swan-tower.wandering.shop.ap.brid.gy - Profile | ThreadSky

"Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!" the entire point of that idiom was that you can't, it's straight-up impossible "Just one bad apple" . . . spoils the rest of the barrel; it's the opposite of an isolated problem Any other idioms we've gotten completely backwards?

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

Today we yet again learn the lesson of "why did I put that off for so long; it wasn't even hard."

submitted 27 days ago • 0 comments

Can anybody rec me a good cross-cultural look at ghost traditions around the world?

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

One of my grad school folklore professors taught us outdated schools of theory by having us apply them to modern pop culture. (My group did Buffy + solar mythology. It was laughably easy.) If I taught English, I'd be seriously tempted to do something akin to this with Shakespeare. (1/6)

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

Subscribing to @morningtransport.bsky.social will let you read my newest story, the short and vicious science fantasy "The Poison Gardener"! https://www.sundaymorningtransport.com/p/the-poison-gardener

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

Tonight's portmanteau: The Monkey King and I . . . which I now want to read; somebody please write that

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

“Show, don’t tell.” “Murder your darlings.” “Write every day.” I'm taking on the old saws of writing advice in THE WRITER'S LITTLE BOOK OF PLATITUDES: their origins, intent, pitfalls, and applications, all in one bite-sized ebook! […]

submitted 50 days ago • 1 comment

“Show, don’t tell.” “Murder your darlings.” “Write every day.” I'm taking on the old saws of writing advice in THE WRITER'S LITTLE BOOK OF PLATITUDES: their origins, intent, pitfalls, and applications, all in one bite-sized ebook! […]

submitted 50 days ago • 1 comment

Tonight's imponderable: Why upbraiding, but no downbraiding?

submitted 53 days ago • 0 comments

"I don't believe in it anyway." "What?" "English." "Just a conspiracy of lexicographers, then?"

submitted 54 days ago • 0 comments

Any recommendations for habit gamification apps? I used to use Habitica but it became too old hat to motivate me anymore; lately I've been using TaskHero, but the devs have been revamping the design in ways that make it grindier and less rewarding, and so I'm thinking of jumping ship. I don't […]

submitted 55 days ago • 0 comments

Fantasy: Here is our very clear-cut mythology for this world Real mythology: Hercules, Mr. Strong Man Rage Issues of Greek lore, founded the University of Salamanca in Spain because he wanted everybody to study the liberal arts

submitted 61 days ago • 0 comments

It makes me so sad that our shitbag president has made trans people feel like they can’t safely come to Seattle for worldcon. I get it, I do, and can’t promise it’s safe of course, no one can. But Seattle is at least as trans-friendly as any place I can think of in Canada or the UK.

submitted 67 days ago • 0 comments

I've now seen several people, trusted sources of information about #COVID, dramatically misrepresent the CDC's new wastewater baselining methodology The misinformation has to stop. This page explains what they are doing: https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/about-data.html#wastewater If you don't […]

submitted 73 days ago • 1 comment

This is the #Öldämmerung thread. While the word means the twilight of oil, the thread includes evidence of the structural decline of coal, #OilAndGas. I offer it as an antidote to my #TrumpDepression thread. To start: Oil products are what's burned in ICE […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

submitted 78 days ago • 1 comment

There are worse principles by which to live your life than "be the person Mr. Rogers believed you could be."

submitted 79 days ago • 0 comments

There are worse principles by which to live your life than "be the person Mr. Rogers believed you could be."

submitted 79 days ago • 0 comments

So, this has been in the works for a while, arguably most of last year. I intend to transfer my personal ownership of the Mastodon trademarks and assets, incl. copyright over my code, to the Mastodon non-profit, and transition to a different role at the organization.

submitted 79 days ago • 34 comments

“Now all the passenger vehicles for sale in its showroom are electric (EV). "We think it's wrong to advise a customer coming in here today to buy an ICE [internal combustion engine] car, because the future is electric," says chief executive Ulf Tore Hekneby, as he walks around the cars on […]

submitted 79 days ago • 0 comments

We've all got a friend like this. Yes, even you -- how do I know? Because you're reading this message. https://www.swantower.com/2025/01/09/our-toxic-friend/

submitted 83 days ago • 0 comments

Having ChatGPT write your class essay is like paying for a personal trainer at a gym and then having a robot lift the weights for you.

