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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social

@ishmaelwinter.bsky.social
45 followers 96 following 24 posts

Author and historian of science/science policy nerd. Was Isobelle Winter until I changed gender like a stressed out fish. 🏳️‍⚧️they/them, he/him.

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Reposted by ishmaelwinter.bsky.social
Harry Turtledove @hntdove.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Possibly for a goat.
Small tools--scissors, etc.--filed under "stomach relief"
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It was really gorgeous.
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Dangerous Times is out today! I celebrated with a hike. ninestarpress.com/product/dang...
ninestarpress.com
Dangerous Times
Reviled for their parasitic nature, the Augment are a cybernetic species that require organic tissues to process food into usable fuel. Now, their Empire tears itself apart in civil war as the cruel King Taen attempts to put down the rebellion of Lord Mavren, who seeks to end the brutal inequality of the Empire’s social…
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TekknoNerd - Commissions open @tekknonerd.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Voyager, walking on those tiny legs.
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I had to go and look all of this up and I am so depressed I knew exactly which fic spawned this shit almost instantly. Also as someone who's worked on the *actual* safety issues with AI ("your guessing machine is racist" being the primary one) this is so horrible and annoying holy fuck
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
BUT! putting together this website also meant I got to use the GORGEOUS cover art I just got from @ninestarpress.bsky.social, designed by @jayceedelorenzo.bsky.social It's wonderful, and the perfect cover to usher Dangerous Times back into the world!
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
ahahaha of course the preview image doesn't work!
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Anyway behold the results of a goodly period of headbeating and deep concerns about my own basic computer literacy. Thank you wordpress for justifying every moment I spent procrastinating on this task, and for trying to make me doxx myself about five times before launch. ishmaelwinter.com
ishmaelwinter.com
Ishmael Winter
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
either getting a phd actively made me stupider or wordpress has gotten more unusable
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Goodnews @goodnews.computer · 04/09/2026
Take a break from being depressed that everything you love is being destroyed by slop for a moment and let me tell you about the beautiful symbiotic relationship between graffiti writers, train yard workers, and model train enthusiasts.
A hand holding a model train with a replica of the same graffiti on the full scale train car behind it.A model train with two graffiti pieces on opposite sides.
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Bethany Brookshire @beebrookshire.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Dudes love a podcast that claims it's telling you about how to attract women based on like, EVOLUTION. But not a single one of them are giving the real mating advice that I have seen in the scientific literature! Not a single dude has ever rolled me up a ball of dung at a bar and it shows.
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Premillennial Decompensationalist @smollusk.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
the best part is most of the "wait, there might be reasonable exceptions" posts are about the human skin book
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
The lovely part is, that story got popular enough that when I went to a Renn Faire in Starfleet uniform, *several* people pulled me aside at various points to tell me this. My excuse was my shuttlecraft had broken down…
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Ethel Weapon @lousadzak.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Tapping the sign
Avery Edison @aedison
X.com
I wrote "I am alive" on a piece of paper, and placed it into a photocopier. What I saw next has shocking implications
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Weird Alex @jackalpants.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
It's time again! Cis allies: if you can, please consider being chaff for us. Toilet hobbycops think like 10% of people are trans, and to overturn our segregation we need respectable cis people causing trouble on our behalf. Please wear a trans flag pin. Get in good trouble, as John Lewis put it.
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Dr Rasu Shrestha @rasushrestha.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
I stand with Dr. Anthony Fauci …because I value EVIDENCE over conspiracy, DATA over rumors, and SCIENCE over politics. No public official is beyond criticism, but there’s a difference between honest scientific guidance and misinformation. I’ll choose evidence EVERY time. #medsky #publichealth
I stand with Dr. Anthony Fauci because I value evidence over conspiracy, data over rumors, and science over politics. No public official is beyond criticism, but there’s a difference between honest scientific guidance and misinformation. I’ll choose evidence every time.
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Yeah turns out when you gut funding people who put themselves through hell getting the PhD aren’t going to stick around to flip burgers—they’re going to go where they can use it. Oh and then there’s also the fascism. Right, back to my international job search now…
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The Emotion Engine @emotion-engine.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Isekai as a genre is exploding in popularity because it appeals to a universal desire to get hit by a truck rather than live in the 21st century.
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Brian Smith @theactualbrian.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
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David Darmofal @daviddarmofal.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Just want to say that @jaketapper.bsky.social wrote a book on the wrong candidate’s dementia and that should be obvious to every American.
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state song thread guy @statesongxprt.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
