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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)

@yarntheory.bsky.social
2.8K followers 1K following 1.8K posts

Math, history, science fiction, string theory, games with string. yarntheory.net

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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Ancillary Review of Books @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org · 26/09/2026
Do you like reading *about* speculative fiction? Do you like revising and offering feedback? Do you have strong but civil opinions about comma placement? ARB could use your help!
ancillaryreviewofbooks.org
Call for Volunteer Editors!
The Ancillary Review of Books is looking to grow our editorial team!  ARB is an online magazine that publishes reviews and critical essays, centered on speculative fiction and related non-fict…
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Which is more professional, I ask myself, the toadstool T-shirt or the Neon Hemlock skull?
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
You know it's going to be a good semester when your thesis result gets a shout out in the first talk.
Ascher Auel watches Alice Garbagnati write on a whiteboard. A result attributed to Whitcher is visible in the lower right.
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Reading The Forever War and I have to give Joe Haldeman points for a 1970s vision of the 2020s whose correct predictions (among many divergences) are: 1) Everyone is gay now, including your mom, and neopronouns are standard. 2) Referring to weed as "grass" makes you sound like a dork.
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Nino Cipri @ninocipri.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Nearly all stores that sell new books can order a book for you even if they don't have it on their shelves. Here's a quick thread about how that works, and how it's ESPECIALLY helpful for writers who self-publish or have work with small presses.
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Micah Warren @micah541.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
cloak and dagger navier stokes cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/st...
cims.nyu.edu
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you have to return 2 items, one will use FedEx and the other UPS.
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Today in writing research, I am very excited about the Historic Glass Bottle Identification Website, a marvel of the old web: secure-sha.org/bottle/
secure-sha.org
Historic Bottle Website - Homepage
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Michael J. [Fox] DeLuca @michaeljdeluca.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
End of day today!
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Andrea Hairston @andreahairston.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
ARCHANGELS OF FUNK was shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize! It honors a work of imaginative fiction that mirrors Le Guin’s ideals: writers who act as "realists of a larger reality" and imagine alternatives to our current world.
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Neon Hemlock @neonhemlock.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
gone fishin etc buy some books while i’m gone and will mail when i get back 🖤
20% off
out of office sale
code: VACATION
til 9/10
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
This is a government agency outright admitting it's ignoring public comment.
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Hey, it's the plot of North Continent Ribbon!
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Naomi @enting.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Good morning, pocket friends! I have opened a ko-fi shop with some of my woodcut and linocut prints — please take a look! ko-fi.com/enting_print... (The grasshopper-and-yarrow print is a work in progress.)
Three small woodcut prints, two on white paper and one on black paper. From left to right, they depict a columbine, an orchid, and a grasshopper on a yarrow flower cluster. Linocut print on white paper, on a pine table. The print depicts a stack of books, in a pink/purple/blue bi pride gradient.
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Heather Rose Jones @heatherrosejones.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Happy release day to The Theory of Related-ivity: A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category. (Revised and expanded from the version originally appearing as a blog.) alpennia.com/books/theory...
alpennia.com
The Theory of Related-ivity: A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category | Alpennia
The Best Related Work Hugo Award category has seen significant variation in interpretation. It has gone through three major administrative definitions: Best Non-Fiction Book, Best Related Book, and Be...
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Neon Hemlock @neonhemlock.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Wow, four hours to go and less than $700 from our second stretch goal! Maybe we’ll make it? 👀 (help us make more tiny books please)
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Neon Hemlock @neonhemlock.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Looks like we are about $1.5k away from meeting our second stretch goal, and the crowdfund ends tomorrow! If you would like for us to publish two novelettes instead of just one, consider backing now 💸
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Maria Strutz @mariastrutz.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
A many-tailed fox and their reflection, accompanied by a crescent moon, with a heart-shaped sea urchin fossil (Micraster) between their paws 🦊🐾🤍 #FoxFriday #FoxoftheDay #FossilFriday
a many-tailed fox, seated and facing forward, lookng slightly down to the left. A crescent moon above her, a fossilized heart shaped sea urchin at her feet. and a many tailed fox reflected below with crescent moon on the other side. Linocut, gold, white and black, maria Strutz
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Hey folks, this hasn’t gotten much attention, but remember those proposed OMB rule changes we all commented on recently? There’s a new attempt to sneak them just for NSF. We have three days to comment. Please don’t sleep on this!
