Reading

Entry tags:

books

Reading Wednesday

Just finished: Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This one was really fun. I have three more Hugo nominees to read but so far this is on top. There's something weirdly quaint about it—it's a girl and her robot story, or rather, a robot and his girl story, these two absolute oddballs wandering a post-human wasteland on a quest for meaning, and I can read like a thousand stories with this concept and not get bored if the author pulls it off. Which I think Tchaikovsky does. IMO his stuff either floats your boat or it doesn't but I find him incredibly fun and humanist and this was a delight.

UpRising by Kelly Rose Pflug-Back (ed.). This is an ARC and I don't know when it's coming out, but when it does, you should read it. It's an anthology, mostly poetry, about mad pride/mad liberation and most of the writing is stunning. It's dark stuff—besides the mental illness, there's addiction, homelessness, police brutality, and so on—but written with unbridled passion and compassion. Interestingly enough, there's a story by A.G.A. Wilmot in it (the author of Withered, which I went on a big rant about last week). As with that book, the protagonist is asexual and has an eating disorder but there's nothing cozy about the story and it was actually one of the highlights for me.

How To Write a Fantasy Battle by Suzannah Rowntree. Another ARC, this is a short little book that is exactly what it says on the package. For reasons, this is pretty relevant to my interests right now, though it focuses more on medieval-style warfare than, say, urban guerrilla fighting but with wizards. That said, it is an accessible walk through the big concepts that apply to a number of different settings, using examples from the Crusades to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Super useful, well-written, and even entertaining.

Currently reading: A Sorceress Comes To Call by T. Kingfisher. I just started this one. It's about a girl named Cordelia who grows up with a, shall we say overbearing?? mother. Who is able to make her "obedient"—basically paralyzed, mute, and silent at will. She's not allowed to close her door, and her only joy in life is riding her horse, which her mother approves of because it'll help her get a suitor. She befriends a girl in town who also likes riding. That's about as far as I've gotten. Very creepy so far, though, I'm intrigued.

Entry tags:

I blame Max Miller

Just woke up from a dream where I spent an hour with my parents trying to contain and clean an angry orange cat because I made a cake and covered it with peanut butter, and I was eating it and this cat that I had no idea I owned in this dream world came out of nowhere, jumped on the cake, and got absolutely plastered with peanut butter. So like I said, the rest of the dream -- which lasted a subjective hour -- was just me and my mom and dad trying to contain this cat so we could wash it, and getting the shit clawed out of us in the process.

And the reason I blame Max Miller is because before bed, I watched an episode of Tasting History With Max Miller about a boiled cake called spotted dick, and so of course that's what I was eating in the dream, except I don't know where the peanut butter came from; there was no peanut butter in the video, dream me just thought it was a good idea to slather this thing in peanut butter.

Which, to be fair to myself, is a good idea cuz spotted dick is apparently pretty bland on its own. The video featured a sauce made out of brown sugar and butter, but I don't have brown sugar, so slathering the cake and peanut butter would be a good alternative. How the hell was I supposed to know dream me had a cat? In real life, I never had an indoor cat because when I had cats, they were outdoor cats because my dad is allergic to cats, and I haven't had any cats since then. Nor any other pets.

At least the cake was good.

Current Location: Ташкент, Узбекистан

Entry tags:

краудфандинг

Новости с проекта "Сквозь Россию на колёсах"

Как и обещал, сообщаю текущие новости от Артура Хусаинова с проекта «Сквозь Россию на колёсах (велопутешествие Москва – Владивосток)»

Итак, Артур выехал-таки из Москвы рано утром в субботу 14 июня. На сегодняшний день он на своих двух колёсах сделал уже 914 км, проехав по маршруту Москва → Владимир → Новая Быковка → Кстово → Кугеси → Алексеевское со средней скоростью 25,5 ^км/_ч и словив по пути все дожди, какие только можно было словить. Но это его не остановило. Впереди ещё долгий путь – что-то около девяти тысяч километров по обочинам дорог, так что – пожелаем ему удачи!

День 1

( Смотреть остальные дни )

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Tactics talk!

Standard disclaimer: I am not involved in any of this. Discussions of protest tactics are purely speculative; this is not legal advice, and if you commit an actual crime, don't post about it.

Courtesy of a friend who may identify themselves if they choose (thank you!) I read this article in Mother Jones about the No Sleep For ICE movement and can't help constrasting it with the #NoKings protest. Not that I'd want to disparage the latter—I think it's awesome that people did it!—but the former is an example of the kinds of tactics that we increasingly need to see.

