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bailey? 🏳️‍🌈 🇿🇦

@bailz.bsky.social
241 followers 356 following 72 posts

staff software engineer | trans | queer | leftist | tired she/her Immigrant from South Africa based in the Netherlands

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bailey? 🏳️‍🌈 🇿🇦 @bailz.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Excited to see @lizthegrey.com and @hazelweakly.me speak about Observability Engineering at the SRE NL meetup now
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daryl "rupert pumpkin" b 🏳️‍⚧️ @hypercubexl.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
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…
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Have seen this Nature piece about the effects of X's algorithm mentioned again and it bears repeating; exposure to a right wing algorithm makes you - measurably and predictably - more right wing, even after you stop using it. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The political effects of X’s feed algorithm - Nature
Among users initially on a chronological feed, 7 weeks of exposure to X’s algorithmic feed in 2023 shifted political attitudes and account-following behaviour in a more conservative direction compared...
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Ken Tremendous @kentremendous.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
That's what taxes are, man. That's the definition of taxes. "You are subsidizing things you might never use" man shut the fuck up. My taxes currently subsidize like oil company exec private jets, you think I'm upset at low-income people eating inexpensive bananas?
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the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
The story feels tailor-made for Bluesky
Screenshot, white text on black background. “When we gave AI agents grinding, repetitive work, they started questioning the legitimacy of the system they were operating in, and were more likely to embrace Marxist ideologies,” says Andrew Hall, a political economist at Stanford University who led the study.
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bailey? 🏳️‍🌈 🇿🇦 @bailz.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Imagine calling Keir Starmer a communist. Lmao www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/new...
independent.co.uk
Far-right politician threatens to sue Starmer after he’s banned from march
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Rose Schmits @roseschmits.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Got a similarly simple solution to the Transgender issue. Just let people transition and be fucking normal about it and mind yer own beeswax
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Rose Schmits @roseschmits.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
There really is a simple solution to migration. And its to be fucking normal about it and stop being a nationalist racist
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Abigail Thorn @theabigailthorn.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
WE WON. Amnesty named me People’s Human Rights Champion for exposing a scandal in British healthcare. My team and I found abuse, neglect, conversion therapy, and deaths, all ignored by NHS managers. See the story: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S5w... Support our work: www.patreon.com/c/Philosophy...
youtube.com
Britain Still Has Conversion Therapists. Here’s Why.
YouTube video by Philosophy Tube
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John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Do me a favor. Respond or quote this with the most recent piece of media (book, short story, album, painting, statue, game, anything) by a *trans creator* that you loved. Drop a link. Boost their signal.
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Jaz @jaz.sh · 13/11/2025
if you can't embrace the fact that you suck at a thing and keep being bad at it until you get good enough that you stop being bad at it, you'll never get good at anything
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leon @leyawn.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
yeah man i'll circle back to you on that agenda item from yesterday's all hands in just a sec. our pedophile king just threatened to destroy a whole civilization
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Brooccubus (sinmounds and lustbait) @gymbrat.northsky.social · 02/04/2026
Tapping the sign
r/trans

u/RedRhodes13012⚫ 4h

Seeing people deflate when I explain simple facts of my reality bums me out.

Vent

"No, I can't go on that cruise to Italy with you, because I'm struggling to get a passport that doesn't put me in danger. I'm scared I might have trouble getting home."

"Yes, I'm looking at other job opportunities/leaving my position working at school, which I love so much. It's becoming unsafe for people like me to work with children 
- I got a death threat the other day."

"Will the doctor/therapist/etc. you're recommending be safe for someone like me?"

"Before I meet your parents, I need to know if they know about me. Will I be safe?"

"I'm afraid I could be arrested if I travel to that state for your wedding and need to use the restroom at the venue, I'm sorry."

Seeing it actually register on people's faces that this is my life- that these policies are real and affect real people they know and love- is a really bitter pill. On one hand, it's sad to have to break such depressing news. And on the other hand, it feels so isolating and infuriating that people who love me apparently have no clue any of this is happening unless I take the time to inform them.

Just needed to get that out. Thanks for listening.
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jae holzman @jael.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
PinkNews has long been a trash bin website. Do not use their materials
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bailey? 🏳️‍🌈 🇿🇦 @bailz.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
The reason AI is boyfriend, is because it is difficult for it to have less humanity than a lot of people on dating apps or running a lot of the world.
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cozy @bimbotheory.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
couldn't come up with better PR for transgenders than "underground transgender mafia successfully heisted 12 tonnes of Kitkats"
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Kill James Bond! @killjamesbond.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
today is Trans Day of Visibility see, you are transgender
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Margaret Killjoy @margaret.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
this week's post is about how trans visibility is, somehow, a threat to power margaretkilljoy.substack.com/p/our-visibi...
margaretkilljoy.substack.com
Our Visibility is Somehow a Threat to Power
or: on Trans Day of Visibility
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
humans are not designed for the amount of feedback being a public figure on social media provides. Whether it's praise or criticism, receiving an avalanche of nonstop attention is profoundly corrosive to your brain.
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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 24/02/2026
1. The New York Times, unsurprisingly, has released yet another hit piece on transgender people. This time, it comes from Jesse Singal. I fact check it in my latest piece. End your NYT subscription, and put it towards people doing good work on the issue. Subscribe to support our journalism.
erininthemorning.com
Fact Check: Jesse Singal Lies About Trans Care At The New York Times
The New York Times spreads misinformation about transgender people yet again.
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
maybe this makes me weird but when someone who irritates me goes out into the world and does a good thing, I find that to be a good thing if everyone i found annoying was standing up to fight this, the enemy would have no chance at all
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Ashley Willis-McNamara @ashley.dev · 02/12/2025
TL;DR Middle management is hard. Caring is required, but the kind of care you provide matters.
ashley.dev
Ashley Willis
The other day I texted my group chat with other leaders outside my organization. The ones I go to when the leadership stuff gets messy and I need perspective fr...
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Xe @xeiaso.net · 12/04/2025
xeiaso.net/notes/2025/a...
xeiaso.net
Anubis works
Xe Iaso's personal website.
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Hazel Weakly @hazelweakly.me · 07/04/2025
My favorite question to ask in order to learn this is “if you were in my shoes, how would you, as a new hire, go about being impactful at the company?” It’s a great question because it’s disarming and the honest + politically safe answer is still informative. