R.F. Thackston 🛸 👹 🦸

A picture of the Science Fiction and Fantasy signs on the wall of a Barnes & Noble.

Thank God for bookstores. A safe haven when traveling.

YouTube video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell AI Slop Is Killing Our Channel

Must watch...

"AI-generated content is flooding the internet, from videos and music to news and books. On top of that, generative AI is making false information look more convincing than ever."

youtu.be/_zfN9wnPvU0?...

A screenshot of an unsolicited text message from Restoration of America (conservative PAC) with the text "Hello, this is Restoration of America. In a 2028 matchup between JD Vance and AOC, who would you support? A- JD Vance B- AOC C- Not sure D- Neither STOP2END"

I received an unsolicited text "survey" on my phone from "Restoration of America" -- a right-wing, Christian advocacy group -- so I decided to have some fun.

It took less than 10 minutes to break their little texting bot. Best part of my day!

10/10 - Highly recommended!

Wait... You guys are getting replies to your applications?

Just added a few hundred more words to chapter 2 of the sequel to Little Hero. Might have it done soon! But probably not.

books2read.com/u/mVOn7P

A screenshot of the Amazon ranking of the book Foreign Sky by RF Thackston listed as #774,708 in the Kindle Store (down 102,467 since yesterday).

Sold the first copy of my book Foreign Sky yesterday! Heading for the best sellers list!

It's pronounced "data" not "data."

The test results came back. You're not using the work "fuck" enough.

"I don't care that he's dead."
"He's not a hero."
"He's a scumbag."
"He shouldn't be celebrated."

No, no. I'm not saying that about Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk said that about George Floyd.

Just in case anyone's interested in what he thought was fair to say about someone who was killed on camera.

If you're in the area and can't eat gluten, swing by and see them. You will NOT be disappointed!

Of course, if you don't get there really early (like before 9am), they will run out and you will be disappointed...

hell yeah (◕‿◕✿)

I spent a couple of weeks in Decatur, GA just a few blocks from the Hell Yeah Gluten Free bakery. I missed their AMAZING biscuits as soon as I got back home. So I tried to reverse engineer them. It's a lot of work and not nearly as good but I'm getting there!

www.hellyeahglutenfree.com

There's a lot of comedians on this site. I love you guys!

An image of the cover for the book Little Hero, in the series Boonrise by RF Thackston, depicting a young girl in a skirt striking a pose in front of a full-length mirror. The girl's shadow is that of a full-grown woman in a superhero costume. The entire image is black and white except for the girl's tights and the shadow's cape, which are the same vivid red. The tagline reads “Not your typical origin story.”

Here's the new cover. With my real name!

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Cinnamon Rolls Yield: 6 rolls (muffin pan) Ingredients Dry mix 60 g cassava flour 10 g potato flakes (plain/unsalted instant mashed potato) 10 g cornstarch ½ tsp baking powder (2 g) ¼ tsp fine salt (1.5 g) ¼ tsp xanthan gum (0.7 g) 2 Tbsp sugar (25 g) ½ tsp ground cinnamon Wet mix 100–110 g unsweetened coconut milk (carton, not canned), warm (100–110°F / 38–43°C) 2 tsp instant yeast (6 g) 1 tsp sugar (5 g) — to feed yeast 10 g avocado oil 1 large egg, separated ½ tsp white wine vinegar (2–3 g) ½ tsp vanilla extract (optional, for sweetness)

Filling 2 Tbsp coconut oil (melted) 3 Tbsp brown sugar (or coconut sugar) 1½ tsp ground cinnamon Optional glaze ½ cup powdered sugar (60 g) 1–2 Tbsp coconut milk ½ tsp vanilla extract

