@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

DejahEntendu

@DejahEntendu@dice.camp

TTRPG gamer, geek, life-o-phile
Parent of an adult person.
I try to be nice and I can be taught.
Leaper before looker...
I love books that explore how people and societies react to/change with circumstances.
I have no patience for stories that celebrate prejudice.
I fall asleep listening to historical romances and never review them.

10th level office worker with the IT archetype and a specialization in Active Directory. Multi-classed into management.

Storygraph: https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/dejahentendu

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

DejahEntendu, to books
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant

This has been an absolutely fascinating book to read and is perhaps the most important book I'll read all year. Merchant is spot on with his commentary about the parallels between the first Industrial Revolution and now. We have not learned a thing about protecting our populations and economies from mass unemployment during technological upheaval.

🧵

@bookstodon

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

I spent last night thinking about the "shift to the left" initiative at my old job, basically reducing the complexity of any work you can enough for someone lower paid and lower skilled to do it. And now the push to automate anything that is repeatable. In both cases, the companies reduced staff enough to make you HAPPY to get the work off your plate. By running departments "lean" enough to mean we can't complete our objectives,

🧵

@bookstodon

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

the powers that be force us into participating in our own obsolescence. It's sinister and brilliant at the same time.

Shifting to the left has morphed into shifting to lower cost environments. Hire someone in the Philippines rather than Hong Kong or North America. And sure, I'm all for global wealth, but it does seem both exploitative of the Filipinos and detrimental to those in higher paid environments.

🧵

@bookstodon

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

If we were hiring them for expertise rather than for taking up lower level work, I would feel differently. But doing this is restricting entry level positions in places where you're trying to get your experts, thus limiting the growth potential in those economies. It's going to depress the tech sector in ways I don't think they've considered enough to care about. Or maybe they have considered it and still don't care.

🧵

@bookstodon #books #nonfiction #history #bookstodon

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

There was even a quote in the book from some first Industrial Revolution tech bro saying, essentially, "Go ahead. Try to get the government to care enough to fix this." And we're right back there now. We can't even go back to the old ways of destroying the tech that's destroying our lives because we live in a surveillance society. And where the hell is that AI being hosted anyway?

🧵

@bookstodon

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

@bookstodon

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

It's spread out across geographies and there are backups. I don't know how we'll make it through this.

Are other sectors as bad as tech? What happens in NA when what's left of the middle class is gone and only the ultra rich can afford to live? As each small piece of wealth for the average person erodes, cracks appear in the foundation of the economy, and the negative impact will spread.

🧵

@bookstodon #books #nonfiction #history #bookstodon

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

@curmudgeonaf @bookstodon
I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you've had luck recovering from it. Are you still in the same industry? Doing the same kind of work?

CuriousMagpie, to bookstodon
@CuriousMagpie@wandering.shop avatar

Did you ever read a book or two in a long series and they were enjoyable so you’re hooked into the storyline and care about the characters.
But then, the stories get really irritating - this strange need for authors to torture their main characters over and over again is very troubling.
So I finished this series as a spite read. Fortunately the books were short. Compared to a lot of the books I usually read.
No I’m not naming authors.
@bookstodon #amreading

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

@CuriousMagpie @bookstodon
I have. I usually stop reading after the second book I don't like. I feel like if they've screwed up two in a row, I don't trust they'll come back to stories I enjoy. And I'm old enough now to not care that I didn't find out what happened in the end.

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

@mvilain @CuriousMagpie @bookstodon

Oh, sure, I'll stop a stand-alone or first book if the author gets into abuse and all now. I never made it past the intro to The Expanse due to that. But in a series, where I've already gotten a couple of books in? I'll give them more of a chance.

I wasn't always that critical about my reading, and there are scenes I just can't delete out of my brain, even 25 years later. I think it was GRRM and his mid characterization of Daenerys that convinced me.

DejahEntendu, to scifi
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

Where Peace Is Lost by Valerie Valdes.

Very different from her series starting with Chilling Effect, Where Peace Is Lost is much more serious. It reads as a quest to save a world, a journey or personal forgiveness, romance, and anti-capitalist philosophy. That's a lot to cram into 12 hours. It's all well done though, not seeming patchwork at all. Thus I zoomed through the story in two days.

1/2

@bookstodon

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

Valdes delivers a solid book, perhaps leading us to "the further adventure of..."

Rebeccsa Mozo, the narrator, had a handful of mispronouciations that should have been caught by someone. Not enough to be ruinous, but distracting nonetheless. ☹️ Pronouncing buffet as the noun form, for instance, when it was used as the verb form.

