Coleman Ridge
@colemanridge.bsky.social
Retired librarian. I read, train, practice, study, and take classes. Much-married. Somewhat given to getting drunk on words.
Profile picture: "Scribe," by Keith Thompson
Banner artist: Gustave Dore
Profile picture: "Scribe," by Keith Thompson
Banner artist: Gustave Dore
This book is maybe the most hated Hugo winner, I think because people don't pick up on Leiber's explicit message that it's a horror story, and look for heroes. There's a minor hero, and he dies, along with a big chunk of the Earth's population, when aliens on the run from the law trash the planet.
November 24, 2025 at 7:57 PM
This book is maybe the most hated Hugo winner, I think because people don't pick up on Leiber's explicit message that it's a horror story, and look for heroes. There's a minor hero, and he dies, along with a big chunk of the Earth's population, when aliens on the run from the law trash the planet.
This made me understand gender dysphoria, or at least your gender dysphoria, well enough to see what I don't understand, which is a huge big deal for me. I don't need to understand to act right, but it upsets me to have a blind spot I can't locate. Thank you. Great writing. You should publish.
November 24, 2025 at 4:55 PM
This made me understand gender dysphoria, or at least your gender dysphoria, well enough to see what I don't understand, which is a huge big deal for me. I don't need to understand to act right, but it upsets me to have a blind spot I can't locate. Thank you. Great writing. You should publish.
An illustration: sperm whales turn out to have vocalizations complex and patterned enough to be language. Problem is, we don't have any context for the vocalizations, because they live so differently from us. Unless we get context, we can't learn the language.
Computers can't get context. 2/2
Computers can't get context. 2/2
November 24, 2025 at 4:47 PM
An illustration: sperm whales turn out to have vocalizations complex and patterned enough to be language. Problem is, we don't have any context for the vocalizations, because they live so differently from us. Unless we get context, we can't learn the language.
Computers can't get context. 2/2
Computers can't get context. 2/2
Computers do logic and math, and logic and math are a big part of thinking. If you want to call that thinking, I will go along with it.
What they can't do is understand words' meaning. They only know their shape. To understand words' meaning, you have to live the life that gives them meaning. 1/
What they can't do is understand words' meaning. They only know their shape. To understand words' meaning, you have to live the life that gives them meaning. 1/
November 24, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Computers do logic and math, and logic and math are a big part of thinking. If you want to call that thinking, I will go along with it.
What they can't do is understand words' meaning. They only know their shape. To understand words' meaning, you have to live the life that gives them meaning. 1/
What they can't do is understand words' meaning. They only know their shape. To understand words' meaning, you have to live the life that gives them meaning. 1/
Zola thought his characters realistic precisely because they got no choices at all, but were driven by inherited passions and overwhelming environments. He writes good characters and engrossing stories that way.
November 24, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Zola thought his characters realistic precisely because they got no choices at all, but were driven by inherited passions and overwhelming environments. He writes good characters and engrossing stories that way.
I know someone who broke her nose tripping over one. The city has created a new hazard by doing things the cheap, easy way. 2/2
November 24, 2025 at 3:56 PM
I know someone who broke her nose tripping over one. The city has created a new hazard by doing things the cheap, easy way. 2/2
The problem with those white plastic bike lane borders is that they are made so that cars can roll right over them. They get flattened out on the white line where they are hard to see and easy to run over with your bike or trip over. I have had my bike wobble more than I liked running over one. 1/
November 24, 2025 at 3:54 PM
The problem with those white plastic bike lane borders is that they are made so that cars can roll right over them. They get flattened out on the white line where they are hard to see and easy to run over with your bike or trip over. I have had my bike wobble more than I liked running over one. 1/
We had a real strong intuition that we weren't supposed to have this and couldn't be trusted with it.
November 24, 2025 at 3:17 PM
We had a real strong intuition that we weren't supposed to have this and couldn't be trusted with it.
"Crook of the elbow" isn't quite right. Like this.
November 24, 2025 at 1:19 PM
"Crook of the elbow" isn't quite right. Like this.
Old-timey backwoods fiddle players used to play with the fiddle tucked in the crook of their elbows instead of under their chins. That way they could sing. They had bought the fiddles from catalogs and taught themselves and each other how to play. It was the same instrument used differently.
November 24, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Old-timey backwoods fiddle players used to play with the fiddle tucked in the crook of their elbows instead of under their chins. That way they could sing. They had bought the fiddles from catalogs and taught themselves and each other how to play. It was the same instrument used differently.
If you are hearing birdsong, the stalk is working.
November 24, 2025 at 12:56 PM
If you are hearing birdsong, the stalk is working.
Something that maximizes immediate gross sensual pleasure without regard to extended lifespan, since life in general is not providing any fun. Chocolate eclairs, maybe. The usual restrictions on harming others still apply, so nothing that would keep you from showing up at work.
Or antidepressants.
Or antidepressants.
November 24, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Something that maximizes immediate gross sensual pleasure without regard to extended lifespan, since life in general is not providing any fun. Chocolate eclairs, maybe. The usual restrictions on harming others still apply, so nothing that would keep you from showing up at work.
Or antidepressants.
Or antidepressants.
He thought reason obfuscatory, temporizing, quibbling, and cowardly, and irrationality strong and therefore healthy.
Sorel's ideas were taken up by both communists and fascists. They are an attitude toward politics in general.
Sorel's ideas were taken up by both communists and fascists. They are an attitude toward politics in general.
November 23, 2025 at 8:26 PM
He thought reason obfuscatory, temporizing, quibbling, and cowardly, and irrationality strong and therefore healthy.
Sorel's ideas were taken up by both communists and fascists. They are an attitude toward politics in general.
Sorel's ideas were taken up by both communists and fascists. They are an attitude toward politics in general.
Sorel argued that masses of common people can only be stirred to action by participating in a myth in which they struggle to win glory and avoid disgrace. This myth must be violently emotionally charged in order to move people, and thus must always result in violence.
November 23, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Sorel argued that masses of common people can only be stirred to action by participating in a myth in which they struggle to win glory and avoid disgrace. This myth must be violently emotionally charged in order to move people, and thus must always result in violence.
1. The social situation is dire and must be fixed.
2. It can only be fixed by mass action.
3. Mass action is always, necessarily irrational and violent.
----
Therefore, we must become irrational and violent.
2. It can only be fixed by mass action.
3. Mass action is always, necessarily irrational and violent.
----
Therefore, we must become irrational and violent.
November 23, 2025 at 8:20 PM
1. The social situation is dire and must be fixed.
2. It can only be fixed by mass action.
3. Mass action is always, necessarily irrational and violent.
----
Therefore, we must become irrational and violent.
2. It can only be fixed by mass action.
3. Mass action is always, necessarily irrational and violent.
----
Therefore, we must become irrational and violent.
The White Lotus Society started out Pure Land Buddhist, but took on elements from Daoism, Chinese folk religion, and Chinese alchemy. Maybe that carried over into the subsequent societies.
tl;dr: China is old, and martial artists are credulous.
tl;dr: China is old, and martial artists are credulous.
November 23, 2025 at 6:01 PM
The White Lotus Society started out Pure Land Buddhist, but took on elements from Daoism, Chinese folk religion, and Chinese alchemy. Maybe that carried over into the subsequent societies.
tl;dr: China is old, and martial artists are credulous.
tl;dr: China is old, and martial artists are credulous.
(Old martial arts joke: "I didn't say it wouldn't kill you. I said it wouldn't matter.") Secret societies being secret, not a lot is known of what they taught. Some say they came out of the Three Trigrams Society, which in turn may have come out of the White Lotus Society.
November 23, 2025 at 5:57 PM
(Old martial arts joke: "I didn't say it wouldn't kill you. I said it wouldn't matter.") Secret societies being secret, not a lot is known of what they taught. Some say they came out of the Three Trigrams Society, which in turn may have come out of the White Lotus Society.
The most historically significant belief in magical Chinese martial arts was probably the Boxer Rebellion, in which the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fist taught that if you did your breathing exercises right, being shot wouldn't matter.
November 23, 2025 at 5:53 PM
The most historically significant belief in magical Chinese martial arts was probably the Boxer Rebellion, in which the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fist taught that if you did your breathing exercises right, being shot wouldn't matter.
If you train, early to middle 30s are just about the peak. You are slower but much stronger, and you have a lot of practice in. I wonder if Augustine knew that, and, if so, how.
November 23, 2025 at 1:36 PM
If you train, early to middle 30s are just about the peak. You are slower but much stronger, and you have a lot of practice in. I wonder if Augustine knew that, and, if so, how.
Thing is, the whole point of archives is that human recorded knowledge rapidly outruns what memory can do. You would not have an archivist who remembered, or even ever knew, that the material was there. You would have one who remembered a finding aid that suggested that the material might be there.
November 23, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Thing is, the whole point of archives is that human recorded knowledge rapidly outruns what memory can do. You would not have an archivist who remembered, or even ever knew, that the material was there. You would have one who remembered a finding aid that suggested that the material might be there.
Are remittances money sent home by emigrants, and the theory that no one sends money home to people who don't need it or would waste it? Plausible if so, but I suspect that emigrants and their families are a near-elite. They mustered enough capital and resolve to get someone out.
November 23, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Are remittances money sent home by emigrants, and the theory that no one sends money home to people who don't need it or would waste it? Plausible if so, but I suspect that emigrants and their families are a near-elite. They mustered enough capital and resolve to get someone out.
November 23, 2025 at 12:58 AM