@dpbsmith.bsky.social
Badlands National Park, 2016. Long camping road trip, Boston to Yellowstone and back, but really Badlands was the highlight of the trip.
November 9, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Badlands National Park, 2016. Long camping road trip, Boston to Yellowstone and back, but really Badlands was the highlight of the trip.
Gooseberry Badlands, near Worland, WY.
November 8, 2025 at 2:06 AM
Gooseberry Badlands, near Worland, WY.
The President is a human ChatGPT. He says plausible-sounding things, with no attention to truth.
November 7, 2025 at 2:14 AM
The President is a human ChatGPT. He says plausible-sounding things, with no attention to truth.
You're right. I learned something today.
November 5, 2025 at 10:14 PM
You're right. I learned something today.
Every US dictionary I've ever checked lists both as legitimate, with "gray" being more common. Here are two examples:
November 5, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Every US dictionary I've ever checked lists both as legitimate, with "gray" being more common. Here are two examples:
"100 languages?" Try 800. In Queens, alone, although admittedly Queens has been called "the language capital of the world." www.weforum.org/stories/2017...
November 5, 2025 at 4:41 PM
"100 languages?" Try 800. In Queens, alone, although admittedly Queens has been called "the language capital of the world." www.weforum.org/stories/2017...
ISN'T THAT A LOW-FLUSH TOILET? Did Trump install a low-flush toilet in the renovated bathroom of the Lincoln Bedroom? Isn't we worried that his honored guests will "need to flush ten times?"
November 5, 2025 at 3:18 PM
ISN'T THAT A LOW-FLUSH TOILET? Did Trump install a low-flush toilet in the renovated bathroom of the Lincoln Bedroom? Isn't we worried that his honored guests will "need to flush ten times?"
The aesthetic includes his portrait. He was the first President in my lifetime whose official image did not show him smiling. I've been trying all along to think what that expression looks like, and I think I found it.
November 3, 2025 at 9:49 PM
The aesthetic includes his portrait. He was the first President in my lifetime whose official image did not show him smiling. I've been trying all along to think what that expression looks like, and I think I found it.
Even the New York Times is pulling its punches. Their Editorial Board lists twelve things autocrats do, and says Trump "has" done 5 and "has started to" do 7. Yet the headline is phrased as a question, which according to Betterich's Law of Headlines is an implicit "no!" Cowed or kowtowing?
November 3, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Even the New York Times is pulling its punches. Their Editorial Board lists twelve things autocrats do, and says Trump "has" done 5 and "has started to" do 7. Yet the headline is phrased as a question, which according to Betterich's Law of Headlines is an implicit "no!" Cowed or kowtowing?
Tangentially, if we MUST do this, why are the dates so crazy? We changed to Daylight Saving Time (DST) when we began getting 11.7 hours of daylight. Why didn't we change back on Oct 3, when that ended? We change back a month late.
November 2, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Tangentially, if we MUST do this, why are the dates so crazy? We changed to Daylight Saving Time (DST) when we began getting 11.7 hours of daylight. Why didn't we change back on Oct 3, when that ended? We change back a month late.
Faint echoes of M. C. Escher?
November 1, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Faint echoes of M. C. Escher?
A small thing but I'm sick of mainstream news media (like the NYT) saying Trump's arch is "like the Arc de Triomphe." NO IT ISN'T. There are no bas-reliefs of heroic male nudes on Trump's arch. No bas-reliefs at all. Trump's arch is more "like" Hitler's Triumphbogen, planned but never built.
November 1, 2025 at 12:16 AM
A small thing but I'm sick of mainstream news media (like the NYT) saying Trump's arch is "like the Arc de Triomphe." NO IT ISN'T. There are no bas-reliefs of heroic male nudes on Trump's arch. No bas-reliefs at all. Trump's arch is more "like" Hitler's Triumphbogen, planned but never built.
So much kowtowing. Always Trump's planned triumphal arch is "like the Arc de Triomphe." OK, triumphal arches are all broadly similar but I don't think Trump's will have images of heroic nude men on it! It's not Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe, it's Hitler's unbuilt Triumphbogen.
October 30, 2025 at 1:10 PM
So much kowtowing. Always Trump's planned triumphal arch is "like the Arc de Triomphe." OK, triumphal arches are all broadly similar but I don't think Trump's will have images of heroic nude men on it! It's not Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe, it's Hitler's unbuilt Triumphbogen.
