whetstone
@whetstone.bsky.social
I live in Colorado, have mad fits of creativity followed by periods of somnolence, and am charmed by snakes. She/her, or whatever. Signal: whetstone.54
Astrophotographer Adam (AJ) Smadi caught this image a few hours ago from Washington state. A thin crescent Moon, sunlight illuminating the rugged lunar surface. And 2,400 times farther away—and on the other side of the Sun—mighty Jupiter, and its moons Io (left) and Ganymede (right).
This is seismic news for fisheries scientists. Northern cod is *the* iconic symbol of total fisheries collapse due to overfishing (and other factors) *and* the iconic symbol of a complete failure to recover for decades afterwards. This is like announcing the complete recovery of bison on land.
UBC Oceans@ubcoceans.bsky.social · 7h agoFor the first time in over 30 years, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Northern cod stock has been deemed “healthy” by Ottawa. www.canadianaffairs.news/2026/09/05/i...
Zohran Mamdani released 170K documents revealing that post-9/11 asbestos levels remained dangerous for months, despite officials saying the air was safe. As we saw at the start of COVID, officials still treat essential workers as expendable. This is a long-overdue step in the right direction.
zero fat and zero chill i‘m glad teddy roosevelt didn’t get his way and the wild ones remain on a whole other continent from me
Micah@rincewind.run · 10h agothis also applies to hippos “oh look, cute big pudgy animal” no man those things have basically zero body fat that’s all muscle
trauma is real and sometimes latches on to inconvenient/irrational things and also if you let that turn you into a bigot that is a you problem 9/11 families wanting mamdani to stay away is like jkr taking out her assault trauma on trans people
This figure really encapsulates the whole thing. A slave is that valuable because you're stealing an entire lifetime of surplus labor. And that price tag is also crowding out investment in actually productive (rather than positional) assets like factories, tools, land improvements, trains, & ships.
Brian Broadus@cvilletgr.bsky.social · yesterdayThe average value of an enslaved person in 1860, in 2025 dollars, was $184,600.00. Since poorer Southern Whites had little access to loans or other capital, values like this cemented a planter oligarchy in perpetual control, even dispensing with exclusionary race laws.
Kurt Füchslin captured this video of frozen methane bubbles in Sihlsee (Lake Sihl) in Switzerland. Deep in the depths, bacteria break down decaying organic matter, producing bubbles of methane. As they reach the thickening surface ice, they're trapped as flammable fart pancakes/ice art.
ironically, the best way to prevent your employees from organizing is to preemptively give them the stuff they would have organized to get if your workforce has safe working conditions, good salaries/benefits, reasonable schedules & respectful management? they probably won’t bother
Robert Reich@rbreich.bsky.social · yesterdayCorporations spend more than $1.5 billion a year on union-busting. That’s $1.5 billion they could have spent on higher wages, better benefits, and improving workplace safety. Remember: if they weren’t so scared of worker power, they wouldn’t fight so hard against unions.
had lunch in this unfussy little place in Beijing and I ordered some water with my meal and boyfriend ordered some soda; waitress said "no" then just brought us a litre bottle of beer instead, fair enough
If I’m wrong I’ll eat crow, but the general reaction to that AOC/MAHA video is befuddling. It’s very plausible, and imo more likely, that she’s cunningly looking for Good Actually top line issues (glyphosate, pesticides) to wedge away a bit of R support, rather than that she’s fallen for Dark Woo.
i usually kind of like living in a college town but i am sick and it is almost 1 am and there are a large number of drunk children yelling outside my window
As a former professional football player, I can confidently say that this essay is incorrect from every conceivable angle, and contributes heavily to the culture of toxic masculinity that still infests high schools and colleges across the country.
Kathleen Bachynski@bachynski.bsky.social · 4d agoI think it’s safe to say that some version of this essay by Ben Sasse on youth football has been written for over 100 years. “Football is a character-forming institution that channels strength… In a culture of passivity, football privileges action. In times of peace, football prepares us for war.”
This Finnish guy has been teaching himself Sumerian, and sent a cuneiform tablet to the British Museum to check his progress. They just emailed him that they've sent him something in the post. I'm now thrilled and excited for a total stranger! Clay tablet mail! www.reddit.com/r/Cuneiform/...
It’s out of season. Intra coalition conflict season goes from Jan 21, odd years to September 1 in even years. But September 1 even years to Jan 20 odd years is strictly conflict with reactionaries season. This may require not fighting anyone in Bsky for some time
So here's a quote from @pablo.show that applies to not only his Clippers investigation but the best of what journalism can be: www.nytimes.com/athletic/756...
Take a break from being depressed that everything you love is being destroyed by slop for a moment and let me tell you about the beautiful symbiotic relationship between graffiti writers, train yard workers, and model train enthusiasts.
NOTUS@notus.com · 4d agoHHS is canceling infant mortality and postpartum grants to focus instead on research related to what the department says are “root causes” like sperm counts and erectile dysfunction. https://www.notus.org/health-science/hhs-cancels-infant-mortality-postpartum-grants-focus-infertility
Mom just told me she read a theory about Trump intentionally throwing the election. She couldn't remember where she saw it, and it sounds so *wildly* improbable that I really want to read why anyone would imagine he'd do anything of the kind. Have you seen anything along those lines? 🙏
re last repost: I stand by my assertion that if someone is being "deported" to somewhere they didn't come from, the correct term is simply "transportation" as in the Victorian practise of shipping convicts off to colonies, this is barbaric 19th century shit and "deportation" is a euphemism here
This should be illegal. If you're an online publisher, you should be required to give the people who've published on your platform enough notice for them to save proof of their work before you shut down. Hosting print articles is cheap, nobody goes bankrupt so fast/thoroughly they can't wait 2 weeks
Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 4d agoBET Digital has permanently removed all its digital news articles from its website to 'prioritize video content,' I'm told. Years of news articles are now gone forever. Some writers were able to save their stories; some weren't
It is consistently a problem for me with my Boomer relatives, who do not believe that Mamdani is doing anything concrete for New York because The New York Times doesn’t report on it.
Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social · 5d agoI think one reason Mamdani is using non-traditional media is because traditional media isn't covering substantive government stories The two reporters on this topic cover the Mamdani administration but mostly from the perspective of conflicts. Too much theater, not enough substance.
