A contact form reads: Subject: Checking Authenticity Body of message Hi there Beth. I have been contacted by someone who is using the email, [email blacked out], and using you name and one of your novels 'Feast of the Starving Stone: The Chef’s Five' to engage with me as a fellow author - if it is you then great, if it is not, as i suspect, then this is a fake approach. I just wanted to be sure. thanks. [signed name blacked out] You're a real person, right? No, I'm a bot. Please don't include existential questions in a contact form. Yes.

I just found out that an AI scammer is impersonating me in their spam campaign. I am LIVID.

Please, please share this post. Warn people. I’m horrified that someone might be ripped off in my name.

No one is safe from being impersonated like this.

Just a little reminder that security experts routinely say that biometrics are actually do very poorly as a security measure.

Not just for technical reasons, either.

Imagine a password that you can't change after being informed it was compromised in a hack on a company that forgot to encrypt shit.

I'd say "no," but I wasn't totally expecting him to make the last leadership review, so...

a criminal conviction isn’t required to say someone does not have the moral character to run for office and i don’t understand why this needs to be said over and over and over again.

Someone said to me, "I'm sorry but I got your book from a library." Nobody should ever apologise for that. You read my book! That's brilliant! I grew up hanging out in libraries and the idea of a world without them fills me with dread. Without libraries, authors, like readers, will only suffer.

So this is why I dislike AI witchhunts. Yes, by all means go after authors willingly engaging with this crap. But we should be cautious when it comes to trad pub authors whose publishers announce big AI collabs like this.

Sad trombone noises.

Are climate policies all hot air? An analysis of policies in action across 40 nations says no - they are reducing emissions, and the strongest effects come from “packages” combining carbon pricing, subsidies and regulations, rather than single measures.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

a woman in a black latex suit is holding a bag of chips in her hand . Alt: Maureen Johnson, the character from Rent, NOW ME, in her black latex suit is holding a bag of chips in her hand .

Oh, I was also told that the problem is that there are a lot of Maureen Johnsons in New York, and that is when I said, "THEN WHY DON'T YOU USE MY CLAIMANT IS NUMBER." Because THAT IS HOW LARGE DATABASES OF PEOPLE WORK.

I should have sung the goddamned Tango Maureen.

Everybody who tried to argume with me about the water and energy consumption of "AI" abd data centers can go jump in a fucking lake.

While they can still find any.

a chart showing rising energy consmption for all companie s bar netflix

table of use

For some reason "AI is just like watching Netflix" is back in my feeds so I took that as a sign to update my data tracking for Netflix. The company's energy use rose 1% from 2021 to 2024.

Compare that to:

Google: 71%
Nvidia: 88%
Meta: 96%
Microsoft: 119%

Imagine if "big tent" meant accepting trans people instead of transphobes.

A single panel comic of Barret Wallace from FF7 disgustedly gesturing to a screenshot from nvidia’s atrocious DLSS 5 slop showcase, showing a photo of what was once Grace Ashcroft from Resident Evil Requiem standing in a dark foggy street, but now is a generic yassified AI model standing in a flatly lit Instagram environment. Barret’s text box reads “We’re killin’ the planet for THIS shit?”.

I fear we’re gonna get a lot of mileage out of this Barret meme.

This is in the newest issue of @uncannymagazine.bsky.social! My first new piece of fiction of the year.

I really, really need academic organizations to think more critically about travel (conferences, talks, and meetings) during the Trump administration. Sadly, most are not.

Support human artists.

Human artists *care.* We care about the concept, the process, the refinement, the end result, all of it. Ours and yours.

That care is worth investing in.
It *has* to be, or there’s no point in creating the art at all.

There's an uptick in people using psychosis to describe violence. Psychotic people actually do not commit violence at any higher rates than anyone else, but what they are is far more likely to be victims of violence. Don't liken the most powerful to the most vulnerable.

My son came up with the best term for the DLSS 5 and other weird GenAI non improvement (at least the first time I've heard it):

"Sloptimization".

It's perfect. No notes.

Still can't find a way to mock Pierre Poilievre any worse than just letting him talk.

Acceptance rates are irrelevant b/c publication isn't a random lottery. All subs don't have the same chance. If you send BCS SF, odds are 0%. If you send a story that makes me cry, odds are high. Writers: ignore acceptance rates b/c they have no bearing on whether YOUR submission may get published.

Canadians! Tired of dudebros in large trucks blinding you? Take this survey and maybe (just maybe!) Things might improve!

Directory of No AI Artists

The 1st iteration of HireHumanArtists.com is here. It's currently just a spreadsheet directory of visual artists who've pledged to never use AI in their works. Use the pre-made filters to find what you want or make your own. Please share with authors & anyone else looking for art!

Congratulations to all the Nebula Awards finalists!

Oh hey, it's me!

CANADIANS

Please consider signing Elizabeth May's petition to have the federal government recognize endometriosis and adenomyosis as part of the disability law in Canada.

www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...

Canadians! I would love for this to get another 20 signatures this weekend.

Please share widely.

i honestly can't stand seeing people say Gen AI is a disability aid because if it was a disability aid, they wouldn't be putting this much money into it

(•_•)
<) )╯Publique fundinge
/ \

\(•_•)
( (> of the artes and humanityes
/ \

(•_•)
<) )> doth benefit everyone!
/ \

Unsolicited writing advice, no.96:
Don’t worry about whether or not you’re a proper writer. Don’t worry about whether or not you’re any good, or whether you will be judged, or rejected. Just write. Have fun. Enjoy what you do. Everything else can wait.

When I say I want to read a silly, frivolous book, I don't want that book to be poorly written.