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Neon Hemlock @neonhemlock.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Submissions are now open for speculative novelettes and/or tiny short story collection chapbooks. Word limit: 7,500 to 12,000 words. Limited print run. Will pay $100 and 25 copies. Deadline: October 15th. More info here: neonhemlock.submittable.com/submit/36598...
neonhemlock.submittable.com
Neon Hemlock - Speculative Chapbook/Novelette
Neon Hemlock Press is open to submissions of speculative chapbook manuscripts from August 20 to October 15, 2026. We expect to publish at least one chapbook next year; if the stretch goal in our curre...
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Jen Rice @jenrice.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
BREAKING: It made the final cut. Congratulations, Michigan, you might have the best voting sticker of 2026.
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Hey, that's my knitting design in this listicle: knitting.com/free-fingerl...
knitting.com
10 Fantastic Fingerless Gloves Knitting Patterns for Fall!
Toasty and warm, fingerless mittens are a must-have in your fall and winter wardrobe. So check out these fingerless gloves knitting patterns!
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 15/08/2026
ICYMI, over the past two weeks, English-language Wikipedia editors have engaged in a successful effort to change the first paragraph of the Republican Party entry to reflect its current status as a "neo-nationalist" political party. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republi...
en.wikipedia.org
Republican Party (United States) - Wikipedia
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
"I’m hoping that now we’re through primaries, we can shift from the argument about who might theoretically be electable to just, well, electing Democrats, but also pushing them to articulate how they’ll solve our problems." (gift link)
startribune.com
Perry: Can moderates actually fix our problems?
It seems like the biggest and best ideas are coming from the further left, David M. Perry writes.
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
A wonderfully thorough and insightful reading of What We Are Seeking at SH: strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
strangehorizons.com
What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed
Maybe this is exactly what I had been hoping for.
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Vajra Chandrasekera @vajra.me · 11/08/2026
I've talked about the Sameer Project before—an excellent life-saving on-the-ground initiative in Gaza. Since April 2024, they've distributed nearly a quarter of a million meals alone (plus water, medical care, and shelter). But funding has dropped so much that they'll have to shut down without help.
chuffed.org
Food & Water x The Sameer Project
Translating Falasteen (Palestine), in collaboration with The Sameer Project, launched a fundraising campaign to support families in Gaza facing severe hardships. Our mission is to provide food & water...
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Queen of Swords Press @qospress.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
#Booksky Profile thread of our authors at LA Worldcon! Author Heather Rose Jones will be on programming! She is the author of the terrific aromantic Beauty and the Beast retelling, THE LANGUAGE OF ROSES & the Alpennia series w/ Bella Books and host of the LHM Podcast - books2read.com/languageofro...
books2read.com
Available now at your favorite digital store!
The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Elias Eells- Bar Cart Bookshelf @eliaseells.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
NEW VIDEO ALERT! Today on Bar Cart Bookshelf we're talking about MULTITUDE by Marie Vibbert, a tale of first contact as an alien hivemind makes its journey to Earth. Global reach and deep empathy pervade as we meditate on connection and transformation. Our drink is Us, bright and beautiful.
A blush pink drink in the garden alongside a paperback copy of MULTITUDE by Marie Vibbert.
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Holly Lyn Walrath @hollylynwalrath.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
I have updated the "Crowdsourced Award Eligible Speculative Poetry" spreadsheet for 2026, please add your published works: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
docs.google.com
Crowdsourced Award Eligible Speculative Poetry 2026
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Heather Rose Jones @heatherrosejones.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I’m currently working on an essay for the Lesbian Historic Motif Project on “How/why are intersex people relevant to the history of lesbianism?” I would very much like to have a (paid) sensitivity review by someone who is intersex and ideally has familiarity with the historic context. DMs are open.
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Kristine Kathryn Rusch @kristinerusch.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Sheila Williams, editor of Asimov’s and friend, one of the best people ever, and her husband David are in a huge financial and medical bind. Their wonderful daughters can’t care for them 24/7 given their conditions, so need help getting them to a good care center. Please donate. gofund.me/c3c7a2b3b
gofund.me
Donate to Help Irene's Parents Get Skilled Nursing Care, organized by Irene Bruce
Hi - This is Irene and Juliet, the daughters of Sheila and David. As many of… Irene Bruce needs your support for Help Irene's Parents Get Skilled Nursing Care
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
What's the difference between ἔδοσαν and ἔδωκαν for the classical Greek third-person-plural aorist of δίδωμι? Chase and Phillips use the former. Is it characteristically Attic, or is something else going on?
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Dr. Courtney Gibbons (she/her/xlookup) @courtneygibbons.phd · 07/08/2026
Check out the latest edition of my newsletter, MOTHERFUNCTOR! ("structure-preserving political commentary for mathematicians")
newsletter.motherfunctor.co
The U.S. Senate giveth, the U.S. Senate and taketh away
Good and bad news from the Senate this week: OMB grants rule change likely to be held off for awhile; Dr. Fauci held in criminal contempt by a Senate committee.
