Pidän alkemiaesitelmän Helsingin Tieteiden yössä torstaina 22.1.2026! ⚗️ Puhun aiheesta "Kullan kiiltoa ja transmutaatiokieltoja: Keskiajan alkemia tieteenalana" Tieteiden talon Lisa Hagman -juhlasalissa klo 18.30-19. Luento myös striimataan!

If I hired a research assistant who made up multiple papers that didn’t exist, and when I asked why he said “Well I’m hallucinating 30-40% of the time”, that guy would be fired, and I’d have a talk with his advisor, and it would be my go-to anecdote at every conference for the next few decades

We'll be reading stories for ✨ What Elegant Stars: Queer Tales of Impossible Style ✨ from January 15th to April 15th. Give us stories of satellites and sewists, terminals and tailors, dandies and dying stars. <6k words. 8¢/word. simsub ☑️. multiple submissions 🚫. www.neonhemlock.com/submissions

Mitä roolipelisuunnittelija tekee? Miten yhdistetään tieteellinen tutkimus ja roolipeli? Mitä roolipelillä edes tarkoitetaan? Näihin ja muihin kysymyksiin vastaa Kristelin kirjoitus @koneensaatio.fi Kaivolla-blogissa! #titaraproject #koneensäätiö #konefoundation koneensaatio.fi/tarinat-ja-j...

I don't want gen AI in my browser I don't want gen AI in my pc I don't want gen AI in my art I don't want gen AI in my games I don't want gen AI in my music I don't want gen AI in my movies I don't want gen AI in my books I don't want gen AI in my cart I don't want gen AI in my life

French publishing house Harlequin decided to use AI translation instead of human translations. All their freelance translators (some of whom had been working with Harlequin for +30y!!!) were told they would no longer receive work from Harlequin

This essay (by Ronald Purser) is brilliant. "Thinking, like strength, develops through resistance. The more we delegate our mental strain to machines, the more we lose the capacity to think at all." YES!!! www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...

The reason they're so focused on trans teens is that people who transition younger typically blend into society better. To the extent that they're willing to tolerate our existence in society at all, they'd rather we be easily identified by our appearance/voices/etc.

The special issue "Imagining Alchemy: Visual and Figurative Representations in Pre-Modern Sciences" is now out in BJHS Themes! I'm so chuffed to have an article in this issue - it's been out in early view for a while, but it's now official! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Two really interesting articles in this special issue I helped edit! #titaraproject

Winters in Helsinki are now pretty much like London winters in the 1990s (I was there). I get climate anxiety every day.

Ei, se ei ole radikaalia, että tarjotaan hyvinvointipalvelut ja taloudellinen turva kaikille. Se on taloudellisestikin kaikkein järkevin ja halvin vaihtoehto.

She’s a ten but also something else, there is something that seems to writhe under her skin. She’s a ten but you know that she isn’t anything, not really, that she appeared suddenly, and can disperse the same way, between pines and ferns, a pale hand dragging against sharp bark before disappearing

New age verification just dropped

Thread on how to detect ai in that viral dog video

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

After much research and development I have made an offline version of ChatGPT. Now you can save water and electricity while navel-gazing, and carry one of the world's most powerfully annoying AI chatbots in your pocket.

My org @fightforthefuture.org has been “de-googling” for the last year. We’re totally off Google suite, Google docs, Drive, Calendar. We’re using Signal and Element for chat, Nextcloud for docs, etc Planning to publish a “how to” guide for other nonprofits and activist groups soonish.

Co-signed

read gormenghast bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

In poking around 17th century paintings I discovered that the pop culture image of Pilgrims is inaccurate. Shocking, I know. 🧵

Oh damn, Pantone can paint a room but can’t read one

This is going to sound conspiratorial, but it is serves the LLM techbros for the 'em-dash = AI' lay-belief to persist. While em-dashes are diagnostically unreliable, it undermines the legitimacy of real writing/scholarship. And when real can't be discriminated from false, the false can thrive.

ICYMI! Two of the greats chatting about empires etc in their novels.

My new Genre Grapevine is an update on both the Anthropic AI settlement and other genAI class action lawsuits filed by authors. While I'm not happy with the Anthropic settlement, I've come to see it as merely the first battle in a much larger war. www.patreon.com/posts/144817...

