Hey Did You Know I Keep A Google Drive Folder With Linguistics And Language Books  that I Try To Update

thinking about creatures.

boss battle

phase 2

HEY!

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this is one of the few places dead dove writers/illustrators have to post our content, which is NOT illegal, immoral, or a threat to society. however, CENSORSHIP IS.

if you have the opportunity to vote, PLEASE TAKE IT.

KEEP AO3 WONDERFUL! THANKS!

Getting ready for the show!!

intruder!!!

I just had the most awful connection

>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.

>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.

>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.

>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.

>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.

>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.

>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.

>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!

>Lemmings problem now solved.

>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.

>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.

>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.

>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.

>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.

>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.

Newish reader but I've been loving your work SO MUCH, and subsequently craving more of that brand of story-feels. So a) THANK YOU for writing and for sharing your work, it is SO LOVELY, and b) do you uh... do you have any random book recs? (Already looked through your list of fic bookmarks on ao3.) (P.S. Thank you again, your found family feels are so *chef's kiss* good, and your reluctant or not-so-reluctant dad!characters are all SUCH GOOD DADS.)

Do I have book recs

DO I EVER

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell: we pick up an alien song coming from a nearby star. While governments debate what to do, the Jesuits fund an expedition. Do NOT look up plot summaries, it is way too easy to get spoiled on this one. Beautiful writing, vividly human humans, alien-yet-understandable aliens. Trigger warning: rape.

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff: 1960s America. A black family deals with racism and Eldritch horrors, and fucking kills it. Sometimes literally. Trigger warning: people being racist assholes. Author is African American themselves, and the black characters have hella agency. Also Lovecraft-typical horror.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: who wants to read about a plague apocalypse during a plague apocalypse? THIS GIRL. Trigger warnings: implied rape, some underage, and lots of death. NOT a grimdark apocalypse though.

Everything by Ted Chiang. Short story writer, most famous for "Story of your life", which the movie Arrival is based on. "Understand" and "Exhalation" are also amazing, and his work is pretty easy to find online. This dude. This dude is my role model. No particular trigger warnings.

Anything by Neil Gaiman, he's famous enough I doubt I need to elaborate. No particular trigger warnings unless you pick up the Sandman graphic novels (highly recommended), and then All The Trigger Warnings, especially in volume one.

Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker: who likes novels about dinosaurs written by actual paleontologists? DEFINITELY THIS GIRL. I went through a phase in childhood where I read this thing pretty much everyday. Still holds up as an adult. Trigger Warnings: it's about nature, things die and/or get eaten lots.

The Last Whales by Lloyd Abbey: another childhood favorite that in retrospect was Not For Children. The apocalypse, from the point of view of whales. Trigger warning: hopeful ending, but RL-typical Humans Being Awful To Oceans. And it is an apocalypse story, plus a nature story, so. Things die. Things get eaten. Orcas are dicks.

The Mote in God's Eye by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven: ridiculously engaging first contact book. Also who the heck was letting me pick books as a child? (No one, that's who. I was an INDEPENDENT THIRD GRADER and you COULDN'T STOP ME. ...Except from reading Moby Dick, which definitely got me mocked too much in the classroom so I didn't get past chapter one until adulthood.) I read this in like, sixth grade, I do not accurately recall trigger warnings.

Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals: autobiography of one of the Little Rock Nine. Trigger Warnings: All The Racism. That's kind of the point.

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates: short story, easy to find, had a ridiculous impact upon my childhood and writing for a story I didn't read until adulthood (my mom read it long ago in college, and told me of a man in ill-fitting boots that might or might not have been hiding cloven hooves. This was a Very Influential Image.) Recommender Chose Not To Apply Trigger Warnings. Nothing graphic.

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu: another short story that you can have LeVar Fucking Burton read to you, it is so soothing. PS LeVar Burton (of Star Trek TNG and Reading Rainbow fame) has a podcast. He reads you stories. You should be listening. No particular trigger warnings.

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle: in which a black writer has WAY too much fun deconstructing the magical negro trope and the inherent racism in Lovecraft's writing and I am HERE for it. The malicious glee in this book is top notch. Same warnings as for Lovecraft Country.

Ursula K. Le Guin, everything. My first intro to her was Earthsea, she's also quite famous for The Left Hand of Darkness. Google by book for warnings.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle: had your heart broken by the movie as a child? Prepare to be good-hurt in EVEN MORE WAYS! No particular warnings.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill: it's just nice and I like it okay? No particular warnings.

My wrist hurts from swiping and I'm at the end of my history in Libby and there is a baby sleeping on me so I can't go upstairs and look at my bookshelf, so this list is complete. Return to me when you need more.

look

- what the fuck

Cursed atla au: everything is the same except the fire lord is gordon ramsay

I’M SCREAMING WHO SENT THIS

She's a woman on a Mission™

See there's a lot of things with far more nuance that can be said about Faye's multifaceted, cornerstone role in the narrative but I just like the idea that she could've been hella down with pulling a double triple sneaky flip-around and indirectly save the world by affectionately tricking her future hubby into healing from his traumas and growing into the revered hero she already knows he'll be

Like she's just watching him clown being a stubborn ass already knowing his love and growth are inevitable like mhm mhm you done with your tantrum yet love? No? Aight ten more minutes <3