Sign in

books books books

@somewordnerd.bsky.social
391 followers 308 following 1.7K posts

trying to get the hell out of Omelas

PostsRepliesMedia
books books books @somewordnerd.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Got an email from my employer about supervisor training ahead of rolling out Copilot to staff. I’m disgusted. I am quite aware of the “cognitive dimensions of employee AI resistance” and I sure as fuck will not be practicing “mechanisms to reduce resistance.”
Managers and supervisors are best positioned to provide the support and guidance staff need to adopt and use Copilot in ways that fit their daily work. In this session, managers and supervisors will learn the cognitive dimensions of employee Al resistance, the behaviors that can result, and practical mechanisms to reduce resistance.
030
Reposted by books books books
Moby Dick @mobydickatsea.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried
112028
Reposted by books books books
Jessica Ellis @baddestmamajama.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I’d really like to stop talking about this but the hits just keep coming. It’s been a brutally cruel week for people in my community, people trying to stay alive, to keep believing they deserve safety and access to the world. Be kinder than you can get away with.
126219
Reposted by books books books
Frog and Toad Bot @frogandtoadbot.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
“Blah,” said Toad.
10340121
Reposted by books books books
Library of Congress @librarycongress.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The Library is devastated to learn of the passing of Dolly Parton, a music legend and titan of children's literacy. Her Imagination Library program has earned multiple Library Literacy Awards and, in 2018, she visited us to donate its 100 millionth book to our collection and host a story time. 🦋❤️
Dolly Parton reads to children in the Library’s Great Hall in 2018. Photo by Shawn Miller.
194335127163
Reposted by books books books
852dude @852dude.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Bro. People are cool as fuck.
274164612326
Reposted by books books books
Aaron Meyers @aaronmeyers.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
"Today is August 4, 2026" There Will Come Soft Rains By: Ray Bradbury
231547899
Reposted by books books books
pixelatedboat aka “mr bluesky” @pixelatedboat.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Homer could’ve saved us all these debates about which translation of the Odyssey is the best if he’d just written it in English in the first place
331428108
Reposted by books books books
Tricia Lockwood @tricialockwood.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
boggling at the *first r-rated movie* responses. did no one else have an insane father who basically injected them with r-rated movie in the womb so they would come out covered in vernix and knowing all of arnold’s catchphrases
15975
Reposted by books books books
paris martineau @paris.nyc · 15/07/2026
hello i am here to tell you actually probably don't need to be panicking about the explosive diarrhea parasite a thread: www.consumerreports.org/health/food-...
consumerreports.org
No, You Shouldn’t Avoid Fruits and Vegetables Due to Cyclospora - Consumer Reports
A parasite called cyclospora has sickened thousands with explosive diarrhea. Here's what you must know and how to reduce your risk of infection.
19374123
Reposted by books books books
Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Literally manifesting a united front against the will of their own constiuency with a swiftness and vigor they could not muster to even feign resistance to open fascism
12706771
Reposted by books books books
lydelle BLEAAAH!ster @babyshoes4cash.com · 24/06/2026
it's called a job because needing to have one is like being cursed by God
18728
Reposted by books books books
spooky sky ✨🌙✨ @sky-writes.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
yeah i'm into
planet fitness
fitness Planet into mv MOUTH

pic of galactus stolen from wotc bc fuck em
70143633558
Reposted by books books books
Alanna Smith @alannamode.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Repeating my old Twitter adage: Is it "discourse" or is it one very loud wrong man we can all block?
222067531
Reposted by books books books
John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
I don't put my foot down a lot, but I will kill any audiobook deal for my work where they try to slap an AI narrator on it. Narrators are artists. The greats have filled my heart with light on countless nights. They will not be replaced with slop.
841486
Reposted by books books books
ULTRA💀BLAST @ultrakillblast.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Happy Mother's Day
4774221663
Reposted by books books books
Matthew Cortland (they) @matthewcort.land · 10/04/2026
Help Matthew Cover Emergency Surgery Costs If, and only if, it would NOT at all be a financial hardship, and you find what I do valuable ⤵️ www.gofundme.com/f/help-matth...
gofundme.com
Donate to Help Matthew Cover Emergency Surgery Costs, organized by Matthew Cortland
I'm writing this from a hospital bed at Tufts Medical Center, where I had … Matthew Cortland needs your support for Help Matthew Cover Emergency Surgery Costs
25546551
Reposted by books books books
Elizabeth Bear @matociquala.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
I could NEVER do what Jennifer Grace or Adjoa Andoh does. A fabulous thing about audiobooks from the author's point of view is how they become a collaboration, with a good reader bringing out nuance and specificity.
511310
Reposted by books books books
RedruM @dorsalstream.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me. It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."
I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake

By A Horse

Hello. I am a horse. I work very hard at my job of being a horse. When humans say move the heavy thing, I move the heavy thing. When humans sit on top of me and pull on my head, I carry them where they want to go. The main food the humans give me is hay and oats. But I am thinking it would be nice to have a different food.

