Siri / Jen / Buckets

FML.

There appears to be an issue with scam calls to the families of people kidnapped by ICE. The callers claim to be immigration lawyers, say that they’re going to help, and demand an up-front payment over WhatsApp or similar.

Real lawyers don’t do that!

Electric vehicle on fire at Circus Liquor in North Hollywood.

Hollywood.

The political effects of X's feed algorithm https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2 Received: 16 December 2024 Accepted: 4 January 2026 Published online: 18 February 2026 Open access • Check for updates Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right.

Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement.

This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.

Warning for those who don't like being suddenly startled by sexual assault reference in a book: there is one instance of a female dog in heat who is running away from a pack of intact males. (The dog later shows up pregnant.)

Be warned that this is a violent story, of animals wild and domestic fighting to survive in a world where humans have become slathering zombie-like creatures. Animals die. Pets die. Sometimes, they are characters whose names we know and who we spent time with.

Enjoyed it but it is kinda funny that a book with a narrator named "Shit Turd" (S.T. for short) made me cry...

I read Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton, audiobook narrated by Robert Petkoff. A human-raised crow and an intellectually challenged but loyal bloodhound must find a way to survive in an zombie-like apocalypse that destroys humanity. This book is a complete story on its own, but there is a sequel.

The Cookout: A Speculative Fiction Anthology Sci-fi, fantasy, & horror stories by Black authors, centering traditions of “the cookout” — the joy, the drama, and the delicious food.

Sharing this again because I'm excited for it and I really want it to meet its goal:

www.kickstarter.com/projects/and...

Sci-fi, fantasy, & horror stories by Black authors, centering traditions of “the cookout” — the joy, the drama, and the delicious food.

The funny thing is Doug Ford says students shouldn't take basket weaving but his inherited wealth comes from making stickers.

CCTV footage appears to show DHS agents posing as people having car trouble in order to lure a target out of his house before arresting them. The target comes out and starts helping them before 3 vehicles surround the scene. The car "experiencing" trouble then drives off with them.

You're welcome.

Samwise's real given name meant "halfwit" and his dad's meant "stay-at-home".

If you didn't already know... according to the Appendix, Hobbits typically named their girl children after flowers and jewels.

They named the boys as either random syllables with no meaning (Bilbo was given as a specific example) or as vague insults / snappish comments.

YouTube video by GLITCH KNIGHTS OF GUINEVERE ANNOUNCEMENT

EXCITED SCREECHING NOISES

youtu.be/3oC8ta-7Rds?...

Hard Drive Presents St. Valentine's Day Fascist Massacre. Playing Nazi Killing Games to Raise Money for We Are Casa on Friday Feb 13th 11am to 11pm ET. twitch.tv/harddrivemag Featuring: But Why Tho Kate Bush’s Husband Worker’s Lit Tales From the Backlog The Indie Informer

This Friday we are spending the day doing the greatest activity known to man. We are killing Nazis and raising money for charity while we do it!

Join us all day for some fascist killing fun and help us raise money for We Are Casa.

See you there, and as always Fuck ICE

twitch.tv/harddrivemag

Wait I forgot the hashtag again. Ah, fooey.

#booksky

The Cookout: A Speculative Fiction Anthology Sci-fi, fantasy, & horror stories by Black authors, centering traditions of “the cookout” — the joy, the drama, and the delicious food.

I backed this, and so should you!!

The Cookout: A Speculative Fiction Anthology by Android Press on @kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com/projects/and...

It is heavy handed, especially in the end, but I HAVE EMOTIONS AND I NEED TO SHARE THEM, PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

If you're seeing this: it's so short! It's a novella! The audiobook is only two hours long!

Go into it blind. It's a better experience.

You can read it so fast I promise.

I need more people I know to read Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M Valente because it mashes up two folklore stories in a very feminist message and I wanna talk about that but I can't say which two because it'll spoil experiencing the story.

/flails

#booksky

Spring Is Nature's Way of Saying You're Hotter Than This Playlist - Spring Is Nature's Way of Saying You're Hotter Than This - 75 items

I know spring doesn't start for another 5 or so week, but... wishful thinking, I suppose. NEW PLAYLIST.

tidal.com/playlist/cf0...

It's not even that I thought being queer was a big deal! I was in the Gay Straight Alliance Club in high school. And then didn't realize until my late 20s that the calls were coming from inside the house...

I was browsing some old photos for Nostalgia Reasons and for fuck's sake why did I think I was straight for so long...

Hugo Award nominations now open.

Nominations are now open for the 2026 Hugo Awards!

Emails are going out to eligible nominators (those who became a member of LAcon V by January 31, 2026, or were a member of the Seattle Worldcon 2025) about how to set up their LAcon V virtual convention account.

Over on threads someone just use ai;dr and we all need to adopt that right quick

Knights of Guinevere UPDATE !

every single person writing credulously about "elon will put people on the moon" should have to pin this post to their monitor

Yup. This is also why I get annoyed when people start suggesting "golden age" science fiction titles to people who are new the genre and are asking for suggestions. You want to turn a modern 15-year-old off science fiction forever, recommend stories that were old when her grandparents were her age.

Bringing out the ole historical racist tropes! This is so vintage & retro.

Folks outside SF/F don't know that Asimov was a sexual harasser because while he was alive fandom thought it was cute (up to and including Asimov being invited to give a lecture on "The Power of Positive Posterior Pinching" at Worldcon, which he, wisely, declined).

daily.jstor.org/asimovs-empi...