yabbut so many of the words I don't know how to pronounce are borrowings from other languages, the English pronunciations of which are completely unpredictable. Chaise lounge?? getouttaheah
Environmental public health scientist. Owner, Bear & Bee Bookshop @bearbeebooks.bsky.social . Trans š³ļøāā§ļøš³ļøāš BLMāš¼ 326 š§ Todo para todos. Unceded land of the MuhĀ·heĀ·conĀ·neĀ·ok, Western Mass.
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yabbut so many of the words I don't know how to pronounce are borrowings from other languages, the English pronunciations of which are completely unpredictable. Chaise lounge?? getouttaheah
The bad actors here are those who make GN the D candidate, not the people who vote against a bad candidate. The idea that we should not throw ANY groups of people under the bus is hardly "purism"; it's a minimum standard of decency. Just don't run a transphobe for Pres & it won't be an issue.
damn but "Blueberry Back Pain" is hitting way too close to home
I was hoping for more/bigger explosions. Congrats to team, except for the one guy at the top.
I've been thinking for years that the single biggest contribution could be perfecting and open-sourcing a simple & non-toxic iron-air battery. Having easy access to stored power without rare earths or toxic impacts would be a game changer... and would dovetail perfectly with a flood of new PV.
Quite a journey for someone who started their career as a genuine and historically important environmentalist. Those worms are powerful little suckers.
This is utterly insane, and it's such a blatant attempt to use simple political leverage shorn of any logical or factual basis. It sure does make Green Oceans sound like fossil fuel lobbyists, too. It's hard to imagine anyone else behaving this way.
This is the mindset of someone who thinks that Risk is a good model for fighting wars in the real world.
Might have been a good idea if the reporter, like, corrected him on that.
Q. Should there be limits to the liberties that wealthy white people are allowed to take? A. Oh fuck yes.
same please!
now if we could just get her to run Newsom
Still a dream of mine. I spent 3 weeks in NL years ago and I loved it so much, but nobody wants Americans now :-(
"Arabic"?
and when we did go out it was 1am - 4am at Denny's, spending a total of $23 on coffees and one Grand Slam for a table of 6. Fun was extremely efficient back then
Illinois is launching a first-of-its-kind legal hotline for LGBTQ+ individuals ā Illinois Pride Connect. As the only state in the nation that will provide free legal advice to protect the LGBTQ+ community, we'll help fight ignorance with information and cruelty with compassion.
Absolutely wild role for Spike Jonze, too. Great movie
now if they had had that warning on Frankenberries in the late 1970s it would have saved me an awkward swollen-faced day at school
Bare minimum for holding a conversation: Rock for Light, Sandinista!, Revolution Girl Style Now, Low End Theory, 13 Songs, Personal Best, It Takes a Nation of Millions, Big Science, Rid of Me
Framing human rights in terms of "the average" explicitly means discarding those seen as "less than average", including the sick. That's just eugenics. It's exactly how eugenics operates. It's an explicitly eugenicist position. These people should be shunned
As a professional public health scientist I can't believe I have to remind "journalists" that the whole fucking point of public health is not to protect the *average* but to protect the *vulnerable*. Protecting the vulnerable protects everyone. The framing here is murderous, apologetic, eugenicist
Holy shit.
... but you can't let it get damp during use, right? Could we stop looking for magical technological solutions and deal with the actual problems at hand, maybe?
I just canāt find the humor in the false fear generated by Republicans in DC because itās not sincere and itās not really funny, itās their way of saying that Black people donāt belong in society, that Black people are inherently unsafe, and that itās worth using violence to segregate us.
It's absolutely uncanny how spot-on he was in that letter, over 60 years ago. So little has changed :-(
I see we're really stretching the definitions of both "data" and "guru"
goodness, I see that I left out a key word: "To be generous, I would say they are not *intended*..."
oh, absolutely, and I think that "literary SF" encompasses the work of a number of people who might prefer the term "speculative fiction". I probably use those two terms rather too interchangeably. In this case I was using "speculative" in part to soften the blow for my anti-Sci-Fi friend...
Agreed, and yes, "deus ex machina" is the term I was looking for. It's frustrating to read a whodunit solved by "deus ex machina", and it rather misses the point of the genre. The Three Laws were a key exercise in thinking aloud about consequences of robotics, and as such are still valuable today.
