Matthew Claxton

Anas al-Sharif among five Al Jazeera journalists killed by Israel in Gaza Al Jazeera staff killed in targeted Israeli attack on a tent housing journalists near al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City.

Four Al Jazeera staff, including reporter Anas Al Sharif, were killed in an Israeli attack on a tent for journalists outside the main gate of Gaza's al-Shifa hospital aje.io/onll19

This is an excellent article about an infuriating practice, but I want to especially commend the author for this genius paragraph.

The "Hitting people is wrong/Some people desperately deserve a smack" dichotomy is never going to be solved.

Fun fact: it is, in fact, possible to "see red." I do not remember hitting that kid (who was almost a full head taller than me). I remember forming the intent to punch him. I remember him stepping back with a shocked look on his face and a bleeding lip. Just red in between, about 2 seconds.

On the one hand, violence is bad.

On the other hand, I was ruthlessly bullied by this one asshole in Grade 8 until I lost it and gave him a bloody lip and my quality of life shot up a lot, so…

Do you think Haldeman had a withering glare for him?

I had trouble with it early on because the first steampunk book I read was The Difference Engine, which was (relatively) hard SF alt history by Gibson and Sterling.

Most of what followed was… not like that.

(Even Gibson and Sterling had an airship, though. The appeal of the dirigible!)

B.C. Wildfire debunks AI-generated picture of Harrison fire A fake image of Bear Creek wildfire making its social media rounds

An image of a raging wildfire that appears to be on the shores of Harrison Lake is not real, but a product of artificial intelligence.

Sometimes I recommend some books, and folks get back to me and say "Hey, I really enjoyed that, thanks!" and I'm filled with a warm glow all day.

I've also had people let me know they read one of my recs, and they didn't care for it at all!

You don't… you don't have to do that.

Fortunately, we all learned our lessons and there are no modern parallels in which humans have poured increasing resources into something that's obviously faulty, expensive, and dangerous.

Definitely something to think about that nations and companies and militaries fell in love with the IDEA of airships, and kept hammering away at them for more than 40 years, convinced that THIS TIME they wouldn't explode/crash/literally tear in half/hit a big tree, etc.

The more you read about the history of dirigibles and airships, the harder it is to take steampunk at all seriously.

The number of airships whose Wikipedia entry ends with descriptions of their crashes and casualty numbers is, um, it's a lot.

Sometimes I think the best way to make Canada truly protected from U.S. political discourse would be if we became an entirely Francophone nation. Just teach the coming generation French. Give up on a shared language. Cut ourselves free from English.

This is just stupid enough to be a column…

Writers are always filtering their influences through their own lives and personalities; you get cool stuff that way!

That's it, go forth and read. Or don't. But these are some of the ones I really like.

The cover of Paul Park's Sugar Rain

AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT! An older series by Paul Park, the Starbridge Chronicles. Soldiers of Paradise, Sugar Rain, and The Cult of Loving Kindness. A grim world of theocrats and tattooed nobility, where seasons last a generation, until the explosive sugar rains wash away winter, and bring change.

The cover of The Sky Is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith.

AND ALSO! A story of three very fucked up kids who live in a city that's being slowly burned down by two indestructible dragons. Also featuring telepathic mice, a cyborg firefighter, gangsters, the idle rich, and TEETH! (Oh god, the teeth!) The Sky Is Yours, by Chandler Klang Smith

I am being totally objective! Your stories rock!

Cover of Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera

ALSO! Rakesfall, by @vajra.me! Holy hell, I wouldn't even attempt to describe this book. It's got fantasy, horror, far future sci-fi, and a… Jacobean revenge play? It makes its own rules, and it's a hell of a read.

Cover of No One Will Come back For Us And Other Stories by Premee Mohamed. An astronaut drifts untethered through space, while a tentacle reaches for them.

I would also recommend @premeemohamed.com's No One Will Come Back For Us and Other Stories, which has multiple stories that are also harrowing/funny/sad. I like her longer works, but her short stories have the perfect bite.

The most recent book to blow my socks off – a zooflu gives people the ability to understand all animals, and no way to shut it off. Chaos ensues. A bad-choices grandma with a drinking problem and a forceful dingo by her side sets off to find her missing grandchild. Harrowing, funny, sad.

Also I don't think it's an accident that the wording on the Hopper AI demo is that you also "step into" a painting and then you're immediately in a FPS. I like games, in the same way I like my phone: I can't imagine a world without it, it thrills me even as it dulls my senses, and it's probably bad.

"It's Anne with an E, you asshole!"

Remembering Jehn E. Kennedy's famous speech, where he said "Ask net what yeur ceuntry can de eer yeu, ask what yeu can de eer yeur ceuntry."

Old guys are neat. Had a nice chat with Fred Pepin after our interview about his next project – he's always got something on the go.

Didn’t want to believe this was true. It’s true.

Guys are trying to build the computer and holodeck from Star Trek: TNG and they're forgetting how many times those things tried to kill the crew.

"It hallucinates and lies to you LESS!" is not the win Sam Altman thinks it is.

‘Not what you think they are’: Inside a teen facility facing years of red flags, mistreatment claims | Globalnews.ca Venture Academy markets itself as therapeutic care for struggling teens. But a six-month Global News investigation found dozens of allegations of psychological and emotional harm.

Inside the treatment centre where teens say they left worse — not better.

globalnews.ca/news/1131892...

Last memoir I read was Neko Case's.

Spoiler: her mom faked her own death when Case was just a kid.

Yeah, you get a Memoir License if weird/awful shit like that happens to you.