- 'He was determined to prove his theory.' [portrays confirmation bias as heroism; that's not the scientific method - if you want to test the validity of something you formulate a falsifiable hypothesis then propose conditions under which it would be *disproved* - I'm looking at you flat-earthers]

The actual harsh truth about MAHA is that it is an anti-vaxx, anti-science, pro-diarrhea conspiracy movement. It cloaks its arguments in abstractions about "big pharma" and "free speech" to generate *the exact op-ed The Atlantic keeps publishing*. Movements like this need to be fought, not placated.

The answer to a lot of urban problems is: Slow down the cars -less noise -more reaction time for drivers to see people -pedestrians are 70% less likely to be killed at 20mph than 40mph -car v car or car v building wrecks less violent/injurious -Less shoulder buffer space required at lower speeds

I am querying and trying not to lose heart at it. Last year I started a rejection quilt progress where I buy fabric when rejected and can only make a square when I send a new query. It helps. But I’d be worse at marketing, so I keep at it.

Kayleigh Diaz 🫜@kayleighdiaz.com · 3w ago

19 | Publishing Q! Have you queried any of your work? Thoughts on trad publishing vs. self-publishing? (Y'all will be real chill with this question, riiiight 😅) #SummerOfStories #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #WritingPrompt

Can the Kylie Jenner AI surveillance glasses killing the environment fail REALLY fast? Aside from everything, I like my frames and don’t have time to go to the eye dr. But they are not, at a glance, obviously NOT the invasion of privacy goggles &I don’t want to make everyone around me uncomfortable.

We need all hands on deck for our training Thursday night. Learn what to do when ICE surges in your community.

For my second master’s thesis, my second reader (who disliked me) absolutely insisted that NO ONE knew the word “archmage” so I wrote my Spite Footnote breaking down the two Latin roots of the word then citing at least ten examples, all by women, going back over 40 years bc shut up Matt.

S R Jones @aegisimmemorial.bsky.social · last mo.

If you see this, please tell me the worst/most baffling bit of creative feedback you've ever recieved. Mine is still the time somebody told me my aliens had names that were too alien. Not that they were unpronounceable, just that they didn't sound enough like human names.

“Why’s it taking so long to take down the name when they put it up so fast?” yeah, undoing every single thing he’s done is gonna be exactly like that, get used to it

Does it count if I made the protagonist and love interest of my unwieldy, gritty time travel attempt at a thriller into the loving foster moms in a cozy middle grade story about an involuntary time traveler stuck in the foster system finally finding her people?

Ian Haramaki 🏳️‍⚧️✨ @ Megaplex C9@cometkins.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Do you have a dropped project that you're unlikely to ever get back to? What made you drop it and why won't you pick it back up? #WritingPrompt

In honor of the third day of Pride Month, I remind writers of romance (in all genres) that a Love Triangle requires at least one queer relationship. Otherwise it is a Love Arrowhead or a Love Line (thank you to my students this past semester for the distinction)

When I lived in Amsterdam during the GWB years I once had a guy ask “what the hell is wrong with your president?” and I said “I don’t know- I hate the bastard” and then we got along just fine

Faine Greenwood@faineg.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Yep, I travel a lot internationally and have never encountered someone who was unpleasant to me just because I’m American. I think many Americans who don’t travel abroad much seem to *hugely* overestimate the odds of non-Americans being rude to them simply for being Americans.

I foolishly thought I'd be able to finish this quilt by LAST year's Pride Month, but easily made it for this year! Also, I've turned it into a cape for the upcoming Middletown Pride March -- CSU-AAUP (faculty union) strong!

"Well, some writers and artists like the plagiarism machines--" Yeah, they're fucking scabs. And the rest of us hate and disdain and shun them. Is that who you wanna stand next to?

Look. You can either respect creative workers, or you can use genAI. You absolutely cannot do both. And it's really pretty insulting to claim you respect us while you're supporting the billionaires who stole from us and are trying to destroy our industries.

Yeah…no.

Jonathan Bernstein@jonbern.bsky.social · 2mo ago

this is not true, and this guy doesn't speak for me! nymag.com/intelligence...

Feeling overwhelmed with all of this. LISTEN. Another Louisiana resident (Marshawn is the only name we have) testifies against the state’s racial gerrymander, speaking truth to power up and down the hearing room and predicts how this story will end. Speak your truth, fight and believe.

Because everyone deserves to read this:

To be clear since the headline isn't: a study that claimed GenAI was good for learning, actually, turns out to have been bullshit.

Matt Seybold@mattseybold.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Retractions never get proportional attention. This one should.

In my version, the goddess Aphrodite automatically morphs into the ideal physical type of the most important person currently looking at her. My protagonist is most uncomfortable being alone with her - she had barely asked herself the question before getting her answer.

Adriaan 🏳️‍⚧️🇨🇦@adriaan.braevitae.com · 3mo ago

Hey Queer writers! How did you introduce the queerness of your LGBTQIA+ characters? I'm interested in those first moments where the char's identity (or part of it) is fully on-page. Or was there never one single moment? #WriteSky

The ballroom and the “shooting attempt” are akin to the Reichstag fire that Timothy Snyder talked about in On Tyranny. Don’t be fooled. Everyone should read this book. #WHCD #OnTyranny

Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.

a woman in a black jacket stands next to a man in a black jacket holding a bouquet of flowers

Alt: Colonel Brandon (Alan Rickman) stops petting a trio of lovely dogs long enough to salute a young lady running as fast as her regency-era gown permits. He holds a bouquet for her older sister in his hands. Behind them is a gorgeous nature scene because Ang Lee is an incredible director

media.tenor.com

Seanan McGuire@seananmcguire.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.

Tech companies: that is not how laws work. If your products do not follow laws, they don’t get to be a thing. And since you insist on robots, you can’t blame your “independent contractor” drivers. This is why we needed Lina Khan.

David Zipper@davidzipper.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"Waymo has told advocates that expecting it to respect bike lanes is 'too high a bar' because customers expect to be dropped off in them." To be crystal clear, it's illegal for a car to be in a bike lane. It doesn't matter what Waymo's customers expect; the company shouldn't be doing it.

it is devastating to notice how few benches there are in the world and how some benches have been replaced by weird "leaning" things. the world is incredibly cruel to disabled, elderly, poor, pregnant, tired, homeless, and all people. there should be benches fucking everywhere for everyone

Places Journal@placesjournal.bsky.social · 4mo ago

"Benches are where optimistic visions of civic life meet reality. To remove them, or to curate who gets to sit, is to abandon the work of defining a civic ideal and determining, together, how to live up to it." NEW: Why benches are slowly disappearing from public spaces — and why we need them back:

AI makes people so weird. Presented my poster at a GenAI in Research conference yesterday. The poster’s title was “Don’t.” Almost everyone talked to me and agreed it was horrifically unethical and even more unreliable than they knew. Then they spent all day arguing for ways to use it anyway.

Listening to Season 2 of “The Future of Our Former Democracy” is emotional in a lot of ways, but, of all the highlighted and quiet parallels between pre-WW2 Germany and right now in the US, the one hitting me hardest is, “There were just…so many off ramps.” podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

The Future of Our Former Democracy

History Podcast · Weekly Series · After World War II, Germany redesigned its electoral system to prevent another faction like the Nazis from taking over the government ever again. In the new season of the award-winning podcast from Mo…

podcasts.apple.com

It makes my job infinitely worse and most other actual employees (not management and/or “founders”) say the same, it has encouraged teen suicides, poisons fact-checking and the basic tools for living in a shared reality, and oh yeah is propping up fascism by creating an economic bubble!

Cass Morris@cassmorriswrites.com · 4mo ago

"I don't know why you hate ChatGPT so much" idk maybe because it stole from me and all my friends, it's terrible for the environment, it's driving up energy prices, it's quantifiably making people worse at using their brains, it's a tool of fascism, and also it doesn't even do what it says it does??

First rule of effective resistance against fascism: you do not abandon the most vulnerable. You do not abandon those targeted by the regime for dehumanization and attack. Establishment Dems/ neoliberals never learn that ethical/moral positions are winning positions.

David Roberts@volts.wtf · 6mo ago

Like this. "You must strategically abandon the specific issues that the right has rendered toxic & focus on others." But then ... why wouldn't the right just be able to do the same thing on those other issues?

“I reject the lie that deporting my neighbor is how I win better pay and working conditions. We’re fighting for a country where families stay together without living in terror, so we’re ALL better off!”

Democrats should propose amendments to the SAVE act that require the government to furnish free IDs to all eligible voters before requiring them, automatically register all people to vote, expand mail-in voting, and create a national voting holiday. Then watch republicans block them.