I have a number of issues with protest marches, especially in North America. We on the left tend towards reification of historical protest movements without ever analyzing what made them effective (or not). A good example locally is the Days of Action, a series of rolling one-day strikes against the extremist right-wing government of Mike Harris in 1996. These were a resounding failure. Mike Harris and his regime steamrolled over the labour movement in Ontario, which never recovered, and despite being directly responsible for a number of deaths, continues to enrich himself by running gulags for seniors. However, these protests were loud, colourful, and most importantly, made people feel like they were Doing Something. Again—it's important to make people feel like they are Doing Something, that is how movements get built. But when a new far-right regime was elected in Ontario, the entire strategy of the labour movement pivoted to re-enact a protest movement that had been an abject failure, and so we lost again, repeatedly and even harder.

I had the same issue with Occupy, where what had been a successful tactic in Egypt and New York was exported around the world, without regard to local conditions. It resulted in one baffling morning spent wandering the Toronto encampment, where a lone speaker used the People's Mic to communicate with five comrades. The aesthetics of protest triumphed over the old-fashioned idea that protest ought to accomplish something.

Now we are seeing LARPing of the kind of mass demos that have been happening since the 1960s, most of them failures, as the authorities are quite competent in curtailing this kind of activism, either by assassinating political opponents, kettling demonstrators, or conducting mass surveillance to be used in future disappearances. The great success of #NoKings is the theoretical embarrassment for Trump of seeing his own sad, empty birthday parade dwarfed by crowds in nearly every American city and town. To be clear—this is a success, as Trump cares a great deal about crowd numbers. But this is a regime immune to reality and shame, and entirely capable of generating AI slop to convince the death cult members that what they saw with their own eyes wasn't true.

Which is to say: It's good, it's useful, but now the tactics need to change.

To contrast, No Sleep is very targeted in its strategy and goals. Let's be clear: Every employee of ICE is a human trafficker. They should not be allowed to return to their homes and communities after a day's work, because that day's work is Nazi shit. Targeting them where they live and sleep is critical. It reminds us that these are not normal people who are doing a job, but instruments of a police state who are conducting activities that are unreservedly evil and socially unacceptable. It is a reminder both to them and anyone who cooperates with the Trump regime that, in fact, "just following orders" is famously not a defence at the Hague. Most importantly, though, it introduces friction between the regime's aims and its outcomes, rendering it less effective in kidnapping and disappearing people.

I think we are all thinking: "I am exhausted. I can't fight everything all at once. Where are my energies best spent?" At least, I'm thinking that. This is deliberate; this is flooding the zone, making the laundry list of bad things come so fast and furious that opponents don't have time to recover from one fight before we're thrown into another. It's very tempting to get enmeshed in weekend street demos—for one thing, for those of us who work, they can be done on the weekend—but I would encourage everyone to participate in them with an eye to what they're useful for and what they're not useful for. Remember that surveillance will be gathered on you no matter how careful you are. If you or your comrades get arrested, movement resources will need to be directed towards your defence (and you will be dragged through hell because even if you did nothing wrong, the point of charges is to destroy your employment, finances, and relationships). Stay on the lookout for smaller, more agile actions that can add friction, rather than big showy events. Don't get caught up in violence vs. nonviolence discourse, or crowd numbers.

The answer to "where are my energies best spent" is always, "whatever you can do," which for me tends to be above-ground, legal actions on the weekends. This has different significance locally because our supposedly socialist mayor who used to go to protests passed a protest ban, so imo all protest energies in Toronto ought to at least focus a little on breaking this ban so that we can all get our Charter rights back. But this may not be the conditions where you are.

Also stop using the Hey Ho chant. It reminds me of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves but instead of marching over a log, they're walking headfirst into a police baton.

Current Location: Худжанд, Таджикистан

Entry tags:

Исследуем Таджикистан, часть I. Худжанд. Ещё один привет от Александра Македонского

Отправляясь из Ташкента в Худжанд мы не имели при себе билетов ни в прямом, ни в обратном направлении. Фактически весь срок нашей поездки определялся только гостиничной бронью. Вообще, по некоторым сведениям, существует автобусный рейс Ташкент-Худжанд, но мало кто толком знает, когда этот автобус ходит. Поэтому мы избрали самый быстрый (и самый билетонезависимый) способ попадания в этот город – междугороднее коллективное такси. Такое отправляется с юго-восточной окраины Ташкента (Куйлюк-базар) в сторону Бекабада, незадолго до оного проезжая мимо погранперехода Ойбек. Именно через него мы предполагали попасть на территорию Таджикистана. Кстати, если кто решит повторить наш маршрут – имейте в виду, что далеко не все погранпереходы на узбекско-таджикской границе доступны для иностранцев. На некоторых из них вас попросту развернут.

На Куйлюк-базаре мы интуитивно вычислили, где должны тусоваться соответствующие таксисты, и – да, именно там мы их и нашли. После моего вопроса про Бекабад был брошен клич, откуда-то из-за рядов припаркованных машин появился водитель с розовым зонтиком. Потом они бодро попытались срубить с нас за машину пятьдесят тысяч сум сверх тарифа (за то, чтобы «доехать до погранперехода»), но фокус не удался. Вообще, на будущее: прежде, чем пользоваться здешним междугородним такси, не поленитесь сперва взглянуть на карту. В данном случае – погранпереход находится в сорока километрах не доезжая до Бекабада. Так что водителю свои аппетиты пришлось умерить, и уже менее, чем через два часа, мы стояли возле того самого погранперехода. По пути мы, кстати, повстречали рейсовый автобус Ташкент-Бекабад (этот факт – вам на заметку, пригодится если захотите проделать тот же путь, но подешевле).

На погранпереходе всё было просто, а на таджикской стороне – ещё проще. Там даже нет как такового досмотра багажа. Точнее, если вы тащите с собой гору чемоданов – то вас, возможно, попросят пройти в комнату с надписью «Рентген». Наши же рюкзаки там никаких вопросов не вызвали, так что всё прошло легко и быстро. Ну и ещё добавлю, что между узбекским и таджикским КПП довольно большое расстояние, которое можно либо пройти пешком, либо проехать на одном из электрокаров, курсирующих между ними.

Едва только мы появились на таджикской стороне, как там начался ажиотаж. Возле КПП постоянно тусуется большая толпа таксистов, которые тут же сразу начинают вас осаждать со всех сторон (без машины вы там точно не останетесь). Потому, едва только мы поменяли деньги (обменник там только один – сразу на выходе, с левой стороны), как уже оказались в машине. Водитель ловко пробился сквозь бардак, созданный на парковке остальными таксистами, и вот мы уже мчимся по горной долине в сторону Худжанда (о да – равнинные пейзажи Узбекистана как-то резко сменились на границе горными). Вообще это наше короткое общение с таджикскими таксистами почему-то напомнило мне Дагестан начала 2000-х. Атмосферой что ли, или отношением к жизни… Не знаю. Но это ощущение так или иначе преследовало меня всё то время, пока мы были на территории Таджикистана (и, как оказалось, Машу тоже). Возможно, что дело тут в горах (все горные народы так или иначе чем-то похожи друг на друга), а может – в чём-то другом.

Итак, вот мы и в Худжанде. Оказалось, что наша гостиница находится на крыше одного довольно примечательного строения (и – нет, она называется не «У Карлсона»), а наш номер имеет непосредственный выход на эту самую крышу, чем мы тут же и воспользовались, чтобы сделать оттуда пару кадров.

( Смотреть остальное )

Потом мы разместились на ужин в одной из кафешек (их в центре города довольно много), а после – пошли отдыхать в гостиницу, чтобы наутро отправиться в Истаравшан. Словом, продолжение следует.

Техническая информация:

Наименование объекта: Худжанд
Альтернативное наименование: Ленинабад, Александрия Эсхата, Кирополь
Статья на Википедии: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Худжанд

Географические координаты: 40.28417, 69.61917
Высота над уровнем моря: 300 m

На Google-карте: 40.28417,69.61917
На Яндекс-карте: 40.28417,69.61917

Почтовый адрес: Таджикистан, 735700, Согдийская обл., г. Худжанд

Entry tags:

touristing,
trains

Train Touristing

The Thornlie line opened last weekend. We weren't in a position to go travel it last weekend, but artisanat, Youngest, and I went out to ride it yesterday. We discussed whether to go to the local station and do the loop (three trains) or to drive to Cockburn (the southern terminus; two trains) and go from there. In the end we decided that the local station was the better option. However, we could have timed things better, arriving at the carpark as the northbound train (not the one we wanted) arrived, and still being in the carpark when the southbound arrived.

