@raiders@darktundra.xyz2026-06-25 18:00:47
Raiders RB Ashton Jeanty tops short list of high upside fantasy backs https://raiderswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/raiders/2026/06/25/raiders-rb-ashton-jeanty-tops-short-list-of-high-upside…
@raiders@darktundra.xyz2026-06-25 18:00:47
@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.
@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…
@primonatura@mstdn.social2026-06-25 17:00:30
@Mediagazer@mstdn.social2026-06-20 16:15:54
Granta says it will stop publishing short story contest winners or join publishing partnerships it doesn't control after AI use allegations against a winner (Ella Creamer/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/20/granta-ma…
@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 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
@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
@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-06-20 16:15:55
Granta says it will stop publishing short story contest winners or join publishing partnerships it doesn't control after AI use allegations against a winner (Ella Creamer/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/20/granta-ma…
@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…
@david@boles.xyz2026-06-07 13:54:34
The Unfathered: A Short Story for a Long World
There is a part of the Book of Genesis that almost no one reads aloud. It sits between the famous scenes, the garden and the flood, and it is only a list....
https://bolesblogs.com/2026/06/07/the-unfathered…
@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
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2026-07-14 21:36:07
Cowboys to start season short-handed at OLB; newcomer suspended 3 games by commissioner https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/07/14/cowboys-de-charles-snowden-suspended-for-3-games/909214230…
@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
@katrinakatrinka@infosec.exchange2026-07-26 19:07:28
Hey, @…! I was listening to the most recent episode of the #BeyondTheBreakers podcast. It was about Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic with Jessica Watkins and at the end, she plugged an Antarctic fiction zine she and her friends are producing and accepting submissions for now
I realize you're writing a novel about the Arctic, not a short story and wrong pole, but I thought I'd point it out just in case it might be useful.
https://nevermindtheblizzard.straw.page/
@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
@cjust@infosec.exchange2026-06-14 02:38:09
The NDA restricts what I can say about the incident, but to make a long story short - suffice it to say that I'm banned from the state of New Jersey.
#Shitpost #Shitposting #ShamelesslyStolenFromTheFacebook
@nemorosa@mastodon.nu2026-07-08 08:17:40
Worth a try?
@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…
@inthehands@hachyderm.io2026-06-09 13:52:15
RE: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116720450786899964
@… is a MSP hometown hero! In addition to her excellent fiction, she writes indispensable local election guides.
Her short story “The Year Without Sunshine” was an underground favorite here in MSP, and reads very differently now in hindsight after what we did during the ICE siege — like a prophecy, or an instruction manual.
@blackknight95857669@social.linux.pizza2026-07-15 21:16:03
The Gardens Between (Multi, XPd on PS5) 2 friends must solve puzzles by manipulating time.
So this one is obviously inspired by Braid. Lot of the same mechanics using forward and backward time "travel". Instead of a platformer tho, this is more of a walking sim. Walking forward or backward and one interaction button is all you have here, but it's plenty.
Some great music in this game. I like the art style, simplistic but expressive. For being as short as it i…
@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
@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-06-17 22:01:42
Apple's planned move of Hide My Email aliases to private.icloud.com will let services easily distinguish them from normal iCloud email addresses and block them (Arseniy Shestakov)
https://arseniyshestakov.com/2026/06/16/apple-is-about-to-make-hide-my…
@NFL@darktundra.xyz2026-07-15 11:19:29
Steelers revamp wide receiver unit: 'Not short-han... https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/49356848/pittsburgh-steelers-2026-nfl-revamp-wide-receiver-unit-not-shorthanded-pass-catchers
@primonatura@mstdn.social2026-06-10 18:00:20
"What the platypus can teach us about smarter conservation"
#Platypus #Animals #Conservation
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2026-07-12 13:46:41
Cowboys giving well-traveled UDFA lineman shot to stick if he can play https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/07/12/dallas-cowboys-player-profile-no-79-ot-marcellus-johnson/9079483600…
@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.eu2026-04-30 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
@salrandolph@zirk.us2026-05-28 14:16:57
This botanical tale began in reading Penelope Fitzgerald’s short, strange, brilliant novel, The Blue Flower.
The Blue Flower follows the early adulthood of the German poet-philosopher Novalis during the years 1790-1797, centering on his romance with Sophie von Kühn who was twelve at the time of their meeting.
https://
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2026-07-11 19:21:17
Just finished "Seven Little Sons of the Dragon" by Ryoko Kui. As expected from the author of "Delicious in Dungeon", an excellent collection of short stories that are whimsical, profound, hilarious, and beautiful. Kui's characters even in the short form always have a little extra twist beyond what you'd expect. I think my favorite of these was the story about mermaids, both for its ambiguous depth and for the hilarious "Lone Wolf and Cub" shout-out.
