Gretchen McSomething

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Let's try a variation on a meme.

10 living authors who I own 5 or more books by:

Ben Aaronovitch
Lois McMaster Bujold
James Ellroy
Frances Hardinge
N.K. Jemison
Ann Leckie
Nick Mamatas
Silvia Moreno Garcia
Jeff VanderMeer
Martha Wells

OUT: leap days
IN: 278-day February every 1000 years

Both excellent choices!

Honestly, there are so many to choose from, this was just the one I thought of first.

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't grunge.

You can trust AI, put personal information in AI, credit card numbers fit perfectly in AI's mouth

Big popular accounts add alt text to you screenshots challenge (impossible).

A Google alert announces Chappell Roan concert tickets, but the image is of Weird Al

You sure about this, Google?

I feel like Tom Lehrer's brilliance was one of those universally recognized facts. My grandfather, who spent his latter years traveling the country recruiting for an evangelical cult, asked to hear "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" on his deathbed. RIP, Tom.

YouTube video by The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel Tom Lehrer - The Masochism Tango

My favorite ex-showgirl bartender said she had an entire routine in the 60s set to this www.youtube.com/watch?v=TytG...

My favourite thing about Firefly was ships that look and feel mechanical rather than spacefaring cruise ships made of flimsy panels and glowing tubes.

So props to whoever in the art department did that.

There was a local all women band called Venus Envy in late 90s

"AI Free" needs to become almost like a brand, a logo, a recognisable high watermark seal of quality. Companies should be clambering over one another to attain this prestigious accreditation. Companies that have gone all-in on AI will have to bear the cost of having it removed, like asbestos.

Really badass graffiti spotted in town

I've found the perfect Instagram account. Seattle's Twice Sold Tales owner Jamie recommends books and shows her cats. That's it.

IG twicesoldtales

"Don't suffer for your art" means go to fucking therapy, get enough sleep, keep your fridge stocked, don't accept shitty contract terms that leave you starving.

It does not mean "be a lazy-ass bitch using the plagiarism machine instead of your own fucking brain to become a better storyteller".

I don't usually listen to podcasts, but this was a lot of fun.

Honestly, same.

How to make a cephalopod. (With cartoony drawings) 1. Remove limbs. (Smiling human with dotted lines at shoulders and hips) 2. Attach to lips. (Human with flat mouth expression, just head and torso. Arms and legs are floating above with arrows pointing from them to lips) 3. See? It works. (Smiling human cephalopod with arms and legs around mouth. Drawing of an octopus shows anatomical similarity.)

this may be the pinnacle of my science communication career

"I am actually a princess," the frog said.

"Oh no!" said the prince.

"My curse can only be lifted by a prince listening to me."

"Of course," said the prince, and bent down with puckered lips.

"What are you doing?!"

"Kissing you, like you asked!"

"No!"

The frog hopped away, muttering.

What is the point of lapels if you can't see them against the vest?

As a former philosophy grad student, I can confirm that this tendency is real.

There are some good philosophers, but many of them are trans, and are therefore considered unable to be impartial 🙄

This! Or in the words of Grace Petrie,
“all the laws are on the side
of just two sexes
so one may always be denied”

You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?

I hate it when the bluff grouping is more satisfying than any of the real ones

The last panel is depressingly accurate

Objectivism: A is A and it's probably A minor.

A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope