Stephen Cox Author

@stephenwhq
776 Followers
596 Following
5.1K Posts

Warm intelligent accessible #SFF
THE CROOKED MEDIUM's GUIDE TO MURDER - spooky, sapphic, Victorian - sequel coming.

Our Child of the Stars/Our Child of Two Worlds.
https://stephencox.co.uk/books/upcoming/

#Free #fiction on website and smart #newsletter.
Services to help creatives be interesting

Bi, parent, humane, "writes beautifully" I'm told. UK/the world

Genial bearded guy. Not genial about AI - make techbros pay for stealing

Website/Bloghttps://stephencox.co.uk
Newsletter signuphttps://substack.com/@stephencox
Buy links The Crooked Mediumhttps://stephencox.co.uk/books/upcoming/
All the linkshttps://linktr.ee/stephencoxauthor

Just to reiterate, because my old account got banned.

When the president gives the order to deploy nukes, that decision goes through a chain of command until it reaches the person who actually deploys it.

Each person in the chain of command has the power to say “No.” and just like that, none of the people under them in the chain of command can deploy nukes.

If we are talking about a nuke that deploys from a missile silo, there are two people at the end of that chain of command. They each have to turn a key at the same time to deploy, or the weapon is not sent. The key holes are far enough apart so that one person cannot deploy alone.

Each of the servicemen with those keys has a pistol in case the other one goes crazy and tries to do something horrible.

As you can see, the system is designed to make it unlikely that nukes actually get deployed, but not impossible. The government doesn't want it to be impossible, because making threats with nukes is much more useful than actually using them.

During the Cold War a test was conducted. This was at the height of the Cold War when everyone understood that nuclear annihilation was a possibility. Even under what are arguably ideal conditions in which the chances of deployment were maximized, the test showed that in a real situation, only 10% off the nukes would actually deploy. (Note: you didn't hear that number from me. I'm not supposed to know that.)

This is worth mentioning because we have a madman in the White House who is too stupid to understand all of the negative political, diplomatic, etc, consequences of deploying a nuke (I suspect this is why Putin has yet to use them).

It is also worth mentioning that a lot of people in the US military have been referring to the Iran war as “Operation Epstein Fury.”

If the command is given, I fully expect the actual deployment chances to be far below 10%.

I know this is a small comfort given that we have a brain-damaged shitgibbon in the White House, but I hope this information helps you sleep a little better.

@quixoticgeek

the aging, people with small children, and the disabled must suffer in case a homeless person might lie down.

#WritersCoffeeClub 30/3: What got in the way of your writing this month?

I've been diverted off fresh writing but I may have book three of the Crooked Medium emerging. I'm analysing feedback on the second Crooked Medium book MS, which is interesting, and trying to figure my timetable for publishing it. The side quest WIP needs more concentration. Taxes, voluntary work and family have also knocked me off course.

#amwriting #writingcommunity #writing

"After months of heated debate and previous attempts to restrict the use of large language models on Wikipedia, on March 20 volunteer editors accepted a new policy that prohibits using them to create articles for the online encyclopedia.

The new policy, which was accepted in an overwhelming 40 to 2 vote among editors, allows editors to use LLMs to suggest basic copyedits to their own writing, which can be incorporated into the article or rewritten after human review if the LLM doesn’t generate entirely new content on its own."

https://www.404media.co/wikipedia-bans-ai-generated-content/

Wikipedia Bans AI-Generated Content

“In recent months, more and more administrative reports centered on LLM-related issues, and editors were being overwhelmed.”

404 Media

Across England just over a quarter of all children live in poverty, rising to over a third of children in London; no wonder many voters do not believe claims by our political class that the UK economy is not dysfunctional & just needs some tweaks to improve.

This level of child poverty doesn't happen by accident nor does it happen quickly; its an indictment of the callousness & inhumanity of our political class' management of the UK's political economy.

#UK #inequality
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/26/child-poverty-london-housing-crisis

London has England’s highest levels of child poverty, data shows

About 38% of children in London live in relative poverty, compared with 27% in the UK as a whole

The Guardian
Another country falls to the billionaire paedophile religion.
RE: masto.ai/users/transworld/stat…
Transgender World (@[email protected])

India passes law to end transgender self-identification.. The country that stood up for trans people gives in to colonial bigotry. https://qnews.com.au/india-passes-law-to-end-transgender-self-identification/ #transgender #trans #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA

Mastodon
Happy dance because my proposed new newsletter provider only provides AI tools to the paid plans! Talk about "don't threaten me with a good time!"

27. Which character would be the most fun to be around?

On a good day, Mrs Ashton is funny, a good hostess, a witty mimic, widely if erratically read, often kind, occasionally malicious and has the extrovert energy in a gathering she is enjoying. She also likes her drink.

Maisie - sharp, streetwise, knowing beyond her years - also holds court. Braddie might bake, plain sturdy fare but well meant.

@stephenwhq I find writing to be a kind of therapy. They are the storytellers words and come from their views and experiences. Yet they are shaped into a metaphorical world and played by different characters.

I find it takes writing a story for me to see how it has come from me. One example is my love of writing father figures, and I realised it came from my early childhood, when my dad worked abroad. Back then, I gravitated to reading fictional father figures to act as a surrogate anchor.