I didn't even realize that I'd missed my first BlueSky anniversary until another post prompted me to check blueskyscore.com . I hope this omission does not interfere with my newly-discovered path toward becoming an Influencer, a retirement job I would greatly prefer to Walmart greeter.

People say they want to manufacture real things in America again BUT they complain that it’s “inappropriate” and “not productive” to talk about how we need lots of guillotines. Like make up your minds!

James Bond supervillains threaten to blow up the world with their big laser unless you pay them a trillion dollars. Real American supervillains embed themselves in the economy and threaten to cause a depression unless you subsidize their sex robots and the weird chatbots they use to avoid humans.

Probably the main lesson I learned, after painting my garden shed black, is that that's a completely impossible thing to do without having 'Paint It, Black' as an ear worm, with the lyrics amended to "I see a shed door and I want it painted black".

Capitalism's fatal flaw is that it must grow without limit to survive. This damages a healthy society much as the endless growth of cancer damages healthy organs.

Post a famous bathroom scene.

You know, I'm not sure I ever really read the Pond Rules at our local nature preserve all that closely before

I'm hanging out on my friends' back deck as the afternoon drifts toward sunset. A Bewick's Wren just started singing to me from a nearby bush. "Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains." - AL II:9

One of my favorite Thanksgiving memories happened when I was edging farther out of the closet toward going public as trans. My LGBT* activist sister-in-law and I ended up having some private time, during which she asked "Soooo...What are your pronouns up to these days?" She was the first to know. 🙂💜

An...*interesting* juxtaposition from an email newsletter. 😳

Rubio Admits Difficulties in Translating US Peace Plan from the Original Russian

I'm currently on the 3rd day of a 10-day trip. As I was packing, I discovered that I was almost out of an important medicine; a prescription SNAFU between my doctor and CVS (my pharmacy) meant that the refill I thought I had never actually happened. 1/5

This is glorious.

If I’m understanding this correctly, X is owned by a white nationalist who pays poor people of color in developing countries to pretend to be working class white Americans to scare other white Americans into being afraid poor people of color from developing countries are going to ruin America?

Tales from the tech frontier: A few months ago it was announced that you could load your passport info into Google Wallet and use it as ID at the airport. I'm now at my departure gate at LAX, having tried to use this twice on my way in. 1/3

I'm a software engineer. AI coding assistants have recently become good enough for me to start using them routinely, but it's hard for me to get past their unrelenting, cringe-inducing sycophancy. That most people like it this way explains a lot about our world.

Darkness brings clarity. #Photography #LosAngeles

I got my 2025 YouTube Music recap today, which inevitably included the opportunity to ask the Gemini AI questions about it. I tried one of the suggested prompts, "Invent 5 genres to describe my music." Two of the results were "mythic rock" and "future-vintage indie". I feel seen. 🙂🎶

She probably had dyspepsia.

I listened to "One More Red Nightmare" this morning,and I'm going to a Steve Hackett concert at the Orpheum tomorrow night. I'm not sure whether to feel seen or called out. 🙃🎵💜 theonion.com/dad-calling-...

The Epstein list isn’t like team sports We don’t care if it takes down Democrats We don’t care if it takes down progressives We don’t care if it takes down our fave celebrity If you raped children, you must be held accountable If you trafficked children, same I don’t care what side you’re on

"Frontier justice" doesn't usually refer to the frontier of sociology research. 😁 theonion.com/not-sure-how...

Trading places with Elon would be like waking up as a cockroach and the worst part is that you would have traded away your knowledge of Kafka and the literary grounding to make sense of said experience.

This shipwreck happened 50 years ago today, thousands of miles from my home, and involved nobody I knew. Yet thinking about it makes me cry. Such is the power of an inspired bard to ensure that a story becomes immortal. music.youtube.com/watch?v=PH0K...

My quoted post below got flagged as sexually suggestive. The link is apparently adult content. The post is a reference to the myth of Galatea, with a link to the relevant Wikipedia article. The absurdity level is approaching toxicity.

