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wereldse zaken
Oct. 22nd, 2025 12:25 pmBemoei je niet met mij in 't aardse rijk,
Laat mij in vrede en in vrijheid leven.
Als ik met mijn ethiek de hel bereik
Dan is me jullie hemel om het even.
( Alternatieve versie: )
Laat mij in vrede en in vrijheid leven.
Als ik met mijn ethiek de hel bereik
Dan is me jullie hemel om het even.
( Alternatieve versie: )
anticipating the Copper Age
Sep. 11th, 2025 01:58 pmi'm really looking forward to Minecraft's "Copper Age" update. the main reason is copper tools and armour! it'll be wonderful for the early game. currently, since iron is scarce and iron tools don't last much longer than stone ones, it's generally not worth it to me to make them, and i go more or less straight from stone to diamond. but since copper is so much more plentiful, it'll be worth it to craft tools that are a bit better than stone but still cheap! i won't feel a need to rush up the tech tree so fast.
i think the aged variants of the lightning rod are a good addition too, they're great detailing blocks. and while i do think iron chains look better than any of the copper chain variants, i like the exposed copper chains enough that i'll be happy to use them as an affordable alternative to iron chains.
i almost forgot about the copper chests and copper automata/statues. i don't really care for them, i don't expect i'll ever use them.
i think the aged variants of the lightning rod are a good addition too, they're great detailing blocks. and while i do think iron chains look better than any of the copper chain variants, i like the exposed copper chains enough that i'll be happy to use them as an affordable alternative to iron chains.
i almost forgot about the copper chests and copper automata/statues. i don't really care for them, i don't expect i'll ever use them.
réorganisation de ma bibliothèque
Aug. 23rd, 2025 05:35 pmmes bibliothèques sont pleines et les nouveaux livres s'empilent au sol. je suis très contenxe de la valeur esthéthique des piles de livres, mais je lamentais qu'elles ne suivent pas le système d'organisation de ma bibliothèque personnelle dont je suis si fièr. ma partenaire m'a dit qu'alors je pourrais les organiser, elles aussi.
ce qui a entraîné une grande réorganisation de ma biblithèque. la section non-fiction s'est élargie et tous les livres de non-fiction vont de nouveau dans l'étagère ; j'ai fait plus de place aux recueils de poésie aussi.
la fiction en anglais (sauf science-fiction et fantasy) et la fiction en néerlandais sont sorties de l'étagère intégralement pour être entassées en piles séparées. à vrai dire, ça fait un peu plus désordonné maintenant – sans doute parce que les piles de livres sont à présent plus nombreyx et de tailles hétéroclites. (la solution est évidente : obtenir davantage de livres pour les augmenter...)
ce qui a entraîné une grande réorganisation de ma biblithèque. la section non-fiction s'est élargie et tous les livres de non-fiction vont de nouveau dans l'étagère ; j'ai fait plus de place aux recueils de poésie aussi.
la fiction en anglais (sauf science-fiction et fantasy) et la fiction en néerlandais sont sorties de l'étagère intégralement pour être entassées en piles séparées. à vrai dire, ça fait un peu plus désordonné maintenant – sans doute parce que les piles de livres sont à présent plus nombreyx et de tailles hétéroclites. (la solution est évidente : obtenir davantage de livres pour les augmenter...)
review: Optimisme zonder hoop
Jul. 31st, 2025 01:08 ameen korte recensie van Optimisme zonder hoop van Tommy Wieringa
Ik heb niet het idee dat de conclusie van optimisme zonder hoop uit enige uitleg of argumentatie in dit essay stamt, het lijkt een beetje vanuit het niets te worden gepresenteerd. Alsof Wieringa bijna aan zijn woordental zat en toen bedacht dat hij nog niet op zijn centrale idee was uitgekomen. Ik denk dat ik zijn idee van optimisme zonder hoop wel min of meer begrijp - het klinkt een beetje hetzelfde als "je bent niet verplicht het werk te voltooien, maar net zomin staat het je vrij het op te geven".
Het leest wel lekker.
