#san francisco writers conference

[transcendragon]

I’m at the San Francisco Writers Conference today, pitching for my novel “Mage By Blood”! I made stickers out of my art of scenes from the novel for the occasion. If you’re also at the conference, then let’s say hi!

[coreglia]

We Are The Authors

Of Our Lives “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.” Brené Brown The alarm goes off at exactly 6:30 am. Mercy me. It takes a minute to figure out where I am and how the hell to turn off that appalling noise.  After pushing every square…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

You were promised a jetpack by liars

TONIGHT (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

As a science fiction writer, I find it weird that some sf tropes – like space colonization – have become culture-war touchstones. You know, that whole "we were promised jetpacks" thing.

I confess, I never looked too hard at the practicalities of jetpacks, because they are so obviously either used as a visual shorthand (as in the Jetsons) or as a metaphor. Even a brief moment's serious consideration should make it clear why we wouldn't want the distracted, stoned, drunk, suicidal, homicidal maniacs who pilot their two-ton killbots through our residential streets at 75mph to be flying over our heads with a reservoir of high explosives strapped to their backs.

Jetpacks can make for interesting sf eyeball kicks or literary symbols, but I don't actually want to live in a world of jetpacks. I just want to read about them, and, of course, write about them:

https://reactormag.com/chicken-little/

I had blithely assumed that this was the principle reason we never got the jetpacks we were "promised." I mean, there kind of was a promise, right? I grew up seeing videos of rocketeers flying their jetpacks high above the heads of amazed crowds, at World's Fairs and Disneyland and big public spectacles. There was that scene in Thunderball where James Bond (the canonical Connery Bond, no less) makes an escape by jetpack. There was even a Gilligan's Island episode where the castaways find a jetpack and scheme to fly it all the way back to Hawai'i:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0588084/

Clearly, jetpacks were possible, but they didn't make any sense, so we decided not to use them, right?

Well, I was wrong. In a terrific new 99 Percent Invisible episode, Chris Berube tracks the history of all those jetpacks we saw on TV for decades, and reveals that they were all the same jetpack, flown by just one guy, who risked his life every time he went up in it:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/rocket-man/

The jetpack in question – technically a "rocket belt" – was built in the 1960s by Wendell Moore at the Bell Aircraft Corporation, with funding from the DoD. The Bell rocket belt used concentrated hydrogen peroxide as fuel, which burned at temperatures in excess of 1,000'. The rocket belt had a maximum flight time of just 21 seconds.

It was these limitations that disqualified the rocket belt from being used by anyone except stunt pilots with extremely high tolerances for danger. Any tactical advantage conferred on infantrymen by the power to soar over a battlefield for a whopping 21 seconds was totally obliterated by the fact that this infantryman would be encumbered by an extremely heavy, unwieldy and extremely explosive backpack, to say nothing of the high likelihood that rocketeers would plummet out of the sky after failing to track the split-second capacity of a jetpack.

And of course, the rocket belt wasn't going to be a civilian commuting option. If your commute can be accomplished in just 21 seconds of flight time, you should probably just walk, rather than strapping an inferno to your back and risking a lethal fall if you exceed a margin of error measured in just seconds.

Once you know about the jetpack's technical limitations, it's obvious why we never got jetpacks. So why did we expect them? Because we were promised them, and the promise was a lie.

Moore was a consummate showman, which is to say, a bullshitter. He was forever telling the press that his jetpacks would be on everyone's back in one to two years, and he got an impressionable young man, Bill Suitor, to stage showy public demonstrations of the rocket belt. If you ever saw a video of a brave rocketeer piloting a jetpack, it was almost certainly Suitor. Suitor was Connery's stunt-double in Thunderball, and it was he who flew the rocket belt around Sleeping Beauty castle.

Suitor's interview with Berube for the podcast is delightful. Suitor is a hilarious, profane old airman who led an extraordinary life and tells stories with expert timing, busting out great phrases like "a surprise is a fart with a lump in it."

But what's most striking about the tale of the Bell rocket belt is the shape of the deception that Moore and Bell pulled off. By conspicuously failing to mention the rocket belt's limitations, and by callously risking Suitor's life over and over again, they were able to create the impression that jetpacks were everywhere, and that they were trembling on the verge of widespread, popular adoption.

What's more, they played a double game: all the public enthusiasm they manufactured with their carefully stage-managed, canned demos was designed to help them win more defense contracts to keep their dream alive. Ultimately, Uncle Sucker declined to continue funding their boondoggle, and the demos petered out, and the "promise" of a jetpack was broken.

As I listened to the 99 Percent Invisible episode, I was struck by the familiarity of this shuck: this is exactly what the self-driving car bros did over the past decade to convince us all that the human driver was already obsolete. The playbook was nearly identical, right down to the shameless huckster insisting that "full self-driving is one to two years away" every year for a decade:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/23/23837598/tesla-elon-musk-self-driving-false-promises-land-of-the-giants

The Potemkin rocket belt was a calculated misdirection, as are the "full self-driving" demos that turn out to be routine, pre-programmed runs on carefully manicured closed tracks:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-autopilot-staged-engineer-says-company-faked-full-autopilot/

Practical rocketeering wasn't ever "just around the corner," because a flying, 21 second blast-furnace couldn't be refined into a practical transport. Making the tank bigger would not make this thing safer or easier to transport.

The jetpack showman hoped to cash out by tricking Uncle Sucker into handing him a fat military contract. Robo-car scammers used their conjurer's tricks to cash out to the public markets, taking Uber public on the promise of robo-taxis, even as Uber's self-driving program burned through $2.5b and produced a car with a half-mile mean time between fatal collisions, which the company had to pay someone else $400m to take the business off their hands:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

It's not just self-driving cars. Time and again, the incredibly impressive AI demos that the press credulously promotes turn out to be scams. The dancing robot on stage at the splashy event is literally a guy in a robot-suit:

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-ai-day-tesla-bot-is-just-a-guy-in-a-bodysuit-2021-8

The Hollywood-killing, AI-produced video prompting system is so cumbersome to use, and so severely limited, that it's arguably worse than useless:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/expectations-versus-reality/

The centuries' worth of progress the AI made in discovering new materials actually "discovered" a bunch of trivial variations on existing materials, as well as a huge swathe of materials that only exist at absolute zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

The AI grocery store where you just pick things up and put them in your shopping basket without using the checkout turns out to be a call-center full of low-waged Indian workers desperately squinting at videos of you, trying to figure out what you put in your bag:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/31/neural-interface-beta-tester/#tailfins

The discovery of these frauds somehow never precipitates disillusionment. Rather than getting angry with marketers for tricking them, reporters are ventriloquized into repeating the marketing claim that these aren't lies, they're premature truths. Sure, today these are faked, but once the product is refined, the fakery will no longer be required.

This must be the kinds of Magic Underpants Gnomery the credulous press engaged in during the jetpack days: "Sure, a 21-second rocket belt is totally useless for anything except wowing county fair yokels – but once they figure out how to fit an order of magnitude more high-explosive onto that guy's back, this thing will really take off!"

The AI version of this is that if we just keep throwing orders of magnitude more training data and compute at the stochastic parrot, it will eventually come to life and become our superintelligent, omnipotent techno-genie. In other words, if we just keep breeding these horses to run faster and faster, eventually one of our prize mares will give birth to a locomotive:

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

As a society, we have vested an alarming amount of power in the hands of tech billionaires who profess to be embittered science fiction fans who merely want to realize the "promises" of our Golden Age stfnal dreams. These bros insist that they can overcome both the technical hurdles and the absolutely insurmountable privation involved in space colonization:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

They have somehow mistaken Neal Stephenson's dystopian satirical "metaverse" for a roadmap:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/18/metaverse-means-pivot-to-video/

As Charlie Stross writes, it's not just that these weirdos can't tell the difference between imaginative parables about the future and predictions about the future – it's also that they keep mistaking dystopias for business plans:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tech-billionaires-need-to-stop-trying-to-make-the-science-fiction-they-grew-up-on-real/

Cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion. Please, I beg you, stop building the fucking torment nexus:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus

These techno-billionaires profess to be fulfilling a broken promise, but surely they know that the promises were made by liars – showmen using parlor tricks to sell the impossible. You were "promised a jetpack" in the same sense that table-rapping "spiritualists" promised you a conduit to talk with the dead, or that carny barkers promised you a girl that could turn into a gorilla:

https://milwaukeerecord.com/film/ape-girl-shes-alive-documentary-november-11-sugar-maple/

That's quite a supervillain origin story: "I was promised a jetpack, but then I grew up discovered that it was just a special effect. In revenge, I am promising you superintelligent AIs and self-driving cars, and these, too, are SFX."

In other words: "Die a disillusioned jetpack fan or live long enough to become the fraudster who cooked up the jetpack lie you despise."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/17/fake-it-until-you-dont-make-it/#twenty-one-seconds

[redgoldsparks]

I've got a few events upcoming next month! 

