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John P. Murphy

@johnpmurphy.bsky.social
530 followers 213 following 2.3K posts

Science fiction and fantasy writer, author of RED NOISE, THE LIAR, and others. Coffee enthusiast. No idea what I’m doing. johnpmurphy.net

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Reposted by John P. Murphy
Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 21h
Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer xkcd.com/3304/
4-panel comic. (1) April 2023: [JUICE space probe flying away from Earth] FROM EARTH: *JUICE* is en route to explore the icy moons of Jupiter! JUICE: *Wheee!* (2) August 2024: [JUICE flying past Earth] JUICE: ...So which planet was I visiting again? I got distracted. FROM EARTH: Jupiter! JUICE: Right, OK. (3) September 2026: [JUICE flies past Earth again] JUICE: Is Jupiter the one with all the rings? Or... FROM EARTH: No, the big one near it. JUICE: Got it! (4) January 2029: [JUICE returning to fly past Earth again] JUICE: And *which* moons am I looking at? FROM EARTH: Oh my *god*. FROM EARTH: Now I get why we budgeted for so many Earth flybys.
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Allan Kaster @infinivoxsf.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Stories by @kateelliottsff.bsky.social @tiatashiro.bsky.social @henryherz.bsky.social @alansmale.bsky.social @nnedi.bsky.social @stevetem.bsky.social @moonsheen.bsky.social @isabel.kim @hannahyangwrites.bsky.social @johnpmurphy.bsky.social @trnapper.bsky.social + Order: www.amazon.com/dp/B0HKKDB8JK
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PBS News @pbsnews.org · 24/09/2026
A 6-year-old girl in China has set a new women’s record for solving Rubik’s Cubes. Recent videos from state TV show Lian Yunzhi setting a record at a certified competition in Wuhan, China. Days later, she broke that record with an average pace of 4.27 seconds per cube.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 22/09/2026
whenever i hear some variation on "but what if trump does X or Y or Z" i think of this ulysses s. grant remark to a subordinate during the wilderness campaign.
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Today in “nature is gross”: a dolphin seeking out a snack of fish vomit. www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
This dolphin chased a fish until it puked—then ate the vomit
The behavior, known as kleptoparasitism, marks one of the few well-documented examples of a cetacean stealing food
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William Butler Yeets @yeets.biz · 19/09/2026
i need to know what happened
sign in a restaurant "due to recent events Bigfoot discussions are no longer permitted on the patio"
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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Tyme nowe to playe the musique Tyme nowe to lighte the lightes Lo! See the gathered muppets on The Muppet Showe tonighte! Tyme nowe to put on grease-paynte Tyme nowe to dresse up righte Tyme nowe to rayse the curtayne on The Muppet Showe tonighte!
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SL Huang [THE LANGUAGE OF LIARS is out!]🎇🦑🌌] @slhuang.com · 18/09/2026
How do you plan a creative project that will last 3+ years? John Zhu knew bringing ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS to English podcast form would take at least that long. 12 years and 4 Chinese epics later... See us interview him 7PM CDT at #flightsoffoundry! www.accelevents.com/e/flights-of...
Picture of John Zhu under the "Flights of Foundry" banner, with "Guest of Honor: A/V Narrative" and the dates and slug of the Flights of Foundry convention (Sept 18-20 Virtual, https://flights-of-foundry.org, "The round-the-clock, international convention for speculative creatives and fans")
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Kevin Riggle @kevinr.free-dissociation.com · 18/09/2026
"We've air-gapped these systems!" "An actual air-gap involving actual air, or just firewall rules" "...just firewall rules"
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Tonight at 8pm EST/ 7 CST, @slhuang.com and I will be interviewing Flights of Foundry guest of honor John Zhu @chineselore.bsky.social about his Chinese Lore podcast retellings of classic Chinese literature. It should be a lot of fun! www.accelevents.com/e/flights-of...
Flights of Foundry banner showing A/V Narrative guest of honor John Zhu in a flat cap.  Dream Foundry dragon logo. September 18-20 Virtual https://flights-of-foundry.org
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Tonight at 8pm EST/ 7 CST, @slhuang.com and I will be interviewing Flights of Foundry guest of honor John Zhu @chineselore.bsky.social about his Chinese Lore podcast retellings of classic Chinese literature. It should be a lot of fun! www.accelevents.com/e/flights-of...
Flights of Foundry banner showing A/V Narrative guest of honor John Zhu in a flat cap.  Dream Foundry dragon logo. September 18-20 Virtual https://flights-of-foundry.org
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Marissa Lingen @marissalingen.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
THIS IS TODAY
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Sometimes I stop and look at the ads on even reputable sites, and am astonished by the extent to which we swim in intellectual sewage. Medical journalism sharing a page with lurid ads explaining why you'll die if you eat blueberries; economic analysis jostling with goldbugs.
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I don’t watch a lot of television, but I really enjoyed this one. Glad to see it getting recognition
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Alex Spahn 🌋🌪️☄️ @spahn711.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
...rotating a piece of clear calcite toward the sky creates two images of equal brightness only when pointing directly at the Sun. This allowed the Vikings to navigate the fog-dense North Atlantic, even when the sun was entirely hidden behind clouds or below the horizon. Great demo of this here:
youtube.com
How the Vikings may have used calcite to locate the position of the Sun in a cloudy sky
YouTube video by Michael Masuda
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I'm dying. This is wonderful.
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Steen Comer @mediapathic.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Book friends! I am a freelance proofreader looking for more work. I have done a bunch of work with Tor, but I will happily also do nonfiction. Are you a publisher or self-pub author who needs a proofreader, or know one? Please DM. (Please boost for visibility, if you don't mind)
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fravery.bsky.social @fravery.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Cherries & Chardonnay Saskia Rem Brandt Mixed Media, Oil on canvas, 2025
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I just saw someone unironically tell someone “Google is your friend” about a hot-button topic. Like… no? It’s going to radicalize them into insane positions? If you don’t want to argue or explain, fine, don’t, but also don’t send them off to the disinfo mines with a good luck and a fare-thee-well.
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Ah the New Hampshire primaries: Saving democracy one held nose at a time!
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Sam Ottewill-Soulsby @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Screenshot from a Tumblr post by user pillow-princeps:

