Reading

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links,
science

Family resemblances are complicated

via

oursin, something I found interesting: We still don't understand family resemblance, and some of what we thought we knew is mistaken, or might be.

This article describes research that used data from almost a million people: every Norwegian student who took a standardized test from 2007-2019.

Quoting the article: "The resemblance of twins cannot be reconciled with any model....The resemblance of adoptees cannot be reconciled with any model."

Adjusting a model to account better for twins makes it a poorer match of adoptive relationships, and vice versa. Any attempt to account for one of these moves the model away adopted siblings makes it fit twins less well, and vice versa.
( cut for length )

Entry tags:

london

we will be visiting London

Cattitude, Adrian, and I are going to be in London for a week, starting Monday July 14th. This trip is partly so my brother and I can sort out my mother's things, including photos and papers, but we should have some free time to see people and/or do tourist things.

We'd like to get together with people. I realize this is somewhat last-minute as well as vague, since we don't know how much time we'll have available.

I have visited London several times, but that trip to see my mother in April was Adrian's first visit to England; Cattitude was three with me for a week in 2001.

We mask indoors, but it's July, so we're hoping for restaurants with outdoor seating.

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Burlesque Picture of the Day, 2025-07-11: sASSy Hotbuns!

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Current Mood: busy

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Extinct Birds

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Burlesque Picture of the Day, 2025-07-10: Miss Mae Western!

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farmers market

I went to the Brookline (Coolidge Corner) farmers market this afternoon. I bought the two things I was specifically looking for--lamb merguez sausages, from Stillman's, and raspberries. When I was buying the sausages, I told the vendor that I'd asked for this kind of sausage a couple of weeks ago, at a different farmers market, and thanked him (them) for making that specific flavor of sausage.

One small box of raspberries, because we've had bad luck this summer with over-buying berries, and not eating all of them before them spoiled. I also bought two small cucumbers, and a baguette, even though it's not good baguette weather, because we like Clear Flour bakery's "ancienne" baguettes.

I stopped at Burdick's and got a cup of dark hot chocolate to take out, because it's unseasonably cool and felt like good weather for sitting outside with a hot drink. I didn't buy anything else there, because the chocolate-covered citrus has suffered from shrinkflation: Burdicks is charging almost twice as much as they did a few years ago, for about half as much candy.

The Dean Road station on green line C station isn't far, but it's enough of a hill to be good exercise: I walk quickly on my way to the T unless I make an effort not to, and then the walk back is uphill all the way.

I realized, after posting this but before dinner, that I overdid things and was out of executive function.

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Burlesque Picture of the Day, 2025-07-09: ElectriKat!

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Current Mood: angry

Entry tags:

communication

Activism

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cooking,
food

Dal

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new horizons in stupid error messages

I talked to someone at Amalgamated Bank this morning, who told me what I would need to do to take my mother's name off a joint account, then suggested that I set up online banking and then transfer the money to my account at another bank. Setting up online banking on their website was straightforward, and then it popped up a verification step involving sending a text to a cell phone associated with the account. Entirely reasonable, but my phone number isn't on the account.

I called back, and talked to another helpful person. She told me how to add the number: send her an email with "attn: Cheryl" as the subject line, giving them my current phone number and attaching a copy of my ID. I did that, and got an "undeliverable" message from Postmaster@[bank], saying I wasn't authorized to relay messages through the server. So I called back, again, and spoke to someone who told me that oh, yes, it does that, but it does deliver the messages. I got her to check, and they had received my email, but Why?

This still feels like significantly less hassle than sending them a copy of my ID, and an original death certificate. That has to be done by paper mail, not email, because they want an "original" death certificate, which she promised they'd return. (At the moment, those originals are in either New Orleans or London, I'm in Boston, and my brother is on vacation in Ireland.)

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Next Chancellor of the University of Cambridge

It's time to vote for the next Chancellor (previously); I've looked at the candidates and their statements, but still don't have an obvious-to-me choice of who to vote for.

