Monday, June 30, 2025

Ken Liu's collection "The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories" is $1.99 right now

at Amazon:
This mesmerizing collection features many of Ken’s award-winning and award-finalist stories, including: “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” (Finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards), “Mono No Aware” (Hugo Award winner), “The Waves” (Nebula Award finalist), “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species” (Nebula and Sturgeon Award finalists), “All the Flavors” (Nebula Award finalist), “The Litigation Master and the Monkey King” (Nebula Award finalist), and the most awarded story in the genre’s history, “The Paper Menagerie” (The only story to win the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards).
Also, "Creation Lake: A Novel" from my wishlist is $2.99 right now:
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE*
*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD*
*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 PEN FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION*
*AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*
*NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE ATLANTIC, VULTURE, VOGUE, THE WASHINGTON POST, KIRKUS REVIEWS, NPR, THE ECONOMIST, THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, VOX, and more*

From Rachel Kushner, two-time finalist for both the Booker Prize and National Book Award, a “vital” (The Washington Post) and “wickedly entertaining” (The Guardian) novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France—a propulsive page-turner filled with dark humor.

Solar Man of the Atom #7 was one of my favorite comics














Thanks for all the great memories, Jim Shooter.

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— Jim Zub (@jimzub.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 5:21 PM



Jim Shooter's treatment for The Transformers: the eight pages that started a legend. RIP Jim Shooter (1/2)

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— Simon Letch (@simonletch.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 6:32 PM

(2/2)

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— Simon Letch (@simonletch.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 6:32 PM





RIP King

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— peterquill47.bsky.social (@peterquill47.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 5:31 PM


Damaged box S.H.Figuarts movie Venom in stock

$22 off at EE.

New Humble Bundle featuring Cyberpunk, Warhammer, and G.I.Joe TTRPGs

and Dishonored, and Transformers, and lot more more properties.

Drones being used to deliver supplies and remove trash at Mount Everest

@bbcnews Mount Everest is often described as the world’s highest garbage dump. #MountEverest #Nepal #NepaleseArmy #Asia #SouthAsia #Rubbish #Waste #Drones #Technology #BBCNews ♬ original sound - BBC News


A longer write-up at CNN:
Airlift currently has two DJI drones, only one of which is being operated on Everest this year. The second one is a backup, and if there’s need for more drone flights, they’ll consider deploying both.

One challenge is money. Each drone costs $70,000, and that’s before they even begin operating.

“Everything is expensive at Base Camp,” Bikram said.

“Because there’s no electricity we need a lot of fuel to charge batteries.

Cosplay of the Stormtroopers from the Star Wars Visions episode Duel

More incredible cosplay from #SWCJ for #StormtrooperSaturday

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— kameraloosh (@kameraloosh.bsky.social) June 28, 2025 at 12:08 PM



Related, sexy Gonk:

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Silly Ghost in the Shell plate



(Related, some mildly spicy Kusanagi pinups.)

Lego Kaiju Hermit Crab with Tug Boat as a Shell

Friday, June 27, 2025

Footage from the flooding in Paris

@remybuisine Les parisiens et touristes sous les orages à Paris. #paris #orage ♬ original sound - ꨄ𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒚𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒆ꨄ


@vibes.on.stage Un orage à Paris#tempete #orage #bloqué #metro #pluie #paris #innondation #pourtoii #fyp #pourtoipage #pourtoi #foryou ♬ son original - ✨️


@blackcardclub Paris sous la pluie ☔️❤️ #paris #eiffeltower #rain ♬ son original - BLACK CARD CLUB ®️



Related, the aftermath of recent flooding in China:

Good poster for The Naked Gun

New video game Humble Bundle featuring virtual reality games

Variety of gaming, including bullet hells and city bulders.

The magazine is from 1984, but that's clearly Jonny "Zero Cool" Lee Miller

pirates and raiders: the computer-abuser subculture, article, imagery, k-power, magazine (1984) archive.org/details/k-po...

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— videogame history (@vghistory.bsky.social) June 13, 2025 at 12:10 AM


(The article is titled "Pirates and Raiders: The Computer-Abuse Subculture" from the February 1984 edition of K Power: The Magazine for the Computer Generation.")

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Replay of Faith Kipyegon's attempt to day to break the 4-minute mile (with Nike pulling out all the stops to help her)



The effort included developing a 3D printed sports bra using "FlyWeb":
some wearers reported being able to feel airflow on the chest for the first time while running, a sensation made possible by the garment’s open, breathable zones. “Most women have never experienced that while running,” she said. “We don’t even think about it because it’s just not something we’ve ever expected to feel.”

Alyssa Thompson's goal tonight

Alyssa Thompson. That is all. #USWNT

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— Our Game Magazine (@ourgamemagazine.bsky.social) June 26, 2025 at 7:39 PM


(On like four consecutive plays on the left side, she did something completely different yet successful.)

New graphic novel Humble Bundle

Big mix, including a collection of Twisted Tales by Simon Bisley and Kevin Eastman, The Art of Dracula by Ricardo Delgado, and check out this cover:

New and improved Marvel Legends Juggernaut up for preorder

At the BBTS.




