Tessera

Multipurpose Goddess

@skaredoff.bsky.social

Possibly the only Skaredoff in the sky just here to read, really Buffista If you think you might remember me from ye olde internet, you’re probably right minus t

1281 Posts488 Follower 483 Folgt

alix e. harrow @alixeharrow.bsky.social · yesterday

i don't like to police genre, but it's not dark academia unless somebody gets squished in one of these bad boys

those rolling stacks you'll find in any big state school library

Multipurpose Goddess @skaredoff.bsky.social · yesterday

This legit feels like cartoon super villain territory. Although I’m pretty sure it’s not on purpose.

Capital Weather@capitalweather.com · 2d ago

Part of a SpaceX rocket weighing 8,800 pounds is about to crash into the moon at 5,400 mph, releasing an amount of energy equivalent to about 3 tons of TNT. WOW! And, the event might be visible from the East Coast by telescope early Wednesday. More details: www.capitalweather.com/part-of-a-sp...

High Priestess, Low Patience @cheriepriest.com · 2d ago

Heads up folks! My Seattle mystery about a psychic travel agent slash karaoke queen is a special price for August! For just $1.99 you can grab the ebook from all the usual suspects - just click here and check the right-hand column here for links: 👇 www.simonandschuster.com/books/Grave-...

Grave Reservations

A psychic travel agent and a Seattle PD detective try to solve a murder in this “ebullient tap dance of a mystery” (Christopher Moore, New York Tim...

simonandschuster.com

Mike Dettinger @mdettinger.bsky.social · 5d ago

CA DWR is (quick turnaround!) recruiting a Water Resources Engineer for the Snow Surveys & Water Supply Forecast Unit, to develop & improve forecast models & analyses, collect & analyze field data from remote locations, & communicate forecasts to agencies & public. calcareers.ca.gov/CalHrPublic/...

Engineer WR

Looking to make a difference? Join our strong and mighty workforce. We offer benefits and growth opportunities and impact the lives of millions of Californians.

calcareers.ca.gov

Tade Thompson @tadethompson.bsky.social · 6d ago

Looks like someone pirated Daily Science Fiction's entire output and posted them here, claiming to have author permission. At least a dozen authors to my knowledge have said they didn't grant permission. If you were published by DFS, you might wanna consider a Cease and Desist.

Free short science fiction, published weekly · Science Fiction Weekly

Science Fiction Weekly publishes a free short story every weekday and a curated digest every Sunday. Subscribe by email.

sciencefictionweekly.com

Multipurpose Goddess @skaredoff.bsky.social · last wk.

This seems bad

Ben Young Landis@younglandis.bsky.social · last wk.

"...the Sacramento Valley... likely permanently lost its capacity to store water, researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." (@christianelliott.me / @science.org) www.science.org/content/arti... #California #CALEG #Sacramento 🧪

Trung Le Nguyen @trungles.com · last wk.

I’m signing editions of Pride and Prejudice at comic con now 🤣

A beautiful edition of Pride and Prejudice with a yellow-gold fabric cover decorated with swans 🦢

The signed title page of the of this edition of Pride and Prejudice where I do a little doodle of Elizabeth

Jason Hickel @jasonhickel.bsky.social · 3w ago

For all the replies saying "but public transit is terrible, I have to wait an hour for the bus"... comrade, what you are suffering from is the *absence* of public transit.

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · last wk.

“Racism is good and policy should be designed to reflect that principle,” couched in euphemism, is an acceptable opinion in the anglosphere leadership class but “racism is bad and policy should be designed to reflect that principle” is wokeness gone amok and unacceptable bsky.app/profile/okwo...

Musa Okwonga@okwonga.bsky.social · 2w ago

The editor in chief of The Economist referring here to the AfD’s leader as a “perfectly thoughtful person“ instead of what she truly is - a driver and enabler of German fascism - is a huge part of the problem.

violet allen @blipstress.bsky.social · 2w ago

They should make a Blade movie about a vampire spending the day planning and shopping for a horny blood rave she is throwing and thinking about her life before and after becoming a vampire, and then Blade kills her at the blood rave. It is a Blade reboot but also an adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway.

