helen a. [last name redacted] (she/they)
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purpleshift.bsky.social
helen a. [last name redacted] (she/they)
@purpleshift.bsky.social
350 followers 640 following 130 posts
Slow adopter.
Perpetual student 😅 currently not-studying: library technician 📚 ALIA member
Amateur cataloguer - will tag your AO3 fics
#adhd #libraries #critcat #linguistics
is location in bluesky yet? if not: Burramattagal land, Australia
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purpleshift.bsky.social
And polls have closed across Australia, with Western Australia just closing their booths now (don't judge me for taking a picture of a computer screen, ABC iView doesn't allow for screenshots and I need the subtitles on at least one stream)
Screenshot showing the 6 News YouTube stream with live chat in the left window and the ABC News 24 iView stream in the right window, both saying polls have closed (6 News says "POLLS HAVE CLOSED"; ABC says "POLLS CLOSED | Western Australia")
May 3, 2025 at 10:08 AM
purpleshift.bsky.social
I would've spent more at the cake stall on lolly bags & taken more picture of the sausage sizzle advertising, but my mum wanted to take Astro directly home, so oh well, have a dog just about to get up from his nap because he's noticed that a phone camera is pointed at his face & that means attention
Astro, a fluffy white Japanese Spitz boy (not that Japanese Spitzes come in anything other than fluffy and whitish) is taking a nap or a break in the middle of the floor and is lying down on his right side. He's opened his eyes because he's noticed that the phone camera is pointed at him.
May 3, 2025 at 7:40 AM
purpleshift.bsky.social
I say "we" because I managed to drop one of the little sausages as I was walking uphill after the gauntlet of campaigners and my dog Astro got to eat it, so he did manage to get one after all even with all that whining and significant looks that he did #auspol #AusVotes2025 #DogsAtThePolls
Astro, a fluffy white male Japanese Spitz, goes for a walk to the polls on a nice partly cloudy Saturday in May Astro looks to the left, either at the queue of voters on the stairs outside Telopea Public School or at the legs of the person walking a black and tan dog away from the democracy sausage sizzle table (where you can see as sauce bottles and a barbecue grill behind the table, as well as a bucket under it) The price list for the democracy sausage sizzle at Telopea Public School, with $3 sausage sandwiches (options include • onions • sauce *halal beef sausages), $2 cold drinks, $2 lolly bags, and cakes (prices as marked)
May 3, 2025 at 7:40 AM
purpleshift.bsky.social
Very glad that I checked with my local councillor when I saw her outside the polling place today that she wasn't affiliated with or endorsing one of the independents who'd also used the words "Community Champion" on her campaign website. #auspol #AusVotes2025
Screenshot of the top of the home page of Tanya Quinn's campaign website, https://www.tanyaquinn.com.au . Her logo on the top bar says "Tanya Quinn" with "Voice for the People" in smaller letters under her last name. The text over the photo says "From CEO to Community Champion - Taking the People's Fight to Parliament." "Community Champion -" is highlighted in red text as opposed to the rest of the text in white. The photo that the text is on shows two people sitting on a blue park bench: a young woman with long hair who is holding a half-visible "QUINN" sign on purple paper and is sitting with their head turned to her left towards the other person, a man wearing a cap and a black shirt that says "NDIS LET ME DOWN". Tanya Quinn, by the way is an independent candidate for the Australian federal House of Representatives seat of Parramatta in the 2025 Australian federal election, & we can safely assume the genders of the people in the photograph because further down the page (not shown in photo) Quinn says one of her policies is "No Woke Agenda - No Gender Ideology - No Nonsense", so.
May 3, 2025 at 7:02 AM
purpleshift.bsky.social
The Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens has officially declared Putricia OPEN!
Screenshot of the Botanic Gardens of Sydney's website page about Putricia the titan arum (titled Corpse Flower: A Plant to Die For), with a banner announcing that it has started to bloom and their special opening hours (8 am until midnight [instead of until sunset]). Text is the same as the pinned message in the livestream chat (though this banner actually appeared slightly earlier on the website) Screenshot of the Botanic Gardens of Sydney's livestream of Putricia, the titan arum (corpse flower), with a pinned message in the live chat from the Botanic Gardens dated 1:30 pm: "UPDATE, THURS 23 JAN: The time has finally come! Putricia has started to bloom. Palm House will be open until midnight tonight (Thursday) and reopen from 8am tomorrow (Friday)."
January 23, 2025 at 3:23 AM
purpleshift.bsky.social
Like so!
A screenshot of Bluesky on mobile, showing the pin emoji (📌) feed for myself showing the previous two replies in this reply chain.
January 19, 2025 at 11:15 PM
purpleshift.bsky.social
long screenshot
Two consecutive Bluesky posts, one containing a picture & a quote tweet Post 1 Shiv Ramdas @nameshiv.bsky.social 3h i'm sorry there is no way there are enough ideas in there for you be calling it a manifesto, more like minifesto Post 2 Josh Taylor @joshtaylor.bsky.social 3h Among other things, the guy called DEI "a cancer" in his alleged note. Sounds like radicalisation to me Herald Sun: [Cropped photo of newspaper] [headline] I'm not a terrorist [byline] Tom Minear [body text] A special forces soldier who blew himself up in a Tesla Cybertruck declared in a suicide note that it was "not a terrorist attack" but a way to "cleanse my mind of the brothers I've lost". only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives? Why did I personally do it now? I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I've lost and relieve myself of the [photo cuts off] Quoted post in post 2: Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social 7h At least for the moment national publications are radically understating the contents of Matthew Livelsberger's political minifestos which call for a violent, militia-backed "culling" of Dems from and national rebirth of masculinity under the rule of Trump ... talkingpoints memo.com/ edblog/why-a... Link preview in quoted post: MATTHEW ALAN LIVELSBERGER Why Are Publications Sugar-Coating Livilsberger's Political Minifestos? Over the last four days the bizarre Cybertruck fire outside a Trump hotel... talkingpointsmemo.com
January 4, 2025 at 11:33 PM
purpleshift.bsky.social
#AltText in alt text, it's too long for a single skeet
An oft-cited story in the sillok about King Taejong falling off his horse has been used to illustrate the commitment of Joseon court historians to documenting even events displeasing or embarrassing to the king and the extent to which the king could not influence which stories were included in the sillok.[citation 12] [quote] The king himself rode a horse and shot arrows at a deer. However, the horse stumbled, causing him to fall off, but he was not injured. Looking around, he said, "Do not let the historians know about this."[citation 13][note b] ―The Veritable Records of Taejong, Vol. 7, article 4 [/end quote] The historian present defied King Taejong's order and ensured that not only the king's fall but also his wish to keep it off the record were documented.[citation 12]
January 3, 2025 at 11:37 PM
purpleshift.bsky.social
#AltText in well, alt text - it's too long for a single skeet
Two panel wojak comic. Left side: black-haired (with side whiskers, Fu Manchu moustache, & goat patch) wojak in Sinosphere imperial dress stands in front of a horse (by imperial dress I mean he's wearing a myeonlyugwan, (the Korean name for the) mortarboard-style hat with a beaded curtain on the front and back with a yellow cap; & a blue jeogori (Hanbok top) with red trim). LHS Caption: *Falls off his horse* "Don't write that down in the record." RHS: balding white haired and full bearded wojak in yellow trimmed jeogori RHS top caption: *Korean historian* RHS bottom caption: "King Taejong fell from his horse. He then asked not to be recorded in the record."
January 3, 2025 at 11:26 PM
purpleshift.bsky.social
[17/??, digression end]
I've attached the NPS's photo here, for a point of comparison.
The alt text of _this_ photo ⬇️ goes into way too much detail about my interpretation of the intended imagined position of the viewer of the NPS's photo, TL;DR we are slightly to Lincoln's right
Full width photo of the Lincoln Memorial statue of Abraham Lincoln, from the US NPS website. The statue is shown from the knees upward. While Lincoln is facing the viewer, the perspective is suggesting that the viewer is slightly left of Lincoln's centreline: the light source is image-left (Lincoln's right), casting darker shadows on the right of the photo (Lincoln's left), and the lines of perspective make it look like the whole right side of Lincoln and his chair are closer to the viewer of the photo. Since I don't think they would install the statue such that it appears to be leaning or skewed in any direction in comparison to the building when seen by an idealised visitor looking down the centreline (because of iconographic implications, real or imagined), let alone specifically leaning in or out with his right side, we're left with this interpretation of the perspective of the photographer and viewer.
December 25, 2024 at 4:09 AM
purpleshift.bsky.social
I think a screenshot might be better? Even if we leave out the part where tweets can be disconnected from a quote skeet, they'd probably delete that post if they did decide to repeal "don't be evil [with AI]" like Google did.
Screenshot of two posts? skeets? tweets? by the @bsky.app account, the first one dated November 16 2024 at 4:17 AM [AEDST], the second one dated 1d [1 day ago] First post: "A number of artists and creators have made their home on Bluesky, and we hear their concerns with other platforms training on their data. We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so." Second post: "Bluesky uses AI internally to assist in content moderation, which helps us triage posts and shield human moderators from harmful content. We also use AI in the Discover algorithmic feed to serve you posts that we think you'd like. None of these are Gen AI systems trained on user content." (None of the words of the second post are cut off, just the interaction metrics.)
November 17, 2024 at 12:08 AM