It just hit me: I go back to work tomorrow. After three weeks of vacation, this is going to be a shift in gears.
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There is No Antimimetics Division by qntm - 3.5 / 5 Antimemes
There is No Antimimetics Division by qntm
Blurb from its Amazon listing:
An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people from spreading it.
Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which you wouldn't share with anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets. Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you tried: complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers, and dreams...
But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely. How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war?
Welcome to the Antimemetics Division.
No, this is not your first day.
Ironically, I can't remember how this book came across my attention. Maybe it was a mention by a BookToker, or maybe another social media post, but the premise grabbed my attention as it is about something which has long fascinated me, playing with memory.
The book is not normally in the realm I would read. It is a bit of a horror novel, with lots of gore and body horror described, but I came to think of the horror aspect of the novel as a bit more art house / new age. The base concept of the novel is so out there and theoretical that it made it easy for me to remove myself from the action and partition it off in my mind - I'm not the one enduring the horror, I'm the observer.
The premise of the novel is hard to summarize, but I think the way I will approach it is this: It is a novel in the vein of the online "SCP" genre. SCP is an a meta genre of fiction writing, where many different individuals contribute to a corpus of sci-fi / horror / supernatural stories with a very dark and, often, experimental tone or styles of writing.
This book is very much all of that. It is weird. It is hard to read sometimes as your brain grapples with shifts in voice or perspective, etc. But it was an interesting ride. Like sitting in a bumper car as it traverses through an art house. You're a passenger with no control of the story, observing what is around you, jarred and bumped and sometimes confused.
As the rating says - largely, I liked it. I have no desire to read it again, even if I would get more out of it with a better understanding for its goings on. Worth noting, it is a quick read. And while I spread it out over a few days, my reader tells me I spent just three hours reading it in total.
This is my first book of 2024. I'm setting a goal of reading 50 books this year, and while I started this one last year, I feel it is fair to count it to this book total as I could have as easily read it all this morning had I decided I wanted to.
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Washington state leads nation on new regulations against toxic chemicals
Presumably the usage of 'earlier this year' means 2023, not 2024...
A new act implemented earlier this year in Washington has banned five chemical classes in 10 product categories throughout the state, making it the nation's strongest law regulating toxic chemicals in products. The Safer Products for Washington program, an outgrowth of the Pollution Prevention for Our Future Act signed by Gov. Jay Inslee in 2019, is setting a precedent for other states and changing the game for the U.S. chemical industry.
The law gives the Washington Department of Ecology the authority to require companies to disclose ingredients in products that may use toxic chemicals, and to enforce the mitigation or complete elimination of them. If safer alternatives exist, the law requires they be used to replace toxic chemicals. Companies that refuse to comply will be fined.
"We saw that the current risk-based paradigm was not working at all," said Laurie Valeriano, the executive director of Toxic Free Future, a grassroots organization based in Seattle that pushed for the act. "It's an entirely failed approach that does not really drive the use of the safest chemicals and materials in our economy."
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Congrats Tom Scott
Congrats and major kudos to Tom Scott, ten years with weekly uploads is incredibly impressive. I'm glad he indulged at the end, and I'll be enjoying the other things he works on.
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An awesome list of Windows Freeware
I keep finding tools or apps I need to install on the new computer. As always, I went looking for lists of the best apps these days to make sure I haven't missed anything new.
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Automated Archives for January, 1st 2024
This post was automatically generated
Wallabag Additions
These are articles that which I saved today so that I may read them later. Substance and quality will vary drastically.
Chess For the Day
Record: 1-0-2
Net Elo Change: -6
Games Played
Blog Posts On This Day
- 1 year ago (3 posts)
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