@Bern@aus.social avatar

Bern

@Bern@aus.social

Mechanical engineer. Wannabe novellist. Does noise control for a living. All round nerdy type.
Currently living on Turrbal/Jagera land on the southern side of Meanjin (Brisbane), Australia.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Bern, to writing
@Bern@aus.social avatar

Writers’ Coffee Club for 24th May 2024

  1. Is there any work of fiction you could have written better? Don't be shy.

What, apart from seasons 7 & 8 of Game of Thrones? 😆

I’ve read quite a few books in my time, and some of them weren’t especially well-written. Others were, but I still find a few bits here and there that could stand a bit of revision. I’ve been re-reading Eddings’ Belgariad series to my youngest lately, and while I think it was quite well written overall, I came across a few passages last night that stood out to me as a little ‘clunky’ in the prose – I definitely feel I could have done those parts better!

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

UK government planning nuclear site in Scotland

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9eze1dzy5no

This is pointless: Scotland is already self-sufficient on renewables. What we need is a new grid interconnect between Scotland and England so we can export our surplus energy to the south!

It's all about the lobbyists, of course:

"Its ambitions for up to a quarter of all electricity to come from nuclear power by 2050 are being led by government-backed body Great British Nuclear." (Who?)

Bern,
@Bern@aus.social avatar

@Ardubal @cstross only an idiot would design a renewables-powered network where demand was only just met by nameplate capacity.

Surplus energy is the name of the game. Dump it into batteries, thermal storage, hydrogen electrolysis, or other industrial processes that are flexible in output, and could really benefit from some free (or almost free) electricity.

Nobody serious expects a renewables system to not have periods of surplus generation.

geordie, to random
@geordie@aus.social avatar

Not particularly technical friend had several drinks, changed their laptop password and set the password hint to "lol" so I'm dealing with that now.

Bern,
@Bern@aus.social avatar

@geordie I don't even have a functioning optical drive any more, since my 11yo Bluray burner gave up the ghost. I should download a bootable USB image and check out what they're doing with Ubuntu these days, haven't played with it for many years, and a recovery image will be a good thing to have around.

timrichards, to auspol
@timrichards@aus.social avatar

Surely a Labor government should be embarrassed by delivering a surplus, when that money could've been spent on raising unemployment benefits or on building state housing.

Budget 2024: Jim Chalmers lands the surplus double

(maybe paywalled) https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/9-3-billion-chalmers-lands-the-surplus-double-in-third-budget-20240513-p5jd6e.html

Bern,
@Bern@aus.social avatar

@timrichards @evolvable nah, the moment they got a sniff of it, Colesworths would jack up prices on essentials another 50%...

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Reading the comments on this toot and seeing how many people never saw one of these things in the flesh and think it's a VHS player or something or who remember their grandparents owning one is making me feel REALLY OLD.
https://retro.social/@ajroach42/112367787830902780

Bern,
@Bern@aus.social avatar

@cstross I think I only ever saw one of those tiny portable TVs once. They were very rare in Australia, I think.
Even when I saw it in the early 80s, I wondered why anyone would bother watching TV on such a small screen.
And now many people watch video extensively on their mobile phones... 🤔

Bern, to random
@Bern@aus.social avatar

I use a niche software package in my work, that uses a USB hardlock for licence management.
IT want us to run it in a VM, so they can 'manage' it.
After testing with a temporary trial licence:

  • it runs 60-70% slower on the VM
  • there's enough GUI latency that it feels like stepping back in time to the days when CPUs plugged into a slot and Windows XP was the new shiny
  • we can't get the actual licence to work with the VM anyway, and there's no indication the vendor is inclined to support cloud licensing

My recommendation: continue to run it on my laptop, just sort the data storage issues we have.

IT recommendation: go full steam ahead with moving everything to the cloud... 🤦‍♂️

Bern, to random
@Bern@aus.social avatar

I see Australian defamation law has once again utterly destroyed the reputation of someone attempting to use it to silence their critics... 🤔

Bern, to writing
@Bern@aus.social avatar

Writers’ Coffee Club for 14th April 2024

  1. Do you keep a log of incidental characters (e.g. shop assistants) or forget them once they've featured?

This is where my worldbuilding notes in WikidPad come in! I note down the characters that appear, if they’re likely to ever appear again.
Nah, who am I kidding! I just keep it all in my head, and sometimes I remember, sometimes I don’t. If I remember about them, and they become relevant again, then I go back and re-read where they appeared previously to refresh my memory.
I do put some notes into Wikidpad, though (like names & details of significant characters, events, location info, etc)

Bern, to writing
@Bern@aus.social avatar

Writers’ Coffee Club for 13th April 2024

  1. Which "unfilmable" novel do you think has worked best on screen?

I think probably The Lord of the Rings – Jackson’s adaptation is an epic of filmmaking.
I do quite like Villeneuve’s Dune, though. But then, I also liked the Lynch version, despite all its flaws and the creative licence taken with certain aspects of the story, and I also enjoyed the TV mini-series. 🤷‍♂️

Bern, to writing
@Bern@aus.social avatar

I have spent my evening (ok, half the night 😏 ) writing early draft scenes for a book that will be two books (at least) after my current WIP.

And even my current WIP is three novels and a novella past the one I really need to finish revising, if I want to publish it later this year... 🤦 Still, I've gotta get those ideas down while they're fresh.

It's been a tough evening, though. Some of these scenes are very unhappy ones.

