zana16

This one has multiple genres.

Books for sale, mostly $1 to $3

Hit the "Genres" button at the top of the page to narrow your search.

Happy reading!

cakewrecks_feed

Posted by Jen

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/sorry-mario-your-cake-wreck-is-right-here-2025

When Allison H. sent this inspiration photo to her baker, her baker assured her she could "replicate it exactly."

As it turns out, though, Allison and her baker MAY have different definitions of "replicate" and "exactly."

o.0

And that's why you should never do 'shrooms, kids - unless you know how to cover them in fondant.

#ProTips

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/sorry-mario-your-cake-wreck-is-right-here-2025

cimorene

Driver's license learner permit acquired! Total cost:

Application fee: 25€
Driving lessons: 875€
ADHD tax: 152€

I'm going through the obligatory little quizzes and informational videos about traffic safety and they've been machine translated without proofreading and then dubbed into English with an AI that speeds up or slows down its talking speed sometimes multiple times per sentence to ensure that it takes exactly the same amount of time in English as in Finnish (which means a lot of surreally slow talking that sounds like a tape got stuck in the player and might catch fire soon).

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250626.html

An interstellar expanse of glowing gas and obscuring dust presents

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250626.html

epod_feed

https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2025/06/wyomings-grand-tetons-and-jackson-lake.html

Photographer: Ray Boren

Summary Author: Ray Boren

Under a big blue sky, the morning sun illuminates a central portion of Wyoming’s majestic Teton Range, which is mirrored via specular reflection in a calm and equally blue bay of Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park. In this photograph, taken on May 23, 2025, the park’s namesake Grand Teton peak, topping out at 13,775 feet (4,199 meters) above sea level, is on the far-left side of the image, to the south. Blocky Mount Moran (12,610 feet; 3,840 m) rises prominently just left of center.

The snow still covering the Tetons on this spring day makes it easy to envision the Pleistocene ice-age glaciers that helped carve the mountains’ jagged summits, cirques, and U-shaped drainages. The Park Service explains that the Teton Fault began tilting the range’s primarily granite mountain block upward about 10 million years ago while also dropping the valley of Jackson Hole. Although masked by snow in the photograph, almost a dozen glaciers remain in the park today, some moving and some mere remnants. They, and erosion from water, wind and gravity, continue to shape the dramatic terrain.

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Coordinates: 43.7904, -110.6818

https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2025/06/wyomings-grand-tetons-and-jackson-lake.html

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6747 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 06 secrets from Secret Submission Post #965.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

cakewrecks_feed

Posted by Jen

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/then-vs-now-wrecks-edition2025

I love - LOVE - old cake photos. Not the pretty magazine ones, of course, but the yellowing snapshots of children's birthday cakes from 20 or 30 years ago. They're a total blast from the past, and even when they're all lopsided and misspelled and ridiculously wrecky, you just can't help but love them.

Like Sarah's here, from the 80s:

It's a one-armed Care Bear, of course. Holding a pair of lips. Stomping on something that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike grass.

Compare that with today's Care Bear cakes, and you'll find we've come a looong way, baby:

Oh, how we've grown.

Of course, the only thing better than vintage cake photos are vintage cake photos with the birthday kids in them:

That's CW reader Amanda P. with her cousin Ryan, and she tells me no one noticed his "Ghostbusters"cake was misspelled until her mom uploaded this pic to Facebook ... 22 years later. THIS IS WHY THE INTERNET EXISTS, PEOPLE. To pick apart our childhood memories. And to make me jealous of 4-year-old boys' TMNT t-shirts.

(I also like to think Amanda is dressed as a sailor as a subtle Stay Puft homage, because, c'mon, how awesome would that be?!)

If you're wondering what you get today when you order a Ghostbusters cake, though:

Kristen's husband picked up this "Ghostbusters cake," but neither of them have an explanation.

(Maybe it's supposed to be Slimer? Maybe?)

Still debating if that's worse than this one, though:

YOU. We're ready to believe... YOU. C'mon, bakers, don't you have the entire script of Ghostbusters memorized like the rest of us? I mean, REALLY.

Ok, just one more, in reverse. Here's a "modern" Barbie doll cake:

Come for the ridiculous sinking Barbie, stay for the bonus crotch photo bomb.

And here's the way most of us gals remember them from our childhood:

Ok, so maybe we'll call this one a draw.