LUMACON- February 3 2024, 10am-4pm Petaluma Community Center, 320 N McDowell Blvd Petaluma, CA 94952. This event is free and open to the public!

PRIDE IN PANELS- February 18 2024, 12pm-5pm, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102. This is the first of a new annual queer comics event partly hosted and organized by publisher Silver Sprocket. In addition to the show day, there will be a queer comics reading at Silver Sprocket Friday February 16 from 7-9pm, and a showing of the documentary No Straight Lines at the at the Hormel LGBTQIA Center Reading Room in the SF Public Library’s Main Branch from 2-4:30pm. More info on those other events here. 

I'm also speaking at the SF Writer's Conference on February 17, but that event is extremely expensive. If you are going, find me and say hello!

I'm also going to be honored with an Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Bravery in Literature in a ceremony on February 17. The award ceremony will be held at the Fisher Center at Bard College in New York. I decided not to attend the ceremony in person, but when I saw the lineup of other authors being honored that evening, that decision was sorely tempted... Judy Blume, Laurie Halse Anderson, Mike Curato, Alex Gino, George M Johnson, and Jelani Memory will also receive awards. I wish I could meet all of them in person! If you want to attend, tickets are on sale now for the ceremony.

[gatheringbones]

[“February 1986: Fifty freshmen, three resident counselors, and one head counselor are jammed into the lounge that is the designated meeting space for our floor. The room is a cinderblock rectangle edged with low orange institutional furniture—not quite “couches.” We fifty are one “unit,” sort of like a “bunk” at summer camp except that we will share the same dorm floor for the whole academic year. Many faces are red and angry, or red and embarrassed, or red and passionate. The Northeast Gay and Lesbian Student Union Conference is coming to Brown soon, and our head counselor had approved our lounge as a sleepover place for conference attendees. Two stereotypical jocks, in khaki shorts and backward baseball caps, are on their feet and demanding that the H.C. acted inappropriately by doing so. They demand a vote.

One of us, by which I mean one of us five who are queer, stands up too, and points out that we didn’t take a vote on whether the Princeton Marching Band could be housed here, which they were. I don’t remember now if I was the one who said it, or Nils, or Ellen, or who. What I do remember is that although we were all out to each other prior to the crisis, we weren’t out to everyone else.

The jocks finally make their stand: they’re afraid of AIDS. They’ve grabbed on to this thing which is barely a buzzword to them, as some kind of long-awaited justification for all the homophobic shit they would have kicked up anyway. They are practically high-fiving each other for thinking of it, because, after all, what self-respecting, intelligent person would share a bathroom with “that”?

And one of us, Scott or me or someone, finally says that if they think that by keeping the NELGSU Conference out of the lounge they’re keeping themselves separated from gay people, they’re wrong. That if they think they don’t already share a bathroom with gay people, they’re wrong. And, by the way, that if they think gay people cause AIDS, they’re wrong. But the issue of AIDS seems minor compared to the fact that we have just outed ourselves to the group. We have declared “We are everywhere”—and here we are.

The result of the debate was a “visitor bathroom” policy (people agreed to mark their bathroom doors “okay” for visitors to use or not), and many lacrosse balls winged blindly down the hallways at us from unseen attackers—as if we couldn’t guess who’d thrown them. By the time the conference actually arrived, the furor had died down, and we had a very festive gay pride week. Openly gay Congressman Gerry Studds gave the keynote address, and I still remember the climax of his speech. He said that if the message of Harvey Milk to the previous generation had been “Come to San Francisco and be gay,” his message to the current generation was “Stay where you are and be gay.” It was the second “We are everywhere” for me, and one that convinced me I should stick with the Lesbian/Gay Student Alliance, even though I seemed to be the only bisexual on the campus (or the only one admitting it). Stay where you are and be yourself.

I picked “bisexual” as one label I didn’t vehemently resist, partly because I liked that the definition of it was so nebulous. I had to “invent” bisexuality, I felt, which fit nicely with my antilabel attitude. It was a word everyone knew, and yet I had no bisexual culture to read about or participate in, no bisexual role models—unless you counted the old celebrity chameleon David Bowie himself. That suited me fine.”]

cecelia tan, from picture this, from a woman like that: lesbian and bisexual writers tell their coming out stories, 2000

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … March 21

1804 – The Code Napoléon is introduced in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Monaco, maintaining the "hands-off" attitude of the government toward private, consensual sexual relations.

1901 – Gavin Arthur (d.1972) an astrologer and occultist, was born Chester Alan Arthur III, the grandson and namesake of the 21st President of the United States. He grew up in wealth, but did not pursue a career in the professions, choosing instead to join the Merchant Marines. He later panned for gold and sold newspapers.

In the 1930s he travelled widely and came to know many of the counterculture elite of his day. Among his acquaintances were pioneer sexologists Edward Carpenter, Havelock Ellis and Alfred Kinsey. He was unashamedly gay and a forerunner of gay activism. He helped Kinsey with his groundbreaking research into male sexuality.

In the 1950s he settled in San Francisco and devoted his time to astrology. He began to move in the alternative spirituality and sexuality community that first became known for its identification with beat Zen, and he became well-known as an astrological counsellor. He began to develop a perspective on astrology that, contrary to the mainstream of astrological writing, took account of homosexual and bisexual gender preferences. His ruminations culminated in 1966 with his major writing, The Circle of Sex.

Drawing on his reading of gay writers, Arthur concluded that sexuality needs to be separated from the single need to procreate.

1903 – Vadim Kozin (d.1994) was a Russian tenor, and an openly homosexual man until 1934 when male homosexuality became a crime in USSR.

Vadim Alekseyevich Kozin was born the son of a merchant in Saint Petersburg. His mother was a gypsy and often sang in the local gypsy choir. Their house was frequently full of musicians, exposing Vadim to tradition from an early age.

He began to sing professionally in the 1920s, and gained success almost immediately. In the 1930s he moved to Moscow and began playing with the accompanist David Ashkenazi.

During World War II he served in the entertainment brigade and sang for Soviet troops.

In 1944, shortly before the birthday of Josef Stalin, the police chief Lavrenty Beria called him up and asked why his songs didn't involve Stalin. Kozin famously replied that songs about Stalin were not suited for tenor voices. In late 1944, Kozin was sentenced to five years in jail as part of the repression campaign against prominent Soviet performers and was sent to the Magadan labour camps because of his alleged homosexuality.

He was initially released in 1950 and was able to return to his singing career. Though released once again several years later, he was never officially rehabilitated and remained in exile in Magadan until his death. Speaking to journalists in 1982, he explained how he had been forced to tour the Kolyma camps: "The Politburo formed brigades which would, under surveillance, go on tours of the concentration camps and perform for the prisoners and the guards, including those of the highest rank."

In 1993, being interviewed by Theo Uittenbogaard in the TV documentary Gold – Lost in Siberia, he recalled how he was released from exile temporarily and flown into Yalta for a few hours, because Winston Churchill, unaware of Kozin's forced exile, had asked Stalin for the famous singer Vadim Kozin to perform, during a break in the Yalta Conference, held February 4–11, 1945.

His prison sentence deeply traumatized Kozin, leading to the cessation of his singing career. He even began burning his own records, to the point where his friends were forced to hide their own copies from him in order to preserve them. The Soviet government never officially rehabilitated him and his 90th birthday was celebrated in private among friends in Magadan. He died at the age of 91 in 1994.

1961 – Greg Herren is an American writer and editor, who publishes work in a variety of genres, including mystery novels, young adult literature and erotica. He publishes work both as Greg Herren and under the pseudonym Todd Gregory.

New Orleans-based writer and journalist, Greg Herren has written extensively about the homosexual lifestyle, both in fiction and nonfiction. His work has appeared in a variety of periodicals and anthologies, and his fiction includes an array of horror stories and mysteries, all featuring homosexual characters.

His novel Murder in the Rue Chartres won a Lambda Literary Award in the Gay Mystery category at the 2008 Lambda Literary Awards, and his anthology Love, Bourbon Street: Reflections of New Orleans, co-edited with Paul J. Willis, won in the anthologies category at the 2007 Lambda Literary Awards.

He was also nominated in the mystery category in 2003 for Murder in the Rue Dauphine, in 2004 for Bourbon Street Blues, in 2005 for Jackson Square Jazz, in 2007 for Mardi Gras Mambo, in 2010 for Murder in the Garden District and in 2011 for Vieux Carré Voodoo, in the anthologies category in 2005 for Shadows of the Night: Queer Tales of the Uncanny and Unusual and in the science fiction, fantasy and horror category in 2013 for the anthology Night Shadows: Queer Horror, co-edited with J.M. Redmann. As Todd Gregory, he was also nominated in the Gay Erotica category in 2010 for the anthology Rough Trade: Dangerous Gay Erotica and in 2013 for the anthology Raising Hell: Demonic Gay Erotica.

