What if Vasa, but Cybertruck?

U.S. Naval Institute@usni.org · 8h ago

First Trump-class Battleship Could Cost $23.4B, Says CBO — USNI News news.usni.org/2026/08/05/f...

Yeah, for days people have been saying "don't build the Torment Nexus" at me, and I want to shout DO YOU REALIZE THIS IS A RANDOM IDEA TOSSED OUT BY A SCIENCE *FICTION* WRITER AND MAY NOT ACCURATELY DESCRIBE THE REALITY OF THOSE NEXUSES

List of likely city governments for any aspiring Wallet Inspectors out there.

Nathan Kalman-Lamb@nkalamb.bsky.social · 2d ago

The US host cities for the 2026 men's World Cup claim that they were *verbally* promised $1 million each by Gianni Infantino and that FIFA hasn't paid up. Truly incredible stuff. www.nytimes.com/athletic/749...

I would say it is literally impossible to form any reasonable analysis of the present moment unless you are willing to acknowledge the profound and wholly unforced errors of the Biden administration.

Anguirus@anguirus.bsky.social · 2d ago

Again, US politics KIND OF makes sense if you can conceive of Biden as a failure—he propped up his likely opponent, minimized the threat of MAGA fascism, yanked away the support that helped families survive Covid, didn’t rein in SCOTUS, pathetically tried to run again, spiked Harris on his way out.

A reminder: If you absolutely cannot boycott Amazon, don’t. But can you make them NOT your default? If every Amazon customer cut their spending by just 10%, Bezos would burst his facelift sutures. This doesn’t have to be an all or nothing.

Ah yes, the epic tale of Odysseus, from whom we get the word "odyssey" - and Telemachus, from whom we get the word "telemarketing."

here's a fun lil exercise for cis people: how many articles would a publication have to print calling for your extermination before you would expect people who care about you to stop giving them money? and how would you feel if their excuse for still supporting them is some fuckass crossword puzzle?

It's amazing how much of right-wing politics is just an outright hostility to any idea of the collective or interconnectedness, and how much of our politics has been locked around satisfying people who are fundamentally hostile to the concept of society as a consequence. It's pathetic!

That doesn’t mean get rid of the dog! It just means own the dog you have, not the one you’re pretending to have. Fencing, muzzling them on walks (baskerville muzzles are comfy and easy to train to! then the worst that can happen is a muzzle punch)—

Crowdsourcing war crimes is yet another one of those "too absurd for any fiction except satirical parody" situations, and yet

Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 3d ago

PENTAGON: Anyone got any ideas? @cnn.com www.cnn.com/2026/08/03/p...

The willingness of so many Americans to celebrate Columbus Day really is telling.

Chantal James@chantalalive.blacksky.app · 3d ago

Columbus roll up to the Caribbean thinking he's in India with his clueless self, & as soon as the Natives greet him he like, cool, I'm murdering most of you, the rest of you are my slaves, & y'all better show me where the gold is right now or I'll chop off your arm.

my new obsession is having Warhammer 40K history videos playing in the background all day and every other day my wife asks why I don't just play a game or buy some models if I like it so much and I dunno how to explain that in the grim darkness of the far future there is only lore

I was going to make an Epic Rap Battles of History joke about the Wilson vs Nolan "feud", but beefing in that format would be such a wildly one-sided affair that even the artistic license that comes with parody couldn't justify making it even close to a fair fight.

I have seen the Odyssey and my main takeaway is that it’s time to give John Leguizamo an award for not only being great but singlehandedly improving EVERY FILM HE IS IN.

Read the stories in the quotes and replies and ask yourself about the $135 billion the US spends on police, the $87 billion it spends on prisons, and the $52 billion it spends on courts (these stats are from 2021 so it’s definitely worse now)

Criminal Justice Expenditures: Police, Corrections, and Courts

Police expenditures include spending on police, sheriffs, state highway patrols, and other governmental departments charged with protecting public safety.Cor…

urban.org

Em, midly@lefttheprairie.bsky.social · 4d ago

It’s so funny when people are like “sure you’re an abolitionist now but wait until you’re the victim of a property crime.” Buddy, the most useful thing the police have ever done for property crime is put the form you need to submit to your insurance online.

