Busy day back at the studio today 🧶

Verdant Catacombs.

I... this... this is SO GROSS. There's really only one way to read this as far as I can tell. Get our AI, it'll do awful horrible things for you.

Winner of the most brutal needlework art I've ever seen.

Victoria Rose Richards@aerialembroidery.bsky.social · yesterday

'You'll choke too' - an aerial embroidery landscape inspired by all the wildfires happening right now... I'm upset every time I smell smoke outside and somehow we have people starting them maliciously too! But we all breathe the same air so they'll choke too (1/2 - see thread for close-ups)

It’s Amy Coney Barrett all over again. Collins, facing reelection, will vote no on an anti-abortion nominee who gets confirmed anyway

Alice Miranda Ollstein@alicemiranda.bsky.social · 22h ago

BREAKING: Susan Collins cited our report on Blanche's promise on a private call with religious activists to restrict abortion pills in announcing today she will not vote to confirm him. www.newscentermaine.com/article/news...

Sharks are now using drones. We are cooked.

HOW is literally every single person in any way related to this administration so FUCKING WEIRD?! WTAF?

Ben Collins@bencollins.bsky.social · 23h ago

Oh my god the dietician who is telling everyone in the White House to only eat steak and sauerkraut doesn't wipe his ass.

Oh. Yay. I'm so excited... But we still don't have images or files in chat. Ew.

Bluesky@bsky.app · yesterday

Update: group chats can now host up to 100 members.

Today the Guardian has an article about AI slop starting to infect iNaturalist and their efforts to get people to cut it out. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

AI-altered images on birdwatching forums putting research at risk

Experts warn increase in enhanced photos on birding platforms creating fake sightings, threatening credibility of tool used by scientists

theguardian.com

Truly one of the great gifts of recent years.

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2d ago

That said, let us take a moment to thank our Bluesky Trans and Furry Elders for freaking out Jack Dorsey so much he bolted and left us this nice social media playground, taking most of his crypto chuds with him. We thank you for your service.

Well, actually, kinda, yeah, close to what happened. It's not for nothing that Jack Dorsey, who started the place and was on its board, basically ran away when the trans folks and furries scared off all the crypto bros he assumed would be the natural demographic here (they went to Nostr instead).

jack@jackalltogether.bsky.social · 2d ago

Bluesky often seems like a project run by tech people who place great value on its architectural differences from Twitter, which nobody cares about, while not understanding how they walked ass-backwards into having a userbase (whomst they fear and despise)

The problem here is that we know from recent personal experience that "underlying health issues" will just be forever expanded to excuse any deaths as "oh they were just weak." "Underlying health issues" with COVID is now all the way to literally just "seasonal allergies"

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2d ago

Breaking News: Two deaths in Michigan have been linked to cyclospora. Both people who had the parasite also had underlying health issues.

Unsurprisingly, Trump managed to find a woman to blame and potentially fire for his fuckups. Again.

George Pearkes@peark.es · 2d ago

A few minutes ago to press: *TRUMP, ASKED ON PIRRO: SHE MADE A MISTAKE *TRUMP ON REFLECTING POOL ISSUES: THE CONTRACTOR WAS RUSHING *TRUMP ON PIRRO: I THINK SHE CHOKED CNN just now: edition.cnn.com/2026/08/03/p...

It’s important to understand that when 1.2 million Americans are dying from a disease, any government action is excessive and tyrannical, but if a dozen trans women want to play soccer no government action can go far enough

Caw

Ten years ago today 🌿 Gentiana algida, our Arctic Gentian, blooming on Mt BlueSky #nativeplants

"It's some catch, that catch-22" If you don't have a dysphoria diagnosis, you can't be trans, and serve. If you have one, you "will break under the stress of combat" and are unfit to serve. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/u...

Inside the Secretive Boards Deciding Trans Troops’ Fate

The Pentagon is relying on closed-door hearings to kick out transgender service members. An Army Reserve lawyer is one of the few who have seen how they really work.

nytimes.com

I always forget how much long flights make my knees cramp and ache

Archaic Jimothy at the Met

Don’t know how I missed this story last month. US oil company shows up in Greenland to start drilling. Invasion by dubious permits. Important story for Canadians. #ElbowsUp

Licensed to drill? How a Trump-linked Texas oil company is elbowing its way into Greenland

Greenland Energy says billions of barrels of crude could lie beneath territory and claims it has permission to bring drilling kit ashore – a claim denied by Nuuk

theguardian.com

the people attacking trans kids are just as much science deniers as anti-vaxxers and flat-earthers, and so-called moderates should start treating them as such

Doc Impossible@impossiblephd.bsky.social · 3d ago

Another study on youth transition that find that about 97% of all youth who says they're trans turn out to be. Only 1.1% who start HRT stopped it for any reason whatsoever. This is, like, the fifth youth transition study that I'm aware of, and all of their results have been identical.

Especially relevant as we rapidly desertify our breadbasket by draining the aquifer and rivers

Prof Bill McGuire@profbillmcguire.bsky.social · 3d ago

“Those other countries around the world that we currently rely on to produce our food and vegetables, their climates are changing as well" As our harvests worsen and other countries hang on to what they have, we are going to get ever deeper in the sh*t www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Super useful. I figure a lot of us here in the Sky know this stuff already, but it might be handy to hand to parents, grandparents and pals who are less technically minded. www.librarian.net/NoToAI/

Last night's 0200 thought: How do people publish actual erotica these days with all the "omg not porn!" from the payment processors, etc?

Beautiful morning flowers Tall Jacob's Ladder

My experience is of every American COVID-19 mitigation effort being obviously insufficient, and ended far too soon. To see people now argue that they somehow were too much, going too far? Not anti-vax or MAGA people, but folks just out here on Bluesky? It staggers me.

Watched a multi-acre fire break out before my very eyes and then watched a bunch of helicopters show up and put it out. Government was a good idea, it should do more things like that instead of evil and corruption

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

To the extent that the media is treating this as a horse story: Max Miller is not a some random candidate from Ohio. This is a picture of President Trump speaking at the wedding of Max Miller and Emily Moreno.