I think it's still an interesting question whether this feature should be enabled by default (and most people seem to agree it should be).

So - yeah, let’s not press Elon too much.

It seems like he literally enabled a fascist government and hurt tons of citizens with irresponsible firings. He can and still perhaps should be hated for that.

oof, that's just sad. i hope people switch, firefox is actually not that bad these days

Das grössere Mysterium erscheint mir dass die CDU immer noch das AfD-Verbot blockiert. Auf welchem Level das noch Sinn machen soll erschliesst sich mir nicht.

Eh, it happens. With true independent self hosting you get occasional hiccups. I suggest not worrying about such events too much. Accepting occasional downtimes is the punk in solarpunk, if you ask me.

Sounds horrible.

Hey there. ☺️ That's an amazing photo

understandable. how dare you change your schedule without advance notice to the cat monarchs of the household :-o

I finally got back onto the writing train, or rather editing train. I've been doing huge overhauls, like changing age of characters, double checking and doing a second revision on new character motivations for some larger sections, and so on. I want to get the drafts I already have into good shape, and then head into drafting the final missing book right after. It's been very fun!

The heat has slowed me down a little bit, and so has installing and configuring a new writing device that I'm using, but otherwise i've been mostly been on track and making great progress. I've edited roughly 1.5 novels in a month, gradually making my way through all of it front to back. I'm rediscovering some older parts of my music collection as well while I'm doing so, since I tend to listen to music that matches the mood both for drafting new scenes and for editing old scenes.

(Before anybody feels bad because I seem to be so productive, I've barely touched the book for months since there was too much work and tech stuff going on. So it's not like I'm a poster child of productivity! We all have other things getting in the way, and everyone has their own speed.)

So you're publishing a campaign book? That sounds exciting!

I wonder, were there ever any considerations to have anything related as an instance-wide rule for all communities that reside on slrpnk.net? (I'm not sure that's necessarily a good idea, just wondering.)

I guess I can see some people consider a purely local LLM as some sort of home assistant that's only for personal use, as a slightly solarpunk'ish solution under some circumstances. But the big centralized proprietary services...? Perhaps there's something there that would be useful for slrpnk.net as a whole.

An inbox delete would be enough as far as the user is concerned, it wouldn't need to be deleted on the server side. But e.g. some people send literal gore. Moderation is useful but understandably may often take a while, so until then there should be a way to get it out of sight.

I've had a very busy creative month again, for which I'm thankful! Some months don't work out well, but this one did despite the heat, and I've done a lot of editing and revision.

A lot of my revision work I've done in book shops, among crowds and tall book shelves, since that's so fun (and at home I don't have physical books since it's not the most practical as a somewhat frequently moving renter). And a friend of mine also got me into reading something new that I've been wanting to read for a while, and it's been a blast. In overall, it's been a very bookish month for me and I'm happy!

I've solved one revision puzzle that had me stumped too. I don't know if any of you have been there, but sometimes I just feel like it's not good enough during revision and I get stuck, and I take a few days off. And then lightning strikes me, metaphorically, and I suddenly realize not only why it doesn't work but what change could make it so much more awesome! I am glad for those moments, when they happen.

Leider das übliche Level von nach unten tretend (meine Meinung), dass von CDU+SPD zu erwarten ist...

Die einzige Überraschung für mich ist, dass so viele Leute CDU wählen.

According to the prime minister’s former Chief of Staff Marco Mendicino, climate has always been a secondary concern. A key goal for the Carney government, Mendicino explained at a Toronto conference in January, is “to increase our oil production.”

Sad.

I honestly thought this was a real headline before seeing the source.

I think like 99% of writing advice, it's a brain chemistry thing. I generally like "just write". But e.g. when I know I'm not 100% settled on the outcome of some specific arc yet or I don't fully know yet what overall direction I'll go in next, I may stop mid draft and work on other related art for a few days just to give myself time to ponder it before I get back to drafting. The common worry is killing momentum like that is a risk factor for completing the draft at all, but I have written for almost 10 years now so I know that I'll be fine doing this. But you might not be fine if you try it, so it really depends on the person.

Some writing advice I ignore myself entirely, even though I think it's a good idea for most, due to brain chemistry:

• Most writing advice says never edit before you finish the draft. I almost always edit what I wrote the previous day before I continue with new work on the current day. However, I hear other people say they will get stuck on worries and bad feelings regarding their previous mistakes if doing this, and therefore this may seriously impede their ability to get going.

• Most writing advice says follow common three act or four act structures. I typically mostly ignore that since I like to just find whatever's interesting next as I go, and during revision I don't change the plot in retrospect to fit these blueprints either. However, I think for most writers this would be too stressful of a way to find a compelling plot and the act structure would work better for them.

• Most writing advice says don't edit right after you wrap up the draft, let it sit first. Almost always I immediately edit it back to front. I still let it sit, but I do that after, and then I come back for a second revision later. However, I think most writers hate revisions while I enjoy them, so they should probably let it sit first to conserve their energy.

• Most writing advice says your first novel will come out all wrong, and you should be prepared that the inevitable outcome is that you'll never publish it, and that you'll need 2-3 drafted novels until you get good enough to write your "true" first novel. I think this might work the best for some writers, but I think if you enjoy or at least don't mind relatively extreme and cruel revisions like me, you can totally pick up how to write novels by heavily revising your first draft over and over instead of just starting over multiple times. I think it's mostly a question of whether you work better iteratively or by starting over once you realize how to do it, which again seems like a brain chemistry thing.

• Some writing advice says practice with short stories first before you try novels. I don't know how to write a short story, I always run out of pages before I get to anything interesting, and I don't find them compelling to write anyway. I'm more of a character-driven writer than somebody sitting down to have a specific message, the latter of which feels more appropriate for short stories, and rather than finding the length of a novel hard to fill I tend to overshoot and end up making sequels. However, I think for people that find trying to draft a full novel immediately too intimidating or they might get frustrated if they end up with an entire novel's length of an inevitably bad first draft, short stories are a good starting point for practice.

• Some writing advice says that if what two characters bring to the story could be done via just one character, you should merge them. I don't do that, since I like a messier cast. However, I could see many writers feel like they get lost this way and that they struggle to make a cast that feels unique and "alive", so I'm not sure I'd recommend a messy approach to others. It can also be more challenging during the edit.

• Some writing advice says every chapter should have a specific conflict and a resolution to it, so that a chapter has a specific purpose. I don't even write using chapters, I somewhat arbitrarly split up the book into chapters after the fact. Therefore, I don't follow this rule either although in practice often there vaguely ends up being one sort of conflict or topic per chapter, but not always. I think a chapter can totally be "only vibes" and still have a purpose. However, I think most other writers will find writing without any chapters or any chapter-level planning whatsoever way too confusing, or may struggle to make chapters not feel like filler.

• Some writing advice says only write if you have a message. I find it easier to sit down at the mid point and to figure out what sort of message might fit this book best, since inevitably my personal views already informed the story anyway and now I just have to figure out which one to make the focus of the finale to wrap it all up nicely. However, to people that don't naturally inject their views into their writing as much, perhaps it would help them to sit down and ponder a message, before they write an outline and the opening scene. And what I do may work best for character-driven writers, but less so for plot-driven writers.

• And of course the typical recommendation is to outline on some level since almost nobody works best with no outline. But there seems to be more of an understanding nowadays that some people really do write most comfortably via pure discovery, which is how I usually write.

So in summary I think "just write" will be great for most people but not for everyone, which is worth keeping in mind.

TTRPGs are such a fascinating in-between of writing fiction on your own, and group activities. I don't tend to play them myself since I find writing my own novels more fulfilling, but I am constantly fascinatined by them.

Sorry that I have been participating less, it's mostly that I've been busy with tech things. I should be back to more writing in around march, or perhaps late february! Still got an entire book to finish in 2026.