It's a short lil novella by the author of one of my favorite series. We're set in a world of literal angels and demons (and mostly humans). There are two main groups (races, basically) of humans, one that's considered demonic and the other considered angelic, basically. It is very clear, obvious commentary on racism. It is also a pretty good little fantasy story. The main character's sister is accused of murdering one of the ... uh ... basically cops. Idr what they call them, but they're…

My new book, The Age of Immersion: Make-Believe Worlds from Medieval Cathedrals to the Las Vegas Sphere, is out June 15, 2027, with Astra House! I started researching the book three years ago after wondering why immersive experiences had exploded in popularity. Is “immersive” just a buzzword, a relabelling of existing forms – and if so, which ones? Is it a response to the loneliness epidemic and the rise of screens, or the inevitable result of new technology, as VR evangelists would have it?…

In the middle of watching this, I got so bored I got up and started making a complicated savory pastry for my lunch, leaving the DVD running and glancing at the TV from the kitchen as I worked. Some may call that disrespectful to the film – but honestly, if the film wanted my undivided attention, it could have done a way better job of retaining it. Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Léaud, who we actually last saw in The 400 Blows) is an unemployed guy in Paris, living with his girlfriend, shopkeeper Marie…

Celebrated our wedding at Mutant Radio in Tbilisi and brought back Wirescapes for the occasion. Built a new welded steel frame for the installation and documented the result. Released Copy Editor, a local writing tool that keeps editing suggestions beside my draft while leaving the writing to me. Continued developing Hypercontext and its native clients for macOS and iOS. Contributed a Georgian translation to Gridfinity Layout Tool, merged on September 10. Completed the first draft of the new…

Mission-driven startups fail in predictable ways every year because good intentions are no substitute for a theory of change, money, and community involvement. As I found out the hard way, “At least we’re trying to do good” is the most dangerous sentence in social entrepreneurship, because it lets founders skip the boring, specific work that decides whether a venture actually helps anyone. I wrote the first version of this almost twenty years ago for undergraduate students starting their first…

So in general I usually just stick with the main covers of books, letting the variants stay on the shelves for the customers who want them. But sometimes…sometimes there’s a cover I have to have. Last time it was a variant featuring you-know-who, and this week it was this one: Marvel’s celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Muppet Show, you see, so we’re getting these swell mash-up covers (as well as the equally-swell Muppets Take the Marvel Universe comic from last week). I couldn’t resist…

We are super close to hitting our goal for St. Jude this month, so it’s time to UNLOAD ALL THE GIVEAWAYS to push us across the finish line!This giveaway is for an Esterbook Estie Tortoise Noir Fountain Pen with a Fine Steel nib. This model is a pen show exclusive, and I’m thrilled they sent it my way to help with our fundraising this month. Huge thanks to Kenro Industries and Esterbrook! One note: this, and all other St. Jude Milestone Giveaways will run until October 2nd, officially closing at…

Spiritbox – Mourning Alt Rock Yeah, we’re absolutely going to need to start off this month’s mixtape with this new Spiritbox single. After the disquieting churn of the Tsunami Sea album cycle, it’s plenty surprising—but relieving—to get this gorgeous, straightforward rock song. It’s not fancy, but it’s got this beauty underpinned by grief that reminds me a lot of Eternal Blue’s “Constance”. Luna Shadows – gutspill Indie Pop This is quite a shift from Luna’s 2024 album bathwater, trading subdued…

I released two new Lorecore volumes last night: The Complaining Wizard (#136) Acceptable Consequences (#137) The Complaining Wizard in some ways is a sort of standard epic fantasy vignette, though we never quite learn why the present party in the story is on the adventure that they are on (in medias res), nor where they end up. But we do learn that the old guy wizard in the party is a crotchety crabby complainer of the first order, who longs for nothing more than to go the hell back home.…

Blog post: https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1176/meat-proxies

Quite a story: “How Chinese spies used lies, love and betrayal to target the Federal Reserve”

Over the last year I've become very fond of Leon Phal, a French jazz artist who leads a quintent and releases music constantly. It's great stuff. I always knew I loved jazz, but I didn't really have much to listen to besides the stuff I was exposed to in band class as a kid. I was not following contemporary jazz at all. I am now following this group! It's good stuff!! I highly recommend their latest album, Bodies & Ideas. Prior to this, I was also listening to a lot of Stress Killer. I…

🔭🔭🔭🔭 4/5 Celestial Bodies - An impressive literary archivement, though it is very long! The post The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton appeared first on The Wallflower Digest.

