Mastodon isn’t Twitter but it can be Twitter like in good ways
5 November 2022
I’m not quite sure what to expect at Twitter, but I have no plans to depart the platform for now. In the meantime I’ve been looking at Mastodon, a highly geeky alternative to Twitter. To say there’s a learning curve to Mastodon is an understatement.
Once you get used to the differences though between the centralised domain that is Twitter, and the decentralised realms of Mastodon, the experience can be mostly Twitter like, while still being a breath of fresh air.
One thing to bear in mind is most Mastodon instances, or servers, such as aus.social, are operated privately by the individuals who set them up. So if you think Mastodon is your thing, and you’re going to be hanging around, you could consider making a contribution to help with operational costs.
The other challenge for Mastodon’s ability to scale is that it has very scarce resources compared to Twitter. Rather than relying on investors, Mastodon survives on donations, crowdfunding, sponsorships and grants. The platform is free of ads and thus doesn’t collect any of its user’s data. But, its frugality has meant it also has no real way to gain revenue the way other platforms do right now.
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Mastodon, social media, Twitter
Susannah Begbie wins 2022 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers
3 November 2022
Australian doctor Susannah Begbie has been named winner of the 2022 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers, with her manuscript titled When Trees Fall Without Warning.
Her work, When Trees Fall Without Warning, which took ten years to write, is an expertly told, compelling work of commercial fiction. Instantly captivating, with characters alive with personality who ring emotionally true, this is an original and lively narrative that creates memorable insights into a dysfunctional family dynamic. The Richell Prize judges have no doubt that Susannah is a writer with the ability to create an ongoing literary career.
So good to see that ten years of writing looks like it will result in a published work.
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Australian literature, literary awards, Susannah Begbie
The Climate Book by environmental activist Greta Thunberg
3 November 2022
The Climate Book, written by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, and published this month by Penguin Books, sets out the facts about climate change, and outlines solutions for dealing with it. As Thunberg says, we need to act now, if we want to make a difference.
In The Climate Book, Greta Thunberg has gathered the wisdom of over one hundred experts – geophysicists, oceanographers and meteorologists; engineers, economists and mathematicians; historians, philosophers and indigenous leaders – to equip us all with the knowledge we need to combat climate disaster. Alongside them, she shares her own stories of demonstrating and uncovering greenwashing around the world, revealing how much we have been kept in the dark. This is one of our biggest challenges, she shows, but also our greatest source of hope. Once we are given the full picture, how can we not act? And if a schoolchild’s strike could ignite a global protest, what could we do collectively if we tried?
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climate change, environment, Greta Thunberg
Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster merger blocked
3 November 2022
The proposed merger of book publishers Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster has been blocked — at least for now — by the U.S. District Court. The idea, first mooted in late 2020, has drawn the ire of many in the publishing industry, who fear the combined entity, and the influence it could wield, would be detrimental to authors and readers alike.
But it was still a dramatic departure from recent history in the book world and beyond. The publishing industry has been consolidating for years with little interference from the government, even when Random House and Penguin merged in 2013 and formed what was then the biggest publishing house in memory. The joining of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster would have created a company far exceeding any rival and those opposing the merger included one of Simon & Schuster’s signature writers, Stephen King, who testified last summer on behalf of the government.
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Emily Bitto wins 2022 Roderick Literary Award with Wild Abandon
3 November 2022
Melbourne based Australian author Emily Bitto has been named winner of the 2022 Roderick Literary Award, with her 2021 novel Wild Abandon.
Two hundred and thirty entries — a record number — were received for the 2022 award. All were of a high standard, which made selecting a shortlist, let alone a winner, difficult, according to Emeritus Professor Alan Lawson, who headed up the judging panel.
A lot of very good books just didn’t make the shortlist. But in the end Emily Bitto’s extremely well-crafted account of a young Australian man’s ‘escape’ to New York and then into the US heartlands after the breakdown of his first serious relationship — a coming of age and into self-knowledge story set against a richly symbolic and allusive account of the decline of civilisations — won the prize.
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Australian literature, Emily Bitto, literary awards
Archibald winning Australian artist Nicholas Harding dies
3 November 2022
British born Australian artist Nicholas Harding died yesterday, aged 66. Harding won the Archibald Prize for portraiture in 2001 with a painting of Australian actor and theatre director John Bell as King Lear. In addition, Harding was named an Archibald finalist a staggering nineteen times, between 1994 and 2020.
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Archibald Prize, art, Australian art, Nicholas Harding
Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami
1 November 2022
Despite what you might see on bookstagram, the stages of many a literary festival, and many other places, writers are not, and cannot be, friends with each other.
They “are are basically an egoistic breed, proud and highly competitive“, contends Japanese author Haruki Murakami. We’re not here to make friends, we’re here to write books. And if anyone would know, Murakami would. With fourteen novels to his name, no one can say he wouldn’t know.
This is but one nugget of wisdom Murakami shares in his latest title, Novelist as a Vocation, published by Penguin Books, where he writes about being a novelist:
Haruki Murakami’s myriad fans will be delighted by this unique look into the mind of a master storyteller. In this engaging book, the internationally best-selling author and famously reclusive writer shares with readers what he thinks about being a novelist; his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians. Readers who have long wondered where the mysterious novelist gets his ideas and what inspires his strangely surreal worlds will be fascinated by this highly personal look at the craft of writing.
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books, Haruki Murakami, writing
Blockbuster a comedy about the last Blockbuster video shop in America
31 October 2022
I miss afternoons spent whiling away more time than I should have, perusing the aisles of the long closed local video hire shop. Somewhere among the cram packed shelves there was bound to be a title I wanted to see, but had missed at the movies. Time consuming the process may have been, but it was somehow cathartic, transcendental even.
Despite a barrage of closures over the last decade, near to five-hundred video hire shops remain open in Australia. Some even experienced a shortlived uptick in business during the COVID enforced lockdowns, as people searched for ways to amuse themselves while housebound.
Those looking to relive the old days of the video hire shop might then enjoy the aptly name TV show Blockbuster, trailer, a Netflix produced comedy set in the last Blockbuster shop in America. Timmy Yoon, the hapless store owner, is not only hopeful of keeping the business afloat, but also, it seems, catching the eye of his favourite employee, Eliza.
Timmy Yoon is an analog dreamer living in a 5G world. And after learning he is operating the last Blockbuster Video in America, Timmy and his staff employees (including his long time crush, Eliza) fight to stay relevant. The only way to succeed is to remind their community that they provide something big corporations can’t: human connection.
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entertainment, television, trailer, video
Not all work and no play as busy bumble bees play ball
31 October 2022
Researchers at London’s Queen Mary University have found bumble bees like to play, and accordingly, experience positive feelings. Despite there being no purpose to the activity, groups of bees rolled small wooden balls, sometimes repeatedly, around a chamber, for what researchers could only determine was fun.
Study first-author, Samadi Galpayage, Ph.D. student at Queen Mary University of London says that “it is certainly mind-blowing, at times amusing, to watch bumble bees show something like play. They approach and manipulate these ‘toys’ again and again. It goes to show, once more, that despite their little size and tiny brains, they are more than small robotic beings.”
This is reportedly the first instance of playful activity being observed in any insect species.
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Bramble a literary journal for and by disabled creatives
31 October 2022
Bramble is a newly launched quarterly literary journal for, and by, disabled creatives. Founded by Spencer Barberis, and Scout Lee Robinson, past University of Wollongong arts students, Bramble only publishes creative work by disabled writers and artists based in Australia.
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