@edschweppe
Making software better, and making better software. Ex-ET1/SS USN. Beware the puns. Also, make sure your images have alt text (turn on "require alt text before posting" under Settings/Accessibility); blowing off alt text is a great way to get blocked.
TPM is a strange, special place to work. We're small and scrappy and built around some big personalities. We have a ton of editorial freedom and independence. Staff stick around. And we're lucky to have close relationships with our readers, many of whom have been reading the site since the 2000s.
A digital dawn sky (created in Terragen Sky). A caption against the clouds: "A man is not dead while his name is still spoken." And below, the hashtag: #GNU Terry Pratchett.
#GNUTerryPratchett
The half with the bones, or the half without them?
The cover for Uncanny Magazine Issue 62, “Mermay - Golden Hour" by Maxine Vee: In a forest of brown, orange, and golden leaves, a mermaid with orange/gold hair sits on a rock in a small light blue pond. She stares at her open palms, illuminated by a beam of sunlight. Purple flowers in shade lie scattered on the ground in the foreground. The quote reads: "Hence, a watchseed, with the best of intentions. Let’s give the seed-planters that much. They mean well. Crawling from star to star at not-quite-c, they make their surveys, consult their charts, launch a seed now and then. Old thinkers, they make an endless circuit of the galaxy on behalf of young thinkers."
Reading for the Hugo Awards? Try the novelette "Kaiju Agonistes" by Scott Lynch @scottlynch78.bsky.social!
It is in the Locus Recommended Reading List!
You can read it here!
buff.ly/XB1XfpA
Much, much sympathy (with a great deal of sotto-voce Whiskey Tango Foxtrot)
ChartGPT.
They think they're the SBB/CFF/FFS?
I've been a member for several years, now. It's worth it.
** Reposting this story I wrote last year.
#GnuTerryPratchett
**
Remembering Tunnel 17...
I'm getting questions about why there are trans characters in my Fantasy novel.
There's a simple answer: trans people don't need to justify existing.
Glad to clear that up!
One of the now famous images of British servicemen manning a naval gun at Shoremead whilst wearing full pantomime drag. It's usually claimed to be an image that was banned by the government or somesuch nonsense, but there's actually a rich vein of propaganda photographs of servicemen carrying on with normal, humorous life in the middle of a war. That the Nazis were understood to be dead against this sort of stuff only added to its value.
So whilst the self-reported big manly men are accidentally closing a narrow shipping channel by having a big manly war and shouting big manly war things, a reminder of that time a bunch of lads who were much secure in their gender did it deliberately.
"I will grant you three wishes," the genie said.
"I want you to agree with me," the man said.
"Very clever!"
"I want you to stay with me."
"Gladly!"
"Give me what I ask for."
"I already have!"
The man asked for many things, and while he didn't get any of them, he had company and validation.
... they could have used you at Fruitlands.
(Now a pretty nice museum, BTW.)
BY THE WAY, acknowledging that writer pay is generally low and always has been does NOT mean that one should abandon the idea that a) one's work has value and b) that this value should be reflected in what is offered for it by others, says the former president of a writers' association.
A painting of a bird beside the text "I'm looking forward to the part where you fuck off"
striking photo of a black and white tuxedo cat. The entire photo is almost entirely a velvety black except a curving line of white fur and the cat's gold eye which are illuminated by a sliver of sunbeam.
Stunning portrait of The Morsel by my boyfriend.
"Innovation in division" always reminds me of the infamous Pentium FDIV bug: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium...
Throughout history, many methods of divination have been devised. From cards and tea leaves to intestines and flight patterns of birds.
You wouldn't think it is a field one can still innovate, but I'm creating a system based on the flick of cat ears.
It's not finished, but I enjoy the research.
Short term fix [1] might be the NATO phonetic alphabet - Oscar Uniform Tango or Whiskey Alpha Lima Kilo.
[1] Only short term, because he'll figure them out soon enough.
"SHIT"
"FUCK"
"NO"
"FUCK"
"SHIT"
"FUCK"
Person dressed like the Muppet Beaker
MEEP FOR SCIENCE
#StandUpForScience
I've got a feeling that the angels actively bid for those assignments...
I know that the people who need to read this aren’t here, but here goes:
Rules of engagement aren’t for the enemy. They’re for you. They’re for your soldiers when they’re captured or wounded. They’re for your civilians when they’re in range of the enemy. They’re for your allies, to reassure.
Very important reminder: "You are allowed to ask for help."
... you're clearly doomed. (But what a way to go!)
I occasionally see humor posts I made to Usenet via Delphi passed around as memes. Before that I was on WWIVnet and telnetted into MUSHes.
There are still people on Al Gore's internet who remember when it got pictures.
Do not speak to us of the deep magic, witch. We were there when it was written.
An excellent overview of how easy it is to abuse the DMCA (and how to fight back). The big villain here is Ukie, who apparently does no verification before they turn on an egregiously aggressive auto-enforcer.
gamehistory.org/cookies-bust...
Cover image Barbershops of the Floating City by Grace P. Fong. An Asian woman with long black hair, wearing a blue qipao-like dress with blue floral designs, holds a pair of black scissors and faces us. A shadowy figure, a woman in profile, stands behind her. At the women’s feet are gray-brown skyscrapers. Behind her is a pale-green-blue sky and a pale yellow sun-like circle surrounded by yellow rays and black angled points shaped like scissors. The Uncanny banner, May/June 2025, Issue Sixty-Four, list of author, essayists, and poets credits, and the editor credits, are on top of the image.
Reading for the Hugo Awards? Here are the Uncanny Magazine 2025 Award Eligibility and Poetry Eligibility lists!
buff.ly/wh6zrc0
buff.ly/83HNo63
There used to be an old sign by the path, warning passers-by of the local sleeping willow, which would trap the unwary with fatigue, engulf them while they slept, and release them a hundred years later.
There was a new sign:
"This sleeping willow is full."
And a map of other locations to try.
