The falcon is back!!! This is the first time I've seen a peregrine falcon on this nesting site cam in about six months, I was getting worried!
In a few months we may have hatchlings again - last year there were three extremely ugly fluffy white chicks that turned into beautiful birds in just weeks.
[#]birds #birdsofmastodon #falcons #RochesterNY
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When there is so little difference between Reform, Tory, and - for Pete's sake - LABOUR, is anyone else feeling that they will never be represented by a Westminster government?
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[#]PennedPossibilities 566: What hobbies do you have outside of writing?
I used to make an enormous variety of things with a pair of industrial lasers, and ran a couple of online businesses more or less as a hobby after I dropped out of the tech world (working at Etsy traumatized me & I decided never again).
Now my hobby is arranging items correctly (it's not OCD, it's just making my surroundings harmonious).
Also making silly programs just for the fun of it, eg. https://ny5.us/TV4
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You know it's windy out when the water in your glass kettle is sloshing about. Having a quiet day in today.
I'd make a comment about people who force their employees to travel in to work today, but I'm not yet comfortable typing the C word.
[#]StormEowyn
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[#]CatsOfMastodon
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I have a theory. I don't think that there is any intention to physically put millions of deportees on planes.
The US has priced itself out of the manufacturing sector. The cost of providing wages and healthcare is too high compared to the costs in developing countries.
No. As people spend months, then years, then generations in detention camps, they will be put to work in new factories.
The GOP will justify this by pointing to the availability of cheap US-made goods and improvements in the balance of trade. Displaced US workers will become supervisors and enforcers.
This is a calculated return to #slavery.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Jan 20 Do any of your stories take place on the sea?
Yes, Splinterton is a wooden town (similar to medieval Edinburgh) that stands on pillars above the sea inside the shell of an ancient volcano, halfway between French-occupied Devon and the nation of Wales.
The sea and its tides form an integral part of daily life. The mussel-scrapers forage for food, salvage crews dismantle ships wrecked on the outer rim wall, and the great Finnders Engine extracts heat, fresh water, and minerals from the heart of the sleeping volcano beneath the sea.
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I do hope that someone is getting the word out to Trump's crowd that they're not allowed to crap on the desks in the Capitol, this time.
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Sure, you can build a house using bricks, or you could do it the AI way - have someone else make a REALLY BIG brick and take away everything that doesn't look like a house.
Generative AI isn't intelligent, it isn't even efficient. It uses huge amounts of effort and resources, but hides those inconvenient costs from you.
When you're completely dependent on them, and all your creative, capable people have moved on, the AI companies are going to start recouping their cost of development and the "free" introduction. It's the Long Con all over again.
[#]LLM #generativeAI
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[#]WordWeavers If you met a person like your antagonist in real life, what would you do?
Barbican is based on a malicious border guard who interrogated and threatened me for ninety minutes before denying me entry to teach a four day class (about tech developed in the UK, so perfectly legal). Stay on your guard, stay calm, respectfully correct every assertion and accusation. Some things you just have to endure until they pass.
ETA: I was getting names from old words for castles and fortifications when I wrote that part of the book. A barbican is "the outer defence of a castle or walled city, especially a double tower above a gate or drawbridge." That felt right for someone controlling rights of entry to a country.
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[#]3GoodThings
Emailed a heating repair guy today not expecting a reply until Monday. I happened to mention at the end of the email that a pressure meter was reading zero.
He replied immediately telling me to turn a lever until the meter read about 1.5 bar. He even sent a photo of the lever.
Two minutes later... Heating!
What a star - many would have charged me a couple of hundred quid for an emergency call out!
Paying it forward with a local food bank donation.
Third good thing - definitely on the mend after a few days in the grip of some kind of lurgie.
[#]ThreeGoodThings
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Not going to lie to you, I'm not in the habit of reading poetry. But I do look forward to the musings of @stgreenie, definitely worth a follow.
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[#]WordWeavers 1/7. Whatβs the biggest threat your world is facing?
There's a reason that the world of Splinter Town has reached the 1920's without achieving radio communications or heavier than air flight.
In the first book that's just an oddity that most people won't notice. In the second, we start to find out why those areas are not being developed.
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To the Americans musing over the UK becoming a US state: we don't want your life, we feel sorry for you.
Maybe let's chat when you get a few things fixed, like large tranches of the population having to work three jobs just to be able to eat, have a home, and stay warm.
Or this troubling authoritarian theocracy you're cooking up. The forced births alone are going to push poverty and crime to sickening levels over the next couple of decades.
I went shopping in the US a couple of weeks ago. You can keep your $4.29 sliced loaf, I can get better at Tesco for less than a dollar, and a full week's meals for less than the supplies to make sandwiches in a US supermarket.
We should be helping you. I feel so bad that you have to choose between medical care and bankruptcy, that your employers begrudge you every day of vacation, that they think they own you body and soul every waking and sleeping minute.
You are, in person, wonderful people, but you are employed and governed by arseholes. No thank you.
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[#]WordWeavers Jan 5
Has your writing process changed over time?
BIG changes with the last book. I finally ditched the severely flawed Manuskript program (moving an empty section could delete an adjacent section file).
Now I create numbered section files in markdown using Typora, move them around by changing the number in the file name (leave gaps to allow inserts/moves).
I run Piper to get a spoken version of the files - it makes me ten times as effective when reviewing for typos and readability.
I use Typst to format for print and beta-reading versions, and a hand-knitted epub conversion script.
It sounds cumbersome, but when you can type "makebook" and everything just synchronizes, it really saves a lot of faffing around.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Jan 2: Have you ever made up something in a story which has come true in real life?
The closest I've come to this is being able to see a 700ft amphibious airship moored on Irondequoit Bay every time I drove past the southern end of the bay, but of course - that's only in my mind's eye.
The prevailing wind is from the west, so the airship points to the left. When I walked through the woods on the hilly west bank, I could see the front of the airship, looking into the windows of the bridge embedded in the ship's envelope.
Visualizing the terraced mansion home of Ogimaa Kai and his family was more difficult, I had to ignore the tawdry restaurants and canoe rental shop, but it could be done.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub 1. What are your writing goals for 2025?
I'm going to stop all marketing efforts. I have a sweet workflow now that spits out print and ebook formatted files from my manuscript files, I'm just going to write, push to draft2digital and Amazon (I know). Then I'm not going to give a wet slap with a haddock if anyone reads it or not.
Heck... I may even just put the files up on my website for free. That sounds even better to me.
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I've only lived in Scotland for a year, but it feels so good to be going home!
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[#]WordWeavers Dec 30
How good at saying goodbye is your antagonist?
Tudor is like that guest who just won't go home, he doesn't get to the part where he says goodbye. Despite everything he did to foment a coup and force Splinterton to accept English rule, he still thinks he's a decent guy and can be friends with everyone. The Splintonians are understandably sceptical.
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Step 1: establish cryptocurrency as a thing with value based only on an algorithmic scarcity. β
Step 2: convince governments - local and national - to invest in a cryptocurrency. β
Step 3: reveal an unexpected flaw that allows the cryptocurrency to be faked.
Step 4: economic collapse.
Step 5: Dominion, Mr Bond
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