ergative

ergative, 2 months ago to random

I can tell exactly who on mastodon is in Europe because they're all complaining about time changes this morning.

ergative, 2 months ago to SF

I'm reading Foundation for the first time, in preparation for an upcoming review for @NerdsofaFeather , and I'm torn between 'Asimov is doing something brilliant' and 'Asimov is doing something very silly'. I really hope it's the former. I can see how it could be. But I fear it's going to end up being the latter, because in my experience reading Golden Age #SF, writing in that era doesn't tend to do the thing that needs to happen for the former.

We'll see!

(No spoilers, please)

ergative, 2 months ago to random

Once on a forum for #FountainPen fanciers, someone posted that anyone who uses an ink colour other than black is trying to hide the fact that they have nothing serious or worthwhile saying. Modern tendencies for atrocities such as glittery inks are a sign of the degredation and downfall of civilization, unlike the good old days when monks were SRS BUSINESS and used only BLACK.

1/..

ergative, 2 months ago to fountainpens

I'm reading a book that mentions inherited #FountainPens, but also is set before railways to Inverness opened, so I'm doing a bit of research into relative timelines to see if this is even possible.

Turns out it is, just barely: First railway to Inverness opened 1854, while eyedropper fountain pens were patented in 1809. So if this takes place 1850, fountain pen is 30 years old, it's possible. (But not if pen is self-filling, patented in1832.)

Did the author check dates, or just get lucky?

ergative, 2 months ago to bookstodon

Hallo, friendos! I have a review of a vintage body-swap book up at @NerdsofaFeather this morning: Strange Journey, by Maud Cairnes.

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2024/03/review-strange-journey-by-maud-cairnes.html

#bookReview @fantasy #sff @bookstodon

ergative, 2 months ago to bookstodon

Dannnng, @chloroform_tea 's review of Grace Curtis's book 'Floating Hotel' really makes me want to read it.

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2024/03/review-floating-hotel-by-grace-curtis.html

#bookReview @bookstodon #sff

ergative, 2 months ago to random

I'm please to report that my Make America Kittens Again browser extension is doing its job. What a lovely combination to greet my eyes.

ergative, 3 months ago to fountainpens

Bwah, the Lamy Dark Violet kerfuffle has made the NYTimes!

#fountainPens
#FountainPenInk
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/style/lamy-dark-lilac-ink.html

ergative, 3 months ago to ukteachers

Hey, Mastodon! Indiana's attorney general has created an anti-teacher snitch portal for people to report school teachers for being too woke. It allows you to upload files and everything!

There appears to be no safeguard against entering any text you want in any of the boxes, and no location/residence checking.

Dare I ask you to do your thing?

https://www.in.gov/attorneygeneral/education-liberty/

Boosts welcome!

#academicChatter #education #bts #taylorSwift

ergative, 3 months ago to fantasy

I'm very pleased to report that Emily Tesh's 'Some Desperate Glory' is every bit as good as all the hype has said it was.

Or at least, the first 304 pages of it are. Haven't finished yet.

#sff #amReading #fantasy @bookstodon

mishellbaker, 3 months ago to random

Besides bloomscrolling and catstodon, what are some hashtags that are full of uplifting, funny, creative, cool, or inspiring things?

⚠️ Request to those replying: please do not put the # in front of the hashtag name, to reduce hashtag pollution for those following the tags!

For example you can just say bloomscrolling or "bloomscrolling" or hashtag bloomscrolling.

ergative, 3 months ago to random

TIL that the counterpart of nibling is entle, and I think that is just the best word.

ergative, 3 months ago to bookstodon

Looking forward to reading 'War Among Ladies,' by Eleanor Scott, published in 1928 on the subject of schoolteachers in the UK, solely on the strength of the following dedication:

`TO THE MAN IN THE TRAIN

between Newton Abbott and Exeter, who declared to the Author that all teachers had:

Too much pay
Too little work, and
Too much leisure,

this book, respectfully and without permission, is

DEDICATED'

