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flightless.bsky.social
Extinct, not dead
@flightless.bsky.social
820 followers 300 following 2.8K posts
“The undertaking was impossible from the very beginning and of all the impossible ways of carrying it out, this was the least interesting.” - Jorge Luis Borges
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flightless.bsky.social
Extinct, not dead @flightless.bsky.social · Aug 18
DC Arts Center’s WallMountables show ends this week! We thought Friday, but it looks like they may have extended it to include Saturday, 11 to 4! Last chance to see this dangerous bobblehead and all its spiky friends.
Furry abstract cryptid with rusty razor tooth and curving antennae (actually they are street sweeper bristles, also rusty). If you were at the gallery, I would let you touch its fur and make it bounce.
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jpbrammer.bsky.social
hello from Portugal! I wrote about The End of the World. johnpaulbrammer.substack.com/p/the-end-of...
September 18, 2026 at 4:01 PM
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mckelvie.bsky.social
I decided I'm going to start a thread of things I love to add to now and then, just because. Music, art, games, whatever.

First up: the viscacha, a rodent native to South America. They like to sit on rocks and warm themselves in the sun, which I can greatly emphasise with
A viscacha, which kind of looks like a spherical rabbit with brown and grey fur, sits on a rock and looks very chill.
September 18, 2026 at 11:43 AM
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mobydickatsea.bsky.social
Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of ’em.
September 16, 2026 at 10:47 PM
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popsci.com
We are pleased to report that the nightmare is greatly exaggerated.

In all likelihood, you'd die almost instantly! 🤗

www.popsci.com/science/coul...
Could a whale really swallow a human? We asked a biologist.
The new thriller ‘Whalefall’ depicts a diver trapped inside of a sperm whale.
www.popsci.com
September 16, 2026 at 12:19 PM
flightless.bsky.social
😍
richterscale.bsky.social Charles Louis Richter @richterscale.bsky.social · 2d
have thirty seconds of an amazing cat blissing out on belly rubs

and let me know if you'd like to adopt her! she's getting spayed this friday and will be available to Baltimore/DC people who will dote on this incredibly sweet and gentle 1-year-old who is pretty ready to say goodbye to her kittens.
September 16, 2026 at 4:38 PM
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artologica.net
The Squirrel of the Day for September 16, 2026 chows down on an Osage orange #sqrlpix
black squirrel eating big green and brown fruit
September 16, 2026 at 1:57 PM
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pervocracy.bsky.social
99% of social media users give up right before they would have found the post that relieved all their anxieties
September 16, 2026 at 2:21 PM
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tainalitwakart.bsky.social
New info graphic installed. Arlington Va. Plastic Tsunami v.5.0.
September 16, 2026 at 2:47 PM
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michaelf617.bsky.social
And since you're near Boston it scans perfectly to sweet caroline
billamend.bsky.social Bill Amend @billamend.bsky.social · 2d
Imagine every music act playing Gillette Stadium now saying “Free Palestine” as an f-you to the Krafts of the world
September 16, 2026 at 3:02 PM
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hypercubexl.bsky.social
GDT's reddit AMA spitting fire

