We're Toast 56

This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. 

Winter trees

Royally Zucked. "What Zuckerberg's capitulation means for the truth and our democracy."

Saltwater Could Contaminate 75% of Coastal Freshwater by 2100. "Climate change is wrecking the delicate balance between groundwater and ocean water, according to new research."

The US military is now talking openly about going on the attack in space. ""We have to build capabilities that provide our leadership offensive and defensive options."

‘Unprecedented risk’ to life on Earth: Scientists call for halt on ‘mirror life’ microbe research. "Experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could put humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections."

Indirect death toll from the L.A. fires may end up in the thousands. "The toxic smoke from the fires, combined with disruption to the economy, health care system, and mental health may lead to thousands of deaths over the coming years."

'Cataclysmic' solar storm hit Earth around 2687 years ago, ancient tree rings reveal.  "If this colossal solar storm hit our technologically advanced world the effects would have been devastating."

Battlefield Drones and the Accelerating Autonomous Arms Race in Ukraine. "With both sides in this war rushing to secure a technological advantage, the Ukrainian battlefield is transforming into a clash between conventional forces backed by a growing number of autonomous and remote-controlled systems."

Megadroughts are on the rise worldwide. "One of the most extreme megadroughts has helped fuel California’s wildfires."

On Gaiman

I have been a fan of Neil Gaiman's writing for a long time. I just checked my blog and find references to his work starting around 2004 although most of the early references are to movies based on his books (Mirror Shades and Coraline, for example). I think the first major work of his that I read was American Gods, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The most recent works of his I've read have been The Ocean at the End the Lane and the first half-dozen books of the Sandman series; all of which I liked. 

In the last few months, disturbing allegations about Gaiman's conduct have circulated. I hadn't paid much attention to them but this week New York Magazine published a long article, "There Is No Safe Word" (archive link) by Lila Shapiro that makes clear that Gaiman's genial public persona is a facade; behind it lurks a manipulative sexual predator. 

If you have a strong stomach, read the New York Magazine article in its entirety. It is well researched and I see no reason to doubt its veracity. 

This, of course, raises the issue of separating the artist from their art. In 2017, The Paris Review has published a long article by Claire Dederer, "What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men", which examines that issue in detail, primarily focused on Woody Allen. It's very relevant to what's happening now with Gaiman. 

It's also being reported that there are many similarities between Gaiman's Sandman stories and the work of Tanith Lee. Gaiman has not admitted any influence.

In his Whatever blog, John Scalzi writes about his former friendship with Gaiman and where it stands now. 

Finally, here's Gaimna's response to the New York Magazine article. 

As for myself, I will probably finish reading the Sandman series one of these days,  but with an entirely different perspective, knowing what I now know about Gaimna's character. 

Writing Scripts with Scrivener

I've never had the urge to write a TV or movie script but I've read a few and known that they have special formatting requirements. If I were going to write a script, I'd probably be looking for a tool designed for that purpose, just as I would use a tool designed for documentation, like FrameMaker or Flare, to write a user manual. 

Scrivener is a tool designed for writing fiction that can also be used for scripts and screenplays. This article by Gabriel Gaynor-Guthrie explains the special requirements of scripts and how you can use Scrivener for them. Until I read it, I had no idea about different parts of scripts (like loglines and treatments) or the many other things that would be expected. 

If you're thinking about script writing, this is worth reading, even if you don't plan on using Scrivener. 

Featured Links - January 13, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Birds on the ice

