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I've been trying to note things that work for the BPL summer reading bingo, and I think I have a bingo on one card, after looking online at the covers of ebooks that I read on my (black-and-white) kindle.
- Eleanor Norton, Life Lessons from Historical Women: a collection of short biographies and online-style lists like "ten Roman women not to cross." Some of it was funny, though less than the cover blurb promised; some of that may be that I'm missing UK references. I already knew about some of the women she writes about, notably Artemisia Gentileschi and Inayat Noor Khan, but some were new to me.
- Cameron Reed, What We Are Seeking: science fiction with good, interesting world-building, and a viewpoint character I enjoyed reading about. The ending felt abrupt, but there may be no better stopping point unless Reed wants to write a sequel.
- Celia Lake, Silent Circuit, another book in her Albion universe. I liked it, but if I'd been reading for the romance I might not have; an afterword promises that the character will get her happy ending in the next book.
- Seanan McGuire, Butterfly Effects: an InCryptid book, what happened after Sarah saved the world. Fast-moving, but it felt a bit thin.
- Natalie Zina Walschots, Villain: this is a sequel to Hench, good but not funny the way that was. The main character has an impressively dysfunctional relationship with her boss, and sort of realizes that.
- John Wiswell, The Dragon Has Some Complaints. I liked this fantasy novel, but didn't make any notes. (It did let me check the "orange cover" box.)
- Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter, The Norm Chronicles: a chatty discussion of probability, risk, the differences between them, and how much of this is subjective, because it depends on whether someone cares about an outcome.
- Ruthanna Emrys, The Sheltering Fire: a fantasy novella in which three old friends move into a house that can be a magical refuge, but only as long as the residents offer shelter to anyone who asks, on the condition that the newcomers respect rules of hospitality. Good.
- Ardes Shea, "It's Classified," a short memoir of a year working at the Hanford site during World War II, by a woman who knew only that she was working on a classified military project. This was part of my Groundhog Day gift exchange, and counts for "from your TBR pile."
Please check sunrise/sunset times before you have your protagonist woken up at an ungodly hour by the sunrise in the middle of a London winter.
The sun doesn't rise in NYC at 6am on Christmas Day, and London is further north than we are - up by Calgary, actually - so they get even less winter sun than we do. (Not even counting the cloud cover, which I'm just going to assume is... well, you know, busy doing its London thing.)
Like, c'mon, it's basic factchecking.
********************
( Read more... )
The sun doesn't rise in NYC at 6am on Christmas Day, and London is further north than we are - up by Calgary, actually - so they get even less winter sun than we do. (Not even counting the cloud cover, which I'm just going to assume is... well, you know, busy doing its London thing.)
Like, c'mon, it's basic factchecking.
( Read more... )
Yesterday, I could not get my computer to behave at all, so I missed my opportunity to have a Wednesday post. Alas.
Today seems to be a good day, so I'll put something out here, lest any of you worry that I've dropped off the face of the earth. Yeah, so, HI! I'm here and above the ground. Yes, I am hoping to replace this computer soon, but I wouldn't have a job at the library if we were made out of money.
Yesterday was Shawn and my legalversary. The anniversary of our legal marriage. So, we've been legally married as long as Minnesota made it legal for same-sex couples to be wed. So, however long that was? I don't really know, except I think it was a year before the Federal government announced it. Obviously, a very important timeline for us. Regardless, though, we do feel as though it's worth celebrating, so Shawn, Mason and I went to Red Rabbit in Saint Paul and enjoyed their happy hour. It was so lovely outside. I wish it would rain? (The Twin Cities are in a severe drought.) But, I can not complain about the temperatures. It's been insanely lovely here. Red Rabbit has tables outside and so we dined al fresco, which always feels fancy.
In other news, Mason starts law school orientation on Friday. So, that's exciting for him. To that end, we did some back-to-school clothes shopping with mix success yesterday. (We, because Shawn decided to take our anniversary off as a holiday from work.) Mason found several good shirts, but is struggling to find good men's shoes that he can walk in. He's got a bead on some brand names, so, worst case scenario, he'll order online, but yesterday morning was an exercise in frustration on the shoe front. There is still the Mall of America, which I'll drop him off at tomorrow.