Ik heb niet het idee dat de conclusie van optimisme zonder hoop uit enige uitleg of argumentatie in dit essay stamt, het lijkt een beetje vanuit het niets te worden gepresenteerd. Alsof Wieringa bijna aan zijn woordental zat en toen bedacht dat hij nog niet op zijn centrale idee was uitgekomen. Ik denk dat ik zijn idee van optimisme zonder hoop wel min of meer begrijp - het klinkt een beetje hetzelfde als "je bent niet verplicht het werk te voltooien, maar net zomin staat het je vrij het op te geven".
Het leest wel lekker.
i've been really into building railways in my minecraft world lately. it's such a good form of transport that i haven't used terribly much, and absolutely perfect for the short-ish distances that i'm making rail connections for so far. a few hundred blocks is easy enough to do on foot, on horseback or by boat if there's coast, but after a while it just gets tedious if you have to do the same run over and over. with rails in place, i can just hop in a cart and get up to make a cup of tea and don't have to actively do anything!
so far i haven't run into resource bottlenecks, although i'm resource-constrained on iron. i collect rails from abandoned mineshafts from time to time and occasionally craft some rails myself, and so far that's been enough.
the first section of rail is fully underground, from the cellar of my starter house to the village that i keep just slightly apart from Spawn. most of the subsequently built lines have been aboveground on elevated bridges, though the stations are underground, under the built-up areas. i'm getting to the point now that i need to start thinking about a better-organised central station at Spawn, before the underground gets too crowded.
i'd actually really like to build even more railways, but i don't have that many different places in the world yet that need to be connected. although induced demand is definitely a thing, even in singleplayer minecraft: when i build a rail line to a previously-empty place, i start spending time there and building up the area near the station. it's a good time.
so far i haven't run into resource bottlenecks, although i'm resource-constrained on iron. i collect rails from abandoned mineshafts from time to time and occasionally craft some rails myself, and so far that's been enough.
the first section of rail is fully underground, from the cellar of my starter house to the village that i keep just slightly apart from Spawn. most of the subsequently built lines have been aboveground on elevated bridges, though the stations are underground, under the built-up areas. i'm getting to the point now that i need to start thinking about a better-organised central station at Spawn, before the underground gets too crowded.
i'd actually really like to build even more railways, but i don't have that many different places in the world yet that need to be connected. although induced demand is definitely a thing, even in singleplayer minecraft: when i build a rail line to a previously-empty place, i start spending time there and building up the area near the station. it's a good time.
kattendistributiesysteem
Apr. 16th, 2025 01:44 amEen kastje met uh... (bluh) (blägh) inhoud
You are more of an accident of nature than other people
herbts
I don't want to alarm anybody, but I think it's detail time.
some heavenly occurrence
recursive hedgehog
it's all happening at the speed of life
kattendistributiesysteem
met een beetje beleid en gevoel
You are more of an accident of nature than other people
herbts
I don't want to alarm anybody, but I think it's detail time.
some heavenly occurrence
recursive hedgehog
it's all happening at the speed of life
kattendistributiesysteem
met een beetje beleid en gevoel
review: The Little Book of Fungi
Apr. 7th, 2025 02:29 pma review of The Little Book of Fungi by Britt A. Bunyard
I'm a bit wary of Little Books of this or that, I don't really trust them to be worthwhile in terms of quality. But I figured since I don't have much base knowledge of mycology, this might be okay as a primer or very basic reference work for me. That was a mistake, my first instinct was correct.
The Little Book of Fungi is a collection of fun facts that is mostly intended to look pretty. (The ochre clothbound cover does look very nice. The blurb is a sticker that I assume can be removed to leave a tastefully minimalistic outside with just the title, the author, and a small stylised bunch of mushrooms.) The inside is very heavily illustrated, with the page area divided about equally between text and illustrations. Additionally, the pages are very thick (for the colour images), so the number of pages is smaller than you might expect for the book's thickness (not very thick). All this means that there is very little text.
The text feels messy to me. The way information that seems related to me is sprinkled through different chapters feels disorganised; the organisation within the two-page sub-chapters feels wonky sometimes; and occasionally there's a sentence that doesn't quite make sense. There are too many sentences starting with "Amazingly," for my liking. (I don't think you should start a sentence with "Amazingly," if the previous sentence already described something as "amazing".) Sometimes the information of two not-very-info-heavy sentences is summarised in a third sentence.
