The survey is open to non-members (I am not one) and to readers (who here is not &c.) so I encourage you to share your feelings on the matter. Don't assume that everyone already understands that AI is bad or why! I mean, people *should*, but you could say that about a lot of things.

Would love to try this out here in the Sonoran

This week I wrote a little about how Paradise Killer’s art direction puts players in the mind of the sleuth in Kaizen Game Works’ 2020 murder mystery game. Featuring hard questions from fish ghosts, getting lost in paradise, and various Knives: www.cosmicmystery.club/p/love-dies-...

FATHER JUD will return in CONCLAVE: THE NEXT GENERATION

I've seen some people saying that the new SFWA rule on "AI" in the Nebulas will prevent people from being transparent about their LLM use. Newsflash: They wouldn't have been anyway. It would cost them readers. It would cost them votes. It would potentially cost them opportunities with publishers.

this is so incredibly 10000/10 niche I am howling

Oh to be a little Tardigrade walking across a microscopic slide. 🫧🐻🧪

Stupid trilobite jokes. #TrilobiteTuesday

“Do not open before December 25th” ??? ?????????

All the good jokes about the US have already been made so. Gray-white in 2026? The bane of minimum viable apt remodels for the past decade?

It’s officially citrus season

I went to see Wake Up Dead Man the one day this extended holiday weekend I don’t have to be at a movie theater and yeah worth it

This is why Kentucky Route Zero and 1000xResist are the goats

People doing acoustic Letterboxd in my neighborhood

First cozy-cold Saturday of the year and that means Ball x Pit in bed before work

Last week I wrote a little about Algernon Blackwood's The Willows, T. Kingfisher's The Hollow Places, Ocarina of Time randomizers, tamarisks, and writing character interiority at the intersection of mystery and cosmic horror: www.cosmicmystery.club/p/willows-re...

I first played FFIX when I was fifteen. Different characters and parts of the story have reflected my own life back to me as I’ve aged, and I still play it every few years to see what I see differently, what stays the same. (Also, some seriously cool fantasy library/archive designs.)

"I long to read more in the book of you." Beloved Moomins creator Tove Jansson's almost unbearably beautiful love letters to the love of her life (who inspired her wisest Moomin character) www.themarginalian.org/2020/06/12/t...

New sights on South Mountain last night. Chatted with another hiker about identifying this pink-stemmed plant that's covering so much of the ground right now.

This is extremely hard. I feel like #kyanite represents all the minerals I previously disregarded and came to appreciate over #MinCup25 but #tugtupite represents all the new minerals I learned so much about this month

#MinCup25 Yay … someone shared explanation the greenish blue. What causes the other colors observed in #kyanite? What about the very green samples? I need to know … but not enough to try hard to bypass paywalls. 🫠

Colours are super important in #MinCup25, no? Here is the bracket, with the colors superposed (of course, some minerals have multiple, so I took the snippets from the images on the voting posts or the website). Don't forget to vote (once)! It's super close now. www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r5...

Went to the library since I finished my draft and I’m allowed to read books again. (Don’t ask me how many holds I placed.) Probably shouldn’t have gone alone?

I mean, look at these choices: #Hematite: Turns Mars red, key in telling early Earth story #Kyanite Anisotropic & BLUE!!! Blueblueblue! #Tugtupite Piezoelectric reindeer blood! #Dioptase Birefringent GREEN!! Greengreengreen! In the end, there can only be one #MinCup25 champion.

Have you ever stood on an ancient seafloor bed? This is the banded iron formation (BIF) of Hamersley Range, Australia. Go big #hematite ! Vote: www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r3... #MinCup25 ⚒️ sci-fi 🧪 🖖🏼 scifi Geosciences #WomenInSTEM geology 🔭🪐

If you’re still undecided please vote for #dioptase because its geode samples look like little sparkling abysses you can cradle in the palm of your hand #MinCup25

Fine norske kyanitt-eksemplarer funnet i norske veiskjæringer? Javisst har vi det, bare å spørre. (Det er aller best å spørre mindat.org, tror jeg.) #Kyanite #MinCup25

I've been super busy this month and haven't been about to post about #MinCup25, but.... VOTE #KYANITE!!! I've been ride or die for this beautiful aluminosilicate since 2017, and THIS YEAR IS OUR YEAR!

