@danielmedic.bsky.social
Bioinformaticist / biostatistician, veteran USAF medic and Army infantryman, armchair paleontologist, occasional science fiction author, long-ago kickboxer, oldbat goth, vaccinated liberal patriot.
[strokes beard] The hypothesis seems credible, but we'll need to replicate the experiment with as many subjects as possible. I volunteer as tribute.
#lifegoals
Those are the alien parasites that attached to his face to eat his brain.
Sadly, they’re starving. Won’t someone think of the parasites?
Also: Punch, 1915.
Fair enough: it may be that I can't assess their impact because they've permeated the culture for considerably longer than I've been alive. But Orwell sure didn't have to look very far for inspiration, given then-recent and -current events.
The chicken I had for dinner last night might have things to say about the impossibility of humans meeting dinosaurs. 😀 But I know what you mean.
Jurassic Park was great when it was about the dinos. When it wandered into philosophy, it got absolutely cringeworthy. IMO, YMMV.
Sure, but it *also* contains fascinating worldbuilding and interesting speculation about the long-term evolution of human society. If it didn't, I think it would be unlikely to be remembered now.
The setting and plot of my current work absolutely include real-world elements, from the distant past up to right now. I'm not doing that as commentary. It's about what makes me believe the story could happen, and hopefully my readers as well.
As a reader, I mostly object to this kind of storytelling when it's not nearly as clever as the author thinks it is. As a writer, it's just not generally what I want to do.
But that's not the same as building a world that cleverly (in the author's opinion, anyway) repackages the here-and-now to make a point.
And it would be silly to write about the future without reference to the present and the past.
People are people, history doesn't repeat but it rhymes, there are only three or seven or twelve basic plots, and all that. Inevitably, we're going to tell stories that look like real events and/or other stories already told.
Also, I think there's a meaningful distinction between "based on" or "inspired by" or "extrapolated from" on one hand, and "commentary on" or "allegory for" on the other.
Sure, 1984 is barely SF at all. It's included in the genre because it was about the future when it was written, not for any particularly interesting worldbuilding or what-ifs. But even if we do consider it an SF classic, it doesn't define the genre.
Of course, “really bad at getting the point” is always a possibility. I’m just going to pretend I didn’t think of that.
Maybe I'm not exactly trying to predict the future, but I am trying to make believable predictions about what *could* happen if such-and-such occurred. And I think most of the SF authors whose work I admire would agree with me, unless I'm just really bad at getting the point!
When I sit down to write SF, "what if" is my primary motivation. The here-and-now obviously shapes my thoughts, but I'm not *deliberately* writing about it—if I wanted to do that, I'd pick a different genre.
A line in a mostly unrelated post by a friend got me thinking about a maxim I've heard a lot lately: "Science fiction is not about predicting the future, but rather commenting on the present." It's become conventional wisdom rapidly approaching the status of a thought-terminating cliche. 🚀 🧵
This was a pretty mild expression of my opinion on the matter. “I don’t care” is practically never something you should feel the need to say, unless someone asks you directly. And when it comes to fan debates, let the people who *do* care have their fun.
For the WISP (work in some progress) I'm fiddling with population growth models, and considering rolling my own to justify the numbers I want. I guess that makes me a rather finicky Watsonian. But maybe it's like Tolkien coming up with several complete languages before writing any actual plot!
Some things must never be spoken of after they happen.
This is a chance for Bill Cassidy to make up, in some small part, for his cowardly and murderous vote to confirm RFK Jr.
I'm not holding my breath.
🧪 ⚕️ #medsky
Yes, as strange as it may seem to the modern mind, the record is clear: Romans would do anything for #tuna.
Religious inscriptions in particular show their devotion, not only for meat on the table but for all kinds of good luck, be it victory in battle or a bountiful harvest or a successful business venture. They might even ask for its aid *before* setting out on some difficult quest.
One particular type of fish, however, took on greater meaning than mere sustenance. Their writings speak of their gratitude to this optima maxima of the finned and scaled kind.
From tiny herring to giant halibut, from the icy North Sea to the body-temperature waters of the southern Mediterranean, from cooking fresh on the beach to smoking and salting and drying and fermenting—there was no way in which they did not savor the bounty of the sea.
Indeed, fish may have been their most esteemed source of protein. They appreciated red meat and poultry as much as anyone, but fish brought out their true culinary artistry.
Like their modern Italian descendants, the ancient #Romans ate a lot of #fish. #Italy is a peninsula, after all, and except for the far northern part, nowhere in the country is far from salt water. Even as the #Empire extended to places far inland, they kept up their #pescavorian habits.
One particular type of fish, however, took on greater meaning than mere sustenance. Their writings speak of their gratitude to this optima maxima of the finned and scaled kind.
