El-Sayed: "My commitment to Jewish safety is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters. Because if there is one question of political philosophy that ought to animate us all, it's what would we do if we treated all our kids like they were all of our kids?"

Bluesky's new CEO Toni Schneider on the platform's reputation for being a liberal bubble: "Yes, we definitely want that to change. It is already changing. It certainly wasn’t designed to attract one specific group of people."

Story of my life once again.

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2d ago

Every now and then someone takes a run at me along the lines of "I don't understand why you, a scifi writer, don't appreciate 'AI'," and I'm all, motherfucker, it's *because* I'm a science fiction writer I have the positions I have, how many times do we have to fucking yell "torment nexus," my dude

My books will be on my shelves where they belong. A few friends used to laugh at me for keeping what they called obsolete things like vinyl records and old books. They all agree it was a good idea now.

I worked for New York’s largest medical center at the start of the pandemic. There were morgue trucks on the streets. They set up emergency medical tents in Central Park. Healthcare worker colleagues died. It is horrific that RFK Jr is on national TV lying that ICUs were empty.

Important history lesson: Fascism rose partly as a result of the 1918 pandemic.

AI is used to create wage immiseration based on employee desperation, the essence of enshittification. Cory explains the reality. You think AI will bring a brighter tomorrow? Yeah, F that $#!t. youtube.com/shorts/NnmUM...

Wage Discrimination | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

YouTube video by The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

youtube.com

Good article from the @authorsguild.org on hybrid publishing contracts. Be sure to click the link to the AG's hybrid publishing contract checklist. I'd add that you should definitely check with Writer Beware if you're considering a hybrid--we get many complaints authorsguild.org/resource/wha...

What Authors Should Know About Hybrid Publishing Contracts

The Authors Guild regularly receives requests for contract reviews from authors contemplating hybrid publishing. In our experience, these contracts are usually offered on a non-negotiable basis (with ...

authorsguild.org

Let’s be clear here, when scientists say mistakes were made at the start of the pandemic, we DO NOT mean that we did too much. We mean not socially distancing quickly enough, not making tests widely available, and not acknowledging COVID is airborne and distributing N95 masks to everyone.

Endometriosis takes nine years to diagnose. That’s about to change. NICE has approved two tests: a saliva test reading microRNA markers, and a gut-sensor test returning results in 45 minutes, sparing women the keyhole surgery currently needed. buff.ly/QX3jHk8 #ShareGoodNewsToo

Rapid endometriosis tests to be made available on NHS in England and Wales

Saliva and gut sensor-based tests hailed as ‘gamechanger’ for millions of women who can wait years for diagnosis

buff.ly

My dad took me to the library every Saturday to return our books and get new ones. Years of that made me a reader, writer, thinker, full-fledged citizen and empathetic human being. 📕📗📘📙📖📚

Gracie12 📎@gracienlucy.bsky.social · 6d ago

The perfect description of a library card .

I agree with @drsandman11.medsky.social: If you didn't look like this & doing everything you can to prevent people from dying during the pandemic, maybe think twice before judging Dr. Fauci.

Why so serious? Today I surprised a group of young New Yorkers working at the CityArts Bronx mural project for the summer. Their task? Giving the Bronx's famous Joker Stairs a new chapter as the Shakespeare steps.

I’ve written about this for 20 years. It’s basic neuroscience now. Reading books creates empathy. That’s why they’re banning and destroying books and making us use degenAI programmed to give us garbage. Stories make us who we are. That’s it. Reading quality works is now a radical act.

Rae Radford@raeradford.bsky.social · 6d ago

Please read..... #BookSky

Brutal news about Glen Hansard. Every once in a while I'll rewatch this opening scene to Once, which is obviously of a time, but is still awfully beautiful. Watched this at a little movie theatre and had no idea what it was about and was just blown away by the electricity of it. RIP.

Once (2006) - Say It To Me Now (by Glen Hansard)

YouTube video by bogdan dincă

youtube.com

"Helping working people to afford lives of joy” This is absolutely why Mamdani is succeeding in New York and is so beloved.

Well, this explains a lot of your behavior. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/b...