The Styx/Chicago show we're about to go to is probably gonna be another Art Institute situation

The Bore of Whabylon@thaddeusjames.bsky.social · 2w ago

Youngest couple at the Art Institute event. Oldest couple at the local goth rock show.

Regular reminder, Newsom isn't just a regular corproate villain, he has a sadistic streak too.

-𝚖𝚘𝚡@moxiest.art · 12mo ago

while smiling! Gavin Newsom literally dressed up in his best Bad Boy™️ attire, invited the press, and smiled as he destroyed everything these constituents had in the world. Gavin Newsom is not a bad candidate; Gavin Newsom is truly, at his core, a bad and despicable human being.

The immigrant union troops who defended their adopted country from slaver traitors are in fact, proof of concept of American higher ideals having nothing to do with “blood” or “heritage” or whatever cowardly euphemism is in vogue among these pathetic losers

Gogol is definitely an author I'd consider owning multiple translations of, so this is good to know

Movies Silently@moviessilently.bsky.social · 4d ago

Incidentally, I treated myself to a new translation of Gogol's short stories by Susanne Fusso. If you aren't sure which copy of a foreign language classic to get, buy the one with the translator prominently credited, they make a huge difference. cup.columbia.edu/book/the-nos...

3. Indeed, LLMs will change the ways that we scientists spend our time. That horse has left the barn. But in this paper, we reach the sobering conclusion that LLMs are not likely to fulfill our fantasies of freeing up more time for leisurely contemplation or more thorough investigations of nature.

Can't decide between the various "It's Happening" gifs, so this is a text quote post instead.

New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine@newedgeswordmag.bsky.social · 5d ago

📣 New Edge Sword & Sorcery is open to short story submissions now through 8am EST, Sept 1st! 👉️ newedgeswordandsorcery.com/submissions/

Trump 2 has shown that the bulk of federal, state, and local "law enforcement" don't perform any useful functions at all. If they did, it would not be so easy to re-task them to brainless gestapo work like rounding up whole neighborhoods and waiting outside public buildings.

Melissa Gira Grant@melissagiragrant.com · 6d ago

I wrote about how immigration arrests are at all-time highs, even as ICE is trying to assume a lower public profile. How are they doing this? Look to your local police.

In light of Hank Green disappointing us all, a thread of science communicators that do not brainlessly parrot LLMs as reference. Miniminuteman. A Tiktok import who now posts long form archeological/pseudoarcheology-debunking vids to YouTube. They're fantastic. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFA4...

The Giant Skeletons of Lovelock Cave - DEBUNKED

YouTube video by Miniminuteman

youtube.com

A new Vampire the Masquerade edition? A Dark Sun revival? Darn, now I'm gonna start obsessing over my Bronze Age VtM campaign idea again, aren't I?

Tech companies just obviously have zero interest in even pretending that the stuff they do will be good for humanity.

Fun fact: it took me at least three books into the series to realize this

madeline odent@oldenoughtosay.com · 6d ago

Who can sit at the same table could have about that size range between them, instead of the real scale which is like 1:50. So there are size differences between the animals but they do not match the size differences we know.

Well, it’s invoicing day, and since they’re really apparently not going to pay me for something I wrote for them two months ago, I guess today is the day to post about how @vulture.com fucks over its film freelancers. Long (sorry) thread, with receipts:

Vulture@vulture.com · 2mo ago

There are 118 feature films, plus galas, talks, podcast recordings, and more at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Our guide to the movies and events worth lining up for.

one of my least favorite classmates in business school kept trying to pitch me on a startup where he created be a drop-box like service but then make money by selling all of the data to foreign governments anyway he now works for google’s AI team. this seems like something he would cook up

Faine Greenwood@faineg.bsky.social · 6d ago

I used to do some work on the ethical use of satellite and drone imagery for aid and disaster response, and it is genuinely hard to express in words what a dangerous, stupid thing Google is doing by making it easy to use GenAI to create faked satellite imagery:

Reminder for everyone - the CEO of ModRetro is Palmer Luckey, who is a war profiteer (1), AI weapons manufacturer (2), fascist surveillance state supporter (3), genocide enthusiast (4), and pedophilia supporter (5). Supporting ModRetro means you're supporting fascism. Sorry, that's just the truth.

Guy who went on holiday to Toontown and made it his whole personality: