Dale Markowitz
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dalequark.bsky.social
Dale Markowitz
@dalequark.bsky.social
84 followers 300 following 38 posts
Now: writing, running theaustinsalon.com
Past: Google, OkCupid
Words in The Atlantic, WaPo, Nautilus, NYMag, and beyond

Learn more: dalemarkowitz.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
nikitanamjoshi.bsky.social
two years of The Austin Salon ✨ with @dalequark.bsky.social
10 evenings spent discussing psychology, neuroscience, food equity, primatology, friendship, ai, and most of all community 🤍
April 9, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
packysmith.bsky.social
MAGICIANS+INCEPTION
Felix is an inept psychic who’s unable to maintain physical touch with anyone. His loner days end when he joins a lucid dreams based campus sleep study. Here, he meets an odd crew of coed psychics who protect the dream realm from a soul-stealing rogue. #LuckyPit #PopUpPit #SF #A
Tom Hardy Inception GIF
ALT: Tom Hardy Inception GIF
media.tenor.com
March 17, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
bvbodegom.bsky.social
TREASURE PLANET×THE EXPANSE
A bookworm dreams of escape from a pirate-run space station. With his friend, a tech genius, he finds an ancient wrist computer tied to his family and a legendary lost starship. As they seek answers, so does a notorious captain.
#LuckyPit #PopUpPit #PopUpPitA #YA #SF #M
ink drawing of Jak Sterzand, a teenage boy, crawling towards the viewer in a ventilation or maintenance shaft type tunnel. His name and title of the book JAK STERZAND above him, and underneath in smaller letters, the subtitle: ESCAPE FROM FREEPORT All in black and white
March 17, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
chrisakins.bsky.social
Grim Portents

HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE X CONSTANTINE

A man is murdered by a demon on his wedding day. With the help of the reaper who collected his soul, he must uncover who is releasing monsters from Hell if he wants to return to the life he was robbed of

#luckypit #popuppit #popuppita #A #F #Hu #H
Cover for Grim Portents featuring a skeleton hand gripping a feather, emerging from a flaming book over a maze "I always told myself it wasn't real. It was a figment of my imagination, the mind playing tricks. It was just a shadow. But now the monster had been given a name, an identity. It was real." BILL BAKER WANTS NOTHING MORE THAN TO MARRY THE WOMAN HE LOVES, BUT WHEN HIS WEDDING IS INTERRUPTED BY A RAMPAGING HELL-BEAST, HIS LIFE IS THROWN INTO DISARRAY. DESPERATE FOR A SECOND CHANCE, HE WILL DO ANYTHING TO SET HIS FUTURE BACK ON TRACK. NOW, WITH THE HELP OF A SOUL-COLLECTING REAPER NAMED SONNY, HE MUST UNCOVER WHO IS RELEASING MONSTERS FROM HELL, IN ORDER TO EARN BACK THE LIFE THAT WAS STOLEN FROM HIM AND PREVENT THE ONCOMING END OF DAYS. FACED WITH THE CHOICE BETWEEN WHAT IS RIGHT, AND WHAT IS EASY, BILL MAY HAVE TO SACRIFICE ALL HE HOLDS DEAR FOR ONE LAST SHOT AT LIFE. Black and white sketch of characters Bill and Sonny. Bill is a dark featured man in a suit and kind of a Mark Ruffalo vibe. Sonny is a rotting corpse man with a cardigan.
March 17, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
goddessvicky.bsky.social
💫 CROWNED IN LIGHT 💫

NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST X RAVEN CYCLE SERIES

🌹Romance/Romantasy
👨‍👨‍👧Polyamory
❤️‍🔥Slow Burn
👨‍👨‍👦‍👦Found Family
⚖️Gods & Goddesses
🎵Music!
♿Diversity
🏳️‍🌈LGBTQIA+
💖Soul Mates
✨Magical Realism
Agent's guide included 📖

