Dmitri Gheorgheni
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dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
Dmitri Gheorgheni
@dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
290 followers 260 following 1.3K posts
Editor of the h2g2 Post at h2g2.com. My fiction has been labeled 'poignant and humorous'. https://www.lulu.com/search?contributor=Dmitri+Gheorgheni&page=1&pageSize=10&adult_audience_rating=
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dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
Dmitri Gheorgheni @dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social · Oct 17
I am happy about the little pictures in my new book. Which you can buy here. www.lulu.com/shop/dmitri-...
Page 179 of the book, which includes a small picture of TJ the cat looking smug while wearing a little Roman helmet.
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#BirdoftheDay #birdbutts

I know it's not great, but I was sitting there minding my own business when that catbird mooned me.
A catbird flashing its rear end on a wooden porch rail.
December 29, 2025 at 6:40 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #sole
you are the sole guardian of your life's content stop hoping somebody else will write your biography and tell you what it all means because I have read hundreds of biographies and not one had anything to do with what it felt to be like that person my dad used to say there are three versions of you: who you think you are who other people think you are and who God knows you to be I personally believe (this is just me, mind you) that if you are willing to share your feelings about who you are with God that between the two of you you could come up with something really fine Image: A quiet pond with reflected trees. DG
December 29, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Gheorgheni
moviessilently.bsky.social
The piece is complicated than the headline indicates but ooooo do I hate the notion that old timey people were somehow a different species

This is basically the opposite number (and just as obnoxious) to “Why wasn’t old timey culture just like us?”
December 28, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Gheorgheni
isobelstarling.bsky.social
#writingcommunity
Authors who use AI
Don't bitch or whine or cry
You're not off the hook
Using AI for writing, covers or promo
Isn't a good look
If you don't want to write the book
I don't want to read your book
Accept writing isn't on the cards
And follow your tech bro overlords to #Mars

#Vss365
December 28, 2025 at 5:24 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #Mars
Mars: god of war and agriculture. Now, how do those two go together? You can work the fields, or you can go and bash your neighbor's brains out. You can't do both at the same time. He canoodled with a goddess to spare the Romans the embarrassment of confusing their origin myths. He raped a Vestal Virgin to create his own myth. These people needed therapy, seriously. And oh, yeah: we named a planet for him. It's red, it's a desert, and there's hardly any air or water, but hey have we mentioned it's red? Billionaires want to go there. We wish they would. Personally, I would cheer them on while I watched on my home computer while munching on a Mars bar. Image: Mars on Mars. NASA and Project Gutenberg had a baby.
December 28, 2025 at 1:37 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
h2g2 approaches 2026 with its usual combination of optimism, pessimism, curiosity, (over)confidence, and snark. We also offer previews and prologues for the upcoming serial novels. You'll like them.
h2g2.com/entry/A88078...
This week's title is Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New. Clockwise from upper left: A carved wooden bench that has a carved wooden fish sitting on it, a red train labelled Inspiration, a sign that says Ferreteria, an AI-generated Christmas card that says Don't Panic, a handmade wreath, a sign for a bus rail replacement, Christmas lights in downtown Vienna, and a long bottom shelf of books whose covers advertise the new serial novels the writers are working on for 2026.
December 28, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Reposted by Dmitri Gheorgheni
altnps.bsky.social
Let’s talk about something not many people are chatting about and what’s actually happening right now.

You might wonder why Imran Ahmed and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) suddenly became targets of the U.S. government. The honest answer is that their research hit where it hurt.
December 27, 2025 at 9:02 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #uncertain
'A poem or very short story,' it said, 'using the word uncertain.' I channel Edgar. The musical rhythm of 'and the silken, sad, uncertain/rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me. . . ' I'm not sure how thrilled anybody could be with purple curtains, but I've always thoroughly enjoyed that rhyme. Oh wise computer, what else rhymeth with 'uncertain'? Copilot is having an off-day. 'Here are some words that rhyme with "uncertain": but, love, come, from, what, done, much.' Yes, honey dear, I'm quite sure that love does come from what done much. But you need to have your algorithms oiled. Merriam-Webster knows too many words, something I thought I'd never say. It offers: 'bertin, certain, curtain, berton, burton, curtin, dirten, girtin, herten, merton.' Thomas Merton I know: he, too, was a great poet. And the silken, sad, uncertain Rustle of remembered curtains Puts in mind of Thomas Merton Who, like Poe, knew what was hurtin'. Image: Poet with book and head on desk, either sleeping or dreaming or pondering or whatever, Project Gutenberg.
December 27, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Gheorgheni
h2g2postoffice.bsky.social
One more day to the read the h2g2 Post. What happens then? Oh, you get a new one. Why not check out the Socialist Advent carols? They might surprise you. h2g2.com/entry/thepost
Angel reading Marx
December 27, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Gheorgheni
jayhulmepoet.bsky.social
The thing about the Church of England is that it has actual church laws and church courts and church judges and church lawyers and I know this because I've been part of an actual church court case and had to get a pro-bono church lawyer and it was all as wild as you'd expect it to be.
jayhulmepoet.bsky.social Jay Hulme @jayhulmepoet.bsky.social · 3d
I just need you to know that although I am not a church cop I am, as Churchwarden, empowered to arrest people for various church-based nuisances (and am told, every year, at my swearing in, that under no circumstances am I to actually use those powers of arrest).
December 26, 2025 at 6:45 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #struggle
Thoughts Engendered by Google Translate, Its Works and Pomps For nearly a century, the science fiction writers tried to tell us. People would forget the past - and then repeat it. They would take every dire warning, and regard it as a peachy-keen suggestion. They'd exhaust the planet looking for an original sin to commit. The mindless worship of technology's illusory promise of boundless material profit would lead them to destroy their own best inventions in a process called enshittification. They would turn into plastic replicas of themselves and feel smug about it. The machines will attempt to translate our struggle to communicate. Our garbled goodbyes will echo for whole nanoseconds. A passing alien spacecraft will pick up the final transmission: Το χόβερκραφτ μου είναι γεμάτο χέλια. Requiescamus in pace. Image: Robots in space. Project Gutenberg
December 26, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Gheorgheni
lyndacarter.bsky.social
This Christmas, I have just one wish for you:
Take a moment to really see the older people in your life.
Let them know they’re loved, valued, and never invisible.
Share a smile with an elder you don’t know.
Offer a warm holiday greeting.
Small gestures carry enormous power.
Love,

Lynda 🎄✨
December 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #survive
Two thousand years of frantic lies are summed up in one holiday: God died and left us in charge. He likes what we like. He hates you. Sweetness and light singing about a baby left to be born in a barn; see, it's all right, the donkey talks and has a funny accent. Meanwhile, the grift goes on. Are you kidding? This is our biggest shopping season. The true meaning of Christmas can survive a few Bowl games. Looked at from a sufficiently distant vantage point - Say, eternity - this manages to look tragic and ridiculous at the same time. But every year at this same time I remind myself That anybody who could come up with anything so brilliant as a universe with butterflies and waterfalls in it is surely more than a match for the overconfident monkeys who have taken it hostage and so Ring the bells, friends. Merry Christmas. Image: Nativity scene, Project Gutenberg
December 25, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Gheorgheni
h2g2postoffice.bsky.social
Merry (Happy) Christmas to all, also Frohe Weihnachten, joyeux Noel, and Quch jaj DevmeH loD to you Klingons. While the others are watching pointless sporting events, you can be reading the h2g2 Post. h2g2.com/entry/thepost
A Christmas wreath on a blue door.
December 25, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Gheorgheni
ricksrambles.bsky.social
I took up painting a couple of years ago. As we age, I think it's important to try new things, to exercise our brains. This is called "No Name Creek" and it's where I grew up, and, yes, that is the actual name of the creek.
December 24, 2025 at 12:15 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #shoot
'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' is the title of a book about the importance of punctuation. If you look it up on Wikipedia, that compendium will helpfully explain the joke it's based on, dissecting it to within an inch of its life. I recommend Wikipedia: it is often funnier than it means to be. But do we need punctuation, for real? Our ancestors didn't have much in the way of punctuation, and they managed to get into plenty of trouble, anyway. Look up 'filioque clause'. Just be sure your eyes don't get stuck in the back of your head when you're rolling them. And remember: they accomplished this without the benefit of the semicolon. You could always draw what you wanted to say. But it seems a bit much to put it in a prayer book. Image: Extremely weird chimeras fighting, from Queen Mary's Prayer-Book, 1553.
December 24, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Gheorgheni
h2g2postoffice.bsky.social
Have some free time on your hands this Christmas Eve? (Ha!) Why not try book painting? Superfrenchie shows you how.
h2g2.com/entry/A88079...
A book in clamps while the paint dries. (The painting is on the edges.)
December 24, 2025 at 2:58 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
Happy Holidays, folks. Anybody up for Robert Reich in 'It's a Wonderful Life'?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQDj...
“It's a Wonderful Life” Tried to Warn Us
YouTube video by Robert Reich
www.youtube.com
December 23, 2025 at 4:39 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #jump
could. I was a piano player. This was the Sixties. Guitars were cooler than pianos, apparently. 'You've never picked cotton in your life,' laughed my dad. He grew up in the Appalachians. 'Neither did you!' retorted my Mississippi Delta mother. 'Y'all grew tobacco.' Reflectively: 'When we were little, our uncles grew cotton. On Saturdays, we go out and play at picking it. It's really hard to pick cotton. They'd give us little croker sacks, pretend what we picked weighed something, and give us a nickel to go buy candy.' 'A bale of cotton weighs 500 pounds,' I mused. 'I doubt anybody could pick that much in a day.' I knew about cotton: Memphis gardens used the hulls for mulch. 'What other songs have you got in that book?' I held up my Christmas copy of Lomax and Seeger. 'There's one here called Take a Whiff on Me,' I said. 'Walked up Ellum and I come down Main, tryin' to bum a nickel just to buy cocai...' 'Just don't sing it in front of the preacher, please.' Image: Guitar player above the swamp water. The workers' quarter of Puerto de Tierra. San Juan, Puerto Rico. 1938. Library of Congress
December 23, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Gheorgheni
chrisbaraniuk.com
Am overwhelmed by the huge response to this story. Lots of readers and shares - and new subscribers, too! THANK YOU.

