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[personal profile] andrewducker
Ooh, I thought, that's a really cool t-shirt! And the price is only £24, that's actually pretty reasonable!

Except no, it's £24 plus £6 tax plus £7 shipping *that takes up to 6 weeks*.

And this for an item that's print on demand. Which means, theoretically, they could print it in the UK in the first place and not have to presumably ship it to me by alpaca from Kazakhstan!

Shame, really, it's a nice t-shirt. But not £37 nice.

Reading Wednesday

Sep. 17th, 2025 06:55 am
sabotabby: (books!)
[personal profile] sabotabby
 Just finished: Notes From a Regicide by Isaac Fellman. Goddamn this was good. It's one of those dreamy, elegiac works where I'm at a loss to tell you exactly why it affected me that strongly (but honestly, read the plot summary I mentioned two weeks ago) and that's a critical part of its strength, the degree to which Fellman inhabits the story. I've seen a lot of post-apocalyptic, we're back to a lower technology level settings, but very few where the social and cultural changes affect the style (the other one is Ada Palmer, who is writing semi-utopian, higher-technology settings but does a similar thing where the prose evokes a more historical style but is off slightly, because it's the future). He's also doing a lot of work with biography and memory; there is one part where Griffon, reflecting on Etoine, describes him as cold, admits we've seen almost nothing of this, and suggests that he only really talks about his moments of passion in disproportion to how he was in regular life. This is very much a throw-you-into-the-deep-end type of book in terms of its worldbuilding, and even to some degree its characters. We never really find out who Yair was beyond the cross-dressing Jewish guy who took Etoine and Zaffre in when they moved to New York, and that he's dead and they still mourn him, and it doesn't matter, because it's outside of Griffon's scope and his parents don't like to talk about the past.

Okay, I think that actually nails down why it resonated with me so deeply. It reminds me of my grandparents—who, for the record, were not trans, were not revolutionaries or leftists in any way, and were not artistic—in the way that when they told stories, they would evade a great deal. Like a Turner painting where most of it is an ethereal abstract and you get maybe one section of specific detail. It was frustrating as a child, of course, never really knowing your family's story, and I think this is a pretty common experience and why everyone is so obsessed with genealogy and connecting with fifth cousins these days. I imagine even more so if you find out your parents were artist-revolutionaries in a magical city frozen in time. Anyway. I loved this one quite a bit.

It's Okay, Just Set Me On Fire by Billions Against Billionaires. This is a 'zine, which I wouldn't normally log except it's really good and I wanted to draw your attention to it. It's about how fascist billionaires suck. All the writing is quite strong and it includes a single-player Basilisk simulation RPG and you should get it for the cover alone. It was quietly slipped to me by a member of the collective who put it out and now my goal is to write something worthy of the second issue. Here it is.

Currently reading: Antifa Lit Journal Vol. 1: What If We Kissed While Sinking a Billionaire's Yacht?, edited by Chrys Gorman. Well, the first story fuckin' whips. I mean, it's an anthology about how fascists suck. Maybe there's a broader rant I have about author/editor-led anthologies in general, because I keep having the same issues with them (see what I did there?) but it's a project worth doing anyway, and worth buying for the cover alone (so buy it).
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/146: Kings of This World — Elizabeth Knox
'In the 1980s we coined the term P, for Persuasion, which turned into P for Push when people stopped being so polite about it.' He paused a moment and pursed his lips, as if pleased with himself. [loc. 178]

Knox's latest YA novel is set in her fictional island nation of Southland, and references both Mortal Fire and the Dreamhunter Duet. Unlike the earlier books, it's set in more or less the present day: there are cellphones, EVs, the internet. And there is P (for Persuasion): a coercive / perceptual ability possessed by the Percentage, 1% of the population -- and a divisive issue in Southland society.

Vex Magdolen, sole survivor of a massacre at an 'intentional community' known as the Crucible, has strong P. Read more... )

andrewducker: (Default)
[personal profile] andrewducker
A week and a half ago I ordered a couple of K-Pop Demon Hunters hoodies for the kids from Amazon. I didn't realise quite how much of a trip they'd be making:

8th - Taken from warehouse in Shenzhen (China) and handed to massive chinese shipment company SF Express.
8th - Driven an hour up the road to Dongguan shipment centre.
11th - Transported (presumably by road) 1,100 km to Ezhou (SF Express hub airport, also China))
12th - Flown to Liège Airport (Belgium), stopping over in Almaty International Airport (Kazakhstan)
14th - Flew in to Heathrow
14th - Then arrived in Stansted for customs
15th - Then handed to Hermes in London
16th - Who got it to me in Edinburgh the next day

Total cost, including shipping: £24 (£12 per top).

I am both impressed and somewhat aghast.

Photo cross-post

Sep. 16th, 2025 09:58 am
andrewducker: (Default)
[personal profile] andrewducker


No, daddy, it's definitely not a "pointy duck"! Have you even read the sign?
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/145: The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar — Indra Das
“Why won’t you let me remember?” I dared ask.
She blinked. “You deserve to be real in this world. It’s not an easy thing to be stuck between worlds.” But stuck I was, and ever have been. [loc. 286]

Ru George grows up in Calcutta [sic] in the 1990s. He's the child of immigrants, and lives with his grandmother and his parents. Ru's father is a failed fantasy author: his novel The Dragoner's Daughter (about dragonriders on a distant planet using their mounts to traverse multiple realities) sold only 52 copies. Ru's grandmother tells him fantastical stories about his grandfather having started life as a woman (Ru can see the truth of this in old photos). Ru's mother administers the Tea of Forgetting after meals, and before bedtime. 

Read more... )
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[personal profile] tcpip
The past several days, courtesy of my great book giveaway, I've had several bookish visitors gracing my abode. The sort of person who is interested in my academic books tends to be a person with a vibrant curiosity, so it has inevitably led to long and fertile discussions across the arts, the sciences, and the laws (to use the contemporary trivium). This has included Elliot B., Marc C., Liza D., Kate R., and, as interstate visitors, Dylan G., and Adrian S. It's been several years since I last saw Dylan, a former co-worker from VPAC days, so that was an excellent evening. Inverting the style, I visited Brendan E.'s new abode in Northcote, where he gifted me a first print copy of Wired magazine, which now, appropriately, sits next to my Mondo2000 User's Guide; cyberpunk forever. I have further updated my free book giveaway, this time with a small mountain of texts in computer science.

Other interstate visitors cam the week previous in the form of Lara D., and Adam B., from the Territory, and we had a glorious time at the French Impressionists at the NGV, after joining Anton W with a visit to the State Library where there is an excellent and highly recomended Misinformation exhibit. Of course, the works of the famous artists were at the NGV; Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, et al, but the one which really caught my attention was Fantin-Latour, whose simple subject matter made his skill in texture all the more clear. A few days later I would visit the NGV at Federation Square with Liana F., which always has excellent indigenous artworks, and the evening previous Liza D and I ventured to the Northcote Social Club (fine venue) to see Guy Blackman from Chapter records perform for his first album in "quite a while". His lyrical talent is really quite special, and his stage presence curiously enticing, and the self-deprecating humour pleasing. Certainly, this will be worthy of a Rocknerd review.

Going further back, I was thoroughly charmed to attend Nitul D's family gathering for Ganesh Chaturthi Puja, and a few days later, I would join him again, attending the 2025 Hugh Anderson Lecture by Marilyn Lake "Rapprochement with China" at the Royal Historical Society. Dr Lake was able to give some impressive history, a great deal of regional context and, of course, had a few words to say about AUKUS. It was the first time I'd been in the RHS building, a late-deco establishment and once a military hospital. Another one of Melbourne's hidden gems. On similar subjects, I must mention Dr Wesa C's birthday gathering last week at Vault Bar, a delightful little place and, as the name suggests, a former bank vault. It should be mentioned that Wesa is a bit of a hidden gem herself, and I had no prior knowledge of her singing talent!
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/144: Cinder House — Freya Marske
Scholar Mazamire's own theory was that a ghost was how a building held a grudge, because it was not human enough to do it on its own. [loc. 527]

A novella-length variation on 'Cinderella': it begins with Ella's death at sixteen, dizzy with the poison that has killed her father, falling downstairs as the house convulses at his demise. Shortly thereafter, Ella finds herself merging with the house itself. She cannot leave the property, and the only people who can see her are her stepmother Patrice and her two stepsisters, Danica (who likes to read) and Greta (who likes to get her own way).Read more... )

a few notes on ratelimiting

Sep. 14th, 2025 04:31 am
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[personal profile] fanf

https://dotat.at/@/2025-09-14-ratelimit.html

Last year I wrote a pair of articles about ratelimiting:

Recently, Chris "cks" Siebenmann has been working on ratelimiting HTTP bots that are hammering his blog. His articles prompted me to write some clarifications, plus a few practical anecdotes about ratelimiting email.