'Day 1 as a Third Century Roman Emperor and the shitheads at the mint have found eight unique ways to misspell my name on all the coinage despite me sending them the drafts of my designs that I've been working on since I was 12

Day 2 as a Third Century Roman Emperor and I have been fatally killed.'
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Jared Pechaček @vandroidhelsing.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Hi Homer, I recently came across The Iliad and was blown away by its expansiveness, its humanity, and its complex use of . Have you considered new ways to promote your book and expand its reach across various platforms? I would love to connect and hear your ideas. Kind regards, Apollonius
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lit_patches @litpatches.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare but now you can set ammunition, food, and drink assignments for squads.
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Head of Zeus @headofzeus.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
From @kyliu99.bsky.social, the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning author of #ThePaperMenagerie and #HiddenGirl, comes a dazzling new collection of 13 stories that explore the boundaries of imagination. #ThePassingOfTheDragonAndOtherStories is out today: geni.us/TPOTDAOSorgsoc
A book titled "The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories" by Ken Liu is standing upright on a wooden surface. Beside it is a lit candle in a holder and a decorative golden object. The background is a deep blue.
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Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Rough Draft vs Final Draft
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Venicello @venicello.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
(35 year old chuunibyou) rrrgh!! the demon sealed inside my lower back... it's struggling to escape...
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BluesMusic @bluesmusic.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Chris Rodrigues & Abby the Spoon Lady 🎶'Angels In Heaven' #bluesmusic
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Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe @dandkuniverse.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Daniel and Kelly answer questions about crackpots, hearing meteors, and the age of everything. www.iheart.com/podcast/105-...
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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 31/08/2026
macabre = “muh-KAHB” Worcestershire = “WOOSS-ter-sheer” omnipotent = “ahm-NI-puh-tunt” reticent = “RET-uh-sunt” epitome = “ih-PIT-uh-mee” myriad = "MEER-ee-ud" Never make fun of someone if they mispronounce a word. It means they learned it by reading.
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 30/08/2026
The telescope has been set free in space! Successful deployment! #Roman
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
That moment when, up on a ladder painting, you realize the song you’ve been singing under your breath isn’t “If I were a rich man” but “If I were a smart man”? Excellent time to stop and do a safety check. (I’m fine! Everything’s fine!)
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Cat Manning @catacalypto.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
been doing a lot of recommending this book this weekend, you should get a copy if you haven’t
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Spirals doesn't fit in your boxes @tealed-copper.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
"No way you wrote a 5 page essay without Al."

Buddy, we wrote them by hand, in cursive, the day before it was due, without even reading the book.
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Shit, I'm hearing that an MIT student was exposed to dimethylmercury. That's some of the scariest stuff I've ever heard of-- when I started grad school 25 years ago, it was still THE number one example of "stuff that might kill you if you're not scrupulously careful"
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Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 29/08/2026
to put iit another way: nissan motors has had operating losses in their automotive manufacturing business for 3 of the last 5 years. their finance arm, by contrast, has net income around $300m/yr they make cars as a loss leader to sell subprime autoloans
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Brian Actors Guild @spocksbrian.worstpossible.world · 28/08/2026
Hey, if you know anyone in Brooklyn, Sunset Park specifically, who recently lost a cat, I found this very personable (and LOUD) little polydactyl on 53rd and 2nd. She's unbelievably sweet. I would love to reunite her with her people
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Man, I earned "y'all" the hard way, and fuck anyone who tells me not to use it when I damn well see fit.
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Shaenon K. Garrity @shaenon.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
The end of an era: Phil Tippett is shutting down his stop-motion studio.
Miniature props, including an AT-AT, below a wall of storyboards.A crate labeled TIPPETT on a work shelf.A table covered in miniatures. An in-house blood drive poster modeled after Starship Troopers: WE NEED YOUR BLOOD -- DONATION GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
I really wish people would internalize the notion “the thing I thought of within 30 seconds of reading a headline probably also occurred to the people who lived it / spent years studying it.”
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ECP @ecppdx.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
headspace-hotel posts:

You can identify a fake redneck by their passionate support of "blue lives matter." Read rednecks have been in at least one physical fight and/or high-speed chase with police officers and would do it again

runyons6 responds with an image of a Facebook post by The Ghost of Ol Dale Earnhardt (Mar 16 at 11:05am):

All you fuckin' bootlickers forgot your roots. You know why we started hot rodding stock cars? Because we were running from the cops. You know why we were running from the cops? Because fuck em.
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Emily Mullin @emilymullin.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I'm a staff writer at @wired.com and I'm looking to speak with parents of immunocompromised kids, especially those in areas with measles outbreaks, and how you're dealing with back to school with rising cases. emily_mullin@wired.com
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I started my PhD program with an eight week old at home, sole income being my doctoral stipend, in a history program, in Knoxville, TN. And every month we got a new book to read to my son, free, mailed to us, so my kid, my kids, grew up in rooms full of books even when I had no money. That's Dolly.
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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 25/08/2026
[Exit Queen.]
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Alex Zalben @azalben.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Dolly Parton, among a thousand other amazing things she did in her life, gifted over 330 million books to kids through her Imagination Library program. Her passing is a tremendous loss to the world, but you can support the program today to keep it going imaginationlibrary.com
imaginationlibrary.com
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library | USA, UK, IE, CA, AU
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a book gifting program that mails free books to children from birth until they begin school in participating areas.
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dillo saint dillo @dillo.media · 23/08/2026
dudes will always find a way to rock
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Make a band bigger; Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Huh. I drank that water once on a dare. www.japantimes.co.jp/business/202...
japantimes.co.jp
In U.S., rare earths extracted from coal mine wastewater
A new pilot project achieves two purposes: environment cleanup and the recovery of the critical minerals as a valuable byproduct.
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Fellow Satisfactory addicts will enjoy this: someone built a 40k piece LEGO model of a full crystal oscillator factory from ores to finish. (plus obligatory doggo) www.reddit.com/r/Satisfacto...
reddit.com
I built a full Satisfactory production line out of LEGO, with around 40,000 pieces!
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👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 23/08/2026
lads please stop sharing shit that is unsourced, even (especially) when it agrees with your pre-existing biases. misinformation exists on both sides
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John P. Murphy @johnpmurphy.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I've been out of the robotics field for a long time, so maybe the recent progress isn't as stunning as it seems to me, but that's pretty stark. (Anyway, I had robots explode on the bench, so a flameout mid-run doesn't seem that bad)
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