delibby

 If finances are preventing you from attending Escapade this weekend, have I got great news for you! We have a scholarship fund. If you would like to nominate yourself or a friend, please go to: https://escapadecon.net/scholarship/

The bill passed the Commons 314-291 and now goes to the Lords, and I don't have a clue what happens there.

The bill is fairly simple in operation. If you have a terminal condition and six months to live, you have the right to end your life. Two doctors go before a three-person panel who must approve your application, and that seems to about it. The original legislation had the two doctors going before a judge, fears of further clogging up the judiciary had them change it to the panel. No information on how the panel is constituted.

Canada, Spain, New Zealand, most of Australia, and clinics in Switzerland support assisted dying, along with the USA states Oregon, Washington, and California.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/20/uk/uk-assisted-dying-commons-vote-gbr-intl

https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/20/1354239/lawmakers-in-britain-narrowly-approve-bill-to-legalize-assisted-dying

do so many creators not understand that Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings and No Archive Warnings Apply are inherently contradictory?

If a creator tags No Archive Warnings Apply, they are stating that their fic does not contain
Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, or Underage Sex. Those are the archive warnings, they're all listed right in the same place when a creator is posting a work.

If they tag Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, they are saying that they will not provide spoilers for their fic, so in fact the work MAY contain Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, or Underage Sex. Or it may NOT. It's a tag that says Reader/viewer, indulge at your own risk.

If a Creator is saying that no archive warnings apply, then there's no reason to say they're choosing not to warn! They are indeed CHOOSING TO WARN!

*sigh* IDK, I guess they've not been in any kind of discussion on the meanings of the tags, and so are uncertain and so over compensate? So far whenever I'd read something with both tags, it always seems like No Archive Warnings Apply is the correct one.

This is one of those things that with the sheer volume of creators loading works to AO3, it's always gonna be an issue. It just continues to weird me sometimes when I'm snoozing in bed and looking for something good to read to delay getting up. Why creators why?

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Escapade is near! Vid Show submission deadline is Saturday, June 21, 2025 at 11:59 PM PST!  If you have a vid you think would be perfect for the vid show, send it to us now!

I actually went looking for The Lurch, as I'd seen it mentioned in a Facebook reel. If you have an affection for The Addams Family TV series, go check it out, but too grainy and not really amusing enough to me for a post.

YouTube offered, because of course it does, a car ad featuring Mark Strong, so I thought, okay. But it's more than Mark Strong! And now I want an AU where Loki tries to take over the Earth again, with Trevor from Shang-Chi as his hapless adviser and Strong's villain from Shazam was his co-villain? Or competitor?

(Actually I went first to Loki having survived death at Thanos' hands, because of course he does, and being found by Trevor and the two of them survive the snap and start a two man traveling company entertaining all the devastated people. And maybe help heal Strong's villain after the end of Shazam. But that seemed sorta sad and contrary to the spirit of the ad.)

 
Hooray! I saw this in time for people to get in on the deal.

"On Friday, June 20, 2025, get a curated offering of free romance books at your preferred ebook retailer, no strings attached. This is just a helpful collection of free-for-a-limited-time romance ebooks!"

https://www.romancebookworms.com/

Feel free to share this wherever.

 

Scammers have found an interesting trick via Google ads, and thus far it only seems to work with them, no other online ad company. They buy an ad, for example, for Microsoft.com, that says 'Call us toll free at 805-xxx-xxxx' and it pops up as a banner at the top of the page!

So you're browsing for whatever, and this page pops up and the URL looks completely legit, and there's a phone number just below the top of the page, do you trust it?

Well, looks like these days you shouldn't.

Might want to spread the word, and article, to your more gullible friends and older relations.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/06/tech-support-scammers-inject-malicious-phone-numbers-into-big-name-websites/

The European Union, on top of France's recruiting efforts, is investing €500 million to lure displaced/disaffected American scientists to the other side of the pond. France has a head-start, having begun their program pretty much as soon as the Ketamine Kid and his goon squad started axing programs. The EU amount is about $570m USD, I'm not sure how many jobs that represents. What they need to do is relax visa restrictions to allow people to move without having direct job sponsorship: give them longer to find employment if they can't fall in directly to their recruitment program.

This paragraph makes me wonder if this program replaces the French program:
"The plan, originally proposed by the French government, also proposes creating long-term “super grants” for outstanding researchers, to provide them with financial stability; these would last for seven years. The program also plans to double the amount of financial support available this year for those who decide to move to the European Union."