Today Psychopomp & Circumstance hits UK shelves! A Southern Gothic with family secrets, Gullah funeral traditions, a beautifully strange house & a sprinkling of magic. In hardcover, eBook, & audio. Thank you to the phenomenal @csecooney.bsky.social for these lovely words. #booksky #Blackbooksky

Thrilled to post that PSYCHOPOMP & CIRCUMSTANCE has made NPR's list of Books We Love! It's one of over 300 books handpicked by NPR staffers and trusted critics. See the full list here: apps.npr.org/best-books/#...

This has brought me great joy.

TELL ME YOUR 🏳️‍🌈QUEER SHORT SFF🏳️‍🌈 OUT IN OCTOBER 2025!!! Originals only pls, up to novella in length, indie okay. Just reply with the author, title, and a link to read and/or buy and I'll get them on the list. Here's September's list for context & more info: www.patreon.com/posts/some-q...

This. I've been working with "machine learning" since before the current AI-fever and it's an invaluable tool in science and engineering. LLMs and GenAI are being misused in a criminally negligent way and using misplaced legitimacy to do it, and that misdirect cannot be allowed to continue.

I just read this. Utterly stunning as a work of prose, and heartbreaking.

Please help @lpkindred.bsky.social stay in school in these difficult times. He's a great person who's had a rough go and deserves all the good things. www.gofundme.com/f/keep-lp-in...

Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things, but @saranorja.bsky.social and I just ordered a million nematodes

You might not think you needed to see Kate Bush dressed as a bat today, but you were wrong.

The reality for speculative fiction zines and publishers is pretty damn terrible right now. I know many of us are struggling to keep it together, and they are too. Read this, mourn what we lost, and, as much as you can, support the zines and publishers you love.

Airstrikes don’t “test” a ceasefire. They break a ceasefire. Language isn’t that hard, media. Neither is professionalism and bravery.

With the disappointing progress at Cop30, evergreen reminder it isn't "we" or "humanity" failing to address the climate crisis — oil-producing nations and fossil fuel interests are actively obstructing action, despite heroic efforts by developing nations, Indigenous peoples, and many, many others.

Polycules? Is that some obscure hero from Greek mythology?

After two weeks of #COP30 negotiations, countries agreed to BEGIN DISCUSSIONS on fossil fuel phase out. And as the article says, "they achieved this incremental progress only in the teeth of implacable opposition from oil-producing countries." THIS is the problem with requiring unanimous decisions.

hey hey guys... how did Genghis Khan outwit his enemies? by always being three steppes ahead

👩‍🌾 Grab your tools

Truly devastating news. Fantasy is such a great magazine and I'll miss reading all the novellas/novelettes coming out with Psychopomp.

you'd think the forced displacement of 10 million people from one of the oldest centres of civilisation in human history would get a little more news attention than beltway journalists writing essays on how Olivia Nuzzi is a genius because they want to bone her and you'd be wrong

I reckon you can learn a lot about the atmosphere in various Oxford colleges by looking at what they choose to name their cats (courtesy of @oxfordclarion.bsky.social ). We should all aspire to the energy of a Teabag, Isambard Kitten Brunel, or an Admiral Flapjack oxfordclarion.uk/college-cats...

Story day!! I’m so delighted to debut in @unchartedmag.bsky.social with ‘Love Story in Colored Glass:’ an inter-dimensional love story about a starship that breaks reality - and a pair of lovers who find themselves, again and again, across the fracture. www.unchartedmag.com/stories/love...

It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick. Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.

This week, I withdrew from a speaking engagement at a public university because they sent me a list of prohibited “words & concepts.” I will not humor this censorship. It does a disservice to the stories I’m discussing & the audience, who deserve unfettered access to information & conversation.

Suomalaisilta kustantamoilta siirtyi valtava määrä nimekkeitä suoratoistopalveluiden uuden tekijän, Spotifyn, katalogiin. Lue kannanotto: kirjailijaliitto.fi/blog/ajankoh...

I hear this *constantly* as an “aha! got ya!” and maybe I’ll just start handing out QR codes for this essay.

Open AI loses copyright case in Germany. Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."