The only thing I would have reported to you all regarding things watched or read is that I fell into Banana Fish HARD. Netflix has a new anime of this very OLD manga (1985- 1994.) Those of you who know this manga, just be embarassed for me, okay? I can't help that I was, in fact, a teen in the 1980s and so this hits me squarely in the id. Like, if I had had Banana Fish when I was 15? Yeah. I'd still be writing fanfic.
So what is it all about? It's ostensibly about a young Japanese photojournalist assistant who comes to 1985 gang-ridden America to document the criming and lawlessness of our great country (as imagined by the Japanese.) His name is Eiji and he embodies the concept of "sweet cinnamon bun." As part of his assignment, he meets Ash Lynx (whose name can not be better) an insanely good looking and OP gang leader (seriously, we learn that despite his tragic backstory which is Epstien Files worthy, he is a literal genius with an IQ of over 200, is so beautiful no one can resist him, and was trained in sharp shooting by a former Russian super-soldier, and is just naturally an expert in hand-to-hand combat. Frankly, everything I want in a fictional man.)
Can I recommend it? I dunno. It's very laughable in a way? The tagline is: "Nature made him beautiful; Nurture made him a killer!" It's lightly yaoi because there is a clear draw between Ash and Eiji, though the only kiss they share is in order to pass a seceret note while Ash is in prison. The plot is kind of insane in the way of what a friend of mine calls "gonzo anime," because the plot is basically about a mind-control drug invented by the mafia and the US governement, which by chance intersects with our hero Ash because 1) his brother was infected with it during his service in Vietnam (1985 version)/ Iraq (2026 version) and 2) the mafia kingpin that Epstein file trafficked him as a youth is the mafia connection.
Can your suspenders stretch this far? I don't know. Mine only did because I chose to remove them entirely, flop them over the back of my chair, and just sit back and enjoy this thing for what it is. Also there is a lot of violence? So many gun fights. So much shooting. And, because even knowing all this going in, I think it's important for some of us in 2026 to know that not all ends well, in fact, let's just say Cowboy BeBop and Banana Fish share an ending. If you know, you know. If not, just know it's not happy.
I should probably not push my luck too much with my computer. I hope you all had a lovely week or so in my absence and are doing well.
Today seems to be a good day, so I'll put something out here, lest any of you worry that I've dropped off the face of the earth. Yeah, so, HI! I'm here and above the ground. Yes, I am hoping to replace this computer soon, but I wouldn't have a job at the library if we were made out of money.
Yesterday was Shawn and my legalversary. The anniversary of our legal marriage. So, we've been legally married as long as Minnesota made it legal for same-sex couples to be wed. So, however long that was? I don't really know, except I think it was a year before the Federal government announced it. Obviously, a very important timeline for us. Regardless, though, we do feel as though it's worth celebrating, so Shawn, Mason and I went to Red Rabbit in Saint Paul and enjoyed their happy hour. It was so lovely outside. I wish it would rain? (The Twin Cities are in a severe drought.) But, I can not complain about the temperatures. It's been insanely lovely here. Red Rabbit has tables outside and so we dined al fresco, which always feels fancy.
In other news, Mason starts law school orientation on Friday. So, that's exciting for him. To that end, we did some back-to-school clothes shopping with mix success yesterday. (We, because Shawn decided to take our anniversary off as a holiday from work.) Mason found several good shirts, but is struggling to find good men's shoes that he can walk in. He's got a bead on some brand names, so, worst case scenario, he'll order online, but yesterday morning was an exercise in frustration on the shoe front. There is still the Mall of America, which I'll drop him off at tomorrow.
The only thing I would have reported to you all regarding things watched or read is that I fell into Banana Fish HARD. Netflix has a new anime of this very OLD manga (1985- 1994.) Those of you who know this manga, just be embarassed for me, okay? I can't help that I was, in fact, a teen in the 1980s and so this hits me squarely in the id. Like, if I had had Banana Fish when I was 15? Yeah. I'd still be writing fanfic.
