mags

Dear All Have you seen Prof Biscuit recently? Professor Biscuit is roaming Main Building or more likely, is asleep somewhere cosy. Have you seen him recently? If so, could he be persuaded to be returned to the Bursary, please?

They're also responsible for one of the best emails I've ever received, when the college office sent out a plea for sightings of Professor Biscuit while conveniently forgetting to mention that he was a cat...(I won't comment on how often a similar email might have gone out about human Professors...)

What Is It like to Have a Gender Identity? Abstract. By attending to how people speak about their gender, we can find diverse answers to the question of what it is like to have a gender identity. To

It’s also fun because it’s both resonating and in tension with one of my previous papers.

(Free version: www.florenceashley.com/uploads/1/2/...)

This cool paper by my friends is finally officially out!

This is Alice's friend Sandy Ho, posting. Per Alice's wishes, this message is being shared at the time of her passing. Hi everyone, it looks like I ran out of time. I have so many dreams that I wanted to fulfill and plans to create new stories for you. There are a few in progress that might come to fruition in a few years if things work out. I did not ever imagine I would live to this age and end up a writer, editor, activist, and more. As a kid riddled with insecurity and internalized ableism, I could not see a path forward. It was thanks to friendships and some great teachers who believed in me that I was able to fight my way out of miserable situations into a place where I finally felt comfortable in my skin. We need more stories about us and our culture. You all, we all, deserve the everything and more in such a hostile, ableist environment. Our wisdom is incisive and unflinching. I'm honored to be your ancestor and believe disabled oracles like us will light the way to the future. Don't let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.

💔 Alice Wong’s last words: “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”

We can never thank Alice enough for fighting all the good fights and especially all the hard fights. We all learned so much from your brilliance, your courage, and your indefatigable leadership. We will never forget you.

One of the great heartbreaks of being in the disability community is how often we lose people and how many of our most powerful voices have gone silent. We must live our lives loudly and joyously in their honor and remember that our very existence is resistance.

Disability advocate Alice Wong on resistance in the new year: ‘Life is a dumpster fire, but I’m not alone’ The activist, who received a 2024 MacArthur ‘genius’ grant, reflects on a moment that changed her life – and why she finds hope in sci-fi

"I insist on resisting with joy and finding pleasure where I can such as with my friends and two cats, Bert and Ernie. Yes, life is a complete dumpster fire, but I am reminded that I am not alone, that I am in this with many others." — Alice Wong, January 2025: www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

HOLY SHIT. They found the genes for fibromyalgia - and it's *not* autoimmune, it's the central nervous system. It's very cool to see some progress made on the thing that's ruined my life since late teenage years!

Basic light pollution diagram showing four different streetlight set ups ranging from more light pollution on the left to less light pollution on the right. The most pollution option, labelled "very bad" is a street lamp with a round uncovered bulb on top, making a sphere of light in the air. The next option, labelled "bad" has a tiny cap on top, that limits the upward pollution a bit. The "better" option is mostly uncovered on top, limiting pollution above the streetlight. The final option, labelled "best" has a full shroud overtop, limiting the light to only below the streetlight, where it is needed for pedestrians and vehicles.

Lots of folks captioning aurora photos like "for a few minutes we didn't think about politics"

guess I'm built different, every time I'm out trying to see night sky stuff I frequently think about how much light pollution is entirely preventable with just a tiny bit of regulation

i love this for everyone their mom has interacted with since the 90s

I checked my settings and a lot of these had been set to hide content. I changed them all to “warn” (or equivalent) so I can see the dynamics and make my own decisions.

I'm glad so many press photographers have decided to take the most sinister photos of him possible. chef's kiss for press photographers

a ground squirrel is yawning and the word alan is visible behind it Alt: a ground squirrel is yawning and the word alan is visible behind it

🤔

Lists of spirit names. The first starts "These be the Spirits in common between Asmodee and Magot" and lists a bunch of names like Sartabakim and Magiros. The next list, of spirits of Astarot, contains Gromenis, Bafamal, Schelagon... and Alan.

I was just leafing through 1725 occult tome The Secret Magic of Abramelin the Mage in search of scary invocations for the BOOK, and I came across this list of subordinate spirits to the princes of Hell.

a person with wet hair and drops of water hanging off their glasses

rescued the laundry

ok but do commandos actually not wear underpants or

neurotypical fuckers are always like "autistic people have trouble following directions" and then hand me a form that asks if I have a history of bike helmet

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched this TikTok since yesterday. Sherman was stressing those ladies out.

a screenshot of the linked game

oh, right. a few years ago, i made a game about experiencing executive dysfunction.

you can play it in your browser here: xkeeper.net/dys.html have fun

buffalo?

Fun fact: GWAR spoke out against the defunding of orgs like PBS. Lead singer Mike Bishop, who holds a PhD in music, stopped in the middle of a show to point out that defunding public institutions is horrible and said it'd lead to worse. Dude was not wrong.

it's funny how they'll just give a date for the rapture but not a time zone. is it a "well, it's still 23/09 somewhere" situation, or a "rolling raptures east grom greenwich" situation? does the rapture observe daylight savings?

Dear friends,
As have become a habit, I mark each #autumnequinox by sharing a small poem by Xin Qiji. I also start my translation cycle of Chinese and Japanese poems and prose that mark the twenty-four lunisolar micro-seasons. Translation notes blogged here:
#everynightapoem

Will Riker wall clock where the hour and minute hands are his legs

the perfect wall clock doesn't ex......

On an Unusual Kind of Spatially Distributed Haunting - Lightspeed Magazine Dear Dr. Erzsébet Krajcsik-Nagy, I am contacting you as a member of the general public, and not as a fellow scholar, though I must say my chosen field of art history does have certain similarities to...

I have a new flash story in Lightspeed!

"On an Unusual Kind of Spatially Distributed Haunting"

Somewhere in the borderlands between folk horror and hard SF... Hard fantasy??? #Hauntology something.

www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/on-a... @lightspeedmagazine.com

Inside you there are two wolves. One is active, the other one is on hot standby and becomes active if the first one fails or is taken down for maintenance. Add more wolves as necessary for increased redundancy load balancing. A quorum badger can be added for environments with multiple active wolves.

The Mountain Goats - Armies of the Lord Choose your preferred music service

ok everybody get ready

30tgrs.ffm.to/armiesofthel...

magpies at the lookout

photo of a framed set of bird illustrations on a wall

looks like that was probably a blue heron btw

even this asshole is literally just vibing