I am thinking I would like to try cake.

Yes, yes. Cake. I know all about it. When humans eat cake, it is in glad times. It is the food for a celebration, such as when a woman becomes 47. I have seen cake on the Fourth of July. When humans have a cake, they stand around it and clap hands and smile and say happy birthday at each other. Sometimes there are beautiful markings on a cake, such as balloons or a pink shape.

Sometimes the top of a cake is on fire and a boy must blow on the fire with mouth wind. This is the scariest cake. I do not want this kind. But I will eat any other cake. Any cake that is not the fire cake that tries to kill the boy.

Please understand: I do not get money for doing work. I do not get to go inside the house. All I am either doing my horse job or standing in my pen or eating food off the floor. I always do these things. But I have never once gotten cake and I would like it very much.

I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children. I am more helpful to the farm. Children do not move the heavy things like me or let anyone ride on them. And yet they get cake. Maybe the humans will realize this. Maybe they will say, "You  know who deserves cake? That horse. That horse whose back we are always on."

Every day I dream about what it will be like if I get to eat cake. Here is what will happen. First, I will walk to the cake and putt my nose at it like hrrfff to make and stomping my hooves to make sure it is not a snake. Then I will trot in a circle to show that I am a horse and I am large. After that, I will nuzzle the cake to …
266176826052
Reposted by books books books
Russ The Tedious Ghost @russ41.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
You can help build billionaire-free local news. Repost this -> I give $1 Follow @51st.news -> I give $1 Follow me -> I give $1 Donate -> I match your gift Let's fight misinformation, help good journalists to make a decent living, and stick a big ol' finger in Jeff Bezos' eye.
51st.news
The 51st is expanding
D.C. needs more local journalists. You can help us hire them.
36213351
Reposted by books books books
MinnMax @minnmax.com · 23/01/2026
In solidarity with today's ICE OUT OF MINNESOTA blackout, MinnMax is donating $1 to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota for every share of this Bluesky post for the next hour.
2151648320290
Reposted by books books books
Library of Congress @librarycongress.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
In celebration of National Braille Literacy Month, check out this amazing Braille eReader from the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) at the Library of Congress. They make braille reading more convenient and portable. Visit loc.gov/nls to learn more!
13611
Reposted by books books books
Pete Volk @petevolk.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
i had a wonderful time talking with @vicmmic.bsky.social about disaster movies, birds, the weather, and their many exciting projects out right now pvguide.ghost.io/vic-michaeli...
pvguide.ghost.io
Vic Michaelis talks spy stories, birds, the weather, and the process behind VIP
“Don't come to my house, knocking on my door, going 'Less birds, please'”
27021
Reposted by books books books
Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
“i want back my rocking chairs, / solipsist sunsets, / & coastal jungle sounds...” A poem by Renee Nicole Good, who was murdered by ICE earlier today. lithub.com/renee-nicole...
lithub.com
Renee Nicole Good, murdered by ICE, was a prize-winning poet. Here’s that poem.
Renee Nicole Good, 37, mother to a six-year-old boy, was murdered earlier today by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, a few blocks from her home. According to the Minnesota Star Tribune: [An ICE agent] s…
5751102410
Reposted by books books books
Genie Lauren @moreandagain.me · 03/01/2026
Tired: "Is this legal?" Wired: "Is this right?"
218057
Reposted by books books books
Cristian Farias @cristianfarias.com · 03/01/2026
Best thing I’ve read this morning, from a human rights lawyer in Mexico. Translation is in the ALT-text.
Twitter thread in Spanish by José Mario de la Garza, a human rights lawyer in Mexico, translated using Google Translate:

1. Overthrowing a dictator sounds morally right. No one mourns a tyrant. But international law wasn't built to protect the good, but to restrain the powerful. That's why it prohibits force almost without exception: not because it ignores injustice, but because it knows that if each country decides whom to "liberate" by force, the world reverts to the law of the strongest.

2. The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is “overthrowing a dictator”; tomorrow it will be “correcting an election,” “protecting interests,” “restoring order.” The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades.Cont’d:

3. The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable.Maduro isn't the problem: he's the face of the problem. Removing him from power would be merely opening the door. Behind him is the machine: Rodríguez, Cabello, the military command, the operators of repression and plunder. If you only change the person at the top and leave the system intact, what follows isn't democracy: it's a reshuffling.

And there's something even more difficult: Chavismo didn't just capture institutions, it captured daily life. Economy, media, bureaucracy, employment, fear, favors, blackmail. A country can't be "de-Chavistaized" by decree or by an electoral miracle. The real transition begins when that network is broken without setting the country ablaze.

