@NFL@darktundra.xyz2026-04-28 17:04:32
Romo again falls short in elusive bid for U.S. Open https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/48619157/ex-cowboys-qb-tony-romo-fails-advance-us-open-qualifying
@NFL@darktundra.xyz2026-04-28 17:04:32
@NFL@darktundra.xyz2026-03-27 15:54:08
Bills bring back Hamlin on one-year contract https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/48321867/bills-re-sign-damar-hamlin-one-year-contract
@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-05-20 18:31:05
Granta and the Commonwealth Foundation say they can't determine yet if AI was used to write a prize-winning short story after critics pointed to signs of AI use (The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may…
@Mediagazer@mstdn.social2026-05-19 22:35:45
Granta and the Commonwealth Foundation say they can't determine yet if AI was used to write a prize-winning short story after critics pointed to signs of AI use (The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may…
@brichapman@mastodon.social2026-05-26 03:53:00
Australia's planning a Great Koala National Park to save koalas from habitat loss and climate change—but here's the catch: protection only works if forests stay connected.
The park will link fragmented habitats so koalas and other species can move and adapt. Conservationists are cautiously optimistic, though logging pressure and enforcement remain real concerns.
@karlauerbach@sfba.social2026-03-14 15:44:20
A short sci-fi story for the news of these few weeks (aka about the stupid attack on Iran) ...
"Superiority" by A. C. Clark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story)
@ToneMilazzo@mastodon.cloud2026-03-26 18:23:38
My latest short story submission for "Doctor Vex Gets Her Revenge" has been 'Under Review' for over a week. There's no way to know if they're seriously considering it, or just putting off reading the slush.
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2026-05-24 01:01:54
Content warning: Recent San Diego mass shooting
Just ran across this article on the perpetrator's history with law enforcement:
#AbolishThePolice #PoliceAbolition #Anarchy
@mlawton@mstdn.social2026-05-25 17:05:35
Finished reading "Seasons of Glass and Iron" by Amal El-Mohtar.
A short story collection — fairy tales, fantasy, and poems centering women's resilience and identity, gathered from years of El-Mohtar's commissioned work.
"John Hollowback and the Witch" is a delightful slow burn: a man guilty of wronging women, yet innocent in having no memory of it. "The Truth About Owls" handles displacement better than most novels.
4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
@Mediagazer@mstdn.social2026-03-17 12:20:40
Indian studio Applause Entertainment partners with microdrama platform Story TV to co-produce and distribute short-form content for mobile audiences (Naman Ramachandran/Variety)
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/applause-entertainment-story-…
@NFL@darktundra.xyz2026-03-25 19:49:40
Mahomes shows progress, posts video throwing https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/48306071/patrick-mahomes-shows-rehab-progress-throws-new-video
@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-03-19 02:36:07
Walmart is embedding its own chatbot Sparky in ChatGPT after conversion rates via OpenAI's Instant Checkout were 3x lower than those requiring clicking out (Paresh Dave/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-lab-walmart-openai-shaking-up-agentic-shoppin…
@migueldeicaza@mastodon.social2026-05-17 18:28:35
Short documentary “The True Story of Israel's Creation: Debunking Israel's Foundational Lies from Their Leaders' Mouths”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk55AwbXDaw
@Tuxramus@social.linux.pizza2026-04-22 18:49:15
Part 1 of a new short story by Linda Teppler is out! Free to read on Substack #writingcommunity #banskolife #writing
@doktrock@toad.social2026-05-17 14:48:29
News story on a significant earthquake in Uzbekistan, 50 years ago, May 17, 1976 (Fargo-Moorhead Forum archives). Mentions the Medvedev scale, apparently now the the MSK or MSK-64 scale. That scale is not mentioned in North American, physical geology textbooks I have seen, although it's apparently similar to the Mercalli scale.
Also, the first page of a scientific paper on it, from 1980. ⚒️🧪
#OTD
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2026-05-24 15:42:26
Content warning: Minor spoilers for "A Psalm for the Wild-Built"
Just finished "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" by Becky Chambers. Overall it's good but I also have some Thoughts.
First, it was very pleasant to finally read some non-trite utopian solarpunk after having read stuff like Octavia Butler recently. Both hope and despair can be poisonous on their own IMO, so getting some balance in is nice. It's definitely a very valuable thing to be able to lay out an actually desirable and in many ways imaginable future given our grim present. Chambers is no LeGuin though. I'll probably be reading more of her work and maybe she fleshes out these ideas elsewhere, but at least in this book there is no focus on either how the transition to a better society could happen nor on how the better society holds up in the face of adverse events and inclinations. Compare LeGuin's "The Dispossessed" or N. K. Jemisin's short story "The Ones Who Stay and Fight" and it feels like there's something important missing from Chambers' portrait of a future society. Of course, maybe the point is to make a cozy book, in which case fine, there's certainly a place for such things, and I can look for deeper inspiration elsewhere.
The second big thought I had was that Chambers' worldview seems not well-informed by certain indigenous perspectives, and this creates some contradictions. For example, (minor spoilers) when Dex enters the wilderness there's a whole bit about understanding humankind's place in nature and how human settlements are what we're used to but they're only a brief interruption of the vast untouched wilderness. Along the same lines, much of the world is intentionally left untouched by humans as a way to keep it pristine and natural. Later however, a character makes the point that humans *are* animals. The indigenous perspective that I appreciate would agree with that, and would further question the value in distinguishing between human influence on ecosystems and influences that others have. More sharply, one might observe that there's a bigger difference between how different kinds of humans relate to and influence their environments than between how less-disruptive humans and various animals do the same: the strip-mine-operator vs. migrant tribesperson impact difference is probably much greater than the migrant tribesperson vs. beaver gap, for example. Rather than talking about limiting human disruption, then, as if all human-environment interactions are disruptive and must be minimized, we could/should be talking about how to create human societies that have beneficial relationships with their environments and acknowledging that we actually have many positive examples of that, both historical and contemporary. Chambers' utopia is a "humans dominate nature but restrain themselves so that their disruptions are minimal and thus nature can thrive" vision, but what I'd even more like to see would be a "humans study old ways and make new ones so that they can interact positively with ecosystems again" vision, including some of "here are the places that sometimes breaks down but also the patterns and institutions that ensure repair of those breakdowns and thus long-term sustainability."
Final big thought: Chambers' utopia is too homogenous for my tastes. Of course it's hard enough and valuable work dreaming up and sharing any utopia and Chambers' transcends triteness in a number of ways, so this criticism is a bit rude. But the single shared religion, lack of mention of conflicts around shared decisions, especially historical society-defining ones, and nagging questions like "what about the people indigenous to the now-uninhabited lands?" and "what about the indigenous peoples who weren't part of the factory-building societies?" leave me wishing for more nuance in this direction.
All in all: a good book, and I'm criticizing out of a place of appreciation, not scorn. I've got there sequel out from the library as well and will probably detour to a few other books but get to it pretty soon.
Sadly I don't remember who, but I got this one because of a recommendation on here, so thanks if you're someone who recommended it!
#AmReading #ReadingNow #Bookstodon
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2026-04-14 04:41:05
Ranking the Top 5 edge rushers for Cowboys in the 2026 NFL draft https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/04/13/cowboys-draft-edge-rusher-prospect-rankings/89599594007/
@raiders@darktundra.xyz2026-04-15 00:20:11
Raiders GM Spytek: teams interested in top pick 'know where they stand' https://raiderswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/raiders/2026/04/14/raiders-gm-john-spytek…
@cheryanne@aus.social2026-03-08 23:50:56
Australian Shorts
Hosted by Karen Hollands, each episode features a short story read by its author followed by a conversation about their story...
