The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers is not modern, but it is what inspired Lovecraft, and Chambers is a far better writer. It’s several short stories, is pretty accessible, and has some moderate critiques or observations on society that are still relevant.

Important caveats - it’s not all horror. Chambers was mostly a romance author who occasionally did horror and it shows near the end of the collection.

The beginning of the first story is pretty jarring to modern sensibilities, but Chambers was probably not a racist, and it was probably meant to be jarring even for readers of the day. It’s a story where you have to remember the author is not the narrator.

We’ve found a time traveller from ancient Greece…

Edit: sorry. I mean we’ve found a time traveller from ancient Mesopotamia.

Always has been.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_science

The prequels were better

Well, actually…

Whichever editor let them post “100 thousand” should be spanked one 100 times with the severed hand of whatever asshole wrote it in the first place.

Actual penises would probably be more normal…

Why is Medium conflating trolls and shills?

People who are paid propagandists are shills, not trolls.

Yeah but if they don’t show which is which I ask them to show too.

Almost everyone gets screw turning right, it just weeds out a few people who say the right things in emails.

I did actually make the mistake of asking just “which way do you turn a screw” once and the person had the sense to ask “to tighten or loosen it?”

I’ve just started doing practical interviews. I basically get really young people with little overall experience and I just want to know if they can do common technical tasks.

So one question is to literally have them explain how to tighten a bolt. One person failed.

It’s censeless.

The complaint the photographer is making is that it’s an actual photograph where a small portion is made or changed with AI.

They list expanding the edges of the image to change the aspect ratio, and removing flaws or unwanted objects etc.

Removing flaws and objects at least is a task that predates modern computers - people changed the actual negatives - and tools to do it have improved so much a computer can basically do it all for you.

I think people should just say how they modified the image - AI or not - since airbrushed skin, artificial slimming, and such have been common complaints before AI manipulation, and AI just makes those same problematic things easier.

Are they networked? Mine are somehow connected and the one that beeps doesn’t always seem to be the one that detected the issue.

Just Stop Oil targets culturally significant objects to highlight that the viewer’s outrage at direct attacks on those objects is greater than the viewer’s outrage at the same attacks against those objects by the creators of climate change.

If throwing washable paint on Stonehenge pisses you off, you should be even more angry at big oil for progressively destroying the entire planet. Any call for the arrest and immediate punishment of Just Stop Oil members should also match calls for the immediate punishment of big oil execs.

It’s juvenile, but it’s pointed.

Even if they did damage anything their message is that anyone getting mad about damaging works of art or heritage sites through direct action should be just as mad about people destroying the actual entire planet indirectly and calling for their immediate imprisonment too.

As annoying as I find them and as much as I want to preserve these things, they’re exactly right that paintings and rocks mean fuckall if we ruin our only home.

Humans still coexist with dinosaurs…

“worry that corporations will heel turn the moment it is no longer safe or profitable to pander to the queers.”

e.g. Target and Bud not bothering with their token Pride month efforts this year.

I’m going to argue that zero being even gives the evens an advantage.

“Kyle, all those times I called you a Jew, I didn’t mean it. You’re not a Jew.”