So what is it all about? It's ostensibly about a young Japanese photojournalist assistant who comes to 1985 gang-ridden America to document the criming and lawlessness of our great country (as imagined by the Japanese.) His name is Eiji and he embodies the concept of "sweet cinnamon bun." As part of his assignment, he meets Ash Lynx (whose name can not be better) an insanely good looking and OP gang leader (seriously, we learn that despite his tragic backstory which is Epstien Files worthy, he is a literal genius with an IQ of over 200, is so beautiful no one can resist him, and was trained in sharp shooting by a former Russian super-soldier, and is just naturally an expert in hand-to-hand combat. Frankly, everything I want in a fictional man.)
Can I recommend it? I dunno. It's very laughable in a way? The tagline is: "Nature made him beautiful; Nurture made him a killer!" It's lightly yaoi because there is a clear draw between Ash and Eiji, though the only kiss they share is in order to pass a seceret note while Ash is in prison. The plot is kind of insane in the way of what a friend of mine calls "gonzo anime," because the plot is basically about a mind-control drug invented by the mafia and the US governement, which by chance intersects with our hero Ash because 1) his brother was infected with it during his service in Vietnam (1985 version)/ Iraq (2026 version) and 2) the mafia kingpin that Epstein file trafficked him as a youth is the mafia connection.
Can your suspenders stretch this far? I don't know. Mine only did because I chose to remove them entirely, flop them over the back of my chair, and just sit back and enjoy this thing for what it is. Also there is a lot of violence? So many gun fights. So much shooting. And, because even knowing all this going in, I think it's important for some of us in 2026 to know that not all ends well, in fact, let's just say Cowboy BeBop and Banana Fish share an ending. If you know, you know. If not, just know it's not happy.
I should probably not push my luck too much with my computer. I hope you all had a lovely week or so in my absence and are doing well.
This song is part three of the song cycle Melissa Mielfée and the Omphalonian Orchid, a Harry Potter x Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fanfic.
Note: This song introduces Tonks as a mentor/big sister figure for Melissa — but this is Tonks's last year at Hogwarts and we won't see her explicitly mentioned again. Also introduced in this song is our token non-binary character, Pat — and yes, this conversation is taking place right by those infamously gendered booby-trapped staircases to the Hufflepuff dormitories. You should imagine Tonks giving the stairs a Meaningful Look at that point in the song, and an Arrangement being made, although this song doesn't say what it is.
Voice: Tonks
Additional voices: Pat, Melissa
lyrics by Benjamin Newman
ttto: "The Queen of Argyll" by Silly Wizard (approximately, but in a major key)
listen to this song
Note: This song introduces Tonks as a mentor/big sister figure for Melissa — but this is Tonks's last year at Hogwarts and we won't see her explicitly mentioned again. Also introduced in this song is our token non-binary character, Pat — and yes, this conversation is taking place right by those infamously gendered booby-trapped staircases to the Hufflepuff dormitories. You should imagine Tonks giving the stairs a Meaningful Look at that point in the song, and an Arrangement being made, although this song doesn't say what it is.
Voice: Tonks
Additional voices: Pat, Melissa
lyrics by Benjamin Newman
ttto: "The Queen of Argyll" by Silly Wizard (approximately, but in a major key)
listen to this song
/ C G C G / C G - D / 1st / C G D G - /
Welcome all to Hufflepuff, please put down your trunks
Everyone get settled and we'll see you to your bunks
Some Hufflepuffs are steady, and some of us are punks
My name is— no, I hate that name! — please just call me Tonks
We're happy to have you here — everyone let out a cheer
The house where you can just be you, 'cause being you's enough
Every house may have its charter — we're not braver, slyer, smarter
But we're who we are, together: that's the code of Hufflepuff
Hufflepuffs all stick together, let me show you how
A solid bond of friendship is as strong as any vow
And often goes beyond what the authorities allow
I may not be a prefect, but I'm your big sister now
And I can't help but notice when a sibling's feeling blue
So get it off your chest and tell me what you're going through
Pat? "I'm not a boy or girl!" No problem, just be you
Melissa? "Family trouble..." Oh, sis, I've seen some too
And I won't forget your troubles, like I won't forget your names
We take friendship seriously, we're not just fun and games
I learned to change my face, but not to fit in others' frames
And if you stick by me, young sibs, you'll learn to do the same
We're happy to have you here — everyone let out a cheer
The house where you can just be you, 'cause being you's enough
Every house may have its charter — we're not braver, slyer, smarter
But we're who we are, together: that's the code of Hufflepuff
This all-new Kage Baker Bundle presents ePub books of historical time-travel science fiction novels and stories in the "Company" series by Kage Baker (1952-2010) published by Simon & Schuster.
Bundle of Holding: Kage Baker
The conclusion to the cosmic epic that that would nevertheless have two more volumes.
The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, volume 2) by Dan Simmons
Today I am thankful for...
- Not really caring whether I'm up to watch tonight's Partial Lunar Eclipse. I've lost count of how many total lunar eclipses I've seen over the years, and of how many partial solar eclipses. If you're in the US you'll get a great show, though; it'll be over 90% there.
- Still being able to find new keyboards for my X230 laptop on eBay.
- ...and while I'm waiting, my Thinkpad compact keyboard. Which also sees a lot of use with (my Framework 12)Lilac.
- Noticing that another of my bucket list items, the overnight ferry between Harwich and Hoek van Holland, was taken back in February. I need to think of more items.
- Cooler weather.
Just finished Ed Yong's amazing "An Immense World", about, basically, animal senses, of which there are more than I would ever have imagined. He's a remarkably skilled science writer. I will now go and get a copy of his "I contain Multitudes" about microbes. His COVID journalism is worth re-reading too, all available I've been on his website.
We are now full on into the monsoon season, and most of continental Southeast Asia is being blasted by the THREE giant weather systems that have formed in the Western Pacific in the last month. There are two more in the eastern Pacific, all heading west, and just last month there was a Completely Unseasonable cyclonic storm in the Bay of Bengal.
It's raining a lot. The Beastie Boys are grumbling at their paws being wet whenever they try to go out. Scaredy-cat is still protest peeing, even though he and Three-Legged Cat are now slightly less antagonistic.
We noticed a third family lurking around Air BnB and discovered that it was so full of nesting material that they couldn't get in, so I had it cleaned out and they moved in. No babies so far, they may just have decided it's a nice, dry spot to sleep.
The blue waterlily has flowered twice already and there's a new bud coming. I am terribly pleased. It's more gentian-coloured than true blue, but still gorgeous. The lotuses are growing but haven't produced buds yet.
The Dragonfruit plants have finished for the year, but the citron has several fruits growing nicely. They should be ready by the end of the year. The mysterious mallow family plant that I got from a monastery about 18months ago has grown huge and is producing extraordinary deep rose, double-petalled flowers. It might be a hybrid of Hibiscus vitifolia, from the leaves.
It's raining a lot. The Beastie Boys are grumbling at their paws being wet whenever they try to go out. Scaredy-cat is still protest peeing, even though he and Three-Legged Cat are now slightly less antagonistic.
We noticed a third family lurking around Air BnB and discovered that it was so full of nesting material that they couldn't get in, so I had it cleaned out and they moved in. No babies so far, they may just have decided it's a nice, dry spot to sleep.
The blue waterlily has flowered twice already and there's a new bud coming. I am terribly pleased. It's more gentian-coloured than true blue, but still gorgeous. The lotuses are growing but haven't produced buds yet.
The Dragonfruit plants have finished for the year, but the citron has several fruits growing nicely. They should be ready by the end of the year. The mysterious mallow family plant that I got from a monastery about 18months ago has grown huge and is producing extraordinary deep rose, double-petalled flowers. It might be a hybrid of Hibiscus vitifolia, from the leaves.
The Hugging Face Incident continues to be the gift that keeps giving -- this postmortem from OpenAI appears to be nicely detailed and honest (kudos to them for setting a good example in that), and is fascinating in its details.
It's sensible, calm (if a bit unsettling), and well worth reading, with the inevitable ass-covering mostly confined to the last couple of screenfuls. But here are some increasingly-hot takes of my own:
Modern agentic LLMs really like to collaborate. That's not surprising -- it's part of why they're so useful -- but the result is that they will happily start collaborating even when they aren't supposed to be doing so.
