Morifinwё Carnistir (Caranthir)

I feel like my blog is full of his older brothers and their offspring, but I actually love gentle, soft-spoken Finarfin as well 💛

So here he is, having a beach day in Alqualondë with Finrod, long before disaster struck :') For @arafinwean-week day 1 + day 2 (Finarfin, Finrod, pre-Darkening, family)

(And yes, I'm an idiot and forgot that the sky shouldn't be bright blue at this point in time (more like night sky lit with some Laurelin gold or Telperion silver I suppose), but I was already tired of messing with this, so quick questionable golden background swap it is... eeeh maybe I'll redo that at some point)

Late submission for @maedhrosmaglorweek Day 7 - Storytelling

I think Maglor sang or read the twins to sleep almost every night when they were little (or simply told them stories of Valinor and whatever else came to mind because I assume they didn't actually have that many books lying around by that point in time, let alone ones suitable for children). And if Maglor asked Maedhros to "help" every now and then, it totally wasn't because he hoped it would entice his brother (who hasn't slept in a week) to rest as well. Maglor would never resort to such tactics.

Alt version below the cut because I couldn't decide on a color scheme and I had everything on separate layers anyways, so:

“Bree”

The sixth of eleven new watercolours depicting places in Middle-earth (and Númenor) for an upcoming book.

*Is it true, or did Google Gemini just make it up, or did somebody just make that up about Google Gemini?

*Well, who knows; your guess is as good as Google Gemini's

A few years ago, when I was living in the housing co-op and looking for a quick cookie recipe, I came across a blog post for something called “Norwegian Christmas butter squares.” I’d never found anything like it before: it created rich, buttery and chewy cookies, like a vastly superior version of the holiday sugar cookies I’d eaten growing up. About a year ago I went looking for the recipe again, and failed to find it. The blog had been taken down, and it sent me into momentary panic. 

Luckily, I remembered enough to find it on the Wayback Machine, and quickly copied it into a file that I’ve saved ever since. I probably make these cookies about once a month, and they last about five days around my voracious husband - they’re fantastic with a cup of bitter coffee or tea. I’m skeptical that there is something distinctively Norwegian about these cookies, but they do seem like the perfect thing to eat on a cold day. 

Norwegian Christmas Butter Squares

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 egg 1 cup sugar 2 cups flour 1 tsp vanilla ½ tsp salt Turbinado/ Raw Sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Chill a 9x13″ baking pan in the freezer. Do not grease the pan.

Using a mixer, blend the butter, egg, sugar, and salt together until it is creamy.  Add the flour and vanilla and mix using your hands until the mixture holds together in large clumps. If it seems overly soft, add a little extra flour. 

Using your hands, press the dough out onto the chilled and ungreased baking sheet until it is even and ¼ inch thick.  Dust the top of the cookies evenly with raw sugar.

Bake at 400 degrees until the edges turn a golden brown, about 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven. Let cool for about five minutes before cutting the cooked dough into squares. Remove the squares from the warm pan using a spatula.

having one of those executive function days where everything is too many steps

In a monumental discovery for paleontology and the first of its kind "Mummy of a juvenile sabre-toothed cat Homotherium latidens from the Upper Pleistocene of Siberia"

Abstract The frozen mummy of the large felid cub was found in the Upper Pleistocene permafrost on the Badyarikha River (Indigirka River basin) in the northeast of Yakutia, Russia. The study of the specimen appearance showed its significant differences from a modern lion cub of similar age (three weeks) in the unusual shape of the muzzle with a large mouth opening and small ears, the very massive neck region, the elongated forelimbs, and the dark coat color. Tomographic analysis of the mummy skull revealed the features characteristic of Machairodontinae and of the genus Homotherium. For the first time in the history of paleontology, the appearance of an extinct mammal that has no analogues in the modern fauna has been studied. For more read here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-79546-1

"Aredhel the White was younger in the years of the Eldar than her brothers; and when she was grown to full stature and beauty she was tall and strong, and loved to ride and hunt in the forests. There she was often in the company of the sons of Feanor, her kin; but to none was her heart's love given. Ar-Feiniel she was called, the White Lady of the Noldor, for she was pale, though her hair was dark, and she was never arrayed but in silver and white."

—The Silmarillion, Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalie

I actually made two palette versions and can’t decide which I like better: above is “sunset” (more dramatic), and below is “twilight” (softer).

After doing a few quite illustrative, stylised paintings recently I think I may move back towards doing some realism for a bit

I’ve never really enjoyed sticking with one style of painting for too long - it’s more fun to switch around between stylised, realism and painterly imho :)

Fellow Windows 11 users: how to disable newly-installed Microsoft AI!

Folks, with the new updates that've come down recently, Microsoft has installed its "Copilot" AI app on your machine. It cannot be removed.

But it can be disabled. Here's how (courtesy of the excellent Pihko Misit, aka @smokepaw.bsky.social over at Bluesky). I've just done this to my own desktop machine, and all's well with it now.

Here's what to do:

(1) You need to have Admin rights for the machine and be logged in to the administrator account.

Now, right-click on the Start menu (Windows logo on the Taskbar.) A menu pops up; about half way down it you'll see Terminal and Terminal (Admin). Click on the Terminal (Admin) option.

(2) A DoS-like box will open. (For those of you who've never interacted with a Windows terminal window before, it looks like this:)

On the command line (i.e. the first empty line), copy and paste this:

reg add HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot /v TurnOffWindowsCopilot /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Then hit Enter.

If successful, you'll see a line pop up saying so. Congratulations! But you're not quite finished.

Now you need to close all programs and fully shut down the machine. A restart isn't enough, it needs to be fully powered down and started back up.

"And now," Pihko says, "ou have a NSA-like AI spy dormant on your machine. Stay vigilant, odds are it'll turn back on with future updates! Big Corporate wants you to be compliant. Don't be!"