Long Post Alert >>> #tbtSijui nliona wapi Habida bashing Arbantone artists saying they are yet to release original hits. Lmao kumbe alirusha mawe police station. Some Gen Z Arbantone artist akaulizwa kwa interview what he has to say about that, akasema hajawai mskia before that day. That reminded me back in 2010 when I had an incident that involved that msanii. Those are the times when either you had an ideos phone to download Mp3s illegally on waptrick or you had to go a cyber café to listen to your favorite songs on YouTube. Niko sure Gen Z have no idea tulikua tunauziwa mp3 cds at 100 bob na saa hio ni ile pocket money ulisave after closing school (ukipatia beste yake airudishe ikiwa ata na scratch moja unaskia kumnyonga ukijua ulisacrifice kutokula ngumu pale canteen ya shule a whole term). Halafu saa hio cybercafé ilikua 1 bob per minute na load speed ni like 2 kbs, so ndio hio song iload on YouTube unapata 15 minutes zimeshaisha na saa hio uko na budget ya like 30 minutes juu mfuko uko na 50 bob. Unataka ubaki na mbao na ushapiga budget 10 bob ni ya kubuy zile sms 1000 on Saf za kutext your old high school gfs sweet nothings pale jioni and the other 10 bob ilikua ni ya emergency just in case your 1000 sms’s ziishe kabla 12 midnight and hamjamaliza telling each sweet nothings.So back to Habida. She had a hit back then with Nameless. ‘Sunshine’. Hio time nlikua tu nimemaliza high school the previous year and ata sisi tulikua tunaexperience FOMO and you had to keep up with the latest mostly either through Facebook or YouTube. Twitter ndio ilikua imeanza, ilikua ya cool kids hio time and a lot of us opened accounts out of curiosity. Mimi sijui how I discovered the Urbandictionary website and they had a chat room on their site. They used to be called Meebo chatrooms. All you needed was to come up with a username and join the chat. No email or password. There were people from all over the world. But not a lot of people knew about it so you would find like 20 or so people just chatting about random things. So, one day they are sharing YouTube links of songs they are currently listening to. Cool kids wa kina America and kina Australia and UK are sharing some music and names I’ve never heard about. They are sharing music from bands such as Fleshgod Apocalypse sijui kina Black Sabbath and the guys from US are arguing that American bands are better than bands from Europe. The guys from Europe are saying US bands are overrated and way too commercial. Mimi pale noob niko clueless. Hio time nlikua tu najua kina Taylor Swift, Avril Lavigne, P!nk, Kelly Clarkson, Miley Cyrus, Daughtry and Nickelback as the only rock musicians I know. So, they are asking me nichangie debate. Acha nimention ati I like Daughtry. Makosa. They started laughing and started roasting me. Eti Daughtry is a favorite band for suburban housewives going through a midlife crisis. Alafu ongeza clever insults za walami, saa hio zinanipita at that time sarcasm and satire ilikua concept tu nimesoma pale literature high school kwa kina River Between and An Enemy of the People. Then isitoshe my typing speed was very slow because well ata kama tulisoma basic computer skills in form 1 and 2, I could not compare to kids who have had Personal Computers kutoka wakiwa watoi. So, they are typing over 100 messages in a span of 5 minutes. Kabla I reply to one message it takes me like 5 minutes. So, one guy is telling me that his grandmother can type faster than and she is actually like 96 years old. But I was not having any of it nliamua kukaa ngumu. I had to show them us African brothers don’t fall fall (kuguagua in French). I sent a YouTube link of hio ngoma ya Habida kwa chat. After clicking on the link and viewing the video wakasema eti nobody wants to listen to my Jamaican songs with low quality videos of people singing kwa giza.Nakwambia mimi I surrendered arms and told akina Dedan Kimathi I had done my best as a millennial freedom fighter to defend and fight for Kenya (Apparently also known as Jamaica). Some Philipino guy who was in the chat group after kuona vile nimepelekwa mbio private messaged and told me hadi ametense kuchangia hio discussion. We said several Hail Mary’s alafu nikamuuliza kama anajua Yna and Angelo wa The Promise. Akasema ata hajawai waskia. Saa hio huku hakuna mtu hangelala Monday na Tuesday ndio awatch KBC. Kulikua hadi na calendars and those wallpapers za kina actors and actresses wa the Promise in peoples homes. Nikashindwa kwani hao watu wa The Promise walikua wametolewa Philipines ya wapi. Anyway nlimpatia number ya Mpesa just in case apatane nao awagotee na awaambie watume kakitu because we were big fans of them huku Kenya. Kenyans out there abroad how has your experience been out there? Have you experienced culture shock? What are the good, bad and the ugly?Anyway the whole ordeal made me realize just how much there is a huge gap and disparity among people. What you think you know is just a little fraction of what is out there. Your reality is different from someone else’s. different generations, cultures, communities and so many other things continue to divide us.

