Potempkin Village Idiot

@ixak.bsky.social

104

Posts

Anthropologist fighting existential terror w/ existential counter-terrorism. I'm the soft underbelly of the cutting edge. Working on climate change resilience, local governance, international development, urban gardening, tool repair & immigration advocacy

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Potempkin Village Idiot

yes, we boiled the planet, but it was worth it to make a machine that, instead of adding two plus two, takes the statistical average of every answer to questions containing "what" "is" "two" and "plus" from a database of illegal cell phone transcripts and returns a fake nude pic of a high schooler

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Potempkin Village Idiot

The Democratic Party’s reaction to their candidate having a bad debate substantially outpaces the Republican Party’s reaction to their candidate being convicted of multiple felonies, held liable for rape, and owing judgments in the hundreds of millions for defamation and fraud.

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Potempkin Village Idiot

Reply to

Amanda Smith

“Why am I uncomfortable” is a great question that will force you to acknowledge things like “seeing tents on the sidewalk reminds me of my own comfort” or “not gendering abortion feels like it’s taking something from me.” It hasn’t made me a perfect person but it’s made me a more compassionate one.

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Potempkin Village Idiot

I am once again asking you to consider that an entire information ecosystem established as the primary form of communication over a hundred years and allegedly regulated by the federal government was destroyed by scammers virtually overnight and we just don’t, like, ever talk about it

The first rule of avoiding scam calls is to never answer unknown numbers, and even some known ones. Curious? Bored? Worried it’s an emergency? Wait the extra minute it takes for the call to go to voice mail, then decide if it’s legitimate.

Sick of scams? Stop answering your phone.www.washingtonpost.com Phone scams are still hugely popular — and they depend entirely on people curious enough to answer.

I would like a Pandora/Spotify channel that is 100% the songs that people spontaneously make up and sing to their dogs at feeding time.

Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-law. But always meeting ourselves. #bloomsday

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Potempkin Village Idiot

Reply to

NPR

To everyone in a similar scenario: the tactic my doctor's office has taught me is to ask, in writing, for: 1) the name, board specialty, and license number of the doctor making the determination the treatment was not medically necessary;

I made musubi yesterday (with and without egg). And then it occurred to me - musubi is basically an uncooked open-faced arancini, right?

It's been 8 years since I was in #Tanzania. Interestingly, the super-popular local gin there is commonly sold in single serving ketchup-style packets.

Listening to the song "Rainbow Connection" and I suddenly understood something more deeply: Most of the Muppets are freaks and weirdos. Kermit isn't. He's just a dreamer. But he hangs out with all the freaks and weirdos, because they believe he can make his own dreams come true when others don't.

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Potempkin Village Idiot

Reply to

Charlie Stross

Yep. I messed up my mental health for months last year documenting who gets arrested for sex crimes versus children. By the time I stopped, the ratio for confirmed political affiliation was 129:9, conservative to American liberal. Broadening it out to secondary indicators got to 294:11.

I was born with a silver foot in my mouth.

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Potempkin Village Idiot

This is why they spend a half billion a year on union busting

My son just taught himself to ride a bike. He was pretty annoyed with his training wheels & the other day at his cousin's house, my brother-in-law handed him a bike so he just rode away on it. Brother-in-law called & apologized for depriving me of a classic dad/son moment.

Last Saturday I built a small tool shed in the community garden near me. Two nights later someone was murdered there. ixak.substack.com/p/gardens-an...

Gardens and Gunsixak.substack.com Last Saturday I built a small tool shed in the community garden near me. Two nights later someone was murdered there. It was a simple act of ruthless brutality. Four bullets fired in rapid succession ...

Question for the group: In "Nightswimming," the #REM song about skinny dipping, Michael Stipe says: "I'm pining for the moon. And what if there were two side by side in orbit around the fairest sun? That bright, tight forever drum." He's talking about butt-cheeks, right?

We have discovered that when my son wears his Sonic the Hedgehog hoodie backwards it gives him the appearance of a small eldritch beast. Sort of a Lil' Cthulie vibe

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Potempkin Village Idiot

A second Trump administration will be all the bad things you hate about Biden, but made worse, on purpose. But you can protect yourself from that, by voting for Biden. It's not perfect, but perfect choices don't show up very often in life.

Nine years ago, today, I was in Zambia. For some reason when I remembered that, I then remembered a local Zambian gentleman telling me, unprompted: "You can always recognize Americans, because they are so generous - even when it is inappropriate."

In celebration of this, here's the storyboards for my 7-year-old son's script for Tron 3.

fantastic advice from @beckyandfrank.com 🙂 (on @meganroseruiz.bsky.social's thread 🙂)

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Potempkin Village Idiot

If you saw someone claim “the UN halved their death count for Gaza”, you may be shocked to find out they’re either misinformed or lying. The UN simply made a distinction between identified and unidentified bodies. The number of dead human bodies remains unchanged. www.reuters.com/world/middle...

I finished building a tool shed for the community garden two days ago, and in a classic #baltimore twist someone was shot in front of it last night.

Scored eleven really nice antique Disston hand saws this morning. Now I need to hide them from my wife until I figure out what I'm doing with them.

If I had the ability to remember people's names I would be too powerful to control.

Between this and RFK jr's brainwoms, I'm just excited to hear what part three of the "random shit in people's brains" trifecta is.

In case you missed it, bits of the brain implant have broken loose and are floating around in the dude's brain. They think it's because the surgery introduced AIR into the dude's BRAIN. I'm sure it'll be fine. arstechnica.com/science/2024...

Elon Musk’s Neuralink reports trouble with first human brain chiparstechnica.com It's unclear what caused the retraction or how many threads have become displaced.

For your edification, I present a very small twig (less than 2") covered with teeny #mushrooms.

My excitement about my new job is steadily being replaced by my persistent dislike for work in general. This seems to be a pattern.

The fundamental problem with modern Zionism is that it believes "Never Again" only applies to Jews.

My wife referred to my son's axolotl hat as an ocelot hat, and she is now on indefinite time-out.

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Potempkin Village Idiot

Gonna have to say, that’s a “yes” from me, dog.