Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 12:22 pm
The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) has a tiered level of competitions that, in the US, is the gateway to participating in the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). The first level is the American Mathematics Competition (AMC) 10/12 exams -- roughly speaking, you take 10 if you're in grade 10 or below, and 12 if you're in grade 11 or 12, though younger students can take the 12. This competition is multiple-choice and open to anyone who wants to take it; usually there are, idk, a couple dozen or more kids from E's school who take it, and I think most high schools around have it as a possibility. The second level, which you are invited to if you score above a certain threshold on the AMC, is the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME). Usually at E's school there are a couple to a few kids who qualify for that. (These two contests are open to international students.) The third level, dictated by a threshold that is a function of your AMC and AIME score, is the USA Junior Mathematics Olympiad (henceforth JMO, for the route via AMC 10) or the USA Mathematics Olympiad (AMO, via AMC 12), which unlike the first two levels is a proof-based competition. (There are a couple more levels after this that lead to the six kids who are the US team for the IMO, but I have no experience with them and they are not relevant to this rant, so I won't talk about them here except to note that they exist.)

I have spent way too much time this winter being angry at the MAA, and it hasn't even directly affected my kid. It may have affected a couple of her friends. (I can't even tell you how incandescent I would be if it had directly affected my kid, who really loves math competitions and has put a lot of energy into them, and we talk all the time about how it's really OK if she doesn't do well, but it's one thing not to do well after having made an honest effort at an honorable goal, but not to do well because the system has screwed you over is another thing again!)

The issue here is that the MAA competitions have become these things that kids perceive as very important for college, etc. And what that means is that there is a very large incentive to cheat. And in the last few years there have been quite a few more widespread ways to easily cheat. (Ironically, because of all the rampant cheating, the MAA competitions are now somewhat less taken into consideration by colleges than they used to be.)

Cheating since 2023, with receipts (histogram figures) for the 2024/2025 AMC 12 )

What appears to be their current proposed solution: lack of transparency, and index plus 2d20 )
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Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 03:26 pm
Extremely bad news, for those who have not heard.

I have done what reaching out I could manage. I had been planning on visiting her in person at the end of the month for the first time in several years, so this is hitting me hard.

A happy memory )

The song I need on this occasion is Order and Chaos by Lady Maisery.
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 02:30 pm
I don't usually travel to a place for the place, as such. I've left home a lot, but in all but one case I've been going to visit a person or going to an event like a con. But Cattitude was having a hard time coping with winter, and then we had a blizzard, and it all got to be too much. So Redbird and Cattitude and I picked up and went to New Orleans for a few days, because it wasn't snowing there.

One of many challenging things about winter is that we still don't want to eat in company indoors. It has been SIX YEARS, and sometimes it feels like we are the only people in the country who care about public health and it is just so exhausting. (There were a few other people wearing masks in the airport, which felt good.) But the general frustration is still wearing, especially in winter. We were informed that New Orleans has lots of restaurants with patios that are open, even in February. The crowds recede after Mardi Gras, and the weather forecast was glorious.

New Orleans is a great city for dining. Unfortunately, it's a terrible city for ME to dine. I keep kosher in a very haphazard way (I won't eat pork or shellfish, but I don't care how the chicken was slaughtered), and I can't eat dairy products at all. Everything had shellfish or dairy or both. I went down there thinking most restaurants would have have at least one vegan item on the menu, but the places with outdoor dining or takeout generally did not.

The music was good. I need more music in my life.
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Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 02:45 pm
Benford and Bear in the Epstein files



As far as I can tell, they weren't involved in Epstein's sex trafficking. Just there as big name authors. Bear at least is reported as unimpressed.

Oddly, the third Killer B doesn't seem to have been invited.
Wednesday, March 4th, 2026 06:40 am

The good:

  • Did a sand/fill over the undercoat before doing a second coat. Wasn't much filling to be done, thankfully, but a lot of little pointy bits. Fucking roller bullshit, ugh.
  • Made another batch of zucchini bread!
  • Will almost definitely get actual colour on these goddamn walls tomorrow.

The bad:

  • Not done with the second undercoat. Almost there but not quite.
  • I am so fucking tired, all the time, and yet I keep staying up. Annoying. But probably related.
  • My right shoulder-arm-hand is goddamn aching, enough that I had to stop painting. I suspect that the painting and grating four and a half cups of zucchini was too much for it in a single day. Hopefully it'll feel better after some rest...

The ugly:

  • There was a lunar eclipse but I couldn't see it because clouds :(
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 01:57 pm

by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Do not care if  you bring only your light body.
Would just be so happy to sit at the table
and talk about the menu. Miss you.
Wish we could bet which chilis they’ll put
on the cubes of tofu. Our favorite.
Sometimes green. Sometimes red. Roasted
we always thought. But so cold and fresh.
How did they do it? Wish you could be here
to talk about it like it was so important.
Wish you could. Watched you on the screens
as I was walking, as I was cooking. Wished you
could get out of the hospital. Can’t
bring myself to order our dish and eat it
in the car. Miss you laughing. Miss
you coming in from the cold or one
too many meetings. Laughing. I’ll order
already. I’ll order seven helpings, some
dumplings, those cold yam noodles that you
like. You can come in your light
body or skeleton or be invisible I don’t even
care. Know you have a long way to travel.
Know I don’t even know if it’s long
at all. Wish you could tell me. What
you’re reading. If you’re reading.
Miss you. I’m at the table in the back.