1) Title with a Title: Lord Valentine's Castle by Robert Silverberg (1980)
Science fantasy novel, first of the Lord Valentine series. The basic plot structure is pretty unremarkable: the protagonist wakes up with amnesia and gradually figures out that he’s actually the ruler of his planet and his body has been stolen, and the rest of the book is his trek across continents to get his position back. What makes the book interesting is the world that Silverberg has created, which is like a really creative D&D session, with interesting locations, creatures, aliens and technology/magic. You get to explore with the protagonist as a tourist through fantasyland, knowing that all will come right in the end. I enjoyed it a lot for what it was, and will likely come back to the sequels when I want to read something low-stakes and fun. 4/5
2) Superheroes: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl by Ryan North and Erica Henderson (2015-2019)
I read the whole run of 12 collected editions, and they were great. Doreen Green is the eponymous Squirrel Girl, fighting crime with her friends. The comics are obviously aimed at a young audience, and are unapologetically optimistic, idealistic, and feminist. The story arcs were well-done and it was interesting to me to see how North handled pitting Squirrel Girl against multiple overpowered villains without it getting repetitive. I probably won’t reread these by myself - they are YA - but I wouldn’t hesitate to read them with my daughters when they’re old enough. 4/5
3) Bottom of the TBR: Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks (1987)
This was Banks’ first science fiction novel, though he was already popular for writing literary fiction. It’s a space opera set on the margins of the very interesting and unique society, the Culture, further explored in several later books. I was so disappointed in this one. I found out after I read it that many people say not to start with it, and they’re right. I wanted to read all about this cool post-scarcity transhuman society, and then this book was a ton of action-movie set pieces and gruesome violence for shock value and what felt like very little of the Culture being the Culture. Some of the action was well-done and memorable - particularly the scenes on the giant ship - but I felt that it mostly failed to explore the interesting philosophical ideas that this super-neat societal structure should have brought up. And the gore really put a bad taste in my mouth at the thought of reading any more of Banks’ books. 2/5
4) Literary Fantasy/Magical Realism: The Aegypt series by John Crowley (1987-2007)
Welp, this tetralogy took me a quarter of a year, on my second try. The series follows a failed professor as he moves to a small town in upstate New York and tries to write a book on the theme of ‘what if the world used to be different, what if magic used to work?’, which is also metafictionally the theme of the series in that inside-out way that Crowley likes to do. The prose in this is dreamy and amazing, but sadly the plot never actually went anywhere and it so badly needed an editor. “What if the world used to be different?” was repeated so often that it passed through being a let-down and into farce. I don’t regret reading this, but unless you’re a Crowley completionist, you don’t need to. 3/5
5) Young Adult: Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones (1975)
Diana Wynne Jones is a fab author, and this YA fantasy (the first published in her Dalemark Quartet) is well-written and basically fine. I just don’t generally care for YA and kinda dreaded this square and picked this book to read because it was literally the only YA book I owned that I hadn’t already read. It was fine. I probably should have subbed this square for a category from a previous year to get something I would have enjoyed more. 3/5
6) Mundane Jobs: In Calabria by Peter S. Beagle (2017)
The protagonist of this novella is a bitter, middle-aged farmer living alone in Southern Italy, when a unicorn shows up and upends his life. While Beagle's prose is always beautiful, I found the plot predictable (in a book set in Italy, he's threatened by the mob, how surprising! ) and the May-December romance very badly done and kind of gross, especially since it was apparently the second time he wrote one of those within a year. 2/5
7) Published in the 2000s: HebrewPunk by Lavie Tidhar (2007)
This collection included just one short story and three novelettes, and they're variations on pulp standards - a bank heist, a WWII tale, a dope fiend tale, and a lost world tale - but the twist is that the protagonists are a Jewish vampire, a Tzaddik, and a Rabbi with mystical powers. The writing was a bit uneven, as Tidhar's voice tends more literary and it sometimes clashed with the stereotypical pulpy tone he was going for, but fun. I should read more Tidhar; I always enjoy his stuff, even when it doesn’t fully come together. 3/5
8) Angels or Demons: Lent by Jo Walton (2019)
This fantasy novel was an odd (but good) one. The whole first half of the book was a biography of the last 6 years of Savonarola's life, told straight, with the only fantastic elements being his prophetic ability and his ability to banish demons, both things he claimed IRL. Then there's a huge plot shift, and the second half of the book is Angels & Demons HM + Groundhog Day. It's well done, and I think that the SF aspect was worth the build-up for me, but I could see how you could disagree if your taste for Italian Renaissance politics + religion was lower. It's also a tear-jerker, and I agree with most of the Goodreads reviewers that the ending was way too rushed and probably also just not the choice I would have made. But it was definitely thought-provoking and well-written like all Jo Walton's books. 4/5
9) Five SFF Short Stories: Sleep and the Soul by Greg Egan (2023)
This collection is the first thing I’ve read by Greg Egan. Looking over my short story spreadsheet, I rated every story in it either 3 or 4 stars (mostly 3), so it’s more even than I feel like a lot of collections are, but nothing in it is amazing. Egan generally does the classic SF thing here, in which the set-up for his stories is a thought experiment carried to its logical conclusions; whether that turns into a 3 or 4 star story seems to be a matter of how novel and interesting those conclusions are. The stories I liked best were “You and Whose Army?” and “Solidity.” I own a copy of Permutation City, so I’ll likely try that sometime to see if I’m more excited by his stuff in long-form. 3/5
10) Horror: The Weird by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (2010)
I read this cat-crusher after three of the VanderMeers’ other collections (The Big Book of Science Fiction and both Big Books of Fantasy). I liked it, but less than any of the other three. As with any huge anthology, it had a mix of brilliant/godawful/middling stories. The VanderMeers really seemed to be striving to show the breadth of the field, not necessarily the best individual stories. Reading so many weird tales in a row definitely clarified to me which parts of the genre I love (traditional spooky stories, lush prose, unusual narrative structures, nods to classic stories, humor) and which I do not (body horror, violence & gore, depression, edgelord nihilism, surrealism for its own sake). 3/5
11) Self-Published OR Indie Publisher: The Silverberg Business by Robert Freeman Wexler (2022)
This weird Western was published by Small Beer Press (RIP). The blurb on the back called it a “philosophical Jewish-Texan retro-neo-noir,” and it was definitely an odd genre mashup. I liked it a lot, not just for the weird aspects, but also because Wexler clearly has a real familiarity with late 19th century Texas history, especially the elements that haven’t already been written to death as Western stereotypes. But yeah, also lots of dreamlike poker playing with skeleton-headed people. If you ever wanted a cross between Twin Peaks and that episode of ST:TNG where they can’t leave the saloon, you’ll probably like this. 4/5
12) Set in the Middle East/Middle-Eastern SFF: Khaled, a Tale of Arabia by F. Marion Crawford (1891)
This was surprisingly dry, for being an Orientalist fantasy written during the Gay Nineties. It was a pat little moralistic fable set in an Arabian Nights-inspired world, with lots of pedantic arguing about the meaning of love, and maybe a teeny bit of proto-feminism if you squint. The real-world geography and Arabic usage were surprisingly accurate. Contains period-normal racism/Orientalism. 2/5
13) Published in 2023: Rose/House by Arkady Martine (2023)
I loved this novella, probably even more than I loved her Teixcalaan books. By luck, I had read Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House earlier in the year, and this is a take on that one, in addition to being a locked room murder mystery and an examination of AI personhood and liminal spaces. I thought it was beautifully written and philosophical and my only complaint is that I want more. I am so, so ready to pre-order Prescribed Burn whenever it becomes available. 5/5
14) Multiverse and Alternate Realities: The Fortress of the Pearl by Michael Moorcock (1989)
The second book in Moorcock’s Elric saga according to internal chronology, but was actually written fairly late in the sequence, almost 30 years after the first Elric stories were published. In this one, Elric has to voyage into a young girl's dreams to find and bring back a pearl McGuffin, but the journey is more interesting than that sounds and I enjoyed it a lot. Elric’s adventures always feel archetypal, but Moorcock’s style is strong enough that it doesn’t become boring, and his plotting is quick and sure. 4/5
15) POC Author: Once and Forever: The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa (translated by John Bester; translation published in 2018, but the stories were mostly written in the 1930s)
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re not clicking with something because it's from a different cultural tradition (Japan in the 1920s-50s) or because of the translation. In the case of these short stories, I think maybe both? It’s not that I didn’t enjoy them - I did, they were pretty and interesting - but I’m 100% certain that I was missing a lot of context. A few of the stories were obvious allegories, which makes me wonder how many of the other ones may have been as well, but I guess I’ll never know ¯_(ツ)_/¯ 3/5
16) Book Club or Read-along Book: If Found, Return to Hell by Em X. Liu (2023)
In this one, the protagonist is an intern at One Wizard, which is like a shitty insurance company call center, but for magic rather than healthcare. They decide to help out someone who has been possessed by a demon, and hijinks ensue. I was not very impressed. I liked the set-up, but the plot was a bit confused (our protagonist spends the first half of the book frantically trying to solve one problem, only to learn that it's not actually an issue after all) and it was a tonal mishmash, swinging between depressed ennui and cozy banter, and between hints at sexual/romantic tension vs. a more sibling-like relationship. Also, for a book that continually plays up how its characters are supposed to be financially precarious, it did not do a good job at showing what financial precarity actually feels like, and seemed to forget all about it whenever it would be inconvenient to the plot. 2/5
17) Novella: The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold (1989)
I’ve been reading the Vorkosigan saga in chronological order, and so far this has only been topped by Barrayar. In this one, Miles is sent to a rural village to investigate an infanticide and serve justice. I still don’t actually love the character of Miles (I think he’d be absolutely insufferable to be around IRL), but I was really engaged in the moral questions that Bujold explored here, and it was super well-written. Jo Walton has talked about a quality of books she calls “grabbyness,” and Bujold always has it in spades. 4/5
18) Mythical Beasts: Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. MacAvoy (1983)
This is apparently one of those books that when it came out, people thought it was going to be super-important, but now looking back, it’s hard to see why. It was a nice stand-alone urban fantasy with elements from Chinese mythology. I believe it’s the latter that blew people’s minds in the early 80s - non-Western mythology was still really new and exciting, and now it’s just one more flavor of fantasy (in much the same way that a lot of Robin McKinley’s mildly-feminist fairy tale retellings don’t land the way they did when they came out). I did really appreciate that the protagonist was an independent older woman and a mother - we still don’t get too many of those - and I thought the romance was handled very well, mostly by not being the focus of the plot. 4/5
19) Elemental Magic: Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (2023)
I read this one in August, and while I haven’t forgotten what it’s about yet, I know that I’m going to after another few years. I love T. Kingfisher and have read all her adult novels, but this one really doesn’t stand out - it’s a Sleeping Beauty retelling from the point of view of the ‘evil fairy’/changeling “Toadling” who is trying to use her water magic to save everyone from the actually-evil Princess. Beyond that, it’s mostly just got the stock T. Kingfisher voice and plot elements. Which are good, don’t get me wrong, again, I really like T. Kingfisher! But this one is not greater than the sum of its parts, and the end product is more on the order of Bryony & Roses than the more memorable World of the White Rat books. 3/5
20) Myths and Retellings: In the Forests of Serre by Patricia McKillip (2003)
This fantasy novel is a loose retelling of the Russian fairy tales about the Firebird/Baba Yaga/Kashchey the Deathless. Not actually being super-familiar with those, I had to go read a collection before I started this one so I’d know what was new and what McKillip had refashioned. This one has a very intricate plot, with characters that somehow end up feeling both archetypal and rendered in the round. The story was full of twists and turns, and it was lush and well-worth reading, even if I'm not 100% certain how one of the plot threads resolved. I plowed through it, and should probably go back and give it a slower reread to appreciate the prose and plotting. 4/5, but it’d be a 5/5 if I understood that one plot resolution or if McKillip had any sense of humor at all.
21) Queernorm Setting: Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo (2023)
The fourth novella in Vo’s Singing Hills Cycle, and I think this is my favorite of the series so far. In this one, our protagonist Cleric Chih goes home to learn that their mentor has just died, and complications arise after the mentor’s granddaughters show up and demand the body. I really appreciate how Vo touched on so many interesting topics - grief, gender relations, disability, memory vs. history, how each individual changes over time - and wrapped them up in such a tight, interesting story that was also easy to read. 5/5
22) Coastal or Island Setting: The Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series by Fritz Leiber (1939-1988)
I read the whole series this year, from the first story "Two Sought Adventure" to the last collection The Knight and Knave of Swords, publications spanning nearly 50 years. I’m comfortable counting this as Coastal/Island Setting because so many of the stories are set aboard ship, in undersea lands, in a seaside city, or on Rime Island. Fafhrd and the Mouser are iconic, and for good reason - the stories, and the one novel, are great, and great fun to read. The earlier ones are better than the later, generally, with more inventive adventure and fewer of Leiber’s odd sexual kinks showing, but they’re all worth reading. My favorite was "Lean Times in Lankhmar,” which is both taut and funny. 5/5
23) Druids: Prince of Annwn by Evangeline Walton (1974)
This is the first book chronologically, the last published, of Walton’s retellings of the Mabinogion, classic Welsh mythology. It’s the story of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, and how he changed places for a year with Arawn of Annwn, land of the dead, and then the second half is how his druids tried to kill him and he tried to win Rhiannon, a literal goddess, for his wife. I almost certainly wouldn’t have read this except that I needed something for the Druids square, but it turned out to be my favorite for the year. Walton’s prose is magical - one of the Goodreads reviewers said it read like a cross between Michael Moorcock and Lord Dunsany, and that feels pretty accurate - and her retelling made the stories, which were already enthralling, even more so. I’ll be reading the other volumes in the series very soon. 5/5
24) Featuring Robots: System Collapse by Martha Wells (2023)
This is the most recent work in the Murderbot series that I expect everyone has heard of by now. I had been a bit apprehensive about this one, as I read Wells’ Witch King earlier this year, and did not like it. It seemed to be missing most of the things I love about Murderbot - political/economic commentary, relatable protagonist, humor - and I was worried that Wells was unclear on why the series was so beloved. I shouldn't have worried; System Collapse was great. If anything, I think Wells was even more clear with her anticapitalism, which I don't think was a bad thing. And I loved the implicit parallel between Murderbot producing a documentary to convince the colonists not to trust the corporates and the author writing an anticapitalist book. As usual with this series, I only wish it had been longer. 5/5
25) Sequel: Chanur's Homecoming by C.J. Cherryh (1986, the series was published 1981-1992)
I actually read the whole Chanur series this year, but this one (book 4) was my favorite. The series was published as 5 books, but really books 2-4 are a single work that was broken in three by her publishers. When I read book 2 (Chanur's Venture), I was not super-impressed - it felt a bit like a retread of book 1 - but I was delighted to find out that was for good reason. What book 2 was actually doing was setting up conflict and plot structure, and it absolutely never should have been published separately, because it was all just necessary lead up to the absolute bangers that were the next two books. This is pure space opera of the 'aliens and space stations' variety, but it's so complex and well-done. There are eight different species (including humans, but you almost never see them and they are very much 'the Other'), and all of the ones that our protagonist Pyanfar is capable of communicating with have multiple striving factions, so the whole series is crammed chock-full of political and military maneuvering. Plus there are communication difficulties, with some species speaking in pidgins and others having completely different understandings of concepts like "alliance," so you have to pay attention to every line, or you'll miss something. It's handled extremely well, and the plot goes charging full speed the entire way through, with no slow-downs at all. And it explores some interesting ethical questions along the lines of whether it's ever ethical to commit genocide on a sentient alien species, if that species is physiologically incapable of understanding altruism and will be a perpetual genocidal threat to you. If you read Barrayar or A Memory Called Empire and wished they were more complex, more tense, and had more political nuance, this series is for you. 5/5
Stats and thoughts:
Favorite book of the year: Prince of Annwn
Biggest disappointment: Consider Phlebas
Hardest squares to complete: YA, Druids, Robots
Hardest read: The Aegypt cycle, by a long shot
Most unique: The Silverberg Business
Most joyful: Squirrel Girl
Best triumphant-protagonist moment: Chanur’s Homecoming
My average rating was 3.72 (or a bit higher if you break out the individual Chanur and Fafhrd books with unique ratings).
Of the creators, I believe 11 were male, 11 female, 1 non-binary, with 2 male/female teams. I was pleasantly surprised to see such an even breakdown.
I think only 3 creators out of the 27 are POC, which was not great. I think this may be because I've been trying to read more older SFF "classics"; regardless, I should work on this next year.
12 of the books were by authors new to me (Silverberg, North & Henderson, Banks, Egan, Wexler, Crawford, Miyazawa, Liu, MacAvoy, Leiber, E. Walton, Cherryh), while the other 13 were by authors I’d read before.
12 were parts of series, 13 were stand-alones.
Of the works, 16 I’d primarily classify as Fantasy, 6 were Sci-fi, 2 were Weird, and 1 was Science Fantasy.
My faves were a pretty even mix of SF & Fantasy, despite having read way more Fantasy. I’m not sure if that means that I should read more SF next year, or if it's just confirmation that I'm less likely to pick up a SF book unless I know it's going to be really good.

