julietemckenna.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

I have now completed the UK government's consultation on "AI" & copyright. The consultation is open to pretty much everyone, but it closes on Tuesday, 25 February (GMT/UTC 0). You don't have to complete all of it. My article in the quoted post has links to advice, & to the consultation.

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This week's Xueting's Sunday #Culture looks at #wuxia (martial arts fantasy) and #daomu (tomb opening) fiction. I'm grateful to this reviewer who enthused that reading npss's story in Sinophagia has got him to finally venture into wuxia. It's not something I had considered much before. 1/

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Our team have been checking on the #kakapo on Pukahereka/Coal Island, in south-west Fiordland, New Zealand. This is the newest kākāpō island, established last year and currently containing 13 males. Here's Kenneth, by ranger Maddy Whittaker. #conservation #parrots #birds

submitted 11 hours ago • 13 comments

When Shakespeare has a character say "The first thing we do is, let's kill all the lawyers" it's because the lawyers will be the ones trying to stop the intended bloodletting.

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The consultation closes in two days. I've been putting it off because I've been snowed under with things, but I did it just now. Using the ALCS guide to indicate the important questions, I did it in about half an hour. If you're a writer, you should really find that half an hour and soon.

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A major book festival in the UK used to pay speakers for ticketed events with audiences of up to a thousand with a case of wine. It didn’t matter if you didn’t drink wine, that was the ‘fee’.

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Thread.

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If you haven’t filled out the consultation then please do so - it is important. The questions and quite technical (and there are a lot of them) but ALCS offers guidance on their website and further more detailed guidance to each question at the end of their guidance.

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It’s not too late to spot some snowdrops this year! ❄️🌿 Discover the beautiful places to see these little signs of spring across Oxfordshire:

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This data is way too limited but this could be a cure for pancreatic cancer. How can we know if it is? And if it is, how can we access it? By funding scientific research. And with health agencies that can review data to ensure safety & efficacy, approve new treatments, & make sure they are covered.

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Some good news. A tribute to persistence, and the importance of taking the long view. Seeds from the last toromiro, unique to remote Easter Island, were taken away in the 1960s. Now, after a crucial discovery gave hope for its survival, it is making a return." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

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We have a new article in Lincolnshire Life, which digs into archives to uncover some of the forgotten tales of the Lincoln Imp! More info about this bundle of legends can be found on our website’s folk tale map, and there’s more forthcoming, but we can’t say anything about that just yet!

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Thread.

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No, I just approved it, it was the folks in casting and hair and makeup who had the idea.

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I filled most of the middle questions of this consultation out with (paraphrasing) "I believe these questions are here to deliberately discourage me from responding. I have made my stance clear on AI at the start of this consultation." Do not let them discourage you from having your say.

submitted 6 hours ago • 1 comment

And beauty was the benefit. In the outside world, they might feel awkward or different, but on set, with 10-15 other bald Centauri women in beautiful gowns and dresses, their characters were much admired and desired, and they weren't different any more.

submitted 6 hours ago • 2 comments

In terms of the female bald Centauri, some of those were skull caps, and others weren't; we let it be known that we wanted to support women going through chemo or other treatments who had lost their hair by casting them here, money that could also help pay for medical bills.

submitted 6 hours ago • 12 comments

Still hunting for a mature female australian-chinese/australian voice for a 3k word story. Also looking for a male arabic-speaking voice, ideally Egyptian but can be flexible.

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Read this article to see just how little these AI merchants understand about historical method. History is not something just anyone can do without training. BBC News - How accurate are the viral TikTok AI POV lab history videos? - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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The trouble is, once I started imagining they were taking selfies I couldn’t unsee it

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Don’t gift our work to AI billionaires: Mark Haddon, Michal Rosen and other creatives urge government

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SF Caledonia Anthology One - available for pre-order. Our first published release of stories, poems and articles by Scottish writers. www.shorelineofinfinity.com/product/sf-c...

submitted 8 hours ago • 2 comments

Adding alt text because this is super important

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Never throw your writing away, no matter how crap it may seem. Everything you write teaches you something, and sometimes, you have to write it wrong to know how to write it right.

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"Science fiction lends itself readily to imaginative subversion of any status quo. Bureaucrats and politicians, who can't afford to cultivate their imaginations, tend to assume it's all ray-guns and nonsense, good for children." - Ursula K. Le Guin (2012) [Anthology idea: Ray-guns and Nonsense]

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Revisiting books New perspectives on old friends Long conversations #DailyHaiku #haiku #Sunday

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It's the fact your characters act like they live in that world that makes it real, not the worldbuilding.

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Always bear in mind what your characters do not know at any given point in the story you're telling.

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No one even believes that opt-out is intended to work. It is just a convenient fig leaf that allows the thieves to pretend that they care while ignoring everyone’s opt-out requests.

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"Lewis argues that it is an especially urgent time to fight fascism, even if that means fighting fascist feminists." I missed this the other day. Read it. It's very good. It eviscerates not just present-day TERFs but various other anti-feminist feminisms over the past 200+ years.

submitted 9 hours ago • 2 comments

This morning my brain decided to refer to that one country in the middle of the North American continent as “Cloud Coup-Coup Land” and reader, in that moment I both laughed and cried.

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www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

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No, generative AI isn’t human, and it’s bad for your health. www.ft.com/content/d595...

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A generation before Hezekiah Moscow and Alec Munroe, Plantagenet (also Edward or John) Green came to London from Barbados. A ship's cook, he became an 1850s prizefighter, a friend to Bob 'the Black Wonder' Travers, and a boxing instructor: #AThousandBlows grapplingwithhistory.com/2023/02/24/i...

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shop.viz.co.uk/viz343bs

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💥The Netherlands' largest pension fund, has sold its shares in Tesla, Meta, and Alphabet (Google). The fund with US $569 billion equivolent in assets is "directing more money to companies and projects that help to improve society and the environment." #Divest www.reuters.com/markets/euro...

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My latest book A STRANGER IN THE CITADEL is out today! "Gotta love hero librarians, especially in times like these. Gotta love clever metatextual references. Gotta love the youth-dem determined to fix the world, naivete be damned.” —Nalo Hopkinson tachyonpublications.com/product/a-st...

submitted 495 days ago • 3 comments

Sudden influx of apparently middle aged American men under the delusion Bluesky is a dating site. Blockity-bye to the lot of them.

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My review of Aliya Whiteley's wonderful 381 https://stewarthotston.com/2025/02/22/381-by-aliya-whitely-a-review/

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