Bittersweet πŸ˜πŸ˜³πŸ’€

Bittersweet πŸ˜πŸ˜³πŸ’€

@bitters.bsky.social

Just another Boston-area resident letting off steam. Sunshine, corgis, Stucky, classic British mysteries, haunted attics

2.1K followers1.6K following11.5K posts

Bittersweet πŸ˜πŸ˜³πŸ’€ reposted

Rafa Sales Ross
@rafiews.com

I haven’t slept a full night in three weeks ahead of the polls opening in Brazil today. I might be shouting into a void here, but if you can spare a few seconds to send good energy towards our elections today and for the largest country in South America to beat fascism, please do so. πŸ‡§πŸ‡·

Bittersweet πŸ˜πŸ˜³πŸ’€
@bitters.bsky.social

Haven’t been to a Cheesecake Factory in like 10 years…all I remember is the never-ending menu and the salad mountain, the decor is a blank

karl rove knausgΓ₯rd@uhactually.bsky.social

The Cheesecake Factory is famous for looking how it does. I don’t think people who eat there are really attached to the idea that it’s an extremely beautiful place. It’s like pretending people might be offended by the suggestion that BMW drivers are rude or that Hallmark movies are cheesy.

Bittersweet πŸ˜πŸ˜³πŸ’€
@bitters.bsky.social

My great aunt had dementia at the end, and she’d be talking about her garden and then suddenly go off about how she was Princess Anastasia and the CIA was sending messages through her fillings

Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social

Trump: β€œMy uncle invented radar. Can you believe it? β€œHe'll probably be angry at me, but I knocked out Iran's radar.”

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Manhattan Bird Alert
@birdcpk.bsky.social

An American Barn Owl perches on one leg while resting the other, on the the support structure of the Upper West Side water tank on which it nests. πŸ¦‰ 🧑

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Claude Monet
@monet.bsky.social

Spot on the Banks of the Seine - 1881 https://botfrens.com/collections/41/contents/9581

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ToonHive
@toonhive.bsky.social

Happy 38th birthday to the talented and gorgeous May Hong. The voice of Mira in β€˜KPop Demon Hunters.’

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Colette Delawalla, PhD
@cdelawalla.bsky.social

The 5-year cancer survival rate is up to 70% SIDS deaths have decreased by over 50% 89% decline in tornado deaths All thanks to federal investment in science and OUR tax dollars at work!

Michael Druker πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦@mdruker.app

Social media loves talking about how everything is getting worse. But what’s something that you’ve seen get _better_ in your lifetime?

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Chris Kluwe, adjudicated poaster
@chriswarcraft.bsky.social

There was a fucking hole in our planet’s *atmosphere* Like a legit, no joke, β€œthis will unravel our entire ecosystem” hole in the world, and then we fixed it by working together across national and political lines As a species we decided, β€œwe will survive” Let’s do that some more

Michael Druker πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦@mdruker.app

Social media loves talking about how everything is getting worse. But what’s something that you’ve seen get _better_ in your lifetime?

Bittersweet πŸ˜πŸ˜³πŸ’€
@bitters.bsky.social

Knew he was my favorite F1 driver for a reason

PinkNews@pinknews.bsky.social

Happy birthday to Charles Leclerc! πŸŽ‰ The Formula 1 driver is an LGBTQ+ ally who lent his voice to the film 'Lightyear' in 2022. When asked what he thought about the queer couple shown in the film, he gave a powerful answer. πŸ“· Getty

Bittersweet πŸ˜πŸ˜³πŸ’€
@bitters.bsky.social

We were driving out in the country northwest of Boston earlier today and saw several signs saying NO HOSPITAL IN 2024 NO HEALEY IN 2026 This refers to the closure of Nashoba Valley Hospital, which was actually entirely due to PE and Steward Health’s greed and incompetent management

Bittersweet πŸ˜πŸ˜³πŸ’€
@bitters.bsky.social

He looks like if an older Tobias FΓΌnke joined a men’s rights group

Jake Grumbach@jakemgrumbach.bsky.social

A helpfully clear exchange here Hasan: "So your argument is that [Minnesota ICE protesters] should stay at home because immigration is a salient issue for Donald Trump. Opposing ICE is only going to help Trump. Wait until we win the election in 2028." Yglesias: "Yes that is what I would have said"

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Auschwitz Memorial
@auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social

23 October 1897 | A Pole, Jerzy Adam Brandhuber, was born in Krakow. A painter. In #Auschwitz from 14 January 1943. No. 87112 In 1944 he was transferred to KL Sachsenhausen. He survived. One of the creators of the Auschwitz Memorial.

