Sunfall by C J Cherryh

Sep. 2nd, 2025 06:31 am
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The ancient sun is cooling but human drama persists.


Sunfall by C J Cherryh

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Sep. 2nd, 2025 04:57 am
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Its surface is the most densely cratered in the Solar System -- but what's inside? Its surface is the most densely cratered in the Solar System -- but what's inside?


Bundle of Holding: Fragged Empire 2E

Sep. 1st, 2025 02:09 pm
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The 2024 revised edition of Fragged Empire: fifteen thousand years in the future, humanity has gone extinct, but eight engineered species rule the wonders that remain.

Bundle of Holding: Fragged Empire 2E

September 2025 Patreon Boost

Sep. 1st, 2025 01:36 pm
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Like Sisyphus' rock, September has returned!

September 2025 Patreon Boost
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archive - contact - sexy exciting merchandise - search - about
September 1st, 2025next

September 1st, 2025: Today I'm coming back from BCAF! If we met - AWESOME! If we didn't meet... well, I don't know who to blame here but it seems like there's an awful lot of it to go around. :0

– Ryan

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[personal profile] siderea
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1882100.html



0.

With all the eager discussion of the possibility of Trump dying in office, I am in the delicate and unfortunate position of not actually being in favor of it.

Don't get me wrong. I, too, would enjoy to seeing something very bad happen to Trump. What I'd best like is him getting his just deserts – ideally being arrested, indicted, tried, found guilty, sentenced, having appealed, the appeal failing, appealing again, having that appeal fail, petitioning the POTUS for clemency and it not being granted, him being duly executed by the state as the traitor to the Republic and the Constitution he was proven to be. I'm not generally a big fan of capital punishment, but I am in fact willing to make exceptions; he seems to think he's an exception to a lot of things, and here I would agree with him.

But that's not going to happen, not in this time-line, and it's probably for the best that it doesn't.

Perhaps he will simply keel over dead, and I confess I will take at least a little bitter satisfaction in it.

And it's certainly not that I don't wish us all to be spared even another moment of this Trump presidency. Of course I do.

Alas, as much as I hate to crush the pleasant fantasy of us being redeemed by the deus ex machina of artheriosclerosis finally doing its job and carrying off our oppressor: Vance is worse. Much, much worse.




1.

It's perhaps understandable that you would not realize this.... Read more [6,770 Words] )

This post brought to you by the 219 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.

Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Code deploy happening shortly

Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm
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[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Per the [site community profile] dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

Many Labor Day protests to choose

Aug. 31st, 2025 10:11 pm
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[personal profile] cvirtue

Many locations for the protests tomorrow: Monday Sept 1st. If you aren’t able to attend, observe by writing Congress and your state gov.

Clarke Award Finalists 2012

Aug. 31st, 2025 09:05 pm
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I will be too busy to post tomorrow.

2012: O2 offers free wifi to multitudes, which I only now realize may be have been referenced in Kingsman, researchers determine that despite a century having passed, the Titanic remains at the bottom of the Atlantic, and in a glorious celebration of the effectiveness of the modern British educational system, doctors warn Britons not to drink liquid nitrogen.

Poll #33559 Clarke Award Finalists 2012
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 47


Which 2012 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
0 (0.0%)

Embassytown by China Miéville
22 (46.8%)

Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
6 (12.8%)

Rule 34 by Charles Stross
34 (72.3%)

The Postmortal by Drew Magary
1 (2.1%)

The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper
7 (14.9%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.


Which 2012 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
Embassytown by China Miéville
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
Rule 34 by Charles Stross

The Postmortal by Drew Magary
The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper
denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

August 2025 in Review

Aug. 31st, 2025 09:31 am
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I didn't win any awards in August but I did review 22 more works. James Nicoll Reviews is now 34 reviews away from its 3000th review.

August 2025 in Review
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Marooned on a backwater planet, a down-on-his-luck actor sets out to transform his new home. Will he survive success?

