I had a moment and wrote a small screed on the other site. www.threads.com/share/E8VcMb...

If there's a thing I hate more than cleaning up admin tasks that other people have left disorganized I don't know what it is. I am not a person who enjoys tedious administrative stuff (people do exist who do!) and yet I apply myself to try my best. It offends me to clean up after someone worse.

Past me really f*cked around and wrote "They go to the next village or something here" in this draft, and I am not happy with her.

I have a cold. I am not used to being able to take cold medicine, and forgot that people could effectively mask their symptoms and just move through life. Modern medicine is wild.

Saw a lovely little flicker in the backyard this morning, probably migrating through and taking advantage of the freshly weeded flowerbed. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northe...

Northern Flicker Identification, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Northern Flickers are large, brown woodpeckers with a gentle expression and handsome black-scalloped plumage. On walks, don’t be surprised if you scare one up from the ground. It’s not where you’d exp...

allaboutbirds.org

I am due to update my event swag. Everyone on threads wants buttons. Are the people on threads loquita or do you actually want buttons?

Every night as his father carries him from the bathroom to the bedroom, my toddler points at the attic access and announces: “We’re not going up there today.” I am beginning to worry about what might be up in my attic.

Quite possibly need to take up a hand task to be able to not reach for my phone all day and think my own thoughts. What non-word-based hand tasks could I take up? Knitting is high up there...but I feel like I've tried and failed that one a few times now.

I, a writer, have no idea how to quickly summarize the level of chaos that is happening in the dayjob office right now.

This is reminding me of Paolo Bacigalupi's Wind-up Girl, but with books instead of fruits.

Stina Leicht@stinaleicht.bsky.social · 2w ago

fyi, they’ve already re-input the slop. (that’s why ai is even more error-ridden.) ai companies had to stop bc feeding ai slop to itself was a big mistake. this won’t work either bc there isn’t enough data to make plagerism toaster sentient or sapient. (their end goal. it’s basically a cult now.)

Sign up here to get told when the crowdfund goes live...almost ready, I promise!

Neon Hemlock@neonhemlock.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Gearing up to start promo for our next novella series! This will be another set of novellas alongside a short story collection, with an especial interest in queer speculative fiction. You can sign up here to get notified when we go live: www.kickstarter.com/projects/dav...

I was happy to offer words of remembrance for Rod last week.

Remembering a prolific Roanoke sci-fi and fantasy author

Roanoke's sci-fi, fantasy and writing communities are mourning the passing of Rod Belcher, who published ten novels and a swath of short stories.

wvtf.org

Last year I decided to put my health first and take an extended break from paid illustration. I found I had an inexplicable compulsion to document all the birds I can see from my house in the most time consuming way possible. Some predators:

Very occasionally I develop the deep desire to throw a lot of money at some kind of special anthology project. Then I realize that I can barely keep up with my own writing. But the temptation remains...

I was today years old when I realized this was not just a continental spelling difference.

Benjamin Dreyer@bcdreyer.social · 2w ago

I don't much care for mnemonic devices—I can't remember them, har-de-har-har but it's true—but "discrete" means separate, and the two e's in "discrete" are separate.

Wow the tomato salsa I ate is not agreeing with me, surprise. What god did I, a resident of the Appalachian Mountains in tomato season, offend?

I think the notion that a super-intelligent AI would be able to convince anyone to do anything across an air gap is a bit of a joke—but the current market makes more sense if slime-mold language models have "convinced" self-impressed idiots with a lot of money to get them more food

Todd Vaziri@tvaziri.com · 3w ago

“A.I. Movies” www.tiktok.com/@americanbar...

Whenever someone near me passes, I spend a lot of time pondering the simple pleasures of life. Today's simple pleasure is duck sauce. Will there be duck sauce in the (potential) afterlife? I guess it depends how carnal your afterlife feels. Anyway, duck sauce and spring rolls. They're good.

Is the Gen Z pitch meme still a thing, or did I miss the boat?

Contemplating the phrase "lucked out" this morning, which I always took to mean that you were out of luck, but which people often use to mean that they are in luck. The mysteries of language.

What do you do when family needs you? Step up, step out, and drown the man who is responsible. Now available from Interstellar Flight Press, an Appalachian horror story that's as haunting as a river's wide. www.interstellarflig...

Huge new class action lawsuit filed by big publishers and authors against Google this week over AI training. It accuses Google of taking millions of books / articles provided to them for use only in Google Books, Google Play Books, and Google Scholar, and secretly using them to train LLMs. 🧵 1/4

The most relatable post I've ever seen.

Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA@arrianna-planey.bsky.social · 6mo ago

YES!!!! I have a slide saying exactly this. 70-80% of project time will be spent on data wrangling/management

I possibly need to accept a mild allergy to tomatoes. I do not want to accept this.

I know this is some metaphysical shit, but wow there is a door open and people are passing through.

I did not know it was possible to insert a watermark via a header/footer. Some helpful internet soul just saved me from panic.

Note to self

Discovered today that a writing friend I have not seen for a while is experiencing his last days. It is a special grief when an artist's flame goes out.

I need to make travel plans for an event that is coming up, but the only travel I am currently interested in is to a beach resort with full service. And that is not where I am going.

Folks, I appear to have a tiny slew of events building up this fall.