They're Likely Giants

lol, they gave Artemis II astronaut (and Philadelphia sports fan) Christina Koch an astronaut Gritty

Having one AI hallucination in a work is kind of like having one human finger in your chili. Even if you take it out, the existence of it is evidence that you're doing the entire process wrong.

this is awful for many reasons, but IHE's framing suggests a frictionless market for academic labor where tenured faculty who dislike the terms of their job can leave for "bluer pastures" anytime. This recodes a functionally collapsed market for humanistic expertise in terms of free market fantasy

it reminded me so much of perhaps my single favorite liturgical experience, where a priest who was reliably out of his depth with little kids asked them to name the animals Baby Jesus might have seen at the manger, and one kid just started listing types of snake

Splashdown! Welcome home, Integrity.

Let me say this plainly: Iranian children have as much of a right to live and thrive as American children. Their babies MUST be as precious to me as my 6 niblings and my baby grandnib are IF I want them to have a future. If I want a future for my kin AND humanity, I MUST act like it. So must you.

"On Monday, Oedipus ate through one apple. But he was still hungry. On Wednesday he ate a whole banana. On Friday he killed an arrogant man at the crossroads and married his widow. But he was still hungry." A section, there, from THE VERY HUNGRY PATER-KILLER.

Due to high geopolitical tensions, sports fans are temporarily required to contextualize their posts, for example: ❌ OH GOD OH NO OH FUCK ✔️ OH GOD OH NO OH FUCK how did he make that basketball go in the hole

Hey, please take your meds and have some water. We need you. Be good to yourself.

PAPA LEONE YES

That's the most important part of this all: that these are things that people will wear and relate to and that fascism is defeated by us forming community and making art and appreciating beauty and love and the colors you want, whatever those colors are. All the colors. That's us.

me when the students have done the reading

Over on threads someone just use ai;dr and we all need to adopt that right quick

Today's Lego botanicals project: the plum blossom

BREAKING: Federal judge orders Adrian Conejo Arias and his minor son, L.C.R., released. "The Great Writ and release from detention are GRANTED." "Civics lesson to the government: Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster."

Never mind the jobs you had, five classes you took in college: 1. Dinosaurs & Disasters 2. LGBT Identity, Theory, & Politics 3. Urban Ecology & the Collapse of the Global Environment 4. American Judicial Process 5. Statistics: a Force of Human Judgment (All outside my French & English majors)

go to standwithminnesota.com and pick someone on there and give them $5. tomorrow go back and give someone else $5. do it every day for a week and you will have made life immediately & materially better for 7 different people, at the cost of $35, and you will feel so much better than you do now.

When Mr. Rogers said “look for the helpers” he meant also in ourselves

The bus story is to 2026 what accidentally bought a truck of rice story is to 2020

Assembling some Lego succulents was my small, good thing tonight.

It's a big day for those fluent in the good grammar of civility looking to deploy decorum to mask agendas of cruelty

when I was in grad school (for French lit, in Wisconsin) one of my profs wrote a comedic stage musical about Québec invading Wisconsin and taking it over and then he asked the province of Québec if they would fund the performance AND THEY SAID YES

And just like that, SFWA capitulates. Keep fighting. It works.

Remember how I said I have it written into my foreign-language contracts that my work has to be translated by an actual human? This shit is why. Those book translations are gonna suck. They'll save money putting out books that are going to be painful to read. That's not a great long-term strategy.

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

This genuinely made me cry. Just wonderful.

A real loss. Rest in power, Alice Wong.

NEW: Shelter in place issued in Louisville following reports of UPS plane crash

I once tried to make cranberry juice from a can of cranberry jelly by putting it into a blender whose lid I had not located. (I then had to figure out how to get gobs of cranberry jelly off the kitchen ceiling.)

Change one letter, ruin a candy: Pox Rocks

I have a special place in my heart for the cranky people on Facebook who reply to food blog posts to tell you what what the clickbait is. “It’s pickles,” they type while scowling at a link they were forced to click in order to find out what surprise ingredient can elevate a sandwich.

"In some places, French postal workers now pick up prescriptions, return library books, and deliver flowers. Last year, only twenty eight per cent of La Poste’s revenue came from sending mail." Services can evolve in positive ways to meet new and growing needs.

Dessert mode: ACTIVATE! Best pie: blueberry Best Ice cream: Thai tea Best Doughnut: apple fritter Best Bar: blondie Best Cake: angel food w/strawberries Best Other: flan and/or crème brûlée

I crocheted Patti Smith’s Horses cover

The “problem” with vaccines? They so effective at preventing deaths that they create generations of people that question whether disease was a problem in the first place because they have never experienced the horrors of a world without vaccines.

watching a Miss Marple where she's doing this cop's job for him (per usual) and at one point he says to her, "any luck?" and she goes "oh no, inspector, just years of experience," and that's the energy I want to bring to everything from now on

"PhD-level experts in your back pocket" is a completely nonsensical description of AI but a pretty good description of social media if you follow the right people

FREE AUDIOBOOKS! From @libro.fm & publishing partners, there's a great giveaway of Romance audiobooks in celebration of #BookstoreRomanceDay! But hurry! They're only free through tomorrow. tidd.ly/4frgXP7

If you want to start a new Libro membership before the big #BookstoreRomanceDay Romance Sale, use code BRD at checkout and you'll get 3 credits the 1st month of your paid membership. THREE (DRM-free) audiobooks for only $14.99! Cancel any time. tidd.ly/3GR4Hec

The chamberpot museum in Munich, which apparently closed the year after I visited.

The em dash has finally pushed back on all that generative AI slander. "Let’s be honest: The real issue isn’t me—it’s you. You simply don’t read enough. If you did, you’d know I’ve been here for centuries." www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...

This is a great thread, from someone supremely qualified to opine on the subject

On a Tuesday in March, Rümeysa Öztürk writes, “I was thrust into a nightmare.” For VF, the Fulbright scholar details what she witnessed in the six and a half weeks she spent inside a South Louisiana ICE detention center.

The OJ Simpson trial. The 1996 NCAA men's basketball championship game. Cyrano de Bergerac.

Niemöller was never the moral guide. He got the memo too late. Our job is to to understand that EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING IS PRECIOUS and to act accordingly NOW

It doesn't matter if they are ever coming for you. It was always ever already too much that they were coming for anyone.

Translation is an art. If you've ever compared translations, you'd know this. Anyone in publishing should know this. No one should support these publishers.

Au fait, maintenant que le truc dans lequel les boites engloutissent du pognon, c'est l'IA, et que tout les cuistres disent "faut vous y mettre maintenant, ou bien vous resterez sur le bord de la route"... il existe un bilan final des NFT, quelque part ?