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• Post #4497034

  #WritersCoffeeClub 11 Aug—When were you last a student? July 1990, the month I got my Master's Degree (a conversion degree for science graduates transitioning into computer science—roughly equivalent to a Comp Sci BSc). Before that, in 1986 I graduated with a BPharm then did post-graduation training to register as a pharmacist. Guess what? I've been a full-time writer almost continuously (three years in software dev aside) since late 1990! (Technical author, computer journalist, noveli...

• Post #4451417

  RE: https://thepit.social/@peter/117059179821644960 I did not have "Trump starts a shooting war over oil with another NATO member" on my bingo card this year after the Iran fiasco. Obviously I'm too optimistic for this time line.

• Post #4415824

  German authorities have thwarted a Russian intelligence operation to assassinate executives of defense companies supplying weapons to the Ukrainian military. One of the main targets was Stefan Thumann, an executive at German startup Donaustahl: https://militarnyi.com/en/news/germany-thwarts-plot-donaustahl-executive/ (Coming the day after the drone attack on Antonovs at Leipzig, this suggests Russia is significantly ramping up attacks in Germany.)

• Post #4406103

  Direct Scotland-Europe Sleeper trains plan through Channel Tunnel revived by SNP: https://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/direct-scotland-europe-sleeper-trains-plan-through-channel-tunnel-revived-by-snp-8839228 It's only a feasibility study at this point *but* Caledonian Sleeper is in state ownership; the original plan was cancelled by Tories in the 1990s and the rolling stock sold to Canada. And I, for one, will be a customer if they do it.) (Annoying paywall, remove via https://archive...

• Post #4401577

  @FeralRobots@mastodon.social I don't use Ubuntu. It seems to be thoroughly AI-pilled from Mark Shuttleworth down. Also Wayland and Systemd -pilled. (I want an Old Skool distro with X11, SysV init scripts, and KDE 3.5, i.e. Trinity Desktop Environment. Scriv running on that would be the icing on the cake.)

• Post #4365144

  So, it occurs to me that a silver lining of the near-duopoly of Android/iOS on smartphones, and device convergence, is that it is now possible to assemble a cheap travel kit of electronics circa-2006 that will cause maximum pain and friction for state border guard searches without being obvious. And the bits are cheaper than an iPhone. E-ink reader, trad iPod clone, dumbphone, camera, writerdeck, Linux deck where you read your email in a terminal window over ssh using Mutt … I'm very tempt...

• Post #4362045

  Over on Bluesky, K J Charles notes that she gets the usual AI-generated author marketing scams. Today she got a rather more obnoxious one than usual from a "Mary Walter", who was last seen standing astride the turret of a T-72 main battle tank advancing on Moscow at the head of a column of heavy armed mobile library vans:

• Post #4350022

  #PennedPossibilities 1088 Name something that is considered rare and valuable in your WIP? What is common and essential? Rare and valuable: brain scanning (destructive) and memory imprinting (onto a 5-6 year old child, whose personality is overwritten): in The Permanence it's a capital offense for commoners to do it, but nearly universal among the nobility because lossy tech-mediated reincarnation is how the aristocracy maintains its grip on power. Common and essential: conservative tyran...

• Post #4312659

  #PennedPossibilities 1087: Write or share something from your WIP pertaining to: “struggle.” My quote is too long for a toot, so the readable text is in the alt-text of the screencap below. (Needless to say, it's from a space opera in progress.)

• Post #4312254

  RE: https://windbag.org/@adam/117017288466721450 Infantino: "Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place. "Our purpose has always been — and will always be — to unite and improve. As a result, this proposal will not proceed." I see *not one word* about the sport here. (Disclaimer: am not a spo...

• Post #4168270

  Today is cancelled (especially work). It's too muggy/humid and I lost half the afternoon to a hospital appointment and I'm tired now. (Upside: I'm on a waiting list for invasive coronary angiography and possibly angioplasty or a stent depending on what they find.)

• Post #4166894

  #WritersCoffeeClub Oct 9: Recommend a fellow writer you believe is under appreciated. Graydon Saunders. (Self-publishes a series of fantasy novels. Ebooks only, refuses to work with Amazon or anyone else who requires DRM, so best sought on Kobo. Absolutely madly different to anything else that fits the label "high fantasy" because, to start with, he's anti-monarchist and anti-aristrocratic *and so are his protagonists*.