LGBTQIA+ positive

@bookstodon

DejahEntendu, to scifi
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice.

Rice weaves a gorgeous follow-up to Moon of the Crusted Snow. About 12 years have passed since the power went out, and the Anishinaabe in what was the northern Ontario province are in need of a new home as local resources are dwindling. Moon of the Turning Leaves follows a group south and east as they search for a better place, preferably in their ancestral lands.

1/2

@bookstodon

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

Along the way, they learn more of their world, both past and present. I felt that the characters learning they were big fish in a little pond was a nice touch, as many times lead characters are practically infallible.

Rice's prose is lyric, and his characters are rounded out. As soon as I saw he'd written another book in this world, I knew I had to read it. Billy Merasty, the narrator, adds to the immersion of the story.

2/2

@bookstodon

DejahEntendu, to Cats
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

Meowlcolm Reynolds, my old man, my stalker, my grouchy boy, died suddenly today. He was 15 years old and loved no one so much as me for the past 7 years, the time we had him. My heart hurts so much. I can't believe he's gone. I'll miss his steady presence.

Kokirimuscle, to random
@Kokirimuscle@woof.group avatar

When I hear people say in #ttrpgs that they like to make up the character’s backstory and personality as they play rather than beforehand or at a session 0, I think they must have players that are far better at improv than the ones I play with.

In my experience, if a character doesn’t have a backstory at the beginning, they never will have one.

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

@Kokirimuscle
I play with one guy who never writes a backstory. I explicitly told our group that I needed them for the game I'm currently running. After two weeks, I wrote it for him and told him it was canon. Surprisingly, he was ok with that, but I hated having to do it. He is more of a puzzle player than a role player, so it does make some sense.

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

@zdl @Kokirimuscle
I get that. He says it's because bsckstories only allow the GM to mess with your character. He actively doesn't want the hook, I guess.

IzabelaKaramia, to animals
@IzabelaKaramia@writing.exchange avatar

Sometimes Ginza gets so excited when we wake up in the mornings I have to pin her down with Dinker Donkers. Which she enjoys, she purrs even louder when I pin her down with the stuffie dinosaur.

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

@IzabelaKaramia
I watched your journey of bringing Ginza inside. Beautiful work bringing joy to her!

DejahEntendu, to Anthropology
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow.

This was a great book! Graeber and Wengrow integrate new archeological discoveries with anthropology and turn common belief on its side. In the same way that we used to think that evolution was a progressive march to new and improved species, we also thought that human development was on an upward arc to better things, with capitalism and

🧵

@bookstodon

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

Democracy at the apex. But we learned that evolution is a collection of paths through a forest, sometimes heading where we want to go and sometimes not. Mutuations are random and not always more beneficial. Thus, species don't always progress with change.

They posit the same for human history. We haven't been heading in a direct line to where we are, and we don't have to stay here.

@bookstodon

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

Levels of equality and freedom have come and gone, and maybe European patriarchal society isn't the apex.

Read this one.

@bookstodon

ColleenDoran, to random
@ColleenDoran@mastodon.social avatar

Death of the Endless. Brush and ink with a metallic ink that actually looks better than the real gold I often use.

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

@ColleenDoran

My Death and Delirium tattoo. It's a celebration of my daughter and me.

#Sandman #tattoos #TheEndless

rivetgeek, to random
@rivetgeek@dice.camp avatar

I used to think my Dad was being ridiculous with the precise steps he insisted on taking to configure my Mom's PC with the JAWS screen reading software. And then I had to configure SQL Server failover clustering and suddenly I understood.

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

@rivetgeek
Hahahahha! I feel your pain. I had to write that documentation for server 2012 at my old job.

DejahEntendu, to books
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

Eversion by Alastair Reynolds.

This is a lovely, slow book. Reynolds takes us through the time of a life lived on repeat, through the unraveling of the mystery, and to the hope of happy endings. Quite masterfully done.

@bookstodon

kyonshi, to fantasy
@kyonshi@dice.camp avatar

What's a good (urban) fantasy novel set in a Victorian/Belle epoque/Roaring 20s milieu?

Looking for a gift for my wife and feel somewhat uninspired.

DejahEntendu,
@DejahEntendu@dice.camp avatar

@kyonshi
I can't remember when it's set, but Sorcerer to the Crown, by Zen Cho was fun too.

If she hasn't read any Gail Carriger, her books are a hoot!

I was looking for a different one that I can't find. I went back about 4 years in my reading list. I should probably be working...

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