Simone Jester

Here are the notes for "Protect the Inner Core."

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This is the second freebie, thanks to new donor gs_silva. It was inspired by a prompt from siliconshaman. It also fills the "What are you?" square in my 10-1-25 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem belongs to the series Schrodinger's Heroes and Polychrome Heroics. It follows "And Everything Collapses," so read that first or this won't make much sense.

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I checked for a Wednesday-after-Thanksgiving holiday and didn't find any. So I'm declaring this Self-Care Wednesday. You've done all the things. You've done Thanksgiving, Buy Nothing Day, Small Business Saturday, Shop for Good Sunday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday. And now you're tired. You deserve a break! Take care of yourself today.



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This is today's freebie. It was inspired by a prompt from fuzzyred. It also fills the "Magical Power" square in my 11-1-25 card for the Fairy Tales and Fantasy Stories Bingo. This poem belongs to the series LIFC.

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The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED. Thank you for your time and attention. Please keep an eye on this page as I am still writing.

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "Sentient and Self-Aware Machines." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

I'll be soliciting ideas for androids, robots, sexbots, sentient ships, other digital people, programmers, gizmologists and super-gizmologists, super-intellects, rebels, researchers, journalists, historians, explorers, partners, teachers, leaders, superheroes, supervillains, teammates, ethicists, activists, other people who work with self-aware machines, programming, changing or breaking programs, building hardware, choosing a hardware body, finding partners, upsetting predictions, expecting the unexpected, researching, revising theories, teaching, adventuring, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, experiments changing paradigms, adapting, improvising, troubleshooting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, coming out, running away from home, going off the rails, subverting fate, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, cyberspace, computer centers, HAMshack, robot factories, worldgates, liminal zones, schools, sharehouses, libraries, laboratories, supervillain lairs, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, stores, starships, bizarre exoplanets, foreign dimensions, other places frequented by digital people, American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Robots, hardware, software, quicklife, artificial intelligence, ethics of self-aware machines, toolkits, space exploration, reversals, contradictions, conundrums, puzzling discoveries, sudden surprises, inventions that change everything, the buck stops here, trial and error, polarity, intercultural entanglements, asking for help and getting it, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, lab conditions are not field conditions, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.


Currently eligible bingo card(s) for donors wishing to sponsor a square:

December is amnesty month.


Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One has the AYES.

The Blueshift Troupers is designed for easy crossing with other genres or tropes as they visit different planets, thus can easily accommodate self-aware machines.

Diminished Expectations has the gynoid and others.

Kung Fu Robots is entirely about self-aware robots.

P.I.E. has Zephyr, a digital person.

Polychrome Heroics has the rescued sexbots among others.

Schrodinger's Heroes is dimensional science fiction, designed for easy crossing with any other characters / setting / genre, thus convenient for self-aware machines.

The Steamsmith includes the tommies.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks will reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )

low_delta posted several gorgeous winter pictures of snow on flowers.  :D 

I made this today. Now I regret all the leftover mashed potatoes that I've tossed in the past. If you have leftover spuds, this is well worth considering.

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Today is cloudy and cold.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a cardinal.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/1/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

It's snowing quite briskly now, falling almost straight down, like one of those animated holiday cards.  Pretty.  I wound up with snow all over my coat.

EDIT 12/1/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a mourning dove.

The snow has decreased to a light flurry.

EDIT 12/1/25 -- I've seen one female and two male cardinals plus a dark-eyed junco.  I also saw the sparrows on the suet feeder.  :D  Didn't take them long at all to find that this year.  Sometimes it takes a week or more. 

EDIT 12/1/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

There was a mourning dove on the porch when I went out.
 
As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Today is Cyber Monday. This holiday focuses on shopping online. It has surpassed Black Friday as the biggest shopping day of the year! \o/




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Writing in a world where AI exists

Earlier today, someone sent me a screenshot. It was my essay about Bard the Bowman from Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” fed through an AI detector, with a score blazing across the top: “100% AI-generated.” The essay opened with an anecdote about watching the movie with my best friend, explored Tolkien’s WWI trauma and how it shaped the character, and ended with the line “Sometimes you kill the dragon. Sometimes the town burns anyway.”

That's a logical fallacy: Appeal to Authority. In this case, imaginary, hallucinating authority, but still it's a case where someone doesn't address the content but simply dismisses it by pointing to someone or something official. Oh wait, there's a more specific version: Appeal to False Authority.

Everyone wrongly accused of using AI should respond with a "Logical Fallacy: Appeal to False Authority" and link to your favorite reliable source for logic references. If nothing else, it will help raise awareness of this very common logical fallacy, which would be very useful in today's baloney-filled society.

Also in venues you control, don't hesitate to disemvowel, strikethrough, or delete garbage comments. There's no need to leave verbal dog shit on the floor for other people to step in and track around.

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Dreamwidth is running its December points event.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.


