josh whitkin

Its my birthday! (Testing out a manual version of Facebooks very effective birthday reminder system)

having tried it for a while, I think I was wrong about "critical mass". The cool kids may be here but among my friends, many have set up accounts here but alas I haven't seen enough activity from them in my posts (which aren't great lol but my friends on FB respond there to the same posts).

I have seen much less interaction on my posts here than same posts on FB and IG. Many of the same followers. (including possibly algos not showing my posts to them, and or they got accounts but aren't on here) Too bad. I'll probably stop trying here soon.

Explaining why you are doing something minor, like standing near a door but not exiting, to strangers who don't care, is a sign of ... a) getting old. b) good coffee. c) both

Cool! But I don't write long things in this editor. when I paste long text, I guess I have to select each little chunk one by one.

@racsow.bsky.social you're my favorite person on Bluesky

@craigcaptures.bsky.social is this your post on Facebook? Its well written. " This 2006 novel by Vernor Vinge is set in the year 2025...
"Four time Hugo Award winner Vernor Vinge has taken readers to the depths of space and into the far future in his bestselling novels A Fire Upon the Deep ..."

@bsky.app I really want to promote Bluesky to my friends and replace Facebook with Bluesky myself... but I really can't until you remove the length limit (or at least make chaining easy). Heed Casey. Unlike me he has an actual following.

barista of best coffee in Oaxaca! Kiyo Cafe

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I saw this very, very good experimental jazz trio tonight at Lila Downs bar on Oaxaca (thank you Rame Cuen!). And jotted down some notes during the show.

Here's the cleaned up version.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

That's how neil stephenson came up with the plot of Snowcrash. I mean, not really but it should have been since it fits your rules so nicely.

Still. It works. Its got critical mass. All the cool kids are coming over. Bring your considerable sway here!

The oldest tree in the world. Or so they say. 2000 years old. El Tule, Mexico. Its lovely. And good on you, state of Oaxaca, for protecting it!

Great write-up, and I learned a lot. My Great Idea only partially addresses point 1, but the other points 2-6 are the real problems that need Great Ideas to solve. I'll work on my many, many other great ideas :)

The tea is a good idea :) I'm sipping one now, actually!

Good idea! This isn't an urgent inquiry. It's leading up to me asking for critique of a Great Idea lol

Me too. I would love to find more stories that explore the good parts of indigenous life - utopias, even. I don't romanticize it or want that life. I just like to learn how other people live, especially if they're super different. But it
when its TOO different, I can't grasp it, to explain in words

Very cool. at the highest level (generation, distribution, maintenance, environmental impact/acquiring rights to install), for layman inventors, What are the biggest barriers to practical tidal or wave energy harvesting, in your view?

@manelcamacho.bsky.social I was curious what "marine energy" is. Is it related to generating electricity from ocean wave movement?

I discovered this 2 years ago. It was amazing! I had no idea bagels are just ... things you can make. I had assumed they required 100 years of apprenticeship or something.

It's a talking D20 that announces what you rolled and then makes fun of you for rolling low.

Now that we've got the hardware and software working, she's going to record all the audio files.

In sum:

We humans are often horrible, always flawed, a mess. Fine.

But we might be something more than utterly, always futile.

When authors shut that window by crushing all hope in their endings, they lose me.

I appreciate authors like Heller (Dog Stars) who pull no punches with dystopian futures, deeply flawed personalities ineptly struggling, betrayal and disappointment, yet leaves gaps for a few rays of sun in his dark endings.

The reader feels...not even hope. Just less than utter darkness.

My rant is focused on peddling one pervasive juvenile worldview: everyone is awful in the end.

Similar to dark endings:

CS Lewis (Narnia), is a religious author whose evangelical desires from bleeding through and cheapening the series end for me. God wins, yay. But the first book had tension, and God won ! so I'm not saying "keep worldviews out, authors".

It'd about cheapening the beauty of a story with an author imposing a juvenile worldview.

But when an author ends with nothing but bleakness and despair...(The Road, Of Mice and Men)... No. No thanks. I won't read your other books.

My problem is not with how effective the technique is. Like sex scenes, it's sometimes the right thing to have a dark ending in a story.

I can feel those two authors in particular taking actual pleasure in slamming readers into the concrete of their bleak worldview.

I'm not looking for happy endings. I do want my favorite characters to suffer and struggle.
Give me horrible events. Kill the dog, even.