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When someone follows me, my app (Tweesecake) shows me their bio. I always read it, to get an idea of who the person is that thought I'd be interesting enough to follow. Today, someone followed me who says they like Harry Potter fan fiction more than the original books! That's a stance I haven't run across before. Not that it's wrong, it's just completely new to me.
in reply to Alex Hall

common viewpoint nowadays, I think, given the reactions to Rowling's commentary on trans rights.
I do enjoy a good fanfiction. I have just started a reread of [the Arithmancer-Verse ](archiveofourown.org/series/993…)
in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo Good point. I was thinking it solely from a literary perspective, not considering the author in the equation.
in reply to Alex Hall

Personally I feel that the original books lost their way toward the end. I wonder how they'd have developed if they hadn't been so successful, ironic as that sounds.
in reply to Alex Hall

From a literary perspective, I find many aspects of the original books to be unbearably illogical, compared to how much better I've seen them done in fanfiction.

A lot of people consider book 6 or 7 to be the point at which the series went off the rails. Personally, I think it happened when Harry, faced with the prospect of his godfather's imminent death, decided that flying from Scotland to London on a horse was a sound idea. Absurd.

So, I probably do fall into the "fanfiction" is better camp, at least when the fanfiction is actually good.

@cachondo

This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to James Scholes

@jscholes @cachondo tbh, as somebody young enough to have read the entire series at once, a few years after it was released, and I would say that all the books were basically at the same level of badness.

Even the philosophers stone had a lot of glaring errors.

in reply to Mikołaj Hołysz

@miki @jscholes I guess that's a perspective I can never have. I spent a few weeks reading the first 2 or 3, then waiting years for the rest like everyone else.
in reply to Sean Randall

I think I'm in the same situation. There's a lot of range in quality, but I'd say the best fanfic is definitely better than the original works.
in reply to modulux

@modulux @cachondo I haven't read a lot. Mostly just that famous one, I think it's Method of Rationality? I read that because a professional audio book narrator made a free podcast where he read the whole thing. It was interesting, but certainly not better than the original.
in reply to Alex Hall

There are ... so so many.
Some authors take up midway through Rowling and do their own endings, that was very common when waiting for official releases and I suppose those are the most familiar to people who've only read the originals.
Some do post-hogwarts and shoot off after that, having Harry go into another world sometimes, like a crossover with Marvel or go back in time or whatever.
Others reimagine things from the beginning: Harry gets introduced to magic differently, or earlier, or by a new or familiar character.
And yet others poke at other times or parts of the universe: what would happen if Sirius Black got expelled for nearly setting Lupin on Snape, for example? Was one I read recently.
or what if Voldemort's attack happened on twin boys and their parents didn't die? Another one that's been made into a huge series.
They go on for countless iterations, with quality ranging from absolutely dismal to surprisingly hard to put down.
in reply to Alex Hall

I would agree that one's not better than the original, though also not bad. There are some really good ones around though. I'm reading too ongoing ones at the moment, New Blood and Prince of Slytherin and I'd say both are better. Just downloaded the arithmancer ones, curious to read those.
in reply to modulux

@modulux when i first read the Arithmancer, my notes said: I rather enjoyed it, although there's much to grumble and quibble over both in terms of characterisation and plot. It still felt like a clever twist, and that's what I was looking for.
They got worse not better and I only "liked" (3/5) book 3. But they're an experience
in reply to Sean Randall

So reading a chapter of this fanfiction during my lunch break and I can't help but remember a different one where Harry and Professor Vector do all sorts of kinky stuff. Pretty sure he gave her a magical butt plug.
Not remotely connected to this one, but of course she didn't have a very big part in the Canon so that's all my brain has to go on!
I don't remember which fic it was. Perhaps fortunately.


Boost your coding skills! Join the Development Workshop at the upcoming LibreOffice Conference 2024: blog.documentfoundation.org/bl…

LibreOffice reshared this.



Trying to use BSI with iPad. Pretty hard though. i wonder how its possible to calibrate it? #Blind
in reply to Nick's world

are you on iOS18?
2 fingers moves through the available tables you have chosen I think. Sorry I don't have a device in-hand and it's all become automatic.
in reply to Sean Randall

I keep uncontracted, contracted and Unicode braille in my table list. I like the unicode table for showing people braille if they are sighted and want to know what it looks like and correcting adults who are learning.
I don't often use uncontracted nowadays, but it's legacy from when I was teaching and used my phone as part of my job. Had it in there for years.



A list of commits is not a changelog!

reshared this



in reply to SuspiciousDuck

Takze uz konecne bude dobre.

Ibazeby zase nieco.

Lebo vsak, p. Fico si ide uz 4. Vladu, a super fasa chytry aj pracovity je, len mu to furt ktosi kazi. (A furt sa pride na to, ze ti co boli volakedy jeho favoriti a terazky uz nie su, ze kradli. Ale o tom po tom.)

in reply to SuspiciousDuck

Caro ludskej fantazie: nema medze.

=>

Vymyslia dalsiu blbost.

(Ako vsetko: ma to dve strany. T.j. aj ta fantazia: da sa vyuzit na dobro, alebo zneuzit na zlo. Fico&co. si jasne vyberaju zlo.)

Unknown parent

SuspiciousDuck
@Petr90 neviem, zrejme asi áno "tradičná".


Veľký a "starý" ThinkPad prenášať hore dole nebudem.


The “Pillars of Creation” taken by James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) 🛰️✨

📸 NASA / ESA

#space



Omlouvam se ze to tu nejelo, ale meli jsme tady "trosku" problem s vodou, elektrinou, internetem, plynem a tak vubec ... Nastesti me se velka voda vyhla asi o 50m a mam jen vytopeny sklep.

Sorry for instance not working, but floods happened ...

This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to Koubik

Tak hlavně, že jsi zpět 👋
To je síla dole ta voda 😳
in reply to Archos

@archos já už teď jen čekám na čerpadlo … v sobotu mi odešlo. Hned jsem objednal, ale z pochopitelných důvodu alza ještě nedovezla. Snad zítra 🤷‍♂️
Hasiči mají o dost důležitější práci než odčerpávat můj sklep.


Maybe Google shouldn't strip non-ascii characters when training AI



They should remake Jurassic Park but the moment of foreshadowing in the presentation-ride is "we used AI to fill in the gaps in the DNA samples"



8 notepads, 6 recordings, 3 web browsers, 2 chat apps and a calendar to clear out of the way before lunch.
Busy morning!


Billionaire and #Oracle co-founder Ellison wants an 𝐀𝐈-𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞.

Do you think billionaires will be able to pay to stay #private? We're curious to hear your thoughts!

arstechnica.com/information-te…

𝐏𝐥𝐮𝐬, #𝐆𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐢 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬:
tuta.com/blog/google-gemini-ai…

#surveillance #masssurveillance #Pay4Privacy #AI

in reply to Tuta

Seems data hungry...

I'm hungry as well...guess I'll have to eat the rich until they know what human rights and moral values are

in reply to Tuta

Every human should read or listen to the audiobook 1984.


mod_tls, the rustls based alternative to mod_ssl has its own repository again.

I hope this eases participation with maintainers and distributions and allows it to follow the API evolution of rustls in a better way.

I made an initial v0.13.0 release. Let me know if there is anything missing.

cc @graaff @brnrd @cpu

github.com/icing/mod_tls



I've recently taken to adding a direction tag to benches in #OpenStreetMap. My convention is that the tag value corresponds to the direction of view.

Delighted to find that @vespucci_editor now shows (single) direction values, but wished I'd known about the whizzy direction tag gadget which uses the phone's compass yesterday. (It's a bit too clever if adding the values in retrospect.)

in reply to SK53

mapcomplete.org/benches allows you to add benches and has a specialized direction input module. And you can also easily add pictures with it


A ship from the past, oil on panel, 2018.

