the_roamer

@the_roamer@mastodonapp.uk

University teacher, father, dog walker. A European in England. Posting on #UKpolitics, #covid, #pedagogy, #taoism, #literature, #programming, #typesetting with #TeX.

Kindness will prevail.

Many of my posts reflect on #MastodonCulture. Micro-observations on life with my #whippet are tagged #whippet_moments. Occasional waves of #SixWordStories.

Meta/threads.net: blocked.

Most of my comments come up in conversations. Please view my "Posts and Replies" rather than "Posts".

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

TiciaVerveer, to random Dutch
@TiciaVerveer@mastodon.social avatar

A team of scholars spent five years studying magical texts from Egypt that were written written in Coptic script and language on papyrus, parchment, paper and shards of clay and date from the period between the 4th and 12th centuries AD.
They have now been collected and scientifically annotated for the first time in a 600-page book.
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-ancient-anthology-magical-texts-published.html

the_roamer,

@TiciaVerveer

Fascinating how Christianity absorbed the ancient Egyptian magical traditions: "people transformed their former gods into angels and saints who served the almighty God and into evil beings who wanted to harm his creation." Thanks for the link!

NunavutBirder, to random
@NunavutBirder@mas.to avatar

“It’s never the being without that’s the hardest. That part, you can manage. Something leaves, or someone, but life goes on. You go to work, you make dinner, you have warm conversations with friends, you feel the sun on your skin, you find joy again. Bit by bit, the empty place in your life fills in. Not completely, maybe, but in time, the hole it left behind isn’t gaping enough to suck you in.”

As always, @doublemmartin is someone you need to read. Always.

https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=32873&post_id=140860068&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&action=share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=4iztn&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo3NjA0Njk5LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxNDA4NjAwNjgsImlhdCI6MTcwNzA1NjEyOCwiZXhwIjoxNzA5NjQ4MTI4LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzI4NzMiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0._vLbHaXCEvVQdLhz9woUNNMEtWy_i2t-g_IZ3sSs9Zs

the_roamer,

@NunavutBirder

Thank you for linking me to this essay and this writer. Reading her essay properly will take time, I will make sure to find that time.

revk, (edited ) to random
@revk@toot.me.uk avatar

It is Tue 30th Jan

When is “next Friday”?

[boost boost boost]

the_roamer,

@revk

Exactly the same problem with "park behind this car", when the car in question stands somewhere ahead of you.

Some of us will park between the front of our own car and the rear of the other car (since that position is "behind" from that car's perspective). Others will drive by the other car and park on the front side of that car (because they have now driven "behind" it). Both are reasonable.

What is strange is that some of us can't accept that their's is not the only approach.

the_roamer,

@revk

Pavement

A CAR X -> B
YOUR CAR ->

Road

(UK, driving on the lefthand side)

Position A is "behind" car X, from the perspective of the driver in that car. In flowing traffic, a car in position A travels behind car X.

Position B: is "behind" car X, in the sense that you first have to drive past it (you drive behind car X and then park).

the_roamer,

@revk

Fact is, if you tell a random selection of drivers to "park behind car X", some will go for A, others for B, and neither group will be negligible in size.

Your way of thinking clearly is firmly in the "A" camp, but there are "B" people.

You have lost your keys in the living room. You look across the room and see the sofa (X). Are the keys somewhere between you and the sofa (position A), or are they on the other side of the sofa (position B), Many of us would call B "behind" the sofa.

the_roamer,

@revk

I am trying to explain actual usage. Not taking a position myself.

the_roamer,

@srtcd424 @revk

And that is another good example of two mutually exclusive ways of interpreting the same statement. Either we take time's arrow as absolute (forward means later), or we look at the date shift relative to where we are (forward means closer to our now). Both are entirely plausible. Can't we simply accept that there is a plurality of perspectives?

TiciaVerveer, to random Dutch
@TiciaVerveer@mastodon.social avatar

On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day I remember my family, almost 90% were murdered in Nazi death camps.
On this photo you see my great-aunt Tilly Verveer with her fiancé Max van Ments, around 1940 in The Hague, The Netherlands.
They were dreaming of having a family, but the Shoah shattered their dreams.
She was only 25 years old when she was murdered in Auschwitz. Max reached the age of 23 years before he was murdered in Extern Kommando Ludwigsdorf.

the_roamer,

@TiciaVerveer

Thank you for letting us share your remembrance. That is so gracious of you. The evil of the Shoah is not abstract, it is an evil brought specifically into each of these individual human lives, into each family.

Tilly Verveer, we remember you.

Max van Ments, we remember you.

We remember.

NunavutBirder, to random
@NunavutBirder@mas.to avatar

https://kiggavik.typepad.com/the_house_other_arctic_mu/2006/01/at_last.html

I cannot believe my daughter is now an adult. She brings so much joy into my life.

A girl with a purple parka, trimmed with white fur, grabs the horns tooth cap on her head while smiling at the camera.

the_roamer,

@NunavutBirder

Intriguing, to see that 18 yo old post from a blog that was quiet for much of this period, referenced in a current micro-blog, both linked to the life of your daughter. Continuity and disruption tightly intermingled, and all put to scale by the progress of one human life. The only thing that matters.

Our twins are 11 now, still a long journey to travel before they reach adulthood. But like you, we marvel at the abundance of joy they give us.

mmzpotsdam, to Potsdam German

Guten Tag - lange überfällig: wir sind jetzt auch . Das in ist ein An-Institut der @unipotsdam. Seit 1992 forschen wir zur jüdischen Geschichte und Gegenwart in Europa und beherbergen eine außergewöhnliche Spezial-. (https://www.mmz-potsdam.de/)

@jewishstudies
@histodons @politicalscience
@litstudies
@dh @historikerinnen @culturalheritage

the_roamer,

@mmzpotsdam @unipotsdam @jewishstudies @histodons @politicalscience @litstudies @dh @historikerinnen @culturalheritage

Willkommen auf Mastodon!

mariatta, to random
@mariatta@fosstodon.org avatar

Life hack that I learned from one of my professors long time ago. 20 years later, I still follow the advice.

When sending a file attachment to someone else, include your name in the file, and additional info too.

e.g. Instead of assignment1.txt do: mariatta_assignment1_cmpt123.txt

This helps them when the recipient needs to download similar file from various people.

I do this now when I upload files too, eg

Mariatta_Resume_for_CompanyX.pdf
mariatta_personalized_pricelist_for_you.pdf
etc

the_roamer,

@mariatta

Indeed, timeless advice. Following it makes the world a better place!

I'd add an indication of the date, eg, mariatta_resume_companyX_jan2024.pdf.
"

Julie, to random
@Julie@social.coop avatar

Remember web directories? Back in the mists of Internet time, it was clever to know that they existed and know which ones were relevant to the subjects you were interested in. That was when the web was still small enough to imagine we could catalog and curate content.

the_roamer,

@Julie

Indeed: web directories! Given the collapse of effective search through Google &co, we will have to return to those directories. Human-controlled, intelligent lists of access points to real, validated information.

#WebDirectories #www #SearchEngines #Search

DemocracySpot, to random
@DemocracySpot@mstdn.social avatar

I just saw a picture post with 53 hashtags - a nightmare for anyone using a text reader.

the_roamer,

@DemocracySpot

A nightmare to everyone! Whether I use a text reader or my own eyes, I don't want to be treated like a search engine.

Even if the given post presents an image, it still is a post in a textual environment, and it should remain open to textual interaction.

3 or 4 hashtags is good, 5 to 8 may be OK, everything above that is plain wrong.

Use hashtags to be found, but make sure that your post is still human-readable once it has been found.

NunavutBirder, to worldwithoutus
@NunavutBirder@mas.to avatar

The Arqsarniit (Aurora) were active, but distant, last night. Looking south over Marcil Lake and Adams Sound.

A time lapse of aurora. Green and pink bands dancing across the sky. The camera pans left and the rotation of the earth makes the stars appear to sweep across the sky to the west. Jupiter, Orion, and Pleiades are recognizable.

the_roamer,

@NunavutBirder

Good work!

the_roamer, to random

Learn how to slice an onion, son. Everything else will come to you.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Just got a card from a student who has been having a rough year. She was having a great deal of trouble until I started showing her how to really USE a calculator. (It's algebra and geometry not arithmetic, and she knows the algorithms just makes SO MANY little mistakes)

Since then she's really taken off. I find very few people who could benefit from calculators know how to use them effectively, and there is a lot of snootiness and stigma in the way of this happening.

1/

the_roamer,

@maryErudis @futurebird

Subject mastery gives pedagogical freedom, doesn't it. The ineffective teacher obsesses with meeting the syllabus, precisely because they fail to fully understand the subject matter in its foundations. They use didactics to hide the superficiality of their content. The effective teacher is free to focus on student learning, precisely because they are able to provide natural links to the subject matter, in spontaneous response to the student's trials and mistakes.

