iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

with love…this is no way to run a railroad

screenshot of 3 separate notifications on Cyd’s home screen, from 3 separate systems, occasioned by ordering a taco

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

go the whole way, you cowards!

a 1950s-style cover of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Name a TV show you're positive no one remembers but you

a promotional image for Double Trouble, a sitcom about redheaded identical teenage twin girls, that ran for maybe a year in the 80s. it's mom, dad, & the twins - dad is gray & serious, mom has big 80s hair, & the twins are wearing suspenders & a blue tie over a red button down in one case & a crazily purple sweater over a white button down in the other. they are smiling sitcom smiles.

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

DAMN this is well written (not to mention the many excellent points)

screenshot from the article in the quoted post: "Karp thinks he is destroying bureaucracy. He is encoding it. The contempt for meetings and weekly reports and presentations to senior leaders; he treats these as the bureaucratic process itself. They are not. They were where people interpreted procedure, the place where someone could notice when categories no longer fit the case. The targeting doctrine is still there. They are columns on a workflow board now, stages a target passes through on its way to being struck. What Karp eliminated was the discretion the institution could never admit it depended on. What remains is a bureaucracy that can execute its rules but with no one left to interpret them. Bureaucracy encoded in software does not bend. It shatters."

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

remember when bundling shipment notifications in your inbox was merely automated, maybe with a little machine learning as a treat... & it worked? I just freaking cannot with the current state of software

a row of an email inbox table showing a January 10 email from La Bien Aimee titled "A shipment from your order is out for delivery". the email system has added a green label with a little truck icon saying "Ready for pickup"

a screenshot from UPS saying the delivery is scheduled for January 12 because "we missed you" (there was no notice at our house of an attempted delivery)

one AI overview, from today, January 11, saying the La Bien Aimee order is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, January 12

A different AI overview saying the package is arriving tomorrow, with a track package button a view order button, and a green label saying "Visit UPS for pickup details"

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

I think I'm gonna let Elinor Wylie wrap this one up (poets.org/poem/let-no-...)

the final stanza from Elinor Wylie's poem Let No Charitable Hope:

In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But none has merited my fear,
And none has quite escaped my smile.

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

what the entire hell has been going on while I've been offline

screenshot of an ad, with "sponsored" in the corner:

Recipe you might like: Cranberry Orange Ginger Holiday Hummus Board, 10 minutes, serves 20, 5 ingredients

accompanied by a photo of a tree shape made out of dollops of hummus with mandarin segments and dried cranberries emphasizing the curves of the dollops, alongside crackers on a wooden board

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

was just thinking about manta rays & it made me think of Auden's reindeer

part 1 of Auden's The Fall of Rome

(for Cyril Connolly)

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.

Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.

part 2 of Auden's The Fall of Rome

Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

great post from @kdyz.bsky.social on civil service hiring in NYC - we have similar issues in SF, although I think they're overall a little less rough, but a lot of work to do for tech hires in particular

screenshot from the post: "In addition, improving how city services are delivered in a technological age requires people who can build and maintain modern technology. Almost every service requires digital content, web forms, data management, digital tools and more, but there are no titles for “user researcher”, “data scientist”, “content designer”, “UX designer”, “product manager” or a myriad of other common tech roles in the system. Recent job posts for these roles have been in civil service titles including “Graphic Designer”, “Computer Specialist (Software)”, “IT Project Specialist”, “Research Projects Coordinator”, “Community Coordinator”, “City Research Scientist” and more."

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

me: why are my eyes itchy? PurpleAir:

screenshot of the map of San Francisco on PurpleAir, with nearly all values over 100, in the orange to red range (ie, quite bad air quality)

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

yeah, once more with a cover photo - I really, really encourage all tech folks to read this

cover of the report linked: a light green-grey eagle silhouette on a darker background with 5 yellow stars and the text:

United States Senate Committee On
Homeland Security
& Governmental Affairs
Ranking Member Gary Peters

Unchecked and Unaccountable
How DOGE Jeopardizes Americans' Data Without Regard for Law and Congress

HSGAC Minority Staff Report
September 2025

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

holy shit, One Medical required me to not only self attest I have a risk condition but sign a special consent form *with a witness line* to get a COVID shot, in California where it’s supposed to be available to all

COVID shot consent form attesting that I am not being coerced into getting it, requiring not only my name, birthdate, & signature, but a witness’s signature

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

sometimes I think about bringing back my old website...

screenshot of Cyd's old poetry website, showing a poem page with a white background

Header: Cyd Harrell (poet) in large green underlined Courier font

poem (all in Courier)

Mt. Constitution: From the Summit

Some morning when
mist is thin like pale tea,
you will reach a forest
where moss
is so shrill a silver green
and the blue of spruce limbs vibrates
so loud and low
that, as quiet steeps
you in the damp
your soul dissolves, finds
mine suspended there;
looking down, I read it
in the leaves.

footer (in sans serif italics): Cyd Harrell, 1989.
Published Oxygen Quarterly No. 19. Further rights reserved.
Home Email me.

