@raymccarthy@historians.social
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

raymccarthy

@[email protected]

Former Electronics, Software & Communications Engineer now a full time writer.
Living in the Mid-West of Ireland.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

SimonRoyHughes, to bookstodon

"When I was twenty-six, my first novel, The Temple of Gold, was published by Alfred A. Knopf. (Which is now part of Random House which is now part of R.C.A. which is just part of what’s wrong with publishing in America today which is not part of this story.)'

William Goldman, Preface to The Princess Bride.
@bookstodon

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @bookstodon
Better than the Godfather for quotes.
"Some day everyone will be wearing masks"

Wm Goldman was a versatile writer. Some of his books on the TBR pile. Though I'm not convinced he ever really meant to write a sequel to "The Princess Bride"

ajsadauskas, to fediverse
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

With BlueSky moving towards finally opening up federation, I'm interested in how people feel about it?

Would you be open to the idea of Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, and other Fediverse platforms adopting the AT protocol in order to federate with it?

If those technical hurdles could be overcome, would you support your instance federating with BlueSky?

Does the same go for other commercially-owned platforms, such as Threads and Tumblr?

@fediverse

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@aidasb @gytis @ajsadauskas @fediverse
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
Though smart phone is since 1998, not 2005. ARM based from about 2002.
See also SMS vs Google vs Apple iMessage.
Also Mail on Android isn't. It's using Google servers with your settings. You can install real email clients on Android. Also Google has "taken over" SMS & MMS on Android phones.
Don't adopt AT or negotiate with any platform. Let them adopt AP and don't give them a seat on development. Google is wrecking Web Browsers.

franciscawrites, to bookstodon
@franciscawrites@mastodon.scot avatar

As if children's books aren't already losing visibility due to censorship now this...

This year Goodreads has removed all children's books categories from their Goodreads Choice Awards, meaning no more #MG or #PB categories. Worse, Graphic Novel & Poetry, have also been eliminated.

Here you can vote to ask them to bring those categories back:

https://help.goodreads.com/s/suggestions/a0G8V00001thIKIUA2/choice-awards-middle-grade-picture-book-novelinverse-each-a-category

#WritingCommunity #authorsofmastodon @bookstodon #kidlit #childrensbooks

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@franciscawrites @bookstodon
Perhaps Amazon should be forced to resell it and IMDB. They've wrecked both and those just gather info for Amazon.
I've stopped using them because they are now useless.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@beecycling @franciscawrites @bookstodon
Also obsessed with DRM, which affects consumers, not pirates. Trying to out-Apple Apple on Walled Gardens (Kindle Scribe PDF Annotation).

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@beecycling @franciscawrites @bookstodon
Flaw in tax system that they could build dominance in Datacentres by tax exemption on Amazon profits and take over all of these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Amazon
Regulators are asleep.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@franciscawrites @bookstodon
reviews of unpublished books, that sometimes have not even been started.
Reviews by sockpuppets.
It's as useless as Amazon branded pages for reviews now.
Also nearly impossible to get false info taken down.

FairytalesFood, to folklore
@FairytalesFood@mstdn.social avatar

A last piece of Food Folklore for your tea break: November 1st is Calan Gaeaf, the first day of winter in Wales. The night before is Nos Galan Gaeaf, a night when spirits are abroad. Stwmp NawRhyw was often served on this night, mash made from potatoes, carrots, turnips, peas, parsnips, leeks, pepper, salt & milk. Legend has it that the 9 essential ingredients would ward off evil spirits, sometimes a lucky wedding ring would be hidden in the mash & the finder would marry within a year
@folklore

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@Monsterklatsch @FairytalesFood @folklore
In Ireland, "charms" in a Barm Brack, bairín (=loaf) breac (=speckled, due to currants, raisins or sultanas). In Co. Antrim we usually had apple pie with "charms" (at least thrupnies and sixpences) rather than halloween barm brack. Some in shops (sold all year) at halloween might have toy ring.

juergen_hubert, to folklore
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

It might be worth keeping in mind that certain herbs can assist with keeping ex-boyfriends away.