Bluesky Says Kremlin Is Hacking Its Platform to Spread Propaganda

The company said it was fighting Russian efforts to hijack real users’ accounts to post fake content, an apparently novel tactic.

nytimes.com

I’m going to be sick. Even the photo they chose — I painted in that exact spot during a concert one of my summers. From the 1970s to the 2010s, which includes the three years I attended. When my friends were there. Back to when some of their *parents* were campers. www.mlive.com/news/2026/07...

Epstein, 46 others linked to decades of sex assaults at Interlochen, over 70 victims

An investigative report two years in the making was released Tuesday, July 28, detailing decades of sexual abuse at Interlochen Center for the Arts by staff, trustees, visiting artists and Jeffrey Eps...

mlive.com

If you destroy books, especially rare books, you are bad.

1200 people at an Election Forum in South Auckland calling for change in support of New Zealand’s healthcare system, workers and patients and not a word in the media. Such a strong call for change being totally ignored is symptomatic of a media wedded to the status quo imo. #nzpol

Health & Care Election Forum

Te Ohu Tāmaki's election forum focuses on our Health system and asking decision makers to work with us in fixing it for our whānau. Doors Open 6pm Starts 6.30

events.humanitix.com

even if you don't have backup power like solar panels, everyone from apartment dwellers to homeowners should be thinking about ways to have backup power for all kinds of climate disruptions (and that includes data center driven outages) susankayequinn.com/2024/11/back...

Backup Power/Battery Options for the Climate Crisis

I’m a huge advocate for solar and will make a separate post for that (SOLAR: How to Get Started and Why You Should), but whether you have solar or not, having backup power is going to be more…

susankayequinn.com

data centers already starting to fuck with the grid 🤬 youtu.be/auUjFeySHM8?...

Loudoun Co. data centers linked to power flickering across half the U.S. | NBC4 Washington

YouTube video by NBC4 Washington

youtu.be

A study of 2.4 million U.S. patients (Jan 2022–Mar 2023) found Black patients are less likely to get diagnosed with long COVID than White patients. This diagnostic gap exists even though both groups face the exact same long-term burden. #LongCOVID

Many Black US patients with long COVID being missed, analysis reveals

cidrap.umn.edu

This is a well-produced segment. I encourage you to watch so you can hear the noise for yourself. The professor of environmental health science that they interviewed called it an “unprecedented new noise source.”

Neighbors say noise from Michigan data center is 24/7 and upending their lives

One Michigan community has been experiencing the reality of a data center next door for a couple of years now, and they say the sound has changed their lives.

wxyz.com

The FDA won’t tell Americans where their generic drugs are made, so ProPublica did it instead. Use information from your prescription label to locate the factory and see if the plant has a history of inspection violations.

Where Was My Generic Prescription Drug Made? - Rx Inspector - ProPublica

The FDA won’t tell Americans where their generic drugs are made, so ProPublica did it instead. Use information on your prescription label to locate the factory and see inspection reports.

projects.propublica.org

Amen. #BookSky

Someone said to me, "I'm sorry but I got your book from a library." Nobody should ever apologise for that. You read my book! That's brilliant! I grew up hanging out in libraries and the idea of a world without them fills me with dread. Without libraries, authors, like readers, will only suffer.

Insane new research. Scientists gave asthma patients free electric stoves to replace their gas stoves, then checked to see if symptoms improved. Not only did symptoms improve, ditching gas was *better than medicine.* Details in today's newsletter: www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/electric-s...

Researchers used electric stoves to treat asthma. It worked.

The latest evidence that gas is bad for your health.

climatecoloredgoggles.com

New #WriterBeware blog post: the Anthropic class action copyright settlement has been approved. Top takeaways from the judge's ruling, who's the biggest winner, and when claimants might (or might not) see the money writerbeware.blog/2026/07/23/a...

Anthropic Settlement Update: Final Settlement Approved - Writer Beware

On Tuesday, Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval to the historic class action settlement in the Bartz v Anthropic copyright infringement lawsuit. At $1.5 billion, it’s the largest reco...

writerbeware.blog