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"I haven't felt like myself for years now."
"Good ol' Charlie B" is a sad-and-sweet, talky comic by Marina Kittaka taking place years after the events of Peanuts: "half essay, half tribute to visiting old friends". A text-only version is available. "Yeah. I've been having a hard time, just. Figuring out where to go from here. Trying to piece something together that actually... feels like a life." Kittaka has also written about art and community and co-option, noting, "to practice my philosophy I must learn to be okay with people not getting it, to stop fighting to stay legible and correct-feeling in everybody's mind."
Remote accountability, body doubling, cafe/church sounds, & camaraderie
MeFi's own The Wrong Kind of Cheese covers five methods for getting accountability, including partners, groups, professionals, apps/gadgets, and events, then discusses flow and distractibility and and links to several ambient noise and faux sounds-of-colleagues websites. Also, the BBC covers Focusmate, Caveday, RemoteWorkmates, and the general phenomenon of sites to facilitate remote videocalls with strangers. Author Courtney Milan has been finding Focusmate extremely useful -- and it reconnected her with an old friend!
"'Is this everything you will be trading in?' I ask. "
"Retriever" by Stephen Kearse is a short science fiction story about an employee of the United States Federal Gun Retrieval Agency: "I’m an agent of the 28th Amendment, the abolition of the 2nd." Published October 2020.
US tech company hiring and decarceration
"What I learned going from prison to Python" by Shadeed "Sha" Wallace-Stepter: "Total strangers with a very different background and life from my own had connected the dots in a way that led to me learning to code." One of those strangers was engineering leader Jessica McKellar, who speaks at tech conferences to ask: "Mass Decarceration: If We Don’t Hire People With Felony Convictions, Who Will?"
Grieving, loss, futility, diaspora, and broken connections
Two melancholy short scifi and fantasy stories, new this year, about grieving the loss of parents. "Comments on Your Provisional Patent Application for an Eternal Spirit Core" is by Wole Talabi: "So you’ve been using the money they left us to develop this thing?" "All Worlds Left Behind" is by Iona Datt Sharma: "I, uh, used to come here with my dad? I don't speak the language as well as he did."
"Fill World With Gentleness"
Hitoshi Yasui makes music as "chair house", and is currently working on the "Piano Ten Thousand Leaves Project" (Soundcloud). Each day, chair house improvises, records, and uploads an original piano composition. They're generally quiet and gentle pieces. He started the project in 2014, and aims to create 4,536 songs in total to match an 8th century anthology of Japanese poetry. If he stays on track, he will finish in mid-2026.
"The heuristics I can substitute are incomplete"
Beth Andres-Beck writes about hir experiences as a dyslexic programmer. (This post is from 2014.) Zie says: "I believe that in some ways dyslexia makes me a better programmer." and "It is hard to explain my intuitive, aesthetic sense of good code, such as when polymorphism would simplify a method. The heuristics I can substitute are incomplete, flawed reflections of the generative principles that motivate them and people who like rules tend to reject them when they can think of counter-examples. I rely on metaphor and examples a lot, because they have proven more effective at translating my thoughts into something other people can understand."
"to reshape our sense of ourselves and our societies across generations"
"The culture has given up on the novel as a central art in part because we’ve given up on metaphysical stakes: It has to matter to the universe, or it won’t long matter to us." says Joseph Bottum in a conversation with Phil Klay about whether the novel is in decline, on Pairagraph (a set of structured conversations). Klay replies: "as long as humans need not only a metaphysics but also a sense of belonging in structures larger than ourselves, whether those be communities or churches or nations, humans will seek out those art forms that help us to knit together our disparate, broken solitudes." Even if the topic doesn't particularly interest you, you may find Bottum's introduction funny; I laughed out loud.
Ways to research the modern and ancient worlds
Historian Bret Devereaux (previously) discusses "the nature of our evidence for the ancient world and its limitations". Programmer Hillel Wayne asks: "why do interviewers like to ask linked list questions?" and uses that question as an example of some ways to research the history of the software industry.
