Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 44

In The Receding Mists

Every time a visit to Portugal looms, I find myself struggling internally. And I have to ask myself what is wrong with me.

Don’t get me wrong. Part of it is traveling. I despise travel and the further away I have to go the harder it is to psyche myself for it.

Yes, even cons. Years ago — I think now my grumpy nature is better understood — when I was writing six books (tradpub which is always more work/time consuming than indie books) a year, and driving the kids around, etc, friends us...

This Is The Year Of the White Rabbit (Reprise)

I don’t remember chasing no rabbit, or falling down a rabbit hole, and my name for certain sure isn’t Alice. (I changed that!)

So how in the name of that is holy and unholy did I find myself in a world in which the United Arab Emirates — the United Arab Emirates, land of medieval oligarchs in robes — are coming down on the side of free speech against a Western Country: Liberté, égalité, FAFO-ité.

And speaking of France, there is this: We’re now 48 days afterwards and Macron and his g...

The State of the Writer

First, points of order relating to the recent fundraiser: We have now cashed all checks received. If we didn’t cash yours, we didn’t receive it.

This relates to being asked by someone what happened to a check last year which was never cashed. If not cashed, it wasn’t received.

We know some checks disappear into the ether because a check from a supporter who has since become a fan disappeared in the first fundraiser. Since it was substantial, she contacted me, and we’ve since become fri...

Why Don’t You Come Back to the War

Yesterday I stumbled on this post by Devon Eriksen on Twittex.

For those who don’t wish to follow through, he claims there were no real fat people in the fifties/sixties, when mothers cooked for their families, etc. It’s one of the those things of “he’s right and wrong” because he’s much younger than I and I can assure him the having home cooked meals was not universal, or even close to it, food was already processed by the time people bought it to use as ingredients, and there were inde...

Memeing Out Loud

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If The Worst Happens

When I was little, living where I lived, we notionally had electrical power.

Notionally because it was often more in default than not. Meaning that the electrical power was almost exclusively used for light, and that the light as such we would now here, and probably there, consider grossly inadequate (sixty watt naked light bulb in the middle of a huge room,for instance) and it went down all the time, on the regular.

It particularly went down during summer, not because of air condition...

My Brain is Missing

My brain is probably under the sofa with the cats. Look, it’s been a very weird week. So weird that “dealing with cleaning up and fixing basement flood” is a minor inconvenience and definitely not the one that’s making it hard for me to sleep and eat.

As usual, if you’re the praying kind, keep me and mine in your prayers.

Meanwhile, yes, I like messing around with AI art, and so, there follow a few visual prompts for you to play with. Or not. I’m not the boss of you.

I just need a day t...

The Illusion of Control

A lot of people here are older than I, but even I remember the ethos I grew up with: the idea that top people rose to top positions, and that “experts” in the government knew what was going on and could forecast how things should be done, and what to do for “progress.”

I never put much faith in it, but that’s probably both because of a problem with authority (A very small problem. I neither like it nor trust it. While understanding not all authority is bad, and that it’s impossible for me...

Let There Be LIght

A Guest Post by Orvan Taurus of https://elegantungulate.wordpress.com/

Alternative/Kerosene Lighting
Chances are a good many already know all this, but not everybody does. Also, a reminder
won’t hurt. And it’s not like I know everything, so maybe comments will provide some (pardon) enlightenment.

First, yes, electric light is superior when available. There’s no fuel that can spill, no vapors
that can explode, and the convenience of switches. Even backup, for dealing with a blackout, elect...

When The Psyops Breaks

I read somewhere that Obama had authorized our three letter agencies to run psy-ops on American soil.

If true — I’m not sure how one does that precisely, or why no one made a big stink about it at the time — that is not an admission they’ve got more powerful, but that they’ve got weak enough to need to use the apparatus of state for their gaslighting.

Because the gaslighting was going on before. Just more efficiently. Things like, oh, remember when they convinced the world that Ford,...