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: https://www.greataustralianpods.com/australian-shorts/
@sherold@mastodon.online2026-05-08 15:14:07
I accidentally wrote a short story about how to maybe get along a little better in the world. I thought you might like it. 🌻
#blog
@soundclamp@mastodon.xyz2026-04-14 14:08:46
#NowPlaying 1975 (short) TV adaptation of “Mr. Humphreys and His Inheritance”, a ghost story by M. R. James. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cNvma-h7KA
@AimeeMaroux@mastodon.social2026-05-10 18:45:41
Content warning:
For #MothersDay I'm sharing a little short story about how Maia, mother of Hermes, escaped the wrath of Hera—Hermes did not get his wiles from his dad...
https://eroticmythology.com/fiction-fe
@scottmiller42@mstdn.social2026-05-14 13:44:42
I had this interesting idea for a short story this morning. It starts with a "senile" old man in a retirement home telling a teenaged volunteer that "they (the silicons) once served us". The teenaged protagonist goes through a journey of discovery, asking questions like "why would they serve us when clearly the silicons created us." "We can't even have a baby without silicons to guide us." "Nobody I know has any idea how to make a computer.&qu…
@BBC3MusicBot@mastodonapp.uk2026-03-15 12:00:25
🔊 #NowPlaying on #BBCRadio3:
#PrivatePassions
- George Saunders, writer
George Saunders, a Booker Prize-winning novelist and master of the short-story form, shares his musical choices with Michael Berkeley.
Relisten now 👇
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002sfcg
@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz2026-03-03 03:25:13
Short-term survival of #tardigrades (Ramazzottius cf. varieornatus and Hypsibius exemplaris) in #martian #regolith simulants (MGS-1 and OUCM-1): https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-astrobiology/article/shortterm-survival-of-tardigrades-ramazzottius-cf-varieornatus-and-hypsibius-exemplaris-in-martian-regolith-simulants-mgs1-and-oucm1/8A91986096FB533FB264DD056F549DF2 -> ‘Water bears’ reveal potential for adapting, protecting Martian resources: https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/water-bears-reveal-potential-adapting-protecting-martian-resources - microscopic tardigrades help inform how simulated Martian soil might support plant life and mitigate contaminants shedding from human explorers, researchers report -> Scientists Finally Found Something Tardigrades Can’t Survive: https://gizmodo.com/scientists-finally-found-something-tardigrades-cant-survive-2000728358 - tardigrades are practically invincible on Earth, so scientists looked to outer space in search of their kryptonite.
@jake4480@c.im2026-05-08 15:18:29
Art from 'Aliens: Reapers' from 1991. This was a short 8 page no dialog comic story by John Arcudi and illustrated by Simon Bisley about 'Reapers' - an alien race that infiltrate Xenomorph hives to eat their eggs. My kinda alien race. 🍳
#Alien #SimonBisley
@lapizistik@social.tchncs.de2026-03-30 10:14:30
I am late to the party, but up to now I just thought: well, search is getting worse all over the place, and at least since Google became Alphabet it is only about the money. But “The men who killed Google”¹ explains how this was deliberate, how driven by (short-term) shareholder value increase they actively made search worse. Ant that there was an internal fight – and now Google is far away from “don't be evil”.
__
¹
@karlauerbach@sfba.social2026-03-14 15:49:00
Here's another short story that reflects on our extollation of technology...
The Flying Machine – Ray Bradbury
https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories/flying-machine/
@davej@dice.camp2026-03-01 12:47:47
“Lamb to the Slaughter,” by Roald Dahl. Yes, that Roald Dahl. https://mastodon.social/@anon_opin/116153549193997197
@roland@devdilettante.com2026-05-01 14:20:59
go flickr foundation go :-) <gratuitousplug>i've got 500,000 public photos at flickr.com/roland </gratuitousplug>
https://mastodon.social/@oldaily/116494067050417766
@cellfourteen@social.petertoushkov.eu2026-04-30 09:05:04
Full English translation of Bulgarian author Elin Pelin's short story „Чорба от греховете на отец Никодим“ (Soup from the Sins of Father Nicodemus)
Read free on Patreon or Buy me a coffee:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/156949935
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2026-03-04 04:41:07
Cowboys could be great fit for RB who thrived with current OC https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/03/03/the-dallas-cowboys-might-be-a-good-fit-for-a-soon-to-be-free-ag…
@NFL@darktundra.xyz2026-05-12 18:24:17
Family business: Saints sign WWE legend Scott Stei... https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/48750999/brock-rechsteiner-signs-new-orleans-saints-scott-steiner-son-wwe
@raiders@darktundra.xyz2026-03-04 23:35:44
Interior offensive linemen Raiders should go hard after in free agency https://raiderswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/raiders/2026/03/04/nfl-free-agency-interior-offensive-linemen-raiders-should-sig…
@shanmukhateja@social.linux.pizza2026-03-02 06:10:06
Ok so a weird thing happened just now.
