Stephen Ramsay

@sramsay@hcommons.social
740 Followers
218 Following
245 Posts

Associate Professor of English and Fellow at the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Writer of books. Mainly #DigitalHumanities.

Way into #Linux #Programming (esp. #CLIs and #TUIs). I teach all that, plus #TheoryOfNewMedia, #TheaterHistory, and #BibleAsLit. Fanatical about #ElectronicMusic, #FountainPens, and #Coffee. The audio half of Perlin Trio. I always come back to C.

Thoughts are my own. I think.

Homepagehttps://stephenramsay.net
Perlin Triohttps://vimeo.com/user1776782
ORCID IDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-7741-9219
SourceHuthttps://git.sr.ht/~sramsay/
Stephen RamsayJun 3

I still shutdown a Linux machine as if it's the Clinton administration, and I'm not sure I can stop:

$ sync
$ sync
$ shutdown -h now

#Linux #Greybeard

Stephen RamsayMay 17

It is important to serve your guests *la salade* after the main course. In fact, don't even ask them! Bring it to the table without delay. It aids digestion and rekindles the appetite. So even if you serve *Silent Spring* or *Cobalt Red,* it's perfectly acceptable to go right into Baker's *The Peregrine,* Walton's *The Compleat Angler,* or even Kamo no Chōmei's *Story of My Hut (Hōjōki) without delay. They'll all be glad you did.

#LiteraryMenus

Stephen RamsayMay 17

For many years, I've thought that Brian Cantwell Smith has been a neglected thinker in theory circles (whether that's cultural studies, "meta-DH," theory of new media, software studies, critical code studies). Anyone out there ever put *On the Origin of Objects* on their syllabi?

#DH #theory

Stephen RamsayMay 15
I'm thinking of starting a series of Mastodon posts that puts forth a summer reading list like a kind of menu. "Marcuse's *One Dimensional Man* pairs well with Gracián's "How to Use Your Enemies." Both are about constraint, but one is modern capitalism and the other is the Baroque Court. So sip Gracián’s tactical cynicism when Marcuse’s hope starts to fade. For a late night amuse-bouche, you might consider re-reading Patient Griselda (in any recension). Also about constraint, of course. But its misogyny is so over-the-top, that you begin to wonder if this is actually just straight up BDSM lit that somehow got seared into Western consciousness. At which point you realize the story might actually be, against all odds, funny."
Stephen RamsayMay 12

TIL about Zathura, which is "a highly customizable and functional document viewer" that is written in C, uses a plugin architecture, and understands vi-keystrokes. A little niche -- okay, a lot -- but man, this thing is fantastic.

I hate most ePUB readers. They're either too bloated (Calibre) or they're nicely minimalistic but don't, um work (Foliate, at least for me). This one is just perfect.

https://pwmt.org/projects/zathura/

#Linux #ePUB

pwmt.org

Stephen RamsayMay 7
Sometimes I wonder if, in the humanities, "taking a deep dive" on something is going to mean, you know, reading the actual books in which a particular argument is made. Or reading something where the plot is not summarized because . . . it is part of the content of the actual story. Sort of the way "slow food" used to be called, you know, "food."
Stephen RamsayMay 1

If you're doing tech stuff for local activists, ask yourself this: Can I, right now, pass this whole thing on to someone who knows basically nothing about how any of this works?

And lest I sound like some kind of scold: I have not always done this, and I'm not sure I'm doing it right now.

But it's a variation on the first rule of activism: If you're not finding most of it super boring, you're probably doing it wrong. Tech folks want to be clever, but in this space, you want to be doing something that feels slightly beneath you. And you really need to have it so well laid and well documented that they don't actually need *you* to do it.

Stephen RamsayApr 28
Neil BrownApr 28

How far can a toot travel in the fediverse?

I chatted recently with someone who complained that the fediverse lacked "reach".

So I'm curious: if you are up for it, could you please reply to this toot (which started life on single user instance on a tiny computer in a garage in the United Kingdom) saying which country you are in?

Edit: 12 hours, 74 countries: https://neilzone.co.uk/2025/04/a-toot-travelled-to-fediverse-users-in-53-countries-in-12-hours/

A toot travelled to fediverse users in 77 countries in 12 hours

A little over 12 hours ago - yesterday evening, at around 20:07 UTC +1, I tooted:

Stephen RamsayApr 28

I wonder when the next wave of people coming on to Mastodon will be?

I suppose the answer is "maybe never," since people seem to have convinced themselves that Bluesky is not a corporate platform. Or that it is a "nice" corporate platform. Or that there was ever any truth to the whole "don't be evil" thing when it comes to commercial concerns. Or that "benefit corporation" means "like a non-profit." Or that the whole thing can't be backdoored, because . . . Dorsey is a nice guy? He's not building rockets? Or that "decentralized" means exactly what it means in the Fediverse or . . .

Stephen RamsayApr 17

Am I the only one who's bothered by phrases like "compute device" and "amount of compute?"

I just seen no reason for it. What's the solution to this math problem? Oh, let me check how much calculate I have.

Yes, this a lovely kitchen. Obviously, there's a lot of cook in here.