NunavutBirder, to random
@NunavutBirder@mas.to avatar

Sometimes when I laugh I can hear my dad’s laugh. And that makes me both sad and happy at the same time.

the_roamer,

@NunavutBirder

Yes, well put, my exact experience too. So much of "who we are" has been passed on to us, and when my "I" speaks, my predecessors speak through me. Parents, but other life shapers too. As a university teacher, I often find myself enacting the habits and mannerisms of my academic mentors. I don't fight that. We are all part of that one shared process.

Impactful portrait of your father, one can feel his presence.

NunavutBirder, to worldwithoutus
@NunavutBirder@mas.to avatar

When I first started with Parks Canada we had to move down south to Iqaluit. A few days before we left I took a walk down the shore. A bit before midnight I took this look back at the old town.

Less than a week later, the day we arrived in Iqaluit I learned my mom had untreatable leukaemia and the world changed forever.

the_roamer,

@NunavutBirder

Yes, those are powerful veins of experience and memory: an image or a sound or a book or some other thing that recalls within us how we were "just before" our life took a major turn.

dukepaaron, to Israel
@dukepaaron@babka.social avatar

🧵 Calling for the of the is a hot topic these days. This is primarily for non-Jews.

What are we really talking about when this gets said? We generally aren't covering some fascist saying literally that they want to kill all the Jews. That speech is not wildly popular at universities or during anti- protests which is where the controversy is coming up.

So I think it's fair to say literal calling for the mass death of Jews is non-controversively frowned upon. I'm sure there's some free speech absolutist out there but that's a different issue entirely.

What we're talking about in the current political moment is supporters using more populist expressions like "From the River to the Sea" and similar expressions.

Let me tell you why I don't oppose the use of this call or chant.

1/?

the_roamer,

@TonyStark @dukepaaron @weirdmustard

Not sure whether you are OK if I make my comment here. I am a left-leaning non-Jew in the UK. For me, 7 Oct was a historical shock. A concrete act of terror and also a marker of a new phase in history.

I have spoken to my Jewish friends in Germany and Israel.

I have broken contact to everyone who associates themselves with "From the River to the Sea".

I have done so, not for fancy political reasons, but simply in order to be able to breathe freely.

NunavutBirder, to poetry
@NunavutBirder@mas.to avatar

Rest well Joe

Poem: The dead are patient; They have no hurry; They will wait for us; To don our mourning cloak; To find those words; We would have said to the living; Now said to ears that cannot hear; The dead are patient; They will wait until we are able.

the_roamer,

@NunavutBirder

Those lines capture a deep truth about friendship and loss. Thank you for writing this, and I raise my glass to your lost friend Joe.

the_roamer, to random German

It's alright, she said, sleep.

CitizenWald, to ireland
@CitizenWald@historians.social avatar

Because I've been busy, I am late in celebrating the birthday of the great Laurence Sterne, born 24 Nov. 1713 in Clonmel,

Here, my copy of the posthumously published letters to the object of his literary-romantic devotion, Eliza Draper (2nd ed. 1775).

Modern readers find in what the editor said he saw in Eliza: “a mind so congenial with his own, so enlightened, so refined, and so tender"

@bookhistodons @bookstodon

the_roamer,

@CitizenWald @bookhistodons @bookstodon

Wow, is that the 1st edition?

Sterne is freedom. Uncontainable.

https://mastodonapp.uk/

the_roamer, to random

Snow fell and covered their tracks.

the_roamer, to random

My first Mastodon anniversary is approaching and I feel gratitude. "5 November" lives in my brain right next to the birthday dates of my daughters, a truly significant date. I remember the excitement of arriving here, the good-natured welcome from the old hands, the buzz, the new encounters, the immersion in a new set of customs. A liberation. Sharing micro-thoughts with others straight, without algorithm or hype. Eleven months on, I still feel the power of that liberation every time I post.

the_roamer,

@mpjgregoire

:-)

I remember few dates: my own birthday, the birthdays of my immediate family, the day I started my first proper job. The 5th of November 2022 has become part of that short list.

the_roamer,

@mpjgregoire

Ha, I never made the connection! Guy Fawkes is a regular event for family outings, of course, so we do take note, but as I said, most dates slip by me, and so does Guy Fawkes's date.

We must have been out with the girls for the bonfire in the village on that evening in 2022, before I joined Mastodon later in the night.

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