Frank Skornia

Public Digital Librarian. Don't join dangerous cults. Practice safe sects.
Other interests include SF/F/H, gaming, quilting, and astronomy
He/Him/His

Storygraph: https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/fskornia
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/FSkornia/

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Last Notes

2026-04-23 15:43:34 UTC

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I remember when, years ago, I was with a group of friends and we were assembling or setting up something and I pulled out the instruction manual and began reading it. A friend said, "Why are you looking at the instructions, you're so smart." My response was, "I appear so smart because I read the instructions."

2026-04-23 03:29:10 UTC

I just realized a small thing that helps me really appreciate my subscription to the Criterion Channel: there is no algorithm saying "You may also like this". You can either browse through the collection that is available or rely on themed showcases compiled by their curators. It is very refreshing not to have constant engagement shoved at you.

2026-04-16 17:37:22 UTC

So someone made this post on Mastodon:
https://infosec.exchange/@catsalad/116268399785747534
And that led another person to make this site: https://boat.horse/clock/index.html
This feels like some real old school internet stuff. For the younger folks out there, this is the kind of stuff that would pop up all the time on the internet in the late 90s and early 00s. No reason for it beyond it being cool and beautiful.
While the animated clock in the link sort of hurts my head, it still is beautiful.
#note1xle…nask

2026-04-02 18:46:31 UTC

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I hate this when I answer the phone at work.
"Hello, this is [Library] Reference, what can I help you with?"
"How are you doing?" [pauses until I answer that question]
Just tell me what you need so I can get off the phone!

2026-03-24 18:10:33 UTC

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Wandavision
Agatha All Along
Daredevil: Born Again
Hawkeye
I also have a soft spot for Werewolf By Night as a perfectly decent small bite of MCU TV.

2026-03-23 21:26:58 UTC

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I remember the first Board of Trustees meetings I sat in on. Our director made some remarks on the budget and mentioned how revenue from fines was lower because the library's new ILS sent automatic reminders and auto-renewed. A board member actually asked if that was something that could be turned off.
Not a great start to my time in public libraries. Fines, if they exist, should never be a line on a budget, but rather counted as a windfall or surplus.

2026-03-23 20:45:59 UTC

Just finished 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' by Shirley Jackson and:
A) I'm annoyed that it's taken me this long to read it.
B) OMG! I wish I could have read this in an English Lit class. There is so much in this book. And there seems to be so much in dialogue with this book.
Spectacular little read with a delightful rapscallion as a narrator who simultaneously sets everything on edge and makes you question the novel's reality.

2026-03-15 18:09:51 UTC

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I love the sheer confidence of the second one from the left.
Just launches itself and hasn't even unfolded its wings yet.
Sparrows are incredible. I've watched them fly full speed at a chain link fence and perfectly timing their wing folding so they fly through the holes without slowing down.

2026-02-03 20:51:11 UTC

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Has there ever been a Star Trek episode framed as the captain writing letters to the families of dead redshirts?

2026-01-10 23:00:53 UTC

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Considering how close far rightwing parties got to elected majorities in Germany and France. The fascist government in Italy. Rightwing movement in the Netherlands. Not really...

2025-12-19 17:48:17 UTC

I continue to chomp through books, so today I have 2 new ones.
I just started reading 'These Burning Stars' by Bethany Jacobs.
Intriguing space opera start, although I hope we're not going to really be following the space fascist zealots for the entirety of the book...
#FridayReads @npub1q60…kp90

2025-12-16 16:08:05 UTC

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Seems like it is continue to encourage the disconnection from the idea of file systems.
I'm old school enough to think of it as sending a file up or down the internet pipe. But if people just see it as sharing content instead of it being a discrete file, then they would perceive the icon differently.

2025-12-16 15:29:22 UTC

It bugs me that one of the services we use at the library has this as their "Export to Excel, CSV, or PDF" icon.
I perceive export as a download function, and this icon clearly implies upload
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/115/729/952/033/719/029/original/1933afbf4739d9a3.png

2025-12-15 22:20:38 UTC

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"I'll have what's she's having."

2025-12-15 22:15:51 UTC

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C'mon. Don't make me pick between Misery, A Few Good Men, The Princess Bride, and Stand by Me.
They are all movies that I will watch on repeat and often quote from.

