Tootfinder

On Wednesday,
the Washington Post
named the Economist’s Washington correspondent
Adam O’Neal as its next opinion editor.
In his announcement on Twitter, O’Neal parroted his new boss’ words from last February almost verbatim,
telling Post readers in a chummy front-facing camera announcement that:
[Washington Post opinion page writers and editors are] going to be stalwart advocates of free markets and personal liberties.
We’ll be unapologetically patri…

New Washington Post Opinion editor claims explicitly right-wing revamp isn’t ‘Ideological’
A breakdown of Bezos’ final coup and the bizarre pathology of right-wing ideologues really, really wanting you not to think they’re ideological.

Working on an article called Tinpot in Tinseltown. I'm going to publish it to my https://stuff.davidaugust.com/ first, so if you wanna see it first, maybe subscribe over there?

David August
Stories, serious articles, satire, tech trends, how to guides and ideas from David August. Actor. Writer. Acting coach.

“‘It’s very difficult to not take corporate money … we’ve hired grant writers who have asked, “Well, how about Bank of America, how about Apple?” How about no,’ laughed Sullivan, who explained, ‘Even if a sponsor never asks you to edit any of your work, you are going to be censoring yourself, like, “If we say this, maybe they won’t give us money next year.”’”

Ja, eigentlich warter man ja eh aufs Crescendo (ist das eins?) davon; warum also nicht gleich nur das als Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLByfq-JBhA
(Nein, mag schon das Ganze, fand es trotzdem lustig).
(wegen

"The inner light" is the 25th and penultimate episode of the fifth season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The episode was written by freelance writer Morgan Gendel based on his original pitch.
In 1993, "The Inner Light" won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. (Source: Wikipedia, and with trekkies keeping watch you can bet your ass it is correct)
If you're only going to watch one episode of Sta…

Finished the short story, “The Answer is No” by Fredrik Backman, the story of a man without any attachments who just wants to be left alone to eat pad thai & play video games. The neighbors in his apartment keep intruding upon his privacy in ludicrously farcical ways.
Great writer & some great moments, but the whole thing felt like a collection of tropes. Had there been a laugh track on the audiobook, I’d not have been surprised.
3/5 stars ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

The Answer Is No
In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestsell…

I wonder how this can be leveraged in our #VFX industry.
Can you position a company as the guys who’ll fix stuff that another team messed up because they thought they can do an effects shot with Midjourney but then ended up with nothing to show once the director wanted a simple revision like turning that object a tiny bit more or making the cool explosion more „swooosh“ instead of „wooosh“?

Calamus 43 O you whom I often
A short and sweet love poem, Whitman at his most writerly. The spare and simple words have a light musicality that's often missing from his more didactic blank verse.
The literal meaning is Whitman telling someone how his very presence inspires feelings of love. It's so short and precise I'm just going to quote the whole poem.
O you whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you,
As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.
I love the lack of action. Whitman simply wants to sit in the same room as his beloved, a quiet devotion I appreciate. And that phrase "subtle electric fire". Electric had a different meaning in pre-Edison America but it works both ways.
Mostly this poem is just a lovely mood.
(The linked video and commentary are more than usually good.)

As some of you know, the first digital interactive fiction I created was a bot. That was in 2002.
I was just going through some old pages on my website and found an article I wrote for the (unfortunately no-longer online) site that Mark Marino, Jeremy Douglass and I ran in the early 2000s: Writer Response Theory.
Anyway, I found this piece I had copied for some reason and thought I would share it. It's on another historical angle people explored bots through. :)

What is SSSS?
SSSS stands for
"Secondary Security Screening Selection"
by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
and is displayed on boarding passes as a four-letter code.
The symbol prompts officers to conduct additional security screenings on a passenger.
Travelers can receive an SSSS on their boarding pass for both domestic and international flights to and from the U.S.
Those flagged with the designation have reported their carry-on…

Mrs. Betty Bowers (@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social)
Being penalized for political speech is not unique to the Trump administration. When I was a writer for the WhiteHouse.Org website, which mercilessly spoofed the George W. Bush administration, I constantly got "SSSS" written on my boarding passes. My carry-on was placed on the gangway and searched.