ICYMI: Poll ongoing [healthcare/med]
In case you missed it: I have a poll up about experiences with medical care. If you haven't participated, please do: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1902641.html comments
Sibylla Bostoniensis
Sibylla Bostoniensis - Dreamwidth Studios
Latest posts
On Cicero's De Officiis [ethics/phil, hist]
The algorithm brought this to my attention, and I thought it was very good and learned things. We are clearly not its intended audience. Just because it's a capitalist lecturing other capitalists on morality doesn't mean it's wrong. If anything, I think it makes this all the more fascinating. 2026 Aug 7: The Timeless Investor [on YT]: " The 2,000-Year-Old Ethics Test That Most Modern CEOs Fail "…
This is only in mice, but [covid, sci/bio/med]
2026 Aug 6: npj Vaccines [peer-reviewed scientific journal]: " A single-dose amber codon carrying live attenuated vaccine elicits pan-sarbecovirus immunity and blocks SARS-CoV-2 transmission " by Nigeer Te, Jiangchuan Li, Alex Wing Hong Chin, et al. Comes with this banner: We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the…
Poll: Unaddressed disease burden [healthcare/med]
This is a poll about experiences with health care and receiving medical treatment. Perhaps entirely unlike any poll or discussion you have encountered before, this poll does NOT concern access to healthcare. These questions are about the outcomes of the care you did have access to. Medical problems not presented to medical professionals for diagnosis and treatment are not to be included in your…
Air quality predictions [meteo]
Here at Casa Sibyllea, we're using a few online tools to navigate The Smog. Most useful so far has been https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current which is an animated map of the continent that shows an hourly prediction of where the smoke will actually be when for the next day or two. We've been using this to time when to open up the windows to get fresh air. This has the advantage of not being…
Cyclosporiasis: potential source allegedly identified [pest, cur ev]
This is a rumor, but a pretty good one run in the Washington Post: 2026 Jul 16 5:06 pm EDT: WaPo: " Lettuce supplier identified as potential source of cyclosporiasis outbreak ": The CDC has linked the Taylor Farms produce supplied to Taco Bell to the outbreak of the parasitic illness, according to two persons familiar with the investigation. Investigators have identified shredded iceberg lettuce…
Severe weather alert: Northern New England, Southern Quebec: July 14 [meteo]
Meteorology Youtuber Ryan Hall Yall has just issued a severe weather warning alert that is not at all reflected in the weather forecasts from either NOAA or the textual forecast from the Canadian government, but which does match what is in Weather.com's forecast for southern Quebec and does match the thunderstorm outlook map at weather.qc.ca: severe, high-winds storms, possible golf-ball size…
It Flows Downhill [pestilence, p/a/s, Patreon]
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1901776.html [Previously: ALERT: Cyclosporiasis Outbreak Nationwide ] There's a subtle fault I've noticed about how a lot of people are thinking about Cyclospora, the organism causing the outbreak of cyclosporiasis. People, such as over on Reddit, keep talking about Cyclospora as something that is found in soil . Which is true – but how do you think…
ALERT: Cyclosporiasis outbreak nationwide [pestilence, US, Patreon]
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1901288.html Heads up, Americans! Ever wonder why human feces are not used as fertilizer in agriculture? You're about to find out! ALERT: Stop eating raw leafy greens, herbs, berries, snow peas, and scallions. Maybe other produce. Adequately cooked is fine. More details below. The Situation: a Nationwide Outbreak of Cyclosporiasis The US is having a…
PS [me, health]
The CT scan found my body has "small accessory spleens", which, speaking as a medievalist: oh of course my body turns out to have little ADUs for melancholia. My SCA persona is nodding along – least surprising medical finding ever. (Apparently this is not all that uncommon, and mostly clinically irrelevant. I'm entirely bemused.) comments
Update (aten't dead) [me, health]
So, unfortunately, it dawned on me only about ten hours after getting home from the ED (i.e. after I had slept) that the condition my symptoms most match is a thoracic aortic aneurysm, and in the ED I had been asked none of the relevant diagnostic or risk questions for TAA, nor did I, having not had that realization yet, ask them if the tests they had done were indicative of the state of my upper…
Update [me, health]
