So... 'tis finally Thursday.





This must be THE must crazily awaited episode in the history of Supernatural. You can *feel* the anticipation. It's almost sexual. I know my mouth is watering and I have to wait until tomorrow afternoon to watch, but it'll be worth it.

Now, some shelter updates on Orion.
You guys remember Orion, right?
( Well, he's been adopted!!! \O/ )

AND NOW IMMA SHUT THE FUCK UP
( Have some random shelterness. A Mish-mash. )

Ok, so I'm gonna go have some dinner and sleep now. Dream of little winged three-legged grayhounds ;]

Enjoy SPN!!!

*puppylicks*

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )

So just when I thought the Akkadian reading group couldn't get any better, we acquired someone who's actually studied Akkadian. I'm sure she's terribly bored at the pace we're going (I think we read 3 1/2 lines in the hour), but we've agreed to start reading the Standard Babylonian Version together. I'm extremely excited about this, as I keep meaning to do it, but the slowness of using the pdf dictionary fascicles online when I have no Akkadian vocabulary and have to look up every word, kept me from getting past the first 10 lines. But we've agreed to prepare 30 lines and meet next week, and this will get me working on it, and maybe I'll be able to read the thing before I graduate or something.

Also, Sumerian is wacky. I'd be happier if we were more secure in our understanding of the language, but I'm pretty happy studying an agglutinative split-ergative language with 10 cases that marks case on the end of the last noun in the chain. E.g. The king of the land built a temple is king land-genitive-nominative* temple built with a bunch of other crazy morphemes I haven't detailed.

*Nominative is actually called ergative here.

Seriously. king land-genitive-nominative, when it's the king that's nominative!

Also, Mac and I are resuming Old English a week from today, and we're going to read non-Beowulf poems, having finished Beowulf (the second time around for me).

For those who were born during the last years of the Soviet Union, there are few archetypal objects which make their eyes water. With so few products available, every Russian child played with the same kind of doll; every apartment had the same furniture and every person red the same edition of Alexander Dumas novels. Same with cars, milk cartoons, post stamps and more. Some of them were horrible, and some -- ingenious. We took on a task to catalog these forgotten and unheralded objects of Soviet industrial design. Soon, there will be a book, but for now, here is the list of excellent items, MADE IN RUSSIA. 

Red Moscow Parfume 


Soviet Scooter


The Twelve-sided Glass


Morskoi Boi Arcade game




*** THIS POST IS SPONSORED BY RUSSIA! LIMITED EDITIONS ***

SEVERAL A/P PRINTS LEFT OF THE CITY OF WORDS LIMITED EDITION PRINT.
THE MAP OF ST. PETERSBURG, MADE OF QUOTES ABOUT THE CITY.
THIS PRINT IS PART OF THE RUSSIAN DESIGN MUSEUM COLLECTION.
$35 INCLUDING SHIPPING IN THE US


 

In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases.

Super-tweak for Yandex search

Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here.

Postcards from the edge

Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time.

Conquer Writer's Block

Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day:

If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?

1. I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment.
2. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me.
3. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
4. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ...
5. Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
6. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok.
7. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done.
8. I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
9. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't...
10. Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.

For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this!

Spotlight community of the week

We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern.


halloween_fan

Photos of the week

We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful!

shutter	pancetta	ilya_gorokhov

Curtains

Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week.