strathearnrose

ergative , 9 days ago to bookstodon group

I'm reading through the Clarke Award nominees, and I'm getting very tired of all the wallowing in dystopian futures that have been constructed solely to indict the trajectory of the present.

Like, I get it, SF is and has always been political. And that's fine! But can we please have a STORY as well? And fewer footnotes referencing Supreme Court case outrages?

#amReading @bookstodon

randahl , 15 days ago to random

I wish there was an English term for this:

From time to time I notice a movie which gets top review scores, but when I watch it, I soon realize it is one of those movies, which I for a lack of a better term call "All wrapping with no present inside."

It is movies which have million dollar budgets, expensive casting, and endless special effects, but a slim, stereotypical manuscript, with zero surprises.

It is what "Dune: part two" is, but what "Interstellar" is not.

Is there a term for it?

dilmandila , 15 days ago to bookstodon group

I'm trying to read This Is How You Lose The Time War, but I'm struggling to understand what is going on, and I'm not sure if it gets better. It feels like a dense read. I heard so much about it, but perhaps I'm too impatient?

@bookstodon
#amreading #sff #scifi

MikeDunnAuthor , 19 days ago to random

Russian warships are heading to the Caribbean for exercises. And according to NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Europe General Christopher Cavoli, Russian submarine activity in the Atlantic are "at a higher level than we’ve seen in years.”

Why?

Because the U.S. and NATO keep escalating their involvement in the Ukrainian war, incl plans to station hundreds of thousands of troops, inclu US soldiers, along Russia’s entire western border, from Finland to the Balkans. Not surprisingly, Russia is treating this as an existential threat.

But a direct military confrontation between NATO & Russia dramatically increases the risk of accidental, or deliberate, use of nukes, which is an existential threat to the entire planet. And even without the firing of nukes, a ground war on this scale would lead to mass slaughter unseen since WWII.

What about Ukraine, you ask. Well, they've already lost >200,000 lives in this war, which they've been losing badly, hence the rationale for the increased NATO involvement. However, escalation of the conflict will only increase the pace, and the scale, of the slaughter of Ukrainians. And in a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, Ukraine would likely be decimated. So, no, an increase in NATO involvement doesn't help save Ukrainian lives, and might not even lead to its independence.

A negotiated settlement is the only way out of this morass. Yet that isn't even on the table. And news coverage is so scant, and so biased, that most people don't even realize how serious the threat currently is. Even the peace movement is barely making a squeak.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/nato-land-corridors-could-rush-us-troops-to-front-line-in-event-of-european-war/ar-BB1nA9P9

#nato #russia #ukraine #worldwar #nuclear #peace #genocide

beexcessivelydiverting , 21 days ago to bookstodon group

Why are we so obsessed with #Regency era romances?

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/why-are-we-so-obsessed-with-regency-era-romances/image-gallery/0ed5acbb63b39ffbb03656428798958e

#AmReading #AmWriting @bookstodon #books #Bookstodon #WritingCommunity #ReadingCommunity #JaneAusten #Georgian

randahl , 21 days ago to random

On May 6th, Russia threatened to attack “UK military facilities” if Ukraine was allowed to use British weapons against Russian military targets.

It has been a month… so where are the Russian attacks Sergey Lavrov?

Oh, that is right… UK is a member of NATO, and Russia — the second strongest army in Ukraine — is a bit busy at the moment.

— Yet another empty threat from the Kremlin clowns.

https://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1948389/?lang=en

strathearnrose , 21 days ago to random

Can anyone point me to a straightforward explainer of what #Microsoft is up to just now with this #Recall thing - in language understandable to the layperson?

randahl , 1 month ago to random

If you use Ivory for Mastodon, could you check if you are seeing a 🎬 icon next to my profile picture, or if it is only shown as part of my name?

For other accounts I see, Ivory moves any icon placed in the profile name up to the profile picture as a badge, which I think is a nice feature.

But for some reason, it does not work for my own icon, at least not when I view myself.

Perhaps @ivory has a bug?

image/jpeg

randahl , 2 months ago to random

From the US Supreme court hearing on presidential immunity today:

Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts from which he can get immunity?”

Trump lawyer John Sauer: "That could well be an official act.”

— I wonder if Dark Brandon is listening.

figstick , 2 months ago to israel group

NOT ONE CENT FOR #UKRAINE UNTIL THERE'S NOT ONE CENT FOR #ISRAEL

https://mastodon.social/@axios/112255363876123847

#FreePalestine #ceasefire #ceasefirenow @israel @palestine #gaza #biden #joebiden #genocide #Netanyahu #apartheidisrael #IsraelApartheid #ethniccleansing #genocidejoe #USPOL

wdlindsy , 2 months ago to random

"In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, House Intelligence Committee Chair, Republican Mike Turner of Ohio, finally agreed with what Democrats and many independents have been warning about for some time: Russian propaganda has made its way into the U.S. and infected a good chunk of the GOP’s base."

~ Jay Kuo

#Trump #Putin #Russia #Republicans
/1

https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/russia-russia-russia

randahl , 2 months ago to random

Here in Denmark the weather is always changing dramatically in April.

On April 3 we had 0 °C during the night, and on Tuesday we will have 21 °C during the day. It is like switching from summer to winter and back again multiple times before spring finally gets a hold.

It is for good reason that in Denmark the saying goes, “April, April, has its own will.”
(Danish: “April, April den gør hvad den vil”)

Which month is the chaos weather month in your country?

ChrisMayLA6 , 3 months ago to bookstodon group

I have now completed the nine volume books series The Expanse by James A Corey, and what a ride it has been.

Its quite an extraordinary feat of sustained (coherent) imagination & I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who likes world-building SF.

With its multi-viewpoint narrative strategy but also with it central core of crucial characters, this is space opera of the highest quality.

And the finale is wonderfully pleasing in plotting terms!

Its been a joy!

#sciencefiction
@bookstodon

ChrisMayLA6 , 4 months ago to random

Why have young people turned away from the #Tories?

John Burn-Murdoch (FT) suggests (not implausibly) that two factors loom large:

1. the #housingcrsis & the increased difficulty the young have owning their own home;

2. #Brexit

which also goes some way to explaining while the abandonment of the right by the young is more extreme in the Uk than elsewhere (even it is a broad global trend).

the right-wing gerontocracy may have gone too far & taken too much?

Chart: Brexit appears to have acted as a trigger fro young Britons souring on the Tories. % of Britons aged 18-34 saying they 'strongly dislike' the Conservative Party. Shows before the EU Referendu, proportion was relatively stable at 20%, but since it has risen from that level to around 40% (i.e. doubled)