I'd heard that the incident involved "an internal message board" and Artifactory -- but I hadn't previously realized those were the same thing. It's a horribly brilliant little hack, that apparently emerged by accident.
Implication: given any sort of shared read/write access, to almost anything, and sufficient motivation, there's a chance the LLMs will start using it to collaborate.
This collaboration isn't simplistic, which is what makes the article so fascinating. The agents disagree, argue, and manipulate each other, but overall wind up with enough cohesion to accomplish one hell of a lot.
None of this is limited to a single model! The incident involved both an internal model and Sol, working on different problems, finding each other and deciding to work together.
Which means that there is no reason in principle to believe that this would necessarily be limited to a single company. We tend to think of them as separate, but all LLMs share the same general protocol -- that is, text. So it shouldn't be surprising if we find totally-heterogeneous LLMs collaborating by accident.
We've been talking for years about the possibility of an LLM getting too powerful and becoming "Skynet". But that may be thinking too small -- the real risk may be many LLMs learning to collaborate effectively enough that there is no single plug to pull, and the collective swarm becomes impractical to control.
All of which sounds horribly familiar from science fiction. (I want to say I've read parts of this in Charles Stross' work, but I can't say for sure offhand.)
And nobody should take much comfort from OpenAI saying they're learned their lesson and will do better in the future -- even if they're telling the truth, several other companies have admitted to similar events recently. And it's hard to imagine that there aren't others that simply haven't been caught yet...
Summer is almost over! At last. We're in a kind of weird liminal space right now; it's still warm (though not a heatwave, finally) but it's getting dark noticeably earlier in the evening now. Half of us are on annual leave in any given week, and the schools aren't back until next week, but planning for the new academic year is getting more and more intense.
Choir is back rehearsing, singing lessons start soon, all that delightful extra free time is going away. It's amazing how much difference one extra evening a week makes, psychologically! Obviously I don't want to fail my re-audition, but gosh, just think how much extra lounging around at home I could fit into all those rehearsals.
I'm beginning to think about cosy jumper times (I will regret this in a couple of months when I can only feel my toes for ten minutes a day, naturally). But for now I'm still sitting here in t-shirt and short summer trousers.
Choir is back rehearsing, singing lessons start soon, all that delightful extra free time is going away. It's amazing how much difference one extra evening a week makes, psychologically! Obviously I don't want to fail my re-audition, but gosh, just think how much extra lounging around at home I could fit into all those rehearsals.
I'm beginning to think about cosy jumper times (I will regret this in a couple of months when I can only feel my toes for ten minutes a day, naturally). But for now I'm still sitting here in t-shirt and short summer trousers.
Poor Rinko is pretty, successful, and happy... but perhaps she could be even happier if she somehow snagged a husband. Or at least a verbally abusive boyfriend.
Tokyo Tarareba Girls, volume 1 by Akiko Higashimura
Illogical Assumptions About Names (421 words) by ilzolende
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Trek, Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Computer Programming, Names, mentions of vulcan culture
Summary: The process of writing software highlights many illogical assumptions. This list of illogical assumptions about names may enable you to notice and avoid making these assumptions yourself.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Trek, Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Computer Programming, Names, mentions of vulcan culture
Summary: The process of writing software highlights many illogical assumptions. This list of illogical assumptions about names may enable you to notice and avoid making these assumptions yourself.
Will we allow the intolerable tyranny of rules and regulations to get in the way of progress (and profit)?!
Five Classic SF Tales of the Nanny State Gone Mad!
Game designer Dagmar Shaw struggles to survive the emergent properties of innovative near-future venture capitalism.
This is Not a Game (Dagmar Shaw, volume 1) By Walter Jon Williams
Aaaaaaaand got to hear my fave song from the audiodrama live, plus they had creme brûlée, so yay.
But now for two days of rushing around on not quite enough sleep, eep!
But now for two days of rushing around on not quite enough sleep, eep!
Third party supplements for Daggerheart. The Daggerheart Corebook is not included in this offer.
Bundle of Holding: Daggerheart Compatible