2025-12-03 20:07:43 UTC

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This was always a key part to the Wordpress classes I used to teach - how to shift it from a blog platform to a website platform.
OBS Studio now has a prompt during installation that asks if you're going to use it primarily to record or stream and then does an initial configuration on that. I could see WP having a step during install that asks this and then maybe adjusts the admin interface based on the response.

2025-12-02 15:25:36 UTC

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I think I would still go down with either Massachusetts or New York. We really don't have a beef with Rhode Island that I know of.

2025-12-02 13:42:28 UTC

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Now I'm trying to think what Connecticut would do. Upvote might be Rhode Island, but would that be too small to see (lol!)? Downvote would probably be Massachusetts or New York - maybe it can be based on geographic location

2025-12-01 19:19:33 UTC

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It probably throws off their AI training models.

2025-11-21 02:34:17 UTC

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I'm guessing this is on a laptop? Is it possible she's brushing the touchpad with her wrists as she's typing?
I remember I had this problem with my first laptop. At that time I had a setting that the touchpad was disabled when I had an external mouse connected. But I'm certain they've gotten better settings to avoid accidental brushes.

2025-11-12 22:44:01 UTC

Staying late at work for a book discussion.
We're discussing 'Ender's Game', which wasn't my choice, but it should still be a decent discussion.
For all the people heartbroken over JKR's awfulness, I went through all of that a long time ago with OSC. I loved his books and now I can't bear to even think of them fondly.

2025-11-12 04:20:05 UTC

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One of the advantages is that future fraying will now be on the binding, which is frankly really easy to replace.
At some point I will have a Flannel of Theseus, and will hope that I can find a new replacement. But not yet!

2025-11-12 04:10:47 UTC

I have a flannel from LL Bean that is my favorite garment to wear around the house during the winter. Because I wear it a lot, it has gotten worn and ragged in places. I've patched the elbows a couple of times now.
At the end of last winter I noticed that the edges of the cuffs were getting frayed and I knew I needed to reinforce them. I realized that the technique to bind a quilt is perfect for this purpose.
Sticking with the idea of visible mending as well.
#Sewing #Mending
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/115/534/757/089/830/112/original/627c1d1fa5851496.webp

2025-10-20 17:26:15 UTC

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I was just reading on a horror subreddit about the overall consensus that IMDB scores for horror films are notoriously low, and that if you're a horror fan you generally should add 1-2 points to the scores to get a more accurate sense

2025-09-26 19:12:59 UTC

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The scans are one of the tasks the previous people did well, though sometimes it seems some edges are cropped. Also, everything was done as JPGs, so I've been tempted to rescan as uncompressed TIFs.
I'm having fun looking through the Randolph collection. I recently learned that the first decade of the 1900s was a boom period for postcards, but the industry got hit hard in the early 1910s by steep tariffs on European printed goods.

2025-09-26 18:53:37 UTC

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The scanning is the one thing they did really well, although some edges seem cropped in places. But they saved everything as JPGs, so I've considered redoing them as uncompressed TIFFs.
Postcards are a lot of fun to look at. I really love ephemera like them because I feel they unconsciously share more of history than other artifacts do

2025-09-26 18:43:45 UTC

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From what I've been able to guess Edith Fillow and her sister Sadie regularly received postcards from a couple of folks every couple of months. Most of them don't have written messages, so it seems like they were collecting the postcards.
The collections were likely donated to the various locations where the postcards originated, so we got the ones from Stamford, CT.
It's cool that we can all still look at them 118 years later though. This is why I love this work.

2025-09-26 18:39:28 UTC

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And don't mind the severely minimal metadata. I'm really annoyed at how poorly most of this collection was entered, so I'm working on improving it before I share this collection with the CT Digital Archive

2025-09-26 18:37:23 UTC

I absolutely love this guy's handwriting on these postcards.
https://www.fergusonlibraryarchive.org/items/show/269
This is from 1907 and was scanned in 2011 (before me, so I didn't do it). I have to give a lot credit to the folks that kept it in this shape for almost 105 years. Look at how vibrant that blue ink still is.

