Author | Lightnews

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 1d

My noir story "Swim with the Space Whales" in Interzone #300 featured huge woodlice, aka rolly polies, as the construction workhorses in Jupiter orbit -- who could hold the key to a suspicious death here on Earth.

1 1

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 1d

I hope you folded it up neatly, carried it under your arm, and harrumphed at the urchins begging "Penny for the Guy!" at zebra crossings.

1

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 2d

Excellent idea if your wildest fantasy is to have a boneless left arm so you can grip your own shoulder from behind.

jon rosenburger @jonrosenberg.bsky.social · 2d

Got this ad on Reddit the other day and I can't stop thinking about it. Just so many levels of bad and wrong

An ad for an AI adventure about a creepy ass businessman with a hand on his shoulder
"u/friendly_fox_games Promoted
Live out your wildest fantasies in Infinite Worlds - the Al adventure that lets you do anything you wish, complete with illustrations."

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 2d

Photo contains obligatory Ford Cortina ✅

1

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 3d

A lot of people trace this acceleration of untoward events back to the weasel that jammed the Large Hadron Collider, but I only noticed cause and effect rusting out when someone called 'Reality Winner' was arrested for leaking stuff from the NSA about Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

1 2

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 4d

Whitby is one of the very few places (2, I think) where you can watch both the sun set and the sun rise over the North Sea (at certain times of the year). Lovely photo.

2

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 5d

Correct. Canned food: They pick it, wash it and can it in about 95 seconds. Same with frozen food. "Fresh" vegetables are picked unripe and trucked 2000 miles across the continent (or worse) over a week or more.

Jennie @unabridgedopinions.com · 5d

In other low key food drama, canned food is also a miracle of food preservation and everyone coming at parents for serving “canned vegetables” should just take option “b” and shush.

rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 5d

i have decided i am in the mood to kick up some low stakes drama. and here it is. you people would collapse to your knees weeping if you knew how many fashionable restaurants use those pre peeled garlic cloves you hate so much

1

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 5d

Queen of the Night cactus (photo taken at night).

1 1

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 5d

Perfect Southern California day. Everything cleaned of dust by the recent storm. O'Neill's Golf Course looking towards Crown Valley Parkway.
(No, I don't play golf. They have an open restaurant.)

Looking over a golf course, over a water feature, trees in the middle ground, mountains in the background. Sky is blue with a flat-bottomed layer of fluffy clouds.

Reposted by Lyle Hopwood

Peter Chilvers @peterchilvers.com · 6d

The BBC are accidentally running the subtitles to Mrs Marple over the Mercury Prize, and it’s rather wonderful. A few of lines could plausibly have been written by Jarvis.

50 1K 2.7K

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 6d

Mine is the Led Zep song Royal Orleans:
When I step out
Strut down with my sugar
She'd best not talk like Bari Weiss

2

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 6d

Had disappointing fish and chips last night. Some cheap bycatch fish, in thumb-sized portions deep fried in salty, sour batter and chips dressed with a seasoning salt developed by a man with no tastebuds.
Pretty much every fish'n'chips I've had in So Cal has been bobbins but I keep falling for it.

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 7d

Yikes. I was born in England and lived there thirty years but I only have an "O" level English qualification. Whither me?

1

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 7d

And for our final number...

Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald (famous) photo with added rock instruments and microphone.

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 7d

A little later:
H: We're going to put this wristband on you. Can you confirm this is your name and date of birth?
Me: No, I can't. You've given me a sedative and taken my glasses away from me in a flimsy plastic bag along with my phone and wallet. I can't confirm I even exist.

3

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 7d

Britain and its colonies (including America) didn't change to the Gregorian calendar until 1752.
How odd it must have been for countries next door to each other to not agree on what day it was.
I can't imagine being an historian working out when letters were sent and replies received.

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 7d

On this day in 1582, the calendar changed with 10 leap days. Up to this point, the Julian Calendar was, for the most part, the global norm, but the year it reflected was too long.
#History #OTD

After centuries of use, the calendar was no longer in alignment with Earth’s orbit. So, in 1582, October 4th on the Julian calendar, was followed by October 15th on the Gregorian calendar. Some countries did not make the switch until the 20th Century. And a few still haven’t. Some discrepancies between Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox religious holidays each year are due to when countries switched to the Gregorian calendar.

A metal bust of Aloysius Lilius, the Italian astronomer who authored what came to be known as the Gregorian calendar.
Source: Wikipedia

1 1

Reposted by Lyle Hopwood

ℳatt @matttomic.bsky.social · 8d

Here's a recording of the pilot of C-GZPT, a Cirrus SR22, tracing the Jays logo over Nova Scotia

14 190 600

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 8d

Good news - you can have a small black coffee without sugar (or anything else) before a fasting blood draw. (Source: I'm a med tech.)

1

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 8d

Mine was "haywire" and "awry." They were used in the same contexts, so I assumed one was an archaic spelling of the other. (Not that I knew the word "archaic" at the time.)

1 2

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 11d

I stand (auto)corrected.

1

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 12d

Haha, I forgot to switch it off again. (Fixed.)

1

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 12d

You can also tell autocorrect that your preferred combination of letters should correct itself to "death that requires an inquest." Here I've used "dt." Every time you type dt it will fill in the full phrase. (Be careful obvs not to use a combination of letters you might use by accident.)

Telling autocorrect that your preferred combination of letters should correct to "death that requires an inquest." Here I've used "dt." Picture of autocorrect box in Microsoft Word.

2 1

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 13d

It reminds me of this Max Ernst picture of a bride (#23). Though to be accurate, the bride is looking at the maid. It's her veil (?) that is looking at us. (Can't cut and paste it here as it's NSFW.)
www.artnews.com/list/art-new...

1

Lyle Hopwood @lylehopwood.bsky.social · 14d

A nice prompt and break from what I'm doing. Sorry, I don't have time to polish and submit.
(England is a country on the island called Great Britain.)

Gull Breakfast
Herring gulls floating past the window, screaming, diving for chips thrown by sun-pink tourists on morning promenades.
The tiny steel oven dings but the bread slice is pale white, floppy.
I reset the timer, push the heat up +++, replace the slice on the warped rack.
The result is stiff beige rubbish, inedible.
Furious, I pull the failure into pieces and throw them out for grateful gulls to catch in mid-air.
No toast for me today in this English AirBnB.

1

Reposted by Lyle Hopwood

Amberley Museum @amberleymuseum.bsky.social · 14d

This is Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and considered to be the first person to write a computer programme which was for Babbage's Analytical Machine. She died in 1842
In her honour, today is Ada Lovelace Day and is all about encouraging women and girls in mathematics, science and engineering.

6 170 460