typo du jour
Jul. 3rd, 2025 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fred_mouse..look at the underlying code or moth...
- me, describing someone else's approach to understanding large language models.
fred_mouse
Sales and other updatey things
Jul. 1st, 2025 08:18 pmcatherineldfSpent the weekend peddling books at TC Pride and it was a....LOT. Hot, sporadic rainstorms (with a big one overnight that trashed some folk's tents) and other wackiness. Full writeup here. Short version: terrible location, lower sales than last year, a state funeral next door with all that goes with that, primo people watching, good chats, nice folks and TC Pride in all its gigantic glory. Also, vendor pals gave me a piece of really tasty homemade coffeecake and Alexa (my assistant) is a champ.
The other cool thing that happened was that the Queen of Swords Press reissue of the classic gay fantasy, Point of Hopes (Astreiant #1) by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett, won the Midwest Book Award from the Midwest Independent Publisher's Association! Very pleased about this. Hopes was our third title to be a finalist for these awards and is now our second award-winning title after The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper by A.J. Fitzwater, winner of a Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collection. :-D
2 days left on the Pride StoryBundle! Melissa and I got a really great lineup this year and we've raised $770 for Rainbow Railroad so far. I might add that the proceeds from this will also be a nice help to the participating publishers and authors, including my own press, and that, seeing as I will be unemployed by Thursday, my half of the curator's fee will help cover my travel expenses for Readercon which would be super helpful. If you're in a position to get one and it looks appealing, maybe pick one up?
The Summer/Winter Smashwords Sale has also kicked off today and you can get a great deal on Queen of Swords Press titles, including my own books. This is traditionally a solid sale for us and it means that I can pay myself more this month if it goes well. Also, speaking of sales, the audiobook for my second Wolves of Wolf's Point novel, Blood Moon, is on sale right now through 7/15. The narrator that Tantor hired is really good - I've been enjoying listening to her reading my books while I get regrounded for/in Book 3.
What am I going to do for the next couple of weeks? Honestly, rest. Write. Read. Get caught up on projects like the developmental editing class I paid to take online...last year. Clear some stuff out of the house. Put some things up for sale. Spend time with people who I've wanted to see for quite a while. Spend some time with my kitties (I don't think Shu will be around a whole lot longer). Can I afford to retire? Alas, no. But I have got to unglue from the ceiling and the last 8 months of this job have been toxic with a cherry on top. I will need to start job hunting soon after I get back from Readercon though and possibly exploring other areas of endeavor if IT has dried up for me so lots of uncertainty ahead. In the meantime, if you are in a position to support me recovering for a bit, consider pledging the Patreon and buying a book or two. I also have a Ko-fi and will be more active out there soon. Stay tuned! More updates ahead.
And hugs to everyone who needs them.
The other cool thing that happened was that the Queen of Swords Press reissue of the classic gay fantasy, Point of Hopes (Astreiant #1) by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett, won the Midwest Book Award from the Midwest Independent Publisher's Association! Very pleased about this. Hopes was our third title to be a finalist for these awards and is now our second award-winning title after The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper by A.J. Fitzwater, winner of a Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collection. :-D
2 days left on the Pride StoryBundle! Melissa and I got a really great lineup this year and we've raised $770 for Rainbow Railroad so far. I might add that the proceeds from this will also be a nice help to the participating publishers and authors, including my own press, and that, seeing as I will be unemployed by Thursday, my half of the curator's fee will help cover my travel expenses for Readercon which would be super helpful. If you're in a position to get one and it looks appealing, maybe pick one up?
The Summer/Winter Smashwords Sale has also kicked off today and you can get a great deal on Queen of Swords Press titles, including my own books. This is traditionally a solid sale for us and it means that I can pay myself more this month if it goes well. Also, speaking of sales, the audiobook for my second Wolves of Wolf's Point novel, Blood Moon, is on sale right now through 7/15. The narrator that Tantor hired is really good - I've been enjoying listening to her reading my books while I get regrounded for/in Book 3.
What am I going to do for the next couple of weeks? Honestly, rest. Write. Read. Get caught up on projects like the developmental editing class I paid to take online...last year. Clear some stuff out of the house. Put some things up for sale. Spend time with people who I've wanted to see for quite a while. Spend some time with my kitties (I don't think Shu will be around a whole lot longer). Can I afford to retire? Alas, no. But I have got to unglue from the ceiling and the last 8 months of this job have been toxic with a cherry on top. I will need to start job hunting soon after I get back from Readercon though and possibly exploring other areas of endeavor if IT has dried up for me so lots of uncertainty ahead. In the meantime, if you are in a position to support me recovering for a bit, consider pledging the Patreon and buying a book or two. I also have a Ko-fi and will be more active out there soon. Stay tuned! More updates ahead.
And hugs to everyone who needs them.
The time is now! HowlCon attendee registration is open
Jul. 1st, 2025 01:05 pmnova_dergs posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
otherkinnews
HowlCon attendee registration is now open!
Time sure flies - the con is only two and a half months away! So attendee registration is now open for HowlCon!
What is HowlCon?
HowlCon is a virtual camping-themed convention for alterhumans and nonhumans being hosted September 19-21, 2025! We are often so scattered across the web, we hope to serve as a gathering place for folks to meet others like themselves, make friends and generally have a good time. Our goal is to bring our community together for a weekend of fun and learning.
Register here!
The form will close a week before the con - September 12, 2025.
Also!
Looking for a way to engage more with the alterhuman and nonhuman community?
There's still time to register as a panelist or artist!
It's a great way to get a bunch of other critters together to do something fun - or learn something new! Make friends, share your ideas and put yourself out there.
Rebuilding journal search again
Jun. 30th, 2025 03:18 pmalierak posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenanceWe're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.
Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.
Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.
'Typo' of the day
Jun. 30th, 2025 03:48 pmfred_mouseToday's annoyance with YouTube auto-craption:
"Current university"
Locals, who know what the tiny set of options are, can possibly identify what 'Current' is relatively easily. In my case, given that I was watching this from within Curtin University, it was even easier, once I worked out that that was what is going on.
But oh! it annoys me that people don't review the captions for even that level of obvious mistake (I'm not calling that one egregious. The ones that mess up the name(s) of Country included in an Acknowledgement of Country are egregious. I've never seen the same error for a Welcome to Country, which I assume is because the Indigenous people associated with the production of such know too well how badly it can be messed up).
Goal setting question(s)
Jun. 29th, 2025 09:39 pmfred_mouseNow that I've written up the six month summary of how my 2025 New Year's Resolutions have gone, I'm looking at what I want for the next six months. Which might turn out to be a 12 month set of goals; I'm kind of being flexible with whatever works.
But!
One of my intentions is that I have goals for each of the areas of my life that are important to me--there is no rating of how big that area has to be, just that I see it as an important circle. Two of these I did not manage to get a coherent goal for across the last six months. I'm not sure that it is possible to have coherent goals, but that might be me looking from the wrong perspective.
Which is where my question comes in: what suggestions do people have as to goals for 'Family' and 'Social'? I'm okay with drive by commentary from people who aren't familiar with the limitations of my life, because not knowing those details might be an important part of different perspective.
New Year's Resolutions - close out
Jun. 29th, 2025 06:04 pmfred_mouseGiven that the last three weeks have been a completely different pace, and my expectations of my self for the rest of the year are quite different to where I was at the beginning of the year, I'm going to close out the set of goals I set myself at the beginning of the year (Note: I'm not working from that page, but from an offline edited version). The last update I did was May 20th. I contemplated writing a new set of resolutions in this post concurrently with wrapping up these, but have decided instead to create an offline document of Mid-Year Resolutions. I might get around to posting that, but chances are low.
( Lots of details, possibly only interesting to me )
tl;dr: great progress for work; good progress on craft, reading, physical - exercise and health; not great on house, organisation, decluttering, writing, garden, learning, money. No goals to compare to for family or social. Having a list continues to be useful.
Readercon schedule, TC Pride and more!
Jun. 27th, 2025 10:27 amcatherineldfIt's Twin Cities Pride this weekend and I'm headed in to do some preliminary setup this morning. It's been raining for days, with some more expected this weekend and 3 of the interstates are closed - what could go wrong? No, don't answer that. At any, Queen of Swords Press will have a table in the Queer Writes Test/Zone (called different things on the map), space #496. I'm "between jobs" (out of work/taking a short break) as of 7/3 so if you can't make it to Pride and are up for buying a book or two, now would be a great time. Library requests help a lot too!
Readercon 34 - I will be attending (please buy a Pride StoryBundle if you can! My half of the curator's fee is funding my trip cash for July and these are some great books. We're also raising money for Rainbow Railroad too!). My schedule is here and I'm on everything from small press publishing to aging in sf to erotica and horror to doing a reading. Looking for ward to it! Will I see you there? Let's get a meal/snacks.
I am also adding an October trip to Iowa City on 10/11 to accept a posthumous Laura Young Award for Jana from Guild of Bookworkers at their Standards Conference. That will be something of a whirlwind, but if you're in the area, breakfast on Sunday could be a thing.
