…ors and the bodhisattva Quan Âm to find strength, but that it would always come back to that core of dark thoughts within you, that fundamental fright you carried with you like a yin shadow in your heart. (the sharp-eyed among you will have noticed that I used “yin” instead of the more correct “âm”–Vietnamese yin and yang are âm and dương respectively. I would have used the correct words, but since this was a passing reference and was never ever e…

…Very quick post to let you know that I’ve guest-posted over at Khaalidah’s blog on worldbuilding and its attendant issues: the post is here (thanks very much to Khaalidah for the invitation and her ongoing patience with my missing her deadlines…) It’s less an admonition that a series of questions I’ve been asking myself–and to which I freely admit not having answers to. Any thoughts/discussions much welcome!…

…wanting a huge uncut chunk of pork belly with the skin on were not exactly common… [1] Darn. Last time we moved, it took more than 3 visits to the butcher’s before I got flagged as “that girl who makes the weird recipes with our meat…” [2] Current mood: amused [1] Bit surprised though, because the neighbourhood is fairly cosmopolitan, and I can’t believe I’m the only one in need of that kind of ingredients on a regular basis… [2] It took about a y…

…ided–skipped over by Mind-ships as they cut through deep spaces, passed around at low speeds by outsider ships while their passengers slept in their hibernation cradles. Only if anyone got closer would they see the hulking masses of ships: the glint of starlight on metal, the sharp, pristine beauty of their hulls, even though they all lay quiescent and crippled, forever unable to move–living corpses kept as a reminder of how far they had fallen; t…

…didn’t really have enough examples for this…) [1] Some of them are, and I understand and respect that feeling. Likely, the reason they don’t want outsiders writing about their culture is exactly what I’m going to outline in this post–too many people have been doing it badly, badly wrong. [2] Again, not claiming to walk in people’s heads. Seen the feeling a lot on the internet though. [3] I’m not Chinese, as is by now evident; and China itself is…

…iry. Where do they get their calcium from?” Me, after a quick spot of google and some thought given to the matter. “Well, uh, from seafood and algae and nuts, I guess? And, ha, I think I understand why they eat the shells on the shrimps now!” (I *always* eat my shrimp shells, which puzzles the H as he can’t envision why I’d want to)…

…“Chín người, mười ý”: “nine men, ten opinions”. All I’m going to say is LOL….

…ions and/or steps in the project’s life. At those points, the project will come under scrutiny more intensely (by the peers, the hierarchy etc.), and will have to provide quite a few elements of justification for said decisions (and the project manager might well be part of a collegial decision process in those stages). So, there you go, a short Engineering Projects 101–I’ve had quite a few years working on those by now (though admittedly mainly i…

Off to a short but well-deserved holiday in Brittany until Sunday late evening. Probably no internet, or at any rate much ice cream, swimming and cycling which will keep me off the Internet. There’ll be no hemi-semi-weekly cooking post on Wednesday, and the posts I had in the queue (on cultural appropriation and engineering in SF) are set back by about a week. Will be back next Monday. If you feel like you need a fix of Aliette de Bodard, may I p…

…Is? Nanomachines?” Me: “Ooh. I like nanomachines. Sold, now I have to think of a plot to go with those. Mmm…” Yup, this is how my SF gets plotted, which kind of explains a lot of things… (I usually get the setting from combining one societal thing with one science/SF thing; however, at this stage I’ll throw in a random element to provide the actual plot that goes with the setting. Lately, it’s been a fairytale motif, go figure)…