anef | Network

I'm off this evening to watch Top Gun 40th anniversary screening in the local IMAX. This is probably the very definition of a problematic fave, even before you get into Tom Cruise's cult membership. But also I watched this film for the first time on my twelfth birthday, on a coach trip with school, and will probably never not love it. I think I've seen it once in the cinema, the summer Armageddon came out[1] and our local cinema did a Bruckheimer retrospective[2] leading up to it - that's when I learned I knew every line.

I probably still know every line, there's a couple of friends where we'll casually greet each other quoting the film, or throw lines back and forth in a conversation. Regrettably both of them were unavailable to come see the film with me, but I'll be thinking of them too, as well as the planes.

I'm wearing my Svaha rainbows+planes dress with a very faded Top Gun hoodie I found in a charity shop some years ago.

[1] 1998, huh. I'd mentally assumed one friend was there for this set of films but we hadn't met yet, and bonded over them later. But that summer had a lot of meaningful stuff going on for me and my friendships, it's when I shifted my career ideas from "scientist" to "software", and of course there was DWCon too. Gosh this is even more nostalgic a post than I'd expected.

[2] Beverley Hills Cop, Top Gun, Bad Boys, [one or both of The Rock, Con Air] and then Armageddon on release week. Honestly that was a great summer programme.

adore

The cozy fantasy anthology that I'm part of is out now! You'll be able to read my story, Dollshops & Deathmages, and four others which all have the theme of forced proximity. You can get the anthology for free here. It's free because it's a reader magnet (so in exchange for getting the book, you'll be signing up for the author newsletters of the authors featured in the anthology, but you can unsubscribe later if you want to.)

Dollshops & Deathmages is about Melna, who crafts dolls and prefers them to people, and Clariel, a deathmage who is isolated because of his profession. They get trapped together in Melna's giant dollhouse, which could be disastrous given they're both (involuntary) habitual loners. But Melna is surprised that Clariel doesn't think dolls are frivolities like other men she's known, and Clariel is surprised that Melna doesn't think he's lame for wanting a doll of his own. And both of them are surprised that sometimes someone specific is nice company, even if you are stuck together.

I got the anthology onto my Kobo and started reading it at once, and of course, found two typos in my own story that I didn't catch before despite my previous editing and proofreading. It's some comfort to me that after the anthology has run its course, I can re-release my story separately, on its own. I'll take the chance to correct these then. If they niggle me in the back of my mind meanwhile, I'll have to live with that :/

I'm especially excited to read Thea Hawthorne's contribution to the anthology, because I've read some of her other work which was atmospherically cozy-spooky and had deep yet unobtrusive worldbuilding. I'm looking forward to the other stories to discover some new-to-me authors, too. Most of the fiction I read these days leans cozy, my nervous system right now prefers it. So I'd like to find more cozy authors. On that note, let me know your cozy fantasy recommendations! I've read the classics like Legends & Lattes, and I have my favourite authors whose backlist I peruse, like Celia Lake and Stephanie Burgis. I'd also love cozy recs without fantasy; I recently read D. E. Stevenson's Miss Buncle's Book and enjoyed that a lot.

Current Mood: excited

sholio

There are three of these books, the latter two are basically out of print, but I did get my hands on a copy of the first one from back in the 2000s. Some things I found interesting are below, but the book stops before (I gather) the TNT meddling really got underway.

( A few bits and pieces from the book below )

mdlbear

Today I am thankful for...

Ticia and Bronx.
(Framework 12)Lilac.
Diclofenac and compression gloves. NO thanks for trigger finger and whatever is wrong with my left shoulder.
But thanks for them not being incapacitating.
D.F.D.F. this weekend.

Current Mood: grateful
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: Carmina Burana earworms

calimac

Monday's the day I finally saw the periodontist about my fractured tooth. He said it needed to come out, soon, but he wanted an endodontist to have a look first, especially to confirm the neighboring teeth were secure. Fortunately I was able to get to the endodontist (I had to look up all these dental specialties) on Tuesday. He said the neighboring teeth were fine, but the fractured tooth needed to come out right away. He'd do it, right then, and I wouldn't have to wait for the periodontist to schedule an appointment.

So I said OK, and he did. It was uncomfortable but not painful; it's the aftermath which is more difficult, involving some pain, a lot of gauze to staunch the bleeding, and severe restrictions on eating. There's also the cost, since apparently my insurance covered none of this, but I have the money. What I don't have so much of is agreeableness over the physical effects.

The other exciting part is that both appointments required consultation with my physicians over whether there'd be any medical complications to this. Reaching them is challenging, especially as there's three of them, only two have direct office phone numbers, and one is away right now though someone is covering. That required an hour's wait on both days, and a quick visit by me to one of the offices when phone contact proved insufficient.

mount_oregano

Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin by Nicholas Ostler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This might be a hard book to appreciate if you don’t understand a little Latin, the way reading a book about the history of algebra might be frustrating if you don’t understand a little algebra. It also might help to know a little about European and world history because this “biography” recounts the development of Latin and how its use and misuse shaped the Roman Empire, then Europe and the world up to the present day. It gets into the details, with plenty of footnotes and appendices. That is, this book is a deep dive, but if you take the plunge, you’ll find pearls.

I was particularly intrigued by the way Latin as a language affected events after Rome fell, eventually giving rise to New Latin. Language shapes human communication, and for a time, it was Europe’s common language. But the rise and fall of Latin depended on who needed to communicate with whom about questions not only of intellectual importance but about political power. This book explains the ways in which the world and its need for Latin changed and keeps changing over the millennia. (Millennia itself is a word combining elements from both Latin and New Latin).

Latin is a language of the past, but we will hear its echoes for a long time to come. We still need it, just not very often.

By the way, I also know Spanish (as well as English, which seems obvious but needs to be said), and I can hear and speak Spanish every day here in Chicago. (And I can hear Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and more — Chicago is a big, wide city.) Latin … is hard to come by. Conversational Latin? Maybe at the Vatican, but not many people there, either. Latin doesn’t live where I do, so studying it takes me elsewhere. Sometimes this feels like a relief.

View all my reviews

oursin

What I read

Finished Platform Decay

Read Jonathan Coe, Bournville (2022), which was a Kobo deal, and I have been vaguely interested in reading something by him since coming across his really rather good intro to that archetypal Sad Girl Novel, Dusty Answer. However, was rather meh and tempted at points to give up on this family saga from VE Day to Covid told as vignettes at various Memorable Dates in History of C20th Britain.

There was a certain amount of picking things up and reading a bit and thinking, no, at least, not now, if ever.

Re-read Sally Smith, A Case of Life and Limb (The Trials of Gabriel Ward, #2) (2025), as there is another one forthcoming shortly.

Kobo deals turned up a new Simon R Green, For Better or Murder (Holy Terrors Mystery #4), alas, this was pretty much phoning it in.

Muriel Spark, The Hothouse by the East River (1973), which is a very very weird novella, absurdist, grotesque, is it about something that happened when they were working for Secret Organisation with German POWs in War and is that why the unheimlich frisson (turns out, no).

After that I just wanted the perhaps too simple and predictable pleasures of Robert B Parker, Silent Night (Spenser #41.5) (2013, unfinished at his death, completed by his agent Helen Brann).

On the go

Persuasion, which I began somewhat behindhand of the daily chapter group read on bluesky.

Up next

Well, there's that new Literary Review, but apart from that.

Am being irked by certain writers whose new ebooks are pretty 2x or more what they used to be. (I might have gone for this I suppose had I not been a bit underwhelmed by some recent offerings.)

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3245/

Please, we need your help. Our research suggests you're the last living descendant of the person who knew how to format this config file.

https://xkcd.com/3245/

arlie

I've been thinking about what LLM's might be able to do that would be useful for me. Given their known tendencies, they'd need to be spot checked, and the part of the data that was used for anything serious more than spot checked.

