Hermit, Procrastinating
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distractedhermit.bsky.social
Hermit, Procrastinating
@distractedhermit.bsky.social
1K followers 1.7K following 110 posts
Blerd, recovering linguist, linux fangirl, former analyst @github. Spec fic writer published in @fandsf under Nik Constantine, now indie under multiple pens. New books under Nik Constantine soon, I swear.
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distractedhermit.bsky.social
Doing November writing for my pen names that pay the bills. In absence of #NaNoWriMo, if you're also a data nerd motivated by Number Go Up metrics, you can spin up word count visuals:

- Google Sheets/Looker Studio
- Nextcloud Analytics
- Power BI, for max pain if you hate yourself

(own demo work)
A screenshot of a Google Sheet with sample word count data and an accompanied embedded bar chart. A screenshot of sample word count data using lookerstudio.google.com pulling from the same Google Sheet as first screenshot, showing a bar chart and a progress bar scorecard. Screenshot in a Nextcloud instance showing the Analytics app, which can ingest or create simple datasets. A bar chart and table with sample word count data shown. UI settings are not particularly friendly. Shown ingesting same Google Sheet Screenshot of a cursed Power BI report showing two gauge visuals tracking daily and monthly word counts, a bar chart of daily word counts, and a table detailing the same data. Can be built in Power BI desktop (free) or PBI online service
November 2, 2025 at 6:18 AM
distractedhermit.bsky.social
I find *all* aspects in the rise of news-based prediction markets just as uncomfortable.

I've heard it argued this makes people invested in the news once more. In actuality, world events are reduced to simple odds and profit. Stripped of empathy, concern, or compassion.

Dissociation via gambling.
A tweet from @buccocapital on X which reads, "There’s something that feels deeply uncomfortable about monetizing human conflict as a spectator sport. Sometimes societal norms take time to catch up to technological progress. Or maybe we’ll just be gambling on the longitudinal lines of bloodshed. I hope not". The attached screenshot shows an ongoing wager on Polymarket (the most prominent online prediction gambling market) about which date Russia will capture Pokrovsk train station by. Choices are October 31st, November 30th, and December 31st, with the last in the lead at 87% odds.
October 23, 2025 at 4:25 AM
distractedhermit.bsky.social
Breathe.

#tea
A solitary gongfu tea session on a small round table in front of a large window overlooking two trees in the afternoon. Today's tea: Love Potion, a sheng/raw puerh tea blend by Crimson Lotus. The little Jianshui teapot is carved with lotus blooms and leaves, with a plain Jianshui cup and fairness cup. A cast iron teapot carved with lotus blooms and golden koi is behind it, on a matching cast iron ceramic stove. The main tea tray is a dark ceramic slab carved with characters from the Heart Sutra. A clay tea pet of three pigs of good fortune is also featured. In the window bookshelf are various books on solitude.
September 11, 2025 at 5:55 PM
distractedhermit.bsky.social
As a descriptive linguist, I'm fascinated how the period/full stop is disappearing in casual discourse. Or even how adding one can make a text message or short statement seem more terse.

Still, this entire review is like three sentences and my brain is freaking out (alt text limit exceeded)
I want to make this review without making it too long I got this phone on the 7th not going to speak about the whole process of getting this because it was a little stressful but never the last I received this phone brand new good condition and might I say beautiful but ... Please note that there's nothing wrong with my external screen I have a screen protector on it. I'm no newbie to setting up a new phone so I'm going to all the quirks setting it up as well as doing all of my customization to the phone internally wise. I get to the section of personalization in the settings to go and switch and change my clock face to my shock in horror it's not working I go and reset the phone I reset the factory settings I did it all something told me to go on Google to see if I could find this issue so I did and lo and behold I find a lot of post about the clock face spamming two months back on how they could not change their clock face from the four digital analog numbers on the front which is the most ugly is clock that Android 14 came out with lol So me being me I contact Motorola themselves I go through hell for 5 days trying to get a straight answer I'm sent from technician to technician until I got sent to one that was above a technician level two he takes full control over my phone remotely and he sees what I'm seeing He's just as shock as I am but I'm telling him this is coming from the latest Android 14 update which came with the security update from September 1st everyone on Reddit was saying the exact same thing that their clock face stop working when it update was applied from what he was saying and what I was trying to tell him it was nothing that he was could do I just wanted him to get eyes on it so it can be noted and to show that this situation is really going on because from them they kept trying to make it seem like it wasn't happening or they had no knowledge of this happen needless to say given the fact that I can't use or change the clock face for the inte…
June 24, 2025 at 11:03 PM
distractedhermit.bsky.social
KDP guidelines also state clearly there's no way to opt out of the AI recaps as an author, and no way to replace them with your own. Cool, cool, cool

