Opoponax

My plan to read Horrorstör in Ikea was finally fulfilled at Ikea Canberra's first Silent Book Club last week. I sat in a display lounge room reading about a group of customer service staff trying to survive a night shift at Orsk, an Ikea-type furniture store. Interspersed with the story are posters of retail values and catalogue ads of furniture that become more deranged throughout the book. Open to suggestions about the next book to bring to #Ikea. #books #bookstodon #horror #satire

I'm thinking of getting a Plant Wave, after hearing music made from plants by the Data Garden Quartet years ago and backing Midi Sprout on Kickstarter (although I didn’t get it). Plant Wave converts plant biofeedback into musical notes so you can hear to what a cactus or a tomato sounds like or listen to a plant grow. Curious to know if anyone here has actually used one.

https://plantwave.com

#PlantMusic #Music #PlantWave #DataGardenQuartet #ElectronicMusic

"I use emdashes and I'm not a robot" may be the most subversive writing act you can do today.

Famous last words

Thanks to AI shaming, the em dash has been unfairly maligned as a sign of AI-generated writing. But, as Brian Phillips writes for humanity's salvation, the em dash is the most human punctuation of all: "It would be a tragedy if writers stopped using em dashes out of fear of sounding like AI, because em dashes are one of the best tools writers have for not sounding robotic in the first place."

#grammar #AI #language #English

https://www.theringer.com/2025/08/20/pop-culture/em-dash-use-ai-artificial-intelligence-chatgpt-google-gemini

Last week I learnt about the Future Library in Norway, a 100-year project from 2014-2114. Each year, a new writer is chosen to write a book which is kept secret until publication in 2114.

It's interesting because it raises questions about the future of the environment and inter-generational legacy. We assume paper-based books and the languages they’re written in will still exist in 100 years’ time. And that the people who know those languages will still be here and able to read them.

#books

@potterybyosa@mastodon.social beautiful!

@acb@mastodon.social Meanwhile in Australia: Can we have a train line connecting Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney 🙏? NO

@Natasha_Jay the good news story we needed today! Thanks for sharing.

@badastro Operation Dark Storm did that and look what happened there.

@imanijoy @Mastodon This is a great idea! And thanks for providing the option for asynchronous participation - as an Australian I appreciate this :)

@vowe if a cosmetic pencil is all it takes to bypass the process, then can't be a good process to start with. Also reminds me of how kids used Google Docs to bypass social media restrictions and secretly message their friends. Kids will always find cleverly simple workarounds 😆