#WSPit #WSPitQ #WSPitS #A #F #R #bipoc #spec #magicalrealism
A photo collage that features a woman wearing a crown, a college campus, a hand playing the guitar, piano keys, and a pair of bloody knuckles A photo that reads: Crowned In Light A literary agent's guide to the first book in the Crowned Series As 85k word Urban Speculative Romance/Romantasy First three books are finished, edited, and ready to query! This one has it all! - Magical Realism - Slow Burn - Found Family - Gods and Goddesses - Music Heavy - Soul Mates / Past Lives - Strong Female Friendships - Disability/BIPOC representation - DAVID BOWIE?!?! A photo that reads: The Pitch! It’s the end of a hot Iowan summer, and twenty-four-year-old Matilda West is gearing up for her sophomore year of college at Oak Ridge University. A scholarship student, she is swayed by the suggestion of her favorite professor to join a study group he’s created for his Classical Mythology course. The students in the group adopt her quickly, but Matilda’s past has made her wary and anxious of new people and their intentions. When she finds herself drawn toward two of the people in the group, including an unexplainable feeling like she’s met one of them before, Matilda is thrown in the middle of a situation she couldn’t have seen coming. Weird dreams and the fact that her life might not be what she thought it was force Matilda to question whether her fate was already decided, or if someone else is pulling the strings… How does one juggle school work, healing trauma, finding love, and supporting a diverse community, while also fighting for their fate and the rest of the world? A photo that reads: For Fans of: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist Maggie Stiefvater Richelle Mead Laurell K Hamilton Adults over the age of 18 whp enjoy a world sprinkled with mythology and More, and fantasy rooted in reality. Reader who enjoy diverse, complex characters, especially LGBTQIA+ characters, those with disabilities, and those deailing with PTSD and trauma in an honest and real way. Romance Readers who enjoy things like friends to loves, enemies to friends, slow burn, found family, angst with a happy ending, and polyamory. Playlist: Have I Found My Home by Paden What A Good Woman Does by Joy Williams Dear Happy by Gabrielle Aplin Breathe Me by Sia Stuck In My Head by Blue Eyes Silence by Marshmello & Khalid The World We Made by Ruelle Like That by JP Saxe Safe Place by RuthAnne Hurts Like Hell by Fleurie & Tommee Profitt Somebody Loved by The Weepies For You by Angus & Julia Stone Past Life by Morgan St Jean Atlas: Heart by Sleeping At Last
February 26, 2025 at 4:36 PM
dalequark.bsky.social
Well look what just came in the mail @mitpress.bsky.social 🧠🤖🦠
March 12, 2025 at 1:41 AM
dalequark.bsky.social
Curious about AI's impact on the future of humanity? Will you be in Austin, TX on March 25? Join me, @nikitanamjoshi.bsky.social, and The Austin Salon for evening of learning, drinks and discussion.

www.eventbrite.com/e/the-austin...
The Austin Salon Presents: Is AI good for humanity?
Join us for a night of learning, drinks, and discussion at the Austin Salon, a social club for curious Austinites.
www.eventbrite.com
March 7, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
nautil.us
A growing body of evidence suggests that decorating our spaces may influence our creativity in subtle ways, acting as a kind of emotional support, regulating our mental states so we can do our best work. 🧪
The Creative Nest
How decorating work spaces supports art making
nautil.us
March 1, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
libro.fm
Hi, just a reminder that when you use Libro.fm for your audiobooks, you support independent bookshops vs. large corporations that drive them out of business.

We also pay taxes. And so do indie bookshops.
February 27, 2025 at 12:07 AM
dalequark.bsky.social
I’m obsessive about my office. I want my workspace to inspire me, to act as a creative echo chamber for my inner musings. For @nautil.us, I wrote about the science behind why we curate our creative nests. In celebration, here are some of my favorite famous offices. 🧵

nautil.us/the-creative...
The Creative Nest
How decorating work spaces supports art making
nautil.us
February 27, 2025 at 11:10 PM
dalequark.bsky.social
Boltzmann Brains are one of the most mind-boggling and influential paradoxes I ever encountered. Who better to explain them than @mariapopova.bsky.social ?
mariapopova.bsky.social Maria Popova @mariapopova.bsky.social · Feb 20
How can you be sure that this "reality" is not a hallucination? Let this haunting thought experiment by Ludwig Boltzmann, born on this day in 1844, dazzle and dizzy you:
The Boltzmann Brain Paradox: An Animated Thought Experiment About the Hallucination of Reality
A pleasingly disorienting foray into the fundamental perplexity of life.
www.themarginalian.org
February 20, 2025 at 11:49 PM
dalequark.bsky.social
One of my favorite finds: “weapons salve,” a potion applied not to a wound but to the weapon that had inflicted it. This improved medical outcomes because at the time, it was safer to leave a wound untouched than to smother it with whatever weird pulverized-toad-virgin’s-blood “cure” you’d brewed.
nautil.us Nautilus Magazine @nautil.us · Jan 30
For many of the early modern thinkers who laid the foundations of modern science, the world teemed with the uncanny: witches, unicorns, mermaids, metals that could be distilled into elixirs of eternal life. 🧪
How the Occult Gave Birth to Science
For scientists of yore anything—from mermaids to alchemy—was on the table.
nautil.us
January 30, 2025 at 11:41 PM
dalequark.bsky.social
My brilliant friend wrote for @theatlantic.com about the “McVulnerability Trap.”

