The cost of literacy [medieval hist]
Mar. 20th, 2026 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidereaI knew that other contemporaneous cultures than those of Europe had unfathomably higher numbers of books than Europeans did, but I didn't know about this in retrospect obvious reason why:
2026 Mar 19: Dwarkesh Patel feat. Ada Palmer [DwarkeshPatel YT]: "Why Medieval Books Cost as Much as a House" (1 min, 7 sec):
2026 Mar 19: Dwarkesh Patel feat. Ada Palmer [DwarkeshPatel YT]: "Why Medieval Books Cost as Much as a House" (1 min, 7 sec):
Without papyrus, what you're writing on is a dead sheep. And if you think of the price of a head of lettuce and the price of a leather jacket, you're understanding the difference between a sheet of papyrus and writing on a dead sheep. So every page of a medieval book is as expensive as that much of a leather jacket. And a medieval book hand written costs as much as a house.* Three hundred thousand. It's been thirteen years and I am still not remotely over that fact. Every time I encounter it anew, my SCA persona gets acrophobic trying to imagine a library that big and has to sit down and put her head between her knees so she doesn't pass out.
And so to have a library is to be not just rich but mega rich. So only the wealthiest cities contain anybody who has a library. The great library of the University of Paris, the library from Europe's perspective, has 600 books.
There's definitely more than 600 books in this room. Every kiosk at an airport selling Dan Brown novels has more than 600 books. This is nothing.
And at the same time as that, in the Middle East, sultans have libraries of over a thousand books or 5,000 books. There are libraries in Sub-Saharan Africa with thousands of books.* There are libraries in China with thousands of books. Because they in China have cheap paper and rice paper. The Middle East has papyrus.
Europe, and only Europe, is writing on a leather jacket.
Massachusetts not the next? [Ω, MA/US]
Mar. 20th, 2026 09:34 pmsidereaThe previously expected ICE enforcement surge never materialized. Curious.
I wonder if this just means they're short-staffed. Or perhaps distracted.
(I also wonder if somebody made a judgment call not to try what they did in MN in MA, but have largely rejected the notion. It would not be to anybody's advantage if they did, on either side, but I'm not seeing a lot of good judgment in evidence anywhere.)
I wonder if this just means they're short-staffed. Or perhaps distracted.
(I also wonder if somebody made a judgment call not to try what they did in MN in MA, but have largely rejected the notion. It would not be to anybody's advantage if they did, on either side, but I'm not seeing a lot of good judgment in evidence anywhere.)
The Friday Five: Journal History
Mar. 20th, 2026 04:14 pmjesse_the_kFrom that reliable source of journal prompts, ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
thefridayfive
1) What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?
Volunteered for WisCon in 2007, clearly LJ was where everything was Happening. Took me a year to figure out the culture. Moved to DW on 1 May 2009.
2) How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?
79! Most are evidently dormant. (DW comms never die.)
3) Do you have a favorite community or one you check out often to see what's new?
I love the questions and answers at little_details, where writers seek specifics about an infinite assortment of facts: paint manufacturing, historical Chinese tornadoes, NZ slang for three examples.
4) How did you pick your user name?
It’s a riff on my wallet name which I’ve been using it since 2001.
5) If you could change your user name, would you?
Nope.
hello...
Mar. 19th, 2026 11:48 pmreggiekray posting in addmeName: reggie
Age: 36!
I mostly post about: whatever my brain latches onto... right now it's stranger things... billy hargrove is EVERYTHING to me...
My hobbies are: drawing, writing, making graphics, practicing spiritual abilities, learning languages. swedish is calling to me rn, lol.
My fandoms are: stranger things, joe keery, joseph quinn, dacre montgomery, fred hechinger, old-school anime/manga/doujinshi, the kray twins... real life and legend (2015) with tom hardy.
I'm looking to meet people who: understand the difference between fiction and reality. we are all adults here and the internet used to be for FUN. let's bring that back!
