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John Lyon @johnlyon.bsky.social · 13h

Me: Is there something I could do differently to improve my sleep?

Doctor: I recommend not looking at your phone for at least an hour before bed.

Me: So nothing then.

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Stephanie Leary @sleary.bsky.social · 1d

Can’t tell you how fast I’d be seated for the new Tron movie if it weren’t for that fucking guy

Yo Gabapentin @yogabapentin.bsky.social · 1d

Obligatory Jenny Nicholson Tweet

Jenny Nicholson Tweet:

How come major film studios keep being like Jared Leto may have allegations, but at least he looks weird, stars in box office bombs, and is not a good actor

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Sarah Weinman @sarahweinman.com · 1d

Distribution is THE under-reported story in book publishing (outside of the trade publications) and losing B&T is going to have untold ripple effects on the industry, small presses, and authors.

Maris Kreizman @maris.bsky.social · 1d

seems very bad www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

Baker & Taylor Prepares Plan to Shut Down

At a town hall yesterday, B&T owner and CEO Aman Kochar announced that following the termination of the ReaderLink acquisition deal, he does not see a path to keep the library wholesaler in business.

www.publishersweekly.com

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Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 2d

I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections

After Dinner Conversation® @afterdinnerconversation.com · 2d

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David Buchanan @retr0.id · 2d

how to deactivate torment nexus

torment nexus deactivation tutorial

torment nexus deactivation tutorial working 2025

deactivate torment nexus no survey

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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 2d

The thing about 7 billionaire freaks passing the same increasingly large wad of IOUs back and forth, is that only a pundit could possibly think this translates to increasing prosperity for everyone else.

🍁 Levi Kornelsen @levikornelsen.bsky.social · 2d

"We'd have a recession if it wasn't for all the AI spending" actually means "We are in a recession which is partially obfuscated *from statistics* (and nobody else) by rich people playing silly buggers with large transactions between each other".

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Kelsi Jo @kelsijosilva.bsky.social · 2d

We've got to stop writing stories about defeating villains without also examining the systems that create them.

Villains aren't reacting to nothing, and they aren't upset at a world that works.

I'm looking at you:
-Supetheroes
-Fantasy books
-SO much of the romantasy sphere
-dark academia
-ETC

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 3d

I was with some publishing folks recently. They said almost every pitch now is basically, “this book is just like those other books but written, bravely, BY A MAN.”

The one who could retire, did. The rest of us just got drunk

Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 3d

Just out here fixing civilization. By reading fiction. As a man.

You’re welcome, ladies.

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Stephanie Leary @sleary.bsky.social · 3d

It always seems especially arduous to get to Boston from here. Good luck!

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Anise K. Strong @anisekstrong.bsky.social · 3d

This is the most amazing bit of cross-cultural mythmaking ever. I wonder if this was inspired by myths of Talos? Anyhow, I am very sorry that the secretive guild of ancient Roman robot engineers never existed, though pleased they were appropriately unionized.

Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 3d

When I was researching my book Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India, I learned of a 1000-year-old myth about Roman tech being used to build killer robots to guard the Buddha's remains in Pataliputra, and a Hungarian folklorist read my book & got excited about it, & she managed to dig up a🧵(1/3)

Romanised Pali manuscript of the Lokapannati

Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India
p. 60
Bhoota Vahana Yanta
Bhoota Vahana Yanta means “spirit movement machine.” The term is used
for several varieties of robot drone assassins and sword-wielding machine-
men mentioned in the Lokapannati, a Pali-language text written between
1000 and 1200 CE by Saddhammaghosa of Thaton, but concerning
events that took place much earlier, around 500 to 200 BCE.
According to the story, robots were first invented by engineers of the
early Roman Republic. These robots were used for commerce, in agriculture,
as a police force, and as executioners. The secret of how to build these
spirit-engines was fiercely protected. If any engineer dared to take the designs
out of the city, one of his own executioner robots would come after
him and kill him.
At that time, in Pataliputra (then in the kingdom of Magadha, now
Patna in the state of Bihar), there lived a young man who had heard of the
Romans’ magical androids. He became so determined to learn the secrets
of their manufacture and share them with the people of Magadha that he
arranged his own death. Then, on his deathbed, he vowed to be reincarnated
as a Roman.
This indeed took place. In his new life, the man grew up to join the
Roman guild of engineers. He even married the daughter of the Master
Robot-Maker, and had a son by her.
Once he learned the secrets of the Bhoota Vahana Yanta, the man resolved
to transfer the information back to Pataliputra. But he was well
aware that now, since he was a member of the guild, he would be killed as
soon as he left. So he cut a gash in his thigh, inserted the plans in his flesh,
and sewed the wound back up.

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Stephanie Leary @sleary.bsky.social · 3d

Can we all file an amicus brief stating that we don’t want either of them doing it?

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Stephanie Leary @sleary.bsky.social · 3d

I’ve never seen The Godfather. I’ve tried twice, and each time was interrupted by a phone call telling me that a family member had died. I’ve decided I don’t need to see it that badly.

Hannah Fearn @hannahfearn.bsky.social · 4d

Inspired by a post I just saw in which someone admitted they hadn’t seen a single episode of Friends nor the film Love Actually… what cultural hole do you have that’s a bit weird for your generation?