Thanks to Sarah R., Tina H., Amanda P., Kristen C., Tiffany G., Linda G., & Celeste R. for the memories.

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/then-vs-now-wrecks-edition2025

matsushima posting in

thankfulthursday

What are you thankful for this week?
· Photos are optional but encouraged.
· Check-ins remain open until the following week's post is shared.
· Do feel free to comment on others' check-ins but don't harsh anyone else's squee.

Current Mood: burned out

twistedchick

I have been watching 'Elementary' the past week or so, especially during the heat dome of the last few days, and throughout the first three seasons Holmes' father is mentioned a few times but never shows up.

He finally does show up early in season 4, and from the first moment I saw him I kept thinking, 'where do I know this actor from'? His face, older and lined, was like many other actors, but that voice was singular.

So I looked him up.

He played Denethor in LOTR, the bad father who tried to burn his younger son to death and immolate himself on the fire as well -- the worst of the fathers in LOTR.

Tone down the madness, make him a high-level businessman with a finger in every government, and you have Sherlock's father. Pretty good casting.

epod_feed

https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2025/06/planetary-alingment-observed-from-pinhal-de-leiria-portugal.html

Photographer: Rui Santos

Summary Author: Rui Santos

The night sky and planetary alignment featured above was captured from Pinhal de Leiria, Portugal on February 28, 2025. I decided to view the alignment from here because I knew I'd have a clear view of the horizon. Since the planets were stretched out across the sky, I had to do a panorama and try to avoid light pollution (lower left and lower right) from surrounding cities and towns. Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Uranus are included above, but because I wasn't able to arrive as the Sun was setting, Saturn, Neptune and Mercury aren't in the frame.

At bottom center is the Crastinha Lookout Point, one of several watchtowers in the Forest of Leiria. The building to its right is the reconstruction of what used to be the guard's house, dating from 1883. This tower is still in use today.

Photo Details: Panorama of 4 panels x 10 photos on each panel; Sony A6000 camera; Samyang 12mm F2; 40 x 20 seconds exposure; 6400 ISO; F2.8; 8:16 pm local time. Tripod: Geekoto AT24Pro Dreamer + Andoer Q08S Rotating Head. Processing: PTGUI, Lightroom, Photoshop, RCplugins, Luminar.

Pinhal de Leiria, Portugal Coordinates: 39.8317, -8.9703

https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2025/06/planetary-alingment-observed-from-pinhal-de-leiria-portugal.html

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250625.html

sineala_tumblr_feed

https://sineala.tumblr.com/post/787386947055288320

It is once again time for Book Club on the 616 Steve/Tony server and we are having Iron Man week. Wasn’t Iron Man week last week? Yes, it was. We started reading Director of SHIELD, but we didn’t get to Haunted (IM v4 21-28). So we are reading Haunted. Because I want to read Haunted.

This is the last arc of Daniel & Charles Knauf’s IM run. There are a few more Director of SHIELD issues after this, but this is the culmination of their run, and it’s also one of the best Iron Man arcs, period. Seriously, if I had to pick a favorite individual Iron Man arc, it would probably be this one.

The Mandarin is back, and he’s trying to weaponize Extremis. He is abducting a lot of people to use as research subjects. Tony wants to find him and stop him, but Tony has a minor problem: he’s going insane. He sees dead people. He is hallucinating people whose deaths he feels responsible for.

Yes, this does include Steve. Of course it includes Steve.

Weirdly, the United States government is not thrilled about the Director of SHIELD, a superhuman who can now use the internet directly from his brain and has access to many kinds of deadly weapons also directly from his brain, developing something that looks a lot like schizophrenia. Tony is given a psychological evaluation, suspended from his job, and his access to Extremis is inhibited. This means that he has to find and stop the Mandarin all by himself! Don’t worry; his hallucinations will help him.

This is a great arc if you love Tony Stark and want to see him sad and suffering. If you haven’t read this before, come read it for the first time! If you have read it before, come read it again!

Come join us on You Gave Me A Home, an 18+ comics Steve/Tony Discord server! We are located at discord.gg/stevetony!

https://sineala.tumblr.com/post/787386947055288320

settiai

In tonight's game, ( the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off and will be picking up next week for our in-person weekend.