When I add people, my dealbreakers are: to be completely honest, if you hate billy hargrove, then do not add me. we will NOT get along. also, i am unlearning decades of religious trauma, so if you're overtly christian... we're not a good match. sorry. :(
My posting schedule tends to be: whenever i can! working a Real Job takes up a lot of my time, but i do read everything.
Before adding me, you should know: i am very gay and very trans, and will not tolerate any form of homophobia or transphobia. non-religious spiritual psychic. yes, i do feel energy and am clairaudient and clairvoyant. i ship RPF and incest and "problematic" pairings unapologetically. i believe in the old internet belief of Do Not Like, Do Not Read. absolute creative freedom forever.
Tutorials
Mar. 19th, 2026 12:15 amysabetwordsmith posting in getting_startedsoc_puppet has posted "Finding Friends and Things to Do on Dreamwidth" and "Uploading Images to Dreamwidth" on newcomers.
Benn Jordan plays the stock market [econ, tech, dataviz, music]
Mar. 19th, 2026 12:46 amsidereaJust hit play.
(All about the sound, but visuals also nice.)
2026 Mar 18: Benn Jordan [BennJordan YT]: "I'm here to disrupt the finance synthesizer scene."
(All about the sound, but visuals also nice.)
2026 Mar 18: Benn Jordan [BennJordan YT]: "I'm here to disrupt the finance synthesizer scene."
TV Tuesday: Bring the Snacks!
Mar. 17th, 2026 11:33 amyourlibrarian posting in tv_talk
Given this has been awards show season, have you ever attended a TV watch party? And if not, would you like to? Take the poll and tell us more in comments!
Poll #34379 Watch Party
This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27
Have you ever gotten together with people outside your household to watch something on TV?
What sort of viewing was it?
View Answers
Awards show
2 (10.5%)
Sports
4 (21.1%)
Special event
3 (15.8%)
TV series (any kind)
17 (89.5%)
Movie
10 (52.6%)
Gaming related
1 (5.3%)
Weekly watch party
3 (15.8%)
Other
0 (0.0%)
Have you ever done a group viewing regularly?
View Answers
No
14 (51.9%)
Yes, for some things but not others
5 (18.5%)
Yes, as part of events
0 (0.0%)
Yes, as an activity with friends
10 (37.0%)
What's your favorite thing to watch with a group?
View Answers
Start of a TV show season
2 (10.5%)
A weekly watch of a show
10 (52.6%)
Debut of a new show
1 (5.3%)
Special TV event
4 (21.1%)
Something I have a bet on/gambling pool
0 (0.0%)
TV show rewatch
12 (63.2%)
Something we can play along with
1 (5.3%)
Other
2 (10.5%)
Day 21: Shadow Continues to Mellow
Mar. 16th, 2026 02:11 pmjesse_the_kWhile he was quite surprised to walk out for his morning on-leash ablutions into heavy snow above his knees, he's really starting to relax.
This morning I reached down to stroke his back and he didn't flinch.
Just now I was resting on the floor by his bed, petting his back. I started to scritch the scruff of his neck, and he relaxed even more, his dark eyes shining up at MyGuy behind the camera. (I'm reclining on my tripled-up exercise pad just behind him, shockingly without glasses.)
( Read more... )
Only 28 days of enforced rest to go!
(no subject)
Mar. 15th, 2026 10:53 amraytheraven posting in addmeName: Harper
Age: I was on LJ in the early 2000s if that tells you anything
I mostly post about: IRL things currently, but I might post thoughts about media I consume or happenings in the world occasionally. I don't really post fannish things often even though there are fandoms I enjoy. Most of my journal is currently public.
My hobbies are: reading, tinkering, learning languages (Spanish primarily), video games, listening to podcasts and being in nature when the weather and my body allow for it.
My fandoms are: Star Trek (TNG, DS9, VOY primarily), Baldur's Gate 3, Dungeon Crawler Carl, The Orville, The Sims and similar games (I am so excited for Paralives y'all).
I'm looking to meet people who: Post about their lives and passions. I enjoy hearing about hobbies and interests, even if they aren't my own.
My posting schedule tends to be: I strive for at least weekly, sometimes more sometimes less.
When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Racism, sexism, transphobia, queerphobia, fundamentalism or anything supporting the fascists.
Before adding me, you should know: I'm neurodivergent and mostly anti-AI. LLM technology has its place, but in its current form I feel it has been actively harmful for humanity and is being used as a giant grift by tech oligarchs. It is most definitely not a replacement for human created art and knowledge.
Age: I was on LJ in the early 2000s if that tells you anything
I mostly post about: IRL things currently, but I might post thoughts about media I consume or happenings in the world occasionally. I don't really post fannish things often even though there are fandoms I enjoy. Most of my journal is currently public.
My hobbies are: reading, tinkering, learning languages (Spanish primarily), video games, listening to podcasts and being in nature when the weather and my body allow for it.
My fandoms are: Star Trek (TNG, DS9, VOY primarily), Baldur's Gate 3, Dungeon Crawler Carl, The Orville, The Sims and similar games (I am so excited for Paralives y'all).
I'm looking to meet people who: Post about their lives and passions. I enjoy hearing about hobbies and interests, even if they aren't my own.
My posting schedule tends to be: I strive for at least weekly, sometimes more sometimes less.
When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Racism, sexism, transphobia, queerphobia, fundamentalism or anything supporting the fascists.
Before adding me, you should know: I'm neurodivergent and mostly anti-AI. LLM technology has its place, but in its current form I feel it has been actively harmful for humanity and is being used as a giant grift by tech oligarchs. It is most definitely not a replacement for human created art and knowledge.
Performing some traffic maintenance today
Mar. 14th, 2026 01:04 pm![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
mark posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenanceHappy Saturday!
I'm going to be doing a little maintenance today. It will likely cause a tiny interruption of service (specifically for www.dreamwidth.org) on the order of 2-3 minutes while some settings propagate. If you're on a journal page, that should still work throughout!
If it doesn't work, the rollback plan is pretty quick, I'm just toggling a setting on how traffic gets to the site. I'll update this post if something goes wrong, but don't anticipate any interruption to be longer than 10 minutes even in a rollback situation.
Speak Up Saturday
Mar. 14th, 2026 12:07 pmyourlibrarian posting in tv_talk
Welcome to the weekly roundup post! What are you watching this week? What are you excited about?
Letter to NSF regarding NCAR
Mar. 13th, 2026 02:10 amflwydIn the winter of my funemployment I didn't expect to receive a research project and homework, but then the Trump administration announced it intended to "dismantle" NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The National Science Foundation published a Dear Colleague Letter requesting input and proposals for splitting up work done by NCAR. Notably absent from that letter was the word "climate," despite the OMB director's announcement that NCAR was a leading source of "climate alarmism."
This proposal to disrupt a key institution in my home town led me to spend weeks researching NCAR's organization structure, mission, computing infrastructure, and data sets so I can craft a persuasive letter to NSF and (more importantly) be useful if someone spins up an effort to save NCAR's data and provide a plan B organization for its valuable services. So far I haven't gotten wind of such an effort, but I'm keeping my ears to the ground. Maybe we'll need to enlist the help of Woody Allen to exfiltrate the data on magnetic tape.
Also, personal message to LinkedIn: if I search for NCAR I do not want to see posts about cars or the auto industry.
This proposal to disrupt a key institution in my home town led me to spend weeks researching NCAR's organization structure, mission, computing infrastructure, and data sets so I can craft a persuasive letter to NSF and (more importantly) be useful if someone spins up an effort to save NCAR's data and provide a plan B organization for its valuable services. So far I haven't gotten wind of such an effort, but I'm keeping my ears to the ground. Maybe we'll need to enlist the help of Woody Allen to exfiltrate the data on magnetic tape.