Read more... )

podcast friday

Sep. 12th, 2025 07:20 am
sabotabby: (doom doom doom)
[personal profile] sabotabby
My major podcast news is that I finally finished listening to Mike Duncan's French Revolution series. A phrase I remember from the foreword to the copy of Ulysses I read as a teenager always sticks in my head: "you put it down with the triumph of a general suppressing a revolt," or something like that. I commend the effort it took to make this podcast—it's nso much research and writing and analysis and it's an incredibly good history of the French Revolution.

But.

Nothing really sticks in my head. This is possibly because Mike is more interested in dates and names than I am, and more interested in military strategy than either he claims or I can understand. But it's also a factor of his voice, which he can't really help, but I'm quite allergic to what I call NPR Voice. I just kind of drift off. It's kind of like, "this happened, and then this person did this. How droll." I have the same problem with Conspirituality sometimes, and pretty much all the time with Democracy Now. It just slides off my brain. Nevertheless it's worth listening to if that is not a problem for you.
jyrgenn: Blurred head shot from 2007 (Default)
[personal profile] jyrgenn
"Without Remorse or Recipe" is how I would translate this title. Wolfram Siebeck, the influential German journalist and restaurant critic, was someone I already knew in my childhood; I read his restaurant reviews in my parents' papers. After I had left my parents home, I heard less of him, but later met someone who had even cooked together (or was it against?) Siebeck.

This blog reflects how I read fewer and fewer books over the time; the last entry about one is even 4 years ago. My parents know this, and their birthdays gifts are now mostly not books, or ones that can be consumed in little portions on the loo, for instance.

But about this one, when they gave it to me on my birthday, my father said, I know you are not really reading books any more. But still, you actually should read this one!

So I did, mostly on my commute, meaning but twenty minutes (the uninterrupted time on the train) two times weekly. Still, I managed to read it to the end, and actually this wetted my appetite for reading more books again. That is good!

Now this book is rather not as significant as my father made it sound. It is interesting to some degree, it is somewhat entertaining, but if Siebeck hadn't been in my mind since the 70s, I might as well have found it a bit boring.

Siebeck comes across as someone with a curious intellect, but also vain, arrogant in parts, not necessarily the most likeable character, and not one out to save the world — and he knows it. That he paints this picture of himself with some self-mockery makes it bearable, but then he *is* a snob when it comes to eating, cars, people, and ways to live.

The more interesting and central parts are, apart from his account of the end of the war, in which he was involved as a 16-year-old, his portrayal of the rise of fine dining after the war, and journalism's increasing interest about it. His narration about the places where he lived, mainly that cottage in south France, and all the hassle with it, isn't, so much.

In the end I found the book somewhat interesting and entertaining (he can write, after all), but far from being a must. I don't regret spending the time to read it, but I could have done without it.
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/143: Twilight Cities: Lost Capitals of the Mediterranean — Katherine Pangonis

...in Syracuse, the ghosts feel like they raise the city up; in Ravenna, Nicola thinks they hold it back. [loc. 3703]

Pangolis explores five ancient capitals (Tyre, Carthage, Syracuse, Ravenna and Antioch) leavening historical detail with her own impressions of each city's modern remnants: a blend of history and travel writing which works better in some chapters than in others. Read more... )

2025/142: Everfair — Nisi Shawl

Sep. 11th, 2025 11:57 am
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/142: Everfair — Nisi Shawl

He had been warned, but had thought Everfair too remote, too obscure, for Leopold's dependents to seek its destruction. He had thought that because this land had been legitimately purchased they were safe. He had trusted to his enemy's basic humanity to preserve them. [p. 95]

Everfair is a steampunk-flavoured alternate history, beginning in 1889. The Fabian Society, instead of founding the London School of Economics, purchases land in the Congo as a refuge for those fleeing the oppressive, violent regime of the Belgian government and their rubber plantations. Everfair, as the new country is called, is initially populated by African-Americans and liberal whites, as well as escaped slaves. King Mwenda, whose land it was before the Belgians stole it, is not wholly pleased with the way that Everfair is run: but he and his favourite wife, Josina -- a fearsome diplomat -- are playing a long game.

Read more... )