Snopes.com ([syndicated profile] snopes_feed) wrote2025-07-19 01:30 am

Paranormal investigator Dan Rivera died suddenly on Annabelle doll tour. Here's what we know

Posted by Megan Loe

Social media users theorized that the allegedly haunted Annabelle doll was behind the July 2025 death of paranormal investigator Dan Rivera.
rocky41_7: (Default)
rocky41_7 ([personal profile] rocky41_7) wrote in [community profile] books2025-07-18 05:43 pm

Recent Reading: The Sapling Cage

Oof. Today I threw in the towel on Margaret Killjoy's The Sapling Cage because I'd rather be alone with my thoughts than sit through another three hours of this book. This is a fantasy book about a "boy," Lorel, who disguises herself as her female friend to join a witches' coven (She's a transgirl, but her journey on that understanding is part of the book, and she refers to herself as a boy for much of the story.)
 
First, I will say that I think Lorel is a protagonist written with love; clearly Killjoy wanted her to be relatable and sympathetic, and someone eager for a trans fantasy protag may be willing to forgive the book's many weaknesses for that. That said...
 
I was shocked to realize this book is not categorized as Young Adult/Youth literature. Lorel is 16 at the start of the book and she's very sixteen. She makes all the sorts of stupid, immature mistakes you would expect from a teenager, which makes her a realistic character, but also deeply frustrating to read as an adult, particularly since the first-person narration puts us right in her head. The book feels young even for a sixteen-year-old; it reads more like a preteen novel about teenagers.
 
The book itself feels incredibly juvenile, both in prose and in narrative. The writing is simplistic, the narrative barely there, and the worldbuilding painfully thin. The book infodumps on the reader constantly, going into detail about things that are then never relevant again and don't connect into any kind of overarching picture of what this world is like. Reads very much like the author just throwing a bunch of things she thought were cool at the reader without actually thinking about how they would impact her world or the characters in them.
 
 

Snopes.com ([syndicated profile] snopes_feed) wrote2025-07-19 12:13 am
Snopes.com ([syndicated profile] snopes_feed) wrote2025-07-19 12:07 am
Snopes.com ([syndicated profile] snopes_feed) wrote2025-07-18 10:52 pm

Contextualizing claim that 72% of people ICE detained under Trump have no criminal record

Posted by Rae Deng

ICE data from June 2025 showed 72% of people detained in the agency's facilities had no criminal convictions, although 24.7% had pending charges.
Snopes.com ([syndicated profile] snopes_feed) wrote2025-07-18 10:13 pm

Astronomer CEO issued this statement after Coldplay concert incident?

Posted by Joey Esposito

The tech company's CEO and chief people officer were caught embracing each other on a "kiss cam" during a Coldplay show.
Schneier on Security ([syndicated profile] bruce_schneier_feed) wrote2025-07-18 09:06 pm

Friday Squid Blogging: The Giant Squid Nebula

Posted by Bruce Schneier

Beautiful photo.

Difficult to capture, this mysterious, squid-shaped interstellar cloud spans nearly three full moons in planet Earth’s sky. Discovered in 2011 by French astro-imager Nicolas Outters, the Squid Nebula’s bipolar shape is distinguished here by the telltale blue emission from doubly ionized oxygen atoms. Though apparently surrounded by the reddish hydrogen emission region Sh2-129, the true distance and nature of the Squid Nebula have been difficult to determine. Still, one investigation suggests Ou4 really does lie within Sh2-129 some 2,300 light-years away. Consistent with that scenario, the cosmic squid would represent a spectacular outflow of material driven by a triple system of hot, massive stars, cataloged as HR8119, seen near the center of the nebula. If so, this truly giant squid nebula would physically be over 50 light-years across.

Snopes.com ([syndicated profile] snopes_feed) wrote2025-07-18 09:25 pm