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Phil in SF

kingrat@books.theunseen.city

Joined 10 months, 1 week ago

aka @kingrat@sfba.social

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Success! Phil in SF has read 38 of 25 books.

Persons Unknown (EBook, Random House) No rating

Her eyes were fluttering, black kohl pencil against porcelain skin, and she must have spotted the few remaining stragglers getting their mobiles out to call 999 because she shook her head saying, "No, no. I'm okay. I'll get up in a minute."

Persons Unknown by  (Page 90)

new word: kohl

a black powder, usually antimony sulfide or lead sulfide, used as eye makeup, especially in eastern countries.

The Deep Sky (EBook, 2023, Flatiron Books) 4 stars

Competent teams vs teams of competent individuals

3 stars

The Deep Sky is the story of a crew of late teen/early 20s women (mostly) who make up the crew of the first interstellar spaceship. Their goal is to establish a colony on a planet orbiting another star, hence why everyone has to be capable of bearing children. There's mention of one trans dude and a couple of possibly non-binary folk, but by and large the crew is female. The story alternates between episodes on board and flashbacks to crew member Asuka's time on Earth with her family and in the ultra-competitive institute that is both training and selecting crew members.

When the story begins, Asuka and her friend Kate are about to go on a spacewalk to investigate an anomaly on the exterior of the ship. They decide to race, and Kate reaches the anomaly first and thus is the person who dies when the bomb goes off.

Despite …

commented on A Matter of Facts by Laura A. Millar

A Matter of Facts (Paperback, 2019, ALA Neal-Schuman) 2 stars

The safeguarding of authentic facts is essential, especially in this disruptive Orwellian age, where digital …

chapter 6 explains that we have to allow for oral tradition to be considered good evidence.

chapter 7 explains that people's memories are extremely fallible and biased, and so we shouldn't trust what people say without solid backing evidence.

both can be valuable perspectives, but goddamn if you're going to espouse both you better have a cogent idea of how to reconcile them. (Millar doesn't, so far.)

commented on A Matter of Facts by Laura A. Millar

A Matter of Facts (Paperback, 2019, ALA Neal-Schuman) 2 stars

The safeguarding of authentic facts is essential, especially in this disruptive Orwellian age, where digital …

so far, the author has given definitions of terms like fact, data, information, and evidence. and then gone on to write how evidence and truth are social constructs. which is true, but if this is to be a worthwhile polemic, it will need to advocate for particular social constructions over others. otherwise this is just throwing out words and metaphorically shrugging.

commented on A Matter of Facts by Laura A. Millar

A Matter of Facts (Paperback, 2019, ALA Neal-Schuman) 2 stars

The safeguarding of authentic facts is essential, especially in this disruptive Orwellian age, where digital …

Chapter 1 is pure polemic. ironically, it has no real evidence of the value of evidence. though perhaps this will be a properly outlined book that makes subsequent chapter detail the evidence for evidence.

The Deep Sky (EBook, 2023, Flatiron Books) 4 stars

The apartment was smaller than Asuka expected: a genkan leading to a small living room with a synthetic tatami floor, and narrow kitchen, a bathroom with an ofuro, and two small bedrooms.

The Deep Sky by  (Page 558)

New words: genkan, tatami, ofuro

Genkan: the entryway in a Japanese house

Tatami: a rush-covered straw mat forming a traditional Japanese floor covering.

Ofuro: Furo (風呂), or the more common and polite form ofuro (お風呂), is a Japanese bath and/or bathroom. Specifically it is a type of bath which originated as a short, steep-sided wooden bathtub