Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

@byzantienne.bsky.social

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speculative fiction (Teixcalaan series, ROSE/HOUSE), climate & energy policy (New Mexico, all statements my own), Byzantinist (nonpracticing but never not true).

unfortunately, I care about power lines now

she/her. halfway between Santa Fe and NYC.

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

OK, so this week: - UK Tories wiped out (I know, I know) - Iran votes in a reform PM (I know, I know) - France does this Sometimes, folks, there are glimmers.

JUST IN: Polls closed in France. Exit polls show surprise: —Left coalition (New Popular Front) projected first. (!) —Far-right (RN) has lost its bid to take power. Anti-RN front appears to have worked very well. —No bloc close to majority. Follow this 🧵 for results and more:

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

Well France apparently just collabed between everyone else to kick a far right party out of the chance to take power, it can be done if enough people want it to be, folks

oooooooo new @scottlynch78.bsky.social!

"Selected Scenes from the Ecologies of the Labyrinth" A brand new @scottlynch78.bsky.social story this morning, free to read at The Sunday Morning Transport! www.sundaymorningtransport.com/p/selected-s...

Selected Scenes from the Ecologies of the Labyrinthwww.sundaymorningtransport.com July marks our third (We can’t believe it’s been two and a half years!) summer — and we’re celebrating with four great free reads. Yes, you read that right, a whole month of free goodness from The Sun...

Hi people who added me from @costasamaras.bsky.social’s climate starter pack! I work on decarbonizing power grids, transmission development, & equitable access to clean energy. Up until last week I worked for the state of New Mexico. In August I'll be with Western Resource Advocates, an eNGO.

nice things: a) the weirdshit 'lemongrass coconut sparkling water' I bought at the organic grocery is AMAZING b) overheard impassioned conversation between two stockpersons at said grocery re: Bowie's BLACKSTAR c) have ingredients to make cherry pie d) yesterday's opera (Don Giovanni) was great

@rahaeli.bsky.social rereading 'Howling' because sometimes a girl wants a nasty-vicious spy novel more than anything else, and I'm absolutely stuck on songcalling 'Lovecraft in Brooklyn' for this story this time. (woke up afraid of my own shadow/like, genuinely afraid)

Lovecraft in Brooklynwww.youtube.com Provided to YouTube by Beggars Group Digital Ltd.Lovecraft in Brooklyn · The Mountain GoatsHeretic Pride℗ 2007 4AD LtdReleased on: 2008-02-19Associated Perf...

Opera! But out here!

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

Warning: Wonky 🧵 on vague energy/climate modeling ideas. Many papers I read in this field aim to compare climate mitigation scenarios or optimize mitigation pathways. The modeled transitions have lots of impacts: ⬆️ or ⬇️ deaths, illnesses, jobs, money, and so on.

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

I understand the current version of Labour sucks but I will deeply enjoy the simple pleasure of watching Tories absolutely eat shit

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

Not to be corny but I do think the ongoing aspiration to make America a pluralist democracy of equals is righteous, beautiful, and worth honoring, even if it has more often been the struggle of minorities & dissenters than the policy of the government. 🇺🇸

where are the UK election nerds, I want election-night social media where it isn't my election night

so as a general fyi: after a fantastic 4.5 years, I have left my post at the state of New Mexico as of, uh, today I am taking July (and half of August) off! And then I'm going to go make all sorts of trouble as a clean power policy specialist for Western Resource Advocates (an eNGO). 😄

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

“This amount of coalescing against the far-right by no means looked certain as of a week ago. While it can't just erase Macronists' extraordinarily equivocating 'pox on both houses' rhetoric during the campaign, it does make it a lot harder for the far-right to win on Sunday.”

FRANCE UPDATE: The near-final list of candidates who are in the French runoffs is out. Two days ago, 311 districts were going to have 3-way or 4-way runoffs. Then, 200+ candidates dropped out to block far-right. So: There'll be "just" 91 such runoffs this coming Sunday.

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

The reality is that, so far, there's little polling evidence that Biden's lost much support since the debate. But that's not gonna permeate the bluesky ecosystem because election/polling twitter didn't migrate over here.

All is not lost. Don’t act like all is lost.

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

If you’re able, help @strangehorizons.bsky.social get to its base and rally to some of these amazing stretch goals: ✨ At $15,000, a special issue on Afro-Surrealist sf! ✨ At $16,500, a special issue on sff × Ageing ✨ At $18,000, SH will raise artist pay to $300 **more 👏 money 👏 for 👏 artists!!!**

Now under $1K away from meeting our base goal!

Strange Horizons 2025www.kickstarter.com A free weekly speculative fiction magazine with a global perspective.

I am trapped in my office for the forseeable future this is ... a lot of rain

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

let me put this another way: despair, or its new name, doomerism, asserts omniscience--that things cannot be better, that all possibilities of good are already foreclosed, that you can know this as fact. it looks like humility, but it's all ego. it is, in fact, the assumption of godhood.