If you're gift-shopping for anyone on Dreamwidth, or you wish to support a favorite community here, points or paid time offer a great way to do that. Now is also a good time to buy them for yourself. Support the platform that keeps us connected here.

For reference, I'm at 332 points and 12 months of paid time is 350, so just a little would reach that target.

EDIT 12/1/25 -- torine in bakerstreet has a post where you can request points.

Today is Shop for Good Sunday. This holiday highlights businesses whose goods and services support values, not just making money and shuffling junk around.

If you know what your friends and family value -- whether that's fair trade or sustainability or women-owned businesses -- then you can buy treats they might not ordinarily get because the good, responsible stuff tends to cost more. Pay attention to packaging: some companies just slap on a seal or few and call it good, but others really highlight the values aspect of their goodies with text or illustrations so your recipient will definitely notice it. The same goes for cards or gift wrapping in companies that offer that service.




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Florida’s Hot Spot for the Crocodile’s Comeback Is…a Nuclear Power Plant?

As it turned out, the 168 linear miles of cooling canals Turkey Point relied on to condense steam and produce energy also provided an ideal habitat for crocodiles: High berms allowed females to safely deposit eggs; the isolation protected them from pesky humans; and plenty of fish and fowl flourished in the waterways to sustain a growing population.


O_O Oh, because there's no way for THIS to go terribly, horribly wrong. Somebody save this to throw in as a prompt in any relevant prompt call.

NASA discovers ‘clearest sign of life that we’ve ever found on Mars’

Detailed analysis of images of speckled rocks found by NASA’s Perseverance rover has found a “potential biosignature.”

The rocks, or mudstones, are composed of finely packed sediment and covered in specks resembling poppy seeds and leopard spots. The colorful features, the study found, are minerals that — on Earth — have traditionally been created from microbial activity.


:D 3q3q3q!!! This is exactly the kind of life sign I would expect to find on most life-bearing planets: microbial or other very simple life. The next step up is things like biofilms, hair algae, fungal nets, and if life gets really clever, crustose forms such as lichens. Seriously, you can get a great leg up on xenobiology by studying marginally habitable places on Earth like mountain rocks, hot springs, or ironbound coasts. In cities, examine sidewalks, parking lots, and the sides of buildings.

I haven't been outside yet.  It's snowing!  Fat, fluffy flakes are drifting down which indicates a wet heavy snow.  There's already a solid layer on the ground and snow stuck to branches.  Pretty, but it wipes out our Small Business Saturday plans.  :(

It's four-bird cold out.  A huge flock of sparrows and house finches has descended on the forest garden.  I've also seen a mourning dove and a lady cardinal there.  I need to fill t he suet feeder when I go out.

EDIT 11/29/25 -- I fed the birds.  I've seen more sparrows and house finches plus a male cardiinal.

I put out warm water for the birds.

It had stopped snowing for a while but is now coming down quite briskly.

I am done for the night.

EDIT 11/29/25 -- I found 4 sprouted seeds in a Pink apple, which I planted in two pots on the windowsill.  :D

Celebrate Small Business Saturday. Shop small, shop local! What are you doing for Small Business Saturday?




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This month's theme was "Fairies and Fey." I wrote from 12 PM to 3 AM, so about 13 hours, allowing for lunch and supper breaks. I wrote 3 poems on Tuesday plus 5 later in the week.

Participation was down slightly, with 9 comments on LiveJournal and another 23 on Dreamwidth. A total of 11 people sent prompts. You have new prompters ljgeoff and gs_silva to thank for the second freebie.


Read Some Poetry!
The following poems from the November 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl have been posted:
"Better Than Living Alone"
"A Clear Path of Freedom"
"Revealing Itself at Its Most Brilliant"
"Time and Relative Dimensions in Magic"
"To the Rational Mind"

"No Worthless Herbs" (One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis, October 7, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl)
"The Struggle Against Error" (Polychrome Heroics, April 1, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl)


Buy some poetry!
If you plan to sponsor some poetry but haven't made up your mind yet, see the unsold poetry list from November 4. That includes the title, length, price, and the original thumbnail description for the poems still available.

This month's donors include: janetmiles, librarygeek, and Anthony Barrette. All sponsored poems from this fishbowl have been posted. There are 2 tallies toward a bonus fishbowl.

The Poetry Fishbowl has a landing page.

A strange ancient foot reveals a hidden human cousin

New fossils reveal a second hominin species living beside Lucy—walking differently, eating differently, and thriving in its own evolutionary niche.

Researchers have finally assigned a strange 3.4-million-year-old foot to Australopithecus deyiremeda, confirming that Lucy’s species wasn’t alone in ancient Ethiopia. This hominin had an opposable big toe for climbing but still walked upright in a distinct style. Isotope tests show it ate different foods from A. afarensis, revealing clear ecological separation. These insights help explain how multiple early human species co-existed without wiping each other out.


Niche partitioning is a standard way to minimize competition between species. It's most extreme in dense habitat like rainforests but it appears elsewhere too.