No one says to legit business owners, "hey I see there's an underground market selling toxic knock-offs of your product: how will you incorporate the toxic product AND protect your customers against its harms?" But apparently it's fine to make this suggestion to educators with respect to AI.

My Mardi Gras on the moon story is out now at Escape Pod!

Pillars of 👀 🔭🐡🧪🎨

AI is definitely helping us

It is an absolutely delightful irony that the richest man in the world is universally acknowledged to be a huge fucking loser who not a single living person envies in any way at all

Remember folks: if you have any small amount of artistic talent, any sex appeal, or can make your friends laugh, the richest man on earth is crying screaming throwing up because he can’t be you.

Yes! This is so important! Machine Learning is doing wonderful things like mapping Martian craters and analyzing microbe genomes. LLMs are a very specific form & it’s them doing these huge amounts of harm. I also sometimes say “Gen AI” when I mean both LLMs and art generators; I try to never say AI

I love that Mamdani is what the right claimed Obama was: A Muslim socialist born in Africa. The right practically manifested Mamdani into existence.

Apparently all you needed to do to predict the NYC election results was read that one N.K. Jemisin novel.

"I DON'T NEED YOU TO FUCKING REWRITE WHAT I'VE JUST WRITTEN!"

once again, if tylenol caused autism, america would have a better rail system

Silly Jimmy Kimmel. He should have just called for all homeless people to be killed and he’d still have a job.

Either everyone gets human rights — or eventually only Party Members get human rights. Trans rights are human rights. Immigrant rights are human rights. Women’s rights are human rights. Anyone who won’t fight for them is on the wrong side.

I really wish some of these paraphrases were direct quotes.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Charlie Kirk.

escapepod.org/2025/07/31/e... Listening to a tear-jerker while on a walk without any Kleenex was a mistake.

Aurora were not quite visible naked eye but my phone captured them pretty well. You can see the Big Dipper in the images with a clear horizon

I’ve been rewatching the Coen Bros filmography this month and while drawing a Barton Fink illustration, it struck me how much their films feel like Far Side cartoons: funny, strange, clever, yet frequently inscrutable. Anyway here’s a thread!

This one is for the teachers and professors artologica.etsy.com/listing/4350... 🎨

My goto is to ask LLMs how many states have R in their name. They always fail. GPT 5 included Indiana, Illinois, and Texas in its list. It then asked me if I wanted an alphabetical highlighted map. Sure, why not.

“Mr. President, many of your detractors say you can’t fly. What is your response to them?”

Why Chutzpah? It takes chutzpah to: write a book to ask peers for a critique to submit it to bare the slings and arrows of outrageous reviewers and, yes, even to shout, "I'm here. Please like and share." What act of creative chutzpah have you done today? www.kickstarter.com/projects/att...

Now that Andrew Cuomo is deigning to talk to voters, New Yorkers can actually tell him how we *really* feel. Here's our guide on how to approach Cuomo and create a memorable experience that will make him regret running in the general election.

Motherfucking wind farms…

Fingers crossed

This is what fear looks like.

A fantastic anti-corporate series that more people should read

NASA is more than rockets and moonwalks. NASA is behind much of our everyday technology. From space discovery, to Air Jordans, to CAT scans, NASA has played a role. We get it all on less than a penny of every federal dollar. Now their science may be gutted by 50%. #NASADidThat

I can finally say something about this. My Mardi Gras on the Moon story is going to be in here

is this really the world you want your children to live in, and your children’s children,

"I asked ChatGPT" "I asked Grok" ok well I asked Gandalf and he said he has not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless worm

Great thread showing how open borders can be a good thing.

Is she talking about the House vote?

I would love to go here. But I’d be heartbroken when I found out it was just another fucking McDonald’s

May Reader Spotlight: @daviddegraff.bsky.social, astronomer and science fiction writer, read an unpublished humor story about Lithium, as well as “My Girlfriend is a Nebula” (Lightspeed, Feb 2025), about a star-crossed romance between a librarian and an astronomer. (Link below.)

Thanks to everyone who came out

LET THE WORLD SHAKE AT THE DEBUT OF THE ITHACA IRREALIST LIBERATION FRONT! Many thanks to @jenniferhudak.bsky.social, @daviddegraff.bsky.social, @edashtonwriting.bsky.social, and everyone who came out for our inaugural reading!

The four types of characters I write: 1. Scientists 2. Family of scientists 3. Friends of scientists 4. Personified abstract concepts

Will the British museum request repatriation?

Tomorrow! Anyone in the Ithaca area who likes good fiction and good beer should come to Liquid State Brewing at 7pm to hear @jenniferhudak.bsky.social @daviddegraff.bsky.social and @edashtonwriting.bsky.social read at the inaugural Ithaca Irrealist Reading!

Only 6 days from now!

Hey! That’s me! It you’re anywhere near Ithaca Tuesday the 13th, come check it out. Liquid State has great beer, and the other two writers are fantastic.

ICE threatening charges against people for asking supposed officers to show their badges is weakness. Not succeeding where they hoped to, left relying on threats that likely won’t go anywhere in court (harassment isn’t nothing, but it’s limited). It’s a sign to resist their abuses more, not less.

My favourite fact about Iceland is that we have many, many crime writers but only one forensic pathologist, and he was so busy answering all of their questions that he decided to have a small seminar for writers to get some peace. It immediately sold out so he had another one that also sold out.

Sign of the day…

Staple this to RFK Jr’s forehead.

Autism isn’t an epidemic. It's not a disease. It’s a natural variation in how people think…which, frankly, is a relief in a world where most people don't think at all.

If you're going to watch Murderbot on Apple TV, consider adding it to your watchlist. It's kind of like pre-ordering a book, it tells the streaming service that you're there for our show. Link for US viewers: tv.apple.com/us/show/murd... (You can also search for it on the app.)