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SBTB Bestsellers: November 15 – November 28
Nov. 30th, 2025 09:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
smartbitches_feedThe latest bestseller list is brought to you by mashed potatoes, mid-afternoon naps, and our affiliate sales data.
- The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter Amazon | B&N | Kobo
- The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin by Alison Goodman Amazon | B&N | Kobo
- We Solve Murders by Richard Osman Amazon | B&N | Kobo
- The Gentleman’s Book of Vices by Jess Everlee Amazon | B&N | Kobo
- The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi Amazon | B&N | Kobo
- The Courting of Bristol Keats by Mary Pearson Amazon | B&N | Kobo
- Seven Dukes of Sin: Books 1-3 by Mariah Stone Amazon
- Forever Your Rogue by Erin Langston Amazon | B&N | Kobo
- Swordcrossed by Freya Marske Amazon | B&N | Kobo
- A Werewolf’s Guide to Seducing a Vampire by Sarah Hawley Amazon | B&N | Kobo
I hope your weekend reading was comforting!
Browser Extension 'Slop Evader' Lets You Surf the Web Like It's 2022
Nov. 30th, 2025 08:34 amslashdot_feed"The internet is being increasingly polluted by AI generated text, images and video," argues the site for a new browser extension called Slop Evader. It promises to use Google's search API "to only return content published before Nov 30th, 2022" — the day ChatGPT launched — "so you can be sure that it was written or produced by the human hand."
404 Media calls it "a scorched earth approach that virtually guarantees your searches will be slop-free."
Slop Evader was created by artist and researcher Tega Brain, who says she was motivated by the growing dismay over the tech industry's unrelenting, aggressive rollout of so-called "generative AI" — despite widespread criticism and the wider public's distaste for it. "This sowing of mistrust in our relationship with media is a huge thing, a huge effect of this synthetic media moment we're in," Brain told 404 Media, describing how tools like Sora 2 have short-circuited our ability to determine reality within a sea of artificial online junk. "I've been thinking about ways to refuse it, and the simplest, dumbest way to do that is to only search before 2022...."
Currently, Slop Evader can be used to search pre-GPT archives of seven different sites where slop has become commonplace, including YouTube, Reddit, Stack Exchange, and the parenting site MumsNet. The obvious downside to this, from a user perspective, is that you won't be able to find anything time-sensitive or current — including this very website, which did not exist in 2022. The experience is simultaneously refreshing and harrowing, allowing you to browse freely without having to constantly question reality, but always knowing that this freedom will be forever locked in time — nostalgia for a human-centric world wide web that no longer exists.
Of course, the tool's limitations are part of its provocation. Brain says she has plans to add support for more sites, and release a new version that uses DuckDuckGo's search indexing instead of Google's. But the real goal, she says, is prompting people to question how they can collectively refuse the dystopian, inhuman version of the internet that Silicon Valley's AI-pushers have forced on us... With enough cultural pushback, Brain suggests, we could start to see alternative search engines like DuckDuckGo adding options to filter out search results suspected of having synthetic content (DuckDuckGo added the ability to filter out AI images in search earlier this year)... But no matter what form AI slop-refusal takes, it will need to be a group effort.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!
Nov. 30th, 2025 02:42 am![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
denise posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_newsHello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.
The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.
( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )
Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.
On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.
karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.
( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )
Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.
On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.
AI Helps Drive Record $11.8B in Black Friday Online Spending
Nov. 30th, 2025 04:34 amslashdot_feedEarlier this month MasterCard noted that even Walmart now allows its customers to make purchases through ChatGPT. And after polling more than 4,000 consumers in the U.S., Canada, U.K., and UAE, they found "more than four in 10 consumers already use AI tools to help them shop, including 61% of Gen Z and 57% of millennials."
Many (50% of Gen Z and 49% of millennials) say they'd even let AI handle all their gift-buying if it meant avoiding stress. Younger shoppers trust AI's taste, with 51% of Gen Z and 55% of millennials relying on it to deliver unique and thoughtful recommendations (sometimes even more than they trust themselves). The most popular uses include getting personalized product recommendations, confirming the best deal before purchasing, and summarizing thousands of reviews instantly.
