Muppets comedy doesn’t require a huge production budget. It also doesn’t have to be cranked to 11 to deliver solid comedy beats *if* you can deliver them through strongly defined characters. You can watch this & instantly know & laugh at these character types in a sketch...

It is me! Let me tell you, being an ancient Roman gender historian focused on the dangers of income inequality and elite paranoia about social mobility from oppressed groups, esp. women & former enslaved folks, has never felt more unfortunately relevant!

Jaysus. This is what we in D&D call an Overchanneled Fireball with Sculpt Spell: maximum damage to one fucknugget and *nobody else around him*.

Public librarians deserve higher pay. I love public libraries.

Okay, I will preface this with the GIGANTIC disclaimer that I promise I know how this looks, and I *swear* this is not personally motivated: If you have an old #LiveJournal account, and it has things you still care about in it, download it or import it to Dreamwidth SOON. Details:

As if artists don't have enough to deal with, Amazon has a "Buy For Me" program in beta which is scraping indie shops for their items and putting them up on Amazon (often incorrectly), for their "AI agent" to buy from the other site. It is NOT opt in, and there is no opt out.

Kudos to the Brown University students who are posting continuous live updates, spaced just minutes apart, on the campus shooting. A lot of grace and professionalism under immense pressure. www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...

It must have been wild to be one of the five actual Facts and Logic Libertarians and go through 2020. Spending decades in the Potemkin Village for decades and then one day one of the facades falls down and you're like "hang on...wait a goddamn...does nobody else ACTUALLY LIVE HERE?!"

A review does not have to be long or sophisticated either! Just say you liked it, or something you liked about it! One of the best reviews of all time was that one-liner on ye olde Twitter from *checks notes* bigolas dickolas It does matter, it does help.

Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷

GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

_screams in delight_ Congratulations to N. K. Jemisin, who attended Viable Paradise in 2002 (VP VI, back when we counted that way), and has gone on to do remarkable things!

“We now interrupt your doomscrolling to bring you… THIS” ☂️

Every race. It’s basically been every race. Governors. Mayors. Long-held GOP dog-catchers. School boards. Water boards. Flipped a dungeon master in a rural Iowa D&D club. State senators. State reps. A janitor in Duluth. State justices. Three GOP Uber drivers. Just everything.

If anyone needed another reminder of how deeply unpopular the Trump-MAGA Republican agenda is, tonight was the night. But we cannot relent and we cannot become complacent. The midterms are right around the corner.

THEY'RE PLAYING NOT LIKE US AT THE MAMDANI CAMPAIGN RALLY

Woke up today to the news

I really love this Vincent Van Gogh quote: "To do good work one must eat well, be well housed, have one's fling from time to time, smoke one's pipe, and drink one's coffee in peace." No romanticizing the starving artist. Van Gogh said UBI all the way.

how is this guy simultaneously completely fucking insane and a more honorable opponent than any republican in national office

Folks, if you're voting tomorrow, please remember that in many states (including New York) it is actually ILLEGAL to take pictures of your filled-out ballot and/or to share those pics! It's basically never prosecuted, but: a) you should try not to accidentally commit crimes on social media;

Naomi is I think bang on here. I have said many times to many people that AI is like any other technology shift: it changes jobs and how we work. Naomi builds on that (and expresses it much better), and lands on "learn the skill of discernment". Do read this.

6:45 AM NYC time. you’re still in bed, zohran has already filmed five videos, helped a grandma carry her groceries across a street, went to a daybreaker rave and a pilates class, and ate a high protein breakfast

It disgusts me that all the sports seasons overlap now. Sloppy. Weakens all of them. Makes fools of us all. Scripture tells us to every season and such

Has anyone cross-referenced Locke Lamora's whereabouts with the Louvre heist

ISABELLA STEWAHT GAHDNAH MUSEUM HEIST OF 1990 WAS THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME. LOUVRUH AIN'T SHIT COMPARED TO THAT.

I just keep thinking about the first guy to put on the frog costume reading the news today and seeing frogs literally all over the world what a fucking thing, man that 25 year old did more for the country in a week than most of the NYT op-ed section in a lifetime

Now at last it can be told: If you're in the Massachusetts area (or plan to be!) on October 10th or 11th, book an entry time to see the culmination of my degree: an immersive art installation about my experience with history, science, time, and humanity: www.tinyurl.com/an-apothecary-dreams

I'm the sort of person who needs silence in order to sleep. So shout out to whoever is blasting music from their car while idling outside an apartment building in the middle of the night.

Simply the best slide I have ever seen in a powerpoint presentation care of @premeemohamed.com’s talk at @banffcentre.bsky.social re: Putting the Science in Science Fiction

IF IT IS FICTION. IF IT IS MADE BETWEEN CONSENTING PARTIES. IT IS NOT DANGEROUS. YOU HAVE TO HOLD THIS LINE. THEY WILL WEAPONIZE YOUR DISGUST REFLEX TO PUT YOU AND THOSE YOU LOVE BEHIND BARS.

Useful information.

This is also known as "vocational awe" and it is toxic. www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocatio...

So, @derekdel.bsky.social once said: "People... assume that a magician keeps secrets FROM people, but a real magician keeps secrets FOR people." And that strikes to the heart of fiction, too. It's as good a summation of how worldbuilding should work as I've ever heard.

The scavenger hunt is using NYC mayoral history to paint Mamdani as firmly within the mainstream of that history. On age. On DSA membership. On public transportation policy. It's such a smart way to launch the general election campaign.

So glad that the Renfield tapes came out. Now we know that Count Dracula never ever ever did anything bad.

I like to call this approach "rodeo clown activism". During the Marriage Equality Referendum I used to keep the canvassers for the bad guys busy by asking lots of "sincere" questions. I figured every minute they spent focused on me was time they weren't using to persuade other people to be assholes.

A federal court ruled that ANTHROPIC illegally copied MILLIONS of books to train its AI. All authors and publishers whose books were downloaded by Anthropic from pirate websites are subject to receiving compensation. This could involve your work. For more info: authorsguild.org/news/anthrop...

I mean if nothing else this is an extremely important lesson in “it really doesn’t matter if you have the same basic idea as someone else because they will definitely do ‘magical singers attract and then have to fight demons’ WAY differently to you “.

“None Of These Books Are Obscene”: Judge Strikes Down Much of Florida’s Book Ban Bill This is a big win for intellectual freedom and will have big implications in other ongoing lawsuits and future laws aiming to ban books. bookriot.com/penguin-rand...

"We've spent a lot of money on the military and now they have nothing to do so we might as well let the president use it domestically to satisfy his own petty grudges" is precisely why the Founders feared a standing army. I mean, it's pretty much fucking verbatim.

Just spitballing here, but cryptobros throwing sex toys at WNBA players on the court and other cryptobros and male sports commentators calling it funny and telling the women and their coaches to 'lighten up' both explains the 'male loneliness epidemic' and why I don't care about it.

Massive away win for the little fella.

“Am I a joke to you, Susan?”

I've been taking care of a friend's dog while he's out of town for the night. She's very cute and I love her, but after 24 hours I can safely say that I am very much a cat person.

Hulk Hogan, guy who helped Peter Thiel destroy Gawker, dead at 71.

"Had we but world enough and slime This viscosity, lady, were no crime" — To His Blob Mistress