If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie & $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don't tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff. Democracy dies in oligarchy.

Nope, I still don't like quilting.

Both Microsoft and Anthropic are both openly admitting how much harm their products will cause to education and yet universities are still "yes, this sounds good, it saves us the whole bother of teaching".

This is a fascinating story. ICE tried to buy a warehouse in VA from a Canadian company, to turn into a detention center. One of the company’s advertising partners basically told them that if they sold, they could kiss their ads goodbye. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/01/u...

In fact eroticized exploitation, abuse, domination, and violence are in fact normative parts of male heterosexuality—they’re largely constitutive of how men define themselves as men. The big feminist and queer intervention in sexual politics has been to say that this is corrosive and unnecessary.

Well, I had to teach myself the "heel lock" lacing today because apparently you're not supposed to have skinny heels when you have feet as big as mine. It seems like it's helping? Hopefully I won't bleed through another pair of socks today.

A tough one to sit with--but we must--is that some people's ability to make good art in part derived from, or was protected by, the fact that they were enabling or doing terrible things. See also: We Need to Talk about Cosby doc. Even more troubling on this score: Read deep reporting on Alice Munro

"Now, on Fox Kids, it's Eek! The Cat. And after that, a former child star grapples with a physical condition that keeps her from ever growing up and forces her into a state of psychosis that shatters her ability to process reality. And then, Bobby's World!"

👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻They were cruising around my neighborhood this AM, “escorted“ by a cyclist and several honking cars. I did a donation drop-off at one of the centers this afternoon and believe me, no one there who needed food and diapers thinks there’s a ”draw down“ or positive change of any kind. 😡

It's pretty amazing to me the amount of shit that apparently you can Just Do as an NYC mayor. It makes basically every other American politician look like an incompetent loser. What do you mean there was just a button that reversed wage theft? Why wasn't and isn't everyone hitting it all the time??

Epstein’s economic power among academics was made possible by a capitalist system that makes higher education dependent on the charity economy rather than a public good supported by taxing the rich

From Portland, OR Mayor Keith Wilson “To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave. […] To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children.” www.portland.gov/mayor/keith-...

All right. A completely new gaming keypad is 130. A secondhand new-to-me keypad is about 75 to 90. If I don't update my soldering iron, it's around 55 for not-quite-enough switches and desoldering wicks and flux and new solder with an actual label on it. Arg.

Well, I guess I get to find out if it costs more to get replacement switches and updated soldering materials, or but a new-used replacement keypad. Once again I dearly wish either a gaming corp goes full ergo, or an ergo corp gets deep into gaming because this is ridiculous.

Mercury Filmworks will officially fully animate ‘Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to be a Magical Girl’ Episode 1. Watch Episode 2: youtu.be/v8HCg0GD8UQ

These tools are so jank... Jewelry solder is the same as circuit solder... Right? This solder tip is huge. I'm sure that's fine...

Well, my gaming keypad key switches are starting to die, and I can't lever them apart to exchange the used ones with the less-used ones, so I guess I'm confronting my solder phobia today.

Worried about the surveillance dystopia? There are ways to disguise yourself from facial recognition systems, and it doesn’t require owning clothes with a special design or high-tech gear. @evystadium.bsky.social has more. Full guide by @samleecole.bsky.social here: www.404media.co/the-state-of...

"WORK is not always required. There is such a thing as SACRED IDLENESS." (2/n)

I hope they find someone who will show his work the respect it deserves. He was a patron to a studio of young artists I was part of years ago in Dublin, and would visit every now and again. Passionate and encouraging, he was a master visual storyteller. www.comicsbeat.com/will-eisner-...

Oh they believe children are harmed because they aren't exposed to the "proper representation" of heterosexuality with masculine and feminine role models. Funny how they think gender is innate but that kids must have it properly modeled for them in very specific ways, too.

I want to read books that could only have been written by *that* author, because of their perspective, their sense of humor, their pet peeves, their experiences, their niche interests. I want to read books flavored by the author as a human, not by tropes on repeat. And that's how I want to write.

Libraries need to be more vocal about the digital pricing problem. I only buy for Sora (the school version of Libby) when specifically requested by a patron. I talk a lot about why I don't buy on the regular and patrons are always shocked at the price difference. I have to pay $75 not $1.99!

Jerkface deer mouse update: he's still playing schroedinger's deer mouse, but I know better now. It looks like he gnawed at his pecan but gave up, the lazybones. So I took my nut chompers and clipped the top. Maybe that will help him figure out how nuts work.

