One of my big uncertainties about the near future is whether Congress, having once constructively dissolved itself, can will itself back into existence next year or not

a gaming pet peeve i have is when a known optimization is itemized randomly. I know I want 17% toughness curios Darktide just let me give you the grimdarkbucks rather than checking random vendor stocks

you do sort of understand why people are cynical about capitalism when there is a problem that market mechanisms would be perfect for solving and we refuse to discuss them because they would impact a privileged cast (farm owners)

Sarah Taber@sarahtaber.bsky.social · 6d ago

Yeah so NYT asked me ~2 yrs ago to write an op-ed about how the Colorado is running dry, & what we should do to keep this exact thing from happening. I said "There's only one real answer. Bill farmers by how much water they use. Duh." NYT editorial staff freaked tf out & cancelled the piece.

Fauci’s role in the conspiracy was to have a Zoom call with the scientists in which he said, “it could be a lab leak, you should look into it.”

The conspiracy she’s referring to here is a Slack chat among scientists in 2020 where they went, “it could be a lab leak, let’s look into it!”

Ernie Piper@whoisernie.bsky.social · 7d ago

Zeynep Tufekci is still completely insane over the lab leak idea. "There is a conspiracy to cover this up" is not evidence for "covid was a bioweapon that escaped from a lab". It could also be evidence for my theory, "please stop talking about this stupid idea"

man I will just never get over the fact that the collective response to the pandemic, and an absolutely miraculous vaccine development, was to destroy public health in this country and smear everyone involved I generally take a positive view of humanity overall but it's so depressing

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.

Moreno to Fauci: "Who the fuck did you think you were?"

it is 2026. the only functional institution in the united states is Taco Bell.

It would be nice if The Odyssey was the moment Hollywood execs stopped listening to the whiniest motherfuckers on Earth who only see movies when a YouTuber half their age gives them permission

had a colonoscopy today (all good) and was momentarily excited when the doctor said he found some old roman coins, but apparently they're super common and not that valuable

"parasite outbreak blamed on taco bell because they're the only company reporting it" feels very "1918 flu blamed on Spain because they're the only country reporting it"

outbreaks of lettuce-based shitting yourself is possible under any regulatory environment, but it's more likely in ours, because of choices made recently but the classic inability of the media to grapple with variations in uncertainty levels means its easy to bullshit your way out of admitting this

doing colonoscopy prep by having a salad

This must mean that vibe-coded UIs were common in the human ancestral environment

ponder@ponder.ooo · 3w ago

it's interesting how instantaneously you can clock a vibe-coded UI

Min-max urban planning !

Hellscape Navigator@hellscapenavigator.bsky.social · 3w ago

really it seems like some people like open spaces and will be happy to manage those areas most people like living in cities with other people it's the fiendish suburbs, the halfway between urban and rural areas, the demonic hybrid, the neither-a-city-nor-a-countryside hellscape, that is the enemy

yes, it’s a real double standard and I have personally stopped tolerating it in my presence.

uosdɯᴉS ɐuɐꓷ 🦄@danacorn.bsky.social · 3w ago

It’s struck me my whole life that conservatives just walk around saying the most hateful shit about California and about blue cities, that if a Democrat said those things about Alabama or about rural dwellers it would instantly end their careers.

at least in my experience, sometimes lifelong denizens of blue cities genuinely don’t fully grasp just how insane, depraved, and dangerous many American GOP voters in red areas have become. Meanwhile, sane people originally from those GOP-dominated areas viscerally grasp this.

it amazes me how many people have made it to adulthood and not noticed yet how many if not most vocal critics of Rural America are people who are themselves FROM rural America, and who would rather eat broken glass than go back

in a lot of ways the current republican government is just the worst, extractive red state governance taken national. total hostility to public goods, total indifference to long-term investment, and a monomaniacal interest in using the state to enrich private benefactors

Andrew Lawrence@ndrew.bsky.social · 3w ago

the food safety stuff is another reminder that a large, huge, gigantic part of being a republican is going “lmao why are we spending money to prevent horrifying disasters from happening if they never happen 🤪”

I think people understandably but magically believe that surveilling your loved ones will protect them from harm because it promises knowledge and control. But when you get more knowledge but little actual control, your anxiety goes through the roof

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 3w ago

None of this tech has made us safer but you cannot argue that with scared parents, scared targets or discrimination, scared caregivers, scared spouses etc. You just can’t.

work life balance? i need steam game backlog / all other activity balance

No mistake or crime is more horrible to God than those committed to power. Why? Because what is official is impersonal, and being impersonal is the greatest insult that can be paid a person. —Søren Kierkegaard

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w ago

Trump posts an image featuring a map showing the United States taking over Canada and Greenland

how is there so much 40k lore why is it so dumb why is it so compelling

It got muddled b/c it was mostly seen as incidental to getting at Trump himself, but Graham didn't just vaguely lean on Raffensperger. He told him to falsify the tally by not counting ballots. Straight-up criminal election fraud no different from telling a poll worker to go dump votes in the trash.

congress essentially does not govern and does not want to.

guys, there is no universe in which a senator does not express distress and say some anodyne nice things about a colleague who dies unexpectedly, even if that senator is AOC and the colleague is Strom Thurmond. This is a very basic human ritual.

Coach Finstock@coachfinstock.bsky.social · 3w ago

We need to tear this party down to the studs. Sorry but there's no place for this kind of outright performative trash in the name of good manners. He was a bad person that made life a nightmare for many, many Americans, including YOUR CONSTITUENTS. You know this is true.

today's family group chat is a discussion on which gif is best we use for When It Happens i'm arguing for "welcome to hell, motherfucker!" but there's been a last minute push for the "everyone is dancing on the stage" from Peanuts

he seems to take a cognitive test every day i get it. i was doing wordle for a while

for some reason i've been reading up on 40k lore lately. it's dumb and i hate it and yet it's strangely compelling

my weirdest trait is i don't really listen to music. i have no favorite bands or genres, i don't pay attention to popular music. occasionally i'll slap on a soundtrack of something i liked but I just...don't have musical taste? I don't hate it, but I don't know it. i can't answer music questions.