Notices by Sumana Harihareswara (brainwane@social.coop)

If you've ever benefited from Slacktivist's (Fred Clark's) writings (such as his deep dive into the flaws of the Left Behind books, or his articulation of the dishonesty of those automated corporate surveys*), know that his family could use some help right now.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2024/08/21/pre-surgery-testing-we-hope-and-pre-surgery-fundraising/

* https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2019/06/25/all-fives-ready-or-not-here-i-come/

#xoxofest

Molly White just asked us to remember the 1st time we felt like the Web was magic

There is a saying that the Golden Age of science fiction is 12 - like, whatever you found at that age was magic to you

for me, the Web is similar

@technomancy Sad that it does not work!! (I am depending on your assertion and my other friends' assertions here and have not tried it myself)

Thus we discussed, briefly, which programming language *names* are most fun to say aloud, and I invite you to join me in this pointless entertainment.

Which names of programming languages are the most pleasant when said out loud?

I reckon COBOL and BASIC and FORTRAN feel pretty good. Julia: nice. Elm, Rust, Perl: I mildly dislike saying the consonant combo at the end. Eiffel came in for some praise.

[2/2]

Conversation a few evenings ago:

Me: Uggh - we have individual tools like Bokeh or HipHop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HipHop_for_PHP to transpile from 1 language into another, but not general-purpose things so I can write in arbitrary language Foo and magically turn it into target language Bar. I want that more than I want a flying car

Sensible friends: but that is inherently hard because of [genuine reasons]; WASM does seem promising though

Me: And WASM is fun to say -- which is the most important thing

[1/2]

The other day @leonardr told me about the premise and plot in Dan Aykroyd's very early drafts of "Ghostbusters" and I was, again, reminded of the magnificent 2017 short story "Texts from the Ghost War" by Alex Yuschik, available in text and audio

https://escapepod.org/2017/06/09/ep579-texts-from-the-ghost-war/

#Fiction #ScienceFiction #scifi #ShortStories #ShortStory #ShortFiction #sff

@pronoiac Thanks for the bug report. I'm going to leave it as is for now given that there's a hyperlink to the original as well, and since it's a pretty minor issue. But I may ask @culagovski for help improving embeds for the future.

"I want you to imagine someone for me. Her name is Jessica and she is 17 years old...."

For years, "A Story About Jessica" (a computer security parable @SwiftOnSecurity wrote, published on their Tumblr in 2014) was pretty hard to find.

Per the CC BY license, I've now republished it so it's easier to discover and reference.

http://harihareswara.net/posts/2024/a-story-about-jessica-by-swiftonsecurity/

My comments in the post include pointers to relevant work by Mark Pilgrim, @sprblm , @luis_in_brief , @jacob , and @evacide .

My friend @mchua has died.

https://www.caringbridge.org/site/f77db139-e97b-36cf-adb4-dd01e0c4d617/post/ebea2584-bf4c-414f-aa12-b652157771cb

I wrote about them last year: https://www.harihareswara.net/posts/2023/a-celebration-of-my-friend-dr-mel-chua/

It hurts a lot. I am bereft.

This is a photo from a fun evening we had together last year. I am grateful for the joy we shared and it feels incomprehensible that we will never share joy again.

New blog post: http://harihareswara.net/posts/2024/things-i-wish-id-done-before-catching-covid/ Given that I have now had my first COVID infection, a couple things I wish I'd done beforehand, such as measuring my resting heart rate, and getting over a particular fixation.

2. Song Exploder, because I listened again the other night to

https://songexploder.net/semisonic

the Song Exploder about "Closing Time" by Semisonic and I cried a lot and evidently I needed that half-hour cathartic tearjerker.

(content note: no one dies but there is fear about death of an infant)

Inchoate big intense feelings about art and hospitals and caring for the vulnerable and making things that other people find sustenance or shelter in.

2/n

3. Sounds in the Dark https://bff.fm/shows/sounds-in-the-dark which is 2 hours of ambient/experimental music every week.

https://data.bff.fm/shows/sounds-in-the-dark.rss

Host Eric Pietras https://som.cuanschutz.edu/Profiles/Faculty/Profile/23690 is a hematologist who studies inflammation (although that never comes up on the show, which is like 98% music), so it feels, obscurely, even more healing to doze while listening to the tunes he spins.

And sometimes he makes a joke about writing grant proposals or the sad mire that is Twitter/X.

3/n

4. OK so this one is a little more complicated.

I am not Christian (I am Hindu), and not inclined to be converted, but I can find some wisdom, entertainment, & inspiration in Christian teachings, and I'm generally also open to learning more about religious beliefs and practices as a way of understanding human civilization.

I know that MANY people are just NOT on board with this & won't want to read about me playing tourist in Christianity. I bid you farewell from this thread!

4/n

Podcast #4 is Fresh Text, which is kind of hard to find on the web - feed is https://anchor.fm/s/e7247e98/podcast/rss .

"Pastor-scholars discuss a scripture passage and swap sermon starter ideas. This weekly podcast is especially (though not exclusively) useful for preachers who follow Revised Common Lectionary."

So one reason this is soothing to listen to is that I am *not* Christian and it feels super ok if my mind wanders or I doze off.

And: I love listening to nerds talk shop!

5/n

While splayed upon the sofabed in the sickroom for many many hours on end, flat with fatigue, allowing my body to concentrate on its battle with a really quite pernicious virus, I have been particularly grateful for 4 #podcasts, and I would like to take this moment to appreciate them.

1: This American Life. The classic "Fiasco!" ep https://www.thisamericanlife.org/699/fiasco made me laugh, again, and the feather heist ep https://www.thisamericanlife.org/654/the-feather-heist was such a ride!

1/n

(and please do not argue in my mentions about the ramifications of or criteria for good news)

Still in bed recovering from my COVID infection. I've started testing negative but my body is clearly not done with the effects

positive antigen test today :(

glad my spouse and I only loosened, never eliminated, our in-household isolation restrictions during the last few days

I've now been testing negative for COVID for a week on antigen tests, and have had no respiratory or gastrointestinal symptoms for several days. So as of today my spouse and I are dropping our partial isolation (from each other). Glad we were able to avoid household transmission.

I'm still significantly more fatigued than I was before the infection and am trying to take it easy. For instance, I will not be at #Readercon this month. And I am behind on correspondence.

I still feel more fatigued than I did before catching COVID. Am gradually increasing how much I physically or cognitively do in a session or in a day. Audio-only phone call conversations take less stamina than do videocalls; I can lie down flat, close my eyes or let them wander, etc.

I have the capacity to reflect and converse, but sometimes need to stop because of a kind of exhaustion that previously only happened after many hours of intellectual labor, or when I was falling-asleep exhausted.