"A more accurate retelling of my own story could include..."
"When somebody asks me how I got to where I am, there are a few words I use generously: luck, serendipity and kind people. .... But that mythology I find myself trying to build up is probably harmful to others as well as myself." Zara Rahman (previously) thinks about the work she's done to make career success more likely, and how eliding those efforts in her narratives of "how I got to where I am" is "charming, but not threatening. It’s also an incredibly gendered approach to talking about myself." and says, "I want to be more fair to myself, and to others, about the stories I tell myself."
better machine readability for knowledge
Wikidata is "Wikipedia's not so little sister": "a free and open knowledge base that can be read and edited by both humans and machines." Wikidata aims to be "accessible to everyone in their language without privileging any particular language by design". Also: "A lot of technology today is trying to simplify the world by hiding necessary complexity and nuance. Conflicting worldviews need to be surfaced. Otherwise we take away people’s ability to talk about, understand, and ultimately resolve their differences. Wikidata is striving to change that by not trying to force one truth but by collecting different points of view with their sources and context intact. This additional context can, for example, include which official body disputes or supports which view on a territorial dispute."
"This is going to make a big mess!"
Liz Henry made a coronavirus piñata and cheerfully details how you can too. "All the diagrams of the shape of the virus that I’ve seen have a round shape with at least 3 different sizes of 'protein spikes' coming out from the middle, with each kind being a different height. Each spike has an extra bit on top like a flat top or a sort of flower shape. This is not too hard to make, but doing the 'protein spikes' was a little bit of a challenge."
"Love those who love you"
"Blessed are the proactive, for they shall achieve success. Blessed are the cheerful, for when you laugh, the whole world laughs with you. Blessed are the assertive, for they shall win friends and influence people." is the start of one "reading from the Gospel according to the GOP." For Lent, artist and writer Tealin (who is a Christian) is posting each day to "tell the Bible stories as if they had been written about the version of Jesus that Republicans seem to believe in". Her satirical series inverts the wedding at Cana, the Prodigal Son, turning the other cheek, the birth of Jesus, the lilies of the field, the woman caught in adultery, and more.
"an empty crib and a raven with a scroll in its beak"
"I am concerned that you did not receive my previous missive, although my raven reports that you took the letter and appeared to read it." "The Ransom of Miss Coraline Connelly" by Alix E. Harrow, an epistolary short story published last year in Fireside. Content note [spoiler, so, in extended description].
Making it easier for published scientists to change their names
Science said last month: "Today we are pleased to announce a seamless, discreet procedure that authors can follow to change their names in previously published papers across the Science family of journals. We join multiple other publishers that have adopted similar initiatives, including the American Chemical Society, Public Library of Science, Royal Society of Chemistry, and Wiley. Authors may have occasion to change their names for various reasons, but recent outreach by, and on behalf of, transgender scientists has impressed upon us the importance of respecting authors’ privacy and autonomy in correcting the scientific record."
"You hear whatever’s scheduled for that moment."
Mike Pennisi built a "magic radio": "Years ago, I had this idea for a gimmicky MP3 player. It wouldn’t have a screen or any buttons; instead, it would play music and podcasts on a pre-defined schedule. I’d build it into an antique radio so that using it might feel a little like listening to an authentic radio station." The project has given Pennisi "a better appreciation of how friction can enhance an interaction". Source code and tips for getting started are available.
"No Ocean for Young Women" by Anat Deracine
An essay on learning to surf, on a career as a woman in technology, and on people helping each other: "when someone spreads a myth (such as, perhaps, a half-baked theory about biological predisposition towards shark attacks or software engineering), it acts like an oil spill. It can only be cleaned up to a certain extent. The damage has already been done." Deracine previously on MetaFilter.