Also, personal message to LinkedIn: if I search for NCAR I do not want to see posts about cars or the auto industry.
We Have a Tail Wag!
Mar. 12th, 2026 05:02 pmjesse_the_kOn his second day, Shadow wandered into our bedroom and leapt up on the bed. I made my creaky crane eh-eh sound which is the closest I get to saying "no" to a dog and he hopped right off. (Clearly, he's had some training.)
This morning we were resting in bed and he stood in our bedroom doorway. I said "Shadow come!" and he stepped inside! And wagged his tail! and then immediately turned around and went back to his crate.
But his tail can wag.
Poem: "Memories of Merwin"
Mar. 12th, 2026 07:15 amjjhunterI asked a women named Sonnet
director of a poet's palm conservancy
what it was like to be in asynchronous conversation
with someone who was no longer there
the poet had risen each day to meditate in silence
and wanted silence for his mornings planting palms
now many unpublished manuscripts were being found
(as were many loving post-its from his wife Paula
working around his need for morning silence)
and his late-life handwriting was slowly, painstakingly
being decoded and transcribed
was it like finding seeds waiting like time capsules
for someday growing in the forest floor
or was it like being haunted
She spoke of the hundreds of books needing care
after decades' nurturing in that humid house
opening a book of eastern philosophy almost beyond saving
riddled with holes from book beetles' eatings
and finding on the next page a note in the margins from the poet
addressed tenderly to the beetles, saying
'you can have the binding, but please leave me the pages'
The palms he spent his life planting
and the poems he spent his life planting
and the pages of all those silent mornings seeding words
we are eager to hear now
may they continue growing in their season
may William and Paula Merwin's names stay living on our tongues
===
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
director of a poet's palm conservancy
what it was like to be in asynchronous conversation
with someone who was no longer there
the poet had risen each day to meditate in silence
and wanted silence for his mornings planting palms
now many unpublished manuscripts were being found
(as were many loving post-its from his wife Paula
working around his need for morning silence)
and his late-life handwriting was slowly, painstakingly
being decoded and transcribed
was it like finding seeds waiting like time capsules
for someday growing in the forest floor
or was it like being haunted
She spoke of the hundreds of books needing care
after decades' nurturing in that humid house
opening a book of eastern philosophy almost beyond saving
riddled with holes from book beetles' eatings
and finding on the next page a note in the margins from the poet
addressed tenderly to the beetles, saying
'you can have the binding, but please leave me the pages'
The palms he spent his life planting
and the poems he spent his life planting
and the pages of all those silent mornings seeding words
we are eager to hear now
may they continue growing in their season
may William and Paula Merwin's names stay living on our tongues
===
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Freedom of speech
Mar. 11th, 2026 02:18 pmlivThere's been a rant I have been meaning to turn into an essay for a while, but Ken White (Popehat) has done it better, so I direct you to his really well-written and referenced (though US-centric) article: The Fashionable Notion of 'Free Speech Culture' Is Justifying State Censorship, Ironically. Criticism. Is. Not. Censorship, and
This is important in Europe too, not just in the US, because it's a deliberate, specific Russian infowar tactic to promote far right events at UK universities and claim censorship if anyone objects. A
( shorter version of my original opinion, building on White's piece )
“Free speech culture” has a natural tendency to discount the speech rights and interests of people who criticize speech.
This is important in Europe too, not just in the US, because it's a deliberate, specific Russian infowar tactic to promote far right events at UK universities and claim censorship if anyone objects. A
network based at [Cambridge] University and backed by Thiel, which it said was using the issue of free speech to “normalise white nationalism on UK campuses”.Neither Putin nor Thiel has anyone's freedom at heart, and they're all too successful at distracting people with a toddler-like notion of "freedom" where you get to say the naughty words without being told off.
( shorter version of my original opinion, building on White's piece )
G'day
Mar. 11th, 2026 12:17 pmbrainbeast posting in addmeName: You can call me whatever you want, as long as you call me 😎
Age: Old enough to know better. A former LiveJournal user from the 90s
I mostly post about: Life, random thoughts, work, observations, whatever comes to mind
My hobbies are: Reading, movies, sport (cricket, F1, hockey (real not ice), australian rules football, and a few others), science, psychology - I like a little bit of all things, realy - history to anthropology, I'm there
My fandoms are: Do dogs count?
I'm looking to meet people who: Kind people, open minded, those who enjoy learning, ahve passions in their lives
My posting schedule tends to be: sporadic
When I add people, my dealbreakers are: racists/sexists/fundamentalist religious nuts who believe their religion is better than others, genocide apologists, ignorant people, those who don't value science and intelligence
Before adding me, you should know: I have a pretty terrible sense of humour (by terrible I mean excellent) and I'm neurodiverse
TV Tuesday: Meta and Ranking
Mar. 10th, 2026 10:51 amyourlibrarian posting in tv_talk
The opening of
marchmetamatterschallenge coincided with a post lamenting how critical examinations of canon content are increasingly challenged as the wrong way to do fandom. Meanwhile other groups engage in ranking wars, artificially raising or lowering general audience feedback to shows or music.Do you enjoy getting into the weeds with your TV viewing? Do you find viewer rankings of shows to be helpful? Or do you find thinking too much about what you watch ruins your fun?
Hello!
Mar. 10th, 2026 10:26 pmoneinist posting in addmeName: Oneinist, or One (they/them)
Age: Middle aged
I mostly post about: So far I've posted general journals, a bit of poetry, and some prompts from the snowflake_challenge. I've posted in English and Japanese. I'm still figuring out what I want to post about. I have a Naruto/KKIR fandom Tumblr, but I haven't decided to what extent I'll be posting fannish content here yet. I feel like I might post thoughts on fandom? Or at least I would like to. I'll find an excuse to turn anything into a bingo board.
My hobbies are: I have too many hobbies, and I tend to cycle through them, but I also have some core ones like watching anime, reading Japanese BL manga and listening to BLCDs, cooking, baking, writing, journaling, drawing and crafting. My latest hyper-fixation is Obsidian (note organizing software), and along with it HTML and CSS. The intensity of it varies and sometimes I take breaks or have slumps from my main ones too.
My fandoms are: I'm only active in the Naruto/Boruto fandom, but I still enjoy a variety of fandoms/media. As an example, love Star Trek Voyager and Natsume Book of Friends too; I just haven't created anything for either. I grew up on 90s Sailor Moon anime, so that one holds a special place in my heart.
I'm looking to meet people who: Post about a mix of things that we both have in common and don't have in common, it doesn't have to be fandom related, and it's not a requirement to share fandoms. I enjoy reading about everyday life around the world, hobbies, thoughts and feelings. I'm hoping to build relationships slowly and steadily.
My posting schedule tends to be: I've sort of gotten into the habit of doing the justcreate check-in on Mondays, and at the same time I catch up on reading and commenting. I also post then if I'm feeling inspired. That being said, I don't want to stress myself out by trying to explicitly keep some sort of schedule.
When I add people, my dealbreakers are: If you write mainly about Christianity from a practicing Christian perspective we are likely not a good match. I'm fine with more cultural or secularized aspects of Christianity like Christmas for example (I decorate extensively myself).
Before adding me, you should know: English is not my first language, and sometimes I misunderstand. I'm sure we can work it out though. I can also be a bit bad at asking questions (I process a lot through association, so my mind slips into "that reminds me of the time I..." as a way of connecting when I've read something). In all languages I write in, I struggle with missing letters and spelling. Because of that, I'm quite self-conscious about my writing, and I can only ask for a bit of patience and grace. My energy levels vary throughout the day as well as the year, and if I go from very chatty to not that chatty, it's me and not you.