So much to love about beautiful blue #Kyanite, but I think my favorite right at this second is that it’s anisotropic. You can scratch it with steel down its length, but it’s pretty much impervious across its stubby sides. Best party trick ever! I mean, what in the what??? #MinCup25

Friends of feldspathoids! Join me in voting for #tugtupite! #MinCup25

Hades 2 is downloaded but I am not allowing myself to play until I finish this novel draft

Alright team, its my fave on the bracket. This is a call to action, which may happen 2 more times. #mincup25 #R2M6 ITS #Dioptase TIME! Pics below. VOTE FOR DIOPTASE. more like #mollybendone I need you all to take a second and vote for the desert enerald.

Round 2 gives you another chance to support #Dioptase! It’s blue-green (so credit towards the blue vote this match), a copper mineral (yay) & it’s PYROelectric!! Vote Dioptase!!! #MinCup25

Lotta cloud stuff going on

Perovskite had me at "found in the rain on brown dwarf stars..." That is the most arresting sentence I've read in days.

What appears to be a single Borg-like #perovskite crystal is an intergrowth of repetitively “twinned” crystals that have formed striations and very complex faces. How? See comment. Photo from Mindat-link in ALT. Vote perovskite below #MinCup25 ⚒️ sci-fi 🧪 🖖🏼 scifi Geosciences #WomenInSTEM geology 🔭🪐

Battle of the Blues! I like the blues, it’s a great genre of music. As a fan of Sodalite , I’m Team #hauyne

#Mannardite is the little goth rock who could! Jet black & found in the oldest terrestrial rocks, Hadean era crust! This is the last bout of Round 1 so step up to vote & be counted! #MinCup25

Mannardite inside quartz, with celsian. "Black phantoms". Mysterious, hazy, and people mistaking it for ankangite. #Mannardite is so black-metal-goth-vote that Ankangite got discredited. Gone. Poof. Only M. remains. 🤘😎 ALTs relevant to contain the dark universes from spreading! ⚫🌌💥😱 #MinCup25

VOTE #PADDLEWHEELITE! Look at that COLOR! Also it's called PADDLEWHEELITE! Has there ever been a more awesome name? It's crystal structure looks like a paddle wheel! You can't ask for more than that! #TeamPaddlewheelite www.mindat.org/min-52712.html

I'm 100% team #taenite. As a main component of iron meteorites I've studied, taenite is more than just a cool space metal. It's nickel composition and presence in Widmanstätten patterns can indicate the size and cooling rate of the asteroid core it came from! #MinCup25

Look, since my wife is a sculptor, I’ve got nothing against clay & #nontronite is pretty neat-o. Yet, #taenite is in meteorites, shows those great Widmanstätten patterns (look like alien computer chips to my sci-fi brain!) & is a possible peak into Earth’s core. I’m Team Space Rock here. #MinCup25

Excellent context and observations on the most-discussed video in my house lately

#Ikaite is a calcium carbonate that does WHAT above cold temps? This is the fastest I’ve gone from knowing nothing about a mineral to voting for it this. This is my new favorite mineral #MinCup25

Once again throwing my potter's support to kyanite. Low thermal expansion, highly refractory. Great source of alumina for use in firebricks, or for stiffening up a glaze or clay body.

#Kyanite is BLUE! Which is reason enough to vote for it! But it’s also anisotropic, so according to MinCup: it can be scratched by steel parallel to the blade but is impervious across its stubby sides. And it forms in mountain-building continental collisions! Vote #Kyanite!!! #MinCup25

The organizers of #mincup25 are very clever. Today and yesterday feature three aluminosilicates that are compositionally co-linear! Diagram from Barton (1982), published in the American Mineralogist. #Kyanite #topaz #zunyite #aluminosilicate #mineralsocamerica #argillicalteration

I want to eat #zunyite’s star-shaped crystals because they’re so cute. But I can’t so I’m voting #molybdenite #MinCup25

Ny sjanse for norsk bygde-bergindustri i dag! Jeg stemmer på molybdenglans til ære for gruvehistoria på Knaben, der folk i begynnelsen bar heim blokker av rå-stein fra fjellet om sommeren og satt gjennom vinteren og skilte molybdenmalm fra gråberg med kniv. #Molybdenite #MinCup25