Matthew R Francis
@bowlerhatscience.org
Science writer, journalist, physicist, queer, cat man, hat man. I was once @DrMRFrancis on Twitter. He/him
Contact: https://bowlerhatscience.org/contact-social-media/
Toss a coin to your freelancer: https://ko-fi.com/bowlerhatscience
my Trumpist sister-in-law is probably having a hemorrhage right now
Mike Mills says this song is actually about a specific person, but he won't say who for legal reasons, so we can make it about Trump
where's Kendrick
Someone needs to take the reading of those 34 guilty counts and set that shit to a sick beat.
the joeks are good, keep 'em coming, inject 'em directly into my veins
too bad the sentencing date is over a month away, though that might diffuse some of the potential violence. His followers don't have a long attention span.
I mentioned a while ago that I thought he was less problematic than many other "golden age" writers, and someone else sent me an article about it. However, like I said, I didn't save it and don't remember where it was published. If I find it again, I'll share it. Until then, I'm happy letting it go.
Mr. Richards, your conviction
Had us cheering in the kitchen
Now the jury's eating pigeon pie
Tell me, how was prison?
Have they taught you how to listen?
We've begun to breach the schism
Pay attention, pay attention!
OK another draft sent off, good thing the week is just beginning and the day is only half-over
OK I didn't know that about those authors, but I guess based on the text of the ones I read, I'm not shocked?
one thing I appreciate about Herbie Hancock is that if you think a song title is dirty, it almost certainly is
oh yeah that's a great example. (And of course it does help that Miles is dead but R Kelly is not)
this kinda gives vibes of "I don't care how many women he assaulted, I still like his books", which is ... I hope you're not saying?
that's genuinely what worries me. He can't have an important role in the plot. He defies plot.
you know not of what you speak. Tom Boobadil was one of the mascots of early bsky, along with Sexy Alf
BLUUUUUSKYYYYY LOOOOOK (cc @faineg.bsky.social )
Tom Bombadil fans THIS IS YOUR MOMENT!!! THE TIME HAS COME!!!! He WILL be Rings of Power Season 2!!!
reactormag.com/sing-a-tune-...
Sing A Tune! Tom Bombadil Will Be in The Rings of Power Season 2, Played by Rory Kinnear - Reactor
Now do Rhys Darby as Goldberry.
reactormag.commy temptation for stuff like that is to just tinker tinker tinker and hours later I haven't actually made any progress
I have five? six? articles in various stages of researching, writing, editing, or just waiting for publication. I'm often BUSIEST when you haven't seen anything from me in a while.
And all that stuff came about before she decided to make her entire personality hating on trans folks.
that's just garden-variety stupid. Worse stuff: "if you don't find the love of your life in high school, you die alone"; "Dumbledore is the only gay character and him being in love with Grindelwald is his tragic flaw"; antisemitism, bullying, internalized sexism, and defense of torture.
my college band was the Oblique Angels, named for a typo from a professor we shared
What's the worst experience you've ever had with spellcheck not alerting you because you used a correctly-spelled word, but the wrong word?
You can't say public/pubic, that's too easy
yeah I loved the series (with reservations) but was definitely getting over it by the final volume. A lot of the harmful stuff in them definitely makes more sense now.
oh yeah there are so many great weird horror writers around now who are Lovecraft's intellectual descendants but without the problematic stuff. I mean, one of my favorite comics is Hellboy.
my personal take: it really does depend on what the awfulness is, and whether they're still alive and awful. JKR has not only shat the bed but keeps doing it and flinging the products at everyone, so it's easy for me to say "nope nope nope".
oh yeah I was just gonna say The Ballad of Black Tom is an amazing novella, and I want to see a prestige adaptation with John Boyega in the lead role. (Or Daniel Kaluuya, but Boyega deserves to say that final line.)
this is why I've noped out on Lovecraft. I don't care how important he is. He was so friggin' racist that EVEN OTHER RACIST WRITERS of his day told him to tone it down a bit.
"the canon" is arbitrary and flexible. You're not takin' a class. There are no grades.
(joking partly, Éowyn has more screen time and dialog in the movies and books)
Mrs. Maggot, Ioreth, Goldberry (who probably has the most dialog other than Galadriel), Rosie Cotton! Shelob has more screen time than any of the characters they kept, I think.
wireless internet is definitely something a lot of classic sci-fi didn't anticipate
to be clear on this point, *because* we need to acknowledge Tolkien's racism and sexism, I don't blame anyone for noping out on him.
Like, I'm still a fan of Tolkien, but he was hella problematic on gender and race and biological destiny and shit like that. I won't defend him on those grounds! I think it's important to read every story with clear eyes and head.
yep same. (And to be clear, if someone nopes out on Tolkien for reasons, I am not judging)
Oh I agree, I think if anything music is an even stronger example. The problem with discoverability (as you note) mostly lies with record studios, spotify, ticketmaster, etc.
I was trying to praise current writers for being better than the giants of the "golden age", that we don't have to rely on a handful of stories with Black characters by white writers, or a few not-terrible depictions of women by male writers. That was supposed to be my point. I failed at this.
I've deleted my posts because I can't find the source for the assertion. It was an aside to my main point anyway. I regret ever having brought this up, not least because I'm getting piled on now. I apologize for ever saying anything.
yeah my limits are definitely mine. I won't read Asimov ever again, for instance.
(Ironically the Peter Jackson LotR movies had *fewer* female speaking characters than the books! and arguably fewer non-white characters, though that one's a mixed blessing at best)
he has female characters in his stories, but he said he didn't think women were interesting to build stories around. Also, he assaulted lots of women. Lots.
Like, I'm still a fan of Tolkien, but he was hella problematic on gender and race and biological destiny and shit like that. I won't defend him on those grounds! I think it's important to read every story with clear eyes and head.
definitely some truth to that, if you aren't tied to the idea that things just used to be better when you were a kid (or whatever arbitrary era you pick)