The Alternate Historian @althistorian.bsky.social · 2w ago

I guess that's one way to describe him, Google.

eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social · 2w ago

Matt Damon reading The Odyssey in 1998 on the set of The Talented Mr Ripley From gregwilliamsphotography on IG. I love his discussion of the compositional lines of his photo.

black and white photograph by Greg Williams. Matt Damon reading The Odyssey in 1998 on the set of The Talented Mr Ripley

"This was taken in August 1998 in Piazza Navona, Rome, and shot on film, hence the grain. It happened because I'd met the late director Anthony Minghella, who lived at the end of my road and was very supportive of me, and someone I cared for very much. I was doing a Sunday Times commission celebrating British cinema - which I turned into my first book, Greg Williams On Set. These shots were part of that project.
But it's probably the closest l've ever got to taking one of the pictures that made me want to photograph Hollywood. It feels like Life magazine in the '50s - it's only the modern boom, lights and the clothing of a woman in the background that tells you that it's not that era. There was a terrific rainstorm that day so they were waiting for it to pass, sheltering under a reflector that the crew turned into a giant umbrella to keep us dry. I'd met Matt's co-star Cate Blanchett (sitting on the chair in the forefront) on Elizabeth, but it was my first time working with Matt. This was a moment when he was moving from costar roles to lead; he was really dialled into the work. A quick Google revealed he was reading a 1954 Penguin edition of Homer's classic, which is very much what Tom Ripley might have chosen to read.
It's a favourite photo of mine partly because it captures a quiet moment on a busy set so well, with the name of the project on the back of the chair - 'it does what it says on the tin. But I also like it because the lines of this photo all lead to Matt: the spokes of the umbrella, the building lines in the background, the turn of Cate's head, even the line of her bra strap. It's a picture I've loved for a long time but it now has added resonance. It's amazing that a photo that is 30 years old now has more relevance than ever. It's a picture that's aged well."
Shot on Kodak Tri-X film on a Leica M6, 1/250 sec, f/5.6, pushed to 800 ISO, 21 mm

Ariel Edwards-Levy @aedwardslevy.bsky.social · 2w ago

settling the GIF pronunciation debate once and for all based on which version makes this pun work

King Algamemnon@adamrothman.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'm not posting Odyssey memes because one must be wary of GIFs bearing Greeks.

Tal Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 3w ago

Just after Independence Day, I started thinking about national symbols. Who defaces them, and who becomes them. So I went back to the beginning and wrote about Sean Dunn, aka Sandwich Thrower Guy, and the sandwich he threw - an American Hero: buttondown.com/theswordandt...

Notable Sandwiches #1: American Hero

Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where my editor David Swanson and I slip messily through Wikipedia’s List of Notable Sandwiches. This week,...

buttondown.com

Jane Espenson @janeespenson.bsky.social · 3w ago

I know the part of the Odyssey that’ll make me laugh is when he finally gets home and knocks on the door: “Penny… Penny… Penny.” It’s good bit.

Multipurpose Goddess @skaredoff.bsky.social · 3w ago

Weed Breakfast

kim@kimmymonte.bsky.social · 3w ago

your baseball pitcher name is your grandfather’s first name and the last thing you bought i’ll go first mine’s Dominic Sandals

Trung Le Nguyen @trungles.com · 3w ago

For your convenience, the Pride and Prejudice live-posting super-thread 📚

A drawing of Elizabeth Bennet, a lovely young woman with her long hair tied up nearly under a ribbon and wearing what is most likely a neo-classically inspired dress, looking pensive, two letters in her hand. Meanwhile Darcy, a handsome but stern-looking fellow, looks longingly at her. Also there is me, a little gremlin in big round glasses, skulking about in the background and hoping that they kiss.

The accompanying text reads “Trung reads Pride and Prejudice for the first time, somehow.”

Trung Le Nguyen@trungles.com · 2mo ago

So I’ve started Pride and Prejudice, and already I feel bad for Mrs Bennet.

Aquarium of the Pacific 🐋@aquariumpacific.bsky.social · 3w ago

For the first time in five years, a living white abalone was spotted in the wild, and one of our own staff members was there for it. https://www.aquariumofpacific.org/news/story/aquarium_staff_member_discovers_an_endangered_white_abalone_in_the_channel_islands_national_marine_sanctuary

Aquarium Staff Member Discovers an Endangered White Abalone in the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary

In an exciting discovery during a habitat survey, an Aquarium of the Pacific staff member discovered and helped to identify an endangered white abalone for the first time in five years in the Channel ...

aquariumofpacific.org

jentrification @jentrification.com · 3w ago

Two Minnesota solar farms seeded native wildflowers under their panels, and 5 years of counting revealed native bees had multiplied twentyfold, then crossed the fence to pollinate the neighbour's soybeans

Two Minnesota solar farms planted 66 native species under their panels. Five years of counting revealed a staggering result that nobody had written into the engineering plan.

share.google

Multipurpose Goddess @skaredoff.bsky.social · 3w ago

Thread

EMILY WILSON@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 3w ago

On the language of Homeric Greek, and the language of a certain forthcoming film: here are a few simple observations.

