Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈

@aivalentin.bsky.social

🇺🇦 Writer, artist, PhD candidate | C19 US, New Orleans, immigration, religion, death | Disabled Jewish queer trans | Husband and cavalier of @thelionmachine.bsky.social 🪬

$140 TO GO RENT DUE FRIDAY RN URGENT Sonia's got a new job & hopefully will be OK once the paychecks start coming in. Meanwhile 14 ppl $10 each keeps her safely housed until then. Pls RS/QS. Pls do what you can. #HelpFolksLive2026

Space Witches, Esq.@popelizbet.bsky.social · 2d ago

Got utilities, bought food; $330 needed by the 7th to finish out the rent. Thanks to all who have helped this #UrgentNeed 💸 💕 💸 💕 paypal.me/MsSoniaD or $spunkylilminx on Cashapp

You can/should read Emily Wilson's latest take on the Odyssey, but I'm logging on to convey my hairdresser's reaction. She was AGHAST that Nolan, with his million $ budget, gave Matt Damon ONLY 6 hair extensions. As a result, his hair did not blow around properly, & that ruined the film for her.

Air quality, on macro levels like cities don't all have sickly brown haze over them, and on micro levels like every home, restaurant, office building, or other public accommodation no longer reeks of cigarettes.

Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 18h ago

Food, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.

dorian

@doriantaylor.com

air travel is one of those experiences that has gotten monotonically worse over my entire lifetime

question though: has *anything* in the last 40+ years genuinely gotten *better*?

like, there's *more* stuff, sure, but is any of it *better*?

2:58 PM Aug 4, 2026

We were watching that silly new Tom Hiddleston reenactment of the disaster of Pompeii and he was like ‘we have amazing new tech that allows us to track people through this disaster’ and I was oh no he’s going to say it’s an AI brain or something and then he said…. ‘Its a spreadsheet’ and I CHEERED

When enough rain falls in Maltahöhe, Namibia, millions of desert lilies bloom across the landscape for just a few days each year. This natural phenomenon briefly transforms the arid desert into a sea of flowers almost overnight. IG: @ earthpix

The hole in my back tooth is growing, the tooth next to it is chipped further, there's always a bad taste in my mouth, and we have no appointment because very few dentists take medicaid. And Jellybean's vet bill still isn't paid, which means I can't just buy a water pik. Paypal.me/thelionmachine

Pay Lev Mirov using PayPal.Me

Go to paypal.me/thelionmachine and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries.

paypal.me

I think a huge issue in academia for minority students without social capital is the idea of the "hidden curriculum" this really puts some students at a really unfair disadvantage, there is so much unsaid in academia that you just have to figure out for yourself. #AcademicSky

The diarrhea lettuce company, Taylor Farms, uses slave labor contracted from the Arizona Dept. of Corrections. The backbreaking labor is often performed by imprisoned Mexican nationals who would be otherwise ineligble to work in the US. They are paid $1.50 an hour.

The Diarrhea Lettuce Company Has Been Linked to Forced Labor

The lettuce-producing Taylor Farms was linked to the widespread use of prison labor before its involvement in a cyclospora outbreak.

futurism.com

Marius: uhh don’t you guys think maybe we should get Gavroche away from here? Les Amis: [lucille bluth voice] he’s one ten-year-old boy, Marius, how big of a death wish could he have? Gavroche: lol hold my gun

I dunno but it should probably be a bigger deal that the White House announced it wants to slap a 100% tariff on drug imports at the same time it is eliminating Medicare drug subsidies. And we’re talking about critical life-saving drugs like insulin, blood thinners, antibiotics, and heart meds.

India supplies approximately 50% of all U.S. generic drugs, and these face the highest tariff
rates:
• Antibiotics: Penicillin, amoxicillin
• Cardiovascular medications: Generic versions of cholesterol drugs, blood thinners
• Diabetes medications: Metformin, insulin analogs
• Pain relievers: Ibuprofen, acetaminophen
2. China-Dependent Active Ingredients
China supplies active ingredients for:
• >95% of ibuprofen and acetaminophen
• ~45% of penicillin
• Many other commonly used medications' base components