Oh my! Well, that's my distraction today. Thank you!

213 Things Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army Skippy’s list post-dates my own service in the military.  However, I wold venture to guess that almost anyone that has served in the military since the Korean War era can relate to a large nu…

That makes me think we need Skippy's list for RPGs!

At this point, there are certain people who you don't want to be your gamemaster, just because they might feel compelled to roll for damage using as many dice as possible.

Not naming any names...

Executive Career Coaching

If you're attending the 2025 EDUCAUSE conference and are thinking about senior IT leadership in higher education, check out the career coaching opportunity - sign-ups are open now! events.educause.edu/annual-confe... #EDU25

Someday you'll find the ruffs all in the pocket dimension of socks and Tupperware lids.

I presume when I next move I'll find the collar and be impressed!

My smart cat Freya doesn't like wearing collars and consistently figured out how to quickly remove any of the safety collars I bought.

Her last one was both removed & hidden, and hasn't shown up in 2 years. So, we've come to an agreement where she doesn't wear a collar...surely I didn't surrender.

I would like to hear your AWS outage story. Call and drop us a lil voicemail and we will put it on the air! ‪(240) 847-4915‬

Cover of the novel Mage-Provocateur by Glynn Stewart. To the right of the cover is a quote from the book: "To quote my drill sergeant from long ago, "Hey y'all, watch this!""

This week's sale is the Red Falcon trilogy in the Starship's Mage universe

In a wide galaxy, can one ship stay ahead of debtors and crime lords alike - even with Mage's aboard?

Interstellar Mage is free until Friday mybook.to/SMRF1

Mage-Provocateur is $0.99 in the UK and US: mybook.to/MageProvo

WELL IN FACT if you are a member of @sfwa.bsky.social, they have some health insurance options available, based on the same concept of pooling groups together (in this case other lit-focused orgs). This itself is a compelling reason for qualified writers to join SFWA.

www.sfwa.org/2020/06/10/h...

Today is the day my Kickstarter novel sees the real world!

Void Spheres is the second of my Aether Spheres space fantasy novels.

Our trio of mages are entering spheres dead for centuries.
Their mission means they must pass - but there are no good reasons for a sphere to die.

mybook.to/voidsphere

This week's discount is the urban fantasy series ONSET!

To Serve and Protect is free!
mybook.to/onsettsp

My Enemy's Enemy is $0.99 in the UK and the US
mybook.to/onsetmee

The White House fired 176 CISA employees on Friday, with more layoffs feared Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters leaked 5m Qantas, 23m Vietnam Air customers' records, Spanish cops dismantle GXC Team, Dutch gov't warns of China's Nexperia security risks, Breach of crypto betting platform...

A few years ago I was delighted as the federal government invested in CISA - centralizing cybersecurity efforts that were often disjointed and boosting our national capabilities.

Now we're taking an axe to them. www.metacurity.com/the-white-ho.... CISA is running with under 900 staff vs. over 2500.

I hadn't thought about that - and should have! That's been a concern for me as someone who wears progressive lenses. Most of the time I'm fine with displays at that sort of range but it can also lead to headaches as my eyes attempt to adjust to different focal lengths than my glasses/contacts have.

Thank you! I wish my hands still liked non-ergo keyboards, those 75% mechanicals would have made younger me very happy.

I have a friend who has been eyeing the glasses - I'll have to twist his arm to let me try them if he springs for them for the 20 hour flights he does.

I'm curious about the mini PC vs. an ultra small laptop. Are you consistently able to find power for the mini PC? The temptation to do something like what you're doing with a GPD Pocket mini-laptop remains for me, but I'd want an ergonomic keyboard and haven't found one that folks and travels well.

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

Recently I was on a flight where the pilot got sick immediately after at the gate, engine cowling open for an hour with multiple mechanics poking at it repairs (that took 3 guys slamming the cowling shut afterwards to close it!).

I can't say many of us felt confident getting on that plane!

A broken tape measure sticking up out of a trash can with folds of yellow tape rising above the black bag inside the trash can.

Spotted at work - I feel like there's some sort of metrics and measures joke just waiting to happen here...

Reposting for my author friends. A decent number of my books are on the list as expected.

I am advertising a postdoctoral position in my new lab at Duke, to start as early as August 2026. If you are interested in how plant communities respond to climate change, please consider applying!

academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30614

In her recommendation, Bagdasarian stated, "Any person over the age of six months without contraindication who has not received a dose of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved or-authorized 2025-2026 COVID-19 vaccine may be considered to have an underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19 and is thus eligible to receive an age-appropriate dose."

I like this. Since under RFK Jr, Covid shots are now for people with underlying conditions that put them at risk, Michigan’s chief medical executive Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian states that not having the most recent Covid shot constitutes such an underlying condition.

www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/inside...

Raven's Peace (Peacekeepers of Sol Book 1) Raven's Peace (Peacekeepers of Sol Book 1) - Kindle edition by Stewart, Glynn. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Raven's Peace (Peacekeepers of Sol Book 1).

New weekly sale: Peacekeepers of Sol

The war is over. The Kenmiri Empire has been defeated, liberating thousands of systems to anarchy.

What happens now?

Book 1, Raven's Peace, is free!
mybook.to/RavensPeace

Book 2, The Peacekeeper Initiative, is 0.99 in the US and UK.
mybook.to/peacekeeperi...

Sale continues!

Accessibility improvements are a compelling argument for AI being truly useful, hopefully even for most AI doubters.

And yes, I hope Bluesky adds it, even as a semi-automated option. A "Do you want automated alt text?" would be a step forward.

I tend to use Gemini - it's what we provide institutionally at Miami and it has been impressively good at recognizing elements of images, even if they're unexpected.

If you're posting to social media and find alt text challenging, try using AI to write the description - it's quite good. A prompt like "Write a brief alt-text description of this image appropriate for social media" or "Write a 144 character or less description of this image" tends to work well.

Yep, but I still don't have the "I can have a power hammer here and not have my neighbors hate me" location that I'm pretty sure @blenster.com would want (and that I wish for too). A bit of hammering on the driveway when my forge is out there works though!

Starship's Mage Book 1: 10th Anniversary Edition Starship's Mage Book 1: 10th Anniversary Edition - Kindle edition by Stewart, Glynn. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Starship's Mage Book 1: 10th Anniversary Edition.

Starship's Mage book 1 is free until Friday!

A young Mage has some unusual talents, and, in the way of unusual things, they get him in a great deal of trouble as he starts his career on an interstellar merchant ship!

mybook.to/StarshipsMag...

It's not a great feeling - all of my books were on the list for various AI companies who ingested copyrighted materials. I tell folks that normally when companies want to make money off of my work they license it via my publisher, and that this is meaningfully different.

An email I got to day included a typo that's cracking me up...

"Clod computing"

C'mon y'all. We're moving to the clod!