Nick Hall
@penwys.bsky.social
I write, if I may.
Doctorate in History (Soviet things) / novels (faintly unreal things)
https://nicholasshall.com/
Doctorate in History (Soviet things) / novels (faintly unreal things)
https://nicholasshall.com/
I feel the verb choice is slightly off.
July 16, 2025 at 10:50 PM
I feel the verb choice is slightly off.
What's the word for sci-fi that predicts a far-future, but is made sufficiently long ago that elements are bizarrely anachronistic? E.g Minority Report: the newspapers have moving pictures, but they're still newspaper size and shape?
Anachronism, sure, but...?
Yes, I am watching Minority Report.
Anachronism, sure, but...?
Yes, I am watching Minority Report.
July 7, 2025 at 7:40 PM
What's the word for sci-fi that predicts a far-future, but is made sufficiently long ago that elements are bizarrely anachronistic? E.g Minority Report: the newspapers have moving pictures, but they're still newspaper size and shape?
Anachronism, sure, but...?
Yes, I am watching Minority Report.
Anachronism, sure, but...?
Yes, I am watching Minority Report.
Sure am glad there's no women president in the USA, would be awful undignified to see a bitchy drama unfold.
June 6, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Sure am glad there's no women president in the USA, would be awful undignified to see a bitchy drama unfold.
Reading George Saunders on writing is rather lovely, not least for the mastery with which he delivers his own moral thinking about writing. The lesson is a lesson in itself, as it were.
There are rules and you can learn rules and these are good rules but also you need that ???? and off you go boy
There are rules and you can learn rules and these are good rules but also you need that ???? and off you go boy
May 30, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Reading George Saunders on writing is rather lovely, not least for the mastery with which he delivers his own moral thinking about writing. The lesson is a lesson in itself, as it were.
There are rules and you can learn rules and these are good rules but also you need that ???? and off you go boy
There are rules and you can learn rules and these are good rules but also you need that ???? and off you go boy
Reposted by Nick Hall
Happening on Monday 🤗
Join us on 26 May for an online event on the mesmerising poetry of Louise Glück🪻
May 23, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Happening on Monday 🤗
Reposted by Nick Hall
When I find myself in times of trouble
All out for 53
Speaking words of Wisden
Let it be
All out for 53
Speaking words of Wisden
Let it be
May 16, 2025 at 4:11 PM
When I find myself in times of trouble
All out for 53
Speaking words of Wisden
Let it be
All out for 53
Speaking words of Wisden
Let it be
'Damning with faint praise' feels like somewhat understating it.
May 10, 2025 at 4:04 PM
'Damning with faint praise' feels like somewhat understating it.
Bring le Bruit. In some ways a message that threatens to eat itself - Godspeed came in 1997, after all - but these guys sound like nothing else: a blow to the head and a tonic and an invigoration, all at once.
bruitofficial.bandcamp.com/album/the-ag...
bruitofficial.bandcamp.com/album/the-ag...
The Age Of Ephemerality, by BRUIT ≤
5 track album
bruitofficial.bandcamp.com
April 26, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Bring le Bruit. In some ways a message that threatens to eat itself - Godspeed came in 1997, after all - but these guys sound like nothing else: a blow to the head and a tonic and an invigoration, all at once.
bruitofficial.bandcamp.com/album/the-ag...
bruitofficial.bandcamp.com/album/the-ag...
Reposted by Nick Hall
Wrote some riddles to really annoy your family this Easter
April 17, 2025 at 11:37 AM
Wrote some riddles to really annoy your family this Easter
Reposted by Nick Hall
☑ Disagreeing with other letter-writers
☑ ‘Well actually’-ing on a tangential point
❌ Celebrity namedropping yes – but not from personal acquaintance
☑ Bathetic ending to puncture the self-seriousness
So competent, certainly, but not flawless adherence to the form.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
☑ ‘Well actually’-ing on a tangential point
❌ Celebrity namedropping yes – but not from personal acquaintance
☑ Bathetic ending to puncture the self-seriousness
So competent, certainly, but not flawless adherence to the form.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
March 20, 2025 at 11:30 AM
☑ Disagreeing with other letter-writers
☑ ‘Well actually’-ing on a tangential point
❌ Celebrity namedropping yes – but not from personal acquaintance
☑ Bathetic ending to puncture the self-seriousness
So competent, certainly, but not flawless adherence to the form.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
☑ ‘Well actually’-ing on a tangential point
❌ Celebrity namedropping yes – but not from personal acquaintance
☑ Bathetic ending to puncture the self-seriousness
So competent, certainly, but not flawless adherence to the form.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Reposted by Nick Hall
Terrific thread, that will fire your brain up (in a way an LLM could never understand.)