#AmReading #ReadingNow #Bookstodon
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2026-07-05 11:21:15
Cowboys WR career almost cut short by faulty arrest, fights for 53 spot https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/07/05/dallas-cowboys-player-profile-no-80-wr-traeshon-holden/90794835007/
@Mediagazer@mstdn.social2026-06-11 12:10:50
BBC Storyville plans to start making premium short documentaries alongside features for the first time, with 10- to 40-minute films for BBC Four and BBC iPlayer (Max Goldbart/Deadline)
https://deadline.com/2026/06/bbc-storyville-expands-do…
@pre@boing.world2026-06-11 21:34:41
My pitch if I ran a TV production company would be something like:
Twelve episodes a year of 3-episode serials: That keeps the number of sets you have to construct down. It gives each story the complexity of a movie and time to breath without the frantic pace. You can have one every season of the year.
You gotta remember to focus on the companion. This isn't really a story about The Doctor, it's about the companions asking the question, Doctor Who?
Episodes should generally start with a companion's face or escapade coz they're the ones we're identifying with as we figure out who the doctor is.
At some point in 2027 you'll cast and announce a new doctor.
This is when you call Billie Piper in to film and release a webisode which is just the regeneration into Billie so far: her going "Oh, hello?" Then shaking her head and saying "oh hell no" and shaking harder until she shakes the face off into the new man or woman you picked who says "Oh, that was close".
That change into the Bad Wolf Doctor was just bad without a capstone xmas episode. So a one minute tik-tokable short to announce the newbie frees you of it.
Then you can start ep1 filming and released nearly a year later on the 65th anniversary with a story that focuses on the companion getting into trouble and meeting The Doctor.
Cast nobody famous. The production is about making stars not finding them I don't want anyone having preconceived notions about the character from seeing the actor in that other show even it it was a really good one and they're great.
Earthbound cross-time time-travel story for serial one to pick up new companion, intervene in an aliens vs aliens space-war in serial two, go screw up history and fix it for the third and aliens endangering companion's family for the fourth.
When they're 3-episode serials you only need four a year. Different writer for each.
Cliff-hangers between episodes in each serial of course, with stories about the nature of time and space and getting along with other cultures and running up and down corridors and scary monsters and of course the question "who is The Doctor and how can they fix this without guns or violence with just a screwdriver and two hearts worth of compassion".
The Doctor is some weird looking older dude, more importantly vivid and strange and scholarly than handsome. He has a big coat and no question marks. Then he can change clothes but with the same coat always have the same look. He needs to be able to do a good arrogant rant at himself while he thinks.
The companion is curious and brave and young enough to be naive and surprised and energetic. Doesn't do what she's told. Wonders off against orders. Maybe sometimes bombs things.
Obviously you keep the blue box and the tune and make a new style screwdriver.
You need to do the behind the scenes shows too. Not sure if they make or cost money but they are brilliant for the geeky fandom. That may be why it came back last time.
Anyway. Sadly I don't own a production company.
I cancelled the TV license in the mean time. Give the money to Big Finish instead. These audio things are expensive. I've bought bundles before. Anyone have favorites? I lose track of which one's I've heard.
#doctorWho
@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
@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 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
@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…
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2026-07-06 16:31:15
Cowboys' 2026 roster in middle-of-the-pack in ESPN's latest rankings https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/07/06/cowboys-2026-roster-in-middle-of-the-pack-in-espns-…
@nelson@tech.lgbt2026-07-16 16:51:13
EM Forster loved a good dick joke. This from the 1939 short story The Obelisk. Nominally describing a monument:
“Anyone ever seed a bigger one?” he inquired. No one replied, and how should they to so foolish a question? “Stands up, don’t it?” he continued. No one spoke. “No wonder they call that a needle, for wouldn’t that just prick.”
@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.
@Mediagazer@mstdn.social2026-06-04 12:10:46
Run-A-Muck, a media startup that has launched a newsletter and is developing 20 TV, movie, and podcast projects, raised a $10M seed at an $80M valuation (Katie Deighton/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/cmo-today/she-ran-sale
@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…
@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?"
@primonatura@mstdn.social2026-05-03 12:00:50
"Deforestation is surging in Indonesia"
#Indonesia #Deforestation #Trees #Environment
@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.
@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