The illustrations are pretty, but not always very illustrative. Sometimes they're just nice photos or drawings of mushrooms (and hey, I'm a mushroom image enjoyer), but don't otherwise add much for how much page area they take away from potential text. Sometimes they are (I assume) meant to explain something, but because the parts of the illustration are not labeled, I'm left with no idea what I'm looking at.
And, you know, the book in general isn't very informative. There were plenty of facts I didn't know, of course, but not much in the way of insights. I guess if you're already read Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life (for example), I'd say The Little Book of Fun Facts is worth giving a pass.
I'm a bit wary of Little Books of this or that, I don't really trust them to be worthwhile in terms of quality. But I figured since I don't have much base knowledge of mycology, this might be okay as a primer or very basic reference work for me. That was a mistake, my first instinct was correct.
The Little Book of Fungi is a collection of fun facts that is mostly intended to look pretty. (The ochre clothbound cover does look very nice. The blurb is a sticker that I assume can be removed to leave a tastefully minimalistic outside with just the title, the author, and a small stylised bunch of mushrooms.) The inside is very heavily illustrated, with the page area divided about equally between text and illustrations. Additionally, the pages are very thick (for the colour images), so the number of pages is smaller than you might expect for the book's thickness (not very thick). All this means that there is very little text.
The text feels messy to me. The way information that seems related to me is sprinkled through different chapters feels disorganised; the organisation within the two-page sub-chapters feels wonky sometimes; and occasionally there's a sentence that doesn't quite make sense. There are too many sentences starting with "Amazingly," for my liking. (I don't think you should start a sentence with "Amazingly," if the previous sentence already described something as "amazing".) Sometimes the information of two not-very-info-heavy sentences is summarised in a third sentence.
The illustrations are pretty, but not always very illustrative. Sometimes they're just nice photos or drawings of mushrooms (and hey, I'm a mushroom image enjoyer), but don't otherwise add much for how much page area they take away from potential text. Sometimes they are (I assume) meant to explain something, but because the parts of the illustration are not labeled, I'm left with no idea what I'm looking at.
And, you know, the book in general isn't very informative. There were plenty of facts I didn't know, of course, but not much in the way of insights. I guess if you're already read Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life (for example), I'd say The Little Book of Fun Facts is worth giving a pass.
review: Nu Delhi
Mar. 22nd, 2025 12:47 ama review of Bloodywood's second album Nu Delhi
i was very excited for a new album from my favourite band, after a number of covers and singles and a spectacular first album! however, the second album Nu Delhi is a bit disappointing. it's not bad; it's... fine. it's all okay, good music, but nothing stands out. i feel like the debut album Rakshak had a lot more variation in moods and styles and levels of heaviness, with some very memorable flute melodies ("Jee Veerey", "Endurant") and haunting choruses ("Zanjeero Se", "Jee Veerey").
Nu Delhi sounds like they blended "Gaddaar", "Machi Bhasad" and "Chakh Le" from Rakshak and made seven variations on the theme. also, with 8 tracks and a runtime of 33 minutes, Nu Delhi a bit shorter than Rakshak's 47 minutes over 10 tracks.
there are some nice riffs (see below), but i miss Jayant Bhadula's clean vocals. i've read a review of Rakshak that called Raoul Kerr's English rap lyrics "rote posturing", which i agree with, but somehow the English rap lyrics manage to be even duller on Nu Delhi. all that said, i still enjoy the new album and i'm happily listening to it on repeat. it's just the comparison with the mind-blowing debut where everything stands out that's causing the disappointment.
( track by track thoughts: )
i was very excited for a new album from my favourite band, after a number of covers and singles and a spectacular first album! however, the second album Nu Delhi is a bit disappointing. it's not bad; it's... fine. it's all okay, good music, but nothing stands out. i feel like the debut album Rakshak had a lot more variation in moods and styles and levels of heaviness, with some very memorable flute melodies ("Jee Veerey", "Endurant") and haunting choruses ("Zanjeero Se", "Jee Veerey").