I was doomscrolling as usual and somehow I end up on voice acting challenges section on IG and listening to this person’s voice has inspired me to think of writing a dark fantasy short story for starters.
If you’re curious, here’s the reel:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ4K22BDU4X/…
@pre@boing.world2026-03-18 22:30:44
With the eight week improv course ending last week, I timed it well to start a new group with a new set of eight sessions this week.
The Free Association seem more serious than Hoopla. They have 50% longer classes for a start. Three hours rather than two.
More instruction and notes rather than just positive encouragement. Clearer aim even from the early levels. More like a classroom than a playground.
First couple of sets of eight at Hoopla are just aimed at getting you to lose your decorum and allow yourself to be free and spontaneous. All really short form games, lightning rounds. Parlor games rather than theater.
But the Free Association's aim from the start is to get you building scenes and then stories. Their first set of lessons is titled "intro to long form". This one "Scene work".
Not so much the one minute parlor games, more focus on acting and characters and drama.
In vague terms at early stages that is. I mean, they have more in common than different. Plenty of short games in warm-up at FA and I just finished a whole set on drama and story with Hoopla.
Three hours is pretty long though. Starts half an hour earlier, ends half an hour later. Good thing it's also much much closer for me. Ten minute walk instead of 40 minutes on the bus.
We did lots and lots of first-scene head-to-head, mostly concentrating on trying to get specific. Check that after two minutes the audience knows where you are and who you are and how you know each other and what you're doing and none of the players are unsure either. Make it all specific as soon as possible, ambiguity is the enemy.
And everyone got that and exercised it pretty much flawlessly right away. So good group.
#theFreeAssociation #improv #london
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2026-03-03 01:11:07
Cowboys could benefit from combine's biggest disappointments dropping https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/03/02/draft-cowboys-rueben-bain-cashius-howell/88950684007/
@NFL@darktundra.xyz2026-04-10 12:19:14
'This is everything to me': Gabe Taylor set for debut in D.C., where brother Sean starred https://www.espn.com/united-football-league/story/_/id/48379274/ufl-dc-defenders-gabe-taylor-sean-taylor
@mlawton@mstdn.social2026-05-02 15:46:04
Finished reading “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster.
In this 1909 novella, humanity lives underground in isolated cells, every need met by the Machine. When it begins to fail, a mother and her rebellious son face civilization’s total dependency.
Forster’s prescience is incredible… predicting video calls and the internet in 1909 — but more so the haunting cultural gaslighting: a society too dependent to recognize its own decline.
5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
@ToneMilazzo@mastodon.cloud2026-05-05 16:39:23
I submitted a short story to a publication and there were 365 entries in the slush queue before it. Two months later and now it's 363. Looking forward to getting my rejection email 30 years from now.
