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Ergative Absolutive

@ergative-abs.bsky.social

SFF booknerd; calligrapher; Islamic geometric art doer; figure skating appreciater; coffee-drinking, granola-baking, tofu-eating wokeratum; psycholinguist by vocation, fretful porpentine by aspiration. Nerds of a Feather: http://www.nerds-feather.com/

2166 Posts440 Follower391 Folgt
Ergative Absolutive@ergative-abs.bsky.social · 55m ago

Yes! I took a stained glass workshop on a whim last year. Didn't enjoy it, but I got a beautiful little panel out the other end (with extremely lumpy solder and not terribly precise seams).

Gretchen McCulloch@gretchenmcculloch.com · 1h ago

One of the great joys of my adult life has been realizing that I can just pick up a new skill every so often, take a fun little class in it weekly for a year or two, and simply enjoy meeting people and getting medium proficient and not attempting to become professional in it at all!

Ergative Absolutive@ergative-abs.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Hi, friends, a little extra boost for this review. I found a gem of a self-published book that really deserves more eyes on it, and I wrote a review of it on Nerds of a Feather in the hopes of doing exactly that.

Nerds of a Feather@nerdsofafeather.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Book Review: Rainmaker, Rainmaker, by Kevin B. Hillstrom A creepy, evocative Dust Bowl tale of con-men and folklore @ergative-abs.bsky.social has our review for your Friday at the NOAF "Give this book a read, friends!" www.nerds-feather.com/2026/06/revi...

Ergative Absolutive@ergative-abs.bsky.social · yesterday

@maxgladstone.bsky.social had a newsletter recently about how part of the magic of writing comes from leaving holes between the words on the page and how the reader interprets them. Odd metaphors are an example of the kind of holes on a page that used to be part of that magic.

KJ Charles@kjcharleswriter.com · yesterday

THEREFORE my advice would be: --Do not let AI speech patterns seep off the internet into your writing. Honestly? It's not clever--it's stupid. And the metaphors land like a hurled toaster. --If you don't use AI for anything book-related, you'll have nothing to hide.

Ergative Absolutive@ergative-abs.bsky.social · last wk.

This is my concern. The trust in the industry is broken. I can no longer take pleasure in picking up something fun in a shop and hoping I'll discover a new voice, because I can no longer trust that an unfamiliar name on a book spine represents a human with a story to tell.

Nick Harkaway@nickharkaway.com · last wk.

Maybe some audiences won’t care that a book is AI-assisted or just generated. I don’t know. I think my major worry is a blizzard of AI books making discovery even harder.

Ergative Absolutive@ergative-abs.bsky.social · 2w ago

Click through for a nice discussion about the limits of applying expected values to single-case situations. If anything, what this type of survey is good for is putting a numeric value on the certainty of the guarantee.

Lady Andrea, Vampire Lord@dioptre-hertz.bsky.social · 2w ago

seeing a few people argue that this is indicative of people not understanding mathematics, but *as* a mathematician i'm here to tell you that there's more to it than that. the value of money is not linear! a *guaranteed* £50,000 can mean a lot more than a *coin flip* £1,000,000.

Ergative Absolutive@ergative-abs.bsky.social · 2w ago

Where was this thread 10 years ago when I cudgeling my brains for more ham/hamster, rock/rocket, plum/plumber-type stimuli for this paper? escholarship.org/uc/item/8n78...

Predicting this rock: Listeners use redundant phonetic information in online morphosyntactic processing

Author(s): Cohen, Clara | Abstract: Pronunciation variation is systematic, and provides listeners with cues to what the speaker is about to say. Shortened stems, for example, can indicate an upcoming ...

escholarship.org

Adam Roberts@adamroberts.bsky.social · 2w ago

"So Brandon, we've narrowed the lyric down to two options. One, 'I've got soul but I'm not a soldier', and two, 'I've got toes but I'm not a toaster.' Which is it going to be?" "So hard to choose, man! GIve me a little more time ..."

Ergative Absolutive@ergative-abs.bsky.social · 2w ago

Guys, this was a stunning trilogy. Book 1 came out nearly 10 years ago, but it is painfully relevant to the current world, and also timelessly relevant in its clear-eyed view of people and society. I try to express how much I loved it over on Nerds of a Feather today.

Nerds of a Feather@nerdsofafeather.bsky.social · 2w ago

The Amberlough Dossier, by Lara Elena Donnelly A clear-eyed, relevant exploration of the tragic humanity of flawed people, flawed countries, and how impotence does not excuse wrongdoing @ergative-abs.bsky.social has our series review: www.nerds-feather.com/2026/07/revi... #booksky #blueskybooks

Ada Palmer@adapalmer.bsky.social · 2w ago

Historian friend was reading a civil war era letter in an archive, the letter said “In this envelope I include my smallpox scabs” and sure enough there they were. Had to call CDC for a hazmat team.