I recently gave "Sea of Tranquility" to a friend who is rather snobbisly literary, and who dismissively disclaimed any interest in SF (although she hadn't read any). She *could not* stop talking about it. Yes, I said, that's "speculative fiction", as written by Le Guin & Russ & Atwood & Jemison &...
Asimov was a phenomenal idea generator, but his concern was in getting those ideas out there (as many and as quickly as possible), and maybe not so much on writing fiction. Clarke was also an impressive idea generator, but at least tried to write fully-fledged tales, and was pretty ok at it.
Foundation, too. The first consists of standalone chapters (set years apart) each of which is a potted detective story (& expands a bit on psychohistory). But they're the kind of whodunit where the reader doesn't have enuf info to participate; we're just supposed to be wowed by the protag's skills.
I think this is key to Asimov's writing in general. The robot stories were logic puzzles and exercises in exploring the logical consequences of the Three Laws. To be generous, I would say they are *intended* to be wholly-formed worlds or to constitute the basis for a major genre of literature...
Mass revolt from queer authors in the UK after a major LGBTQ+ writing prize longlisted a self-proclaimed TERF. 11 authors and 2 judges have withdrawn from the Polari Prize. One of those withdrawals, that of June Thomas, is newly confirmed by our reporter, @evanurquhart.bsky.social. Read more here:
Counterpoint: The crusty misogynist historical faves are *the* reason that so many people today won't even consider reading SF. I can't tell you how many serious readers I talk to, esp women, who think they have no interest in SF and won't even give it a try because they think it's all "I, Robot".
The*only* woman in the first book is there because she's wearing a macguffin for one of the dumb detective plots. But that's not the only, or even biggest, reason that Foundation is trash. We can honor its historical importance, but for gods sake don't encourage new SF readers to waste their time.
Everything is either a linear model or some totally unjustifiable local thing like a spline. I mean, I love a spline, but come on
the kind of dude that knows when something's luxury because it says so in big letters on the box. They have aisles and aisles of stuff at Home Depot for guys like this
the king of the goldish geegaws.
Came here to say this. No evidence of spread for range of college semester end dates; and most K-12 schools I know run much later than this, well into June. That sharp drop right at the beginning of June is just *too* abrupt. Great theory though!
yikes that last line
I am not the first person to observe that Rasputin fuuuuuuuuuucked. and today's clown car brigade? very much hell naw
It's illegal to ride in the back of a moving truck. Maybe the local police would be interested?
tbh I would totally call it that if I knew it would hurt the AI's feelings
omg I really hope it's gonna come and wash away the rain. And I'm not talking weather
I GOT A LETTER FROM THE GOVERNMENT THE OTHER DAY
oh, fuck right off
I wouldn't say "supplanted". Not by a long shot.
The Supreme Court threw out all such restrictions. Now we'd have to pass a constitutional amendment to make that happen. Unfortunately, I think we're fucked
Sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays!
yeah and those shimmery-ass feathers ain't fooling anyone. They're probably all slimy
Transgender people aren't even close to the real problem. We just show everyone what the real problem is, which is that standards for women are so severe society thinks it's ok to destroy you if you don't meet them.
This could be a theoretical tactical victory, but it's a guaranteed strategic failure and an ethical travesty. It would be a good move for a computer playing at political simulations, but an impossible move for anyone with a spine.
I learned this phrase from The Hobbit and I didn't understand it when I was eight and I don't think I understand it now. (Ok, I totally understand the Spanish version, tho.)
August is here, which means the Philly Bookstore Crawl is almost upon us! 45 stores, dozens of authors, tons of events and giveaways in the region. Itās a huge labor of love of mine, and I hope youāll come out and celebrate the areaās bookstore scene. ā¤ļø www.phillybookstorecrawl.com
ah, the beauty of this solution is that it turns Kissinger's "dagger pointing straight at the heart of Antarctica" into a kind of two-handed Darth Maul dagger that manages to threaten both poles at once. Let's do it.
Have to repost this periodically
Similarly: Blessed were the days before you read a Presidentās message. Blessed are the young, for they do not read the Presidentās message. Blessed are they who never read a newspaper, for they shall see Nature, and through her, God. ā HDT, Letter to Parker Pillsbury, April 10, 1861
This video was the absolute peak of computer graphics and it has all been downhill since then. Come to think of it, it may have been the peak of all use of computers ever
I wonder if some of the $500 billion that jackoffs like Sam Altman and Zuckerberg are spending on AI this year could be used to help solve that problem
now available, only on vinyl
Boots is always spittin fire "knock knock motherfucker yes once again I'll make you pay for your sins in the trunk of your Benz"
I can't believe I've never read this, but "Riddley Walker" is one of my all-time favorites! Also, last year I ordered a whole set of the Frances books for a customer and was stunned that I'd never made the connection before š®
Not aware of any such campaign, and I'm definitely not the organizer!!
I've taught at Brown several times and it was always a great experience at a smart, community-minded institution. Never again. The level of cowardice and the willingness to comply is absolutely shameful and baffling. I would not willingly associate myself with them again.
this might be the only take If someone made a GoFundMe to support Talia taking up their last two swords and going on a Quest to find this mofo, I would contribute
Fantastic article. Thanks for debunking.
This @today.yougov.com poll is why I'm going to become the Joker. The US murder rate in 2024 was likely down nearly 30 percent relative to 2020 and down nearly 50 percent relative to 1990.
I call anti-charm
Water for irrigation is an entirely different thing. Potable water is treated to extremely stringent conditions at great expense and energy cost. No one has ever measured drinking water delivery in acre-feet :-/
EXACTLY
wistfully recalling that brief period between the passage of Obamacare and the start of COVID -- almost exactly a decade -- when people with "pre-existing conditions" had the same value as everyone else
Q: In Mass v EPA, SCOTUS agreed that EPA couldn't just decide not to regulate CO2, but had to justify that decision - thus the endangerment finding. Doesn't that ruling still require EPA to justify their action/no-action on CO2? Doesn't it prevent EPA from scrapping the EF just because they want to?
Is there another way to store tupperware??
Thatās how much they hate us. Theyāre burning birth control.
oh I just went with DOCX PPTX
@chanda.bsky.social Could you DM me?
It may have flaws (like any movie) but it's one of my all-time faves. Garland was the perfect director for it, and I give him so much credit for sticking to his vision and taking chances, especially in our world of Marvel clones. Incredible cast, and fantastically evocative soundtrack as well.
The other 150 commenters didn't seem to have any trouble. Sounds like a skill issue on your part.
Sent. Thanks!
hey @signal.org @meredithmeredith.bsky.social, today Signal tells me that there is "something wrong with your username", & if I try to fix it as it was, it says a username can't have a "." in it. Wha? Huh? It's been on my biz cards and in my sig for literally a year - please don't make me change it!
You came for the Goats? Are you staying tonight? Come visit the bookshop and say hi!
Newsom has made some terrible choices in the last few months, but the idea that he'll throw people like me under the bus is an obvious dealbreaker for me - as it would be, btw, were he offering to throw *any other* group under the bus. We've got years b4 the next election; we can do SO MUCH better.
I never even got close š
pfft, that's just wasteful. You could just suspend the kid between a couple of drones and you don't even need the car seat.
a bit disappointed that there's no way to access either the talk or the tamales remotely š
This is incredible. I've never read anything like it.
The first half of Anathem was stunning world-building, but the second half fell apart for me. I had exactly the same reaction to Seveneves, too š
I cannot imagine being personally influenced by Wolfe! What an incredible & incredibly daunting mentor!
I wonder how different my intellectual and political life would be if I'd read the Parable novels at a younger age; I didn't find them until about 40 (!). The same goes for Le Guin. In retrospect, the dominant and very male early SF (Asimov, Clarke, etc) were too narrow a diet for a growing brain.
A second, very different list: A Wrinkle in Time and The Hobbit turned me into a passionate lifelong reader. Everything by Niven got me into hard SF, and eventually helped define my politics (by counterexample). Book of the Long Sun and Zone One showed me how beautifully written SFF could be.
Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven, for lessons about creating the future. Atwood, the Oryx & Crake trilogy, for terrifying visions of possible futures. N.B. These were all critical to my understanding of the world, but my favorites would be a very different list!
Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles, which I understood at a young age to be a story of colonialism. Stephenson, Zodiac, which I read at just the right time to push me further into environmentalism. Robinson, Ministry for the Future, which I didn't necessarily enjoy but can't stop thinking about.
I always thought he had kind of a confusing Gandalf-as-Santa vibe, which I feel pretty unsure about.
I would personally burn down an antebellum mansion in exchange for one (1) meal of Ethiopian food yes it is in fact that good what is that guy talking about
Is his arm a weird size and Photoshopped on at a funny angle on the GH cover? The more I look at it, the more it's freaking me out
Dudes thinking that this is the female gaze *is* toxic masculinity
oh SHIT I would watch the HELL out of that
love Tri-X