I came up with two candidates:
1) Save me work by generating the original list of available cell phones to prune down to the least bad option to replace my aging Pixel 3a.
2) Give me a table of daily US stock market index prices, by date, over the past several years, expressed in each of several currencies, with US dollar prices as a comparison. (I'm curious about the extent to which the "good" stock market remains dependent on the falling US dollar, with US stock markets in fact falling as measured in Canadian dollars, Euros, Yen, etc. A generally reliable blogger posted to this effect some weeks ago; I want to know whether the trend continues, and when it started.)

In both cases, I can get the raw data myself, tediously feed it into a spreadsheet, and do the relevant computations. (In the first case, a simple sort by ascending screen width.) In both cases, particularly the latter, it would take huge amounts of effort, and be a giant pain in the arse. I've done the cell phone list before, manually, and it took ages. The stock market index list would be intractable without significant programming, involving a customized data scraper for each site offering part of the needed data.

My bridge partner, who's never seen an LLM he doesn't like, and is a big enough user that he pays for it, was enthusiastic enough to try the first experiment on the spot, with his cell phone.

( Read more... )

james_davis_nicoll

11 character-class supplements for any old-school FRPG.

Bundle of Holding: The Other Side

ffutures

This is a bundle of Old School Revival (D&D-like roleplaying) covering evil witches and warlocks from The Other Side Publishing.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/OtherSide

This isn't something I'm likely to want since I don't play D&D or any of the Old School Revival games, and I suspect that some of this is likely to seriously annoy practitioners of Wicca, druidism, and other traditions. Since I am evidently not the intended market I'm going to give it a hard pass.

fromtheheartofeurope_feed

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/selected-prose-and-prose-poems-by-gabriela-mistral/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=66575

Next in my sequence of educating myself about the work of winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature who were not white men. Gabriela Mistral (real name Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, 1889-1957) was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1945, the first Latin American writer to get the award. Originally trained as a teacher, she had become famous as a writer with her second volume of poetry, Desolación, published in 1922, and had also pursued an international career in education which transitions to being a full-time diplomat from 1932 onwards.

Her Nobel speech is short and modest, and the presentation speech from the Swedish Academy is also short but makes interesting parallels with the career of Selma Lagerlöf, also a schoolteacher who hit the big time with her writing.

It’s actually quite difficult to get hold of Mistral’s writing in English, and I had to be satisfied with a 2002 collection of prose and prose-poems edited and translated by Stephen Tapscott. The second paragraph of the third piece, “The Golden Pheasant”, is:

Gracias al blanco y al negro no hace arder el arrayán sobre el que se coloca.

Thanks to the white part and the dark part, it doesn’t scorch the myrtle tree where it perches.

I found the pieces in general lyrical, but also sad; a lot of them are religious, rooted in the Catholic tradition which looked eternal in the early twentieth century but is now crumbling away; the emotional energy is rich and intense. None of the passages particularly jumped out at me, but I could see that the whole is at least as great as the sum of tis parts. The observations at the end about writing and politics are also interesting, as she tried to carry the perspectives of Chile to the rest of the world and vice versa. You can get it here. I wish I had been able to find a translation of Desolación though, or of Ursula Le Guin’s tranlation of some of her poems.

Next up in this sequence is Nelly Sachs.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/selected-prose-and-prose-poems-by-gabriela-mistral/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=66575

lsanderson

Heat pumps are extremely efficient. But can they save money?
by Brian Martucci
https://www.minnpost.com/newsletter/heat-pumps-are-very-efficient-but-can-they-save-money/

In the fight to get more discounts on prescription drugs, Minnesota hospitals score a win. Maybe.
DFLers accuse Lisa Demuth of holding up a bill that the pharmaceutical industry fiercely opposes.
by Matthew Blake
https://www.minnpost.com/state-government/2026/05/discounts-on-prescription-drugs-minnesota-hospitals-score-a-win-maybe/ ( Read more... )

tarlanx posting in

c_ent

Created for

seasons_of_fandom Spring 2026 CH07: SPRING MOOD

12 Word of Honor Mood Icons

amused	annoyed	content	happy

mischievous	refreshed	sad	shocked

thirsty	worried	+1 determined	+1 enraged

leecetheartist

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

james_davis_nicoll

A selfless act of heroism costs a homeless NEET his life. Waking in an unfamiliar world, he resolves to do better in his next incarnation.

