After threatening that furloughed federal workers might not receive backpay after all, Mike Johnson tries to clarify that *of course* he thinks they *should* get backpay.

Soybeans in the field next door to my house. I hope they find a buyer this year.

An amazing graph, what happens when you destigmatize a behavior.

Flight attendant: "Is there anyone on board who is a trained pilot?" Me: *raising hand tentatively* "I'm not a pilot but I've read a bunch of Stephen Coonts novels."

Reminder to folks that when an author/other creative tells you that a new work is available, when you go into their comments to tell them why you're not going to get it, you look like an asshole, I'm sure your stand is principled and all that but going out of your way to tell us "no sale" is dickish

We should all lead a life as interesting and useful www.npr.org/2025/10/01/4...

I can't say "Kandahar" because as one of my airmen pointed out, at no point during my six month stay did I technically leave the airport. So I'm gonna go with a close runner up: Las Vegas.

"DO YE WANT TO GET SUED?!"

Basically any time my dogs or kids want food.

I will say if that whole military meeting had been an email it would have been a pretty weird email

I've been reading about the ubiquity of Pedro Pascal, and the criticism of him seemingly being everywhere. I have a few questions of his critics. Who compels you to watch his work? Does he pick his roles or do the studios select him? Why don't you hire his agent so you can be everywhere too? 1/

Inspired by some #BookTok discourse I've seen online 😁

I don't know about anyone else, but getting spammed with the same ads for Liberty Mutual Insurance or whatever multiple times times in the same YouTube video does the opposite of making me want to do any business with them. Like, does this sort of tactic actually help them get more sales?

Playing Robocop: Rogue City: Unfinished Business, and they introduce an early version of the Otomo androids from Robocop 3 into a fight scene. Cue a very Japanese-themed version of the Robocop action theme with wagakki instrumentation. Devs, could you please be serious for a second? 😂

Someone sent me a hate email this morning and it was just so low effort I didn't even bother to send it back with markup and rewrite request, I just dumped it in the trash, what has happened to us and the quality of our haterade, we used to be a real country

One would think 💉#vaccine skepticism would increase use of snug n95 😷 masks. Since I don’t see more masks I worry that people don’t mind getting sick and are fine with passing infections to anyone, including me. Community care is breaking down in scary ways.

Suggestion: Defund this guy in particular and donate the proceeds to the Coast Guard where at least the money will be spent actually protecting our borders.

POV: You just found out that you're about to brief a theater full of annoyed/exhausted generals and admirals about Amelia Earhart:

Being an academic librarian is so embarrassing, like why do I have beef with a textbook publisher.

I was briefly raptured due to clerical error, they sent me back down again once they realised

Just as an FYI: I did get raptured but we have WiFi up here.

Them: Before vaccines and Tylenol, babies didn't have autism! Me: You see Karen, it's hard to identify things like autism when babies die at an alarming rate from things like toxic bacteria in raw food like honey, unidentified birth defects, or measles, polio, or whooping cough...just to name a few

Apropos of nothing, I find myself thinking of this quote lately.

In other news, I achieved one of my major goals of the past few years and ran in the Air Force Marathon. Official finishing time was comfortably short of the cutoff time but otherwise unimpressive. Let me tell you, I got emotional crossing the start line.

As I've seen it come up, no, authors don't get paid for writing blurbs for other authors. We do it (mostly) to pay it forward and to bring attention to work we think is good. Also, if an editor/publisher tried to bribe me for a blurb, that email would go up here and on my personal site SO FAST

Crying infant on this plane absolutely refusing to be mollified, and you know what, I respect the commitment to the bit

Judging by the state of the toilet seat in this truck stop restroom stall, the guy who just left must be one of those aerial firefighters.

Watching "The Bridges at Toko-Ri" and I don't think this scene was supposed to be a literal laugh-out-loud moment.

Is two years really a "blink of an eye"? Asking for everyone in the military who's ever gotten married 😂

Outstanding news that should be shared.

roses are red violets are blue singular "they" predates singular "you"

Another day, another whiner complaining that I use the singular "they" in my work, and of course they can go fuck themselves (you see what I did there) (also, gift link) wapo.st/3JEdPUv

For example, when rich people let kids do things independently at a young age, that’s “free range parenting” but when poor people do it, that’s considered neglect. When rich people order pizza at the country club, that’s fun, but when poor people give their kids pizza for dinner, that’s unhealthy.

enshittification | noun | when a digital platform is made worse for users, in order to increase profits

Keira Knightley, best known for her role as child thief Sheena Rose in The Bill

Hey, as a librarian I have to tell you You don't have to finish a book that doesn't interest you. Life's too short for that. Not your jam? You have my permission to move on to the next book.

I'm a Map Guy because I value how scientists think and I value how specialists in the humanities think. Maps are technical projects that use math and data science and satellites and lasers and theodolites. But they also are semiotics and history and epistemology and language. Both and.

Quite the hair trigger you got there, officer.

Sean Duffy: "Pete Buttigieg was running for president as opposed to doing his job and making sure that we got our air traffic control system modernized." (Pete Buttigieg ran for president in 2020. He became transportation secretary in 2021.)

OK but imagine this crew fighting demons in the 60s. I'd watch that movie. But then I've enjoyed all six of the original Star Trek movies, so my taste is considered a little suspect.

I'm just saying, there's a couple of reasons that I, someone who unironically has enjoyed every Robert Heinlein book he has read except for "Stranger in a Strange Land," do not tend to recommend Heinlein to anyone my age.

If you ever feel really dumb, just remember that Christopher Columbus coined the term "Indians" to refer to the Lucayans, the indigenous people he met in Guanahani, despite this being nowhere near Indiana. Truly one of the worst navigators of all time.

WTF? I was quoted in this story but I have never spoken to the reporter nor would I have said those things. Is everything just generated by LLMs these days? cosmosmagazine.com/earth/oceans...

An update on the IMLS

I don't really follow basketball but am genuinely amused by Nikola Jokic, all he really seems to want to do is to race horses in small town Serbia but he's like "fine, ugh, I will go to work as a generational basketball player to pay the bills"

*me putting on yellow tinted shades* oh no I've been teleported to television Mexico!

"That's my secret, Cap... I'm always tired."

Everyone’s a nerd but me.