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

made it just under the wire - I'll always remember Orange Sky Day for itself, but also as the day the first copies of A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide arrived at my house - 5 years!!

Cyd with long pandemic hair, smiling like crazy & hold two copies of her book A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide, front cover out - the front cover depicts an abstract mashup of a distress flag and a climbing wall that also evokes a computer system diagram, in predominantly orange and blue

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

this slide is in so many of my talks (& it doesn't even include the function piece)

screenshot of a presentation slide with white on blue text:

50 states + 5 territories
3,144 counties
19,354 cities & towns
574 tribes

& I don’t even know how many water districts,
air quality boards, regional transit bodies, etc.

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

honestly, I feel like frequent flyer perks started all of this

Screenshot from the article linked in the post above: "When you are at a Disney park, you will inevitably hear “When You Wish Upon a Star,” Disney’s unofficial anthem. Disney adopted that song in the 1940s; its second line, “makes no difference who you are,” encapsulated its egalitarian ethos. Now the song reads to me like nostalgic, middle-class cosplay that helps us relive the Disney that Walt created. The roughly $90 to get your family cut-the-line access to a premier ride (on top of what, for a family of four, could easily be over $700 dropped on tickets) is the real Disney, the one the market created."

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

I've got no brief either for or against Burning Man - I've never been & my friends seemed to enjoy it more before tech adopted it - but these people's midlife crises are gonna arrive early & really be *something* sfstandard.com/2025/08/30/b...

Gupta, who has become a poster child of AI boom’s grindcore culture, summarized the current mood among young tech workers in San Francisco as incompatible with the Burner sensibility: “The current vibe is no drinking, no drugs, 996 [work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 days a week], lift heavy, run far, marry early, track sleep, eat steak and eggs.”

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

💯 who remembers sponge painting?

a 90s bathroom sponge-painted in a hideous hot pink, with a scrolled light fixture above a mirror with a heavy white wood frame; above the toilet roll is a picture of a tree with a hot pink background that matches the sponge painting & a magenta frame.

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

new late-stage capitalist risk-shift just dropped! apparently we can all pay extra for "order insurance" when we have something shipped from a merchant, since neither they nor the delivery service will stand behind it getting there

screenshot of an email:

Hi Cyd,

I am contacting you regarding the missing order (redacted).

I want to inform you that your case has been looked into, and a replacement was approved as a one-time courtesy.

For me to send you the replacement, can you please confirm the best shipping address?

Also, please keep in mind that since this replacement is a one-time courtesy, we would recommend you purchase route for any future orders. Route is an order insurance that covers lost, stolen, and damaged packages.

Looking forward to your reply.

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 24/08/2025

hey Californians, if you got a mailer (already!) against the fall special election to counter Texas gerrymandering, the League of Women Voters wants you to know that the mailer was lying about them - screenshotting with alt text here:

screenshot of the League of Women Voters of California's post:

Important Announcement

You may have received a mailer from "Protect Voters First" about the redistricting ballot initiative this November. By naming our organization and quoting Gloria Chun Hoo, the mailer wrongly implies that the League of Women Voters of California is part of their coalition and endorses the information contained in the flyer.

This implication is not correct - we are not part of htat coalition. The League of Women Voters of California did not authorize this action.

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

You've been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who's coming to save you? (hahaha, should be fine)

the cast of The Dropout's Game Changer being extremely goofy on the game's very colorful set

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

you know, I have a ton of versions of this slide & talktrack in decks about government & technology over the years. not showing up to assist in a disaster is a breach of a very fundamental contract

screenshot of a white-on-blue conference slide & its talk track in the notes

slide: What do we ask from government?

- Public safety
- Infrastructure
- Regulations
- Record-keeping
- Dispute resolution
- Assistance

Talk track: If you break down the things that government does, they fall in a few basic categories of collective need. A town of 10,000 people does many of the same categories of work as a city of 2 million. Run through...and there are many disagreements about the details, but almost everyone believes that there is some kind of misfortune that can befall you, where the government should help you out.

