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shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Shimmering Vapors
@shimmeringfire.bsky.social
51 followers 81 following 1.1K posts
“My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind."
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shimmeringfire.bsky.social
What
Purple tooth toner polishing powder
October 24, 2025 at 5:30 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Image shows a heavily textured, distressed surface with a grainy, grungy aesthetic. The predominant color is a light gray or off-white, with significant weathering effects throughout.
October 24, 2025 at 10:23 AM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Yellow Guy from DHMIS
October 22, 2025 at 9:34 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
The claim must also strike we who lived through the COVID-19 pandemic as more than a little hubristic. Per Wikipedia, as of October 15th, this viral infection has been the cause of 7,101,788 reported deaths. It is now the second leading cause of death in the world.
Image from WHO showing leading causes of mortality in 2021: "The world’s biggest killer is ischaemic heart disease, responsible for 13% of the world’s total deaths. Since 2000, the largest increase in deaths has been for this disease, rising by 2.7 million to 9.1 million deaths in 2021. As a newly emerged cause of deaths, COVID-19 was directly responsible for 8.8 million deaths in 2021, and consequently, largely pushed down other leading causes of death by one place. Instead of being the second and third leading causes of death as in 2019, stroke and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease became the third and fourth in 2021, responsible for approximately 10% and 5% of total deaths, respectively. Lower respiratory infections remained the world’s most deadly communicable disease other than COVID-19, ranked as the fifth leading cause of death. However, the number of deaths has gone down substantially: in 2021 it claimed 2.5 million lives, 370 000 fewer than in 2000. Deaths from other noncommunicable diseases were also on the rise. Trachea, bronchus and lung cancers deaths have risen from 1.2 million in 2000 to 1.9 million in 2021 and are now ranked sixth among leading causes of death. In 2021, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia ranked as the seventh leading cause of death, killing 1.8 million lives. Women are disproportionately affected. Globally, 68% of deaths from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are women. Diabetes was also among the top 10 causes of death, following a significant percentage increase of 95% since 2000. Other diseases which were among the top 10 causes of death in 2000 are no longer on the list. HIV and AIDS are among them. Deaths from HIV and AIDS have fallen by 61%, moving from the world’s seventh leading cause of death in 2000 to the twenty-first in 2021. Similarly, deaths due to diarrhoeal diseases have dropped by 45%, from sixth leading cause of death in 2000 to thirteenth in 2021."
October 22, 2025 at 9:32 AM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
The dude seems to have a few odd takes:
A comment by Frank Wilholt on Crooked Timber from 2022 that reads: "Newborns don’t care about money. They care about revenge for the birth trauma. The human race has an emotional age of three seconds. This is what post-materialism means. There was never such a thing as greed. The thing that looked like it was only a manifestation of sadism. There was never such a thing as capitalism. The thing that looked like it was a universal intellectual conspiracy to conceal the fact that, by definition, there can be no economic “growth”, only reallocation."
August 8, 2025 at 1:02 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Did the Chat GTP Blueberry thing and it fairly readily admitted its mistake
A screenshot of a chat conversation between a me and Chat GPT-5. I ask how many letter “B”s are in the word “Blueberry,” and GPT initially answers “3.” I then typed the word spaced out as “B L U E B E R R Y” and asks again, with GTP counting 2 Bs this time. The conversation ends with me clarifying that “blueberry” contains only 2 Bs, and GPT admits its earlier count was mistaken.
August 8, 2025 at 7:46 AM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Beautiful little book about loss and memory
A picture of the cover of Anna de Marcken's novella It Lasts Forever and Then it's Over, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions
July 21, 2025 at 5:57 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Suddenly this defeat. This rain. The blues gone gray and yellow a terrible amber. In the cold streets your warm body. In whatever room your warm body. Among all the people your absence. The people who are always not you. I have been easy with trees too long. Too familiar with mountains. Joy has been a habit. Now suddenly this rain.
July 17, 2025 at 4:14 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Is it time to mind your business
July 13, 2025 at 10:00 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
the face I'm submitting for bluesky verification
An image of Vigo the Carpathian in his true form at the end of Ghostbusters II.
July 12, 2025 at 7:17 AM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
I didn't know Byung-Chul Han referenced Zhuangzi. Never had Han before but his schtick in this book sounds appealing.
Contents page from Byung-Chul Han's book, Vita Contemplative. It includes a short section entitled 'A Marginal Note on Zhuangzi'.
July 4, 2025 at 3:51 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
This man went to a special reception with the then Prime Minister Tony Blair at Downing Street
June 29, 2025 at 12:25 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
June 29, 2025 at 10:40 AM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Train
An image of "the ratty" in Eskdale
June 27, 2025 at 3:27 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
What was that @consume.red said about modernist writers being eggs?
Text of an early William Carlos Williams poem, titled Transition: First he said: It is the woman in us That makes us write- Men would be silent. We are not men Therefore we can speak And be conscious (of the two sides) Unbent by the sensual As befits accuracy. I then said: Dare you make this Your propaganda? And he answered : Am I not I--here?
June 27, 2025 at 11:21 AM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Summoning daemons
An image of the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) hexaflex representing the six core processes of ACT: contact with the present moment, values, committed action, self-as-context, defusion, and acceptance. It superficially resembles an esoteric or occult diagram.
June 24, 2025 at 8:35 AM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
A screenshot of some text that reads: "I am damned as I succeed. I have no particular hope save to repair, to rescue, to complete". The text is taken from a 1934 letter written by William Carlos Williams to Marianne Moore.
June 10, 2025 at 8:32 AM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Reading The Sea, The Sea by a pond, a pond
A tranquil park scene with a pond, tall reeds, and lush green trees under a partly cloudy sky, with buildings visible in the background.
May 3, 2025 at 6:33 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Have a look at this if you're having a bad day
A tap/faucet with a plastic moulded cat's head in place of the handle
May 2, 2025 at 10:48 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Took my wife to a cat cafe today. I have never wanted to take a toilet home before
A bathroom with orange walls, blue flooring, and a 70s type design orange toilet with cat ears
May 2, 2025 at 3:59 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Listening to this again and just blissing out as if I myself were a hot summer breeze
Album cover for Jasmine Myra's album Rising (2024).
April 30, 2025 at 9:29 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
I feel like I've been reading this for years
April 30, 2025 at 11:09 AM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Happy birthday Canadian figure skater Toller Cranston
Image of figure skater Toller Cranston, an absolute twink
April 20, 2025 at 9:43 AM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Those perfect small trees of loneliness
April 12, 2025 at 2:31 PM
shimmeringfire.bsky.social
Spotted on Reddit. Shared for Zhuangzi fans.
Tattoo of Ralph Wiggum giving the You Can't If You Don't meme gesture above the text "They can't use you if you're useless"
February 24, 2025 at 11:05 PM