Magic Sam was really among the greatest who ever played blues guitar. And I feel like he'd still be almost unknown today if it wasn't for the jaw-dropping video on Youtube of him ripping through that insane boogie.

I totally get the necessity of alt text for images. But I still resent the fact that I’m giving AI image generators the absolute optimum training data.

I took my camera to my dad’s yesterday to get some portraits of this wildly eccentric tortie known as The Mouse. This demure pose rather conceals her deeply unhinged character. #photography #cats

Differences include one side’s cool appraisal of the other side being a pack of fools who refuse to accept that they’ve straight up lost.

Al Jazeera English@aljazeera.com · 16h ago

Negotiators are working to expand safe shipping through the strait, though key differences remain unresolved.

a lot of healthcare workers just dissociate whenever covid comes up today. you can see it in their eyes

Taylor Nichols, MD MS@tnicholsmd.com · yesterday

I had to code and pronounce a time of death on a respiratory therapist colleague. There's a memorial plaque for her outside the emergency department to this day. I wrote and re-wrote my will. I will never forgive these ghouls trying to rewrite history and deny our experience.

Guitars. It is simply astonishing how good budget, beginner’s guitars have got compared to the eighties. The phenomenon of barely playable junk until you shelled out big money has evaporated. Some can even be upgraded to pro quality without any need to replace the basic unit.

Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 16h 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.

🤔 Just curious... How on earth can someone be "moderate" and pro-Israel at the same time? www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/u...

Wesley Bell Defeats Cori Bush in Missouri

Representative Wesley Bell beat Cori Bush, his predecessor, in a rematch. He will be a heavy favorite in the safely Democratic district in November.

nytimes.com

I’ve seen firsthand how South African public healthcare’s lack of staff, work pressure, and hierarchical culture leads often to - frankly - abuse of patients. Doing something about it is long overdue. And this research offers some direction.

The Conversation Africa@africa.theconversation.com · 14h ago

Safe childbirth depends on more than clinical care. The culture of maternity wards shapes women's experiences and outcomes. theconversation.com/respectful-m... #HealthAndMedicine

Gaza witnessed a historic mass funeral for 112 Palestinian victims whose remains were recovered from beneath the rubble after more than two and a half years.

The allocated funding seeks to accelerate Israel's control of historical landmarks across the occupied West Bank.

Israel approves $37m to seize more than 70 occupied West Bank sites

The allocated funding seeks to accelerate Israel's control of historical landmarks across the occupied West Bank.

aljazeera.com

The US military tested a GPS jammer and murdered a bunch of civilians on a civilian plane. futurism.com/science-ener...

It Appears That the US Military Accidentally Killed Everybody on Board a Civilian Medevac Flight in New Mexico

A days-long electronic warfare drill was one of the causes behind the loss of a four-passenger medevac flight.

futurism.com

"it looks like you're using an adblocker to visit our site." yep! ha ha! it rocks!

This word has been adopted by the guitar community, with an indefensible and inexcusable lack of taste, for the look that the furniture and clothing industry has for many decades called “distressed”. #langsky

Guitar World@guitar-world.bsky.social · 2d ago

"Relic’d or not, this is a great value instrument" www.guitarworld.com/gear/electri...

you can make a whole band from yamaha instruments piano... guitar... r1 race motorcycle... 2026 FX Limited SVHO waverunner... drumkit... violin... glockenspiel... alto saxophone...

The “best” thing about genAI (the quotes are doing heavy work here) is that it’s really lowered the bar on getting into hand-made art. Literally anything you make is better than ai. There’s never been a better time to throw away your fear and start learning that craft you’ve always wanted to learn.

You don't hate ice enough

We stan our orange, decaying, poop-selling, ecosocialist prince

Sarah Taber@sarahtaber.bsky.social · 2d ago

Absolutely unbelievable how solar power has taken off worldwide during the Hormuz oil crisis. You don't have to hand it to him, but Trump may have done more to finally kick off a global civilization of effete librul solar users than anyone else in the West

Earth is now warming faster than at any point in recorded geological history - around 10 times faster than the extreme warming event 56 million years ago and 20 times faster than at the end of the last ice age. We are almost certainly in a new extinction event.

there are definitely downsides to the nuclear block but the reason I keep coming back to it as necessary and good is that it completely ruined the whole MAGA engagement model to the point that they prefer to mock us from the nazi bar rather than come here to troll us directly

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2d ago

Bluesky oldheads will remember that brief period of time when the conservative trolls tried to storm the place and were flummoxed by the idea they would have to organically grow an audience and that someone who didn't want to talk to them could nuke every interaction they ever had from orbit

shocked,

Ben Schwarz@benschwarz.bsky.social · 2d ago

Australia’s eSafety commissioner buried a report (released Friday afternoon) that shows the under 16 social media ban didn’t tangibly reduce teen social media use, and also resulted in parents tuning out of kids usage. We traded our privacy for no reason. theconversation.com/more-than-80...

Just so everyone knows, this is a tried-and-true mainstream media tactic. For progressives/leftist candidates, every election is a “crucial test” and any loss would serve as proof to the media that the latest left-side moment is at its end. Any win, though, just means it’s time to find a new test.

Politico@politico.com · 2d ago

Michigan will provide another crucial test of whether progressives can not only keep up their winning streak in safe-blue seats but also break through in battlegrounds crucial for control of Congress. The stakes for the Democratic Party are huge.

while there are problems with anything, the nuclear block is absolutely my second favorite thing that bluesky did. (my first favorite is detach quote, which is another thing that wrecks the way they like to use social media)

Micah@rincewind.run · 2d ago

there are definitely downsides to the nuclear block but the reason I keep coming back to it as necessary and good is that it completely ruined the whole MAGA engagement model to the point that they prefer to mock us from the nazi bar rather than come here to troll us directly

This content wouldn’t be out of place in the goddamn Klan.

Manya Koetse@manyapan.bsky.social · 2d ago

Chinese viral AI videos are turning foreigners into villains, flooding Chinese social media. They depict foreigners as threats to China’s social, moral, and national order. Strong, confident Chinese people confront, violently beat, and humiliate them in defense of their country. See more below🧵

Finally, there's an *economic* coin-trick: "AI will destroy jobs." Sure, yes, AI is destroying jobs. But there's a vast difference between "You got fired because an AI can do your job" and "You got fired because your boss was convinced that the AI can do your job, even though it *cannot*." 45/

More evidence that the ground is shifting profoundly under the BJP’s jackboots.

The Listening Post@ajlisteningpost.bsky.social · 2d ago

The Cockroach Janta Party’s protests have forced a senior Indian government minister out of office for the first time under Narendra Modi. Now the BJP is trying to win back young Indians online… and it isn’t going very well. Richard Gizbert reports.

Caster Semenya.

“I am a woman and I am fast”: what Caster Semenya’s story says about gender and race in sports

The constant scrutiny into the runner’s medical history reveals what happens to women who don’t conform to stereotypes.

vox.com

852dude@852dude.bsky.social · 2y ago

Cool. www.nytimes.com/athletic/561...

Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve wearing a "Trans Kids Belong" shirt while her team played against (and beat) Sophie Cunningham and the Indiana Fever is such a big "hell yeah fuck you TERFs" moment.

The infuriating double-whammy of moral panics is that they’re deeply disconnected from the facts but the mainstream press encourages, rather than corrects them, for engagement. It’s been like that throughout my life. Satanic panic. Vaccines. You name it.

flyingrodent@flyingrodent.bsky.social · 2d ago

Do we still think this is, what, Russians on Facebook

i'd say "pay attention to who has kind things to say about rod liddle, the racist pedophile, following his death" but to no surprise it is the entirety of the mainstream british press

Fuck these wealthy plant “collectors”.

Mongabay@mongabay.com · 2d ago

Found in just one 1.5-square-mile area in Namibia, the succulent Lithops werneri is down to fewer than 200 plants in the wild. Listed as critically endangered, the dwarf plant faces severe threats from climate change, drought and poaching. @shreyadg.bsky.social reports for #Mongabay.