The last poem in Carl Sandburg's "The People, Yes," slightly abridged for Bluesky's three-minute limit. "The people will live on. The learning and blundering people will live on. They will be tricked and again sold, and go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds.
October 28, 2025 at 12:38 PM
The last poem in Carl Sandburg's "The People, Yes," slightly abridged for Bluesky's three-minute limit. "The people will live on. The learning and blundering people will live on. They will be tricked and again sold, and go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds.
From 1909 to 1924, Boston Floating Hospital for Children operated, literally on a ship in Boston Harbor.
October 27, 2025 at 4:05 PM
From 1909 to 1924, Boston Floating Hospital for Children operated, literally on a ship in Boston Harbor.
And it is the obvious driver behind the insane push for humanoid robots, which makes no engineering sense. The "automatic pilot" in the movie "Airplane!" dramatizes the stupidity of the idea.
October 26, 2025 at 8:02 PM
And it is the obvious driver behind the insane push for humanoid robots, which makes no engineering sense. The "automatic pilot" in the movie "Airplane!" dramatizes the stupidity of the idea.
And yet autocrats are frightened to death of art and always seek to control it.
October 26, 2025 at 7:48 PM
And yet autocrats are frightened to death of art and always seek to control it.
Straight out of Hitler and Speer's unfinished plans to transform Berlin into "Germania." We'll know that's what Trump (or his aides) are thinking about if he proposes one of THESE (maybe as a domed stadium), the never-built Volkshalle.
October 25, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Straight out of Hitler and Speer's unfinished plans to transform Berlin into "Germania." We'll know that's what Trump (or his aides) are thinking about if he proposes one of THESE (maybe as a domed stadium), the never-built Volkshalle.
He's feeling his mortality and wants to stamp his personal name on all of Washington, D.C. Like Hitler's plans to transform Berlin into "Germania." The planned triumphal arch echoes the (never built) Triumphbogen. We will know for SURE when proposes a humongous dome like the Volkshalle. (Stadium?)
October 25, 2025 at 1:59 PM
He's feeling his mortality and wants to stamp his personal name on all of Washington, D.C. Like Hitler's plans to transform Berlin into "Germania." The planned triumphal arch echoes the (never built) Triumphbogen. We will know for SURE when proposes a humongous dome like the Volkshalle. (Stadium?)
I call it "Artificial Dunning-Kruger." Pick a city where you sort of know the subway system or the names of the places a subway would go to. Go to ChatGPT.com and ask it "Draw a map of the Boston subway." Look at the result. For one second you are impressed, the next second you laugh.
October 24, 2025 at 12:52 AM
I call it "Artificial Dunning-Kruger." Pick a city where you sort of know the subway system or the names of the places a subway would go to. Go to ChatGPT.com and ask it "Draw a map of the Boston subway." Look at the result. For one second you are impressed, the next second you laugh.
The White House thinks so. This is from the official White House tour website. Tours are suspended "indefinitely," I don't believe the public will ever be allowed inside again.
whitehouse.gov1.info/visit/tour.h...
whitehouse.gov1.info/visit/tour.h...
October 23, 2025 at 12:34 PM
The White House thinks so. This is from the official White House tour website. Tours are suspended "indefinitely," I don't believe the public will ever be allowed inside again.
whitehouse.gov1.info/visit/tour.h...
whitehouse.gov1.info/visit/tour.h...
ADK, artificial Dunning-Kruger. ADK is when you ask ChatGPT for a map of the Boston subway system, and instead of saying "That's outside my range of competence," it gives you
October 23, 2025 at 12:06 PM
ADK, artificial Dunning-Kruger. ADK is when you ask ChatGPT for a map of the Boston subway system, and instead of saying "That's outside my range of competence," it gives you
Just to be clear: don't obey in advance, and don't BELIEVE in advance. Sure, the ballroom will PROBABLY be built, but it hasn't even been started yet, and it MIGHT not be. Hitler never built his Volkshalle.
October 22, 2025 at 1:14 AM
Just to be clear: don't obey in advance, and don't BELIEVE in advance. Sure, the ballroom will PROBABLY be built, but it hasn't even been started yet, and it MIGHT not be. Hitler never built his Volkshalle.
The ballroom doesn't exist yet. Don't ASSUME it will be built. Hitler never built the Volkshalle.
October 22, 2025 at 12:21 AM
The ballroom doesn't exist yet. Don't ASSUME it will be built. Hitler never built the Volkshalle.