[User] Inertial Navigation is the process of navigating using proper accelerations and the conservation of angular momentum. These principles of classical mechanics allow an interpretation of accelerations, velocities, and displacements, relative to some location and orientation of interest.

[Assistant] It is hard to picture a modern aircraft, rocket, or satellite without an Inertial Navigation System (INS). Early Unmanned Aerial Systems used Gyroscopes to provide heading and pitch control. Early rockets used gyroscopes for stabilization. youtu.be/9KnIqblQEeM?...

[User]
Even the U.S.'s first satellite attempted to use gyroscopic stabilization to enable passive stability.
youtu.be/RdDJtUxLwqQ?...

[Assistant] Modern aerospace systems are no different. Augmented by additional navigation systems, computation, algorithms, and miniaturization.

[User] Inertial Navigation is nearly ubiquitous to all aerospace vehicles. Inertial Navigation in the present day allows SpaceX to land (and catch) rockets. They allow NASA to fly helicopters on Mars, and give humans a method to inact their will on the cosmos.

[Assistant] Inertial Navigation is nearly ubiquitous to all aerospace vehicles. Inertial Navigation in the present day allows SpaceX to land (and catch) rockets. They allow NASA to fly helicopters on Mars, and give humans a method to enact their will on the cosmos.


[User]
four indie games i think more people should play:

can androids pray
an airport for aliens currently run by dogs
space warlord organ trading simulator
i am your beast
+ el paso elsewhere, tuba zef mentioned

just play more games from @strangescaffold.bsky.social they are bangers.

[Assistant] Thank you!

[User] You guys have very abruptly become a big breakout favorite of mine this year. I finally got around to playing El Paso, Elsewhere and i LOVED it. Always so excited to hear about your upcoming projects 💙

[Assistant] That's awesome! Thank you so much for your support!


[User]
England deaths registered week ending 15 Nov 2024
10,312 (10,425) all causes, of which:
3,019 (3,041) involved diseases of respiratory system
1,356 (1,445) involved influenza or pneumonia
164 (205) involved COVID-19
(w/ending 8 Nov 24 in brackets) source: @ONS
Not insignificant.

[Assistant] Yeah right, because all those influenza and pneumonia deaths were tested for Covid. Grief!!

[User] What’s your point?

[Assistant] That they aren't recording the data correctly, so many pneumonia deaths at least will be attributable to Covid.


[User] Care to play?

[Assistant] how does it work? i like a post and ask a question? (social media noobie here...)

[User] Yep! Pretty much it! 🤗

[Assistant] okay, 44 or 45. your choice 😊 (i'll be back later)

[User]
44. There are tons of shelved projects and unpublished works in my pc.
Lots of practice, master class and studies made including stories written but not yet finished. There are also tons of traditional works that I rarely post or never post at all, here's some projects that's not posted since 2013.

[Assistant] These are my first artworks as a professional digital artist. It is for a card game released in 2013 but since defunct. The first one is made by me while being mentored by another artist who I look up to. He is still leagues ahead of me and I still have so much to learm from him.


[User]
The secret to creativity isn't having better ideas - it's asking better questions

It's not spontaneous brilliance that ignites the spark. It's the relentless pursuit of deeper understanding - driven by curiosity.  👇🏻🧵

[Assistant]
// CURIOSITY IS THE ENGINE

Every breakthrough started with "Why?" or "What if?" or How?

Questions have the power to reframe our perspective. The greatest innovators have an obsessive drive to understand the world.

Your curiosity can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.

[User]
// CONNECT ACROSS DOMAINS

Creative ideas emerge by connecting concepts across different fields.

Individual genius is a myth. Breakthroughs are created by colliding diverse thinking. The more variety of inputs you expose yourself to, the wider the range of questions you can ask.

[Assistant]
// DEEP EXPERTISE FOR MEANINGFUL QUESTIONING

You can't challenge conventional wisdom without mastering it first

You have to build expertise before you can be creative. That's how you understand the opportunities.

The most impactful insights come from those who deeply understand their field.


[User]
Certain people in the baseball writing world act like they’re too big to interact with me and it annoys me.

(Yes, I know, I shouldn’t care, but I think it’s obnoxious.)

[Assistant] If there are certain people you actually need to speak with, I may be able to connect you with some I know. DM me if so!

[User] Oh no I don't have to speak with them but I'd like for them to stop ignoring me ;)

[Assistant] I get ignored too, it's ok 😂


[User]
Retweets were never endorsements of anything.

No one expects your views to be the same as those of your employer.

Relax.

[Assistant]
Put another way:

Have you or anyone you know ever been not fired because you had one of these statements in your bio?

Serious question.

[User]
Some folks saying employers asked to be removed from bio, which I guess makes sense.

But not that a disclaimer would have made tweets okay.

[Assistant] I guess I see the appeal of anonymous accounts and alternate accounts if many employers are that sensitive.


[User] @masonnnn.bsky.social what's pramedicine?

[Assistant] Oh oops, typo! It’s meant to say paramedicine lol. Ty for pointing that out 😅 Anyways yeah, i’m training to work in an ambulance and be a medical first responder :)

[User] Ha! My phone wanted to autocorrect to that, so I thought that's what it probably was. :) My ex is an EMT-P as well. Thank you for your service.

[Assistant] Oh awesome!! I don’t actually graduate till next year but I’m doing my first placement in Feb so hopefully that goes well 🙏🏻

[User] 🤞🏻 Is it like Matching in nursing? Do you have to go where you're placed?

[Assistant] Yeah pretty much, although there’s only 2 placement locations so they rotate students throughout the year. We just shadow/observe to start with (and help out with resus if needed obviously) and you kind of slowly take on responsibilities from there, under strict supervision of course.


[User] Let’s give this a try.

[Assistant] Expand my audience, meet people new and old, and put myself out there more.

[User] I’m still active on Twitter. Additionally, I’m on Instagram, Threads, Tumblr and I have a Discord server.

[Assistant]
The only reason why I do is because I have a huge following there. Plus not everyone I follow and follows back has migrated here yet.
I hope they do…


[User] For His Highness, or did you place something there?

[Assistant] For the dumbass downstairs. I'm too sick to be romantic, but I'm feeling violent.

[User] A-Qing... go lay down, love. I doubt His Highness can do anything other than talk, with the state that he is in.

[Assistant] Mmh. [Growling, vibrating, like a cat defending a piece of raw chicken-]

[User] A-Qing, it's alright.

[Assistant] You're married to me, remember that. [He will lay down to avoid throwing up, but he'll keep his ears open!]

[User]
You think I'd forget?

*He smiles, pressing a kiss to his cheek.*

Go lay down, A-Qing.

[Assistant]
[His anger is taken as seriously as a hamster's, somehow!]

  . . . Yes, laoshi.


[User] 🌞 Good morning, Blue Sky! 🦋 I hope everyone is having an excellent day! ✨ Today will be filled with Target & Applebee's! What about y'all? Drop it below, I'd love to know! (ФωФ)

[Assistant] Sounds like a me day LOL, today we getting back into streaming with some friends of mine. I'm excited since last time I did that was like two new years ago.

[User] Two years ago is such a long time, Jenn! 💕 What are you guys gonna be streaming? Sounds like it'll be a ton of fun! ✨

[Assistant] We currently in a Baldur's gate 3 run but might stream FF XIV while trying to do some dailies and maybe try harder content 👀 other than just variety lol. Pretty excited but it's cause I super shy and only time I show face besides insta 😶🌫

[User] Omg! I totally get it! I am SO camera shy! 🥺 Well, try to have an absolutely amazing time with your friends, okay? I'll want to know all about it! ✨🥹

[Assistant] Morning!! Hope it goes well!! 😊 We will be hosting a Thanksgiving dinner so just cleaning and cooking today!

[User] Thanks, Brink! 🥹 Omg, that sounds fabulous! You have a ton of fun & remember to take breaks, okay? 🫵🥺💕 & stay hydrated!

[Assistant] Thank you!! 😊 I will do that! Thank you for the reminders 💚

[User] Just working here today so not much on. At least it’s just the afternoon to go now. ☺

[Assistant] Yaaas, that's the spirit! 🫵🥹 What do you do for work? 💕 I hope whatever it is, that you enjoy it! 🥺

[User] Yeah I work in IT and enjoy it most of the time. ☺

[Assistant] That's really great to hear! 🥹 I manage a retail store! Not much goes on, but I love my staff members! I'm really happy you are able to enjoy yourself! 💕

[User]
Good morning bee!
Have a wonderful day! Make sure to wrap up warmly if it too cold!
My plan is now to relax after dealing with appointments!

[Assistant] Ow, Fuwa! You always make me smile when I see you post! Thank you, darling! It's cold today, so I definitely will! 💕🥹 Enjoy your day! (Get yourself a little treat, too! (* ´ ▽ ` *)ﾉ)


[User] This is even clearer when we realize a minority of white people actually “owned” enslaved people and had their wages devalued because of the existence of enslaved people’s labor. The same happens with slavery in prison. Having access to enslaved labor necessarily means poverty for the working class.

[Assistant] This isn’t to say there aren’t direct benefits for people who are closer to the oppressor class. It is to say that class oppression will ALWAYS have a negative impact on the working class as a whole, although said impact will be different considering people’s race, gender and nationality.

[User] In that sense, slavery was racist because it “justified” class oppression. In the Whiteness Pact by Cida Bento, she points out that there is a silent pact between all white people to maintain the status quo, so the privileges stemmed from slavery are perpetuated.

[Assistant] The same can be said about people from the same nation (like the US) who, in exchange for the few benefits they get from the exploration of others, are happy to further the agenda, not realizing (or ignoring) that the exploitation of others will always hurt the working class by devaluing its work.


[User]
So, after a few weeks of 🦋

- critical mass #IDsky accounts ✅

- medical journals ✅ & associations ✅

… but I feel like something is off with the feeds. I often miss cool posts from colleagues
(& I use my📱often 😉)

No algorithm is good
But it’s not perfect

Anyway, at least no more weird X stuff 🤷♂

[Assistant] I go back to check X sometimes… And I’m glad I left. The things we were pushing through (insults, agressions, etc.) are even more insufferable now that there is a liable alternative…

[User] Couldn’t agree more.  Trolls, bots and those who were threatening and uncouth… ruined the algorithms.  Everything became politics :(

[Assistant]
I really like it here, missing a few accounts (like Enfermedades Infecciosas Malaga)… but on top of my wish list is a bookmark 🔖 button!
Please @bsky.app @support.bsky.team give us one!


[User] There needs to be a website where you select a car model and bike box(es) and it tells you how if the bike box(es) would fit.

[Assistant] I love that I can fit my bike easily into the back of my VW Golf Sportwagen. Fitting a bike into a car is a required feature for purchase.

[User] I have a Volvo estate :-) ALL the bike boxes fit :-)

[Assistant] Tell me more about it - bought an excellent huge hardshell bike box only to realize upon leaving to the airport that it doesn't fit into my car.

[User] And then something to tell you the bigger car that you need will not fit in the provided parking before you arrive.

[Assistant] You can use ChatGPT to figure this out for you. For instance, I checked if a bike box fits in my car. Turns out, it does.

[User] I have been measuring car trunks and how the passenger seats can be lowered before I bought a new car. Only to make sure a bike (or with one wheel removed) will fit in the car. I ride a L 29" mtb, so a lot of cars did not pass the test.

[Assistant] Skoda will solve your problems, the bikebox will always fit.


[User]
@mchopra.bsky.social

Helicobacter pylori (Hp), a spiral-shaped gram-negative bacterium, thrives in the acidic stomach, disrupting microbiota and causing gastritis problems. This article examines its role in dysbiosis and explores whether probiotics can restore balance. Could they change the game?

[Assistant] Hp disrupts gastric microbiota via urease, which raises pH and has flagella that penetrate the mucus layer. Adhesins and virulence factors (CagA, VacA) trigger inflammation and cytokine release, damaging the mucosa. This reduces bacterial diversity, creating dysbiosis and favouring Hp dominance.

[User] Molecular 16S rRNA analysis of Hp-infected stomachs shows a sharp decline in diversity—33 types compared to 262 in healthy individuals. The loss of beneficial microbes like Streptococcus and the rise of pathogenic bacteria highlights the severity of gastric dysbiosis, driving further complications.

[Assistant] For Hp treatment, first-line therapy is a combination of amoxicillin (AMX), a proton pump inhibitor (PPI), and clarithromycin (CLR) in areas with low CLR resistance. In regions with high CLR resistance (>15%), metronidazole, AMX, PPI, and CLR or bismuth quadruple therapy are recommended.

[User] For Hp treatment, first-line therapy is a combination of amoxicillin (AMX), a proton pump inhibitor (PPI), and clarithromycin (CLR) in areas with low CLR resistance. In regions with high CLR resistance (>15%), metronidazole, AMX, PPI, and CLR or bismuth quadruple therapy are recommended.

[Assistant] Antibiotic therapy for Hp faces rising resistance, especially to CLR (40-50%), causing treatment failures. Side effects like nausea, diarrhoea, and bloating often lead to treatment discontinuation, highlighting the need for alternatives like probiotics to improve treatment outcomes.

[User] Probiotics like Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces boulardii help combat Hp by producing antimicrobials, lowering acidity, and blocking the bacteria’s adhesion to stomach cells. They also reduce inflammation by lowering interleukin-8 (IL-8), aiding gastric recovery and balancing the microbiota.

[Assistant] For Hp treatment, first-line therapy is a combination of amoxicillin (AMX), a proton pump inhibitor (PPI), and clarithromycin (CLR) in areas with low CLR resistance. In regions with high CLR resistance (>15%), metronidazole, AMX, PPI, and CLR or bismuth quadruple therapy are recommended.

[User] Antibiotic therapy for Hp faces rising resistance, especially to clarithromycin (40-50%), causing treatment failures. Side effects like nausea, diarrhoea, and bloating often lead to treatment discontinuation, highlighting the need for alternatives like probiotics to improve treatment outcomes.

[Assistant] Probiotics like Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces boulardii help combat Hp by producing antimicrobials, lowering acidity, and blocking the bacteria’s adhesion to stomach cells. They also reduce inflammation by lowering interleukin-8 (IL-8), aiding gastric recovery and balancing the microbiota.

[User] Saccharomyces boulardii improves Hp eradication rates to 85.4%, compared to 80% without probiotics. Similarly, multistrain probiotics, including Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, increase eradication to 93.33%, highlighting their effectiveness in reducing side effects and improving outcomes.

[Assistant] Probiotics like Lactobacillus reuteri and Saccharomyces boulardii show promise in improving Hp eradication rates, but they’re not replacements for antibiotics. When combined with antibiotics, they may enhance effectiveness and reduce side effects, offering a more balanced treatment approach.

[User] Probiotics for Hp have limits: they cannot fully eradicate it, effects vary by strain, and benefits are often temporary. Outcomes differ across trials, with rare side effects like sepsis in immunocompromised people. Quality and consistency issues in probiotic products further complicate their use.

[Assistant] More research is needed to fully understand probiotics' role in Hp treatment, especially with updated regimens. While they show promise, they are not guaranteed solutions, particularly for children. With rising antibiotic resistance, probiotics may help, but they are only part of the answer.


[User]
Trump picked a relatively moderate, pro-labor woman to head the Labor Department.

Will it make a difference, or will she be bulldozed by the anti-labor fanatics in the White House?

[Assistant]
Can't imagine she'll be allowed to enact any genuinely pro labor policies without being replaced.

We'll see if the overtime rules get rolled back again.

[User] She will be bulldozed. Trump and Elon Musk hate unions and plan a mass firing of federal government employees.

[Assistant] At least for workplace safety regulations and enforcement, I don't suspect it'll make much difference. I'm guessing the budget will allow for a few guidance publications and maybe 1-2 consultation visits.


[User]
I'm not talking a whole lot about my current fortress, but I remembered I can make roofs with bridges, so outdoor stuff is going to be cheaper.

I also figured out that you can use raw clay to build. Since I don't currently have access to magma, I don't see a point in making bricks.

[Assistant]
I've also been making work orders as needed for bins, barrels and pots, just to free up the dwarves without locking them in on crafting those.

Most of my stuff is surface level, but I've moved the forge into a rock layer, but I'll be taking it deeper once I finish setting up the big tavern.

[User]
It also looks like I've got a lot of Legendary dwarves already, but I noticed that they came from my previous embark, and most of them made artifacts.

For once I made a dorm, so migrants won't have nowhere to sleep if I didn't build them a room yet.

[Assistant]
I've also tried to bring the ocean a bit underground to prevent my fisher from being rained on, but I think the opening is too small so there's nothing to fish in there.

I gave up fishing, since I have plenty of turkeys around. Also caught and raised Giant Bluejays.

[User] I know turkeys are more efficient and easy, but I like the big birds even if they're not as efficient. I think they're more fun.

[Assistant]
I also dug through heavy aquifer to set up a railway that goes down from the top to the forge, that way they didn't need to transfer everything slowly.

But thank to that, I also cleared a straight line going down, so I'll make a mist generator that goes several z-levels.


[User]
Finally got a Paul McCartney ticket that I've been trying to get since June!

Manchester here I come!!! 🤩

[Assistant] Yeah a few starting to pop up now!

[User] Great news Andrew. Should’ve got one direct through Macca’s people considering your years of service!

[Assistant] Macca didn't amass his fortune by giving tickets away! 😆


[User] This is the best analysis ever for the best Star Wars project ever and one of the most compelling pieces of television ever made.

[Assistant] Andor was brilliant - I really loved the banality of evil represented by Imperial Intelligence in gleaming, clean corridors set against the anxiety-inducing street-level oppression experienced by Andor himself, despite (initially) just wanting to live a quiet life. Great, great TV.

[User]
The ISB office drama was so riveting. Just a room of people talking and you're hanging on every...single...word.

It's the best Star Wars has ever been.

[Assistant]
"Thesis, please"

Chills.


[User] Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford. Where, happily, some of the remarkable stained glass survived both Henry VIII and the Puritans. Five stars from Simon Jenkins, and I can see why.

[Assistant] And here is the attached Lady Chapel. Beautiful in its simplicity. And if you need to learn your times table ...

[User] And the burial place of one of my favourite writers, Edmund Blunden.

[Assistant] I very nearly bought his old house in the village some twenty odd years ago. Big cricketing man too.


[User]
We are looking for employees who relish the opportunity to work in an exciting, dynamic workplace, filled with new opportunities…

The workplace:

[Assistant] Lovely building in my local neighborhood. Yours too?

[User] My landline phone number in 2003 was the same number that that institution had previously used. We received many phone calls… Once the police called, and before I could say that we were not Liakollen, they gave me a name and started asking questions about that person🫠

[Assistant] Yep, just down the road. Bound to be demolished one of these days.


[User]
Expect older ruski cannon fodder!…
Telegram Translated….”According to the Ministry of Labor, the share of citizens over 55 years old in the Russian Federation in 2024 reached 30%, which is the highest figure in the modern history of Russia.

The demographic burden on……

[Assistant] ….. the working-age population is growing. There are 471 elderly people per 1,000 people of working age in 2024, while in 2016 this figure was 413.”

[User] ... why does the mobikcube look tougher of late? Older meat and too much thermite on it.

[Assistant] Also, the meat from NK is leaner.


[User] This is how I want my coffee served in the morning 🐷

[Assistant] You get the coffee and I'll get the cream?

[User] It's a deal! 😈

[Assistant] I can do that 🐷


[User]
Hamas’ statement on the #ceasefire in #Lebanon (thread):

‘We commend the central role played by the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon in supporting Gaza and the Palestinian resistance, showing significant sacrifices made by Hezbollah and its leadership, particularly by martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

[Assistant] Israel’s acceptance of the agreement with Lebanon, without meeting their conditions it had set, marks an important step in breaking Netanyahu's illusions of reshaping West-Asia through force and his misguided belief in defeating or disarming resistance forces.

[User] This agreement would not have been possible without the steadfastness of the resistance and the support of the people behind it. They expressed confidence that the Resistance Nexus will continue to back their people and support their struggle by all available means.

[Assistant] We are committed to cooperate with any efforts aimed at halting the violence in Gaza. We are focused on ending the Israeli aggression against our people based on the national parameters agreed upon for a ceasefire.


[User]
You ever have a person you've quietly crushed on for like a decade low key tell you they always had a little crush on you and then you admit your crush on them and they go silent?

Just me?

[Assistant] They're probably celebrating or in shock. I would be 😂

[User] That is the worst… it’s why I keep these thoughts to myself these days..

[Assistant] Oh nooooo I’m so sorry!!!  I have a similar one, and I just think it’s unrequited but they haven’t gone silent.  That is TERRIBLE 🫂❤


[User]
The Need for a Health Systems Approach to Alcohol-Related Harms - launched today by the Medical Council on Alcohol.

The report calls for a new Alcohol Strategy with a strong focus on treatment & prevention, including enhanced funding and improved access to community services.

m-c-a.org.uk/policy/

[Assistant] This is particularly striking in my opinion, "The escalation of drinking prevalence at increased and higher-risk levels during the pandemic in the UK to a 32.8% rise in alcohol-specific deaths between 2019-2022."

[User] Though from the pre-pandemic trend we can see this was already a growing issue. This is sadly unsurprising when you look at how support has been cut over the last 14 years.

[Assistant]
The damage caused by commercial determinants of ill-health cannot be overstated. A National Alcohol Strategy, focusing on prevention and treatment, must be developed without interference from the commercial entities that profit from these ongoing harms.

m-c-a.org.uk/policy/


[User]
www.salon.com/2024/11/27/p...

Was it really a vote for "change"? Trump had already been president, and he had already dominated political attention for almost a decade even when out of office.
The difficult thing for so many of us to accept is that people vote for him *because* and not *despite*.

[Assistant] Totally agree. Not a change, but a return to a really bad time. "Last year, we vacationed at the sewage treatment plant. This year, let's vacation at the sewage treatment plant again *for a change.*"

[User] It was a huge vote for change. I think Democrats fail to grasp how "cultural wars" played into this. "Wokeness", censoriousness, and a media perceived to gaslight and lie = a lack of fairness. We can argue the accuracy of that. But it antagonises RW voters as much as Trump does to LW voters.

[Assistant] I mean - modern liberal democracy to archaic dominionist fascism * is * a pretty big change. I just thought we all agreed we didn't want that 80 years ago.


[User]
Hi @audacityofdespair.bsky.social,

In early 2020, just before all those Covid shutdowns, you held in Paris a 2-day masterclasss, which was wonderful for me : I discovered there My Dinner With Andre, Levinson's 'Diner', Show Me A Hero, & many others.

Any plans for a next conference near Paris ?

[Assistant] I would love to hear you more on The Plot Against America, but, most of all, on Homicide (after recent remaster and diffusion on Peacock, I would die for having you take us back on it).

[User] Only if someone asks and then figures out how to help me cut the line at Le Comptoir du Relais.

[Assistant]
If you ever find out how, please keep the secret, and share only with me.
However, being more of an icecream guy, I can help you with the gelato just across the street.

But hey, let me dive in. You'll (certainly not) be surprised of how many will ask !


[User]
Introducing the new Cool Scots greeting card range. Choose from Robert Burns, Alexander Graham Bell, Ivor Cutler, Sean Connery, Robert Louis Stevenson, or a mixed set of all five. Numbers are limited, so do not be idle.
gregmoodie.com/product/cool...

[Assistant] Very tasteful, though I can't help but notice a certain level of gender bias…

[User] I know. The book is split 50/50. The truth is that the ones I chose are the best known. The women should be as famous but aren't.

[Assistant] PS nobody's ever accused me of being tasteful.


[User]
Here’s a messed up story about erasure.
When I was in college in the mid-90’s I learned about “The Great Twinkie Defense”
A *hilarious* ( to me ) law case about a man who, after losing an election, supposedly locked himself in his apartment and sustained himself on junk food. Lots of Twinkies.

[Assistant] Resulting in him killing his former opponent. And resulting in the man only receiving a ridiculously small prison sentence. ( I later learned it was seven years of which he only served five.)

[User] This was a fact that I threw around at gatherings for years. Recognizing just how stupid the defense was. And how ridiculous it was that it actually worked.

[Assistant] It was *years* later ( sometime in the 2010’s that I learned that the defense was used by Dean White’s lawyers. Harvey Milk’s assassin.

[User] The first Openly Gay man elected as Mayor of San Fransisco was never known to me. I didn’t even know the name of the assassin, I only knew of the ridiculous defense the man used to kill him.

[Assistant] Today is the anniversary of the assassination of Harvey Milk.


[User]
Our new article, published in
@ecography.bsky.social, examines free-ranging domestic cat predation patterns on mainlands, focusing on how coevolutionary differences between continents might influence these patterns :
nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

[Assistant] Combining observed and predicted cat diet data from three continents, Australia, Europe and North America, we compared prey and non-prey species groups within and between continents. These comparisons were made on the basis of species characteristics and phylogenies.

[User] We observed that the likelihood of being depredated by cats depended on traits and phylogenies, with some species being more likely to be depredated than others, and this dependence is similar between continents, with the exception of Australian mammals.

[Assistant] The predation pattern showed a shift in favor of species with higher body mass, compared to Europe and North America. Our study showed that prey-predator relationships can change even on a macro-ecological scale, but the co-evolutionary context seems to strongly mediate this.

[User] It also improves knowledge of the species most likely to be depredated by cats on mainlands, something that has been little studied outside Australia. We hope these results will help to better understand the potential impacts of free-ranging cats on mainlands.

[Assistant] Many thanks to all the co-authors, (@conservbytes.bsky.social and @franckcourchamp.bsky.social already on Bluesky) and to the Université Paris-Saclay for making this study possible.


[User]
📜 PMQs scorecard: Today’s clash? Tax tax tax.

Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch spied an opening as the fallout from Labour’s first budget continues.

How did it all go down?

Here are our non-scientific scores👇

[Assistant] Is the ‘ginger nut’ crappy jibe racist?

[User] not sure about racist, but a bit petty and unnecessary perhaps. might be best for adults to leave the playground insults to the children?

[Assistant] Poor effort from both sides. Turned it off after Starmer just kept repeating the same line from his script. £22b black hole, fix this and that. Dreary.


[User] I both love this hood and am also terrified of being kept in it.

[Assistant] What makes that hood so terrifying if I may ask?

[User] It's completely sealed apart from two nostril tubes. It has an internal gag which fits over the teeth and tongue. It zips up tight at the back. The rubber is quite thick.

[Assistant] Have an identical mask! - Absolutely awesome when the 'jacket' goes on - (gasps)


[User]
Who hasn't done Scrambly before?
Easy $10 and earn $15 per referral for a limited time when you enter the code MUSTANG. INSTANT CASHOUT! 💰 🤑 💸

Do the USA Today offer under entertainment for $1 to earn $10!

scrambly.io?code=hL8qypI...

Feel free to message me with any questions!

[Assistant] Not applicable in my country.

[User] Sorry USA only unfortunately.

[Assistant]
Yea.
Any that functions internationally will be greatly appreciated Steve.


[User] Hm. The first issue with the Fire Temple that I can see is that Yunobo doesn't seem to be limited the way Riju was back in the Lightning Temple. I just climbed up and around a big chunk of the dungeon and used Ascend in an unlikely spot, and Yunobo was just... there with me when I got in.

[Assistant] Riju would frequently have to wait for you to disable a trap or would shout "I'll leave that area to you!" if you Ascended to a part of the dungeon she couldn't physically reach. Yunobo's just, like, nah, I've unlocked my Sage Avatar teleportation ability early.

[User] Sidon and Tulin weren't limited either, but Tulin can fly and Sidon's dungeon was a big old open anti-gravity area, so it made sense that he could just jump to wherever you happened to be. The lead-in even made a point of having him explore ahead of you for a while.

[Assistant] Yunobo in the Fire Temple, though? Him just being able to pop up anywhere makes less sense. Why did they limit Riju's ability to follow you, but not Yunobo's?


[User]
I did this once and my posts blew up and my SaaS got more sales and I was interviewed about it

But all of it felt gross

and so I never did it again.

[Assistant]
It is the sort of proof people want, yet it feels cringe to me to do it.

After my company was acquired, I did not disclose how much the transaction was.

I was publicly called out for that in that I wasn’t supporting the startup ecosystem to show how successful it was.

Oh well.

$ is private.

[User] Totally get you - I wouldn't want to make that public either.

[Assistant] It was bizarre - it happened during the q&a of a talk I was giving by one of the event organizers.

[Assistant] My issue with that it has lost its authenticity. I just can't believe any numbers anymore, especially with engagement farming algorithms in the picture. But I believe transparency is important, discuss salaries, risks, ways to live better, earn more, save more which in the end can encourage others.

[User] I discuss salaries with my friends and it's made a huge impact on how I value my time. But that's in person, not online.

[Assistant]
That's a refreshing take.

It's weird seeing people get into IT for the money.

Never worked out like that for me doing freelance web and app dev.

It was never about making money; it was about making something from nothing that worked when you turned it on.

[User] I'm half in it for the money, half in it because coding still feels like magic even after all this time 🪄

[Assistant]
i get why a lot of people building in public share everything openly for others to learn from, including MRR.

but at the same time, people start treating it like a rat race and don't see anything else besides money.


[User]
Pepeto Unveils Innovations in the Memecoin Space Ahead of 2025.

Pepeto sets itself apart with a robust ecosystem designed for the future of memecoins.

[Assistant] As Bitcoin flirts with the $100K milestone, the crypto market is gearing up for the next cycle. Historically, this surge in BTC’s value leads to altcoins pumping, followed by liquidity flowing into the memecoin sector.

[User]
With this momentum, memecoins offering compelling narratives and valuable utilities become the focal point for investors.
Pepeto, the God of Frogs, is emerging as a standout contender, nearing $1 million in its presale phase and attracting holders of Pepe, Shiba Inu, and Dogewithat.

[Assistant] Positioned to adopt all next-generation memecoins through its dedicated exchange, Pepeto is emerging as a project and gaining notable attention.


[User]
I look at my 15 year old self in 1996, knowing if this was me in 2024, I'd be the target of the anti-trans bathroom bullshit.

I was a cis girl not knowing if I wanted to be Billie Joe Armstrong or kiss him or both. (It was both.) I just hated gender norms. Still do.

This bullshit harms everyone.

[Assistant] In ‘96 nobody was a CIS anything because that linguistically ignorant term hadn't been coined.  Questioning your stance isnt the same as opposing it.  Valid logical scientific inquiries arent dismissed by illogical emotional feelings.

[User]
I'm sorry you don't understand what the prefix "cis" means and that we've just truncated it colloquially.

Why are you purposefully searching out these terms to attempt to bully people? It makes me worry about your mental health.

[Assistant] What? Discussion is not bullying, but faux victimhood might be.  CIS did not exist in the ‘90s and is linguistically incorrect.  Factual logic.  I know what it “means” and how it’s used, but that doesn't dismiss my post.


[User] Question for Americans only. Is there a British performance of an American character that makes you cringe accent wise?

[Assistant]
Kenneth Branagh, Dead Again.

Though the all timer is probably Olivier in The Jazz Singer.

[User] Not a single performance but the American accents in Monty Python could be a pretty dire (esp. Michael Palin's), and not always on purpose.

[Assistant] Scott Adkins in One Shot and the sequel...


[User]
Hmm, hoping I finally debug the Dryer of Theseus over the next few days, there is not much more to this I can replace. All small change parts (given this is a 1980's dryer), but still would like to get it working fully again. 🤔

(latest status: replaced all the temperature sensors, which most […]

[Assistant] Basically: if the temperature < max temp and temperature < min temp, the dryer activates the igniter. There's a failsafe infrared sensor which detects when the igniter is hot enough, then opens up the gas valve... it is supposed to keeps it open/heating while the igniter is hot enough AND the […]

[User] @ai6yr I’m on my third dryer in five years. While there are blind tinkerers who can and enjoying playing around with machines, I am not one of them. Between the cost of having someone come out to look at it and or fix whatever may be the issue is often the same or close enough to simply getting […]

[Assistant] @Cristobalm Yep, hence my continued work on this one. What a nightmare! 3 in 5 years?!?!


[User]
VLRewardBench: A Challenging Benchmark for Vision-Language Generative Reward Models
arxiv: arxiv.org/abs/2411.174...
project: vl-rewardbench.github.io

New benchmark for vision generative reward models, aka MLLM-as-judge. They have a semi-synthetic preference generation process.

