@raymccarthy@historians.social
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

raymccarthy

@raymccarthy@historians.social

Former Electronics, Software & Communications Engineer now a full time writer.
Living in the Mid-West of Ireland.

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juergen_hubert, to random
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Thought of the day:

Based on my readings of old German folk tales, in the current age and the "Satanic Panics" of the 1980s are just another incarnation of the Panics of previous centuries.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@juergen_hubert
Yes. 17th C. reboot.

raymccarthy, to random
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

"Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza strip has killed at least 36,439 Palestinians and wounded 82,627 since 7 October, the Palestinian health ministry said on Sunday."

The situation is bad, but why does every media outlet quote these bogus figures issued by an organisation that can't know and is controlled by Hamas?

C.f Ukrainians killed in over 2 years, and approx 10,000 glide bombs, indiscriminate daily shelling of civilians and missile & drone attacks on apartment blocks.

FANTASY.

juergen_hubert, to politics
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

1/ Okay, while the Trump verdict has been very riveting, I'd like to talk about failure states in democracies for a bit.

Any stable democracy needs peaceful transfers of power. If a ruling government loses in an election and thus loses power, they are free to moan about it - but in the end, they should leave office without violence because (unless they screwed up bigly) they realize that they will likely return to power one day. They are invested in the system, and do not want to overthrow the basic democratic order of their country - because it works for them.

Thus, a country needs multiple parties with an investment in democracy, who are willing to form a government - but who are also willing to leave peacefully. If this is not the case, then the democracy in question is in a failure state.

An good (or rather, very very bad) example of a "proportional representation" democracy in a failure state was the late Weimar Republic. Starting in 1932, the NSDAP (Nazis) and the KDP (Communists) received a majority of the vote and thus representatives. Both wanted to overthrow the Republic and its democracy in its own way, and thus it became impossible to form a democratic government - let alone switch between different ones. But the Weimar Republic had problems in this regard even earlier, since there were numerous miniscule parties with only a very small number of candidates. They only cared about a small number of issues, had no motivation to compromise, and thus were not willing to join a working government.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@juergen_hubert
Maybe there is something in the water?

raymccarthy, (edited ) to random
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

Free: The Apprentice's Talent
everywhere except Amazon (reduced to 99c there)

The Apprentice’s Talent
Talents Universe 1
Part 1 of the Maisie Trilogy.
Mei Zhen Kelly is a 23 year old computer programmer from Belfast working in Dublin for nearly three years.

Released: 18th April 2016.

Updated: May 2024

160,450 words
Retail sellers:
Smashwords Store, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Amazon, Play Store
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/627843
https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-apprentices-talent/id1100808098
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-apprentices-talent-ray-mccarthy/1123641871
https://www.kobo.com/ie/en/ebook/the-apprentice-s-talent

driusan, to random

I'm going to start using the verb "Googled it" to mean "to take a widely used and well liked product and turn it into something horrific beyond HP Lovecraft's wildest imagination while coasting on inertia and the nostalgic memories of my users"

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@driusan
4. A kind of bun described by Enid Blyton

Godyssey, to random
@Godyssey@pagan.plus avatar

The placement of a horseshoe above a door is a hotly debated topic. Some argue that it should go right side up, the horseshoe catching luck and giving luck to the home; others argue the shoe should be upside down, pouring good luck on visitors.

where do you fall?

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@Godyssey
I remember reading another reason about the opening at the bottom.
The horseshoe wasn't about luck, but protection and the fact of it being iron. Sadly I forget the details. Not sure even if Irish or English belief.

SimonRoyHughes, to random
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

I understand this. I can draw Donald Duck's head, but can't for the life of me figure out how to do his body.

On the other hand, if I were king, I wouldn't pay for an unfinished painting.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes Obviously a Jacobite painting.
(See James vs William married to his daughter Mary. William should only have been a Prince Consort, like Charles' father Philip).

SimonRoyHughes, to random
@SimonRoyHughes@thefolklore.cafe avatar

(I has ISBNs.)

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes
But they were a lot cheaper than mine :D !

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes
Yes, it's brilliant.
OTOH, should one in Ireland be one of the less than 0.5% earning enough to be taxed from writing, you can apply to have the title royalty be tax free.
I had to buy my ISBNs from a UK based reseller. They have the Ireland "franchise". The Norwegian scheme would make sense here.a

juergen_hubert, to photography
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Le sigh.

Look, if you find a baby bird hopping around without its parents, don't pick it up, but leave it where it is. The parents are likely nearby.

#bird #photography

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@juergen_hubert
Yes, loads of parents chase them out of the nest and feed them on the ground.

Some members of the crow family will take exception to you molesting the dabs and mob you. They are smart enough to know if you have a shotgun!

TarkabarkaHolgy, to folklore
@TarkabarkaHolgy@ohai.social avatar


T is for the Two-person love triangle

When someone thinks they are dating two different people, and then the turn out to be the same person.

Read here:
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2024/04/t-is-for-two-person-love-triangle.html

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@TarkabarkaHolgy
Slightly related is the play Quality Street, by J.M. Barrie who later did Peter Pan.
Quality Street Chocolates/caramels originally had Regency scenes and characters inspired by the play.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31266

seanbala, to climate
@seanbala@mas.to avatar

I feel a bit mixed about this. On one hand, happy to see more charging ports. On the other hand, it feels like a tobacco company funding a hospital.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@seanbala
Of course some Vape brands are owned by tobacco companies.

Godyssey, to random
@Godyssey@pagan.plus avatar

Gaia is the original Mother Earth, the embodiment of the world we live in according to the Greeks. They swore upon her, and all oaths taken or broken in her name were known to her. All things, man and god, nymph and satyr, come from Gaia, She Who Endures. Now the question is: is she a globe or a spherical disc, as the pre-Hellenistic Greeks believed? #MythologyMonday @mythologymonday

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@Godyssey @mythologymonday
Some ancient Greeks and Chinese not only knew the Earth was a "sphere", and some made reasonable estimates of the size.
Watching the Moon gave a clue. So Ancient Babylonians might have guessed first.
Most people in the last 10,000 years didn't consider the issue. The "Flat Earth" idea was invented by Victorians alleging the Church believed in it, to poke fun at religion.

dbellingradt, to Voynich
@dbellingradt@historians.social avatar

News from the #Voynich Fanclub came in: https://theconversation.com/for-600-years-the-voynich-manuscript-has-remained-a-mystery-now-we-think-its-partly-about-sex-227157

#bookhistory #histodons

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@dbellingradt Didn't Freud think everything was about sex?

TarkabarkaHolgy, to folklore
@TarkabarkaHolgy@ohai.social avatar

It's April 1st!
That means, the A to Z Blogging Challenge is off to a start.

My theme this year is "Romance Tropes in Folklore". I am taking popular tropes, and finding their equivalents in traditional stories.

A is for Arranged Marriage romances.
Read here:
https://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-is-for-arranged-marriage-romance.html

#folklore #folktales #AtoZChallenge #blog #RomanceTropesInFolklore #romance

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@TarkabarkaHolgy It's forced marriage is a big issue and should be illegal everywhere.

Been reading Mary Burchell and while she was once a top Mills & Boon author I don't think she created unrealistic ideas for girls or young women. Many seem like warnings, though there was always HEA. But red herrings like cosy detective fiction.

Plenty of romance tropes in Folklore & "Fairy stories". Disney spoils them.

thomasfuchs, to random
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

There's a few different camps on generative "AI":

  • "It's our lord and savior" (mostly AI companies pushing this)
  • "It will kill us all" doomerism (it won't, it has no intelligence or sentience or agenda)
  • "It has some use cases!" centrism (problematic because it enables the lord and savior types & it's also wrong as work products are highly unreliable, even for basic things like summaries and tabulation)
  • "It's a bullshit tech hype, paired with theft and environmental waste" (correct)
raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@thomasfuchs
Good call.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4410560#post4410560

TarkabarkaHolgy, to 13thFloor
@TarkabarkaHolgy@ohai.social avatar

I'm reading Philostratus' "On Heroes", and it's delightful. It is an alternate history of the Trojan War, but the best part is the frame story:

The whole thing is told by an old gardener who is on friendly terms with the ghost of a Greek hero who fell at Troy. The gardener works the fields around the grave, and the hero visits him quite often to chat, do some hoeing, and occasionally exercise. Oh and he is fifteen feet tall.

I want this to be a webcomic

#mythology #Classics #AmReading #books

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@TarkabarkaHolgy
Or Studio Gibi, or the offshoot?

Endangeredalphabets, to random
@Endangeredalphabets@mastodon.social avatar

Remember I posted this Iban poem a week ago, and asked for help translating it? Well, I have been sent a translation by the very man who is working to popularize the script, Dr Bromeley Philip, and I have incorporated both into a short essay you can find at https://www.endangeredalphabets.com/2024/03/23/another-writing-creation-writing-loss-writing-rediscovery-narrative/.
As usual, I see in the poem and its translation some important truths about writing itself. I can't help it. But this essay also includes an idea that came to me in the shower, which turns out to be very significant.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@Endangeredalphabets
What (if anything) was used before the 1947 iban script?

