I’m excited to say that I turned in my manuscript for the ActivityPub book for O’Reilly Media today. I started working on it in September of 2023, with a lot of interim checkpoints and deadlines since. In April 2024, I finished the first draft of the manuscript. Over the month of May, I’ve been working on improvements suggested by the technical reviewers who agreed to look over the book, and from my own re-read.
In total, my TODO file for this month has about 250 changes to be made. Some are small — just changing a word or two — but one required adding a whole new chapter, and many required multi-paragraph sections.
I took the last week of May off from my work at Open Earth Foundation to concentrate on making changes. My team was really supportive, which I deeply appreciated. I went to our country house in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, and I spent the week writing, editing, drawing and thinking.
Now, the next stage of book making starts: production. The production team at O’Reilly will be copyediting, indexing, and laying out the book. Their designers will be taking my UML diagrams and turning them into professional-looking illustrations. We have two rounds of quality control on code samples and fact checking on content.
In September 2024, the final e-book will be available for sale. I’ll have a link here for the pre-sale version when it comes out. If you’re eager to read the book, I highly recommend reviewing the early release version.
Thanks so much to my friends, family and colleagues who’ve made space and time for me to do this work. It has meant a lot to me. I hope the final product helps more developers create cool projects using ActivityPub.
If your child is a food lover, the ABCs of Indien Cuisine will certainly be a great read. Full of adorable illustrations, this picture book introduces young readers to different Indian dishes, all organized following the alphabet’s letters. From Aloo Gobi to Zeera, young readers discovers twenty six very tasty flavors presented in rich and powerful colors.
I am currently engrossed in reading the Expanse book series. In the universe of these books, humanity's advanced space-faring civilization still grapples with familiar issues like geopolitical tension, inequality, and exploitation.
The arrival of a mysterious new technology ignites intense reactions from governments, individuals, and political ideologies.
In these books, I see many parallels to how people currently interact with AI. #book#scifi
I can hardly wait until the release of 'The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: Volume 5', with haiku, poems and a short (fictional) story by me. Pre-orders of this beautiful e-book until 3 June for just $ /€ 4,99 instead of $/€ 9,99.
STUMBLING TOWARD ENLIGHTENMENT in Seoul: university friends now in their thirties find heartbreak and lesser forms of anomie in this eloquent, multivocal experimental novel rich with details of life in today’s South Korea. B PLUS
A VIRTUOSO RIFF ON AN AMERICAN classic: the inimitable Percival Everett retells the story of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s perspective, transforming it from a familiar picaresque to a more complex adventure and a meditation on code-switching. A MINUS
#lego
I played with Lego as a kid and loved it, but never actually received a set that only belonged to me. When I grew up, dolls were for girls, Lego for boys...my love of my life now surprised me and for the first time in my life I have my very first set - thank you @paul - love you so much 🥰 ❤️ Never to late for the first one!
Maybe it has something to do with the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the second #Book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (#HHGttG) series by #DouglasAdams?
#WordWeavers 6/3
Who is your most creative character?
Definitely the minstrel, Shawmelle. She sings, plays a lute and writes her own songs. Her father was a minstrel, as well, and was the one who taught her to play.
She's also very lucky, in that one of the kingdom's squires takes a liking to her. 🙂
"The Jungborn nudist sanatorium, the Paris metro, or the picturesque town of Stresa by Lago Magiorre – these are just some of the many places visited by Franz #Kafka, the great Prague-born #Jewish#writer who died exactly 100 years ago. To mark the occasion, a new #book, has just come out dedicated to Kafka’s travels. I spoke to its author, journalist and publicist Judita Matyášová"
Day 10 #Bookstodon challenge: Choose 20 #books that greatly influenced you. One #book per day, for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews, just covers
(I've already been doing this over on Bluesky and am several days in, so I'm going to do my best to not get mixed up on the days I'm on 😆) @bookstodon#horror@horrorbooks
I was in a huge reading slump from February to May. It's a really difficult time for me, and this year I wasn't able to find the comfort & escapism in reading I normally do. I even tried rereading one of my favorite series, but the only thing I really wanted to do was read fanfiction on AO3 and look on Ebay for vintage jewelry.
I'm feeling better, and gotten my reading groove back, so here's a very belated roundup.
Day 11 #Bookstodon challenge: Choose 20 #books that greatly influenced you. One #book per day, for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews, just covers
(I've already been doing this over on Bluesky and am several days in, so I'm going to do my best to not get mixed up on the days I'm on 😆) @bookstodon#horror@horrorbooks