Kevin Burnett

A lot of people assume that Amsterdam has been biketopia since time immemorial but it actually was car hell for decades before the citizens became fed up with car fatalities and forced the government to rebuild everything around mass transit and bikes. It took time and will, but they did it.

Is anyone looking for book recommendations?

I've read thousands of SFF books, and if you are looking for something niche, let's see if I have read something close!

They say 'the machines of the future' will be as smart as people...

OK, but WHICH people? Because it kinda matters quite a bit.

James Dobson, Godfather of Child Abuse, Finally Dies The radical cleric leaves behind a legacy of sanctified torture, destroyed children and broken families.

"With his popular jeremiads endorsing corporal punishment, his vicious crusade against women’s healthcare, his apologies for all manner of violence, and his network of anti-gay “conversion” ministries, Dobson rose to fame, fortune, and a political stature that got him access to presidents..."

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” ― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

well she did not consider pedophilia inappropriate so what does this even mean

the cat rescue I volunteer with recently took in a bunch of hairless Sphynx cats from an ex-breeder and two of them got adopted into their forever home today

their new names are Hannibald and Nofuratu

🤣

Scientists found the missing nutrients bees need — Colonies grew 15-fold Scientists have developed a breakthrough food supplement that could help save honeybees from devastating declines. By engineering yeast to produce six essential sterols found in pollen, researchers pr...

This feels like a spot of good news

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

Black people told y’all that race was the foundation of all of this bullshit. And as usual we were dismissed, condescended to, and told we were wrong.

And yet this administration keeps showing us what time it is. Just an observation.

He’s wanted to declare martial law from day one.

Bypass all checks and rule as a tyrant.

Many have speculated how he’d do it.

Now his gambit is clear.

DC was a test.

He’s using manufactured crime stats to send troops into blue states & cities.

This is not a drill.

Democracy is at defcon 1.

Love when I say AI sucks and angry people start arguing that they’re lactose intolerant or have myopia like me and thus need to use it. Shut the fuck up and write your own books.

my hot take is that no fictional (or real) royalty deserve a happy ending. i'm not interested in reading any of that. i want a prince destroyed physically emotionally psychologically spiritually. i want that fucker miserable and trapped in the eternal torment of his sins & then some.

none of us really have anything, but our voice

All genAI sucks. It sucks when it generates words. It sucks when it generates images. It sucks when it generates videos. It sucks when it generates fake-ass voices for your audiobooks.

When I say Fuck genAI I mean *all* of it.

Nightshade, the free tool that ‘poisons’ AI models, is now available for artists to use The tool's creators are seeking to make it so that AI model developers must pay artists to train on data from them that is uncorrupted.

And on the subject of #realartatters: AI poisoning tool NIGHTSHADE is now free for artists to use: venturebeat.com/ai/nightshad...

I did some digging into what the fourth unknown book is, and I reckon it's 'Gender Queer: A Memoir' by Maia Kobabe.

Maus is a masterpiece of a graphic novel. Utterly haunting, and an absolute must-read.

From what I last read, the reason The Winds of Winter is unfinished is because he's written over 600 pages but has ended up needing to rewrite many of the earlier chapters. I reckon he will finish it one day, but I'm not going to fret over it if he doesn't.

Support Mel Support Mel

Extreme avoidance led me to set up this:
ko-fi.com/W7W8SU7XA/go...

Maybe I should have added a time frame?
Anyway, it's a great way to procrastinate on publisshing the novelette. It's not my fault any longer! 🥳

#Romancelandia #QueerRomance #CrowdFunding

The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain creates free guide for authors working with factual material

ICYMI: The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain has created a free online guide for non-fiction authors working with factual material, covering themes such as copyright, defamation and ensuring good relationships with interviewees 👇 #BookSky

I started outlining my second book, after a failed first attempt a little while ago. I feel like my vision for the story is much, much clearer now, which can only be a good thing.

While I'm waiting on some more draft feedback for 'Knitwear Club', I've been working on outlining a new, very different novel - and, more importantly, using a few tricks picked up from @hellofutureme.bsky.social's 'On Writing and Worldbuilding' series. ✒️

Untitled configuration (2025) by Emma Bolland: a display of pastel discs in the middle of a former Wilko, discs painted onto taped-up cardboard boxes, discs propped up on the rungs of ladders, discs scattered on the scuffed tiles.

"The last few years of apparent stasis and rapid, almost convulsive, change resulting in the creation of new spaces, the loss of old spaces, and the off-and-on of the meanwhile spaces in which many of Sheffield’s creative conversations happen."

longbarrowpress.substack.com/p/urban-vill...

He’s garbage. Gavin Newsom is garbage.

I don’t care if it’s corporate marketing, I like that the cunty murderbot said trans fucking rights

Great question! Sometimes it comes to me as quickly as the story idea does; sometimes it's a short placeholder until I work out what it's *about*, and then I draw from the characters or themes for the title. (That's before sense-checking it of course).

Remember this iconic photo from Ferguson? This is Edward Crawford, throwing back a tear gas canister to protect some nearby kids.

Like many identified Ferguson protesters and organizers, he was "found dead" a couple years later and neither the cops nor the media will ever investigate.

Decided it's better to be a virtual unknown on bsky than get one hit tweet ever again. 😮‍💨