www.reddit.com/r/movies/com...
reddit comment: Hello! Did you intend the ending of Pan’s labyrinth to be real or in Ofelia’s mind? Guillermo Del Toro's reply: My interpretation, and it's exclusively mine, is that it's real. Because there's two things. One is what people call “The Shining Question.” The Shining Question is, Who opens the door for Jack to get out of the fridge? And Ofelia is in an attic with a guard outside her door, and she draws the door with the magic chalk, and she shows up in the labyrinth. So, the only way she could have gone into the labyrinth is the magic chalk. And the flower is real at the end. The flower that blooms in the dead tree. And the reason I think it’s real is because—and this is why I'm in favor of the human factor in art—I think that art does transform the world. You know? Think about it for a second. One of the goals, with all this movement, is to make you believe that art is vulgar. That art is nothing special, and anybody can do art. That is like me telling you that I'm faster at running than Usain Bolt but I “run” in my motorcycle. Well, that's not the same. That’s not the same at all. Art is important, and they want you to believe it isn't. It's part of the idea of control. The goal is not to have artificial intelligence. The goal is to foster natural stupidity. The goal is to foster you not looking for answers, and to trust yourself entirely to an engine. Look at the way we are dipping our toes into these things. We are starting to ask the machine, Is this true? For now, there's a correlation between reality and what the answers of the machine are. For now. But soon, we won't even investigate further. We will be told it's true. And if the machine is in the hands of somebody who should not be trusted, then your reality has been completely and utterly fucked. Because your intelligence ends at the question. You don't seek the answer. It's given to you. Q: You recently mentioned that AI creates 'semi-compelling screensavers' and that you'd 'rather die' than use it. As a filmmaker who relies heavily on practical effects and creature design, what do you think is the biggest thing lost when a computer generates an image instead of a human hand? GDT: The three quarters of the process that gave you the chance to think of the idea that people don't think about without that process. Meaning, AI can get you to the middle really fast, but there's a dialectic with the process that gets you to that top 10%. I'll give you an example with the Pale Man. We sculpted it as an old man, with a face. And then I said, Let's take out the face. This happened because I saw a photo of a manta ray and the poster for Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm. That combination, which happened at two different times during a week or a month, are not permutations that are chemically part of an equation. They are alchemy. And then I said, Take out the face, and then I said, Let's put the eyes on the hands. This triangulation happens because I spent a month or two months living with the idea of this creature. And it's not linear. AI is like a super-fast engine that makes semi-sentient permutations of things that are already done. Creation is things that have never been done. Coming to exist. And the second thing is the loss of the apprenticeship that one has as an artist. You're never a master; you're always an apprentice. This is a kinship I have with, for example, Chris Nolan. When he showed me The Odyssey, there’s a scene when Matt Damon is floating in the stormy ocean and I asked him—because we were talking about practical effects, and how great it is and that we both always use a maquette or a model—and I asked him, How did you do it? He said, “We put him in a storm in the ocean.” And you're gonna find that 30% of a great image occurs accidentally. You know, either a drop of water hits the lens, or the camera shakes. I remember when in 1993, '94, Jim…
September 9, 2026 at 10:32 PM
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verybadllama.bsky.social
I mean if you really want to hear Ed Sheeran without any opening acts you can simply get put on hold with your bank
September 16, 2026 at 2:26 AM
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babadooknukem.bsky.social
(don't say Rigor Tortoise don't say Rigor Tortoise) wow looking very alive sir
rfksbrainworm.bsky.social worm @rfksbrainworm.bsky.social · 3d
whatcha thinkin?
September 15, 2026 at 2:58 AM
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mobydickatsea.bsky.social
What other marvels might have been rummaged out of this monstrous cabinet there is no telling.
September 15, 2026 at 4:47 AM
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kateschapira.bsky.social
Anybody got a good explainer on searching permitting dockets or do I have to write it? @sevier.io ?
September 15, 2026 at 12:48 PM
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salvagni.org
DC folks, check this out 🔥
September 15, 2026 at 1:17 AM
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tainalitwakart.bsky.social
Vote! And hum the song.
September 14, 2026 at 2:17 PM
flightless.bsky.social
September 14, 2026 at 10:42 PM
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jeffvandermeer.bsky.social
Also, let's be quite clear about this: generative AI is not conscious and cannot become conscious. It is not actual "artificial intelligence." That is bullshit.
September 14, 2026 at 4:58 PM
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jeffvandermeer.bsky.social
If a generative AI CEO is telling you something, take it with a grain of salt the size of an iceberg. So if they want regulation now, it is more likely something to do with finances than an immediate existential threat. These dipshits do not care about existential threats other than going bankrupt.
September 14, 2026 at 2:14 PM
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hesherman.bsky.social
Farewell to costume designer Bob Mackie, a designer of spectacular gowns for great divas, but also the creator of perhaps the greatest costume sight gag in history.
September 14, 2026 at 4:06 PM
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ohnoshetwitnt.bsky.social
“We’re so pro-life, we’ll kill every last one of you motherfuckers in ways you didn’t even imagine.”
September 14, 2026 at 11:32 AM
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spacemocha.bsky.social
Good thread altogether but the end is the most important part imo - a boycott needs an *end point*. If you are not gettable, if nothing they do will ever get you to shop there, then they have no reason to change practices in response to the boycott!
themountaingoats.bsky.social the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 5d
and after the union wins? you go back and you tip hard and you show the company it was the workers who made them their money, and that they're nothing without the workers! super simple equation! Solidarity with Starbucks Workers United, 12,000 strong and growing!
September 13, 2026 at 6:19 PM
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darthmongoose.bsky.social
The original version of this was posted on my FAisDM (felicitousArtisan is Darth Mongoose) Tumblr many years ago. I drew it at about 11pm right before going to bed, trying to express something I felt about art. When I woke up it kinda blew up.
Flowchart drawn by Kate Holden in orange, aliases lines reads: HOW TO BE ANARTIST. Make some art.-> Does it look terrible? 1. YEAH 2. NO (both lives lead to thesame conclusion box) -> You are an artist -> Make more art
September 13, 2026 at 6:36 AM
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sidfinancy.bsky.social
So the boys beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into town.
September 14, 2026 at 2:15 AM
flightless.bsky.social
It’s so good.
tcm-up-next.bsky.social Up next on TCM @tcm-up-next.bsky.social · 4d
WITHNAIL AND I (1987) — 8:00 pm ET — 1h 48m
(TCM Primetime: 50 Movie Nights | Part 1)

Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths; directed by Bruce Robinson

Two unemployed actors escape the horrors of London for a drunken vacation.

#TCM #TCMParty
50 Movie Nights
September 13 & 20 | 4 Films
www.tcm.com
September 14, 2026 at 3:00 AM