I’ll go first: I haven’t seen Dirty Dancing.

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Tombmas Spooks @thomasfuchs.at · 4d

I’ve said it before, but chatbot user interfaces that pretend to be human or human-like need to be banned.

It’s a deceitful, dehumanizing and deeply unethical scam.

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☠️deadward niedermurder☠️ @niedermeyer.online · 3d

queen shit, rest in peace

KOJAMF🤘🖤🤘 @kojamf.bsky.social · 4d

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

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Stephanie Leary @sleary.bsky.social · 3d

Thinking about the way (white) fans of The Murderbot Diaries missed the fact that it’s a slave narrative until @marthawells.com started saying, “IT’S A SLAVE NARRATIVE” in interviews.

David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 3d

We Have at least 70? years of science fiction exploring this proposition and all reaching the same conclusions as Josie.

Which I only bring up because everyone involved in this AI thing is a science fiction fan, but not one who understands what they read.

🏳️‍⚧️ Josephine Riesman @josie.zone · 3d

It is morally wrong to want a computer to be sentient. If you owned a sentient thing, you would be a slaver. If you want sentient computers to exist, you just want to create a new kind of slavery. The ethics are as simple as that. Sorry if this offends

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LibrarianWriterGeek @sctadsen.bsky.social · 3d

If anything, they're the biggest indictment against cutting back on humanities in education.

Like, they aren't just missing the subtext, in some cases they're flat-out ignoring the *actual text.*

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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 3d

We Have at least 70? years of science fiction exploring this proposition and all reaching the same conclusions as Josie.

Which I only bring up because everyone involved in this AI thing is a science fiction fan, but not one who understands what they read.

🏳️‍⚧️ Josephine Riesman @josie.zone · 3d

It is morally wrong to want a computer to be sentient. If you owned a sentient thing, you would be a slaver. If you want sentient computers to exist, you just want to create a new kind of slavery. The ethics are as simple as that. Sorry if this offends

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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 3d

Concise summary of the Trump admin’s proposed “compact” with universities: “In other words, this is the most sweeping pile of unconstitutional conditions that any American constitutional lawyer has ever seen in the wild.”

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 4d

I thought I'd put the administration's proposed "compact" with universities in context, so I wrote the blog post below.

It's especially for journalists covering this story!

Many details about how the compact itself works and why the administration has retreated to this strategy.

Balkinization: The Art of Replacing the Law with the Deal

A group blog on constitutional law, theory, and politics

balkin.blogspot.com

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Stephanie Leary @sleary.bsky.social · 4d

I’m imagining “A moose once bit my sister” in the most backwoods redneck accent possible

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Downtown Brandi Frown 😾 @itsthebrandi.bsky.social · 5d

The LA Public Library research librarian explaining what is going on with Charli and Taylor is outstanding work

www.instagram.com/reel/DPXZIUa...

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Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 5d

Oh dang. This is an excellent analogy.

Richard Kadrey @richardkadrey.bsky.social · 5d

The mystery of medical diagnosis!

Anyone: Why are there suddenly so many AHDH diagnoses?
Dr. Jen: Same reason there are suddenly more stars after we built telescopes.

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Wagatwe Wanjuki @wagatwe.com · 4d

wild to see a Western president say this after listening to scholars say this for over a decade lol

Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 5d

Macron remarks are notable- some quotes: "We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies."

Defend Democracy @defenddemocracy.bsky.social · 5d

President Macron: “Europeans, let's wake up!

We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks.”

defenddemocracy.eu/macron-democ...

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A/Prof Narrelle Morris @narrellemorris.bsky.social · 7d

This is one of the lesser known (but tragic) consequences of Gen AI. It’s not just about theft of IP, which is usually mentioned, it’s about damage to the information infrastructure of underfunded archives, libraries and museums etc. with long term consequences for them and for researchers.

Daryl Green @ilikeoldbooks.bsky.social · 7d

by the way, all those benign AI bots crawling the internet for for-profit LLMs, yeah it turns out when 9,000 hit your archive catalogue or image database all at once they break the system. This is an emerging sector issue.

The last weeks have literally seen humans labouring to feed the machines...

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Amy Hoy @amyhoy.bsky.social · 5d

hey peeps

do you know a good book or guide about community organization governance?

like how to handle voting, disputes / accused but not witnessed violations of CoC, that sort of thing?

i know some of y'all are nonprofit people / organizers

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Stephanie Leary @sleary.bsky.social · 6d

This is so good.

I’d argue that developer education should be called out specifically, but this really covers it:

“…accessibility […] is treated as simultaneously too trivial for specialists' technical opinions to be given weight, but also too difficult to get right without a specialist …”

Adrian Roselli @aardrian.bsky.social · 6d

“A threat model for accessibility on the web”
alice.boxhall.au/articles/a-t...

A deep, well-researched & cited piece detailing systemic failures down the web stack (standards bodies, browsers vendors, etc) which marginalize #accessibility and its voices — but with proposed solutions.

#a11y

A threat model for accessibility on the web - Alice

A explanation of the primary threat to accessibility on the web, and a call to action for the web standards community

alice.boxhall.au

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