@rst.bsky.social

@rst.bsky.social

267 Followers 288 Following

Manifesto poster for Count Binface, with planks such as "Cap the price of a croissant" and "Build a space bridge at Northallerton", and the slogan described at the bottom.
Ringo Starr commenting on his results for a "What Beatle are you?" quiz on Facebook, which gave him John Lennon. "Well, this is bulls**t!"
Chotiner: It was close to succeeding, and then you guys were stabbed in the back. Riklin: Exactly. And we don't understand why. You understand that they are Nazis. What happened to you?
Lt. Columbo asking some too-clever-for-their-own-good perp just one more thing.
Quote from Douglas Adams, in "The Salmon of Doubt": Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
Quote from NYT op-ed by Shira Efron, a RAND fellow from Tel Aviv: "But Israelis make a big mistake in treating every new critic as an antisemite. Much criticism stems from Israel’s behavior: in addition to images of devastation and hungry children in Gaza, as part of Israel’s brutal response to the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, the world now often sees footage of settlers torching Palestinian homes in the West Bank and reads about Israeli soldiers looting living rooms in Lebanon. Although these incidents represent a small fraction of Israeli conduct, they are framed through a social justice lens and amplified by social media."
Two tweets. Bobby Allyn: ai identified the parallel passages. i manually checked them myself. the passages above were copy and pasted by me from your stories and the pieces that had text lifted, so it’s not “an AI curated excerpt” Ross Barkan: Right, but you clearly never bothered to read the column where Juan's reporting is credited directly *by name*. (You don't screencap that, conveniently.) I am allowed, as a columnist building on *his* reporting, to cite facts. Especially when he's credited.
Pope Leo in full regalia, holding a baseball bat on an airplane for some reason.
Completely trashed USAF E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft, with the tail severed completely from the fuselage.
These capabilities have emerged very quickly. Last month, we wrote that “Opus 4.6 is currently far better at identifying and fixing vulnerabilities than at exploiting them.” Our internal evaluations showed that Opus 4.6 generally had a near-0% success rate at autonomous exploit development. But Mythos Preview is in a different league. For example, Opus 4.6 turned the vulnerabilities it had found in Mozilla’s Firefox 147 JavaScript engine—all patched in Firefox 148—into JavaScript shell exploits only two times out of several hundred attempts. We re-ran this experiment as a benchmark for Mythos Preview, which developed working exploits 181 times, and achieved register control on 29 more.
NYT headline asking if people who buy $34 hamburgers deserve free childcare
The shootings at Kent State are closer to the end of World War I than to today.
Quote from H.L. Mencken's "On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe": "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Tweet from "PHREUTERS", apparently the X account of their staffer, Parisa Hafezi: "(Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call with US President Donald Trump on Monday and shared his proposals, aimed at a quick settlement to the Iran war, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters."
Quote from the Iranian FM: President Pezeshkian's openness to de-escalation within our region—provided that our neighbors' airspace, territory, and waters are not used to attack the Iranian People—was almost immediately killed by President Trump's misinterpretation of our capabilities, determination and intent. If Mr. Trump seeks escalation, it is precisely what our Powerful Armed Forces have long been prepared for, and what he will get. Responsibility for any intensification of Iran's exercise of self-defense will lie squarely with the U.S. Administration. Mr. Trump's week-long misadventure has already cost the U.S. military $100 Billion, in addition to the lives of young soldiers. When markets reopen, that cost will balloon and directly be transferred to ordinary Americans at pumping stations. Mr. Trump's own National Intelligence Council, representing input from the 18 intelligence agencies of the U.S., determined that war on Iran is destined to fail. I also warned Mr. Trump's envoys that war will not improve their bargaining position. Were these warnings conveyed? The American People voted to end involvement in costly quagmires in the Middle East. Instead, they have ended up with an Administration that Netanyahu, after decades of failed attempts, finally managed to dupe into fighting Israel's wars. This is a war of choice pursued by a small cabal of 'Israel Firsters', and 'Israel First' always means 'America Last'.
Quote from H.L. Mencken's "On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe": "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
X post from NickyFrank30: "My grandfather used to say, 'and Magda Goebbels made a great strudel', and I never knew what it meant until after he died my grandmother explained some magazine did a fluff interview with Magda Goebbels a few years before WW@ that included her strudel recipe and my grandfather, who hated the Nazis ... though it was an example of the media sanitizing evil people ..."
Excerpt from Financial Times article on bankers after the 2024 election: "Even the way people on Wall Street talk and interact is changing. Bankers and financiers say that Trump's victory has emboldened those who chafed at 'woke doctrine' and felt they had to self-censor or change their language to avoid offending younger colleagues, women, minorities or disabled people. 'I feel liberated', said a top banker. 'We can say 'retard' and 'pussy' without the fear of getting cancelled... it's a new dawn.'"
Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
Luthen Rael and Kleya Marki from Andor
Text: A baker guards a secret oven’s heat, its whirling racks, its spindle’s measured beat. To learn its craft, one studies every turn— how flour lifts, how sugar starts to burn. Describe the method, line by measured line, that shapes a cake whose layers intertwine
Green painted #1 train at 125th Street.
Elon dressed in black tie, making the Doctor Evil finger gesture and holding a stuffed white cat.