Nu Delhi sounds like they blended "Gaddaar", "Machi Bhasad" and "Chakh Le" from Rakshak and made seven variations on the theme. also, with 8 tracks and a runtime of 33 minutes, Nu Delhi a bit shorter than Rakshak's 47 minutes over 10 tracks.
there are some nice riffs (see below), but i miss Jayant Bhadula's clean vocals. i've read a review of Rakshak that called Raoul Kerr's English rap lyrics "rote posturing", which i agree with, but somehow the English rap lyrics manage to be even duller on Nu Delhi. all that said, i still enjoy the new album and i'm happily listening to it on repeat. it's just the comparison with the mind-blowing debut where everything stands out that's causing the disappointment.
( track by track thoughts: )
cat café carnage
Mar. 18th, 2025 12:47 ama genuine diary extract
"Toutefois, la café aux chats est une zone PVP. C'est la melée totale, un corps-à-corps brutal. La clientèle ne connaît aucune décence, ne respecte ni l'intégrité de l'espace personnel, ni les fondements de la vie en société. Les étudiantes se forcent un chemin entre nous pour toucher la chatte sur notre table ; les parenze lâchent leurs morveux sur les chats qui n'ont pas envie de caresses ou même les soulèvent au-dessus de nous pour les faire saluer la chatte ; les passanze dans la rue tapent sur le vitre sous nos yeux... Pour la clientèle du café aux chats, les autres humains ne constituent que des obstacles à vaincre – physiquement s'il le faut."
"Toutefois, la café aux chats est une zone PVP. C'est la melée totale, un corps-à-corps brutal. La clientèle ne connaît aucune décence, ne respecte ni l'intégrité de l'espace personnel, ni les fondements de la vie en société. Les étudiantes se forcent un chemin entre nous pour toucher la chatte sur notre table ; les parenze lâchent leurs morveux sur les chats qui n'ont pas envie de caresses ou même les soulèvent au-dessus de nous pour les faire saluer la chatte ; les passanze dans la rue tapent sur le vitre sous nos yeux... Pour la clientèle du café aux chats, les autres humains ne constituent que des obstacles à vaincre – physiquement s'il le faut."
alien encounters
Feb. 28th, 2025 12:33 ama genuine diary extract:
"I tend to think of the cat as basically a small, weird, and very dumb person. But sometimes I remember/realise that it's actually a small* animal that lives in my house, whose motivations are incomprehensible to me, whose thoughts are entirely unknowable and completely different from mine, whose gaze is alien. Not in a scary way, just in a Realisation way.
( * )
"I tend to think of the cat as basically a small, weird, and very dumb person. But sometimes I remember/realise that it's actually a small* animal that lives in my house, whose motivations are incomprehensible to me, whose thoughts are entirely unknowable and completely different from mine, whose gaze is alien. Not in a scary way, just in a Realisation way.
( * )
fantasy!CIA in Ranger's Apprentice
Feb. 20th, 2025 12:43 ami love* how John Flanagan's Ranger series gets less and less subtle about how Araluen meddles in international affairs, and the eponymous rangers of Araluen are the fantasy!CIA. the interventionism is not really condemned, but not portrayed as beneficial to those at the receiving end either: the text is pretty clear on the fact that it serves the interests of Araluen's ruling family, and not necessarily anyone else.
they've previously propped up a friendly regime in a foreign country's internal power struggle. now they're supporting a weak ruler in a neighbouring country just enough that he remains in power, so that the state remains too unstable to grow into a threat to Araluen.
* i'm not being sarcastic, by the way. i genuinely think it's genuinely an interesting dynamic and it entertains me greatly.
they've previously propped up a friendly regime in a foreign country's internal power struggle. now they're supporting a weak ruler in a neighbouring country just enough that he remains in power, so that the state remains too unstable to grow into a threat to Araluen.
* i'm not being sarcastic, by the way. i genuinely think it's genuinely an interesting dynamic and it entertains me greatly.