I work hard to find unusual stories like this, to help expand our understanding of climate change and engineering. Subscribers help make this possible!
chrisbaraniuk.com Chris Baraniuk @chrisbaraniuk.com · 7d
NEW: Organ tuners have been leaving temperature and humidity records in little-known books for decades. 🎹

They reveal how temperatures inside churches have changed over time due to climate change and increased heating.

A new scoop for The Reengineer!

www.thereengineer.pro/p/church-org...
Church organ tuning records mirror our warming climate
The records appear to reflect climate change, as well as the increased heating of churches in winter
www.thereengineer.pro
December 22, 2025 at 9:50 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
They say AIs that are overtaxed 'hallucinate'. It sounds better than 'make stuff up.' Also, it sounds like it's not their fault and we should feel sorry for them.
December 22, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Gheorgheni
fvehafric.bsky.social
Google Gemini Pro: please generate a map of the western united states showing cities of over 250K population
an AI generated map of the US showing cities in bizarre locations
December 22, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Dmitri Gheorgheni
timpratt.org
I left my heart in Seattle Franerisco
fvehafric.bsky.social Frank Vehafric @fvehafric.bsky.social · 7d
Google Gemini Pro: please generate a map of the western united states showing cities of over 250K population
an AI generated map of the US showing cities in bizarre locations
December 22, 2025 at 6:27 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
This is brilliant. Please watch.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM6C...
“History Will Judge Them.” No It Won’t.
YouTube video by Tad Stoermer
www.youtube.com
December 22, 2025 at 6:30 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #Saturn
Here's how it was, children: a long, long time ago, and a very long time it was; ages and ages ago, when the soft warm winds came high up over the valleys of the north, and people buildtthe cities of clay whose ruins make you scratch your head. In those days, babies, they spoke a language you'd never understand in a million years. Not because they were smart and you are dumb (although that is possibly true), but because every 10,000 years, all the sounds get replaced by other sounds. And nobody had a tape recorder or even a piece of paper. So there we are. These people, whoever they are and whatever they said and however they said it, did it for the first time. And whatever they did, worked somehow. They lived where they lived for a thousand years. And then the wind shifted and they lived no more. But they left us things. Saturn was the best farmer. He knew stuff. If they'd had tv (but they didn't), he'd have had a show on PBS. Everybody went to him for planting tips. They honored him and passed down his knowledge. After a few centuries, the message got a bit garbled. He could get a bit testy if you didn't hoe the rows straight, but how 'he bit my head off about that' turned into 'he was a god who swallowed all his children' only makes sense if you listen to podcasts. Look up in the night sky. You'll see lots of pretty lights and evidence of really faulty memories. Image: Man in a loincloth and cloth head protection digging with a mattock. In the sky above is Saturn. I made this from a Project Gutenberg photo and one by NASA.
December 22, 2025 at 4:08 PM