One of the main things I’ve been struggling with as my comprehension and ability to execute on my ideas with AI has grown is: when to use each element? Right now, I guess I see five different distinct ways to solve the same sets of task-based or process/workflow-based problems. They go something like this: Use natural language prompting in sequence in order to achieve a specific goal. Honestly, in many cases, this still works just fine (to the extent that it works at all, which is maybe…

Last week I was in Montreal for a bit of a holiday, including to watch the UCI World Road Championships. It was incredible to get so close to the riders, I’ve only ever seen them on TV. I thought standing at the exit of a sharp curve would give me a better vantage point to see them as they slowed down but was I ever wrong about that. They came absolutely flying around that corner and accelerated out of it at an incredible speed. I’m glad I decided to get a video in slow-motion. I also took a…

I picked up a cheapo duplicate copy of Poor Economics by Banerjee and Duflo, bought from a bookstore in Kochi when I went to a friend's wedding.It feels like I understand the mechanics and economics of poverty much better now. My favourite chapter was the one about microfinance (aged well, nail on the head), and the one about poor people and their relationship to entrepreneurship.Much of the book is explaining behaviours of the poor that are incomprehensible to people (especially WEIRD people)…

This morning I saw something on Hacker News about how we are forgetting about darkness. I have complained about the local light pollution on here numerous times. When people have floodlights that are on all night and blind me inside our house. Not only that, but some of them are blinding from blocks away. The same goes for car headlights. Don’t even get me started on that ridiculousness. This article was about not being able to see the stars and Milky Way and things like that. I was able to…

A faded sign advertising signs spotted in Dallas’ Cedars neighborhood. The post Long-Haired Freaky People Need Not Apply appeared first on 75CentralPhotography.

I'm obsessed with the fact the U.S. has a news industry completely disinterested in telling the public the truth. The latest case in point: Trump met with the country's tech oligarchs yesterday to announce that they'd struck a new "AI accord." The goal: to give the impression these companies can responsibly self-regulate, and don't need any government oversight of their dodgy environmental, labor, privacy, or public safety practices.techo-fascist enthusiasmsIt was an elaborate performance. All…

Curators Jenny Robb and Caitlin McGurk took me on a 45-minute guided tour of one of my favorite places: the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum on the OSU campus in Columbus, Ohio. Really fun. Watch the video.

Adventures of Superman: The Book of El #12A Scott Godlewski Regular Release: Sep 30, 2026Cover: Nov 2026 THE FINAL BATTLE FOR TOMORROW! In the final chapter of the Book of El, Starchild and Red Son are reunited with the surviving heads of the House of El to save existence from a man driven beyond madness—to godhood—by grief. If Superman lives up to the legends, he’ll find a way to save the universe from Kryl-Ux and save Kryl-Ux from himself. The heartrending, inspiring conclusion of Phillip…

From Waka Kuaka | The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 131, no. 4 (2022): OBSIDIAN POINT DISCOVERED ON KAPINGAMARANGI ATOLL, MICRONESIA: IMPLICATIONS FOR POST-SETTLEMENT REGIONAL INTERACTIONS TAKUYA NAGAOKA. Pasifika Renaissance PETER J. SHEPPARD, Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland CALLAN ROSS-SHEPPARD, McGill University NINA KONONENKO, University of Sydney, Australian Museum ABSTRACT: An obsidian point was discovered by chance by local people on Kapingamarangi Atoll, a…

Episode 17 continues our discussion on Journaling for Mental Health! September is National Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Awareness month, so for these two most recent episodes we have been discussing a topic important to both of us: journaling for mental health and self-care. In Part I we discussed our own personal journaling practices that we use regularly. Part II continues the discussion by diving into less traditional journaling techniques that we have both experimented with in the…

Read the full post at - Pool on Conasauga River This long, run forming a pool is off-trail within the Cohutta Wilderness, Georgia, about 2 miles from the north Conasauga River Trailhead. The river has pooled up before a short cascade.

Today we published four papers at the Open Journal of Astrophysics all related to the Megatron Project which is co-led by Martin Rey of the University of Bath (UK), Harley Katz of the University of Chicago (USA) and Corentin Cadiou of the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris in France. I will include this quartet in my regular weekly update on Saturday but there is a press release accompanying these publications so I thought I’d splash them a bit here too. I’ll show the overlays on Saturday but in…

It is a quiet morning here on Nexwlelexwm/Bowen Island. The equinox has come and gone and the mornings are darker and cooler. We have stopped changing the clocks in this part of the world, so the mornings will only ever grow darker by the clock until the solstice. I'll be walking in pitch black in a month or so. My partner is the walking champion of our household, taking her morning and afternoon walks everyday as a non-optional part of her morning. She is the one that walks around in every…

I love to listen. I like to talk a lot too. I have opinions about everything but I love to listen. It first came as a need and then as a gift that I give to others now. I wanted to be a person that people like and the thing that topped the list in every self-help video, book or an article was to listen. I worked on the skill for years. Along the way, I realised how much people want to to be heard. Becasue no one is ready to listen to anyone, either they are not interested or they want to talk…

On this page Why the session caught my eye At NixCon 2026 I caught a session by Akshay Oppiliappan. He is one of the developers behind Tangled. The sessions was not quite a workshop, more of a presentation. I signed up for Tangled when it launched and waited for it to develop a little more. Then I got busy and never returned to it, so this was a nice reminder. Oddly enough I was first attracted to the project from the federated software community rather than the Nix community. Even though I…