boots theory makes sense to me because all the way through primary school, i had a Jansport. every year the zipper broke & i had to get a new one, say $35? in 2012, i got a Chrome shoulder bag for, oh $200. finally retired it this year because my shoulder gave out. bag is fine. $200/14=14.2 < $35

Will Stancil@whstancil.bsky.social · yesterday

I think the reason people get so obsessed with “boots theory” is because it lets them tell themselves that buying cheaper stuff represents an injustice being done to them. The fancy boots are more cost-effective, but they’re unjustly deprived of that advantage

as a happy owner of two orange boys, i can confidently report that two orange boys is an S-tier set of cats to live with

derek guy@dieworkwear.bsky.social · yesterday

Bay Area friends: would you consider opening your home to these two cuddly cats? A friend found them behind a gas station. Their sibling, a black cat, got adopted, but it appears no one likes orange cats. They are being kept in a bathroom for the time being and need a home.

Today is the day the story There Will Come Soft Rain is set. An amazing and heartbreaking work of fiction for our modern age. Read it here:

a wooly man without a face@jojororo.bsky.social · 2d ago

archive.org/details/brad...

just feels like this, every single day and then their “app” is just a website-in-a-box

Seanan McGuire@seananmcguire.bsky.social · yesterday

I hate the fact that life has turned into an endless series of single-use kitchen gadgets. Want to go to a theme park? Better install their proprietary app. Want to go to another theme park owned by the same company? That will be another app.

Bombshell new report out from my investigators this morning spanning our four year investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s financial records. This report shows exactly how Wall Street protected Epstein and enabled his sex trafficking for decades. Mega thread following with some key points:

Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, BofA Enabled Epstein, Wyden Report Says

Democrat Ron Wyden cited nonpublic documents held by the US Treasury in a report that says banks delayed reporting suspicious financial transactions and calls for tougher anti-money-laundering rules, ...

bloomberg.com

i was curious whether any economist has ever taken up boot theory and did a Google Scholar search for cites of Men at Arms. Found this: www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Financing Durable Assets

(February 2019) - This paper studies how the durability of assets affects financing. We show that more durable assets require larger down payments making them harder to finance, because durability aff...

aeaweb.org

Will Stancil@whstancil.bsky.social · yesterday

I don’t care about Sam Vimes! I’m saying that as a description of actual dilemmas faced by consumers, “boots theory” fails! I’m sure it works great in literary context but in real life you usually can’t save money by buying more expensive stuff. It’s a common idea but not often true.

was just thinking this is probably what it looks like when your crisis management team goes “you are cooked no matter what, so just have fun with it”

William Moss@williammoss.bsky.social · yesterday

At this point I must assume that whoever is advising Miller to do TV hits is secretly trying to undermine him because he is not good at it.

"I don't understand why you, a fantasy writer, don't appreciate the value of making bargains with the fae."

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2d ago

Every now and then someone takes a run at me along the lines of "I don't understand why you, a scifi writer, don't appreciate 'AI'," and I'm all, motherfucker, it's *because* I'm a science fiction writer I have the positions I have, how many times do we have to fucking yell "torment nexus," my dude

this owns www.inverse.com/input/cultur...

The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s 'high five' photos

Nearly 14 years later, the tale of this iconic couple can finally be told.

inverse.com

am i just being mean or is the answer “bad writing”? imagine an author saying “oh, this character is just a device to move the plot along” and the character is like, a sentient blue wasp. that seems like it would be quite distracting, if the author were uninterested in blueness or wasps

Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · 3d ago

Is there a name for what I think of as “assistive sci-fi or fantasy” - i.e. where there’s a fantastical element but it’s just there as a device to explore the theme. I don’t mean “this scifi is also deep”, like LeGuin, I mean i.e. “the scifi element is a device to move the real plot along”

did a child evolve this??

