myrnaminkov

[myrnaminkov]

I read a book about the history of glue recently... Couldn't put it down

listen LISTEN for a moment I was so excited about this book on the history of glue. I was poised to run to Libby to see if any of my libraries had it. I've never been more devastated by a pun in my life 😭

[myrnaminkov]

It wasn’t that Rove was a genius-level intellect, but he had a very specific set of skills. Lucas wasn’t qualified to diagnose sociopathy, but Rove was capable of telling anyone anything, making utterly convincing promises and being bound by none of it. Rove loved Rove first, things useful to Rove second. And nothing else.

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Doors of Eden. Orbit, 2020

[myrnaminkov]

[myrnaminkov]

What a place! What a situation! What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

Terry Pratchett. Going Postal. HarperCollins, 2004.

[myrnaminkov]

My cartoon for this week’s Guardian Books

[myrnaminkov]

Truth

This is the DREAM.

[myrnaminkov]

You know you’re following too many sourdough blogs when your first thought is “UGH, That’s definitely Kahm yea.. oh, wait, that’s the sun, isn’t it?��

2025 January 4

Welcome to Perihelion Image Credit & Copyright: Peter Ward (Barden Ridge Observatory)

Explanation: Earth’s orbit around the Sun is not a circle, it’s an ellipse. The point along its elliptical orbit where our fair planet is closest to the Sun is called perihelion. This year perihelion is today, January 4, at 13:28 UTC, with the Earth about 147 million kilometers from the Sun. For comparison, at aphelion on last July 3 Earth was at its farthest distance from the Sun, some 152 million kilometers away. But distance from the Sun doesn’t determine Earth’s seasons. It’s only by coincidence that the beginning of southern summer (northern winter) on the December solstice - when this H-alpha picture of the active Sun was taken - is within 14 days of Earth’s perihelion date. And it’s only by coincidence that Earth’s perihelion date is within 11 days of the historic perihelion of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. Launched in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe flew within 6.2 million kilometers of the Sun’s surface on 2024 December 24, breaking its own record for closest perihelion for a spacecraft from planet Earth.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250104.html

[myrnaminkov]

[myrnaminkov]

"... If impersonating something increases fitness, then nature will select good impersonators over bad ones. Keep it up long enough and no conscious being would able to pick your zombie out of a crowd." Another silence; I could hear him chewing through it. "It'll even be able to participate in a conversation like this one. It could write letters home, impersonate real Human feelings, without having the slightest awareness of its own existence."

"I dunno, Rob. It just seems-"

"Oh, it might not be perfect. It might be a bit redundant, or resort to the occasional expository infodump. But even real people do that, don't they?"

"And eventually, there aren't any real people left. Just robots pretending to give a shit."

"Perhaps. Depends on the population dynamics, among other things. But I'd guess that at least one thing an automaton lacks is empathy; if you can't feel, you can't really relate to something that does, even if you act as though you do. Which makes it interesting to note how many sociopaths show up in the world's upper echelons, hmm? How ruthlessness and bottom-line self-interest are so lauded up in the stratosphere, while anyone showing those traits at ground level gets carted off into detention with the Realists. Almost as if society itself if being reshaped from the inside out."

"Oh, come on. Society was always pretty - Wait, you're saying the world's corporate elite are nonsentient?"

"God, No. Not nearly. Maybe they're just starting down that road. Like chimpanzees."

"Yeah, but sociopaths don't blend in well."

"Maybe the ones that get diagnosed don't, but by definition they're the bottom of the class. The others are too smart to get caught, and real automatons would do even better. Besides, when you get powerful enough, you don't need to act like other people. Other people start acting like you."

Peter Watts. Blindsight. 2006; 2020, Tor Essentials.

[myrnaminkov]

We don’t have a uniform, why do you ask?

Inspired by our friends at Rapid City Public Library (link goes to TikTok). Music only - sound not needed.

[Video Description: A librarian with glasses wearing a polo shirt and shelving books answers an unheard question from someone offscreen. His words are inaudible but the caption reads "The librarian wearing the cardigan and glasses will be able to help you." Video cuts to an information desk where four librarians wearing cardigans and glasses are working. They all turn and wave as four more librarians wearing cardigans and glasses pop out from behind the desk and wave. The librarian from the beginning walks on screen and puts on his own cardigan. And waves.]

Music credit: George Street Shuffle Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

[myrnaminkov]

Notes on the Fifth Tale (“Paradise”)

To most readers it will be easy, after reading this tale, to accept Rover’s theory that Man is set up deliberately as the antithesis everything the Dogs stand for, a sort of mythical straw-man, a sociological fable.

This is underlined by the recurring evidence of Man’s aimlessness, his constant running hither and yon, his grasping at a way of life which continually eludes him, possibly because he never knows exactly what he wants.

Clifford D. Simak, The City. 1952, Street & Smith Pub.; 2015, Open Road Media.

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Slipping off his spectacles, the old man glumly studied his shoes. “We’re trying to save classics, fables, myths, folktales, songs from bygone civilizations, recipes for herbal medicines, old stories of creation, Holy Books in their original editions, and the commentaries written about them. Those get priority.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re changing the past, and we need to protect our collective memory. That way, when this world falls, as it’s destined to do, we’ll have somewhere to start from. Do you remember what the book said? Who controls the past…controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. We’re trying to save the past to make the future possible.” He paused. “But you clearly need to learn some history. You’re a typical citizen in Big Brother’s republic, stuck in a nation that’s slowly killing you, trapped in the whale’s belly, its stomach acid eating away at you, with no way to escape.”

“And how can anyone escape from a whale’s belly?” The Censor asked.

“By lighting a fire.”

Bothayna Al-Essa, The Book Censors Library. Restless Book 2024.

[myrnaminkov]

Celebrating Terry Pratchett Day.

On what would have been Terry's 76th birthday, we are filling today with Pratchett joy and invite you to join us.

We'd love to see your routes through Discworld on the #terry pratchett day tag - you can download images to share your favourite books and recommended place to start in Discworld via terrypratchett.com.

You can also find recipes from Nanny Ogg, templates to recreate your own favourite Discworld cover, and ways to get involved for all ages. Whether online or offline, we hope your day is full of Pratchett magic!

[myrnaminkov]

Hmmmm, I see some useful ‘actionable items’ to discuss at our next meeting…

a cartoon for the guardian

[myrnaminkov]

Too many people think because they paid their student loans, every body whould. I am sick of it.

[myrnaminkov]

Lina picks up the final lamp. As soon as she touches it, thin curly blue lines appear on its surface, and fade away. Bador pauses too, and watches as a puff of smoke emerges from the lamp’s slender spout. It’s holographic, not real smoke. As we all stare, it grows, then begins to form a shape.

And then it flickers, and vanishes.

There’s a sound of an explosion from the other end of the corridor. The whole room shakes, and the walls ripple.

Holographic letters appear around the lamp, in a flowing script.

“I don’t know what is says,” Lina says. “Bador, can you read this?”

“No.”

“I can,” I say. “It’s an error message. It’s out of charge.”

Samit Basu. The Jinn-Bot of Shanitport. 2023, Tor.

[myrnaminkov]

“But Dad.”

“Yes, Bobbie?”

“Is this really real? I mean—“

“Would I lie to you, son?”

“No, of course not—“

“You’re my son, and I love you. People need to believe in something, Bobbie. Do you know what religion is, Bobbie? It is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless works. Do you know who said that?”

“Uncle Bob?”

“No, not fucking Heinlein —look, I didn’t mean to swear. It was Karl Marx who said that, Bobbie.”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to sat to you is that— look. It gives comfort. It’s a story, everything is a story. Without stories we can’t really be human.”

“I don’t think I get it, Dad.”

Lavie Tidhar. The Circumference of the World. 2023, Tachyon.