If you ever find yourself in need of an emergency lullaby, a reminder that pretty much any poem in trochaic tetrameter (or, in a pinch, octameter) can be sung to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" -
"The Phoenix and the Turtle"
"The Raven"
"The Tyger"
etc.
(Little kids love animals!)
"The Phoenix and the Turtle"
"The Raven"
"The Tyger"
etc.
(Little kids love animals!)
November 23, 2025 at 8:29 PM
If you ever find yourself in need of an emergency lullaby, a reminder that pretty much any poem in trochaic tetrameter (or, in a pinch, octameter) can be sung to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" -
"The Phoenix and the Turtle"
"The Raven"
"The Tyger"
etc.
(Little kids love animals!)
"The Phoenix and the Turtle"
"The Raven"
"The Tyger"
etc.
(Little kids love animals!)
Kids who only know @billamend.bsky.social's FoxTrot from the Sunday funny pages at their grandparents' house probably have no idea how hard it went in the early days. Case in point: a drunken HS senior hitting a bong rip, inviting a 14-year-old girl to bed, and then suggesting they snort cocaine -
October 23, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Kids who only know @billamend.bsky.social's FoxTrot from the Sunday funny pages at their grandparents' house probably have no idea how hard it went in the early days. Case in point: a drunken HS senior hitting a bong rip, inviting a 14-year-old girl to bed, and then suggesting they snort cocaine -
It's a bit tricky to set up on a smartphone, and it doesn't provide any "extra" storage, but I've found Syncthing to be a perfectly cromulent alternative (private, encrypted, open-source, easy enough to use [YMMV, of course]) to OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. for cloud/sync functionality.
Syncthing
syncthing.net
October 12, 2025 at 6:47 PM
It's a bit tricky to set up on a smartphone, and it doesn't provide any "extra" storage, but I've found Syncthing to be a perfectly cromulent alternative (private, encrypted, open-source, easy enough to use [YMMV, of course]) to OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. for cloud/sync functionality.
"balls to the wall" and "balls-out", both meaning 'maximum effort, commitment, speed', have completely different etymologies separated by a century and a half of mechanical innovation, and neither has anything to do with testicles.
Ye gods, I love language.
Ye gods, I love language.
October 6, 2025 at 7:03 PM
"balls to the wall" and "balls-out", both meaning 'maximum effort, commitment, speed', have completely different etymologies separated by a century and a half of mechanical innovation, and neither has anything to do with testicles.
Ye gods, I love language.
Ye gods, I love language.
i cannot believe that i somehow spent ten years not knowing that john wick spent his retirement COLLECTING AND RESTORING ANTIQUE BOOKS!!!
JOHN WICK — ROSS MacDONALD
Director: Chad Stahelski Propmaster: Vinny Mazzarella Set Decorator: Susan Bode Did you know that international assassin John Wick retired briefly and pursued his love of restoring and collectin...
www.ross-macdonald.com
October 2, 2025 at 3:15 PM
i cannot believe that i somehow spent ten years not knowing that john wick spent his retirement COLLECTING AND RESTORING ANTIQUE BOOKS!!!
The world may be... <gestures broadly...> BUT, I have this year at least found out about FOUNTAIN PEN HIGHLIGHTERS. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
September 21, 2025 at 9:28 PM
The world may be... <gestures broadly...> BUT, I have this year at least found out about FOUNTAIN PEN HIGHLIGHTERS. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
As Upton Sinclair said, it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary — or, as in the case of David Brooks, his entire career, social standing, and self-image — nay, his whole goddamn Weltanschauung — depends on his not understanding it.
(www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/o...)
(www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/o...)
August 22, 2025 at 12:44 AM
As Upton Sinclair said, it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary — or, as in the case of David Brooks, his entire career, social standing, and self-image — nay, his whole goddamn Weltanschauung — depends on his not understanding it.
(www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/o...)
(www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/o...)
Pace Niemöller, "First They Came" is given a meta level of irony by the fact that Aktion T4 killed Gerhard Kretschmar two and a half years before the Wannsee Conference, and that the Sterilisation Law preceded the Nuremberg Laws by about the same.
Just something that came to me on my morning run.
Just something that came to me on my morning run.
RFK Jr: "This administration wants to encourage Americans to take control of their health -- to eat right, to have lifestyle changes that save us all. And that's the patriotic thing to do, not only for our country but for every individual American. It's a patriotic duty to keep ourselves healthy."
August 19, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Pace Niemöller, "First They Came" is given a meta level of irony by the fact that Aktion T4 killed Gerhard Kretschmar two and a half years before the Wannsee Conference, and that the Sterilisation Law preceded the Nuremberg Laws by about the same.
Just something that came to me on my morning run.
Just something that came to me on my morning run.
How long until companies start charging a premium for "locally grown, organic, Fair Trade" versions of their AI models - trained on fully licensed datasets, powered by 100% certified-renewable energy, with some guaranteed percentage of all net profits going back to the creators of the training data?