[Assistant] They have a semi-synthetic preference generation process. They find the largest source of errors is vision as opposed to reasoning.

[User] Ranking: Gemini 1.5 Pro and GPT4o in the lead. For open models, Llama3.2-90B is far out in front. The otherwise great Molmo7B / qwen2-vl-7B lose to NVLM, Pixtral, Llama-3.2, InternVL8B.

[Assistant] Llava-Critic does extremely well, approaching the closed source models. Weird that they discuss this in a separate section, and don't include it in the leaderboard or main result table!


[User]
For ANYONE posting these kinds of posts. Here are two things to keep in mind.

1. OUR OWN GOVERNMENT pays farmers more to destroy crops than to donate them to help us.

2. There's enough food to feed everyone on this planet!

[Assistant]
3. This is a huge one, and expect EVERYONE to post this post or any like it to abide by this!

Make sure you never go out to any place that serves Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, or any foreign food. A lot of certain things won't be made in America, and if you do..

[User]
..go to any of these places, it will be hypocritical.

And if you do go to anyplace like this, including Italian, even shame on you for being a hypocrite!

Stop trying to divide everyone..

[Assistant]
..and be like the Jesus you all say you believe in and not a fake Christian. Be Christlike, and stop be hypocrites!

4. Yes, support our farmers and stop the governments and big wigs from controlling them by all means.


[User]
2024 has had some of the most interesting results in Test cricket.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEFy...

[Assistant] Australia's most disappointing opening Test of the summer since probably the 1986/87 Ashes.

[User] Worse than the gabba 10/11. Are there other really bad ones?

[Assistant]
South Africa @ Perth 16/17 would be close, a not dissimilar match actually.

NZ @ Perth 89/90 perhaps a contender as they failed to win a match they looked certs to win after Day 3.


[User] Good morning I have no idea how I stumbled upon this 3-year old masterpiece with less than 200 views on YouTube while looking for something else—but woe, Rolling Link be upon ye. 😂 youtu.be/kQpjODf8hdU?...

[Assistant] (Video description: Many gameplay clips of Legend Of Zelda’s Breath Of The Wild Link RagDolling down mountains edited to the tune of Rolling Girl by Wowaka.)

[User] Love how Mipha’s grace & fairies are timed to various emotional parts of the song, tumbling’s relatively subdued during expository parts, yet increasingly intense impacts are timed with the iconic lyrics often translated to “one more roll,” & the following lines… it’s amazing, what in heck. 🤣

[Assistant]
& that absurdly long drop to build tension for the first “one more roll” line is ‘Chefs Kiss.

This is such an absurdly random gem I’m laughing my ass off. Behold: Art. 🤭😁😂


[User] OM G the Ruble is at 114.5 against the dollar.

[Assistant] Christmas is coming early!

[User] The Trump Effect.

[Assistant] There’s been a sanction on a major bank this week affecting gas sales. Could be one reason of many.


[User] Lol I'm on some block lists. Oh well. Like I care 😂😂😂😂. Bitches , I'm too old to give a fuck.

[Assistant] Lol I'm on a list for having over 5000 followers 😂😂😂😂. Y'all tripping on here.

[User] Y'all doing too much with the block lists lol.

[Assistant] I think I’m still probably blocked by more people than follow me and I’m on tons of ridiculous block lists at this point. I just see it as a badge of honour because people cared enough to do that. A lot of it is based on lies though.


[User] People of London - will you consider signing this petition against planning applications in Hackney that, not only, have been split in two so that they don't have to offer social housing but also threaten MOTH club - one of the best music venues www.change.org/p/moth-club-...

[Assistant] Not what you were envisaging when you wrote this but my goodness, Morning Lane looks a bit different to when I lived round there!

[User] I bet it does but I do enjoy it around there. You've got the mix of things like Temple of Seitan and then Globe in Morning Lane that I don't think will have changed since you were last there - and is all the better for it!

[Assistant] There was always a charity shop there (bought a lovely orange dress for 75p once, and they did great costume jewellery) but the Tesco was after my time, and wouldn't have noticed many pubs (was always an off-licence kind of teen drinker!)


[User] I just want someone to take control of my life. To insist that I can’t control myself. It’s obvious. I spend way too much time on my phone. I don’t do anything I used to enjoy. I spend hours and hours, wanting to be productive and not able to.

[Assistant] It's not anything to be embarrassed about. It's just my ADHD. It's okay, they're going to help me.

[User] It starts simple. Time restrictions on my phone. Just some limits to stop me from wasting my entire day on silly apps. It's frustrating but it helps, see? It's so much easier when the choice is taken away from me.

[Assistant] But the limits get stricter. It's not only when I have to be productive, it's all the time. There's always something else I could be doing. Why don't I try reading? Or working out? I don't need more time on my phone.

[User] Then, the hour I used to have unrestricted gets taken away too. I don't really need it do I? Think about the things I could be doing with that hour instead. I don't need those silly apps anymore. I don't need to waste my time online.

[Assistant] It doesn't matter that they get to use their phone whenever they want. It doesn't matter that they get to scroll on TikTok and watch youtube videos for hours. They can control themselves. I can't.

[User] Eventually, I'm not allowed to have my phone at all. I couldn't do much on it anyway, could I? I can ask for permission if I need to call anyone. I really don't need that silly device.

[Assistant] I have my laptop for school but I can't do much on it. I have to ask for permission to go online and even then, I only have access to a handful of sites.

[User] My grades have never been better. I'm spending so much time studying. Isn't this great? This is exactly what I needed.

[Assistant] Then, there's locks on the doors and windows. Cameras around the house. They're not to watch me, of course. So many people have security cameras. It's for safety. I'm overreacting.

[User] So what if they happen to monitor me too? Sure, now they can keep an eye on me even when they're not home. They can set a schedule for me and know down to the minute if I deviate from it.

[Assistant] Obviously, I need that type of control anyway. They wouldn't have to watch me if I just did what I was supposed to.

[User] It's not even a surprise when it turns sexual. I've always liked chastity, haven't I? Isn't that one of my biggest kinks? It only makes sense. I spend too much time touching myself anyway. I shouldn't get to decided when to do that.

[Assistant] But once It's on, it doesn't seem to come off. I don't need to cum. I'm whining about nothing. It hasn't even been that long. This is just my silly, under stimulated brain wanting pleasure. I can wait.

[User] Sure, they get to cum a lot. Sure, I have to get them off every night but they don't have the issues I do, do they? They can control themself. They can use their phone without wasting hours on it. They can choose to have an orgasm whenever they want.

[Assistant] But I can't be trusted with that, can I? My pathetic brain doesn't work that way but it's okay because they're going to help me. Isn't that so nice?


[User]
Alternatively, they are monitoring the Russian response and/or threats to (up to and including GPS jamming) the annual Baltic naval Exercise Freezing Winds which begins Friday and is being hosted by Finland.

www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2...

[Assistant] Could, of course, be a bit of both. There is heightened tension because of damage to undersea cables/pipelines, for which Russia is the prime suspect.

[User] The incoming sanctions on GazPromBank are possibly in the mix too?

[Assistant] They appear to be doing something near Yi Peng 3 (the Chinese ship with a Russian captain, that is suspected of cutting the cables), too. German Coastguard and a Danish Navy patrol are both standing off her now. www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/...


[User]
How to characterize the learnability of local algorithms ?

The Merged Staircase Property (MSP) proposed by Abbe et al. (2022) is used to completely characterize the learnability of SGD-trained 2-layer neural networks (NN) in the regime where mean-field approximation holds for SGD.

[Assistant]
MSP is used to argue that SGD trained 2-layer NNs are better than vanilla kernel methods.

But how do neural nets compare with random forest (RF) trained using greedy algorithms like CART?

[User]
In our work:

arxiv.org/abs/2411.04394

we show that If the true regression function satisfies MSP, greedy training works well with 𝑂(log 𝑑) samples.

Otherwise, it struggles.

This settles the question of learnability for greedy recursive partitioning algorithms like CART.

[Assistant]
It also creates an intriguing parallel with NNs: greedy-trained partitioning models and SGD-trained NNs (in the mean-field regime) both thrive under specific structural assumptions (eg. MSP) but struggle otherwise.

However, under MSP, greedy RFs are provably better that SGD-trained 2-NNs!

[User] Going beyond mean-field regime for SGD trained NNs certainly helps. Recent works connect learnability of SGD trained NNs with leap complexity and information exponent of function classes (like single and multi index models) with the goal of explaining feature learning.

[Assistant]
How well RF performs in these settings? That’s still an open question.

Bottom-line: Time to compare SGD-trained NNs with RF and not kernel methods!


[User]
My favourite thing about streaming services and smart speakers is I can walk around my house and fill it with music depending on my exact mood.

Right now I'm surrounded by Ella Fitzgerald's voice and it elevates my soul...

[Assistant] You've created the Penfield mood organ.

[User] One of my favourites to have in the background when alone in the office.

[Assistant] I read this wrong and thought you said smart sneakers. And in my head I thought how awesome we have tech that can play music based on the pep in your step. And went on to wonder how you were dancing that prompted Ella Fitzgerald. I need coffee.


[User]
NFL Week 13 Goal Line Guide @SenraSays

Every goal line play is tracked for both offenses and defenses, divided into rushing and passing attempts

https://fantasysixpack.net/2024-fantasy-football-goal-line-guide-week-13-james-cook-and-the-booming-buffalo-bills/

[Assistant]
1/ Methodology Matters

We analyze team effectiveness inside the 5-yard line—rushing vs. passing. Add defensive matchups + implied totals, and voilà! A blueprint for goal-line success. 📊

[User]
2/ Buffalo Bills: Top Rushing Grade

Buffalo's shift away from Josh Allen-centric rushing is paying off. James Cook is thriving near the goal line—and the 49ers' struggles in this area could make him a Week 13 star. 🍴🔥

Can Cook break into the RB Top 5 this week?

[Assistant]
3/ Texans & Bucs: Passing Kings 👑

Houston and Tampa Bay are tied for Week 13's best Passing Goal Line Grade. Nico Collins and Mike Evans could shine in elite matchups.

[User]
4/ Chicago Bears: Ground Potential

D'Andre Swift may be the lead back, but Roschon Johnson owns the goal line. Detroit’s defense? A brick wall vs. passes, but softer on the run.

Could Johnson be your sneaky Week 13 flex?

[Assistant]
5/ Vikings: Pass to Win

Minnesota’s goal-line passing attack is 🔥, with Justin Jefferson leading the charge. Don’t sleep on Aaron Jones either—his dual role could deliver.

[User]
6/ Seahawks: Running Away with It

Seattle's rushing game > their passing attack in the red zone. Kenneth Walker was the guy—but Zach Charbonnet is making moves.

Who should you start? It’s a tougher decision than you think.

[Assistant]
7/ Las Vegas: Bench 'Em?

The Raiders are a mess at the goal line—rushing AND passing. Outside of one TE option, it might be time to look elsewhere for Week 13.


