✨Ben Hamill✨ @benhamill@cybre.space

Time for an #introductions

I'm a white cishet man, more or less living at the top of Privilege Mountain, trying to learn to dismantle and undermine that privilege.

Things I'm into:
• #roleplaying
• #linguistics
• #socialjustice
• #software
• #parenting
• #reading
• #videogames
• #kindposting
• #lego
• #comics
• #argyle

Things I'm (interested in?) learning about:
• #socialism
• #coops
• #urbanplanning
• And all the stuff above, naturally.

This is, of course, incomplete. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Good morning, bits and bytes.

OK. Here's a thing: If you're writing a software library that you think the users of would like to have some stuff logged from inside, there's basically only 3 acceptable interfaces for you to expose:
• Pass me a logging level.
• I will pull the logging level from the LOG_LEVEL environment variable.
• Pass me a logger.

Anything else is just rude, IMO. Hot programming takes.

Good morning, bits and bytes.

Doing #ReadingQuestions last night was really calming. Thanks for going on that short journey with me. I was having a stressful parenting night and my wife was kind enough to afford me some alone time that I spent doing that and it was just what I needed.

#ReadingQuestions

fin.

#ReadingQuestions
20. Favorite book/series of all time.

lolwut. I have no idea how to answer this. Some stuff you really love when you read it and then you grow a few more years and learn and change and you'd dislike it intensely now. Are there really people that change so little that they can maintain a favorite thing for more than... a year? I have a hard time with having a favorite for more than a few hours, but still. I don't have one, I guess.

#ReadingQuestions
19. And author you think more people should know about.

Nnedi Okorafore. Kai Ashante Wilson. N. K. Jemisin.

#ReadingQuestions
18. If you could meet one author (living or dead) who would it be?

Wow. IDK. Margaret Atwood, maybe? Or Ursula K. Le Guin. I'd want to meet them in some kind of formal context to talk about their works and philosophies.

As for folks I might want to meet because they'd be fu nto hang out with, IDK. It's so hard to get that sense from a book (contrast actors).

#ReadingQuestions
17. Book that's impacted you the most.

The Principia Discordia, probably? And/or the Illuminatus! trilogy?

Unless you want to say The Lord of the Rings again because I can say random shit in Sindarin. But I got some formative life philosophy stuff from Discordianism that I've been building on since I discovered it a few years after college.

#ReadingQuestions
16. Favorite classic book.

Uh. IDK what "classic" means, here. Is The Lord of the Rings a classic? Is Neuromancer? The Handmaid's Tale?

Or is it stuff like Anne of Green Gables? The Great Gatsby? The Grapes of Wrath? Catcher in the Rye?

Anyway, I liked all the things in the first paragraph and didn't read or disliked all he stuff in the second.

#ReadingQuestions
15. A book you didn't expect to like.

My last semester in college, I had to rejigger my schedule after the semester had started to find a history credit I thought I'd already gotten. Selection was low and I ended up in a class about modern Chinese history. We had to read Family by Pa Chin. It's of a sort that I normally find really hard to get into it, but I REALLY liked it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

#ReadingQuestions
14. Book you've read the most times.

The number of books I've read more than ones is less than 10. I remember them too well to reread them. Once I get into a scene, I'm like, "Oh. This part, yeah," and I get impatient.

Anyway, the clear winner is The Lord of the Rings. I was a little obsessed with Elves in HS and through college. I helped teach a class on Tolkien linguistics. I reread the whole trilogy... a lot. Lost count. Second is probably the Silmarillion, so.

#ReadingQuestions
13. Favorite films adaptation of a book.

Maybe the Harry Potters? That's almost cheating, since there's so many and they're not uniformly good. The last two were really good, though, IMO. In particular, they used the medium super well to do the scratchy sound/radio report thing when the main three were on the run and hiding in the tent and such. It was really great atmosphere building and expanded on what was in the book without altering it for the worse.

#ReadingQuestions
12. A book you'd recommend to a friend.

Uh. Which friend? I don't like making blanket recommendations. I think you have to know about the person you're recommending to so you have a hope that the book will hit them where they are in their life or whatever.

It's part of why I write my reviews on here. I want to say enough about the book that maybe some of y'all will see something in it you like, decide to read it and have a similar great experience (or warn off).

#ReadingQuestions
11. Least favorite genre to read.

I think you can have great books in any genre. But I always struggled with biographies in school and have never read one for fun.

#ReadingQuestions
10. One of your favorite authors.

One?!? Hahaha. I really like John Scalzi for his easy-to-read, very inviting prose. I gushed about Nnedi Okorafor recently and she's a recent addition. Kai Ashante Wilson doesn't have a ton of stuff, but I love the shit out of all of it that I've read. Kameron Hurley for her weird worlds. That'll do for now.

#ReadingQuestions
9. Best book you've read this year.

Haha. Fuck. I've read so many. I haven't even tracked them except by writing reviews here (and so most got eaten when WT sank, though I have an archive locally). I REALLY liked Akata Witch, though. It's a strong contender, at least.

#ReadingQuestions
8. A movie you think was better than the book.

Pfffffft. I honestly can't think of one. Maybe 2001? The Shining? Not sure, though. Both versions of both of those are pretty strong.