iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

"They tell us that to call Gaza a genocide cheapens the word, and that to deny it defends the Jews. Both are backwards. It is the denial that cheapens the word, and the denial defends no one."

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damniel spookradski @self.agency · 10h

"The third form — blame the victims for causing their own genocide — comes in more guises than any other, and each performs the same sleight of hand: moving the authorship of a death from the hand that dealt it to the people who received it."

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What happens when you hold Jewish institutions' statements about Gaza to the same standard they developed for identifying Holocaust denial? My latest.

jewschool.com

When Jews Deny Genocide · Jewschool

“Keep far from a false charge; do not bring death on those who are innocent and in the right, for I will not acquit the

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I mean, can't say I don't regularly worry about weird strains of disease getting defrosted out of melting glaciers and permafrost, so we CAN all worry about plague as well as famine and war, it's a good time here in the long slow apocalypse!

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3) Hey, @scottedelman.bsky.social, @cornellwriter.bsky.social, and other writers who have sludged through previous negotiations with Must Read -- thank you. I see you. I see you hoping you did some good. You may be sad that progress was not made. Chin up. You DID make progress. 4/

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Stay On Target Retro Game Display

2) Do not mistake these words as a dunk upon editor Emily Hockaday or art director Franco Alvarado. Or Sheree Renee Thomas. Or most of the staffers who predate Must Read's corporate purchase of their magazines. This is about MRM, and their policy choices. Stay on target.

static.klipy.com

ALT: Stay On Target Retro Game Display

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1) If you're considering submitting a story -- or are approached to create art for any publications that Must Read Magazines owns, including Asimov's -- walk away. Their current contracts are too predatory and do not suitably value you, your work or your rights. There will be other opportunities. 2/

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🧵 Attention, Fellow SFF Artists and Authors -- here is my response to Must Read Magazines, after they presented an Asimov's art contract expecting me to waive all Moral Rights and Copyright to my art. And, I would strongly advise the following to my fellow pros…. 1/

John Picacio’s response to Must Read Magazine’s request for his waiver of all Moral Rights and Copyright of his commissioned art for an ASIMOV’S assignment. Short version — Picacio says a resounding NOPE.

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But that would mean they didn't get to exercise power without its attendant responsibilities, where's the fun in that.

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Plague is treatable with antibiotics. Even in the unlikely circumstance that Russia has bioengineered a multi-resistant strain, plague is still harder to catch than primarily respiratory illnesses. Life is a fleeting candle. You're still much more likely to die of Covid or influenza.

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Django Wexler @djangowexler.bsky.social · 11h

No, we should not be worried about pneumonic plague. We should worry instead about lack of transparency in public health crises from authoritarian governments and persistent undervaluing of public health resources and public health education in democracies.

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Really want these articles to read, "Should I be worried? No, life is a fleeting candle and death comes to us all."

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Liz Bourke @hawkwinglb.bsky.social · 11h

I also have discovered within myself the desire to buy copious amounts of books for my child. I want *him* to swim in them. I want him to be rich with them. I want to... well, browsing the Scholastic website isn't helping my acquisitive urge.

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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 12h

There's a market in research and high-end computing. Always has been. But that shit doesn't drive billion dollar IPOs. And nobody in startups or venture capital wants a successful £20m niche company. they want to be a Unicorn. So the delusion of AI as a consumer product gets shoved in the deck.

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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 12h

It's exactly the same reason that streaming services are now frantically having to reinvent bundled cable tv. The technology of streaming was NEVER the product. AD FREE access to a large library of quality (or, frankly, familiar old comfort watches) on demand was the product. Not the platform.

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"Why won't they let me tell them how to raise MY GRANDCHILD?"

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"Why has my child MINE cut me off?"

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Is there anything left that you love, apart from yourself?

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Automate your dating. Automate your conversations. Automate it all! And when you have automated it all, who are you? Where do you belong? What are you? Are you happy, in this automated world? Is there anyone left for you to talk to, apart from yourself and the automated machine?

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Automate your corporate vision. Automate your coworkers. Automate your processes & learn when something breaks you automated the job of the last person who knew how to fix it. It has to stay broken. That's all right, because you've automated your customers, too. Automate it all. Automate your life.

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Auto-generate events that don't exist & nobody goes to for the automated community newsletter sent out by the Training & Education Provider that has automated 90% of its Teaching & Learning Activities. Automate attending your CPL classes. Automate notetaking. Automate writing your conference paper.

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Go on, then. Automate parent-teacher meetings. Automate book club. Automate answering your mother's email. Automate setting up a coffee date with friends. Automate answering their messages. Automate responding to your coworkers over chat. Automate taking your dog for a walk.