The bottom line: Shoppers are embracing AI as their new personal assistant — one that knows their budget, style, and patience level...
If the 2025 holiday shopper could be summed up in one word, it's intentional. They're planning earlier, spending wiser and using technology to make every dollar and every gift count.
The first figures are now in for the traditional "Black Friday" shopping day after Thanksgiving, and U.S. shoppers "spent a record $11.8 billion online," reports Reuters, "up 9.1% from 2024 on the year's biggest shopping day, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks 1 trillion visits that shoppers make to online retail websites..."
And sure enough, this year shoppers were helped by AI:
AI-powered shopping tools helped drive a surge in U.S. online spending on Black Friday, as shoppers bypassed crowded stores and turned to chatbots to compare prices and secure discounts amid concerns about tariff-driven price hikes... The AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail sites soared 805% compared to last year, Adobe said, when artificial intelligence tools such as Walmart's Sparky or Amazon's Rufus had not yet been launched. "Consumers are using new tools to get to what they need faster," said Suzy Davidkhanian, an analyst at eMarketer. "Gift giving can be stressful, and LLMs (large language models) make the discovery process feel quicker and more guided..." Globally, AI and agents influenced $14.2 billion in online sales on Black Friday, of which $3 billion came from the U.S. alone, according to software firm Salesforce.
There's another reason shoppers turned to AI. 2025's Black Friday arrived "amid tighter budgets, unemployment nearing a four-year high, U.S. consumer confidence sagging to a seven-month low and price tags that have shoppers watching every dollar," according to the article:
Discount rates also remained flat when compared to 2024, with AI helping shoppers discover the best deals, and an increase in the price tags made deeper discounts difficult for retailers... Order volumes fell 1% as average selling prices rose 7%. Consumers also purchased fewer items at checkout, with units per transaction falling 2% on a year-over-year basis, Salesforce said.
The spending surge sets the stage for an even bigger Cyber Monday, projected to drive $14.2 billion in sales, up 6.3% on a year-over-year basis and the largest online shopping day of the year, Adobe said. Electronics are expected to see the deepest discounts on Cyber Monday, reaching 30% off list prices, along with strong deals on apparel and computers, Adobe said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Poco's flagship smartphone comes in denim
Nov. 30th, 2025 04:11 amboingboing_feed
Double denim? Rookie numbers. On a good day, I can muster septuple denim: jeans, jacket, cap, boots, scarf, gloves and bag. But soon I shall have the unimaginable power of octuple denim at my disposal, thanks to Xiaomi's Poco F8 Ultra Denim smartphone. — Read the rest
The post Poco's flagship smartphone comes in denim appeared first on Boing Boing.
Black Friday sales down 2%, but cost 10% more
Nov. 30th, 2025 03:48 amboingboing_feed
A fine example of whiplash in the news this morning: first, a negative-toned segment lamenting the increased prices of everything due to high tariffs. Then, a positive-toned segment exalting Black Friday spending being up 10 percent. The two segments exist in different universes: one with people, and one with businesses. — Read the rest
The post Black Friday sales down 2%, but cost 10% more appeared first on Boing Boing.
Playwright Tom Stoppard dead at 88
Nov. 29th, 2025 07:55 pmboingboing_feed
Sir Tom Stoppard, the acclaimed playwright who authored Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and the screenwriter of Shakespeare in Love, Empire of the Sun and many other movies, is dead at 88.
Born Tomáš Sträussler in Czechoslovakia before his family fled the Nazis and settled in England, he died at his home in Dorset. — Read the rest
The post Playwright Tom Stoppard dead at 88 appeared first on Boing Boing.
Retro beige PC tower case comes with a lock and key
Nov. 29th, 2025 04:33 pmboingboing_feed![Photo: @hito_hiro7265 [x.com]](https://i0.wp.com/boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/G5x81J3bkAImEH2-1.jpg?fit=2048%2C1152&quality=60&ssl=1)
PC bits company Silverstone revived the beige plastic PC case in 2024 and is continuing this campaign with these handsome tower cases, out early next year. There's lots of hard-to-dust slit vents to trace gently with one's fingertips; oh my God, one of the models even a key. — Read the rest
The post Retro beige PC tower case comes with a lock and key appeared first on Boing Boing.