I have a Seattle Worldcon schedule but it doesn't look quite baked yet. I also apparently promised a debut reading of Blood Moon, (Wolves of Wolf's Point #3) from some months back when I had 10K words...then had to revise and reset in a different character's head. Apparently, there will be a lot of writing in the next couple of weeks to get some things ready for readings at both cons!
Readercon 34 - I will be attending (please buy a Pride StoryBundle if you can! My half of the curator's fee is funding my trip cash for July and these are some great books. We're also raising money for Rainbow Railroad too!). My schedule is here and I'm on everything from small press publishing to aging in sf to erotica and horror to doing a reading. Looking for ward to it! Will I see you there? Let's get a meal/snacks.
I am also adding an October trip to Iowa City on 10/11 to accept a posthumous Laura Young Award for Jana from Guild of Bookworkers at their Standards Conference. That will be something of a whirlwind, but if you're in the area, breakfast on Sunday could be a thing.
I have a Seattle Worldcon schedule but it doesn't look quite baked yet. I also apparently promised a debut reading of Blood Moon, (Wolves of Wolf's Point #3) from some months back when I had 10K words...then had to revise and reset in a different character's head. Apparently, there will be a lot of writing in the next couple of weeks to get some things ready for readings at both cons!
Signal boost
Jun. 27th, 2025 10:32 pmfred_mousethestory inside is doing July signups. I'm not taking on any extra commitments, not even suggested reading, at the moment, but I have very much enjoyed the suggestions I have had from this group. If you have a TBR list you can share, you too can have this excitement in your life!
It works on a buddy system - they pick three books from your list for you to read, you pick three books from their list for them to read. Sign ups close on the 1st July.
Things that make me laugh
Jun. 25th, 2025 11:14 amfred_mousein the paper I'm reading right now, I found the sentence
"All these models end up being specific cases of a generalized stochastic differential equation."
and actually laughed out loud (it helps that I'm working from home today; specifically from bed, so that maybe my lower back will stop hating me. I can read just as well in bed, having spent a lot of the last year training to read from the laptop in exactly this position :) And thus laughing is not disruptive)
Why did I laugh? As I explained to artisanat, that is the first jargon filled sentence where I've understood every word and what it means. And then I was asked for examples of words I don't know, which at this point I can think of 'constructivist framework' and 'epistemological' (I'm starting to get a feel for the latter; the former I have zero idea)
ETA: the next sentence read
"We cannot provide a detailed account of these models since they require a certain level of mathematical expertise."
How am I viewing my looming unemployment, you ask?
Jun. 24th, 2025 07:51 pmcatherineldfWell, I'm hella tired. So sleep and doing odds and ends are looking very appealing. Also writing and editing. I'm signing up for various workshops and classes and just came across a developmental editing class that I signed up for...a year ago. I should probably finish that. In a couple of weeks, I will be looking for editing, teaching, speaking, writing gigs, but I definitely need to recharge a bit. Let me know if you're interested in my sundry nonIT skills. For the IT end of things, my contracting company will keep looking and the very large healthcare co. that currently rents my services has expressed interest in having me back in another capacity so we'll see if anything works out there. In the next couple of weeks, I have vending at Twin Cities Pride this weekend (500,000+ people, 3 day marathon - come see us at the Queer Writes Tent in Loring Park!), the Inbound Book Fair for Grownups in 2 weeks (4-5000 people last year, 2 day marathon - come see us at the Fairgrounds in the Education Building!), followed immediately thereafter by Readercon (my schedule is lit!). Then back for a couple of weeks, then off to Seattle for Worldcon. Somewhere in there, I will freak about money if I haven't figured something out, but I also figure I've been planning for this for the last year and if I don't seize the moments where I can, when will I?
(no subject)
Jun. 22nd, 2025 06:54 pmfred_mouseBetween one thing and another, I haven't been keeping up on dreamwidth. I'm spending the next hour or so attempting to clear out - there were 317 tabs open in the dreamwidth window when I started; it will be interesting to see where I get to. So many posts from mid-May I was going to reply to; giving myself permission to abandon. And then I'm going to do the same thing with the backlog of my inbox.
And how do I get to 317 tabs? By every day or two scanning my reading list, and opening everything longer than a paragraph that I expect to want to read. This means I can get 'caught up' over breakfast, even if not everything gets read!
Tolkien lecture
Jun. 22nd, 2025 10:43 amqianMy talk for the Tolkien lecture series hosted by Pembroke College, Oxford is up on YouTube: The Uses of Fantasy. I really enjoyed doing it, though I'm now out of the one idea I had for a Guest of Honour/whatever speech lolol. I have used it up!!