i had no idea this would become so literal
tweet https://x.com/patdubois/status/1590006089541914624?lang=en
from @patdubois
reads "as a Canadian, this is how it feels watching American elections these days"
along with an image reading 50.1% "Everyone Gets A Puppy" vs 49.9% "Diarrhea Forever"
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Danielle Froom 🏳️‍🌈 @danifroom.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
JK Rowling has used her wealth to stoke the fires of a worldwide pogrom against trans people to where she's silenced a Holocaust scholar after JK engaged in Holocaust denial & now done the same to Amnesty International for their warning about trans eradication, but keep buying your Harry Potter crap
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
That means TODAY! Do it! It's not that hard and science will love you for it (and the love of science is a glorious thing).
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RJ BaHarker @rjbarker.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Were I an incredibly rich author I would simply live my life in a way that meant I did not have to send legal threats to Amnesty International.
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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
A lot of the “kids online safety” proponents actually are anti-LGBTQ extremists and fundamentalists who want kids to have less freedom and don’t care if that actually makes them tremendously less safe too
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Dax, sapphic fantasy author @daxaeterna.ink · 12/06/2026
I wrote a very long blog post with my feelings about @ellipsus.com Emboss, Disability, Surveillance, and the futility of trying to prove humanity. dreaming.daxmurray.com/ellipsus-emb...
dreaming.daxmurray.com
Ellipsus Emboss, Disability, Surveillance, and Proving Humanity.
Let's put authors in the panopticon and let all their haters invade their privacy!
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Ambassador Ken Fairfax (ret) @portlandken.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
I generally don't like cross-posting from Twitter, but Mike Young absolutely nails how the US wound up with a resurgence of the flesh-eating screwworm decades after it had been eliminated.
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Indivisible ❌👑 @indivisible.org · 12/06/2026
These doctors swore an OATH to protect patients, while MAHA and RFK Jr. are putting millions of lives at risk. We applaud AMA for taking a stand to put people over profits.
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Nadya Voynich @nadyavoynich.com · 05/06/2026
To avoid burnout, use this 30/30 rule: After 30 min of work, quit and disappear into the mountains for 30 years. Happy Friday! #buildinpublic #startuplife #hiking #mountains #nature #productivity
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Clay Nobles @claynobles.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
I want to encourage everyone to vote in EVERY. SINGLE. ELECTION. We are seeing the effects of poor voter turnout everyday. The easiest way is by encouraging others to participate in democracy. Talk to your friends and neighbors. Share information with others. It is important to elect good candidates
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Aletheia S.R. @aletheia225.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
ICE was "supposedly" created to protect the country from terrorism, and it turns out that ICE is the terrorists. Foreign interference, and ICE must end. It's a corrupt institution.
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Plus legal costs, which are over 1 million, and barring her from using the name. Please examine your need to defend a multibillion dollar company over a queer activist in the present political environment. It is NOT a good look.
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Freedom to Read Project @freedomreadproject.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
What happens when publishers begin avoiding LGBTQ+ stories before a book is ever challenged? This article explores how years of censorship efforts are creating a chilling effect across the publishing industry, making it harder for queer voices & stories to reach readers bookriot.com/queer-books-...
bookriot.com
Queer Books and Authors are at a Breaking Point
Authors, agents, publishers: every part of the industry is seeing the strain of five years of escalating anti-LGBTQ censorship.
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
After first REI's union busting and now @patagonia.com's attack on a climate and LGBTQIA+ activist, I'm feeling pretty burned about companies who say they're progressive. Walk the fucking walk or shut up.
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Marian Call @mariancall.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
maybe it's women using AI less because we're already good to go on the experience of rich men stealing our ideas, taking the credit, not paying us for them, and selling us the results at rapidly increasing prices
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
And yet, the lawsuit. What is your actual problem?!
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Pattie Gonia walks the walk. You just talk. Drop the lawsuit.
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Drop the lawsuit.
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Diane Duane @diane.dianeduane.com · 28/05/2026
[CHORTLE] 😄
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John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
authors getting paid a living wage
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Wendy N. Wagner 🎃 @wnwagner.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
A note I found yesterday while walking in Portland.
Handwritten note taped to a power pole that reads: if you promise to stay alive just a little bit longer I promise that we are going to make this world a place worth living in by any means NECESSARY. I ain't giving up. I swear.
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alix e. harrow @alixeharrow.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
when we mourn le guin, we mourn one of our greatest writers & thinkers. but we also mourn one of our all-time greatest haters
All you do is take all the sex out, and use little short words, and little dumb ideas, and don't be too scary, and be sure there's a happy ending. Right? Nothing to it. Write down. Right on.

