Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 165

We The Different

I’ve always been a sucker for short stories whose ending can be summed up as “We came from elsewhere, both of us. But we’re one of a kind.”

It’s part of the reason I love Clifford Simak’s Werewolf Principle. Oh, it has a lot of flaws, or perhaps not flaws but things that were part of the time it was written in. But that ending still redeems all of it. In a way, of course, that’s what I was going for with Darkship Thieves. I also love, though at the moment (sinus infection and my nose dr...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Idiots

Years ago, when I blogged more regularly at Classical Values than here, the blog had a post on the current war on things that work.

What things? Well….. everything: from pirex apparently no longer being made with the stuff that made it actually more or less high-temp impervious, hard to break, etc; to dishwashers that take forever to wash, where dishes must be put into already washed and which, even so, often manage a great redistribution of grease and grit all over the dishes;to toilets ...

A Plague Of Madness

This post came with a cover. Kind of. See, When I thought “it’s like we’re living in a seventies novel” this is the cover I saw in my head. The whole thing was done in less than half an hour, with three pictures from pixabay and a run through filter forge.
I just couldn’t come up with a name for the author.
At least if I can invent a time machine, I have a marketable skill…. in the seventies. Though it would be harder to do with cameras and photocopiers. I guess.

Some days ago, Michael Rot...

Let Your Freak Flag Fly

It will tell you something about how I’m feeling this morning (I think it’s allergies again, honest) that I spent considerable time looking at that title and trying to figure out how to make it more alliterative. Which can’t be done, or or at least not politely and without inventing new possessive pronouns, alas.

And yes, I do have far more weighty topics to write about. And a project that must be finished by Friday, and a load of “but I don’t wanna” that I don’t even want to talk about....

Posting late

Finally slept a normal night. Ton of stuff to do. Post might or might not happen. Just letting you know I’m alive.

Have a picture to keep you entertained.

Oh, Please!

I always find myself a little weirded when someone links me for something like a comment I made on facebook, or a blog post, and someone else comes along and says “Oh, I’ve read one or two books of Sarah’s, I think, and she writes the kind of thing she writes very well, but it’s just so girly and not my cup of tea.”

I swear I’ve started like… 20 answers to those, and stopped, staring at the screen. And then I remember the number one maxim: Never argue with readers or potential readers.

...

The Thing And The Whole Of The Thing

We all talk about what happens to an institution, an industry, or for that matter a city when the left seizes control of it. At this point it has happened often enough that we have a term and a meme for it. “Skinsuited” is the theme and this twitter has become a meme.

But what is lost on most people, and in the meme, is this: They don’t mean to kill the thing they seize.

Seriously, trust me on this. They really have no clue what they’re doing will destroy this prized possession th...

Freedom of Speech by LawDog

Freedom of Speech by LawDog

One of the things that has been sticking in my craw recently is the tendency of folks busy deplatforming people for Wrongthink to solemnly intone:  “Freedom of Speech in America has always been restricted.”
Eeh.

Before I get off on a roll, let me first state that I Am Not A Lawyer. I am, at best, a dilettante in the Law — but I can read. Which means that a whole bunch of other folks need to start reading, too.
So.

They are somewhat correct. Some speech has ...

Sunk Costs

Our national moment is mired in sunk costs.

And our sunk costs are much worse than normal because humans live longer than they used to, and, thanks to technology (and the technology that started this was poking a stick into the ground and dropping a seed in it. It’s been building up ever since) history moves faster than it ever has.

Oh, add to that some interesting things, like the fact that we’re drowning in story telling of all kinds (which was bound to happen as soon as we had the t...

A badger among kittens by Denton Salle

A badger among kittens by Denton Salle

Certain stories make the rounds about wild animals that get mistaken for pets.  It can be someone from another country trying to pick up a skunk because it looks like a cat, a coyote or bear cub thought to be a stray dog, or a feral dog left alone with a house cat.  The stories never end well.  Once of the worse I heard (and some of these are true) was a young woman who found a badger cub and thought it a lost kitten so she took it home and put i...