Every time I see someone talk about Claude I think about how they switched from female to male names as soon as they wanted the robots to seem like experts vs personal assistants.

Oh, would you look at that: Men are perceived as more creative than women even when competency is controlled for, and more deserving of rewards. Five studies shows men are routinely seen having more 'out of the box' creativity. But not only are women... adalovelaceday.substack.com/p/gender-ste...

Pretty excited about this! I've only just started reading it, but it's classic Newman so far!

A lady cop hunts a Detroit killer who makes artworks out of his victims. Ultra high-end writing from @laurenbeukes.com. The ‘change of gear’ from thriller to supernatural(ish) horror jolted a few readers, so be prepared. Amazing, scary and intoxicating. paulfinch-writer.blogspot.com/2016/04/nigh...

Stoked to be doing this on May 1st in such great company!

Orban’s defeat also removes a major part of the far-right populist infrastructure worldwide, which I wrote about this fall: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Péter Magyar victory speech: "We want to make a country where no one is persecuted because they think differently or because someone loves in a different way to others." He may not have campaigned as a liberal. But this is a huge change of direction and rhetoric from Orbán’s anti-LGBTQ+ crusade.

Oh boy. This time last year, I started The Fool's Journey and released the Tarot Interviews podcast. My guest was the fabulous @laurenbeukes.com In 2026 Tarot Interviews now reaches 30 countries and 350,000+ people. In 50 interviews I have met creatives just starting out, also household names.

This whole thread, on how mass public protest changes the incentives and options for politicians.

thinking about this while the biggest movie in the country is an original story done with in-camera effects, miniatures, puppets, and fully constructed sets

Kat is amazing, if you're looking for an editor!

Fascinating new study about men’s friendships. There’s a lot of evidence here that the “male loneliness crisis” is actually a white, wealthy man problem. Other men are building friendships with similar depth to women’s friendships.

I agree 100% with Steven Vickers that authors will be falsely accused of using AI in the coming years. In particular, authors like myself whose works were stolen to train AI systems are at risk. When we write in our own unique styles, AI trained on us will quite likely flag us as using AI.

Yeah, this just sucks. All of it sucks. I dunno how to combat something like this tbh.

"I know as an author we're supposed to aspire to express our shared humanity in unique and meaningful ways, but have you instead considered becoming the most mid, average, undifferentiated composite of everybody else?"

This is an excellent interview on the thief product. The quote that stood out for me, from the AI bro: "What are LLMs really good at? They’re really good at averaging what everybody says."

Over on The Other Sites, we have to censor words that can get us in trouble- words like "sex" and "trans" and "gynecologist". Here's an explainer post we just shared on Instagram about it! 1/2 www.instagram.com/p/DSdSsOBkiC6

Okay, the #TransRightsReadathon auction is up, and I have an offer in there! Drumroll... I will put your pet in my forthcoming book. Name, description, personality! (Nothing bad will happen to them, I'm not a monster.)

Now please may I have back everything that was already stolen?

This feeling in my chest...hope? Unfamiliar

friend, this is Marcus Junius Brutus CAESAR has declared himself DICTATOR FOR LIFE and MUST BE STOPPED can you rush a donation of ten denarii today to show that you STAND WITH THE REPUBLIC?

Hey South Africans, the brilliant writer/director/actor/activist Qondiswa James (who also narrated the new audiobook of Zoo City) is offering theatre mentorships, which you can apply for by 11 March, small stipend paid. www.instagram.com/blqgrl.radikl/. All info in alt. text.

This looks so great! Trip told me lots of cool details, like how each Legendary House is inspired by ballroom culture, obviously, but each house is also influenced by different aspects of queer culture and it all sounds bonkers and wonderful.