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

um. I don't quite know how to say this, because whoa, wacky idea here...but like, I want an *actual* description of the food I'm ordering to pick up? not "typically" or "often" - wtf?? what are people with restrictions supposed to do here?

screenshot from a Doordash item description for a mini burrito: "Scrambled eggs, cheese, and a selection of breakfast meats, typically wrapped in a smaller tortilla, often accompanied by salsa."

tagline in bold: "Description generated by DoorDash using AI"

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

this from Texas expert @mattlanza.bsky.social is excellent - key point:

screenshot from the article in the quoted post: "Did budget cuts play a role?

No. In this particular case, we have seen absolutely nothing to suggest that current staffing or budget issues within NOAA and the NWS played any role at all in this event. Anyone using this event to claim that is being dishonest. There are many places you can go with expressing thoughts on the current and proposed cuts. We've been very vocal about them here. But this is not the right event for those takes.

In fact, weather balloon launches played a vital role in forecast messaging on Thursday night as the event was beginning to unfold. If you want to go that route, use this event as a symbol of the value NOAA and NWS bring to society, understanding that as horrific as this is, yes, it could always have been even worse."

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

you have been kidnapped and a character from the last tv show you watched is trying to rescue you who is coming to save you

Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp on The Residence

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

cyberpunk is a warning, not a manual

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

A film that takes place where you're from (in both time & space, lol)

Bridget Fonda, Matt Dillon, & Chris Cornell in Singles (1992)

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

grim, beautiful essay that puts it all together in a way that resonates, at least for me - check it out!

screenshot from the article in the quoted post: "An unspeakably dismal choice is being made before our eyes and without our consent: machines over humans, inanimate over animate, profits over all else. With stunning speed, the big tech megalomaniacs have quietly rolled back their net-zero pledges and lined up by Trump’s side, hellbent on sacrificing this world’s real and precious resources and creativity at the altar of a vampiric, virtual realm. This is the last great heist, and they are getting ready to ride out the storms they themselves are summoning – and they will try to defame and destroy anyone who gets in their way."

screenshot from the article in the quoted post: "To have a hope of combating the end times fascists, with their ever-constricting and asphyxiating concentric circles of “ordered love”, we will need to build an unruly open-hearted movement of the Earth-loving faithful: faithful to this planet, its people, its creatures and to the possibility of a livable future for us all. Faithful to here. Or, to quote Anohni again, this time referring to the goddess in which she now places her faith: “Have you stopped to consider that this might have been her best idea?”"

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

sharing the one table from my book, which outlines *very shallowly* the US's 4 levels (federal, state, county, city or town) & 3 branches (executive, legislative, judiciary) of government & what they each do - they are separate but interdependent & interconnected by data

table from A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide Chapter 1 (rows 1-3, see next image for row 4)

Federal Executive
The President
Cabinet agencies and independent agencies
• Collect federal income taxes
• Oversee immigration and passports
• Fund major benefits programs; administer Social Security
• Oversee veterans’ services
• Make regulations
• Manage national Parks

Federal Legislative
Senate
House of Representatives
• Pass laws (which supersede and constrain state laws)
• Oversee the federal budget, including setting income and business tax rates

Federal Judiciary
Supreme Court
• decides appeals from other federal courts or state supreme courts
Federal district and appeals courts
• deal with federal crimes, immigration, bankruptcy

State Executive
Governor
State cabinet agencies
• Voter registration
• Driver and vehicle licensing
• State income taxes
• Business registration
• Professional licensing
• State Parks
• Fishing and hunting licenses
• Highway patrol

State Legislative
One or two-house state legislature
• Pass laws (if these contradict federal law that can generate a Supreme Court case)
• Administer state budget
• Set state income and/or sales taxes

State Judiciary
State supreme court State courts of appeals
• Some states have separate lower courts for family law

County Executive
County executive
• Sheriffs
• Birth, death, and marriage records
• Administration of state programs
• Election administration (mostly)
• Transit and roads
• Parks

County Legislative
County Council or Board of Supervisors
• County budget
• Local statutes concerning land use, property matters, and alcohol sales (for example)

County Judiciary
Superior courts
(technically part of state court systems)
• Most felonies must be tried in superior court
• Many family law matters and minor lawsuits are handled here