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Time, care, and attention are the richest gifts in human relationships. Automate your presence out of your relationships and condemn yourself to anomie and an emptiness that can never be filled.

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The people who are so strongly into AI are really, it seems, against *reciprocity* - which is the bedrock on which human relationships and human societies are based. Reciprocity takes work. Favours incur social obligations. Care gives rise to and requires mutuality, presence, community, effort.

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"I want to automate parenting so I don't have to do any of the human work of caring for a child."

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I mean, not usually my first thought, but "I want to automate parenting so I don't have to do any of the human work of caring for a child" seems like someone the spouse would be better off without.

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Apropos that last thread, 9yo asked for "books" for her birthday and has already read all of Wings of Fire and Warriors Cats, so if there are any other similar series released in the last 10 years, please let me know, I'm about to go visit the MG section and cry.

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E.K. Johnston @ekjohnston.bsky.social · 13h

Anyway, if you ever want to bribe me*, in this age of incredibly visible corruption, just buy me books. *I mean, I'm not actually going to engage in corrupt dealings - for one thing, I don't have the opportunity and for another, well, it's wrong and an offence against the fabric of society.

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(I also think that MG is the LEAST "one size fits all" age category, because you've got 9yos reading Anne McCaffery and 12yos reading Matilda, and BOTH OF THOSE ARE GREAT, but publishing *really* likes easy pigeonholes.)

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E.K. Johnston @ekjohnston.bsky.social · 13h

@erinbowbooks.bsky.social and I both have MG books this year that I think cover the scale of MG quite well. WITCHWARD BOUND is an illustrated adventure with short chapters. THE THIRD PERIOD COMEBACK fits in that weird "for 12-15 yos" window we have trouble filling. But...that's just two books.

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I have 300+ tabs open and the ones that aren't books are mostly journal articles.

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And so many more. So many. So very bloody many.

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Buy The Demon Star Book at Easons

Jesse Aragon's The Demon Star: www.easons.com/the-demon-st... T. Kingfisher's Astarion: www.easons.com/baldurs-gate... Pluskowski's The Black Cross: yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... Francis Young's The Silence of the Gods: www.kennys.ie/shop/silence...

easons.com

Gods rule this planet. Demons stalk its canyons while Kings beg for mercy. Can three mere humans rewrite its destiny? The otherworldly religious conflict of Dune, the cosmic strangeness of Gideon the ...

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"Absolutely enthralling." —Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop "Wildly original." —Michelle Jabès Corpo...

Rae Carson's Monster, Monarch, Maiden: www.harpercollins.com/products/mon... Hakenbeck's Crossing the Danube: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... CL Clark's Fortune's Wake: blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro... Genevieve Cogman's A Scholar's Guide to Demonology: www.kennys.ie/shop/a-schol...

harpercollins.com

Monster, Monarch, Maiden

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Dr Surekha Davies, Historical Monster Consultant (she/her) @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social · 14h

It took me until a decade after publishing my first book to get around to applying to become a Fellow of the @royalhistsoc.org. Delighted that the Council has just elected me to the Fellowship! 🗃

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Books. I want to be swimming in books. I want to *buy all of them*. I want to then READ ALL OF THEM. I mean, I scarcely have time to read my backlog, but I tell you true, I do really want to.

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Obviously that's only one way to tackle the problem. But I've seen the kids reading, I've seen their interest and excitement, and it's not hopeless out there. We just gotta remember that kids are learning to read, and they read differently (& more voraciously) than adults. And then meet them there.

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I am *not* saying one writer should be doing monthly releases; but six (or more) authors sharing a pseudonym could do it. You get the interest, you keep the interest, and then you get the social spread as kids start looking forward to the next book together.

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Animorphs and Babysitters Club released monthly. The original authors leaned heavily on ghost writers, but the current author of Warrior Cats (another MG fave) is six authors in a trenchcoat and I think *that's* brilliant. A month is a *long* time for kids; a year between releases loses interest.

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So what am I trying to argue for here? A) there's a gap in MG that could be better filled B) MG could be better differentiated by reading levels/complexity either in libraries or bookstores C) series. Kids *love* series. Kids need series. And they need a *lot*.

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9yo described to me how WoF went around her school: a friend of hers was reading it, so she got into it, and now all of her friends read them and talk about the characters and plot, and more kids see WoF and are interested and it *spreads*

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but also b/c they're the right size and there are *so many of them*. Not only does that mean the kid can rip through 40-50 of them in a go, but they can share the series with friends. And that social aspect is another thing being weirdly ignored/forgotten. These kids are reading *together.*

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