August 10, 2025 at 7:50 PM
How long until companies start charging a premium for "locally grown, organic, Fair Trade" versions of their AI models - trained on fully licensed datasets, powered by 100% certified-renewable energy, with some guaranteed percentage of all net profits going back to the creators of the training data?
"It is a truth universally acknowledged by the media, that a twentysomething man in possession of a podcast, must be in want of a platform. However uninterested the public may be in the hurt feelings or uninformed views of such a man, he will nevertheless be presented as an authority on some issue."
August 5, 2025 at 4:29 PM
"It is a truth universally acknowledged by the media, that a twentysomething man in possession of a podcast, must be in want of a platform. However uninterested the public may be in the hurt feelings or uninformed views of such a man, he will nevertheless be presented as an authority on some issue."
Welcome to my Thursday-morning TED Thread!
Rick and Morty S01E05, "Meseeks and Destroy", is a surprisingly lore-accurate Gnostic/Kabbalistic retelling of the Apocalypse of Moses!
Rick and Morty S01E05, "Meseeks and Destroy", is a surprisingly lore-accurate Gnostic/Kabbalistic retelling of the Apocalypse of Moses!
July 10, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Welcome to my Thursday-morning TED Thread!
Rick and Morty S01E05, "Meseeks and Destroy", is a surprisingly lore-accurate Gnostic/Kabbalistic retelling of the Apocalypse of Moses!
Rick and Morty S01E05, "Meseeks and Destroy", is a surprisingly lore-accurate Gnostic/Kabbalistic retelling of the Apocalypse of Moses!
The whole "the Space Shuttles' dimensions were based on dummy thicc Roman horse booties" thing turns out to be an urban legend, but the dating system used by Oracle, among other software suites, really does go back to three praetors under Claudius in the first century AD. (I.e., the Julian period.)
July 8, 2025 at 4:58 PM
The whole "the Space Shuttles' dimensions were based on dummy thicc Roman horse booties" thing turns out to be an urban legend, but the dating system used by Oracle, among other software suites, really does go back to three praetors under Claudius in the first century AD. (I.e., the Julian period.)
There are a whole lotta reasons why you shouldn't do this, but if you query the raw data for a market from the Submission Grinder, you can automatically:
- Notify yourself when response velocity picks up;
- Given that it's been N days, estimate how likely it is your story will be accepted;
- Etc.
- Notify yourself when response velocity picks up;
- Given that it's been N days, estimate how likely it is your story will be accepted;
- Etc.
May 29, 2025 at 12:14 PM
There are a whole lotta reasons why you shouldn't do this, but if you query the raw data for a market from the Submission Grinder, you can automatically:
- Notify yourself when response velocity picks up;
- Given that it's been N days, estimate how likely it is your story will be accepted;
- Etc.
- Notify yourself when response velocity picks up;
- Given that it's been N days, estimate how likely it is your story will be accepted;
- Etc.
"The Long Walk" trailer just dropped and I gotta be That Guy[1] and wonder why they dropped the pace to 20'/mile. To avoid a Fujis-to-Bramleys comparison with [Big's](en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big%27s...) and other backyard ultras? Maybe 15' looked too anxious on screen, and they wanted a slower burn?
The Long Walk (2025) Official Trailer - Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson
YouTube video by Lionsgate Movies
www.youtube.com
May 7, 2025 at 10:51 PM
"The Long Walk" trailer just dropped and I gotta be That Guy[1] and wonder why they dropped the pace to 20'/mile. To avoid a Fujis-to-Bramleys comparison with [Big's](en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big%27s...) and other backyard ultras? Maybe 15' looked too anxious on screen, and they wanted a slower burn?
How it started (December 7, 2024):
March 30, 2025 at 12:39 AM
How it started (December 7, 2024):
#40kproblems: black templar bros being like "my skull-in-a-maltese-cross shoulder tattoo has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my 'suffer not the unclean to live' chest rocker" with subzero awareness of why either one might be cause for concern irl
poe's law doin' WORK here
poe's law doin' WORK here
February 27, 2025 at 10:55 PM
#40kproblems: black templar bros being like "my skull-in-a-maltese-cross shoulder tattoo has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my 'suffer not the unclean to live' chest rocker" with subzero awareness of why either one might be cause for concern irl
poe's law doin' WORK here
poe's law doin' WORK here
While researching the alt-text for my previous post, I came across the fact that there is an entire genus of goblin spider species, every single one of which is named after the movie Predator, as is the genus itself - Predatoroonops.
The type species is "Predatoroonops schwarzeneggeri".
The type species is "Predatoroonops schwarzeneggeri".
Predatoroonops - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
February 23, 2025 at 3:30 PM
While researching the alt-text for my previous post, I came across the fact that there is an entire genus of goblin spider species, every single one of which is named after the movie Predator, as is the genus itself - Predatoroonops.
The type species is "Predatoroonops schwarzeneggeri".
The type species is "Predatoroonops schwarzeneggeri".
Context: My house holds roughly 4x 180-225gal tanks' water-weight worth of books.
(Local building codes specify 30-40psf live loads; however, like aquaria, the loading from bookcases is concentrated across rectangular regions, which is why I confirmed my plans with a professional prior to closing.)
(Local building codes specify 30-40psf live loads; however, like aquaria, the loading from bookcases is concentrated across rectangular regions, which is why I confirmed my plans with a professional prior to closing.)
February 23, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Context: My house holds roughly 4x 180-225gal tanks' water-weight worth of books.
(Local building codes specify 30-40psf live loads; however, like aquaria, the loading from bookcases is concentrated across rectangular regions, which is why I confirmed my plans with a professional prior to closing.)
(Local building codes specify 30-40psf live loads; however, like aquaria, the loading from bookcases is concentrated across rectangular regions, which is why I confirmed my plans with a professional prior to closing.)
45 years after GySgt Hathcock pioneered use of the .50 BMG round, the record for longest confirmed sniper kill had increased by 579 yards.
Two years after DARPA successfully test-fired EXACTO and the project immediately went dark, that record jumped up 792 yards.
🤨🧐🤔
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXACTO
Two years after DARPA successfully test-fired EXACTO and the project immediately went dark, that record jumped up 792 yards.
🤨🧐🤔
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXACTO
EXACTO - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
January 17, 2025 at 11:39 PM
45 years after GySgt Hathcock pioneered use of the .50 BMG round, the record for longest confirmed sniper kill had increased by 579 yards.
Two years after DARPA successfully test-fired EXACTO and the project immediately went dark, that record jumped up 792 yards.
🤨🧐🤔
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXACTO
Two years after DARPA successfully test-fired EXACTO and the project immediately went dark, that record jumped up 792 yards.
🤨🧐🤔
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXACTO
REALITY: [Is... <gestures broadly> ...the way that it is.]
WRITERS OF FICTION:
WRITERS OF FICTION:
January 9, 2025 at 3:31 PM
REALITY: [Is... <gestures broadly> ...the way that it is.]
WRITERS OF FICTION:
WRITERS OF FICTION:
Dune is even freakier in French.
January 7, 2025 at 12:12 AM
Dune is even freakier in French.
"bene gesserit": Latin for 'well-behaved'.
"Bene Gesserit": Sisterhood who manipulate galactic politics & religion and backdate prophecies (the Missionaria Protectiva) in order to control the course of human events.
They are "well-behaved women" LITERALLY making history.
Well played, Herbert.
"Bene Gesserit": Sisterhood who manipulate galactic politics & religion and backdate prophecies (the Missionaria Protectiva) in order to control the course of human events.
They are "well-behaved women" LITERALLY making history.
Well played, Herbert.
January 3, 2025 at 4:25 PM
"bene gesserit": Latin for 'well-behaved'.
"Bene Gesserit": Sisterhood who manipulate galactic politics & religion and backdate prophecies (the Missionaria Protectiva) in order to control the course of human events.
They are "well-behaved women" LITERALLY making history.
Well played, Herbert.
"Bene Gesserit": Sisterhood who manipulate galactic politics & religion and backdate prophecies (the Missionaria Protectiva) in order to control the course of human events.
They are "well-behaved women" LITERALLY making history.
Well played, Herbert.
People who scoff at the theory that, even with its droids and spaceships, the Star Wars galaxy is functionally illiterate (reactormag.com/most-citizen...) have obviously never had to wade through pages of video results searching for the location of the air filters on a 2016 Mazda 3 hatchback.
Most Citizens of the Star Wars Galaxy are Probably Totally Illiterate - Reactor
Not once in any Star Wars movie does someone pick up a book or newspaper, magazine, literary journal, or chapbook handmade by an aspiring Jawa poet. If something is read by someone in Star Wars, it’s ...
reactormag.com
December 31, 2024 at 1:09 PM
People who scoff at the theory that, even with its droids and spaceships, the Star Wars galaxy is functionally illiterate (reactormag.com/most-citizen...) have obviously never had to wade through pages of video results searching for the location of the air filters on a 2016 Mazda 3 hatchback.
PSA: You can get prohibitory orders that will stop the vast majority of junk mailings just by signing a form saying that you find them (e.g., pre-approved credit card offers or a sheaf of carwash coupons) to be "erotically arousing or sexually provocative" -
about.usps.com/forms/ps1500.... (1/3)
about.usps.com/forms/ps1500.... (1/3)
about.usps.com
November 25, 2024 at 6:28 PM
PSA: You can get prohibitory orders that will stop the vast majority of junk mailings just by signing a form saying that you find them (e.g., pre-approved credit card offers or a sheaf of carwash coupons) to be "erotically arousing or sexually provocative" -
about.usps.com/forms/ps1500.... (1/3)
about.usps.com/forms/ps1500.... (1/3)
Feeling original, might delete later, but after a few minutes of Googling I'm surprised that "Dickhead" doesn't seem to've ever been used as an anti-Ricardian epithet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardi...
Ricardian (Richard III) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
October 29, 2024 at 12:24 AM
Feeling original, might delete later, but after a few minutes of Googling I'm surprised that "Dickhead" doesn't seem to've ever been used as an anti-Ricardian epithet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardi...