#kindness

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Annalee Newitz: Automatic Noodle (AudiobookFormat, 2025, Macmillan Audio)

A cozy near-future novella about a crew of leftover robots opening their very own noodle …

Adorable People Taking Care of Each Other

On the surface, this is a story about a diverse group of adorable people (most of whom happen to be robots) taking care of each other while starting a hand-pulled #noodle shop. Slightly below the surface, and done with a lot of #kindness, Annalee Newitz does a wonderful job of putting the reader in a perspective to see how various kinds of #discrimination and #unskillful action make things unpleasant for everyone while at the same time showing that #handicraft, #compassion, and community-building have lovely results across the board.

#𰻞𰻞麵 #𰻝𰻝面 #biangbiangmian #handpulled #community

A quotation from The Bible

   But the man was anxious to justify himself and said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’
   Jesus replied, “A man was once on his way down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of brigands; they took all he had, beat him and then made off, leaving him half dead. Now a priest happened to be travelling down the same road, but when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite who came to the place saw him, and passed by on the other side.
   “But a Samaritan traveller who came upon him was moved with compassion when he saw him. He went up and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. He then lifted him on to his own mount, carried him to the inn and looked after him. …

Recommending Ocean Vuong's The Emperor of Gladness for anyone who'd prefer to read about people being kind to each other than about whatever else is on offer.

It's not that the book doesn't have difficult moments. It definitely, most definitely, does.

But it's refreshing that kindness can appear in a literary context as a big issue worthy of discussion rather than only in fluffy, cheerful stories set in cafes or bookshops. There's a place for those, too, but relegating kindness only to light fiction does it a disservice.

We need to be talking about kindness. Maybe if we had more books and stories like this, maybe if they were the norm, we'd even have a kinder world.

So today, a group of elementary school children paraded through my neighborhood. I knew they were there because they were quite loud and energetic, and honestly I was very confused about what was happening. I mean, what on earth kind of field trip are they doing, wandering around from house to house?

I tried to see what they were up to, and I couldn’t really tell.

But after they’d passed, my husband opened the door to our back porch because it was a lovely day and the sun was out. And hanging on the doorknob was a handcrafted paper plate basket of paper flowers.

And it struck me—they were celebrating May Day.

And I got a surge of nostalgia. Growing up in the midwest of the US, my family celebrated the first of May as a sort of polar opposite to Halloween. We’d make paper cups …

I finished the book Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves by Alison Wood Brooks. I love the topic about how to communicate well with other people – it’s an art that we can cultivate to our own and others’ benefit. It’s beautiful, healthy, and connective, and I was happy to have this book become available.

This is a long thread with my notes and direct quotes.

The book begins by identifying maxims that can be used to facilitate conversation, which I think are useful both offline and on: “The TALK maxims break conversation down into four crucial reminders that will guide our entire approach to make conversation more vibrant, enriching, and effective: Topics, because great conversationalists choose good topics and make any topic better; Asking, because asking questions helps us move between topics and dive deeper into them; Levity, to keep our conversations …

I guess that "bare minimum" alt-text is better than no alt-text.

But giving people who can't view images high quality alt-text - a chance to enjoy an image properly - is (to me) just part of treating people kindly.

It takes but a few seconds to type an extra sentence or two.

Bad alt text: "Cat"

Good alt text: "A tabby cat sitting on a windowsill, looking out the window with its tail curled around its body."

https://www.rnib.org.uk/campaign-with-us/alt-text-campaign/how-can-i-write-alt-text/

This is your random reminder all this mastodon awesomeness happens because of volunteer admins/mods, and donation-funded server costs.

So take a moment to toss some coin to your server if needed. ✨🪙

Or you can donate to smaller instances representing more marginalized groups that need an extra bump to get through.

Like the very awesome well cared for instance I do all my tooting from:

https://www.patreon.com/disabledsocial

Content warning Meandering thoughts on poverty

Intro post:

Curious about all the things! Alaskan living in the lower 48 for 25 years now.
: So many books, so little time!
Slow
collector
Amateur naturalist: , , !
Lazy
: , MSF and others.
!! Star Trek, Star Wars, Honor Harrington, Pern, Doctor Who, ok, all the things. Not horror.
Secular home schooling parent
: Space! All the things.

Trying to leave the world a better place, one tiny piece at a time.

Helloooo! Let's try this ..
I'm Caroline from The Netherlands, have been eyeing all the beautiful accounts (amongst others)
Hope to connect on this platform!
Other interests: and so on

I'm not, in any way, shape or form a photographer but here are some shots 😆