Tuesday word: Oubliette
Sep. 2nd, 2025 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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1word1dayOubliette (noun)
oubliette [oo-blee-et]
noun
1. a secret dungeon with an opening only in the ceiling, as in certain old castles.
Related Words
torture chamber
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
Origin: 1810–20; < French, Middle French, equivalent to oubli ( er ) to forget, Old French oblider < Vulgar Latin *oblītāre, derivative of Latin oblītus (past participle of oblīvīscī to forget; oblivion ) + Middle French -ette -ette
Example Sentences
He was not in the oubliette for long.
From The Guardian
A Morris oubliette means restraint into perfect immobility.
From New York Times
Let the novel open like an oubliette under your feet.
From New York Times
I let myself have a brief fantasy of Prince Dain’s coronation, of me dancing with a grinning Locke while Cardan is dragged away and thrown in a dark oubliette.
From Literature
Of our prejudices against the Puritans, she writes: “Stigma is a vast oubliette.”
From New York Times
PHYSICS
Sep. 3rd, 2025 02:41 amtygerSo today I finally got my shit together and did the stud finding thing, and I was at the point where I was trying to get the shelf up onto the top of the bookshelves just to check if the places I'd marked would work (ie, not in the middle of the shelf). Aaaaand... it was too heavy for me to manage something that long on my own, so I had to get Mama to help, and... well. ( Physics is hard. )
So that's super annoying and I'm not sure what to do about it.
Other than that... nothing too interesting. Did get those shinies in pokemon, which is good! Haven't fought the new boss yet, but hopefully will be pretty straightforward... And one of the new set of mass outbreaks I've already got the shinies for, so I only need to catch four shinies total this time! :D Also ONE OF THEM IS VULPIX, which is SO EXCITING eeeeee :D :D :D :D :D
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September: Coffee Shops
Sep. 1st, 2025 09:07 pmtrope_mod posting in trope_of_the_monthPosting guidelines are here, and if you have any recs or prompts you'd like to share, you can leave them in the comments using the templates below:
For recs:
For prompts:
This theme will last until 30th September.
Word : Velleity
Sep. 1st, 2025 04:01 pmstonepicnicking_okapi posting in 1word1daynoun
1. a wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action
examples
1. We may well say: I would desire to be young; but we do not say: I desire to be young; seeing that this is not possible; and this motion is called a wishing, or as the Scholastics term it a velleity, which is nothing else but a commencement of willing, not followed out, because the will, by reason of impossibility or extreme difficulty, stops her motion, and ends it in this simple affection of a wish. Treatise on the Love of God, Saint Francis de Sales, 1567-1622
2. Ms. Marcus also errantly dismissed the Constitution’s separation of powers, which entrusts “all legislative powers” to Congress, as a mere velleity that should yield to executive legislation when Congress is divided. "The Separations of Powers is not a Suggestion." The Washington Post, Letters to the Editor, 14 Jan 2022.
origins
early 17th century: from medieval Latin velleitas, from Latin velle ‘to wish’.
Ugh, paperwork.
Sep. 2nd, 2025 01:24 amtygerSooo made the stupid call, have to get info on their special form from ex-work, so who even KNOWS when that'll get back to me. :/ :/ :/ So annoying!
Other than that, nothing amazing today really. I am Officially Late with the pokemon event, too, gotta get those last two shinies before I download the new update whoops >>;;;; Gonna have to focus on that tomorrow, rather than minecraft!
Something something bed now, I feel like there was something else but I forget orz orz orz
Code deploy happening shortly
Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
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dw_maintenancePer the dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.
There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.
Book review: Siblings
Aug. 31st, 2025 01:08 pmrocky41_7 posting in booknookAuthor: Brigitte Reimann
Translator: Lucy Renner Jones
Genre: Fiction, historical fiction
This review will be briefer than I wish, because I’ve got two fingers taped up (injury) and it makes typing a pain. This morning I finished book #12 from the “Women in Translation” rec list, which was Siblings by Brigitte Reimann, translated from German by Lucy Renner Jones.
This book was published in 1963, just two years after the Berlin Wall went up, but takes place in 1960, before the Wall. It’s a book about three siblings, but really it’s a book about Germany’s future. The core of the novel is the relationship between the protagonist, Elisabeth (“Lise”) and her brother, Uli; and their views on the German state.
Lise is an adamant supporter of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; aka communist East Germany) and communism as a whole. She views it as her generation’s chance to right the injustices of a capitalistic world. Uli, on the other hand, while supportive of communism, resents the GDR for what he views as a lack of opportunity and its petty politics. At the start of the novel, Uli has decided to defect to the west, and Lise and her partner Joachim are trying to convince him to stay.
