Can you spell cacophony?

All RSS Feeds

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0800

Every RSS feed this site publishes, kept up to date automatically as new ones are added.

All posts (English & Esperanto) — /rss.xml
English posts — /en/rss.xml
Esperanto posts — /eo/rss.xml
English microblog — /en/microblog-rss.xml
Esperanto microblog — /eo/microblog-rss.xml

Microblog Posts

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0800

All my short posts and social crossposts, newest first. Subscribe via RSS.

Chinwag: 2026-08-10 12:05

All Posts

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0800

Every post on this site, newest first. The home page only shows the 10 most recent.

My Geek Code

Sat, 30 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0800

As a consequence of an ongoing general tidy-up of my files, I have dug out and updated my Geek Code.

Unfortunately, the Code itself has not been updated for decades, but if you are interested, this is mine as of today. And boy, how it has changed since the last time I updated it (and no, I am not sharing the old one!).

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GMD d- s+:+ a++ C++ UL L++ E W++
N+ w PS+++ PGP+ t++ R>++ tv+ b+
DI G e++ h--- r++ y?
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

The Ancient Depths: Scene 3

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0800

In which Simona protects her captive from a creature just like it.

CHARACTERS:

Lucere
Quinn Gavula
Kristof Stedbert
Bladesage-speaking creature

THREADS:

Survive
Find what the creature needs

CHAOS FACTOR: 4

Simona lowers the club a little while still waving it a little as if she could use it at any time. She is sure she needs to listen to this creature. Without further information she is certainly lost. She nods to the creature as an invitation to start speaking. He opens his mouth to speak but then his eyes open widely in shock, looking at something past Simona’s shoulders. She knows better than to suddenly turn her head but takes a small step back and turns carefully in the direction of what surprised the creature.¹

Through the doorway behind he walks in another creature. This creature is identical in every way to the other, down to the club hanging off its belt and crossbow in hand. The crossbow is loaded but pointed to the ground. The new creature is smiling a terrifying smile, exposing its lower teeth.² The smile turns into a snarl as the new creature turns its gaze on the creature of the floor. It raises the crossbow and moves to fire.³

Simona sees the look in the eye of the new creature and raises her club. She takes a small step to the left, waving the weapon to interrupt (or at least distract) the shot that is surely about to come. And come it does, the bolt passing close by Simona on the way to the creature still prone on the ground. Not taking her eyes off her current foe, Simona hears a grunt of pain from the creature.

With the new creature holding a now-empty crossbow, Simona takes firm but small steps towards it. She raises her club and moves herself completely between the two.⁴ Before she can make any threat or serious move, the creature gives another strange toothy smile and turns and runs back into the darkness. She resists a very strong urge to give chase, and turns back to the prone creature. His face is caught in a grimace, and she can see that his right arm is wounded where the crossbow bolt scraped across it.

In this moment, Simona decides she truly needs an ally and has little to no choice as to who that is. The creature clearly needs help from someone, so he has likely been mostly honest in what he has said and done so far. So she asks him, “Can you help me find shelter?”⁵

The creature nods, so she cuts him loose, hands him his club and asks, “which way?”

CHARACTERS:

Add “Doppelganger creature”

CHAOS FACTOR:

Out of control, increase to 5

RISUS:

5 lucky shots

Scene was going to start with “Simona rolls a rock over near the creature so she can sit down while it talks; explaining what it needs from her.” Scene check: 4 vs CF 4. Does not start as expected, interrupt scene.
Event Focus: 42 (NPC -ve, assume the Bladesage-speaking creature as all other NPCs are topside)
Event Meaning: 51/43 imitate gladly ↩
Does it speak to Simona (Very likely)? Extreme no. This event is aready an NPC negative… ↩
Simona has a chance to interrup the shot. Via Risus: her Enforcer (3) vs Creature (2). 10 vs 10. Tie, it hits the creature. Ask Mythic, does it kill him (50/50)?: No. ↩
What is the intention of this doppelganger?, CQ: 46/62 Happy obscurity. ↩
Nearly certain. Yes. ↩

Reading the public domain in 2025

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0800

For a variety of reasons, I have decided that next year (2025) I am going to focus on reading books that are in the public domain, and particularly those that I can read as an ebook.

