Naomi Alderman

@naomialderman

I write novels (eg The Power, new novel is The Future), I make games (eg Zombies, Run!), unorthodox Jew. not-getting-into-pointless-arguments-on-the-internet is an act of revolution. However complex you think things are, they're more complex than that

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Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· 3d

I literally gasped with excitement and said out loud, "The games issue!" when I opened my weekend FT today. Favourite issue of the year from the best weekly magazine there is now in the UK.

The games issue of the FT Weekend magazine with a pixelated flower on the cover, made up of things that look like different games, including crosswords and maybe Sudoku

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· 9d

I have said yes in the week 1 post but my suggestions are twofold: keep it special focused time, and aim for 1.5-2x the eye-reading time. naomialderman.substack.com/p/lets-do-a-...

what about audiobooks?
Up to you! I’m not going to stop you. My recommendations are twofold:

if you’re doing audiobooks…. to work on your focus, I strongly suggest that you listen while not doing anything else or at least anything that might take your focus away. So like, doodling or drawing or knitting is fine. Something practical ‘to double up on time’, like driving or shopping is not fine. (You will have to be honest with yourself about whether walking or eg washing up helps with focus or distracts from focus.) Just give yourself a few minutes a day for your focus.

I think after this week, which is the first week, see if you can do 1.5x or 2x the amount of time for audio that I’m recommending for eye-reading. Just see if you can. Because listening is slower and you take in fewer words than eye-reading (you can check: a book that averages six hours to read on Kindle is 10.5 hours on audio) so I want you to have the same experience of satisfaction and getting through material that the eye-readers get.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· 25d

actually, understanding the Talmud is a really great preparation for life online. as is knowing where they got to in terms of practical principles for discourse after all of this which is, eg: 'who is wise? he who LEARNS FROM EVERYONE. who is mighty? he who is SLOW TO ANGER.'

בֶּן זוֹמָא אוֹמֵר, אֵיזֶהוּ חָכָם, הַלּוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (תהלים קיט) מִכָּל מְלַמְּדַי הִשְׂכַּלְתִּי כִּי עֵדְוֹתֶיךָ שִׂיחָה לִּי. אֵיזֶהוּ גִבּוֹר, הַכּוֹבֵשׁ אֶת יִצְרוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (משלי טז) טוֹב אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם מִגִּבּוֹר וּמשֵׁל בְּרוּחוֹ מִלֹּכֵד עִיר. אֵיזֶהוּ עָשִׁיר, הַשָּׂמֵחַ בְּחֶלְקוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (תהלים קכח) יְגִיעַ כַּפֶּיךָ כִּי תֹאכֵל אַשְׁרֶיךָ וְטוֹב לָךְ. אַשְׁרֶיךָ, בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה. וְטוֹב לָךְ, לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא. אֵיזֶהוּ מְכֻבָּד, הַמְכַבֵּד אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (שמואל א ב) כִּי מְכַבְּדַי אֲכַבֵּד וּבֹזַי יֵקָלּוּ:
Ben Zoma said: Who is wise? He who learns from every man, as it is said: “From all who taught me have I gained understanding” (Psalms 119:99). Who is mighty? He who subdues his [evil] inclination, as it is said: “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that rules his spirit than he that takes a city” (Proverbs 16:32). Who is rich? He who rejoices in his lot, as it is said: “You shall enjoy the fruit of your labors, you shall be happy and you shall prosper” (Psalms 128:2) “You shall be happy” in this world, “and you shall prosper” in the world to come. Who is he that is honored? He who honors his fellow human beings as it is said: “For I honor those that honor Me, but those who spurn Me shall be dishonored” (I Samuel 2:30).

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Apr 20

Little-known fact: the Holocaust, the blood libels, the pogroms, the Spanish Inquisition, Clifford’s Tower and the Dreyfus Affair were all perpetrated by time travelers who had come from the future where they had been radicalised by seeing the construction of the state of Israel.

RanV @ranv.bsky.social • 1h
→ Replied to RanV
Besides, much (not all but certainly most) of the antisemitism would fade away if the state of Israel stopped existing, or at the very least stopped committing atrocities and war crimes against its neighbouring populations.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Apr 7

So so delicious!