I think an uncomfortable amount of academia depends on young people with deep reserves of energy operating under the hope that they’ll eventually reach a point where they‘re stable enough to rest before their bodies collapse.

@schoolsweek.bsky.social Covid is causing neurological problems, these are well documented now with MRI scans also but are never included in the narrative on mental health. Totally unscientific to leave out a key reason for the increase!

Not pictured: Haruki Murakami’s wife, or indeed whoever is cooking, cleaning, paying bills, running errands, doing the laundry, answering emails, etc like yea his routine is goals, but let’s not lie to ourselves about all the invisible work others are doing to enable him to have that routine

I post this link merely as a cultural curiosity and not so that anyone could print one if, say, whistles were banned. Obviously that would be wrong.

I was trying to look up the best temperature for releasing wildlife (like Mr bastard deer mouse), but the only thing I could find was some crap AI site claiming nighttime temperatures over 50. That's like May! I can't do that, his setup is not going to last until May!

A letter from Minnesota from one of the state's great authors. lithub.com/letter-from-...

Kids who grew up during the rise of streaming have no experience with PBS and will never understand the impact it had on the grownups around them. So evoking memories of Mister Rogers and Sesame Street etc. is more about hosting a wake for that era of media.

🌟"PRETTY PRETTY PLEASE I DON'T WANT TO BE A MAGICAL GIRL" EPISODE 2 🌟 "I Want to be a Normal Girl" SATURDAY, JANUARY 31ST @ 11AM PST!!!!!!!!!!!!

I paid my therapist a zillion dollars to tell me this, so I’m passing it on to anyone else in MN who needs to hear it: Think of taking time away to recharge not as not doing the work, but as doing quality control for the work. You’re not going to be able to show up to do it well if you’re depleted

Art is political. Creating is political. Books are political. Reading is political. Writing is political. All of it IS POLITICAL.

Florida wants to do what the states in the QT'd have done and eliminate state property taxes. This would decimate local government services, including public libraries. That's by design. www.tallahassee.com/story/news/l...

I saw the jerkface mouse last night! In his cage! Does that mean he's not getting out at night? Nope! But he was at least in the cage last night. Next week. We'll be over mousecicle weather next week. You just have to stay in that cage until then, jerkface mouse...

I thought about this a lot when we were all pushing to get kilmar abrego garcia released. I'm glad we got him back but literally NO ONE should be sent to CECOT. They should have ALL been brought back. Never accept an inch. Never accept their framing. Bring everyone back and abolish DHS.

Hey, this Bovino thing is a pathetic attempt to make all these horrors the fault of one guy, and it would be a serious, serious crisis if people fell for it. ICE needs to be abolished, bc this - terror, murder - are what it exists for. Nothing else. This is just an attempt to mollify us. Stay angry

The testing ground for Bovino’s Operation At Large was Los Angeles. A California judge initially prohibited ICE/CBP’s most flagrant constitutional violations. SCOTUS overruled her 6–3, handing Bovino a blank check to inflict unspeakable brutality on Chicago and Minneapolis. The 6 bear so much blame.

A major newspaper publishing guide to help people identify the munitions their government is using against them is a real "Late Republic America" timepeice that future historians will comment on.

TCM will become the “ongoing home” of the LOONEY TUNES library. A six-year licensing deal for more than 750 shorts starts in Feb. "We’re able to present these cartoons with the care they deserve alongside the classic films they helped influence." www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/t... #FilmSky

Me: oh, it doesn't matter if I take my meds anymore, I'm not in terrible pain Also me, 12 hours after taking my meds: all right, I've called the doctor, the billing people, and scheduled the snowblower repair guys. I've cleaned the cats, the fish and the bastard mouse. I visited a neighbor and...

During the Soviet era, at times of govt instability, the state broadcaster would typically preempt scheduled broadcasts by airing performances of Swan Lake

I cannot tell if the bastard is still in the cage or of he's just using it as a home base while he runs around running my living room

Who takes notes and does the dishes for the revolution is a political matter. Look around you at your organizing meetings. If women are always the ones keeping minutes, assign a man. If women are always volunteering to get shit going, assign some men.

w/ alt-txt

But these fascists, like many fascists and other authoritarians, confuse the pageantry of violence for power - they imagine that the state with armed men walking the streets is strong. But only a weak government needs to put armed men in the streets to exert power. A strong government has no need.

I think more of you should be getting your news from photographers. Here’s a thread. Most aren’t here. Sorry, you’ll have to branch out. Scott Olson, Getty.

Well, I may have just showed this asshole how to escape into the living room. God damn it. Maybe the cat will remember his job isn't actually to pee on everything