Putting this out here in case anyone has got any recommendations. My tastes tend towards fantasy and science fiction, but I’m pretty open minded.

Here’s this list as it stands…

Re-read Frankenstein
Re-read Dracula (which will be via Dracula Daily again)
Wuthering Heights
La Morte D’Arthur followed by A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Robin Hood and Stories of Robin Hood
The Stainless Steel Rat (How is this in the public domain already?)
The Wonderful Visit and possibly more H.G. Wells.
A Princess of Mars and more of the Martian Chronicles. Maybe Tarzan too?
The Lost World and maybe some Sherlock while I’m reading Doyle?
A Voyage to Arcturus
The Princess and the Goblin
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Comments

2024-11-22: I was reading the Martian Chronicles (and Tarzan also) when I was about 8 years old. :) Generations of people read these books… (private Mastodon post)

Shayne Power: What I'm Doing Now

Sat, 06 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0800

(This is a now page, and if you have your own site, you should make one, too.)

Started a new job in Toodyay (on Ballardong country) in July last year and commuted a couple of times a week before moving up here permanently in December. It’s just the two of us (plus one canine and one feline), the boys are still living in the old place in Perth. Have to say I’m really enjoying the tree-change (well, tree-and-farmland-change).

Current obsession is with Personal Knowledge Management (PKM). Had come across the idea of Zettelkasten earlier, but the concepts didn’t really stick until I started using and learning Emacs and started playing with Org-Roam and then Denote to manage the notes. Have been religiously following a number of blogs and vlogs of those in the same space and am learning loads. Working my way through some important books of the field, the most recent of which was Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte.

Still keeping up with my Esperanto, though thanks to the new job (which has me working on meeting days) I’ve had to pull back from committee roles in ELWA. After a lazy year or two, am trying to get back on track with my study of Indonesian, and am also currently working my way through a short course (on EdX) of the Noongar language.

The Monthly Music Book Club has fallen by the wayside, but I have been keeping up with new and interesting music by myself, making use of Bandcamp Fridays whenever I can. Find of the last year was The Dreadnoughts, and the album I am literally listening to right now is Bahtak by Hassan K. Off to a gig tonight to see (amongst others) another Bandcamp find, local band Silent Knight.

My brother gave me a few Joe Abercrombie novels for Christmas, and I am currently reading A Little Hatred. His work is new to me and I am enjoying it so far. I’ve given up on my so-called habit of having a fiction and a non-fiction book on the go at the same time, so that I can concentrate on one and hopefully get to the end of more of them!

Monthly Music Book Club CD1

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0800

The Monthly Music Book Club is a group of folks checking out a new album every month. We try to expand our musical horizons and listen to different styles and genres as often as possible.

We communicate on the fediverse using the hashtag #mmbc and at the end of the month on our XMPP chatroom. Feel free to join in at any time.

The following playlist is a selection of a track from each album. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did…

Dopelord - Doom Bastards
LAVAGE - Colapso
Eyeshadow 2600 FM - Omega (Aria’s Fist)
Rituals of Mine - Trauma
Chris Roth - Where Have You Gone
Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl - Walls and Roses
Girl Friday - Earthquake
Nervosa - Rebel Soul
Nicole Marxen - Tether
Jane Inc - My Oldest Friend
Jay Leo Phillips - During During
CHAI - Wish Upon a Star
Hearts Apart - Waste Time
Satanic Planet - Satanic Planet
unfa - Rebooting
Yumi Sakata - Pure Insanity
The Smith Street Band - It’s OK
CYBERTHING! - Slaughter
Nathan Gray - The Reckoning

For convenience, I’ve created a Spotify playlist of the above tracks. Please note that tracks 5 (Chris Roth) and 15 (unfa) are not streaming on Spotify so are not on the playlist.

