@mcpinson@lilithsaintcrow
I’m ambivalent about squirrels. I like watching them climb in the trees in my yard, and walk around the deck, but …
Once I was outside of work eating lunch with colleagues. A crow landed nearby to scavenge a piece of a sandwich, and sounded off to declare ownership. Then 4 squirrels marched in line abreast towards the crow clearly intending to take the food. Crows are usually pretty aggressive, but this one crunched the numbers and retreated, leaving the food.
“LOKA’s fascinating speculations about the future of technology, the evolution of consciousness, and the ethics of coexistence blend perfectly with its smart and empathetic coming of age “around-the-world-in-80-days” journey.”
Kate Elliott, author of UNCONQUERABLE SUN
Also, yes, I made an arc of ARCs for the image. :D
Hey Portland friends! I'll be Powells Books on 6/4 at 7pm, talking about my new book "Stories Are Weapons" with the one and only Dave Miller, host of OPR's "Think Out Loud." Hope to see you there!!
@cstross
We moved to our current house 20 years ago in part because we are across the street from a bus stop, a 5 minute walk from a neighborhood center with a public library, a market, a bakery/coffee shop, 5 restaurants, a brewpub, assorted other shops, and 3 more bus lines. On top of which we have lots of trees around us.
Are you in, the #UK, #Canada, or the #USA? I need some assistance from one reader in each of those countries, please.
What do you get out of this? A free book! An actual physical book! You can take your pick between the Starship Teapot books or the Vigilauntie Justice books.
What do I get out of this? To test my new website and fulfilment system!
Comment below or DM me and I'll send you instructions and a link.
Coming next year: Trump Supreme Court brings back Bills of Attainder (POTUS promptly levels charges of treason against every billionaire whose fortune he feels like pwning). https://noc.social/@freezenet/112334038009854117
The US Constitution and common law are rooted in pre-18th century English legal jurisprudence and traditions.
And the "presidential immunity" bullshit is an attempt to rewind the clock to before 1649, when Parliament got fed up with the King's bullshit, put him on trial, and beheaded him.
Y'all: Trump wants to revive the divine right of kings.
You know who pulled the German equivalent of that stunt? Hitler.
(I will summarily block anyone who raises Godwin's law.)
Today's writing: what if Doctor Phibes murdered and impersonated Max, owner of the KitKatKlub, in order to run an elaborate sting against Doctor Mabuse—film recap, starring Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Charlotte Rampling, and Peter Cushing.
@cstross
I like it! Definitely the Price/Rigg interactions should Have similar chemistry their work In Theatre of Blood, one of my favorite Vincent Price movies.
@RL_Dane@Flux
Making the tapeout and the fab masks opensource would be nice. It would give designers a head start on replicating the chip, possibly as multiple cores on an SOC. That would be fun to play with.
It’s a SpaceX World (Everyone Else is Playing Catch-up)
SpaceX was not just dominant in 2023, it humiliated its competitors. We see this in launch services, in spacecraft operations (and, logically, manufacturing), and the tremendous mass its rockets lifted to orbit:
@cstross
I don’t have much good to say about StarLink, what with Musk’s playing Cold War politics with it, and its deleterious effect on astronomical light pollution, but you’re probably right that the military will love dumping a thousand birds into orbit at once.
@cstross@cigitalgem
Damn. Reading Dennett was what got me interested in Philosophy again, after Plato’s bullshit, Kant’s opacity, and everybody trying to ignore Leibniz.
A science fiction obsession led me to psychological war. I spent the past three years researching and writing a book about the history of psychological warfare in the United States, and it's coming out in early June. Not all the gems I discovered could be crammed into the final manuscript, and I've been dying to share what I found in the archives ... check out my latest newsletter to see some amazing treasures from a history that's rarely told. https://buttondown.email/thehypothesis/archive/how-a-science-fiction-obsession-led-me-to/
My 1st Cordwainer Smith was “Mark Elf”; the manshonyagger stuck with me a long time. What haunts me is “No, No, Not Rogov!” I was watching Olympic Figure Skating then, and I empathized with the performer.
Interesting the writers who were were in Intelligence during WWII: Linebarger, John D. McDonald, Eric Russell, Alice Sheldon. And shoutout to Christopher Lee, an assassin in WWII, who said: “No, that’s not the sound a knife makes cutting the throat of a guard.”