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Julia Goolia @juliagoolia9.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Not to mention “fallopian tube removal is a low-risk surgery that can reduce the risk of ovarian cancer by as much as half” www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/article...
hopkinsmedicine.org
A Game-Changer for Ovarian Cancer
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Keith Friedlander @friedkeith.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
The world building well-realized and imaginative, but it was also rolled out very effectively from story to story, building a growing familiarity with ribbon contracts, companies, and trains. The vivid, queer futurism really put me in mind of @friends-table.bsky.social’s sci-fi seasons
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Brown University has a widget that tracks the cost of the Iran war to American consumers (as contrasted to whatever the Pentagon is spending). Per-household cost now exceeds $600. iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
getting my day job mixed up with my fiction project and typoing "bosun" as "boson"
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Nakharat!
Screenshot of the English-language abstract of an academic article, which reads: The aim of this study is to analyze the implementation of labor productivity in the first railway engineers. It is hypothesized that, in the initial stage, there may have been a dissociation between the
science that considered the living and working conditions of the human factor and, on the other hand, the practices of the railway companies...
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
www.liminalitypoetry.com/issue-26-win...
liminalitypoetry.com
The ten categories of being believed by Aristotle | Liminality
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New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine @newedgeswordmag.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
📣 New Edge Sword & Sorcery is open to short story submissions now through 8am EST, Sept 1st! 👉️ newedgeswordandsorcery.com/submissions/
Text over a photo of a meatball-sub split at the middle. It reads: SUBS
ARE
OPEN
DETAILS
ON
https://newedgeswordandsorcery.com/submissions/
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Reposted by Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear)
Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
I like this notetaking example. it is a good case of how gender works. Notetaking has never been about producing a transcript. It is a bureaucratic skill in the 20th c. organixarion because it is SENSEMAKING. Those women socialized to take notes? They have been doing men’s metacognition for them
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
My Wikipedia achievement for the week is editing the entries for two statisticians so that instead of merely noting that they were brothers in law, it gives the names of the sisters they married.
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
As it happens, there's only one great-grandparent where I know exactly what they were doing in 1926, and that's because they'd left their job due to the lingering effects of the infection they'd contracted laying out corpses in WW1 and were actively dying.
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
A couple of stories for Disability Pride Month: Chronic migraine and early Byzantines in "The Spirits of Cabassus": alpennia.com/blog/lesbian...
alpennia.com
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 228 – The Spirits of Cabassus by Ursula Whitcher | Alpennia
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 228 - The Spirits of Cabassus by Ursula Whitcher - transcript (Originally aired 2022/04/30 - listen here)
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Amal El-Mohtar @amalelmohtar.com · 27/07/2026
wanted to contribute to Odyssey discourse but unfortunately nothing I could say is better commentary than bsky's post settings
screenshot of bluesky's Post interaction settings showing two radio buttons you can toggle to change who can reply: on the left, "Anyone," and on the right, "Nobody." 

I've selected "Nobody" for the screenshot.
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Michael J. [Fox] DeLuca @michaeljdeluca.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
This one's for you @yarntheory.bsky.social @susankayequinn.bsky.social @anna-orridge.bsky.social @boriscrito.bsky.social @reckoningmag.bsky.social @stelliform.press, and let all us solarpunks laugh at the vicissitudes of fate at there being crystal clear phone service atop Wachusett Mountain
On a clear as bells day, a view southwest off Wachusett, showing the two wind turbines along its south shoulder
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ashley fairbanks @ziibiing.com · 24/07/2026
so far we have only found two people with american airlines miles, and even together they are not even close to enough miles to get this family home to Venezuela can we raise $2700? so far we have $20.
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Neon Hemlock @neonhemlock.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
📚 Our seventh novella series crowdfund is now live 📚 Boosts appreciated!
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Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 23/07/2026
Genuinely fascinating paper that suggests that conservatism kills - it leads to worse health outcomes. People who become conservative later are generally sicker, and conservatives who become progressive find their health improves. (and because internet they're looking at specific health markers)
nature.com
The political polarization of health outcomes in the USA - Nature Human Behaviour
Using individual-level medical data and death records, this study finds that conservatives in the USA experienced worse health and higher mortality than liberals during the 2010s. No significant gaps ...
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Dr. U. Whitcher (U. is for Bear) @yarntheory.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Hey @cattifer.bsky.social , do you have folks to rec? My story for this antho has a low-gravity sport w/ prosthetic angel wings, if that's an inducement.
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