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, volume 1 by Rifujin Na Magonote

fred_mouse

It's been about three weeks since I've had the oomph to update.

study: I now have a literal basket of books to read, ahead of giving a presentation in the academic stream at Swancon (coming up at the end of the month, for those planning to attend who haven't got that on their radar)
study: response to reviewers for ethics got submitted. It has been discovered that the project agreement went missing somewhere in the system, and my primary supervisor followed up from an email from February. (I do not pretend to understand what is going on, but the uni with the primary ethics approval is not the one I'm enrolled at/not the node I'm allocated to, and thus there is Paperwork)
body: i thought all the healing was done, but there is still some swelling in the right armpit, which is very slightly tender. Also, I keep bruising, so I'm going to throw vitamin C at things, and if that doesn't help I'll go see a doctor.
health: I still have not got the 'get a cardiology appointment' sorted, because I put the paperworks somewhere sensible the last time I tried (and got lost in the phone transfer).
body/health: I took today off to get my covid and flu vaccines.
health: I nearly managed a 30h week last week! I actually feel like I'm making progress!
body: yet again - injured a 'shoulder' muscle (down the back, near the shoulder blade). Same place as December. Diagnosis is 'probably sprained'. Took ages to be able to sit for half a day, so I did a lot of study from bed.
oops: Youngest lost a fight with gravity / the barrier / the ice very early Sunday morning and we were called to take them to emergency. There was a very fretful coach asking if we didn't just want an ambulance called; I'm glad we didn't need it. 6am is a dreadful time to be woken by the phone, but all good. Half a dozen staples, mild concussion (lowest diagnosable level, is always concussion if the head hits hard enough to bleed is my new understanding), a week off exercise
appliances: the washing machine has been broken for ?2 weeks. Solenoid that controls the spinning failed. Part is back ordered. We are relying on the kindness of chaosmanor and of Middlest for getting our washing done.
swancon: the convention is getting close, we are now at weekly meetings, and it has reached the point where it feels like the wheels are coming off (this does not mean the wheels are coming off, just my ability to perceive the tasks to time ratio has failed).
scheduling: i apparently had a radiation oncologist appointment this week, but I hadn't been notified well enough to have it in my diary, and the reminder message came through just before 9am the following day, so I called and explained and now I have an appointment in June.
music: I made it to rehearsal Monday, but I'm not going tonight - I had hoped to, but I'm too tired to drive. This is an improvement on last week, when I was too tired to be safe to drive both Monday and Wednesday.
medication: the new hormone suppressing medication isn't doing anything I'm noticing, which I'm counting as a win. The first couple of weeks of screaming insomnia (not actually the worst insomnia I've had, but it has been a little while and I'd let the memories fade some) seem to have settled into 'no point trying to sleep before 11pm', except on nights when I literally can't keep my eyes open.
garden: we have harvested some of the prickly pear (tasty) but it doesn't seem to get loose the way I was informed, so I didn't get as many off and they are getting quite ripe. Next pass I'm going to take a very sharp knife to cut rather than tear (along with a different get of tongs, because the last time the tongs cut the fruit).
weather: it has turned cold. By which I mean we have had days where the temp doesn't get above 20°C. I have pulled out my slippers. The heavy quilt is out, and i've put my extras back on the bed. *craft: I had a week and a bit where I made progress on Eldest's quilt. I have 10 incomplete blocks. I pulled out chaosmanor's pillow (although that might have been long enough ago that I've already blogged it) and if i could work out why I'm blocked on doing something, I'd have made progress (sorry hon, it will happen).

oursin

Happy birthday,

caulkhead!

sovay

After more than seven months out of work, the degree to which I can afford anything above the bottom rung of Maslow has become truly minimal, but as soon as I discovered Quinquis' eor (2025), a shape-shiftingly electronic, primarily Breton-language album of mermaids and the sea, I leapt for it like it was mackerel. I heard first the all-night love-churn of "Morwreg" (2024), but the irresistible drag sirens of "Dec'h" (2025) sealed the deal.