submitted 106 days ago • 0 comments

Sunday Morning Transport is following in Icelandic tradition (Jólabókaflóðið) by making some 2024 stories free to read! Check out these gifts . . . https://www.sundaymorningtransport.com/p/year-of-shrines https://www.sundaymorningtransport.com/p/becoming […]

submitted 107 days ago • 0 comments

Today's sanity maintenance rec: Practice noticing and appreciating the small pleasures and beauties you encounter, however tiny. A sip/bite of something tasty, a pleasing texture, a nice color of car, the feel of a good stretch. Anything that gives you a brief lift. I've seen these referred to […]

submitted 114 days ago • 0 comments

LISTEN UP KETTLES, A POT IS TALKING (actual sentence uttered in my household today)

submitted 123 days ago • 0 comments

"I was about to make carb snausages when I realized we still had some of the bread baby" -- my household has given up on calling food items by their proper names

submitted 127 days ago • 1 comment

I started to pour hot water into the mug and then realized I hadn't yet put in any tea and yeah, that basically sums up the state of my brain today

submitted 131 days ago • 0 comments

What organizations out there are working to counter the effects of Fox News and the general enXittering of facts and discourse? Who's looking for ways to improve communication and public knowledge, that I could be supporting with donations or volunteer work?

submitted 134 days ago • 0 comments

Look, I 100% understand the schadenfreude at Trump voters suddenly feeling buyer's remorse. I really, really do. But if we want to hold the line now and win the next round, we have got to find a way to welcome those people to our side, not mock them back to where they came from.

submitted 134 days ago • 0 comments

"Here’s the thing with people like Kodos: they never break their own eggs." Or, interrogating the hidden message of a thought experiment. https://medium.com/@GregPogorzelski/the-thing-about-the-kobayashi-maru-4d5e1e49993e

submitted 135 days ago • 1 comment

Leaving aside Trespasser (which is the real ending of Inquisition and ripped my heart out to boot), I think #Veilguard may have my favorite ending of the four #DragonAge games. For once, it doesn't feel like the story ends before the boss fight.

submitted 136 days ago • 1 comment

We ride again! I'm collaborating once more with @alychelms , this time on a historical fantasy: THE SEA BEYOND, set in Golden Age Spain, where the map becomes the territory and cosmographers are the architects of reality, conquering the mystical islands of the Otherworld. Hard at work on the […]

submitted 142 days ago • 0 comments

We ride again! I'm collaborating once more with @alychelms , this time on a historical fantasy: THE SEA BEYOND, set in Golden Age Spain, where the map becomes the territory and cosmographers are the architects of reality, conquering the mystical islands of the Otherworld. Hard at work on the […]

submitted 142 days ago • 0 comments

I am #ISO someone familiar with Sephardic Jewish scholarly thought to help me figure out how [fantasy concept] would be fitted into that view of the world. (The Sephardic part is important, because I know it differs from Ashkenazi tradition.) Signal boosts appreciated!

submitted 145 days ago • 0 comments

If it helps, think of self-care as an act of defiance. There are people who want you to despair, to give up. Getting enough sleep, eating well, getting exercise, getting sunlight (especially as we head into winter) -- these say, I'm not going to let you make me lie down and quit.

submitted 145 days ago • 0 comments

Don't forget to keep laughing at the fascists. Oppose their actions too, sure. But a chunk of their power still rests -- will always rest -- on a foundation of fear. Tear that down. Laugh, don't cower.

submitted 146 days ago • 0 comments

They're the tiniest, most fragile things, but with patience, with determination, they push against the weight of the dirt, they worm their way through the gaps, to reach the light. We can -- we MUST -- do the same.

submitted 147 days ago • 0 comments

Right now on my desk there is a little pot of sunflower seedlings that are juuuuust starting to poke their way up out of the soil. This turns out to be exactly the day I need to watch life grow.

submitted 148 days ago • 0 comments

Yeah, so, nobody is paying attention to book releases today, and for good reason. But if you want a distraction, THE WRITER'S LITTLE BOOK OF NAMING is a tiny but deep dive into how naming (characters, places, things) can subtly deepen your worldbuilding! […]

submitted 148 days ago • 0 comments