#amReading
@bookstodon

ergative, 3 months ago to random

TFW you encounter a super-simple algorithm for converging on a Sierpinski gasket through randomly sampling from one of three perturbations of a random starting point on the plane, and realize you can spend 10 minutes in R and simulate it yourself:

#rstats

ergative, 4 months ago to sciencefiction

Hey, @NerdsofaFeather 's @carturo222 has a review of 'The Past Trader', by A. M. Donohoo, a novella with a fascinating premise, but which is exactly the wrong length to do it justice:

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2024/02/novella-project-past-trader-by-m-donohoo.html

@bookstodon #scienceFiction #bookReview

ergative, 4 months ago to random

Hey, friends, a quick reminder that although Make America Kittens Again (MAKA) has been blocked from Chrome, it still works on Firefox:

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/make-firefox-kittens-again/

(MAKA is a browser extension that replaces all images whose metadata includes the word 'Trump' with a creative-commons picture of a kitten. Here's what it did to the front page of today's NYTimes for me.)

cstross, 4 months ago to random

Trolley problem solution:

I think we should find out who keeps tying victims to the tracks, and next time they try it, we should free the victims and tie them up in their place. It's only fair!

SPOILER: the serial killer will probably turn out to be an SUV salesman, trying to discredit safe, cheap public transport.

KitMuse, 4 months ago to sciencefiction

I need your help #bookstodon. One of the classes I'm taking at the graduate level this semester is Religion & Science Fiction. I read more fantasy, and would like to do my research paper on something that's not obvious (like ST/BS5/Matrix/etc.) & I'd love to use more modern sf rather than the golden age classics.

Anyone have any interesting ideas for my research paper on regarding the intersection of religion and science fiction?

@bookstodon #sciencefiction #scifi #ReligiousStudies #academia

ergative, 5 months ago to fantasy

Hey, mastodon! Nerds of a Feather is reviewing a bunch of Novellas this month, and I have the honour of contributing the first review of Nerds today. It's a review of Indra Das's 'Last Dragoners of Bowbazar', which is a thoughtful meditation on memory, identity, and coming of age, but which does not quite deliver on the promised dragons.

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2024/01/novella-project-last-dragoners-of.html?m=1

@bookstodon #fantasy #novella #bookReview #amReading #sff #dragon

ergative, 5 months ago to fantasy

Hey, #DecRecs isn't quite over yet! I haven't been doing it so much recently because the Absolutive house got hit with covid, but things are improving, and I just observed that Owen King's extremely interesting book about an ill-fated proletariate revolution in a fascinating magical city is on sale for 99p on uk amazon today.

I wrote a review of it on my blog here, if you want to know more

https://dampskunk.wordpress.com/2023/11/05/the-curator-2023-by-owen-king/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Curator-Owen-King-ebook/dp/B0BG4N1LVK

@bookstodon #BookReview #fantasy #sff

ergative, 5 months ago to linguistics

It's only just occurred to me decades late that the joke of 'The Addams Family Values' is based on ambiguous phrase structure. We could have [Addams Family] modifying 'values', as in Fig 1 -- the intended interpretation, but there's also the alternative bracketing which is automatically invoked by the highly frequent collocation 'family values'.

It's rather a brilliant film title!

(don't come at me for using X' schemas. I like 'em, they serve my non-syntactician needs)

#linguistics

Fig 2: Phrase structure tree of the bracket structure [NP [D the] [N' [Adj?? Addams] [N' [NP [N Family ] ] [N Values ] ] ] ]

18+ amyfou, 5 months ago to random

deleted_by_author

cstross, 5 months ago to random

DO MY WORK:

Currently brainstorming aliterative terms of disparagement for Bob to use in the next Laundry novel.

So far I have disallowed:

— Tangerine Shitgibbon ❌ (because Fuck That Guy)
— Useless Fuckpigs ❌ (too much Dominic Cummings)

But also:

— Demented Felchsquirrels
— Impotent Wankpandas
— Pathetic Puffinfellators
— Turd-polishing Terrapins
— Stupefied Swivemonkeys

And now I need more.

What have you got for me?