Deep Dark and the Warden
Feb. 17th, 2025 04:54 pmlast week i decided to explore an Ancient City in Minecraft. the first i found contained half a building, so there wasn't much to explore. the second is enormous (which i think is the normal size for an Ancient City).
i don't love the horror elements of the Deep Dark/Ancient Cities, and i think the Warden is overpowered, which is why i usually just avoid the Deep Dark. this time i did seek it out intentionally and went into it with the expectation of dying a lot.
so, fine, boss-like mob that can track the player much better than other mobs with two powerful attacks that ignore armour. fine. we'll just die a lot. my complaint is the darkness effect, which feels like poor game design to me, or in any case a game design decision that significantly reduces the entertainment value/play quality for me. i'll be staring at an entirely black screen like, yes, i'm having an Enjoyable Gaming Experience.
i don't love the horror elements of the Deep Dark/Ancient Cities, and i think the Warden is overpowered, which is why i usually just avoid the Deep Dark. this time i did seek it out intentionally and went into it with the expectation of dying a lot.
so, fine, boss-like mob that can track the player much better than other mobs with two powerful attacks that ignore armour. fine. we'll just die a lot. my complaint is the darkness effect, which feels like poor game design to me, or in any case a game design decision that significantly reduces the entertainment value/play quality for me. i'll be staring at an entirely black screen like, yes, i'm having an Enjoyable Gaming Experience.
review: Toward Eternity
Jan. 7th, 2025 12:16 ama review of Toward Eternity by Anton Hur
Toward Eternity has a lot going for it that should really be my shit: poetry; AI; AIs reading poetry; exploration of the meaning and import of language(s); of what makes humanity (especially in a world where there are sentient beings that are not (biologically) similar to H. sapiens as we know it today. But I found it just okay. It didn't really focus enough on language(s) and I felt it also forgot about poetry for a while.
It also cared deeply about capital-M Music (especially classical European music – Bach and Mozart in particular), and that is an effective trick for making me lose interest. I simply feel "an intense, burning indifference" to it as a major component in fiction. I cannot relate, I anti-relate, it's just not for me. (To be clear, I haven nothing against music, I just don't care for it in fiction.) At least one of the points of view contrasted Music with poetry (which in the rest of the book are cast as an eternal, essential part of the universe, something that transcends humanity and keeps existing even if no one is around to read or recite or remember it anymore), and considered it even more pure and sublime(?) and so on than language – and then it wasn't really brought up again.
The book was maybe also too short for what it wanted to do (or at least for what I felt it was setting up). There was not enough page time for each character, and the book ended in a kind of awkward place of not enough mystery to leave me intrigued after finishing it, yet not enough revelation to leave me satisfied either. I would also have liked the eternal essence of poetry to be supported a bit more.
(Also, the poetry featured in this book is primarily 19th century English and American poetry, which one of the viewpoints states early on was a tool of imperialist violence. And while the same character states that these poems have merit nonetheless, I do find it awkward that the only examples of eternal and universal poetry we get are from this hegemonic Anglo-American canon.)
Speaking of characters and viewpoints – the story is told through a single notebook in which a chain of roughly a dozen characters each write their own story, or part of their story, or their part of the story. The first three or so characters have somewhat distinct voices, but the later ones all sound/feel the same, and I found myself asking when and how they had the opportunity to write in the notebook, which broke my suspension of disbelief a little.
That said, Toward Eternity still manages to do a bunch of interesting stuff, and it's easy to keep turning the pages (or keep listening), and I did enjoy the musings about poetry, such as they were. It may be interesting to people who enjoyed Anjet Daanje's Het lied van ooievaar en dromedaris. It's not the same, of course (nothing can be), but the structure and red thread of the respective books are similar in some ways, as well as the poetry/literature and music themes.
Toward Eternity has a lot going for it that should really be my shit: poetry; AI; AIs reading poetry; exploration of the meaning and import of language(s); of what makes humanity (especially in a world where there are sentient beings that are not (biologically) similar to H. sapiens as we know it today. But I found it just okay. It didn't really focus enough on language(s) and I felt it also forgot about poetry for a while.
It also cared deeply about capital-M Music (especially classical European music – Bach and Mozart in particular), and that is an effective trick for making me lose interest. I simply feel "an intense, burning indifference" to it as a major component in fiction. I cannot relate, I anti-relate, it's just not for me. (To be clear, I haven nothing against music, I just don't care for it in fiction.) At least one of the points of view contrasted Music with poetry (which in the rest of the book are cast as an eternal, essential part of the universe, something that transcends humanity and keeps existing even if no one is around to read or recite or remember it anymore), and considered it even more pure and sublime(?) and so on than language – and then it wasn't really brought up again.