@germany @folklore
https://www.patreon.com/posts/mysterious-lover-58326751

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@Ellirahim @juergen_hubert @germany @folklore
I suspect not. True for Asia, and also Greek & Roman "nymphs" (Dryads) can be associated with particular trees, but I've never seen a similar association in Celtic, Norse and Germanic stories.
Celtic traditions seem to associate entities with in habiting particular mountains, ancient megalithic sites/tombs, rivers and wells. Not just Insular Celts, but mainland Europe too as far as Northern Turkey.

herhandsmyhands, to romancelandia
@herhandsmyhands@romancelandia.club avatar

@romancelandia

Can we help fund this event for Indigenous children in the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska?

Monies go to buying pumpkins and other supplies for a fun day at a safe space.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/pumpkins-for-native-kids

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@herhandsmyhands @romancelandia
weird as pumpkins is European settler corruption of Halloween and little to do with real Halloween (uses swedes/turnips) and nothing to do with native people. It's cultural imperialism, as is the ghastly plastic commercialised Halloween exported by USA to Ireland & UK (though objects made in China).

jgpausas, to ecology
@jgpausas@fediscience.org avatar

This reminds me of the (the model developed by to demonstrate the hypothesis), where black daisies (, etc) reduce & warm the planet. But we lack white daisies for the negative ! We are in the positive phase! (eg Box 1 in https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534722000611)

FROM @nickcowern: Earth has darkened significantly over the last 20y; satellite data show a roughly 2% reduction in reflected sunlight

@climate @ecology

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@jgpausas @nickcowern @climate @ecology
But surely and the hypothesis was just a new take on old religion and ultimately pseudo science.

juergen_hubert, to folklore
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Heaps of money appearing on the road is a perfectly normal phenomenon - in German folklore, at least.

@germany @folklore
https://www.patreon.com/posts/treasures-and-28412146

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@juergen_hubert @germany @folklore
Even today might be more likely than winning the lottery. Though many countries you have to hand it to police and you only get it if not claimed.
Ireland has a law: "Theft by finding".

"But the pot of gold was just sitting here!"

SimonRoyHughes, to folklorethursday

Norwegian, one German, and several English covers and/ or title pages for Norwegian Folktales, etc. Stops in 1969.

@folklore @folklorethursday

A video of numerous editions of Asbjørnsen & Moe' folktales and legends.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@oligneisti @SimonRoyHughes @folklore @folklorethursday
Neck longer, eyebrows more fake?

Disney is a parasite and serial wrecker of stories. I could hardly believe what they did to Sleeping Beauty. Missed cinema animation and recently watched DVD.

ajsadauskas, to technology
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Another day, another product joining the Google graveyard. On the upside, this time it's not a messaging app.

From The Verge:

"You might remember Google had a $5,000 Jamboard whiteboarding meeting room display — well, that’s also discontinued. The Jamboard hardware will no longer receive software updates on September 30th, 2024, and its license subscriptions will expire the same day.

"Then users will have until December 31st, 2024, to back up Jam their files, and on that date, Google will cut off access and begin permanently deleting files."

Pity the schools, universities, and businesses that paid Google $5000 for a "smart" whiteboard, only to now be told their files will be deleted.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/28/23894509/google-jamboard-whiteboarding-app-graveyard

@technology

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@ajsadauskas @technology
Unsurprising.
Someone was unkind to cats and ADHD sufferers by suggesting Google was like a kitten with ADHD in attention span to projects & products.

Also Betas?

Moral: Don't depend on Google/Alphabet for ANYTHING. Only use Google docs to collaborate information stored outside of Google.

dbellingradt, to histodons German
@dbellingradt@mastodon.social avatar

Spot the difference: on the left, the copperplate print is hand-coloured after the print run, and on the right no extra work is done. Colouring prints was a thing in Europe. Guess which version was more expensive - and sold better?