And I speak of spiritual suffering! Of people seeing their talent, their work, their lives wasted. Of good minds submitting to stupid ones. Of strength and courage strangled by envy, greed for power, fear of change.

"A month after you get a rejection from a prestigious magazine, you see an article on the same topic you pitched, using the same sources, written by an in-house writer. The article wins awards. Describe the hex you place on the magazine."

One of the many pleasures of coding is running across evocative comments in other people's code. Even the big software companies occasionally let a little bit of a programmer's personality slip through. This example is from a class holding constants representing all versions of Android. 1/3

There's a Great Horned Owl somewhere out there in the darkness. That "hoo-huhHOO-hoo-hoo" call is unmistakable. I haven't previously heard them around here. It's nice to hear one right now. I should be doing various things, but for the moment I'm just sitting here, quietly entranced.

This essay by @cstross.bsky.social is the best big-picture analysis I've ever seen of where we are and where we might be heading. Despite being forthright about the immense dangers we face, he manages to retain a glimmer of hope. Give it a read. www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...

One of the many pleasures of coding is running across evocative comments in other people's code. Even the big software companies occasionally let a little bit of a programmer's personality slip through. This example is from a class holding constants representing all versions of Android. 1/3

I am rather surprised to realize that I'm glad Trump is desecrating the White House with his trashy-Albert-Speer ballroom. This building was a symbol of a civic ideal which we have failed to nurture and defend, so its loss is dramatically coherent. 1/2

Talk about an in-flight meal. For the first time, researchers have captured rats hunting bats by grabbing them from the sky. Learn more: https://scim.ag/3Jqldmn

I am rather surprised to realize that I'm glad Trump is desecrating the White House with his trashy-Albert-Speer ballroom. This building was a symbol of a civic ideal which we have failed to nurture and defend, so its loss is dramatically coherent. 1/2

Sap of the World-Ash!! 🙃 theonion.com/trump-defend...

I think it would be rather interesting to talk to a sentient computer. On the other hand, it is decidedly uninteresting to talk to a sycophantic autocomplete tool.

This evening my partner and I went out to dinner. We took a Lyft, since neither of us can drive. After a few other topics, I told my partner about a useful Android utility class I'd developed as part of a project I'm working on that I might open-source independently. 1/4

@joshtpm.bsky.social is completely correct in his analysis. Democratic civil society relies on a pervasive sense that each citizen has obligations to society -- a "civic duty". This sense has been eroded by neoliberalism since Thatcher's infamous assertion that there is no such thing as society.

In our accelerating rush toward the Singularity, we have reached the stage of meta-outage alerts. Outage meta-alerts? Meta-outage hyper-alerts? Humanity is not ready for what awaits us.

@joshtpm.bsky.social is completely correct in his analysis. Democratic civil society relies on a pervasive sense that each citizen has obligations to society -- a "civic duty". This sense has been eroded by neoliberalism since Thatcher's infamous assertion that there is no such thing as society.

I'm starting to think that many senior politicians are in denial about Trump because to see him clearly would involve acknowledging how badly they have done their jobs for decades to get us to the point where this is possible. It's cognitive dissonance in action.

And if I were a queen, failure to use the subjunctive mood appropriately would be a capital crime.

And if I were a queen, failure to use the subjunctive mood appropriately would be a capital crime.

Birds do it, Bees do it, Even educated fleas do it, Let's do it, let's [ACTIONABLE THREAT REMOVED]

"A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit." That may or may not be a Greek proverb. Either way, it's both true and crucially important. The future is counting on us to be strong and brave *right now*.

Just saw someone refer to posting on Bluesky as skeeting. Surely blooping is better? Kate blooped, Amy reblooped it, and now everyone has been blooping all day about it!

"A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit." That may or may not be a Greek proverb. Either way, it's both true and crucially important. The future is counting on us to be strong and brave *right now*.