@vivdunstan@mastodon.scot
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vivdunstan

@vivdunstan@mastodon.scot

Academic historian, genealogist, former computer scientist, Doctor Who fan and accordionist. Pronouns she/her. Equality ally. #BLM

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vivdunstan, to animals
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Upcoming talk at Dundee University about a local tale from 1706: How To Dissect An Elephant (An Animal of Considerable Bigness) https://www.dundee.ac.uk/events/how-dissect-elephant-animal-considerable-bigness

vivdunstan, to Scotland
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photos from my husband a couple of hours ago, outside our home in , .

A photo of the night sky full of pink, purple, mauve, blue and green lighting from the aurora
A photo of the night sky above a bungalow with blue/purple at the top left, a pink/red/orange band across the middle, and a green glow at the bottom
A portrait shaped view of the night sky with purple and pink aurora streaks sweeping diagonally down from top left to bottom right, and greens and blues around

vivdunstan, to Scotland
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Some from my husband's Saturday afternoon near our home in eastern , .

A male blackcap bird perched on a branch among green leaves. It is facing to the right, small and fluffy, light body, dark wings, black head.
A peacock butterfly perched on a pink flowering plant. It is tilted towards the right, with red wings and bright dark eye like markings on the wings.
A small fluffy wren perched on a branch in bright sunlight. It has a darker brown body, lighter brown around the neck and head. It was chirping loudly at the cameraman.

vivdunstan, to history
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Very happily browsing Stirling University’s Books and Borrowing 1750-1850 database of Scottish libraries, which is now online, including contributions from me of library borrowing transcripts for Haddington and Selkirk libraries https://borrowing.stir.ac.uk/libraries/ #ScottishHistory #BookHistory #18thCentury #19thCentury #Libraries #Reading #Books #Bookstodon #Readers #StirlingUniversity #Database #DH #DigitalHumanities

vivdunstan, to indiegames
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Reminder for fans of including choice based pieces and old style games that the annual festival for interactive fiction is running at the moment, with 32 new games to play. Huge range. All free to play. Hugely imaginative stuff. https://www.springthing.net/2024/play.html

vivdunstan, to writing
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Inking up my favourite #fountainPen, for a free #writing session tomorrow, to figure out the next key scene in a #textAdventure / #interactiveFiction game I'm writing. I find drafting extended things like this by hand far more creative and imaginative than typing straight into the computer. #fountainPens #stationery #creativeWriting #GameDev #IndieGames #Visconti

vivdunstan, to neuro
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It's Rare Disease Day again, and time to reshare my experiences with a 1 in a million (literally!) progressive neurological disease, cerebral vasculitis. I've written a lot about it before, but I think my "Implications of living with a rare disease" blog post is a good one, which also addresses the experiences of other people living with other rare diseases. https://vivsacademicblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/implications-of-living-with-a-rare-disease/

vivdunstan, to ireland
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Belated to Irish writer . I loved his series of comic gamebooks. Here’s a nice tribute to him. https://cwickham.blogspot.com/2024/02/rip-jh.html

vivdunstan, to Scotland
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Some more bonus from my husband this morning, this time while he was waiting outside my tuner's house in rural , .

Looking across a Scottish landscape full of tree covered green hills, and before then rolling farmland and trees. In the foreground is a wooded hill/valley in dark profile.
Looking across a Scottish landscape with a green field at the bottom left, dark woods to the right of it, and beyond that trees, farm land, and in the distance mountains and a blue sky.
A buzzard flying to the right against a blue sky with its wings spread wide and tail out

vivdunstan, to gamedev
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More game coding in and I’m getting more fluent at the language, but always get caught out coding variables and constants, and have to recheck the syntax. Rooms, NPCs and scenes no problem. Core coding aarrgghh!

vivdunstan, to Scotland
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Some from my husband's Saturday afternoon near our home in eastern , .

A dipper standing on a branch in a river leaning forward, with a fish dangling from its beak. The bird has brown/grey plumage, a white neck/tummy and brown head.
A robin perched facing right on a thin branch in a tree, with its beak wide open as it sings. It has a very orange tummy and neck, and light cream/beige underneath and brown head and wings.
A wood pigeon standing tall in a tree covered in ivy, facing right. It has a blue head, striped patterned neck, and a pink/purple/blue back.

vivdunstan, to programming
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Back to , and there's something really magical about trying early stages of the game myself as a player, thinking "This is the experience I want the player to have here", then coding it, replaying to try it out myself, tweaking and so on. Like alchemy! Iterative, and it takes time. But it's stupidly fun. I never had this much fun with during my degree, when we learned loads of languages and IDEs.

vivdunstan, to books
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Too sedated from neuro illness to read much at the mo. But started The Children of Hurin by JRR Tolkien. Though skipped opening context/intro. I'm taking it as a story on its own terms, without overbearing Silmarillion-esque trappinggs that I find off-putting. Liking the epic/myth/tragedy combo.

vivdunstan, to Software
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RIP: Software design pioneer and Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/04/niklaus_wirth_obituary/ #Software #ComputerScience #ComputerLanguages #Programming #Pascal #RIP

vivdunstan, to fountainpens
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First week using my new Hobonichi A5 paper planner. Very relaxing to work with, using a dedicated extra fine nib fountain pen for the very thin Tomoe River paper. And best of all already a huge productivity aid.

vivdunstan, to Scotland
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Reminder folks that today, St Andrew's Day, there's the usual annual 1-day sale from Edinburgh University Press. Half price on all their books, which normally includes preorders too. So if you want something from them, snap it up now. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/browse/books

vivdunstan, to history
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Browsing again the free downloads of old Abertay Historical Society publications. A fantastic range covering the of , , and . Well worth checking out. In print publications and society membership are also fab too! https://abertay.org.uk/downloads/

vivdunstan, to discworld
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40 years ago today "The Colour of Magic" by was first published, starting a hugely popular and successful series of , that are adored by many, including me. Endlessly inventive, wittily insightful, and laugh out loud funny, these books are an absolute joy. Thank you Terry. https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/book-series/discworld/

vivdunstan, to DoctorWho
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I adore this special “The Adventure of a Lifetime” treat video from YouTube for . I have watched it a silly number of times now. A glorious nod to both the past 60 years and hints of the future to come. https://youtu.be/2V_xYubUJFo

vivdunstan, to DoctorWho
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Sixty years ago today was first broadcast. I started watching 15 years later, in 1978, aged 5. And my dad and I were both immediately hooked. I’ve loved it ever since. I fell away as a fan in the wilderness years. But was back as a fan in 2003 when it was announced it was returning to TV screens. For me Doctor Who is less a show and more a wonderful engine, able to tell all sorts of different stories in different times and places. Long may it continue.

vivdunstan, to random
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Latest (my 8th) and (umpteenth) acquired. Huge thanks to the friendly and efficient staff and volunteers at city centre centre. Immensely grateful to get this, as someone who is severely . And is now thankfully generating antibodies.

vivdunstan, to calligraphy
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Normally I'm fine reading Scottish from the mid 17th century. Even usually ok back to 1600. This 1656 testament not so much 😜

vivdunstan, to fantasy
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Looking forward to seeing and chatting about The Dark Is Rising and Other Stories at the on Friday. I’ll be tuning in online to watch - and tickets are still available to buy. You can watch online for up to 48 hours after. https://www.bl.uk/events/the-dark-is-rising-and-other-stories-susan-cooper-and-natalie-haynes-in-conversation

vivdunstan, to Scotland
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We live in , near the on the eastern edge of . It’s been very deep and flooded the last few days due to . I was worried about dipper birds my husband sees every week there. Fortunately he saw loads today. Here is a of one fishing beside a very fast whooshing river. https://youtu.be/gAyITN4zwoE

vivdunstan, to Stoicism
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I will keep a / life book throughout 2024 and have been experimenting re my approach. Intending for a mix of keeping track of things to do in a week (list on Monday pages) and done (on Friday pages) as well as musings on days, books read etc. This could be digital but I like relaxing with a handwritten journal or planner in hand. It should also be a nice record at the end of the year. I’ll be using an A5 Hobonichi Cousin plus dedicated EF pen.

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