What this meant was that Youngest had time to top up their smartrider at the station kiosk, and I was tempted by the (extravagantly expensive) GF Belgian Chocolate Cookie (by which it means a chocolate chip biscuit; I'm not sure whether the implication is that the chocolate chips are from Belgium, or there is some specific style of biscuit characterised as being from Belgium/made by someone with the last name Belgium). And then we sat in the sun on the platform for about 10 minutes, and I ate the biscuit (not bad, too heavy on the coconut).

The trip to Cockburn was uneventful, but we did talk about the train line, and the upcoming tunnel. I got to see scenery I don't often, because usually I'm taking the train north.

It is a little frustrating that we arrived at Cockburn to see the Thornlie line train departing (in terms of directions and terminology: both the Mandurah and the Thornlie lines go Cockburn to Perth; the former directly north, and the latter east to the Armadale line and then north-west. For the Mandurah line Cockburn is an intermediate stop, for the Thornlie it is the terminus). It did mean that we had time to explore. Platform 3 has been added north of the combined platforms 1 and 2; it has a fence on the west side, such that the northbound Mandurah trains are Right There. We took a few photos of the information sign with different subgroups, and then I wandered up and took a photo from the north end looking at the points (because there are three tracks at that point)

Our train arrived, and we embarked. The first section, up the freeway, is exactly the same. I haven't looked at the distances, but maybe a couple of km? and then we get to the split, where the Mandurah line goes up and over, and the Thornlie line goes through at tunnel that curves to the east. To my memory, this tunnel has been there since this bit of freeway was built, because the freight trains go through there. And from there we got to see bits of the back end of Jandakot, Canning Vale, Thornlie. We could just about see tiki-wanderer's* house.

The first (most southern) of the Armadale line stops that the line goes through is Beckenham, which gave us quite a different perspective -- this is one of the stations that has been raised, and is very new and swish. The line is raised quite a lot of the way from there to Burswood--this has been the redevelopment project that means that the Armadale line has been closed for roughly 18 months at this point (and it is great. there are zero level crossings in that area making life a nightmare for people during peak hour and school drop off and pick up times). All very exciting and I very much enjoyed the view out on the city (greater metro).

Once in the city we decided to womble a little bit, rather than just going for the next train home (we could have made it; the signboard said 6 minutes, and it is possible to get from platform 3 to platform 1 in that time. according to the journey planner it is about 330m). We had a wander through Forrest Chase, took a detour into Myer to use the loos (because there are zero actual public loos in that space. even the ones we used to use at the west end of the platform aren't there any more, which sucks), and bought a small amount of sushi (passable. expensive. my salmon and avocado appeared to have more mayonnaise per volume than avocado).

And then home again. At which point I needed a lie down. It was exhausting, but I'm glad I did it. I have some photos, and I might remember to do something with them, but I'm making no promises.

(I do not have a train icon. this seems like an oversight).

* I originally had this tagged as a username, but comes up as doesn't exist. Have I misremembered the name? was that their LJ name and they never moved to DW? I do not have the oomph to work this out.

Entry tags:

my day,
walking

A nearly full bag!

Went looking for returnables down in Milwaukie (half hour walk away) because I had to drop something off at the library there, so once that was done I figured why not go looking for returnables. I ended up finding nearly an entire green bag full of them! So tomorrow I'm going to take the wagon out, take the other green bag with me because that one is full, and can-box along the way to fill up the remaining space in bag two, at which point I will be dropping both bags off at New Seasons Market.

It wasn't as overfull as the last time, partly because I brought a reusable grocery bag for any overflow, but it still wasn't quite as many as the last time I filled an entire bag in one go. But it should only take like 4 or 5 of them to finish filling the space in the bag.

Entry tags:

nostalgia,
tumblr

Tumblr poll

Over on tumblr, there is a new gimmick poll blog, for the sexiest (male; sorta) 80s rock star. They took submissions from wherever, but that was before I saw the blog, so I don't know the details, but I've seen Australia, NZ, USA, (possibly) Canada, UK, and at least two European countries represented (I'm reasonably sure Sweden and Germany, but ah, memory like a thingy).

Anyway, there is a Lot of nostalgia happening.

Each poll has two people, I have to pick the 'sexiest'. Some of them I recognise, sometimes I recognise the name or the band but couldn't have picked the photo out of a line up. Some I'm entirely voting for either the hair (so many fabulous hair styles), the make up, or because they were in a band that I remember a friend being absolutely gaga over. Occasionally I'm picking someone because I look at the alternative and say 'oh hell no'. Very few of these people do I consider to be 'sexy'. But I'm going to be Pissed if Prince doesn't make it to at least the last round, because I'm not sure I've seen any better options.

