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Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 8h

Mr Japan appears to be wearing a traditional man's jinbaori [shoulders and fur] over a woman's uchikake [sleeves]. All in pretty femme colours and designs: the hakama trousers are a masc garment and the hex pattern is masculine too... but normally in more subdued colours.

all very queer.

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Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 9h

The problem with US senate reform is that with gerrymandering the US HoR doesn't currently have sufficiently-meaningful elections.

[also as an australian I *like* strong upper houses, which have served us well once they shifted to PR]

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Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 13h

They made a TV series of Ben Elton's novel _Stark_!

Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 14h

If you're wash trading for money laundering you need the firm to collapse completely: if there's any remaining shareholder value the recievers will try to find who the owners are, and if it's "you, but spendimg stolen money" that's not what you want.

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Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 14h

Something I haven't pointed out for a little while is that in the US party affiliation is a matter of government record, which will make the US lustration process a bit different to previous ones, possibly more pervasive or extensive.

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Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 14h

Anyone know free sources of sheet music for chinese folk songs? nothing too hard. Western notation preferred, but I can cope with basic stuff in jianpu or gongche.

Reposted by Louis Patterson

Kate Atherley @kateatherley.bsky.social · 17h

So excited to read this. Get your own copy here shop.ninetenpublications.ca/products/the...

A hand, mostly out of frame, rests on a modestly sized book. The book is titled The Magic of Pockets: A feminist's guide to adding pockets to clothing that really should have pockets to begin with.

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Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 16h

the number of "chinese gate" images that google image search gives me that are drawings of torii is... higher than it should be.

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Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 16h

See, under australian tax law, companies only get taxed [essentially] on the profits they don't pay as dividends, so you need positive cash flow to claim profitability and bubbles deflate much faster.

there is a *lot* of "investor" pressure to alter this system.

["dividend imputation"]

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Reposted by Louis Patterson

John B @johnb78.bsky.social · 19h

It doesn't matter how despised or despicable they are: if the state can't protect people in its custody from being murdered that's a very bad sign about broader state capacity and rule of law

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Reposted by Louis Patterson

Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 1d

The World Fantasy Convention will be meeting in Brighton at the end of the month and I hope they’ll be considering Trump’s health report released after his six-monthly annual examination yesterday.

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Reposted by Louis Patterson

Philip Purser-Hallard @purserhallard.com · 1d

It occurs to me that the Doctor's polyethnic identity in recent times recontextualises Peter Davison's casting in quite an interesting way.
(For context, although you'd be unlikely to guess it by looking at him, Davison's paternal family is Guyanese. He has close relatives who are visibly Black.)

Peter Davison, a fair-skinned blond man, as the fifth Doctor, circa 1982.

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Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 1d

[the railways here got a pile of money after the war that had to be spent in the UK for foreign-exchange reasons, and decided that UK diesels were so shit they'd rather buy steam. So there's a lot of operational steam locos around here, they were still nearly new when they were withdrawn]

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Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 1d

There's a lot of steam tours around melbourne, and most of them pass through my local station. Might get two of these a month but even so *everyone* stops and stares, as is proper.

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Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 1d

US urban rail services were always underdeveloped, they didn't want to transport poor people so the services they *did* provide were to upper-middle-class gits who were the first to shift to private cars. Always thought racism was a huge factor here.

Reposted by Louis Patterson

rowan kaiser @rowan.monster · 2d

I'd really appreciate if writers these days took a look at their characters doing therapyspeak and whether that's appropriate for their work and their world.

By "therapyspeak" I mean speaking like this: "This is the emotion I'm feeling, and feeling that emotion makes me want to act in a way"

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Reposted by Louis Patterson

rowan kaiser @rowan.monster · 2d

So if a character begins their story with the ability to isolate their emotions and then explain how those emotions make them behave, there's no real drama to how they interact, and no interesting subtext for what they say or do.

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Reposted by Louis Patterson

rowan kaiser @rowan.monster · 2d

the solution here is relatively simple at least: remove the part of their expression where a character is able to isolate their emotions and describe how that makes them want to speak or act, and simply have them speak or act that way. Congrats, you've got subtext at that point!

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Reposted by Louis Patterson

Adam @kels316.bsky.social · 1d

read this morning that China has 150 car brands. If your next car isn't Chinese you're buying a fucken dud.

EV Curve Futurist @evcurvefuturist.com · 2d

BYD just hit its 14 millionth NEV and overtook Tesla (total 7 million) in global #BEV sales for the first time — 1.6 M vs 1.2 M YTD 2025, a 400 K lead. The world’s top #EV maker isn’t in California anymore — it’s in Shenzhen, driving the new electric era. Geely rising fast also. #EnergyTransition

BYD's 14 millionth NEV rolls off line at Brazil plant, delivered to President Lula

The rollout of BYD's 14 millionth NEV comes about 11 months after its 10 millionth vehicle.

cnevpost.com

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Reposted by Louis Patterson

squidpizza @squidpizza.art · 1d

I don’t remember where I read this but some book compared their delicate little flowers on long stalks to the white flag of truce and that always stuck with me.

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Reposted by Louis Patterson

Jonathan Healey @jonathanhealey.bsky.social · 2d

It was two OUP books.

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Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 2d

Lol.

Emily @suika.bsky.social · 2d

BREAKING:

"Japan's Komeito party will leave the ruling coalition led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), public broadcaster NHK reported on Friday, casting uncertainty over the LDP's ability to govern as Sanae Takaichi takes over as new leader."

www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...

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Reposted by Louis Patterson

Possum @pollytics.bsky.social · 2d

The LNP world hasn't been able to find their political arse with a map, a GPS system and a set of directions for a while now because they became deprofessionalised. But Labor's excuse is purely one of their own comfort with low horizons, and only having to beat the incompetence in front of them.

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Louis Patterson @theboatend.bsky.social · 2d

You buy early with clean money and then sell to your dirty money at IPO. But it has to collapse with no value or the recievers will try to find the beneficial owner of your dirty money to give the 0.5% payout, and that would be Bad.

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Reposted by Louis Patterson

l'Esprit de l'Escalier @espritescalier.bsky.social · Jun 13

Come friendly cops who drive in Slough!
He won’t be driving round it now,
Without a licence, anyhow.
Oy son, you’re nicked!
For forty years and four they say
Without a licence every day
He drove about the streets of Bray
The Law was tricked.
It's not his fault he did not know
They PCN’ed him on their radio,
It's not his fault he often goes
To Maidenhead
And puts false plates upon his car
To go to various Berkshire bars
And daren't look at the camera cars
But hides instead.
Come, friendly cops who drive in Slough
You’re on the evening news just now.
You caught him, though God knows quite how;
He’s off to jail.

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