The book was maybe also too short for what it wanted to do (or at least for what I felt it was setting up). There was not enough page time for each character, and the book ended in a kind of awkward place of not enough mystery to leave me intrigued after finishing it, yet not enough revelation to leave me satisfied either. I would also have liked the eternal essence of poetry to be supported a bit more.
(Also, the poetry featured in this book is primarily 19th century English and American poetry, which one of the viewpoints states early on was a tool of imperialist violence. And while the same character states that these poems have merit nonetheless, I do find it awkward that the only examples of eternal and universal poetry we get are from this hegemonic Anglo-American canon.)
Speaking of characters and viewpoints – the story is told through a single notebook in which a chain of roughly a dozen characters each write their own story, or part of their story, or their part of the story. The first three or so characters have somewhat distinct voices, but the later ones all sound/feel the same, and I found myself asking when and how they had the opportunity to write in the notebook, which broke my suspension of disbelief a little.
That said, Toward Eternity still manages to do a bunch of interesting stuff, and it's easy to keep turning the pages (or keep listening), and I did enjoy the musings about poetry, such as they were. It may be interesting to people who enjoyed Anjet Daanje's Het lied van ooievaar en dromedaris. It's not the same, of course (nothing can be), but the structure and red thread of the respective books are similar in some ways, as well as the poetry/literature and music themes.
Year of Le Guin: conclusion
Dec. 28th, 2024 08:29 pmi decided somewhere around May that in 2024, i was going to try to read or reread as many books by Ursula K. Le Guin as i could. here are the results:
1. Earthsea Quartet
i have read Earthsea 1-4 in Finnish many years ago - twice, i think - but last year i bought an English edition because it was cheap and impressively ugly. it's hot pink and a yassified Sparrowhawk(?) glares at me from the books spine over in the bookshelf.
2. Always Coming Home
read for the first time, as an audiobook. it's a really cool book in general, and the audiobook includes an appendix with some recordings of Kesh music (including, if i'm not mistaken, Le Guin herself breaking into laughter mid-song).
3. Worlds of Exile and Illusion
a bind-up of the first three Hain novels; Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusion. i enjoyed the middle one the most.
4. Space Crone
a collection of essays and speeches. includes some good stuff, but also a piece on abortion that, while arguing a pro-choice position, managed to be so offensive that i wrote a whole post about it.
5. Tales from Earthsea
listened to this as an audiobook. i vaguely remember trying to read Earthsea 5-6 in Finnish long ago, but couldn't get into it. nothing seemed familiar, so i guess i didn't get very far back then.
6. Les Dépossédés
i'm sure i've written about The Dispossessed before. i read the Finnish translation Osattomien planeetta twice and wasn't very impressed, then upon a third read it became one of my favourite books, i've read it in English after that, and for reasons i can't quite remember i decided to buy it in French as well. i buddy read it with my partner.
7. The Other Wind
first read, audiobook.
8. The Wind's Twelve Quarters
a collection of short stories i bought last year.
9. Five Ways to Forgiveness
a really beautiful edition.
unlike Le Guin when she wrote these stories, i still remembered the planet Werel from Planet of Exile, and was consequently confused for a whole while before figuring out that this was a different planet called Werel instead of a radically-changed one.
10. The Word for World is Forest
i've read the Finnish translation before.
11. The Birthday of the World
a collection of short stories, all but two set in the Hain universe. i liked the stories set on O particularly.
1. Earthsea Quartet
i have read Earthsea 1-4 in Finnish many years ago - twice, i think - but last year i bought an English edition because it was cheap and impressively ugly. it's hot pink and a yassified Sparrowhawk(?) glares at me from the books spine over in the bookshelf.
2. Always Coming Home
read for the first time, as an audiobook. it's a really cool book in general, and the audiobook includes an appendix with some recordings of Kesh music (including, if i'm not mistaken, Le Guin herself breaking into laughter mid-song).
3. Worlds of Exile and Illusion
a bind-up of the first three Hain novels; Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusion. i enjoyed the middle one the most.
4. Space Crone
a collection of essays and speeches. includes some good stuff, but also a piece on abortion that, while arguing a pro-choice position, managed to be so offensive that i wrote a whole post about it.
5. Tales from Earthsea
listened to this as an audiobook. i vaguely remember trying to read Earthsea 5-6 in Finnish long ago, but couldn't get into it. nothing seemed familiar, so i guess i didn't get very far back then.