But I'd like to reiterate: the hair! Such a loss that such fabulous hair styles have been abandoned.

Entry tags:

No kings no fascists

I will be attending the No Kings protest in Portland at Westmoreland Park tomorrow. Lets give Trumpsterfire a very unhappy birthday!

If the person I talked to today was right, this one is a gathering point and then they go to the one downtown. I think that's a bit dumb; a protest like this should be broken into smaller cells around town to make it more difficult for the pigs to crack down on them. But nobody asked my opinion about it.

Entry tags:

podcasts

podcast friday

I dunno, why not make yourself more anxious this week. It Could Happen Here has the ability to send James Stout, an experienced war journalist, to LA to cover the uprising against ICE kidnappings. There's a lot of coverage in today's episode, which I'm currently listening to, but for detailed reporting, listen to "On the Ground in LA."

The scale of the so-called riots will surprise you—they surprised me, and I've been to LA. It's a very big city and unlike during the wildfires, very little of it is actually on fire. The uprisings, which are direct responses to people's families, neighbours, and colleagues being kidnapped by an out-of-control paramilitary organization, are actually only a few thousand people. Which is not to denigrate the bravery of those people—quite the opposite!—but to poke holes in the regime's propaganda.

P.S. If you are going to a protest this weekend, please ignore that "non-violent wave" thing and other similar memes going around. It is an op. If violence erupts and you do not want to be involved, don't sit down. Get out of there. I do not want to see a generation of young protestors with traumatic brain injuries, please. Also avoid bridges (don't let yourself get kettled or arrested en masse), and if you get teargassed, use water, not milk or anything else. Stay safe, I love you.

Current Mood: tired

Entry tags:

OMG

I don't have the energy to go through the whole thing, so I'll just say I went can-boxing in the reverse of my usual route. Found so many that though I started with an empty green bag in the cart, by the time I got to New Season's Market, the entire cart was so full -- including ones I had shoved into my Gaia bag, a basket I found the other day, inside the netting used to contain the mass of returnables, AND down the sides between the box and the cart's liner -- that I had to take all the ones out of the netting, set them aside, and take the green bag out of the box in the cart and put everything into the now free bag... which filled the entire bag! It was completely full, from ONE trip, so I tied it up, slapped a Green Bag sticker on it, and dropped it off at New Seasons Market. I didn't even get a chance to count them all, there was no way to do it without the wind blowing them all into the street. But those bags usually contain between $5 and $8 worth of returnables, depending on size. Given I had nothing larger than a 16 ounce bottle in there except maybe some of the longer beer cans, and given that in one spot I had found like 15 little water bottles of the same brand, I would estimate I must have found at least $7 worth of returnables at that point.

And the craziest thing was that after all that, I found a bunch more. Only like 7 or 8 more, but still. One hell of a haul for only about two or three hours.

Oh, and I still had half a green bag at home. I was just looking to top that one off to take it to New Seasons later. But a whole bag full in ONE trip!!!

The So-called "Big, Beautiful Bill"

Today, my representative in Georgia, Buddy Carter - Republican, District 1, wrote an Op-Ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution urging our senators to vote for the Frankenstein abomination known as the "Big, Beautiful Bill."

(The Op-Ed is behind a paywall, but can be found here: https://www.ajc.com/opinion/2025/06/buddy-carter-sens-ossoff-warnock-should-support-trumps-big-beautiful-bill/ )

I wrote an email to Carter explaining why I thought he was wrong, and then adapted the language to send to my senators asking them to stay strong against it.

Because this bill is such a Frankenstein's Monster, I chose to limit my comments to the environmental issues which would have both direct and indirect impacts on Buddy Carter's district. I urge all of you who have Republican Senators to find sections of the bill to read which will have direct negative impacts on your state. If your representative voted for it, send them an email censuring them for those same negative impacts. Then write to both senators using the first email as a template.

My email addressed sections:
80152. Rescission relating to environmental and climate data collection.
80201. Rescission of funds for investing in coastal communities and climate resilience.
80202. Rescission of funds for facilities of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and national marine sanctuaries. [nb: this is especially important for hurricane regions and areas with a fishing industry, though I also pointed out the pods of dolphins off of our local Jeckyll Island State Park would be affected.]
80308. Timber production for the Forest Service.
80309. Timber Production for the Bureau of Land Management.

[The latter two will have adverse effects on air pollution levels, but there are whole sections on coal production and offshore drilling for oil and natural gas which will contribute to air pollution directly.]