I love using Beeper; it's nostalgic, reminiscent of Trillian, Pidgin, and Gaim. However, I'm having issues with @ mentions not working, which is problematic as I receive more mentions than direct messages. I've searched for settings and conducted tests, but nothing has resolved the issue in Discord.
Is there a way to reset Beeper settings, or are they managed server-side? I'm considering clearing cache data on my desktops and reinstalling the app on my phone as a potential fix. The Beeper website hasn't been helpful for this issue, as the troubleshooting guides seem outdated or platform-specific.

I was reading Imperial Twilight by Stephen R. Platt and I am looking for my next read about the Opium Wars in the bibliography. Was wondering what you thought about where I should go next. Have you read any of these books and enjoyed them? Anything to watch out for?
I'm thinking of starting with one of these:

• John Morley's Life of Gladstone
• Narrative of the Voyage of the Nemesis from 1840 to 1843
• Drugging A Nation: The Story Of China And The Opium Curse

The full list

Abel, Clarke. Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China, and of a Voyage to and from That Country in the Years 1816 and 1817. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818. Ainger, Alfred, ed. The Letters of Charles Lamb. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1904. Anderson, Aeneas. A Narrative of the British Embassy to China, in the Years 1792, 1793, and 1794. London: J. Debrett, 1795. Anderson, Gertrude A., ed. The Letters of Thomas Manning to Charles Lamb. London: Martin Secker, 1925. Andrade, Tonio. The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016. Anon. (“A Visitor to China”). Address to the People of Great Britain, Explanatory of Our Commercial Relations with the Empire of China. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1836. Anon. (“A Looker-On”). Chinese Commerce and Disputes, from 1640 to 1840. Addressed to Tea Dealers and Consumers. London: W. Morrison, 1840. Anon. An Essay on Modern Luxuries. Salisbury, UK: J. Hodson, 1777. Anon. An Essay on the Nature, Use, and Abuse, of Tea, in a Letter to a Lady; with an Account of its Mechanical Operation. London: J. Bettenham, 1722. Anon., ed. Further Statement of the Ladrones on the Coast of China: Intended as a Continuation of the Accounts Published by Mr. Dalrymple. London: Lane, Darling, and Co., 1812. Anon. An Intercepted Letter from J––T––, Esq. Writer at Canton to His Friend in Dublin Ireland. Dublin: M. N. Mahon, 1804. Anson, George. A Voyage Round the World, in the Years 1740–1744. 2 vols. Edinburgh: Campbell Denovan, 1781. Antony, Robert J. Like Froth Floating on the Sea: The World of Pirates and Seafarers in Late Imperial South China. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 2003. ———. “State, Continuity, and Pirate Suppression in Guangdong Province, 1809–1810.” Late Imperial China 27, no. 1 (June 2006): 1–30. ———, ed. “Piracy and the Shadow Economy in the South China Sea, 1780–1810.” In Elusive Pirates, Pervasive Smugglers: Violence and Clandestine Trade in the Greater China Seas. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010. Auber, Peter. China. An Outline of Its Government, Laws, and Policy: and of the British and Foreign Embassies to, and Intercourse with That Empire. London: Parbury, Allen and Co., 1834. Baldwin, R. C. D. “Sir Joseph Banks and the Cultivation of Tea.” RSA Journal 141, no. 5444 (November 1993): 813–17. Ball, Kenneth, and W. P. Morrell, eds. Select Documents on British Colonial Policy, 1830–1860. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928. Bao Shichen. Anwu si zhong (Four works by Anwu [Bao Shichen]). 36 juan. N.p., 1888. ———. 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Talfourd, Thomas Noon. The Letters of Charles Lamb, with a Sketch of His Life. 2 vols. London: Edward Moxon, 1837. ———. The Works of Charles Lamb. To which are prefixed, His Letters, and a Sketch of His Life. 2 vols. New York: Harper and Bros., 1838. ———. The Works of Charles Lamb, with A Sketch of His Life and Final Memorials. 2 vols. New York: Harper and Bros., 1875. Temple, Lt.-Col. Sir Richard Carnac, ed. The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia, 1608–1667. 5 vols. London: Hakluyt Society, 1919. Townsend, William John. Robert Morrison: The Pioneer of Chinese Missions. London Missionary Society’s edition. London: S. W. Partridge & Co., 1888. Trocki, Carl. Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy: A Study of the Asian Opium Trade, 1750–1950. New York: Routledge, 1999. Turner, John. A Narrative of the Captivity and Sufferings of John Turner…among the Ladrones or Pirates, on the Coast of China…in the year 1807. New York: G. & R. Waite, 1814. Victoria, Queen of Great Britain. The Letters of Queen Victoria. Edited by Arthur Christopher Benson and Viscount Esher. 3 vols. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907. von Glahn, Richard. “Cycles of Silver in Chinese Monetary History.” In The Economy of Lower Yangzi Delta in Late Imperial China, ed. Billy K. L. So. New York: Routledge, 2013. Wakeman, Frederic Jr. The Fall of Imperial China. New York: Free Press, 1975. Waley, Arthur. The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968. Waley-Cohen, Joanna. The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military under the Qing Dynasty. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006. Waltham, Clae. Shu Ching: Book of History. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1971. Warren, Samuel. The Opium Question. 3rd ed. London: James Ridgway, 1840. Webster, Anthony. The Twilight of the East India Company: The Evolution of Anglo-Asian Commerce and Politics, 1790–1860. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2009. Webster, Daniel. The Papers of Daniel Webster; Diplomatic Papers, Volume 1: 1841–1843. Edited by Kenneth E. Shewmaker. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1983. Wei, Betty Peh-T’i. Ruan Yuan, 1764–1849: The Life and Work of a Major Scholar-Official in Nineteenth-Century China before the Opium War. Hong Hong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006. Williams, Samuel Wells. The Middle Kingdom. 2 vols. London: W. H. Allen, 1883. Williamson, Capt. A. R. Eastern Traders: Some Men and Ships of Jardine, Matheson & Company and their Contemporaries in the East India Company’s Maritime Service. S.l.: Jardine, Matheson & Co., 1975. Wills, John E. Mountain of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. Wood, William W. Sketches of China. Philadelphia: Carey & Lea, 1830. Wylie, Alexander. Memorials of the Protestant Missionaries to the Chinese. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1867. Yuan Yonglun. Jing haifen ji (A record of the pacification of the pirates). 2 vols. Guangzhou: Shanyuan tang, 1830. Translated by Charles Friedrich Neumann as History of the Pirates Who Infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810. London: Oriental Translation Fund, 1831. Zheng Yangwen. The Social Life of Opium in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Zhu Weizheng. Rereading Modern Chinese History. Translated by Michael Dillon. Boston: Brill, 2015.

