<clears throat> I have updated my website, including my manuscript review service for genre writers! heatherclitheroe.com

It's Mandatory Monday and AI is clearly the future. mandatoryrollercoaster.com/post/8081046...

Glad to back this great magazine!

Everybody knows that Pupper just won Downhill Gold

PS - if you are late forties, wondering if you can do a PhD while keeping your career going, the answer is yes. You can do it. The balancing is tough and it's a different path from others in your cohort, but you can do it. You better believe I'm going to use 'Dr' on everything I can when I finish.

Last day for voting! My research image is up for a prize. This is an image of Elymus innovatus, or wild rye, taken while studying how we tell scientific stories for my PhD. Going back to school in my late forties has been such a gift, but also tough work. #phdlife grad.ucalgary.ca/images-resea...

It's the final weekend for voting! I went back to school at 47 to start a PhD and it'd be pretty incredible to have my research recognized like this. Link in the repost!

Round four of research ethics submitted.

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

Round three of trying to get my study approved by the research ethics board. I don't begrudge them a thing...with each piece of feedback, I'm seeing how it the study design is being improved. I'm still grumbling to MYSELF about the stupid author of this study (i.e., ME). #phdlife

We're having our annual townhall and I have to say: I really appreciate the president saying within the first three minutes that there's no big announcement, no one news item, and no shoe to drop. I think we all gave a collective sigh of relief.

We're up to 8 people now in my queue to get a critique from me on their writing. I'd love to get it to 10. Rent relief funds, union funds, GFMs, any amount is fine, just DM to let me know where you donated, and I'll put you in my queue to give you feedback on up to 25 pages of anything in February.

@premeemohamed.com @gianttourtiere.bsky.social what do you two have to say for yourselves.

Carney uninvited to join Trump’s ‘Board Of Peace’ alongside Putin, Netanyahu, Lex Luthor, Megatron

My entry in the Faculty of Grad Studies 'Images of Research' contest is up for a People's Choice Award...you can vote here: grad.ucalgary.ca/images-resea... That's Elymus innovatus, or wild rye. I took the picture at the Royal Ontario Museum, looking at the stories scientific collections tell.

Getting myself a bread machine has been such a nice little boost to my mental health. I let it do all the mixing work and then take out the dough to proof and bake in the oven (it's nicer than the bake in the machine). Fresh bread without the mental gymnastics of a mess to clean up holding me back.

Water restrictions finally lifted! I've done the dishes, two loads of laundry, and had a proper shower.

I had my last first day of class (just this one to go before candidacy!) and our collections librarian was telling us how she's reading only things published in 1859 according to the dates published for all this year. In proper Victorian fashion I was silently envious but could only lower my gaze.

It's wild to think that the city is taking steps to mitigate damage from the possibility of another catastrophic main break. Feels like a when, not an if. The new feeder pipe can't come soon enough!

Jan. 11, 10:00 a.m. update. Here is the latest update on the critical water main break along 16 Ave. N.W: ⚠️ On Jan. 10, our water use trended down to 493 ML, putting us in the strained zone. This is a step in the right direction, but we still need your help to save water.

I've been reading Middlemarch to get ready for my next serious grad school course. But I keep thinking that there could totally be a contemporary remark where Dorothea is a trad wife wannabe.

I'm finding three minute songs and playing them while I shower. Taylor Swift's Shake It Off is 3:39, so if i turn on the water at 'it's gonna be all right' I can time it.

The City of Calgary put messaging on buses re: water conservation. Good idea. #Calgary

Jan. 6, 8:30 a.m. Update Here is the latest update on the critical water main break along 16 Ave. N.W.: 🚨On Jan. 5, our water use reached 514 ML which is 29 ML higher than our sustainable level – where our treatment plants can provide each day while repairs are made.