I have 2 romance pens on KDP. No opt-out to AI data ingestion is infuriating.

kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/t...
Full text of KDP Recaps page. Source: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GHY9YRK5N6ZQJTNJ Recaps Remembering a book's story and characters can be a challenge when there's a long gap between reading eBooks in a series. Recaps make it easier for readers to quickly pick up where they left off in a series. How do Recaps work? Like the “Previously on…” segment before a TV show, the Recaps feature gives readers a quick refresher of the last book they read in a series, before they start the next one. Recaps are available to U.S. readers who have purchased or borrowed best-selling English-language Kindle books in series. How can readers access Recaps? To access Recaps, readers can navigate to the View Recaps button on the series page in their Kindle Library, or select the View Recaps option within the series grouping ellipsis ("…") menu. Can I opt in or out of Recaps for my books? The Recaps feature is always on to provide readers with a consistent experience across series they read, so there is no option to enroll or unenroll. Can I edit or write my own book recap? Recaps are created by Amazon and cannot be modified. If you find an error in a recap for one of your books, please contact us.
April 21, 2025 at 4:09 AM
distractedhermit.bsky.social
A close-up pic of a bowl of reddish potato chips
February 4, 2025 at 10:31 PM
distractedhermit.bsky.social
Stress cravings. It's been so long 😔
#blacksky
A shipping box filled with family size Better Made Red Hot barbecue chips. Don't judge me. One of my cats, a Siamese, can be seen in the corner of the photo watching curiously. She gets none
February 4, 2025 at 10:27 PM
distractedhermit.bsky.social
OnlyPosts is my favorite feed, but I do get this a lot. Can't tell if the maintainer is still active
A screenshot of an error message when trying to access the OnlyPosts Bluesky feed, which says Message from server: Not Enough Resources
January 18, 2025 at 6:00 AM
distractedhermit.bsky.social
Publishers: Let your nonfiction authors skip editing (and even writing) with... AI! 🙃

"What would your business’ performance look like if non-fiction authors submitted original, high-quality book manuscripts needing little to no editing on time?"

Planned seminar for this year's London Book Fair
A planned talk for "How Non-Fiction Publishing Leaders Can Reliably Leverage AI-Assisted Author Content to Optimise Revenue & Production Time" is described as: What would your business’ performance look like if non-fiction authors submitted original, high-quality book manuscripts needing little to no editing on time? Most publishers lose significant revenue waiting for authors who struggle to produce work worth publishing. Some books take years to materialize, others never do. There is no doubt AI is disrupting the publishing industry, bringing some ethical and legal challenges with it. But if AI-assisted content can be harnessed in the right way, the growth opportunities available to publishers are enormous. This talk explores the role of AI in non-fiction author content and showcases the latest innovation in non-fiction book production.
January 16, 2025 at 9:41 PM
distractedhermit.bsky.social
That canceled tv show you’ll never stop thinking about…

I found this show relatively late. When I discovered there was only one season, I was *upset.*
The TV show art of the show Sakho & Mangane. It shows the two main leads walking with guns in their hands in the sun, and wearing sunglasses.
November 17, 2024 at 7:00 AM
distractedhermit.bsky.social
I'm indie now. My next release currently in editing is a science fiction short story collection: Three Stories in D Minor. Melancholy imaginings of futures for three different black women.

Coming next year, while I work on another pen name that will stay separate to maintain its own space.
The book cover for Three Stories in D Minor, my upcoming release of black speculative futuristic wanderings. It features a black woman with neon, decorative paint markings on her face that glow under a black light. Her eyes are closed, and she's looking down; the mood is somber.
November 14, 2024 at 3:53 AM