Multipurpose Goddess @skaredoff.bsky.social · 3w ago

Aw, I missed this. Turns out I had a scheduling conflict anyway, but I wish Lord Richard well

East Bay Times@eastbaytimes.com · 4w ago

Lord Richard, the world’s oldest living turkey vulture, is celebrating a record milestone and inviting everyone to join the celebration.

Multipurpose Goddess @skaredoff.bsky.social · 4w ago

Listening to Green City Wars and had to get a sample of the e-book to find out how Ikelos (of Santorini, a tortoise) was spelled. Raccoon noir, kind of Zootopua adjacent with more rigorous scientific foundations (note, I have not seen Zootopia, this may be a grossly inaccurate comparison)

Peter Sagal @petersagal.bsky.social · 4w ago

If you are in or can get to Chicago this summer, cadge a ticket to “ICE BOY!” At the Goodman, just to watch Nick Offerman, as great as he is, get outshined by his astounding wife, Megan Mullaly, in an utterly ridiculous, hilarious musical about Eugene O’Neill, the “theatah,”, and anthropology.

Foxfeather Zenkova @foxfeather.bsky.social · 4w ago

In case your day needs a little break to watch a crane drinking water, looking exactly like a dunking/drinking bird toy, Stiltchild's got you covered. 🪶

Atlas Shvitzed @therafischwartz.bsky.social · 4w ago

Unfortunately, a stunned Paris is how they all got into this whole mess to begin with

Pop Crave@popcrave.com · 4w ago

‘The Odyssey’ women Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong'o, and Charlize Theron stun in Paris.

Anthony Etherin @anthonyetherin.bsky.social · last mo.

WORD FACT The “boot” in the phrase “to boot” has nothing to do with footwear. It comes from Old English “bōt”, meaning “advantage” or “compensation” — hence its idiomatic meaning of “in addition” or “into the bargain”. [1/2]

Dr. Vaughn Joy @gvaughnjoy.bsky.social · last mo.

Same with every Schoolhouse Rock! song The Great American Melting Pot is a fucking banger because diversity rocks. Bills, not Exec Orders, become laws. We have a Three-Ring Government, motherfuckers. And inventions are only innovations if they meet a necessity, you tech shitheads. I know the songs.

A sticker that reads "I didn't repeat with liberty and justice FOR ALL every fucking day to accept anything less" propped up against the wood corner of a box filled with clever stickers

Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · last mo.

Today we celebrate the PDFing of "Declaration FINAL v3 USE THIS ONE - SIGNED.docx" (Jefferson's draft was heavily edited by the Committee, then again by Congress, and he was big mad about it.)

📂 Version 1.0 — June 20, 1776
File Name: Declaration_Draft_TJ_DO_NOT_EDIT.docx
Author: t_jefferson_33
Commit Message: "Initial copy-paste from my Mason_VA_Rights_Notes.txt and VA_Constitution_V2.docx scratchpads. Confine your review to grammar and typos, and do not redline, only leave comments."
Tracked Changes & Notes:
Line 14: "We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable..."
Comment from t_jefferson_33: "Certified banger."
📂 Version 1.1 — June 24, 1776
File Name: Declaration_Draft_TJ_comments_JA_BF.docx
Editors: b_franklin_GrittyOG and JA_redsoxfan (obo Committee, w/ Sherman and Livingston)
Commit Message: "First pass by the Committee of Five. Modest style changes."
Tracked Changes & Notes:
47 revisions (redlined), three full new paragraphs
Deleted: "sacred & undeniable" * Inserted: "self-evident"
Comment from b_franklin_GrittyOG: "250 years from now, people will think you wrote that banger. You’re welcome."
📂 Version 2.0 — June 28, 1776
File Name: Declaration_Committee_Review_FINAL.docx
Author: t_jefferson_33
Commit Message: "Incorporated Ben and John's very minor edits of my excellent first draft into a clean copy. Ready for the Continental Congress to approve verbatim."

📂 Version 2.1 to 2.8 — July 2 – July 4, 1776
File Name: Declaration_CONGRESS_REVISED2_redline_NEW_v4_approved..docx
Editors: Continental_Congress Group Chat (50+ active users)
Commit Message: "Line-by-line review by committee. Light trimming, a mere 20% of the original text. Optimizing for colonial unity."
Tracked Changes & Notes:
❌ CRITICAL DELETION: 300 word imprudent diatribe against KG III for transatlantic slave trade (“waging cruel war against human nature”).
Comment from dunkin_delegate: “Jefferson wrote that? He always struck me as a smug hypocrite. #IYKYK”
Comment from SC_delegation_delegate: "I thought we agreed this issue was off the table for now. It can be amicably settled later."
❌ DELETION: Large sections complaining about the ordinary British public being "deaf to the voice of justice."
Comment from NY_delegation_hub: "Guys, let's keep the finger pointed strictly at King George. If we trash the British citizens, we ruin any chance of future trade partnerships or alliances. Keep it professional."
➕ INSERTION: Added "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world" and "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence" to the closing paragraph.
Comment from Middlesex_Conservative: "Marketing requested more religious claptrap to ensure maximum buy-in from the zealots."
System Notification: User t_jefferson_33 reacted 👎(39 instances).
📂 Version 3.0 (Production) — July 4, 1776 (Late Morning)
File Name: Declaration_of_Independence_FINAL_v3_USE_THIS_ONE_SIGNED.docx
Editors: john_hancock_big_font
Commit Message: "Approved. Shipped to the printers. John Hancock didn't realize his zoom level was at 200% when he signed. Committee unable to find the one intern who can resize images, shipping anyway."
System Notification: User t_jefferson_33 has left the chat.

The draft of the Declaration was revised first by Adams and Franklin, and then by the full committee. A total of 47 alterations, including the insertion of three complete paragraphs, were made to the text before it was presented to Congress on June 28. After voting for independence on July 2, Congress continued to refine the document, making 39 additional revisions to the committee draft before its final adoption on the morning of July 4.

The draft shows the multiplicity of corrections, additions and deletions that were made at each step. Although most of the alterations are in Jefferson's handwriting (Jefferson later indicated which changes he believed were made by Adams and Franklin), he felt slighted by the way Congress rewrote the manuscript. In a consoling letter of July 21, 1776, the state's senior delegate, Richard Henry Lee, wrote to Jefferson that he wished that "the manuscript had not been mangled as it is." In an 1823 letter to Madison, Jefferson wrote that, at the time, "during the debate, I was sitting by Dr. Franklin and he observed that I was writhing a little under the acrimonious criticisms" of Congress. In fact, as Congress neared completion of the document by altering nearly all of his last paragraph, Jefferson could only write in the margin "a different phraseology inserted." Jefferson remained bitter about the changes made to the Declaration of Independence right up to his death. His autobiography was a major effort to set the record straight on its writing.

Bo Thompson @gaudipern.bsky.social · last mo.

Thomas Paine is my favorite founding father. He was famously abolitionist and one of the earliest voices to point out the hypocrisy of fighting for independence while keeping slaves. He also firmly believed that keeping any friendship which required compromising your morals made you a bad person.

The Rude Pundit@rudepundit.bsky.social · last mo.

The founder we should talk more about is Thomas Paine, who will fuck your shit up every time. Here he is in The Rights of Man just ripping into any ideas of "originalism" and that kind of garbage.

Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. The parliament or the people of 1688, or of any other period, had no more right to dispose of the people of the present day, or to bind or to controul them in any shape whatever, than the parliament or the people of the present day have to dispose of, bind or controul those who are to live a hundred or a thousand years hence. Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated.

Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · last mo.

California’s Point Reyes is getting a chance to rewild after a 2025 legal settlement led 10 of 12 commercial cattle operations to leave the park. Around 69 km² of former ranchland is slated for restoration, including some of California’s last native coastal prairie. buff.ly/0SFCvpP #ShareGoodNewsToo

Rewilding Point Reyes National Seashore: Why and How • The Revelator

Restoring this vital landscape and its amazing wildlife will require strategy, collaboration, and vigilance.

buff.ly