$table from A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide, Chapter 1 (row 4 - see previous image for rows 1-3) City or Town Executive Mayor, sometimes sharing power with an appointed City Manager • Local police • Building permitting • Parking and traffic • Parks • Schools (usually with a separate elected board) • Libraries City or Town Legislative City Council • City budget • Local ordinances • Local property and sales taxes City or Town Judiciary Municipal courts (but not everywhere) • Misdemeanor offenses and infractions like traffic tickets$

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

The week was a lot! Nutmeg is proud of us all getting through it

A brown tabby cat stretched out on a window perch, in a pose of enervation with her paws at full length in front of her sleeping face

The same brown tabby on the same window perch, alert & looking pleased

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

me in the national security group chat

screenshot of Meryl Streep in adaptation, playing Susan Orlean, who is high and on the phone trying to get her conversation partner to hum in the right harmonics to make a dial tone. she is lying on a buff blanket staring at her toes, which are up in the air

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

I've observed this reasoning from tech powers over & over outsize, vague mission --> performing absolute commitment ("de facto good") --> even deadly harm is justified in pursuit (cf. Crisis Text Line deciding a mission to "end mental illness" meant using intimate data for profit was fine)

screenshot from the article "Bosworth suggests that people could get hurt or killed as a result of Facebook’s expansions. Still, he is unequivocal: “The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good.” This same tone of self-assuredness, short-sightedness, and binary thinking are present in most of the conversations with Facebook executives that Wynn-Williams writes about"

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

I'm glad someone's writing this www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/o...

The pandemic response wasn’t perfect. But the pandemic itself was real, and punishing. Above all, it revealed our vulnerability — biological, social and political. And in the aftermath of the emergency, Americans have largely looked away, choosing to see the experience less in terms of death and illness than in terms of social hysteria and even public health overreach. For many, the main lesson was that in the world of humans, as in the world of microbes, it’s dog-eat-dog out there.

But the consequences and aftershocks were also more subtle and diffuse: it isn’t easy to live in isolation and in fear, often largely online and surrounded by exceptional illness and mortality, as we watched aspects of the world and our own lives we’d long taken for granted be withdrawn or torn apart. And it isn’t easy to get over all that, however eager we thought we were to “return to normal.” We lived through as many deaths as some of the worst-case scenarios predicted, and without an initial spasm of inspiring solidarity and miraculous biomedical intervention, it could have been worse. But when we came out the other side — 1.5 million fewer of us — we were, as a country, exhausted, resentful, deluded and distrustful. A huge amount of the world in which we now reside was formed in that crucible. I will write more about that next week.

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

now eagerly awaiting these installments every Saturday - the current situation as a non-servile American press would have covered it happening overseas

screenshot from the article: "Trump in his previous presidency had actually selected Brown to head the nation’s air force, until turning on him more recently as insufficiently supportive of the country’s ongoing political and corporate domination by a caste of mediocre white men — people historically unable to succeed on their own merits or competency — that includes Trump himself as well as the newly installed defense minister. (Unsurprisingly, Trump announced Friday his intention to replace Brown with a less qualified white male general, who had — unlike Brown — never attained the military’s top rank.)"

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

this last sentence here seems key to the performance of entrepreneurship/investment in recent years too too - a desire to pretend they competed but be protected from bad reviews, customer critique, or any other chance of losing

screenshot from the article: "What its advocates want is not a restoration of explicit Jim Crow segregation—that would shatter the illusion that their own achievements are based in a color-blind meritocracy. They want an arrangement that perpetuates racial inequality indefinitely while retaining some plausible deniability, a rigged system that maintains a mirage of equal opportunity while maintaining an unofficial racial hierarchy. Like elections in authoritarian countries where the autocrat is always reelected in a landslide, they want a system in which they never risk losing but can still pretend they won fairly."

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

@emilytav.bsky.social articulates beautifully what is different about civic tech (imperfect yes) & DOGE (disastrous)

screenshot from Emily’s article “But all of the work was driven by an unshakable belief that the public deserved more from its government, and that the government was capable of doing better.

For the US Digital Service, tech was a means to an end: an effective government that people can rely on & easily interact with instead of having to go through a Kafkaesque maze of websites and phone numbers and apps and forms.”

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

uh why is Google referring to today as Washington's birthday? was there some EO that changed President's day?

screenshot of a snippet from a Google location result:

Hours: Open - Closes 4:30PM
Washington's Birthday might affect these hours

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

really good from @jamellebouie.net's newsletter this morning - the media & corporate capitulation of the GW Bush era (which was scary & horrifying) is a template

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

got a little sidetracked, sorry - this is 19

cover image of 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson, showing earth rising above a savanna landscape

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