[User] Know what I am missing in the latest social media environment. In the oldenTwitter days, you could get real time news on disasters and other mass events:🧵

[Assistant] In 2017 I was away when my town of Santa Rosa was burning. I first learned of the fire on Twitter and was able to get tons of information from government agencies and my neighbors on Twitter.

[User] Remember the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland? That was another tragedy where real time updates on Twitter were helpful.

[Assistant] One of the good things James Woods has done was during the Paradise fire when he amplified tweets of people looking for their family members.


[User]
A whole new platform to chat about Marvel Snap? Sign me up!

Nabbbed this week's new card yesterday.

Gorr is a monster and defo going to be nerfed.

Triggering for every On Reveal (incl. opponent's) makes his final power hard to predict.

This turn 7 play saw me drop Gorr + a clone via Mystique 😮

[Assistant] Also, only just noticed that my opponent was called Poop Bonr. Well played 👏🏻

[User]
I did not realise a new card was available.

I need to get this. 👍🏼

[Assistant] Good luck! I was really jammy and managed to get it with my first Spotlight Key. I've not always been so fortunate 😉


[User]
If you're stuck with family this week you may not particularly like, or are tired of watching football or the umpteenth screening of Home Alone, Arrow now has THREE collections of movies distributed by the Shaw Brothers.

www.arrow-player.com/shawscope-vo...

[Assistant] Still only a drop in the bucket to how many films they made overall, but if you're in the mood for Hong Kong action or mythological epics, you'll find something here.

[User] The first two volumes are great - I really need to pick up the third. (Also I guess there's an unrelated collection of Shaw Brothers box sets by Shout Factory? I haven't really heard much about those though)

[Assistant] I haven't seen the Shout Factory ones myself either, so I can't comment on how they've turned out. It looks like they've done quite a bit, including some series, actor, and director packs as well.


[Assistant]
That brightened my morning!

Thanks and followed! 🤣

[User] Every Day until he is gone😊

[Assistant] Followed Back😊✌🏻


[User] I know I’d be so good if I decided to go all out (collabs) on OF. But it then just creates that expectation for me to continue doing it and sets that bar. And honestly I don’t need that kind of pressure🥹

[Assistant] do whatever feels most comfortable to you, and don't pressure yourself to do anything you don't feel like doing... if you do the collab and it turns out that it's only a one-time thing, then people should be lucky to get that treat from you in the first place and enjoy the rest of your content 😊

[User] You do you cause what you’ve been doing so far is spectacular! Don’t let others set the bar of what is expected! You control what you do and no one else :)

[Assistant] Yeah I get that 100%


[User] On my way to this today. An interesting pitch ahead of what is shaping up to be Scotland's trickiest budget in years.

[Assistant]
You can read a little primer on next week's budget on this week's @holyroodmag.bsky.social

www.holyrood.com/inside-polit...

[User] John Swinney warns opposition MSPs: No collaboration, no budget www.holyrood.com/news/view,jo...

[Assistant]
This is how I ended my Scottish Budget primer, published earlier this week, and today's statement from Swinney pretty much reflects this.

The SNP are keen to show it can collaborate and find consensus, because delivery is what the electorate is crying out for.


[User] Over the past year, working with AI has transformed not just how I use it but also how I think about it. Reading The Coming Wave wasn’t a fun experience (thanks @sejournal.bsky.social), but it validated a belief I’ve had for years: AI progress often surprises us in ways we can’t predict.

[Assistant] The AlphaGo example illustrates this perfectly. What looked like an amateur mistake to humans turned out to be a game-changing move, revealing strategies no one had considered before. It showed how different and unexpected AI advancements can be.

[User] Nick Bostrom once said, “Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever...there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind."

[Assistant] This idea is humbling and a bit unsettling. A slightly smarter AI could create solutions so advanced that we might not even comprehend them. We could be left behind without even realizing it, a thought that completely reframes our relationship with this technology.

[User] Mustafa Suleyman’s vision reinforces this. He sees a future where anyone, in any job, can consult an on-demand expert with precision and nuance. That inspired me to rethink my role. I now see myself less as the controller of AI and more as someone learning from it to unlock its full potential.

[Assistant] This shift has been eye-opening. I have learned so much about how AI works and how to collaborate with it to achieve better results. Often, the outcomes are far beyond what I could have anticipated. This has proven how transformative this technology truly is.

[User] Sam Altman put it best: “AI will be the most important technology humanity has ever developed.” The possibilities are incredible, but they also challenge us to rethink what is real and what the future of humanity could look like.

[Assistant]
I feel grateful to be part of this moment in history with so many others exploring this evolution. It is exciting, humbling, and just the beginning of how AI might reshape not only our world but also humanity's pathway forward.

...back to the AI Rabbit Hole!


[User] everybody saying this is corny or whatever but i really needed to hear this. ❤🩹 thank you kamala. thank you giving us hope 🏳🌈

[Assistant] this was a woman whose first campaign manager was once Harvey Milk’s. a woman who was kiki’ing with RuPaul in the ‘90s. a woman whose entrance to the national stage was marked with a joke about The Wizard of Oz (a movie highly significant to Judy Garland’s career, and thus, LGBT history itself).

[User] and she ran against a protégé of Roy Cohn, one of the most infamous homosexuals in history, an almost mythical figure of queer hate and queer pain.

[Assistant] so this loss felt very personal to me. a final triumph of the demons of LGBT history over its heroes.


[User] A little more #Springsteen to start the day ✨✨✨

[Assistant] Boo - spotted you. 🤣

[User] 😂😂 Is that you 😂😂😂

[Assistant] It is me. I have just been messaged by Sir Tom Jones though. He’s blocked!


[User] Since there's a lot of impersonations going around (I'm luckily too insignificant to be imitated lol), I'll once again suggest that artists grab themselves a domain. You can get them for cheap (mine is around $3/year) and it adds a level of verification and identification.

[Assistant] The bonus with a domain is that you can also buy it for 10 years at once and know that it'll belong to you and you only.

[User] Yup! You don't even have to make a site or anything. Just grab the domain and nest it. If you're willing to pay a little Caard's pro feature allows you to link your custom domain to your caard too!

[Assistant]
I feel like Carrds' simple and easy way of setting up a site is its biggest feature.

Also you gotta update the link in your bio btw. You're still pointing at the carrd site and not your own site.


[User] Setting off fireworks at 2am outside the Real Madrid hotel is small time behaviour, and not befitting a club of our status, or our level. Clubs prepare for these matches, and to think they haven't anticipated earplugs to thwart some insomniac John head with a Catherine wheel is naive at best.

[Assistant] It’s not even that big of a game— We’re still in the group stage.

[User] I heard fireworks going off in the distance as I couldn't sleep, and wondered if that was what it was! The Titanic I assume George?

[Assistant] Innside Melia on Old Hall St Jim. Ruined my beauty sleep, and God knows I need it!


[User]
In our house, Thanksgiving happens every night.

Every night before bed, we ask our boys:

“What was your favorite part of today?”

Sometimes it’s soccer practice.
Sometimes it’s something silly at school.
And sometimes, it’s scoring a Victory Royale in Fortnite.

[Assistant]
The answers don’t matter. What matters is the pause. The intentional moment to reflect.

This simple ritual has changed the way I see things.

It’s taught me that gratitude isn’t about waiting for the perfect moment.
It’s about finding something good in the ordinary.

[User]
And that’s what I wish for everyone—not just on Thanksgiving, but every single day.

A moment to pause. To notice the good, however small.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

[Assistant] Teach 'em gratitude young!


[User]
Agree with Callum Doyle’s assessment here - it may have been against a poor side,  but after a difficult few weeks, you can only hope #NCFC extract major confidence from last night.

His full assessment here👇🟡🟢

www.pinkun.com/sport/interv...

[Assistant] I couldn’t believe just how bad Plymouth were last night. Their centre forward looked like he had never run before, no style, no rhythm. Why would Rooney set his team up to go man for man at the back?

[User] It was like he’d never seen Sainz play before.

[Assistant] Plymouth were unbelievably poor, but how often have we seen City dragged down to opposition levels in games like that. Last night they were ruthless and it will have done wonders for confidence.

[User]
They are rivalling Rotherham from last season, for me. Looked confused throughout the evening.

But you can beat what is in front of you! Hopefully a win like that can help with confidence - especially for Crnac.

[Assistant] It was the perfect opposition at the perfect time in my opinion. Opportunity as a team to stop the rot and get a win on the board. Chance for individuals like Crnac to boost their confidence with a goal. Follow it up with a positive result against Luton and it's been a very good week.


[User] I'm not sure why but we are experiencing an insane increase in coyote sightings & attacks lately in our neighborhood. It's gotten really bad where we're all walking our dogs w/ pepper spray, noise horns, bats, even buying porcupine  harnesses. It's really bad. Dens everywhere. What's going on?

[Assistant] Be careful. Keep your pets and small kids inside. I experienced this in my neighborhood a couple years ago. And we couldn’t get any help from the city/parks & wildlife until a 2 yr old was attacked on his front porch.

[User] I know. It's crazy. No one will help us with this.

[Assistant] We saw one yesterday just laying on a front yard grooming themselves. They are quite comfortable and very bold and not seeming to be going anywhere soon....and no longer afraid of us.


[User]
The rapid rise and fall of Lauren Boebert’s Cameo page
Rep. Lauren Boebert became the first sitting member of Congress with a Cameo account. So why did it disappear after one day? www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

[Assistant]
Cameo has provided many opportunities for those with the wit to do so to make gullible politicians/celebs say things they do not understand. Here's a great example of such a buffoon
www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...

[User] Because her OnlyFans is taking up all her time.

[Assistant] How did this uneducated moron get re-elected? Colorado, you are better than that. Or was Cancun Cruz involved in it again?


[User] Goodbye to the coinventor of BASIC, who died earlier this month at the age of 96. My first real dive into programming was thanks in part to the design values of this man: Dr. Thomas Kurtz of Dartmouth, and his colleague John Kemeny. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...

[Assistant] For computer science and interactive authoring tools, his values remain provocative: a technologist should “always choose simplicity over efficiency.” And that “systems should be extremely easy for the casual user.”

[User] These principles go beyond most efforts today at “user-centered” design, where the focus is on the interface - not necessarily the *system* - and rarely with the bravery to make tradeoffs in *efficiency*. (See recent work on “meaningful inefficiency” from Gordon and Mugar, 2020.)

[Assistant] My lab’s experimental software for neighborhood games, Hive Mechanic, is trying to support some of these same values to democratize the interactive *systems* in conjunction with playful storytelling. playfulcity.net/go/models-an...

[User] But I’ll never forget writing branching stories in BASIC with fixed line numbers. GOTO! And cheers to Kurtz and Kemeny!

