deirdresm

annaleen, 7 days ago to random

My book comes out June 4! If you order from Green Apple Books, you can get one of these magnificent signed copies -- and I will even personalize it for you! Here I am, glamorously signing a bunch of books in the Green Apple staff offices.

Also I will be on tour next week! Come see me in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Berkeley, Vancouver (Canada), and Washington, DC!

Get your signed copies here: https://www.greenapplebooks.com/signed-annalee-newitz

This is a list of tour dates for the "Stories Are Weapons 2024 Tour." They are: 6/4 Portland Powell’s Books with Dave Miller 6/6 Seattle Town Hall Seattle with Lindy West 6/13 San Franicsco Mechanics Institute with Alexis Madrigal 6/18 Berkeley Hillside Club with Ed Yong 6/22 Vancouver, BC Massy Books, with Charlie Jane Anders 8/24 Washington, DC National Book Festival with Peter Pomerantsev

mekkaokereke, 10 days ago (edited 9 days ago) to random

Some of my friends that are convicted felons are 100% innocent of what they were accused and convicted of. Some of my friends that are convicted felons are guilty, and absolutely did what they were accused of. I don't make fun of people for being convicted felons, and I don't ostracize them. Instead, I don't let bad people around me. My definition of bad focuses on the choices that a person made in the past, and the choices that they make now. Some of the worst people, will never be felons.

1/N

hedders, 10 days ago to random

Denis Villeneuve really missed a trick with Dune Part Two. Imagine having Christopher Walken in Dune and not having him say “If you walk without rhythm, you won’t attract the worm”.

deirdresm, 12 days ago to random

nods head in meeting then realizes camera is off 🤦‍♀️

Edit, five minutes later: camera still off, waves goodbye at end of meeting 🤦‍♀️

drahardja, 14 days ago to random

A Brit just explained to me that a lot of homeownership in England is based on a leasehold arrangement, where you own your house, but RENT the land from a landowner. When the lease expires, the land AND THE HOUSE IT CONTAINS reverts to the landowner, even if you’ve paid for it. While leases can be extended basically indefinitely, it is possible for it to lapse and for landowners to seize the house that YOU BUILT for zero money.

Can someone confirm this? If true, that is…landlording and “generational passive income” taken to a WHOLE new level.

#england #uk #landowner #homeowner

deirdresm, 14 days ago to random

ZOMG, # WaPo refunded $18.92 (of my $40 sub) after I wrote them complaining about not covering the Alito flag story 3 years ago.

timbray, 14 days ago to Israel

No argument can stop Israel’s bloodthirsty leaders. The only thing I can think of is to re-run the BDS/boycott playbook that was deployed against South Africa. Start with the Olympics?

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-05-26-24/index.html

#gaza #Israel #BDS

deirdresm, 18 days ago to animals

#LilyTheCat asked to go outside. I let her out. She walked around to the front and jumped onto the park bench. Ten seconds later, the school bus stops to let the kids off.

“Lily!” One rushes over to pet her.

She has that timing down.

#CatsOfMastodon

deirdresm, 20 days ago to random

One of the fun parts of #POTS: having no detectable blood pressure from an automated cuff in the doctor’s office.

(Whole body hypovolemia plus lack of blood return upstairs is just SO FUN.)

mekkaokereke, 23 days ago to random

🤔This is an article attempting to understand Black men voters' lack of enthusiasm for Biden... that doesn't include the word "police" once. Like, not even included once!

Y'all aren't even pretending to listen.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-voters-opinions-michigan-joe-biden_n_6647a22ce4b00e1a0a6c0fd5

The article also repeats the lie that Black people didn't turn out for Hilary like they did for Obama, which is another not so veiled way of victim-blaming Black people for the most successful and egregious voter suppression campaign in modern US election history

deirdresm, 23 days ago to random

Cynical thought:

What if the push toward AI isn't really about AI at all, but rather avoiding shareholder lawsuits from jerkwads who are anti- climate-change initiatives?

IOW, the entire point is to bork climate change mitigation?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/microsoft-s-ai-obsession-is-destroying-the-company-s-climate-goals/ar-BB1mvCof

deirdresm, 25 days ago to random

I'd ignored this video (linked below) because of the clickbait title, but when I watched it, I realized that I'd fundamentally misunderstood what Tesla was about. I thought Elon actually believed in EVs and clean energy and all that rot…up until he basically threw it into the dumpster after acquiring Twitter.

Video makes a compelling case that it was always a way to sell the scam of self-driving, and that the car and charging network were just a means to that end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hje7h_WVkY

deirdresm, 26 days ago to random

Oh geez, someone reported me to (the now ironically named) RedditCares because of my comment about my bad day getting hit by a freakin' car.

Uhh, it was unfortunate and I had a miserable day, but it was also kind of hilarious.

As the bank teller said today (as, guess what, I'd managed to bork my debit card on top of everything else), "I shouldn't be laughing at this."

https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/1cqes17/comment/l3sk2hk/?context=3

(The hotel was actually very nice and the people were super.)

deirdresm, 26 days ago to tunisia

One of the joys of #Tunisia was seeing the #BardoMuseum and the many mosaics:

https://youtu.be/PUzH0jK0Et0

deirdresm, 27 days ago to random

@mekkaokereke Hey, look what’s on my flight as a movie option! Wasn’t expecting to see something in Yoruba on a flight from Frankfurt.

deirdresm, 27 days ago to random

Visibly struggling to get up the stairs to the plane (eff hard stands). Amazing how helpful people can be when you say (truthfully) by way of explanation, “I was hit by a car yesterday.”

Comically slowly, with only sore knees and skinned palms to show for said encounter, but I’m definitely not at the “I walked 5km today” levels of activity from several days ago.

chemoelectric, 28 days ago to random

I can see my feed is going to be filled with both the suggestion that Israelis can be forgiven for ELECTING Netanyahu, because they PROTESTED it, ana also with the implication that Ashkenazi Jews are NOT ethnic Israelites.

Presumably sometime today I will see Jesus referred to as "a Jewish Palestinian", rather than as "a Jew", which is how HISTORIANS mean it. The latter "Jewishness" means a relative of Ashkenazi and other bloodline Jews, not a random person with a particular religion.

davidaugust, 1 month ago to Economics

Centuries ago, Venice was a major world power, with trading routes & influence throughout the world. Got notice plague was on the way, but to preserve commerce opted not to do anything to counter. 1/3 of the city died in ensuing outbreak, at all levels of society.

🧵 1 of 3

#covid #economics #PublicHealth

skinnylatte, 1 month ago to random

People in SF keep telling my Singaporean friends who are moving here to live in Walnut Creek. I mean, I think moving from a 5M person city to an American suburb is a massive massive culture shock

‘You have to get in a car to go everywhere! You commute 2 hours!’ And they can’t understand it. It’s just not our reality in our universe.

I tell them that moving to SF, a big city, is already going to be a culture shock (smallest city they’ve ever seen)

wonderofscience, 1 month ago to random

Timelapse of the Falkirk Wheel in action; the only rotating boat lift of its kind in the world.

Video Credit: David Iliff / CC BY-SA 3.0
Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_Wheel

Timelapse video of the Falkirk Wheel, with its curved arms cradling water-filled gondolas rotating around a central axis, seamlessly raising and lowering vessels between the joining canals, all under an overcast sky that casts a soft glow on the wheel and the green landscape.