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I also opened boxes 11 and 12, which were a rolly sled toy and a snowglobe

Pull-back toy shaped like a snowdrift with a pink and green sled, in front is a green dino with yellow spikes and a Santa hat, in back is a blue penguin wearinga green hat with orange ear flaps

The Woobles2025 snow globes, which contains little tiny sculpted versions of all the kits- the only one really visible is the elf in the middle who has orange braids and a pink hat and sweater

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Took a bit of a break, but back to #ChristmasInOctober - box 8 was toy blocks (though they came out rather more spherical than cubic)

Three crochet alphabet blocks, top is red with a white A, bottom left is green with a white B, bottom right is yellow with a white C

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Yeah this is why I (and so many other AFAB people) didn't get any kind of diagnosis until I was in my 30s

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(and given the really broad merchandizing/performance rights that Writers Beware said are in the standard author contract, I'm strongly inclined to believe the uncharitable read at the moment)

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My uncharitable read is that they know exactly what they're doing and figured they couldn't get away with WFH after Picacio's statement, but aren't willing to really give artists copyrights, so now they're trying to pit the artists and authors against each other

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My charitable read would be, I guess, that they are confused about how copyrights, licensing, and derivative works work. Which....would be a very bad thing for a major magazine publisher to be confused about?

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And even in the US there's some protection for visual works (though I don't remember enough to know if illustrations qualify). There's a Writers Beware post from last November saying MRM had agreed to take the moral rights waiver out of the author's contracts, so interesting it was still in here

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The moral rights waiver thing is a slightly different issue than copyright, and the main thing that doesn't make sense there is that the contract ever had a moral rights waiver - the US is bad about protecting them, but in a lot of countries you CAN'T waive your moral rights

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Plus, the authors are already giving MRM rights to publish the stories, it would be trivial to put a clause in that contract that gives MRM the right to make derivative works for purposes of illustrating the magazine (in fact I'd be shocked if that clause wasn't *already* in those contracts!)

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And then they somehow jump from "we're letting illustrators retain copyrights" to "so we can't commission illustrations based on stories anymore". Which makes no sense at all - as others have said, illustrations are pretty clearly derivative works that don't need any kind of license

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So second bit of MRM's statement is something along the lines of "ok we won't do WFH contracts anymore, we'll let illustrators retain their copyrights". Except they just said "WFH is changing" without explaining what was changing or why, so that was very confusing

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Picacio was not willing to do illustrations on a WFH basis/wanted to retain his copyright in any illustrations produced. MRM was willing to negotiate with him, but he decided to take a stand on behalf of others who don't have his negotiating power, saying they shouldn't be forced to do WFH either.

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This is what the sentence bit of MRM's statement says, too, that the contracts are/were on a WFH basis.

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Ok someone in the comments shared the letter from John Picacio that apparently prompted this, which makes more sense. MRM's standard contact is on a work for hire basis, so MRM owns the copyright to the illustrations (which is not great for artists, but pretty typical for the industry, iirc)

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I've read it three times and it still doesn't make any sense?

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As an IP lawyer, ummmmmmmmmm wut, MRM???

Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

@questauthority.bsky.social did a short thread about the opinion - not a direct answer to your questions but you might find it interesting

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Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It sounds like they are using sugar free syrups, and thinking that’s good enough to label the whole drink as sugar free - the problem is the drink also contains milk and protein powder, which obviously have natural sugars

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Reposted by Sara H.

Anil Dash @anildash.com · 05/10/2026

I can’t emphasize this enough — “AI” wasn’t born corrupt and toxic. For ~75 years, it was mathematicians and scientists doing interesting, thoughtful work and trying to solve problems, making only the usual human mistakes. What “AI” did to machine learning is as tragic as what it did to artists.

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Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Oh, I just figured out why I have always hated being a babysitter/teacher/manager lol

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Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

@tobymacnutt.bsky.social this won’t solve the touchscreen problem, but I did just find out that boox and kobo both make remotes for their ereaders which might help with the button part? shop.boox.com/products/boo... ereader.kobo.com/en-us/produc...

shop.boox.com

BOOX Tappy Wireless Page Turner

Enhance your reading experience with the BOOX Tappy wireless page turner. Effortlessly turn pages, scroll, and refresh. Compatible with BOOX devices running Firmware V4.2 or later. Order today.

