Tootfinder

June 2nd to 4, 2026, the #WritingResearch community will meet in #Winterthur, #Switzerland, for the

Imagine a world that we all control together, not controlled by oligarch or dictators, even indirectly. Imagine something truly collaborative. That world would be very different from our own. In some ways many of us could have a lot more opportunity. But in others, we would be restricted.
In such a world, we couldn't really have elite luxuries. Having such luxuries is only valuable so long as others do not.
> Unlike the vacuum cleaner, the radio, or the bicycle, which retain their use value when everyone has one, the car, like a villa by the sea, is only desirable and useful insofar as the masses don’t have one.
- The Social Ideology of the Motorcar
Imagine a world in which we think about luxury in a radically different way, not as something that only has value via exclusivity but something that enriches the lives of the owners more as more people have them.
What would living in such a world be like? Can you describe a day in your life?
#SolarPunkPrompts #Writing #Prompts

Autumn, the time that my bed automatically activates Velcro suction — so it’s hard to get out in the morning!
#writing #blog #reflection

Every year, as I come up on my birthday, I start to think a lot more about the shooting. The intensity was a bit lower after Trump left office the first time, but October of 2024 was pretty intense.
As I've been processing through all this, I thought about the cards and letters folks sent to me in the hospital. I have a box of them in the US and sometimes I think about asking for them to be sent here. But things have a tenancy to get lost in the mail on the way here.
There's a little bit of a trapped and incomplete feeling, that Trump's chaos makes feel even more intense.
So I decided to write a bit about that box, and the hospital, and death.
CW: body horror, death
#Writing

Here's the cover from a really great book of short stories, from 2010, named "Shadow Show".
The stories, written by a wide variety of top-notch authors, such as Margaret Atwood and Harlan Ellison, each celebrate Ray Bradbury's life and writing.
(The book cover art is by Tom Gauld--I found it searching online for Gauld's cartoons.)
#Writing

It’s strange to watch the world ignore that it’s not just the medium that matters, but the message does too.
And by “the message” I mean both the ideas and the precise language or visuals used to communicate them.
Subtle differences in linguistic execution of the same idea in the same format can have radically opposite effects. The same applies to an image captured from a different angle or in a different style or in a different composition.
And yet it feels like most organizations and most people within them are determined to march on ignoring any consideration of subtlety and craft.
#writing #design #art #marketing

New #writing #publishing

If anybody is interested in 14 days of unlimited access to #BBCMaestro, I have three guest passes to claim. Not sure how this works but if you’ll want to try check it out.
I liked the Alan Moore class on #writing and Oliver Burkeman’s course on Time Management for Humans.

“In front of the United Cigar Store this evening the men were gathered to burn dirigibles, sink battleships, blow up dynamite works and, all in all, savor the very bacteria in their porcelain mouths that would someday stop them cold.”
--From Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
That man was tripping. It might have been brain chemicals alone, but nobody else used those chemicals like that.
#Writing

A friend from way back just got in touch. We used to work on comic books together back in the day. It was nice hearing from him. That's his blog. Great to hear he's still writing. "Hyperboreans is published by Beul Aithris and is about an astral pub crawl through Cork city in the 90s. " I had to buy this one. Pure Cork like 😁 #writingcommunity

Night Shift
There’s light
at the end of the tunnel,
the weekend is here.
No need to sleep now,
you’ll sleep tonight,
like a normal human being.
Coffee — your best friend,
your favorite drug,
that liquid
you shoot multiple times a day.
That’s the only way
to survive the day.
#writing

Where did I get my love for monospace fonts?
#blogging #writing

✍️ New post: Blogtober 2025 – Day 1
This will be fun! 🎉🤩
#blogtober #writing #blogging #websites

Blogtober 2025 - Day 1 · Matthias Ott
Matthias Ott is an independent user experience designer and web design engineer from Stuttgart, Germany. He also teaches Interface Prototyping at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design.

If you wish to study a granfalloon,
Just remove the skin of a toy balloon.
-Bokonon, religious leader from
-Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Cat's Cradle 1963
#Vonnegut #Writing #Author

Originally, I argued to skip the «book of abstract» for SIG Writing 26. And maybe, creating one will acually be the best part in organizing it as I hopefully can do it with a fellow document engineer with a proper XML–XSLT–XSLT-FO–HTML–ePub pipeline! Maybe even LaTeX, who knows
Or the second best thing after printing stickers :)
#WritingResearch

✍️ New post: The Mys­tery of Storytelling
#blogtober #stories #storytelling #writing

The Mystery of Storytelling · Matthias Ott
Matthias Ott is an independent user experience designer and web design engineer from Stuttgart, Germany. He also teaches Interface Prototyping at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design.

The eternal fight between V and W, when transliterating Sanskrit व in English. (Also applies to other Indic languages.)
E.g., वर्ष ("year") is often written "varsha"; not "warsha" though w is the closest sound to व.
#languages #writing #transliteration #Sanskrit #English

I’ve been getting beta reader feedback on my #novel and it’s the most magical thing hearing how other people have formed their own relationships to and feelings towards my characters.
I made up these characters in my own mind, they didn’t exist a few months ago, and now they are real to not just me but other living, breathing humans.
Artistic creation feels like one of the closest ways we have of approaching a sense of something almost divine.
#writing #writersofmastodon #fictionWriting #writers

#SolarPunkPrompts: Bonetheives
A motley crew of bicycle anarchists from the Cascadian Autonomous Region make their way through the decaying and fragmented remains of fascist America in search of Trump's mausoleum. In this buddy road trip story, the group has all sorts of unexpected adventures, dodging cults and corporations offering government service subscriptions, on their quest to steal Trump's bones and bring them back to Portland, so they can be integrated into the construct of the new Portland People's Assembly Hall public urinal.
#USPol #Fiction #Writing

"...the 38-year-old Electric engineer who..."
Hmm. Do you mean "Electric*al* engineer"? Unless he had an electric personality, of course. 🤔
#writing #English #erminology #labels #newspapers