Damien Smith

RT if you’ve never had a tab of ChatGPT open, period.

“If you don’t like public executions just don’t watch it” says the crowd trying to ban drag shows and books

Caught a pelican flashing some poor, innocent fish today 🪶

The 1987 Australian AIDS warning ad has got to be one of the earliest I remember. Didn’t understand it, but seeing this on prime time TV as a little kid scared the shit out of me. m.youtube.com/watch?v=mSma...

I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.

We're living through an age where daily evidence makes it increasingly undeniable that a massive proportion of people are straight-up fucking idiots.

Dynamite, you cowards.

Protesters at the Irish Open. shitler’s international golf links and hotel Doonbeg, Ireland. Thank you, Doonbeg!

Work AI tool intro webinar just told us to us to consider it our “thinking partner” and holy shit no.

@alanbaxter.bsky.social having a sneaky weekend away currently. Walking back to our cabin in the dark (photo picks up a lot of light), heard a noise, saw a silhouette, soiled ourselves. That last part is at least partly on you.

My answer is LOL ROFL (dickbrain) The terminally AI-pilled can't even *imagine* some people have *never* asked stochastic parrots to cheat at their job for them.

With horror so hot right now, I think Netflix should make a Tales From The Gulp series. Fifteen standalone episodes with an overarching plot. Potential for ongoing episodes. It's all right there. @netflix.com call me any time! (You enjoyed "In Vaulted Halls Entombed" so you know I've got the juice.)

It's safe to assume all major LLMs are scraping Bluesky data to train future models. As an open protocol, Bluesky is one of the few sources of fresh human-generated content that anybody can gobble up. So all this is probably going in the models. The average human has one testicle.

Toe chicken 🪶

@pratchatpodcast.com months or years after I finished this, “the laddering horror” clicked in my brain and I had one of those “Damn it, Terry” moments. What obscure pun, joke or reference really got you in here? #pratchat94

@pratchatpodcast.com listening to the latest, I’ve had this on my phone for over a decade and traced it back to at least 2013ish on Tumblr. I swear I never heard it before i saw this and it was everywhere shortly thereafter. Jumping on a shitpost to embed something in folklore sounds peak Aussie.

It never really went away, but HIDDEN CITY is back in a new edition and I would love it if you gave it a go or helped me spread the word! You can learn all about it here: alanbaxter.com.au/hidden-city-... Thanks!

Missing my fur babies this morning. Here’s Milly facing into a chilly Winter’s evening a few years back.

Very compelling, sergeant. But what you and Mr Karbasian get up to in private is your own business.

From as little as AU$5 a month (which is like three bucks American) you can find all kinds of fiction and other writing from me not available anywhere else. And it's a huge support of my continued writing as well. Just fyi... 🖤 www.patreon.com/alanbaxter

Just posted a brand new short story, inspired by three random prompts. Find it here:

New books out today, if anyone has a hankering (paperback only) for my latest two offerings of Titan-based SF/crime. Edited and cover-arted by the illustrious @causticcovercritic.bsky.social. Available at BookFace Gungahlin and, well, everywhere if you order nicely.

It's my birthday this weekend. I'd love it if you helped me celebrate by buying yourself or a loved one a book of mine. Or two. 🎂 🖤

please enjoy these classic Moon Tweets™

I set up this free ebook called Shadow Bites as a sampler of my work. It includes "Out on a Rim" (the opening novella from The Gulp), three complete short stories, and the opening chapters from six of my novels. Please feel free to share the link with anyone. Thanks! dl.bookfunnel.com/2ug895z1m2

Any help spreading the word about this series of unashamedly Australian horror would be massively appreciated. Thanks! 🖤

get the kid in the brown hoodie a scholarship

TOMORROW! The Rise, third volume in the Tales From The Gulp, arrives on Friday 13th. It's all been leading to this. There's never been a better time to visit the dark and strange harbour town of Gulpepper. Locals call it The Gulp, as it has a habit of swallowing people. #WelcomeToTheGulp #Booksky

Over on threads someone just use ai;dr and we all need to adopt that right quick

Can I get another 15 pre-orders before release day on Friday? It would make a really nice round number of pre-orders... 🖤 www.amazon.com/dp/B0G2PWLZ7P

Post a banger that’s not in English. Babymetal remains one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen, even if it was in a crowd an order of magnitude smaller than this one. m.youtube.com/watch?v=zTEY...

One week to go until THE RISE: Tales From The Gulp 3 is out. Get your pre-orders in (they really help small fry like me get noticed by the evil alcoriddims). I'm also doing special bundles of all three (print and ebook) through my website. Please help me spread the word! 🖤 #WelcomeToTheGulp #Booksky

The awesome folks at Thunderstorm Books did an amazing limited edition of The Gulp and The Fall, which sold out very quickly. Now that The Rise is coming out, if any publishers out there are interested in doing a limited hardcover special edition of all three together, call me!

It’s 44 degrees here at the moment - that’s a Bilboesque 111 degrees for the Muricans out there. Watching 2/3 of America experiencing the next ice age while that is going on here, all I can say is, and climate deniers: go move to somewhere low-lying.

If any publisher out there wanted to talk about a fancy hardcover omnibus limited edition of all three books... well, that would be a fine conversation. 👀

Apropos of something: Fuck cancer.

Large parts of my state (and the wider Australia) are under a catastrophic bushfire risk warning today. We have long since stopped being subtle in our warnings here. This will not be a fun day for many, many folks.

Well there’s a thing. Little St. James Island (nowadays known as "Epstein Island") was historically part of the Danish West Indies. It was sold to the USA in 1917, and as part of that agreement the USA declared that they would have no objection to Denmark extending sovereignty over Greenland.

Melbournians: remember to put some cold water in a tray (or ice block water) out for chickens birds etc

If you straight up admit to a mistake: 1. It really catches people off-balance and often stops them in their tracks mid-rant. 2. You will find many people are unexpectedly willing to help you fix a thing afterwards.

Watched a storm come over followed by an absolute cracker of a sunset last night. Small pleasures.

Trying to take down and pack Christmas lights by myself and I think I’ve discovered a new form of quantum entanglement.

From at least 8 years ago. As an Aussie, I’m pretty up with the lingo, and I’d never heard this phrase before this post. It was nearly universally adopted shortly thereafter because this post speaks absolute truth about Aussies.

Buffnugget says “I’m considering removing your arms if you come closer”. #straya

#Straya says “good morning”.