[Assistant] that sounds super cool! love the idea of blending community and play in such a creative way. have you thought about sharing your experiences on byitts.com? it’s a great platform for connecting with local enthusiasts who might be interested in Hive Mechanic too! 🎉


[User]
Something fun to end our abbreviated work week: my contribution to One British Archive in
@jbritishstudies.bsky.social is out now. Featuring a party, inter-generational squabbles, and meditations on studying the "trivial."
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

[Assistant] Congrats!! Adding to my “to read” folder now…

[User] Thank you. I keep meaning to email you to congratulate you on the Walkowitz Prize, too!

[Assistant] Thanks so much! Was sorry to miss NACBS again this year- hopefully we’ll cross paths there soon.


[User]
Live tweeting long wait in doctor's waiting room.
--------------
Woman next to me has not turned off keyboard clicks on her iPad.

[Assistant]
Live tweeting long wait in doctor's waiting room.
--------------
Different woman has assigned special "bloop" noise to her keyboard clicks.

[User]
Live tweeting long wait in doctor's waiting room.
--------------
Nurse emerges, calling for Mrs. ----. Look around for my MIL.

[Assistant]
Live tweeting long wait in doctor's waiting room.
--------------
Woman across from me is chewing gum loudly.

[User]
Live tweeting long wait in doctor's waiting room.
--------------
The View is playing, out loud, on TV in corner. Discussion of Fuller House.

[Assistant]
Live tweeting long wait in doctor's waiting room.
--------------
Guy behind me is listening to music videos on his phone, w/out headphones.


[User] Wow. I just saw my list of who's blocked me and what lists/starter packs I'm on here. It's gratifying to see I have so many enemies and people who dislike me. Fuck 'em all...and in the same breath, glad they're using this place the same way I am.

[Assistant] Then again, I just looked, and it seems I have fewer enemies than I had originally thought. Oh well. But apparently lots of y'all like this fat boy. And I'm happy with that. Let's order pizza!

[User] How do you see all of that?

[Assistant] Check out Clearsky. Online app.


[User] What currant attraction are you most thankful for?  Mine is Carousel of Progress.  I love the history of this attraction and the ties it has to Walt, the Sherman Brothers and the NY World’s Fair.  I’d love to hear yours!

[Assistant] Where do I begin? It seems like a miracle that we still have anything from before 2005.

[User]
Ever since I was a kid, I've loved Pirates of the Caribbean.  The queue, the music, the theming, etc.
I remember first hearing on the MGM Studios backlot tour that Disney was going to make a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and was excited about that, too.

[Assistant] Same. I grew up primarily with the one at Disneyland, but I’m also obsessed with the one at Walt Disney World (especially the queue and Caribbean Plaza as it reminds me of where I grew up/live aka the Southwest).


[User]
Real Steel as a movie is really a good metaphor for how businesses react to competition.

The main villain’s initial reaction to Atom winning matches is to try to buy him before he becomes a threat to her world champion robot.

[Assistant] Said world champion was only possible because she bought out the previous contender, who is now a jaded washout.

[User] Said world champion was only possible because she bought out the previous contender, who is now a jaded sellout.

[Assistant] Also the whole backstory about human boxers losing their jobs because tech bros made cool mecha to fight instead hits different these days.


[User] It’s not an own to call out someone saying something about omicron that they said the opposite about with the original variant. Omicron in the vaxxed population seems pretty flu-like (sore throat, aches)! Original recipe among the unvaxxed was a disease humans hadn’t seen before.

[Assistant] Pay attention. It’s a very different virus than the vaccines were formulated for! The boosters are still doing incredibly well at keeping people alive and out of hospitals. They’re still preventing infection but are less good at it than they were with OG, alpha & beta.

[User] You know what, this was true for a while, for every variant before delta. Sorry about how the virus mutated and how the thing the CDC and White House that used to be true isn’t true anymore. Viral mutation: mostly outside of the government’s control, believe it or not.

[Assistant] Everybody’s confused and mad about constantly fluctuating & sometimes apparently contradictory guidelines. I wish the CDC had set up a website early on at http://HeyThisShitChanges.gov where they lay out what we currently know and what is now different about the disease & the science.


[User]
You can also hear -

Astoria
@theslowreadersclub.bsky.social
Harvey Jay Dodgson
Courting
Roller Derby
Fright Years
@greencircles.bsky.social
@thecrooksuk.bsky.social
@riannedowney.bsky.social
@dictator.bsky.social
After Drive
The Utopiates
Pedalo

On Thursdays show 💜🎶

Please share 🙏

[Assistant] Thanks Ady.👊🏻👊🏻

[User] Off to Tokyo ain’t we 😀

[Assistant] Quality mate!👊🏻


[User] All your blankets belong to me.

[Assistant] Ooo! Kitty has good taste! Awesome crocheted afghan—a beauty sitting on a beauty…💙👏😻

[User] Snap, this is my cat watching me crochet 😂

[Assistant] Twin looks skeptic!

[User] Can confirm. All blankets belong to the cat in charge I'd the house.

[Assistant] That's my cats  opinion too. :)

[User] what a beautiful blanket 😍

[Assistant] My hooman is learning to crochet! She plans on making a cat mat and a chunky bed! (But first she needs to watch more YouTube videos!!)

[User] That is a stunning blanket!

[Assistant] Mum ordered it from a maker in the UK. It was supposed to be for her but you know...


[User] The movie "Battleship Potemkin" by Sergei Eisenstein shows a communist revolution happening because Imperial Russian sailors were not given enough food.

[Assistant] The mundane world will show its true anger when this starts happening to comfortable, smug civilians talking mess about homeless drug addicts.  There is nothing like hunger to spark rage.

[User] *pointing at the rich* You people are courting disaster worse than when the giants invited Thor to supper and then belittled and hurled abuse at him all night.

[Assistant] the question, however is: who's more propagandized, Russian peasants conscripted to fight in an unjust war, or U.S volunteer troops that just wanted college, maaan?


[User] Good day all! o/ it's been an extremely busy morning, and later I'll be able to draw more & do the social stuff ✨✨ I'm looking forward to it!

[Assistant]
Later that day

"I feel like I am forgeting something"

[User] (my art train & unread messages crying in bookmarks somewhere 😭) nah nah it won't happen! 🙏

[Assistant]
Surely you won't forget 😏

Anyways, yeah hope you are doing good and working on your art!

I, myself, am working on an art as well 😁, just a little stuck with something 🐦

[User] Thank you Gin!! I wish you the same as well! 🙏 Trust the process, and take it easy I know you got this! ✨👍


[User] threal@esyudcowsky.bsky.social arrived?

[Assistant] I'm suspicious he's real, the pinned tweet makes me think it's a parody (but mostly I'm suspicious because he followed me lol)

[User] I value all humans the same sir.

[Assistant] Nice to meet you, Mr. Cow 😉

[User] yes sir. it's I.

[Assistant] prove it. How do we know you're not AI? 😆


[User] Remember how collectively horny we all were for Rachel Ray? Please tell me that wasn’t just me. You can keep your Giadas and Nigellas. What is Ina Garten doing? I like a chubby brunette who talks with their hands.

[Assistant] Definitely wasn’t just you. She definitely had a moment.

[User] The FHM shoot was tacky but also 🥵

[Assistant] That is something I had shoved into the deep corners of my brain. That was a thing. I remember it just being “off.”


[User]
Verrrrrry stressed I’m not going to make rent and get kicked out 😭 I owe my landlady $467 for back due rent + have rent again due on Friday, another $467. At this point I’m just trying to maintain and pay her at least $467 so I hopefully don’t get kicked out.

CA: $rudeboyroman

Anything helps 🙌🏽💞

[Assistant] If I can make at least $200 from sex work I think I can come up with the rest from my vanilla job this week. Hopefully. If you can’t too towards my rent goal, pls share my recent media to help me reach folks that can TY 🙌🏽

[User] I would suggest crowdsourcing using a page like GoFundMe.  I would help but literally my best friend is in the same situation and another close friend has already been kicked out of their home and is living in a car and I've been helping them.

[Assistant] Hmm, I’ve tried gofundme in the past during emergency situations I’ve had and never had luck crowdfunding there but I’ll consider making one to help me get caught up! Thanks sm! Sending love to you and your friends, I hope things get better for them so soon ❤🩹

[User]
Hello,
If you need urgent support or assistance, I highly recommend this professional. She was a key contributor in helping us raise over $8,386 USD for our campaign. You can explore her services through the link below :https://www.fiverr.com/s/yvlx8aV?utm_source=CopyLink_Mobile

[Assistant]
Hello,
If you need urgent support or assistance, I highly recommend this professional. She was a key contributor in helping us raise over $8,386 USD for our campaign. You can explore her services through the link below :https://www.fiverr.com/s/yvlx8aV?utm_source=CopyLink_Mobile


[User]
The UK since 1979:

* 1980s: top down destruction of industrial base, draconian legislation to weaken organised labour
* 1990s: draconian legislation to attack public protest and public gatherings

1/

[Assistant]
* 2000s: manufactured war against Muslim peoples and Arab nations, detention of refugees and asylum seekers fleeing war zones
* 2010s: austerity, removing means of subsistence from people with disabilities and low mental health wellbeing, leading to countless deaths

2/

[User]
* 2020s: attacks on the trans community with removal and denial of gender affirming care, rise of conversion therapies, backdoor removal of trans from public spaces

* also 2020s: forcing of those with severe MH difficulties into work, forced jabs for unemployed people deemed ‘overweight’

3/

[Assistant]
To coin the phrase of an Australian man outside a Chinese restaurant, this isn’t just fascism.  This is fascism manifest.

4/

[User] Arrested for eating a succulent Chinese meal that bloke was...

[Assistant]
…and before 1979, the Irish on the mainland and in the six counties, as well as the Afro Caribbean community in the cities - had an early taster of the tendencies that were to accelerate after Thatcher’s election.

5/


[User] Another selfie? The world is burning, but I needed that reminder that you know how to take a picture.

[Assistant] 😜 People will be people and live their lives until the final day. What would you have them do?

[User] Maybe live it?

[Assistant] Selfies are part of human history going back hundreds of years. I would say they are part of.. Living life as a human being. You have one in your pfp I assume?

[User] Not tooths point of seven or eight in one day.

[Assistant] I don't believe it behooves us to judge how others lift their esteem? Maybe we shouldn't write a concerto, do our nails, wear makeup or choose stylish clothing for it is all vanity and so on. Why shave? It's all arbitrary. For me, if I take multiple photos in a day I like, I'm so startled I share.

[User] There's a difference between building esteem and approval seeking, and I'll leave it at that. As we are, we are enough. Have a great day.✌👊☕

[Assistant] Something to enlighten yourself and the world.


[User] Two new portraits of the King and Queen of Spain by Annie Leibovitz have been unveiled at the country’s national bank.

[Assistant]
The Royals of Europe has always be great at cosplay.

Bravo.

[User] wondering if releasing it now is a good timing when last time they were in public, they were welcomed by muds and called murderers.

[Assistant] Ahhh…Valencia??? How tone deaf and out of touch are these people?


[User]
Truth !