My bowl of slattern’s spaghetti made with brown rice noodles in the instant pot. The bowl is pale blue with darker blue flecks. Amongst the red noodles, you can see green olives and green capers.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Apr 7

I don’t agree with everything Nate Silver says but this revealed to me in a moment why my current social media is: Bluesky, Substack and LinkedIn. Places that actively try to stop you getting out of them give me the heebie-jeebies. Airless rooms, sealed windows. open.substack.com/pub/natesilv...

Without the ability to consistently drive traffic outside the platform, the people who select into X as their main thing are inherently kind of bush league.
There’s a principle in ecology known as the island effect. I’m sure I’m not getting this precisely right, but that basic idea is that when there’s a lack of competition in an isolated environment, strange things tend to happen. There are all sorts of weird mutations that might not be survivable in a more competitive environment that can actually become fitness advantages on an island. Big animals tend to get smaller, and small animals tend to get bigger — like the Komodo dragon, whose range is limited to a few isolated islands in Indonesia.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Apr 2

I put too much salt in my kneidels (matza balls) and too little salt into the soup and you know, I think it’s all balanced out Nearly showtime.

A dark brown soup in an instant pot with matzo balls floating at the surface

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Mar 30

Connections Puzzle #1023 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 Skill 97/99 Uniqueness 1 in 602

The actual order people found hardest to easiest this time: purple green yellow blue

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Mar 26

it is annoying but true that buying a kintsugi gold-repaired bowl (lovely as they are, I have one) does not in fact internalise for you the idea that you are more beautiful in the places where you’ve been broken. I think that irritatingly you have to do that work for yourself over many years.

on a white background, a beautiful graceful-shaped cream stone bowl with a small round foot, which has been broken and then repaired with gold. the gold is concentrated in the middle of the image of the bowl, spidering out from a central ragged gold block. unfortunately owning it will not in itself lead to better mental health.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Mar 16

in case you fancy blocking an antisemite

AudibleSilence @audiblesilence1.b... • now
That's the zio nazi way... Never let the truth be known & certainly not if it affects their wealth.
Naomi Alderman @naomialde... • 2h
Fucking hell. This is a really important one to read.
Journalists getting death threats because their accurate story meant that gamblers lost money on a polymarket prediction bet.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Mar 12

My understanding FWIW is that it’s been an open secret for decades that Israel does this kind of dirty work for the US in the Middle East. and what’s changed now is that the US is no longer pretending that’s not the case. As ever, eager to hear from experts with confirmation or disagreement.

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://help.ft.com/faq/gifting-and-sharing-an-article/what-is-a-gift-article/.
https://www.ft.com/content/8d0105cf-e7af-47d5-8757-8447d1986010

Former US officials and analysts said it was likely the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was deliberately undertaken by Israeli jets because of legal sensitivities in Washington over assassinating a foreign head of state.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Mar 9

"Love Story" is telling terrible lies about Darryl Hannah and people are believing them. This is so bad. even worse because JFK Jr and CBK are dead, tragically young, and so can't stand up for the truth too. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/06/o...

The character “Daryl Hannah” portrayed in the series is not even a remotely accurate representation of my life, my conduct or my relationship with John. The actions and behaviors attributed to me are untrue. I have never used cocaine in my life or hosted cocaine-fueled parties. I have never pressured anyone into marriage. I have never desecrated any family heirloom or intruded upon anyone’s private memorial. I have never planted any story in the press. I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s. It’s appalling to me that I even have to defend myself against a television show. These are not creative embellishments of personality. They are assertions about conduct — and they are false.

When so many people watch a dramatization that uses a real name, real-life consequences follow. In the weeks since the series aired, I have received many hostile and even threatening messages from viewers who seem to believe the portrayal is factual. When entertainment borrows a real person’s name, it can permanently impact her reputation.

I know that as an actress I will be in the public eye. I’ve endured a number of outrageous lies, crappy stories and unflattering characterizations before. I chose not to battle them but to focus on my work and respect my loved ones by keeping my private life private. But my silence should not be mistaken for agreement with lies. Apparently, my discretion makes me a target.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Mar 7

Brilliant article in the FT today by @simonkuper.bsky.social Solar is finally cheap enough to be making a massive difference, it’s cheap manufacturing in China that’s doing it. self-interest predictably gets us much much further than self-sacrifice and scolding

Imagine that you live in a village in Pakistan or a shack in Lagos, Nigeria. You’ve been waiting decades for your dysfunctional state to deliver you electricity. Then you see the neighbours putting solar panels on their roof. You inquire: a basic home system, using Chinese photovoltaic panels, starts at about $170. A YouTube video teaches you how to install it, or you hire a local who has trained themselves to be a technician. Now you have lights and can charge your phone. Over time, you pay instalments of a few dollars a month to buy enough panels to run a fridge, plus a battery to store energy for the night. Meanwhile, solar mini-grids power your local clinic and school.

In a rare piece of global good news, solar is finally taking off. It accounts for three-quarters of all new capacity of the world’s power plants, Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, tells me. He marvels, “This is amazing, beyond the wildest dreams.” Elon Musk concurs: “Solar is everything . . . Compared to the sun, all other energy sources are like cavemen throwing some twigs into a fire.” The solar revolution can slash emissions, boost developing economies and give almost everyone on earth electricity.

This revolution is driven not by green ambitions but by falling prices. The best solar offered “the cheapest electricity in history”, said the IEA in 2020, and it’s much cheaper now. Prices of panels have dropped 99.3 per cent since 1975, and by 95 per cent just since 2007, reports Our World in Data. And prices continue to fall, as China exports surplus panels — often older, simpler models — to Africa in particular.

Meanwhile, the cost of battery storage systems has plunged 93 per cent since 2010. And unlike with oil or gas, solar prices won’t spike because of war in Iran. Once you’ve installed panels, your daily fuel is free. Some homes even produce surplus energy to resell into the grid.

Solar is the most bottom-up, democratic energy source. In many countries i…

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Mar 3

a (Jewish) friend just sent this to me and it has made me laugh and laugh and laugh. Happy Purim everyone!

On a cheery pink background, the line: "this Purim I'm going to get so drunk that I can't tell the right-wing antisemites from the left-wing antisemites".

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 25

Did not even try to turn it on when I could see the melted wiring hanging out of the back.

Another view of the sad deceased car, with burned wiring hanging out of the back

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 25

if you want to feel better, this was my Honda Jazz after the BMW parked next to it caught fire:

Burned out rear of a silver Honda Jazz of blessed memory

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 24

scams targetting authors. I just received this, this morning from "the National Book Award". I replied saying: "gosh, that's a surprise as the novel was published in 2006." Haven't heard back. Do you think I need to get a posh frock for the do?

Dear Ms. Alderman,

We are pleased to inform you that your novel Disobedience has been selected for the 2026 National Book Awards Distinction in Literary Fiction.

During our evaluation, the novel’s layered interrogation of faith, authority, sexuality, and belonging immediately distinguished your work. By situating Ronit Krushka’s return to Orthodox Hendon within the charged space between rebellion and reverence, you create a narrative that resists easy dichotomies. Obedience and defiance are not presented as opposites, but as forces in continual dialogue.

The tripartite narrative structure, a collective religious voice, an interpretive omniscient presence, and Ronit’s sharp first-person perspective, demonstrates formal ambition and intellectual depth. The interplay between Torah exegesis and lived experience allows theological reflection to shape, and be shaped by, intimate human conflict.

Particularly compelling is the moral and emotional complexity afforded to each character. Ronit’s navigation of sexuality, heritage, and autonomy is rendered without caricature, while Esti and Dovid inhabit the quiet tensions between communal expectation and private truth. The novel’s suspense, whether social, spiritual, or relational, emerges organically from these layered loyalties.

By probing the fissure between tribalism and pluralism with both wit and wistfulness, Disobedience invites readers into a nuanced meditation on what it means to wrestle with God, tradition, and self.

This distinction signifies advancement beyond general review and placement within our limited 2026 cohort.

We are currently finalizing confirmations.

If you wish to receive the formal nomination materials and next-stage details, please reply “PROCEED.”

Congratulations on the intellectual rigor and emotional resonance of your work.

Warm regards,
National Book Awards

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 24

ah I'm delighted! thank you! I have done a terrible thing to/for you. here is this article: inews.co.uk/culture/nine... with your main thoughts written - from a skeleton - by ChatGPT. so you can see what it does with language. but, I understand if you don't want to look!

