When you get two cats, how do they decide which one will have a tiny chirp like a pixie’s doorbell and which one will wail like the ghost of a jilted bride?

in re Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" (which, in the original Martian Chronicles, occurs on today's date), I didn't realize the very first published version of the story, in Collier's magazine, was set in April 1985. (the current edition of Martian Chronicles now sets it in 2057).

In a college sociology class in the late 1980s I was assigned a Marxist analysis of education that argued that the US education system is designed primarily to produce efficient workers for the labor market. And now Trump’s Department of Education is just tweeting it out.

Commission: the opening shot of Knives Out + synesthesia based on the soundtrack

Every post which begins "it's not about left vs right" goes on to say something which is easily categorisable as either left or right. "It's not about left vs right, it's rich vs poor" Mmm, yes, what could be more neutral than the concept of class war.

When someone is described as "often controversial, never boring" in 2026 it just means: full nazi but also part of the establishment.

Every now & then I'm reminded those Epic Mickey games somehow accidentally had a trans telephone — the character is male in the first one & he ends up dismantled, then in the second one she's female & says she got reassembled between games once they found where her killer hid the pieces.

the oscilloscope can produce mind-boggling effects 💀

Dracula, seeing a man seemingly dead:

Anthony Oliveira@meakoopa.bsky.social · 3d ago

I am going through Bram Stoker’s earliest notes on DRACULA today - they include a list of the powers and features of the Count (then named “Wampyr” before Stoker stumbled on “Dracula”), many of which are never elucidated in the book…

This is almost exactly how the plot of The Bad Seed kicks off.

Tom Gauld@tomgauld.bsky.social · 3d ago

My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com

Reading the earliest chapter 5 ideas when I made it up in like 2016

Using lists of three is not an "AI tell." It's a common trait in human writing because our brains biologically want to make sure there's always one thing to marry, one thing to fuck, and one thing to murder.

haven't made one of these in a while

If you change Gangle's mask... | #theamazingdigitalcircus #tadc #tbshorts

“If gender turns out to be an arbitrary, transcendable division, and not a permanent and natural one, then what remains of how we order and rank the human race?”

Jack Nicholson's Evil Smile Head Nod

ALT: Jack Nicholson's Evil Smile Head Nod

static.klipy.com

I truly feel for kids growing up now who will have to unlearn using AI, but if you've been writing for more than 2 years it is the easiest thing in the world to just Keep Doing The Thing You Did and ignore AI tools!! It makes me feel crazy that people act like this isn't the case!!!

Maddy Myers 🏳️‍🌈@midimyers.com · 5d ago

it's actually sad as hell to use AI for research when research is the fun part. you can just email people and call them on the phone and ask them questions about the thing that they have expertise in. you can read documents & learn cool shit. ok now i'm just talking about how being a reporter is fun

They certainly PRETEND to be useful. They pretend to make things soooo much easier, soooo much faster. Soooo much less friction. The moment you buy into the pretense, you also buy into that philosophy of effortless ease. And that's when your process and your work starts becoming sloppy.

Hank Green@hankgreen.bsky.social · last yr.

There are a lot of critiques of LLMs that I agree with but "they suck and aren't useful" doesn't really hold water. I understand people not using them because of social, economic, and environmental concerns. And I also understand people using them because they can be very useful. Thoughts?

They're never fucking happy. That's why you should just tell them to fuck off.

Nikko@dyadiccalamity.bsky.social · 5d ago

Oh... lookit that

You can log on to Bluesky where the Classicists, Archaeologists, Historians, and Culture critics are all yelling at one another about The Odyssey you can log on to X where people are debating if women are "real people"

just became aware of William Howard Taft’s 1908 campaign poster

more of these forest fire guys. character designs up on kofi as adoptables because i need an air conditioner in my room so so bad ko-fi.com/sparrowlucer...

I just watched the Zeffirelli Romeo and Juliet Tybalt and Mercutio death scene in a rideshare, but No Scrubs was playing on the radio And you know what? At least, for the first part of the scene, it kind of synced up

pomni in 90s video game style

See also Hotspur in The Prince, who is kinda like Jax if Jax lived in the 1400s and spoke in verse and killed people

Evie@faeeevee.bsky.social · last wk.

Jax is too afraid to get close to other because she thinks either they will hurt her or she will hurt them, so she's a dickhead preemptively so that they'll stay away. But she craves connection with them so much, and that's where... It's the fucking HEDGEHOG'S DILEMMA AGAIN, FUCKING SHINJI-

Literally what fandom discourse has turned into I fear.

i think if you're serious about rebooting a legacy franchise in the 2020s, you need to make it about lesbians. if you just reboot it without lesbians it shows a lack of interest in anything other than keeping the license active.

I come back to this tumblr post again and again

Hillary Monahan@hillarymonahan.bsky.social · last wk.

Nobody wants predictive data models to stop working for the people in medicine. Or translating ancient Pompeii texts. Or the other ways we were already using it. We want it to stop replacing workers, killing the environment, and stealing from artists. Hope that clarifies.

The goal is to satisfy the *emotions* behind every information need without providing real information.

Matt Seybold@mattseybold.bsky.social · last wk.

The cross-platform enshittification of search functionality is such an infuriating exercise of authoritarian creep. They would like to kill the inclination to find information & enforce satisfaction with be fed information.