EVERYTHING THEY DO IS FAKE:

SEDUCTIVE AI: China cracks down on AI girlfriends, leaving users heartbroken.

Related: Your Child’s Next Teacher Could Be a Sex Robot. “But look on the bright side: this is real vertical integration, people! Just imagine a future in which the same company can sell you a) a robot to teach you at school; b) a robot to compensate for the fact that you never learned to make friends at school; and c) a robot to gratify you because you’re lonely, alienated and your job just got automated out of existence! Who wouldn’t want to live in that world?”

You should read the book.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT:  Witch’s Daughter.

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Some letters come from the living. Some come from the dead. This one comes with a formula that turns a rowboat into a miracle.

Seventeen-year-old Lord Michael Ainsling — youngest brother of the Duke of Darkwater, builder of mechanical marvels, survivor of fairyland — receives a letter from a man sixteen years dead. The inventor Tristram Blakley has not perished; he has been imprisoned by his own genius and begs the one mind in all of Avalon brilliant enough to understand his work to set him free. All Michael has to do is find seven missing brothers first and walk a magical path..

Fifteen-year-old Albinia Blakley has spent her whole life under her mother’s iron thumb — and her mother is a witch. The day Al finally escapes down a rope of knotted sheets, she lands in a world she doesn’t recognize, with no money, no magic kit, and no idea that the stranger who catches her is about to become her greatest ally.

Together, a girl with more secrets than she knows and a boy who builds machines that try to murder him must outwit a sorceress, navigate the treacherous courts of Fairyland, and unravel an enchantment years in the making — before a family is lost for good.

Witch’s Daughter is a gaslamp fantasy brimming with wit, warmth, and wonder, for readers who love their magic wrapped in velvet and their adventures served with morning tea.

IF YOU’RE NOT HAVING RAGE ISSUES, YOU’RE NOT FOLLOWING THE NEWS:  Fuck You, Tim Walz.

OPEN THREAD: You know what to do.