mlascarides.bsky.social
Art tinkerer, library dweller, immigrant. Thinking a lot about how to prove libraries are worth keeping around. Ōtepoti.
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Something I've learned working in institutions is that "risk" is not an objective, absolute measure, but simply what some executive is willing to sign off on. And when said executive no longer faces consequences…
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The definition of "less lethal" comes down to the average amount of lethality policy makers are willing to tolerate based on a bit of testing and a few academic studies of the effects of electricity. Those are political decisions too.
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One of my fave pics I took at the 2004 RNC protest, lol. (Not sharing face for obvious reasons but this dude had a GREAT smile.)
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Not to mention once you dip into NG/military, the rank and file are waaaay more diverse politically and culturally than, say, the LAPD. Whole lotta Black/Latino military families in the US.
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(Mid-1980s New Jersey if you were wondering.)
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Mom sighed, and just said "You know you need to let us know next time you do that." There were no further consequences.
/end
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I thanked the pilot, rode my bike home, was there in time for dinner. Mom asked, "Where were you after school? Phil's house?" (My best friend on the next street.) "Maryland", I replied, explaining the trip. /5
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Even got to steer in level flight for a bit. We flew across the bay, landed at an airport in the next state, made the delivery, came home. It was awesome. /4
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One day, one of the pilots had a delivery and offered to take me along. So I went, sitting in the co-pilot seat of the little Piper, a crate of engine parts in the back. The instructor let me do a couple of things along the way, like gently raising the flaps as we climbed away.
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They'd let me sit in the planes, show me a few things, and generally encourage my aviation interests. One of the things they did was run small-scale deliveries for the aviation-related machine shops around the airport. /2
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We've all been scrolling through the Much, tbf.
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Xander: Who's the little fear demon? Come on, who's the little fear demon?
Giles: Don't taunt the fear demon.
Xander: Why? Can he hurt me?
Giles: No, it's just... tacky.
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Philly native here. Our level of anger would be "Laughing so fall-off-the-sidewalk hard at your sorry ass that you got NO choice but to join in"—the kind of laugh that humiliates your clown ass twice, once for the transgression and once 'cos everyone in the group is better at laughing than you.
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Now I want to see Masamune Shirow's Shōgun.
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Very much reminding me of Jon Stewart on Crossfire back in the day: "You're on *CNN*. The show that leads into me is *puppets making crank phone calls*."
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Tech bros across the entire field not bothering to train their plagiarism machines on the meaning of 'no' is a little on the nose
news.mit.edu/2025/study-s...
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That country ceased to exist five years before Chloe Swarbrick was born.
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There have been some real bangers over the years
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Stevie Wonder was coming off a string of incredible hit albums, from Music of My Mind to Songs in the Key of Life. He was one of the biggest artists in the world with a huge amount of cultural capital.
And he decided to spend all that capital on a magnum opus about appreciating plant life. LEGEND.
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I've lived here over a decade and just learned that landlords can vote in multiple local elections when they own property in other localities. Wild.
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Some choices being made there, wow.