"I lived here, I loved here, I thought it was true"
"I studied code because I wanted to do something great like you / And the real tragedy is half of it was true.... If only you could be what you pretend you are." Via Casey Fiesler (who used it as background music for a TikTok video recommending books about tech ethics): "Rät", a song by Penelope Scott "on the promise, failure, and disappointment of technology" and about complicity and vulnerability, available on the album "Public Void". Analysis by Fiesler. "When I said take me to the moon, I never meant take me alone / I thought if mankind toured the sky, it meant that all of us could go / But I don't want to see the stars if they're just one more piece of land / For us to colonize, for us to turn to sand." Lyrics on Genius.
"what I was really doing, was *hiding*."
"This is a process for me, and I don’t have it totally figured out." Crystal Martin writes about withdrawing and "dimming her light", professional skills and personality, and things we tell ourselves we're doing. "I’m not one to cry in front of people, and most of the mean things people say to me don’t really matter, but what I’ve found…especially in my first year as a developer, is that I fall apart…I mean I…CRACK when someone questions my intellect." (Essay is from 2019 and is on Medium. Please also note the postscript which contextualizes the anecdote at the start of the piece.)
The Story I Like To Tell About My Father
Charlie Jane Anders writes movingly about the end of her father's life, his dementia, and how he came to accept her transition.
"But why limit yourself to modern swear words."
Vu Le writes "21 tips to make getting back to work this week more bearable". "5. List out stuff you’re grateful for. It’s important to remind ourselves regularly of our blessings. Make a list of five things you’re grateful for. That feels great, right? That’s a lot of emotional progress. Go ahead and take the rest of the day off from work." His blog, Nonprofit AF (previously), frequently features satirical takes on life working in the nonprofit/NGO sector (previously), such as "Honest email auto-replies you can use during these challenging times".
"baking stories are another of my go to story types"
Two Ladybusiness contributors "explore their feels about 'soft' or low-stakes SFF short fiction, and rec a whole bunch of stories for you to enjoy." Links to twenty-two science fiction and fantasy stories that make the recommenders feel soft or hopeful, especially "domestic stories and stories that are good people doing their best".
whether visuospatial, phonological, conceptual or emotional
"Flight from one, toward differing focus. Then, the suspended-semi-mixture of the two; absence and prospect." The content management/site-building platform Cargo has a weird blog.
"it hit a nerve—especially with the scrubs"
"TLC always held the position that non-scrubs shouldn’t be bothered by 'No Scrubs.'" In response to TLC's 1999 song "No Scrubs" (video), as Julian Kimble wrote for The Ringer, Sporty Thievz released the "contemptuous" track “No Pigeons.” "Now Sporty Thievz had the opportunity to build an entire song around the word, all while inserting themselves into a conversation initiated by one of the biggest groups in music on a chart-topping song."
"choose who joins your conversation"
"BBC Dad" Robert E. Kelly (previously, previously) "knows something about interruptions" so he made an ad for Twitter (1-minute subtitled video) to help advertise Twitter’s new conversation settings. (People can mark individual tweets so that "Everyone", "People you follow", or "only people you mention" can reply (which means that, if desired, a user can make a tweet un-reply-able). Twitter started testing this feature early this year and now it's apparently available for all users.) Yes, his kids are in the ad.
"In the year of my greatest harvest, I had many hopes"
"In 2012, back when I was young and the world was a different place, I planted a plum tree in my back yard." A funny, loving, bittersweet story of one woman's fruit tree, with reflections on mortality and gardening. "There was one memorable year when the lectionary had the story of Jesus and the fig tree and no fewer than three pastors of my acquaintance asked my permission to use my bitter, hopeless plum journey as a sermon inspiration. Oh pastors, consider this permission to use anything I put on my blog in your sermons."
"Asking for help is a sign of strength"
In Illinois, USA, Crisis Nursery creates an "Island of Safety" dedicated to the prevention of child abuse and neglect by providing 24-hour emergency care for children and support to strengthen families in crisis. Crisis Nursery is the only emergency-based child care facility in Champaign County that is open 24 hours, 365 days a year for the entire community to access with no fees or income eligibility.
