Alastair Millar
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skriptorium.info
Alastair Millar
@skriptorium.info
Translator & flash sf writer (BSFA); 🇨🇿/🇬🇧
Posts eclectically (current affairs, archaeology, words, writing)
❤️ travel, coffee, puns; 🚫 genAI; unsolicited DM = block
Happily married; he/him; 🏳️‍🌈/🏳️‍⚧️ ally; #NAFO fella; 🇺🇦 🇬🇪 🇬🇱
Links: https://linktr.ee/alastairmillar
Pinned
My flash science fiction collection, 'Mars & More', is still available!

If you'd like to get YOUR hands on some punchy, bite sized SF, you can find the ebook here: books2read.com/MarsMore

Or order in print (paperback) through your favourite bookstore: the ISBN is 979-8-227-17966-1
Reposted by Alastair Millar
January 24, 2026 at 3:31 AM
Reposted by Alastair Millar
If this is what they do when they're out on the street with people pointing cameras at them, what do you think is happening inside the ICE prison camps that they keep denying Members of Congress access to?
January 25, 2026 at 7:20 AM
Reposted by Alastair Millar
Imagine what’s happening in the camps.
Imagine how much they’d be lying about what happened without all the videos showing it from multiple angles.
January 24, 2026 at 11:29 PM
Reposted by Alastair Millar
Exosculate [eks-OSS-kyoo-layt]
(v.)
- To kiss fervently, repeatedly, or fondly.

Used in a sentence:
“The mistletoe dangled above them like a permission slip from the universe, an overdue excuse they’d both been waiting for to finally exosculate with shameless abandon.”
January 24, 2026 at 9:50 PM
Russia is trying to freeze Ukraine into submission; they have no interest in a genuine peace, only in bending another country to their will.
Kyiv, a major capital in Europe, is plunged into darkness by incessant Russian missile and drone attacks on civilian energy infrastructure.

More than 1 million residents are without electricity as winter settles in.

Heat, light, water, schools, and transport are disrupted.

Photo: @oleh.west
January 25, 2026 at 5:21 AM
A reminder - Georgians are still protesting their authoritarian, anti-European, Russophile government every single day. Despute provocations and arrests, they have not resorted to violence.
Georgia continues to protest.

#GeorgiaProtests
Day 423
January 25, 2026 at 5:20 AM
In June 1980, a general strike was held in El Salvador to protest police death squads, funded by the US govt. Asked about exports of torture equipment, US Under Secretary of State Abrams said "I think we have earned enough trust not to be questioned..."

This post is not about El Salvador.
January 25, 2026 at 4:43 AM
Reposted by Alastair Millar
"If you use AI there’s a loss of process—art process, theatre making, translation....Process is where you build knowledge. Just going from A to B without process, you gain no knowledge, no human experience. You gain zero opportunity because you are not having to engage with anybody else..."

#xl8 💙📚
“[I]n a sense, a translator is always like a fan. You’re always in this position of admiration, but you are also emulating the author.”

Sarah Gear interviews translator Jen Calleja on the art, politics, and livelihood of literary translation. At Asymptote: buff.ly/3WmFKtX
An Interview with Jen Calleja - Asymptote
I met with Jen Calleja—author, musician and translator from German extraordinaire—at the Edinburgh International Book Festival where she was taking part in two events. In the first, she appeared…
buff.ly
January 23, 2026 at 10:40 AM
@abracanabra.bsky.social has written an excellent essay on writing under pressure, which I recommend to all writers out there.

aswiebe.com/marketlist/j...
January 2025 - Writing Under Pressure - Aswiebe's Market List
Writing Under Pressure in Minneapolis, Intergalactic Space Stories, and more science fiction, fantasy, and horror short story market listings!
aswiebe.com
January 24, 2026 at 9:48 PM
Reposted by Alastair Millar
“There are two futures before us. In one, closed platforms strangle competition with no incentive to make things better.

In the other, open networks let anyone with a good idea build a better version of social media.” @jay.bsky.team

www.ft.com/content/c698...
Banning under-16s won’t fix social media
The toxic ecosystem we have today can be better addressed with competition than regulation
www.ft.com
January 24, 2026 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by Alastair Millar
To bring a smile to your face this weekend …

An ancient bowl with human feet!

Made in predynastic Egypt around 5,500 years ago.

The Met www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

📷 by me

#Archaeology
January 24, 2026 at 10:49 AM
Reposted by Alastair Millar
Trump knows Carney spanked him at Davos and is now having a predictable petty despotic meltdown. But what he will never understand is that in doing so he is proving the points Carney made in his landmark speech.
January 24, 2026 at 2:39 PM
The fact that this will release to 27 countries illustrates the self-importance of the US political class - nobody else (except perhaps in Melania's native Slovenia) is likely to be interested, and thinking otherwise is just delusional.
White House Launches Desperate Bid to Save Melania’s Movie
The White House is pulling out all the stops to try to salvage Melania Trump’s documentary, which is widely predicted to bomb when it opens next weekend. The vanity project, for which Jeff Bezos’ Amaz...
www.yahoo.com
January 24, 2026 at 4:13 PM
Amongst other things, according to Bloomberg CSG going public makes Czech Michal Strnad, its chairman of the board, the world's 3rd richest man.
January 24, 2026 at 3:36 PM
Just can't resist interfering in other countries' affairs, can he?
January 24, 2026 at 2:54 PM
Europe can start doing this by being more self-sufficient, i.e. manufacturing more of its defence necessities itself, and by buying European equipment instead of American goods.
Less intervention, more burden-sharing. The latest U.S. defense strategy, shaped under Donald Trump, calls on European allies to lead on regional security, emphasizes that the war in Ukraine is Europe’s responsibility to deal with, and redirects U.S. military focus towards the Indo-Pacific.
January 24, 2026 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Alastair Millar
Staying informed on current affairs can be overwhelming and depressing.

Do it anyway.
January 19, 2026 at 6:42 PM
Didn't we go through all this the FIRST time they tried foisting 'smart glasses' on the world?
January 24, 2026 at 10:24 AM
Reposted by Alastair Millar
A scientist can pretend that his work isn't himself, it's merely the impersonal truth. An artist can't hide behind the truth. He can't hide anywhere.
January 24, 2026 at 9:55 AM
Honestly, some people are just SO STUPID.

A Czech teacher phoned in a fake report of a school shooting because he wanted to 'test response times'. He probably traumatised his students as well as wasting police time.
Prison's too good for people like this.
Prague teacher detained following false school shooting report
Prague police are investigating a false school shooting report made by a teacher; students are safe, and the teacher faces possible prison time.
www.expats.cz
January 24, 2026 at 9:16 AM
Found on Insta. NATO nation casualties in US-led operations since 9/11, when the US became the only country to ever trigger Article 5 asking for help.
January 24, 2026 at 8:55 AM
Reposted by Alastair Millar
The brave people of Minnesota have endured two weeks of the Trump regime’s paramilitary occupation, sent to intimidate, beat, and raid civilians across Minneapolis in a campaign of fear meant to crush protest and dissent.

Today the people showed they will not surrender. #3E
January 24, 2026 at 8:21 AM
The fines are pathetically low (£20,000 for 18 offences) and clearly in no way deter this deliberate pattern of behaviour.
Elon Musk's Tesla fined for repeatedly failing to help UK police over driving offences
The British arm of Tesla has faced multiple court proceedings linked to allegations of road traffic offences.
www.bbc.com
January 24, 2026 at 5:54 AM