muralog/_input/posts/2019-08-08-a-little-more-about-me_part-1.markdown

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title: “a little more about me: part 1” published: 2019-08-08

looking at other blogs, a first post is often an about me-type post. guess mine's past due.

straight from my fedi profile:

free sw, read/writing, philosophy, gaming, music, CUTENESS, learning japanese!

allow me to elaborate a little.

01 free sw

free sw is obviously me using a form of shorthand to write free software which i usually just call non-proprietary software so people don't think i am talking about software that is free as in beer as opposed to free as in speech (which comparison seems more foreboding the more time goes on and as our society transitions to unprecedented levels of mass-surveillance which inhibits all freedom). speaking of surveillance and digital freedoms, if you have any money to spare or are able to volunteer in some way the eff is constantly fighting for everyone's privacy and digital rights. donating to them is probably the best thing you can do to try and reclaim the internet.

there are few foundations/orgs/people/etc. i would donate to if i had the money. here is a list of ones that come to mind atm:

• free software foundation (fsf)
• electronic frontier foundation (eff)
• pleroma (possibly)
• fairsocialnet.ch, parent org of tooting.ch, my first fedi account
• my current fedi account's admin (if he's accepting donations)
• the maintainer/s of git.lain.church and lain.church xmpp

hmmm… that's already a pretty big list. i guess i'm more philanthropic than i thought 😋 (冗談だよーit's more that i didn't think there were that many people/etc i would trust with my money 笑).

02 read/writing

another big one. when it comes to reading, i like a pretty big variety of books—from reference books about legos or red dwarf to fiction books of many sorts. my favourite book is probably the little prince (le petit prince in the original french) by antoine de saint-exupéry. i do plan on reading the original french version after i learn french (it's next on my language list after japanese) and i do already own the french version (and several english copies as well as one japanese one). the little prince is out of copyright in many places (although it will remain copyrighted in france until the end of 2044, according to its wikipedia page) so i recommend reading it first (if you speak french, read it in french; if you speak english, read the katherine woods translation despite its errors) then going on over to its page on wikipedia and reading about the book there. if you read in english, this is a good opportunity to learn about the few errors in translation in katherine woods's translation. you'll also learn that as of april 2017, it became the most translated non-religious book in the world (over 300 languages~source).

other books i like/love/recommend:

note: [🔊] indicates the audiobook's worth listening to, too

• the entire realm of the elderlings series by robin hobb[🔊]
  • start with assassin's apprentice
• almost anything by neil gaiman[🔊 if read by the author]
  • coraline, neverwhere, american gods, the sandman comics are all good starting points
• the kingkiller chronicles by patrick rothfuss
  • (at the time of this writing only the first two books of the trilogy are published but they are excellent)
  • [🔊] although the reader mispronounces the name basil in the first book (the name of the wind), he corrects this error in the second book (thankfully)
• pretty much any sherlock holmes mysteries by sir arthur conan doyle
• the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy series by douglas adams[🔊]
• the expanse series by james s. a. corey
  • (not finished but released consistently on schedule)
  • [🔊] make sure narrator is jefferson mays for main series books
  • the first book is called leviathon wakes.
• the first law trilogy by joe abercrombie
  • [🔊] highly recommend reading by steven pacey
  • the first book is the blade itself.
• to say nothing of the dog by connie willis[🔊]

well that list seems long enough (and disproportionately represents how much reading v listening of books i've done 草) and so does this blog post. so i guess this is going to be yet another multi-parter. better add a part 1 to the titles of the post.

stay tasty, mates! o/