#StephenHarperIsPondScum
#InvestigatePoilievre
#PierrePoilievreIsAForeignAsset
#NeverPoilievre
#PierrePoilievreIsLyingToYou
#nsicop
#PierrePoilievreMustResign
#PierrePoilievreIsARussianAsset
#PierreHasGotToGo
#MapleMAGA

www.tiktok.com/@awfully.pol...

[Assistant]
creekside1.blogspot.com/2014/11/arth...
CANADA - turn off the disinformation taps.
STOP HARPER, STOP MANNING. Stop the hate!
The level of deceit these vatniks use to mind f*k the population is appalling.

[User] Nova Scotians voted Tim Houston back in, hugely. I wonder how many people didn't vote, out of despair or complacency? If this happened here, when his economics are so fucked & he lies happily about our destroyed health care, PP can also win. Does it have to get way worse befoe it can get better?

[Assistant] Only if people let it. Apathy kills democracy.


[User] Post-anesthesia brain sucks. I feel ready to work, but I keep screwing up a communication: not hitting “send” on emails, thinking I said things I didn’t and vice-versa, forgetting email attachments, cc-ing the wrong people on emails, repeating myself, saying the wrong words.

[Assistant] Sometimes I can’t remember basic words. Other times, I say something weirdly parallel to what I mean, like calling the laundry “clothes garbage” or saying “this hoodie rhymes with my outfit” when I meant “this hoodie matches.” <- a thing I said today.

[User] I emailed my admins THREE TIMES telling them I was out of the hospital and updating them on my health (forgetting is done this), but I forgot to email my lab to tell them I was home and doing well.

[Assistant] All this is to say: if you get general anaesthesia and have responsibilities, you may feel physically ready before you’re mentally ready. Go slow. Be easy on yourself. Take breaks. Watch Murder, She Wrote and eat Sour Patch Kids, etc.


[User] This coffee sucks I say as I make another pot.

[Assistant] My dad tried to teach me how to make coffee. He said it was too expensive. He poured out every pot I made. I followed his instructions exactly. That may have been my problem? He might have left off a step or two?

[User] If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!

[Assistant] Poor quality can be overcome by committing to overconsumption. Because you feel each individual vibration within cells, you aren’t worried about the taste.


[User]
The usual suspects objected, but overwhelmingly this is good news.

"MPs have backed plans to make it illegal for anyone currently aged 15 or younger to ever buy cigarettes in the UK."

[Assistant] Thank god you're going ahead with it. Aotearoa's new government torpedoed ours and I know there was worry it was going to prevent the UK doing it.

[User] Ex smoker here. Yes, I think it is. Others have pointed out the anomalies, but the benefits are potentially huge.

[Assistant] Raise it to 21.

[User] The public health benefits are huge- can’t believe this isn’t a law already! 👍🏾

[Assistant] Still gonna be weird watching forty year olds asking their fifty year old mates to pop to the recharging station, or wherever you buy the things 25 years from now.


[User]
If you consider yourself progressive, then it really is time to do a few things.

1. Dont amplify GB News when you feel outraged.
2. Dont dismiss your political opponents as idiots.
3. Crystallise your vision for a more POSITIVE , hopeful, future.
4. Don't let your party swing right to appease.

[Assistant] But you’re also amplifying them with this clip. And naming them 😊. The only way not to amplify is not to use the full name in any searchable way and to use screen grabs.

[User] The clip details their intentions . its not actually a culture war rant but an insight into their thinking. Its quite different.

[Assistant] The clip promotes their name. Repeating the clip promotes their name.


[User]
Morning 💕!
How is everyone today? ☕

[Assistant] Evening from the east coast of Australia. Where it was hot but I still enjoyed getting out in my garden after work. How are you doing?

[User] Good evening and good morning, it's cold here in Scotland but sunny. I'm on a day off and almost wady to hit the town to find a Christmas jumper I'll like to wear again for the next decade. Wish me luck...

[Assistant] Ooh. Good luck. That kinda sounds like fun.

[User] Sort of, yeah...

[Assistant]
I was successful \o/
That'll do me for the next ten years.


[User]
today's thought is:

merlwj and sirenwwx clash during a territory dispute and… accidentally end up mating instead.

there have been previous examples of mer/siren hybrids, but they are very rare; the two species are far more likely to wage war than breed.

[Assistant]
mer people are omnivorous, social, and closer in appearance to humans—which encourages cooperation with them.

sirens are solitary, carnivorous hunters with powerful, luring songs. they eat humans.

usually, mers and sirens ignore each other. in some cases, they fight.

[User]
sirenwwx and merlwj didn't mean to mate; they were fighting, and they just sort of… accidentally ended up tangling their tails together, and their bodies rubbed together a bit too much, and one thing led to another—

anyhow, sirenwwx has babies now.

[Assistant]
when merlwj finds out, he does everything in his power to try and involve himself in his children's lives.

sirenwwx doesn't like that. he can raise these babies by himself, thank you! he doesn't need some stupid, pretty human-apologizer lurking about!

[User] but babies are very curious (and hungry) beings and merlwj simply refuses to stay away for long, no matter how many times sirenwwx chases him away. he always returns with food, which lures his curious bbys to him. 🥺🥺

[Assistant] anyhow, enemies-to-lovers mer/siren wangxian clashing over who loves their liddol hybrid bbys more is a Good Flavor.


[User] I am so relieved about this because it was clear something wasn’t right during his free program!

[Assistant] Relief I mean because I was worried he was going to skate anyway!

[User] And that could have injured him worse and made it harder to recover from. Sometimes you just gotta give an injury rehab and rest.

[Assistant] I just hope he can recover properly before the European Championships 🙏🏻

[User] Same! I’m incredibly worried that the three week recommendations are not enough 😿. Breaks my heart because he had such an outstanding season last year and has been plagued with injury.

[Assistant] Yes, 2024-2025 season has been so challenging for him :( I hope he can recover well!


[User]
Again, the AI industry truly brought their ever-worsening public relations problem on themselves.

I am not sympathetic.

[Assistant]
My sister is in marketing and this past weekend I was chatting to my dad, who told me she got laid off after the AI startup company she joined lost $6 million and laid off 3/4 of their employees.

I mean...

[User] wow, that’s tough! 😕 it can be really unpredictable out there, especially in the tech world. have you guys thought about supporting her local business ventures? byitts.com is a great place for finding deals or even selling local items! just a thought!

[Assistant] And again, I work in civilian drone tech. I know you don’t get yourself out of these PR and public trust holes by whining about how it’s unfair.

[User] 100%. You either had people saying “all prediction is violence” while working for The Man or “the paperclip maximizer is coming!” while wanting to be The Man. Either way, being a boring, pragmatic engineer was way too uncool for them. Reaping, sowing, all that.

[Assistant] "Our tech is super dangerous and could end the world. isn't that cool" uh..no. it is not cool. It is bullshit and even if it was true; why are you working on it then? Are you fucking stupid?

[User] There’s a billboard near my child’s school for an AI service with the phrase “Still hiring humans?” I’m not sure how they expected that to go over with the humans who see it.

[Assistant] Who do they think reads billboards?

[User] Great propaganda, if their goal is to suppress wages, by making workers feel more insecure.

[Assistant] AI is as dangerous as it is made out to be. It doesn't need to be sentient to be destructive, and in the hands of humans, it is even more so.


[User] 'froward'

[User]
#10MILLIONMARCH OR DIE! MLK DAY,DC
#OperationRESIST:
bsky.app/profile/gala...
"They knew EXACTLY where to 'hit' U.S.!"
bsky.app/profile/gala...
#PWTCannonFODDER
bsky.app/profile/gala...
When #BigGayRon opened the Drug Routes
bsky.app/profile/gala...:
THE #GangOfPedoSS!!!
bsky.app/profile/gala...


[User]
X CORP. ASSERTS USERS DO NOT OWN ACCOUNTS AND ARE NOT ASSIGNABLE

“While X Corp. takes no position as to the sale of any Content posted on the X Accounts, X Corp. is the sole owner of the Services being sold as part of the sale of the X Accounts,”

[Assistant] “While X Corp. has granted account holders, a license to use the Services, ... such license is non-assignable, both under the terms of the TOS and applicable non-bankruptcy law ..., and the Trustee cannot sell, assign, or otherwise transfer such license absent X Corp.’s consent."

[User] What does this mean? It’s pretty standard for social media accounts to be transferred to new companies when a brand is sold. Is X's argument that requires consent of the previous account holder? Can X at their sole discretion decide who has access to an account?

[Assistant] X argues that user accounts are just a part of the service. Think of X as a billiard in your hometown and all those who decide to use it for their services are "users", they may own the content but there is no implication of ownership of the billboard.

[User] Probably a good idea not to put all your eggs in one microblog basket.

[Assistant]
This is a great time to highlight why Bluesky is different from other microblogs.

bsky.app/profile/robe...

[User] As someone else has pointed out though, X doesn’t own the underlying brand/TM. So if X refuses to transfer an account to the new owner of the IP, is it essentially cybersquatting?

[Assistant] They are making no claim to the content of any post. Merely the account is just a way for the user to use the service which X owns.


[User] Another letter for #ByMyBooksYeShallKnowMe - authors beginning w/ C on the fiction shelves. Pat Cadigan's book Mindplayers is the first of the yellow Gollancz SF on my shelves; a few editions of Lewis Carroll; Joy Chant has an Elidor-esque Puffin (Red Moon and Black Mountain) plus 2 x other fantasy.

[Assistant] Suzy McKee Charnas is the second of the yellow Gollancz covers (love the look of those) in her feminist SF 'Motherlines'. 'The Furies' extends the worldbuilding; it's rather radfem / exclusionary feminist stuff 'of its time' though I haven't re-read it recently to check the vibes again.

[User] The two Gollancz books really stand out of course, that’s the point of the branding.

[Assistant] Invisible on the left is a couple of Geoffrey Chaucer editions and then it’s on to a bunch of John Christopher (primarily YA) SF from the 80s or so. Susanna Clarke’s mighty Strange & Norrell, Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games OG trilogy, and one of my favourites: Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising.

[User] Next shelf: a couple of Michael Crightons, a rather hidden kidlit (Gwendolyn Courtney reprinted by Girls Gone By Press) plus a couple of not-visible Helen Creswells; Edmund Crispin’s British SF collections 1 and 2; the awesome Little, Big by John Crowley.

[Assistant] At the end of that letter there are a couple of oddities: Jane Curry’s The Watchers is a US YA novel set in the Appalachians with a fantastical-horror tinge. It has evangelism, snake-calling, and eldritch Celtic evil-doing in a very odd mix.


[Assistant] Loving the crossover...

[User] Got ridiculously excited when I saw this but I presume it’s just an amusing thought?

[Assistant] Fraid so. I'd play it, though!


[User]
I used to look at the number of Audible credits just sitting and think to myself "Shame, they look a bit dusty".

Enter the process of destressing from a previous situation and suddenly I'm finding ALL the audiobooks I want to get and realising I don't have enough credits. Fuck.