2025-09-26 13:11:08 UTC

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One of the few things I miss from the birdsite was the bot account I followed that shared images of "faces in things". It was fun seeing them all.

2025-09-19 16:13:57 UTC

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Wow, at first look it really does look like a painting, maybe in watercolors. It's a really impressive beautiful photo and that crow was probably showing off for you.

2025-08-28 16:22:45 UTC

Taking the step to reply to a vendor sale manager's solicitation email because we already subscribe to and offer the service.
This is the second email I've gotten from them.

2025-08-28 15:49:19 UTC

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And this problem has been exacerbated since we went fine-free.
I'm happy that we're fine-free and definitely don't want to go back to charging fines, but I also need to acknowledge that we have had a lot more loss in the library materials since the switch

2025-08-28 15:47:00 UTC

Why does it seem to be the case that when a patron does not return the items they checked out, they usually have checked out a large number of items?
I remember when one person checked out 6 volumes in the Wheel of Time series at once and then never returned them.
Between unreturned items and bindings falling apart, I sometimes feel like my library is propping up the Jordan estate with all the repurchasing I need to do of that series

2025-08-20 19:26:50 UTC

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Clothing with infrared LEDs - hats, hoodies, etc - disrupt most digital cameras

2025-08-20 01:29:28 UTC

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I doubt I could easily find a similar fan today that will be as reliable for nearly 30 years and is as user serviceable as this one has turned it to be.

2025-08-20 01:28:05 UTC

Earned my sense of accomplishment for the evening:
I have a medium size oscillating fan that I've owned for about 27-28 years.
This year it has had probs operating. I could sometimes get it running by starting at the highest speed and then stepping down the speed. So tonight I disassembled it down to its mechanism as much as I was comfortable. Put a few drops of machine oil on the front and back of the blade shaft. Manually turned the start until it spun easily. Reassembled it. Now it works!

2025-07-25 14:23:42 UTC

I watched the first ep of the new season of Strange New Worlds and personally I'm so happy that it seems like they put the Gorn storyline largely to bed (literally!) since it means they can move away from the overly-militaristic posturing that Star Trek really hasn't been that good at.
Lets get back to exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new life and civilizations!
#StarTrek #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds

2025-07-17 19:55:35 UTC

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It took me about half the first book to get used to his accent. It always feels kind of "mushy" to me, but it fits the character really well and I enjoy it a lot now.

2025-07-17 19:30:36 UTC

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I've been spacing the audiobooks out, using them as palate cleansers between some of the heavier books I've listened to. I've listened up to Broken Homes so far. They're great and fun.

2025-07-11 21:24:45 UTC

This week I'm reading 'The Chosen Queen' by Sam Davey.
It is a telling of Arthurian legend, starting with his mother Igraine. I'm assuming there is going to be a sequel that will go into Arthur (maybe something from Guinevere's perspective? Or Morgan's?). It's not a bad read so far, a little slow, but enjoyable.
#FridayReads
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-07-05 03:38:01 UTC

Since it was just a topic of conversation in our household:
Did you first learn that Aaron Burr fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel from a certain "Got Milk?" commercial?
Please boost. I'm honestly curious about this silly question.

2025-07-04 13:41:02 UTC

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On the train ride back from Philly I also started the ARC of 'The Maiden and Her Monster' by Maddie Martinez.
This is a version of the golem tale from Jewish folklore. A young woman ventures into a deadly forest seeking a monster so she can save her mother from an injustice. She finds something very different than she expected.
Debut novel from the author and I'm enjoying it very much.
#FridayReads
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-07-04 13:38:16 UTC

Because of some recent traveling, this Friday I'm unusually in the midst of several different books.
The first is 'Written on the Dark' by one of my most favorite writers, Guy Gavriel Kay.
Continuing to write in the low magic alternate fantasy history world he has created in Al-Rassan, Sarantine Mosaic, and several others, I just realized that this book is his version of Joan of Arc, Henry V, and the French Civil War in the 15th century.
#FridayReads @npub1ny7…uv57

2025-07-03 20:25:19 UTC

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Love Becky Chambers and that one is really special in an already special series.
I also love Harrow. The Once and Future Witches is an incredible piece of art.