Kindness at work
Ask A Manager says: let's talk about kindness at work. "Now let’s talk about times at work when people have gone out of their way to do good or be kind. Please share stories of kindness at work in the comments." Lots of appreciation, generosity, and people stepping up in hard moments -- and "a coworker who, if I was detained by crap commute on our monthly free bagel Friday, would save me a fresh, still warm chocolate chip bagel that would otherwise have been snatched up".
A FIYAHCON Retrospective
L. D. Lewis writes "A FIYAHCON Retrospective": a detailed narrative of why and how organizers put together an online convention for BIPOC+ in speculative fiction. Included: "Below, you’ll find a fairly extensive overview of the costs associated with set-up of our virtual convention, as well as some notes on what worked and what didn’t." Including how much it cost to set up two "Calm Room" live cams with Monterey Bay Aquarium.
US Election 2020: Some politics is local
This week's US election included thousands of local decisions: city councils, district attorneys (as in Los Angeles), state legislatures, county recorders, school boards, judges, ballot measures (such as universal preschool in Multnomah County, Oregon), Congressmembers, and more. Queer and first-time candidates saw several victories. [If you'd like to talk about the Presidential and Senate races, please do that in the general US election thread.]
"I needed a better excuse than glory."
"A Non-Hero’s Guide to The Road of Monsters" by A.T. Greenblatt (previously mentioned in a list of recommended sf/f from 2017) is a light adventure tale of a sidekick-turned-blogger/entrepreneur. "So why do I bother running a business like this? Because monsters are remarkable, unexpected, and totally worth the wait."
What would you change?
"Cascade" by A.J. Fitzwater (published July 2020) is (as reviewer Vanessa Fogg says) "an unusual story of time travel, in which a group of grieving friends discuss what steps they would take to change the past without changing the current world too much—and only for the better." Or, as the author puts it, "This story is about a trans guy mourning the death of his best friend, and in a drunken state with his other friends manifesting a Goddess of Change into the world." Lots of queer representation; content note for mention of a trans person's suicide before the story starts.
“sentenced the petitioner to a life term, but how long is a life?”
Sci Phi Journal is an online magazine that "wishes to provide a platform for idea-driven fiction, as opposed to the ‘character-driven’ mode that has come to predominate speculative fiction." A few short stories they've published: "Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors of CYBIMPLANT INC held at 10:00 AM on 14 May 2036" by Rick Novy (October 2020), the futuristic legal what-if "Habeas Corpus Callosum" by Jay WerkHeiser (January 2017; content note for rape), a fictional FIFA ruling in "Red Card" by Madeline Barnicle (June 2020), and an academic investigation of the missing Pope "John XX" by Timons Esaias (March 2020).
"The Kents didn't have an alarm system for him to disable"
"Clark Kent invites Bruce Wayne and Diana of Themyscira to his parents' house for Christmas. It goes, in general, pretty okay." "Christmas in Kansas" by unpretty is a cute, sweet, funny fanfiction piece about Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman with tags "Christmas, Fluff, PTSD, the only real violence is in flashback form, aka that one scene that every single thing with batman has to have". An ebook with a pretty cover is available (although you can also download from Archive Of Our Own as ePub/MOBI/AZW3/PDF). Part of unpretty's "DC universe where moms are awesome and raise their kids right. Now with more melanin and queerness."
Coincidence, backstabbing, obligation, tradition, and tech support
Four scifi stories about jobs, loyalty, and navigating difficult politics and priorities. In the happiest of the four, "Happenstance" by Fran Wilde (2017), an engineer of serendipity has to subvert residents' expectations and a skeevy executive's plans. "Sweet Marrow" by Vajra Chandrasekera (2016) (audio) portrays the fraught relationship between a journalist and a government worker in a turbulent time. "Exile’s End" by Carolyn Ives Gilman (August 2020) is "a complex, sometimes uncomfortable examination of artifact repatriation and cultural appropriation." And in "Thank You For Your Patience" by Rebecca Campbell (March 2020), Mark's stuck doing tech support while the world slow-motion falls apart outside.
