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#sff

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eds@diaspora.glasswings.com
Ed

Some #SFF books I've enjoyed recently (beware, can't guarantee no spoilers):
- Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells (not at all the militaristic fiction the title might suggest - it's funny and humane)
- This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
- the Ancillary trilogy by Ann Leckie
- Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer (massive world full of ideas and perhaps slightly too many characters - I read the first two books then ran out of steam, but still worthwhile)

And how about you - any offers?

#sci-fi #scifi

The Murderbot Diaries – Tor.com

eds@diaspora.glasswings.com
Ed

Hey everyone, I’m #newhere fresh in from pluspora pod. Here's a bit of a copy-pasta intro:

I'm mostly about #retrocomputing and #computerhistory with a bit of #vintagecomputers thrown in. Also #calculators especially #rpn and programmable. I like green spaces and days which not overcast, #space and science and history. I read a fair bit of fiction these days, including #sff. I like languages, both human and computer. I'm from the 70s culturally, 80s technologically but the 60s biologically. I avoid talk of current events. I try to be an ally.

I co-moderate https://retrocomputingforum.com

I am a cat-lover, but one cat at a time. A serial felinophile.

I like #brianeno for his music and his thoughtful writings and funny videos, I write just a little code in #python and #javascript and #assembly and generally spend a lot of time on the internet.

I should mention open source and creative commons too.

Isn't the world a lovely place but in a fine old state though?

Thanks for the invite, @Andrew Pam!

Retro Computing

A museum of all things computational: mechanical, mainframe, mini, micro

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phil_friel@pluspora.com
Phil Friel

#ScienceFiction #sf #sff #SFanthologies

Anyone who knows me knows that I love a good SF anthology. Here’s something that I picked up recently from Amazon UK. The last of the seven-book series the Infinity Project, edited by Jonathan Strahan, it contains a bunch of far-out future tales of just the kind of way-out SF that I love.

There are quite a few of my favourite SF authors in there - Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, Linda Nagata, Peter Watts, Paul McAuley - but also a few writers that I know, but am a lot less familiar with, and a few others that I don’t know at all.

This should be an interesting read.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1781085757/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

phil_friel@pluspora.com
Phil Friel

Hey everyone, I’m #newhere. I’m also technically a #gplusrefugee although, to be honest, I haven’t really been active on G+ for quite a while now, particularly since Google started messing with the platform a while back.

I’ll also make this my #introduction or #presentation thread, so it’s going to be a long one.

My main computer interests are #webdesign #dtp #computerart #computeranimation and #computermusic.

I’m a huge fan of the #opensource #libre aspect of computing, in particular #linux and #bsd. Specific interests in this area are #blender #gimp #inkscape #scribus #archlinux #debian #gentoolinux #manjarolinux #linuxmint #opensuse #sabayon #sabayonlinux #ubuntu #ubuntustudio #freebsd #netbsd and #openbsd.

I’m interested in #music of all kinds, in particular #dancemusic #housemusic #technomusic #trancemusic #soulmusic #discomusic #funkmusic #new-wave #post-punk #punk-rock #punkrock #rockandrollmusic and #rockmusic.

On the geek front, I love #animation #anime #atompunk #rocketpunk and #steampunk, #comics #comics-books and #graphicnovels, #sci-fi of all kinds on television and in film in particular #doctor-who #doctorwho and #star-trek #startrek. I also love reading #sciencefiction #sf #sff #sf&f literature of all kinds, as well as #fanzines based around either sf literature or television and movie sci-fi.

I’m also a big fan of #science, particularly #astronomy #astrophysics #cosmology #spacecraft #spaceflight #spaceexploration #spaceships #terraforming #palaeontology #palaeobotany #geology and #archeology.

Okay, enough of that. Why am I here?

As I’ve said, I haven’t been active on G+ for a while now. Likewise with Twitter. My current main social networking activity is still on Facebook, although I’m also trying to scale that back quite a bit, until it is eventually at a minimal level. I don’t really like Facebook (either as a social network or as a corporation), despite the fact that I use it almost every day. I merely tolerate it, as that is where “everybody” is hanging out. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to totally drop Facebook, as all my family, friends and most of my general contacts are on there (and are highly unlikely to move here or anywhere else), so I’m still kinda chained to that platform, although I’d like to be on there a lot less, and do my serious social networking on a superior open social platform.

In the wake of the recent disgraceful Facebook privacy/data scandal and the announced planned closure of Gplus, I’ve decided to go on the hunt for another social networking platform to make my permanent home, preferably something not owned by a corrupt mega-corporation. So far I haven’t tried very many in depth, three or four at most, and only given a cursory look at a number of others and dismissed them right away. To be honest, most of what’s out there doesn’t really grab me at all. I’ve set up an account on #MeWe, which I quite like (it resembles G+ quite a lot, but with less activity, for now at least), but there isn’t a lot of life on my feed over there yet. I also set up an account on #Minds a year or so ago, but I’ve never really used it.

There are other, similar networks out there, but all of them are pretty much variations on the same centralised theme, the new pretenders to the throne wanting to be the next big social networking thing and all of them claiming that our data and privacy will be totally safe in their hands, unlike with evil ol’ Facebook and Google. But they all say that, don’t they, at least until they get really big themselves, and turn into huge, greedy, profit-guzzling monsters? Remember how open Google was when it started out, built on open software, and all for the libre side of things? And look at them now, totally gone over to the Dark Side.

Many of these companies turn bad when they hit it big, even if they’re nice guys at the outset, starting off small and with the best of intentions. But once they get really big, it’s in the nature of big, powerful corporations to push the legal and ethical limits and throw their enormous weight around, all in the pursuit of profit. People mean nothing to them. We’re all nothing but numbers on a balance sheet from their perspective.

For a change, I’d really like to try something that is GENUINELY open and free, federated and decentralised, rather than owned by one company, without the claws of any huge corporations embedded deep in it, and not subject to the profit-driven whims of those corporations, abusing our data and privacy, changing stuff on us willy-nilly, getting rid of features and (in the case of Google) entire platforms, if they aren’t making them enough money, and dumping untold thousands of users and their online social networking communities on the scrapheap. I’ve really had enough of that crap. These companies do not DESERVE our support, and should be avoided like the plague.

So here I am, taking my first steps on Pluspora/Diaspora, with a truly free, open, decentralised network. I’ll try to stick with this one, as it’s a lot closer to my own philosophical leanings, although so far I’m finding it quite a culture shock, being more accustomed to the more rigidly structured platforms on Facebook and G+, with their Pages, Groups, Communities, etc. I guess I’ll eventually get used to the way there is none of that stuff on here and how absolutely everything is controlled by hashtags.

I’m genuinely attracted to the platform, as the #opensource #libre ethos is much closer to my own personal beliefs and sympathies. I can conceivably see myself using Pluspora/Diaspora at some point for all of my serious geek social networking, with Facebook relegated to keeping me in contact with family and friends. Only time will tell. :)