www.theatlantic.com/family/archi...
Beware the Weepy Influencers
People crying their hearts out online are selling intimacy—but the emptiest kind.
www.theatlantic.com
January 30, 2025 at 5:57 PM
dalequark.bsky.social
Wow! This is a BFD.
January 28, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
karenhao.bsky.social
As someone who has reported on AI for 7 years and covered China tech as well, I think the biggest lesson to be drawn from DeepSeek is the huge cracks it illustrates with the current dominant paradigm of AI development. A long thread. 1/
January 27, 2025 at 2:12 PM
dalequark.bsky.social
Three years ago, I filmed a video explaining Transformers, the neural network architecture behind technologies like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Today it's at over 1,000,000 views! Woohoo! 🎊

What AI concepts do you need explained in plain English? Let me know!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZor...
Transformers, explained: Understand the model behind GPT, BERT, and T5
YouTube video by Google Cloud Tech
www.youtube.com
January 27, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
ollibackstrom.bsky.social
June 1625. Brandenburger colonel Wallraven von Gent, apparently employed by the Dutch Republic, takes the Westphalian town of Bielefeld from the Spanish by infiltrating the town gates with soldiers disguised as peasant women.
This was a common ruse during the Thirty Years War.
January 24, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
manvir.bsky.social
More people speak English today than any other language in human history. But what do we lose, psychologically and culturally, as a result? For this week's @newyorker.com, I explore how English shapes thought—from our conception of time to how we talk about the senses.
newyorker.com The New Yorker @newyorker.com · Dec 23
An estimated 1.5 billion people—roughly one in every five human beings—speak English, making it the most widely used language in the history of humanity. Some researchers worry about what we’re losing with its expansion.
How Much Does Our Language Shape Our Thinking?
English continues to expand into diverse regions around the world. The question is whether humanity will be homogenized as a result.
www.newyorker.com
December 23, 2024 at 5:32 PM
dalequark.bsky.social
Well I’m swooning.
January 22, 2025 at 5:18 AM
dalequark.bsky.social
Oh look what just arrived! 💕 The Kinship Issue from @nautil.us
January 22, 2025 at 5:13 AM
dalequark.bsky.social
In the 1600s, “animal cruelty” wasn’t really a thing, and people thought this hammer-powered cat piano was a delightful instrument. 🐈🔨 🎶
#skyhistory
January 17, 2025 at 10:58 PM
dalequark.bsky.social
I wrote a fun little speculative y2k short story for @reedsy.bsky.social about my favorite childhood place: the mall!

blog.reedsy.com/short-story/...
Food Court – A Fantasy Short Story by Dale Snail – Reedsy Prompts
I remember waking up on the floor of the dressing room with a terrible crick in my neck. I rubbed my eyes and squinted in the mirror. My ironed-str...
blog.reedsy.com
January 17, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
dbellingradt.bsky.social
Nothing to see here, dear #skystorians, except a human skeleton (with a hat and a feather) riding a #unicorn skeleton that is positioned next to two other animal skeletons (of a bear? and a deer?).

Did I mention yet that the 4 skeletons are standing in an #earlymodern library? #LibraryHistory
A seventeenth- or eighteenth-century library interior with 4 skeletons. Source: http://diglib.hab.de?grafik=graph-a1-1762
January 15, 2025 at 8:27 AM
dalequark.bsky.social
TIL “fox tossing” passed for entertainment in 17th century Europe. “Fuchsprellen” was all fun and games until the fox a) died on impact or b) turned on the players with teeth and claws.
January 16, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
nikitanamjoshi.bsky.social
🌬️ My thoughts on this week's executive order on AI + why AI alone won't solve climate change.
nikitanamjoshi.substack.com/p/why-does-m...
Why does my AI have a carbon footprint?
Just because it's in the metaverse doesn't mean it's not contributing to climate change 🫠
nikitanamjoshi.substack.com
January 16, 2025 at 10:23 PM