Hate%20%u201CClusters%u201D%20Spread%20Disinformation%20Across%20Social%20media.%20Mapping%20Their%20Networks%20Could%20Disrupt%20Their%20Reach.%20%7C%20by%20Jigsaw%20%7C%20Jigsaw%20%7C%20Jul%2C%202021%20%7C%20Medium

Hate%20%u201CClusters%u201D%20Spread%20Disinformation%20Across%20Social%20media.%20Mapping%20Their%20Networks%20Could%20Disrupt%20Their%20Reach.%20%7C%20by%20Jigsaw%20%7C%20Jigsaw%20%7C%20Jul%2C%202021%20%7C%20Medium: A%20new%20study%20directly%20addresses%20the%20decentralized%20nature%20of%20harmful%20content%20by%20applying%20a%20novel%20%u201Ccluster%u201D%20analysis%20methodology.%20An%20interdisciplinary%20team%20of%20social%20scientists%20and%20natural%20scientists%20at%20George%20Washington%20University%20developed%20this%20approach%20to%20study%20ISIS%20online%20in%202016.%20They%20identified%20196%20pro-ISIS%20%u201Cclusters%u201D%2C%20or%20groups%20of%20individual%20users%20on%20a%20social%20media%20platform%2C%20as%20ISIS%20was%20rising%20in%20prominence%20and%20attracting%20recruits%20online%20internationally.%20They%20found%20that%20these%20self-organizing%20clusters%20behaved%20much%20more%20fluidly%20than%20traditional%2C%20hierarchical%20militant%20groups%20and%20therefore%20better%20captured%20how%20modern%20extremist%20movements%20were%20operating%20online.%20This%20%u201Cmeso-level%u201D%20analysis%20of%20extremist%20clusters%20%u2014%20looking%20neither%20at%20the%20micro-level%20individual%20extremist%20nor%20at%20the%20macro-level%20global%20offline%20movement%20%u2014%20offered%20a%20valuable%20window%20into%20the%20movement%u2019s%20future%3B%20the%20team%20found%20that%20cluster%20activity%20could%20help%20predict%20real-world%20attacks.

R.A.%20Lafferty%27s%20%22THE%20NAME%20OF%20THE%20SNAKE%22%20-%20Notes%20from%20the%20Shadowlands..%20%u2014%20LiveJournal

R.A.%20Lafferty%27s%20%22THE%20NAME%20OF%20THE%20SNAKE%22%20-%20Notes%20from%20the%20Shadowlands..%20%u2014%20LiveJournal: The Name of the Snake is arguably one of Lafferty's bleaker, blacker works; an ineffectual priest travels to the distant planet of Analos, whose inhabitants claim they have evolved beyond sin and guilt. Something of a comedy on Christian missionary work, it is actually a rather dark satire on something else entirely. Not sure everyone would like the ending.

Too Weird or Not Weird Enough: What is Slipstream?

Too Weird or Not Weird Enough: What is Slipstream?: Peaces%20by%20Helen%20Oyeyemi%0D%0A%0D%0AArguably%2C%20Oyeyemi%u2019s%20whole%20bibliography%20could%20be%20counted%20as%20slipstream%2C%20but%20her%20most%20recent%20book%20really%20nails%20the%20%u201Cfeeling%20very%20strange%u201D%20vibe.%20Otto%20and%20his%20partner%20Xavier%20take%20their%20pet%20mongoose%20on%20a%20vacation%20via%20a%20sleeper%20train%2C%20only%20the%20train%20seems%20endless.%20There%20is%20seemingly%20no%20one%20else%20on%20board%2C%20save%20for%20whispers%20of%20movement%20and%20activity.%20Oyeyemi%20does%20a%20great%20job%20making%20her%20characters%20and%20readers%20feel%20a%20tad%20unmoored%20by%20their%20surroundings%2C%20giving%20character%20to%20houses%2C%20trains%2C%20and%20the%20like.%20If%20you%20enjoy%20this%20book%2C%20check%20out%20Book%20Riot%u2019s%20Reading%20 \ Dear Google -- if it ain'ty broke, don't fix it. Please bring back the 2018 model of Blog This that doesn't add all tese extraneous %%%% signs.

