KelsonV @KelsonV@wandering.shop

"I must warn you," the librarian said, "this book is cursed."
"Cursed?"
"Read the first two chapters and you will be trapped, unable to stop reading until you reach the end."
I swallowed. "I... I have read books like that before."
The librarian nodded. "Then go, and read."
#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

Hanging in my local grocery store when I stopped by the deli for lunch today. #MaskUp #COVID19

Nice.

"Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Kiki’s Delivery Service author Eiko Kadono, and her translator Emily Balistrieri. We discuss Kadono’s original inspiration for Kiki, what it feels like to return to a book thirty-five years after publication, and the challenges of translating such a beloved children’s book from Japanese to English."

https://www.tor.com/2020/08/06/the-magic-of-translation-interviewing-kikis-delivery-service-author-eiko-kadono-and-translator-emily-balistrieri/

#Japan #Interviews #Authors #Translations

NASA 2019: here's a fun little papercraft model of a space telescope you can print, cut, and fold!
NASA 2020: fuck it, we exported all the subassemblies of our new rover as STLs, have fun spending the next six months of quarantine building your own robot

Stupid lifehacks that actually work:

Not sure if that progress bar is moving? Maybe the install died and your computer is lying to you?

Put a Post-It note on your monitor at the end of the progress bar to mark where it is now. See if the bar ever moves beyond your note.

She heard a gunshot. The more ears you have, the more precisely you can pinpoint the source of a sound.
She had it down to a 3 centimeter diameter sphere, but was less precise when she filed the report. Apartment number was close enough, in Alexa's experience.
#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

"the main Dutch public broadcaster… found that ads served to users who opted out of cookies were bringing in as much or more money as ads served to users who opted in."

"The results were so strong that as of January 2020, NPO simply got rid of advertising cookies altogether…"

https://www.wired.com/story/can-killing-cookies-save-journalism/

The physics of surviving the heat, but not the humidity.

"“What is the hottest ‘room’ temperature at which a human body can, by sweating, keep itself cool enough to avoid health damage?”

— Matt B., Etterzhausen, Germany

It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/science/randall-munroe-xkcd-temperature.html

#Heat #Humidity #Biology #Physics

I prefer to brew my tea the proper way, using loose leaf, but I have no problem with tea bags.

My anarchist friends disagree though. They think proper tea is theft.
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I'll show myself out.

A new post is up on Circle of Ignorance, asking when we as a nation decided to value steel over human flesh.

Ghost Bikes and the Value of Human Life
https://circleofignorance.com/2020/08/05/ghost-bikes-and-the-value-of-human-life/

The phrase "it's ok, I have alcohol" has taken on a whole new meaning since the pandemic happened and everyone started regularly needing hand sanitiser