80202 will also adversely impact tornado zones.

Let's work to defeat this bill.

Current Location: Ташкент, Узбекистан

Entry tags:

О птичках и не только

Я тут на днях выглянул в окно – и внезапно увидел на ближайшем дереве птенцов малой горлицы, только что вылетевших из гнезда. Я и раньше подозревал, что их гнездо где-то совсем рядом с нашим окном (одни и те же птицы регулярно тусили на ближайших к нам ветках и подбирали хлебные крошки, которые мы сыпали на подоконник), но вот теперь мы впервые увидели обитателей этого гнезда.

( Смотреть ещё )

Entry tags:

books

Reading Wednesday

Just finished: Dakwäkãda Warriors by Cole Pauls, I don't have tons to say about this comic—it'll take you maybe an hour to read if that, and it's really cute and fun, and then you read the context around it and it's quite moving and beautiful as well. It's basically a language revitalization project wrapped up in a pew-pew-pew space opera story. It's cool that this exists and I want there to be more of it.

Withered by A.G.A. Wilmot. Listen, cozy horror and other cozy authors! I will make you a deal. You get one (1) scene where the asexual protagonist comes out to their appropriately diverse love interest and they talk about their sexuality and consent in a mature, healthy way, infused with Tumblr therapyspeak, and agree to just hold hands or whatever. In exchange, I want y'all to try excise or subvert toxic tropes like having your main human antagonist being a woman who is haunted by a ghost no one else can see and locked up in a mental institution for 25 years, who has no agency at all, and who at the end realizes the error of her ways and is...cut loose to just be homeless and wander forever, I guess????

Like, aesthetically, I hate cozy. I fucking hate it. I try really hard to not judge the taste of people who like it, because intellectually I get the appeal and there's nothing wrong with liking what you like, but it's very much not for me. And when I have to read and rate a cozy book, I try to keep the ideal reader in mind, not me, a grim and cynical person who likes messy characters and tension in my storytelling. I think there are some cozy, or cozy-adjacent books that are done well (Regency and Regency+magic does low-stakes, mostly good characters in ways that I enjoy, for example) and I don't want to judge the entire subgenre either.

But I do think that there's a tendency for specifically cozy fiction to use didactic storytelling (casts include one of everyone and/or a lot of twofer characters, but these identities tend to be very shallowly written except for where they reflect the author's, conflicts are easily resolved by talking things out, good behaviour is rewarded and bad behaviour is punished or reformed, discussions about emotion or sexuality are always direct and never in conflict). So if you are going to write a book that includes, for example, instructions for the reader on how to navigate a relationship with an ace person, or how to approach therapy for a mental illness, I'm going to also need you to examine your work for unintentional messaging in a way that I wouldn't necessarily do if you're writing, say, Gothic horror where the protagonist can't decide whether she wants the vampire to eat her or fuck her.

Which is to say that in a world where we get to see multiple Zoom therapy sessions, I do not buy that a mental institution merely drugs a character and does not attempt to help her heal at all. I think that sets up a dichotomy between Good Mental Illness (you know, the kind that makes you pretty and kinda tragic) and Bad Mental Illness (where you get your mess all over other people/try to burn down the family house) that is not good or wholesome at all.

Also, the climactic battle at the end was a huge WTF.

If you, like me, would like to join in on Cozy Horror Discourse multiple years after it was live, here are some links I appreciated:

The Material Basis of Cozy Horror by Moreau Vazh
In Praise of Discomfort by Simon O'Neill

Currently reading: Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This one starts with a robot valet murdering his master and not knowing why he did it, so, promising beginning. Humanity increasingly relies on robots to do everything, and as a result, is dying out. Charles, the valet in question, doesn't know what to do without explicit orders, and so he reports to Diagnostics, only to find that robot repairs are backed up due to funding cuts that have eliminated the entire human staff. Also he may have developed a Protagonist Virus that gives him agency and self-awareness, which he very much doesn't want.

The voice in this is great—the first two chapters are basically the robots navigating their way through the murder without being able to deviate from their programming, and it's bitingly satirical and very funny. I'm rather enjoying this.

Current Mood: pessimistic

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What people used to think TV would do to our brains is what AI is actually doing.

Video: There are people using AI chatbots as therapists now.

