In most chain hotels in the U.S. hotel bathrooms come in two kinds: With the sink in the room or with the sink in the bathroom. They also often don’t lock. (Yes, this has been an issue. I do sometimes share rooms with people other than my husband). But in…

A few days ago three people were killed and four critically hurt in a lightning strike in Lafayette Square. This kind of multiple fatality is rare, but it is almost always caused by the same thing. Kids, never shelter from lightning under a lone tree. If the tree is the…

Monkeypox can keep you sick (and contagious) for two to four weeks. Very few people in the U.S. can isolate that long. (The CDC recommends wearing a mask and full body clothing if you must leave the house and “avoiding public transportation.” …

Naomi Kritzer’s wonderful YA books start with the premise of CheshireCat. (Disclaimer, copies received as part of the Hugo voters packet). CheshireCat is, as far as they know, the world’s first truly sentient AI. And they want two things: Cat pictures. To make people happy. Their mechanism for achieving #2…

At issue, the dress code at Roger Bacon Academy in Leland, North Carolina. This is a charter school, meaning that it receives funds but is independently run. Republicans love charter schools, seeing them as ways to give parents more choice. …

…no breeder would treat broodmares like that. Some of the abortion bans being put forward in red states allow abortion only in the case of a full blown medical emergency. You have to be actually dying. People are saying this is treating women like broodmares. I’d like to set the…

At one point a lot of us were waiting for our Hogwarts letter. Then J.K. Rowling turned out to be a transphobic asshole and some of us tore them up (My Ravenclaw pin is now hiding in a drawer). Naomi Novik was almost certainly waiting for hers, because she was…

A romance between a woman and a magic sword is something I should absolutely be there for (it’s a long story, but…) Unfortunately, I found Swordheart a little disconcerting. It also wasn’t quite as original as some of Kingfisher’s other work. …

The headlines mostly say the same thing. We have lost the original Uhura (the character was recently recast and is now played by two wonderful actors — Zoe Saldana in the Kelvin Timeline movies and Celia Rose Gooding in Strange New Worlds). The focus is on that one role from…