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skyquake.bsky.social
Cal
@skyquake.bsky.social
440 followers 250 following 1.2K posts
Likes: history, horror, video games, religion(s), and staring at pictures of space! he/they. Queer. 🏳️‍⚧️
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skyquake.bsky.social
This was difficult to navigate since I only played DAO and Veilguard. Leliana should not actually be so low.

I think we can see the basic gist that except for Lucanis I am here for the women.

…I didn’t remember enough about Alistair, Sten and Oghren to rank them. 🥲
November 14, 2025 at 12:34 AM
skyquake.bsky.social
Me on Discord a few hours ago after reading a surprise antagonist wins ending.

It also doesn’t occur to some people how many people genuinely enjoy feeling a variety of emotions from art.

I don’t try to disappear people’s happy ending books I look for curation options.
I love “bad” endings I just need a massive list of stories where all I know is awful things happen at the end 🥺 …like that list in r/horror I started watching through I should get back to
July 30, 2025 at 5:20 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
I was using these algorithms very early, and we still have an awful grasp on the knock ons that infiltrate training data. For example, this GPT-2' era model was trained entirely on a library of faces, but responded to "A landscape with trees and mountains" from some earlier stage of development.
A mangled output resembling warped trees and mountains generated by an early algorithm of what's now mis-named "artificial intelligence." A mangled output resembling warped trees and mountains generated by an early algorithm of what's now mis-named "artificial intelligence."
July 2, 2025 at 1:10 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
The pushback Chappelle refers to here at the "Sanction me with your armies!" bit was real.

Honestly it seems like the European order was (albeit helplessly) more willing to speak up against the US in that period than during the US/Israel's present escalation.

www.theguardian.com/world/2004/s...
Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly for the first time last night that the US-led war on Iraq was illegal. Mr Annan said that the invasion was not sanctioned by the UN security council or in accordance with the UN's founding charter. In an interview with the BBC World Service broadcast last night, he was asked outright if the war was illegal. He replied: "Yes, if you wish." He then added unequivocally: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal." No immediate comment was available from the White House late last night, but American officials have defended the war as an act of self-defence, allowed under the UN charter, in view of Saddam Hussein's supposed plans to build weapons of mass destruction. However, last September, Mr Annan issued a stern critique of the notion of pre-emptive self-defence, saying it would lead to a breakdown in international order. Mr Annan last night said that there should have been a second UN resolution specifically authorising war against Iraq. Mr Blair and Mr Straw tried to secure this second resolution early in 2003 in the run-up to the war but were unable to convince a sceptical security council. Mr Annan said the security council had warned Iraq in resolution 1441 there would be "consequences" if it did not comply with its demands. But he said it should have been up to the council to determine what those consequences were.
June 22, 2025 at 10:11 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
@sarahkendzior.bsky.social has highlighted Trump going on the record saying exactly that.

thecorrespondent.com/5696/were-he...
You can look to the president-elect himself for a vision of what is to come. He has told you his plans all along, though most chose to downplay or deny them. You can even look back to before his candidacy, when in February 2014, he went on Fox News to defend Russia. Why a reality TV host was on Fox News defending Russia is its own story, but here is what he said about his desired outcome for the United States: “You know what solves it? When the economy crashes, when the country goes to total hell and everything is a disaster. Then you’ll have a [chuckles], you know, you’ll have riots to go back to where we used to be when we were great.” This is what “Make America Great Again” means to Donald Trump. It is how he has operated his businesses, taking advantage of economic disasters like the housing market crash for personal gain.
June 22, 2025 at 11:27 AM
skyquake.bsky.social
Plus all this talk of undocumented immigrants from Mexico forgets that this was Mexico before conflict kicked off with the Texas revolution where USian families who had immigrated to Mexico were mad Mexico *checks notes* abolished slavery.

www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/...
Mexico in 1824 with the boundary line with the U.S. from the 1818 Adams-Onís Treaty that Spain negotiated with the U.S.
June 8, 2025 at 5:03 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
No peace in plant world.

