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Archangel Beth

@archangelbeth.bsky.social

1.8K followers 240 following 18K posts

AKA EMcCoy_writer, "ꙮ Mantis Space Marine," Archangel Beth, & ArchBeth, depending where you are. She/Her works for me. (ElizabethMcCoy.com, & the new one isn't there yet, but there's only one other "me" on Amazon😅)

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Archangel Beth @archangelbeth.bsky.social · Jun 20

This is where I can set the novel samples to 50%, so you can tell if you want to read my stuff!

www.smashwords.com/profile/view...

Elizabeth McCoy

Elizabeth McCoy's fiction has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress #7, in the "Best In Show" anthology by Sofawolf*, and in the fanzine "Pawprints" (published by Conrad Wong & T. Jo...

www.smashwords.com

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Sigrid Ellis @sigridellis.bsky.social · 11h

Every single time a character in any of Ursula's books does something reckless or endangering, they have a clearly comprehensible established motivation specific to that character.

I never think, "oh, that's for the plot to happen."

+

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Mikki Kendall @karnythia.bsky.social · 10h

20 years ago today I married Husbeast. What no one tells you is that 20 years is a long time and also the blink of an eye. He owes me another 40.

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 9h

As an artist, I realize that I am a pioneer species in disturbed areas and any cool artiness I may bring is an eventual factor in gentrification. I try to prevent this by being as uncool as possible in public.

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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 13h

A teacher must have an email etiquette autoreplier bot set up.
I know I should NOT reply with:

"Dearest Kevin,

I am dreadfully sorry for the improper email I have burdened you with.

Kindly halt all lessons in email etiquette.

I am a grown ass woman with a PhD.

Auspiciously,

Sarah J. McAnulty"

a block of text from an email that reads "Hello,

I noticed your email is missing a polite greeting. Starting your email
with a greeting helps set a respectful tone.

Here are some examples of greetings you can use:
- Dear Mr./Ms. [Last Name],
- Hello [Teacher’s Name],
- Hi [Teacher’s Name],

Also, please remember to include a clear subject line in your emails.

Thank you!

Best regards,
[Your Name]"

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 7h

AAAAUGH! The lithops is doing a thing! I was not informed that lithops did things! I thought they just sat there and occasionally sprouted pups like a normal succulent!

A lithops plant in a small terracotta pot, producing a green flower bud thingy.

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 5h

Uh, whoa! Dude! Look what you glorious weirdos did! WHAT STALKS THE DEEP is #12 on the New York Times!

A celebratory image of the cover of what stalks with New York Times, USA TODAY and Indie Bestseller emblazoned across the top!

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 1d

Your periodic reminder that you have the right to find out why your health insurer denied your claim.

We built a tool to help you do it: projects.propublica.org/claimfile/

Find Out Why Health Insurance Denied Your Claim

You likely have the right to access records that explain why your insurer denied your claim or prior authorization request. Use ProPublica’s free tool to generate a letter requesting your claim file f...

projects.propublica.org

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mindstalk.bsky.social @mindstalk.bsky.social · 1d

Masks and lockdowns wiped out a whole strain of flu. B/Yamagata is no longer a "fact of life", it's extinct.

Lockdowns in NZ and AU repeatedly eradicated national covid. But the world kept re-introducing it.

Wearing good masks is a good way to not get sick in the first place.

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Archangel Beth @archangelbeth.bsky.social · 6h

The flu can also be avoided* by wearing a mask, and that's good!

And long covid has not reduced in severity or frequency, that I've heard.

I once had to go to the ER for a cold turning to sinusitis; why do we *want* to be sick, anyway?

* reduced chance of infection based on mask fit.

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Archangel Beth @archangelbeth.bsky.social · 6h

Depending on if it's aggravated your mast cells, which it can do to many, using antihistamines like cetirizine and famotidine (H1 and H2) can help calm it down. I can grab citations if you'd like!

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Chris Williams @gaffa.bsky.social · 2d

No, it's a @flomask.bsky.social. it's available in a kids' size, and two different nose shapes…a European one like mine, and one optimized for African or Asian heritage. The standard mask comes with a white surround, but you can also get a black, mint green or even a floral print one.

Flo Mask

Next level protection for the whole family.

www.flomask.com

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Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 2d

Covid is not over.

People are still dying and becoming disabled every day.

We rushed “back to normal” for the economy, not because the threat had passed.

When you wear a mask, you’re not only protecting your health, you’re saying you don’t believe anyone is expendable.