Early Monday morning I went to the emergency department with mild but inexplicable and persistent chest pain and shortness of breath to find out if I was having a heart attack. Apparently not. I made a point of not going to the closest hospital, but to one I knew from my own patients' experiences takes women's risk of heart attack seriously. I showed up at about 6:30 am and there wasn't a single…
The Artisans and the Engineers [hist, eng, text, anthro]
(h/t conuly ) This longform article is framed as being a "ha ha isn't it wacky NASA hired a lingerie company for the Apollo missions". Ignore that. It turns out to be about an organizational culture clash around documentation and specification requirements that will speak to all the therapists and software developers in the room. Also of interest to fans of the US space program, the history of…
The other, OTHER mental health problem with generative AI [ai, tech]
This is legitimately one of the most alarming things I've heard about AI. I can see no lie. 2026 Apr 6: Alberta Tech [YT]: " Vibe Coding is Gambling " [56 seconds]: comments
🔺 [music]
Polka-dotted extraterrestrials with prehensile toes and monster groove have come to save humankind with virtuoso looped microtonal rock in compound time signatures. Look, based on that description, I wouldn't have given this the time of day myself either, but there's a reason these maniacs have become an absolute phenomenon. Gentle readers, Angine de Poitrine. Absolutely read the comments. As much…
Syncopated tritone hockets for everybody! [early music, MA]
Boston locals! Blue Heron, an acapella early music ensemble, is throwing a three-day shindig to celebrate Guillaume de Machaut (died 1377), May 1-3, mostly involving talks about Machaut's works, talks about his lyrics, talks about the illuminations in the manuscripts his works come from, concerts of his music, and also a little ars subtilior tacked on the end just because. More info…
Foxfibre [text/ag]
The YouTube algorithm pseudorandomly served me this, thereby answering the question I'd had on a distant back burner forever, "Hey, didn't I hear something about colored cotton cultivars once upon a time? Cotton that you didn't need to dye? Like back in the 90s?" If you are a fellow fiber freak or interested in agriculture or organic crops or the underappreciated problem of sustainable clothing…
"Dum superbit impius" [music, pols]
[requires both audio and video] Jonasquin on YT ( previously ) has written a wholly original motet in the 16th century style after Desprez upon the cantus firmus "Seven Nations Army", for the words of Psalm 10, verses 2, 3, 7-11. Comment would be superfluous. 2026 Mar 20: Jonasquin YT: " A 16th century motet for the US President " Click through to the video on YT to see the translation in the…
The cost of literacy [medieval hist]
I knew that other contemporaneous cultures than those of Europe had unfathomably higher numbers of books than Europeans did, but I didn't know about this in retrospect obvious reason why: 2026 Mar 19: Dwarkesh Patel feat. Ada Palmer [DwarkeshPatel YT]: " Why Medieval Books Cost as Much as a House " (1 min, 7 sec): Without papyrus, what you're writing on is a dead sheep. And if you think of the…
Massachusetts not the next? [Ω, MA/US]
The previously expected ICE enforcement surge never materialized. Curious. I wonder if this just means they're short-staffed. Or perhaps distracted. (I also wonder if somebody made a judgment call not to try what they did in MN in MA, but have largely rejected the notion. It would not be to anybody's advantage if they did, on either side, but I'm not seeing a lot of good judgment in evidence…
Benn Jordan plays the stock market [econ, tech, dataviz, music]
Just hit play. (All about the sound, but visuals also nice.) 2026 Mar 18: Benn Jordan [BennJordan YT]: " I'm here to disrupt the finance synthesizer scene. " comments
Grok, explain Butlerian Jihad [ai]
Debate is raging on BSky if this is deliberate wit or accidental idiocy. ( h/t user mlyp.bsky.social ) comments
Do you have a family phone solution? [tech, domesticity]
I have been kicking around a post idea for something like a year or a year and a half, but I've been torn between wanting to write it as a post (and tell you things) and wanting to ask for solutions. Mr. Bostoniensis and I have been trying to consolidate our household, and the Brave New World of the Internet is... not facilitating this. Vendor after vendor, platform after platform, is organized…
The Siege of Cuba [war/WWIII, US/MX/CA/RU, Patreon]
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1897060.html [Content Advisory: info that may be US government classified and controlled unclassified info leaked to news outlets, within. Actual status is unclear to me.] Cuba has been effectively under siege by the US since at least January. The US has cut off all Cuba's access to fuel imports. The situation is getting increasingly desperate. And a…
Feb 24, 2022 [curr ev, war]
2026 Jan 20: ApasheOfficial on YT [music video]: Kyiv by Apashe & Alina Pash comments