Caitlin Sainio
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caitlinsainio.bsky.social
Caitlin Sainio
@caitlinsainio.bsky.social
1.1K followers 460 following 300 posts
Engineer and microscopist. Retired crochet designer. Loves science and pretty pictures. She/her.
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caitlinsainio.bsky.social
Post an image from your summer that confers peace.
A rocky beach on a still, cloudy morning. A tiny wave breaks over small boulders at the water's edge. There's a boat in the distance.
August 30, 2025 at 4:37 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
This is a hell of a quote, and I can't picture even the most LA-hating conservative voters thinking a military occupation everywhere sounds desirable.
"If it works out well in L.A., expect it everywhere," a Trump administration official said of the president's desire for militarized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids across the nation. (This official and the other three sources spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations.)
June 13, 2025 at 9:34 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
Quote post this with a picture of the airplane you’ll accept as a bribe.
A (WWII era) P-38 Lightning. (Photo from the National Museum of the United States Air Force.)
May 14, 2025 at 10:35 AM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
This timeline is both dark and very stupid, but Massachusetts spring remains perfect.
The last few blossoms on a weeping cherry tree, against a background of bright green leaves.
April 25, 2025 at 11:40 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
I'm paywalled from the story, but the story isn't so much what caught my eye. What caught my eye are the images on the Trump digital trading cards. How does anybody keep a straight face, looking at these?
An elderly racist in a red hat, white shirt and light tan pants, finishing a golf swing. Three digital trading cards from "collecttrumpcards.com," in which Donald Trump is pictured, with the physique of a 25-year-old wide receiver, running with an American flag, sitting on a throne, and shooting lightning (!!) from his hands.
April 12, 2025 at 3:22 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
This, right here, is where I lost my entire mind. They're talking about prior authorization. WHAT IS THE POINT OF PRIOR AUTH, IF THEY CAN GRANT IT AND THEN NOT PAY?!
"Let me be clear: The authorization never says we're going to pay you," said Steven Udvarhelyi, who was the CEO for the insurer from 2016 to 2024, in a deposition. "That's why there's a disclaimer.
April 12, 2025 at 12:54 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
Got home from one of several long workdays, and realized that the rain had stopped, the sun was peeking out, and the air smelled like hyacinths. Massachusetts spring never fails to fill me with joy.
A cluster of pale pink hyacinth blossoms, and their bright green leaves, lit by filtered sunlight but still damp from the rain.
April 5, 2025 at 4:37 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
This is a super-cool site, and it is WILD tabbing back in time to landlocked Boston, then back more to underwater Boston, and then back even more to see an ocean between Boston and western Mass.
Map from 220 million years ago, showing Boston as a landlocked red dot, before North America and Africa separated.
March 29, 2025 at 12:20 AM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
I enjoyed this article, and particularly this snippet:
Similarly, in Czechoslovakia, six days after the Soviet invasion in 1968, the newspaper Vecerni Prah puklished "10 commandments," writing: "When a Soviet soldier comes to you, YOU: 1. Don't know 2. Don't care 3. Don't tell 4. Don't have 5. Don't know how to 6. Don't give 7. Can't do 8. Don't sell 9. Don't show 10. Do nothing." These oppositional habits of thinking and practice, nurtured over two decades through underground popular schools, art, literature and outlawed news sources, ultimately paved the way for the Velvet Revolution.
March 24, 2025 at 12:53 AM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
Art IS part of hope, and I was just thinking about hope and your art. My current view includes these, which, you may remember (and I will never forget!) date to the FIRST Trump winter. I never look at them without smiling.
A lamp and a copper-colored wall with two of Kathleen's watercolor prints hanging on it. At left, a sprig of red berries with calligraphy next to them: "In the depth of winter I finally learned that within me lay an invincible summer. -Albert Camus." At right, a blossoming crabapple branch.
February 19, 2025 at 2:09 AM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
A red burning bush berry (/seed) hanging from a branch, against a snowy background.
February 9, 2025 at 4:18 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
The American flag, flying in a cold February wind, framed against a blue sky. The flag is slightly backlit by the sun, which is centered in the frame, below and behind it.
February 1, 2025 at 7:11 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
Post yourself in black and white.
Black and white photo of a woman in many glasses (regular glasses on her face, safety glasses on her head), standing in a hallway.
January 3, 2025 at 8:03 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
Things I don't love: cold weather and short days.

Things I do love: muted reds and silvery end-of-the-year sunlight.
A sprig of small, serrated, late fall leaves. They're a soft shade of red, with darker red veins, and a little yellow at the edges. The background is out of focus, but you can just make out silvery brown and gray branches and the gray stone behind them. The phone camera was struggling with the focus and applied too much digital processing: the effect is either artsy bad photography, depending on your point of view.
November 29, 2024 at 6:15 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
What is common knowledge in your field but shocks outsiders?

Scanning electron microscopes can burn the samples they scan. See the little, dark squares on this thin polymer sample that I imaged, while I was learning? Those are burn marks.
Closeup of a small SEM stub, held between my fingers and thumb. Attached to the stub is a piece of white polymer, with tiny, light brown squares burned into it.
November 16, 2024 at 12:07 AM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
Quote with a picture of water that you took.
A seashell in the sand, photographed through the thin layer of water at the waves' edge.
November 12, 2024 at 11:12 AM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
Not generally a November fan, but it is a very pretty day.
Tall evergreens casting long, November afternoon shadows in the woods, with deep blue sky visible between them.
November 9, 2024 at 7:30 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
(Oooh, my favorite kind of quote post chain...)

If you see this, quote post with a beach photo from your gallery.
Small waves breaking on the sand of Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts. The sky is clear, cobalt blue, and the ocean is a deeper, greener blue. It's a spring morning, and the beach is mostly empty: the only people in the frame are barely visible in the distance.
August 31, 2024 at 9:06 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
If you see this.... post a photo you took at sunset.

Marlborough, MA, June, 2024
Sunset. Viewer is standing in the woods at the edge of a field; the sun is setting on the other side of the field. The grass, ferns, and trees are all very green.
June 17, 2024 at 12:03 AM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
Salisbury Beach was very blue, this morning.
Beach: smooth, wet sand in the foreground, then foamy waves, dark blue ocean, cobalt blue sky.
June 16, 2024 at 6:35 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
Extremely pretty day in Central Mass.
A purple flower (my phone thinks it's a wild geranium) growing between rocks in the woods. A buttercup, with unfocused ferns in the background. White blackberry blossoms against bright green blackberry leaves. One blossom is open, two more will open soon.
May 25, 2024 at 7:41 PM
caitlinsainio.bsky.social
This whole interview is a great read, and my favorite part is "walls made of people trying to grab money" -- they were talking about journalism, but the description reminded me of several other industries, and it's going to stick with me for a long, long time.
"But look at that thing, the power of your handmade work. It's so amazing, the irresistibly powerful magnetic attraction between the people who want to know what the fuck is going on, and the people who want to tell it to them. [highlighted on my phone:] There's all these walls in between us to prevent that contact, walls made of people trying to grab money, but people need and want to know, so much."
March 10, 2024 at 4:50 PM