6. Les Dépossédés
i'm sure i've written about The Dispossessed before. i read the Finnish translation Osattomien planeetta twice and wasn't very impressed, then upon a third read it became one of my favourite books, i've read it in English after that, and for reasons i can't quite remember i decided to buy it in French as well. i buddy read it with my partner.
7. The Other Wind
first read, audiobook.
8. The Wind's Twelve Quarters
a collection of short stories i bought last year.
9. Five Ways to Forgiveness
a really beautiful edition.
unlike Le Guin when she wrote these stories, i still remembered the planet Werel from Planet of Exile, and was consequently confused for a whole while before figuring out that this was a different planet called Werel instead of a radically-changed one.
10. The Word for World is Forest
i've read the Finnish translation before.
11. The Birthday of the World
a collection of short stories, all but two set in the Hain universe. i liked the stories set on O particularly.
office cleaning observations
Dec. 9th, 2024 10:52 pm1.
This part of the city was not made for people. It is the output of a terrain generator with a limited set of assets – asphalt, cars, parking space, box-shaped office, box-shaped garage, chain-link fence, more cars – and set to randomise. There are no humans.
2.
Heaters blaze all night. The radio sings to no one, briefly, between the advertising. Spotless unused desks must be cleaned twice a week.
3.
Two brand-new copies of an environmentalist memoir in an oil company’s bin. They don’t do paper recycling here. You can’t make this shit up.
4.
Anything found in a bin is fair salvage. A stapler. Intact plates. Half a dozen reusable water bottles with the name Edwin printed on them. A clipboard. Books with an unprofitable message.
5.
The cleaning supply closet is the perfect dump for anything that needs storing. Cleaning equipment, supplied by the cleaning company and miscellaneous other. A hoard of face masks left over from the earlier years of the pandemic. A supernumerary office chair. A bucket of fresh flowers. A secret stash of snacks where the other office people won’t think to look.
6.
A list of birthdays taped to a monitor. A few balloons migrate from desk to desk, slightly more shriveled each time. Bunting suspended from the suspended ceiling gently rains glitter into the cracks of the keyboards below.
7.
A small office generates an astounding volume of rubbish. Cardboard boxes. Paper towels. Paper and plastic cups. Food wrappers. Takeout bags and containers. Half-eaten food. Unidentifiable plastic. Imagine how much more trash all the office people throw away at home.
8.
Spotlights illuminate featureless concrete and polymer walls. Logos sear their brands onto the night. They offer no hint as to the product or service provided by the businesses behind them. No one is around to see them. The night sky is yellow.
This part of the city was not made for people. It is the output of a terrain generator with a limited set of assets – asphalt, cars, parking space, box-shaped office, box-shaped garage, chain-link fence, more cars – and set to randomise. There are no humans.
2.
Heaters blaze all night. The radio sings to no one, briefly, between the advertising. Spotless unused desks must be cleaned twice a week.
3.
Two brand-new copies of an environmentalist memoir in an oil company’s bin. They don’t do paper recycling here. You can’t make this shit up.
4.
Anything found in a bin is fair salvage. A stapler. Intact plates. Half a dozen reusable water bottles with the name Edwin printed on them. A clipboard. Books with an unprofitable message.
5.
The cleaning supply closet is the perfect dump for anything that needs storing. Cleaning equipment, supplied by the cleaning company and miscellaneous other. A hoard of face masks left over from the earlier years of the pandemic. A supernumerary office chair. A bucket of fresh flowers. A secret stash of snacks where the other office people won’t think to look.
6.
A list of birthdays taped to a monitor. A few balloons migrate from desk to desk, slightly more shriveled each time. Bunting suspended from the suspended ceiling gently rains glitter into the cracks of the keyboards below.
7.
A small office generates an astounding volume of rubbish. Cardboard boxes. Paper towels. Paper and plastic cups. Food wrappers. Takeout bags and containers. Half-eaten food. Unidentifiable plastic. Imagine how much more trash all the office people throw away at home.
8.
Spotlights illuminate featureless concrete and polymer walls. Logos sear their brands onto the night. They offer no hint as to the product or service provided by the businesses behind them. No one is around to see them. The night sky is yellow.
