Tootfinder

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

Trying to read a post claiming GitHub’s decision to purge toasts is *bad* for accessibility, even though it's on perennially inaccessible Medium.
And it’s behind an authwall.
Fine, I’ll sign in.
Oh, it’s actually behind a paywall.
Oh well. It’s not meant for me. Or anyone.

Filing: OpenAI denies liability in a suit alleging ChatGPT gave info about suicide methods to a 16-year-old who died by suicide, arguing he misused the chatbot (Angela Yang/NBC News)
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ope

OpenAI denies allegations that ChatGPT is to blame for a teenager's suicide
Warning: This article includes descriptions of self-harm

messal_shale: Messel Shale food web (2014)
A network of feeling links among taxa based on the 48 million years old uppermost early Eocene Messel Shale. Edge property 'certainty' denotes the certainty of the edge. Metadata include evidence, habitat, and trophic roles. The edge direction goes from consumer to resource.
This network has 700 nodes and 6444 edges.
Tags: Biological, Food Web, Uncertain, Weighted, Metadata

Some billionaire is probably feeling empty right now, proof that no amount of wealth can fill the void created by a system built on inequality.
#Capitalism #AntiCapitalism

I've always been a critic of "Stoicism for the military" events and talks. I think the military often abuses a philosophy whose core aspects include cosmopolitanism and that pushes people to do the right thing, especially against power.
But I am ready to be proved wrong by all the guys filling Ryan Holiday's rooms, standing up for "justice" against bombing fishermen in the Caribbean.
Any minute now.

Apple settles with Brazil's regulator to allow alternative app stores; report: Apple will charge a 5% fee for alt app stores and 15% on App Store linkouts (Hartley Charlton/MacRumors)
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/12/24/new-app-store-fee-structure-in-brazil/<…

Apple to Introduce New App Store Fee Structure in Brazil Following Antitrust Settlement
Brazilian regulators have approved a settlement that will require Apple to change how the App Store operates on iPhone in the country, including...

Photojournalist Dave Decker was arrested in November while documenting a protest in Miami, Florida.
A coalition of 23 press organizations spoke out against the charges
— and this week the prosecutor agreed❗️
The following statement can be attributed to Adam Rose, deputy director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF):
“I hope law enforcement officers take this to heart: Swearing an oath to protect the community means protecting everyone — including pre…

Florida prosecutor agrees: Photography is not a crime
A coalition of 23 press organizations spoke out against the charges — the prosecutor agreed

Canada's financial crime watchdog fines crypto exchange Cryptomus a record ~$126M for infractions including failing to flag suspicious transactions (Canadian Press)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cryptomus-fined-177-million-fintrac-9.6948338

Crypto exchange Cryptomus fined record $177M by Canada's financial crime watchdog | CBC News
A cryptocurrency exchange has been slapped with a fine of almost $177 million — the largest-ever penalty by Canada's financial intelligence agency — for infractions including failing to flag more than 1,000 transactions with suspected links to criminal activity.

I've always been a critic of "Stoicism for the military" events and talks. I think the military often abuses a philosophy whose core aspects include cosmopolitanism and that pushes people to do the right thing, especially against power.
But I am ready to be proved wrong by all the guys filling Ryan Holiday's rooms, standing up for "justice" against bombing fishermen in the Caribbean.
Any minute now.