you know what would be a genuinely useful site? "Was It Better or Were You Younger?" just take various elements of life and look at the actual facts of the past. because it is true of some stuff! but generally much less than nostalgia and aging leads us to believe

i know we're all busy but i just overheard a plumber say "parlez-vous français ? non ? you motherfuckers don't even speak french, do you" to a pair of french bulldogs

Always a good idea to turn off auto-play videos; choose what you see and what you don't.

Codified law is an extension of the fundamental premise of guests’ rights, in which you value and uphold legal standards bc this is how you maintain a society which functions for more people.

It appears we are firmly in an era of 'marketable health anxiety.' Where confusion and destabilization of health information and expertise feeds a predatory raft of snake oil sales in the market.

“what happened next” absolutely undefeated as an analytical lens

I see people waxing lyrical about how much Bluesky sucks right now… YOU get to decide what kind of social media behavior YOU engage with A better site exists by muting / blocking all this nonsense and putting your foot down when everyone starts firing at each other

Beginning 2022, I started having arguments with people who didn't experience the loss of a loved one to COVID & associate "lockdown" with sourdough starters & WFH rather than Zoom funerals. I just had to accept that we did not have a shared reality, nor were they willing to remember.

Athanasius of Alexandria would fit right in on Bluesky, what with the personal beefs, the mobs, and constantly being exiled.

You can make a community more inclusive by kicking people out! Welcome to paradoxical social dynamics! Thank you for following this thread, please share it with whoever needs to see it.

+ it's worth noting that what's digitized & accessible today may not be accessible in 5 or 10 years. Materials degrade, technologies are abandoned, institutions stop teaching the use of certain technologies, etc. (And that's before you consider how much work is actually involved in digitizing.)

lot of things i could say here but mostly i guess i would like to implore everyone to find a personality other than "least favorite roommate during a house meeting in portland, oregon"

Wise words here.

kind of darkly funny that "gender studies" is the stereotypical "useless degree" because gender studies will help you understand a large and important chunk of the current psychosis in american life

30% of Oregonians cannot or will not be a driver. However, 100% of Oregonians will, at some point, be a pedestrian. Drastic transit cuts--including half of a MAX line--should be a five-alarm fire, but it barely made a dent in the news cycle compared to a 6¢/gallon gas tax increase.

Giffard makes an aperitif syrup that does a pretty solid Campari/Aperol impression, especially if you amp it up with a few dashes of bitters.

new year, new union. heck yeah

Currently rereading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. The way things started peeking out in Ilium were… not great.

Then and now, Fallout 2.

Me checking my email and seeing several of my Truman interview panelists changing their RSVP for Monday to "no" Anyway if anyone has an interest in environmental justice and science policy, wants to help an incredibly cool young person, and is free for a Zoom Monday 1-2 pm, hmu I guess?

🗞 In the new issue of Street Roots: Six months of data showing every instance between January and June 2025 in which workers through the city’s Impact Reduction Program took the homes or belongings of people living outdoors. Purchase this week's issue: streetroots.org/vendors#locate

With three dogs in the house, I am really not fond of how easy it is to get fireworks around here.

Was tooling around (har) with 'Blacksmith Master' (published by @hoodedhorse.bsky.social ) and it's a fun management sim but I am really struck by how its vision of production is fundamentally modern and basically Taylorist in ways that require it to bend the economics of pre-modern blacksmithing.

Lot of instrument maintenance to look forward to in the new year, but at least I'm ending this one in a good place with my synthetic projects.

“many angry posts should have been naps or little packets of crackers” is deep wisdom and you don’t need to reproduce to embrace it!

When you in that system… anticipating needs… meeting needs… listening That tenderness gone fall off the bone

Closing out the year by managing to get a couple of milligrams of product out of the hail mary reaction I ran for one of our most frustrating projects.

That lack of a national childcare program, meanwhile, is why immigrant women now play such a big role in the US childcare industry. Because, without substantial public investment, childcare can't be both affordable and decently compensated. So, that underpaid work falls to those most vulnerable. 8/

I think it’s gotta be “you cannot kill me in a way that matters”

Thirty years ago today. The most beautiful, hopeful farewell.

As the Eric Adams administration concludes, a reminder that this was Nate Silver’s prediction in 2022 x.com/NateSilver53...

Making a mistake about pasta in a can at the age of 8 years old turned out to be a lifelong lesson of admitting your mistakes early so you're not forced to continuing eating the bad pasta from a can.

CHRISTIANS ARE A BOX USING PEOPLE. Read the whole 🧵please if you have not already.

“The secret that scientists don’t want you to know about!” 🧪

Glad that I happened to see an article about winter gas yesterday because I otherwise would have been baffled by my mileage dropping 10-15% over my last tank.

Word to mindfulness!

When it comes to bad restaurants, there’s ensouled badness and soulless badness — and I think one of the truly deadening things about this era is that the former (which stokes nourishing anger) is being eradicated while the latter (which simply & efficiently drains all emotion) proliferates

“For the week ending Dec. 20, [New York] state reported its highest number of positive flu cases (71,123) ever recorded in a single week, according to the New York State Department of Health. That represented an increase of 38% over the previous week, the department said.”

Sad times for OHSU: Thai Yummy is moving to the east side. Can’t blame them since being out beyond the nursing school was quite a trek.

It is fascinating to me that people think that folks who mask need to explain it to... Anyone. Like, do you want people to give you the murder board explanation of our chronic illness? Talk about our parent or kid with cancer? It couldn't be less of your business.

One time I was getting parts at Recycled Cycles in Seattle I happened to see Bill Nye yelling at the employee working the check out.

much of fitness culture in the US was developed by people who literally entered sports and physical education instead of going to therapy and the attitudes around intensity and effort kinda reflect that. the smiling Jazzercise folks were right and your football coach / PE teacher was wrong

Books that I read or listened to this year, a non-exhaustive list: Between Two Rivers by @moudhy.bsky.social - currently my go-to recommendation for people who want an introduction to ancient Mesopotamia, especially liked the framing around a Babylonian 'museum' and her child's love of Gilgamesh.

I need to find a reason to go to Portland this year

90% of bluesky posts, to me

Growing up we structured it so one person gave gifts to everyone else each day, which was a nice way to focus on giving rather than receiving.

Good morning! For @defector.com, I wrote about what @rachelreidwrites.bsky.social's "Game Changers" books, and the resulting TV show, have meant to me as a lifelong hockey fan with an increasingly... complicated... relationship to the men's pro game.

One of the worst but most common arguments against removing parking mandates in WA was the idea that “transit isn’t good enough yet.” As if auto-oriented zoning hadn’t been sending transit service down a long spiral since 1950