Contact me

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0800

Email: right.jug1168@fastmail.com (As a spam limiter, this address will change from time to time, so don’t add me to your address book using it.)
Mastodon/Fediverse: @uxintro@chinwag.org (This is my social network of choice. I do have Facebook, but only use it for family and groups that give me no other option. I don’t currently use any other platforms.)
Linkedin: This is only used professionally. Don’t bother going here unless you have previously worked with me, want to employ me or to work for me!

The Ancient Depths: Scene 2

Fri, 17 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0800

In which Simona analyses her captive while she waits for it to awaken.

CHARACTERS:

Lucere
Quinn Gavula
Kristof Stedbert
“Ambushing creature”

THREADS:

Survive
Find out why the creature only used a club to attack

CHAOS FACTOR: 5

Scene setup: Simona is in a dark square chamber filled with rubble and exits on three walls. She is standing over a captured enemy, a large and (to her eyes) ugly humanoid creature. She is holding the creature’s club, waiting for it to wake up so she can interrogate it.

Scene starts as planned (roll of 9 vs CF 5)

Q: Does the creature wake soon [50/50]?: No.

Having bound the creature and taken its weapons from it, Simona is eager to talk to it, to find out what sort of place this is, why it came screaming at her with a club and not shooting her with the crossbow, where can she get some food and water?

But she must have hit it a lot harder than she thought. Or it just has a glass jaw. She slaps it a little and tells it to wake up. She stops short of yelling at it, she isn’t sure what else is around, maybe it has friends? She even uses a small amount of water from her supplies to try to startle it awake. All to no avail.

CQ: what is this creature like? We’ve already decided it’s large (compared to Simona) and ugly. Softly drab.

This creature is like nothing Simona has seen before. The only non-humans she has seen before are the horned Ferbend and the long-tailed Vitterfolk. This creature, which she assumes to be a male, is a little taller and a lot broader than the average human male. His face is his most distinctive feature. The skin on his face is grey, loose and floppy, his cheeks almost looking like the jowls of a hound. He has two large upper canine teeth that appear from under his lips even when is mouth is closed. And when they were open, she noticed that his eyes were an almost luminescent yellow. She is certain she would be able to see them glowing in the dark. And wonders if that means he could see her in the dark? She makes a mental note not to let the torches go out if she can help it.

His hair is long, straight and grey. Much like his clothing, which has no colour to speak of. She thinks of some of the Vitterfolk she knew back in Bladesage and thinks that perhaps this creature would get on well with them.

She knows she cannot wait here forever for him to awaken. But she does not want to leave him here behind her, and does not want to kill him in this state.

Q: Does he awaken before something else happens [50/50]?: Yes.

As Simona begins to make plans for what to do in the event her captive does not awaken, she notices him begin to stir. She gives him a quick slap and his yellow eyes snap open and he bares his teeth at her and growls.

She picks up his club and waves it in his face. “Why use this? Why not kill me straight away?”

Q: Does the creature speak the Bladesage common language? [Likely (for convenience, not because that’s what I really think, but unless I roll exceptional, he’s only going to speak in Tarzan-language)]: Exceptional Yes!

“I didn’t want to kill you, I just wanted you to have to listen to me. I need your help!”

I’ll leave this scene here, and might just make the next post a bunch of bullet points about what Simona finds out from this creature.

CHARACTERS:

Change “ambushing creature” to “Bladesage-speaking creature”

UPDATED THREADS:

Replace “Find out why the creature only used a club to attack” with “Find what the creature needs from me”

CHAOS FACTOR:

Mostly in control, reduce to 4

RISUS:

5 lucky shots