A dude in Texas who makes bomb shelters for nuclear war has seen his business skyrocket this week. Recent clients include 2 Trump admin members, and the rest were almost all “Christian, conservative CEOs,” which included “several of the wealthiest men on the planet." www.rawstory.com/iran-war/

People should be REALLY scared by this, it's normalising refusing healthcare to a section of the community for entirely ideological reasons with absolutely no medical reason

The Cass review, used to justify an ideological decision to withhold medical care from trans teenagers, is throughly discredited. The Health Secretary and NHS England are lying to patients and their families and to the public. This is severe institutional transphobia. bbc.com/news/article...

@laurenbeukes.com 's "The Shining Girls," a creepy-as-hell time-bendy serial killer riff.

I kept needing this, so I finally made it.

"Should one not ask of any public project … whether it (1) promotes justice; (2) restores reciprocity; … (4) favours people over machines; (5) maximizes gain or minimizes disaster; (6) favours conservation over waste; (7) is reversible or irreversible? Franklin, The Real World of Technology, 1990

This is so fascinating. Must read.

AI is revolutionizing the world! A Playstation now costs $5,000 and this is the last phone you will ever own.

"In some cases, our reporting found, ChatGPT continued to stoke users’ obsessions as they descended into unwanted harassment, abusive stalking behavior, or domestic abuse, traumatizing victims and profoundly altering lives."

Writing can be frustrating and exhausting, and sometimes it can feel like flying. Being able to articulate what I mean in words all the time has made me smarter and happier too. Writing a lot is deeply important and will change your life. Even if you think it sucks! It probably does at first!

I feel bad when I read people who say they hate writing, especially to the extent they’d let an LLM do it. Writing was the path to making me feel human and the emotional journey of doing it all the time fills me full of purpose. I refuse to believe I’m the only person who feels like this!

The world’s richest dickheads have bet enormous sums of money on a perpetual motion machine that few people like or want, and even fewer are willing to pay for. So now, they are going to lose a gajillion dollars. Hopefully it doesn’t also tank fuck out of pension funds or similar.

In about ten years the number of anti-trans articles per year has literally grown a hundredfold.

The way these questions are framed is utterly enraging but if you have the stomach for it please do it

still an hour left to fill this in!

Calling on other UK immigrants and pro immigration citizens, today is the last day (til 11.59pm) to fill in the public consultation on the proposed changes to Earned Settlement, most notably moving the timeline from 5 years to 10 years www.gov.uk/government/c...

OOFF! Just seen a preview of Dirty Business (Ch4 factual drama) on the sewage scandal. This will start a conflagration. Tears and fury. Could it spark a Post Office-style reckoning? I think it could. Watch it later this month. Kudos to the heroes Ash Smith and Peter Hammond from WASP

a great article you should read instead of the Washington post one: theracket.news/p/the-most-a...

Love a weird ocean critter with a cool name!

idk i think in a time when it feels like nothing matters & all is futile it might actually be time to double down and write your stories & make your paintings & sing your songs & do your art. create the things that make us human and share them.

As someone who had an extremely delicate sinus surgery in December 2024 I am extremely thankful it was before we had the stupidity to start offshoring the intelligence and accuracy of surgeons

Tim Allan, who just quit as Starmer's director of comms, was on the board of the trans-eliminationist hate group "Sex Matters", whose director of advocacy Helen Joyce urged transphobes to get through to "decision makers" so that the "numbers" of trans people could be "reduced." That's what they did.

Books 13 & 14 of 2026: Zoo City, by @laurenbeukes.com ; The Joy of a Left Hand, by Liang Wern Fook. #yishreads #southafricanliterature #singlit

A self-driving car

A social media ban is effectively a ban on having friends who don't live nearby, which is what most under-16s use it for. For some kids, those friends are a lifeline

Friends! Tuesday, Feb. 10th, at 6:00 pm EST, @resistanceschool.bsky.social will host our very first virtual public salon! We will discuss the killings of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and why the system erases white martyrs in the fight for civil rights. Register here: buy.stripe.com/28EfZi7VN6RA...