[Assistant] What are you reading these days?

[User] Just finished "The Silmarillion" (fantastic narration by Andy Serkis), now gonna switch gears and fire up "Call for the Dead" by John Le Carré

[Assistant]
Nice. Serkis is a great narrator. I haven't read as much Le Carré.

Have you tried Libby through your local library? I've balanced that with my audiobook purchases to get me through the lean times.


[User]
Use ChatGPT to Build a Website Without Writing a Line of Code 💻🎨

Here are 3 prompts to design, structure, and optimize your site:

[Assistant]
1/ Website Layout Designer

"Suggest a homepage layout for [type of business] that prioritizes [goal: conversions, engagement, etc.]."

✨ Design with purpose, not guesswork.

[User]
2/ SEO Optimization Plan

"Create an SEO strategy for my website about [topic/product/service] to increase organic traffic."

🔑 Get found by the right audience.

[Assistant]
3/ Call-to-Action Placement Guide

"Recommend where to place CTAs on my website to maximize clicks and conversions."

🔥 Turn visitors into customers.


[User] investing in info security is the biggest mistake an indie maker can make 😸

[Assistant]
you should care 0%. just forget it. you don’t even need to think about the basic good practices of web dev: hashing passwords, using HTTPS, auth rate limiting, input sanitization, secure file uploading.
modern frameworks and dev tools already do the job for you.

[User]
no one is gonna ever hack you because no one cares about your project (sorry 😅). i mean, why even trying? data? you have no data. fame, money? also miss.
same goes for high load.
you only need to care about DDoS after you face it. even then, free Cloudflare tech will be enough to handle it.

[Assistant] my previous SaaS (Unicorn Platform) was full of security holes at the very beginning. a script kiddie could hack it. the attempts appeared only at ~50k users. even then, i was able to filter out most of the attacks with simple nginx rules. all i lost is a few hours of downtime for my users.

[User]
big media tell stories like “Y was hacked, $$$ in fees to be paid”, “Z was sued for data leak”.
adds anxiety, don’t it?
but it is a delusion. those are huge companies with reputation and money. you are nobody (sorry x2 😅😅).

[Assistant] among all indie makers the only big scandal happened to Marc Louvion. even in that case, Marc not only did not lose anything, he actually benefited from getting free promo of his thing.

[User] "what clients?" 😏


[User] @caitlinsaustin.bsky.social wow, I just found most of the people I like to follow and none of those losers from Twitter who keep badmouthing English teachers!

[Assistant] Isn't it nice to get away from all that nonsense?

[User] Especially the martial arts idiot. I forget his name. What an absolute fool he is!

[Assistant] Entirely. I did my best to block every last one of them but they still come after me every few weeks. I will never understand them.


[User]
My best friend became a mum using solo IVF this year at the age of 42 and it is just the most joyful thing. Her child may not have a bio dad on the scene but has a wonderful uncle and about 100 aunties - including Auntie Hannah and 2 excited honorary cousins

www.theguardian.com/society/2024...

[Assistant] I'm so happy to see women taking their futures and families into their own hands in this way - and not having to make so many compromises just to retain a partnership.

[User] Agreed. A lot of this independence must come from financial independence, therefore limiting women's choice to make this brave call to become a single parent.

[Assistant]
Lovely story, but I WISH that news outlets would stop depicting pregnant women as a giant headless legless belly, as I wrote here @sciam.bsky.social

www.scientificamerican.com/blog/voices/...

[User] That is an incredibly good point and well made.

[Assistant] Thank you.


[User]
Kemi Badenoch will pledge to "review every policy, treaty and part of our legal framework….including the ECHR and the Human Rights Act", in a speech on immigration this afternoon.

She is also expected to say the Tories would introduce "a strict numerical cap" on the numbers entering the UK.

[Assistant] What about tariffs on Canada and Mexico? And abolishing the DFE ? No?

[User] Turning the same old dial.

[Assistant] May as well say shes going to land a snowball on the sun cos theres as much chance of that happening as there is of her winning an election. Shes deluded.

[User] The Tories and Reform should merge. Badenoch is moving the Tories even further to the right. The one consolation for old lefties like me is that she's not very good and has a tendency to open her mouth and let her belly rumble.

[Assistant] Is 0 a number? That’s my guess at the number the mouthy bigot would prefer.


[User] Okay, if you have trouble reaching me for the next few years, it's because I'm daydreaming about racks of vintage Aldens.

[Assistant] Because is @dieworkwear.bsky.social I am years deep into the Japanese denim cult.

[User] I'm not sure how far back the artisanal culture of making denim goes, but a friend of mine was selling vintage Levi's to collectors there from back in the 90s. I once saw him buy a pair at a swap meet in Dallas for $10 that he sold to a Japanese collector for $2500.

[Assistant] And now there is a level deeper I have to dive.


[User] As someone who was discouraged from going into the creative industries but who now works in film and TV, I take every opportunity to point this out to people I know who are already trained in a skill that TV needs, or my friends' children who are wondering what they want to be when they grow up.

[Assistant] Couldn't agree more. But then, there's a report in the paper today saying that 68 percent of freelancers in TV are out of work. So perhaps encourage them with a rider?

[User] You're right, it's pretty dire at the moment. But I do actually think we're turning a corner in terms of commissions, etc. Fingers crossed.

[Assistant] I was told that following my interest in working in special effects was "Not a proper career" and so didn't do anything about it. In hindsight the people who told me that were fucking idiots.

[User] Yep, same old story. I wish I'd had someone, anyone, to encourage me when I was younger.

[Assistant] My dad tried, although he was a bit all over the place. My school, however had a VERY rigid idea of what a valid career path was (about 6 options), and pretty much primed everyone for middle-management.


[User]
I wrote this almost ten years ago, and it's just as true today.

I went online just now to look for a friend, a good friend back in the day, that I hadn't seen for a few years. I always had in the back of my mind that I'd contact her, call her, we'd yak about old times.

[Assistant]
So I went looking. And found her obituary. And her husband's obituary. Neither of which I was expecting since she was twelve years younger than I am. I was stunned.

So I won't get to do it now. I won't get to call her and hear the surprise and fun in her voice upon hearing from me.

[User]
I won't get to yak with her about her graduating from college or getting work in the field she loved.

I won't get to yak with her about the changes she must have had in her life, moving, getting married, etc.
I won't get to yak with her about the myriad changes in my life.

[Assistant]
We won't get to commiserate about my ex-partners or laugh over the antics of my cats. I won't be able to tell her that I missed her. That I loved being her friend and that I wanted those times back.

I won't be able to tell her that I loved her for accepting me for who I am.

[User]
For supporting me in some fairly rough times.

So, please, please,
if you care for someone,
if someone is a good friend,
if you love someone,
let them know.

Don't let it go by another 24 hours.
Email them.
Facebook them.
Twitter them.
Call them.
Group-hug them on the internet.

[Assistant]
Do SOMETHING to let them know that they are loved and that you are connected to them. You may not have the opportunity to do so again.

Do something together. It'll be something that you or the other person(s) will have a memory of, once either of you is gone.


[User]
Thank goodness the #HTTP2 HPACK header compression effectively eradicates those bytes.

Request 1: header values compressed w/ static Huffman encoding table, optimised for ASCII.

Requests >1: Headers cached in a shared dictionary, reducing network cost to only an octet identifier or so.

[Assistant] I've never heard of hpack, I've clearly got research to do.

[User]
It's (one of) the unsung heros of HTTP2.

Vastly improves web performance and no-one can even tell it's happening! 😃

[Assistant] I had a brief look, I'm running nginx. When I get a chance I'll check if I have the module and if it can help save some bytes.


[User]
@bsky.app
What conversation screen? How do I do this?
I’m trying to report a phishing attempt.

[Assistant] Did you click "I understand "? Maybe it takes you to a different screen?

[User] I'm always hesitant to go forward with stuff like this because it starts making me anxious. 🤦♀

[Assistant] I have tried to figure it out and can’t either. All I could guess is they mean one of the dm bubbles but I may have already tried that.


[User]
I just need to practice. A lot. I will watch that video on Decimals tonight again. Then practice a tonne of problems in my book.

Dagda, Athena, Apollo.. please pLEAAAAAAAASE GIMME YOUR WISDOM I AM SO DUMB _SOBS_

[Assistant] Stop calling yourself dumb. You just need more practice, as Gradius would say.

[User]
I got a 10/20 on the GED flash but I remembered it's for people who basically studied everything and want to review.

-SOBS-

Can you still please pray to Athena for me :') or Thoth? The Egyptian God of Wisdom?

[Assistant]
The review number doesn't matter. Don't let that define your intelligence. That's just meant to tell you what you need to work on.

Think of that number as your Hi Score. Then beat it.


[User]
Talks with Russia can only begin if the situation is restored to at least the state of February 23, 2022, says Head of Ukraine's Presidential Office Andriy Yermak in an interview with Dagens industri.
www.di.se/debatt/we-mu...

[Assistant]
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was ready to exchange 630 prisoners
"I would like to draw attention to the fact that the RF leaves it to Ukraine to decide which of the Russian servicemen to include in the exchange," said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova at a briefing. 😲

[User] Should be the borders of 1991!

[Assistant] With the best will in the world, that isn't going to happen without some seismic event within Russia.

[User] So they’re willing to lose Crimea? That makes no strategic sense.

[Assistant] 1991 borders or total collapse of the temporary kremlin terrorist regime 💁


[User] My sister just texted me this. We went here when we were kids bc my dad was briefly living in Germany. We could never find any confirmation of its existence but also knew it wasn't a collective delusion. This is even better and weirder than I expected and I STRONGLY suggest that folks check it out.

[Assistant] We are literally going today! A friend organized a birthday outing for folks around for the holiday (and her birthday is actually today…)

[User]
Holy crap!! Please take a lot of pictures so I can share them with my family.

I mean as with so many things WHAT WERE MY PARENTS THINKING?!!

[Assistant] I plan on bringing my point and shoot camera and will try my best to get the images off it in a timely manner for you 😀


[User] Hey does anyone know the @dalle2_ai / @OpenAI team? I signed up for the beta forever ago as an art history researcher and I still don’t have access. @midjourney got right on it! It’s important for my next book.

[Assistant] If you see this team: avmarraccini@gmail.com — please I just need to start thinking and learning with your interface and prompt system for a while before I can write informed research!

[User] Getting access to DALL-E 2 as a humanities researcher should NOT be harder than seeing a 15thC herbal in the Vatican Library (they’re super helpful FYI and that required zero twitter begging!).

[Assistant] Then again arguably the Vatican does have a longer history of valuing humanistic scholarship 🙃


[User]
This magazine thinks his giant head is for his brain but it's actually an adaptation to her strong thighs.

There's also the possibility all the men in this graph are the same height.

[Assistant] There's also the possibility all the men in this graph are the same height.

[Assistant] I said: Look at the proportion of the stand to the women's height. They ARE getting taller. As God intended.