Dr. Fade

Viewed in this way, the PhD dissertation is as much a creative enterprise as are artistic enterprises; we simply exist in a culture that insists that the kinds of intelligence, the kinds of qualitative sensitivities developed are somehow fundamentally different, which is not the case.

I wrote about this sort of political Circle of Life (where people discover that somehow they've turned into evil defenders of the dysfunctional status quo) back in 2017.

If kids’ schools trained them for work based on what everyone thought the hot new technology was going to be, both my kids would have spent the past several years learning about the blockchain. This is why schools don’t attempt to do workplace training: life is pretty long.

pieróg is the singular. Although if we're mixing languages, going to make everyone made by pluralizing it to pierogopodes

The plagiarism machine doesn't feel spite so it won't spend three years fantasizing about putting a list of enemies in the acknowledgements.

This statement manages to be rhetorically wrong on every single level. Actual New York City folks:
a. don't see their city as being in competition with Chicago
b. would have trouble locating the Erie Canal on a labeled map
c. certainly don't believe in a history in which NYC was ever behind Chicago.

"PhD-level experts in your back pocket" is a completely nonsensical description of AI but a pretty good description of social media if you follow the right people

Void kitten on orange & tan pillow.

Tiny black kitten on orange & tan pillow

Where is cat?

A black and white cat stares intently at the cake jar that I am eating from, wondering if a cat can have a little, as a treat. Don't you know she has CANCER and is SUFFERING

Do you ever feel like someone is always watching you while you're eating

A white Corelle plate with a striped red rim sits on a retail shelf. Written in grease pencil on the plate: "Corelle is chip-RESISTANT - Do NOT throw on our floor!" And on the rim, "Our floor is CEMENT - It will shatter"

Speaking of environmental storytelling

He only said his eyes were pacifist

Absolutely unhinged that a therapist in MN can't do a zoom session with a person in ND without jumping through a bunch of licensing hoops but AI can provide mental health services anywhere but Illinois, apparently

Attention archivists!(?) My stepfather-in-law has written an awesome handbook on jazz improv. I'm looking for help finding someone to transcribe a short (

Handsome gray tabby with gold eyes on a black and white blanket. He looks smug, but that’s kind of his resting face tbh.

The Morning Monty is feeling smug about another fine #Caturday - right on the heels of National Cat Day

Or set up a genetic rescue: bring in other subspecies of priests from other regions and release them in Ireland to breed with the native priests.

AI industry horrified to face largest copyright class action ever certified Copyright class actions could financially ruin AI industry, trade groups say.

Normally I would take a salient quote from this article, add the link, and let it go. But in this case, I'm a bit stunned at the underlying assumption in this piece that Anthropic is a poor wee babe deserving of special protection and excuse for outright, open, ongoing thievery.

Cover art for THE FOLDED SKY by Elizabeth Bear, showing a pink and orange space scene with little ships working on a megastructure surrounding a red sun.

You occasional reminder that my new book, THE FOLDED SKY, is available for order from fine bookstores and online retailers everywhere, and also a nominee for the Dragon Award, which anyone can vote for.

awards.dragoncon.org/2025-ballot/

Shan, a tortoiseshell cat, poses elegantly on the chair. She wears a strand of black freshwater pearls.

Happy caturday from a refined lady.

There is no cuddle enough to deal with The World, but he is willing to accept a few to help mitigate the damages.

A small speckled dog flops on his side, oppressed by the word of the world.

He suffers terribly.

a big fluffy brown and white lapphund is curled up on a people bed, looking at the camera with a goofy smile

I have a Lapphund and they’re amazing! I think a goldenhund would be the dumbest animal ever to exist(complimentary)

Pretty sure our Hubble (both his name and his cross-breed - a husky/pitbull) was an accident but we got him from a shelter & we love the goofball. Even if he does have the prey drive & eternal puppy energy of a pit, the verbal acuity of a husky, and the trash-pit stomach of both.

Brown and white dog on a white couch. The dog is lounging with folded paws and her head is resting on the arm of the couch. She has very large and kind of pointy ears. She is giving the camera some serious side eye

Pitbull x Bassett (we think). Sleeps for 10 hours, runs in circles for 30 seconds, serves up severe side-eye when the humans are doing things other than serving as pillows

A long-backed dachshund & cattle dog mix sleeps on a painted patio

I have a dachshund & cattle dog mix and she’s the best dog ever - mild mannered, patient, smart, and ready to sleep for hours after a 5 minute circular zoomie sprint. She’s my loyal loaf & I love her.

Back half of an adolescent yellow lab/basset mix with her head up to her paws disappeared into a horizontal bag of Puppy Chow. It is definitely the 1970s.

Light yellow lab/basset mix playing tug of war with some dark blue fabric. The other end is out of frame. A man's pants and slippers are visible up on the couch in the background. It is again, very obviously the 1970s.

Dog tax:

A puppy who looks like a beagle dipped into a vat of cattle dog up to his belly lays on the ground looking adorably at the camera.

I adopted a rescue puppy whose DNA test results claim is 72% beagle, 19% cattle dog, and 9% other. I’m very afraid he’s going to grow up to be the mutant you’ve described.

A very shaggy apricot colored dog with very long fluffy legs and a long fluffy face, underneath a blanket on a couch. He looks like a melted muppet.

We have an Irish doodle (or what we prefer to call an Irish shedder) and what came out of that was a muppet.

A small black spaniel-ish dog wearing a blue harnessing lying on a black leather sofa is looking at the camera with her head slightly tilted and her tongue hanging out in a doggie smile.

My spaniel + dachshund? + shelti? absolutely stops and considers what's in it for her when I give her a command.

"Do you want a Malinois?"
"The short answer is 'no'. You want to be carefully introduced to someone else's Malinois that will go home with them."
"The long answer: What if a bored toddler could gnaw through a 4" thick table leg in under an hour? What if that toddler were _deeply territorial_."

Parents of toddlers:

-How many blueberries does your toddler go through in a day?

-And how many WOULD they go through if money were no object

I need to know for Science