Bittersweet πŸ˜πŸ˜³πŸ’€
@bitters.bsky.social

Arsonist warns neighborhood that more houses are gonna burn down

Bloomberg News@bloomberg.com

Mass cybersecurity disruptions, such as this week’s scramble by governments and companies to patch two critical software flaws, are about to β€œget a lot worse before they get better,” a top executive at Anthropic has warned

bloom.bgAI Ushers In Era of Rapid-Fire Software VulnerabilitiesMass cybersecurity disruptions, such as this week’s scramble by governments and companies to patch two critical software flaws, are about to β€œget a lot worse before they get better,” a top executive at Anthropic PBC has warned.
Bittersweet πŸ˜πŸ˜³πŸ’€
@bitters.bsky.social

One of the best books I’ve read this year, everyone go get it

Premee Mohamed@premeemohamed.com

Happy Friday (gloomy and rainy over here, good weather for goths) and remember that time @portersqbooks.bsky.social gave a nice review to WICKHILLS? "all the twists, double-crosses, contests of wits, clever gadgets, shady associates, and daring escapes you'd expect from the best spy thrillers"

portersquarebooks.comReview of WickhillsBook Cover ISBN Imagine Francis Bacon did the concept art for a version of Tolkein’s Minas Tirith that had been squashed from its long climbing spiral into a chaotic network of neighborhoods, squares, alleys, zones, warrens, and castles. Imagine if it was contained by a wall that was too short to keep out any real invaders and imagine if no one knew how the wall got there. Imagine if that city was filled with both humans and strange beasts, some relatively familiar like dragons, vampyrs, and manticores, and others are, as far as I know, unique to this world like the living street lights, the Indigo King, and the professor without a head who speaks through a snake hosted in the body of a grad student. Imagine pairs of stone spires could snap together like jaws, that the walls move in the night, that there are neighborhoods that have vanished yet can be visited if you know the right place to go. This is Wickhills, the setting for Premee Mohamed’s new novel and one of the most compelling fictional worlds I’ve ever read. No one knows Wickhills better than our protagonist, Vycol Ferec. Ferec is an agent of Seaborn, Wickhills’s version of the CIA, and he is a damn good spy. So good that he is assigned to recover a refugee from St. Barothain, one of the other six cities and a strict authoritarian regime, who carries a tool with the potential to completely destroy the city. But not everyone in the powers that be of Wickhills have the same goal for this mysterious tool or its creator, and Ferec and his team find themselves on the wrong side of a conspiracy that might go all the way to the top of both Wickhills and St. Barothain. What follows is a thrilling race for the truth that has all the twists, double-crosses, contests of wits, clever gadgets, shady associates, and daring escapes you'd expect from the best spy thrillers. Mohamed is even able to deploy a plucky band of misfits without it feeling like a trope. We have our world-wise and world-weary Ferec, his ancient manticore handler, a young thief, a vampyr, an agent more at home in the archives than the field, and, of course, a young man just trying to do the right thing who finds himself way way way over his head, all working together to protect an extremely grumpy scientist and his dangerous discovery. For all that it confronts questions of identity, power, and political intrigue, Wickhills is, in some ways, a love story because so much of it is driven by Ferec’s love for his city. From the castles, to the mysterious monoliths and statues, to the baffling alleyways, to the collapsing structures in neglected neighborhoods, to the mahogany auraed dining clubs, to the vast city beneath the sewers, to the sewers themselves, to the botanical gardens, to the trick doors, the living street lights, the very cobblestones, Ferec loves it all. He risks everything and loses much to protect the only thing in his life that has always been with him, the city of Wickhills. See, a love story. As compelling as the characters are, as thrilling as the plot is, as intriguing as the science behind the potential weapon is, ultimately this is a story about place. It’s a story that asks questions about how cities and communities are truly created, what it takes to protect them, and what happens when the people who live in them disagree on the answers to those questions with the people in charge. Mohamed could write a hundred books set in Wickhills and not nearly exhaust the potential she creates in this one. Perhaps this is the most (maybe only) sympathetic aspect of Ferec. Of course he loves his city. How could he not? Afterall, as we read Mohamed’s brilliant novel, we fall in love with Wickhills too. Josh Cook is a bookseller and co-owner at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he has worked since 2004. He is also author of the critically acclaimed postmodern detective novel An Exaggerated Murder and The Art of Libromancy: On Selling Books and Reading Books in the 21st Century. He has also self-published the zine For White Dudes (Like Me) Who Have Not Considered Reading Trans Books. His fiction, criticism, and poetry have appeared in numerous leading literary publications. He grew up in Lewiston, Maine and lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. If you'd like to read more of Josh's writing about books, subscribe to his newsletter Yesterday Today Tomorrow Forever.

Bittersweet πŸ˜πŸ˜³πŸ’€ reposted

Charles Louis Richter
@richterscale.bsky.social

Replying to @richterscale.bsky.social

the billionaires of our world want us to avoid empathy at all costs when it comes to other people, but they demand that we exercise empathy with their machines