The copy of Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld's Duck! Rabbit! (2009) which I sent my godchild for his first solstice was familially referred to for years as Baby's First Wittgenstein. I have no idea what Wittgenstein would have made of this cartoon, but I'm impressed.

I am not sure that I am much more than physically extant at the minute. I am clearing the refrigerator and the countertops. I am absorbing as much sunlight as I sleeplessly can. Yesterday kicked off with a doctor's appointment that was too early in the morning to be as unhelpful as it was and only dropped the bar from there, so this afternoon I made sure to secure a half-dozen donuts from the reliable Lyndell's and eat a jam-filled one as soon as I had finished walking home. The neighborhood smelled like alternating drifts of lilac and mulch. I have had the same headache since the weekend and am hoping it is related to the sexing of the trees. The nine o'clock advent of leafblowers to our block was inhumane.

Current Music: Quinquis, "Dec'h"

fred_mouse

(this is dated 2025-10-05; I suspect I had plans to write more or edit it down, but I no longer care)

Today I got to completely baffle another non-binary individual (I'll call them Q). Because I have a simplified explanation for gender that I trot out as a 101 explanation when I'm not in a situation to actually do the proper couple of hours Ally Training spiel.

In this explanation, I get my new ally to think of a graph (in person there is a lot of hand waving around), where across the bottom is how much someone considers them self to be a woman - at the left, 0%, at the right, 100%. And likewise, up the side is male, where at the bottom is 0% and the top 100%. And I said that lots of women might put themselves right at the bottom right. But that say, someone who is a tomboy might still think of themself as 100% woman, but maybe 10% man. And yes, I get that I'm doing some dodgy things about defining femininity here; the person I was talking to is in their late 70s or early 80s, and while they absolutely are an ally, they haven't ever had to think about this.

But my explanation kept being interrupted as Q kept going 'what'? They truly were expecting me to explain using a line, with man on one end and woman on the other. They had a moment of 'are you treating these as independent variables'? And I was yes. yes I am. Because how much 'man' I feel on any given day appears to be completely independent of how much 'woman' I feel on any given day. And yes, actually, I agree that it is more accurately an n-dimensional whatsit (Q is doing a PhD in mathematics, they understand so much more math than I). But this is what works when I only have a little bit of time to explain.

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anef

January 2026

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Page Summary

rmc28 - Ride into the danger zone
adore - Cozy fantasy anthology!!!!
sholio - I got my hands on JMS's first "Making of Crusade" book
mdlbear - Thankful Thursday
calimac - more dentistry
mount_oregano - Goodreads review: ‘Ad Infinitum’ by Nicholas Ostler
oursin - Wednesday got caught in a pelting hailstorm
xkcd_feed - Results Age
arlie - LLM Experiment
james_davis_nicoll - Bundle of Holding: The Other Side
ffutures - Another Fantasy Bundle - The Other Side OSR
fromtheheartofeurope_feed - Selected Prose and Prose-Poems, by Gabriela Mistral
lsanderson - 2026.05.13
tarlanx in c_ent - Word of Honor Icons
leecetheartist - MerMay The Thirteenth
james_davis_nicoll - Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, volume 1 by Rifujin Na Magonote
fred_mouse - Life lived in dot points
oursin - (no subject)
sovay - Ne 'z in ket da gorolliñ
fred_mouse - From the lost drafts folder: On Gender

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