I always like to explain people a lot of things about plant cognition that suggest our distantest relatives also have some form of experiential lie, and then to explain some of the creative ways they homicide each other (and also animals).

modernfarmer.com/2014/08/para...
Dodder is a significant problem for many farmers; it often attacks crops like alfalfa, flax and potatoes, and as it sips nutrients, the host plant grows weaker and weaker. The host plant may die from lack of nutrients, or it may just grow weak enough to be felled by some other virus (sort of the same way immunodeficiency works in humans). Or, crazily, dodder can also spread diseases from one plant to another. It’s a true villain of the plant world. Westwood’s research looked into what happens when dodder sticks its haustoria into its host, and found something that few had even suspected: The plants are communicating by transferring RNA. Specifically, it’s sending mRNA, or messenger RNA, which was previously thought to be too delicate and short-lived to survive a transfer from one plant to another. But, Westwood’s research proves that the dodder sends mRNA to its host, which could be used to command the host to do all kinds of things: lower its defenses, say.
June 7, 2025 at 6:24 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
Also
A picture of an item from Fallen London, a garish necktie of diverse colors named “Unjustifiable Necktie,” with an item description: 'A crime so vivid, so abhorrent, that it ought forbid from us the very idea of clothing... having seen this abomination in silk, I am taken by an impulse to set my dresser alight and abandon civilization altogether.' — The Magazine Formerly Known as the London Magazine
June 6, 2025 at 12:15 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
Incredible stuff.

As far as this is a bookmark, gonna me a loop of future me scrolling this and saying “Incredible stuff.”
Moore told NPR in an interview released Tuesday that multiple pastors had told him they would quote the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the part that says to “turn the other cheek,” when preaching. Someone would come up after the service and ask, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” “What was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I apologize.’ The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak,’” Moore said.
May 29, 2025 at 2:03 AM
skyquake.bsky.social
Richard Dawkins never engages in good faith. He refuses to review the cognitive science of religion and passes feelings and opinions off as fact and argues a utilitarian evolved trait is “delusional.” Except, of course, when promoting Christianity over its also-Jesus-revering sibling Islam.
In a March 31 interview by Rachel Johnson on the British channel LBC, he revealed that he now identifies as a “cultural Christian.” He then explained what that means: “I’m not a believer, but there is a distinction between being a believing Christian and a cultural Christian. … I love hymns and Christmas carols and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos, and I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense.” But his declaration came as he opposed another religion whose growing visibility in the West disturbed Dawkins. It was, unsurprisingly, Islam. He was “slightly horrified” to see that Oxford Street in London was promoting Ramadan, the Islamic month for fasting, instead of Easter. “If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I’d choose Christianity every single time,” Dawkins added, only to claim that the former is “a fundamentally decent religion, in a way that I think Islam is not.” https://www.cato.org/commentary/richard-dawkins-takes-step-beyond-god-delusion
May 26, 2025 at 4:02 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
It was basically a constant challenge by local people to beg him to vote even this liberal. The Dems played it up as something it was not.
Doug Jones majority Republicans voting record.
May 21, 2025 at 4:17 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
Me: This man has defended Orange Parades

*one minute and thirty seconds later*

...lol. lmao even.

medium.com/@JRogan3000/...
I attended that meeting as a critic who was arguing against republican dissidents. I said they were wrong, nostalgic and increasingly illiberal. My brief opening comments were mostly focused on the issue of the Independent Review of Parades in Northern Ireland (which a year later would become the Parades Commission). I argued that in backing the state banning of Orange Order marches, as made clear in their submissions to the review, Irish republicans were behaving in a similar way to the British state that once sought to outlaw civil rights marches. My argument then, as it is now, is that state curbs on freedom of speech and freedom of association are never a good thing. As you can imagine, this did not go down well — at all. I essentially defended the Orange Order (an organisation I am not a fan of) in front of a small gathering of Irish republicans. There was much hostility to my comments. I remember this well because this was one of the first public talks I ever gave and I was very young and incredibly nervous.
April 26, 2025 at 1:01 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
Just to the side of tapping this sign (about people saying everything American and capitalist is Chinese and/or communism).

Easy not to do on the future, that’s all.
tweet by @hermit_hwarang: "american *sees something american happening americanly in America*: what are we a bunch of ASIANS?!?!???"
April 24, 2025 at 4:53 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
By red states do you mean all these states with massively disenfranchised percentages of the population?