Tinned processed meat? A Monty Python sketch from the 1970s? Unsolicited commercial email? Or all of the above?
On Reddit, spam consists of posts that contain unofficial advertisements, links to malicious websites, trolling and abusive or other unwanted information. This can include self-promotionand if over 10% of your submissions and conversation are your own site/content/affiliate links, you're almost certainly a spammer.
Reddit is also plagued by spambots. Some have hijacked legitimate Reddit accounts to bypass our Karma restrictions. Some of them will repost a relevant picture from the sub they are in but with the name of a shill website embedded or even posted back to front to avoid the spam filter. Some of them use the Follow option to spam huge tranches of Redditors in one go with the promise of “chat” or porn. If you come across one, use the Report option in the three dots “Hamburger” Post Overflow Menu. TheseFuckingAccounts is a place to submit and track "suspicious" Reddit accounts.
Incidentally, did you know there are only six ingredients in tinned Spam? A foodstuff long beloved in Hawaii, it’s even available there in several different flavours.
Because there is a Subreddit for everything:
After seeing this post of a whole aisle of different Spam flavours in Hawaii, I would be remiss in not mentioning that Hawaii is just one subreddit dedicated to kine, including Honolulu, Oahu, and of course, hawaiicirclejerk. There’s a list of many others here too.
See Also:

• Advertising and Self-Promotion
• Bots
• Following
• Hacked Accounts
• Reporting
• Shill
• Spambots
• T-Shirt Posts

yo
I'm trying to build/ document a classic dubstep synth library, i've been going thru my old links to podcasts/ interviews etc looking for scraps of information about who was using what and when. I dug up this URL from a word doc, its a link to a post on DubstepForum, which I think quotes parts of a written interview between Mark and XLR8R in September 2010 titled "Building Iconic Sound - Mala" but the URL provided in the post goes to a dead page on XLR8R's website
For anyone interested here's the part of the interview which was posted on DubstepForum:

2010 hasn't exactly been a banner year for dubstep. Wobble-craving bros are threatening to take over the scene, each month an obscure new musical strain further splinters the genre, and the music is taking more and more whippings from critics and tastemakers alike. Nevertheless, even with all the mud thrown in dubstep's direction, a few of its originators remain pretty much untouchable, both in terms of respect and their continued dedication to moving the music into the future. Mala (the south London producer known to his mum as Mark Lawrence) is one such producer. Not only has he been instrumental in keeping the extremely bass-heavy style evolving, but he and his Digital Mystikz partners-in-crime Coki, Loefah, and Sgt. Pokes are also responsible for continually bringing dubstep to the masses via their genre-defining DMZ night in Brixton. We tapped Mala for a few tips on how he crafts his crazy, unrelenting low-end sound, both from the practical and philosophical standpoints.
1 - Adopt the Right Approach I'm not sure how my sound was created exactly, but for me, music is about uncompromised expression. I feel music is a chance to be honest about what I feel and want to say. I think words are too often abused, misunderstood, and sometimes overrated, so for me, instrumental music speaks directly and personally. Frequencies shape the world we live in.
2 - Be Consistent I don't really have a preferred synth, as I always enjoy working with new sounds, either from hardware or software. I consistently use a soft synth made by Spectrasonics called Trilogy. I'd say I create 99% of my subs and basslines from it. They released a new-and-improved version last year called Trillian, which, for me, works even better than Trilogy. So I'm happy! It's seriously solid software for when you need that weight in your sound.
3 - Find What Works Well... I use Battery by Native Instruments for programming my drums. I find Native Instruments plug-ins to be really user-friendly. Manipulating and controlling sounds is really simple but deep. Its drum-kit library is solid, too. I love this plug-in because you can import your own sounds, which is more important than the presets. Simple and easy to use, but when you explore, you see its deep capabilities.
4- ...And Stick With It It's fair to say Propellerhead Reason was like school for me. Back in 2000, it was what I started making music with. Redrum was perfect for drum programming. It had some heavy presets and the choice to bring in your own samples. I used the Subtractor virtual synth layered with Malström graintable synthesizer for sub and bass, and the NN-XT sampler did everything else. Importing my own sounds and being able to mash them up was all I wanted to do. It's a real friendly program to use, which allows me to get ideas down quickly. I think it's one of the most important factors to consider when new to making music. Ken Taylor
5- Then Arrange Your Sounds Accordingly I tend to start with more natural-sounding synths than the mental ones. So for pads and melodies, orchestral sounds layered with alien sounds usually work best for me... get some movement between the layers. Gforce's M-Tron is a great-sounding synth… off harmonics with a unique texture. I have some hardware synths, too. They help me understand more about sound every time I create.

TLDR - Mala talks about using Spectrasonic's Trilogy and Trillian for sub bass, Native Instrument's Battery for general drum programming and goes on to talk a little bit about a couple of Reason's built in plugins, Subtractor, Redrum, Malström and the NN-XT
Obviously, if there is more of this interview kicking about it might be a bit of a golden egg, It's not exactly a secret what Mark and Dean were doing software/ hardware wise back then, but it's not common knowledge, stuff like this is good because you get a bit of insight into how they were actually approaching production on a larger scale at that point in time, this interview came out just before Education/ Horrid Henry released to the public.
...
fucking time skip
So I wrote all that up there a few hours ago, but I didnt post it because I thought I'd have another go at finding the original interview. So safe, yeah, I forgot about the fucking WayBack machine. I checked it and yeah the original interview on XLR8R was archived. But it turns out it was just quoted in full on the post on DubstepForum, I tried to do a bit more digging to see if maybe it was a snippet from an earlier XLR8R interview but I couldn't find anything, I don't actually know when XLR8R got involved interviewing dubstep producers, so I thought I'd keep all of that wrote up anyway on the off chance it actually was a snippet and somebody here has more information. I know about the XLR8R interviews which took place after this, as they have been heavily archived and shared around the scene.
If anyone has any other old (pre-2013) producer interviews which go into production, link them brav.
Safe

Here is the money diary I did when I still have my old job.
Section One: Assets and Debt

• Retirement:

Amount	Note
$25,250	2022 was the first time I had access to 401k, so I maxed out. I was also able to put some money in Roth IRA. I am hoping to max both of them out this year.
$1+	Through my old union job, I am entitled to a pension when I reach 65 years old but am not sure how much. When I left my old job in 2021 I was told they truly can't give me a number until retirement. To be honest I don't think I will get much given I only worked for 71/2 years.

• Equity: N/A
• Saving Accounts:

Amount	Note
$15,000	This is my emergency fund in HYSA
$8000	My sibling is looking to migrate her family to Canada, and one of the requirements is to have ~$10,000 in a bank account. Here is the punch line an average doctor in my home country earns about ~$25,000/year, so where will an average non-doctor family get ~$10,000? That's akin to expecting an average American family to have about $150,000 in a saving account. Although, I gave my sister $10,000 I will probably get less back because of the increase in dollar value.
$5000	I also loaned this out to family, I expect to get this back in full.
$5000	These are i series of bonds I bought last year.
$2000	I am hoping to get bariatric surgery by the end of Q2. I need ~$8000 more to reach my goal

• Checking Account:

Amount	Note
$128	This is an account attached to my paycheck. Usually, by EOD payday I have distributed money around and usually have ~$150 left. This is mostly for laundry and places that require cash.
$450	This is where grocery and rent/bills get paid through. Normally, by end of the month, I have about $100 left here.

• Credit Card: $0 - paid in full monthly
• Student Loan: $0 - Associate Degree paid by union
• Networth: ~$60,828

Section Two: Income

• Income Progression
  • Certified Nursing Assitant: 2010 -2021
    • I have a very strong love and hate relationship with this job.
    • I love my residents! They stole my heart and became my family especially when I was so far from home.
    • I miss my co-workers, not that they were always nice. It is because 95% of my coworker were immigrants from third-world countries like me. They provided me a soft landing I was able to speak my native language with co-workers from my home country or even pidgin with those who understand it. Now I don't have those, I am struggling to truly connect with the black community and I am so grateful that many have reached out to help me.
    • I miss my job. OMG!! I never thought I will ever say that, but I miss it. I miss getting my job done as second nature and have not been worried about doing anything wrong. I miss the confidence that comes with work experience.
  • SWE: 2021 - Present
    • This job is my dream come true! I have worked so hard to get here that I sometimes can't believe it.
    • I love how much room there is to learn and grow.
    • Finally, the pay and peaks sure sweeten the deal.
• Main Job Monthly Take home: ~$5300
• Other income: ~$700/month for on-call shifts this is pre-tax so maybe ~$450 post-tax

Section Third: Expenses
​

Item	Amount	Note
$900	Rent, Utilities & Internet	I pay my roommate a flat amount she takes care of rent, utilities, and internet– all of which are in her name.
$0	Cellphone	Work pays for it
$27	Gym	I haven't gone in about a year. The only way I can cancel it is to send them a certified letter or come in person. Every time this payment goes through my account, I promise myself I will finally cancel this month, but it never happens.
~$120	Subscriptions	Youtube TV, Philo, Hulu, Netflix & Peacock Yes I know it is a lot of TVs. I am a comfort watcher i.e I don't really care for most of the new TV shows or movies. I love old shows like Frasier and Monk, and My name is Earl and I watch it again and again and again. Also, many people use my passwords for all these services, so I feel bad canceling any of them.
Varies	Remittances	Almost every month I send money back home for different things. For example, I send ~$800 for Christmas and I just send $75 this month already; and I will send another $150 by the end of the month.
$3000	Saving	On average I save about $3000/month but sometimes things happen like the immigration stuff and I have to save less.

Section Fourth: Money Diary
Saturday:
Morning: I woke at 10:30 am, to my phone ringing, it is one of my oldest friends. We have been trying to reach each other all week. When she called me am at work in a meeting when I called she is busy. We spend about an hour talking shit about everyone lol. All my friends are now moms. For a long time it was just me and her then she had a pandemic baby, so it is just me now. It does get lonely sometimes, this year am putting myself out there to make new friends, wish me luck.
Afternoon: After my call with my friend, I made some pancakes, leftover breakfast sausage, and tea. It is my turn to clean the bathroom, which means it is laundry($10.00) day, and clean my bedroom day. So I spent most of the day doing my chores.
Evening: Wow, I finished a lot earlier than I expected for some reason the laundromat wasn't packed as usual. So I went grocery shopping. I bought: cereal, cooking wine, cheap drinking wine, pasta, shrimp, tomatoes, a salad kit, frozen mix vegetables, diet coke, coffee creamer, tea bags, and a bunch of bananas Total of $ 80.00 On my way back I stopped at the pizza place to get 2 slices of pizza $3.00. Unpack my grocery while eating my pizza. Take a shower and night meds and turn on Forensic Files.
Late Night: It is 1:30 am but god am so hungry, I got my last grapes from the fridge. I just realized I forgot to get some grapes today, well I hope to get them on Sunday.
Total $93.00
Sunday:
Morning: I get a call at 10:00 am from my mom, to remind me to go to mass. I don't always go; it all depends on my energy level and the weather. I always tell my mom "sure mom I will go later" just to avoid having a fight with her. Yes, I know am a grown woman without a spine, trust me a medical miracle. As I plan my day in my head I realized I haven't done my french homework. sh*t!
Afternoon: I recently started taking a french lesson, I hope to be fluent in 2 years. I had some cereal and get ready for both my french class and evening mass. I finished my class but I have 45 mins to kill before my evening mass started. All the coffee shops in the city always feel too fancy for me; like the coffee will be too expensive I can't afford it, and everybody there knows it. Hell, Starbucks feels fancy to me too. I am never sure what I want because they have all these funny names for normal stuff, on a good day I will always take a dunkin' Donuts over any coffee shop. I ended up spending ~$5.45 for light and sweet coffee with oat milk in Starbucks.
Subway: $8.25
Evening: Mass over, I say hi to a few people and make my escape, if I stay too long I will miss Snapped. Get home in time to watch Snapped; am addicted to this show. Make shrimp fra Diavolo eat and talk to my sister, soon tax season will start and she will be working almost 6 days a week. I look through my monthly todo and added two tasks to my weekly todo. American Experience Chicago Fire on TV, shower, take meds, and light off.
Total $13.70
Monday:
Morning: Wake up at 8:30 am, I always spend a few minutes trying to remember where I stopped in my current tickets, and what I have to do for the day. So far everything has been going ok at work, actually, everything has been going perfectly, I say a little prayer that today follows that pattern. Get up wash my face and brush my teeth, am not really feeling hungry so I decided to skip breakfast and just have coffee.
Afternoon: Standup, coding, and a few meetings. My immigration lawyer reached out to me with some bad news. You see, I once had a roommate who will go through my mail and once cashed one of my checks; to avoid this from happening again I got a p.o.box. When I moved in with my current roommate I still maintained this p.o.box. As time went on I realized I could trust my current roommate, she is very honorable. So I closed the p.o. box and filed the necessary paper works required by USCIS. Despite doing everything right; they still sent my EAD to the p.o. box months later and I didn't realize it until a couple of weeks after it was sent. Now my lawyer tells me I have two options: either I appeal since it was their fault or just file it again and pay the $410 fee, pay for 2 passport photos and lawyer's fees again; so I chose to file again. Sadly, it is the easier option.
Evening: Work end call my old co-worker to vent but all she kept saying was "just be grateful you can afford it, imagine if you can't afford it" I guess she was right but still instead of EAD costing me ~$650 it will end up costing ~$1300. With all this going on I ended up missing lunch, and right now I have a blinding headache from it. Eat my pasta, and watch some episodes of All in the family. Shower, meds, and read a few pages from my current book The boy in the Stripped Pajamas.
Total $ 0
Tuesday:
Morning: I wake up at 8:30 am. I spend some time on the stepparent Reddit, this is my secret guilty pleasure in a weird way. Ama be honest, in some way I understand them. Many of them regardless of what they do, are still evil stepmothers. With that said, boy-o-boy, many of them hate the kids and despise their mothers. Finally, get up make coffee and start working.
Afternoon: same as yesterday standup, coding, and one meeting. For lunch, I make spicy honey salmons, and boiled eggs and used half a bag of the salad kit I bought over the weekend to make lunch. After lunch, I was able to close my biggest ticket for the sprint, yea me!!
Evening: After working spend some time catching up on huddle with a few coworkers turned friends, we make plans to have lunch next week. I have to get out of the apartment I haven't left since Sunday. This is one thing I hate about WFH it is very easy to go days without leaving my apartment, my longest was four days, I hope it never happens again. I bought some grapes and ice cream. Forensic Files on TV, shower, meds, and read until I fall asleep.
Total $15
Wednesday:
Morning: Wake up at 8:30 am,, I called to my younger sister back home, she was sick last week. There is a six hours time difference so either I call her in the morning or late at night. My sister is so sweet, she always tries to tell me about my friends from when I was younger but the truth is I barely remember any of them. I still indulge her with the usual " really!, wow! are you serious?" when she tells me these stories of people I just don't know anymore. Get ready and eat breakfast.
Afternoon: We don't have any meetings today. I coded all day and put my second ticket in PR, and made a good inroad in my third and final ticket for the sprint. In all these, I eat a banana and some cashew nuts.
Evening: Finish work, and decide to finally hang up my laundry from the weekend. I like my salmon more than I liked my pasta so I eat yesterday's lunch for dinner, with some grapes for a snack. Forensic Files on TV again, shower, meds, read and sleep.
Total $0
Thursday:
Morning: Wake up at 8:30 am today but did not have enough time to laze around, I have a dentist's appointment today. My boss doesn't care how long I work once my job gets done and I attend all my meetings. However, I will feel guilty if I leave early without making up those hours, hence starting an hour earlier than I usually do.
Afternoon: Same as most days standup, coding, and meetings. Finally, put my last ticket in PR and merge the second one, am on fire!! I struggle with imposter syndrome really badly, especially since am from a non-traditional background. Don't get me wrong my co-workers have been nothing but wonderful to me, but sometimes I get so obsessed that am not doing well enough to deserve my salary. And to be honest with all the craziness going on with big tech right now, it is scarily.
Evening: Finish work eat some pasta, get ready and go to my dentist appointment. Everything is ok, no cavities. I am not hungry but I want something in my mouth so I decided to make a banana, plain yogurt, and mango smoothie (without ice). Monk on TV, shower, meds, read and sleep. Subway $5.5, copayment $10.
Total $15.50
Friday:
Morning: It is friyay, friyay!!! I love Friday not because I hate my job far from it. It is because I always convince myself that after work I will sleep in as much as I want. I play around on Reddit until it is time to get ready.
Afternoon: I respond to comments on PRs and finally merge them. Do some documentation and finish up with 2 more meetings. For lunch, I finish up my last pasta.
Evening: I get ready and leave for a monthly meeting for Catholics LGTQ. After the meeting, we go to a diner ($26). I enjoy Fridays when I go to this meeting, it helps ground me. I get home, am very very tired brush my teeth, meds snuggle under the blanket, turn on Dateline and fall asleep. Subway $5.50
Total $31.50
Week's Total: $176.95
Food + Drink:129.45 Home + Health: $10 Clothes + Beauty:$10 Transport:$19.25
Reflection
There are a lot of reasons why I wrote this diary
First, I wanted to share my diary and hope it may serve as a motivation to someone somewhere, who is currently making lower wages and wondering if making it to the other side is possible
Secondly, the truth that you can budget yourself out of poverty is a very decorated liar. You can compare both my diaries the biggest difference is now I make almost 3X as I did 2 years ago. I didn't become some financial wiz-kid yet my network has increased. So next you feel like enjoying a fancy coffee go for it and ignore some loudmouth YouTuber.
Finally, I just want to give back to a community that has silently motivated me without knowing it. Thanks!!

