harper bee

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

Yes, it's long. Yes, it's complex. Yes, it's detailed. And yes, it will make you sad unto nihilistic depression. But it's also necessary to read because AI is going to fuck the planet beyond expression. www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...

We tend to assume boredom is something to be avoided, but in centuries past you would go wandering through the woods or stare at the walls of a cave for an hour and accidentally invent beer or a new religion or write Alice in Wonderland.

A landscape shot of a pond, with Toronto's cityscape in the distant background. The pond is speckled with pieces of reclaimed wood, sticking up out of the water.

Tommy Thompson Park looks super dystopic but is actually such a huge rewilding success story and I'm shocked it's taken me over a decade of living in Toronto to check it out.

“I asked ChatGPT” well I asked Trebeard and he said hrum hoom burárum

A closeup of a white person's hand holding an eraser up to the camera, which shows the cover of "The Chosen and the Beautiful" by Nghi Vo.

Just under halfway through this gorgeous queer/fantasy retelling of The Great Gatsby. I haven't been able to put it down since I started reading it yesterday. At this point I'll read pretty much anything Nghi Vo puts out; she never disappoints.

Please help us correct misinformation!

Our hotline is being incorrectly shared as "Canada's national suicide hotline open toll free for Americans".

We are not a general crisis hotline, we exist exclusively to support the trans community.

Find out more @ translifeline.org

Your Threat Model Has Changed or: reducing your digital fingerprint

This week's (free) post is about our changing threat model and why we need to change our digital habits.

Complete with examples and ideas.

margaretkilljoy.substack.com/p/your-threa...

This is truly splendid

🆕 Rise Of The Choplet

More importantly have you checked its not cringe as fuck?

Thanks! A friend described it as "gothic roller disco" and I am extremely pleased by it

A closeup of a white person's torso wearing a handknit black tee, with turquoise and gold stripes. The tee has a crew neck and loose fit. They have their hands loosely in their jean pockets and are standing at a three-quarter view, against a white wall.

A closeup of a white, tattooed person with their back facing the camera as they stand in front of a white wall. They're wearing a boxy handknit black tee with turquoise and gold stripes.

A closeup of a white tattooed person's shoulder in a three-quarter view They're wearing a black handknit tee with turquoise and gold stripes.

Lil update: I finished it! This is the Sunshine Tee by @andreagaughanknits.bsky.social ...except I reverse engineered it to be bottom-up instead of top-down, so that I would have an easier time keeping my stripes lined up.
Yarn is all from the splendid @valkyriefibers.bsky.social.

I'm going to do a thread of Palestinians folks in Gaza who need help. Prices are skyrocketing.

I keep coming back to a bit in one of the Expanse novels where a character giving another one aid says that "It's just a drop in the bucket, but that's how buckets get filled."

It all adds up.

Exactly as intended.
(I have no idea what Jersey Mike's is)

I went to the Union station food court, at lunchtime, for the first time on Wednesday.

I will never make this mistake again.

A really easy way to check yourself is to ask “is this something Morgoth would do?” and if the answer is yes, don’t do it!

Discovering the First Intersex Southern Right Whale What you think you know depends on how you look

Scientists have documented the first recorded case of an intersex southern right whale—offering a fascinating glimpse at nature’s true diversity. 🧪

Something nice I've done for myself this year is commit to less screen time; instead of just knitting while endlessly streaming Netflix or YouTube, I sit and read, usually with a cat on my lap. I think it's doing good things for my brain.

A closeup of a white person's hand holding up a hardcover copy of What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher. The cover is dark red with an illustration of a rotting horse.

A quick snack before I start the 3rd Imperial Radch book. I adore T. Kingfisher's horror stories, and I love the narrative voice of the Alex Easton novellas especially.

I'm so excited to read Translation State once I'm done with the trilogy!!

Just finished Ancillary Sword (#2 in the series) and it was also excellent, very fun, left me just as excited to read the third book.

There is an impulse in moments like this to appeal to self-interest. To say: These horrors you are allowing to happen, they will come to your doorstep one day; to repeat the famous phrase about who they came for first and who they'll come for next. But this appeal cannot, in matter of fact, work. If the people well served by a system that condones such butchery ever truly believed the same butchery could one day be inflicted on them, they'd tear the system down tomorrow. And anyway, by the time such a thing happens, the rest of us will already be dead. No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness. Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.

One of many moments in Omar El Akkad’s new book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” that will stop you in your tracks.

'Most unusual' questionnaire sent to Canadian researchers receiving U.S. federal grants | CBC News Canadian scholars who receive some of their funding from the U.S. government sources are flagging a troubling new questionnaire they have been receiving. It asks political and ideological questions ab...

Hey this, like so many things in current north american politics, is really fucked up

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

🩸

A top-down view of a tortoiseshell cat, some knitting and a Kobo eReader all lying on Harper's lap. The knitting is a tube of black yarn with a bright turquoise and gold stripe in the middle. The eReader shows a black and white image of the cover of Phoenix Extravagant, by Yoon Ha Lee.

Reading: Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee -- only a little ways in and already can tell this is going to be a new favourite

Knitting: a Sunshine Tee by @andreagaughanknits.bsky.social, using @valkyriefibers.bsky.social colourways dyed for my Chrysalis shawl pattern

Cat: is a cat

I don't know how to explain to people that non-binary people are not a monolith but we all do agree that "female and non-binary" is cringe af as a phrase and desire everyone to cease it's usage. The one and only thing we all agree on.

I just want you to know that these one liners bring me joy.

lord of the wings

I'm looking forward to checking out the rest of her work - the worldbuilding in Ancillary Justice was so interesting and vivid, I'm excited to see what else she's done!