OK. So. It's not 100% in the condition I want it to be, but I somehow destroyed the formatting on the source file, so this is what you're getting for now. Shards RPG final-not-final version is up and submitted to the jam. Check it out, I'm still pretty proud xauriel.itch.io/shards-rpg #TTRPG

Shards RPG by Last Minute Panic

The Cosmic Gem has been fractured and you must reassemble it in this one-page TTRPG micro-campaign

xauriel.itch.io

hank green hasn’t uploaded a video in a few days so i got claude to create a video in his style it’s what he would have wanted

Personally, I think shitting on AI on social media is an excellent marketing move for authors. I want to engage with the work of authors who hate AI with a fiery passion. I don't want to read people who are ambivalent, or nuanced, or resigned about AI. I want the hate to leap off the fucking page

Writing a book: First you're going to go quietly mad for a few years. You're going to make a private precious thing that only you know about. It's delicate, introverted and lonely work. Ok? Good so now PUT IT OUT THERE FOR EVERY PERSON TO SEE!!! NOW SELL IT!!! MARKET THE PRECIOUS SECRET BABY!!!!!!

Before anti-anxiety meds: maybe I need a gun for when society collapses After anti-anxiety meds: maybe I need to learn to sew for when society collapses

Space & Time no. 153 -- Sharpen Your Tools, featuring my dystopian-utopia flash fiction "Optimization Problem", is now out in ebook and print! It's structured as a "transformative fictional journey", so read the poetry and prose in written order! authortunitiespress.com/b/153 #SciFi #TransWriters

Space & Time No. 153: August 2026 — Sharpen Your Tools

Choose your edition:Ebook · Standard Print · Large Print · Dyslexia-Friendly PrintThe Hermit steps away from the noise not to abandon the world, but to return with clearer vision, steadier hands, and ...

authortunitiespress.com

you'll never convince me it's not significant that most of the AI boosters are hobbyists or journalists and hardly any are professional engineers

I hope y'all realize that there is no universe in which you get literally everything you want ideologically. Human societies don't work like that, and the last time we tried it put Communism into a disrepute it still even now hasn't lived down. You will have to compromise on *something*

I have, with my own eyes, watched my tax dollars in the form of missiles as they hit buildings inhabited by civilians. I'd much prefer subsidizing a grocery story I don't use.

USA TODAY Opinion@usatodayopinion.usatoday.com · 2d ago

Opinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.

Calling someone by a chosen name is an uncontroversial and commonly-extended courtesy until a trans person asks for it

So I guess game jams are just something we do now

"Queer men are weak" Multiple of the most elite fighting forces of ancient Greece were explicitly, mandatorily homosexual. The Sacred Band of Thebes would slap your mouth around until you begged for mercy, soft-living keyboard warrior

I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful

The point isn't to author white papers (when no powerful actor objects) and make cute pie charts. It's to leverage its resources to safeguard the openness of public space for individuals who lack them and therefore facilitate vigorous civil society responses to rights-infringing states and movements

My favorite pieces from July is up! @xauriel.satan.social @muteddragon.bsky.social @ktwagner.bsky.social @deborahldavitt.bsky.social www.emmiechristie.com/short-fictio...

Favorite Pieces From July — Emmie Christie

I’ve listed my favorite piece from each author below. If anyone wants to read along with me but can’t go at this pace (fair!) I’d encourage you to check this monthly post! 1. Xauri’EL Zwaan “Nor...

emmiechristie.com

cis person: i’m just concerned about women’s sports other cis people: reasonable! trans person: i’m just concerned about restrictions on passports and id, job discrimination, movement being restricted due to bathroom issues, being harassed or worse, etc cis people: you’re being hysterical

Downplay a book or movie: Shack of Leaves

Triangle Era Spike-X@spike-x.bsky.social · 5d ago

Downplay a book or movie: A Reasonable Volume And Not Too Far Away

The Library of Alexandria is literally being burned as we speak

I don't want a "Smart Fridge" that orders milk for me. I want a fridge that lasts 25 years and doesn't have a privacy policy that allows it to share my late-night snacking habits with my health insurance provider.

AI companies (preparing to start up the book-shredder 5000): why does everyone hate us

People keep using "curing cancer" as their blanket use case for AI, and like, you realize that AI hasn't cured cancer, and there is no evidence that it is capable of doing so

the ceo of shopify (tobi lutke) wants more votes than you.

Turns out that food companies were only checking their food because the government told them to, which is exactly why we need government regulations.

late for dinner at odysseus' palace like omg can't believe you're back, you look great btw, i said to the guys all the time we should totally respect odysseus' wife, yea no I mean its your palace right, if you needed to shoot a few guys its cool what am i the arrow police haha

Rowling is the ultimate proof that we cannot have billionaires. She technically made her fortune without fucking over the working class. A borderline miracle. And yet, she remains a monster that wants to make the world worse. We can either have billionaires or freedom, not both.

Aidan Comerford@aidancomerford.bsky.social · last wk.

This is Rowling's pinned tweet, and yet, just this week, she is funding legal cases against Féile Belfast and Amnesty International for exercising their free speech and fair opinion. She is using her massive wealth to terrorise these orgs into compilance, because she doesn't believe in free speech.

I come back to this tumblr post again and again

Hillary Monahan@hillarymonahan.bsky.social · last wk.

Nobody wants predictive data models to stop working for the people in medicine. Or translating ancient Pompeii texts. Or the other ways we were already using it. We want it to stop replacing workers, killing the environment, and stealing from artists. Hope that clarifies.

Writers are people who have imposter syndrome and main character syndrome at the same time

OK, I've put up a second draft of Shards. If you want to take a look, I'm especially interested in whether the basic rules text makes sense; I've condensed *a lot* to make it fit into the central shard. Again, the boxes will be gem facets in the final release. xauriel.itch.io/shards-rpg #TTRPG

I'm genuinely a bit confused about why Wikimedia is fighting their union so hard. I'm guessing their donors are overwhelmingly supportive, they're not a business so profit isn't a consideration, and they never struck me as the flavour of libertarian douchebros who hate unions on general […]

AI being capable of true intelligence is the only worse possible outcome than the whole thing being a huge malinvestment that collapses the economy