile trip. Busing the whole way would have taken hours, not sure if there was a problem or if it's always like that. OR and WA transportation authorities no longer coordinate buses and it drives me nuts when people act like taking public transpo between the two cities is no big deal. It is a big deal these days, because the two fucking counties north of us literally fight being accessible to Portlanders. We'd have light rail to them if not for the 'crime train' fear mongering.

It's possible it was Lyft just being cheeky and knowing I was far from home that they decided to slap an extra $60 onto the expected fare because they thought I'd swallow it rather than just walk to Hayden Island. Joke's on them, because I am someone physically capable of doing that and had the schedule flexibility that not everyone does. I wasn't vulnerable enough to have to tank the cost. But hey we have the economic #freedom from the evils of market regulation and privacy at least.

stonepicnicking_okapi

It's National Poetry Month in the US! Huzzah!

Since I often think of Wednesday as book day on this journal, I am going to mention four books I own about writing poetry with a bias toward metered verse, form, things that rhyme, ha, ha, etc.

What books (or other resources) have you found useful in writing and/or understanding poetry? Please drop recs in the comments.

The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics Including Odd and Invented Forms by Lewis Putnam Turco. This is a very useful dictionary for poetic forms. There's also a helpful section which lists poetic types by the number of lines.

Rules of the Dance: a Handbook for writing and reading metric verse by Mary Oliver. Easy to understand book which covers the basic elements of poetry sound, rhyme, meter, and scansion.

How to be a Poet by Jo Bell and Jane Commane. A collection of essays about the practicality of being a poet in today's world, including the importance of reading poetry, understanding the business of it, career paths, dealing with blocks, harsh realities, moving from an amateur to a professional mindset.

52: Write a poem a week. Start now. Keep going. by Jo Bell. A set of weekly prompts for a year with examples. I started two years ago and stopped at 30. I hope to pick it back up one day.

The other book which is very good which I don't own is:

The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms by E. Boland and M. Strand. It goes into more depth about smaller subset of forms: villanelle, pantoum, sonnet, etc.

---

And to start us off how about some Dorothy Parker? I like this part: The sweet transparency of glass /
The tenderness of April grass.

A Fairly Sad Tale By Dorothy Parker

I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire.
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me—I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were—shall we say?—born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song,
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
First came their parents or careers.
But ever does experience
Deny me wisdom, calm, and sense!
Though she's a fool who seeks to capture
The twenty-first fine, careless rapture,
I must go on, till ends my rope,
Who from my birth was cursed with hope.
A heart in half is chaste, archaic;
But mine resembles a mosaic—
The thing's become ridiculous!
Why am I so? Why am I thus?

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Still on the Quest

Home of the endlessly revised words

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Well, that didn't last long

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March Recap & FIC

Cyclic linguistic attractors?

Poet's Corner: excerpt from Tintern Abbey by Wordsworth

Nature diary

Words & Music

Check-In Post - April 2nd 2026

Spring Drabble 02/30: Guardian, Rebirth

Craft project round up

Musical communication

"Strategic Authenticity Initiative"

Interesting Links for 02-04-2026

Space language

Resident Evil Requiem [2026]

The Other Bennet Girl, episodes 1-3

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What's Making Me Happy Today: Dimension 20 on a Bus

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Poetry Month: Books on Wiriting Poetry

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