You see the frontispieces with a star map from the 1742 "Atlas Novus Coelestis", Nuremberg, from J.G. Doppelmayr (1677-1750). Bonus details: , , and discussing things.
@histodons

frontispiecve from Doppelmayr, Johann Gabriel: Atlas Novus Coelestis: In Quo Mundus Spectabilis Et In Eodem Tam Errantium Quam Inerrantium Stellarvm Phoenomena Notabilia… Nürnberg, Homannsche Erben, 1742 . Source: https://pic.sub.uni-hamburg.de/kitodo/PPN822197634/00000001.tif

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@dbellingradt @histodons
Even some early movie films were hand coloured. All those tiny frames!
Though there was RGB colour film at the end of the Victorian age an exposure was 20 minutes. It wasn't till there was CYM layered film that colour movies were possible.
I think before 1742 China was doing coloured prints using multiple wood blocks.
Nitric acid was 14th C, or maybe 10th C. But using it for silver nitrate photos was 19th C.

hgott, to academicchatter
@hgott@mas.to avatar

Look what was just published:

The Early Modern Dutch Press in an Age of Religious Persecution: The Making of Humanitarianism. by Dr David de Boer (Oxford University Press; Sept. 28, 2023)

The book is available as Open Access:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-early-modern-dutch-press-in-an-age-of-religious-persecution-9780198876809?cc=nl&lang=en&#

@academicchatter

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@hgott @academicchatter
What does Open Access mean in this context?
£70 for HB, £50 for Kindle eBook and €88.40 for epub eBook!
I've never paid even 1/2 that for a niche text book or a sumptuous illustrated Art hardback.

It sounds very interesting.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@_bydbach_ @hgott @academicchatter
Thanks!

PDFs are a print/publish/preview format, not ebooks. Practically unusable except on a large screen. A reflowable epub 2 is an open standard and open access as it can convert to Kindle or PDF and be read on anything.

At least search works well.
I have a 23.5″ 4K screen, like paper in quality, so I can read it on the desktop. I'll see what it's like on a 10" eink, but those are not common. Reading on a tablet is ghastly.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@_bydbach_ @hgott @academicchatter
Just about readable on a 10.3″ Kobo Elipsa eink when top & bottom margin cropped.

ajsadauskas, (edited ) to music
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

The issue with Jann Wenner goes far deeper than a sexist, racist old fossil thinking women and black people aren't articulate enough to be considered masters of rock in his new book.

Long before this book, and this latest scandal, Wenner was a co-founder of both Rolling Stone magazine and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

For the Boomer generation, Wenner and critics like him — straight, white men — set the criteria for what constitutes good music, and whose music was worthy of being celebrated as the greatest in Western music.

And, almost inevitably, they chose the artists they related to most closely — straight white men.

What were the criteria they set for what makes music great? The things that their favourite straight white male rock stars were particularly good at.

Such as playing drums, bass, and guitar in a rock style.

The greatest lyrics were those depicting the thoughts and feelings of straight white men.

Lyrics dealing with topics of interest to women or black people — including police brutality — were deemed shallow and vacuous.

Elements that were typically outside the realm of the music their favourite straight white men performed — funky bass lines, sampling, keyboards, soulful ballads, rapping, dance — were deemed frivolous and unimportant.

They created whole hierarchies of the greatest musicians of all time, consisting entirely of straight white men, based on their criteria.

The music made by queer, female, and non-white artists was deemed by them, through their arbitrary criteria, to be frivolous and unimportant.

The music enjoyed by queer, female, and non-white communities was deemed by them, through their arbitrary criteria, to be frivolous and unimportant

Oh, and they seemed to have a bad habit of "accidentally" leaving out the black artists that their favourite straight white men copied from — Chuck Berry and Big Mama Thornton didn't make the cut for greatest rock stars, but Elvis did.

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/23/1201121174/jann-wenner-rock-hall-crumbling

@popheads @music

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@ajsadauskas @popheads @music
I thought black people were very instrumental in the development of Jazz, Rock, and Pop and originating a lot of it.
Like who was Al Jolson, Elvis Presley and Eric Clapton copying?

It wasn't white men.

Then there were women of all origins too numerous to list here.
I won't buy his book.
I bought & buy music but never wasted money on Rolling Stone either.
(Reminds me of Dr Hook!)

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@ajsadauskas @popheads @music
Exactly!
I do have both.

ajsadauskas, to technology
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Elon lied about the monkeys — and he shouldn't be trusted to put his Neuralink chips in human brains.

"They are claiming they are going to put a safe device on the market, and that's why you should invest," Ryan Merkley at the Physicians Committee, told Wired. "And we see his lie as a way to whitewash what happened in these exploratory studies."

Really heartbreaking reading what happened to the monkeys.

People quite rightly think of Elizabeth Holmes as a fraud for making false medical claims about what the Theranos machines could do. So why aren't Elon's claims at Neuralink being held to the same level of scrutiny?

https://futurism.com/neoscope/terrible-things-monkeys-neuralink-implants

@technology #Elon #Neuralink #ElonMusk

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@ajsadauskas @technology
I was astounded to read Neuralink is to be permitted to experiment on humans. Instead they should have any animal experiment licences revoked.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@Lmaydev @ajsadauskas
Peter Thiel sacked him as a PayPal boss?
He didn't "invent" Paypal.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@trelord75 @ajsadauskas @technology
Thai caves sub proposal was crazy.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@freemo @ajsadauskas @technology
If there are already such implants why licence a company that seems less than, um, straight.

juergen_hubert, to folklore
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Each St. John's Day, the spirit of the Kirchsee lake sought a boy from the nearby village as a victim to drown - until one priest managed to stop him.

@germany @folklore
https://www.patreon.com/posts/voices-from-deep-38456442

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@juergen_hubert @KonchogTenzenSangpo @smitty @germany @folklore
Drowning stories are also often in old Irish legends about how the major rivers and lakes were created. See Dindsenchas ("lore of places"). Esp. Lough Neagh, R. Boyne, R. Erne, R. Corrib, R. Shannon. The R. Barrow (from boiling) a bit different.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@KonchogTenzenSangpo @juergen_hubert @smitty @germany @folklore
Bronze armour isn't great for swimming. Irish stories about rivers & lakes mostly have women drowning and then later they are goddesses.
"The Three Sisters": the Barrow, the Nore & the Suir.
Sionna (Shannon), Banna (R. Bann), Bóand (R. Boyne), Odras (R. Odra now Boyle),
Also Scotland, England (Sabrina: Severn), France (Sequana: R. Seine) (Odras Danu (R. Danube).
3, 7 or 9 Ladies of the Lake: (Avalon/Abhlach: Isle/Place of Apples).

juergen_hubert, to germany
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Kobolds are often very eager to please their masters.

#Germany #folktale #folklore #kobold @germany @folklore
https://www.patreon.com/posts/concerning-part-30538497

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@foolishowl @juergen_hubert @germany @folklore
One kind of Kobold is a mine dweller. Others are not. Household kinds are common?
Is gnome simply an alternate name?
I think the Irish idea of leprechauns and "little people" has 17th C. German roots of gnomes. There don't seem to be any in earlier stories.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@juergen_hubert @foolishowl @germany @folklore
Well, I can't read enough German to read foklore in it. But obviously I've not read Conway's "Demonology and Devil-Lore" as I didn't think kobolds were particularly miners.

curiousordinary, to folklore
@curiousordinary@mas.to avatar

In Japanese folklore Tesso is a yokai that takes the form of a gigantic rat and is the vengeful spirit of a monk named Raido who was betrayed by the emperor. Tesso gathered an army of rats that wreaked havoc on the places and people associated with Raido's betrayal.
@folklore
🎨Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 1891.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@curiousordinary @folklore
Is that why the mentor of the mutant hero turtles is a rat?

TarkabarkaHolgy, to folklore Hungarian
@TarkabarkaHolgy@ohai.social avatar

I am still mulling over the idea of doing a folktale bracket for October... Have people nominate their favorite tale types and find some fun stories for each type, maybe. What say you all?

#folklore #folktales #storytelling @folklore @SoniaSulaiman @juergen_hubert @SimonRoyHughes @neilphilip

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @TarkabarkaHolgy @folklore @SoniaSulaiman @juergen_hubert @neilphilip
I quite enjoyed Naomi Novak's modern take on the Glass mountain (I've read a version involving an eagle, maybe a George Macdonald retelling) in her novel "Spinning Silver". Didn't like "Uprooted", but thought dragons in the Napoleonic Wars was "fun".

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @TarkabarkaHolgy @folklore @SoniaSulaiman @juergen_hubert @neilphilip
THE GLASS MOUNTAIN
By Hermann R. Kletke

The eagle dug its sharp claws into the tender flesh of the youth …
the boy saw that he was close to the apple tree, and drawing a small knife from his belt he cut off both the eagle’s feet. … he drew out the claws of the eagle’s feet that had remained in his flesh and put the peel of one of the golden apples on the wound, and in one moment it was healed and well again.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @TarkabarkaHolgy @folklore @SoniaSulaiman @juergen_hubert @neilphilip The Junior Classics, Volume 1: Fairy and wonder tales
THE GLASS MOUNTAIN by Hermann R. Kletke.
Also
Grey & Yellow Lang's Fairy
Marion Florence Lansing, Fairy Tales Vol 2
The Swedish Fairy Book
Two Grimms volumes
Myths and Folk-tales of the Russians, Western Slavs, and Magyars, Jerimah Curtin
About 30+ other PD hits in my Calibre Library
Most likely are in Gutenberg
I'm not sure which version I read recently.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @TarkabarkaHolgy @folklore @SoniaSulaiman @juergen_hubert @neilphilip
Calibre added Full Text Indexing and search a few versions ago. Doesn't help with paper.
The recent one had kid(s) rescuing kids from a giant and then going up a mountain with eagle's help. But maybe it wasn't Macdonald or was on paper.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @TarkabarkaHolgy @folklore @SoniaSulaiman @juergen_hubert @neilphilip Yes, I was confusing my mountains.
"THE GIANT’S HEART" from "The Light Princess and other Stories" has an eagle and a mountain. But not glass.
That's got 3 stories, 3rd is The Golden Key. But my paper "The Light Princess" has 5 stories and missing the Golden Key.
Various Macdonald collections with similar names over the decades have different content.
I've the Grey Wolf & other on paper which seems rare.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @TarkabarkaHolgy @folklore @SoniaSulaiman @juergen_hubert @neilphilip The link.
Nearly 1/2 way for THE GLASS MOUNTAIN by Hermann R. Kletke

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3152

juergen_hubert, to germany
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Long after the Wendish people were defeated by the invading Germans, there were legends of a secret king living among them.

@germany @folklore
https://www.patreon.com/posts/last-kings-of-36206183

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@juergen_hubert @germany @folklore
In one of Joan Aiken's books she suggests the Wends settled in Wensleydale to make cheese.
OTOH, she has James III of England and the Hanoverians as the bad guys as well as a 19thC Channel Tunnel.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@juergen_hubert @germany @folklore
In reality William was a usurper (via James' daughter Mary) and invader. The Glorious revolution was an English Civil war fought in Ireland then Scotland.
The English talk about the Civil War as if the only one involved Cromwell. Before Brexit (a social civil war) they really had four.

SimonRoyHughes, to histodon

There are, apparently, 338 Sagas of the Norwegian Kings, a number greatly in excess of the number of Norwegian kings. Thought you’d like to know.

@histodons @histodon

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @histodons @histodon
So like Marvel Comic alternate universes and character reboots?

curiousordinary, to folklore
@curiousordinary@mas.to avatar

In Urashima Taro is a about a fisherman who saves a turtle and journeys beneath the sea to visit the palace of the Dragon King. He spends a few days there but returns to shore to find that 300 years have passed. A poor choice to open a mysterious box turns him into an old man. The full tale is on my website ( https://www.curiousordinary.com/2021/07/urashima-taro.html ) but in this thread I want to share some Japanese prints depicting scenes from this famous tale.
@folklore
1/-

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@eugeneparnell @curiousordinary @folklore
Seaweed suggests a sea turtle?
The sometimes wrong Wikipedia:
"The minogame (蓑亀), which is so old it has a train of seaweed growing on its back, is a symbol of longevity and felicity. A minogame has an important role in the well-known legend of Urashima Tarō."

SimonRoyHughes, to folklorethursday

“I owe a debt of thanks to my unnamed friend, for lending a faithful hand on many occasions, both in this and in previous ventures.”

Peter Christen Asbjørnsen acknowledges his long-term cohabiter and lover, though he cannot name her in print.

Foreword to the second volume of Norwegian Folktales, 1871.

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore @folklore @folklorethursday

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @folklore @folklorethursday
In 1879 he sold his large collection of zoological specimens to the Natural History Museum (Ireland) for £300. This collection includes specimens of Brisinga endecacnemos, possibly collected during his biological survey of the Hardangerfjord in the 1850s.
—Wikipedia.
I wonder why Ireland?

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @folklore @folklorethursday
Whoever wrote it up did hedge with "possibly" :D
I looked up the entry to see what it said of his personal life. Which was zero. Didn't expect the Irish connection, though decades since I visited anything in Dublin.

SimonRoyHughes, to folklorethursday

First volume now at close to 900 pages, making publication on a POD site impossible. Second volume just over 500 pages. Third volume <200 pages. This gives me cause to consider compiling volumes two and three in a single binding.

Volume one is a pain, though. I'm either going to have to increase the paper size or shrink the type.

(Vols 4–6 still unknown.)

#NorwegianFolktales #NorwegianLegends #Folklore @folklore @folklorethursday

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @folklore @folklorethursday
or Part 1 & Part 2
Amazon POD is the worst. Really deranged margin limits compared to https://print.24bookprint.com or lulu.
There is a good company in Germany who won't deal with anyone outside Germany, otherwise they seem best.
US is a problem for Ireland and last time I looked, Amazon will only ship proofs from USA. Other problems too since they rebranded CreateSpace.

juergen_hubert, to germany
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Behold the Cat with 301 Young!

Iä! Iä!

@germany @folklore
https://www.patreon.com/posts/town-hall-cat-64625957

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@jonberger @juergen_hubert @germany @folklore
My goats once ate the buttons off my shirt on the washing line. Didn't tear it.
Really they only ate grase if there was nothing else. Ate the neighbour's roses and all our vegetables (two different days).

mythologymonday, to mythology
@mythologymonday@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Hello, myth lovers! Join us for Monday's theme: Time Travel. Which myths feature time traveling? Write out a story and use the hashtag . See you soon! ⏱️⏱️⏱️

📷anncapictures

@mythology @folklore

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@juergen_hubert @mythologymonday @mythology @folklore
Thermodynamics.
Travelling forward is easy:
Sleep, Enchanted sleep, time slip (never goes backwards).
Magic only seems to break other physical laws.

SimonRoyHughes, to writingcommunity

The difficulty of writing about something increases proportionally with one's level of insight/ knowledge. 🥵

@writingcommunity

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @writingcommunity
Staring at the screen deciding what to leave out.
More time outlining than writing.

SimonRoyHughes, to writingcommunity

Dear paperback writers,

Please don't do this; you'll make me hate you FOREVER.

(And then I'll have to buy your bloody ebook edition.)

@bookstodon @writingcommunity

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @bookstodon @writingcommunity
one occasion when stupid QR codes make more sense. Point phone/tablet.
We put a text link (without the underline on paper) and a QR code in ebooks and paper.
Not all ereaders support links at all and most are rubbish for web pages.
My Barscan App ALWAYS previews!

curiousordinary, to mythology
@curiousordinary@mas.to avatar

The Butterfly Lovers is a Chinese folktale and the tragic love story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. Zhu disguised herself as a boy so she could study and fell in love with Liang. By the time he realised she was a girl, it was too late. You can read the full tale here: https://www.curiousordinary.com/2023/06/butterfly-lovers.html?m=1
@folklore @mythology

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@JamesPadraicR @curiousordinary @folklore @mythology
it's a common trope in societies that had less freedom for women.
Mulan, Sailors in Scotland, England, Ireland, Soldiers.
Isaac Bashevis Singer might never have known the Japanese & Chinese tales.

Private
raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@SimonRoyHughes @writingcommunity @writers
The Duracell bunny:
Chucky is portrayed as a vicious serial killer who, as he bleeds out from a gunshot wound, transfers his soul into a "Good Guy" doll.
(Never seen it)

I never trusted the Duracell Bunny. Or the Energizer one.

raymccarthy,
@raymccarthy@historians.social avatar

@Arotrios
it's the nuclear waste that propelled Moon Base Alpha into space in 1999
cooling down a bit in 24 years.

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