Are There More Linux Users Than We Think?
Nov. 30th, 2025 02:34 amslashdot_feed"By my count, Linux has over 11% of the desktop market," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols:
In StatCounter's latest US numbers, which cover through October, Linux shows up as only 3.49%. But if you look closer, "unknown" accounts for 4.21%. Allow me to make an educated guess here: I suspect those unknown desktops are actually running Linux. What else could it be? FreeBSD? Unix? OS/2? Unlikely. In addition, ChromeOS comes in at 3.67%, which strikes me as much too low. Leaving that aside, ChromeOS is a Linux variant. It just uses the Chrome web browser for its interface rather than KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, or another Linux desktop environment. Put all these together, and you get a Linux desktop market share of 11.37%...
If you want to look at the broader world of end-user operating systems, including phones and tablets, Linux comes out even better. In the US, where we love our Apple iPhones, Android — yes, another Linux distro — boasts 41.71% of the market share, according to StatCounter's latest numbers. Globally, however, Android rules with 72.55% of the market. Yes, that's right, if you widen the Linux end-user operating system metric to include PC, tablets, and smartphones, you can make a reasonable argument that Linux, and not Windows, is already the top dog operating system...
If you add Chrome OS (1.7%) and Android (15.8%), 23.3% of all people accessing the U.S. government's websites are Linux users. The Linux kernel's user-facing footprint is much larger than the "desktop Linux" label suggests.
The article lists reasons more people might be switching to Linux, including broader hardware support and "the increased viability of gaming via Steam and Proton" — but also the rise of Digital Sovereignty initiatives. (One EU group has even created EU OS.")
And finally, "not everyone is thrilled with Windows 11 being turned into an AI-agentic operating system."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Asset Management Strategist Says It's Time To Rethink How We Measure Poverty
Nov. 30th, 2025 01:00 amcrooks_and_liars_feed
Simplify Asset Management chief strategist Mike Green hit the nail on the head on his Substack post on why so many Americans feel like they're drowning these days. Green also delved into how we measure the federal poverty level, and why it's completely inadequate in today's society.
Here's a portion of his post, titled Part 1: My Life Is a Lie, How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America, and after all of the facts and figures in the beginning, here's some of the meat of it:
This week, while trying to understand why the American middle class feels poorer each year despite healthy GDP growth and low unemployment, I came across a sentence buried in a research paper:
“The U.S. poverty line is calculated as three times the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963, adjusted for inflation.”
I read it again. Three times the minimum food budget.
I felt sick.
After discussing that the number was based on the fact that most families at the time spent roughly a third of their income on food, and during that time housing was relatively cheap. So was healthcare. Most women stayed at home and both parents did not need to work, and then things changed:
22 Cute Pictures of Cats Crunching, Chomping, and Cherishing Caturday Snacks
Nov. 29th, 2025 04:00 pmicanhascheezburger_feedCaturday has a way of turning every cat into a hopeful little snacker. They seem to know it's a slower, softer day, and they take full advantage of it. By mid-morning, the quiet patter of paws heading toward the kitchen becomes the unofficial start of their weekly snacking campaign. One polite meow, a gentle head bump, or a patient sit-and-stare is usually all it takes to remind their humans: it's Caturday, and snacks are very much on the menu.
Some cats nibble their treats with careful precision, savoring every tiny crunch. Others dive in with full enthusiasm, chewing loudly, whiskers twitching, as if they've been waiting all week for this very moment. And once the treats are gone, there's always that adorable moment of licking stray crumbs off their lips, followed by a satisfied flop into their favorite cozy spot.
What makes Caturday snacking so sweet is the simple happiness it brings.. a soft purr, a bright-eyed look of gratitude, a warm body curled up beside you afterward. It turns an ordinary Saturday into a tiny celebration of comfort, companionship, and shared joy. A few treats and a happy cat can make the whole day feel better.
