Michael Bain

I want to do a 🧵 about the Sidney Sweeney thing, because it's *extremely* revealing & educational.

First, to be clear: I could not give less of a shit about the details -- the ad, the rhetoric, the jeans, her boobs, whatever. Good lord, who cares.

Let's look at the *structure* of the episode.

Same, dude. Same…

RIP to a legend who besides giving 3 generations of my family a lot of joy also outlived his obit writer. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...

With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.

It doesn't matter if they are ever coming for you.

It was always ever already too much that they were coming for anyone.

!!! Indeed!

Seriously, Michael makes some great games!

Hey want some weird fiction?

Want to support a cool writer, ttrpg designer, card game maker extraordinaire?

Patrons get all my games and all my weird fiction!

I've seen folks talk about how "in four years" they'll be able to get back to their planned projects and I really don't think that's going to work out. People & projects losing funding now will not be able to hit pause and come back once funding is restored. Hard-won progress & capacity will be lost

If you burn down a forest, you don't miss out on lumber for just that season. You have to replant all the trees, nurture them, and wait for them to grow.

The science and research budget cuts happening now are wanton, senseless arson. Recovery, if it ever happens, will take generations.

14 Million Books Later, Jim Butcher Thinks His Wizard Detective Needs a Hug

Your reminder that someone can appear to be at the top (of the world, of their field, etc) and feel rather dramatically differently. I'm glad Jim worked through his issues, is still here with us and is still writing the books so many people love.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/b...

YouTube video by 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive First fault movement ever filmed. M7.9 surface rupture filmed near Thazi, Myanmar

I am speechless...
>> First fault movement ever filmed. M7.9 surface rupture filmed near Thazi, Myanmar
m.youtube.com/watch?v=77ub...

I dunno, man, the "you guys are being too mean to the plagiarism machines that stole all your work and were created to try to replace you so rich people don't pay you a tiny fraction of their wealth for it" posters popping up are pretty funny

Master and Commander/TNG Intro

this was rendering all day while I was out lol

Seniors Are More Conservative Because the Poor Die Off Sometimes older voters aren’t just naturally more conservative. It’s just that wealthier and whiter people tend to live longer and healthier lives.

Hey, just a quiet reminder: it’s not true that people get more conservative as they age. *Populations* get more conservative as they age because poor and marginalized people die sooner.

nymag.com/intelligence...

Do not normalize children dying from measles. Measles was previously eliminated in the US, thanks to vaccines.

When children die from measles, it means that adults have catastrophically failed to protect them because they have rejected basic science.

A tricky thing about modern society is that no one has any idea when they don’t die.

Like, the number of lives saved by controlling air pollution in America is probably over 200,000 per year, but the number of people who think their life was saved by controlling air pollution is zero.

Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive.

No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.

1/ A 🧵 to explain his plan and how we fight back.

image of watchmen's doctor manhattan, a superhero who is entirely blue and nude, sitting on a rock, small in frame, on what is depicted to be a very pink version of the surface of the planet mars. he looks pensive.

It is 2002. I am 18 years old. We are in a once-in-a-generation economic crisis.

It is 2008. I am 24 years old. We are in a once-in-a-generation economic crisis.

It is 2020. I am 36 years old. We are in a once-in-a-generation economic crisis.

It is 2025. I am 41 years old. We are in a—

It was the Dunning of tymes. It was the Kruger of tymes.

SignalGate Is Bad; But OPSEC Isn’t Even the Worst Part Of It I haven’t had time to comment on the Jeff Goldberg’s story about...

SignalGate Is Bad; But OPSEC Isn’t Even the Worst Part Of It talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/signa...

If the federal party leaders left politics after the election and resumed their private sector careers:

Carney: International finance and commerce
Singh: Criminal defence lawyer
May: Environmental lawyer / Pedneault: Journalist
Blanchet: Owner artist management firm
Poilievre: Calgary Sun paperboy

what's funny about this is chatbots just scour language-based interactions and respond with a version of what seems to be the typical reply, right?

so what this tells us is not that a computer program has anxiety but that, in its dataset, the usual response to 'i'm freaking out' is 'girl, same!! 😬'

One problem with the idea of reserving due process for law-abiding people is that due process is how we figure out which people are law-abiding.

Photo of my hands holding 13 cards, 6 in one hand, 7 in the other. Each card has a light and dark side, with symbols denoting the ship room and instructions for how to play.

Y'all wanna play a card game? Y'all like Alien?

ESCAPE THE KRONOS is my solitaire card game about running from an alien through a space ship.

You could start playing it tomorrow. Backerkit goes live as part of #pocketopia 10am PST.

www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti...

A leaked report shows that Vancouver's mayor wants to make Vancouver a 'sunset community' where Native people aren't welcome. He has a plan to deport Indigenous residents of the city to their "home communities". www.bcafn.ca/news/regiona...

"We built this city on Rock and Roll!" "So you built it on things white people stole from POC, and then claimed they inven... yeah I can see it."