@jpiterak.bsky.social

@jpiterak.bsky.social

1259 Followers 813 Following

Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. —Voltaire Guess that makes me part of the resistance.

Exchange on Bsky: 1) Lindsey G has got some explaining to do with John McCain tonight on how the hell he became a Trumper. 2) They’re not together. 3) No. No, they are not.
From X. Hunter Biden: I’m not running for office. But if I were, these are some of the lessons I’d take away from what happened in NY yesterday. 1. Authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group from a mile away. 2. Endorsements from the current Democratic leadership now read like warnings. The establishment wing of the party is no longer a sword. It’s a question mark. 3. Conviction beats caution. The candidates that said hard things about rent, about who pays for what, about Gaza, they won. The triangulators lost. 4. Cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper. 5. The middle is not a strategy. It’s an empty room. Voters reached past the establishment to grab someone who actually believes something. 6. Don’t fear the base. Court it. The Democrats that ran from their own voters lost. The ones that ran towards them won. 7. If you want to lead a party, you have to be willing to fight inside it. Mamdani didn’t ask permission. He took the field. The lesson under the lessons: the country is tired of being managed. People want to be led.
Continental US land area vs Europe.
Scene from the movie “They Live”. The protagonist finds sunglasses that show underlying truth… and that the world has been taken over by aliens. In this scene, a police officer is revealed to be an alien - but more importantly for this post - stands in front a billboard that is revealed to say “consume.”
Screenshot of a highlighted section of the paper: “Our explanation is that typical workers’ bargaining power has been intentionally hamstrung by a portfolio of intentional policy decisions on behalf of those with the most income, wealth, and power. Bivens et al. (2014) detail the policy decisions that have sapped typical workers’ bargaining power: the abandonment of a policy commitment to full employment, the policy-induced erosion of labor standards like the minimum wages and institutions such as collective bargaining, and the pursuit of economic globalization in a way guaranteed to damage typical workers.”
Sunset on Cold Storage beach.
Screenshot of the pre-order page for Taylor Swift’s 12th album “The Life of a Showgirl.”
Chinese scientists have developed the best shortest-path algorithm in 41 years! A team from Tsinghua University has broken Dijkstra’s “sorting barrier” — the first improvement since 1984. The new algorithm runs in O(m \log^{2/3} n) time. Potential applications? Faster shorter waits for route calculations, fewer traffic jams, cheaper deliveries, and more efficient computer networks. And, of course, a need to update computer science curricula :)
“If there is a great lesson to be learned from all of the Nazi trials that have taken place, then it can be found here: The line beyond what is morally right and what is not, is far from obvious early on, before the worst of the crimes are committed. It is easily overlooked when everybody else is making the same, wrong decision.”
This one is from the fantastic head bartender at Darfur in South Berwick ME. While her original likely calls for pre-made basil vodka and the blackberry pink peppercorn shrub, this one does a decent job of approximation as a made-to-order drink. Makes: 2 Lowball cocktails. Scale as desired😉 Ingredients: - 4-5 medium basil leaves - 2t pink peppercorns - 8-10 blackberries - 3oz coconut milk - 1/2 lime (juiced) - 1/2t white balsamic vinegar - 4t sugar (segmented) - 2oz coconut rum (Parrot Bay) - 4oz vodka (Tito’s) Directions: - Muddle basil and pink peppercorns with 2t sugar. - Separately, muddle blackberries with 2t sugar. - Strain blackberries through a strainer just narrow enough to capture the seeds. Combine into peppercorn and basil. - Add coconut milk, lime juice and white balsamic vinegar. - Add rum and vodka, adjust sweetness with simple syrup. Notes: - If making the blackberry peppercorn shrub ahead of time, you’ll likely need far less peppercorn. - You’ll also want to strain out the peppercorn bits… In this version the peppercorn stays in to get the right flavor, but some gets through the cocktail strainer. - I made this with light coconut milk, the original is likely made with the full-fat version, which may need a touch less coconut milk.
Thai cocktail from the now-closed Cuchi-Cuchi restaurant in Cambridge, MA Thai Cocktail - 1/2 Lime - 4 tsp sugar - 6-8 Leaves Basil - 3/4" stalk of sliced lemongrass - 1 oz Malibu Rum (Coconut Rum) - 3 oz Citrus Vodka - Champagne or Seltzer floater Instructions: - Muddle Basil and lemongrass with sugar - Add 1/2 lime, and muddle - Add liquor and shake until sugar dissolved - Pour over ice - Top with Champagne or Seltzer
Screenshot of post from Pentagon Pizza Report showing spike in pizza deliveries to the Pentagon last night. There are 3 entries on their feed that imply something was going on there.
BBC article with headline “SpaceX rocket explodes, raining debris from the sky for second time in a row.”
Screenshot of the upstream poster's comment: "Fun fact? Not a single authoritarian dictator that was elected peacefully was ever removed peacefully." Highlighting the section 'authoritarian dictator that was elected peacefully'. Meaning, of course, that because the Soviet Union did not elect a dictator peacefully, it does not count under this fun fact. That said, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was hardly peaceful. While some client countries had relatively bloodless transitions, others like Ceaușescu in Romania were far less so. Russia itself ended up with Putin and the oligarchs taking over the country through a series of false-flag terrorist attacks and mafia wars.
AfD support level map in the recent German elections. Shows ~10-15% in most areas except the former East Germany, where support was into the 30+% range. From The Independent.
Woodcut image of an axe embedded in a stump, in a forest with many stumps - from Rick Frausto. Text above is a Turkish proverb: “The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them.”
Diagram that shows the complex interplay between genetics, hormones, and other biological functions — leading to sex.
George Orwell quote from the novel 1984: “If you want a picture of the future, imaging a boot stamping on a human face — for ever.
Screenshot of the the 📌 ‘pinned’ feed, showing my response to poster’s post, because I used a pin icon in the post…
Screenshot showing the ridiculous 408 tabs I currently have open in my phone browser. Here’s to hoping there are others with more…
Screenshot of an error message for https://shopthehood.store, showing that their load balancing reverse proxy has likely been overloaded.
A three-bottle Jaegermeister chilling tap, pouring the vile concoction into a frosted shot glass.
Commadore 64 computer, attached to a Commadore tape drive, joy stick controller, and a television.