22 Hissterical Memes of Cat Convos Where Hoomans Think They’re Fluent in Meow
Nov. 29th, 2025 03:00 pmicanhascheezburger_feedAnyone who lives with a cat knows that conversations don't just happen. They're required. You can't walk into a room without offering at least a quick "Hi, buddy." You can't open a treat bag without saying, "Okay, just one." And you definitely can't leave the house without explaining where you're going, how long you'll be gone, and promising that you'll return like you're speaking to your tiny furry supervisor.
Cats always respond, too, just not in English. There's the impatient meow that clearly translates to "Hurry up." The soft chirp that means "Hello, peasant, carry on." The dramatic yowl that says "You forgot to feed me even though I ate ten minutes ago." And of course, the silent stare, which mostly feels like judgment, but might also be affection… maybe.
These conversations continue throughout the day, whether you're asking them why they're in the sink, discussing life while they nap on your laptop, or apologizing as you step over them like an obstacle in your own home. And even though they rarely give straight answers, talking to cats somehow feels natural. After all, they always listen… unless they're busy ignoring you on purpose.
In Line And Out Of Line: Black Friday Edition
Nov. 30th, 2025 12:00 amnotalwaysright_feedRead In Line And Out Of Line: Black Friday Edition
Customer: "Oh my God! These can't be the lines?!"
Me: "I'm afraid they are, ma'am."
Customer: "How long will this take?!
Me: "About an hour, ma'am."
Americans say 'no thanks' to red states
Nov. 30th, 2025 12:00 amdailykos_feedPresident Donald Trump has a malevolent preference for red states, throwing money at them while he withholds it from blue states. And yet as the nation travels for Thanksgiving this week, Americans generally prefer blue states to red ones.
On average, 55% of Americans have a favorable view of blue states, while 24% have an unfavorable view, according to a Daily Kos analysis of YouGov data. That makes for a net favorability of +31 percentage points.
But red states have a net favorability of just +24 points. On average, less than half of Americans have a favorable view of red states (48%), and 24% have an unfavorable view.
Americans also have a sunnier view of swing states, which have an average net favorability of +30 points—basically the same as blue states. Fifty-three percent of Americans have a favorable view of them on average, and 23% have an unfavorable view.
Daily Kos determined the partisanship of a state by averaging the results of its past three presidential elections (2016, 2020, and 2024) and its most recent Senate race and gubernatorial race. States that a party won by 15 percentage points or more on average are considered “blue” or “red” states. States won by smaller margins on average are considered “swing” states.
The most polarizing states are also the nation’s most populous: Texas, New York, Florida, and California. The Golden State is far and away the most polarizing, with 26% having a very favorable view of it and 25% having a very unfavorable view.
Notably, Texas and Florida, despite their reputations, are not solidly red. In fact, neither is considered a “red state” according to the methodology outlined above. Across the past three presidential elections, as well as the state’s most recent Senate race and governor’s race, the Republican candidate won, on average, by only 10.0 points in Florida and 9.5 points in Texas.
Compare that with California and New York, where the Democratic candidate won, on average, by 23.1 points and 16.6 points, respectively.
Mississippi, a red state, is among the more polarizing states as well, but it shares the dubious honor of having the lowest net approval rating of any state, at just +2 points. Thirty-seven percent have a favorable view of the state, while 35% have a negative view.
Democrats’ favorite red state is Alaska (R+15.3), home of grizzly bears and moose, with all its panoramic natural beauty. Sixty-five percent have a very or somewhat favorable view of the Last Frontier.
And Republicans’ favorite blue state is Hawaii (D+28.8), because obviously. Fifty-five percent have a very or somewhat favorable view of the Aloha State.
It’s also worth noting that Washington, D.C., is excluded from the data above. It has arguably the worst favorability of any location YouGov included in this survey (+1 net favorability), but it was excluded from Daily Kos’ “blue state” group because, for one thing, it’s tainted by the stink of the swamp. Only 15% of Americans approve of Congress, according to Gallup—and that’s a burden that no other state shares.
And for another thing, it’s not a state. But if Republicans want to change that, drop me a line. D.C. statehood is something I’d sure be thankful for.