I'm not really clear on the matter. But since they're not likely to be looking for telescope operators, we're not likely to fall into this program.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/05/europe-launches-program-to-lure-scientists-away-from-the-us/


Japan's program is throwing a cool ¥100 billion ($693 million) into the program. Meanwhile, Great Britain is throwing a whopping £50 million ($67 million) to attract top talent!

I can see Japan increasing their spend as they have a serious population problem: a shortage of young families with children. By bringing in more scientists, they may well give extra priority to those that might shore up that base, giving long-term benefit to the country.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/16/japan_has_a_yen_for/

That's $450.00, as in I can pull that out of an ATM pretty much any time. Not $450 million. A little under five hundred bucks, and they lost their lock on their second largest market.

The Slashdot summary says it best:
"Pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk forfeited patent protection for semaglutide -- the active ingredient in blockbuster diabetes and weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy -- in Canada after failing to pay a $450 maintenance fee in 2019. The company had paid maintenance fees through 2018 but requested a refund for the 2017 fee, apparently seeking more time to decide whether to continue protecting the patent.

When the 2019 fee came due at $450 with late penalties, Novo never paid despite having a one-year grace period. Canadian patent authorities confirmed the patent "cannot be revived" once lapsed. The oversight is particularly costly given Canada represents the world's second-largest semaglutide market, worth billions annually. Generic drugmaker Sandoz plans to launch a competing version in early 2026, while Novo's U.S. patent protection extends until at least 2032.

WOW. That's certainly going to tarnish some board member's CV. But it's going to make a bunch of Canadian's a lot thinner!

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/novo-nordisk-s-canadian-mistake

https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/16/1438211/novo-nordisk-loses-canadian-patent-protection-for-blockbuster-diabetes-drug-over-unpaid-450-fee

My sister, her kids, and I attended the No Kings rally yesterday. Her oldest squiggled thru the crowd to get a space where he could hear the speakers, he said they were really good. The rest of us drifted in the less dense part of the crowd. The speakers sounded like the adults in a Charlie Brown special but we were able to join in the chants, which felt energizing.

This was the third for sis and I, first for the kids. Previous two, there had only been 3-4 cops mounted on horseback and staying off to the side. This time 4 cops were positioned near where a lot of people were walking up and seemed to be hassling people carrying flag poles. I did see flag poles in the crowd, so not sure if they were stopping anyone or just warning them to be careful.

No violence. Lots of great signs. Never saw so many icky pictures of the orange felon, that man is not attractive, in appearance or character. This crowd was more age diverse. Previous were mainly 40s up, I would say. More in their 20s and 30s this time. A few with toddlers or dogs.

I was very glad to have gone. Pleased to have my sister as a constant companion. I highly recommend attending one if you can. It feels good, in this stressful time, to be around so many others sharing the same concerns. I’m seeing over 12 million estimated for the crowd size across the country, which is fabulous, but I’m sure there will be more. It’ll take time to restore decency and a commitment to democracy to our government.

I was visiting with friends this weekend and it came up that Air New Zealand had done a LOTR inspired safety video. So I had to look for it and thought I'd share.

Though actually this one must have done after The Hobbit trilogy as Sylvester McCoy! But also Elijah Wood!



Also found this older one. Fun, with a Peter Jackson cameo, and others that I thought maybe I was supposed to recognize but didn't.



Not sure I did find the one my friend meant, but these were worth watching. YouTube is pretty amazing for all the random silly fandom vids on it.

Brian was the last of the three Wilson brothers, Brian played bass, Carl lead guitar and Dennis drums. The other two members of the Beach Boys, Mike Love - a cousin - and Al Jardine, are still alive.

Brian has been in a medical conservatorship for the last year. Trouble with alcohol and drugs probably accelerated things. He met his last wife at a car dealership where she was working, which began a chapter where it was found that Wilson's psychiatrist was exploiting him and his finances, eventually resulting in a restraining order. When his wife died, Wilson entered into a decline, finally culminating in the conservatorship.

There's so much that can be said about The Beach Boys and their influence on music and various groups and musicians, and their being a core for surf/beach music in the '60s. I spent a few hours tonight revising a bunch of my Beach Boys music for my band in Lord of the Rings Online and adding some more songs to my catalog, I think I'll be performing them tomorrow night in an impromptu concert as I need to do some testing on my band as I've been having some system problems.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/brian-wilson-beach-boys-dead-1234810073/

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/brian-wilson-beach-boys-visionary-165711806.html