More Murderbot Articles

Jul. 13th, 2025 11:41 am
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
[personal profile] marthawells
A really thoughtful essay on Murderbot: ‘Even If They Are My Favourite Human’: Murderbot Just Explained Boundaries

https://countercurrents.org/2025/07/even-if-they-are-my-favourite-human-murderbot-just-explained-boundaries/

“I Don’t Know What I Want”: The Line That Changed Everything

In the final moments of the season, Murderbot says: “I don’t know what I want. But I know I don’t want anyone to tell me what I want or to make decisions for me. Even if they are my favourite human.”

This is not a dramatic declaration. It is confusion wrapped in clarity. A sentence that holds discomfort and self-awareness in equal measure. It reflects a truth often ignored in stories about intelligence and emotion: that it is okay to not know, as long as that unknowing belongs to the self. In a world that constantly demands certainty, this line opens up space for uncertainty without shame.



* And a great interview with Alexander Skarsgård!

https://collider.com/murderbot-finale-alexander-skarsgard/

So, it just wants to start fresh and get away, and figure out who it is and what it wants. It doesn't really know that. I quite enjoyed that Murderbot didn't end up having answers to all the questions or knowing exactly what it wants. It's more messy and complicated than that. But it definitely knows that it needs to find its own path and make its own decisions, to make its own mistakes, and not have the Corporation or anyone tell it who it is or what it wants.

Done Since 2025-07-06

Jul. 13th, 2025 11:13 am
mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)
[personal profile] mdlbear

It's been a week. Starting with my son's fortieth birthday, and ending with the fourth anniversary of Colleen's death. I started writing a "state of the Bear" post last Sunday, and will either finish it today or tomorrow, or give up on it. But productive.

I went out for a walk four days this week -- the longest was about a kilometer, and the shortest was 650m. I practiced every day, which I haven't done for a long time. And, at N's suggestion, I started a work log, to keep track of what I've done for our business. I'll write it up separately, of course, but it's been remarkably effective. See under Monday for the start, but it's all been moved out of Dog/to.do to different file and workspace, which will mostly not find its way into this log, although pieces might.

It also shows how appallingly lazy I've been for the last six months.

Not really surprising -- I've been retired for eight years, and I've allowed myself to get out of shape in a great many ways. It's probably too late to get back to where I was a decade ago, but I'll do what I can.

And of course, the best-laid plans... Friday N and I started putting together a piece of patio furniture, and wore ourselves out completely. And yesterday was Colleen's day and I actually got more done than I expected. Weekends are for catching up.

As for links, AI coding tools make developers slower, study finds • The Register. As I've often said, HTML Is Publishing, Not Code

And this is flat-out amazing: Hundreds of robots move Shanghai city block - YouTube

Notes & links, as usual )

world according to cat, and more

Jul. 12th, 2025 07:47 pm
calimac: (Default)
[personal profile] calimac
Tybalt really does seem to find my weekly sorting of pills into pillboxes to be fascinating. Whenever I start it, he'll jump up and start inserting his nose in the business. I've managed to dissuade him before he gets to the point of eating the pills. He also likes knocking pill bottles to the floor. When I'm done, he goes back to wherever he was resting before. We call him my assistant.

B. is struggling with trying to get her new CD player to pair with her older headphones. They're both Bluetooth-enabled, and Bluetooth is supposed to be a universal standard, but apparently not. It's probably something like USB, which may I remind you stands for universal serial bus, but there are now at least four different sizes of USB plugs and ports, and woe if you have the wrong one for where it's supposed to go. So maybe there are different kinds of Bluetooth. They should name the new standard Forkbeard, as he was the next king of Denmark after Bluetooth.

Out on errands and needing lunch, I thought I'd revisit the Thai restaurant in a convenient shopping center. It was OK, never that great, but it'd been a long time since I'd been there. It's gone, replaced by a new Chinese Malatang outlet. This is like the fifth one I've come across in the last couple months of a type of cuisine I'd never heard of before. Malatang is a little bit like Mongolian barbecue in that you take a bowl, fill it with raw ingredients from a buffet, and hand it in for cooking. It's different in the ingredients and the seasoning - typical Malatang is soup, though there are also some dry versions - you pay by the weight, and you can't watch it being cooked. Ingredients are roughly the same between outlets but vary a bit. Some have lots of veggies, some few, some with broccoli, some with bok choy. Some have fish, some don't. Some peel their shrimp, some don't. Meat is always shaved beef and lamb, but there might be pork, might be bbq. There's also plenty of weird stuff, which the westerner tries at their peril. (I did not find cow throat edible.) There are no serving utensils in the containers; you take a pair of tongs with your bowl at the beginning. The quarters are always very clean, which is not always true of Mongolian barbecue. I've been getting kind of used to Malatang and will probably have some more.

Huh

Jul. 12th, 2025 12:02 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
This is probably in no way significant, but it just occurred to me to check to see where WorldCon was the years I was nominated:

2010: Melbourne, Australia
2011: Reno, USA
2019: Dublin, Ireland
2020: Wellington, New Zealand
2024: Glasgow, Scotland

(I was nowhere near the ballot in 2009, Montreal)

At a guess, those are years where vote totals were a bit lower?

Read more... )
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Four books new to me.Two are SF, one is fantasy, one is a mix of both. I don't see anything unambiguously labelled as series works.

Books Received, July 5 — July 11

Poll #33350 Books Received, July 5 — July 11
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 36


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Secrets, Spells, and Chocolate by Marisa Churchill (December 2025)
12 (33.3%)

Spread Me by Sarah Gailey (September 2025)
13 (36.1%)

The Forest on the Edge of Time by Jasmin Kirkbride (February 2026)
13 (36.1%)

The Universe Box by Michael Swanwick (February 2026)
16 (44.4%)

Some other option (see comments)
1 (2.8%)

Cats!
29 (80.6%)

mdlbear: (rose)
[personal profile] mdlbear

Colleen died four years ago, at 04:30 Pacific time, so probably around the time I finish this post. It seems like a long time ago, or maybe just a few days. Or two moves. I'm surrounded by memories. Memorabilia. Every so often I'm struck by how many of my things have stories attached to them; many of them involving Colleen. To be expected -- we were together for half a century.

The world is very different from what it was four years ago, mostly not for the better; there are many things that I miss. And of course people. Too many people.

It's 1pm; we lit a candle for Colleen an hour ago, and toasted her memory, and talked for a bit. N found some purple flowers in the front planter to set in a bowl next to the candle. A candle makes a good focus for giving her a silent update. It's been a nice, quiet remembrance.

I'm going to post this, and sing a couple of songs. See whether I get through Eyes Like the Morning without falling apart.

Colleen, I will always love you.

RPG checklist

Jul. 11th, 2025 10:43 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Specifically Fabula Ultima

Read more... )
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


New Dawn requires only that people conform without exception or face memory erasure and worse. Yet, a minority insists on being individuals.

The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monáe

a 17th-century joke

Jul. 10th, 2025 09:49 pm
calimac: (Default)
[personal profile] calimac
I thought this was pretty funny. B. didn't get it. How say you?
A melting* Sermon being preached in a Country Church, all fell a weeping, except a Country man, who being ask'd why he did not weep with the rest?
'Because' (says he) 'I am not of this Parish.'
*I presume 'melting' means 'causing the hearts of the hearers to melt.'

Source: The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose, compiled by Frank Muir (OUP, 1990)

New Murderbot Short Story

Jul. 10th, 2025 09:33 pm
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
[personal profile] marthawells
The new Murderbot short story is up at Reactor Magazine:

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy

https://reactormag.com/rapport-martha-wells/

Edited by Lee Harris, art by Jaime Jones.


And Murderbot was renewed for a second season!

https://deadline.com/2025/07/murderbot-renewed-season-2-apple-tv-1236453764/

“We’re so grateful for the response that Murderbot has received, and delighted that we’re getting to go back to Martha Wells’ world to work with Alexander, Apple, CBS Studios and the rest of the team,” Chris and Paul Weitz, said in a statement Thursday.

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Jul. 10th, 2025 08:53 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Desperate to pay her brother Jasper's way out of Muhlenberg County, Opal accepts a job at an infamously cursed mansion.

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Bundle of Holding: Pyramid 2

Jul. 9th, 2025 03:46 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


The latter half of Pyramid's ten-year run, the issues published from November 2013 to December 2018, sixty-two issues in all.

Bundle of Holding: Pyramid 2
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


In a city with over a million people per square kilometre, real estate firms will never lack for clients. Good news for the employees of the Wong Loi Realty Company!


Kowloon Generic Romance, volume 1 by Jun Mayuzuki (Translated by Amanda Haley)

Notes on Native Ferns

Jul. 8th, 2025 03:43 pm
satsuma: a whole orange, a halved grapefruit, and two tangerine sections arranged into a still life (Default)
[personal profile] satsuma

I recently attended a class on Ferns at a local botanical garden. The class was a mix of botanical info, caring for ferns in a garden context, understanding how they function ecologically in the wild, and recognizing any ferns you might come across locally--I was mostly interested in the last two points so that's what these notes reflect.

Read more... )

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