Openly gay, Herren lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he also works as an HIV/AIDS counselor and educator. He was also a co-founder of the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival.

While not erotic, Herren's mystery novels feature homosexual characters and cater to that audience. His choices have proven controversial on occasion. In 2005, he was invited to speak to the Gay-Straight Alliance at Manchester High School in Chesterfield County, Virginia. However, the superintendent and the school board later canceled his appearance under pressure from the Virginia Family Policy Network, which had organized an e-mail campaign claiming that Herren wrote gay pornography and would not be an appropriate speaker. Herren commented that only a small portion of his writing has erotic overtones, and that, regardless, he hadn't planned to discuss his sexual orientation during his presentation. He said: "I was planning on talking about being a professional writer.… I was not planning on talking about sex." and was defended by the American Civil Liberties Union.

1962 – South African activist Zackie Achmat has been a pivotal figure in his country's response to AIDS. His refusal, from 1999 to 2003, to avail himself of anti-retroviral drugs until they became affordable for the poor brought him recognition from health and human rights advocates worldwide.

In a 1995 autobiographical essay, provocatively entitled "My Childhood as an Adult Molester," he describes the conditions of life for South Africa's "coloureds" during the apartheid era, when he suffered discrimination and poverty. Although of Malaysian extraction, he identified with the country's black population, who were subject to even worse treatment.

The essay also offers a rare portrait of gay male life in the colored community. By age ten, Achmat was aware of his homosexuality. An eager reader, he received a special pass to use a town library ordinarily reserved for whites. However, its restrooms were still off limits. While seeking available facilities, he discovered restroom sex with adult men and took up the life of a "moffie," South African slang for a gay man.

Achmat's political activism began with the 1976 student uprisings against apartheid. He organized youth resistance groups for the African National Congress (ANC) while it was still banned, and he was jailed several times.

In the 1990s apartheid was repealed. The ANC came to power under the charismatic leadership of Nelson Mandela in 1994. Achmat was one of the founders of the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality in 1994, which advocated for gay rights in the new constitution. In 1996 South Africa became the first nation to include protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in its Bill of Rights. In 1998 all remaining local sodomy laws were declared unconstitutional.

Achmat co-founded the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in 1998 to address the AIDS epidemic. South Africa then had the highest number of AIDS cases in the world, a figure that would eventually grow to over 5 million. To put a human face on the crisis, Achmat publicly announced his own HIV-positive status and vowed not to take anti-retroviral drugs until they were available to all South Africans. As he later told his group, "The majority of people with HIV—they don't have a face, they don't have a political understanding. They're desperate, they're poor, they're alone . . . I can't look them in the eye when I take medicines and I know they're going to die."

Enduring frequent bouts of illness, Achmat spearheaded TAC's civil disobedience campaign to force the government to promote the use of ARVs. TAC and other groups sued the government to provide Nevirapine to curb mother-to-newborn transmission of HIV. TAC won the support of former president Mandela, who met with Achmat and declared him a national hero.

In August 2003, anticipating a victory, Achmat resumed treatment in time to reverse his declining health. In November, South Africa's Ministry of Health finally agreed to a government-funded program to provide ARVs on a wide scale. Although there have been other obstacles to effective treatment for HIV infection in South Africa, TAC has made steady progress

On 5 January 2008, Achmat married his same-sex partner and fellow activist Dalli Weyers at a ceremony in the Cape Town suburb of Lakeside. The ceremony was attended by then Mayor Helen Zille and presided over by Supreme Court of Appeal judge Edwin Cameron. The couple divorced amicably in June 2011

1967 – Philippe Honoré is a French violinist who has been a regular recitalist in France and the United Kingdom. He was appointed Violin Professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London September 2012. He has performed widely in broadcast recitals on French radio and television.

Philippe Honoré divides his busy schedule between solo work, chamber music, as well as leading orchestras. He was a principal player with the Philharmonia Orchestra (from 2005 to 2011). After having received top honours from the Paris Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Music in London, he was made Lauréat of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation of France in 1992. He was awarded an Honorary Associateship by the Royal Academy of Music in 2001.

Honoré is a former member of the Vellinger Quartet and a founder member of the Mobius ensemble. As such, he has appeared in some of the most prestigious venues abroad (such as Amsterdam's Concertgebouw) and in the UK (such as the Wigmore Hall and the South Bank in London). He has appeared as a soloist performing Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi concerti, as well as Ravel's Tzigane.

Philippe regularly appears as guest leader with some of the UK's best orchestras. He has made numerous solo and chamber music recordings. His solo violin performances on the Decca album An Equal Music are regularly featured on both Classic FM and Radio 3. The novel of that name by the author Vikram Seth was inspired by and dedicated to him. Vikram Seth and he were at one time lovers in a ten-year relationship.

Philippe's collaboration with the composer Alec Roth over a recent four-year project earned him great critical acclaim. The performances took place at the Salisbury, Chelsea, and The Lichfield Festival. BBC Radio 3 recorded and broadcast these annual concerts, in which, in addition to the world premières of Roth's work, Philippe also played solo Bach and Ysaÿe sonatas. The Times described his account of Roth's solo work in 2007 as “magically played”. A studio recording of Alec Roth's Ponticelli for solo violin, played by Philippe, was released by Signum records in November 2011.

1981 – Brandon Scott Sessoms, best known as B. Scott, born in Franklin, Virginia, is an American television personality, radio show host and internet celebrity who is known for his YouTube videoblogs and website LoveBScott.com. He is also a contributing editor to The Glam Network, and an Ebony Magazine advice columnist.

Scott, who is a gender non-conforming androsexual, has become a popular internet personality through his video blogging and his website, LoveBScott.com. Scott's internet presence has contributed to his ability to interview celebrities such as Mariah Carey, Ne-Yo, Chaka Khan, Aubrey O'Day and Ashanti. Following his Internet-based success, he has appeared in mainstream media, making appearances on The Tyra Banks Show, and shows on Oxygen and BET.

Scott was born to parents of African-American, Irish, Jewish and Meherrin ancestry. As a teenager Scott was selected to attend the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM), a two-year public residential high school.

After graduating from NCSSM in 1999, he attended University of North Carolina and came out as gay and transgender in his sophomore year. He said in a video blog that he had feelings and was questioning previously but when he was a sophomore pre-med, he got his first romantic kiss from a man and realized he was attracted to men, and that he was using the intense pre-med education to distract himself from his sexuality. He stopped efforts to become a physician from the realization that it was a self-invented distraction. Scott graduated in 2002 with a B.A. in Psychology

Scott moved to Washington, DC where he briefly practiced as a licensed realtor in the Capitol Hill area. In June 2005, Scott moved to Los Angeles, California where he continued his work in real estate and as an interior designer. It was during this time that he began his interest in the entertainment industry, while briefly working in print ads as a fashion model.

On January 1, 2007, Scott launched LoveBScott.com which primarily focuses on pop culture: celebrity news, fashion, music, nightlife, and miscellaneous entertainment. The name lovebscott.com was selected in an effort to give his website a readily-identifiable personality with the mission of conveying a positive outlook.

In May 2007, B. Scott started incorporating YouTube videos into his website to personally connect with readers. The videos include personal observations, celebrity news, musical performances, political commentary, interviews and messages of encouragement to the audience. The videos are produced out of his Los Angeles residence. His YouTube channel has over 90,000 subscribers, and has won numerous awards for viewership and subscriptions

1987 – Finland: Pekka Haavisto the first openly gay member of Finnish parliament, takes office. He is a Finnish politician and minister representing the Green League. He returned to the Finnish Parliament in the Finnish parliamentary election of March 2007 after an absence of 12 years and was re-elected again in 2011. In October 2013 he was appointed as the Minister for International Development after Heidi Hautala resigned from the job. He has also been a member of the Helsinki City Council.

2018 – San Francisco renames Terminal 1 at the San Francisco International Airport after slain LGBT supervisor Harvey Milk and installs artwork memorializing the civil rights icon. The name change was first introduced in 2013 by then-Supervisor David Campos who had initially hoped to name the entire airport after Milk but the proposal met with opposition. Instead, an airport naming committee was established, which recently recommended naming SFO’s Terminal 1 after Milk.

[covenofthearticulate]

fic asks! 🥹💖

41. Link a fic that made you think, “Wow, I want to write like that.”

49. What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!

Questions for Fic Writers

41. Link a fic that made you think, “Wow, I want to write like that.”

Okay I really hope this doesn't come off as arrogant but I don't think I've ever really had the thought I want to write like that with someone else's writing. Like my favorite thing about fanfiction is that everyone has their own distinct Flavor and Voice in their writing, so like even with fics that I really admire, I feel like the things that I always admire come down to personal style, and that's not necessarily something I want to emulate because I know I have my own strengths and my own voice that's unique to my writing!

