There's so much in the world to see and to learn!

Reading List

Every time someone recommends me something, I say, "I'll put it on the list." At various points in time there's even been a real list! All such things are lost to time in the end, but hey, hope springs eternal! Maybe this time it'll work!

I think this page might end up with several scrollable boxes, each with a type of reading list. Not sure what the categories should be, or if there should be sub-categories. Might be tables, based on that fic reading list I made in excel?

But for sure we'll have a section (or several??) for readings I liked enough to want to save. To bookmark, if you will. And for that list, I have a link or two already!

Cool stuff I want to save

  • Rewarding activity. On pleasure, which is made up of both what is fun and what is rewarding, and on what that looks like in practice.
  • The First Hard Choice, on eating the lotus – on addictions, and cults, and the impossible endless task of moderation.
  • Jiminy Cricket Must Die. You know that quote from Brennan about how emotions precede politics? This is a short essay on what to do about that, when it comes to your own beliefs and resultant actions.
  • The Good War, an article on The Nib about how nostalgia for WWII was leveraged into a war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • On Conscientious Noncompliance
  • Martha Gellhorn, war correspondent par excellence and Hemingway's third wife

Articles that look interesting

Exactly what it says on the tin. I'm hoping I'll get through these slightly faster like this than I do when they're just sitting around in open tabs. At least this way I know where to look for them.

Other things that look interesting

  • some cool games about how societies work, for better and for worse
  • Album of the Day – a site that gives you one funky niche album per day to expose you to music you might not otherwise encounter. this is one person's personal project, in their quest to encounter cool new music, and all albums are suggested by random internet strangers.
  • potato recipe

Do Something Good

Ok this part isn't actually a reading list, it's just I have to put this kind of link somewhere or I'll just keep the tab open for ten years and never actually remember it's there. So I'm hoping this will be a good place for it.

  • One Simple Wish – a site where you can donate to buy something nice for a foster child, thereby granting one simple wish for someone.
  • The Moses West Foundation produces machines that make water out of thin air, and it's a charitable nonprofit aiming to get those machines in places with water shortages.
  • The Navajo Water Project, bringing running water to Navajo families

Stuff to show people

Show my parents

Dracula Daily meta

So you know Dracula Daily? I tried so hard to get into that. I really did. I love the concept, the book seems cool – but I just can't keep up with serially updating media. I just can't do it! Doesn't matter what the media is, it's just never worked. So I've tried twice now, and both times I've tagged out before we even got halfway through May. But hope springs eternal, and the book is cool. So when I come across an interesting post about Dracula, I don't super want to read it and get spoiled, but I also don't want to lose it.

So I'm just going to save it all here. In the interests of – you guessed it – not leaving it in a tab somewhere, gathering dust.

Other meta

You know what, Dracula isn't the only thing I haven't finished but do intend to

Stories online

Exactly what it says on the tin.

  • A Voice In The Night – comic about a voice off the side of a ship at night. feels like an old-fashioned ghost story; set in maybe the 1800s? a comic in four parts, the first quite good.

Webcomics

  • Crow Time! (it's those two crows that hang out in a fantasy world, very round simple style, fun little stories)

Things to look into sometime

  • Nellie Bly was an absolute badass investigative reporter
  • There are a couple games about the nonsense phrase "the gostak distims the doshes" that have to do with puzzling out...well, not a whole language, but essentially learning a ton of new words in the way you pick up a language through hanging out around native speakers. This one is an interactive fiction game I can play online. They do advise trying a few other interactive fiction games first, to get a feel for the structure, what kinds of things I'm expected to type in response to things, etc.

Miscellaneous Resources

Books!

  • Battle of the Linguist Mages, a sci-fi fever trip about a VR video game ace who learns the magic of power words in the midst of a wizard revolution in future California. Also, aliens are invading.
  • Textiles: The Whole Story by Beverly Gordon, on the history of textiles all the way back to the beginning.
  • Sorceror to the Crown by Zen Cho, historical fantasy Regency romance, recced in an article about the evolution of Regency Romance as an example of a book working hard to have all the tropey fun of the genre without the bigotry.
  • The Duke Who Didn't, recced in that same article
  • A novella called Hammers On Bone, recced by Gabe here