Picture of Donald Trump awkwardly trying to play tennis, showing both his face and his... physique.
Propaganda poster from Vichy France, which shows Nazi puppet leader Philippe Petain (a World War I war hero who died in disgrace), and asks "Do you understand better than him the problems of our time?"
Tweet from hedge fund dude Bill Ackman saying, in response to someone making Qasim's point, "I disagree. Sliwa staying in convinced many Cuomo voters it was a foregone conclusion so they didn’t vote. If Sliwa had dropped, Cuomo could have won."
Tweet from @RichAzzopardi claiming "Ok, I’ll just say it: Word on the street is that @CurtisSliwa isn’t getting out because he made a deal with @ZohranKMamdani ."
A graph labeled "Every graph about the US", with two curves labeled "good thing" and "bad thing", which stay level on the left, then cross with "bad thing" going up after a dotted line labeled "Ronald Reagan".
Summer Glau, playing a reprogrammed terminator from the TV Show "The Sarah Connor Chronicles"
Large tower in Brooklyn with the sun in the sky immediately above, looking astoundingly like the Dark Tower from the Lord of the Rings movies.
Signage for a new store saying it's going to be a "mandate legal AI companion retailer", which is somehow "the future of touch". Wtf?
White House afire in the War of 1812.
North Korean news anchor Ri Chun-Hee, who tells the people everything the government wants them to know.
Elon Musk making a "Doctor Evil" finger gesture, in formal dress while holding a plushie of a white cat. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/192701084932907009
Saddam Hussein's information minister, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, who stuck to his line about how the American invasion of Iraq was doomed as it overran the country. In one of his last broadcasts, he claimed there were no American forces nearby, even though sharp-eyed viewers could see Abrams tanks moving around a few hundred yards behind him.
Tweet from "Whale Watch by Moby" informing readers that a $FARTCOIN whale just bought $29.97K of $TROLL.
Cute little kid asking "why not both?"
Adrian Vermuele on Twitter, August 11, 2025: "The whole crime discourse is annoying because some people are talking about crime in the strict legal sense, and some are talking about pervasive social disorder which does not necessarily result in any "crime" in the strict legal sense -- in part because under disordered conditions, those who are at risk of becoming victims of crime take extraordinary precautions in disordered public spaces or simply avoid them altogether. The first group then recites statistics about crime in the strict sense, overlooking that the second group is talking about ambient social disorder, and that the distortion that arises from such disorder is itself deeply corrosive for communities and the common good."
Eugen Rochko (who runs the Mastodon software project and personally operates the flagship mastodon.social server) discussing the Mississippi age law -- acknowledging that people hosting a server might "technically" be in violation, but saying that "fediverse operators across themselves get to [decide] for themselves" whether to risk prosecution. He's risking it personally -- mastodon.social is still available in Mississippi with no age verification, let alone the required audit machinery -- but he's at least a little better equipped to withstand a legal challenge than the operator of a small hobby instance.
Eugen responds to someone asking "aren't I breaking Mississippi law if I host a Mastodon instance with no age verification that people in MS can access?" by saying "The question is, do you care? ... fediverse operators across the world get to make that decision for themselves."
Picture of a bedroom from Saddam's palace in Tikrit, with gold-trimmed rococo furniture but without Trump's ghastly overload of moldings and filigree on the walls.
Pretzel Logic album cover (Steely Dan)
The New Yorkistan cover of the New Yorker, in which the East Village is Khouks and the Financial District, Moolahs. (Staten Island as a whole is simply "Stan".)
1970s TV set, featuring large channel selector dial and screen with curved edges on all four sides (very characteristic of CRT TV sets, not so much of microwave ovens).
Godzilla movie still, with Mothra approaching and Dr. Serizawa saying "let them fight".
Tweet from the ADL's twitter account saying "The term 'Shylock' evokes a centuries-old antisemitic trope about Jews and greed that is extremely offensive and dangerous. President Trump's use of the term is very troubling and irresponsible. It underscores how lies and conspiracies about Jews remain deeply entrenched in our country. Words form our leaders matter and we expect more from the President of the United States."
Bill Ackman on Twitter, 4:44 PM EDT Jun 25: "The below [NYPOST] story is totally false. I like @ericadamsfornyc and may ultimately support and endorse him, but I have not yet made any decision about whom to support for mayor of NYC."
KC-135 refueling an F-15
Tweet from Mayor Bass thanking "LAPD and local law enforcement", and Governor Newsom, while noting that "Just to be clear, the National Guard has not been deployed in the City of Los Angeles."
Elon on Twitter offering "food for thought" to Republicans: "Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years ..."
Newsom splayed out on a rug with then-spouse Kimberly Guilfoyle (later of Fox News and the Trump family), with backdrops of decidedly Trumpian faux-luxe furniture.
Picture of the IBM 5100, a 1970s-style 55 pound "luggable" computer with no battery, a tiny CRT screen at top left of the full-sized keyboard, and a QIC cartridge tape drive to the right of the screen.
Tweet from "AP4Liberty", following up the two screenshotted below, saying "Trump was still the best option, Doug".
Duke Ellington in top hat and white tie.
Tweet depicting two top contenders for the next papacy -- Peter Turkson (Ghanaian) and Luis Antonio Tagle (Filipino). With followup whining "Oh, great - a DEI pope to match the times."
Screenshot of a @CAgovernor tweet saying "The Golden State and Canada have always shared so much in common. Sure, you-know-who is trying to stir things up back in DC, but don't let that ruin your vacation plans. We're launching a new international campaign to welcome and encourage Canadians to visit the Golden State."