For some stories, the first time you read them sticks in your memory like a splinter of glass. For me, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is one, and Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains” is another. And the second one all happens today… short-stories.co/@raybradbury...

There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury

The voice-clock sang, breakfast was ejected, but no doors slammed. The garage chimed and lifted its door to reveal the waiting car. The house sat alone in a city of rubble and…

short-stories.co

A. E. Bennett@aebennettwrites.bsky.social · yesterday

Happy "There Will Come Soft Rains" Day to all who celebrate!

Finally a toilet for people who just want a quiet place to pet their duck.

Half the planet is having a massive fight about how to correctly interpret an Ancient Greek poem but go ahead, close some more humanities departments.

This aught to be illegal ... "AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare books" www.news.com.au/technology/o...

AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare books

If you have retreated to physical books because the internet is too full of AI slop, bad news — now they’re shredding the books to feed their AI slop machines.

news.com.au

DNA Evidence Frees Black Man Convicted Of Bear Attack

Why is it an insult to call some place a “one-horse town?” They’re doing okay. They’ve got a horse

I’ve been standing stock still in this wood for about 10 minutes while I mess about with a photo on my phone. I look up, notice the shape, and slowly crouch down to film This has made me so happy I feel I could cry. It’s as close to magic as I hope to get.

BEHOLD! One of Earth's greatest lineages of life: the lil wiggle arm guys, Meteora. These single-celled critters, originally found in deep-sea sediments, are SO DIFFERENT from other lifeforms on Earth that they're likely in their own kingdom (as in, the Animal Kingdom, the Plant Kingdom etc). 🧪🌿

#OtD 23 Jul 1944 19-year-old French resistance fighter Madeleine Riffaud saw a Nazi officer walking in Paris. She took out her gun and shot him twice in the head. Captured by French collaborators, she survived a concentration camp and lived to age 100 stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9570...

“The open book fountain designed like a book being turned page by page. This fountain is located in Egyetem Square in Budapest, Hungary, and is known as the Open Book Fountain.

Genuinely thought this bin was levitating

So, happy 22nd birthday, this photo caption – which appeared in Selkirk paper the Southern Reporter below pictures of St Ronan’s Games Week and Cleekum Ceremonies in Innerleithen

Meta are sending Fucko the Knife Robot to stab you in the knee. To disable go to Accounts> Settings> Robots> Knife Robots> Fucko> Opt Out

Brutal photo caption from The Guardian: “Gianni Infantino carefully explains to Donald Trump that he is not part of the Spanish national team.”

Thank fuck for that

Great job 👏

What’s the cultural reference you must frequently have to stop yourself from making at work, because no-one else would get it? Mine is “ze price stabilité is ze most important thing”.

Why I’m a fan of the Oxford comma.

Made another low-quality ad board video. Fifty seconds of your life you’ll never see again. .

Colombia v Switzerland being referred to as Charlie v The Chocolate Factory.

Can’t sleep? Simple methods that work: • study hurricane forecast • who hates me • what did i forget • relive supreme humiliation • win 12-yr-old argument • buried alive? could happen • what i did vs should have done • dead people i miss • what if i’m bad • why do i say stuff • what’s my fuckin deal

All of France is scorching hot today. Except for one village in the northwest...

‘Aye, well you know it grows so fast this time of year, you just have to keep on top of it...oh, she’s fine, thanks for asking, she’s erm, she’s staying at her mum’s for a bit.’

this may well be the defining joke of our era theonion.com/guy-who-suck...

Guy Who Sucks At Being A Person Sees Huge Potential In AI

SAN MATEO, CA—After spending the past three decades of his life being totally unable and unwilling to engage in any meaningful way with the world around him, James Parker, a local guy who sucks at bei...

theonion.com

This photo is one of the earliest photographic portraits of a human being ever made, and also - maybe - the second known self-portrait in history. The man looking back at you is Robert Cornelius, who took this in late 1839, in the yard behind his family's business in Philadelphia.

a little on the nose for capitalism that the world’s first trillionaire is a nazi conman

Complaining about nightlife when you *checks notes* choose to live in Soho is like living in South Kensington and complaining about the museums. Or moving to Hackney and grumbling about creatives. Living in Richmond and hating green space. It's all getting a bit silly, isn't it?

Condemning riots isn't enough. We need policy action, including an immediate appraisal of X as a vehicle for coordinating far-right disorder. And we need political leadership, to challenge white nationalism as an idea, not to validate it daily and then complain when it turns violent.

Immigrants & asylum seekers are not our enemies. They are not responsible for the austerity, privatisation, erosion of civic life, thinning of democracy and concentration of power we suffer. But they're being punished for these things. Punished at the behest of the very people who *are* responsible.