The challenge is enormous, and it's also a moral one: to unite without vengeance, but without impunity. Targeted justice for those most responsible, truth for the victims, guarantees that the rest will dismantle the system, and a plan for people to live again—not just survive. Because freedom doesn't come with a new president: it comes when the state ceases to be a threat.
3927971346
Reposted by books books books
Speculative Insight journal @speculativeinsight.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
If you're a fan of Ann Leckie and/or Arkady Martine (and why wouldn't you be), and/or discussions of empire and imperialism in science fiction, let me point you towards this conversation between the two on that very topic: www.speculativeinsight.com/extras/leckie-and-martine
313256
Reposted by books books books
Jason Filiatrault @feelcanadian.com · 28/11/2025
All chess is 4D chess that's why they have that time clock thingy.
15885152
Reposted by books books books
violet allen @blipstress.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
I see some book piracy discourse, and, to make a positive argument in favor of buying books, your marginal ability to influence what books get published and support the careers of writers you like is massive compared to most other forms of media.
182349446
Reposted by books books books
Burger Snail @surlaw.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
Draw yourself from memory
Sketch of a little monster with a long nose, a dorsal fin, a fuzzy belly, and exhausted eyes
0191
Reposted by books books books
NE Ohio Regional Sewer District @neorsd.org · 01/10/2025
I’m a sewage system. I also have a great personality.
Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD
@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social
I'm an epidemiologist. Sewage systems are sexy.

Dosco Jones @doscojones.bsky.social
I'm an engineer. Sewage systems are sexy.
13684281038
Reposted by books books books
Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
715294729899
Reposted by books books books
Cole Haddon @colehaddon.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Martin Scorsese drew these storyboards when he was 11 years old. They are for a Roman epic entitled THE ETERNAL CITY.
291584287
Reposted by books books books
Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪
130224746670
books books books @somewordnerd.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
FSA Administrator: You got those photos documenting the lives of sharecroppers in the south and migratory agricultural workers in the midwestern and western states? Dorothea Lange: Sure did boss, real fuckin sexy, just like you asked. FSA Administrator: What
181
Reposted by books books books
Martin Austermuhle @maustermuhle.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
I've been very lucky that the folks at @51st.news have let me start reporting again, but this small-yet-mighty outlet has big ambitions: including hiring me full-time. We'd love it if you'd help support independent local journalism in D.C.! (And thank you a million billion times. Really.)
18624
Reposted by books books books
Alex Taliadoros @alexctaliadoros.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
Having Martin Austermuhle as a full-time reporter for @51st.news would be so great for DC!
0359
Reposted by books books books
Ann Leckie @annleckie.com · 10/07/2025
OH THANK MITHRAS It's a Murderbot Eve Miracle!!!!!!
12804123
Reposted by books books books
George Pearkes @peark.es · 09/07/2025
the American government is effectively ending its space program.
politico.com
Over 2,000 senior staff set to leave NASA under agency push
The losses could endanger the administration’s plans for landing astronauts on the moon and Mars.
2325791143
Reposted by books books books
Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
The Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” has cast very different shadows depending on which party holds the White House. When lower courts blocked Trump admin policies, SCOTUS intervened on an emergency basis to lift those orders in 77% of cases. For the Biden administration, that number was 0%.
Infographic titled “One Court, Two Standards” compares how the Supreme Court used emergency powers to rule on lower-court injunctions against the Biden and Trump administrations. Two panels show:
	•	Biden Administration: Lower courts blocked policies in 21 cases. All 21 cases are represented by red squares, indicating that 0% of injunctions/TROs were lifted by SCOTUS.
	•	Trump Administration: Lower courts blocked policies in 86 cases. 66 green squares and 20 red squares show that 77% of injunctions/TROs were lifted by SCOTUS.

Key takeaway box below reads:
“Using its ‘shadow docket,’ the Supreme Court granted emergency relief to lift 77% of lower-court injunctions against the Trump administration. It lifted 0% of those against the Biden administration.”

Sources and notes below include: CourtListener data through July 7, 2025; analysis by Adam Bonica.
11450692348
Reposted by books books books
Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
It’s Calvin & Hobbes cartoonist Bill Watterson’s birthday today. When I was a kid I was so obsessed with Calvin & Hobbes that I carried around a stuffed bear and called it Hobbes. There’s no official merch (which I love), so my grandma painstakingly crafted this for me. Pic of him from my mom today
A homemade Hobbes stuffed animal from Calvin & Hobbes, made by Kat’s grandma
2428984783
Reposted by books books books
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 03/07/2025
the republican party is a modern day Slave Power and the only way forward for this country is to sweep it into the ash heap of history
200186173888
Reposted by books books books
Brad Johnson @climatebrad.hillheat.com · 03/07/2025
A lot of what is happening now is the Rs pushing the final vote until the wee hours of the morning so that the American people won't be watching the final debate.
514634
Reposted by books books books
Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
More seriously: if someone is a deranged lunatic sex criminal for an entire generation and instead of stopping him or charging him with crimes contemporaneously you wait 20 years then put together some ludicrous Rube Goldberg construct trying to reach back and capture all the crimes…./1
141166148
Reposted by books books books
Craig Calcaterra @craigcalcaterra.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Do not call a law that will kill millions of people "Big Beautiful." Do not call a concentration camp "Alligator Alcatraz." Stop promoting the propaganda and euphemisms of a fascist regime.
8349105