Target User: u/merrycachemiss
URL: /Twittecomments/zpbvdh/several_3rd_party_twitter_devs_are_now_creating/
Title: Several 3rd party Twitter devs are now creating separate Mastodon apps, but their new apps should be a hybrid of both services. Unless I'm missing it, is this already happening?
Body:
I usually don't post about apps that don't (appear to) exist, in case I enter the specific development space myself, but I have no interest in doing this one.
Please let me know if something already approaches the exact featureset in the list.
I'd prefer to use what would be the Trillian or Pidgin of Twitter and Mastodon. It would allow people to easily begin a migration to Mastodon, but also, people who want to continue to use Twitter occasionally would be less likely fully migrate away from it. Lock-in is annoying and petty.
Features I'm interested in, in sure there'll be more:

• Post once, it goes to both services
• If you follow someone who posts the same thing verbatim in both services, it does its best to merge the separate conversations into a single thread. The source service of anyone's reply is marked with where it came from, and your reply to someone matches their source service (or goes to both services, if it's a merged OP or reply in both places)
• Contacts from either platform are merged via a contacts page that surfaces possible matches, managed by the user. Kind of like how Google Contacts does it.

Architecturally, things could be done to make Twitter act as if it was a special Mastodon instance, just so the backend can be simplified a bit. Obviously, some objects would differ per API, but in talking about things at a high level. Contacts and other interaction should be very similar between both services to the user, as if Twitter was just another instance to them as well (but marked appropriately).

Target User: u/merrycachemiss
URL: /Twittecomments/zpbvdh/several_3rd_party_twitter_devs_are_now_creating/
Title: Several 3rd party Twitter devs are now creating separate Mastodon apps, but their new apps should be a hybrid of both services. Unless I'm missing it, is this already happening?
Body:
I usually don't post about apps that don't (appear to) exist, in case I enter the specific development space myself, but I have no interest in doing this one.
Please let me know if something already approaches the exact featureset in the list.
I'd prefer to use what would be the Trillian or Pidgin of Twitter and Mastodon. It would allow people to easily begin a migration to Mastodon, but also, people who want to continue to use Twitter occasionally would be less likely fully migrate away from it. Lock-in is annoying and petty.
Features I'm interested in, in sure there'll be more:

• Post once, it goes to both services
• If you follow someone who posts the same thing verbatim in both services, it does its best to merge the separate conversations into a single thread. The source service of anyone's reply is marked with where it came from, and your reply to someone matches their source service (or goes to both services, if it's a merged OP or reply in both places)
• Contacts from either platform are merged via a contacts page that surfaces possible matches, managed by the user. Kind of like how Google Contacts does it.

Architecturally, things could be done to make Twitter act as if it was a special Mastodon instance, just so the backend can be simplified a bit. Obviously, some objects would differ per API, but in talking about things at a high level. Contacts and other interaction should be very similar between both services to the user, as if Twitter was just another instance to them as well (but marked appropriately).

Target User: u/merrycachemiss
URL: /Twittecomments/zpbvdh/several_3rd_party_twitter_devs_are_now_creating/
Title: Several 3rd party Twitter devs are now creating separate Mastodon apps, but their new apps should be a hybrid of both services. Unless I'm missing it, is this already happening?
Body:
I usually don't post about apps that don't (appear to) exist, in case I enter the specific development space myself, but I have no interest in doing this one.
Please let me know if something already approaches the exact featureset in the list.
I'd prefer to use what would be the Trillian or Pidgin of Twitter and Mastodon. It would allow people to easily begin a migration to Mastodon, but also, people who want to continue to use Twitter occasionally would be less likely fully migrate away from it. Lock-in is annoying and petty.
Features I'm interested in, in sure there'll be more:

• Post once, it goes to both services
• If you follow someone who posts the same thing verbatim in both services, it does its best to merge the separate conversations into a single thread. The source service of anyone's reply is marked with where it came from, and your reply to someone matches their source service (or goes to both services, if it's a merged OP or reply in both places)
• Contacts from either platform are merged via a contacts page that surfaces possible matches, managed by the user. Kind of like how Google Contacts does it.

Architecturally, things could be done to make Twitter act as if it was a special Mastodon instance, just so the backend can be simplified a bit. Obviously, some objects would differ per API, but in talking about things at a high level. Contacts and other interaction should be very similar between both services to the user, as if Twitter was just another instance to them as well (but marked appropriately).

Target User: u/merrycachemiss
URL: /Twittecomments/zpbvdh/several_3rd_party_twitter_devs_are_now_creating/
Title: Several 3rd party Twitter devs are now creating separate Mastodon apps, but their new apps should be a hybrid of both services. Unless I'm missing it, is this already happening?
Body:
I usually don't post about apps that don't (appear to) exist, in case I enter the specific development space myself, but I have no interest in doing this one.
Please let me know if something already approaches the exact featureset in the list.
I'd prefer to use what would be the Trillian or Pidgin of Twitter and Mastodon. It would allow people to easily begin a migration to Mastodon, but also, people who want to continue to use Twitter occasionally would be less likely fully migrate away from it. Lock-in is annoying and petty.
Features I'm interested in, in sure there'll be more:

• Post once, it goes to both services
• If you follow someone who posts the same thing verbatim in both services, it does its best to merge the separate conversations into a single thread. The source service of anyone's reply is marked with where it came from, and your reply to someone matches their source service (or goes to both services, if it's a merged OP or reply in both places)
• Contacts from either platform are merged via a contacts page that surfaces possible matches, managed by the user. Kind of like how Google Contacts does it.

Architecturally, things could be done to make Twitter act as if it was a special Mastodon instance, just so the backend can be simplified a bit. Obviously, some objects would differ per API, but in talking about things at a high level. Contacts and other interaction should be very similar between both services to the user, as if Twitter was just another instance to them as well (but marked appropriately).