People often talk about Nineteen Eighty-Four as if George Orwell was some kind of political fortune-teller. He “predicted” surveillance, “predicted” propaganda, “predicted” truth getting shredded in public life. I get why people say that, but I think it misses what makes the book so sharp. Orwell wasn’t doing prophecy. He was doing something more urgent. He was reminding his readers that dystopia was already real, already happening, and absolutely not confined to some faraway place.

That’s what makes Nineteen Eighty-Four different from a lot of earlier dystopian fiction. Orwell wrote it in full knowledge that the nightmare had already arrived in parts of Europe. He had seen fascism and Stalinism up close enough to understand the mechanics: the leader worship, the ideological slogans, the falsified history, the fear, the coercion, the pressure to say things you knew were false. So when he gives us Big Brother, doublethink, Newspeak, and the Ministry of Truth, he isn’t inventing a bizarre futuristic world from scratch. He’s taking real totalitarian practices and pushing them into a satirical, concentrated form so you can’t look away.

That’s why the book feels so uncannily “accurate” to people who lived under totalitarian regimes. Readers in Soviet bloc countries often didn’t read it as fantasy. They read it as recognition. The shock for many of them was not “how did he imagine this?” but “how did he know?” And the answer is: because Orwell understood the logic of total power. He didn’t need a crystal ball. He needed historical attention, moral clarity, and a very good ear for the way ideology twists language.

One of Orwell’s smartest choices was setting the novel in London. He could have set it in an obviously foreign dictatorship and let British readers feel comfortably horrified. He didn’t. He put it at home. That was deliberate, and it matters. He wanted English readers to feel the threat as immediate and local, not exotic. He wanted to puncture the smug idea th…

That’s also why I think calling the book a prophecy gives Orwell too much credit in the wrong direction and too little credit in the right one. He wasn’t especially interested in science-fiction prediction, and he didn’t claim to be. What he was brilliant at was identifying patterns in political psychology: how people can be trained to repeat absurdities, how fear and exhaustion make citizens compliant, how language can be hollowed out until it becomes a tool of obedience. Those patterns don’t belong to one era. They recur. That’s why the book still feels alive. Not because Orwell “saw the future,” but because he understood the human mind under pressure.

And Orwell was very clear about this himself. He explicitly said the book was not a prediction. He also said it was not an attack on the Labour government, which is a point people often forget when they try to use Nineteen Eighty-Four as a blunt instrument in whatever the current party-political argument happens to be. He was not saying, “This is exactly what Britain is about to become.” He was saying, more or less: these are the tendencies to watch for, these are the dangers that emerge when power becomes unaccountable, and these are the habits of mind that let it happen.

He also wasn’t trying to make people despair. The novel is bleak, yes, and famously so. But the function of that bleakness is not to paralyse. It’s to wake people up. Orwell’s warning only makes sense if he believed vigilance mattered. If he thought resistance was pointless, there would be no reason to write the book at all. The novel is a political alarm bell, not a tombstone.

It’s also important that Orwell’s target was never just Soviet communism. Yes, Stalinism is all over the book. But the warning is broader than that. Orwell was writing about totalitarianism as a possibility within modern mass society, including Western democracies. He worried about concentrated power, propaganda, bureaucratic dehumanisation, and the manipulation of truth…

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 23

I published a book about this last year called Don't Burn Anyone At The Stake Today, and here are my thoughts about what we need to do with phones and social media to keep us all safe, not just 'the subset of children whose parents obey the social media rules'