Enjoy having a history of being allowed to vote because your area is predominantly white and largely (correctly) trusted to be passively complicit in advancing imperialist corporate ends, ig.
A map showing that the Southern United States is characterized by its high percentage of Black Americans per capita. The area is uniformly purple to represent the high percentage while the rest of the country is almost entirely grey.
April 24, 2025 at 2:22 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
I haven’t played it yet need to tell you the browser game Fallen London just released a story about eels in the Thames. I thought of your account.
Exceptional Story for May: The Why of Eels By Luke van den Barselaar, April 24th, 2025 Pale flesh pulled taut over malformed bone. A sharp, protruding nose; a twinkling human eye. An endlessly grinning mouth, stretching back well beyond any human jaw. An eel? Eels: a Fifth City delicacy, and an ichthyological mystery. It is eel migration season in the Neath, and the Stolen River runs black with slippery bodies. But where does their migration end? And why does this specimen have an unsettlingly human face? Eat inadvisable zeefood; track the creatures to their spawning ground; find an answer to the why of eels. Writing: Harry Tuffs Editing and QA: Luke van den Barselaar Art: Paul Arendt
April 24, 2025 at 12:22 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
The history and politics of 1st century Palestine have been my autistic hyperfixation for a couple decades and there is really no way to navigate around Jesus’ enemy of the state status.

Rome-absolving, empire-fearing narrative choices of the gospel writers aside it is not deeply hidden.
Cover of Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict by James Crossley and Robert J. Miles Cover of The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus: Texts and Commentary by David W. Chapman and Eckhard J. Schanbel
April 21, 2025 at 5:27 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
Me hoping none of those ships were supposed to carry ingredients for the medications I live by
An image of the character Ralph Wiggum from the Simpson sitting passively on a bus captioned “(chuckles) I’m in danger.”
April 21, 2025 at 2:57 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
Okay but I love this. My heart grew three sizes.
“Then, we both get through at the same time,” he said. “And I just go, ‘I think my girlfriend’s trying to call, too.’ And she, at the same time, about 20 feet away, says, ‘my boyfriend is stuck in the sand.’” At that point, he said, they became a couple. “That was literally the first time we defined our relationship. It happened with two separate 911 operators at the same time.”
April 20, 2025 at 12:38 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
I’ve noticed the (pseudoscientific) belief that people under 25 don’t have brains fully developed enough not to be considered full adults and afaik it is actually stemming from a voter suppression campaign.

Freaky to see it being fake-morally installed from so many vectors.
AP article with photo of mentioned candidate headlined “Ramaswamy proposes raising voting age to 25, unless people serve in military or pass a test” with image subtitle “Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Spring Kick-Off, Saturday, April 22, 2023, in Clive, Iowa.”
April 20, 2025 at 12:04 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
Such a long, brilliant period of my life. The most skilled and successful I'll never be at anything. Always top of the DPS meters.

And my critters!

(Oh god there's so many possible critters now. I'm looking away.)
A plain strider: a naked ostrich with a big dinosaur-like crested bill, bright pink surge of color about the eyes and going down the neck, long blue underside of the throat, and grey body. There's a feathered fringe on its neck that falls over its shoulders. It has its head thrown back, calling out, standing on the plains with shadowed mountains in the background and a blue sky with sunset colored clouds. A fearsome bright, crystalline-blue crab with a blue-grey sheen over it in rather clunky retro graphics. Its exaggerated lower mouth looks like a big, jagged-toothed maw. A white lion, its eyes ice blue, its mane and the puff of its tail tip dark grey and its back silver grey, its underbelly white. Pronounced off-white fangs. A core hound. A two headed bull dog like beast made of magma with crusted lava dark over its skin, massive horns, and a flaming back and stove-glow belly, kitted out with spiked metal, including a big collar with a chunky chain hanging from it, shoulder pauldrons, and thick tooled metal foreleg bands. It slavers lava.
April 20, 2025 at 11:27 AM
skyquake.bsky.social
Friend got a cricut and I need to actually make my John 13:34 stickers to slap over all the "No Quarter" flags I'm seeing on trucks and Jeeps now because I know 100% of those people are "Christians."

Or over idk any of these.

