@betsythemuffin.bsky.social

@betsythemuffin.bsky.social

375 Followers 1363 Following

Autodidactic to a fault, always. Nolite te bastardes carborundum. Technically not a Hugo Award winner. she/they. Former software developer retraining in green (bio)chemistry. Techno-optimist; hopepunk. Towards partially automated luxury for all.

A recipe for zucchini and halloumi, roasted. Too lengthy to retype in full but available in Ruby Tandoh’s Cook as You Are
a screenshot of the studiotommmy.co instragram. The image says "wtf is happening" superimposed over a partial view of a person in death's head makeup. The caption reads "Full site blackout 6/11. Resurrected 6/12."
iMessage containing the text: ellen, what would it take to git gud at building public transit out on a pure physical infra level
XKCD comic showing two stick figures in conversation. The left figure, a person with a ponytail, says: "Silicate chemistry is second nature to us geochemists, so it's easy to forget that the average person probably only knows the formulas for olivine and one or two feldspars." Her interlocutor replies: "And quartz, of course." The left figure acknowledges: "Of course." Bottom text reads: "Even when they're trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person's familiarity with their field."
A computer can never be held accountable; therefore a computer must never make a management decision.
14. I don't know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him and they just shot him.
Anti-YIMBYs on the Left will sometimes deride the transition from a discretionary to a ministerial process as "deregulatory," because it smooths the path for more private construction. But ministerial review does not intrinsically mean less regulation-that depends entirely on the objective standards that become part of the review process. In a sense, ministerial review could be understood to require a strongerregulatory apparatus because it shifts the locus of decision-making from project-by-project haggling to real citywide planning.
that famous painting of Sherman's March. We bring the jubilee, fuckers.
A tabby cat with an inquiring look; inquiry likely categorizable as "where is the food?"
A wide-eyed tabby cat sits on an organic chemistry textbook
a black-footed cat carrying a dead bird by the neck, look of fierce triumph in its eyes. One of the bird's wings is extended, demonstrating that that single wing is as large as the cat.
Painting of Sherman leading the march into a burning city.
A blobby, semi-anthropomorphic figure saying "oh no."
Movie screencap from All the President's Men. A backlit man in a parking garage, with the subtitle "The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand."
Norman Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech." A working-class-coded man stands up to speak at a public meeting.
THROUGHOUT THIS PERIOD, the deregulation of mortgage finance was justified and sold as a means to make housing affordable and give everyone a slice of the American dream. The way in which that process was supposed to manifest was just as obscure and technical as zoning laws and mandatory parking minimums. It involved allowing Wall Street to dominate how housing got built and mortgages got sold. Unbounded by rules to protect borrowers and the financial system, it eventually imploded.
The painting _Freedom of Speech_ by Norman Rockwell. A man in blue-collar clothing stands up in a crowd, implied to be at a town meeting.
A sample Washington DC license plate. The motto underneath the license letters is "End taxation without representation."
A graph of Tesla's stock price for the past five years, highlighting that 5 years ago it was $28.50 a share -- about an order of magnitude lower than its current price.
Man with cigarette saying "The truth is, these aren't very bright guys, and things got out of hand." Screen grab from "All The President's Men."
Text-only: "A computer can never be held accountable. Therefore, a computer must never make a management decision."
Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, by Pamela Dean. The title dominates the cover, over a background of stylized stars, as though through a high-powered telescope. Images of the titular plants are composited on to this background, with proto-steampunk clockwork. There is a strong, but not bad, air of early-90s Photoshop.
Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, by Martin Luther King Jr. Cover contains a group photograph with MLK at the center. Approximately two dozen other African-American people, mostly men, crowd around him.
Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold. A head-and-neck shot of a man in a military uniform, with his face's silhouette filled in by misty, low-contrast flashback sequences.
Cover of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness. An ice sculpture containing a stereotypically feminine and stereotypically masculine face, staring in opposite directions like the head of Janus. Background is more icy, spiky terrain, and behind it a black sky with wispy clouds and an unknown planet.