watsonwelch.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

✨a happy Brodyquest to all ✨ youtu.be/ygI-2F8ApUM?...

submitted 18 hours ago • 0 comments

Ursula le Guin, on the accusation that fantasy is an escape from reality

submitted 8 days ago • 54 comments

After suppression of Indigenous cultural burning, the state agrees Northern California's Karuk Tribe may practice the burns more freely than it has in over 175 years.

submitted 4 days ago • 5 comments

I got laid off today, with the rest of 18F. 18F was an elite federal software shop. We made gov't websites work better, more efficiently for the American people. We saved taxpayers from getting screwed over by contractors. And were fired for it. We made this website to tell our story: 18f.org

submitted 2 days ago • 3314 comments

submitted 11 days ago • 7 comments

dunno why we are debating elon musk's intelligence when we all fucking saw him play elden ring with two shields and flasks removed from quick pouch

submitted 8 days ago • 65 comments

live footage of mitch mcconnell

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

New: a public library ebook service is removing AI-generated books from its platform after a 404 Media investigation. We found public libraries were being swarmed with low quality AI-generated books. Now going to change. www.404media.co/public-libra...

submitted 12 days ago • 7 comments

Americans want rail, egg

submitted 11 days ago • 6 comments

“No kings, only trains” 🫡😭

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

I will always have a place in my heart for retro sound FX <3 www.theverge.com/entertainmen...

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

to commemorate the official death of the Humane AI pin, let us revisit my blog. Never forget how stupid this was: www.404media.co/we-must-neve...

submitted 13 days ago • 6 comments

Oh, look what normal countries do when a former president leads a far right coup attempt.

submitted 13 days ago • 1192 comments

I think every designer should write a love letter to a font at least once in their lifetime. This is mine: A 150-year-old font you have likely never heard of, and one you probably saw earlier today. aresluna.org/the-hardest-...

submitted 17 days ago • 109 comments

If you drew this event as a satirical political cartoon, people would say "oh come on, that's too on the nose."

submitted 15 days ago • 13 comments

at least in the old days of unhinged wealth hoarding we occasionally got, like, a pyramid or a nice library

submitted 15 days ago • 1 comment

Could America experience a famine? @ddayen.bsky.social and I talked to one farmer who warned us about the perils of consolidated agriculture? www.organizedmoney.fm/p/its-not-ju...

submitted 21 days ago • 1 comment

NEW: I wrote about PFAS, or forever chemicals, and how incredibly difficult they are to get out of drinking water, once there. But there are some very interesting projects aiming to do just that. www.wired.com/story/how-to...

submitted 20 days ago • 2 comments

every day I think about the comms strategy of the korean opposition party in the wake of the coup and I get so burningly resentful that other countries have legislators who are awake

submitted 18 days ago • 219 comments

Absolutely nails my feelings about Sid Meier's Colonization: "it is, to this day, the most laser-focused 4X game available [...] Only, uh. There's a reason we don't really talk about it as much these days. This is also a game with substantial problems."

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

I recently finished re-reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King, and was struck by an observation about Denethor using a Palantír. It's an excellent lesson in human nature and propaganda, and served as a good reminder for how astute Tolkien was in observing human nature.

submitted 42 days ago • 1 comment

I wrote about the great Don Shoup, who was the kind of person you'd go to for an answer to a single question about parking and come away with 20 more story ideas about how to fix everything in LA

submitted 20 days ago • 6 comments

Los Angeles County keeps building in hillsides and canyons even as the fire risk worsen. For a century, the lure of development in natural surrounding has won out.

submitted 21 days ago • 6 comments

cool cool (via @matthewstoller.bsky.social)

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

having nicer streets is actually cheaper?? jfc youtu.be/Cq1kV6V_jvI?...

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

LA Metro has started a feasibility study of implementing rail between North Hollywood and Pasadena. Expected to be done in 2026. Documents from bidders that competed on study contract show some initial analysis. They may consider routes that don’t always match planned BRT route.

submitted 23 days ago • 4 comments

"the high cost of free parking" is a book that legit rewired my brain. RIP to a great scholar

submitted 24 days ago • 33 comments

1) This is bad bad bad 2) I'll have more coming out on this soon 3) A huge scoop for @joemenn.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

submitted 25 days ago • 3 comments

“Building walkable neighborhoods now is the best thing we can do—for the climate, for health and happiness, for lowering the cost of living and the cost of government." @culdesac.bsky.social www.dwell.com/article/culd...

submitted 26 days ago • 2 comments

"make robots sound like robots" — honestly not a bad suggestion 🤔 spectrum.ieee.org/audio-deepfa...

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments

You can’t post your way out of fascism Authoritarians and tech CEOs now share the same goal: to keep us locked in an eternal doomscroll instead of organizing against them 🔗 www.404media.co/you-cant-pos...

submitted 26 days ago • 124 comments

look, if they HAVE to build more nuclear reactors to power the AI bubble, at least some of them will be liquid sodium, i.e. theoretically impossible to melt down www.theverge.com/2025/1/23/24...

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

Hey, sorry to send you a work text after hours, but: Have you seen Koyaanisqatsi?

submitted 27 days ago • 8 comments

an unelected billionaire storming into US agencies, installing his unqualified and unapproved lackeys, purging civil servants, seizing access to sensitive data and payments, unilaterally eliminating federal agencies: fine identifying the lackeys: illegal

submitted 29 days ago • 243 comments

plastic is the new lead www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

submitted 28 days ago • 1 comment

An earthquake in New Zealand caused the "biggest insured event" in the nation’s history, Jerusalem Demsas writes. What its residents learned in the aftermath a decade ago could help Los Angeles rebuild now:

submitted 31 days ago • 5 comments

LA County officials: "We are not anti-housing." Also LA County: (Quote source: www.latimes.com/california/s...)

submitted 32 days ago • 4 comments

The people now in charge of the Office of Personnel Management apparently don’t know how to scrub PDF metadata, and have exposed the original authors of the guidance they’re publishing. Two, Noah Peters and James Sherk, have links to the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025.

submitted 35 days ago • 220 comments

Now do UFOs.

submitted 39 days ago • 983 comments

New monologue on YouTube: Who’s Really to Blame for the LA Fires youtu.be/QwMovDeFBw8

submitted 38 days ago • 15 comments

I can’t believe I’d never seen this Onion article before, this has gotta be an all-timer

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments