K Tornheim

Wonderful thread, full of things I did not previously know and am glad I do now.

This is my favorite response to the AI-ified horrible photo of John Scalzi. There are many other amusing ones in the thread.

My Open Letter To That Open Letter About AI In Writing And Publishing The tl;dr before you get into this post is this: the SFWA came out, said that some AI usage was okay enough in books for the authors of those books to not to be disqualified from winning a Nebula a…

Reminded by seeing it on the bsfa longlist: I am 100% in agreement with Chuck Wendig's post terribleminds.com/ramble/2025/...

A Black man was killed by ICE (off duty) in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve. And like Renée Good, he was an American citizen. But most people have not heard about Keith Porter.

I need y’all to realize this. Black people experience this lack of visibility all the time when it comes to being victims.

A woman recording an ICE agent tells him "Shame on you."

The agent responds, "Have you all not learned from the past couple of days?"

"Learned what?" she asks

Then he knocks her phone out of her hand

These Stories Teach Us How to Fight - Uncanny Magazine Chicago, October 2025. I need you to know we tried. I bought whistles and saline eyewash for my friends, students. The theatre bought 150 whistles. They were gone in days. A neighbor 3D-printed hundre...

My latest essay for @uncannymagazine.bsky.social is live!!

My editor: "I've never published a more important essay." 🥹

For those who struggle to get started and feel overwhelmed, Veronica Lewis has a great methodology for how to write alt text. This methodology has been referred to as "the Capybara Method."

Well that's going to hurt a lot of people. I'm sure that's the point.

But I really like that all the characters have to learn that too. They don't already know and are just acting it out for you.

3) The themes are things I think are really important, especially now. Cycles of life. What it means to be human, what it means to have a community. That you can choose to learn, and can choose to act. That you can choose to be vulnerable and sometimes people will, in fact, not let you down.

I like that all the characters are imperfect, but willing to learn better and make better choices. ...Eventually, at least.

They all have at least decades of life experience, sometimes a lot more, and yet are very inexperienced/untested in certain areas (as are the vast majority of us even when we're over 50, I'd guess).

2) Adult characters.

The main characters of this book are not teenagers or even younguns in their 20s like the first SBA books or some of the characters in London's Calling and Secret Agent Vann.

Oh! It's effectively a standalone. I know Amazon says 'book 3 of 3', but while it's in the same world as earlier books, it has a totally different group of characters and issues.

If you appreciate adorable critters who are nevertheless neither perfect nor super-powered, you will almost certainly enjoy this book.

Stumplet is enormously adorable, and even more adorable is the personality Adam has imbued it with. Book-Stumplet is of course not exactly like real-Stumplet, but is still entirely delightful. Similar to how I like tv-show Murderbot very much, and book Murderbot, and they are not the same.

1) Stumplet itself. The original Stumplet critter was designed and created by www.instagram.com/jmsmagid_cre... ; I brought it back from a NEFFA as a present for Adam, who had bought me an entirely-necessary Morris hundun plushy earlier that year.

Here are some things I especially enjoy in this book.

The woman is wearing a purple dress, her hair is a teal blue-green, and her left hand only looks like grey lichen-covered tree bark.

The cover image shows a woman's torso and the lower part of her face, centered on a small green creature she is holding in her arms. The creature has short curling horns, large yellow eyes, and is holding on to the woman with one tiny hand while pointing at a purple butterfly with the other.

Bah, I'm grumpy there's apparently no way to add alt text/image description to a preview image.

A book cover that reads

The Stumplet
A Nu-England Novel
Adam Brink

The Stumplet: A Nu-England Novel The Stumplet: A Nu-England Novel [Brink, Adam] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Stumplet: A Nu-England Novel

I love this book, I'm really proud of helping get it live, and I'm really looking forward to being able to talk about it with people. www.amazon.com/Stumplet-Nu-...

This is such an amazing piece by ‪@anthonymoser.com‬ .
It should be spread far and wide, and read far and wide.

anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/h...

I do understand: you want permission. There’s a machine in the corner wrapped in human skin that makes things out of shit and blood to look like whatever you want (as long as you don’t look too closely). You gave one to your teacher and they didn’t notice. Your boss told you to use it after they laid off half the team and it was fine. You fed one to your kids and they liked it. You want to know you can use it sometimes without me thinking less of you. You don’t need me to believe it’s useful, you just want me to be polite about it. But I am a hater, and I will not be polite. The machine is disgusting and we should break it. The people who build it are vapid shit-eating cannibals glorifying ignorance. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.

I cosign every single word of this

anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/h...

Tilda Swinton went to '43 funerals’ in one year during AIDS crisis Tilda Swinton has recalled going to "43 funerals" in one year at the height of the Aids crisis, including one for her friend, Derek Jarman.

Tilda Swinton went to '43 funerals' in one year at height of Aids crisis
https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/10/21/tilda-swinton-went-to-43-funerals-in-one-year-at-height-of-aids-crisis/?utm_content=1761172800&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bluesky

Links That Burn - Big Tools Won't Save Niche Websites A catalog of useful links to niche websites - find something useful, fun, and/or informative today!

Links That Burn how has a whole page just of stuff to help you block genAI "features" wherever they encroach on your life. It's not a large list yet, but please send me any I'm missing!
#NoAI

linksthatburn.com/en/goalblockai

This was my first time attending a protest at an intersection, and at first I was very taken aback by all the honking as people drove though, and then I saw the sign that said "Honk if you're NOT in the Epstein Files!"

42+ ways to fix a story Here is a list of ways to fix a draft or story in progress…

42 ways to fix a story
tanaudel.wordpress.com/2024/02/09/4...

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications.

Wanna to go to a virtual No Kings rally that focuses on healthcare (with a side of "vaccines are good, actually" and "eugenics is bad, actually")?

Organized by disabled folks who can't go to an in-person event.

Join Saturday at 2:30pm Pacific time, zoom link: us06web.zoom.us/j/8467741742...