%u2018I%u2019m%20sorry%2C%20but%20it%u2019s%20too%20late%u2019%3A%20Alabama%20doctor%20on%20treating%20unvaccinated%2C%20dying%20COVID%20patients%20-%20al.com

%u2018I%u2019m%20sorry%2C%20but%20it%u2019s%20too%20late%u2019%3A%20Alabama%20doctor%20on%20treating%20unvaccinated%2C%20dying%20COVID%20patients%20-%20al.com: %u201CThey%20cry.%20And%20they%20tell%20me%20they%20didn%u2019t%20know.%20They%20thought%20it%20was%20a%20hoax.%20They%20thought%20it%20was%20political.%20They%20thought%20because%20they%20had%20a%20certain%20blood%20type%20or%20a%20certain%20skin%20color%20they%20wouldn%u2019t%20get%20as%20sick.%20They%20thought%20it%20was%20%u2018just%20the%20flu%u2019.%20But%20they%20were%20wrong.%20And%20they%20wish%20they%20could%20go%20back.%20But%20they%20can%u2019t.%20So%20they%20thank%20me%20and%20they%20go%20get%20the%20vaccine.%20And%20I%20go%20back%20to%20my%20office%2C%20write%20their%20death%20note%2C%20and%20say%20a%20small%20prayer%20that%20this%20loss%20will%20save%20more%20lives.%u201D%0D%0A%0D%0AMore%20than%2011%2C400%20Alabamians%20have%20died%20of%20COVID%20so%20far%2C%20but%20midway%20through%202021%2C%20caring%20for%20COVID%20patients%20is%20a%20different%20story%20than%20it%20was%20in%20the%20beginning.%20Cobia%20said%20it%u2019s%20different%20mentally%20and%20emotionally%20to%20care%20for%20someone%20who%20could%20have%20prevented%20their%20disease%20but%20chose%20not%20to.

On The Road With Al and Ivy: A Homeless Literary Chronicle

On The Road With Al and Ivy: A Homeless Literary Chronicle: On The Road With Al and Ivy: A Homeless Literary Chronicle - May 2021: The Original Scroll (like it's later published version) had an episodic approach to story telling, moving from one scene to another as it appeared in Kerouac's head, as opposed to events tied to a linear time frame. He spends time in the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, yet describes very little of what he saw. Days or weeks are often covered with a single sentence, yet many pages are devoted to conversations with a friend or friends, and if he's waiting for money to come via mail (or wages on payday), he'll just skip over to it's arrival and then the narrative becomes full again.

Wow! Have the people at Google fixed (at least partially) the "Blog this" feature? Now all they need to do to fix it completely is to bring the old one back, so that if I want to but three quotes into the same blog post I don't create three separate and superfluous blog posts!

Puck, plague and history

King Of Shadows by Susan Cooper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A surprisingly moving story about an orphan boy actor who is magically transported 400 years back from the 20th century to the original Globe theatre, where he performs in A Midsummer Night's Dream which he had been rehearsing for in his own time) and meets William Shakespeare himself.

This was the third book by Susan Cooper I'd read in the last couple of months, and I liked it a lot better than her The Dark is Rising. It invites comparison with another book I read not so long ago -- Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill -- see my review here.  

Both books feature Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and in both books children are plucked out of their own time into the past and discover something of past history. But I think Susan Cooper tells a better story, and tells it better than Kipling. I think Kipling's Kim is far better than his Puck of Pook's Hill, and have read that several times, but Kim is a spy story and a Bildungsroman, not fantasy.

King of Shadows also features bubonic plague, and reminded me of another historical fantasy book that featured that, which seemed appropriate reading for our times of quarantine. For more on that, and other plague-time reading, see Physical distance and social proximity in a time of plague.

 View all my reviews