If you're looking for a sign to switch careers: this is the sign.

u heard sharon, everyone post about their esoteric interests right fucking now. for the good of the community, we need to be hyperfixationmaxxing.

Here's a free educational resource if you've never known what's up or could use a refresher. manningkrull.com/digital-phil...

If you are anxious and sad about the state of the world, that's fine, and there are plenty of strategies for dealing with that. But I think you already know that drive-by online dooming isn't a strategy. It's selfish and adolescent. It's a contagion that only spreads the worst of you, not the best.

I found reading this essay extremely useful; maybe you will too

Time to turn off autoplay if you haven’t already. Retraumatizing yourself is not praxis.

I talk a lot about AI and "male loneliness" as a lack of distress tolerance for the messy business of dealing with other humans, but the rejection (most noticeable in MAGAts and anti-vaxxers, but spreading to, sigh, everything) of the *idea of expertise* is a symptom of the same problem. (thread)

Choose 20 paintings that have stayed with you or influenced you — one painting a day (or thereabouts) for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just paintings . 1. Giacomo Balla, 1912, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, oil on canvas, 89.8 x 109.8 cm, Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Some people do not see this as important but it actually is. Because fun attracts people and dulls the edges off cruelty [which can work in fascists' favor] etc...

biggest technological revolution of our lifetimes and it's not AI or blockchain or cryptocurrency or metaverse.

I have to admit, I also always had kinda the wrong idea about Norman Rockwell until I saw the piece "Murder in Mississippi" as a teen in art history class

my personal achievement: I ✨DID✨ open the doc this year!

end-of-year shoutout to ao3 writers who wrote 200k words, 2k words, or just thought really hard about a fic and never opened the doc. i appreciate each and every one of you!!

I just learned shrews: - Are the same size as mice but heavier - Have poison teeth - Die if they don’t eat more or less constantly, or else hibernate so deep their brains shrink - Hunt and eat mice …I demand a horror movie where vampires are to us as shrews are to mice. We can call it The Shrewd.

10 factor auth: 1. Something you know 2. Something you have 3. Something old 4. Something new 5. Something borrowed 6. Something blue 7. Something in the way she moves 8. Something in the way she woos me 9. Something in her style that shows me 10. Something, Something, Something, Dark Side.

My dad’s Indigenous coloring book is finally available! Over fifty original Alaska Native animal designs to color. My dad was a Tlingit formline artist, retired Alaska State Trooper, and National Park Ranger who loved traditional Tlingit art and wildlife. (Sample pages below)

Bluesky wasn't even included in the sites to be restricted by this ridiculous law. They're complying and taking ID purely for funsies.

...I've abruptly remembered I had a dream like YESTERDAY about the word "strid" having become generic for a kind of dangerous dramatically deep relatively-narrow stream, the way it's used in a Victoria Goddard novel, & was explaining the whole thing to someone unfamiliar while I refused to look down

Improving airflow really helps with airborne diseases (like Covid!) For your next event, consider: can you open windows? Do something with the HVAC? Put in HEPA filters like Corsi-Rosenthal boxes? There's lots of options!

truth coming out of her cup noodles to shame mankind

I think my takeaway from this is WRITE THE THING well, and that you'll never know your ripple effect

speaking of winter: www.generalist.org.uk/iona/books-a... But that one gets its own day in the sun, as we know.

So I wrote two books. both are set in London, in winter, in 2021. One is an alternate future history, a sparse love story where a spad and civil servant work on Brexit together and fall unwillingly in love; the other is a sports anime, a post-pandemic f/f romance. here they both are:

Fanfiction is the sign of a healthy show, like a cold nose on a dog. It took me a while to come around to it early in my career, but I got there.

pls read this thread. this is literally something any of us can do, and it matters so much. if you want a little structure & guidance, look up @indivisible.org’s One Million Rising materials. But you can also just… invite some friends over.

Mood

Best use of Fuck/Marry/Kill

Hey, all in the #NEISvoid! The CME associated with the Mayo Clinic Proceedings Concise Clinical Review expires two weeks from today! You can reach out to your provider using our sample language & send thru your chart, or email to a medical society. More info below!

RFK Jr. backs down all the time when he gets push back, so if anyone wants to call, here's the HHS number 1-877-696-6775. I'd also call your senators/reps as well.

If you'd like to run a workshop at Flights of Foundry this year, now is the time to register and get those program suggestions in! I'm going to be working on workshops this coming week!

alt-text for pic (please alt-text) a screenshot of an e-commerce cart with: yasumoto fusion synthetic brush round, short handle, size 5 prang semi-moist watercolor paint - square pans, assorted, set of 16 bee inspired watercolor artist pad - 9"x12", 140 lb, 20 sheets

Jewish orgs Keshet and the Hebrew Free Loan Association are giving out interest-free loans to LGBTQ+ folks who need to re-locate but can’t afford it. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE JEWISH. “The idea that people were having to pick up and flee their homes was something that resonated Jewishly.”

having trouble assembling an anarchist string quartet, the celllo and viola aren't a problem but there's a state monopoly on violins

Please comment! They've been walking things back when they get enough pushback. This is absolute bullshit.

The comment period for this ends in 3 DAYS. Please leave a comment telling them EVERYONE should be able to get covid boosters. www.regulations.gov/commenton/FD...

A FOIA response in 6 days is absolutely newsworthy by itself alone.

I can't emphasize enough that the most important thing journalists can do right now is publish exactly this kind of article

Myst (1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2020, 2021, 2023)

livejournal laughjournal lovejournal

We are launching a GoFundMe for our lovely @zzclaybourne.bsky.social. Those of you who attended the Black Men Reading Speculative Fiction 2 know that he was too sick even to read that night—after all the love & work he poured into organizing it! This is to help him as he recovers! gofund.me/8e2a5252

Friendly reminder to get your free Covid tests before they throw them away. Covidtests.gov wapo.st/42VLGQh

U.S. residents, I don't know how long we'll still be able to do this, but you can still order free COVID tests — I'm expecting a batch in the mail today. covidtests.gov

If you hate Google's default search and its AI crap, go into your Chrome settings to the "Search Engine" tab and edit the URL to one of them to be www.google.com/search?q=%s&... (screenshot below). Then make it your default. Your search bar will take you to Google Web, which only shows links.

Noting here that marches & rallies are *demonstrations* not direct action. They demonstrate a snapshot of public support, and the hard right has figured out they can ignore demonstrations, because too many people think the demonstration is the point, get their yayas out, and stop paying attention.

My new year's bird (h/t @amalelmohtar.com for the tradition) this year is a whole little flock(let) of bushtits, chittering from tree to bush to tree And then we stumbled on the local murder of crows, settling in for the night, & got to watch them negotiate sleeping arrangements for quite a while

So hey, let’s start off 2025 maybe making somebody’s life better in a small tangible way. What is a small practical thing—object, lifehack, whatever—that solved a small annoyance for you? For me, did you know you can buy clips with elastic specifically to hold the corner of your fitted sheet on?

Happy New Year to us all!

Dirty Dancing teaches that abortion rights are good and you should never date a guy who reads Ayn Rand, which is 90% of what you need to get through life

At risk of repeating myself: The Luddites weren’t against technology. They were against getting put out of work by a technology that did a version of their job faster but worse, in the service of increasing profits for their bosses.