• Post #4109219

  #WritersCoffeeClub 26 Jul: Do you have other works waiting in the wings? How many? I do this for a living; I don't generally discuss unsold work in public (but I'm currently working on spinning up a space opera setting with at least two books in it). I have a career's worth of unfinished projects behind me: when I get through this final redraft of the WIP I'll probably pick up an unfinished novella from a couple of years ago and push it past the finish line.

• Post #4084298

  RE: https://dobbs.town/@bobcromwell/116977603579088866 Modern equivalent:

• Post #4083219

  #WritersCoffeeClub 25 July C&R: What are your techniques to escape a corner you’ve written yourself into? Everyone: Have you tried this? I'm partial to Raymond Chandler's advice: "when in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun". Failing that, the old pulp serial standby: "with one jump, he was free!" But really, the best solution is to break the frame that dictated there should be a corner for you to be in. Expand the picture, add context that remove...

• Post #4070361

  RE: https://mastodon.scot/@andrewducker/116976438266159917 Travel through Central Edinburgh is still disrupted due to the fire on Princes Street a couple of weeks ago—the site is unstable and dangerously close to the tram route, so there are no trams running east of Haymarket and buses are re-routed. It's likely to remain problematic well into August as the gutted historic building facade needs to be made safe with structural reinforcements. Happy Festival Month, everyone! (lolsob)

• Post #4060728

  #WritersCoffeeClub 24 July. Should a reader be forewarned about any and all erotic content, no matter how small? No! It's the reader's job to curate their own boundaries. Books don't leap out and grab victims then force words into the reader's head: a reader has to deliberately keep reading and can stop whenever they feel like it. So any harm is self-inflicted.

• Post #4031563

  #WritersCoffeeClub July 23. How much erotic content can a work have without being considered erotica? If the focus of the work is on the erotic content, then it's erotica. If the focus is on something else, then the erotica is just there to add colour (or the author got the balance wrong).

• Post #4018225

  So, I just unboxed the first C64 I've ever owned. It was too expensive for 16-year-old me in 1982, but the C64U costs the same in real terms and I'm not 16 any more. It also comes with 128Mb of RAM, a 50MHz CPU (emulated in hardware by an FPGA), 64Gb of various C64 software and demos on a "cassette" (actually a USB drive), and has a bunch of 21st century bells and whistles like wifi and an SD card drive emulator.

• Post #4002688

  REMINDER that it's not dieselpunk unless you've got zeppelins *and* VTOL cargo airplanes. But Friedrichshaven has both …

• Post #3992956

  While on vacation a week ago I was in Friedrichshaven, looking out from the shore of Lake Constance during a red warning for thunderstorms, when this happened:

• Post #3986663

  #WritersCoffeeClub July 21: Do your works contain erotic elements? How far do you go? Yes, but only when it's plot-appropriate, and I'm not usually insert-tab-A-in-slot-B explicit (unless there's a story-related reason) …

• Post #3984234

  @georgetakei@universeodon.com It is apparent from his Cabinet picks that Burnham is just Starmer with better PR—in particular the right-wing immigrant bashing will continue with Mahmood staying in the Home Office. Labour is no longer a left-wing party, hasn't been since 2019, and Mamdani should be a model for the UK to follow, not vice versa. (Speaking as a UKan.)

• Post #3953325

  #WritersCoffeeClub 20th July ~ Talk about a friend who really drives you as a writer. Is this some weird American vernacular idiom? Because I can't work out what this prompt is asking. (Drives me … mad? Drives me … like a car? Drives me … like a herd of sheep?)

• Post #3931986

  Welp, sitting in Eurostar Plus class on a train to St Pancras. Then another train and home to Edinburgh tonight. 6h30m on trains if there are no delays, but allowing time off for lunch and beers in London.

• Post #3928788

  It never ceases to amaze me how today's techbros vision of the future they want defaults to fully automated leopard-face-chomping neo-feudalism rather than fully automated luxury gay space communism

• Post #3834235

  Yikes! Shutting windows because the bins are flying and the rain is so heavy I can't see the other side of the street!

• Post #3813001

  Nice evening for a jaunt across Lake Constance and a beer in Switzerland! (That's all I can afford.)

• Post #3723347

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@Lazarou/116894990664035091 Don't forget how the BNP (卐) was absolutely schooled by Marmite™! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8637473.stm

• Post #3717174

  #PennedPossibilities 1066: "How do people travel long distances in your WIP?" Oh, the usual: starships, electric unicycles, space elevators, streetcars, unicorn-drawn carriages, zeppelins, and hovercraft. (Internal combustion engines and automobiles are unheard-of.)