Exploration, separatism, yearning, and hopeful stories
Two short scifi stories about space programs run by brown and Black people: the optimistic "Heard, Half-Heard, in the Stillness" by Iona Datt Sharma (published August 2020) and the mostly optimistic "At the Village Vanguard (Ruminations on Blacktopia)" by Maurice Broaddus. Datt Sharma's story is also listed in Ladybusiness's recommendation list of eight short & sweet stories published in 2020: "I found all of these stories hopeful."
"smiling, creases around her eyes like a soft-worn blanket."
Arsenika "is a quarterly journal of speculative poetry and flash fiction." "Flash" means very short. "Mother?" by Cynthia So (starts with the protagonist's mother dead, but no new grief after that): "I came out to a moth, because I couldn’t come out to my mother." "Not an Ocean, But the Sea" by Nino Cipri: "The ocean behind the couch, she thought, had probably not been ordered from Ikea or Electrolux."
Fires, homemade pills, and gardens
Stories about how we cope with disasters, in the short and the long term. "Ambient and Isolated Effects of Fine Particulate Matter" by Emery Robin (horror-y), published in April, and the more hopeful "Growing Resistance" by Juliet Kemp (audio and text at that link), first published in August 2019.
"The words barely stick in her throat at all."
"The Avengers’ training regime will start soon; today is for her to relearn the world." "Pour Back The Ocean" by imperfectcircle (Katherine Fabian) is a sweet fanfiction story depicting Wanda Maximoff after the events of the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Age of Ultron. As the author puts it, "Wanda has to find a new place in the world. Contains team training exercises, expected grief and unexpected kindness." There are also cute dogs.
"I don't believe in haunted games," Carrie said. She was lying.
Four short fantasy stories in which unpleasant things happen to characters who (kinda?) seem to deserve them. "The Wolf and the Woodsman" by T. Kingfisher (a.k.a. Ursula Vernon), a darkly funny "Little Red Riding Hood" retelling about a That Guy. "The Vampire of Kovácspéter" by P H Lee (2020; author interview) is witty: "The village of Kovácspéter was plagued by a vampire, which was increasingly embarrassing." And "Nobody Gets Out Alive" by George R. Galuschak (2020), a thriller about a livestreaming celebrity getting back at her stalker.
"Was it rude to tell your boss she was growing scales?"
Since September 1, 2010, Daily Science Fiction has published a new short scifi/fantasy story each weekday. The easiest way to navigate the archives is probably by story topic, so you get titles, author names, and excerpts (example). Here are six very short stories you might like.
“you got two options. Wallow in guilt like a hero, or do something.”
Two short speculative stories featuring computers with consciousness. "Batteries For Your Doombot5000 Are Not Included" by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (published this year) is a light sf/f story about an ex-supervillain who gets a second chance at talking with a woman she had a crush on. "Applied Cenotaphics in the Long, Long Longitudes" by Vajra Chandrasekera (audio) is "an RFC 9481-compatible full personalytic profile recorded in Binara-Unduvap 2561 (Sep-Dec 2018 in the Christian calendar) at R. Satka's home and studio in the New City in the Autonomous Territory of Vilacem. The interview interprets itself in real time as each interviewer asks their questions...Since Satka's death, this interview is her primary being-in-the-world, and retains executive authority over her estate."
"All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses"
Four sweet pieces of fan fiction in which characters watch election returns come in. The one for which you least need to know the underlying canon: "A Great and Gruesome Height" by Jae Gecko, a queer romance that pays homage to the Dar Williams song "Iowa" along with The West Wing. "It's 1998, Josiah Bartlet is the Democratic nominee battling sitting Republican President Lawrence Armstrong for the Oval Office, and back in Iowa, Republican campaign coordinator Megan Richter is about to fall from a great and gruesome height." (This is a Yuletide story, and you can sign up for this year's Yuletide exchange between now and 9am UTC on 26 October.)
"I don't like the look in his eye as he watches me."
