I'm a new-ish #writer from Australia. I'm currently working on my first novel, on it’s fifth draft. It'll be the first in a series. I love this story and my characters and hope to publish it once it’s finished.
Let’s get personal, shall we? I’ve been here a while now, and as I’m feeling quite comfortable at Mastodon, I’d like to share a bit more about myself beyond my passion for the climate and the environment.
To begin with, I’m a male, he/him, hetero, strongly supporting LGBTQ rights. I’m a baby boomer, born at 312 PPM 🌏, a United Statesian, although I lived in Europe (mostly Hungary) for several years, and traveled extensively for work before retiring in 2012. I’ve never been good at sustaining long-term romantic relationships, and I’ve finally settled into comfortable singlehood.
I like to say I’m made of contrasts.
For example, I’m rather funny and quite personable, but I don’t enjoy small talk and I hate parties. I currently live in the Bible Belt, but I’m an outspoken atheist. While I can easily fit into most social situations, I don’t feel comfortable around large groups and prefer being alone most of the time. I live near two huge military bases, but I detest the USA’s militaristic, troop-worshiping culture. I’m almost always cheerful, which masks my deeply felt existential nihilism. I’m a neat freak, but also rather lazy, preferring fun over work.
I’ll finish up with some hashtags to add flavor...
"go to hell" or "fuck you" is boring and basic. "i hope your favorite book gets turned into a horrible movie or tv show, with a horrendous cast and script" is smart. it's terrifying. it's possible.
Allows you to create a list of #libraries where you have a card (borrowing privileges), and then displays ebook / audiobook availability when you visit certain book pages.
It's very cool and has saved me alot of money (borrowing vs buying).
I stumbled upon Standard Ebooks last year, and they're awesome! If you have a common type of e-reader for books, you can pick up books from them that have gone past their copyright dates.
I read some Voltaire and Herman Melville from them last year and their formatting is fantastic.
I had to move because my old instance is shutting down, so I guess I have to introduce myself all over again. I'm Amy, sometimes also known as Amelia and "that one weird girl"
I was pretty happy when I recently acquired an Eames chair & stool (reproduction/not an original - way too expensive), I was pretty pleased with the major improvement in my #reading#infrastructure.
But now, I feel I missed a chance for a proper upgrade.... [sighs]
I've recently made a lot of changes in my life so I'm not exactly sure how I'd want to introduce myself. I work remotely full time and spend a lot of time in the kitchen either #cooking or making #tea. I've practiced a variety of hobbies and have a lot of interests but my primary focus at the moment is #selfimprovement, #travelling, and meeting new people.
I was unhappy for a very long time and only recently came to terms with how deep that went. In no small part thanks to the lovely people I've met on this platform :blob_couple: I don't maintain much of an online presence anymore but mastodon holds a special place in my heart and I'd like to stay in contact with all of you. And absolutely loving cutie city's emojis :axolotl_love: :bh_flag_gay: :birb_oh_no: :blob_lampshade: :blobfox_coffee_sleepy: :frog_pansexual: :goose_bonk:
Here are a bunch of hashtags to help connect with people:
Eugen Rochko recently posted a thought:
"I think it comes down to, AI has no place in the arts. Machine-generated art has the appearance of what it is emulating, but no substance. Like cake made entirely of fondant. Or cardboard."
'Aiono' replied: "Also even if it could, like why would you automate one of the most entertaining part of being a human?"
I guess instance migration is a good time for an #Introduction post. Hello lovely people, I'm here both as a scientific researcher and as a human being, and you can expect a range of genres of posts and interactions from me.
On the work side, I'm a computational scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the field of biological X-ray crystallography, specifically at free electron lasers. It's a glorious interdisciplinary mess, and the description I give to non-scientists is that i use my degree in chemistry to write software to do math that models the physics of experiments that we're running to learn about biology.
For fellow structural biologists: I work on crystallography data reduction software for the steps between photons hitting the detector and a merged set of structure factors. I also support XFEL experiments, both on site and remotely, and assist in post-experiment data processing as needed. My PhD focused on using simultaneous XFEL crystallography and XES spectroscopy to probe the water splitting reaction in oxygenic photosynthesis. I did a postdoc in computational methods development for cryoEM, and I'm now back to XFEL crystallography but still in methods development.
For fellow software developers: all of our work is open source and mostly under the cctbx project/repo. It's mostly python with a bunch of C++ under the hood (including some low-level stuff redundant with scipy and numpy because those weren't around yet!), plus a user-facing wxPython GUI. More recently we've done a ton of work with GPU acceleration (using Kokkos, for NVIDIA, Intel and AMD architectures) and scaling up at three different national labs' supercomputing centers in anticipation of next-gen experimental capabilities. I derive too much joy from writing bash-sed-awk monstrosities on the occasions we need them to fix an urgent problem during an experiment, and I guess I'm most proud of the fact that I somewhat understand git.
As far as hobbies, the longest-standing one is probably #coffee, followed closely by #language (s) / #languageLearning and a love of #patterns and #symmetry in various contexts. I have too many different ways of making coffee (they have overrun my coffee cupboard), but my favorite remains the classic latte, and by now I can make a better latte than I can buy. I'm trying to refresh my #Japanese and learn #Dutch and #German simultaneously/comparatively, which of course is terrible for speed of learning, but fascinating. So far I've found #ASL the most challenging but also deeply satisfying -- I only have one semester under my belt but hope to take a lot more. I studied and continue to study all the #math and #science I possibly can. Right now I seem to be pretty engrossed in #electronics, #CAD, #3DPrinting, and just generally #DIY-ing/fixing/repairing things. Other active interests include #sewing, #reading, #cooking, #bike commuting, and #publicTransit. My journeys in #aikido and #pottery are on hold but I definitely want to pick them back up when I'm not already overcommitted. I'm casually interested in #neurophilosophy, #neuropsychology, #neurodivergence and #neuroscience. I've taken one course in neurophilosophy and can read literature in the rest, with effort.
On a personal note, I'm trans and nonbinary and very open about it -- I transitioned back when I had to explain what that meant. I've retired from some forms of community engagement and support but I'm very happy to answer any questions I can about the US legal and medical landscapes, available resources, policy and terminology best practices, or whatever you know you shouldn't ask [person in your life].
Finally, I spend a lot of time with my cat Rory (pictured), who is perfect and the most affectionate creature I have ever met. I promise to share photos of him from time to time.
It is surprising how often, when I say "Hey, I'm reading this really interesting book..." people immediately respond with "Oh, you have TIME to read?! I don't even..."
Like... what is that?
What makes people jump right to that?
It bugs me for a bunch of reasons.
Yes, I am busy too. I make time because it relaxes me.
No, I don't care how much you read and I'm not judging you. You don't need to defend yourself.
It's really stressful being a self-published author. Especially when you don't have money to throw around. Doing all the work especially the marketing thing for me. It's nice to take a break and do something fun and get a bit of encouragement from friends.
In celebration of the 50th birthday of Stephen King's first novel, "Carrie," NPR polled its readers on their favorite King books. Here's what they chose. Which is your top pick? Tell us in the comments if there's a gem that didn't make the cut.
Alabama library staff locks their library after its board fires their director for not removing books with LGBTQ+ content from the Young Adult section.
The board wants to restrict kids under 18 from checking out books with "obscenity, sexual conduct, sexual intercourse, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender discordance." That would rule out the Bible & any other books with marriage or romance.
If you’re a book lover, here are some Flipboard Magazines (topical feeds of content) for you to follow — enjoy general recommendations, or more specific curation like @scottmonty’s Sherlock Holmes Magazine.