I joke a lot about my capacity for despair, but there's enough Catholic discipline in my youth to remember that it is in fact a sin, one that absorbs all the best in you more comprehensively than a tar pit. I left the church ages ago, but I held onto that cable: despair is not a long-term good.

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

This is good actually. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Biden pardons veterans convicted under military ban on gay sexwww.bbc.com The announcement, which came during Pride month, will affect thousands of veterans.

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

Reply to

Stephen Webb

35/ so, in conclusion, biden could lose and i could be wrong and in that case having a bunch of people on bluesky tell me "i told you so" is the least of my concerns. but the trump team has a lot of ground to make up to improve on 2020, and a lot of headwinds of their own making. fin/

i'm getting so, so tired of the doomerism on here, and the press loves covering shit like a horse race instead of explaining fundamentals and what's at play, a job that seems to fall to @golikehellmachine.com on here. so here's a thread about why i'd rather be biden — yes, biden — right now

Me: Look! Scottish wildkittens! Viv: Aww. Me: The collared one is the mom, she made kittens in the wilderness all by herself! Viv: ...cats aren't parthenogenic. Me: okay she had help probably but WHAT IF CATS WERE PARTHENOGENIC Me: I invented a 70s SF story, didn't I. Viv: ... yes, darling.

Kittens born in Cairngorms to captive-bred Scottish wildcatswww.bbc.com The kittens, in the Cairngorms National Park, will be DNA tested at a later date to check they are pure breed.

Best thing: I made Thai lime & peanut & ginger shrimp for dinner… and @ceruleancynic.bsky.social is now making shrimp stock from the shells. Seven years in, I flat-out /like/ being married. It’s so good.

pronouns: she/her height: 5'2" (5'5"-5'6" if you met me at work) shoe size: 8 (achieves heights in above response also!) smoke: socially & seldom tattoos: upper back piece (sunspear throne); right thigh (Chrysler building & NM flowers); left ribs (quotation) piercings: ears drink: coffee/scotch

Pronouns: She/her Height 5'6" Shoe size 42 Smoke: no, edibles, yes Tattoos: numerous, usually colorful, and occasionally ill-advised Piercings: One surviving out of a depressing number of attempts Fave Drink: Red Bull in the mornings, a nice peaty scotch in the evenings

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

The thing about the end of Chevron for environmental and natural-resource regulations is, every env policy person has a personal rage list of half a dozen regs that bend over backwards to accommodate polluters. With agency deference gone, it's time to sue for strict interpretation of env law.

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

Good job, folks. Have a good weekend. people.com/joe-biden-st...

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

BREAKING -- New York Public Library for the win! After a massive public backlash, NYC's libraries are getting their funding back -- and will be open on Sundays again. Take a bow, folks -- WE did this.

honestly this could be fun

The correct response to Chevron being overturned is for every single environmental group to start filing millions of lawsuits, right now, today, arguing that various regulatory decisions didn't go far enough. Absolutely flood the zone.

PERFORMATIVE DESPAIR IS NOT A POLITICAL STRATEGY. Do not conjure your own imagined demise. In particular, don't do it collectively, on a communication system meant to amplify emotional contagion. (simpler/more esoteric: don't do death magic at collective scale on your own minds, for fuck's sake)

Personal Me: performative despair is not a political strategy. You do not need to read it, boost it, otherwise encourage it or absorb it. Taking time offline is a super good idea today.

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

Oh god yes. I'm currently so frustrated with a culture who is bent on being able to say, authoritatively, what a work of art *is* because the point is that art needs the room to be not completely knowable, so you can let yourself have the gift of thinking about what you're unsure of.

I feel strongly about but also a little vulnerable about this topic, because I came up in the 2000s writing movie reviews, and film bros were unbearably attached to authoritative voice—which I think can be a block when it comes to writing/watching/experiencing more varied art. So:

The Joy of Reading Books You Don't Entirely Understand - Reactorreactormag.com It really should be acceptable and normal to say “I don’t entirely understand what I just read, but I loved it.”

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

📣 We've just hit the magic figure of $10K, and can release a magical new short story by @premeesaurus, By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars -- strangehorizons.com/fiction/by-s... We're now getting closer to hitting our base goal of $13.5K. To help us reach it: www.kickstarter.com/projects/str...

Strange Horizons’ annual fund-drive now live! A host of special issues ( such as Afro-surrealist SF) if we get funded, and some amazing rewards on offer. Click to find out more and to donate: www.kickstarter.com/projects/str...

Strange Horizons 2025www.kickstarter.com A free weekly speculative fiction magazine with a global perspective.

By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Starsstrangehorizons.com When her bell sounded at midnight, Firion the wizard grasped her stoutest staff (crowned, for non-magical reasons, with a razor-sharp chunk of amethyst) and put her lips to the doorjamb. “Who goes …

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller

Been out for a bit, but noticed that the 2023 data on BLM oil and gas leasing came out today. Biden is keeping it far lower than prior administrations. It's far easier to stop drilling by not leasing than through any kind of action once a lease is issued & a property right created.