I got Brandon Sanderson’s Way of Kings leather-bounds, which were definitely the most I’ve spent on a book, but my second place is more interesting.

I found a copy of a book called, Our Lost Explorers: the Jeannette Arctic Expedition, at a local used bookstore. Got it for $50, but I’ve seen it listed for way more online in similar condition. It’s the collected accounts of the crew of a ship lost in the Arctic, as well as everyone that went to look for them, and how the survivors eventually made it home (on foot). It was released in 1882, like, as it was all happening, the book is illustrated, and the cover is hand painted. My copy originally belonged to a school

Brandon Sanderson has lots of stand alone novels that are just as good, or better than the ones that are part of a series

I’m sure someone will loan you a copy 😉

That one became a meme, which I loved

“Show” as in gallery showing

Hosted at the Brooklyn Public Library, the exhibition takes a deep dive into the Moomin universe and the work of creator Tove Jansson.

YouTube continuing to advertise to children while claiming otherwise

This is the second, and more promising, time chemicals associated with life have been detected in the planet’s atmosphere by Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

I thought I’d remembered reading about this before. Sounds like just a couple more years, and they’ll be sure this gas is there, which is huge, but not totally conclusive.

Personally, I’d bet it’s life. A big rocky planet with an ocean of phytoplankton sounds like our best bet for finding it. The scientists in the article are trying really hard not to be excited

Yoooo!! Finally!!! I remember seeing the scars on a whale from their hooks as a kid, and being amazed that something like that could exist. Finding out no one had ever seen one alive devastated little 2nd grade me lol

The other people interviewed answer those questions if you keep reading

“It really weighed on the creativity of my role, and again, spat in the face of my expertise”, [Ricky says]. “It wasn’t just this though; the tool itself lacks the intent, context, and limitations of what we’re doing. It doesn’t have other aspects of the project, influences, references, or personal experiences in the back of its mind, because it doesn’t have a mind. Whenever we design something for a game, it’s drawn from somewhere, influenced by other things, and filtered through our own experiences as a human. These AI ideas lose ALL of that…"

“What follows from these discussions is me explaining why, usually over hours rather than minutes, that these tools have no place in a professional game development pipeline or production and actually hinder the development of visuals”, Francis says. “I also find myself explaining to them how the iteration and ‘idea’ phase of a project is where the best stuff happens, how exploring things through artistic labor is where your best ideas come to fruition, and why would we want an AI (that we don’t even own) to do that for us with art that isn’t ours to use?”

(Edited for formatting)

“I feel like we are nearing the end of times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves.”

-Hayao Miyazaki

Quite literally “defaced” though

If he’s not arguing to improve it, he’s arguing that it shouldn’t exist at all, which is worse.

We must move away from binary tales of catastrophe, not towards naive utopianism that ignores problems and risks that comes with change, but hopeful solutionism that reminds us we can solve and mitigate them…

I don’t like Black Mirror, but I would never say that there’s no place for it. It obviously resonated with a lot of people, and it was probably an entry into the genre for a lot of new sci-fi fans. Very ‘Old Man Yells At Cloud’

It definitely reads like a criticism of Black Mirror to me

Black Mirror fails to consistently explore the duality of technology and our reactions to it.

Absent is the plot twist of Pandora’s box that made it philosophically useful: the box also contained hope and opportunity that new knowledge brings.

Black Mirror didn’t fail to do those things, it wasn’t interested in them

I don’t like Black Mirror. I think it’s generally lazy and sensational. But what this person is saying is not a valid criticism, it’s like saying the Bee Movie would have been better if there had been an extended car chase. Louis doesn’t want to improve the show, they want something else entirely.

If you want a contemporary forward-thinking scifi, check out author Becky Chambers!

I work for an ISP, and this is a common practice among my peers

His “hair” is so unnatural it’s hydrophobic

I think the US have certainly shown that we are not a reliable ally, and for Ukraine specifically, I don’t think it would be unfair to say we’re straight up your enemy, now that our president is a Russian asset.

This, and all the other sites they’ve taken down, are meant to be freely accessible to everyone. This is what your taxes actually pay for. The government runs a massive research operation, and library, for everyone. This is a book burning.

We know that exposure to sexual content can have damaging effects on the consumer

We do? I certainly don’t believe that. There’s nothing inherently “damaging” about sex lol

… Meta’s security systems were unable to identify…

I think you mean incentivized to ignore