Throughout these efforts, the shadow of their eldest brother Konrad hangs over them—Konrad has already defected, years earlier, and is firmly settled in West Germany, though not without struggle.
This book is very politically philosophical. As mentioned, it’s about Uli and Lise (and Konrad), but it’s really about the future of Germany. Not yet 20 years out from the end of WWII, this is not an easy question (and there is a lot of finger-pointing to go around about who did what for the Nazis while they were in power). The book definitely leans in favor of supporting the GDR. While Uli and Konrad have their gripes about it, these are generally cast, through Lise’s viewpoint, as self-centered, or fig leaves for their real issue, which is that they cannot let go of a capitalist ownership mindset. Even where she acknowledges their complaints as valid—such as Uli’s frustration at the stunted opportunities for anyone who is not a Party member—her attitude is essentially that they need to tough it out for the sake of making the communist experiment work, or that it’s a reasonable trade off to avoid what she sees as the cruelties of capitalist West Germany.
It's the closest I’ve ever come to reading a pro-communism book (even Soviet authors I’ve read have been pretty staunchly against the Party, a la Lydia Chukovskaya’s Sofia Petrovna), which made it interesting in that respect, as well as in how it addresses the ways the split of Germany affected individual Germans and German families.
However, the prose is very “tell not show” and this, combined with the highly philosophical nature of it, kept me at arm’s length from the characters and their lives.
Nevertheless, it’s fascinating from a historical perspective.
Mississippi site block, plus a small restriction on Tennessee new accounts
Aug. 31st, 2025 12:28 pmdenise posting in dw_newsA reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.
The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.
In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.
The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.
Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.
Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.
Prompt table challenge starts today
Sep. 1st, 2025 01:49 amxfirefly9x posting in worderlandsThe challenge is pretty straightforward:
Write stories (or a single story, if you're wanting a bigger challenge) based around each prompt. So long as it's clear the prompt was used, you're good.
There are no particular word count goals or minimums to aim for. Just write what works for you, whether it's a 3-sentence story per prompt, 100-word drabbles, flash fiction, one chapter of a novel per prompt, or something else.
Don't worry if you don't finish all the stories or prompts - you can take on as much as you'd like. And if you're not done by the time the challenge has ended, you can keep going in your own time (and even share your writing on the posts late) if desired.
++
That's about all you need to know, I think? If anyone has questions, just leave a comment.
I'll make weekly check-in posts (8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th), where you can share your writing or progress updates, and a wrap-up post on the 30th. For this week, feel free to share writing or progress updates on this post too, if you can't wait for the first check in.
Have fun, and I hope the words flow!
| 001. | Fields of flowers | 002. | A dark hallway | 003. | Around a fire | 004. | Beneath a blue sky | 005. | Liminal spaces |
| 006. | "I'm emotionally invested now." | 007. | "You weren't there." | 008. | "Stop being so cute." | 009. | "I don't know if I love you or hate you." | 010. | "Can we try again?" |
| 011. | Believing something strange | 012. | Hoping something works out | 013. | Packing something in a box | 014. | Setting something on fire | 015. | Leaving something unsaid |
| 016. | Blessed with this curse my whole life - Paradise Lost, The Used | 017. | Now it's not too late to change everything you wanna change - Better Days, Yellowcard | 018. | If I'm not broken like I used to be, will you still find me interesting? - Oh No!, All Time Low | 019. | I check the doors, check the windows, and pull the blinds - The Contract, Twenty One Pilots | 020. | Memories, they fill the wall, like paint and nails and frames that fall - Sleeping With The Lights On, Daniel Seavey |
| 021. | Light sources | 022. | Trickle of water | 023. | Touching grass | 024. | Smoke on the wind | 025. | A presence felt |
| 026. | Glance | 027. | Caress | 028. | Atmosphere | 029. | Scenery | 030. | Consume |
Table code in case anyone wants a copy (please link back to Worderlands):
Blegh
Sep. 1st, 2025 12:58 amtygerI woke up properly - in that I didn't immediately want to go back to sleep - at about 3pm today, heh. So I think I'm more or less better now? But that was a LOT of sleeping orz orz orz. And walking around the block with Mama was. Exhausting. Bleh. Still, at least it was over pretty quickly, honestly! Just annoying while it was happening.
REALLY did not do much else today, though. Played some Minecraft after tea, but that's about it, hahaha. Tomorrow is a weekday though so I'mma have to make another fucking phonecall uuuuuugh, I'm gonna be on hold for like an hour again I just know it. =_= Still, if I call when I wake up, they'll at least _answer the goddamn phone. Eventually.
Anyway still pretty early for me but I'm sleepy already so I'mma bed, yes. >: Sleeeeeeeep.