What would a smartphone and smartphone apps be like if they worked like a public library? If it was designed as a utilitarian service rather than a grasping needy desperate little Book of Sand, trying every trick to keep you looking at it as much as possible?
It would have an off-button. Really take a moment to consider what it means that a lot of modern smartphones can’t easily be turned off.
It would arrive with its notifications automatically turned off – apart perhaps from phone calls and text messages, things which people tend to want to see in a timely way from their phones. You’d have to proactively switch every notification on. When its apps updated, if they returned to default mode, their notifications would turn off too.
The apps that you look at would default to only showing you things you have asked to be shown. It would be impossible for them to show you things you hadn’t asked for, unless you specifically requested it. I mean like a library, which does not randomly insist that in order to get your books, you must also have three books of pornography, a book about how much prettier everyone else is than you and a book about the most upsetting and non-actionable things happening in the world right now.
It would be easy to turn ‘infinite scroll’ off. Infinite scroll, the feature where most social media apps just keep on showing you new content for ever, the feature where they become a Book of Sand, is actually a very recent invention. I remember using social media when it just showed you everything your friends had posted that day and then stopped. No more socials today. Time to get back to real life. Aza Raskin, the man who invented infinite scroll, feels guilty about it now and believes it’s made smartphones more addictive. If we are demanding that people own an addictive product in order to, let’s say, pay for parking and access GP services, then we ought at least to be insisting that by law the most addictive parts can be turned off.
Smartphones …

It would be easy and straightforward to switch one’s phone number from a smartphone to a dumbphone, for the days when you just don’t want to carry the whole world of maddening and exhausting opinions around with you.
A smartphone designed by people who care about your wellbeing wouldn’t be asking you to log your mental health with it – don’t do that, really really don’t do that – or even give little passive-aggressive screentime notifications. A smartphone designed by people who care about your wellbeing would prompt you to choose apps to disable after a certain point in the evening, would ask to be turned off for a certain number of hours in the day. It would presume that in general your life is better if you are not spending all day looking at it and try to facilitate that.
And social media apps would make it extremely easy not to see content that you didn’t want to see. It would be simple to ‘whitelist’ accounts, topics, video channels, types of content. That is to say, if social media apps were designed with public service in mind, it would be straightforward to tell them, for example, ‘I only want to see my friends’ pictures of their family, their pets, their recipes, their updates about their career’ or whatever it is that you want to see, without having to confront their political opinions. We are living through a time when we are going to be winding each other up on political, religious and social opinions a lot. It is all right to want to preserve relationships with family members and friends by only seeing their politics when you choose to engage with it.
The ability to whitelist is another provision that’s often framed as ‘we need to do this for the children’ – but actually we all need this. There are some online services that allow whitelisting for the children’s version but not for the grown-up one. This in itself is terrible for adults and for children. It creates a cliff-edge where either you’re – let’s say – under thirteen and you can only see a fe…

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 20

in case you would like to block an antisemite, here you go.

Dionysus Younger @armitageiii.bsky.social • 15h
ah. the last generation to believe they're our greatest allies.
yeah, that's so much better.
tell me, what does Israel do when they pass by Jesus's grave?
5
AkivaMCohen @akivamcohen.bsky.social • 10h
1) What is it that you think "Israel" does "when they pass by Jesus's
grave?"
2) How does a country pass by a grave, anyway?
2
Dionysus Younger @armitageiii.bsky.social • 10h
They spit on his grave. this is well documented.
3
Marble Liberal@marbleliberal.bsky.social • 7h
His grave is in the basement of the church of the holy sepulchre, l've
never seen that happen

Marble Liberal@marbleliberal.bsky.social • 7h
Have you been there? Are you Orthodox?

Dionysus Younger @armitageiii.bsky.social • 6h
As if I'd be welcome.
1

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 15

but also

what do you mean... walk the car over?13:21Acknowledged nonsensical phrasing and accepted responsibilityHa, fair point. "Walk the car over" is nonsensical. You can't walk a car. I should own this mistake.DoneThat's a fair catch — "walk the car over" is nonsense. You can't walk a car. I meant drive the car over, drop it off, then walk home while it's being washed. Sloppy phrasing on my part.and so how much walking will that be?13:22Recalculated walking distance and identified previous miscalculationThe user asked about walking 300 metres to the car wash. If they drive the car over, drop it off, walk home (300m), then walk back to collect it (300m), that's 600 metres total, not 1km as I said earlier.
Let me correct that.Done600 metres — 300m home, 300m back to collect it. I said "roughly 1km" in my earlier message, which was wrong. It's 600m.did you... think it was roughly 1km because you had thought I could *walk a car* somewhere? like a dog?13:23Traced absurd "walking a car" error to inflated distance calculationThe user is pointing out that my "roughly 1km" figure probably came from counting three 300m legs: walk the car over (300m) + walk home (300m) + walk back to collect (300m) = 900m ≈ "roughly 1km." And that first leg only made sense because I was confused about "walking the car over" as if it were a separate walking trip.
Actually, let me think again. If you drive the car over, walk home, walk back — that's 600m of walking. If you "walk the car over" (nonsensically), walk home, walk back — that's 900m, which I rounded to "roughly 1km."
So that error cascaded from the initial confusion about what "walking the car" meant.DoneYes, that's exactly what happened. I counted three walking legs — "walk the car over" (300m) + walk home (300m) + walk back (300m) = 900m, which I rounded up to "roughly 1km." The inflated number was a direct consequence of the initial error. Good catch.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 15