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Ashley Lynch ✂️🎞️ @ashleylynch.bsky.social · 21h

Mascot rave actually seems like an incredibly effective tactic. There's absolutely no way to spin that the dancing unicorn was threatening.

Courtney Vaughn @courtneyvaughn.bsky.social · 1d

Streets are still closed off in front of the Portland ICE facility at 8:30pm. Protesters have gathered on a side street. Dance party in progress.

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Hillary Monahan @hillarymonahan.bsky.social · 1d

Frankly surprised I still have these. They're $24, handpoured and handpainted, and I know a bunch of you love orange cats.

www.peculiarityshop.com/product-page...

Hillary's The Communal Brain Cell: The Pendant | Peculiarity Shop

We love our orange cats around here. Sometimes, they've got one brain cell shared among all. Components: plaster of Paris, epoxy clay, acrylic paint, Mod Podge, stainless steel chain18" Can be paired ...

www.peculiarityshop.com

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Tiercel @tiercel42.bsky.social · 9h

PSA: If your will is dated 1975, mayyyyybe check with a lawyer to see if it's still valid.

This announcement brought to you by a situation in which everyone involved in drawing up or witnessing the will was dead, the law firm was closed, and the legislature had made subsequent laws it didn't meet.

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haobing is typing... @haobing.bsky.social · 14h

I worked such "mechanical turk" jobs in my past; people take moderation for granted now. It is trauma-inducing. Machine learning and so-called "AI" for moderation is genuinely a good thing unless you like making poor people traumatized & suicidal.

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rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 14h

I think that when a law hasn't been interpreted to apply that way in decades, every single state agency providing guidance about legal obligations for small businesses doesn't mention it, and the new interpretation came out of nowhere it's reasonable to feel blindsided

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Archangel Beth @archangelbeth.bsky.social · 7h

I'm still gonna call GenAI a plagiarism machine, and its output "slop," and also claim that GPT stands for Glorified Predictive Text.

But that's a bit more targeted than anthropomorphized (and "clanker" was for enemy droids in the Clone Wars
cartoon), so I *think* I'll be okay.

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rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 11h

Like, I'm not even joking when I say that figuring out bsky.app/profile/raha... took me two extremely stressful weeks in which I was spending 12 hours a day terrified that I was about to get fucked and the only reason I figured it out was a rando helpful blogger and not THE PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT IS

rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · May 14

Okay. This is like nine layers down in The Fuckery, but we ran into it while trying to resolve The Fuckery and it is a fucking massive change: The PCI DSS standards have *significantly* changed the way sites using third party payment services can demonstrate they meet the standards.

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rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 11h

I know EXACTLY what you mean! And complaining about regulatory burden is often a dogwhistle for "I want to do crimes and not get caught" and a lot of the regulations *are* necessary protective measures, but the regulatory burden *is* still a problem and it should be so much easier!

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Archangel Beth @archangelbeth.bsky.social · 7h

Subthread for data I repost when it comes up because the more people who can avoid feeling cruddy due to a mast cell freak-out, the better. Scroll up for context.

rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 10h

The "do not exceed this" upper limit is 300mg in 24 hours, but most folks will be miserable at those doses. If you start having the mast cell reaction when the first dose wears off (4-6 hours after the first 50mg dose), you can take another 25mg as long as it's been 4-6 hours since the last--

Reposted by Archangel Beth

rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 11h

I use (and pay for) Lockdown Privacy on iOS because it's also an ad/tracker blocker (and a very effective one), but for just VPN, Proton is a decent choice! Their free tier only allows one device but their paid tier allows unlimited

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rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 10h

Every time I post something about us picking legal fights about privacy on behalf of our users, our income doubles for like three days! Our users genuinely *get* what we're about and want to reward it, and it's so fucking gratifying. I genuinely love what we've built.

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rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 10h

Like, we very deliberately don't include a lot of the dopamine-button features pretty much every other site has these days, and it really screws us sometimes in user retention! But I'd rather a small group of committed users who really get what we're doing than millions of users who don't.

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Archangel Beth @archangelbeth.bsky.social · 8h

This is an interesting subthread tidbit and anyone giving rahaeli grief about it is gonna get blocked. Because this is an "oh, of course" that I hadn't thought about before.

rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 8h

What Hailey actually said was not "AI is sentient and shouldn't be discriminated against". What she said was using language derived from bigoted terms used for human groups, in any context, normalizes that use in such a way to reduce the threshold taboo against using it for those humans.

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