Tootfinder

Day 30: Elizabeth Moon
This last spot (somehow 32 days after my last post, but oh well) was a tough decision, but Moon brings us full circle back to fantasy/sci-fi, and also back to books I enjoyed as a teenager. Her politics don't really match up to Le Guin or Jemisin, but her military experience make for books that are much more interesting than standard fantasy fare in terms of their battles & outcomes (something "A Song of Ice and Fire" achieved by cribbing from history but couldn't extrapolate nearly as well). I liked (and still mostly like) her (unironically) strong female protagonists, even if her (especially more recent) forays into "good king" territory leave something to be desired. Still, in Paksenarion the way we get to see the world from a foot-soldier's perspective before transitioning into something more is pretty special and very rare in fantasy (I love the elven ruins scene as Paks travels over the mountains as an inflection point). Battles are won or lost on tactics, shifting politics, and logistics moreso than some epic magical gimmick, which is a wonderful departure from the fantasy norm.
Her work does come with a content warning for rape, although she addresses it with more nuance and respect than any male SF/F author of her generation. Ex-evangelicals might also find her stuff hard to read, as while she's against conservative Christianity, she's very much still a Christian and that makes its way into her writing. Even if her (not bad but not radical enough) politics lead her writing into less-satisfying places at times, part of my respect for her comes from following her on Twitter for a while, where she was a pretty decent human being...
Overall, Paksenarrion is my favorite of her works, although I've enjoyed some of her sci-fi too and read the follow-up series. While it inherits some of Tolkien's baggage, Moon's ability to deeply humanize her hero and depict a believable balance between magic being real but not the answer to all problems is great.
I've reached 30 at this point, and while I've got more authors on my shortlist, I think I'll end things out tomorrow with a dump of also-rans rather than continuing to write up one per day. I may even include a man or two in that group (probably with at least non-{white cishet} perspective). Honestly, doing this challenge I first thought that sexism might have made it difficult, but here at the end I'm realizing that ironically, the misogyny that holds non-man authors to a higher standard means that (given plenty have still made it through) it's hard to think of male authors who compare with this group.
Looking back on the mostly-male authors of SF/F in my teenage years, for example, I'm now struggling to think of a single one whose work I'd recommend to my kids (having cheated and checked one of my old lists, Pratchett, Jaques, and Asimov qualify but they're outnumbered by those I'm now actively ashamed to admit I enjoyed). If I were given a choice between reading only non-men or non-woman authors for the rest of my life (yes I'm giving myself enby authors as a freebie; they're generally great) I'd very easily choose non-men. I think the only place where (to my knowledge) not enough non-men authors have been allowed through to outshine the fields of male mediocrity yet is in videogames sadly. I have a very long list of beloved games and did include some game designers here, but I'm hard-pressed to think of many other non-man game designers I'd include in the genuinely respect column (I'll include at least two tomorrow but might cheat a bit).
TL;DR: this was fun and you should do it too.
#30AuthorsNoMen

My contribution to #footpathFriday , just fresh from the press ;-)
I went to the local hill / mountain today to escape the fog / clouds. Well and also to see whether the fog would create some nice mood to capture along the way that I'm walking rather often.
And indeed it was a very pleasant experience to walk into the fog and breaking through it to see some blue sky.

It always makes me a little sad when somebody reflexively spits and blocks like this based on (I’m guessing) not quite reading the post. (I’m pretty sure they’re angry because they agreed with the thread’s whole point and just read the post backwards in their haste. This does not look like an account that’s out there fighting to defend the reputation of Tesla and AI slop.)
Like…I probably didn’t want this person in my mentions anyway if they’re such a careless reader, but now they’re going through the world a little angrier for nothing.
https://mstdn.plus/@gcvsa/115793343637847732

Indiana governor Mike Braun announced today that he is calling a special session to consider redrawing congressional districts in the state, the latest Republican state to work on its maps ahead of 2026.
Indiana is one of several Republican-led states that the Trump administration has pressured to undertake mid-decade redistricting to favor Republicans,
-- which began with a push in Texas to redraw lines to add Republican seats.
“I am calling a special legislative session to…

