Still have not figured out why some devices are seeing slow download speeds, but I did get all of my Ethernet patch cables sorted.

I’ve finally started watching the Jodie Whittaker episodes of Doctor Who and I think the most radical change is the refreshed visual design.

What am I doing?

Today marks my second anniversary on Micro.blog.

2020: 219 posts, 38 pizzas, 8 books
2021: 459 posts, 28 pizzas, 8 books

Last year I decided to post at least once each day, and actually managed to achieve that goal, even if some days have only a random photo or single emoji as the post. Most days get a micro post of a sentence or two, but every once in a while I will put up something a bit longer, such as a mini book review or several photos.

I started posting here in order to escape Facebook, with mixed success; I deleted my Facebook account, and have created a new social graph here with my fellow Micro.bloggers, but I have not yet found a way to connect to those who are trapped in the belly of the Borg. I continue to use Twitter to follow a carefully curated list of news and opinion accounts, but I felt that my posts on Twitter are simply lost in the flood, and if nobody is going to read them then there’s no reason not to post where I want. And Micro.blog does offer a lot of features I think are important: custom styles, an RSS feed, an open API, and the ability to export my content and move it (along with my silly custom domain) to another server.

For the coming year I’m not going to try and increase my posting frequency, but I do want to write more of the occasional longer pieces. They don’t have to be full essays, something along the lines of the book reviews, a paragraph or two instead of the sentence or two of the micro posts.

Also I need to make pizza more often.

Black Helicopters by Caitlín R. Kiernan 📚

At long last I have read this companion piece to Agents of Dreamland from so long ago, although the gap in time is appropriate given the manner in which this book hops between years, characters, and locales. From the author’s notes I learn that this is an expanded edition of an earlier work, and I find it is not so much a sequel to Agents as part of the same shared narrative, set in the dark fantastic universe of the Mythos. The structure of the two books are the same, with story fragments jumbled together, references and plot lines weaving between the chapters. It is not really possible to construct a linear narrative from the fragments, as causal links seem to go both directions in time.

This approach has advantages and disadvantages; as I noted for Agents it enhances the sense of otherworldliness, but at the expense of a continuous plot which draws the reader on to the next chapter; we lose the sense of “what happens next” when that “what” won’t be revealed until much later in the sequence, or in some cases not continued at all. There are so many loose ends that I suspect it is not possible to unravel them all.

I would still recommend this book, and now have learned that there is a third volume in the series, if I dare to risk it.

Cover for Black Helicopters by Caitlín R. Kiernan, a dark sky above, a mist covered river below, and a dark bridge in between.

Finally got all the backups working. I ended up reinstalling the OS on the media server, after which the mysterious copy error went away.