I mean yes I might get beaten to death but. Thinking seriously.
A mauve box Conspiracy & Hate Flags including the Three Percenters Flag, US Civil Flag Truthers, VDARE / Patriot Party, Boogaloo Bois Flag, the No Quarter flag in question (a black and grey American flag), and the National Socialists USA flags.
April 19, 2025 at 1:04 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
You can see the item description on the tag if you zoom in, but here’s close ups (excluding the shell in the middle).
Three complete shotgun shells with the metal ends facing us, two match the shells used for the cross in the above image. These have four number 12’s punctuated by four stars. The other says “Swartklip 12.”
April 19, 2025 at 12:55 AM
skyquake.bsky.social
Immediately thinking about the White Republican murder Jesus memorabilia at one of the picker stalls last week
A wooden shelf containing various curios. Standing centered in the picture is a wooden board with about 54 shotgun shells nailed in the shape of a cross
April 18, 2025 at 4:01 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
I think Sarah Kendzior is spot on documenting that the leading Democrats have identical ends to Trump (except on Ukraine). We're in desperate need of an opposition party.

sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/ten-articl... (quoted from the first article)
“The 21st century's most desirable currency is impunity,” I wrote. “Impunity, the sadist's conception of freedom, mainstreamed and marketed as the new American Dream.” Victims positioned as oppressors, the powerful playacting as the powerless, lies told with the smirk of people who love to get caught because they know they will not be punished. The Trump administration was the culmination of America’s worst tendencies, a consequence of institutions so rotted they needed to be gutted and reborn. People used to admit this when Trump was still in office. They have stopped now that Biden is president and the rot has only festered. The Biden administration has continued Trump policies while refusing to hold Trump and his backers accountable, to the point that Trump can run for president again like Mafia Grover Cleveland. That Biden was a placeholder president – a stop gap to streamline an aspiring American autocracy into an entrenched one – was obvious by mid-2021. The first, rather large clue was the lack of urgency toward sedition. Under Biden, the United States became the first country to face an attempted coup and not only fail to punish the coup plotters but allow them to hold office and make laws. There is no parallel in world history. Even Hitler had a prison interlude between his putsch and his presidency. The only thing approaching an equivalent lies in the American past: the refusal to punish confederates and instead let them regroup under new names, leading to the decimation of Reconstruction and the birth of Jim Crow. But that effort took decades. The backtrack of the Biden administration – and its accomplices, the Vichy Democrats in Congress -- took months. Policies that voters feared the Trump administration would enact were often enacted by Biden. The Biden administration falsely proclaimed the pandemic over and blocked public health data from view as millions died or became disabled. They abandoned the tenets of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in favor of Cop City. They greeted the reversal of Roe as a fundraising opportunity, not even offering meaningful rhetorical opposition. They continued the migrant abuse that took place under Trump and let the abusers remain at large. They sanctioned Russian oligarchs while letting their proxies fund campaigns in both parties. The most egregious offender is the DOJ. Under Merrick Garland, the best friend of Jared Kushner’s ethics lawyer Jamie Gorelick, the DOJ refused to prosecute Trump administration crimes even after the criminals confessed. They let the statute of limitations run out on the Mueller probe, ignored the repercussions of Trump’s network of mafiosos gaining classified intelligence, disregarded blatant criminality on the Supreme Court, and slow-walked a response to the theft of stolen documents containing nuclear secrets. This is not a serious country, but a country in serious crisis. This is not a sovereign country, but a country under the tyranny of the minority regardless of who is in charge. We have elections, but we do not have choice. Biden promised democracy on the campaign trail and embraced dictatorship in office. He fist-bumped MBS, bear-hugged Netanyahu, and announced the appointment of Iran-Contra war criminal Elliot Abrams. Biden was in the middle of waiving 26 federal regulations to build Trump’s Wall when he was interrupted by Israel’s genocide, to which he pledged material support. We don’t know how far the complicity goes, because in an unprecedented move, the Biden administration has decided to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy.
April 18, 2025 at 12:11 PM
skyquake.bsky.social
I managed to get this character back!

It seems to be an alt whose profile entries have personal real world little diary headers from 2010 and for who as a character the pursuit of pleasure was, er, believably a distraction at LEAST.

Very happy to see them again!!
User profile Username: [blacked out] A Fallen Londoner since Wednesday 18 August 2010 A picture of a wine glass labeled "Hedonist 28 - of Uncontrollable Appetites. The pursuit of pleasure is increasingly a distraction for you.
April 15, 2025 at 7:20 PM