Jesus fucking Christ. This is beyond fucking stupid. There have been cases of AI chatbots telling people to kill themselves, telling them how to do it, and in general giving people bad advice and fake information. AIs also share everything you tell them with their corporate overlords because they're not beholden by patient/client confidentiality. Oh yeah, and AIs are idiots, glorified autocorrects; a talking parrot is more qualified to be a therapist than an AI is. Trusting an AI as a therapist has got to be the single stupidest thing a person can possibly do on the Internet. Then again, trusting AIs with anything at all is also extremely fucking stupid.

I hate this timeline. I hate AI. I hope someone bombs the AI server farms. Won't be me, I'm too poor and don't own a vehicle and don't know shit about bombs. But hopefully somebody will firebomb the AI server farms and save us from an epidemic of asinine stupidity.

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Daily notes

Today (Tuesday)

second day of uni - more focused. Met two other PhD students, and a said hello to another who didn't actually talk to me, so I'm not sure if they are staff or student (we are in a locked office space, because of research reasons, which is quite nostalgic. The card scanner makes the same beep as the ones at the Telethon Institute did)
I'm kind of keeping up with other parts of my life, but not in any way that makes it look like I have my shit together. The lounge has a teetering mound of clean washing, there is a pile of stuff on the bed I need to sort before I can go to sleep (by which I think I mean 'dump back on the floor'). I've taken some of the necessities in to the new office, and tomorrow I'll organise a locked cubby for keeping things in, which means I can bring any books in that make sense.

Yesterday

Didn't quite make it to bed before 11pm last night, but it was close. Awoke naturally at 6:50am, which meant that I could relax for a little bit and laze about until the alarm went off. I didn't, in the end, getting up after about 2 minutes, and getting in the shower.
Past me had a work day morning packing checklist, which was greatly appreciated this morning, as there were a couple of things that I would otherwise have forgotten. There are a couple of items that I've managed to misplace, and maybe I'll have time to sort them tonight, but I'm not optimistic about that. I was enough slow getting ready that I missed the 7:45am bus, so artisanat dropped me at the train station. Youngest gave me two options for public transport from there--either the circle route (longer, relies on Leach Hwy not being clogged), or train to Canning Bridge and either the 100 or 101 bus. I did the latter, and once I found the right stand at the interchange, got the first bus that came past.
Good meeting with supervisors, I have ideas of what is to come. I spent more time sorting out logging in to things than I had allowed for, including a trek to the library IT help desk, where it turned out that what I was assuming was one problem turned out to be four separate issues, one of which was solved by changing my password in Outlook. I also went and asked questions of the Library Helpdesk person, who gave me a personalised tour of all the things on the Library Webpage that might be of use to me, and pointed at things to follow up.

Sunday

Went boating on the river with buggs_jenny, their partner P, and their parents (G, K). This was a somewhat last minute invite, they organised for there to be a kayak for me to use, and I had a lot of fun. I hadn't allowed for the timing of how it would all fit together with the fact that it was a recorder group Sunday so it was a bit of a rush to head off and I didn't help with the clean up. I now have to work out how to get involved and go more often (this is not an every weekend thing; I could at best do the off weeks from recorder) given that the car we are looking to sell is the one with the roof racks, but I can't get our kayak on to it on my own. Although, having said that, it is some years since I've moved that kayak and I have no idea how heavy it is relative to my current strength--it is possible that all the shoulder work that I've been doing would be enough.
Recorder with G and ariaflame; L has injured their shoulder and P isn't yet back from visiting their sibling in the eastern states. G is now calling us the A minors; I gather this is a joke that is related to the name of another group they are in. We worked through several trios that I'm not sure that aria has seen before, with some swapping around of parts so that they were sight-reading the easier of the C recorder parts (ie. soprano or tenor).
Dinner with chaosmanor. One of those weeks where it turns out that we have gone through the veggie stash much faster than usual, and I under measured the amount of cabbage to cut to fill the gap for the stir fry. Fortunately, chaosmanor wasn't all that hungry, artisanat was out dancing and got dinner there, and Youngest and Eldest are able to raid the fridge if they are still hungry. And I had had one serve of each of the options at afternoon tea at recorder - G had made two things, and aria had brought one, and I have no ability to resist that kind of temptation. Particularly when G had made a serving specifically for me, because they had made a Bakewell tart (which is similar to the version I make but didn't have coconut in, which might mean that I've conflated two recipes) but had realised at the last minute that their pastry wasn't GF, and had cooked a generous serve in a ramekin.

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bail funds

Two grassroots jail-support orgs re: L.A.

I am aware of both these community orgs through their ties to the MALDEF and Raices. Happy to discuss more via DW message if you want more vouching.

Short-term/immediate bail and jail assistance for protesters: Jail Support LA

Jail support campaign of a long-running SGV mutual aid network: Operation Healthy Hearts

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Pro-tip

They are going to beat you, and eventually kill you, regardless of whether your protest is violent or non-violent.

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Years when decades happen

I dunno, what do you guys want me to rant about? The Freedom Flotilla? LA vs. ICE? The fact that my government is planning more pipelines while sending in the army to deal with out-of-control wildfires? Or, closer to home, Bill 5 or the Toronto bubble zone law, or...?

This is why people curl up and retreat into fiction.

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The Hollow Places

I am currently reading the audiobook version of "The Hollow Places" by T. Kingfisher. It is horror; cosmic horror and body horror, but mostly a quiet, creeping dread. The main character of the book finds a hole in the wall of her uncle's house, a hole that leads to another world reminiscent of the Wood Between The Worlds from the Narnia series. Only, this place is far scarier. She and a friend of hers go inside it to explore. It looks calm and beautiful at first, and there's evidence that the various entryways lead to other universes, though they don't go all the way into these other doorways (yet; I'm not done yet), and as beautiful as the main world they're wandering through is, things keep moving around when they aren't looking. Mostly the willows. They get lost in there, trying to find their entry point, running out of food as they keep looking for their way back. They have to take refuge in openings leading to other worlds when sleeping, because the willows that are everywhere can move. The willows are servants of something so horrifying that one of the entryways has the words "PRAY THEY ARE HUNGRY" because you do not want to know what they'll do to you if they're not hungry. Along the way, the two of them find some of the evidence of the kinds of things "They" can do to people they catch.

The scariest part? These two characters aren't stupid, like you find in a lot of horror stuff. They are both pretty smart, and both are well aware of the impossible geometry of the place they initially find, the bunker that leads to this creepy land of fog and grassy islands with wandering willows. Their conversation shows they're aware of horror movie tropes, but also at first they're unsure if they're in a horror situation or if this is just some harmless Narnia situation. So they keep resisting urges like the urge to scream or make other noise. They're also reluctant to eat the food there, aware of the stories about Faery. But the place was beautiful and there weren't any clear signs of danger at first, so they got drawn in by curiosity. Then they got lost, and now they're just trying to survive and avoid "Them" long enough to find the door back to their world.

If it sweetens the deal for any of you, her friend is a gay man who was clearly written by someone who knows actual gay people, so it's not apparent at first he's gay, just a little odd -- but then again, her uncle is an eccentric fellow too. So it's only from bits of their conversations and her narration that reveals he's gay. Oh and this man is a friend of her uncle as well.

Anyway, so far it is an amazing, creepy, scary story. Even knowing it's a horror, I still got swept up in the beauty of the place and in the adventure of it along with our two main characters.

Oh, also, the blurb for the story, at least the one on Goodreads, is misleading. The blurb makes it sound like they found the scary writing on the wall and went in anyway. Nope, not what happened. They don't find the words "PRAY THEY ARE HUNGRY" until after they've been lost for about half a day. Their initial entry point had some minor warning signs, but nothing you'd clock as an obvious red flag if you were in the situation yourself, apart from the impossible geometry involved. I saw the signs because I knew it was a horror story, but I could easily see myself getting into the same situation if I had been in their place. I mean, it's kind of obvious if you know how I treat the multiverse in my Ravenstone series: some of the places you can go in it can be scary or extremely creepy, and one character is trapped in the Ravenstones' universe from a different universe, but on the whole, traveling the multiverse is depicted as a wondrous adventure one can have if one knows how to do it. That in mind, even with me knowing "The Hollow Places" is a horror story, I naturally got drawn in by the initial charm and weirdness of the place, so I would totally have gone into that hole and explored that backrooms/Wood Between The Worlds type place. Unlike them, I would probably very quickly die there.

EDIT: I would also like to add that I'm 84% through the book, and so far neither of them have clocked the Obvious Horror McGuffin that's likely causing all this, despite the fact I clocked it right away as Capital-T Trouble the instant it appeared. Then again, I suppose with all the weird stuff in the building the main protagonist lives in, the Obvious Horror McGuffin was not so obvious to her; to her, it's just another bit of weird junk in a whole building full of weird junk. Though the fact that the Obvious Horror McGuffin keeps showing up in weird places should have been a whole parade of red flags with blaring sirens to them, even if half of these instances occurred prior to their initial trip into the other world.

EDIT 2: FINALLY! She FINALLY clocked the McGuffin!