besha

HOLY COW

The Humble Bundle has been extended for another week because they were so pleased with our success so far.

Please tell your friends. There's one more chance to help this essential organization. <3

(don't forget to select "adjust donation")

This screaming may occur at any time of day, but the most popular times are 6am, during work calls, and whenever I’ve just gotten into deep focus. I actually miss Vivienne’s horrible mangled crowing right now, and I hope she’s very happy on that farm downriver.

The days are finally long enough for the chickens to start laying again, which means my neighbors and I are treated to two hours a day of Scout screaming because Harry is on the good nest box. Yes there is another nest box, no Scout will not use it.

Claire North, THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE, finished 2/19. Excellent, but time for a break from North.

SCALLOP

I think I am pretty familiar with British accents and pronunciation, but bingeing Great British Sewing Bee and J Draper’s YouTube channel has led me to discover some appalling word crimes.

Appliqué? Baroque??

Yes! I was just there today!

now I really want to know how she sits in a chair

The Left Doesn't Hate Technology, We Hate Being Exploited Techno-cynics are all just wounded techno-optimists.

SO GOOD! "the idea that my political ideology is synonymous with hating technology is confusing. Every leftist I know has a hard-on for high speed rail or mRNA vaccines. But the “left is missing out” blog positions generative AI as the only technology that matters." -- @xoxogossipgita.bsky.social

UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges For the largest health insurer in the US, AI's error rate is like a feature, not a bug.

"why are you against progress" I yell confidently as my sloppily-implemented algorithms prematurely murder your grandma

Although I did recently see a PHQ with a score of 0 and I want to ask that person what they’re on and can I try some.

I work for a clinic and compile our depression screening data regularly and I assure you that at least in a population level we are aware and make adjustments for the state of the world.

I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland.

And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.

Pair this with the Icelandic writer pointing out that Iceland produces so much art because their government literally pays them to create.

No arts or schools or housing or health care or high-speed rail or even maintaining what we already have, just a boot stamping on the face of America, forever.

the overseer of project 2025 is telling you out loud that every inch you cede on trans rights is part of the plan to create a white christian fascist state

Mia Valentina Paz Faria A 7-year-old from Venezuela who was living in Austin, Texas Detained for 70 days “I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to my school.”

UPDATE: Staff at the ICE concentration camp in Dilley, Texas have begun raiding the dormitories of kids and their parents to confiscate and destroy letters from the children. This is in response to the ace reporting by @micarosenberg et al for ProPublica:

“I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to my school.”

- 7 year old imprisoned by ICE for 70 days in a concentration camp in Texas.

Today, after @propublica.org published this story, the camp was raided to confiscate letters from the children.

www.propublica.org/article/ice-...

My very favorites: • The Twice-Drowned Saint, CSE Cooney: fourteen angels rule a city and they're all terrible • The City in Glass, Nghi Vo: a demon loves a city and she's not so bad • Angel Maker, Elizabeth Bear: my favorite narrative voice in fiction, plus Annie Oakley and early motion pictures (no actual angels) • August Clarke, Metal from Heaven: revolutionary Sapphic fever-dream • Tessa Gratton, The Mercy Makers: revolutionary pansexual fever-dream • Kathleen Jennings, Honeyeater: flooded Australian gothic fever-dream

• Alix E Harrow, The Everlasting: writing and rewriting a national origin myth has consequences • The Incandescent, Emily Tesh: magic school from the teacher's side • Copper Script, KJ Charles: cop attempts to debunk graphologist and falls for him • Charlie Jane Anders, Lessons in Magic and Disaster: a trans witch teaches her mother magic while getting doxxed and researching 18th-century women writers

I forgot to share this—these were my favorites last year!

Claire North, THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST, finished 2/15. I can’t remember how many times I’ve read this, but every time, I add something to the list of things I’d do if I were born again and again into the same life. It’s a long list.

Kismai on r/laundry. I am dead serious, ask there before you do anything.

Claire North, THE LAST SONG OF PENELOPE, finished 2/14. The conclusion of a nuanced, lyrical trilogy about Penelope, her women, and—occasionally—Odysseus. Brilliant.

Oof, that sounds miserable!

With either med I’d recommend you take it before bed and not at 3am even though you don’t have trouble getting to sleep!

25mg, which will probably make you drowsy into the next morning unless you get used to it. Maybe try a half tab/on the weekend?

I’d already learned that food noise, lack of executive function, and The Sads were not character flaws, but also my inability to pick up a glass and put it in the dishwasher was apparently a protective reaction to long-term low-grade immune system fuckery??

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as going back on nightly Benadryl has somehow fixed my pathological fucking demand avoidance.

That’s on the list! I love North, especially Harry August and Songs of Penelope, but this didn’t click.

Also, distressing to see them do so many things so well and then fall flat on their face with American vernacular.

Peter Straub, LOST BOY LOST GIRL, finished 2/11. Supernatural, serial killer, difficult read.

These last three conclude my cribbing off @timpratt.org’s December reading list, which you also can read about by joining their Patreon!

Claire North, THE END OF THE DAY, finished 2/10. What if Harbinger of Death was a civil service job? Fascinating premise, beautiful writing, unsatisfying conclusion.

Hailey Piper, A GAME IN YELLOW, finished 2/9. What if the Chambers mythos was a sex thing? Gloriously queer, kinky, and eldritch, but not sure it stuck the landing for me.

This is sort of like when the FBI was listening to that Louie Louie song in the 60’s to figure out if it was obscene but here they could ask 900 million people what the words are

Counterpoint: It's Time for America to Admit That It Has a New York Times Editorial Board Problem