pegkerr: (Default)
[personal profile] pegkerr
Eric and took a one-day road trip to New Ulm this past weekend, a little Year of Adventure event. We ate lunch at a friendly bistro, Lola's and then spent an absorbing hour touring the childhood home of Wanda Gág, the owner of Millions of Cats. The two docents seemed absolutely delighted to have visitors and almost talked our ears off about the Gág family.

There were a couple of other stops, to poke around an antique store or two, and to take pictures at the statue of Hermann the Cheruscan ("Hermann the German"), the statue of Wanda Gág in front of the public library, and the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame. A very pleasant getaway.

Image Description: A Victorian Queen Anne home, overlaid with a black and white picture of a young woman holding an easel and paintbrush. Left: A guitar in the shape of the Prince Love symbol, made of musical instruments (the instrument's neck is a keyboard). Right: an iron lamppost. Center: the statue of Herman the German, sword raised, overlaid with a statue of Wanda Gág reading to a cat. Right corner: a black cat with an arched back. Upper right: logo for Lola Bistro.

New Ulm

35 New Ulm

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hamsterwoman: (Temeraire -- fourth best coat)
[personal profile] hamsterwoman
There are too many moving parts in RL to write up at the moment (I need to write about my post-Covid weekend, the new air fryer, L's car shopping in progress, and the Return to Office extravaganza), but I haven't had a chance to write up any of that yet. So instead you get Taskmaster NZ and the first of the Worldcon days that was getting too long for LJ so I ended up breaking it up into two.

*

TMNZ s6e05 -- this was a less fun episode for me: I thought the tasks were not all that interesting, nobody did anything I really loved, and Jeremy's scoring continued to annoy me with nothing to distract me from it really. I mean, it was still a baseline level of fun, but was the episode this season I enjoyed the least so far. Spoilers from here )

TMNZ s6e06 -- I'm digging Pax's jacket, which is like the upholstery of your grandma's armchair, and also Bree's crossed swords necklace. And Jackie's wig du jour. Spoilers )

*

Continuing on with the Worldcon account:

Friday, Aug 15: panels )

By this point it was 8:30 p.m. and time to head over to the Terra Ignota fan fathering, but I'll leave that for the next post (right now I'm thinking that + the Saturday panels could be one post, and the Hugo Awards and my thoughts on the stats a different one, but we'll see; maybe Sunday will fit in there also...)

A couple of photos -- mostly just Hugo bases this time )

The Constraints of Leadership

Sep. 2nd, 2025 10:45 am
pennswoods: (Default)
[personal profile] pennswoods
The organization I am president of just had its first monthly board meeting of the new academic year this morning. It was good seeing everyone again. Lots of decisions to be made and plans for next steps including our spring elections. I am not planning to run as president again, unless no one steps into the role. I intended to be vice president so I could offer continuity and support to our new president.

Anyway, one of the non perks of being a president is being responsible for more than the average member and also having my choices reflect the valuations of the organization and not just my own. This is about Israel. 

In the spring, we had a long discussion and voted that the board would need to approve the organization partnering with entities that did or did not meet the organization's values. By democratic vote, it was decided that individual members could affiliate or partner with whomever they want but if they were doing it on behalf of the organization or as a representative of the organization, then this would need to be agreed to by the board. Such a situation has come up. There is a sort of European grant application going in that requires inclusion of a network. Last fall, I joined the network and listed my affiliation as UNICollaboration based in Belgium. The application did not get funded but it being resubmitted. 

The challenge is that the grant application is being headed by two colleagues, one from a Spanish university, and one from an Israeli university. The board voted that I could not join the network as a representative of UNICollaboration because the Israeli university is one that is not aligned with our organization's values. In other words, I can join the network but I will need to list my US university as my affiliation. I am not sure if I can be a member with a non-European (or European adjacent) affiliation. 

I now obviously have to tell my two colleagues this, both of whom are members of the organization I am president of. I don't feel good about this and I am not looking forward letting these colleagues down and also probably alienating the Israeli colleague from the organization. My friendship with the Spanish colleague has already been tested by other decisions made by the majority vote of the leadership of this organization and I think he will be leaving this organization and no longer supporting it, even though he was its founding president.