But ANYWAY one fic that I think about a lot is Angle of Incidence by the one and only @apoptoses like idk I think the one of the things that really stood out to me is the steady build of tension. For me, whenever I write smut, I tend to start right in the middle of things, or even towards the end, just minutes before the whole thing is done. This is partially because I like to just drop readers straight into the intensity of it to sort of add to the overwhelming feeling, but it's also because I personally really struggle with imagining what sort of negotiations take place at the start of a scene, and how that can even change as the scene goes on. And like, with this fic in particular I think it's really delicate and just perfectly done because clearly Daniel is uncomfortable from the get-go, clearly he's expecting his boundaries to be pushed, but then Armand finds different ways to humiliate him and by the time we get from Point A to Point B it just feels like a natural progression, so idk I just love the way everything escalates so effortlessly!

49. What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!

Valentine's Day Fic that I'm working desperately to try and finish in time!! A good old Louis and Daniel friend date!!!

“They’re goddamn awful this season,” Daniel ends up commenting.

“Absolutely awful,” Louis agrees. “If they lose this I’m going to have to switch teams. Perhaps I’ll support the Celtics.”

“What!” Daniel shouts, and garners a few looks from the table next to them. “You can’t do that, that’s not a thing!”

“And why not?” The question is genuine. Louis stares at him with that strange expression that is somehow tender and incredulous all at once. “They’ve lost me enough money with all the turnovers, why shouldn’t I look into a team that is doing better?”

“Because that’s your team! The Warriors are— they’re our team! Golden state! They live where you live, they represent your home town, they’re the reason we’re at the only damn bar this side of the appalachians that won’t kick our ass for watching West Coast conference, they’re your team.”

There’s a smile growing on Louis’ face the longer Daniel rambles on. It’s that same smile he’s seen before, a charming sort of amusement that seems genuine and so completely disarming.

“But I no longer live in San Francisco, you see. I cannot claim it as my home town.” He shrugs. 

“Yeah, but you lived there for…how long? Ten years? Twenty years?”

“About that long, yes.”

“And you follow them over New Orleans? Why?”

“Because,” his smile twists into something wry. “The Pelicans…as Benji so eloquently phrased it, they suck shit.”

[sporadicarbitergardener]

1928-2014

By Dr. Kelly A. Spring | 2017; Updated December 2021 by Mariana Brandman, NWHM Predoctoral Fellow in Women’s History, 2020-2022

Poet, dancer, singer, activist, and scholar Maya Angelou was a world-famous author. She was best known for her unique and pioneering autobiographical writing style.

On April 4, 1928, Marguerite Ann Johnson, known to the world as Maya Angelou, was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Due to her parents’ tumultuous marriage and subsequent divorce, Angelou went to live with her paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas at an early age. Her older brother, Bailey, gave Angelou her nickname “Maya.”

Returning to her mother’s care briefly at the age of seven, Angelou was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. He was later jailed and then killed when released from jail. Believing that her confession of the trauma had a hand in the man’s death, Angelou became mute for six years. During her mutism and into her teens, she again lived with her grandmother in Arkansas.

Angelou’s interest in the written word and the English language was evident from an early age. Throughout her childhood, she wrote essays, poetry, and kept a journal. When she returned to Arkansas, she took an interest in poetry and memorized works by Shakespeare and Poe.

Prior to the start of World War II, Angelou moved back in with her mother, who at this time was living in Oakland, California. She attended George Washington High School and took dance and drama courses at the California Labor School.

When war broke out, Angelou applied to join the Women’s Army Corps. However, her application was rejected because of her involvement in the California Labor School, which was said to have Communist ties. Determined to gain employment, despite being only 15 years old, she decided to apply for the position of a streetcar conductor. Many men had left their jobs to join the services, enabling women to fill them. However, Angelou was barred from applying at first because of her race. But she was undeterred. Every day for three weeks, she requested a job application, but was denied. Finally, the company relented and handed her an application. Because she was under the legal working age, she wrote that she was 19. She was accepted for the position and became the first African American woman to work as a streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Angelou was employed for a semester but then decided to return to school. She graduated from Mission High School in the summer of 1944 and soon after gave birth to her only child, Clyde Bailey (Guy) Johnson.

After graduation, Angelou undertook a series of odd jobs to support herself and her son. In 1949, she married Tosh Angelos, an electrician in the US Navy. She adopted a form of his surname and kept it throughout her life, though the marriage ended in divorce in 1952.

Angelou was also noted for her talents as a singer and dancer, particularly in the calypso and cabaret styles. In the 1950s, she performed professionally in the US, Europe, and northern Africa, and sold albums of her recordings.

In 1950, African American writers in New York City formed the Harlem Writers Guild to nurture and support the publication of Black authors. Angelou joined the Guild in 1959. She also became active in the Civil Rights Movement and served as the northern coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a prominent African American advocacy organization

In 1969, Angelou published I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, an autobiography of her early life. Her tale of personal strength amid childhood trauma and racism resonated with readers and was nominated for the National Book Award. Many schools sought to ban the book for its frank depiction of sexual abuse, but it is credited with helping other abuse survivors tell their stories. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has been translated into numerous languages and has sold over a million copies worldwide. Angelou eventually published six more autobiographies, culminating in 2013’s Mom & Me & Mom.  

She wrote numerous poetry volumes, such as the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Just Give me a Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (1971), as well as several essay collections. She also recorded spoken albums of her poetry, including “On the Pulse of the Morning,” for which she won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album. The poem was originally written for and delivered at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993. She also won a Grammy in 1995, and again in 2002, for her spoken albums of poetry.

Angelou carried out a wide variety of activities on stage and screen as a writer, actor, director, and producer. In 1972, she became the first African American woman to have her screen play turned into a film with the production of Georgia, Georgia. Angelou earned a Tony nomination in 1973 for her supporting role in Jerome Kitty’s play Look Away, and portrayed Kunta Kinte’s grandmother in the television miniseries Roots in 1977.

She was recognized by many organizations both nationally and internationally for her contributions to literature. In 1981, Wake Forest University offered Angelou the Reynolds Professorship of American Studies. President Clinton awarded Angelou the National Medal of Arts in 2000. In 2012, she was a member of the inaugural class inducted into the Wake Forest University Writers Hall of Fame. The following year, she received the National Book Foundation’s Literarian Award for outstanding service to the American literary community. Angelou also gave many commencement speeches and was awarded more than 30 honorary degrees in her lifetime.

Angelou died on May 28, 2014. Several memorials were held in her honor, including ones at Wake Forest University and Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. To honor her legacy, the US Postal Service issued a stamp with her likeness on it in 2015. (The US Postal Service mistakenly included a quote on the stamp that has long been associated with Angelou but was actually first written by Joan Walsh Anglund.) 

In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded Angelou the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. It was a fitting recognition for Angelou’s remarkable and inspiring career in the arts.

This woman was a woman of rape, abuse , and even a victim of racism. She stayed writing in her life as life went on and she did not ask other people to suffer either was well she was a woman of many gift. A big wake up for womens rights and also a good reflection on what is wrong with today's society. People use religion, marriage, laws and even age to determine what is and isn't rape and that is the sick culture all women have to endure. It is never a woman's fault. It happened to me recently and now I am diving back into my music arts. Even research as well . Getting different domains for different topics as well while putting my story out there . It is scary to put it out there because there are so many different things that make writing scary/

[whimsicaldragonette]

Blog Tour: Lavash at First Sight by Taleen Voskuni

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Publication Date: May 7, 2024

Welcome to the Lavash at First Sight Blog Tour with Berkley Publishing Group. (This Blog Tour post is also posted on my Wordpress book blog Whimsical Dragonette.)

Synopsis:

Sparks fly between two women pitted against each other in this delectable new romantic comedy by Taleen Voskuni, author of Sorry, Bro . Twenty-seven-year-old Nazeli “Ellie” Gregorian enjoys the prestige of her tech marketing job but is sick of the condescending Patagonia-clad tech bros, her micromanaging boss, and her ex-boyfriend, who she’s forced to work with every day. When Ellie’s lovingly overbearing parents ask her to attend PakCon—a food packaging conference in Chicago—to help promote their company and vie to win an ad slot in the Superbowl (no big deal), she’s eager for a brief change and a delicious distraction. At the conference, she meets witty, devil-may-care Vanya Simonian. Ellie can’t believe how easy it is to talk to Vanya and how much they have in common—both Armenian! From the Bay Area! Whose families are into food! Their meet-cute is cut short, however, when Ellie’s parents recognize Vanya as the daughter of the owners of their greatest rival, whose mission (according to Ellie’s mother) is to whitewash and package Armenian food for the American health-food crowd.   Sworn as enemies, Ellie and Vanya must compete against each other under their suspicious parents' scrutiny, all while their feelings for each other heat to sizzling temps.