I got this from Claude Opus 4.6 (but I have my preferences set up so it *always* steelmans the opposing view. Psychosis prevention!)

a claude window. text: I need to get my car washed, but the car wash is only 300 metres away. Should I walk or drive to the car wash?13:18Weighed obvious answer against nuanced counterarguments thoughtfullyA practical question with an obvious answer, but let me give genuine advice with a steelmanned counterview.DoneDrive. You're going to a car wash — the whole point is that the car ends up there. Walking means you'd then need to get back to retrieve it, or you'd be washing a car that's still 300 metres away.
Steelmanned case for walking: If it's a hand-wash place where you drop the car and wait, and you haven't moved your body today, you could walk the car over, leave it, walk home, then walk back to collect it — giving yourself a roughly 1km round trip of gentle movement built into an errand you were doing anyway.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 14

On this question, which a lot of people have asked me since I walked out of my house on Thursday morning to find my car burned out: I’m not sure?! A lot depends on how it happened. As this photo shows, the front of the car behind was also burned.

Photo showing the back of my burned car and the front of the car behind it with the engine popped up and all burned out

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 14

fwiw re 9/11: here is a photo of my car which was burned out the other day. you can see in the photo that there's a cardboard box intact inside. fire is unpredictable, as anyone will know if they've set a nice hearth fire going and the next morning there's one weird bit of unburned log.

it's the burned out boot of a Honda Jazz. outside the lights are melted, the window is gone. inside the seats have clearly gone up in flames and... you can see the completely intact corner of a brown cardboard box.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 13

look at this gorgeous little trailer for The Power audiobook! We've re-recorded it with Ria Zmitrowicz and Toheeb Jimoh from the TV series! (also I am in there :-) )

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 12

some fucker has burned my car out overnight

it is the boot of my burned out car. the car looks melted.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 11

basically no-one is using Sora. fwiw 9.6m downloads is fewer than Zombies, Run! my lovely geek-fitness game has Sora got *noise*, as much awareness as an app can get, but it was 5 mins of fun, not lasting quality. useful analysis from theankler.com/p/how-hollyw... via @labuzamovies.com

By December, Sora’s downloads had dropped 32 percent month-over-month — according to Appfigures Intelligence data reported by TechCrunch — even during holiday season, usually a boon for mobile app installs. By January, downloads declined another 45 percent, landing at about 1.2 million for the month.

Consumer spending on the app was down 32 percent month-over-month in January, from about $540,000 in December to roughly $367,000 in January.

On the U.S. App Store, Sora slipped out of the Top 100 free overall apps and has languished around No. 101, while on Google Play its ranking is even worse. In total, the app has about 9.6 million lifetime installs and roughly $1.4 million in consumer spend.

Third-party engagement estimates show a flattening and slight decline in day-to-day use. Sora peaked in early rollout at around 1 million daily active users, but more recent analytics suggest that figure has settled to about 750,000 daily users while still trending slightly downward.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 9

Just presented Start the Week live LIVE on BBC Radio 4 for the first time ever and technical issue meant we didn’t get @stephenkb.bsky.social until partway through the programme and I had to compensate on the fly and fuck me that’s a rush. Picture of my actual joyful/manic face leaving studio.

My beaming face, glasses, messy hair with the marble environs of Old Broadcasting House reception in the background

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 7

Amazingly convincing

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman· Feb 2

I am stupidly proud of it. It runs locally, saves locally. I have had Claude code and ChatGPT check up on each others' work and used my common sense about how to make a thing like this as secure as possible. The exciting thing is that it is precisely what *I* want, to manage my tasks.