If you do all that, you might even write Jonathan Livingston Seagull and make twenty billion dollars and have every adult in America reading your book.

But you won't have every kid in America reading your book. They will look at it, and they will see straight through it, with their clear, cold, beady little eyes, and they will put it down, and they will go away. Kids will devour vast amounts of garbage (and it is good for them) but they are not like adults: they have not yet learned to eat plastic.
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Every so often, our standoffish, semi-feral cat gets a hankering for love and attaches himself like velcro to one of us. I’m sitting here listening to him purr maniacally as he becomes a furry rug on my wife’s chest. Feral, yeah, we believe you buddy.
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short Huey/Long jacket @robertanalog.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Handling: General considerations 

The cat is faster and has sharper teeth and nails than you do. It has no ‘code of ethics’ or considerations for its own future. In a fair fight it will win. 

1. DON’T FIGHT A CAT
2. USE YOUR BRAIN
3. USE DRUGS
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 27/04/2026
Ah shit, Gerry Conway died. He created the punisher & was very outspoken in saying "if you're a cop who wears a punisher logo, frank castle fucking HATES you." He said the punisher only existed because of a fatally flawed system, & so those most harmed by that system have more claim to the symbol:
theguardian.com
How do you stop the far-right using the Punisher skull? Make it a Black Lives Matter symbol
Gerry Conway, co-creator of the popular Marvel outlaw, has been appalled to see his iconography appropriated by white supremacists - and aims to turn the tables
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Ethan M. Aldridge @ethanmaldridge.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
I have a book on submission right now, pray for me
A Peanuts comic strip by Charles Schultz. Snoopy writes on his typewriter: "Gentlemen, Regarding the recent rejection slip you sent me. I think there might have been a misunderstanding. What I really wanted was for you to publish my story, and send me fifty thousand dollars. Didn't you realize that?"
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ishmaelwinter.bsky.social @ishmaelwinter.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
As a public health historian/policy nerd, it’s hard to overstate the sheer horror of this headline. Diphtheria is terrifying.
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Sheryl Weikal says Prosecute ICE @leftistlawyer.com · 26/04/2026
The funniest thing about people who say that chromosomes are determinative of sex and gender is that 99.9% of them have no idea what their own chromosomes actually are and if they had them tested, a good number of them would suddenly have a problem. 🤷🫠
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Jonathan M. Katz @katz.theracket.news · 26/04/2026
Remember how less than three weeks ago the president threatened to kill an entire civilization
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