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@Endangeredalphabets
So it's currently unknown what script was used before the 1947 invention as it was lost long ago according to oral tradition.
Perhaps someday it will be found engraved on something.

toddalstrom, to random
@toddalstrom@mastodon.social avatar

PSA: https://paddynotpatty.com

☘️🇮🇪

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@toddalstrom Very occasionally Patty is a nickname for Patricia in Ireland. I last met a Patty in the late 1960s.
Indeed never for Patrick.

juergen_hubert, to random
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Never update your #TeXLaTeX packages. It will never go well. 😓

https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/712074/hyperref-stopped-working-after-updates

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@juergen_hubert
Enthusiast of shiny on Internet: Always update to the latest.

Experienced user, using computer for content creation: I only upgrade if what I have is broken and the upgrade makes it better, not worse.
(See also Vista vs XP, Win8 vs Win7, Win10 vs Win7 and Win11 vs Win10. Or Wayland or Unity)
Also not if the upgrade switchs to a subscription for it to work at all :(

bevanthomas, (edited ) to folklore

Though the Norse term "Jotun" often gets translated as "giant," the Jotnar could be many different sizes, and many of them (Loki, Skadi, etc.) were no taller than the Aesir. They often seemed less like giants and more like simply a competing faction of gods.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@bevanthomas
Yes, Aesir, Vanir and the more diverse Jotnar which might include "murky elves" (mykálfar or myrkálfar), giants and demi-gods (Loki, Skadi as you mention) like Aesir & Vanir. Elf is often translated as Dwarf, but it's only the Black Elves or Dark Elves (Svartálfar and Dökkálfar) that are like Dwarves, and they might not be actually Dwarves. There are also Light Elves (Ljósálfar) which seem a little like "flower fairies", though without any mention of wings.

juergen_hubert, to random German
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

So, let's say I want to publish some stuff for the #Pathfinder 2E rules, using the #ORC license.(*) This would require using some templates for things like spells, items, monsters etc. which follow specific formats within the Pathfinder rules.

So, what are my options here?

(a) try to develop templates for these using #TeXLaTeX ?
(b) buying #AffinityPublisher , learning how to use it, and develop templates for it?
(c) something else which I am not seeing?

What's the most efficient and least painful path forward?

(*) Yes, I realize that there are InDesign templates for Pathfinder at Pathfinder Infinite. However, they are only intended for Pathfinder Infinite products, and thus not useful for my purposes.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@juergen_hubert
Free decent tools
LO Writer (fine PDF export for paper). Has Templates.
LaTex (various applications)
Sigil
Calibre

Do epub2 first, proof content, edit source, not epub. Make a copy and change its formatting / styles for a PDF export for paper.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@juergen_hubert Yes, reflowable epub2 is limited and simple. But you can get the content right in LO Writer, save As docx, convert epub2 in Calibre (auto styles to CSS).
Then do something fancier for final layout, confident that the content is proofed.

However, glad it's you and not me. :)

dbellingradt, to history German
@dbellingradt@historians.social avatar

Here is a small printed "s" waiting to become an illuminated initial in a print from 1503. The small "s" indicates: please include a colored big "S" after the print run. The reason for this: early printed books in Europe, around 1500, kept this illuminating tradition from the manuscript age - the book makers imitated the layout rules of scribal handwriting for decades.
The images show an unfinished and finished initial of the same page from a different copy. for the win.

Detail from a page from "Philelphus, Franciscus: Epistolarum D. Francisci philelphi equitis aurati oratorisque ac poete tam grece quam latine lingue peritissimi unus et viginti libri reliqui qui post sedecim sunt reperti" (https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb10159044?page=20,21 ). The initial "S" has been drawn on top of the small printed "s".
Page of "Epistolarum D. Francisci philelphi equitis aurati|| Oratorisq[ue] ac poet[a]e ta[m] gr[a]ec[a]e q[uam] latin[a]e lingu[a]e peri||tissimi: vnus et viginti libri reliqui qui post sede-||cim sunt reperti." (https://sammlungen.ulb.uni-muenster.de/hd/content/titleinfo/6526468 ). In the upper left corner you see the space left for the initial "s".
Page from "Philelphus, Franciscus: Epistolarum D. Francisci philelphi equitis aurati oratorisque ac poete tam grece quam latine lingue peritissimi unus et viginti libri reliqui qui post sedecim sunt reperti" (https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb10159044?page=20,21 ) showing the initial "S" been drawn on top of the small printed "s".

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@dbellingradt
Drop Caps still being done, along with small caps first words on ebooks at start of chapter, which reduces compatibility and readability.

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