@aardrian@toot.cafe2025-12-04 23:57:19
In my case, close but not a nation.
Flying Spaghetti Monster.
https://bsky.app/profile/josephpolitano.bsky.social/post/3m76ujdjoy22l
alt: Current GOP
[…] how many members of each of the following groups do you think are more loyal to a forei…
@cdarwin@c.im2025-12-04 21:16:52
This summer, Mikhail Loshchinin set out for Russia on a motorcycle with German plates, reaching the border in Latvia on July 1.
At the Ubylinka checkpoint on the Russian side, he presented his Russian passport.
According to his mother, Olga, he didn’t use his Belgian passport because of the urgency of the trip and to avoid needing a visa.
Russian border guards examined Loshchinin’s phone and likely discovered his many contacts in Ukraine.
After holding him for several…
@leftsidestory@mstdn.social2025-10-06 00:30:03
Moody Urbanity - Somewhere 🔲
情绪化城市 - 某处 🔲
📷 Nikon FE
🎞️ Lucky SHD 400
#filmphotography #Photography #blackandwhite
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-09-30 13:10:51
Chipmaker Cerebras Systems raised a $1.1B Series G from Fidelity, Trump Jr.'s 1789 Capital, and others at an $8.1B post-money valuation ahead of its planned IPO (Rebecca Szkutak/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/30/a-year-…
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2025-10-27 03:00:46
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
@paulbusch@mstdn.ca2025-12-05 12:21:22
Good Morning #Canada
The #FIFA World Cup Final Draw is today, hosted by renowned soccer experts Heidi Klum and Kevin Hart. The Village People will be performing live so I expect we'll see some Orango Mango Tango from the U.S. president in addition to a comedic break when the FIFA Peace Prize is awarded. Canadians will be watching because #Soccer is the most popular organized sport for ages 5 to 17 in Canada. Soccer and swimming have both surpassed Hockey in youth participation for many reasons but equipment and facilities cost is a major factor and it's estimated that there are over 1M children in soccer leagues across the country. Approximately 74% of Canadians consider themselves avid sorts fans and hockey remains #1 in views with 58% following. NFL came in next at 37%, followed by MLB 34%, CFL 32%, and NBA 29%. Formula One at 24% was sixth overall, followed by Tennis 20%, with PGA Tour and Major League Soccer tied for eighth.
#CanadaIsAwesome #SportsNews
https://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/article/study-soccer-most-popular-sport-among-canadian-kids-post-pandemic/
@cdarwin@c.im2025-10-27 03:00:28
NOAA hurricane hunters flying aboard a P-3 Orion aircraft ("Kermit") are monitoring Hurricane Melissa as most aircraft steer clear. The storm poses a catastrophic threat to Jamaica and Haiti.
The crew are among the many federal workers working without pay during the US government shutdown.
https://
@cellfourteen@social.petertoushkov.eu2025-10-25 10:17:07
Arriving at Act I, The Alters is quite engaging. It's a video game, in case you are reaching for your favourite search engine. So far, the sci-fi aspect has that structured feeling of the Eastern European/Soviet branch of the genre, mixed up with the post-Soviet era shift of values and cultural trends -- still kind of bland, but looking at the Western guilty thrill of the dystopian. It's a damn good, well-made game. I hope it holds up in that way until the end.
@wraithe@mastodon.social2025-11-23 15:10:54
Yea I can’t imagine why anyone thought this dipshit was defending rape…I mean aside from the over half a dozen posts where he defended rape as “not immoral”, literally said “No. In fact, the word "rape"…didn't even exist until the 1800s.” and arguing that being “owned”* wasn’t “horrific”
Complete mystery why people went after him, must be some weird BlueSky thing. 😂
JFC
@leftsidestory@mstdn.social2025-11-23 00:34:17
Moody Urbanity - Past 📴
情绪化城市 - 过去 📴
📷 Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta 533/16
🎞️ Ilford HP5, expired 1993
#filmphotography #Photography #blackandwhite