2025-07-03 20:23:18 UTC

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Oh, I'm looking forward to reading that. I finally went back and reread (listened) to City of Stairs and now I'm about halfway into City of Blades and I'm really loving it. Apparently he does really well with second books :-)

2025-07-03 20:20:11 UTC

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Love this question... let me see...
Two Truths and a Lie - Cory O'Brien
Picks and Shovels - Corey Doctorow
Orbital - Samantha Harvey
The Tainted Cup - Robert Jackson Bennett
The Adventures of Mary Darling - Pat Murphy
I also know I have a new Sylvia Moreno-Garcia (witches!), a Claire North (space opera!), and Spooky Reads 2025 on the back half of the year.

2025-07-02 16:44:22 UTC

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I saw a bunch of people wearing these at ALA Annual this past weekend. Nice to know where I can order one for myself. Thanks!

2025-06-23 18:59:21 UTC

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You're in the right place to disappear into the woods at least.

2025-06-19 18:56:45 UTC

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Shallow Grave!
Features Obi-Wan, the Ninth Doctor, and Kerry Fox!

2025-06-06 19:09:40 UTC

The parent company of the Big 4 sewing pattern brands (Simplicity, Butterick, McCalls, and Vogue) has been sold to a liquidator
https://craftindustryalliance.org/parent-company-of-the-big-4-sewing-pattern-brands-sold-to-a-liquidator/
#sewing

2025-05-23 17:41:57 UTC

This week I'm reading 'James' by Percival Everett.
It's for our staff book discussion in a couple of weeks and I'm very meh on the whole book. Honestly, one of the main reasons I supported it for this month was to stop it constantly being brought up as a suggestion.
I'm gladly just about done with it, which means I can start Chelsea Abdullah's , 'The Ashfire King' during the long weekend.
#FridayReads @npub1ny7…uv57

2025-05-17 21:56:16 UTC

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I have to continually remind myself that most manuals are easily findable online, and often I can find more useful resources elsewhere online. But it's tough to overcome the inclination to keep them.

2025-05-09 21:07:05 UTC

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Loved those books growing up, although I enjoyed their Elenium and Tamuli series better. (the books were co-written by David and his wife Leigh Eddings)

2025-05-09 15:45:26 UTC

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I finished it last night, but still close enough for #fridayreads
Last night on my drive home, I finished 'The Player of Games' by Iain M. Banks.
I really enjoyed the second entry in Banks' Culture series. Much more so than 'Consider Phlebas' Being an avid gamer, I really loved the game stuff and the space opera aspects of learning a new culture (with a small 'c'). Based on these two books, I get the feeling that Banks really isn't the greatest at endings though...
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-05-09 15:42:23 UTC

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I also started 'The Tower Lord' by Anthony Ryan on audio this morning.
This is another reread for me, and it's interesting in response to my comment about overpowered characters. The main character is an almost undefeatable swordsman, but I feel that Ryan does a great job putting him into situations where he can't just swing his sword. Anyway, I'm happy to be rereading this series.
#FridayReads
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-05-09 15:39:46 UTC

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I know we're all tired of the classic Hero's Journey structure of the farmboy becoming a great hero, but at least those stories had some character development hardwired in them. I feel like these books with overpowered characters are an overcorrection.
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-05-09 15:36:26 UTC

This week I'm nearing the end of 'The Radiant King' by David Daglish.
Rather disappointed by this book. It's among the fantasy trend where the characters are incredibly powerful so there never seems to be any sort of danger or threat to them (See also Martha Wells' 'Witch King' or Anne Bishops' 'Black Jewels' series). The characters don't seem to have any urgency or curiosity. Unless something drastic happens in the end, I probably won't continue this series.
#FridayReads @npub1ny7…uv57

2025-05-04 22:04:23 UTC

Just finished South of Midnight.
Had a really good time playing. The story was really great and the main character, Hazel, was fantastic to spend time with. The soundtrack is absolutely killer.
Some of the game elements were repetitive, like the combat and platforming, but I felt the story made up for those. It ultimately reminded me A TON of American Magee's Alice Madness Returned
I am really looking forward to the next project from this studio, whatever it is
#Gaming #SouthOfMudnight

2025-05-02 14:38:28 UTC

This week I'm just about at the end of 'Picks and Shovels' by Cory Doctorow (@npub1fdr…lvhs)
This has been an incredible delight to read with really engaging characters, a great setting of 80s San Francisco area with all its warts and shines, and a plot that on the surface seems a little preposterous (which means it's probably closer to truth than fiction) but it all works wonderfully.
It's my first Marty Hench book, but I am raring to go on the other ones now.
#FridayReads @npub1ny7…uv57

2025-04-30 19:42:09 UTC

Dude that just called the library seeking a way to possibly access a bunch of 100MB Zip disks has no idea how freakin' lucky he is that I just happen to have a 25 year old external Iomega Zip disk drive in my desk drawer right now.
And it works (mostly, connections and mechanics are being finicky, but I was able to get a read on the disk I just tried)

2025-04-30 14:54:07 UTC

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It's also a sneaky way to get people to feed more data into the systems. That article may have been somewhere where the AI crawler could consume, but now someone has willingly fed it into the system and probably without the consent of the original author.

2025-04-25 18:36:56 UTC

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I'm also listening to 'Player of Games' by Iain M. Banks.
This is okay so far, somewhat better than 'Consider Phlebas' but Banks sure takes a while to get the momentum of the story moving. I think the weakest part is Gurgeh, who really isn't that interesting of a character - but maybe that's typical of the hoi polloi in the Culture.
@npub1ny7…uv57 #FridayReads

2025-04-25 18:33:37 UTC

This week I'm reading 'Lessons in Chemistry' by Bonnie Garmus.
This is for our staff book discussion last week and I'm enjoying it sort of okay. It is largely falling into the same meh territory that most popular fiction falls for me.
As I mentioned earlier this week, I've seen the TV show and really liked it. I think it is a rare occasion of it being better than the book.
#FridayReads @npub1ny7…uv57

2025-04-18 14:21:16 UTC

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Since I finished one audiobook this morning, that means I get to start my next tonight.
The plan is to head back to The Culture with 'The Player of Games' by Iain M. Banks. Hopefully it is better than 'Consider Phlebas' which just sort of meandered to nowhere.
#FridayReads
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-04-18 14:19:10 UTC

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I also finished 'City of Stairs' by Robert Jackson Bennett on audio during my drive into work this morning.
Great epic urban fantasy book with a lot more change to the status quo than I remember when I read it years ago. I recently read 'The Tainted Cup' and it's interesting to see how he's developed as a writer.
#FridayReads
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-04-18 14:14:31 UTC

This week I'm reading 'The Tower of the Swallow' by Adrzej Sapkowski.
It is the 4th book (or 6th if you count the anthologies) in the Witcher Saga that I've been slowly working my way through.
This one is a bit of a tough read, because it has been absolutely brutal for Ciri and no one in the book seems to like each other. It's also doing some weird timey wimey stuff. At least I'll be ready for the next Netflix season whenever it comes.
#FridayReads @npub1ny7…uv57

2025-03-21 19:49:22 UTC

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One thing I'm worrying a bit about in my state is whether the IMLS cuts will lead to other cuts.
When I served on a state library board, we had several years in a row where our State Librarian talked about how the state budget cuts to the State Library would drop below a threshold and threaten our federal funding. That was sometimes enough to reverse some cuts.
Now that federal funding may be off the table, it removes that lever against state cuts.

2025-03-21 18:09:36 UTC

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I've also moved on to 'City of Stairs' by Robert Jackson Bennett on audio.
This is another reread that I remember really enjoying when it came out, and then never followed up on the rest of the trilogy.
I just read his recent novel 'The Tainted Cup' and it's striking how similar certain aspects are between these two.
#FridayReads @npub1ny7…uv57

2025-03-21 18:08:01 UTC

This week I'm reading 'The Happy Couple' by Naoise Dolan.
This is for our monthly staff book discussion and we decided to read something by a contemporary Irish author and that was somewhat lighter than our recent books.
It's a fun read. Wow, the lives of the characters in this book are messed up. No one seems to really care about anything or appears not to care and I think everything is just going to explode before the end.
#FridayReads @npub1ny7…uv57

2025-03-18 00:08:24 UTC

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Yeah, someone mentioned their issues with it to me before. Maybe you? I can't remember. Which is why I added the note about it.
I think the transness in the other two is subtle, but it's there, at least in my reading of them.

2025-03-17 23:22:43 UTC

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Hmm, let me see what I've read recently:
'The West Passage' by Jared Pechaček is a wonderfully weird little book that reads like a medieval saga.
Maybe 'The Witch's Heart' by Genevieve Gornichec? It deals with Norse mythology focusing on Angrboda and Loki and all the stuff he gets into.
'Light from Uncommon Stars' by Ryka Aoki. CW There are some tough transphobic scenes near the beginning, but the book is ultimately hopeful and rather lovely.

2025-03-07 21:15:30 UTC

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And I'm also still listening to 'Consider Phlebas' by Iain M. Banks.
It's alright. It sort of feels like Banks didn't have enough story for the actual plot, so he contrived a bunch of difficulties for the main character to be dealing with endlessly.
#FridayReads
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-03-07 21:12:52 UTC

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Then I started 'Water Moon' by Samantha Sotto Yambao.
I've heard good things about this book about a magical pawn shop hidden through the doorway of a popular ramen shop. The pawn shop deals in choices. It's too early to really know what that means yet. Looking forward to reading further.
#FridayReads
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-03-07 21:11:16 UTC

This week I finished 'Mickey 7' by Edward Ashton (it was after midnight last night, so it still counts for #FridayReads)
This was a really entertaining book with some real solid space opera vibes. No FTL travel means that it really examines the difficulties of interstellar colonization.
I'm really happy there is a sequel because the story just sort of suddenly splats to an end, solving immediate problems but not much else resolved.
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-03-07 14:29:50 UTC

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I read 'Memory of Water' almost 10 years ago and remember really liking it. Thanks for sharing, this sounds good.
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-02-26 19:59:38 UTC

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I also think that the Dems should be holding at least weekly press conferences in DC in response to the White House briefings. Invite all the media that is being pushed out of the WH Press Corps so that the info they get and are reporting is what the Dems are reporting.
These are the things they should be doing as an opposition party right now. Make noise. Make themselves seen as a viable alternative to the chaos going on. Quit the bipartisanship.

2025-02-26 19:56:25 UTC

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This is the sort of opportunity the Dems should be throwing themselves at. Start putting together slates of candidates for these districts and start holding town halls. Blanket the districts with meet and greet and appearances where the candidates say a few words and then sit and allow people to talk to them.
Then if the 2026 elections happen, the people that the districts have been seeing and talking to are the Dems.

2025-02-21 16:29:51 UTC

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I am also still listening to 'Consider Phebas' by Iain M. Banks.
Horza is just careening from one disaster to the next. Nothing seems to be going right for the poor fellow. He just wants to get to a Dead World and reconnect with his old flame (and find a marooned AI...). Instead he is on a multi-kilometer long cruise ship (that sails on a sea in orbit!) that just smashed into a wall of ice. Yay space opera!
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-02-21 16:26:51 UTC

This week I'm reading 'If Beale Street Could Talk' by James Baldwin.
I'm ashamed that I've never read it before, so I'm glad we selected it for our staff book discussion this month at the library. It's a great read so far with a ton of character and style.
#FridayReads @npub1ny7…uv57

2025-02-14 18:23:21 UTC

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I also started listening to 'Consider Phlebas' by Iain M. Banks on audio.
I read this one years ago, but am coming back to it now on audio, since I'm planning to work my way through the Culture books in between a couple of other fantasy series. Just at the start now, but it is nice and tasty space opera fare so far.
#FridayReads
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-02-14 18:21:06 UTC

This week I'm finishing up 'Starborn: How the Stars Made us' by Roberto Trotta
I started it sometime last year, but it was shortly after I had read a very similar book focused on the Moon.
This is an excellent jaunt though the history of astronomy and navigation. It's both relieving and saddening to read while the culture of science in the US is being destroyed in short order.
#FridayReads @npub1ny7…uv57

2025-02-05 16:42:11 UTC

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From my experience, if you turn on the setting where it "Limits to 1 response" then it requires sign-in.
Unfortunately, there is no other way to limit responses.

