Philip Brewer

Writer: science fiction and fantasy, personal finance, and Esperanto

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← 2024-09-27 12:56
Helene isn’t some unpredictable catastrophe →

2024-09-28 07:13

Posted on 2024-09-28
by Philip Brewer

Most years about this time I’ll see a couple praying mantises, like this one I saw yesterday.

A green and brown praying mantis standing on the edge of the roadway

Possibly related posts (auto-generated):

  • 2025-04-20 19:42
  • 2025-04-19 10:15
  • 2025-04-18 12:08
Posted in News, Photography | Tagged Photography, praying mantis

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← 2024-09-27 12:56
Helene isn’t some unpredictable catastrophe →

Philip Brewer

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I write science fiction and fantasy stories.

I speak Esperanto, and use it to communicate internationally. Esperantistoj, legu mian esperantan hejmpaĝon.

For a while I taught Taiji.

For eleven years I was a senior writer at Wise Bread, writing about personal finance and frugality.

Before that I spent a quarter-century as a software engineer.

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  • Ashley Price
  • Beth Adele Long
  • Jackie Brewer
  • Kelly Searsmith
  • Marissa Lingen
  • Martha J. Allard
  • Mary Turzillo
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  • Richard Brewer
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  • Steven Brewer
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Esperanto

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My microblog

Got my rings out! Me at the top of an inverted row using gymnastic rings : philipbrewer.micro.blog

2025-04-23 2:27 pm

The flowers in bloom on our patio.

Columbine bloomColumbineGolden alexander bloomGolden alexanderVioletsVioletsDandelions Dandelions
2025-04-22 4:00 pm

Fix Social Security by Fixing Society: philipbrewer.micro.blog

2025-04-22 11:54 am
In the run-up to the campaign I saw reports of young people, frustrated that Biden hadn’t managed to do the huge student loan forgiveness that he’d tried to do, say that they weren’t going to vote for him or for Kamala. “If he can’t get this thing done, why should I support him?” Here’s why:“Beginning May 5, the department will begin involuntary collection through the Treasury Department’s offset program, which withholds payments from the government — including tax refunds, federal salaries, and other benefits — from people with past-due debts to the government. After a 30-day notice, the departmen... philipbrewer.micro.blog
2025-04-21 3:46 pm

Remember Verner Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep, and its “net of a million lies”? I wonder what he’d write about a “net of a billion bots talking to each other.”

2025-04-21 7:28 am
A dog lying on the floorAshley during cocktail hour.A dog with her snout in your faceAshley one second after someone says, “Well, I think we’ve reached the end of cocktail hour…”
2025-04-20 7:48 pm

Clearly the move here is to come up with a large language model that writes really good prose that advocates for the policies that you want.

The draft says the department must greatly expand its use of artificial intelligence to help draft documents, and to undertake “policy development and review” and “operational planning.”

—https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04/20/us/trump-news#trump-state-department-overhaul

No doubt other people thought of this before me. I wonder how far along they are?

2025-04-20 9:38 am

Poor Ms. Feuerstein. She just suffers and suffers. I bet she’s as tired as the rest of us of the Leopards-Eating-Faces jokes.

China has long relied on the U.S. for soybeans. But with new steep tariffs, it is likely to look even more to Brazil and Argentina.

Source: How Trump’s Tariffs Could Hurt US Farmers and Benefit Brazil – The New York Times

2025-04-20 9:28 am
When Ashley was a puppy, she was pretty bad about chewing up stuff. As a stop-gap measure, we piled a bunch of stuff on the window seat, which put it out of reach of puppy-Ashley’s jaws.The stop-gap ended up lasting about two years. But today I finally cleared the window seat, so Jackie and I can sit and... philipbrewer.micro.blog
2025-04-19 10:22 am

Jackie has a Big Grove old fashioned, which she says is very good. I have the Destilh ILL-IPA. I haven’t had one since they closed their local restaurant early in the pandemic.

2025-04-18 12:11 pm

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