Tomorrow at 1300 ET smash the preorder buttons for this Marvel Legends Juggernaut

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— Dan Yun (@danyun.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 6:41 AM

Charting the NBA Baddie Index (do NBA players perform better when trying to impress)

@nbaresdev

they are indeed affected by those baddies

♬ original sound - nbaresdev



Related:




Lots of jokes, but despite his dad being the NBA player, mom was the coach (and had murder in her eyes):

Never heard of Tiny Chef before, and wow, quite a video about the show's cancellation (infinitely better without sound)

@thetinychefshow

SOS Cheffers, please go to the link our bio to learn how you can help us keep Chef on social media. Tiny chefs cooking show has officially been cancelled (very unexpected) and without the support of a major network we need crowd funding to keep cookin’ over here. Yesh this es weal! We want to thank @nickelodeon for giving Chef two blamazing seasons and all the besties he made there. Chef wouldn’t want anyone to blame his friends over there, he’s just deeply sad he doesn’t get to continue hosting a show he adores. Please let cheffy know how much he means to you in the comments he’s really feelin this one.

♬ original sound - Thetinychefshow





They're crowdfunding and have a shop, and are probably kicking themselves for being sold out of figurines. There's a figure with storytelling feature at Amazon.

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

New video game Humble Bundle featuring "marquee mystery & thriller titles"

"Murders on the Yangtze River" has a 97% positive Steam score. One of the games is named "Song of Farca."

There's also a new bundle featuring the Mafia and Bioshock games.

Pablo Torre's latest podcast is a remarkable discussion about the NFL Player's Association seemingly sabotaging itself with ineptness and self-dealing

He and Mike Florio of PFT heard about a secret document that concerned possible collusion among NFL owners to prevent guaranteed contracts in the wake of Watson's deal. The two reporters understood why the NFL might want to keep the document secret, but why would the NFLPA? So they made a bet as to who could uncover it, and Torre won.

Compelling listening, and stay tuned til the end to hear which ESPN personality and former NFLPA president refused to comment.

Here's Florio's follow-up today discussing whether Justin Herbert might want to sue the league and the PA.

A May 2024 solar storm that disrupted GPS might have cost USA farmers more than $500 million

Space:

Location signals beamed to Earth by GPS satellites were off by hundreds of feet during the Gannon Solar Storm in May last year, and the disruption lasted for up to two days in some U.S. regions

...

The erratic behavior of GPS-guided farming machinery caused by the Gannon solar storm cost American farmers in the U.S. midwest more than $500 million, according to ... a professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University.

Related, saw this the other day, FWIW:


Fun fact, at Google I need fingers, plural, to count the times I am certain nondeterministic (often: cosmic ray) bit flips caused outages. I am sure there are many more, but we've proven it more than a few times.

— Elixir of Progress (@elucidating.bsky.social) June 20, 2025 at 7:28 AM

Pretty Lego Allied Tech Center from Command and Conquer

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Joyscrolling roundup

TIME FOR THE VERY RARE ACTIVITY: JOYSCROLLING

— Elise Schuenke (@troubledminnesotan.bsky.social) June 24, 2025 at 7:51 PM




"Hackers breach Norwegian dam, open valve at full capacity"

That's one of the stories from today's Risky Business newsletter about cyber security. (It caused no real problem before it was fixed, and it's unclear if the hackers even knew what they achieved.) (Just wanted to share the newsletter)

MAFEX T-1000 and Edward Furlong as John Connor figures up for preorder

Furlong is a two-pack with Arnold, T-1000 includes all sorts of cool options:




Also, the latest deluxe Star Wars creature statuette is Ephant Mon and also up for preorder.

New Humble Bundle features "hot and steamy" "romantassy" novels

Includes the Hades X Persephone Saga. There's also a separate collection of withcraft books, starting with three for $1.

Death Stranding 2 faux-wrap up group photo wallpaper



Direct link the high-res.

Love the design of this Sith starship

A while back I did my best to recreate it for Micro Machines, with the limitations of being three-dimensional and thick enough to be printed.

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— Mel Miniatures (@melminiatures.bsky.social) June 18, 2025 at 12:59 PM


From the Star Wars Visions short Screecher's Reach, which had a satisfying ending.

Monday, June 23, 2025

145 people allegedly stabbed with syringes at a nationwide street music festival in France



CNN reports the stabbings as fact, using the headline, "145 people pricked with syringes at France street music festival"

Ahead of the festival, feminist influencers .... warned that calls had been made on social media for women to be targeted with syringes.

The NYT suggests it might be mass psychosis triggered by the social media alerts:

the Paris prefect of police, said in an interview on the French news network CNews that the police were taking reports seriously, but also with caution. “This is not a new phenomenon,” he said. La Voix du Nord, a regional newspaper in the north of France, reported on Monday that one girl who said she had been stabbed with a needle appeared, after closer examination, to have been scratched.

...

[A founder of the Global Drug Survey] cautioned that some of the reports in France may have resulted from panic as news reports of the stabbings spread. “Until there is toxicological evidence, what the story might be is that a group of people pick up on something they heard had happened to someone else,” he said. “Because you feel a sharp prick does not mean you have been injected with a drug.”