When I asked on mastodon, I got two responses (one for Sandi Toksvig, one for her or Gina Miller); FB has shown me one friend saying that Chris Smith is "a nice bloke, but also the only candidate worth of the role"; and I've been sent this from someone who evidently doesn't share my general political view (though I'm inclined to agree that being the author of tuition fees probably rules John Browne out).

I can see why people might think Wyn Evans is a good option, but his proposals seem to me more the sort of thing you'd expect the vice-chancellor to do, rather than the chancellor who is not really involved in the running of the university directly.

I'm currently inclined to put Sandi Toksvig first; I'm sure she'd be great at the schmoozing-major-donors thing, but also at engaging with staff & students and advocating for the University.

I'm planning to vote in person on Saturday...

[this post is public, I am screening comments by anyone not already on my DW access list, will unscreen if I think they're making a useful contribution]

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Burlesque Picture of the Day, 2025-07-08: Midnite Martini!

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Burlesque Picture of the Day, 2025-07-07: Chairmyn Meow!

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Current Mood: tired

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got arrested for inciting a peaceful riot

I am so tired of working on this house.

Upper half the back yard is approximately - well it's definitely not level, but it's not a hill any more so I'm calling it good enough. The Big Pit of Rocks is functioning perfectly in that the yard no longer floods whenever we get a rainstorm. At some point I will clean it up and make it look pretty, but that day is not today. Probably won't be tomorrow either.

This past weekend we picked one of the basement rooms as our starting point and spent about an hour clearing out the contractor trash and then scrubbing the shit out of the walls and floors. We also went to the hardware store and picked up paint and supplies and that was enough for my foot to say fuck you, you are done for the day. It's been hard to get a lot of work done just because it is so hot and humid, even in the basement.

***

Foot is still a problem. I hate this so much. I am spending a fortune on cabs and delivery because walking hurts. It's been a month, c'mon man, chop-chop, ándale, let's get healthy already. For fuck sake. Although I guess it could be argued that hauling around heavy buckets full of clay, rocks, and now paint probably isn't helping matters much.

I also have gotten a bunch of reminders this week that all my other doctors want to have a crack at me because I guess it's been a year since the last round. Sorry folks, cat takes priority. Once he has his checkup out of the way I'll find time for the rest of you.

The problem is that I can't take time off work for any of this stuff right now, because there are THREE, yes THREE major projects going on right now. At the height of vacation season so half the people who need to do things are off work. Who the fuck makes these decisions?

***

A couple of days ago I opened the back door and startled a wild rabbit. It took off into the treeline. This morning I looked out the back window and the biggest coyote I have ever seen was sniffing around the yard.

These incidents may be related.

Guess I'll see how well the vegetable plot survives the attentions of the locals. Daughter brought over all her seeds and just slapped them all into the ground and I have no idea what's even down there. Here's to Salad Surprise in a month or two.

Current Mood: busy

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biology

Bee Food Flowers

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Oooh, a new (to me) scam email

This one invites me to join in a contract selling computers etc to Dubai. I was going to file it in the 'wrong Ian' folder when I look a bit further and see what the carrot they're dangling in front of me is:

Total Approved Over-Invoiced Amount: €24,923,362.00
Estimated Cost to Supply: €4,923,362.00.
Estimated Profit: €20,000,000.00

... with that profit split three ways.

I'm wondering if the invoice amount, exactly 20 million more than the supply cost, is a way to screen for gullible people. If it had been

Total Approved Over-Invoiced Amount: €25,000,000
Estimated Cost to Supply: €21,923,362
Estimated Profit: €3,076,638

... it'd still have been worthwhile joining in (a million Euro each!) and a lot more realistic.

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Burlesque Picture of the Day, 2025-07-06: Hot Pink Feathers!

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Current Mood: busy

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geology

Geology

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Dreams of Dead Stars, Part III, ch. 8: Intermission, Interrupted

And back! Will be out of town next weekend, so next chapter will go up Sunday, July 20th--unless my travel plans get catastrophically interrupted...

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Current Mood: busy

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archaeology

Early Humans

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