Richard Garfinkle
@rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
300 followers 90 following 1.9K posts
Writer and Computer Programmer. I write science fiction, fantasy, and popularizations / textbooks for science, math, and computer programming. No AI. He/Him They/Them
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Reposted by Richard Garfinkle
overlysarcastic.bsky.social
On this episode of the Overly Sarcastic Podcast: it's a girl's night, and that means there's nothing to inhibit Red and Indigo's respective ADHDs from resonating into an unstoppable hyperfixation cascade!

(The OSPodcast is available on all podcasting platforms!)
Reposted by Richard Garfinkle
aurorawebcomic.bsky.social
if I had a nickel for every close friend I apparently forgot to tell about the book publishing thing I'd have at least six nickels
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
Glad to hear that. It is so easy to have the immediacy of social networking create the illusion that its voices are the only voices or even the one true voice.

You have been going through a lot of hard stuff and you have been an important voice against nonsense. But please don't hurt yourself.
Reposted by Richard Garfinkle
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
They were lying. They've always been lying. They always will lie.
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
They were lying. They've always been lying. They always will lie.
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
Shocking!
The pink, I mean. You starting a new project. Not shocking at all.
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
Sorry to hear that. For me narrow twisty roads are much worse, but I don't drive on them much, so less practice.
Reposted by Richard Garfinkle
ralphsnyder.bsky.social
2. Glib, completely unsupported claims such as intellectual disability (lead paint) results in right wing ideology.

And it's mostly about the latter, dammit.
6/6
Reposted by Richard Garfinkle
ralphsnyder.bsky.social
1. Endless "news" reports about single studies that give none of these details. This results in confusion: coffee is bad for you! No coffee is good for you. Alcohol is bad. No! Actually red wine is good.

So it goes.
5/6
Reposted by Richard Garfinkle
ralphsnyder.bsky.social
This is a subtweet (and no doubt incomplete)

When I see a study, I look at several factors (which, alas, are not often reported in the popular press)

1. Is the hypothesis well formulated? Does it allow for a reasonable falsifiablity?
1/6
Reposted by Richard Garfinkle
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
See the comedic climax in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Moving Pictures in which a giant Marylin Monroe inspired kaiju climbs a sky scraping tower clutching an Orangutan in one hand.
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
See the comedic climax in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Moving Pictures in which a giant Marylin Monroe inspired kaiju climbs a sky scraping tower clutching an Orangutan in one hand.
Reposted by Richard Garfinkle
thebugbeardispatch.bsky.social
What's on your minds?

As is seasonally appropriate, I've been thinking about death.

B/c I can't help myself I've also been thinking about Christianity's fucked up relationship to death, and the toxic dynamics of hardline faith.

The latest Bugbear Dispatch:

www.bugbeardispatch.com/some-thought...
Some Thoughts about Fear, Death, and Christianity
In his Society without God (NYU Press, 2008), sociologist Phil Zuckerman documented the many ways in which the Scandinavian countries--some of the least religious on earth--put highly religious countr...
www.bugbeardispatch.com
Reposted by Richard Garfinkle
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
If they have no interest
In the surprises I am
And make,
That is up to them.
The universe has more than enough
Surprises for all.

But it is not my calling
To reflect their disinterest.
Not my art to affirm
That there is nothing here
Beyond their expectations. /2
Reposted by Richard Garfinkle
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
No Reflection. A Poem.

I have no responsibility
To be the mirror
Reflecting
What others demand
That I must be.

If they shout to their
Imaginations.
I do not need
To pop up
And reply
In the voice
They insist I must have.
/1
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
If they have no interest
In the surprises I am
And make,
That is up to them.
The universe has more than enough
Surprises for all.

But it is not my calling
To reflect their disinterest.
Not my art to affirm
That there is nothing here
Beyond their expectations. /2
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
No Reflection. A Poem.

I have no responsibility
To be the mirror
Reflecting
What others demand
That I must be.

If they shout to their
Imaginations.
I do not need
To pop up
And reply
In the voice
They insist I must have.
/1
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
The results would not be as good nor the art as much fun. This is a world that operates on possibility, entanglement and iteration in consequence what is made is more often than not more interesting and surprising than the initial imagination.
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
The whole apparatus of kidnapping, bribery of foreign countries, deportation on illegal flights and running concentration camps is expensive. And Trump doesn't spend money. He keeps it to himself. I wouldn't be surprised if he wants his evil organization to be a money source not a sink.
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
They might be trying to extort money since they are probably not being paid.
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
Brother Cadfael (after he became a monk).
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
Why do people boast about their failures of imagination?

Also, you know what helps imagination: learning. The more one knows about and understands, the more material imagination has to work with.
Reposted by Richard Garfinkle
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
All nutshells are edge (surrounding) cases (containers) for nuts. That's what they evolved to be. So an edge case nutshell is a normal nut shell.

In a nutshell, a nutshell that wasn't an edge case would be an edge case.
rgarfinklesff.bsky.social
All nutshells are edge (surrounding) cases (containers) for nuts. That's what they evolved to be. So an edge case nutshell is a normal nut shell.

In a nutshell, a nutshell that wasn't an edge case would be an edge case.