I am writing this to process. I feel icky and spineless and also sad. Like I said, this does not reflect my all of my values. I guess it reflects some of my values. Unlike the asshole in the White House, I am not an autocrat and I do believe in the democratic values of the organization I am a part of. I'm not interested in throwing down and doing what I want and waiting for a court order or something to force me to stop (like being voted out for violating the statutes). So I am in fact acting within some of my values. 


Code deploy happening shortly

Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Per the [site community profile] 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.

denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

A 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.

pegkerr: (Loving books)
[personal profile] pegkerr
I was invited to do a reading at DreamHaven Books on August 20. As I joked to the audience, a reading can be a stressful thing, rather like a planned party. You worry that no one will show up and there will not be enough food.

But it was a nice little turnout, slightly under twenty people, which is rather good for one of these events. I read from my book in (slow) progress, the sequel to Emerald House Rising (working title The Sapphire Heir). Everyone paid polite attention while I read for close to an hour and laughed in the right places.

It is a little strange, because I cannot tell them when the book will come out, or even when it might be finished.

I have a small number of fans, but fortunately, they are supportive.

And very, very patient.

Thanks to DreamHaven Books and the Speculations Reading series.

Photo credit John Walsh.

Image description: Top: the entrance to a bookstore (DreamHaven Books) overlaid with text: Speculations Reading: Peg Kerr. Center: A woman (Peg) sits at a table, looking down at a tablet. Bottom: a small audience sits in three rows of chairs.

Reading

34 Reading

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indybaggins: (Cabin Pressure polar bears)
[personal profile] indybaggins
My fic is now completed!

I've had so much fun writing this epic rollercoaster of a story.

I wanted to tell a story about queerness, what it means to be queer in a world that feels like it isn’t meant for you, and what happens when you do find your people and your family – even (or maybe especially) when they were there all along.

About what it’s like when you allow yourself to exist openly, as vulnerable and scary as that might be. And then the happiness of it, the sheer daring thrill of coming out and being who you are!

It’s a very Cabin Pressure sort of thing, actually.

So if you are a fan of found family, if you want to see a happy ending completely different from Zurich, if you want to talk about queerness within Cabin Pressure... Come and have a read. <3



Title: The Pink Pound
Pairing: Martin Crieff/Douglas Richardson
Tags: Crack Treated Seriously, Angst, Coming Out, Same-Sex Marriage, Faking/Pretend Relationship, Fake Marriage, Pilots, Flying, Money, Friendship/Love, Drag Queens, Makeup, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Singing, Accidental Drug Use, Marriage Proposal, Wedding Rings, Gay Bar, Self-Discovery, Travel, Sharing a Bed, Late Night Conversations, Sexuality, Sauna, Laughter During Sex, Gay Sex, Endearments, Sleeping Together, Queer Culture, LGBTQ Themes, Found Family
Summary: As same-sex marriage is about to become legal, Carolyn takes up the idea to profit from it all and rebrands MJN Air as an LGBTQ airline - inspiring various queer shenanigans and a wedding scheme as only Douglas could imagine. Plus a fair bit of coming out, because well, wanting to pretend to be gay is nothing like the real thing right, or is it?

denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

I'll start with the tl;dr summary to make sure everyone sees it and then explain further: As of September 1, we will temporarily be forced to block access to Dreamwidth from all IP addresses that geolocate to Mississippi for legal reasons. This block will need to continue until we either win the legal case entirely, or the district court issues another injunction preventing Mississippi from enforcing their social media age verification and parental consent law against us.

Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry. We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Netchoice have been fighting for you had a temporary setback last week. We genuinely and honestly believe that we're going to win it in the end, but the Fifth Circuit appellate court said that the district judge was wrong to issue the preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the state from enforcing the law requiring any social media website (which is very broadly defined, and which we definitely qualify as) to deanonymize and age-verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.

Netchoice took that appellate ruling up to the Supreme Court, who declined to overrule the Fifth Circuit with no explanation -- except for Justice Kavanaugh agreeing that we are likely to win the fight in the end, but saying that it's no big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime.

