Notices by Joyce Lionarons (joyce@hcommons.social)

I've started reading Heir of the Bindings by @ElyseMGrasso and I'm enjoying it a lot. Fedi-authors are the best!

Today I read an email from the publisher of one of my academic books asking if I wanted to opt IN to having my work used to train AI. If I did nothing, my work would automatically be kept out of the AI training. I had to respond in the affirmative to have it used.

All I could think was that if anything at all was to be used to train AI, this is how it should be handled. An automatic "no" unless the author deliberately decides to agree. Considering that I rarely even look at the email going to that address, I could easily have overlooked the message. Thank you, Boydell & Brewer, for doing it this way.

Since it's Father's Day, I've been remembering my father. He died 25 years ago at the age of 89. I'll pass on to you the most important advice he ever gave me. I was in high school at the time. He told me that if a man -- boyfriend or husband -- ever hit me, I was to walk out the door and never go back. It didn't matter if I had done something to provoke the violence, I was to leave immediately. No second chances.

Men, girls need to hear these things from their fathers even more than they need to hear it from their mothers. Tell them.

#FathersDay

Theo looking handsome.
#Caturday

They came for me years ago....
#WritingCommunity

Good morning!

This morning while I was in the shower, Theo managed, finally, to kill the computer mouse dead. He's been trying to do that since he got here. I work on a desktop, and without the mouse, I can't do anything. However, I learned a long time ago that it's all about backups, and I knew I had a cheap, wired mouse with a usb plug in a drawer somewhere. I found it with no trouble, and so I'm back in business.

Today is brunch day and we are celebrating one woman's retirement from her IT job -- she wasn't going to retire quite yet, but she was offered a good buyout, and the company is pushing AI on everything and she's happy to get out while she can.

May you have something to celebrate #today.

On this International Transgender Day of Visibility, I just want to say that I see you and I support you. Trans rights are human rights.

#TransgenderDayofVisibility

And just 20 or so miles away from our little protest was this one:

#NoKings Philadelphia

Well, I went to the No Kings rally a half hour early, and that was a good thing because I was able to find a parking place only two blocks away. I stayed for about an hour and a half, then had to leave because although the website said there would be rest rooms, there were not. Maybe 1000 people were there when I left.

#NoKings Phoenixville, PA

Please take a moment if you're in the USA to comment on the official proposal for Trump's ballroom. This is a legally mandated review period from the National Capitol Planning Commission. Let them know that the US citizens do not want this travesty.

https://savingplaces.org/public-comment-period-white-house-ballroom?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com

#WhiteHouse #NCPC

Even though I'm not a football fan, I do enjoy all the Superb Owl photos every year. Here's a nice one, photographed by Stan Tekiela.
#SuperbOwls

Every time I look at this little guy I remember that he spent 5 years outside in all sorts of weather and that this is only his second winter indoors. I'm so happy he's not out in the snow and cold anymore .
#WinterWeather #CatsOfMastodon

@CaraBruar

No. It should be "The gnome, its ear broken off..." "It's" always means "it is."

Theo says good morning. He's happy to be spending a second winter in a nice warm house. ##Caturday

Our lives are worthless to a fascist regime, so the EPA will only consider industry in setting limits on pollution.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/climate/trump-epa-air-pollution.html

@mekkaokereke

When I was still teaching, I taught the basics of AAVE grammar to my students who were getting degrees in order to teach English in high schools and middle schools. I didn't expect my white students to remember the rules, but I hope they learned enough to realize that their Black students spoke grammatically, just with a different grammar.

Good morning!

Another cold, cloudy morning. I have errands that I need to run, but I'm not going to do them. I'm a homebody, and I've gone out every day for the past week. Today, I'm staying home.

Maybe I'll even try to write. Or maybe I'll find a movie to watch or read or just rest in the recliner and doze. Theo would like that.

Whatever you do today, have a good one.
#Today

He can't actually sit on the keyboard, but he can still be in the way.

#Caturday

Canadian fantasy author M.K. Lobb responds to a scam email. I hope this is real -- I found it on FB, so who knows? But it's too good not to share.
#Writing #WritingScam #WritingCommunity

Trump's press secretary says the BBC is "100% fake news." I may have to start reading the BBC website again.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/nov/08/bbc-100-fake-news-says-donald-trumps-press-secretary