About the Author:

Taleen Voskuni is an award-winning writer who grew up in the Bay Area Armenian diaspora. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in English and currently lives in San Francisco, working in tech. Other than a newfound obsession with writing rom-coms, she spends her free time cultivating her kids, her garden, and her dark chocolate addiction. Her first novel, Sorry, Bro, received starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist, was named an Amazon editor's pick, and was favorably reviewed in The New York Times. Sorry, Bro is also winner of the 2023 Golden Poppy award for best romance. Lavash at First Sight is her second published novel.

My Rating: ★★★★★

My Review:

This was really cute. There was definitely instalove, or like, 'I just met you but you're perfect for me', but it was balanced with 'buuuuuut our families hate each other so I guess we have to sneak around' which is a dynamic that I really enjoy. Nazeli was so committed to her life in the tech world that she didn't see how unhappy it was making her and how it was constraining her. The weekend with her parents at the food convention, and with Vanya, opened her eyes to possibilities she hadn't considered. It was such a joy to watch her blossom and start to realize what horrible, horrible people her coworkers were. The family feud was absolutely hilarious and I found myself grinning as I read most of the book. I also flew through it in one day because I was so into it I couldn't stop. I also really love that as much as it finally ended up bringing the two families together, it brought Nazeli closer to her parents so they could finally appreciate each other and what each had to offer. I loved all of the Armenian Lebanese foods - they sounded absolutely delicious - and phrases and bits of culture that the author brought into this book. It really gave it that extra something that made it so much more engaging than your standard family feud book. Even the way Nazeli and Vanya's parents spoke and treated their daughters felt very authentic to immigrants to the US. I love when an author includes a different culture *and clearly knows what they're talking about.* The culture really permeates this book and you can't separate it out. I also love the way Taleen Voskuni wrote about San Francisco and Tech culture (which I am somewhat familiar with, and it was definitely recognizable) and also the way she wrote about Chicago. It made me want to explore Chicago when I'd previously had no desire to do so. I would absolutely read more about Nazeli and Vanya and their romance and their adventures with their families. I've had Sorry Bro on hold at my library for a while now - I actually hadn't realized this was written by the same author - so I'm excited to dive into that one now. *Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for providing an early copy for review.

[radical-revolution]

In 1997, while attending a conference in San Francisco called Peacemaking: The Power of Nonviolence, I walked by the writer Alice Walker, who was having an informal conversation with a group of people. I overheard her say, “As I get older, I realize that the thing I value the most is good-heartedness.” Her comment was my big takeaway from that conference.

I often just sit and reflect on that comment. To explore good-heartedness as the thread of meaning in one’s life means examining if we can be strong and still be kind, be smart and still be generous. It means exploring whether we can be profoundly compassionate to ourselves and at the same time intensely dedicated to compassion for those around us. To place goodness as central in our hearts can also mean being something of a rebel. What you feel gives your life more of a direction and meaning can be seen by others as a little mawkish or pretentious. Do we trust it nonetheless?

Can you give voice to your deepest aspiration?

Take some time to look at it, maybe gently expand it as you explore it. Take some time to celebrate that aspiration. It can light up your life.

—Sharon Salzberg, Excerpt from RealLifeBook

[mostlysignssomeportents]

It’s been twenty years since my Microsoft DRM talk

On THURSDAY (June 20) I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. On FRIDAY (June 21) I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On SATURDAY (June 22) I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel and a keynote at the LOCUS AWARDS.

This week on my podcast,This week on my podcast, I read my June 17, 2004 Microsoft Research speech about DRM, a talk that went viral two decades ago, and reassess its legacy:

https://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt

It's been 20 years (and one day) since I gave that talk. It wasn't my first talk like that, but at the time, it was the most successful talk I'd ever given. I was still learning how to deliver a talk at the time, tinkering with different prose and delivery styles (to my eye, there's a lot of Bruce Sterling in that one, something that's still true today).

I learned to give talks by attending sf conventions and watching keynotes and panel presentations and taking mental notes. I was especially impressed with the oratory style of Harlan Ellison, whom I heard speak on numerous occasions, and by Judith Merril, who was a wonderful mentor to me and many other writers:

https://locusmag.com/2021/09/cory-doctorow-breaking-in/

I was also influenced by the speakers I'd heard at the many political rallies I'd attended and helped organize; from the speakers at the annual Labour Day parade to the anti-nuclear proliferation and pro-abortion rights marches I was very involved with. I also have vivid memories of the speeches that Helen Caldicott gave in Toronto when I was growing up, where I volunteered as an usher:

https://www.helencaldicott.com/

When I helped found a dotcom startup in the late 1990s, my partners and I decided that I'd do the onstage talking; we paid for a couple hours of speaker training from an expensive consultant in San Francisco. The only thing I remember from that session was the advice to look into the audience as much as possible, rather than reading from notes with my head down. Good advice, but kinda obvious.

The impetus for that training was my onstage presentation at the first O'Reilly P2P conference in 2001. I don't quite remember what I said there, but I remember that it made an impression on Tim O'Reilly, which meant a lot to me then (and now):

https://www.oreilly.com/pub/pr/844

I don't remember who invited me to give the talk at Microsoft Research that day, but I think it was probably Marc Smith, who was researching social media at the time by data-mining Usenet archives to understand social graphs. I think I timed the gig so that I could kill three birds with one stone: in addition to that talk, I attended (and maybe spoke at?) that year's Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, and attended an early preview of the soon-to-launch Sci Fi Museum (now the Museum of Pop Culture). I got to meet Nichelle Nichols (and promptly embarrassed myself by getting tongue-tied and telling her how much I loved the vocals she did on her recording of the Star Wars theme, something I'm still hot around the ears over, though she was a pro and gently corrected me, "I think you mean Star *Trek"):

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=4IiJUQSsxNw&list=OLAK5uy_lHUn58fbpceC3PrK2Xu9smBNBjR_-mAHQ

But the start of that trip was the talk at Microsoft Research; I'd been on the Microsoft campus before. That startup I did? Microsoft tried to buy us, which prompted our asshole VCs to cram the founders and steal our equity, which created so much acrimony that the Microsoft deal fell through. I was pretty bitter at the time, but in retrospect, I really dodged a bullet – for one thing, the deal involved my going to work for Microsoft as a DRM evangelist. I mean, talk about the road not taken!

This was my first time back at Microsoft as an EFF employee. There was some pre-show meet-and-greet-type stuff, and then I was shown into a packed conference room where I gave my talk and had a lively (and generally friendly) Q&A. MSR was – and is – the woolier side of Microsoft, where all kinds of interesting people did all kinds of great research.

Indeed, almost every Microsoft employee I've ever met was a good and talented person doing the best work they could. The fact that Microsoft produces such a consistent stream of garbage products and crooked business practices is an important testament to the way that a rotten organization can be so much less than the sum of its parts.

I'm a fully paid up subscriber to Ronald Coase's "Theory of the Firm" (not so much his other views):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm

Coase says the reason institutions exist is to enable people to work together with lowered "coordination costs." In other words, if you and I are going to knit a sweater together, we're going to need to figure out how to make sure that we're not both making the left sleeve. Creating an institution – the Mafia, the Catholic Church, Microsoft, a company, a co-op, a committee that puts on a regional science fiction con – is all about minimizing those costs.

As Yochai Benkler pointed out in 2002, the coolest and most transformative thing about the internet is that it let us do more complex collective work with smaller and less structured institutions:

https://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.PDF

That was the initial prompt for my novel Walkaway, which asked, "What if we could build luxury hotels and even space programs with the kind of (relatively) lightweight institutional overheads associated with Wikipedia and the Linux kernel?"

https://crookedtimber.org/2017/05/10/coases-spectre/

So the structure of institutions is really important. At the same time, I'm skeptical of the idea that there are "good companies" and "bad companies." Small businesses, family businesses, and other firms that aren't exposed to the finance sector can reflect their leaders' personalities, but it's a huge mistake to ascribe personalities to the companies themselves.

That's how you get foolish ideas like "Apple is a good company because they embrace paid service and Google is a bad company because they make money from surveillance." Apple will spy on you, too, if they can:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Disney and Fox weren't Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers making goo-goo eyes at each other across the table at MPA meetings. They were two giant public companies, and any differences between them were irrelevancies and marketing myths:

https://locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-doctorow-tech-monopolies-and-the-insufficient-necessity-of-interoperability/

I think senior management's personalities do matter (see, for example, the destruction of Boeing after it was colonized by sociopaths from McDonnell Douglas), but the influence of those personalities is much less important than the constraints that competition and regulation impose on companies. In other words, an asshole can run a company that delivers good products at fair prices under ethical conditions – provided that failing to do so will cost more in lost business and fines than they stand to make by cheating:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification

Microsoft is a company founded and run by colossal assholes. Bill Gates is a monster and he surrounded himself with monsters, and they hired monsters to fill out the courts of their corporate palaces:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/14/patch-tuesday/#fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again

To the extent that good things come out of Microsoft – some of its games products, the odd piece of hardware, important papers from MSR – it's in spite of the leadership; it's the result of constraints imposed by competition and regulation – and that's why Microsoft pursued such an aggressive program of extinguishing its competitors and capturing its regulators.

In retrospect, I think one of my goals in that talk was to convince those people doing good work for a rotten institution to go elsewhere and do other things. Certainly, that's one of the goals I pursue in the talks I give today. At the time, some of Microsoft's highest-profile technologists were publicly resigning over the company's war on free/open source software, so it wasn't an unrealistic goal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030214215639/http://synthesist.net/writing/onleavingms.html

What I did not expect what that publishing the talk on my site and blogging it on Boing Boing would spark a wave of public interest that would get its message in front of several orders of magnitude more people than I spoke to at Microsoft that day. Partly, that was because I released the talk into the public domain, using the brand-new Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration (which was later replaced with the CC0 mark, due to legal issues withBu its drafting):

https://web.archive.org/web/20100223035835/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/

Some mix of the content of the speech, the spirit of the moment, and the novelty of that wide open license sparked a ton of interest. Jason Kottke recorded an audio version that Andy Baio hosted:

https://kottke.org/04/06/cory-drm-talk

My brutalist ASCII transcript was quickly converted to beautiful HTML by Matt Haughey and Anil Dash:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040622235333/http://www.dashes.com/anil/stuff/doctorow-drm-ms.html

For people who needed a hardcopy, there was Patrick Berry's printer-friendly stylesheet:

https://patandkat.com/pat/weblog/mirror/cory-drm/doctorow-drm-ms.html

Multiple people recorded (and sold!) audio versions, and then there were all the fan translations, into Danish, French, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (both EU and Brazilian), Spanish and Swedish. I stayed in touch with some of those translators, and they helped me translate the position papers I wrote for UN WIPO meetings. Those papers were so effective that ratfuckers from the copyright lobby started to steal them and hide them in the UN toilets (!):

https://web.archive.org/web/20041119132831/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/002117.php

Re-reading the speech for my podcast on Sunday, I expected to be struck by the anachronisms in it, and there were a few of those to be sure. But far more clear was the common thread running from this talk to other talks I gave that took on a significant life of their own, like my 2011 "War On General Purpose Computing" talk for CCC:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

And my work on Adversarial Interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

And my most recent work, on enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

In other words, I've been saying the same thing – in different ways – for more than 20 years. That could be depressing, but I actually found it uplifting. Two decades ago, I was radicalized by a fear that the internet would be seized by corporations and governments and transformed into a system of surveillance and control. I found my way into a job at EFF, where I worked with colleagues across multiple disciplines – coders, lawyers and activists – to fight this force.

At the time, this was a fringe cause. Most of the traditional activists I'd come up with in the feminist, antiwar, antiracist, environmental and labour movement viewed digital rights as a distraction and dismissed its partisans as sad, self-obsessed nerds who mistook fights over the management of Star Trek message boards for civil rights struggles:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell

I thought I was right then, and I think history has borne me out. The point of waging these fights – both in the wide public sphere and within political movements – is to get people activated before it's too late. Every day that goes by is a day when the internet becomes more inhospitable to political organizing for a better world – more surveillant, more controlling. I believed then – and believe today – that the internet isn't more important that the other fights I waged as a young activist, but I think that the internet is fundamental to those fights.

Saving the planet, smashing patriarchy, overthrowing tyranny and freeing labor are all fights that will be coordinated – Coase style – on the internet. Without a free, fair and open internet, those fights are infinitely harder to win.

The project of getting people to understand, care about, and fight for digital rights is a marathon, not a sprint. When I joined EFF, it was already 12 years old. There were six people in the org then (I was the seventh). Today, there's more than a hundred of us, and we're stretched so thin! The 30+ year old idea that internet policy will intersect with every part of every fight has been utterly vindicated.

Back in 2004, I asked Microsoft why they were willing to fight the US government to the death over antitrust enforcement, but were such wimps when confronted with the entertainment industry's demands for DRM. 20 years later, I think I know the answer: Microsoft understood that DRM would let them usurp the relationship between creative workers, entertainment industry companies, and audiences. Their perfect instincts for seeking out and capitalizing on opportunities to seize monopoly power drove them to make deliberately defective products, in the belief that their market power would let them cram those products down our throats:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/01/27/protect-your-investment-buy-open/

Here's a link to the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2024/06/16/my-2004-microsoft-drm-talk/

And here's direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_470/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_470_-_My_2004_Microsoft_DRM_Talk.mp3

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

https://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

[finishinglinepress]

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: A Field Guide to the Emotions by Albert Flynn DeSilver

TO ORDER GO TO: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/a-field-guide-to-the-emotions-by-albert-flynn-desilver/

Albert Flynn DeSilver is a poet and prose writer, speaker, and workshop leader. He received a BFA from the University of Colorado and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Albert served as Marin County California’s very first Poet Laureate from 2008-2010. He is the author of several books of poems including Letters to Early Street, and his work has appeared in more than 100 literary journals worldwide. Albert is also the author of the memoir Beamish Boy, which was named a “Best Book of 2012” by Kirkus Reviews. His latest nonfiction book, Writing as a Path to Awakening: A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer and Living an Awakened Life—based on his popular writing workshops by the same name—was published by Sounds True in 2017. Albert is also a teacher and speaker having presented with U.S poet laureate Kay Ryan, bestselling authors’ Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Gilbert, Maxine Hong Kingston and many others. He is the founder of the Brilliant Writers Online Writing School and teaches writing at literary conferences nationally. More information about his work can be found at www.albertflynndesilver.com.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR A Field Guide to the Emotions by Albert Flynn DeSilver

“Albert is one of our poets and we stand behind him.”

–Andre Codrescu (NPR commentator, winner of the Peabody Award and Ovid Poetry Award)

“Albert’s poems are filled with a sunny kinetic plenitude”

–Richard Silberg (Poetry Flash)

A Field Guide to the Emotions leads into a “chateau of the present,” one where readers track a range of feelings—envy of a flock of Varied Thrushes, blame on The Three Stooges, gratitude for a lime, and guilt from rain. Just as Lou Reed invites everyone to “Hang On To Your Emotions,” DeSilver seconds that with “one dollop of light after another.”

–Dana Teen Lomax

Please share/please repost [PROMO] #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #chapbook #read #poems

[animationscreenwriter]

20+ Years of Screenwriting Experience

Welcome to AnimationScreenwriter.com! My name's Toby and I'm a Screenwriter / Co-Writer / Editor, available to collaborate on new freelance projects - animated and live-action films, TV series, web series, comic books, video games - including: brainstorming ideas, concept / story development, treatment writing, outline planning, screenplay writing, rewriting and polishing your current draft, editing and proofing your final draft, pitch deck writing, logline writing, synopsis writing, and more...

Over my years in the film & TV industry, I've developed and written projects for major studios, networks and streamers - including Netflix, Amazon Studios, Universal, Paramount, Viacom, Sony, Bravo - as well as independent producers, directors and student filmmakers to create award-winning and eye-opening entertainment in a diverse variety of genres, for viewers of all ages.

My scripted projects - including an Academy Award®-eligible animated film - have played commercially in movie theaters worldwide and as Official Selections at leading Oscar-qualifying film festivals: Austin Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, HollyShorts Film Festival, Foyle Film Festival, Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, Animayo, and Palm Springs International Film Festival’s ShortFest.

Our 2D animated film (co-written with a first-time student director) won the Jury Award for Best Animated Short at the New York International Children’s Film Festival, which qualified us for the Academy Awards® - as chosen by the prestigious NYICFF Jury Members who included: Oscar-winner Peter Ramsey (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Oscar-nominee Mark Osborne (Kung Fu Panda), Oscar-nominee Ramsey Naito (The Boss Baby, President of Nickelodeon Animation; President of Paramount Animation), Oscar-nominee Pelin Chou (Over the Moon), Oscar-nominee Nora Twomey (The Breadwinner), Amy Freidman (Head of Kids and Family Programming, Warner Bros), Melissa Cobb (VP of Kids and Family, Netflix), Guillermo Martinez (Head of Story, Sony Pictures Animation), Oscar-nominee Uma Thurman (Pulp Fiction), Oscar-winner Geena Davis (Thelma & Louise), Oscar-winner Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket) and Oscar-winner Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks). 

The film also picked up the awards for Best Animated Short by a Savannah College of Art and Design Student at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, Best of the South at the ASIFA International Animated Film Association's Animation Festival and Conference, and Honorable Mention at SFFILM, San Francisco International Film Festival.  

