Tootfinder

Just finished "Beasts Made of Night" by Tochi Onyebuchi...
Indirect CW for fantasy police state violence.
So I very much enjoyed Onyebuchi's "Riot Baby," and when I grabbed this at the library, I was certain it would be excellent. But having finished it, I'm not sure I like it that much overall?
The first maybe third is excellent, including the world-building, which is fascinating. I feel like Onyebuchi must have played "Shadow of the Colossus" at some point. Onyebuchi certainly does know how to make me care for his characters.
Some spoilers from here on out...
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I felt like it stumbles towards the middle, with Bo's reactions neither making sense in the immediate context, nor in retrospect by the end when we've learned more. Things are a bit floaty in the middle with an unclear picture of what exactly is going on politics-wise and what the motivations are. Here I think there were some nuances that didn't make it to the page, or perhaps I'm just a bit thick and not getting stuff I should be? More is of course revealed by the end, but I still wasn't satisfied with the explanations of things. For example, (spoilers) I don't feel I understand clearly what kind of power the army of aki was supposed to represent within the city? Perhaps necessary to wield the threat of offensive inisisia use? In that case, a single scene somewhere of Izu's faction deploying that tactic would have been helpful I think.
Then towards the end, for me things really started to jumble, with unclear motivations, revelations that didn't feel well-paced or -structured, and a finale where both the action & collapsing concerns felt stilted and disjointed. Particularly the mechanics/ethics of the most important death that set the finale in motion bothered me, and the unexplained mechanism by which that led to what came next? I can read a couple of possible interesting morals into the whole denouement, but didn't feel that any of them were sufficiently explored. Especially if we're supposed to see some personal failing in the protagonist's actions, I don't think it's made clear enough what that is, since I feel his reasons to reject each faction are pretty solid, and if we're meant to either pity or abjure his indecision, I don't think the message lands clearly enough.
There *is* a sequel, which honestly I wasn't sure of after the last page, and which I now very interested in. Beasts is Onyebuchi's debut, which maybe makes sense of me feeling that Riot Baby didn't have the same plotting issues. It also maybe means that Onyebuchi couldn't be sure a sequel would make it to publication in terms of setting up the ending.
Overall I really enjoyed at least 80% of this, but was expecting even better (especially politically) given Onyebuchi's other work, and I didn't feel like I found it.
#AmReading

Late fluid flow in a primitive asteroid revealed by Lu–Hf isotopes in #Ryugu: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09483-0.epdf?sharing_token=VL8QMH3tVOhYxVKrJmTozdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NPQK0_mk8K7IgOT-Cto7Eo7Wz9oQUxzQKpjpaa2UdwuGYA71rDYG1QYVuwa4CBanwmb6BgPdujtT03FRKF28qp9SvV40dGHc0Iym5wGaWv9y5L1cy7JRyggjQSwsNVGH3F-1iVtnCEQSNlhTHKNgPPvBXSpsvARNlTBSiShsCbG-LtNUXW4tLcBP54GvJC6VQ=&tracking_referrer=www.space.com -> Scientists find evidence of flowing water on Ryugu’s ancient parent asteroid: https://www.space.com/astronomy/asteroids/scientists-find-evidence-of-flowing-water-on-ryugus-ancient-parent-asteroid-it-was-a-genuine-surprise

Las Vegas Raiders 2025 Season Preview: A Fresh Start After The Storm https://raiderramble.com/2025/09/11/las-vegas-raiders-2025-season-preview-a-fresh-start-after-the-storm/

UK filings: Revolut CEO and largest shareholder Nik Storonsky has shifted his residency from the UK to the UAE; Revolut is awaiting a full UK banking license (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/54348782-abc4-4345-a939-f8606103109e

"it’s believed to have revealed the identities of confidential informants."
PACER Gets Pwned: Hackers Breach Dinosaur Filing System - Above the Law
https://abovethelaw.com/2025/08/pacer-gets-pwned-hackers-breach-dinosaur-filing-system/