@cellfourteen@social.petertoushkov.eu2026-05-01 11:40:35
A(?) context behind the English translation of Elin Pelin's Soup from the Sins of Father Nicodemus. (In Bulgarian. I still have to finish translating the whole short story cycle somewhere in the distant future before I'd feel comfortable yapping about it in English.)
https://petertoush…
@UP8@mastodon.social2026-03-16 13:37:08
Sage Hall (Left) and Barnes Hall (Right) from the roof of the Cornell Store
#photo #photography #buildings #cornell
@kineticdiplomacy@infosec.exchange2026-03-30 10:04:02
📚 Hayo just finished reading Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells
They seem to be getting better. The story is very immersive. I keep complaining about how short these novellas are, however the author packs an unbelievable amount of detail into such a small package.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🔗 https://hayobethlehem.nl/lib…
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2026-04-30 10:26:24
Cowboys Headlines: Pickens smart to bet on self; Romo bombs latest U.S. Open bid https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/04/30/news-headlines-april-29-2026-george-p…
@primonatura@mstdn.social2026-05-03 12:00:50
"Deforestation is surging in Indonesia"
#Indonesia #Deforestation #Trees #Environment
@losttourist@social.chatty.monster2026-03-11 10:10:27
For those who don't want to Youtube, it is as follows:
Girls.
Tall girls, short girls, fat girls, thin girls, ugly girls and pretty girls.
Tarts and floozies, nymphomaniacs and gangsters' molls.
And ... nice girls, respectable girls, upper middle-class girls with good manners and impeccable accents.
This is the story of four girls. They all live together in one flat, in one square, in one particular part of London.
@losttourist@social.chatty.monster2026-05-04 17:42:25
Content warning: into a single "media" directory.
Because there's no tweet context around them, it's always interesting (and often confusing) to just view one of those images at random.
Anyway long story short ... this just popped up on my computer and due to Mastodon all I could think was "... because of the creme eggs?"
@pre@boing.world2026-05-22 10:11:29
Content warning: re: UKPol Makerfield Burnham Speech
Burnham is on the radio doing a launch speech.
He thinks the people of Makerfield are going to write the script for the whole UK.
Namechecks every local borough.
There's been forty years of policies that leave people struggling, that took away jobs, can't afford homes. [yep]
Namechecks some local companies and football teams and schools in a story about a football game. He lived here a long time and likes it.
It's unjust what Westminster has done to this place which makes him very angry.
So the election is a call for change, for these local people in particular, to the economy, education, transport, care, and politics.
More tech schools not concentrating only on university degrees.
He wants to get to the point where the council is building more homes than its losing. New cheap council homes.
Imagine some local person suddenly called to a job interview in the city, they have to pay 364 quid to get to the city. Re-nationalize rail to make rail fares sane.
His dad is in a care home. A local one. Its run for profit. Which needs to change so that it's provided on NHS terms with a social care system that supports the NHS.
We won't get those things without changing politics.
Manchester is the fastest growing city because of how he worked with business. He loves working with business too. Public "control" working with business over busses has been good in Manchester he recons [I think people generally agree, but I dunno]
Note, he says, how he's not been dissing the other parties. He doesn't want that. [Good actually]
He wants his own party to change too.
A vote for him is a vote to change Labour. To change it back to the one the people used to know. On the side of working class people and communities.
This is not a new journey, he has always been working to make the lives of local people better. Ever since his first day walking into the Labour club when the manager said "You're on, between the bingo and the turn, keep it short".
His three word slogan: I'm For Us.
Its a very good speech. He is very personable. Sounds like a normal person not remotely like a robot the way ministers tend to.
It does sounds a lot like what Starmer was saying when he was running for selection four years ago. He hasn't explained how he can do all that given the constraints Starmer thinks he is under. Which of those constraints are wrong.
That Andy Burnham will win this contest.
#UkPol #labour #makerField #andyBurnham
@losttourist@social.chatty.monster2026-05-03 07:50:42
So that was "interesting". Mrs LT was trying to use her phone to look at the Odeon website to check some film times, but kept getting blocked by Cloudflare.
We spent a good 15 minutes checking our network, DNS setup, all sort of things. Then she remembered that her Pixel phone had updated fairly recently and we discovered that Google had automatically switched on their own VPN.
And Cloudflare, for some reason, had classified any requests from Google's UK VPN exit nodes as being used by bots or scammers.
Anyway long story short: Google VPN off, Proton VPN on, all is well again.