Vicky Steeves @vickysteeves@octodon.social

Scholar Social is hosting a free online conference, #SummerSchool !

And we're looking for presenters!

If you're a writer, researcher, formal academic, or anyone with expertise that you'd like to share, presentation spots are 10-15 min long (no formal credentials required, open to people on any Fedi instance, not just scholar.social)

Sign up by 2020 July 12 here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/18CAAtWVJ_zbqMArQWTmcP6VS5I3B_uapnOT-LQU8hVQ/edit

Folks, leave Medium please. That's impossible.

Mastodon: the Musical!

If you can't take me at my Lwaxana Troi, you don't deserve me at my Lieutenant Stamets

OK, boomer.

Microsoft steals name of Linux Desktop project (MauiKit and the Maui distribution) for their project that does the same thing and then blames Linux community for using that name to begin with (which is obvious trademark infringement as they've both had those names for years now). Abusing power over GitHub to then delete any issues on their project related to the name collision and deny they are at fault for ignoring the first search result that comes up for the name Maui.

https://medium.com/@probonopd/microsoft-loves-linux-a-little-too-much-cff91023e4b8

You can tell they are trying to embrace, extend, and extinguish. But with blunders like this and the way their megacorp stooge bosses like to handle it they won't be extending anything.

If I'm ever hiring someone by reviewing their Github profile, I'm going to look through comments that they leave on other projects first.

It tells you a lot more about the person than the code that they list tells you about their skill level.

ActivityPub Conference CFP deadline is TODAY! Get in your proposals folks! We want to hear YOU talk! https://conf.activitypub.rocks/#home

your friendly reminder that a group of crows making plans to meet is technically murderous intent

why the fuck is "the maya mysteriously disappeared" like a thing you hear online in those pseudo science mystery channels??? like, we know where the Maya are, they're in Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize. there's like 6 million people who speak Mayan languages with a clear cultural continuity from like 900ad to modern day through the colonial period. they're right there, you can go talk to them, I'm sure some of them are lovely people

Groan Chomsky

hi fediverse!

back in January, 100000 years ago, I got a chance to talk with @darius about running friend.camp; why hometown, his fork of mastodon, is currently needed to create safer spaces; human-scaled social media; and trust networks and technology, for an interview in @logic.

we just recently released that conversation for free online. check it out!

https://logicmag.io/security/party-at-my-house-darius-kazemi-on-human-scaled-social-media/

me today: why read the bad thing when I can read good things instead?

in the end Tolkien succeeded too well at hiding his true passions (philology, phonetics, lexicology, old real-world manuscripts) in the commercial books at the bequest of publishers. had he been more upfront, he probably would end up as a little-known language artist in the tradition of William Morris, his greatest inspiration.

#tolkien #conlang

This creates something I call the Tolkien hallucinatory effect, where many readers seem to leave th books with the impression that Tolkien is an exceptionally descriptive writer, when in the actual text he's about the least descriptive fantasy writer I've ever seen. He's in fact a master of the lost art of "tell don't show" fiction, leaving the physical details for the imagination. We never find out even what ppl wear in the Middle Earth.

Tolkien was always linguist first, fiction writer third. he didn’t put 10% as much effort in plot or characterisation as he put in language history, English hacking, phonaesthetics.

it's a curious thing that most of the fandom isn't interested in Tolkien's life work at all. I mean it's not curious that few ppl are fascinated by grammar tables and etymological lists; what's curious is that the support objects he made merely to flesh out the languages attracted so much interest.