My work has proudly received critical acclaim and a finalist placement for the Snow Leopard Award as selected by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, as well as being featured in Animation Magazine, Animation World News, Empire Magazine, Variety, Entertainment Weekly, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter.

Moreover, I've written films and shows that have racked up millions of views, reaching the Top 5 of Netflix, gaining fans worldwide. One of my favorite gigs has been writing for a franchise with its own animated series, comic book, and action figure toyline. As the writer of all episodes of this popular 3D CGI cartoon series, and with more stories developing in the pipeline; I'm having a blast bringing these characters to life and building their world.

Also, I co-wrote an upcoming animated feature film with its director that is being made with traditional hand-drawn animation. Our screenplay was optioned by Academy Award®-winning producers and is currently in the final stages of post-production. I can't wait to share it, soon!

In addition to these successes, I've written a new 2D cartoon series that is presently in production - coming soon! - and I've co-written the screenplay for an animated feature with songs from an Emmy-winning producer.

Prior to all this, I wrote and co-produced a VFX/CGI rotoscoped "graphic novel-style" live-action movie, shot entirely on green screen, that won a Best Film award and a generous six-figure payday in a global filmmaking competition run by Amazon and Warner Bros.

I have a B.A. degree in Film -- screenwriting was always my dream job. Back when I was serving popcorn and ripping tickets on the weekends at my local multiplex, I would be daydreaming stories and then in my free-time writing spec scripts, sketching comics, and animating cartoons on my computer. After submitting a few funny things to Nickelodeon, they were the first to show my characters and ideas on TV screens nationwide.

Now as a full-time screenwriter for over 20 years, I continue to turn dreams into reality. But enough about me...

What are you working on? I'd love to hear about it. Email me to find out how I can help get your project to an award-winning level for a fair and affordable rate: tobyscreenwriter@gmail.com

I've been hired countless times, so I know how to deliver quality results by a given deadline. Bring me onboard as your team's Writer, Co-Writer or Editor, and I can:

brainstorm, plan and develop original stories and characters with you;

write and co-write professional scripts for films, TV shows, comic books, video games, webisodes, and more;

rewrite your scripts, outlines, treatments, pitch decks, etc;

polish your scripts, outlines, treatments, pitch decks, etc;

edit your scripts, outlines, treatments, pitch decks, etc;

turn your character designs and ideas into scripts, outlines, treatments, pitch decks, etc;

turn your sketches / storyboards into complete production-ready scripts with dialogue and descriptions;

consult on projects from start to finish, and so much more!

I'm a big believer in Paul Schrader's notion that a screenplay is not a work of art; it's an invitation to collaborate on a work of art. So, let's work together and make some art. :-)

- Toby (IMDb)

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more  December 1

Today is World AIDS Day! What will you do to be involved?

1886 – Rex Stout (d.1975) was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. Stout is best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe. Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the detective genius from 1934 (Fer-de-Lance) to 1975 (A Family Affair), for a total of 33 novels and even more short stories.

It's a mistake to assume there is any direct relationship between the subject matter of a novelist and the novelist himself, especially since imagination is the fundamental resource of the writer, but ... before he turned to the detective novel in 1934, Rex Stout wrote an ambiguously Gay Western in which the married hero is attracted to his assistant. The notion, though psychologically plausible, is certainly unique to the Western adventure yarn of the period and suggests an equally unusual relationship between two men that was to prove central to Stout's work over the next four decades. What exactly is the nature of the friendship, if it can be called that, between Nero Wolfe, Stout's famous detective hero, and his live-in assistant, Archie Goodwin?

1922 – Richard Walters, who wrote under the pen name Sweet Lips, (d.2010) was a longtime Bay Area Reporter columnist who started writing for the paper when it was founded in 1971.Sweet Lips was born in Illinois. He eventually moved to San Francisco in the 1950s. Sweet Lips had been an only child.

Sweet Lips and the late B.A.R. founding publisher Bob Ross were roommates when Sweet Lips started his self-described gossip column.

Thomas E. Horn, the B.A.R.'s current publisher, called Sweet Lips "the Herb Caen of the LGBT community from the 1960s on," referring to the late, longtime San Francisco Chronicle columnist.

For years, Sweet Lips wrote about people, bars, and events in San Francisco's Polk and Tenderloin areas. He worked in a few of the bars in the area.

"When the Polkstrasse was the center of gay life in San Francisco, Lips knew every bartender, every club owner, most of the patrons, all of the cute boys, and, thus, most of the gossip of the community," said Horn in an e-mail.

"He will always be a seminal part of gay history in San Francisco," Horn added.

Sweet Lips reportedly was one of the people responsible for raising the money to start Operation Concern, which was founded in 1974 as a men's mental health services agency. At the time, homosexuality was still considered a mental illness. In 1976, 18th Street Services was formed to provide substance abuse services. In 1995 the two agencies merged into New Leaf: Services for Our Community.

1955 – Olivier Rouyer, born in Nancy, France, is a retired football striker from France. He earned seventeen international caps (two goals) for the French national team during the late 1970s and early 1980s. A player of AS Nancy, he was a member of the French team in the 1978 FIFA World Cup. He coached Nancy from 1991-1994.

Rouyer came out as gay in 2008 after leaving the team.

1970 – Matt Sanchez is a journalist, who has worked for Fox News and other organizations. He previously served as a Marine reservist and was involved in a controversy about access to campus for military recruiters at Columbia University. In March 2007, Sanchez was awarded the first "Jeane Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award" at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

In the early 90s, Sanchez performed in gay pornographic films as Pierre LaBranche and Rod Majors. In 2003, Sanchez joined the United States Marine Corps and was trained as a refrigeration mechanic with the rank of corporal. On March 16, 2007, John Hoellwarth, a staff writer for Military Times Media Group, reported that Sanchez was the subject of a Marine Corps inquiry about his appearances in gay pornographic videos and related allegations. Of concern was whether "Sanchez had enlisted prior to the end of his film career," "if Reserve Marines were prohibited from doing porn when not in a drilling status," and "how the current 'don't ask, don't tell' policy might apply.

On March 2, 2007, Sanchez was awarded the Jeane Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). A featured speaker at the conference, Ann Coulter, made controversial remarks at the event, indirectly referring to presidential candidate John Edwards as a "faggot". In an article for Salon.com, Sanchez discussed how a photograph of him taken at the conference with Coulter brought him to the attention of bloggers, one of whom recognized him as a former pornographic gay film star. In the same article, Sanchez stated that bloggers had compared him to Rich Merritt, author of Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star, and Jeff Gannon, a conservative journalist who was outed as a gay escort.

as Rod Majors

In a 2007 interview, Sanchez commented that "I don't like porn, it reduces the mind, flattens the soul" and that he considers his pornographic career an identity outgrown.

1981 – The Worldwide Church of God published "The Plain Truth," which speculated that the illnesses being diagnosed in gay men were God's penalty for promiscuity.

1715 – An Oxford University student notes in his diary that sodomy was very common there. "It is dangerous sending a young man who is beautiful to Oxford."

1927 – A California appellate court upholds the sodomy conviction of a man after a private investigator hid under his bed to catch him in consensual sexual relations with his partner.

1974 – The Greek letter lambda was officially declared the international symbol for gay and lesbian rights by the International Gay Rights Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland. The lambda was selected as a symbol by the Gay Activists Alliance of New York in 1970.

[brookston]

Holidays 6.6

Holidays

Atheist Pride Day [also 3.20]

BAUN Day (UK)

Biomedical Science Day (UK)

Blind Day (Israel)

Bonza Bottler Day

CDF Founder’s Day

Children’s Union Foundation Day (North Korea)

Dark of the Moon Day (According to C.W. McCall’s song “Convoy”)

D-Day

Detergent Day

Drive-In Movie Day

Empathy Day (UK)

Engineering Day (Argentina)

Engineer’s Day (Taiwan)

Flavor Massacre Day

Flavor Massacre Day

Gardening Exercise Day

Helicopter Day

Hyun Choong II Memorial Day (South Korea)

International Graphene Day

International Homebirth Day

International Slayer Day

Journalist Day (Ukraine)

Korean Children’s Union Foundation Day (North Korea)

Memorial Day (South Korea)

National Caves & Karst Day

National Cow Day (Norway)

National Cynthia Day

National Day of Sweden (a.k.a. Nationaldagen)

National Eyewear Day

National Gardening Exercise Day

National Higher Education Day

National Hunger Awareness Day

National Huntington’s Disease Awareness Day

National Naloxone Awareness Day

National Neuro-Disabilities Day (UK)

National Roommate Appreciation Day

National Stick Your Hand in a Blender Day

NBA Day

Philatelic Writers Day

Poppy Plant Day (French Republic)