Instructions Activate yeast flavor In a measuring cup, whisk warm coconut milk with 1 tsp sugar and instant yeast. Let sit 10–15 minutes until foamy. Mix dry ingredients In a medium bowl, whisk cassava flour, potato flakes, cornstarch, baking powder, salt, xanthan gum, sugar, and cinnamon. Prepare wet base To the foamy yeast mixture, whisk in avocado oil, egg yolk (reserve white), vinegar, and vanilla (if using). Make batter Pour wet into dry and whisk until smooth. Batter should be pourable but not runny. Adjust with a splash of coconut milk if thick. Whip egg white In a clean bowl, whisk egg white to soft peaks. Gently fold into batter until mostly incorporated — do not overmix. Par-bake flatbread Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). Line a quarter-sheet pan or 9×13" pan with parchment or silicone mat. Spread batter evenly into a rectangle, about ⅜" thick. Bake 7 minutes, just until set but still pliable (not browned). Add filling & roll While still warm, brush top with melted coconut oil. Sprinkle evenly with brown sugar + cinnamon. Starting at the short edge, roll gently into a log (use parchment to help if sticky). Don’t worry if small cracks form on tight turns — they’ll fuse during the second bake.

Slice & pan Cut log into 6 even spirals. Place each spiral cut-side up in a greased or paper-lined muffin tin. Second bake (set & caramelize) Bake 12–15 minutes at 350°F (175°C), until edges are lightly golden and filling is bubbling. Cool 5 minutes in pan before transferring to a rack. Optional glaze Stir powdered sugar, coconut milk, and vanilla into a pourable glaze. Drizzle over warm rolls before serving.

Not to brag, but I just fucking nailed my own custom gluten-free, non-dairy cinnamon roll recipe. It took a lot of effort, but this evening's batch was fucking delicious!!!!

Now I just need to make them pretty.

#glutenfree #dairyfree #cassava #baking

@kevin-gallant.bsky.social Are you trying to be funny. Because that was not fu...

(sigh)

Okay, it was a little funny.

Question of etiquette...

When you have a post that says "PM me for an advanced copy of my book" and someone LIKES the post do you send them a copy?

I mean, I'm beginning to think there's people out there that may not know the difference and I don't want to leave them disappointed.

#booksky

Worst case, they could use Chat-gpt to write the regex for those things and only get charged once!

Definitely Mint. I finally switched my eight year old PC and, except for some games, everything runs and feels exactly like Windows. I even got L to switch!

I have dropped the pseudonym. That is all.

RFK Jr. rolled out that old chestnut again about how healthy Americans were in the 60’s, so here’s a fact check.

In 1965:

-42% of American adults smoked; it’s 11% now.

-The infant morality rate was 24.7/1000; it’s 5.6/1000 now.

-Overall life expectancy was 70 years; it's about 77 years now.

OH: if vaccines caused autism, we’d have way more trains in the United States

If this is satire, it's brilliant!

With the state of academic research and funding, is it any wonder? People are going to do anything they can to be more productive and improve their chances of being published/funded.

I briefly had an acct with a bank that partnered with Trustly for third-party payments. I declined to sign up for the Trustly service when their form tried to collect my login credentials to send straight to their website (not my bank's). And yes I did inspect the HTML form to verify. 🚫 ⛔

Top Problems with Financial Data Aggregation A new front in personal finance technology—data aggregation—seeks to make our financial lives easier.

www.investopedia.com/articles/fin...

"Many financial institutions don’t provide a direct link to data aggregations, which isn’t surprising given their privacy concerns. As a result, data aggregators had been forced to robotically log in to a client’s account and “scrape” the information."

Okay, so I spent way more time on this than I should have. It seems that the overwhelming notion back in 2007 was that you provided your credentials directly to the Mint website (not a 3rd party pop-up). I am unable to find any clear, direct references to this fact. the closest I could find...

Wow. I just discovered that Intuit shut down Mint at the start of last year. I had no idea!

To your point, Mint WAS at one time storing bank credentials, logging in as the user, and scraping data. But only for banks they had no formal relationship with. The rest did employ a 3rd party auth system.

Honestly, that's all I could see in the image.

💥🎇🎆 It took three years of work and living like a cockroach, but it was worth it!

I WROTE MYSELF A PAYCHECK TODAY!

Well... my single employee startup did. The first of many, I hope!