Links: Apocalypse meh and more
Some fun stuff I've read recently. I'd like to post more links but I can feel weird about it - which I need to get over. So here we are.
The Great Myth of Empire Collapse making the "civilisation ending is good, actually" case. Plays into a sense of history I love: regular people just doing their thing. Also, what felt apocalyptic to The Powers That Be was in fact simply equality. Hm! Sounds familiar!
The story of collapse has emerged via the point of view of its greatest victims: the 1 per cent, the most wealthy and powerful merchants, politicians, and priests of the past.
I recommend looking at all the iNaturalist observations sorted by favorites is exactly the sort of thing I love. Similarly, I've been on the Megalithic Portal a lot recently, a great big database of prehistoric sites.
A glorious reading life, 3599 books later for reading inspiration and a reminder this is a lifelong project.
8,800 words and ten emulators go into Frame of preference A history of Mac settings, 1984–2004 via Robin Sloan. My enduring hatred of Macs endures still but I love this.
On making friends as an adult is something I think about a lot. Socially, like loneliness and atomising society etc, and personally.
One issue, I think, is the expectation of what we do as adult friends. 'Getting dinner' is the example. Or... we could have a games night. Walk round the park. One of my favourite things to do is just run errands together. Everyone has to run errands. Why not do them together? That's more keeping, rather than making. This became its own post: Friends? Friends 20th August 2025
Re-presenting the People: 'A practice based investigation envisioning the hidden history of the Portsmouth Suffragist movement explored through the lens of visual communication design.' Scrolling through some history.
After I complained about quotes, there's this, with Mr Quote Investigator himself: Einstein didn't say that. Also, I said I didn't really know what autofiction / creative non-fiction / etc is, and then read James Joyce already solved the autofiction 'problem' and links, so that I'm not much clearer but now know it is contentious.
I'm sad I didn't do the Appendix N jam (I read, I buy) but there's an Appendix N blogwagon and Advantage on Arcana wrote The AOA Fiction Bookshelf. (I'm doing the Cassette Case jam and bought some cases from the charity shop today.)
Top tier trolling from Truther Press. I'm stealing 'unintentionally non-profit'.
I know everyone knows compost.party, the solar-powered smartphone server. I've been looking at it again, thinking about it in wrong ways. Like a site about my compost or what it could power or having a fun server with friends.