• Why I’m disappointed with the TVs at CES 2025. "Op-ed: TVs miss opportunity for real improvement by prioritizing corporate needs." The enshittification of technology continues. 
• See how a small fire in L.A. turned into a monster, hour by hour (gift link). The speed with which the Palisades fire developed is absolutely terrifying. 
• The Steampunk Explorer's Expanded Calendar Listing. "We maintain a database of approximately 1,200 events that take place each year. In addition to steampunk gatherings, they include science fiction conventions, anime conventions, comic cons, Renaissance fairs, book fairs, and more."
• Why a Canadian director’s documentary on Amazon’s labour unrest is striking a chord. And why you can only watch it until the end of the week on the filmmakers' website. 
• Have a Highly Trustless 2025. "Blockchain, accelerating obsolescence and the perils of writing near-future science fiction." An insightful article by SF author, Karl Schroeder, who discusses the topics in light of his novel, Stealing Worlds. (On my TBR list, and I will probably have a review in a few months). 
• The School Shootings Were Fake. The Terror Was Real. "The inside story of the teenager whose “swatting” calls sent armed police racing into hundreds of schools nationwide—and the private detective who tracked him down." 
• The Physicist Decoding the Nonbinary Nature of the Subatomic World. "Inside the proton, quarks and gluons shift and morph their properties in ways that physicists are still struggling to understand. Rithya Kunnawalkam Elayavalli brings to the problem a perspective unlike many of their peers."
• Linguists Speak Of A New Language Dialect Evolving In The US. "A unique Spanglish cocktail has been emerging in Miami over recent decades."

Photo of the Week - January 12, 2025

Let's continue on with the cat pictures for now. This week's picture is of CJ*, our younger cat. He was a rescue, found by my daughter at the front entrance of Value Village where she was working at the time. He was probably about six weeks old and was left in a box with an opened can of salmon. We brought him home with the intention of taking him to the local animal rescue society, but he ended up staying. Now he's about eight years old and has turned into a lovable and loving member of our family.

CJ

*When we brought him home, we thought he was a she (it is hard to tell with small kittens), so we named him after one of our favourite authors, C. J. Cherryh, who wrote an excellent series of books about the Chanur, a species of feline aliens. 

Saturday Sounds - Bob Weir - Ace (50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)

Bob Weir released his first solo album in 1972. Ace contained eight songs, recorded with members of the Grateful Dead and a few other San Francisco musicians. Seven of the eight songs became part of the Dead's standard repertoire; one was never performed live.

For its 50th anniversary, Weir remixed the album and released it with a recording of a live performance the entire album at Carnegie Hall in 2022. The live album features the Wolf Pack, an expanded version of the Wolf Brothers), Weir's current touring band and the only live performance of "Walk in the Sunshine" (and it's obvious why it was never performed before this). That song aside, the rest of the songs are Dead classics and are given evocative renditions by the full Wolf Pack, horns and all. I particularly like "Black Throated Wind" and the beautiful version of
"Cassidy" that closes out the live album. Enjoy.

Threads versus Bluesky

I set up a Mastodon account (@ksoltys@twit.social) soon after Elon Musk took over Twitter and have been using it happily since. Late last year, I joined Bluesky (@ksoltys.bsky.social) though I still prefer Mastodon. That's largely because of the maturity of Mastodon's feature set and the availability of good third-party Android clients. I currently use the default Mastodon web client but on Android I use Fedilab.

As for Threads, I won't have anything to do with it. I'm trying to reduce my usage of Facebook and I expect it to become less congenial now that Musk has abolished what little fact-checking it has. 

Engadget has published an article comparing Bluesky and Threads that's worth reading if you are considering joining either of the platforms or are already a user. One of the major differences is content moderation. 

"“Moderation is in many ways, like governance,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber told me earlier this year. “And setting the norms of a social space, we don't think one person or one company should be unilaterally deciding that for an entire ecosystem where people are having public conversations important to the state of the world.”

That philosophy plays out in other important ways. Twitter was never a major source of traffic for most publishers, even before Elon Musk’s takeover. But the platform once played a vital role in the news ecosystem. At a time when Elon Musk has acknowledged that X penalizes posts with links and Threads’ top exec has said that Meta doesn’t want to “encourage” hard news, Bluesky’s leaders have actually tried to foster link sharing, and several publishers have reported seeing significantly more traffic from Bluesky, compared with Threads and X."

I do wish Bluesky would give us the option to resume sessions at the last post viewed (an option available in some clients including Fedilab for Android). This makes Bluesky less convenient to use. I will be looking for a good third-party client for Android when I have some spare time. 

For now, I still prefer Mastodon.