Ask our Water Expert: How to save 30L of water a day? 🚿 Cut shower time: Aim for 3 min. 🚽 Flush less: each flush = 6L. Skipping 2 to 3 saves 18L. 💧Turn off the tap: saves 6 to 8L per min. Small choices, big impact. Learn more: calgary.ca/watermainbreak

via @calgary.ca Site Update. Jan. 5, 7 p.m. Crews continue to make steady progress at the impacted site along 16 Ave NW. The affected pipe section is being inspected. Remember, every drop you save helps. Find out how to save water and stay informed at calgary.ca/watermainbreak.

Putting in my science fiction essay entry for this contest, and it certainly has a different feel to it today than it did a couple of days ago. (www.canada.ca/en/departmen...)

I'm writing an essay for a 'science fictional' contest held by the Dept. of National Defence, and it's so weird to be carefully citing my work but also making shit up. Also they want us to use Chicago Manual of Style. MONSTERS>

Just writing a story with an overseer.

New AIWeirdness post: ChatGPT will apologize for anything, including stuff that didn't happen. It's not reflecting on stuff it did wrong, it's improv. www.aiweirdness.com/chatgpt-will...

Calgary feeder main update happening now. Key elements: 1) Calgary is consuming more water than it can produce. 2) Critical that Calgarians, industry conserve water. Target is achievable. 3) No measurable reduction in water consumption yet observed. 4) Support impacted businesses, neighbours.

Enjoy this short excerpt from Kit Dobson's meditative Field Notes on Listening. You can learn more about the book here: bookstore.wolsakandwynn.ca/products/fie...

Calgary's big pipe really taking the 'out with the old, in with the new' to extremes. #yyc

NEW: City of Calgary says major northwest water main break likely tied to Bearspaw South feeder main. They're still investigating the cause and potential damage. DEVELOPING STORY #yyc #calgary buff.ly/w8uoWxE

Please let it not be The Pipe. I'm not ready for months of catching grey water and two minute showers again.

How my week off is going: got up this morning, then took a nap.

Verso is also offering a discount on their book club membership - 20% off if you buy an annual membership. The ebook membership is excellent...there's a range of books available to you every month, and often very new and very relevant scholarship.

I am rooting for Adobe to do the same kind of ad as the moving lift company Böcker did after the Louvre heist.

Looking for: postdoc on quantitative history of China; postdoc on measuring wildfire fuels with LiDAR; PhDs on modeling fire in the boreal forest and the Pacific Northwest; MSc’s on earth system science; interns in many topics. Check it out!

🚨Extremely short notice: Looking for prospective PhD or postdoc w/ geological engineering or modelling experience, w/ interests in mountain geohazards for project focused on landslide-triggered tsunamis in subarctic w/ me & @geocron.bsky.social 🧵 🧪⚒️ Pls share! nserc-crsng.canada.ca/en/news/laun...

Not now, haunted Victorian shoes

My Christmas gift to my menopausal self was to replace my winter parka with a larger one that fits this changéd body. The shape, it is not what I used to be. The fight, I do not wish to have. The fucks, I have not even one left to give.

This is pretty cool. It's nice to see some new writers in the issue and people actively thinking about the situations we're in via fiction.

I just read a clearly AI-fueled or AI-written book in my academic niche, and while I stumble to finish it, I predict that future historiography will have literature categories and markers like *published post 2024* or *published ante 2024*. Our days will be seen as the barrier between these worlds.

The @berliner-philharmoniker.de's 'digital concert hall's streaming service is so worthwhile. I have a monthly subscription and this evening, I'm listening to chamber music. www.digitalconcerthall.com/en

Now she tells me! #booksky #writingcommunity #amediting #memorialmemoir #amrevising #amwriting #Iwritememoir

I have a paper published today on developing a trauma-informed classroom for teaching romance and erotica creative writing! Leaned heavily on @asv.bsky.social's core principles and the class was amazing. jis.athabascau.ca/index.php/ji...

It is so very windy today (we're having a chinook at the moment, so it's WARM and windy!) and there's something from the balcony garden scraping on the window. I think. It's probably not a bony hand. I mean, you don't get those, this time of year...

hence: arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/w...