Kory Bing@korybing.bsky.social · 4d ago

Just tried to look up the Ordovician jawless fish with the funny face and these are the things I searched for and got nothing because it was spelled SO wrong: -sacombabsis -sacombibabsis -sacobibastis The correct answer was: -sacabambaspis

Ghostbusters (1984)

Deontological Warfare@clockworklady.bsky.social · 4d ago

If the villain is Actually Right then what you made was a bad story or a story which is about how badly the hero sucks, and neither one is usually all that interesting.

maybe it’s more about what is ‘due’ than ‘flattery’? it’s about who has the right to stake claim to knowledge. Men seem prone to accept LLM’s ideas as their own, much as they have long been prone to accept (women’s, POC’s, underling’s, etc) ideas as their own

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 4d ago

There’s also something to how women are socialized to be suspicious of flattery — it’s how we transfer responsibility for men’s desire onto women’s bodies; we are taught to defend against that in service to our “innocence” or whatever — whereas men accept flattery as their due. Perfect marks.

also want to be super clear that i am not saying You Must Listen To Will, who again i do not personally follow. you don't have to listen to Will! and in fact your life could be enriched if you, instead of being shitty to him, just blocked him and thought about something else instead.

I love the Trungles P&P thread, he sees so many clever things I missed but SIR: this is not an inconsequential conversation about nothing!! Darcy is feeling out whether she'd live at Pemberley or if he's gonna have to buy Netherfield off Bingley!!

OpenAI: oops, our model broke containment and hacked a website without us even knowing!! it must be because its super powerful and not that we are bad at safety. better give us lots of money Anthropic: uh well our model hacked three websites and we didn’t even know until we checked!!

yeah I’m gonna start blocking people for being shitty to Will Stancil, a person who I do not follow who does not follow me. the slashed tire is fully nuts and if you’re part of the problem from here you’re likely contributing to whatever fever swamp conditions caused it

if the market is functioning, then yes. But i wonder if the real economic rationale behind opening city-run groceries is to see if, actually, you can break even selling at 30% under the current market rate—i.e. the existing market is a cartel.

BeijingPalmer@beijingpalmer.bsky.social · last wk.

at a very basic level, 'this grocery is 30 percent cheaper than other groceries' incentives people to *go to that grocery from outside of the neighborhood.* When you're trying to alleviate a food desert you may not actually want people coming in and clearing the shelves early.

You don’t want hands free driving, you want trains. You want trains you want trains you want TRAINS

Abortions and childcare on demand!

Four points for everyone responding to posts about gov’t assistance with shit like “or maybe just don’t have kids”: 1. Fuck you. 2. Reproductive freedom is a basic human right. 3. Punishing poor people for having kids—and even more, punishing kids for having poor parents—is evil. 4. Fuck you.

Horse person, seething after reading a story with no horses in it: can’t fucking believe there weren’t any horses in it

Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist@nameshiv.bsky.social · last wk.

Just yesterday I was talking about how if your story has a horse in it, a horse person will get angry at you. Not all. If you do your work properly maybe not even even most. But at least one.

bremmer: what if trolley problem but you have to keep pressing the lever and your arm got tired? no culpability, obvs

Faine Greenwood@faineg.bsky.social · 2w ago

Fuck you, Ian Bremmer, you abject ghoul.

guys guys the wallet inspector is opening a bank

The Verge@theverge.com · last wk.

X Money is launching in the US starting today

“Ah,” I exclaim, throwing off my workman’s cap to reveal waves of blonde curls, “but I am no man!”

Daniel Benneworth-Gray@danielgray.com · last wk.

when you just know a sign is aimed at one specific person and their ways

Here it is. My manifesto for the 2026 Clacton By-Election. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Join me, clean up Clacton and let's make 13th August Bin Day! #VoteBinface #VoteyMcVoteface #YesWeTinCan

Hey @erinbiba.bsky.social please enjoy this incredible art!

One of my fave fun facts is that, once upon a time, calling something a "black swan" meant it didn't exist. Then, in 1697, Dutch mariners saw black swans in Australia. So now, a "black swan" means "something completely unanticipated, but consequential." But we already have "dark horse" in English!

Felix Colgrave@felixcolgrave.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I've never seen the movie Black Swan but every swan I've seen in my life looks like this, so I can only assume it's about a ballet dancer who is completely normal