Needless to say, it's a big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime. The Mississippi law is a breathtaking state overreach: it forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses Dreamwidth from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents, to save that highly personal and sensitive information, and then to obtain a permission slip from those users' parents to allow them to finish creating an account. It also forces us to change our moderation policies and stop anyone under 18 from accessing a wide variety of legal and beneficial speech because the state of Mississippi doesn't like it -- which, given the way Dreamwidth works, would mean blocking people from talking about those things at all. (And if you think you know exactly what kind of content the state of Mississippi doesn't like, you're absolutely right.)

Needless to say, we don't want to do that, either. Even if we wanted to, though, we can't: the resources it would take for us to build the systems that would let us do it are well beyond our capacity. You can read the sworn declaration I provided to the court for some examples of how unworkable these requirements are in practice. (That isn't even everything! The lawyers gave me a page limit!)

Unfortunately, the penalties for failing to comply with the Mississippi law are incredibly steep: fines of $10,000 per user from Mississippi who we don't have identity documents verifying age for, per incident -- which means every time someone from Mississippi loaded Dreamwidth, we'd potentially owe Mississippi $10,000. Even a single $10,000 fine would be rough for us, but the per-user, per-incident nature of the actual fine structure is an existential threat. And because we're part of the organization suing Mississippi over it, and were explicitly named in the now-overturned preliminary injunction, we think the risk of the state deciding to engage in retaliatory prosecution while the full legal challenge continues to work its way through the courts is a lot higher than we're comfortable with. Mississippi has been itching to issue those fines for a while, and while normally we wouldn't worry much because we're a small and obscure site, the fact that we've been yelling at them in court about the law being unconstitutional means the chance of them lumping us in with the big social media giants and trying to fine us is just too high for us to want to risk it. (The excellent lawyers we've been working with are Netchoice's lawyers, not ours!)

All of this means we've made the extremely painful decision that our only possible option for the time being is to block Mississippi IP addresses from accessing Dreamwidth, until we win the case. (And I repeat: I am absolutely incredibly confident we'll win the case. And apparently Justice Kavanaugh agrees!) I repeat: I am so, so sorry. This is the last thing we wanted to do, and I've been fighting my ass off for the last three years to prevent it. But, as everyone who follows the legal system knows, the Fifth Circuit is gonna do what it's gonna do, whether or not what they want to do has any relationship to the actual law.

We don't collect geolocation information ourselves, and we have no idea which of our users are residents of Mississippi. (We also don't want to know that, unless you choose to tell us.) Because of that, and because access to highly accurate geolocation databases is extremely expensive, our only option is to use our network provider's geolocation-based blocking to prevent connections from IP addresses they identify as being from Mississippi from even reaching Dreamwidth in the first place. I have no idea how accurate their geolocation is, and it's possible that some people not in Mississippi might also be affected by this block. (The inaccuracy of geolocation is only, like, the 27th most important reason on the list of "why this law is practically impossible for any site to comply with, much less a tiny site like us".)

If your IP address is identified as coming from Mississippi, beginning on September 1, you'll see a shorter, simpler version of this message and be unable to proceed to the site itself. If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would.

On a completely unrelated note while I have you all here, have I mentioned lately that I really like ProtonVPN's service, privacy practices, and pricing? They also have a free tier available that, although limited to one device, has no ads or data caps and doesn't log your activity, unlike most of the free VPN services out there. VPNs are an excellent privacy and security tool that every user of the internet should be familiar with! We aren't affiliated with Proton and we don't get any kickbacks if you sign up with them, but I'm a satisfied customer and I wanted to take this chance to let you know that.

Again, we're so incredibly sorry to have to make this announcement, and I personally promise you that I will continue to fight this law, and all of the others like it that various states are passing, with every inch of the New Jersey-bred stubborn fightiness you've come to know and love over the last 16 years. The instant we think it's less legally risky for us to allow connections from Mississippi IP addresses, we'll undo the block and let you know.

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marsdaydream: (Default)
marsdaydream

January 2019

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