Surface-Localized Magnetic Order in RuO2 Thin Films Revealed by Low-Energy Muon Probes
Akashdeep Akashdeep, Sachin Krishnia, Jae-Hyun Ha, Siyeon An, Maik Gaerner, Thomas Prokscha, Andreas Suter, Gianluca Janka, G\"unter Reiss, Timo Kuschel, Dong-Soo Han, Angelo Di Bernardo, Zaher Salman, Gerhard Jakob, Mathias Kl\"aui
https://arx…

Surface-Localized Magnetic Order in RuO2 Thin Films Revealed by Low-Energy Muon Probes
Ruthenium dioxide (RuO2) has recently emerged as a candidate altermagnet, yet its intrinsic magnetic ground state, particularly in thin films, remains debated. This study aims to clarify the nature and spatial extent of the magnetic order in RuO2 thin films grown under different conditions. Thin films of RuO2 with thicknesses of 30 nm and 33 nm are fabricated by pulsed laser deposition and sputtering onto TiO2(110) and Al2O3(1-102) substrates, respectively. Low-energy muon spin rotation/relaxat…

Securing Cryptographic Software via Typed Assembly Language (Extended Version)
Shixin Song, Tingzhen Dong, Kosi Nwabueze, Julian Zanders, Andres Erbsen, Adam Chlipala, Mengjia Yan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08727

Securing Cryptographic Software via Typed Assembly Language (Extended Version)
Authors of cryptographic software are well aware that their code should not leak secrets through its timing behavior, and, until 2018, they believed that following industry-standard constant-time coding guidelines was sufficient. However, the revelation of the Spectre family of speculative execution attacks injected new complexities. To block speculative attacks, prior work has proposed annotating the program's source code to mark secret data, with hardware using this information to decide wh…

Gods, let this be the thing that finally ends his ordeal and sets him free.
https://innocenceproject.org/news/breaking-explosive-new-evidence-revealed-yesterday-in-n…

BREAKING: Explosive New Evidence Revealed in NBC “Dateline” Podcast Related to Pending Claim in Robert Roberson Case - Innocence Project
Filing with Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Says Newly Available Evidence Proves Judicial Misconduct, Requires New Trial for Robert Roberson

#RWNJ gun totin' nut job #Amurica is so wrapped up in #hatred for #TheLeft it conveniently blames anyone that isn't a seething foaming at the mo…

Finished "Lobizona" by Romina Garber. I have extremely mixed feelings about this book. It's a powerful depiction of the fear of living as an undocumented child/teen and it has interesting things to say about rejection, belonging, and the choice between seeking to be recognized for who you are and wanting you blend in enough to be accepted as normal. However, it's also an explicit homage to Harry Potter, and while it doesn't include antisemitic tropes or glorify slavery or even have any anti-trans sentiments I can detect, to me the magical school setup felt forced and I thought it would have been a better book had it not tried to fit that mould. Also, it would have been a super interesting situation to explore trans issues, and while it's definitely fine for it not to do that, the author's praise of Rowling's work has me wondering...
There's a sequel that I think could in theory be amazing, but given the execution of the first book, I think I'll wait a bit before checking it out. By putting her main character in opposition to both ICE in the human world and the magical authorities in the other world, Garber explicitly sets the stage for a revolution standing between her protagonist and any kind of lasting peace. But I'm not confident she's capable of writing that story without relying on some kind of supernatural deus ex machina, which would be disappointing to me, since "a better world if only possible through divine intervention" is an inherently regressive message.
Overall, #OwnVoices fantasy centering an undocumented immigrant is an excellent thing, and I've certainly got a lot of privilege that surely influences my criticism. However, #OwnVoices stuff has a range of levels of craft and political stances, and it can be excellent for some reasons and mediocre for others.
On that point, if anyone reading this has suggestions for fiction books grappling with borders and the carceral state, Is be happy to hear them.
#AmReading