The paradox of Nazism being both the most capitalist thing possible, defining itself as explicitly anticommunist, while masquerading as "socialism" is difficult to resolve until you understand one thing: fascism pivots around antisemitism (and its extension, conspiratorial thinking).
I'm, of course, not talking about the redefinition of "antisemitism" into meaning any criticism of Israel but rather an anti-Jewish conspiracy narrative rooted in Roman Christianity.
This is critical to understand as MAGA fascism pivots between capitalist and pseudo-anticapitalist with Trump in the middle. Hitler did the same thing. Strasserism helped the Nazis gain power by pulling in the Left. In the Nazis case they killed the Stasserists pretty quickly. Now, I think we're seeing an attempt to make the opposite pivot happen in MAGA. But it's all the same thing.
Fascism can infinitely fail to address the needs of the people while dismissing it's own responsibility for creating the problem by maintaining a permanent enemy.
This is why it's important to understand antisemitism and how to fight it. It's especially important now because the apparatus of violence in Israel is itself a tool of global fascism, and we finally have an opportunity to dismantle the whole thing. But we have to be aware of how fascists can pivot around to block this.
I've been reading Safety Through Solidarity, and I think it's especially relevant at this time.
https://www.akpress.org/safety-through-solidarity.html

#productmanagement in your software, if you include a tree control, and allow users to DO things in said tree control, like modify the contents/structure OF the tree control, then if you have to redraw the tree control to reflect the change, and you DONT remember what node I had open and return me to it, then I _freaking hate you_
T'is a poor tree control if it doesn't "remem…

eBike Nerdery
So the full decision matrix is:
- BBS02 48V 500W (750W) (a minor upgrade); would let me use a better battery and have a better margin when the battery gets low.
- BBSHD 48V or 52V (1000W); can be run with an extra spicy 52V battery for more power
- TSDZ8 48V 750W (1200W peak), the reengineered TSDZ2 with actual thermal capacity
- TSDZ16 48V 1000W (not sure what peak but geez that's a lot of motor)
- DM02 48V 500W (A team that made the TSDZ2 split off and went to make better motors)
- DM01 48V 1000W — I've not read up on it much but it's that same team I'm sure making a solid motor.
Also-rans:
- BBS02 36V 500W (existing motor); A spare would be nice so I can refurb mine without having to be without my bike.
- TSDZ2 48V 500W (I have one); tends to overheat and I ride hard. Not a winner.
- CYC motors: rather spendy. Nice stuff though.
- M625, M615, M225, M255: newer Bafang motors; more expensive, no real benefit, CAN bus is not well supported by third parties yet.
Pros of the Bafang BBS series: lots of parts available on the market. Lots of display options
Pros of the Tongsheng TSDZ series: Torque sensor!
Pros of the ToSeven DM series: Torque sensor, better build quality.

«The tech industry is being taken over by merchants of services, and the Open Source community is starting to depend on them. We've seen this coming, with GitHub being a startup, bought by Microsoft which is now pushing AI. They are the means of production.»
And FLOSS would be doing well to divest from the industrial-owened means of production sooner rather than later.
What AI is doing to developers - (not) my ideas
https://notmyidea.org/what-ai-is-doing-to-developers.html

Series B, Episode 12 - The Keeper
ZEN: Main detectors report Federation pursuit ship, bearing one three two, course two seven six, leaving the planet and entering orbit.
AVON: Put it on the main screen.
ZEN: Affirmative. [pursuit ship appears on screen]
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/212/31…

AOC:
"If the Government shuts down, they are going to act like it wasn't their decision;
it is their decision."
https://bsky.app/profile/iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social/post/3lzue5w327k2e

Raider (@iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social)
AOC: "If the Government shuts down, they are going to act like it wasn't their decision; it is their decision."