 

(via.)
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 02:11 pm
The bidding for Fandom Trumps Hate 2026 is open!  Just as a reminder I'm offereing cover art/moodboard for any fandom and a fic for Sherlock Holmes: Rathbone Movies.
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 06:52 pm

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.


This Week's Question: What is a craft that you tried but abandoned?


If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!



Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 10:41 am
Spring is springing. Again there were multiple Townsend's Warblers as well as multiple singing Orange-crowned Warblers, several Allan's Hummingbirds, and Lesser Golfinches no longer in great, noisy flocks as they pair off to nest. Even so, we still had Hermit Thrushes, a Varied Thrush in the same place as last week, and U spotted a Fox Sparrow, which this year is pretty exciting. My best bird was another Pacific Wren along the boardwalk. Unfortunately it did not appear for us as we walked back but a few Golden-crowned Sparrows did. They were foraging in the road with a California Towhee and a Song Sparrow when a Cooper's Hawk began kekking. Everyone vanished at once and some Bushtits were giving alarm calls, but the Sparrows came out again fairly quickly. The list: )

No Wilson's Warblers. They've been reported just over the ridge, so maybe next week.
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 10:27 am
[community profile] youtuberecs is a community where you can rec YouTube videos

[community profile] marchmetamatterschallenge, a challenge that involves locating and copying over meta you've created to a second site in order to ensure its preservation and also including some prompts for creating new meta, is running again this year.

[community profile] allbingo is running a National Crafting Month Bingo Fest through March. There are pre-made cards or you can create your own using the available prompts.

[community profile] sufficiently_advanced_ex, a fanworks exchange for science fiction, fantasy, and horror literature canons, is open for nominations until March 7th.

[community profile] worldbuildex, a fic exchange based on world building in canon, is accepting nominations until March 8th, 9PM EDT.

[community profile] unsent_letters_exchange, an epistolary fic exchange, is open for sign-ups until March 9th, 11:59PM UTC (posts says the 7th, but it was extended due to AO3 outages)

[community profile] monstersmashexchange, a gift exchange that features monsters, is accepting nominations until March 11th, 8PM Eastern.

[community profile] bethefirst, a challenge where you write the first fic in a fandom that previously had none, is open for sign-ups. The deadline to submit a fic is April 20th, 11:59PM GMT.

Multifandom Shelter for Abandoned Fics is an event where you can submit your abandoned WIPs if you want someone else to complete them or claim others

[community profile] fancake's theme of the month is: siblings. Click on the banner below to learn more!

Photograph of two adorable Vietnamese toddlers in identical denim overalls and dinosaur sweaters, text: Siblings, at Fancake.
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Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 01:08 pm
https://www.dn.se/kultur/fan-edits-har-blivit-filmbranschens-nya-maktfaktor/

”Fan edits” har blivit filmbranschens nya maktfaktor

Thanks to naye for posting on bluesky! Translation via google translate.

“Fan edits” have become the film industry’s new power factor

– Fan edits are created out of genuine commitment, rather than a commercial purpose, and then they can certainly be perceived as more credible than traditional trailers, says Lovisa Jönsson from the PR agency Jung.
In July 2025, the anonymous TikTok account Areq posts a video collage of scenes from the boxing movie “Creed.” In the clip, punches are thrown wildly to the beat of the music, while blood and sweat spurt.

The clip has over 215 million views at the time of writing. Less than a week after it was posted on the platform, the number of viewers of the film increased by 29 percent on Amazon Prime, according to data from Luminate.

Areq is an example of a growing group of TikTok creators, often fans, who make so-called video collages, or “fan edits,” of series and films for fun. The phenomenon has its origins in fan fiction, where fans use characters and settings from existing works to write a new story.

Several film studios have recognized the explosive power of fan logic and have now started to hire fans to drive their marketing efforts.

The film studio Lionsgate has recruited a dozen or so fans to make TikTok clips under the film studio’s banner. The company’s TikTok page now has around a hundred clips from films like “Twilight” and “Divergent.” All of them are bursting with references and Generation Z jokes that only a die-hard fan can understand.

In an interview with Variety, Lionsgate's head of international marketing, Briana McElroy, says that fan edits are a "love letter from fans" and that it is free marketing.

- If we are going to have a conversation with fans online, we have to speak their language, she tells Variety.

Streaming giants such as Netflix, Hulu and Paramount+ also publish clips on their Tiktok channels with clear inspiration from fan logic.

Fan-edited video collages from the ice hockey drama "Heated Rivalry" have been streaming on social media since the series was released in late 2025. The clips have reached both existing fans and attracted new viewers.

Some of the fan community's most viewed clips are edited by fan Melanie, 25. In one of the clips, countless sex scenes and hockey matches flicker past in one minute and thirty seconds. That clip has received over four million views.

When DN reaches her, she wants to remain anonymous, she wants to protect her privacy on the internet but is happy to talk about the phenomenon. Since she was 17, she has spent countless hours editing such videos, about everything from One Direction to Harry Potter and Marvel.

– Fan edits are their own art form. It is a way for a fan to tell a story or describe how they themselves interpret a series through their own lens. It is noticeable in the way they edit, in what order they place the clips or which song they use, she says.

Unlike a traditional trailer that is directed and tailored by a film company with the aim of reaching as large an audience as possible and generating revenue, fan edits lack a financial drive and are born out of pure desire and love for a series or film.

– It is created out of genuine commitment, rather than a commercial purpose, and then they can certainly be perceived as more credible than traditional trailers, especially for Generation Z, says Lovisa Jönsson from the PR agency Jung.

She points out that fan-produced content is spread organically on platforms like Tiktok and that it can reach target groups that do not usually watch traditional trailers. This provides a large distribution at a low cost.

– When marketing arouses emotions and is perceived as authentic and genuine, it tends to be more effective. It is a quick way to spread content and can create hype that makes more people feel that they “have to see” a certain film or series, says Lovisa Jönsson.

It is not only within the world of film that fan logic is being valued. For example, the artist Miley Cyrus hired superfan Olivia Rudensky to be responsible for her digital marketing and fan contact. Rudensky was recruited because she ran one of the star’s largest fan accounts, according to Forbes.

In the book “Blank Space”, the American author W David Marx describes how fans have shaped the popular cultural landscape. According to him, they have been crucial in consolidating the position of international artists. He writes that: “At a time when the media landscape has become increasingly fragmented, fans have contributed to strengthening the cultural power around a few top artists.”
The “Star Trek” character Spock was the subject of the first fan-made video clip.
The “Star Trek” character Spock was the subject of the first fan-made video clip. Photo: Paramount Television/REX/TT

Fan-produced video collages set their first milestone in 1975 when Kandy Fong made a slideshow featuring the space officer Spock from the science fiction series “Star Trek”. The slideshow was set to music with the Spock actor’s interpretation of “Both sides now”. At the time, it was shown at various fan conventions, but since then they have been exhibited at museums in both Queens and Vancouver.

When YouTube became established, fans began publishing video collages there. As Instagram and Tiktok consolidated their role, fans have instead moved their creations there and through the spread of algorithms, some of them reach a huge audience.

Sweden is no exception. Here, fans of reality series such as “The Traitors”, “The Game” and “Paradise Hotel” have made their own compilations, where they highlight certain participants, among other things. Among other things, there are several collages about the “Best in Test” program host David Sundin, with carefully selected clips from the competition program, set to music by Arctic Monkeys’ “505”.

During the new film adaptation of “Doktor Glas”, the production launched a Tiktok account. Some of the content is clearly modeled after how fans usually edit their fan clips. Lovisa Jönsson at the PR agency Jung, however, believes that there is a risk when production companies follow the fan logic.

– When companies start to commercialize fan edits and use them in strategic marketing, authenticity can be lost, which is the very basis for the impact. To succeed, they must continue to be created on the fans’ terms, she says.
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 05:57 pm

Have just been reading a very odd book - sortes ereader, something it appears I bought when you could still convert Kindle books to Kobo epub, cannot recall if it was something someone had recommended or what.

LH Johnson, Tell Me of a Girl (2018) - independently published, a retelling of The Secret Garden.

I am not sure why. Because usually if people are doing a retelling they are remixing or shaking up in some way? Okay, this did do some kind of vaguely different backstory of Mary's relationship with her mother, but otherwise it followed the story pretty exactly though leaving stuff out, and much of what was actually in the original seemed terribly washed out.

Characters who are vivid presences in the original seemed muted (Martha, Ben Weatherstaff, Dickon, the robin) - and devoid of Yorkshire speech to boot.

One might have expected that maybe a retelling might do what that recent reworking of Katy did and be a bit more disability positive, but no.

Mary Lennox is already a stroppy young person who doesn't exactly need to grab more agency, hmmm?

It's also done in a rather annoying typographical style.

At the end the author indicates that it's not only in dialogue with Burnett's original but with a whole swathe of scholarship on Golden Age children's lit. Maybe it came out of the project for a course???

I could see it sort of working as the basis of a rather moody atmospheric movie version?

Has anyone else come across this? I'm really not sure what to make of it.

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 01:05 pm
Ny is gravely ill, unconscious, and unlikely to recover:

via princessofgeeks, who linked to [personal profile] goss's post
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 10:05 am
Photograph of two adorable Vietnamese toddlers in identical denim overalls and dinosaur sweaters, text: Siblings, at Fancake.
[community profile] fancake is a thematic recommendation community where all members are welcome to post recs, and fanworks of all shapes and sizes are accepted. Check out the community guidelines for the full set of rules.

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