Story! When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis

When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis by Annalee Newitz. An intentionally adorable robot with sophisticated programming, a curmudgeonly crow, and a marginalized human child track a flu outbreak. This is a story about good intentions, with skill and care, being understood across cultural divides. Delightful!

ETA: The helpfulness of the robot in this story reminds me of another helpful AI in "it me, ur smol" by A. Merc Rustad. /ETA

Commentary on the story: No Robot like Robot by Janelle Shane.

Having a well-meaning mind behind our algorithms would save us from a lot of the harm that we’re unwittingly inflicting—algorithms that copy our biases, that recommend extreme videos and articles, or that censor non-white, non-binary, non-heterosexual, and/or disabled voices. [...] Instead, we’ve got to be careful not to expect our algorithms to behave like fun fairy-tale Robots.

via file770.com.

Links: Literary and cautionary

Her Left Hand, the Darkness by Alison Smith. On showing Ursula K Le Guin around town for a week as a college student.

When she finally grew tired of the silence (this took a while – Le Guin seemed quite content to sit quietly with me) Le Guin told stories. In retrospect, I see that she may have cottoned on to what I was going through, for the stories she told were about being out of place and being brave.

I am still so sad she's gone.

This Science Fiction Novelist Created a Feminist Language from Scratch by Rebecca Romney about Suzette Hayden Elgin and her feminist constructed language Láadan.

“Not once did any feminist magazine (or women’s magazine) ask me about the language or write a story about it.” In fact, Klingon became the foil to her Láadan. “The Klingon language, which is as ‘masculine’ as you could possibly get, has had a tremendous impact on popular culture,” Elgin observed. In a blog post on her experiment, she couldn’t help but note, “Meanwhile, the Klingon language thrives — from which you are free to draw your own conclusions.”

Home items are getting smarter and creepier, like it or not by Anick Jesdanun.

With every additional smart device in your home, companies are able to gather more details about your daily life. Some of that can be used to help advertisers target you — more precisely than they could with just the smartphone you carry.

It’s Not a Government Shutdown. It’s a Right-Wing Coup. by Adam H. Johnson.

What we are really facing is a liberal government shutdown—which is to say programs designed to help the vulnerable and poor are gutted, while institutions designed to serve the rich and powerful remain unscathed.

Here's What Happened When an Alaskan City Took Fluoride Out of Their Drinking Water by Peter Dockrill. People think I'm anti-fluoride because I'm sensitive to chemicals and fragrances. Nope! That stuff works. I clearly remember my parents pointing out that my sister and I didn't have cavities because we grew up with fluoridated water, while they didn't and had many cavities.