Google developer #1: "That's it. Our search engine is simple, efficient, and reliable. It's perfect. We're done."

Google developer #2, presumably: "But wouldn't it be *more* perfect if the first search result was always a robot who mansplained your search results to you incorrectly?"

"As readers, we’re wired for some kind of resolution. We’re wired to look for patterns, so I think we gently need to remind ourselves that these are not the only patterns." Akanksha Singh and Jonas Hassen Khemiri talk "The Sisters." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-story-needs-to-shake-you-up/

"At its core, this biography is about a woman whose relationship with her South Asian identity gives her an impossible hunger—for fame, for acceptance, for love." @akankshamsingh.bsky.social reviews Mayukh Sen's biography of Merle Oberon, "Love, Queenie." lareviewofbooks.org/article/pass...

"Some readers have said that they think of my novels as puzzles or games. I didn’t mean for them to be puzzles, exactly. I just invite my reader to color in the white space."
- from my Q&A with Booker Prize-winning novelist, Jokha Alharthi on her book "Silken Gazelles” (translated by Marilyn Booth)

Psst our website has a 30% off coupon code rn shop.lonelyplanet.com

Hi 👋

I’m commissioning essays for #LonelyPlanet’s #Algeria guidebook and specifically looking for local and diaspora writers.

If this is you or someone you know, can you please DM me?

Thanks!

#journorequest #writingjobs

THREAD: Weaponizing of Twitter in 2021 to spread denialism & manufacture consent for mass slaughter in Ethiopia, a mini case study. I bring up social media damage, both to urge @bsky.app to work on preventative mechanisms & to raise awareness of the horrors it has caused, far from western shores.

I love how some book reviews run personal ads in their classifieds. (LRB has one or two books featuring the best ones)

Spotted in the #NYRB personals:

“Nascent|waning, wolfish poetress seeks theological discourse and absolution. Be in possession of spirit, wit, & generosity.” 🫠

I loved many things about this 2022 piece about product placement by Sophie Haigney, but the changing cursor image thingos did wondrous things for my child-like attention span:

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Guess what guys! They found evidence for trade connections between India and Roman Egypt! A cemetery for pets! A statue of the Buddha!

I’m still not sure how one’s meant to find “friends” (or friend adjacent people) on here, but if we don’t know each other — hi 👋

Now, the self-promotion: I have a column on JSTOR Daily where I write about jobs lost to technology and time. For this month’s, I researched log drivers:

My first skeet! (I just learnt this is what we're calling them; not "clouds" as I'd previously imagined)

Questions: 1) how are we finding people on here? 2) hashtags? 3) no DMs?