Vanakkam! Does anyone know any BRYOLOGISTS? We are looking for someone who has researched moss species in South India (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh) to collaborate with us on a small project. Kindly DM. Mikka Nandri!

As much as radicals get criticized for being "unrealistic," demanding entire demographics facing literal genocide always maintain mild rhetoric and actions is an absolutely delusional level of conformity to expect. I don't think that gets said enough.

A coalition of orgs and people who have been fighting caste-based oppression and discrimination. An explicitly ‘anti-caste andolan’ which can do the memes and jokes while also educating, organising, and agitating. …fin, for now.

Some may understand why reservation needs to continue to exist. Others will only see that they are not getting what they think they deserve, that almost 80 years of reservation is enough to correct for historic inequalities. I personally know people who are kind, gentle, anti-oppression, …5

Recent development: an ‘anti-reservation andolan’ started by a handle with BJP ties. This is a canny move, a powerful divide-and-rule gambit. Many from privileged caste ancestry sincerely believe reservation deprives them of opportunities, like getting into elite colleges, government jobs. …2

L@galatfemme.bsky.social · last wk.

if the left doesn't act pronto shiv sena and mns are gonna scoop these kids up

Dr Bhimrao ‘Babasaheb’ Ambedkar’s famous exhortation to the oppressed castes.

L@galatfemme.bsky.social · last wk.

if the left doesn't act pronto shiv sena and mns are gonna scoop these kids up

L@galatfemme.bsky.social · 2w ago

CJP may fold but in the student group chat the immediate response was 'Modi next' and 'Amit Shah next'. They're riled up and finding community and realising from this one small victory that more is possible. I hope to god the CPI, Congress et al don't squander this chance

#Breaking | #DharmendraPradhan said he submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi so that “anti-national forces” do not take advantage of the ongoing protests, and so that no student “gets embroiled in legal battles”. Read more: scroll.in/latest/10945...

An awesome thread of protest signs on India... (Some Hindi required)

L@galatfemme.bsky.social · 2w ago

some protest signs this week

some protest signs this week

FYI the Kindle ebook of The Devourers by @indrapramitdas.bsky.social is 1.99 USD right now, the lowest I've ever seen it. Highly recommend this violent visceral trans shapeshifting werewolves revenge fantasy in Mughal India! www.amazon.com/dp/B016TG5RLK

It's #InternationalNonbinaryPeoplesDay and I'm a nonbinary author with lots of nonbinary books! I have art thieves, assassins, shapeshifting demigods, knights and immortal butches - so, you know, something for everyone. riengray.shop www.amazon.com/stores/Rien-...

Cached US #KindleBookGiveaway, courtesy of @galatfemme.bsky.social: 6 copies of Some Desperate Glory by @emilytesh.net, which I *have* and *have read* and *have enjoyed* and *have given out before*. It's a very good Groundhog Day variant.

It does sadly is my point. bsky.app/profile/oliv...

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · last mo.

New preprint! So honoured to have worked with Ishani Ray on providing vital critique on "AI literacy" & correctives for those interested in understanding why "just use the newest version of an LLM" is nonsense Contra Literacy-Laundering: Mechanistic Critical AI Literacy doi.org/10.5281/zeno... 1/

Please consider not saying that some AI models or some statistical models are good, useful, beneficial, whatever else positive, in science if it's not your research area. It's ok not to know things. It's ok not to both side things. It's ok to ask colleagues who are experts.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 2mo ago

If you're anti AI & making claims that some of the models under the AI umbrella are ok because they seem to be serving scientific goals, then you fell for a type of hype. One from the 2010s; stats models aren't blessed by their use in science and they can erode our thinking. bsky.app/profile/oliv...

Toni Morrison said, “Art does not cleanse you and make you morally superior... even when it has a very strong political content. The artist himself is not made any better. I still have to try to be the best person I can be.” Art, scholarship, or activism––there’s the work and then there’s the work.

Cached US #KindleBookGiveaway, courtesy of @galatfemme.bsky.social: 10 copies of Of Monsters and Mainframes, by Barbara Truelove, which I *have* but *haven't read*, so please let me know what you think...

If you're daydreaming this summer of alien worlds and fantastical alternate histories, here’s an opportunity to indulge. For 2023's Summer Reading Series, we had Samit Basu, Cat Rambo, Mary Anne Mohanraj, and Benjamin Rosenbaum share their perspectives. You can watch them on YouTube: bit.ly/4xVA1hv

I was reading this thread — starts here: bsky.app/profile/clai... — by @clairewillett.bsky.social last night, and today I came to these pages in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.

Cached US #KindleBookGiveaway, courtesy of @galatfemme.bsky.social: 6 copies of Passing Strange, by Ellen Klages, which I *have* but *haven't read*, so if you read it, please let me know what you think.

so what's the latest schisme ☕

As pointed out by @galatfemme.bsky.social, The Jasmine Throne (The Burning Kingdoms Book 1) by @tashasuri.bsky.social is on US ebook sale for $2; I got a copy for myself and some for random giveaway.

#KindleBookGiveAway 5 copies of Moonbound by Robin Sloan. US Only. Part of his Penumbraverse, it is one of the craziest books I've read outside of the Library at Mount Char. But kinder and more hopeful too. So, who wants a copy?

Because if you could analyze what sex scenes they're talking about, chances are, they might have a purpose! Or maybe they're badly crafted, but the entire thing they're attached to is badly crafted also, and sex isn't even the issue. So unless you're going to cite your sources, hush.

Going forward, anyone who wants to complain about sex scenes in media has to link the actual scene they're talking about. For some reason, they never name names and it's this Ur Sex Scene Haunting the Plot. Chances are, it's not something they even watched personally. It's a clip out of context.

One of the greatest pleasures in life is being snugly tucked in a bed twice your size

The rain is so loud I can't even hear the tickytockies playing on my phone

As an Indian watching my country routinely burn through multiple summers with massive death and disability tolls, I gotta say, Im quite fed up with heat and AC discourse. No one gives a fuck when its poor brown people dying in their thousands "somewhere else"

Lynda Barry did not squeeze your heart and simultaneously explain the point of all art with the barest of line drawings so you could tell me that AI is "inevitable."

Olivia Hill@machineiv.bsky.social · last mo.

Sam Raimi didn't strap a Super 8 camera to a 2x4 so you could tell me that AI is "inevitable."

As awful as it seems, I'd take the UK's new PM every 1-3 years shitshow over 12+ years of living under the same nazi and his same wretchedly evil government, no resignations for anyone in sight for any number of catastrophic failures, let alone for the PM himself (see: India under Modi).