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Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Meredith did elaborate in her quote post, in case you didn’t see it: bsky.app/profile/mros...

Ghostly Bree @mostlybree.kitrocha.com · 02/10/2026

Reposted by Sara H.

This is a purposeful conflation, imo, done as marketing & to ride the pop culture idea of AI. In doing so they've basically wrecked the public conception of AI so completely Trump just had to sign an order saying NO NOW IT HAS A DIFFERENT NAME and pre-existing AI research is left in the wreckage

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Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

She was one of the mentors in the short lived (ABC?) cooking competition The Taste and I fell in love with her then, so I was very excited to see her step out of that TARDIS!

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Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Contents of boxes 6 and 9, toy car and toy boat

Purple crochet car with white windshield and headlights and black tires

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I don't know about that one specifically, but my agency has one that is just the commercial versions of various LLMs in a trenchcoat. (Except I think/hope siloed in some way so it doesn't give all our data to the whole internet)

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Ghostly Bree @mostlybree.kitrocha.com · 29/09/2026

Finished alpaca! Also I looked at the other two full size Woobles to see if they had more tan yarn I could steal, and took it from box 10 because that is supposed to be an elf and I find the humanoid Woobles unbearably creepy so I will not be making that one!

Finished tan crochet alpaca with a white snout with black outlines, black eyes, little tan legs, tan ears, and loopy tan hair

Envelope with a picture of a crochet elf with tan skin, pink and white clothes, orange hair, and black eyes

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Reposted by Sara H.

I have tried to be incredibly real with myself and everyone that even a blue wave of epic proportions doesn't mean much is better. My entire hopes for the next two years are to stop the worst bleeding and to put the fear of consequences in every fucking heart--including Dems who feel forgiving.

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(if either of the interns is interested in particular/vintage ones, I can check if we have it and send it to you)

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Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

LOL my mom still has both my sister's collection and mine, maybe she'll actually be able/willing to offload them now

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(also the pattern and given yarn are to do her in orange, but I didn't think that was a very alpaca-y color, so I pulled out the extra tan yarn instead (yes I do have a large stash of extra Woobles yarn lol))

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Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Ok I was wrong in the last one, ones of those toys was actually in box 5, because box 4 was our second full size Wooble, Lana the Alpaca, which I started today. Yes I'm doing them out of order and not on a particular schedule - it's #ChristmasInSeptember, anything goes lol

Beginning of a tan crochet alpaca with black eyes - at the moment it looks more like a worm or a bean

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Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I only do when I'm in the car with my mom, who listens pretty much exclusive to Boston's country station, so I have in fact heard this song lol (I do, however, insist on changing the station or turning it off when the ads start)

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Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Finished beaver, and the contents of boxes 2, 3, and 4 - candy, yo-yo, and top (I needed a bunch of small things to work on at d&d today, and I don't actually remember which was originally in which box)

Finished crochet Newberry, now with tan cheeks, black nose, and white teeth

Crochet candy - white oval with red stripes and green "wrapper" ends

Crochet spinning top, red body, yellow tip, blue rim and handle

Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It's also going to be in the middle of a major traffic circle, so if it doesn't sink straight down, but tips over instead.... Seems bad

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Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Some progress on the beaver, he has a tail now (I modified the pattern slightly to make it more beaver-y)

A side view of the brown crochet beaver, now with dark brown arms and tail

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Sara H. @sarastar43.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I ordered #TheWoobles Advent calendar again this year, despite not having even opened last year's, so I guess we're doing #ChristmasInSeptember LOL (or counting down to the end of the fiscal year, maybe? Though I'm not sure I'm really looking forward to FY27...)

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And they did severely cut bonuses that a lot of people depend on, as well as making the criteria for most PAP elements much stricter. It's demoralizing (which is the point).

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I'm lucky enough to still have a union that kept them from putting actual caps on rating levels for us, but for all other positions at the agency there's now limits on how many people can be rated Outstanding.

Also the attack is *not over* - it's lessened a ton, but there's a huge push by OPM on FY27 PAPs that make it much harder/less beneficial to get rated Outstanding - I keep describing it as them trying to make us live down to their stereotypes of what government workers are like