2025-01-24 16:27:12 UTC

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I'm also still listening to 'Blood Song' by Anthony Ryan.
More grim fantasy from the early 10s. This is a reread and I'm happy that it is has held up well to my memory of reading it 10 years ago.
@npub1ny7…uv57

2025-01-24 16:25:49 UTC

This week I'm reading 'The Dinosaur Lords' by Victor Milan.
I've been intrigued by this book for a while, and it came up on my weeding list, so I /saved/ it and checked it out. It's been fun so far. Basically alternate Renaissance era Europe grim fantasy (on a different planet maybe?) featuring dinosaurs as mounts, livestock, pets, etc.
There is more to be revealed - people are long lived and not sure if there is magic yet.
#FridayReads @npub1ny7…uv57

2025-01-18 21:20:09 UTC

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Hiya! You can also follow the @npub1ny7…uv57 group which will share posts from people who tagging the group.
I also recommend searching and following hashtags - yes, you can follow a hashtag and any posts with that hashtag show up in your home feed. It's a great way to find other people to follow that share interests.

2025-01-15 00:00:30 UTC

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This sort of sounds like what Google Reader could have become with tender loving care and the full weight of Google behind it (combining the concurrent ideas of things like Circles and Wave that lived in their own siloes).
I've signed up for the waitlist and looking forward to seeing what comes of this.

2025-01-13 20:39:36 UTC

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I've recently been thinking about why it seems like I'm so much more progressive than I was 15-20 years ago and I think it might be mainly a couple of factors - working in a public library has made me more progressive, but also I don't think I've shifted that much politically, it's just that the parties and the Overton Window have shifted so much to the right that I'm left with views that may have been solidly centrist 20 years ago, but now seem radical

2025-01-11 01:59:37 UTC

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I'm really enjoying it so far and I think it will make it on my short list of regular rereads. As you say, it's a very calming book

2025-01-10 18:18:05 UTC

This week I'm reading 'Orbital' by Samantha Harvey
Who knew that to get me interested in a Booker Prize winner it needed to be SF (-adjacent)? This book is a lovely meditation of the 6 inhabitants of the ISS as they loop around and around the Earth.
It feels very much like reading a Virginia Woolf novel with a sort of layered nebulous floating between characters' thoughts and perceptions. The sort of book you just sort of let wash over your thoughts as you read.
#FridayReads @npub1ny7…uv57

2025-01-10 04:15:35 UTC

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Good luck! It is great to hear how you're helping people.

2025-01-10 02:33:53 UTC

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In my past tech support experience, the ancient laptop sounds like a candidate for an OS reinstall/restore. Especially if there aren't any important files on it. Depending on how ancient it is, it could have a recovery partition that could be accessed by a key press during boot. You can look up the brand and model to see the steps. If it is more ancient, it may have come with recovery disks, which she may no longer have and you're back to square one.

2025-01-06 22:54:40 UTC

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I did some basic mending stuff, but sock darning is another step. Though for simple tears you can probably just do a simple seam repair.

2025-01-06 22:52:51 UTC

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I don't know how to darn socks, there are people on here that certainly do and would probably love to give you advice on it.
I should probably learn to do it, just as a neat skill to have.

2025-01-02 21:53:33 UTC

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For All Mankind!
The best thing to come from Ronald Moore and it feels as close to a prequel to The Expanse that you can get from a completely different creator.

2024-12-25 17:39:22 UTC

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Eggnog is also pretty much a premade ice cream base.
Just sayin' 😉

2024-12-14 20:56:42 UTC

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I mean, anyone can use the content, it's why it's there in the collections. I just happen to be more connected and knowledgeable about what is there to use it.

2024-12-14 20:55:48 UTC

One of the things about being the guy in charge of the digitized collections - I have a great selection of content to use to design custom notebook covers as gifts for my coworkers.

2024-12-13 20:12:43 UTC

You know what #UI trend I have gotten very tired of? Hiding UI elements unless you're hovering over them or have selected them.
Things like checkboxes for selecting items or even freakin' scrollbars! I don't care if it looks "cleaner" with them hidden. Show them to me!

2024-12-13 14:34:17 UTC

Happy Friday the 13th!
Jason is feeling a little festive, how about you?
Ki ki ki. Ma ma ma.
#Horror #FridayThe13th
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/113/646/001/309/223/062/original/ea6710200795f182.webp