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muninnhuginn at 04:12pm on 22/03/2026 under read 2026andrewducker at 12:01pm on 21/03/2026 under bigotry, censorship, lgbt, libraries, links, obituary, ohforfuckssake, school, ukThis time a week ago I was on the ice with fellow Cambridge alumni for "Alumni game 1", kicking off Varsity. Photos (from one of my Warbirds teammates!) that actually make me look good are over at my hockey insta but here's my personal favourite, capturing a moment in motion:
After about an hour on the ice (2 periods running clock, 4 lines), I had a quick shower, and then spent the next ten or so hours mostly on my feet, doing music and announcements for my Huskies teammates, and scoresheet and in-game announcements for Women's Blues and Men's Blues. Final scores were:
The alumni games were a great vibe: we cared, but it wasn't that intense. A whole load of the women I played with in 2022-23 came back, and for me that was really joyful, plus I got to make some new friends. A couple of the older guys in game 1 had played with my old work colleague Brian Omotani back in the day. Although he didn't play, he was there to watch, and he made time to come and find me for a brief catchup later in the day.
The rest of the day though was a different gear. The Huskies game was especially tough to watch, and I felt every goal against my teammates. The Women's Blues game was incredible, the team worked so hard and it was probably the best I've seen them play. And the Men's Blues winning so decisively was delightful, especially as the first goal came from one of the two ex-Huskies (and they both got an assist each later). The whole day was incredibly intense. And then I took my kit home to hang it up, changed, met up with everyone at Mash, danced until the club closed, went to Maccies (and realised just how much my feet hurt) until that closed, and sat on a bench gossiping with two of my favourite people in the club while one of them finished his burger. Eventually we all cycled home. I didn't want the day to end, but I had things to do on Sunday.
That is, very nearly, the end of the season with just the Nationals weekends in Sheffield to go. We've finished the league games, we've had Varsity, we're shifting to "summer ice" open practices, and even had the very last "S&C" gym session on Thursday this week. Some people will graduate and leave soon, and I will miss them so much, but I am so grateful for this university season and the time I've had with these wonderful people.
siderea at 10:33pm on 20/03/2026 under hist_medieval_techWithout papyrus, what you're writing on is a dead sheep. And if you think of the price of a head of lettuce and the price of a leather jacket, you're understanding the difference between a sheet of papyrus and writing on a dead sheep. So every page of a medieval book is as expensive as that much of a leather jacket. And a medieval book hand written costs as much as a house.* Three hundred thousand. It's been thirteen years and I am still not remotely over that fact. Every time I encounter it anew, my SCA persona gets acrophobic trying to imagine a library that big and has to sit down and put her head between her knees so she doesn't pass out.
And so to have a library is to be not just rich but mega rich. So only the wealthiest cities contain anybody who has a library. The great library of the University of Paris, the library from Europe's perspective, has 600 books.
There's definitely more than 600 books in this room. Every kiosk at an airport selling Dan Brown novels has more than 600 books. This is nothing.
And at the same time as that, in the Middle East, sultans have libraries of over a thousand books or 5,000 books. There are libraries in Sub-Saharan Africa with thousands of books.* There are libraries in China with thousands of books. Because they in China have cheap paper and rice paper. The Middle East has papyrus.
Europe, and only Europe, is writing on a leather jacket.
cattitude and adrian_turtle, I'm glad that I could have afforded to pay that twice, but there are plenty of things I'd rather do with the money.andrewducker at 12:00pm on 20/03/2026 under advertising, ai, automation, bigotry, cars, denmark, doom, driving, edinburgh, extinction, france, germany, history, law, lgbt, light, links, mercury, newspapers, norway, ohforfuckssake, paleontology, prehistory, safety, scotland, ships, society, stress, transgender, usa, war, web
Nice mist on Arthur's Seat this morning.
Original
is here on Pixelfed.scot.
andrewducker at 12:00pm on 19/03/2026 under 3dprinting, economics, funny, housing, language, links, margaretthatcher, scifi, technology, translation, usa, viaswampers, weaponry, wtftamaranth at 08:15am on 19/03/2026 under monthlyculture, reviews: art, reviews: film, reviews: opera
artistic
andrewducker at 12:00pm on 18/03/2026 under attention, euthanasia, funny, links, middle_east, movies, nato, netflix, office, politics, productivity, russia, satire, scotland, uk, ukraine, usa, video
The god comes screaming through the trees, shoving them to each side like matchsticks, breaking and burning them as it thrashes its way out of the woods... [opening paragraph]
In the original Chaos Walking trilogy (The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer and Monsters of Men) Todd was thirteen, dealing with life on an alien planet and the constant phenomenon of Noise -- the constant thoughts and feelings of the men (all the women are dead) in the colony -- and the threat of the alien Spackle. Piper at the Gates of Dusk starts a generation later,( Read more... )
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