Always the Black Knight by Lee Hoffman

Cats

Aug. 30th, 2025 09:39 am
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Poll #33552 I knew I forgot something
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 74


Cats?

View Answers

Cats!
51 (68.9%)

Cats!
45 (60.8%)

Cats!
53 (71.6%)

Cats!
52 (70.3%)

Cats!
53 (71.6%)

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
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Six works new to me. Three fantasy, three SF, four are series (at least in a sense) and the other two appear to be stand-alone. Lots of TTRPG material.

Books Received, August 23 — August 30

Poll #33551 Books Received, August 23 — August 30
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 31


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Victoriana by Alex Cahill et al (Q1 2026)
6 (19.4%)

Victoriana Menagerie by Alex Cahill et al (Q1 2026)
5 (16.1%)

The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu (April 2026)
23 (74.2%)

Ship of Spells by H. Leighton Dickson (November 2025)
10 (32.3%)

Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum, Voll Adventures by Lisa Farrell et al (Q1, 2026)
2 (6.5%)

Coriolis: The Great Dark by Kosta Kostulas et al (August 2025)
13 (41.9%)

This one will be [curr ev]

Aug. 30th, 2025 04:20 am
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[personal profile] siderea
Current rumors engulfing Bluesky have me recalling an old Communist-era Russian joke:

Every day, a man walks to a news stand and pays for a copy of Pravda, unfolds it, looks at the front page, and throws it in the trash. Every day he does this, for months, until finally the news seller asks the man, "So what is it you are looking for on the front page every day?"

"I'm checking for an obituary."

"Comrade, the obituaries aren't on the front page."

"Oh, this one will be."

Things I won't be buying

Aug. 29th, 2025 11:34 am
cvirtue: CV in front of museum (Default)
[personal profile] cvirtue

Nice, though. [image: image.png]

https://poshmark.com/listing/Vintage-Black-Blue-Gold-Beaded-Astrology-Vest-67fdc1b55919e04dd741f6b9

Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei

Aug. 29th, 2025 08:56 am
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Two sisters quest up a climate-change-and-blight ravaged coast and across the seas to find their missing sister.


Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei

Bundle of Holding: Hostile Hot Zones

Aug. 28th, 2025 09:08 am
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Recent supplements for the HOSTILE tabletop roleplaying game

Bundle of Holding: Hostile Hot Zones
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[personal profile] seawasp
A bit long, so it's hidden behind the cut.

Read more... )


Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Aug. 28th, 2025 08:58 am
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First contact on the lightless surface of an alien moon.

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky

strongly typed?

Aug. 28th, 2025 02:39 am
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[personal profile] fanf

https://dotat.at/@/2025-08-28-strongly-typed.html

What does it mean when someone writes that a programming language is "strongly typed"?

I've known for many years that "strongly typed" is a poorly-defined term. Recently I was prompted on Lobsters to explain why it's hard to understand what someone means when they use the phrase.

I came up with more than five meanings!

Read more... )

Close-up of pallu

Aug. 27th, 2025 07:48 am
cvirtue: CV in front of museum (Default)
[personal profile] cvirtue

One of my friends asked for a close-up of the fancy woven section of the new pocket vest that I made, so here it is.

During the design process, I sketched out different ways of cutting the saree up; I ultimately decided to split this pallu section in half, so that it would be symmetrical on either side of the front opening, but another version had the pallu all on one side with the plainer part of the saree on the other.

(no subject)

Aug. 27th, 2025 05:36 am
[syndicated profile] apod_feed

How soon do jets form when a supernova gives birth to a neutron star? How soon do jets form when a supernova gives birth to a neutron star?


Facets by Walter Jon Williams

Aug. 26th, 2025 08:50 am
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A collection of speculative fiction stories from Walter Jon WIlliams.

Facets by Walter Jon Williams

Retail Mocking

Aug. 26th, 2025 05:59 am
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[personal profile] cvirtue

When I take Grup-P to the stores, we often indulge in what we call Retail Mocking: ridiculous things for sale. This time some of the things we saw were merely interesting.

[image: image.png]

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