Three fantasy stories about magic, gender oppression, and fights that, as it turns out, aren't finished. "Many Mansions" by K.J. Parker, published September 2020, a sort of cat-and-mouse tale. "Charms" by Shweta Narayan, 2009: "Women's magic, she says, is like everything else. Not good enough for girls these days." "True Names" by Stephanie Burgis, 2009, is the most triumphant of the three: "The bell rings again while I'm still standing rigid as a rock in pure astonishment, right in the middle of the kitchen with a frying pan in my hand."
"Three thousand bucks a blast. The council only bought one shot."
Two short, exciting scifi stories in which underdogs fight battles. "The Hard Quarry" by Caleb Huitt, published this year, has a solo asteroid miner outwitting pirates: "The only statement the regs make on going extravehicular at speed is not to." "Corporate Robo Renegade Piston" by Nicholas Sugarman (2017) has an underfunded mecha pilot strapping in to fight a kaiju: "it hurt his pride knowing his face was plastered onto a waffle iron. He sighed, comforting himself with the knowledge that at least he wasn't on the kaiju cleanup team."
"'Lift the veil but once, and look me in the face,' said she."
Two stories about making shocking decisions to use color to change our perceptions. "The Regime of Austerity" by Veronica Schanoes (2009, science fiction): "These days there are a lot of gray people walking around in bright blue coats with green shoes. Lately it's become popular to use color on the inner walls of your home." "The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1832, allegorical/romantic/dark/didactic fiction): "On a nearer view it seemed to consist of two folds of crepe, which entirely concealed his features, except the mouth and chin, but probably did not intercept his sight, further than to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things." Kind of a Johnny Cash "Man in Black" vibe on that one.
“You know that, right? You can do anything.”
Two scifi stories about the work we offload to robots. "Drones Don’t Kill People" by Annalee Newitz (a bunch of violence): "You learn a lot by seeing what people do when they think they’re in private. Most of it I found confusingly irrelevant to assassination." "Cleaning Lady" by J. Kyle Turner (no violence): "Her listing says All Cleaning Done By Hand so she makes a big show of unpacking her bag, laying out her tools, and rolling up her sleeves."
"It's an interesting flavor profile. It has potential."
"Baking Bad" by heyjupiter: "Jesse Pinkman and his former home-ec teacher Walter White are co-owners of Heisenbrew's Uncertainty, an up-and-coming food truck." A Breaking Bad fanfic with a happy ending, tags: "Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Father-Son Relationship, Drug Addiction, Recovery, Minor Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort". Found via capricorn on MeFi five years ago. Also: "Illicit Alchemy" by Eric Lewis (published this year), a short fantasy story about an alchemist who gets way deeper into her employers' business than she wants.
"What is actually causing the anxiety?"
Amanda Ajamfar, an Iranian-American short story writer, wrote "Catastrophizing", published this year in The Georgia Review, in which a woman deals with ecological anxiety and overwhelming fear. "Then she picked at Atoosa’s choice of words in describing her mother, wanting to hear more about that than about the difficulty Atoosa was having trying to negotiate her need to have a phone for her job and social life with the unethical production of the object." Also by Ajamfar: "True Stories Never Satisfy", on the stories we tell that induce fear in women.
"No, not sat -- drooped."
Two fanfiction short stories by Marie Brennan, writing on Archive of Our Own. "Darkness in Spring", a very short, silly riff on Greek mythology and today's exponents of darkness: "One year, Persephone doesn't leave Hades on schedule. Demeter goes to find out why." "The Rest", a clever James Bond-The Sandbaggers crossover: "Very few people remember where M came from." (You don't need to know The Sandbaggers to enjoy it -- just enjoy seeing competent women's tradecraft applied to bureaucracy and spy shenanigans.)
"He gazed at the sky. Hannah went back to thinning carrots."
"The Dryad’s Shoe" by Ursula Vernon (as T. Kingfisher) is a fun Cinderella retelling about a girl who has zero desire to attend a ball.
It is not much use being angry when you are eleven years old, because a grown-up will always explain to you why you are wrong to feel that way and very likely you will have to apologize to someone for it, so Hannah sat on the edge of the raised bed and drummed her heels and thought fixedly about when the next sowing of beets would have to be planted.