Links for Planting Seeds of Hope

Locally the current wisdom is to wait a few more weeks before planting anything, as we’re still expecting at least one more (mild) freeze. All the same, it’s a good time to start planning what I’d like to plant both physically and mentally.

On the mental side, it’s all about planting seeds of perspective, understanding, and above all hope.

Here are some links for that, and to remind myself: keep your eye on the ball.

i have started reading Omar El Akkad’s “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This”

“No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. (…) Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.” bookshop link

Several things you can do!

“Hello, currently I am the leader of my local boy scout troop and we want to focus on citizenship and community and the first thing that came to my mind was solarpunk. What are some cheap activities or things to discuss that relate to community that I could run at our next meeting?”

How To Be a Fighter When You Feel Like a Punching Bag

“…not all traumatic circumstances allow us to act with agency. Sometimes, harm happens to us, and taking control of our bodies or actions simply isn’t possible. But in other cases, it only feels that way.

The more often we have experienced true helplessness, the more likely we are to feel powerless in situations where action is possible. And the more we freeze or flail in response to threats, the more deeply ingrained those responses become.”

A working library: Make life possible

“And yet, as Le Guin reminds us, uncertainty is also the only thing that makes life possible. Without it, we would move like automatons through predetermined paths, unspirited, unaware, unliving.”

I have a few blog ideas in the queue about art (mainly music, who is surprised?) that has been sustaining me lately. Those take a lot more effort than a links post, though, so it may be just a bit longer before you see them. Until then, thanks for reading.

Books I Read In 2024

Several years ago, spurred on by a friend’s posting of the LiveJournal-spawned1 “50 Books Challenge”, I started keeping track of my own reading habits for the year. While she (and others) still post their yearly lists on social media, I figured the best place for my list would be here. So… enjoy?

  1. Red Team Blues - Cory Doctorow
  2. Be Useful - Arnold Schwarzenegger
  3. Radicalized - Cory Doctorow
  4. The Soul of America - Jon Meacham
  5. The Lost Cause - Cory Doctorow
  6. Fuzzy Nation - John Scalzi
  7. Hands of the Morri - Heather K. O’Malley
  8. The World We Make - N. K. Jemisin
  9. Rise of the Gomeral - Jeff Pages
  10. Prince: The Man And His Music - Matt Thorne
  11. Chokepoint Capitalism - Rebecca S. Gilpin and Cory Doctorow
  12. The Bezzle - Cory Doctorow
  13. How Infrastructure Works - Deb Chachra
  14. Termination Shock - Neal Stephenson [audiobook]
  15. The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. - Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland [audiobook]
  16. Starter Villain - John Scalzi
  17. The Death of Stalin - Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin
  18. The Fund - Rob Copeland
  19. Getting Things Done (Tenth Anniversary Edition) - David Allen
  20. Play Nice But Win - Michael Dell
  21. Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon - Spider Robinson [reread]
  22. Monstress vols 1 & 2 - Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
  23. The Souls of Black Folk - W. E. B. DuBois [audiobook]
  24. Sleep No More - Seanan McGuire
  25. Provenance - Ann Leckie
  26. The Innocent Sleep - Seanan McGuire
  27. Emergent Strategy - adrienne maree brown
  28. Loving Corrections - adrienne maree brown
  29. The Dispossessed - Ursula K. LeGuin
  30. Time Management for System Administrators - Thomas A. Limoncelli
  31. git commit murder - Michael W Lucas
  32. Moby-Dick, or, The Whale - Herman Melville [audiobook/e-book]
  33. The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein

  1. Probably. My old-web memory is fuzzy. ↩︎

Links for Tending the Fire

You can look at the date for this entry and see what the current events are. These links may only be tangential to the impending new-old administration, but I still thought they were worth posting.

When monoculture leads to monofailure

This was written in the aftermath of the CrowdStrike bug this past summer. The lessons learned are relevant in so many areas, and the article name-checks Deb Chachra and her book How Infrastructure Works, an amazing read.

Being Glue — No Idea Blog

I may not be a software engineer, but my job title these days is 100% glue, so this resonated with me. It’s a good article for anyone who feels like the above-and-beyond bits are creeping into their actual work, especially those of you who are a different gender from me.

NSA releases copy of internal lecture delivered by computing giant Rear Adm. Grace Hopper

Yes, I’m linking to the NSA’s website. Grace Hopper was a glorious force of nature and a role model for so many. This lecture from 1982, that was finally declassified earlier this year, is a must-watch for anyone that’s been paying attention to the tech world. She predicted some of the missteps we’ve made, but much of her advice can still be applied. Best time to plant a tree and all that.

A Syllabus for Generalists – Syllabus

An exhaustive list of resources for learning about all kinds of stuff. It’s definitely a site to bookmark. Let’s keep our minds sharp and diversify our skills.

Links for the Ides of March

No ominous portents, just few good links today. There might be a through-line on a couple of them, though.

#411: Of Models and Mentors

“what worked for me coming out of school does not necessarily work for someone in school right now. The first line in my notes says, not giving advice, just telling what happened.

Get your work recognized: write a brag document

“One thing I’m always struck by when it comes to performance review time is a feeling of ‘wait, what did I do in the last 6 months?’. This is a kind of demoralizing feeling and it’s usually not based in reality, more in ‘I forgot what cool stuff I actually did’.”

Decoder guest host Hank Green makes Nilay Patel explain why websites have a future - The Verge

“…I think a lot of the destruction we see in the media community right now is no one built an audience. They try to get traffic and then they try to sell that traffic, and they assumed that traffic would last forever.”

Musical Connections #1

I wanted to link three music videos together to show their connections. This is the first time I’m doing this but probably won’t be the last.

First up, these clowns:

Then, we reveal the mystery that isn’t really a mystery (it’s Louis Cole and Sam Gendel! shhhhh):

Louis Cole has a band with Genevieve Artadi, one of the people holding a camera in that last video. They call it KNOWER. Here’s something recent from said band, with Sam Gendel among the personnel.

(Such a group of talented musicians provides opportunities for more musical connections. The bass player, MonoNeon, for instance, could start us off on quite the long journey indeed. Perhaps another time.)

Starting the Journey With a Couple of Links

Perhaps this is setting the tone? Who knows. Just a couple of links today.

The leap | Seth’s Blog

“Every four years, we have a worldwide holiday to celebrate this sort of leap. The leap of choice. Not to suddenly get from here to there, but to choose to go on the journey.”

a lot of things are true.

“We are all trying our best to try to feel our way towards a more whole world: One that honors all of our inherent dignity. One that has enough for everyone, is safe for everyone, gives care to everyone. We are all doing our best.”

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, from October 13 of last year.

Yeah. I may hide behind other people’s words every once in a while, but it’s easily a step above staying silent. It’s all I’ve got for the moment.