Charlie Stross

RFK jr is an asshole (but we already knew that). Moreover, he's wrong. Why is algebra called that? Who gave us the digit 0 (zero)? And our current number system? Why is the star Betelgeuse called that, for that matter? And so on.

Here's an ambitious countermove. Buried in that 7,103-word terms of service is this gem: you can opt out of the binding arbitration within 30 days of "agreeing" to it by sending an email to termsofservice@latimes.com with the subject line "MANDATORY ARBITRATION AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER OPT-OUT".

Lula: "We had to overcome foreign interference through digital platforms, which we will have to regulate. A crime in the digital world must be treated the same as a crime in the real world. We cannot have monstrous companies earning millions... not paying taxes... wanting to steer elections."

-Oh: It is "Stalky & Co, but with spells, and none of the social critique"-

Note that propranolol is a beta blocker. Drops your blood pressure, slows your heart. If you're on other blood pressure meds it can fuck you up very badly indeed. It's prescription-only for a reason. It is NOT an anxiolytic, people really need better monitored access to BZPs (the 1990s moral panic).

This sort of thing is why I stayed indoors all weekend! … Except I'm in a city centre where the hazard was less falling trees and more falling roof slates, which can and occasionally do kill people. (A number of tower blocks lost their cladding around Leith, 1-2km away from me.)

The treatment of coronary artery disease. 30 years ago my dad needed triple bypass surgery. In hospital for a week, three months to recover from it. Last month I went in for angioplasty, was in theatre for an hour, came out with two stents, job done. Day surgery.

It is my considered opinion that, all consideration of bigotry aside (both the texts and the authors), Harry Potter is jejune and clichéd, remixing and recycling tropes that were already tired by the 1950s.

Yes, it's *absolutely* like scam emails. And they're generated by people who aren't readers themselves, otherwise they'd know better than to do this. Like unironically trying to sell a colour-by-numbers book page covered in crayon in an art gallery.

I knew him a bit 17 years ago when he was NUS president. He was like this then too. He's like the opposite of Data, he's an inadequate human on an existential quest to surrender his uniqueness and become someone else's machine.

I know I'm judging a book by its cover (and there's a very real threat from Putin's Russia), but EVERY TIME I see a picture of Streeting I feel the urge to put salt on his back and watch him writhe like a slug.

Antique folding camp table uses an accordion-scissor leg mechanism that expands and locks into a sturdy tabletop that folds away for storage. IG: @antique vintage_rust

1. Basic D&D, supplemented by White Box supplementary kipple 2. AD&D (original, as it came out) 3. Metamorphosis Alpha 4. Traveller (original) 5. There is no 5.

hamming once said "mathematicians stand on each others' shoulders and computer scientists stand on each others' toes." and although programmers have moved to full and semi-auto footguns this remains as true as ever

Not from high enough

Someone saw my blog post from SpaceXAI about looking for freelance work and offered my a $75/hr job training AI to write better fiction. I... Look, I'll do anything if it comes to needing to put food on the table for my kids, don't get me wrong. I'm a father first, but... FUUUUCCKKK NO.

Silliest author grifting email of the day yesterday was bubbling with enthusiasm about promoting to their reading circle a short story I did as work-for-hire for Warhammer 40,000 in 1990 under a pseudonym because I was too ashamed to use my own name for that drek … for a fee.

VisionQuest, Marvel Studios Television; 2026

When your news broadcaster has downsized so much that it's fired absolutely anyone who knows anything

We come back to the idea of Execs who really don't understand art or why people make art, in any way, finding ways to absolutely annihilate those that do, in a death of a thousand cuts and then one big 400-person cut. It's heartbreaking. The western games industry kills a NIntendo every year.

In a MAGA cohort of disgusting human beings, Vivek Ramaswamy is one of the worst. His campaign attack ad against his Democratic opponent for Governor Dr Amy Acton featured her estranged mother calling her a liar. Estranged because she lost custody when Acton was raped as a child by her stepfather.

It’s also why in the last week the valuation of Anthropic fell from $2Tn to $1.5tn, ehich is disastrous for every VC who invested in the company as it needs to be $2tn so they don’t take a haircut. That $1.5tn valuation is still about $1.4tn too high anyway as the entire sector is worth under $100bn

If the bubble pops just after the midterms, the GOP will claim the Dems taking the house and the senate caused the crash to try to scare people to vote for them in 2028, when the reality is it’ll likely be Those two big AI companies failing IPOs and Oracle getting downgraded to junk that’ll do it

Clearly a dry run for a poster for a new Quentin Tarantino movie, but I don't think Liz quite understands the role of the femme fatale …

I'm receiving a dozen or more queries asking if I will accept agency submissions that have used generative AI in any way, every week. The answer is no...

...Fair point about Mister Blobby. And yeah, anything faery is basically like the Australian ecosystem: highly lethal and out to get you. But most people grew up with My Little Pony, so...

Another one here that appears not to have noticed fascist mobs across the country burning people out of their homes, setting fire to hotels, fighting with the police and dragging people out of their cars to beat them. Is there a particular reason that bothers him less than the riots in France?

@cstross.bsky.social. after the reading from The Regicide Report and Q&A session last week I dove into Halting State and Rule 34. They hold up remarkably well from 2007, especially with the recent Starlink and Meta incidents in the news. Thanks for pushing me past the Laundry Files.

Over on Mastodon I stumbled across a passing reference to sonic inflation porn and I had to DDG it and, just, you should learn from my horrible object lesson and Not Do That. Trust Me.

I just came across Orin S. Kerr's excellent (2012). A theory of law. Green Bag 2d, 16, 111. www.greenbag.org/v16n1/v16n1_... I am honestly surprised it has only been cited 13 times since publication. Every discipline needs a counterpart to this paper.

Watching a YouTube channel I like while munching lunch. I do like the presenter, but ye gods, he cannot pronounce Scottish place or family names. He just described famous 39 Steps author Buchan as "Bew-Kan". Yeesh. God help him if he has to pronounce Gaelic of Welsh names...

Winter is coming and Collapse OS aims to soften the blow. It is a Forth operating system with tools and documentation intended to preserve the ability to program microcontrollers through civilizational collapse. This project is as self-contained as possible … https://collapseos.org

What's actually going to fuck up Microsoft is the US' current enshittified federal government, which has caused many other nations across the world to decide to stop using US-based software and pursue their own (usually open-source-based) alternatives.

I wonder if George W. Bush's followers would have called the *Roman Empire* "cheese-eating surrender monkeys"?

New blog entry: Bizarre Blanets and Weird Worlds: www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...

"When I was a kid, nobody died of measles." Yes, because WE GAVE EVERYONE A VACCINE TO PREVENT DEATHS FROM MEASLES.

Anyone know how church attendance in Russia is going? Church closely tied to Putin of course