James Baillie @JubalBarca@scholar.social
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- He/Him
Kartvelologist, historian & digital humanist at the University of Vienna, doing a PhD on medieval Georgian prosopography. Also game designer, liberal policy nerd, provider of cute animal pictures, writer in various formats, etc.
Joined Jan 2020
James Baillie
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A lesser purple emperor butterfly, one of the more stunning residents of the treetops of #Vienna:
Tired
I am very tired. The world feels very tired. I haven't seen my family in a year and a half or more. I haven't felt really hopeful and excited about personal connections in about as long.
I am still working, still fighting, but there does feel like less of me than there was. I'd like a hug I suppose.
James Baillie
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#Goats on Naxos island.
(photo: @kernpanik | license: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
James Baillie
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🎶 Take me down to Parable City
Where a story tells a moral
And sometimes it's witty 🎶
James Baillie
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"What is it like, being a time traveller?"
"Of course, you must be very careful you don't do anything in the past that changes the future."
"Of course."
"But going to the past really reminds you of all the great things we have now, like chocolate, or slood."
"Slood?"
"Yea- Damn!"
#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories
An interesting oddity from a town park in Vienna - two tortoises sharing a log, which isn't unusual except that they're actually different species. The much smaller, spotty, foreground one is a native European Pond Tortoise, the further strip one is a Painted Turtle, a US species that has feral populations in many European cities including Vienna since the 1990s. Never seen them in the same place & didn't realise the native pond tortoises were still so far into the city itself.
James Baillie
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Have you heard of the Royal game of Ur?
It's a 4000 year old game found in a royal gravesite in the ancient city of Ur. What's truly amazing about it is that we've also found a clay tablet with the rules for it! The oldest rule book in the world!
I had not heard of it, until I found this beautiful Free and open source online digital version of it! It looks great, and it's fun too! And you can play two player locally
Give it a go and let me know what you think!
I know I'm not per se "around" these days, but thought I'd drop in to wish you folks a better 2021 than your 2020 was and share this nice deer I saw recently.
Best wishes, all :)
James Baillie
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"Come on," someone calls, "the night is young!"
The Night shakes Her head. No, She is old. She was always old. There is no terror, no surprise, no joy She hasn't seen.
She walks hidden paths, lonely streets, silent hallways. Always moving.
The Night is alive; She is always alive.
#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories
James Baillie
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author subtoot
'The truth is if your book is good enough, it'll be published.'
That's ... not the truth. It's not just about quality and market. Trad pub has a limited number of seats at the table and a HUGE amount of bias.
So sick of people using their survivor bias as a means of making unpublished authors feel shittier.
Sure! Your book is great and got trad published. Most trad pub books are good books! That doesn't mean that all good books will necessarily get trad pub deals.
Account possible semi-hiatus
Masto generally increasingly seems to be a space that isn't helpful or good for me, so I think I'll maybe be cutting down the amount I check in. I feel like what my masto bubble now looks like is a useful and valid space, but it does feel different to the one I hoped to curate and it's one that takes up a more mental energy than I have in my current state.
James Baillie
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While out on the front veranda just now, I heard a rustle in the tree, so I grabbed my red-filtered torch and had a peek. There about 10m away on a branch was a tiny Feather-tailed Glider.
No chance of a photo due to the tiny size and lack of light and I didn't want to startle it with a bright white flash.
Nice to know they're still around.
(photo below is of one I rescued from our power meter box several years ago). #AustralianWildlife
UK Pol, Liberalism
I wrote a thing on an often misunderstood aspect of what I think makes UK liberalism distinctive from other liberalisms: UK liberalism has evolved as a misfit's philosophy.
Full post on my blog:
https://thoughtsofprogress.wordpress.com/2020/07/19/on-misfit-liberalism/
James Baillie
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The trees were so orderly in the woods I found myself in at first I thought it to be some sort of orchard; but the wolves, bears and pixies that made it their home dissuaded me of this notion.
The pixies welcomed me excitedly, but would not at all give me space to speak, volunteering answers to questions I had planned to ask and many I had not.
By the end of it, I was both their mayor and honorary pixie, but still hadn't found my car.
James Baillie
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This is a baby hummingbird drinking juice from a raspberry
UK Pol: if you want to know about the Liberal Democrat leadership contest for some reason, I wrote a bit about it:
https://thoughtsofprogress.wordpress.com/2020/07/17/lib-dem-leadership-notes-2020/
I put some wildlife pictures together from this week, do let me know if you like them.
https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=6027.msg140862#msg140862
James Baillie
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anybody play the fiddle? And happen to want to teach a #Indigenous two-spirit autistic to play? I don't really know how to play the violin yet, but I've never had an instrument I didn't learn fairly quickly, though ADHD/mental illness have generally gotten in my way of doing something fun/cool with that ability
Would like useful book/website suggestions too :)
James Baillie
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letting the men disembark the cruise ship first because it's i before he except after sea
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Kartvelologist, historian & digital humanist at the University of Vienna, doing a PhD on medieval Georgian prosopography. Also game designer, liberal policy nerd, provider of cute animal pictures, writer in various formats, etc.
Joined Jan 2020