Procession of the Golden Chariot (Mons, Belgium)

Public Museum Day

Red Herring Day (Sweden)

Robert Englund Day

Russian Language Day (UN)

Sacral Agenesis / Caudal Regression Syndrome Awareness Day

Satisfaction Day

Secure Your Load Day

Shriners International Awareness Day

Sibelius Festival (Finland)

Teachers’ Day (Bolivia)

Tetris Day

TR-606 Day

Visually Impaired People Day (Germany)

Woodmen of the World Founder's Day

World Caribou Day

World Day for Hidrandentis Suppurativa

World Green Roof Day

World IPv6 Day

World Pest Day

World Teacher Day (Bolivia)

World Tempe Day

World Tetris Day

World Transplant

YMCA Day

YgaSix Day

Yo-Yo Day

Zamboanga de Norte Day (Philippines)

Food & Drink Celebrations

Herring Day (Sweden)

National Applesauce Cake Day

National Churro Day

National Long Island Iced Tea Day

Roll Cake Day (Japan)

Independence & Related Days

Abeldane Empire; (a.k.a. Imperial Day; Declared; 2014) [unrecognized]

Ardesoda (Declared; 2022) [unrecognized]

Berin (Declared; 2011) [unrecognized]

Great Welland (Declared; 2022) [unrecognized]

Sweden (Election of King Gustav Vasa & end of the Kalmar Union, 1523)

Pacem (f.k.a. Abies; Declared; 2015) [unrecognized]

Queensland Day (Australia)

Santos (Declared; 2011) [unrecognized]

United Snakes of America (Declared; 2020) [unrecognized]

1st Thursday in June

International Consultants Day [1st Thursday]

Kid Lit Art Postcard Day [1st Thursday]

National Moonshine Day [1st Thursday]

Pea Soup Days begin (Wisconsin) [1st Thursday thru Sunday]

Throwback Thursday [Every Thursday]

Festivals Beginning June 6, 2024

Appleby Horse Fair (Appleby-in-Westmorland, United Kingdom) [thru 6.12]

BBQ BASH (Wakefield, Virginia)

Bolivar Strawberry Festival (Bolivar, Ohio) [thru 6.8]

Droidcon San Francisco (San Francisco, California) [thru 6.7]

Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (Honolulu, Hawaii) [thru 6.16]

Food That Rocks (Sandy Springs, Georgia)

Frankenmuth Bavarian Festival (Frankenmuth, Michigan) [thru 6.9]

Gangneung Dano Festival (Gangneung, South Korea) [thru 6.13]

Jazzablanca (Casablanca, Morocco) [thru 6.8]

Kapalua Wine & Food Festival (Kapalua, Maui, Hawaii) [thru 6.9]

Lajkonik Festival (Krakow, Poland)

Nebula Awards [SFWA Nebula Conference] (Pasadena, California) [thru 6.9]

The NorthSide Festival (Aarhus, Denmark( [thru 6.8]

Primavera Sound (Barcelona, Spain & Porto, Portugal) [thru 6.8]

Southeastern Meat Association Convention (Franklin, Tennessee) [thru 6.9]

Sparta Butterfest (Sparta, Wisconsin) [thru 6.9]

The WhiskyX (Atlanta, Georgia)

Winnipeg International Children’s Festival [Kidsfest] (Winnipeg, Canada) [thru 6.9]

Feast Days

Adopt a New Phobia Day (Pastafarian)

Alexander Pushkin (Writerism)

Ancestral Spirits Festival (Nigeria; Everyday Wicca)

Ceratius (a.k.a. Cerase; Christian; Saint)

Claud of Besançon (Christian; Saint)

Claudius (Christian; Saint)

The Bendideia of Bendis (Festival to Moon Goddess of Thrace)

Day of the South Wind (Pagan)

Diancecht (Celtic Book of Days)

Diego Velázquez (Artology)

Donald B. Tucker (Muppetism)

Eustorgius II of Milan (Christian; Saint)

Festival of Chiu Hsien (Taoist Spirit of Alcohol)

Gudwall (Christian; Saint)

Ini Kopuria (Church of England, Episcopal Church, Anglican Church of Melanesia)

Interpretive Dance Day (Pastafarian)

St. Isidore of Seville (Positivist; Saint)

Jarlath (Christian; Saint)

John Tumbull (Artology)

Judgment Day (Petal Hats; Shamanism)

King of the Witches Day (Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Marcellin Champagnat (Christian; Saint)

Maxime Kumin (Writerism)

Norbert of Gennep (a.k.a. of Xanten’; Christian; Saint) [Bohemia]

Pancho Contreas (Muppetism)

Philip the Deacon (Christian; Saint)

Santa Anna Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Thomas Mann (Writerism)

Hebrew Calendar Holidays [Begins at Sundown Day Before]

Rosh Chodesh Sivan [29 Iyar-1 Sivan]

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Prime Number Day: 157 [37 of 72]

Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]

Tycho Brahe Unlucky Day (Scandinavia) [25 of 37]

Unfortunate Day (Pagan) [32 of 57]

Premieres

Bourne Identity (Film; 2002)

Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, by Chelsea Handler (Humor Book; 2010)

Con Air (Film; 1997)

Edge of Tomorrow (Film; 2014)

The Egg and Ay-Yi-Yi (Tijuana Toads Cartoon; 1971)

The Eyes of Heisenberg, by Frank Herbert (Novel; 1966)

The Fault in Our Stars (Film; 2014)

The Good Times, by Russell Baker (Novel; 1989)

Herbie Rides Again (Film; 1974)

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, by The Rolling Stones (Song; 1965)

Invisible Touch, by Genesis (Album; 1986)

I Will Always Love You, by Dolly Parton (Song; 1974)

Kung Fu Panda (Animated Film; 2008)

Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.), by Katy Perry (Song; 2011)

The Longest Day, by Cornelius Ryan (History Book; 1959)

Love Me Do, recorded by The Beatles (Song; 1962)

Men at Work, by George F. Will (Sports Book; 1990)

November Rain, by Guns N’ Roses (Music Video; 1992)

Only the Lonely, by Roy Orbison (Song; 1960)

Ping Pong Summer (Film; 2014)

Pygmy, by Chuck Palahniuk (Novel; 2009)

The River in Reverse, by Elvis Costello (Album; 2006)

Robin Hoodwinked (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1958)

Sex and the City (TV Series; 1998)

Snap Happy Traps (Phantasies Cartoon; 1946)

Storms of Life, by Randy Travis (Album; 1986)

Tax: Quest for Burger (WB Animated Film; 2023)

There Auto Be a Law (WB LT Cartoon; 1953)

20/20 (TV News Series; 1978)

2 Fast 2 Furious (Film; 2003) [F&F #2]

TV of Tomorrow (MGM Cartoon; 1953)

Up the Academy (Film; 1980)

Urban Cowboy (Film; 1980)

War and Pieces (WB LT Cartoon; 1964)

You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (Film; 2008)

Today’s Name Days

Bertrand, Kevin, Norbert (Austria)

Berta, Klaudije, Neda, Norbert (Croatia)

Norbert (Czech Republic)

Nobertus (Denmark)

Pärle, Piibe (Estonia)

Kustaa, Kustavi, Kyösti (Finland)

Norbert (France)

Alice, Bertrand, Kevin, Norbert (Germany)

Ilarion (Greece)

Cintia, Norbert (Hungary)

Norberto, Paola, Paula (Italy)

Adalberts, Ardis, Arnis, Ingrīda, Vairis (Latvia)

Mėta, Norbertas, Paulina, Tauras (Lithuania)

Gustav, Gyda (Norway)

Benignus, Dominika, Klaudiusz, Laurenty, Norbert, Norberta, Paulina, Symeon, Więcerad (Poland)

Ilarion (România)

Norbert (Slovakia)

Marcelino, Norberto (Spain)

Gösta, Gustav (Sweden)

Judith, Valerie (Ukraine)

Dante, Donte, Delaney, Norbert, Norberta, Norberto (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 158 of 2024; 208 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 4 of week 23 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Huath (Hawthorn) [Day 26 of 28]

Chinese: Month 5 (Geng-Wu), Day 1 (Xin-Chou)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 29 Iyar 5784

Islamic: 29 Dhu al-Qada 1445

J Cal: 8 Blue; Oneday [8 of 30]

Julian: 24 May 2024

Moon: 0%: New Moon

Positivist: 17 St. Paul (6th Month) [St. Isidore of Seville]

Runic Half Month: Odal (Home, Possession) [Day 13 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 80 of 92)

Week: 1st Full Week of June

Zodiac: Gemini (Day 17 of 31)

Calendar Changes

榴月 [Liúyuè] (Chinese Lunisolar Calendar) [Month 5 of 12] (Pomegranate Month) [Earthly Branch: Horse Month] (Wǔyuè; Fifth Month)