One of the most common arguments you hear from fans of generative ‘AI’ is that it’s not plagiarizing people’s work, it’s just learning like a human learns. So I’m going to break down why that’s just not true, and why it can never be true, with the existing systems. 1/
February 28, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Terrific thread, that will fire your brain up (in a way an LLM could never understand.)
Reposted by Nick Hall
One of the most common arguments you hear from fans of generative ‘AI’ is that it’s not plagiarizing people’s work, it’s just learning like a human learns. So I’m going to break down why that’s just not true, and why it can never be true, with the existing systems. 1/
February 26, 2025 at 6:58 PM
One of the most common arguments you hear from fans of generative ‘AI’ is that it’s not plagiarizing people’s work, it’s just learning like a human learns. So I’m going to break down why that’s just not true, and why it can never be true, with the existing systems. 1/
Too many meetings. It is utterly bleak outside. Beckett is waiting on the sitting room table. This is on loud.
(this is genuinely a happy place)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NTA...
(this is genuinely a happy place)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NTA...
This Will Destroy You - Black Dunes (HD - Official Video)
YouTube video by hobbledehoyrecords
www.youtube.com
February 19, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Too many meetings. It is utterly bleak outside. Beckett is waiting on the sitting room table. This is on loud.
(this is genuinely a happy place)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NTA...
(this is genuinely a happy place)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NTA...
This is a wonderful, eloquent article that I think stands as a clear and compelling case (quite why it needs to be made is another matter...) for writing in general, not only for children.
‘Children’s writing is by far the work I find hardest, because it has its own urgent imperatives, and its own laws, and those laws are both the laws of writing and the laws of childhood: laws that must be taken seriously.’
Katherine Rundell:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Katherine Rundell:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Katherine Rundell · Why children’s books?
Children’s books, to a great extent because they are written for those who cannot participate in the market, can offer...
www.lrb.co.uk
February 2, 2025 at 11:30 AM
This is a wonderful, eloquent article that I think stands as a clear and compelling case (quite why it needs to be made is another matter...) for writing in general, not only for children.
Every Sound Has A Color In The Valley Of Night, by Night Verses
14 track album
nightverses.bandcamp.com
December 24, 2024 at 3:53 PM
guanteandbigcats.bandcamp.com/album/war-ba...
And and and
('like if Sauron dropped the One Ring into his Oreo McFlurry, and then accidentally ate it')
War Balloons, by Guante and Big Cats
8 track album
guanteandbigcats.bandcamp.com
December 24, 2024 at 3:52 PM
guanteandbigcats.bandcamp.com/album/war-ba...
And and and
('like if Sauron dropped the One Ring into his Oreo McFlurry, and then accidentally ate it')
Dreamstate, by Kelly Lee Owens
10 track album
kellyleeowens.bandcamp.com
December 24, 2024 at 3:51 PM
davidcrowell.bandcamp.com/album/point-...
Albums I have thoroughly enjoyed this year. A small selection, in the spirit of hoping at least one person likes one of them. That's how I find music myself, and I never further the chain. Hence.
Point / Cloud, by David Crowell
6 track album
davidcrowell.bandcamp.com
December 24, 2024 at 3:51 PM
davidcrowell.bandcamp.com/album/point-...
Albums I have thoroughly enjoyed this year. A small selection, in the spirit of hoping at least one person likes one of them. That's how I find music myself, and I never further the chain. Hence.
A small collection of the portentous everyday.
December 6, 2024 at 11:47 AM
A small collection of the portentous everyday.