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at a conference I attended recently, a researcher pointed to the difficulty of finding material in archives because so much depends on the metadata and the terminology used to describe things changes over time. "it would be so helpful," the researcher said, "if I typed 'lesbian' into the library of congress database, it would also show me results that were categorised in the 50s, when the materials were interpreted as 'intimate female friendships'"

which is what tag wrangles at Archive Of Our Own do incredibly effectively: searching for "omegaverse" also leads to "alpha/beta/omega dynamics" and "alternate universe: a/b/o" and so on. but ao3 achieves this frankly incredible categorisation and indexing system by the power of countless volunteers putting in hours and hours of unpaid and unthanked free time, and it's completely understandable that most archives do not have that kind of infrastructure, but also how incredible that a fan-run website has better searchability, classification, and accessibility than the library of congress

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Where's my Jewish phrase for when you people are being irrevocably horny?

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saw a video that was like “everybody comment what you did today so we can see how everyone experienced something different” and the comments have me tearing up on this train. what the fuckkkk. the human experience

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does anyone have that quote that goes something like 'white germans under the nazis lived just fine as long as they were loyal to the state, gave their children to the army, and paid their taxes, and in this sense many americans would be comfortable living under fascism' trying to find who said it but google is giving me jack shit

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“Lolita isn’t a perverse young girl. She’s a poor child who has been debauched and whose senses never stir under the caresses of the foul Humbert Humbert, whom she asks once, ‘how long did [he] think we were going to live in stuffy cabins, doing filthy things together…?’ But to reply to your question: no, its success doesn’t annoy me, I am not like Conan Doyle, who out of snobbery or simple stupidity preferred to be known as the author of “The Great Boer War,” which he thought superior to his Sherlock Holmes. It is equally interesting to dwell, as journalists say, on the problem of the inept degradation that the character of the nymphet Lolita, whom I invented in 1955, has undergone in the mind of the broad public. Not only has the perversity of this poor child been grotesquely exaggerated, but her physical appearance, her age, everything has been transformed by the illustrations in foreign publications. Girls of eighteen or more, sidewalk kittens, cheap models, or simple long-legged criminals, are baptized “nymphets” or “Lolitas” in news stories in magazines in Italy, France, Germany, etc; and the covers of translations, Turkish or Arab, reach the height of ineptitude when they feature a young woman with opulent contours and a blonde mane imagined by boobies who have never read my book. In reality Lolita is a little girl of twelve, whereas Humbert Humbert is a mature man, and it’s the abyss between his age and that of the little girl that produces the vacuum, the vertigo, the seduction of mortal danger. Secondly, it’s the imagination of the sad satyr that makes a magic creature of this little American schoolgirl, as banal and normal in her way as the poet manqué Humbert is in his. Outside the maniacal gaze of Humbert there is no nymphet. Lolita the nymphet exists only through the obsession that destroys Humbert. Herein an essential aspect of a unique book that has been betrayed by a factitious popularity.”

— Vladimir Nabokov (tr. Brian Boyd), Apostrophes (1975)

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people who are just finding out about internet tracking and data mining in the year 2025 and that your special robot friend does not respect your privacy lol

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Ok, so I'm working on a newsletter that builds on the one I wrote about why scifi needs to be taking on medical data privacy and how new tech is causing some brand new risks and opportunities in that area (mostly...mostly risks if I'm honest). I wrote that one almost exactly three years ago, and it turns out there's been a LOT going on in that field since then. Some good laws, some bad AI, and more.

So like, stay tunes for this month's free Shed Letters for all that.

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So I hate being stuck on an AI project at work for the obvious reasons like "tech employees are being ground to dust to create product that kills the environment, costs people their jobs, steals people's work, and makes everyone actively dumber. for profit."

But also there is a real absurdist element to it all like.

Prior to this I worked on a client-side commenting feature. If there was a bug reported it would always come down to like "oh oops the overflow style isn't being respected on Safari" or "the user icon map isn't populating because the ID service is down." And then I'd go fix it.

In an AI project the bugs that roll in are like "AI is making up a person named Jeffrey who doesn't exist" "AI is acting like I have a manager who has never worked at this company." Like I don't fucking know man. Exorcise it I guess.

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If we're being 100% honest with ourselves as game designers, we've gotta admit that this notion that "story focus" means making the GM do all the work is not a bugbear that's unique to the Dungeons & Dragons fandom. Think of how many self-identified "story focused" indie RPGs you've bumped into that have a great deal to say leading up to the point of rolling the dice, but once the dice have actually been rolled and the time has come to interpret what those results mean, those same rules that were so keen on procedural rigour just moments ago simply shrug and go "I dunno, have the GM make something up?"

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i'm listening to gathering moss, by robin wall kimmerer, and she is talking about a very odd job she was consigned to do, where an eccentric millionaire recuited her to consult on a "habitat restoration". when she arrives, the job they actually want her to do is to tell them how to plant mosses on the rocks in his garden. he wants it to look like a specific, beautiful wild cliff in the woods nearby, with centuries-old beds of moss growing thick and strong. she tells him it is impossible. such a thing would take decades to accomplish.

later, she is called back to look at the progress of the moss garden and is amazed by the thick, well-established mosses. how did they do it? she asks.

then they take her out to the woods and show her that they have been blasting huge chunks of rock out of the cliff, packaging them in burlap, and moving them to the owner's garden.

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The Muppet Movie (1979) dir. James Frawley

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Redditors are struggling in ways that we cannot even imagine here on tumblr Island

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Taking Jean Baudrillard to Outback Steakhouse, the Australian-themed restaurant which does not carry Australian food, was not founded in Australia, and was created with zero involvement by Australians

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This artist hand-embroiders canvas "notebooks."

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2 days after @petermorwood left us, his Tumblr queue was still running.

So I had thoughts.

With respect and apologies to @dduane.