Current Mood: sleepy

settiai

Okay, I just have two more days of work to get through, and then I have an entire week off. Nine whole days. The first five of which will hopefully be spent not leaving the hotel if I can manage it, because I desperately need to recharge. I'm even going to try to wash clothes either tomorrow or Friday so that I won't have to leave my suite unless there's an emergency of some type. A complete removal from all human interaction will do me so much good.

I'm hoping to set aside at least a few days to curl up and properly lose myself in video games, probably Baldur's Gate 3 or Dragon Age: The Veilguard although I might try something new. Or maybe something old, like a new Mass Effect playthrough. There are a lots of options. Whatever I go with, I keep saying that I'm going to play video games on the weekend, and then I don't manage it, so I'm really going to try during this break.

I also want to attempt to do some fic writing just for myself. I've had a bad habit of only writing for exchanges lately, but I have a ton of WIPs so it would be nice if I could set aside at least a few hours here and there during the break to work on getting back in the writing habit.

My Wednesday night D&D group is going to be getting together in person to play next weekend. Everyone's flying in on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, and then we're going to jump in around lunchtime on Friday as soon as the last person arrives. Then plan is that we're going to play pretty much the rest of the day on Friday, all day Saturday, and until mid-afternoon on Sunday.

Current Mood: hopeful

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6746 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 13 secrets from Secret Submission Post #965.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

erinptah

Machine-Generated Garbage Hall of Shame: “What these bots are designed to do is essentially a matter of statistical programming, and presenting them as reliable sources of information can be misguided, foolish, exploitative, or even dangerous, as demonstrated by the examples on this list.”

Similarly, AI Hallucination Cases: “This database tracks legal decisions in cases where generative AI produced hallucinated content – typically fake citations, but also other types of arguments.”

Not to be confused with cases about AI hallucinations. “A solar firm in Minnesota is suing Google for defamation after the tech giant’s shoddy AI Overviews feature allegedly made up wild lies about the company — and significantly hurt its business as a result.”

“The unreliability and hallucinations themselves are the hook — the intermittent reward, to keep the user running prompts and hoping they’ll get a win this time. This is why you see previously normal techies start evangelising AI coding on LinkedIn or Hacker News like they saw a glimpse of God and they’ll keep paying for the chatbot tokens until they can just see a glimpse of Him again. And you have to as well. This is why they act like they joined a cult.”

“Executives and directors from around the world have called me to say that they can’t fund any projects if they don’t pretend there is AI in them. Non-profits have asked me if we could pretend to do AI because it’s the only way to fund infrastructure in the developing world. Readers keep emailing me to say that their contracts are getting cancelled because someone smooth-talked their CEO into believing that they don’t need developers.”

My website host, Siteground, has been trying to shove AI hype into their services lately. I can’t help wondering how many customers are actually asking for this, versus how many VCs and managers are insisting they’ve gotta be on the bandwagon. Especially given my fun new personal experience of bringing a problem to their customer-service LLM, where its very first response included a hallucination — advising me to change a nonexistent setting it just made up.

cakewrecks_feed

Posted by Jen

https://www.cakewrecks.com/home/estonian-kissing-day-2025

According to The Repository Of All Knowledge And Wisdom In Our World (aka, Wikipedia) today might be a Valentines-ish type of day in some remote corner of the world or potential worlds. In fact, I'm almost 63% sure that today is, in fact, "Kissing Day" in the western region of Estonia.

Or was that on Epsilon Ceti B II?

Whichever, the point is that I can post old Valentine's cakes without fear of the "fact" police getting all up in my cakey "business."

Now, kiss me, you piece of...chocolate!

After all, you alone hold my heart:

Not to mention my bowels.

What, still not convinced? Then allow me to inscribe a few sweet nothings for you.

[wink]

[finger gun]

[double wink + finger gun combo]

[licking fingers and smoothing eyebrows]

SO...are you a puddle of oozing desire yet?

No?

Ok, time to break out the big guns:

[tongue waggle]

(You know, whether you read that as a command or an adjective, it's equally romantic.)

[tiger pose]

[duckface]

Need I say more?

Yeah. I didn't think so.

Thanks to Meagan M., Greg M., Kimberly B., Amber T., Natsk, Amy I., Rebekah K., Michael D., & Kyra, who always talk smack when they're feeling peckish, but still refuse to give me any lip.

*****

P.S. Then there's the most romantic phrase of all for my fellow gamers: