Posts in Books (20 found)
Jim Nielsen Today

Down The Atomic Rabbit Hole

Over the years, I’ve been chewing on media related to nuclear weapons. This is my high-level, non-exhaustive documentation of my consumption — with links! This isn’t exhaustive, but if you’ve got recommendations I didn’t mention, send them my way. Reply via: Email · Mastodon · Bluesky 📖 The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. This is one of those definitive histories (it’s close to 1,000 pages and won a Pulitzer Prize). It starts with the early discoveries in physics, like the splitting of the atom, and goes up to the end of WWII. I really enjoyed this one. A definite recommendation. 📖 Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb by Richard Rhodes is the sequel. If you want to know how we went from atomic weapons to thermonuclear ones, I think this one will do it. It was a harder read for me though. It got into a lot of the politics and espionage of the Cold War and I fizzled out on it (plus my library copy had to be returned, somebody else had it on hold). I’ll probably go pick it up again though and finish it — eventually. 📖 The Bomb: A Life by Gerard J. DeGroot This one piqued my interest because it covers more history of the bomb after its first use, including the testing that took place in Nevada not far from where I grew up. Having had a few different friends growing up whose parents died of cancer that was attributed to being “downwinders” this part of the book hit close to home. Which reminds me of: 🎥 Downwinders & The Radioactive West from PBS. Again, growing up amongst locals who saw some of the flashes of light from the tests and experienced the fallout come down in their towns, this doc hit close to home. I had two childhood friends who lost their Dads to cancer (and their families received financial compensation from the gov. for it). 📖 Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser Read this one years ago when it first came out. It’s a fascinating look at humans bumbling around with terrible weapons. 🎥 Command and Control from PBS is the documentary version of the book. I suppose watch this first and if you want to know more, there’s a whole book for you. 📖 Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen Terrifying. 🎥 House of Dynamite just came out on Netlify and is basically a dramatization of aspects of this book. 📖 The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump by William J. Perry and Tom Z. Collina How did we get to a place where a single individual has sole authority to destroy humanity at a moment’s notice? Interesting because it’s written by former people in Washington, like the Sec. of Defense under Clinton, so you get a taste of the bureaucracy that surrounds the bomb. 🎧 Hardcore History 59 – The Destroyer of Worlds by Dan Carlin First thing I’ve really listened to from Dan. It’s not exactly cutting-edge scholarship and doesn’t have academic-level historical rigor, but it’s a compelling story around how humans made something they’ve nearly destroyed themselves with various times. The part in here about the cuban missile crisis is wild. It led me to: 📖 Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Serhii Plokhy is a deep look at the Cuban Missile crisis. This is a slow burning audiobook I’m still chewing through. You know how you get excited about a topic and you’re like “I’m gonna learn all about that thing!” And then you start and it’s way more than you wanted to know so you kinda back out? That’s where I am with this one. 🎥 The Bomb by PBS. A good, short primer on the bomb. It reminds me of: 🎥 Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War on Netflix which is a longer, multi-episode look at the bomb during the Cold War. 📝 Last, but not least, I gotta include at least one blog! Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science and creator of the nukemap , blogs at Doomsday Machines if you want something for your RSS reader.

books Books Science media Media
0 views
A Working Library 1 weeks ago

The Empusium

In 1913, a young Pole arrives at a health resort in the Silesian mountains, a place known to be free of consumption due to the still, cold, dry air. Each evening, the residents gather after dinner and drink a mildly hallucinogenic liquor while they debate the issues of the day: do women have souls? does a woman’s body belong to her or to the public? could a matriarchy exist? Meanwhile, rumors swirl about strange murders, bodies left scattered in pieces in the woods, and the abrupt suicide of a woman chills the new arrival. As they come to understand this place, and come to understand themselves, they find that both have changed, and someone—or some thing —is watching. View this post on the web , subscribe to the newsletter , or reply via email .

writing Writing books Books
0 views
A Working Library 2 weeks ago

The Dream and the Underworld

“When we wrong the dream, we wrong the soul.” James Hillman here argues that the work of mining dreams for their meaning to the living world is a violation. Dreams are not messages from the nightworld to the dayworld but rather the psyche taking hold of the day’s detritus and composting it into soul-stuff; that is, dreams are the psyche’s work of soul making, a nightly transformative and creative act. Dream-work then is not the work of translation or interpretation but of observation, witnessing, and honoring the dream as it is. As much a book about creative work as it is about dreams, which is perhaps the same thing. View this post on the web , subscribe to the newsletter , or reply via email .

culture Culture books Books writing Writing
0 views
Manuel Moreale 3 weeks ago

Alice

This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Alice, whose blog can be found at thewallflowerdigest.co.uk . Tired of RSS? Read this in your browser or sign up for the newsletter . The People and Blogs series is supported by Winnie Lim and the other 122 members of my "One a Month" club. If you enjoy P&B, consider becoming one for as little as 1 dollar a month. I'm Alice, I'm currently 37, I'm from the East Midlands in the UK, and have lived in the region all my life. I live with my husband (whom I married in June) and our two cats. They are the best cats. At university, I studied English Literature because I never had any idea what I wanted to do for a career! I really enjoyed my time at university. Looking back, it was such a luxury to have all the time dedicated to reading books and thinking deeply about them (even if I was always too shy to contribute much in seminars!). I can't say an English Lit. degree has ever been beneficial in a practical sense, but I'm happy that I've started to dust off some of the cobwebs on it with my book blog! My work and my blog are separate, but I think the fact that it exists at all is a result of the way my career went, or rather didn't go! I got a Master's degree in Information and Library Management, but failed to ever get a proper professional job. Plan A was University Librarian, but I didn't get the graduate trainee placement I needed, and, with that, I was forever locked out of university libraries. I never saw a job posting that didn't require "at least 5 years of experience in an equivalent role", and social anxiety hampered the development of networking skills. I was a library assistant at a university for a while, where a good portion of my colleagues were in the same boat as me! Plan B was a School Librarian, purely because it was the only job I got offered. I was ill-suited to it, never really enjoyed and the school I was in had little interest in supporting the Library or developing a reading culture. I did that for about 4 years, the whole time trying to come up with an alternative plan. Eventually, Plan C presented itself, and I ended up in a little niche of library management systems, where I worked on data migrations for special libraries, and eventually moved into archives and museums. This is a job that really suits me. It turns out my true love all along was actually databases, information retrieval and the challenge of solving all the puzzles that involved! If I could go back in time to 18-21 years old, knowing myself as I do now, I would make different decisions! But, for now, I am happy where I ended up, and I'm still making a little contribution to the cultural sector! The Wallflower Digest was born in 2022 because my previous job had stopped offering me stimulating challenges, and I was feeling overlooked, bored and trapped by a lack of opportunities! My self-esteem was taking a real hit, and I just needed something to give me a goal and focus. I have had blogs in the past when bored at work! My library assistant job in my twenties was in a tiny, quiet campus library that involved some lone working evening shifts where there would be nothing to do but sit on the enquiries desk for hours! That was how my first blog started; it was mostly a TV blog called Between Screens. That was hosted by WordPress.com (I did have custom domains, though!) and is now long deleted. I used to write recaps and reviews of my favourite TV shows, movies and video games. This was mostly Made in Chelsea, Game of Thrones, Veronica Mars and Mass Effect ! I also played around briefly with a fiction blog and a sewing blog, but those were short-lived. This time around, I wanted my blog to be somewhere to exercise my writing skills and have a chance to play around with CSS and maybe other website bits if I wanted. When I picked the name, I wasn't sure what the blog was going to be, but I think I managed to nail it. I wanted something that felt like me. I've always been very shy, but I was painfully so as a child, and someone (probably a teacher) referred to me as a 'wallflower', and that term got stuck in my young brain. I don't know if the meaning will translate for those who aren't native English speakers, so as a definition, a "wallflower" can mean someone with an introverted personality type (or social anxiety) who will usually distance themselves from the crowd and actively avoid being in the limelight. Plus, I like flowers! I recently planted some wallflowers (Erysimum) in my garden! And then a ‘digest’ is a compilation or summary of information, and my blog is a mess of different topics. I share as I digest the things I read, learn and experience in my life. When I got started, I spun my wheels for a bit in the mud of terrible advice for new bloggers. You know, this strange idea that a blog has to make money, and therefore has to solve problems for an audience! This is why some of my oldest posts have a recognisable Content formatting of SEO friendly headings and keywords! But I eventually realised the fun and mental stimulation I needed came from just doing whatever I wanted, and that an Audience wasn't important to me (actually, I fear that!)! And, more importantly, the blogs I was finding that I enjoyed the most were messy little personal blogs where people shared snippets of their lives. These days, I remind myself that I can do what I want. I see it now as a loosely defined project to help me distil the things that resonate, and help me to understand myself a little better. I share whatever I want to, which currently is book reviews, updates on my life, occasionally progress with my garden (though I've been too busy this year!), and my embroidery or other craft projects. Lately - trying to be less of a wallflower - I've been taking part in more blogging community linkups and tag memes, which have been a lot of fun to answer prompts, but also for "blog hopping" and seeing who else is out there! I'm hoping to branch out from the book-based ones to other topics and blog hop beyond the borders of the book community, or the more tech-focused folks I found on Mastodon. I am toying with the idea of creating my own if I can't find an existing one that feels right! Life has been very busy recently, so the blog has really been ticking over on book reviews and joining in with the book blogger community's Top Ten Tuesday weekly link-up (currently hosted by ArtsyReaderGirl ). It's hard to find the time for more "creative" posts at the moment, but I do try to put really effort into my TTT and try to find something to say about the books I choose to list. Sometimes I get struck by inspiration - usually a topic that keeps recurring in my life somehow - and I'll start a draft, or just jot some thoughts into a note and eventually find the time to work it into something that makes sense! That is the biggest challenge when I work 40 hours a week and have to do all the other responsibilities of life, relationships and health things that come with being an adult. I mean, I've been trying to find the time and mental bandwidth to write a full review with my analysis of the book Rouge by Mona Awad since January (I loved it, and I'm still thinking about it)! But it's still in drafts, and I think I need to read it a third time now. It's like a running joke that I'll forever talk about it and never get it posted! I also post life updates semi-regularly. Those posts are just a catch-up on whatever is going on - how my walking/move more challenges are going, TV or movies, anything else I feel like! I love to read that kind of 'slice of life' content from other people. Now and again, I'll share something about my social anxiety struggles. I'm always battling this, and I find writing out my experiences and feelings helps to work it out of my system. As for the process, my drafts usually get entered straight into the Jetpack app on my phone. I used Obsidian as my digital notes app for general thoughts and inspiration, and all my book reviews and ebook highlights get synced into there, too. What I've got going on with Obsidian is its own little project (essentially as my own personal database!). Most of the time, I post whenever I've finished writing because time is too short to proofread, and that's why my blog is full of typos and errors! I do re-read things later on and correct mistakes I spot, but that's as far as it goes! I also love to use Canva to create graphics. Every book review gets a little graphic with a summary; those originated in my short-lived attempt to get involved with Bookstagram, and I enjoyed making them so much that I've kept them for the blog. I am also a visual person, so it is important to me that I like the look of my website! I think my creativity relies more on my mental state than my physical space! Definitely, my menstrual cycle comes with days where I'm buzzing with ideas and writing is easier, and I wake up with ideas first thing in the morning before the responsibilities of the day have taken over. I do need quite though. I can't think with background chatter, I have no idea how people manage to work in noisy cafes! They make me instantly tired, and my brain shuts down. Writing is easiest when I am on my PC with a full keyboard and dual monitors, but because I work from home full-time at the same desk, I don't like to be pinned in the same spot in my evenings, shut away from my husband, so PC time only really happens on the weekend. More often, I write on my phone; I also have an iPad, but if I'm typing on mobile, I'm faster on my phone. I am hosted by Hostingr, which has been fine and easy to use for a non-techie like me. My CMS is WordPress, it came installed and I find it familiar and easy to use with a big community. I find there is usually a plugin to solve most problems! I have no problem with the block editor, and I love that I can hook my blog up to the wider WordPress.com world to more easily connect with other bloggers. I use the Jetpack app for quick editing and posting, as well as my RSS feed, and to explore and discover new blogs through tags. I honestly think Jetpack gets underrated as a discovery tool! I don't think I would change anything about my blog. With hindsight, I do wish I'd wasted less time down the SEO rabbit hole and removed the pre-installed AISEO plugin earlier! I could also have figured out how I connect my blog to WordPress/Jetpack sooner to find other bloggers. I would not have made my thoughts on Atomic Habits so SEO friendly... it got caught in Google's net and now I regret how well it does search results. There is a crowd of James Clear fans who get upset when you don't praise it as the life-changing work of a genius they hold it up to be. Every few months, I get something that makes me consider turning off the comments. I got a New Year deal with Hostingr for 4 years of hosting at a ridiculous discount, so I paid that all upfront, and I think it worked out about £3 a month. I'm going to have to work out what to do when that's up for renewal! I think my domain is £8.99 a year. That is all the cost; I don't make any money from my blog, nor do I plan to. This is just a hobby, and hobbies (just like my embroidery and gardening) often cost money! Monetising would immediately make it stressful for me and take the fun out of it. I don't mind if other people want to monestise as long as it's not obnoxious. I don't like newsletters where they put some things behind a paywall but not everything, or they put half of it behind the paywall. Those are annoying when they come through my RSS feed, and usually I end up unsubscribing. I've occasionally done a "buy me a coffee" kind of one-off donation to bloggers, or the pay-what-you-like subscription model, where I can just do a couple of quid a month to show support. Or if they're an artist and they have a shop, I buy something small if the postage to the UK is reasonable. My favourite blogs are the ones where I can feel the person writing it, and their personality and passions come through. I want to read human thoughts, not Content! I like details about people's lives with the things they love (books, TV shows, comics, flowers, whatever!), or might share that they're having a hard time with something and how they're coping. Michael at My Comic Relief writes wonderful, passionate and compassionate posts about his favourite TV shows, movies and comic books. When Doctor Who and The Acolyte were on, I was watching my RSS feed for these thoughts every week! I always find his perspective interesting and his enthusiasm infectious. Dragon Rambles is a mix of personal posts and book reviews written by Nic in New Zealand. I think she's been blogging for many years. I really love it when she shares new books she finds for her collection of retro science fiction and fantasy! I have no interest in ever reading any of them myself, but I love to read about them and her collection! I also enjoy reading Elizabeth Tai . She is based in Malaysia and was one of the first bloggers I found on Mastodon in my super early days, and it was through her that I learned popular Indie Web concepts like digital gardens and POSSE. I enjoy the fact that she writes about all kinds of things! I am actually surprised she's not been featured yet! I think Michael, Nic or Liz would be great to interview. Michael and Nic, I found in the land of WordPress, and may not even be aware of this project! My other 3 favourites you've already featured, but I'll mention them because I think they're great! Veronique has been a favourite for a long time! Her writing always feels intimate, and I love the little snippet she shares from her life, her artwork and her passion for zines. She also mentioned my blog in her interview, and I can't tell you how thrilled I was! I had to try to explain the whole thing to my husband, who does not read blogs! Winnie Lim is another long-time favourite of mine. Her blog is also very intimate and thoughtful, and I am always eager to read about her life and little adventures. And also Tracy Durnell's Mind Garden is like what I think I'd like my blog to be, if I had the time and inclination to properly organise myself! I know she's also had a P&B feature because that's how I found her. I love her weekly notes. I don't know why I enjoy reading what music she listened to and what meals she had that week, but I do! This one is a silly one, and maybe a bit of a blast from the past because I used to follow Cake Wrecks way back in the day (like 15 years ago!), and when I was collecting RSS feeds of blogs again a couple of years ago, I was so happy it was still around! Unlike Regresty, RIP (and RIP to what Esty used to be!). Anyway, there is something about badly decorated cakes that I find deeply hilarious (and bad art in general), and these collections of wonky cakes made by so-called professional bakers are a regular source of joy. I don't have anything in particular to share. I am just so excited to have been asked to take part! I hope everyone keeps on doing what they love and blogging about it in the way that they want! I am thankful to have found that the 'blogosphere' is still alive and well, and for me, it's such a peaceful refuge away from the overwhelming noise of social media. I am also hugely appreciative of projects like this that make it easier for bloggers to find each other, so thank you, Manu! Now that you're done reading the interview, go check the blog and subscribe to the RSS feed . If you're looking for more content, go read one of the previous 111 interviews . Make sure to also say thank you to Annie Mueller and the other 122 supporters for making this series possible.

career Career books Books writing Writing css CSS
0 views
A Working Library 3 weeks ago

We were angry

In documenting the history of our understanding of trauma, Judith Herman follows the investigations into hysteria out into the battlefield. During the First World War, psychologists began to observe symptoms of what was initially termed “shell shock” among soldiers. An early theory posited that the men suffered from some physical ailment, perhaps a consequence of repeated concussions caused by proximity to exploding shells. But it rapidly became clear that a great many of the men affected had suffered no physical harm and yet had been entirely incapacitated: they wept or howled, sat frozen and speechless, became forgetful and detached. In short, they behaved like hysterical women. The first wave of responses to this behavior was unforgiving: accused of laziness and cowardice, the soldiers were shamed and punished. But another psychologist, W. H. R. Rivers, approached the problem more humanely, and arrived at a different conclusion: [Rivers] demonstrated, first, that men of unquestioned bravery could succumb to overwhelming fear and, second, that the most effective motivation to overcome that fear was something stronger than patriotism, abstract principles, or hatred of the enemy. It was the love of soldiers for one another. In other words, “hysteria” and “shell shock” were the same thing, both the result of psychological trauma, including the trauma of bearing witness to horrors which you were powerless to stop. Moreover, it was love for one’s comrades that offered the greatest defense against that trauma—both during the events themselves and in the days and years that followed. Herman traces the ways that our understanding of trauma was discovered and then conveniently (in Freud’s case, intentionally ) lost again, making yet future discoveries inevitable. Each time, it was survivors who drove awareness of the sources of trauma and its most effective treatments, forcing established practitioners of medicine and psychology to follow their lead. In the middle of the last century, survivors of sexual trauma formed consciousness-raising groups, while veterans of the Vietnam War created rap groups; in both cases, the efforts combined demands for better treatment alongside those for political awakening. The purpose of the rap groups was twofold: to give solace to individual veterans who had suffered psychological trauma, and to raise awareness about the effects of war. The testimony that came out of these groups focused public attention on the lasting psychological injuries of combat. These veterans refused to be forgotten. Moreover, they refused to be stigmatized. The insisted upon the rightness, the dignity of their distress. In the words of a marine veteran, Michael Norman: “Family and friends wondered why we were so angry. What are you crying about? they would ask. Why are you so ill-tempered and disaffected. Our fathers and grandfathers had gone off to war, done their duty, come home and got on with it. What made our generation so different? As it turns out, nothing. No difference at all. When old soldiers from ‘good’ wars are dragged out from behind the curtain of myth and sentiment and brought into the light, they too seem to smolder with choler and alienation….So we were angry. Our anger was old, atavistic. We were angry as all civilized men who have ever been sent to make murder in the name of virtue were angry.” Calls for healing and for reparation are the same call: to heal a wound is to account for the wounding. And anger is the appropriate response when that accountability is withheld. Anger, like love, can be useful: it is a shield against further harm, a defense against erasure. It is a weapon that tears down the curtains of myth and sentiment. It is the refusal to be forgotten, even as each new generation tries so hard to forget. View this post on the web , subscribe to the newsletter , or reply via email .

ai AI programming Programming books Books shell Shell
0 views
David Bushell 3 weeks ago

RSS Club #004: Ghost of Autumn

The summer solstice has long past which means it’s Christmas soon if the local supermarkets are to be believed. I refuse to eat a mince pie before November at the earliest. Daylight savings time will come to an end (impossible to know exactly when). For the UK that means dark mornings, dark evenings, and grey skies around noon. It’s time to hibernate! I can recommend a bit of entertainment to wile away the winter. Imperium by Robert Harris is the first book of the Cicero trilogy. Although fiction, this novel is based upon real events at the end of the Roman Republic. The series follows the political career of Marcus Tullius Cicero . A fascinating era of human history. Move over Wordle, Connections is the new daily brain teaser. New to me anyway. If puzzle numbers are to go by it’s been around for years. Presumably inspired by the Connecting Wall you must make 4 groups from 16 words. Green is supposed to be the most obvious but I keep finding the blue group first. I’ve just finished playing Ghost of Yōtei the spiritual sequel to Ghost of Tsushima . If I rated Tsushima 5 stars I’d give Yōtei 4 stars. I achieved the platinum trophy for 100% completion in both games. The game is beautifully designed and fun to explore. Fair warning: moderate spoilers ahead. Yōtei is a great game but the story doesn’t hit the same emotional level as Tsushima. The ending fell flat for me and overstayed its welcome. The antagonists progressively lost their mystique until they became boring. Their repeated escapes were eye-rolling. It made Atsu look dumb and the Matsumae clan comically inept. Plot points are forced and pacing is criminally ruined by bad open world design. They front-load the starting area with the most side activities and then almost immediately move the main quest elsewhere. Ignore content, or ignore story? You can fast travel back and forth of course but it ruins the immersion. I played 20 hours and only saw two cutscenes. Most side characters are relegated to vendor NPC level which was disappointing. I’m left confused as to what purpose the wolf served? Despite these issues it was an experience worthy of the hours invested. As we know the true game is finding the tengai hat and fundoshi armour and terrifying the local samurai. I’m afraid I did not dare witness the final cutscene in this attire. Thanks for reading! Follow me on Mastodon and Bluesky . Subscribe to my Blog and Notes or Combined feeds.

gaming Gaming entertainment Entertainment books Books
0 views
annie's blog 4 weeks ago

Reading notes: August, September

I need to get back on the monthly routine because I’m squinting back at August like Uuuuuuuuuuh I vaguely remember it  so anyway let’s see how this goes. What could she say? What sentence would pierce him while leaving her intact? She had built her life so carefully around him. To say something, to do something, to feel something, would be to self-destruct. Okay. So. I want to like this book. I love books about food, involving food, including food. And this book has a lot of food. Of course it’s a tool, a metaphor, a… I don’t know, an environment. But still: Food. Hell yeah. Actually maybe that’s what I don’t like. I love the messy earthy good realness of food and people taking pleasure in it, cooking and sharing and enjoying it. Food in this story is not that. It is a measure of control, self-inflicted punishment, purgatory, avoidance, annihilation. And that makes me sad. ALSO I think if we’d moved things along and had the final inevitable explosion happen at, say, page 215 instead of page 300-ish, that would have been better. Also also, I said the writing was good and it was but.   But there were a lot of stretches of text that went like this: She (did a food thing). She (did another food thing). She (did another food thing). Details of the ingredients. She (did another food thing). Sizzle. She (did a food thing). She (did another food thing). She (did another food thing).  Etc. I don’t know how you’d write it different but it got repetitive. It was too much. I was inwardly screaming OKAY I GET IT I GET IT SHE IS COOKING AS A WAY TO HAVE CONTROL SHE IS EATING AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR ALL THE OTHER THINGS SHE SHOULD BE DOING I GET IT. Also it annoyed me that he (the fiance) did a horrible thing that ruined it all but we treat it like a big mystery and it is never clarified. I know the point is it doesn’t matter what he did . The point is he betrayed her and instead of rising up with immediate willpower and boundaries and hell naw  she just cooks and eats and pretends it’s fine. (Until she doesn’t.) I get that in a really personal way of having done the same thing myself (less cooking, less eating, but just as much pretending it’s fine) and I know it doesn’t matter how  the betrayal happens, what matters is that the betrayal happened and what matters even more is the self-betrayal that happens and then keeps happening. Until it doesn’t. Again: I GET IT. But also: I WANT TO KNOW. Tell me what he did. This book both destroyed and healed me. I don’t want to talk about it. I want to talk about it. It’s beautiful, it’s full of music and connection and fear. It’s a time-outside-of-time book but you know, the whole time, that there is a reckoning, there is an end, and you know it will pluck your heart out and smash it like a grape and you go forward anyway. Because you are there too and the music you can’t hear is carrying you along and the slow threads are weaving together and you are somehow woven in and then your heart is broken and you have no one to blame but yourself. And Ann Patchett. Is there a satisfaction in the effort of remembering that provides its own nourishment, and is what one recollects less important than the act of remembering? That is another question that will remain unanswered: I feel as though I am made of nothing else. First pick for the book club. We had our first meeting the last week of August and I picked this book without knowing anything about it other than I wanted to read it. It wasn’t what I expected. I’m not sure what I expected. Something lighter, I guess. Anyway I loved it but I felt kind of bad about picking it for CBBC because it is weighty. It is depth. It is pondering.  It is kind of bleak. Also beautiful. Also heavy. It’s a book I want to read again in a few years and see how it hits me. Perhaps, when someone has experienced a day-to-day life that makes sense, they can never become accustomed to strangeness. That is something that I, who have only experienced absurdity, can only suppose. I guess this is a stranded-on-a-desert-island book, kind of . But only in the sense that the environment, the context, has been set up to give us this thought experiment, this experience, this long echoing question of purpose and the even more important unignorable thump-thump-thump of loneliness. Anyway this book is excellent. Read it. Or don’t. But do. Also read The Wall by   Marlen Haushofer. I was not sure about this book but Stewart wrote and produced Xena, Warrior Princess so I figured it would be worth a shot. And yes: It was. If you like well-written badass heroines doing cool shit in a dystopian world (I do) you will like this. Really quite gorgeous. I liked the characters, good adventure, good pacing, good story. A satisfying if bittersweet fantasy (don’t worry, the ending is good). Loved this one. Scifi, really, but reads like fantasy. I should say more about it but I’m tired and I have already said a lot of words. Okay thriller. Plot twist was not so surprising. Tolerable writing. Good escape for a few hours.

culture Culture writing Writing books Books
0 views
Chris Coyier 1 months ago

Media Diet

📺 Wondla — 10/10 kids show. I was way into it. Post-apoc situation with underground bunkers (apparently Apple loves that theme) where when the protagonist girl busts out of it, the world is quite different. The premise and payoff in Season 1 was better than the commentary vibe of Season 2, but I liked it all. Apparently there is one more season coming . 🎥 Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale — The darkest of the three movies? Weird. I love spending time in this world though so I was happy to be there. But honestly I was coming off a couple of day beers when I saw it in the theater and it put me in a weird mood and I should probably watch it again normally. How to proper movie critics review movies without their random current moods affecting the review?! 📕 Annie Bot —  Sierra Greer is like, what if we turned AI into sex bots? Which honestly feels about 7 minutes away at this point. I’m only like half through it and it’s kinda sexy in that 50-shades kinda way where there is obviously some dark shit coming. 📔 Impossible People — Binge-able graphic novel by Julia Wertz about a redemption arc out of addiction. I’m an absolute sucker for addiction stories. This is very vulnerable and endearing. Like I could imagine having a very complicated friendship with Julia. It doesn’t go down to the absolute bottom of the well like in books like A Million Little Pieces or The Book of Drugs , so I’d say it’s a bit safer for you if you find stuff like that too gut wrenching.

books Books Julia ai AI entertainment Entertainment
0 views
The Coder Cafe 1 months ago

Announcing The Coder Cafe Season 1 (Book)

🔔 This post is in the Announcements section, where we share news and updates related to The Coder Cafe. Notifications for each section can be configured in your settings . TL;DR We turned year one of The Coder Cafe into a 260-page book. Published on Leanpub: DRM-free EPUB/PDF. Works on Kindle, Kobo, iPad: read it anywhere. Pay what you want, min $4.90. Buying a copy is a way to support The Coder Cafe . Get the book Behind the Book Today marks the first anniversary of The Coder Cafe newsletter 🥳. To celebrate, I gathered the core concepts we explored this year into one book. I just published The Coder Cafe Season 1: Timeless Concepts for Software Engineers on Leanpub . If you’re unfamiliar with Leanpub, it’s a platform for DRM-free EPUB/PDF books with pay-what-you-want pricing and free updates. You can set your price (min $4.90) and read it on Kindle, Kobo, iPad, or e-reader/app. Drawn from the first year of the newsletter, it’s a single, carefully sequenced journey. Read sequentially, or jump to the concept you need. I’ve also included a special bonus with the book: my personal algorithms & data structures Anki deck, the support I mainly used to prepare for the Google SWE interviews. Buying the book helps support The Coder Cafe into year two and some even more ambitious projects. Get the book TL;DR We turned year one of The Coder Cafe into a 260-page book. Published on Leanpub: DRM-free EPUB/PDF. Works on Kindle, Kobo, iPad: read it anywhere. Pay what you want, min $4.90. Buying a copy is a way to support The Coder Cafe .

books Books
0 views
A Working Library 1 months ago

Beyond credibility

In the 1880s, a French neurologist named Jean-Martin Charcot became famous for hosting theatrical public lectures in which he put young, “hysterical” women in a hypnotic trance and then narrated the symptoms of the attacks that followed. Charcot’s focus was on documenting and classifying these symptoms, but he had few theories as to their source. A group of Charcot’s followers—among them Pierre Janet, Joseph Breuer, and Sigmund Freud—would soon eagerly compete to be the first to discover the cause of this mysterious affliction. Where Charcot showed intense interest in the expression of hysteria, he had no curiosity for women’s own testimony; he dismissed their speech as “vocalizations.” But Freud and his compatriots landed on the novel idea of talking to the women in question. What followed were years in which they talked to many women regularly, sometimes for hours a day, in what can only be termed a collaboration between themselves and their patients. That collaboration revealed that hysteria was a condition brought about by trauma. In 1896, Freud published The Aetiology of Hysteria, asserting: I therefore put forward the thesis that at the bottom of every case of hysteria there are one or more occurrences of premature sexual experiences , occurrences which belong to the earliest years of childhood, but which can be reproduced through the work of psycho-analysis in spite of the intervening decades. I believe that this is an important finding, the discovery of a caput Nili in neuropathology. Judith Herman, in Trauma and Recovery , notes that The Aetiology remains one of the great texts on trauma; she describes Freud’s writing as rigorous and empathetic, his analysis largely in accord with present-day thinking about how sexual abuse begets trauma and post-traumatic symptoms, and with methods that effect treatment. But a curious thing happened once this paper was published: Freud began to furiously backpedal from his claims. [Freud’s] correspondence makes clear that he was increasingly troubled by the radical social implications of his hypothesis. Hysteria was so common among women that if his patients’ stories were true, and if his theory were correct, he would be forced to conclude that what he called “perverted acts against children” were endemic, not only among the proletariat of Paris, where he had first studied hysteria, but also among the respectable bourgeois families of Vienna, where he had established his practice. This idea was simply unacceptable. It was beyond credibility. Faced with this dilemma, Freud stopped listening to his female patients. The turning point is documented in the famous case of Dora. This, the last of Freud’s case studies on hysteria, reads more like a battle of wits than a cooperative venture. The interaction between Freud and Dora has been described as an “emotional combat.” In this case Freud still acknowledged the reality of his patient’s experience: the adolescent Dora was being used as a pawn in her father’s elaborate sex intrigues. Her father had essentially offered her to his friends as a sexual toy. Freud refused, however, to validate Dora’s feelings of outrage and humiliation. Instead, he insisted upon exploring her feelings of erotic excitement, as if the exploitative situation were a fulfillment of her desire. In an act Freud viewed as revenge, Dora broke off the treatment. That is, faced with the horror of women’s experience, Freud rejected the evidence in front of him. Rather than believe the women he had collaborated with, and so be forced to revise his image of the respectable men in his midst, he chose to maintain that respectability by refusing the validity of his own observations. He would go on to develop theories of human psychology that presumed women’s inferiority and deceitfulness—in a way, projecting his own lies onto his patients. Is this not how all supremacy thinking works? To believe that one people are less human or less intelligent or less capable is to refuse to see what’s right in front of you, over and over and over again. In order to recant his own research, Freud had to cleave his mind in two. We must refuse to tolerate supremacists in our midst because their beliefs do real and lasting harm, because their speech gives rise to terrible violence. But we must also refuse them because they are compromised. They cannot trust their own minds. And so cannot be trusted in turn. View this post on the web , subscribe to the newsletter , or reply via email .

Science books Books
0 views
A Working Library 1 months ago

Trauma and Recovery

Judith Herman’s canonical work on trauma remains one of the core texts on the topic, over thirty years since its first publication. Critically—and in contrast to much current popular discourse about trauma—Herman locates psychological trauma in a social and political context, arguing that the political standpoint and testimony of survivors are necessary to an understanding of how trauma is remembered and mourned, and how stories can be reconstructed for more just futures. “Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told,” she writes. We live in a time of ghosts; we live among storytellers. View this post on the web , subscribe to the newsletter , or reply via email .

culture Culture writing Writing books Books
1 views
fLaMEd fury 1 months ago

She Likes Listening To Punk Rock

What’s going on, Internet? September’s been a month of noise, nostalgia, and ferry rides. It kicked off with Minuit at Double Whammy , their reunion tour finale and easily one of the best (or only?) nights out I’ve had in ages. Great company, great tunes, and a dance floor that felt straight out of 2005, just with a crowd twenty years older, lol. The next morning I went full fangirl and stacked my Bandcamp cart with Minuit’s entire back catalogue, along with some Fur Patrol for balance. Then it was time for the London Hardhouse Reunion 2025 . My friends came up for the weekend and we had an amazing time, all bass and hoovers, with a bunch of my favourite DJs that I would see across a single year, all playing the same gig, the same night. The kind of night that leaves your ears ringing (yes I wore my ear plugs) and the tunes stuck in your head for days. We rounded the month off a little slower with a family weekend on Waiheke , swapping the inside of clubs for beaches, markets, and fish and chips. Between the gigs and the music, I somehow found time to catch up on TV. One new show that crossed my radar was The Runarounds ; a perfect binge watch. Fun, short, and chaotic in all the right ways. I wonder if I should share more on the shows I watch and find enjoyable? I also went digging into lost media for Aotearoa’s lost emo banger , a little dive into what happens when labels dropped the ball into the transition to digital and how local libraries can quietly save the music. Plenty of good tunes, good people, and good times this month 🎶 Read four books this month, all enjoyable and worth reading: New records added to the collection : We’ve wrapped up raiding for the season, and expansion. We spent the last couple weeks dipping into the first couple mythic bosses in Mana Forge Omega and we easily got two of them down. The Legion Remix is going live this week. I will play enough to get the mounts and armours sets I need and then give it a break. Rumours on the street are that we’ll be seeing the next expansion, Midnight as early as February. With Warcraft out of the way, I’m looking forward to getting back into Cyberpunk and finishing up some more story lines. After last months ball dropping I’m back with more exciting links from across the web. There’ll definitely be something of interest in here for you. Check back next month, and if you want more in the meantime, dive into the archive . On the site side of things, September was a good month for tidying and tinkering. I started by revamping the Bookmarks page, it’s now fully tagged and easier to browse, and I split the Blogroll off from the Links page so each has its own proper home. There’s been a bit of chatter in my small web circles recently, and I have post drafted I want to share soon. I built out a new Blog Stats page using Robb’s PostGraph to visualise my posting frequency. Then, to round things off, I gave my RSS and Atom feeds a glow-up. They’re now styled with an XSL transformation and integrated into the fLaMEd fury design system. The Feeds page itself got an update to clearly show all the feeds avaialbe. All this work inspired by Robb’s setup, which I pretty much jacked. Thanks Robb. Weird Web October is happening for the second year. I won’t be taking part (I know if I commited, I’d quickly fail). If you are more inclined and creative than I am and decided to take part, come hang out in the Weird Web October thread over on the forums . This post was brought to you by Verona by Elemeno P Sweeet, catch you, laterz 👋 Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP , or send a webmention . Check out the posts archive on the website. A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern Toxic by Sarah Ditum Glass Barbie by Michael Botur Christina Perri - A Lighter Shade Of Blue Zara Larsson - Honor The Light Mimi Webb - Amelia Anne-Marie - Unhealthy Minuit - 88 Why I love to read your blog - Sylvia’s Noodling Nook Sylvia shares all the reasons why they like reading your website 🫶 blog comments - Jayeless.net Jessica Smith goes deep into blog comments Breaking Free from Social Media Silos Luke discovers the indie web and discusses the struggle of being out of touch when it seems like most of society exists on facebook rather than the web. Bringing Back the Blogroll Luke wonders about the Blogroll and ends up slapping it on the homepage sidebar after some inspiration You can now attach 10,000 character blogs to your Threads posts Sounds like a wonderful idea. Inb4 people invest their lives work into this platform and lose everything, lol Do blogs need to be so lonely? - The History of the Web We used to do this back in the day, I want to reflect on this deeper in it’s own post soon Curate your own newspaper with RSS Molly White wants us to escape newsletter inbox chaos and algorithmic surveillance by building your own enshittification-proof newspaper from the writers you already read Why you should get (back) into RSS curation. Another take on rediscovering RSS as a way to take control of what you read online, curating a personal, intentional feed instead of relying on algorithm-driven platforms Just Put It On Your Blog Shellsharks reminds us to stop overthinking where content belongs and just publish it on our own blogs, embracing the spirit of the independent web. The internet’s hidden creative renaissance (and how to find it) Shame it’s on Substack, but it explores the growing revival of the handmade web, where personal websites push back against the corporate internet. The Internet Feels Broken | Stephanie Vee Stephanie reflects on how today’s internet feels broken under the weight of corporate platforms, and argues for reclaiming the web through personal websites and blogging. Personal blogs are the best, I love yours and I’ll try and tell you why - Nothing Original Here Peter shares a post appreciating personal blogs for their honesty and connection, and why they matter more than social media. bstn - RSS manifesto An RSS manifesto arguing for a return to open web standards and personal curation instead of algorithm-driven feeds The HTML Hobbyist A personal website by HTML hobbyist, Nathan, sharing simple HTML, CSS, and RSS tutorials based on courses they taught at Berkley Computer Training between 1997-2003 Sanding off friction from indie web connection – Tracy Durnell’s Mind Garden Tracy Durnell looks at how indie web tools can be made easier to use, lowering the barriers for people to connect through their own websites. Why I gave the world wide web away for free | Tim Berners-Lee Tim Berners-Lee explains why he released the Web into the public domain. and why we must reclaim it from exploitative platforms and re-centre individual control. Understanding, not slop, is what’s interesting about LLMs - blakewatson.com Blake Watson takes a look at LLMs and where the real value isn’t in the flood of AI generated content, but in understanding how they work to simplify human-computer interaction

books Books c# C# entertainment Entertainment music Music css CSS
0 views
Eli Bendersky's website 1 months ago

Summary of reading: July - September 2025

"The Compromise" by Sergei Dovlatov - (read in Russian) the author was a journalist in the Soviet Union in the 60s and 70s. This book is a humorous, semi-biographic account of some of the issues faced by Soviet journalists in their attempt to report news aligned with party lines. Very good writing, though the Russian in this book was a bit difficult for me at times. "Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945" by Ian Toll - the third part of the trilogy. As an overall conclusion to the series, I will reiterate the earlier feedback: the writing is great, the book is very readable for such immense size, but I wish the author's focus was elsewhere. If you're looking for very detailed tactical accounts of key battles, this is the book for you. It doesn't have much about the more strategic aspects, and especially the U.S. industrial capacity that played such a key role in the war. How was the production scaled so much, especially with millions of people drafted? I'd be definitely interested in looking for additional sources of information on this subject. "Threaded Interpretive Languages" by R.G. Loeliger - describes some traditional approaches to implementing FORTH (which is the prime example of a thread-interpretive language, or TIL) in assembly. This book is from the late 1970s, so the target machine used is a Z80. Overall it's pretty good, with useful diagrams and quirky humor, but it certainly shows its age. "System Design Interview – An insider's guide" by Alex Xu - a book form of the author's guidelines for system design interviews. It's okay , far from great. The sections are all very repetitive and the sum total of unique insights and ideas in the book is low. Moreover, it's some sort of samizdat instant-Amazon printing of rather low quality, no index, unfocused diagrams and barely any copywriting. "Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty" by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson - describes the author's theory of why some countries are rich and others are poor. The crux if the theory is extractive vs. inclusive political and economical institutions; in other words, a dictatorship vs. a pluralist government. Overall, the theory is interesting and insightful; the book is a bit scattered, though, with the authors jumping between examples haphazardly, making it difficult to focus. I like that the book doesn't shy away from making predictions for the future rather than just analyzing history. "A biography of the Pixel" by Alvy Ray Smith - the history of computer graphics, told by one of the founders of Pixar. Some parts of this book are good, but I can't say I really enjoyed most of it. Lots of very detailed history and names, and project names, etc. "The Age of Revolution: A History of the English Speaking Peoples, Volume III" by Winston Churchill - covers the period from 1688 to 1815. Though this series is ostensibly about all the "English speaking peoples", the focus is clearly on England. There's some coverage of the USA, but it mostly focuses on the interactions with the British (revolution and war of 1812), and there's also quite a bit on Napoleon and France. The series becomes somewhat more interesting as it approaches the more modern era. "The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the making of a tech giant" by Tae Kim - a very interesting and well-written biography of Nvidia, from the early founding days to ~2024. "Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization" by Paul Kriwaczek - an interesting historic account of Mesopotamia, from Eridu and until the fall of Babylon. "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver - a novel about a boy coming of age as an orphan in foster care, houses of friends, etc. The backdrop is the opioid epidemic of the early 2000s in the Appalachia, with broken families and lots of drugs. The book is pretty good, but the Pulitzer prize here is clearly for the unsettling coverage of an ongoing hot topic, not for any sort of literary flourish. "The Color of Our Sky" by Amita Trasi - the fictional story of two girls from different castes in India who find their lives intertwined in complex ways. Some thought provoking and troubling accounts of traditions still prevalent in India in relation to discrimination, human trafficking, child abuse and modern slavery. "El murmullo de las abejas" by Sofía Segovia - (read in Spanish) slightly mystical novel about the life of an aristocratic family in the north of Mexico in the early 20th century. Maybe it's just the Spanish, but I definitely got "100 años de soledad" vibes from this book: the mysticism, the multi-generational story going in circles, the ambience. "The Mysterious Island" by Jules Verne

books Books journalism Journalism
0 views
fLaMEd fury 1 months ago

Waiheke Weekend

What’s going on, Internet? We picked up the kids early on Friday and headed to the ferry terminal to catch the 4pm boat to Waiheke. After the ride over we bussed out to Onetangi. I hopped off a stop early to grab fish and chips and walked the rest of the way to the bach, while my wife stayed on with the kids. After dinner everyone was tired, so we called it an early night. Saturday kicked off with breakfast and an 8am beach mission. We dug holes in the sand, collected shells, had running races, and buried the kids before rinsing off in the outdoor shower. Then it was off to the Ostend markets: hotdogs, hot chocolate, and stalls full of local goods. I picked up The Mice: Book 1 by Roger Mason , straight from Roger himself. I always love supporting local artists when I meet them. Back at the bach I napped with Miss 2 while the others went back to the beach. Later we had drinks and snacks under the pōhutukawas with music playing. In the evening we bussed to Heke for an early dinner, the kids ran wild in the sandpit, then made it back in time to catch the rugby and wrap up the night with a movie. Sunday was daylight saving, so it was an early start. Another beach trip, lunch with the kids at the corner pub, then gelato in Oneroa before bussing back to the ferry and heading home to Auckland. Not having the car and relying on the bus made it feel more like a proper holiday. It forced us to be intentional about where we went and when, and it actually added to the fun. Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP , or send a webmention . Check out the posts archive on the website.

books Books writing Writing culture Culture
0 views
ava's blog 1 months ago

the past few weeks [photo dump]

I am a little low on energy at the moment, so I don't have much to say - I'll let most of the pictures speak for themselves. :) My copy of the Internet Phone Book arrived. It's sooooo worth it! Definitely grab a copy if you can! It's a joy to hold and explore. Also went to Noris Force Con with my wife. Also played a lot of analogue games again; Eldritch Horror, Mansions of Madness, and newly also X-Wing (don't like that one, but my wife loves it). We're currently trying out the Arkham Horror LCG too, so far it's pretty good. I think if I wasn't already playing other games in the universe (like the Arkham Horror boardgames, Eldritch Horror, Mansions of Madness, Call of Cthulhu PnP...) I would think it is horribly hard and unfair and would probably return it. You just have to get used to the fact that in the entire, I'd say "H. P. Lovecraft table games franchise" (?) by FFG and others, you really aren't meant to be the hero that is equally balanced to the scenario or monsters, you are supposed to feel small, helpless, and like everything is working out by sheer luck, coincidence, and some quick thinking. It aims to induce horror by feeling overrun with monsters and bad things happening all the time that make you yell "nooooo!". Some stuff just feels unfair and it is intentional, because otherwise, how do you transfer movie horror to card or board games? By now I have accepted it as normal to have an absolutely banger dice roll and still get 2 face-down damage cards, and curse the creators of the game. We also went to Die vegane Fleischerei . They're opening more stores, and I had previously already ordered from them once or twice. They have a nice offering of different plant meats and vegan cheeses :) Reply via email Published 28 Sep, 2025

books Books gaming Gaming
0 views
Manuel Moreale 1 months ago

Scoring books

Over the past couple of years, I've used Literal to keep track of the books I've read and that I’m reading. When you mark a book as completed, Literal, like probably every other site and app of this type, asks for a review, which includes a 1-to-5 star rating. I suck at this. I genuinely don’t know how to rate things on a scale, which is why the vast majority of the books I rate are either 4 or 4.5. I think Netflix got it right with its thumbs-up, thumbs-down system, with the extra option to give something two thumbs up if you really liked it. Anything more complex than that feels a bit like overkill to me because what’s the difference between 3-star and 3.5-star books? I’m asking because I genuinely don’t know. Anyway, I find myself reflecting on this because as I’m—painfully slowly—working on an updated version of my site, I’m considering adding a books section to it and was debating what to do when it comes to ratings. I’ll likely end up doing something similar to what Netflix does (or did; I have no idea if it’s still like that, since I don’t watch Netflix). Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Email me :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month :: See my generous supporters :: Subscribe to People and Blogs

books Books
0 views
Manuel Moreale 1 months ago

Digital fatigue

I think I’m starting to feel what I can only describe as digital fatigue. I believe this is the result of a combination of two main factors: The solution is going to be a fairly easy one: I think I’m going to stop consuming digital content for the rest of the year and focus more on reading books and creating content myself. I know I’m going to miss reading content from a bunch of people I really like, but right now, this seems to be the only reasonable solution to save myself and my mental sanity. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Email me :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month :: See my generous supporters :: Subscribe to People and Blogs

writing Writing books Books
0 views
ava's blog 1 months ago

i may not be aphantasic anymore?

On this blog, I've previously talked about struggling with aphantasia - a lack of being able to imagine something mentally. Reading books, playing DnD campaigns and similar things didn't produce an image, and I couldn't imagine art in my head before bringing it to paper, and I couldn't see a mental image of the people I know even when I tried. At best, I would see short flashes, a brief detail, shadows, and that's it. I couldn't rotate an item in my mind, either. The past few months, I've made a concentrated effort to train myself to have more of a mental image. I had previously just given up and not even tried to imagine things when the situation would lend itself to that, but now I did; trying to imagine what my friend or my wife experienced while they tell the story, or trying harder to visualize things in my Pen and Paper groups, or trying to think of the art I wanted to make while falling asleep. It got better the more I worked on it, and I noticed that the closer I was to sleep, the easier it was to vividly and strongly see a mental image, without being fully asleep or dreaming yet. I think acknowledging and appreciating whenever that happened helped make that mental wall crumble. I knew it was possible, and it made it easier to happen on purpose outside of trying to fall asleep, too. The better I could mentally visualize something and just let a little movie run internally of whatever I chose, the more I noticed negative side effects that I had completely forgotten about. I was experiencing vivid flashbacks to traumatic situations again, and I had rather gruesome mental images triggered by fear. Let me explain: Sometimes, I might see a situation that is risky, or a close call, like a cyclist crossing the red light at an intersection. And in real life, nothing happens, everyone is safe, because no car crossed at that time... but my brain will repeat this situation internally and show me how that cyclist is mowed down by a car gruesomely. It's like I get a replay of what would have happened otherwise. It is triggered by me either seeing something that could have ended badly, or randomly thinking out of nowhere "What if this awful event happens?". It's always very graphic and upsetting, and I can't control it. I haven't had this in so long, I had completely forgotten about it, maybe even repressed it. But now that it was happening again, I recognized that this used to be a big issue, until it suddenly wasn't. This led me to think that maybe, I have simply shut off all mental vision to deal with these graphic mental images, and in turn made myself aphantasic. And while trying to lift this repression and train my mental eye, it returns. This fits to a feeling I briefly mentioned at the end of my old post linked above: I had a theory for how this happened for me, because I knew I used to be able to visualize things, I just didn't know when or why I had lost it. Now I know. This has definitely caused me to regress again, not training for it anymore. I don't know how to proceed yet and if I will ever have a mental image without this disturbing side effect; I guess I'll see. This is kind of sensitive and weird to share, but on the other hand, I know a lot of research is still done on aphantasia and others struggling with it sometimes try out things to treat it, and I didn't want this realization to be lost. If you struggle with aphantasia and have maybe in the past struggled with disturbing or violent visions or maybe even are diagnosed with (C-)PTSD like me, maybe this helps you connect the dots. Reply via email Published 17 Sep, 2025

writing Writing books Books entertainment Entertainment
0 views
A Working Library 1 months ago

Waking the Moon

Sweeney arrives for her first day of college and finds herself swept up by a beautiful young man and equally beautiful woman, both seemingly unreal and unmoored from reality. Soon, she learns that the University of the Archangels and St. John the Divine is run by a clandestine order called the Benandanti, practitioners of magic and meddlers in global politics going back to the Fall of Rome. Now, they find themselves up against their most powerful foe: the Moon Goddess, after centuries of sleep, has returned. The plotting is campy and the characters, if they were actors, would all be acting too much. But the book is fun and subversive and the world is intensely short of angry goddesses these days; I loved it. View this post on the web , subscribe to the newsletter , or reply via email .

writing Writing books Books
0 views
Manuel Moreale 1 months ago

Two quick news items

Sometimes I post not because I have something to get out of my system, but because I have something I want to share. This is one of those occasions. First, Cody has a new pop-up newsletter going called “Trespassing Through Montana” . I’m a big fan of what he does, and I also enjoy helping people connect with each other online, so I’m not gonna pass on this opportunity to suggest you to sign up for his newsletter. The second is that the Internet Phone Book is back in stock . I mentioned this lovely object in an old post of mine , and I’m so glad I managed to grab my copy when it came out. I’m also happy to be in it and very pleased to have Luke as my neighbour. That’s it, that’s all I have to say. Buy the book , sign up for the newsletter , and enjoy the weekend. Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome. Email me :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month :: See my generous supporters :: Subscribe to People and Blogs

books Books writing Writing
0 views