Toby
banner
dandrobium.bsky.social
Toby
@dandrobium.bsky.social
I grow orchids, love RPGs and try to be the best parent possible. he, il, lui, er, él
Reposted by Toby
WATCH: If you really STILL don’t understand how car-dependent suburbia is HEAVILY SUBSIDIZED by downtown & all the urban parts of your city, please watch this EXCELLENT video by #NotJustBikes helped by #UrbanThree & @StrongTowns.org. And then please SHARE it as much as possible. youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI
November 22, 2025 at 4:57 PM
This really looks like an 8000 year old horror story.

Or an RPG prompt.
Part 165 of 200 in historically interesting things to inspire your ttrpg

An 8,000-year-old cave painting at Pla de Petracos in Spain
November 18, 2025 at 2:59 AM
#orchids related, but not a flower. A post flower if you will. An orchid seed pod open with seeds visible. Orchid seed is dust like. So if someone is trying to sell you orchid seeds that are visible, it’s a scam.
November 15, 2025 at 4:42 AM
I love this image of Shamash and Akkadian temples.
I laid hands on Jean Bóttero’s Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia and the best summary of how he describes Akkadian relationship with their Gods from a variety of original sources is “pants shitting existential terror.”

Like - here’s this temple and let us put it… super… high up… out of the way….
November 12, 2025 at 1:58 AM
!!!!!
When I moved to Georgia in 2014, Dems held exactly zero statewide seats and hadn’t for years, maybe decades, I don’t remember. Now both senate seats are held by Democrats and now two more!?! Wow.
The latest, 11pm:

—Prop 50 wins
—VA Dems flip Gov, LG, AG; & gain in House
—Dems win NJ-Gov
—Mamdani wins
—PA Dems win supreme court
—ME vote-restricting measure loses
—Krasner & Bragg win
—JD's half-brother loses
—GA Dems flip 2 statewide offices
+ Dem are leading to flip so many local offices.
November 5, 2025 at 4:25 AM
Reposted by Toby
Let's move on to our full #PoliticalLessonPost today. This is where I take lessons my mom gave me and provide them to you as the political education I've found lots of people didn't get.

Got reminded talking to a co-worker I know about information tools that may not be common knowledge.
November 2, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by Toby
One of the things I'm thinking about today is something I got in trouble for years ago that I still stand by.

Very few people are actually good or evil. And that makes them far more dangerous. And in order to change things in the world you don't try to change hearts and minds.

You change rules.
October 31, 2025 at 3:10 PM
This story- and this chapter in particular- lives in my head daily. I think about what I would do.
(I would die)

It’s very good.
October 31, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Toby
Happy to contribute to @notusperspectives.bsky.social on ways to fix housing policy. My take: make it easier to build homes of all shapes & sizes in more communities by legalizing diverse structures & simplifying complex regulations.
www.notus.org/perspectives...
What is the biggest fix the U.S. needs when it comes to housing policy?
Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ingrid Gould Ellen, Michael Lens, Rebecca Patterson, Sonja Trauss, Rosanne Haggerty, Neera Tanden, Jenny Schuetz, Ganesh Sitaraman
www.notus.org
October 31, 2025 at 3:03 PM
I feel like a flower is needed tonight. #orchids #bloomscrolling
Vanilla planifolia (?)
Blooms only last a day.
October 31, 2025 at 3:38 AM
I feel like this story could be told with alterations about many fields. Devaluing human skill by rich men.
A quick gamedev history story.

When I started my career, there were so few 3d artist the company I was hired by had to start a training school to make enough to actually make a big game.

At first we didn't know anything. Real time 3D was new and primitive, and nobody really had mastered it.
October 25, 2025 at 1:14 AM
I cannot stress just how true and important this is.
START PLAYING ROLE PLAYING GAMES TO MAKE FRIENDS AS AN ADULT
October 7, 2025 at 3:02 AM
Reposted by Toby
Outrageous! The moon rotation in this shot of
The Lion King remake implies it was shot far into the northern hemisphere. What happened to realism? Literally unwatchable.
October 3, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Reposted by Toby
BATTLELORDS OF THE 23RD CENTURY! Last chance to grab the gold standard in Military Sci-Fi RPGs in this Kickstarter! A gorgeously illustrated, 540+ page book filled with over-the-top carnage. Plus, the Fully Armored gear manual (192 pages) for free! bit.ly/BLShippingKS
October 6, 2025 at 6:33 PM
#orchids
#bloomscrolling

A very small red masdevallia from the greenhouse. Don’t know the species, but a brilliant red.
October 6, 2025 at 1:51 PM
@rockstache.bsky.social

This is relevant to your interests.
Rock Looked Way Cooler Wet
October 3, 2025 at 2:16 AM
#bloomscrolling #orchids
I should know what this is because it’s very distinctive. I do know it’s a coelogyne.
October 3, 2025 at 12:51 AM
#bloomscrolling #orchids
Paph delenatii? Maybe, maybe not. Gorgeous in any case.
October 1, 2025 at 4:19 AM
Reposted by Toby
this has been my thought exactly with all of these funding resolutions

like, why would I agree to shit if Trump is just gonna impound it and do whatever he wants, regardless of how the money is appropriated? if y'all want our funding decisions to be meaningless, let's not have em
So let's play this out: Dems hold the line on the actual big picture constitutional lawlessness issues, which Trump/GOP would never concede and any deal with them would be worthless anyway. What good are concessions in legislation and appropriations from a guy who breaks those with impunity? 1/
October 1, 2025 at 2:23 AM
Reposted by Toby
“We can’t help poor people because that will help black people” is an unusually honest expression of Republican policy goals
These are some of the most odious people alive.
September 28, 2025 at 3:29 AM
It’s really the correct answer (for me). I bring it up all the time in game discussions.
Red Markets.
Do you have a ttrpg that in your opinion is so under celebrated that you have appointed yourself head of the PR committee for that game? Where on at least one occasion someone mistakenly assumed you must have worked on it but really you're just unwell about it?

What's that game to you?
September 23, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Pretty good advice. I wish I’d done more of this.
I'm hesitant to give advice to under-30s because my life was a mess for most of my twenties and any advice I might have gotten was impossible to follow.

But...if you can manage these, which many can't, I know:

- set aside $50-$100 a month, every month.

- turn off the tv & work on your art.
September 19, 2025 at 11:56 PM
From the greenhouse some tolumnia flowers. #bloomscrolling #orchids
September 19, 2025 at 11:50 PM
#bloomscrolling #orchids a phalaenopsis flower from the greenhouse. Again, I don’t know the precise cross or species.
September 16, 2025 at 3:36 PM