This was the culmination of years of reading about ecology, collapse, and low tech, + my experience sailing on historical ships 100 years old.

#oilpainting #MastoArt #lowtech #sailing #sailcargo #containership #shippingindustry #postcollapse #solarpunk #ecopunk #ecology #windpropulsion


in reply to SuspiciousDuck

@SuspiciousDuck

na moje zuby je moc tuhá, tak jsem ji musel prostě podusit - jinak bych ji vyhodil



Ridgeline is using Matrix to defend privacy, autonomy, and security of individuals and organisations.

Learn more about how at The Matrix Conference in Berlin this week!

2024.matrix.org

in reply to The Matrix.org Foundation

Joe from Ridgeline International, LLC, one of our partners, is presenting at The Matrix.org Foundation Conference in Berlin tomorrow.

Discover how secure communications can shield your data from ubiquitous technical surveillance threats.



i'm having an issue where my SD card has become corrupted and Windows says it needs formatting. Any way i can recover the data without formatting it?
in reply to Justin Macleod

You might try cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_D… then.
Hard to be precise without knowing the problem; but if the allocation table's damaged the contents of the storage blocks on the thing might be retrievable
in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo Thanks I did. I think I made the problem worse, but I don't think it could have been fixed anyway. There was something wrong with the partition and the only options it seemed to be offering me were load backup or add partition. Neither worked but I think load broke it because it couldn't find any partitions to analyse when I tried it again.


Read another article about Amazon forcing their staff to work full time in the office.

It makes mention of "special circumstances" which is "having a sick kid" or "an emergency".

Ableism so entrenched that tech CEOs don't even pay lip service to disabled people.

in reply to Nick

Remember when companies were like we care about diversity and inclusion?

Then we had a massive disabling event which also forced us to work differently and forced mass remote working infrastructure.

Now were like "who needs that!". It's not even a conversation, the gains disabled people found from easier access to remote working is not even recognised.

Remote working like any ridged working practices isn't perfect, we need broad solidarity around flexible working and not just cos it benefits parents – and I'll add parent workers are my favourite people to work with cos they tend to have good boundaries around work and that helps me also.

This entry was edited (2 months ago)

reshared this



possibly the most unnecessary audio-description commentary in the episode last night.
This is from Nightsleeper, a 6-part BBC thriller that started on Sunday.
in reply to Sean Randall

Should have put the description just after the boom so there's no look-ahead. I don't like things like that either.


My word, I woke up longing for my smoothie this morning and have just had it. Strawberry today, yummers! Silky pillow is being changed, adn I'll be curling up on it again as soon as it's ready.
in reply to Lulu Hartgen

we went to see some friends at the weekend and they have a massive beanbag chair.
Now we have great comfy reclining sofas with deliciously high baks and comfy headrests. I can put my feet up and enjoy a movie marathon no problem. But it's nice to try something different and I could really get behind one of those squishy seats.


I am going through an alarming phase of being recommended fanfiction where literally everyone is gay.
I'm struggling to stay awake so not reading long new stuff very much at the minute, but seriously, I have no objections to homosexual relationships in stories, but when they are literally everywhere, your storytelling gets lost in your agenda.
A well-written relationship is gender neutral, I suppose is my takeaway. I enjoy reading about the people - and even their genitals where that is interesting to the story. The fact that they have a certain set generally isn't.
in reply to Sean Randall

I couldn't agree with this more. I want to hear a story, not someone banging their agenda drums.
in reply to Sean Randall

So many people seam to like slash now a days, especially inthose HP fanfiction Facebook groups.


Please enjoy @pluralistic Cory Doctorow's fantastic presentation on taking back the internet from last month at #DEFCON32. Cory's takes are always thoughtful, provocative and it was his deshittification concept that helped inspire the DC32 theme. More videos from #defcon coming soon. As always, pass it on.

youtu.be/4EmstuO0Em8

This entry was edited (2 months ago)

reshared this



Morning all. Still feeling exhausted, but this will pass. Reading A Woman of Substance again, it's such a good book. have a great day.
in reply to Lulu Hartgen

me too. If I catalogued every reread people would have more to read about what I was reading than things to read themselves!

I'm still struggling to stay awake after work, but at least I'm getting through the workday. Not ideal, but improving. :)

in reply to Sean Randall

@cachondo I'm so glad you're getting better, even if it's slower than you want it to be.


Placené služby Seznamu bez sbírání dat za 179 Kč měsíčně 👍 „Pokud uživateli v rámci produktu Seznam bez reklam nebudeme zobrazovat reklamu, je samozřejmé, že o něm žádná data za účelem jejího cílení nesbíráme.“ blog.seznam.cz/2024/09/seznam-…


Velaí outra novidade de #Laiovento: publicamos as cartas que Rosa Luxemburg lle remitiu a Sonya Liebknecht durante o seu encarceramento entre 1916 e 1918. CARTAS DESDE A CADEA en tradución de Almudena Otero Villena


#titulky ‚Bůh chce, abych byl prezidentem, abych zachránil tuto zemi.‘ Trump popsal víkendový pokus o atentát
— IMHO magor dosáhl úrovně fanatického osmdesátkového televizního náboženského kazatele.




saw a video on "why we should go back to runes" and it was about a more phonetic writing. while I *do* support English going back to runes you uh you know that you don't need runes for that, right? you know that most languages using the Latin alphabet periodically update their orthography so that it doesn't stray too far from the phonemic, for example (hypothetically) if there's some sort of big shift in vowels


Really nice that #BigFinish offer their downloads in M4B format these days, as well as MP3. I just purchased three volumes of Sapphire and Steel, a favourite from my childhood that I never originally ended up finishing.
in reply to James Scholes

I haven't heard anyone mention that since ... Blimey. I was about 6 or 7 years old.


Thanks to

@KaraLG84 for pointing out the Interactive Fiction competition is out. Check it on ifcomp.org/ or follow @IFComp



dad: what is it you do again?

me: i built a ton of features into firefox

dad: okay i guess

me: and now i secure systems with an almost incalculable amount of data

dad: ???

me: also today i got quoted by consumer reports

dad: *EYES BUG OUT OF HEAD*

consumerreports.org/electronic…

in reply to April King

my recommendation is to get a gold medal from some kind of local hot shot. That can give the family a clue that maybe what you do has a relevance in the world 😁


I wonder what goes through the mind of the conductor who decides to close the door of the departing train just at the moment the delayed train on the other edge of the platform starts opening doors.
I mean the trains are scheduled next to each other for a purpose.
in reply to Ondřej Caletka

Probably nothing. I like Hanlon's razor, it makes my life a bit more positive:
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to Ondřej Caletka

Report it. If it was planned that way (say not to miss some other connection or timeslot down the train route), you'll learn it, if it was just conductor being arsehole, well, there next time they most likely won't be.


Something tells me I might not feel well enough to worktomorrow. At least there’s iOS Frotz to play and hundreds of stories to occupy my time. I haven’t played “counterfeit Monkey” in forever. Fun game for sure, and something that helps to keep my mind occupied on more happy things. I’m learning Inform 7 for a IF project I’m planning, so it’s good to get back into playing again. #InteractiveFiction #TextAdventures
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to Noel Romey

I've also started writing in Inform7. That's a neat system! What are you using for an interpreter to test your game?
in reply to Kelly Sapergia

@kjsapergia I used TADS as a teaching tool for blind teens nearly 20 years ago. Inform is probably easier to grasp, but I'd played a lot of TADS games as a kid.
To see my own text and logic happening in front of me on my old DOS-based offline system was pretty magical in the 1990's.


“The shift from the Afro-Caribbean zombie to the U.S. zombie is clear: in Caribbean folklore, people are scared of becoming zombies, whereas in U.S. narratives, people are scared of zombies. This shift is significant because it maps the movement from the zombie as victim (Caribbean) to the zombie as an aggressive and terrifying monster who consumes human flesh (U.S.).

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