Bern,
@Bern@aus.social avatar

Ok, I made the meme... 😆

Bern, to writing
@Bern@aus.social avatar

WordWeavers for 10th April, 2024

  1. How much power does your MC have?

Directly, very little. Indirectly – people pay a lot of attention to what she says and does, for reasons that escape her initially, until she learns a bit of history. There’s a very good reason why people pay attention to what she says and does, increasingly so as the story progresses.

decryption, to random
@decryption@aus.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    Bern,
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    @decryption Ah, the days when the CRT casing went from beige to white, but before black became trendy... 😏

    Bern, to writing
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    Writers’ Coffee Club for 8th April 2024

    1. Do you think of your books as having a particular length?

    They are neither too short, nor too long, but precisely the length they need to be. 😉

    My WIPs are 134k, 83k, 103k, 31k (a novella), and currently 32k (but there's a lot more to come in that one!). I wanted to make the novella a novel, but there just wasn't enough story there to justify it, so novella it was. I'm surprised WIP3 made it to 100k in the end. And I have no idea how long WIP5 will end up. It really depends on the story that I'm telling, and how many words it takes to tell it in a way that feels right.

    jpm, to random
    @jpm@aus.social avatar

    Come on folks, it is now 2024, have you not figured out that CO2 monitoring systems only do one single thing, which is tell you how much CO2 is in the air around you? It is NOT a proxy for measuring anything else.

    Bern,
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    @georgeharito @jpm @geordie guessing you saw a spike in the TVOC? Or was there an increase in PM2.5 as well?

    luciedigitalni, to Canberra
    @luciedigitalni@aus.social avatar

    My trackie dacks have just made their first appearance for the year

    Bern,
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    @luciedigitalni my kids have been wearing theirs on occasion all through summer.

    In Brisbane.
    🥵

    melissabeartrix, to random
    @melissabeartrix@aus.social avatar

    Yes it noisy

    Hugz & xXx

    Bern,
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    @melissabeartrix 76dB may not actually be all that loud, depending on frequency.

    Noise is normally measured using dB(A), where the A-weighting curve is a facsimile for human hearing response. It severely penalises low frequencies (that our ears don't respond well to) and slightly enhances speech frequencies between 1 and 4 kHz.

    Bern,
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    @melissabeartrix buses are usually low frequency, but the hairdryers (small fans at high speed) are likely making a lot of noise right in the peak hearing range, so above 70 dB(A) is quite plausible

    Bern, to writing
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    WordWeavers for 12th March, 2024

    1. What would your MC enjoy the most about our world?

    I think she’d really like the food – how varied it is, and how accessible other cuisines are. Also the ‘exotic’ (for her) wildlife. She would be stunned at the technology we have, and at the material wealth most in our society benefit from.

    mojo, to auspol
    @mojo@aus.social avatar

    "I’m not going to beat around the bush here. The housing market in Australia is an absolute disaster...

    .... The federal government is growing the population massively at the same time as construction – the supply side – is collapsing.

    And I think the question everybody needs to ask the Albanese government is: why have they brought in record numbers of people into Australia without a plan to house them and also to provide infrastructure for them.

    Because this is a disaster... "

    https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2024/03/australias-housing-market-an-absolute-disaster/

    Bern,
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    @mojo
    Politicians: "The market will provide!"
    The market: <devotes all its resources to making only the most profitable product, not the most needed, practicable, useful, or affordable>

    timrichards, (edited ) to random
    @timrichards@aus.social avatar

    On a tram to Essendon North. Beautiful day over the tram depot, love that clear blue sky. I always say autumn is the best season in Melbourne.

    Bern,
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    @timrichards and in a month that weather will have moved north to Brisbane, and we'll be all set until October... 😏

    Bern,
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    @timrichards absolutely! Looking forward to it after the long and incredibly humid summer we've had... 🥵

    Bern, to writing
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    Writers’ Coffee Club for 5th March 2024

    1. Where do you see the future of publishing in ten years' time?

    Oh, this is a thorny question! The biggest threat I see is that real writing will be drowned in an ocean of AI-generated content, and it will become increasingly difficult for anyone to make money from writing and publishing.
    Of course, that leads to AI being trained exclusively on AI-generated content, generating more content that is then used to refine the training of the AIs… that could very quickly lead to some very bizarre outcomes.
    We might also see the development of a vetted “human only” publishing industry. There will be many people who value writing that is hand-crafted by a skilled author. Whether the mass market will care enough that it’s viable, or if they’ll happily keep consuming their AI-generated dopamine hits, I don’t know.

    All I do know is that change is coming, and fast.

    decryption, to random
    @decryption@aus.social avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    Bern,
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    @decryption Google probably just "AI-enabled" the spam filters... 🤦‍♂️

    Bern, to writing
    @Bern@aus.social avatar

    Writers’ Coffee Club for 29th February 2024

    1. Pick one of the Writers' Coffee Club writers you follow and ask them anything about their work or process.

    You know, I've got nothing. I've thought about this prompt a few times over the month, but nothing has come to mind.

    I will say, however, that I've really enjoyed reading through the answers people have given to some of the prompts, and it's wonderful to see such a diverse collection of writers on here. You've opened my eyes a little more to the world outside my tiny bubble of existence, and that's a great thing.

    So instead of asking a question, I'll say thank you to John for pulling together the prompts each month, thank you to the people who suggest Qs, and thank you all for your answers!

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • kavyap
  • thenastyranch
  • ethstaker
  • osvaldo12
  • mdbf
  • DreamBathrooms
  • InstantRegret
  • magazineikmin
  • Youngstown
  • ngwrru68w68
  • slotface
  • GTA5RPClips
  • rosin
  • megavids
  • cubers
  • everett
  • cisconetworking
  • tacticalgear
  • anitta
  • khanakhh
  • normalnudes
  • Durango
  • modclub
  • tester
  • provamag3
  • Leos
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •