Jes Battis
@jesbattis.bsky.social
Writer/Prof/Other. All pronouns. Fantasy, queer medievalism, 18thc shenanigans, YA lit, disability and neurodiversity. 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️ 🇵🇸 https://linktr.ee/jbattis
Lloyd Robertson has died. Born in 1934 in Stratford, he was one of Canada's most celebrated journalists. He was the anchor of CTV's national nightly news from 1984 to 2011. He was also one of the longest-serving news anchors on English-language North American television. 📸 CTV
Today, August 4, 2026, is the setting of Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” about a fully automated house continuing on after the family who lived there and the world around it died in a nuclear blast.
I totally agree. I've said it before & I'll say it again: if you use AI to steal from actual creators, you're a total fucking loser.
Indie Book Spotlight@bookspotlight.bsky.social · 3d agoHe’s 100% correct. ‘I’m happy if I look silly in seventy years because I said you’re a brain dead fucking loser for making “art” with AI’
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
Here's a recommended book-list-interview, for a UK publication. For everyone who has had enough of discourse (as I certainly have): it has a tiny mention of Nolan as the hook, but then we move on to some reading. www.countryandtownhouse.com/culture/emil...
‘Homer Is For Everyone’: How Emily Wilson Elucidates & Obfuscates In Equal Measure
Classicist Emily Wilson has made headlines in recent weeks for slating Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of The Odyssey – for which the director,
countryandtownhouse.com
It’s comforting that everyone has bathroom anxiety dreams. Finding a bathroom when you have to pee, bathrooms full of tons of people with all the doors off facing inward like a panopticon, choosing between the panopticon bathroom or one overflowing with the most awful piles of shit and sewer…
SUSAN ORLEAN HAS JOINED THE ENEMY IN THE ODYSSEY WARS
Joseph Rezek@rezekjoe.bsky.social · 4d agoDying. It continues. SUSAN ORLEAN
exactly. I don't know how to get people to see this and act accordingly. it's disheartening and disappointing to see so many colleagues, and even friends and family, just not care.
Kate's having a 20% off sale!!! you can get one (or a bunch!! put them up everywhere!!!) of these for a steal right now, along with a wide variety of others! buy now!! for the love of all! www.etsy.com/ca/shop/kate...
Cohen is a Ghost@skullmandible.bsky.social · 2mo agoplanting a flag at work with my new water bottle sticker from kate www.etsy.com/ca/listing/4...
After we published this interview the NYT went out of its way to try to smear us and bury it. And here we are, stronger than ever, about to hit our fundraising goal thanks to a wave of support. Trans journalism will never die. transnewsnetwork.networkforgood.com/projects/302...
Trans News Network@transnews.network · 5d agoReminder that we published an extensive interview with a former editor at The New York Times who laid out, in detail, how the paper's pushing of anti-trans bigotry was both very intentional and directed from the very top of the organization. The NYT plays a direct and major role in trans genocide:
Listen. I'm gonna say the quiet part out loud: the only way you "can't figure out" how to make a Blade movie is white supremacy. Full stop. The narrative writes itself, there are plenty of Black actors and martial artists who'd jump at the chance. It's not rocket surgery.
I've written a longer piece on the book that's been pulled due to "AI" use allegations, what that means particularly for newer authors, and what, if anything writers can do in the "AI" era to prove their work is their own: whatever.scalzi.com/2026/07/31/a...
Another Reason Not to Use “AI” For Your Writing
Back in February I did a long post about “AI” and why I wouldn’t use it for my own writing, and one of the reasons I gave was “the fact that ‘AI’-generated text …
whatever.scalzi.com
Omg you guys it’s farmers market season!! surely the farmers markets will cure me of The Horrors!! 🥕 🥗 🫑 🙏
Kirby Carries Giant Basket of Produce
Alt: Kirby Carries Giant Basket of Produce
static.klipy.com
Another factor I haven't seen anyone talk about is the conflation of a book with its text. A print book is not a text. It is an object.
Emanuel Maiberg@emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social · 2w agocompanies are sourcing millions of printed books for AI labs that scan them for training data, then destroy them. printed books are more valuable because they're free of AI slop, and AI labs know destroying them is an "optics problem." www.404media.co/ai-companies...
Every time I see an author worried about how they'll prove they didn't use AI, I get it, but I think, man, if it gets even more difficult to be an author, I just won't. I'm tapped out. I once knew a kickass old lady who circulated typed copies of her writing to her friends, and I will just do that.
think it's gonna be important to focus on stories like this: small towns, often out of the public eye, where tiny police departments are financially incentivized by ICE to hand over immigrants
Woah! Feature length documentary about Bill Sienkiewicz! (Tag line: That Polish Guy). One of the most innovative artists in comics. New Mutants. Daredevil and Electra. Moon Knight. Painting layered with collage & mimeograph. Anything moody and wild and expressive. Congrats @bsienk.bsky.social!
THAT POLISH GUY | Official Teaser | The Bill Sienkiewicz Documentary
YouTube video by BILL SIENKIEWICZ ART
youtu.be
Gotta shut down the factory that makes this kinda guy
Using Time Team as my motivational background noise so I get everything done before heading off to dogsit for the next week.
👇 "The vast majority of people who work in film and television are not studio executives, nor are they famous actors. They are, overwhelmingly, blue-collar workers, freelancers, and small businesses. And they are in free fall." Yes.
Alvaro M. Bedoya@bedoyausa.bsky.social · last wk.People think "Hollywood" is rich and famous. The reality? Film and TV is a national industry. It's a blue collar industry. And it is an industry free fall. My latest for @newrepublic.com on how the Paramount merger would crush blue collar workers who can not afford it newrepublic.com/article/2136...
I know of several people who are looking for F/M romances with a trans girl x a cis boy, so this is a reminder that my novel The Calyx Charm is exactly that! Second chance romance, friends to lovers, apocalyptic prophecy, hot T4C sex! Amz: a.co/d/019Y3Tw0 Book page: tinyurl.com/y9jnk6sy
Love Sophus Helle’s excitement for the poems of Enheduana
There should be a law precedent, call it the "come on now" precedent, where if over one hundred people come out with credible allegations against you, people can stop calling them allegations.
Scott Bryan@scottygb.bsky.social · last wk.New BBC investigation. Four women accuse Jared Leto of criminal sexual conduct www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Another ambiently homophobic MM book written by an ostensibly straight lady? Must be a Tuesday.
I've covered local government meetings for over 20 years, in a city where the mayor notoriously makes up rules to curb anything critical of city hall, especially clapping. So, it's worth a quick🧵 on how governments use rules of decorum to intimidate the public, even to throw opponents in jail.
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · last wk.😬
