Tootfinder

Ah, good thing Ireland didn’t bet a major chunk of its economy on US Big Tech creating jobs or anything.
*phew!*
#BigTech #USA #AI

Filing: iRobot says its last potential buyer withdrew from the process and its financials remain dire, following Amazon abandoning a 2024 bid; IRBT drops 33% (Annie Palmer/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/27/irobot-stock-roomba.html

iRobot stock tumbles 33% after Roomba maker warns the search for a buyer has stalled
The Roomba maker's financial condition has worsened since Amazon abandoned its planned acquisition of the company in 2024.

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #MorningShow
Jack White:
🎵 That’s How I’m Feeling
#JackWhite
https://officialjackwhite.bandcamp.com/track/thats-how-im-feeling
https://open.spotify.com/track/1PEjhR1CCdINF8TyM5s8LX

FWIW, when people go on about “sportsball”, to me that sounds snotty and condescending and, well, a bit rude: “I ostentatiously don’t care about a thing you do and wish it didn’t exist.”
Not saying you’re not within your rights to feel that and say that. I have exactly those feelings about certain forms of music and religion and politics.
Just be aware that sometimes it doesn’t land well.
#LifeOnline

Partly bright and sunny, but fully cold and with generous amounts of wind. “Brisk” doesn’t even begin to do it justice. Still, I am a freak and love this weather. It felt good to be out moving. #TeamShorts of course.
Walked briefly twice to bring my HR down a bit and then stopped to mug at this beautiful Great Blue Heron looking for their lunch. 🐟

"Après l'effort, le réconfort!"
(Following-up on this: #TombRaider2 works on

Day 30: Elizabeth Moon
This last spot (somehow 32 days after my last post, but oh well) was a tough decision, but Moon brings us full circle back to fantasy/sci-fi, and also back to books I enjoyed as a teenager. Her politics don't really match up to Le Guin or Jemisin, but her military experience make for books that are much more interesting than standard fantasy fare in terms of their battles & outcomes (something "A Song of Ice and Fire" achieved by cribbing from history but couldn't extrapolate nearly as well). I liked (and still mostly like) her (unironically) strong female protagonists, even if her (especially more recent) forays into "good king" territory leave something to be desired. Still, in Paksenarion the way we get to see the world from a foot-soldier's perspective before transitioning into something more is pretty special and very rare in fantasy (I love the elven ruins scene as Paks travels over the mountains as an inflection point). Battles are won or lost on tactics, shifting politics, and logistics moreso than some epic magical gimmick, which is a wonderful departure from the fantasy norm.
Her work does come with a content warning for rape, although she addresses it with more nuance and respect than any male SF/F author of her generation. Ex-evangelicals might also find her stuff hard to read, as while she's against conservative Christianity, she's very much still a Christian and that makes its way into her writing. Even if her (not bad but not radical enough) politics lead her writing into less-satisfying places at times, part of my respect for her comes from following her on Twitter for a while, where she was a pretty decent human being...
Overall, Paksenarrion is my favorite of her works, although I've enjoyed some of her sci-fi too and read the follow-up series. While it inherits some of Tolkien's baggage, Moon's ability to deeply humanize her hero and depict a believable balance between magic being real but not the answer to all problems is great.
I've reached 30 at this point, and while I've got more authors on my shortlist, I think I'll end things out tomorrow with a dump of also-rans rather than continuing to write up one per day. I may even include a man or two in that group (probably with at least non-{white cishet} perspective). Honestly, doing this challenge I first thought that sexism might have made it difficult, but here at the end I'm realizing that ironically, the misogyny that holds non-man authors to a higher standard means that (given plenty have still made it through) it's hard to think of male authors who compare with this group.
Looking back on the mostly-male authors of SF/F in my teenage years, for example, I'm now struggling to think of a single one whose work I'd recommend to my kids (having cheated and checked one of my old lists, Pratchett, Jaques, and Asimov qualify but they're outnumbered by those I'm now actively ashamed to admit I enjoyed). If I were given a choice between reading only non-men or non-woman authors for the rest of my life (yes I'm giving myself enby authors as a freebie; they're generally great) I'd very easily choose non-men. I think the only place where (to my knowledge) not enough non-men authors have been allowed through to outshine the fields of male mediocrity yet is in videogames sadly. I have a very long list of beloved games and did include some game designers here, but I'm hard-pressed to think of many other non-man game designers I'd include in the genuinely respect column (I'll include at least two tomorrow but might cheat a bit).
TL;DR: this was fun and you should do it too.
#30AuthorsNoMen

Wow, if you search for signal messenger on DuckDuckGo using Chrome, the actual @… web site is the *third* entry following ads for “Signal Private Messenger – Free Download” that leads to the site appmaus.com and “Get Signal Messenger | Install Signal App” that leads to the site filelocations.com.
DuckDuckGo should be held criminally liable for anyone who…

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #AfternoonShow
Telehealth:
🎵 Unsafe Feeling
#Telehealth
https://telehealth.bandcamp.com/track/unsafe-feeling
https://open.spotify.com/track/0eeIRm8XmdRa9OmFbyjPTB

So @… makes these wonderful, personal videos highlighting individual people and families in Gaza with little glimpses into their lives, their struggles, and what help they need.
If you’re not following her, please do. She’s a gem and we’re very lucky to have her on the fediverse.
💕
PS. She’s also helping out with Gaza Verified (and I’ll extend a mo…