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Mark R. Stoneman

Historian, editor, and translator for hire (German to English). Longtime resident of Washington, DC, now in Conway, NH, as a caregiver (he/him).

  2024

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    Boulder in the forest with a thick coat of moss on top
    Boulder with a refined hairdo

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    Late Afternoon Walk

    Whitaker Woods, North Conway, NH

    The woodsy path I walked in the late afternoon sun. The woodsy path I walked in the late afternoon
    The woodsy path I walked in the late afternoon The woodsy path I walked in the late afternoon
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    Moss- and lichen-covered granite, ferns, and red pine close to a series of small water falls called Diana's Baths on September 30, 2024.

    Granite boulder with moss on the sides and ferns on top. More moss-covered boulders and trees visible. A granite slab with soil, pine needles, and more, forming a part of the forest floor with trees growing out of it.
    A big boulder in the woods with moss, lichen, and ferns growing on it. This image shows a granite boulder with a flat vertical face with some moss and lichen on it. On top of it is a luxurious coat of moss visible from the side. Above that grows a red pine. More red pines are in the background, and one is to the left of the boulder.
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    As we near the election, I’m sleeping about as well as I did in the early months of the pandemic. 😱

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    Given how much JD Vance lies, I don’t see why we should believe any of his denials about having a weird couch fetish. 😉

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    More fall colors

    Leaves on trees that are beginning to turn. The colors are green, yellow, orange, and red.
    Very red section of a maple tree viewed from below. Bits of green are still visible on the edges.
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    Groovy, Far Out Coffee

    Here is a two-minute psychedelic promo for "Good Strong Coffee" (1968) from the BFI National Archive: https://youtu.be/ozxZCENVaVE.

    Screenshot of the final scene: two white mugs, a sunflower on each, next to the text 'Good Strong Coffee'
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    Fall colors in the White Mountains include the light blue and light lavender of wild asters.

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    Russia Wants to Muzzle Childless Cat Ladies

    The Russian parliament is discussing a law to ban so-called “propaganda of childlessness” with fines up to $4,300 for individuals. Will that help to solve the country’s demographic crisis?

    “What’s behind Russia’s plan to ban ‘child-free’ ideology?,” DW, Sept. 28, 2024.

    It’s almost as if they were pandering to Vance – or drinking from the same batch of Kool-Aid.

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    There is a lot of red pine in this area. The tree bark is fairly distinctive. (4/4)

    Going back down, there is only indirect sunlight left. The camera focus on the trunks of two red pines that have grown together at the base. Other trees and plant life is visible, including green moss on the bases of the pines. There are long brown pine needles on the ground.
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    Heading back down, so no more sun on the ground. (3/4)

    Here I am looking up again, enjoying bits of blue sky and sunlight on the leaves, needles, and tree trunks before the sun disappears. A lot of the tree trunks are red pine.
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    From the same walk. More sun is visible because I gained elevation (2/4)

    Further up the hill, the sun reaches the trees and even parts of the ground. The foliage is still green, the tree trunks brown, white, and gray. On the ground: small leafy plants, moss, dried leaves and pine needles.
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    Seen on my walk late this afternoon. (1/4)

    Looking up at fairly young, still leafy trees with splotches of sunlight on them, taken just before the sun disappears behind the mountains. Colors: blue sky, some green leaves, but also a large spot of yellow foliage partially lit from behind, as well as other small bits of yellow and orange.
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    Boulder Loop Trail

    Large granite boulder in the woods
    Here is one of countless granite boulders that I saw in the woods while on the Boulder Loop Trail two days ago. I’ve posted twelve snapshots of this granite to Pixelfed.

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    Has the past decade of information war, alternative facts, and bothsidesing journalism been about conditioning us to believe we need crappy output from Silicon Valley’s LLMs?

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    Ten seconds of sounds at dusk last week via an iPhone SE.

    Probably need a microphone, but I thought I’d give it a go.

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    water and plant life a short distance from the pond, a kind of marsh that looks like beaver territory, late in the day, and hints of fall coming

    A few more impressions from my walk in the Pudding Pond area on the 19th

    moving closer to the pond, brush and tree trunks in the foreground that recall a marsh or swamp, water behind them trees in regular earth in foreground, the pond and marshy bits partly visible through the dark trees
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    Russia lets African migrant laborers enter on tourist visas. From there, they can look for work, but sign a contract that lands them on the front lines in Donbas. The Kyiv Independent has excerpted interviews with two African POWs held by Ukraine. https://youtu.be/PM9DnRxxWC0 (12 min)

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    A German hashtag phenomenon I ran across on Mastodon and Bluesky recently is #FotoVorschlag (photo suggestion). The idea is to post one’s own photo based on the day’s keyword from @[email protected] or @fotovorschlag.bsky.social. Today’s was “Bach,” which is not only the name of a composer but also German for “brook” or “stream.” I took the first photo here near Diana’s Baths in North Conway and Bartlett, NH, on May 22, 2023. It shows a trail that had been turned into a stream by the rains, which cleared the earth, leaves, and pine needles from the granite.

    Granite path through the woods, parts of the granite still wet, and some water visible in bottom right. The focus is on the granite, bounded by hints of tree trunks, underbrush, and moss.
    Bottom part of a tree next to a dirt path. The base is covered in moss, as many are, and it shows the handiwork of beavers, who chewed maybe a quarter way through before they moved on to other projects.
    I took the second photo this afternoon near Pudding Pond in North Conway. The marshy areas near this spot are apparently beaver stomping grounds, as you can see from all the gnawing they did on this tree.
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    View looking down railroad tracks. Trees on each side, mountains in distance.

    Here are a couple pictures from my walk on the 17th.

    Large stump with my water bottle on it for size comparison.
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    The contrast between VP Harris’s performance in this NABJ interview and the other guy’s is stark. The first part, on economic issues, is familiar. Then the tough questions begin, and the VP has a lot to say, getting more eloquent when pressed. https://www.youtube.com/live/I3ZV5Ea3xro

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    Autocracy is a political system, a way of structuring society, a means of organizing power. It is not a genetic trait. Particular cultures, languages, or religions do not necessarily produce it. No nation is condemned forever to autocracy, just as no nation is guaranteed democracy.

    Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc. (Doubleday, 2024), chap. 1.

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    Just shipped a package from the post office. Clerk: Any hazardous materials? Me: Well, books. ⚠️📚

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