Author | Lightnews

Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 5h

Also, come on, if you don't like the website where you're posting your public conversation and don't want other people involved, maybe use a messaging service? When you shout on a street corner people notice. 🤷‍♂️

Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 5h

I just saw a conversation where someone said it wasn't the right topic for an illiterate website, and everyone participating danced around the subject avoiding specifics, and this is how you:

1) Keep people illiterate,
2) Build the Ivory Tower mythos,
3) Exclude interested people.

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 6h

One of the many reasons I dislike the movies is they made this explicitly magical when it wasn't. It was a warning against doomers and bad counselors. Wormtongue wasn't a wizard, he was James Carville.

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 8h

Oh, and I almost forgot: Mom went to the same military high school in Germany as Priscilla Not Yet Presley. She was a senior while Priscilla was a freshman. So she got to meet Elvis when he showed up in his limo to take a child on dates. 🤢

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 9h

My grandfather and great-uncle were both in the intelligence community, one USAF and the other civilian. I'm two hops away from Presidents, generals, and nameless Stasi agents. Oh, and von Braun. Unfortunately I haven't yet figured out how to translate these connections into money. 😅

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 1d

This is really neat on multiple levels, but I find it strange that I recognize almost all of these candies. I'm diabetic and have food allergies, I think the last candy I ate was some Reese's Pieces 20 years ago. When I was a kid there were new candies every few months, it seemed. What happened?

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 1d

And we have now progressed from data analysis to policy recommendations.

I told her that we'd calculate the cash value of her candy haul, that I'd ask her to raid her piggy bank and donate 1/3 the candy cash value to a local food bank, and that I'd add on a 5X match.

The final candy bar graph, with my 11-year-old recoding the tallies in her journal and calculating their value

Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 2d

There was already a flying car in a James Bond movie, so... is this when I should use the "so I put blank in your blank" meme?

Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 2d

I've been watching the old Universal monster movies all month. Today was the original Nosferatu, and tonight Bram Stoker's Dracula, starring Gary Oldman, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and Keanu Reeves' and Winona Ryder's terrifying accents.

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 2d

No, then they'd find a way to claim she was dressed inappropriately and that caused the wreck.

Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 2d

People who write articles like this should be made to live in monastic cells on tightly controlled budgets and given strong electric shocks of it seems like they enjoy anything. 🧐

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 2d

“At the same time, more than half of Gen Z members say they are struggling to make ends meet, yet a majority buy themselves a small treat, such as a pastry, coffee, or sweet, at least once a week. That can lead to overspending…”

archive.ph/2TI8J

Why are young people spending so much money?

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 2d

It's no accident that these things are happening only now that very few people with direct experience of Nazis remain to warn us. My grandfather taught me to treat Nazism as a deadly plague. Anyone carrying the signs must be assumed to be infected. The risk is too great for anything else.

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 3d

According to a news article I found, her net worth is about $50 million. She actually donated an amount meaningful *to her*. I'm impressed! So much celebrity philanthropy translates to a normal person dropping their pocket change in a donation bucket at the grocery store.

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 3d

Alt text is descriptive text for the visually impaired and people who have slow internet connections. It is not added space for little jokes.

The key words here are "visually" and "impaired." Many of us CAN'T FUCKING SQUINT HARDER.

Use alt text correctly, people. 🧐

Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 3d

This is hilariously awful and we should absolutely mock everyone who thinks it's a good thing, but we should also remember that "AI" is not constant. Remember when you could always spot it because still images of people had three noses and thirteen fingers? They keep polishing the turds.

𝔻𝕒𝕟 [spooky pun] 🎃🍻🐦‍⬛ @danmynrd.bsky.social · 4d

AI sitcom accidentally a Lynchian fever dream. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and insane lament.

Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 3d

Would it be possible to get a shipment to the US if I pay the ridiculous tariffs and fees and agree in writing that if customs tears it into little pieces it's my problem not yours? I'm sorry if asking is an annoyance. I love your art, hate what is happening, and don't want to miss this last chance.

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 4d

One reason I keep saying that people need to stop giving Nazis the benefit of the doubt is because giving Nazis the benefit of the doubt makes you a Nazi.

Francesca Fiorentini @franifio.bsky.social · 4d

Anyway, I guess I blew the blue MAGA Conch shell for asking for a bit of nuance. Cancel on, fam.

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 4d

I also find it hilarious that this guy with 66,000 followers is complaining that his bad take "broke containment." 🙄

Anyway, music is for entertainment. People need to stop acting like it has to be the Iliad or it's garbage.

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 4d

I'm biased because this is the music of my youth, but even so I don't think there's a single genuinely bad song on that list. Certainly not enough to be "literally the worst." Even the songs I don't like and the ones by an actual monster are, viewed reasonably, pretty decent music. 🤷‍♂️

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 4d

I'm horrified that the writer and apparently an editor thought that giving Nazis multiple opportunities to sexually assault or murder the writer was a good way to learn about them.

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 4d

The primary is a year away. There are people in Maine who don't have Nazi tattoos. People need to stop giving Nazis the benefit of the doubt.

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 4d

What is? With no alt text, what are people supposed to glean from "worth remembering" and the knowledge that there's an image of some kind? Is it something that only affects sighted people? 🧐

Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 5d

A couple of friends and I used to call each other "filthy Smuckers" on the 3rd-grade playground for this exact reason (until the principal banned our minor shenanigans).

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 5d

It's honestly one of the reasons I don't watch. I played Little League on a team so bad our only win was a forfeit, but we *tried*, every damn time. If you can't muster the fighting spirit of a bunch of kids who are catastrophically bad and know it, what are you doing taking money to play this game?

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Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 6d

What if my strong feeling is that I'm too old for whatever the kids these days are into so I'm going to go do something else? 😅

Kyle D. Long @blatherscribe.bsky.social · 7d

Alt text on images is the text read by screen readers. It's intended for a description of the image for people with visual impairments or slow Internet connections. Don't use it as a warehouse for extra information, that's even worse than not using it at all.