Also for the record, F+TM is my cat's favorite music, and has been for ~2 years.
No photogenic cat-dancing, but when this snuggly old fluffball goes to the vet, only one soundtrack will stop him from yowling.
For the record: the Florence + The Machine "Everybody Scream" tour is AMAZING.
Special submissions call for Escape Pod! Got a story about the future of democracy? Read the guidelines! escapepod.org/2026/04/06/s...
Depluralize a movie:
Snowflakepiercer.
"Showing your whole ass," or as we modern folks would say, "show me the money"
Yes, because "perfect sharing of memories and experiences" does not encompass fiction.
If you want to share the cool stories you made up, you need a way to convert those inventions into shareable form - whether it's text or fake-memory-sculpting!
March is nearly over, I hope you didn't miss my @clarkesworldmagazine.com non-fiction about handedness - and how its throughline runs modern culture to pre-human evolution.
To quote myself: to understand handedness, you need to understand the entire brain. 🧠🧪
clarkesworldmagazine.com/kinney_03_26/
Got time to check out a short before you finalize noms? Even if it's not to nominate, I'd love if you'd read "Because I Held His Name...". Maybe you'll love it too, if you like stories about identity, connection, power, and the loss of those. (And Alan Turing.) strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fi...
Thank you!! 🧪
HEY WRITERS (not just SF/F writers) HAVE YOU BEEN PROCRASTINATING ON MAKING YOUR ANTHROPIC SETTLEMENT CLAIM?
SFWA is running a webinar event OPEN TO ALL WRITERS (not just members! not just SF/F writers!) on Thursday. Sign up here:
www.sfwa.org/events/anthr...
Cover of The Subtle Art of Folding Space A tier of bamboo steamers run down the cover. The further down we get, the weirder the contents of the steam. It starts with bao on top to stars and planets on the bottom.
(This time with the cover)
The Subtle Art of Folding Space comes out April 7th. Preorder now! From today to Thursday @barnesandnoble.com members get 25% off with the code PREORDER25
www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-subtle...
But can you eat a pickle from the bucket?
2 covers for sarah pinsker 'we are satellites' one with red circles and silhouettes of 3 people, the other 2 silhouettes of an adult and child walking across a landscape and sunset
#FundraiserPerk We love books! Receive a signed and personalized copy of #SarahPinsker's WE ARE SATELLITES. US or UK edition! You also get the April Locus E-Issue and digital art by designer Francesca Myman.
Donate at http://locusmag.com/ or through our bio!
book cover, purple and gold figures
#FundraiserPerk We love books! Receive a signed and personalized copy of Wole Talabi's CONVERGENCE PROBLEMS, + the April Locus E-Issue and digital art by designer Francesca Myman.
Donate at http://locusmag.com/ or through our bio!
2 paintings with brain images and text: No ai, only brain one all blue, one orange and pink
NO AI ONLY BRAIN
'nuff said
New ones, hand-painted, one of each artologica.etsy.com
Oh god oh god is the news cycle going to make me talk about why consciousness an introspection are real *precisely because* the brain is mostly hacking itself together on the fly?
Is the news cycle going to mark me ~write an article~ about this??
The cutoff date before which SF was "old school" is whenever you, yourself, were 12 years old
Congratulations!!
If you can give something, please do. 💚
It is remarkable! But beware how that article puffs up the model's ability to interact with its environment. The paragraph "The behavioral repertoire..." sounds impressive, but that repertoire is walking and grooming and balance.
Not much of a fly behavior model if it totally omits flying!
That got my hackles up too! It's not just sensationalizing with interpretation, it's sensationalizing with lies! It IS a simplified model!
Yeah, my thought was that no matter how good your model of neuronal spiking, the brain does not operate by neuronal spiking alone!
Maybe the fly brain does, my quick search couldn't confirm whether they have glial cells.
But for mammal brain, this is impoverished by multiple qualitative levels
(Waves in neuroscientist-SFFwriter)
This is very cool stuff and good enough to work in flies, but the connectome (neurons, synapses, spiking) is not the whole brain. In humans, neurons are 1/2 of the brain's functional cells. And high-level control depends on analog spatial interactions.
Oh, great question! I doubt it's clear enough to show up in human accident stats (given all those international variables), but that would be wild.
Handedness seems utterly banal, but the science beneath it is weird and complex, with a throughline tying modern culture to pre-human evolution. (Not to mention the last 5-10 years of my scientific career.)
To quote myself: to understand handedness, you need to understand the entire brain. 🧠🧪
Yes, I was surprised to see how little is certain about contralateral organization! But I haven't yet found much evidence for it among invertebrates, are you aware of any?
Yes, but handedness/footedness isn't convergent evolution between very different brains - it arose in early vertebrates, before the two lines diverged!
None whatsoever! Except to say "that is super cool!"
(That said, I could also do some reading in the literature to see if there are more insights out there...)
Handedness seems utterly banal, but the science beneath it is weird and complex, with a throughline tying modern culture to pre-human evolution. (Not to mention the last 5-10 years of my scientific career.)
To quote myself: to understand handedness, you need to understand the entire brain. 🧠🧪
the past is so bright, gotta wear shades