Intro/Disclaimer

I showed this to a friend who posts here frequently and made some changes based on her suggestions. I removed some details she thought would be just annoying and extraneous, and altered some other stuff. She said I should mention that I am a native English speaker from the US who taught English in both Korea and Turkey. At various times I have tried to learn nine other languages, but always in circumstances that were not ideal, and I only ever became even conversant (which I define as not having to translate from English to the target language) in Spanish and Turkish, and fluent in none.
I basically gave up trying to learn languages after I got kicked back to the United States for the second time and entered a decade long period of depression. I am only recently in a place where I am starting to actually think about trying to bring myself up to proficiency in Spanish and either bring myself up to proficiency in Turkish or learn a new language. So all of these take place over a decade ago. However I have three stories that reflect how I used three different apps to mitigate the circumstances in three different ways for Arabic, Turkish, and Georgian.
My friend also said that based on the title and the start of my post, this might come across if she didn't know me as yet another post defending Duolingo. So I want to emphasize that that's not really what I'm doing. I mean technically yes, as part of this post I am going to argue that there is at least one limited context in which Duolingo is potentially actually somewhat useful. I still recognize that it is an app that advertises it a way to learn a language when it's not even a good way to maintain language proficiency, especially as it is essentially a gamified version of the wholly inadequate grammar-translation method of language instruction.
The point of this post is to say that based on my own experience, I have found broadly two contexts in which three kinds of apps can be useful, and wanted to share three stories to illustrate. The two contexts are learning a few phrases for travel without any goal of proficiency (Georgian), and improving on a less than ideal in-person language learning situation, I have two very different stories for the latter case, featuring an Arabic class taught with the grammar translation method, and an immersion situation for Turkish in which no class was available.

Why Pimsleur was useful for an Arabic class taught with the grammar-translation method

Back in undergrad I wanted to study Turkish, which was not an option, except through an independent study. But I had decided to study psycholinguistics in order to improve my understanding of how to learn languages and I wanted to learn a non-Indo-European language. The language that I ended up studying for two years was Arabic.
Now my Arabic teacher used an extreme form of what I now recognize as the grammar-translation method, a terrible method of language instruction that is bafflingly popular in the Middle East. He would assign us exercises from Al-Kitaab, we would write them on the board, read what we had written. Then he would lecture us a bit on the grammar in English and that was the entire class. If you tried to ask him a question in Arabic, he would respond "say it in English!" When I asked him when we were going start speaking Arabic, he declared that "this is not a speaking course!" and accused me of wanting to work for the CIA.
So to try to improve my Arabic I sought to supplement it in other ways. The college administration actually knew that this professor was terrible and offered a supplemental spoken Modern Standard Arabic independent study, which I took. They were weekly Arabic practice dinners at a nearby college that I went to, and I got a bunch of language learning programs out of the library and tried them.
You might think that the first two things would have been the more useful, but I picked up more actual spoken Arabic from Pimsleur and then the independent study and the weekly study session gave me a chance to practice. I'm not sure that it's worth the price tag, it certainly was not for me at the time, but it definitely had its uses and was well worth getting from the library.
Also, I don't know if it's still advertise itself this way, but at the time Pimsleur presented itself as a course for business people going on business trips to learn some basic phrases quickly and pronounce them with a light enough accent that you will be understood. One of my favorite aphorisms around language learning is “A few words of Hungarian will get you further in Budapest than perfect French will get you in Paris.” And honestly in that regard I don't think I've come across anything better so long as you can afford the cost or get it from your library.
Now, if Pimsleur has since followed the tack of the other apps and tried to present itself as a way to learn a language to proficiency, then shame on them. But for what it is, for what was originally designed for, it is actually pretty decent. And as my experience with Arabic shows, at least in the context of a grammar translation course with some practice sessions for fluency, it fills that middle ground of helping with vocabulary and pronunciation such that you can actually take part in the practice sessions.

Why BYKI flashcards were useful for “A little Georgian in Tblisi”

Unfortunately, while I believe Pimsleur did have a Turkish course even at the time, it wasn't available through any of the libraries around me. So when I finally did go to Turkey, the best resource I could find was a flash card app. It was called Before You Know It and I don't see people discussing anymore, my friend thinks this is because it is non-SRS. Anyways, it taught me a few Turkish phrases but then I very quickly discovered that anything I didn't already know I could handle with Google Translate. But it became vitally useful when I went from Turkey to Georgia.
In the middle of my time in Turkey, I was looking for a job and decided to travel around the country a bit in the meantime and drop my résumé off at every language school I found that advertised it taught English. I also decided to check out Georgia, which has an absolutely fascinating language, culture, and history. BYKI had some Georgian flashcards, although I didn't even try as hard as I had in Turkey, because I figured I would use Google Translate. I then got to Georgia and discovered that while Google Translate was pretty good for Turkish, it was absolutely trash for Georgian, at least around 2010.
Now in Batumi, which is the first place I went, a lot of people spoke English or Turkish and I even found one person who spoke Arabic, and I did have enough Turkish (and Arabic) to basically get around in those cases. But using BYKI, I did a mini-crash-course in Georgian until I had enough Georgian to get around in the event that there was no other language in common. In this case, the flashcards also served as a decent supplement to immersion. Although I only really reached the level of asking directions, times, and prices in Georgian, the combination of the flashcards and immersion meant that I managed that in about two days.

Why Duolinguo could have been useful for Turkish immersion

Finally I need to jump back in time a bit on Turkey to mention that my plan had been to find a language school and learn Turkish and then supplement that by immersion. However when I got a job, it was not in one of the three largest cities, and I discovered that Turks don't really do “Turkish as a second language" courses in the same way that we do ESL in the US. Basically what I was told is that there were no such courses outside Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir until the Syrian refugee crisis. There were now a few courses in places like near the border, but they were taught in Arabic using the grammar-translation method.
The end result is that I basically ended becoming pretty conversant but in a sort of pidgin Turkish. I learned two tenses, negation, questions, and postpositions, and that was about the limit of my Turkish grammar. And in yet another case of "just a little too late" I discovered Duolingo, which actually filled that gap, and that it covered a number of grammar things I had never picked up. Using Duolingo I was able to improve my Turkish grammar pretty dramatically shortly after I ended up back in the United States, and then of course gave up because it's not actually a useful way of maintaining the language and I recognized that.
But I feel like if I had discovered it while still in Turkey, it would have been actually quite useful to help with a lot of the small grammatical things which would have allowed me to build more complex sentences. I feel like being able to use more complex grammatical forms, especially things like conditionals, would have allowed me to achieve a greater level of proficiency while I lived there, although of course I will never know for sure.
As I said earlier, Duolingo is basically a gamified version of the grammar-translation method which, as my experiences in Arabic highlight, is not the ideal method of language learning by any stretch, but it still at least teaches you the grammar. Just as I used other sources to improve my fluency and vocabulary in Arabic to supplement a course taught with the grammar translation method, it seems like Duolingo’s gamified version of that method would have been a somewhat useful supplement to immersion, in cases where there is no course available. And honestly I think it might do it better than a traditional grammar-translation course, at least based on the Turkish version compared to my grammar-translation Arabic course.

Why Rosetta Stone has negative value to language learning

However I do want to take a quick moment to just say that the other remaining language-learning app that I have used is Rosetta Stone and it is the absolute worst, in fact I would say that I feel it verges on a scam. Pretty much as soon as I started studying psycholinguistics I realized that the principle behind it was unlikely to work.
This is not only because adults cannot and do not learn languages like children, but also because children actually learn languages slowly and with a great degree of difficulty that we just forget because of childhood amnesia. The only thing that actually comes easier to children is pronunciation, because we learned to stop discerning unimportant phonetic distinctions in our native language(s). Also it's not even accurate with regards to how children learn languages: not all children learn language is noun first, and I don't think any develop in the order Rosetta Stone presents. There is just nothing about the design of Rosetta Stone that makes any sense when it comes to child development, language acquisition, or second language acquisition.
Then I started talking to people who had paid several hundred dollars for the course, been unable to learn anything, and then blamed that on their own laziness. It's basically an extremely expensive worse version of a flashcard app that doesn't let you cherry pick what you are going to learn and makes you feel shitty about yourself when you don't acquire the easy fluency it promised. From what I have seen, it also seems to put a lot of people off learning any language when they conclude that even after paying out the nose for the "easiest" method of learning a language, they still can't learn it, why I would say that Rosetta Stone actually has negative value.
And I mean yes, apps like Duolingo also promise easy fluency in five or ten minutes a day, which is untrue, worthy of criticism, and might put people off learning a language entirely, but at least they're free, and at least they aren't premised on a complete reversal of everything we know about child development and language acquisition. They at least have at least some limited use in some contexts, and I would hope that people might also realize that with free apps, you might get what you pay for.

Conclusion

So that are at least some valid use that I have found for at least three kinds of language learning app: apps that teach you basic phrases, flash card apps, and gamified apps that teach you grammar. Like I said the contexts seem to be broadly either "a little Hungarian in Budapest" or as a supplement to a less than ideal language learning situation, and given that the broad advice here seems to be to use many methods, I'm sure that doesn't come as a surprise to most of you. I'm also not saying that there are not other kinds of apps that I am not familiar with nor that they do not have other uses.

Okay this is more like two topics here. First one being: "Sell me on KDE" (which is obviously less Fedora specific), the other being "Sell me on Silverblue, specifically the Knoite spin." (obviously very Fedora specific).
I have been using Ubuntu or some kind of Ubuntu derivative since 2007 as my main OS. I have used/checked out some distros previously, I had a short affair with Suse with KDE in 2005ish, and did check out early KDE4 a few times in the early 2010-s a few times but I found Gnome 2, Unity and later Pantheon way more comfy. Basically my dream DE would be mostly Unity (dock on the left aligned to the top, panel on the top with indicators and clock and launcher; global menubar is not really necessary if most of my apps don't even have traditional menus, and most importantly easy consistent replication of the panel setup on every single monitor I plug in) but with headerbars, and non flat, consistent looking theme for every app I use.
Now there are currently two modern enough DEs with GTK headerbars:

• Gnome Shell
• Pantheon

My main issues with GNOME are: * Its basically impossible to completely replicate the shell on all monitors * GTK4's default theme is now decidedly flat and decidedly very hard and annoying to change (I get the reasons behind the "Don't change my theme" movement, and I am not here to open up that can, I just want an environment that is not flat on my personal computing devices, I promise I will not bug app devs that their app does not look correctly with the theme I use. Pinky promise.)
My main issues with Pantheon are: * They have a really good (non-flat) theme, and before I could just install other GTK3 apps and they would use the theme, and I would be a happy panda. Now their default theme is a bit more flatty for my taste with tabs that are not flat but do not look like tabs. Also since I would be using apps outside from their environment that would lead to either QT apps that look like QT apps, or GTK4 apps that now most likely would force the default flat theme down on my throat because of libadwaita. (Once again, I'm fine with the devs doing their thing, but I would like to have an easier life by not having to jump several hoops for the correct theme to show. (Hoop number one: a forced environment variable, hoop number two: making a copy of the theme to the one specific place, hoop number three: I have no idea how these would relate to flatpak apps (probably nothing special, but still)) * Pantheon is kinda very fused with elementary OS as a distro, however I would like to check out, and ideally use an immutable distro, so either I try the very "community-supported-esque" Sodalite or I just don't use Pantheon.
Moving on to a new environment (this also means no headerbars :... I might play around with emerald themes tough), then?
The other reason of me wanting to move KDE is the end of life of the Atom editor. It was already bugging me for sometime now that my editor does not actually conform with my theme, but it is now time to move on. Kate seems to be a good enough kandidate candidate for my future dev needs. There of course are still 3 apps that I use daily that are not QT, and quite indispensable:

• Firefox
• Libreoffice
• Pidgin (go on and laugh, I'm not letting the year 2010 go)

The first two are thanks to being big enough, have their options to kinda blend in well withe KDE to as far as I know. (Question: How well does firefox look in KDE when I remove the titlebar? Will the close button match the titlebar theme well?)
Pidgin being GTK2, will always be something that will need some fine tuning, so whatever. (Of course if you have a working libpurple frontend in QT feel free to point me towards it.)
Now some questions: - I'm looking for a simple 2-3 columned QT based RSS reader, in the style of Newsflash (so one column/sidebar for list of subscriptions, second column contains a simple list of news, third column shows the content), any suggestions? - What email client would you suggest for KDE and why? (If possible I would prefer a similar three column design here too.) - What are your thoughts of the MAUI apps, how well do they work / integrate to Knoite? (How would you install them on Knoite? Some of them are up in flathub, not all of them.)
Now onto Knoite itself: - Would you consider it daily driver ready? If you are using it, what purpose are you using it for? Would you recommend it? - Have you tried open VPN with it? Does it work? - Have you been using Podman on it? - I've read that at the moment Discover can not handle rpm-ostree updates. Flatpak integration at least works, right? - Are there any silverblue/knoite specific tools or apps that you use? What are they and why? (Eg. Is there something that nags me to update the OS image?) - How well does lets say a kvantum theme integrate with everything? Would changing a kvantum theme change how firefox/libreoffice looks which are not qt apps? - What are some weird KDE or knoite specific quirks that are not trivial, that I probably don't know off, because last time I used KDE was 10 years ago and never used an immutable OS? - What questions should I have asked that I did not?

It looks like it finally hit me too, i can't get anything to connect anymore.
Basically i just used Trillian and Pidgin to talk to my old friends, and it looks like both are dead now because of googles no-third-party rules.
I don't suppose anyone knows any other options, i mean it doesn't HAVE to run through google, i'm just old and use the IM clients to talk to friends, i don't need or want something mobile and i don't want to have google open all the time either.
There HAS to be other, simple IM clients around, right?

Thank you for reading and hopefully answering soon. :)

In the past years, the Nigerian music industry has gone through a considerable amount of transformation, growing to become one of Africa’s leading exporters of entertainment and culture. With the many subgenres popping off under the Afrobeats genre, Nigerian artists have managed to harness their music abilities and translate vivid storytelling in their lyrics. One of such subgenres currently making waves in the Nigerian music scene is “drill rap”.
Also known as Afrodrill and +234 drill, the subgenre is built on the framework of Chicago’s early 2010’s drill sound which serves as the blueprint for what is called drill music today. Although its origins can be traced to the slums of southside Chicago, it was on the rough streets of Brixton that drill music assumed its current form, whetted by rap groups like 86 and 7 (pronounced six, seven).
Once the drill assumed a solid structure, it began to travel, making its way out of the UK and into Africa. In Ghana, Asaaka boys – a Ghanian drill collective – quickly mastered the sound, subsequently adopting it by rapping in Akan, Twi, local Ghanian pidgin, and a sprinkle of English about their dreams of a better life. Kenya’s Buruklyn Boyz are also carrying the drill torch in East Africa, pulling off an infectious delivery of the sound in their breakout song Nairobi.
In mid-2020, I See I Saw – Styles‘s hit track went viral, opening the Nigerian audience to a different type of sound which was slowly gaining popularity in underground music spheres. This shift created space for an audience ready for a new sound to properly experience the blend of drill rap with Nigeria’s trademark Afrobeats genre. Styles’ hit song was instrumental in uncovering the bubbling drill rap scene in Nigeria and particularly, in the capital city of Abuja. Speaking to Culture Custodian, rapper Zilla Oaks explained that drill music in the capital city really took off in 2020 – “During the lockdown, that’s really when drill popped off because so many people were paying attention to drill in the UK and soon enough they began dropping their own drill songs.”
UCEE - TARGET (feat. EESKAY, ZILLA OAKS, DRAYKO & B1G NOVA) OFFICIAL VIDEO
Currently, there is a growing movement formed around the subgenre in Abuja, Nigeria with rappers like Tomi Obanure, Eeskay, Odumodu Blvck, Zilla Oaks, and Reeplay at the helm of affairs. The typically quiet city has received drill rap well, with fans singing lyrics word for word at shows. “Drill is something that gets people really hyped and pumped,” rapper Eeskay explains. In 2020, he released Agbalagba, with fellow drill artist Odumodu Blvck and it quickly became the soundtrack of the streets. “Abuja is a really quiet place and drill has an uptempo to it, exactly what the people need,” Eeskay declares.
EEskay - AGBALAGBA (Official Video) - ft Odumodu Blvck
Like most rappers, Abj drillers consider drill rap a reflective tool, as Eeskay explains, “I rap about what I’ve seen, what I’ve been through and I always like to make people conscious of what’s going on around them, on the streets we call it OT.” The artists love to speak about the socio economic issues that plague their communities like police brutality, corruption and even the ruggedness of the streets. “People like to think drill is violent, but the violence we rap about, its things we’ve seen, the crime we talk about, we’ve experienced it as well,” Zilla Oaks says.
As expected, the subgenre has experienced some pushback because as Zilla puts it; “Nobody takes rap seriously in Nigeria”. However, this does not deter capital city drillers who continue to make the kind of music that represents their struggle. “I’ve come to understand that Nigerians may never completely accept anything that isn’t mainstream Afrobeats,” says Eeskay. “But for us here in Abuja, it’s more than just music, it’s our heritage and I’ve made peace with the fact that others may never put it first, maybe second, but never first.”

https://culturecustodian.com/heres-how-drill-rap-is-soundtracking-abuja-the-capital-city/

Basically the title. Even if it's a clunky, unpolished experience I'd be really interested. Open-source preferred, but I'll take what I can get. Best case scenario would be something that could work with original clients (with some modifications of course) or things like Pidgin/Trillian.
Edit: Thanks for all of the feedback everyone! It looks like some type of XMPP would be the way to go for both era-appropriateness and modern features - lots of directions this could go. There is Escargot Chat which would allow using (patched) versions of the original clients, but the 'non-commercial use only' clause in the license is really limiting and I'd much rather support true open source projects than projects that are simply source-available. (Even if they had a real software license that would be something, but using Creative Commons for software seems really strange.) I'd still love to find some type of true AIM server, but XMPP will do for now!

Like I can search for offline contacts in Trillian, but not in Pidgin (Windows 10).
Thank you for reading and hopefully answering. :)