The USA has been in a Depression for over 12 months now. Supporting evidence:

https://hachyderm.io/@jalefkowit/117474615137864061

WHOA!

… randomized, placebo-controlled clinical study provides evidence that semaglutide, a widely used GLP-1 drug, slows down the accumulation of biological aging markers in the DNA of adults with HIV. (And by implication, slows aging in general in humans.)

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/new-study-shows-popular-glp-1-weight-loss-drug-may-slow-biological-aging

Found elsenet:

Horror trope of the day:

Mister Blobby inflation porn

#WritersCoffeeClub 18th Oct ~ Talk about a time you had a revelation.

I can't; revelations are a routine part of my writing process, they happen every few days during a draft.

New blog entry: Bizarre Blanets and Weird Worlds: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2026/10/bizarre-blanets-and-other-weir.html

RE: https://mastodon.world/@BrianJopek/117452925764137917

None of these are a patch on the one that went round social media the other week: "your dad shouts at hotels and your mum comes from Piddington". (Which implies hereditary idiocy very strongly, if you're a Brit in 2026 …)

RE: https://mstdn.social/@OregonLive/117452861692494320

While I appreciate the sentiment, this is fundamentally stupid; it's hyper-specific, livestreaming wasn't a thing two decades ago and will be replaced by something else before long, and it consumes legislative time that could be better spent on, I dunno, abolishing capital punishment completely, perhaps?

#WritersCoffeeClub 17th Oct ~ What are the defining traits of your niche in your genre?

I try to occupy several niches simultaneously! But what my SF/F has in common is, it proposes certain changes to how the universe works, asks "what are the second-order consequences?" then bounces the characters off them to see what happens next. Usually 2-5 significant changes per setting, too, not just one thing.

NEWSFLASH: Trump appoints Liz Truss as White House Press Secretary. It's a good match for her abilities, apparently.

RE: https://wandering.shop/@cstross/117450071591623123

This happens: grifters build a copy of a book, slap a *40% OFF* medallion on the cover, then list it for sale under a name that looks like the author, but with a unicode homograph replacing a letter. This is close enough to show up in bookstore searches, so a bunch of readers get sucked in the 40% OFF label and give money to a crook.

As soon as my publisher tells Amazon or Apple or whoever they yank it off sale, but by then it's too late.

https://wandering.shop/@cstross/117450285590515715

#WritersCoffeeClub – 16th Oct. How do you feel about people reading your works without buying a personal copy?

Long-standing publishing lore is, there are roughly four readers per book sold. This includes library loans, second-hand sales, and friends borrowing books. This is normal.

I don't get mad at warez sites (most downloads go unread, most readers wouldn't have bought one), but I *DO* get enraged by pirates who re-list and sell my ebooks on amazon (they're stealing income from authors).

RE: https://hci.social/@fasterandworse/117435297985147402

I will believe the Apple HomeView is a good idea when somebody figures out how to brainwash it into running MacOS 9.0 on it under emulation, so it's a shrunk-in-the-wash G4 iMac.

Deep sea octopus chases laser pointer dots …

"It’s a cat!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV0eBXtiovY

RE: https://woof.tech/@techokami/117418980761239181

Is this a Scarfolk seasonal special?

(Spoiler: no, it's asbestos.)

RE: https://mastodon.energy/@Sustainable2050/117415650039949101

Remember, with the far right, it's ALWAYS projection.

(Netanyahu *is* far right. During his time in the US in the 70s and 80s he was best buddies with a bunch of Republicans who ended up as party leaders.)

RE: https://writing.exchange/@orionkidder/117418029234129666

These are solid principles! Obvious enough I didn't think they were even worth saying aloud.

AI Bubble Teetering on the Brink as OpenAI Admits to Massive Financial Failure in Leaked Documents

Financial Times reveals that OpenAI’s annualized revenue is roughly $20 billion lower than previously expected:

https://futurism.com/future-society/ai-financial-bubble-openai-billions-failure

RE: https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/117412472741486889

RAM and SSD prices have shot straight through the ceiling and meanwhile the OSs they come with are bloated with memory-and-storage guzzling AI garbage nobody asked for—not to mention that for actual productivity or gaming purposes, today's PCs are barely ahead of ones from 2020.

Who'd want a new PC right now?

Tories: absolutely inept assclowns who can’t even manage a spreadsheet: "The error appears to have arisen because a tally of all the costs in a CCC spreadsheet from the document also included the row showing totals for each individual column, thus doubling it."

Tories overstate net zero cost by nearly £500bn in apparent spreadsheet error:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/oct/09/tories-overstate-net-zero-cost-500bn-spreadsheet-error