Passing For Normal

Posted by Joey Esposito

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/astronomer-ceo-statement-coldplay/

The tech company's CEO and chief people officer were caught embracing each other on a "kiss cam" during a Coldplay show.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/astronomer-ceo-statement-coldplay/

1. Pilates. Managed to drag myself onto the mat, at gone 9.30 p.m., and wound up smiling to myself and the ceiling.
2. COOL SHOWER. LOW ENOUGH HUMIDITY TO AIR-DRY.
3. Listening to the bats as I type this up. (Less active than closer to dusk, but definitely still poking their heads out intermittently!)
4. Local supermarket has resumed stocking an apple-and-pear juice, and I do in fact prefer it to the significantly more expensive stuff from the ridiculous fancy veg box people. HURRAH for Treats For Me.
5. Played a round of Hanabi this evening. Enjoyed discovering a Clash Of House Styles, but nonetheless pleased with how we'd done. :)

(I have also made two extremely questionable loaves of bread -- the soda bread I managed to leave out half the flour, which meant it was... not quite inedibly salty, but... definitely Really Quite; the sourdough was just too high a hydration and Wanted To Be A Puddle -- and sent a couple of e-mails I was avoiding. And ordered a Small Treat.)

Posted by Emery Winter

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/volcano-oregon-erupt/

The U.S. Geological Survey said in May 2025 that the volcano is "exciting, not hazardous."

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/volcano-oregon-erupt/

Posted by Nur Ibrahim

https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/07/18/trump-epstein-birthday-card-drawing/

The letter reportedly concluded with, "Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret."

https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/07/18/trump-epstein-birthday-card-drawing/

I have slowly accumulated a variety of Murderbot Thoughts (both book and TV), so here they all are.

First of all, I come bearing a fic rec! Book verse (probably), original SecUnit characters, the most impressive AO3 formatting I've seen this year. I didn't know you could do these things with CSS.

Closed Loop System (1532 words) by One_of_Them
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Original SecUnit Character(s) (Murderbot Diaries), Original Human Character(s)
Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, HTML Tryhard
Summary:

Unit Communication Log:
SecUnit Two: Atmospheric conditions optimal.
SecUnit One: ...
SecUnit One: Indeed.

Also, for those who haven't seen it yet, there's a new Murderbot novelette: Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy. ART and Iris-centric, neat.

---

Second, I watched the Murderbot TV show and was... pleasantly entertained, but not rocked off my feet?

( cut for ambivalence )

---

Third, I recently read the first four books in Estonian translation and figured my thoughts on specific translation choices might be of interest to other people.

( translation thoughts )

Also, not entirely unrelated, I think the Estonian book covers are neat. Not nearly the same style as the English-language editions I've seen, but stark and slick in their own way. Links to the books in the local bookshop (note that the first has a figure holding a small gun and the last has a figure pointing it directly at the viewer): first, second, third, fourth.

During one of the four discrete hours I may have managed to sleep in my own apartment, I dreamed of a trio of dark-masked, clever-clawed, civet-bodied animals tumbling across the carpet of the front hall that I recognized finally as orries, which I realized I had never known were marsupials of the real world as opposed to inventions of the 1970's children's trilogy where I had encountered them in elementary school, the companion animals of the nuclear-winter breed of human traveling in secret across a post-rain-of-fire Australia, in some places reverted to a sort of colonially reconstructed medievalism, more indigenously enduring in others. I had so wanted an orrie of my own as a child reader, not least because they were a mark of the strange: bonding with one could get an adolescent suddenly exiled from their pseudo-medieval settlement, as had of course happened to one of the protagonists; they too were creatures of the fallen-out world. In this one, they were inquisitive and quick-moving, slithered themselves into the tub as eagerly as yapoks, and Hestia hissed at them. Awake, I am even sadder about their nonexistence than the more predictable fictitiousness of the books and their famous Australian children's author. I dreamed also of Stephen Colbert, I assume because I am worrying about him. It does not feel actually out of character that he had read much of the same random science fiction I had.

Me: starts to type "transmasc"

Me: thinks Wait is that right? More precisely, what I want to talk about here is people who take testosterone. Of course I don't want to imply that trans = hormones, but I also am not talking about all people with testosterone-dominant endocrine systems, the group I'm talking about is specifically those of us...on our second...puberty...

Me: types "second-puberT"

Posted by Jordan Liles

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/video-trump-howard-stern-show-sexual-predator/

The moment, which aired in February 2006, shows the future president reacting to the remark during an episode filled with jokes and laughter.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/video-trump-howard-stern-show-sexual-predator/

Posted by Cindy Shan

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/native-born-workers-job-growth/

The Department of Labor's graphic used non-seasonally adjusted data.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/native-born-workers-job-growth/

Posted by Cindy Shan

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-oval-office-makeover/

Following Bahrain’s crown prince visiting the White House, a photo comparison sparked discussion about Trump's Oval Office redecoration.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-oval-office-makeover/

Name: Sam

Stone and Sky

4/5. New Rivers of London book. Rated for nostalgic fondness as much as for the book itself. This one takes Peter – and most of the main cast, including the kids – to a community on the North Sea to either vacation or solve a weird magical mystery, depending on whom you ask.

He is now giving Abigail POV chapters, which I will allow because I like Abigail, and also because this is a vast improvement over the American FBI agent (who he is still trying to make a thing, please stop). Anyway, it’s a pleasant mystery written to formula, complete with local cop that Peter befriends. There’s a lot of formula here, actually – Abigail builds a relationship that has a frankly astonishing amount of Peter/Bev DNA. Anyway, it’s a good time, and it is gesturing towards opening up another arc, which I am in favor of. I think he is intending to draw in some of the international elements he keeps so pointedly raising, but in what direction, I’m not sure yet.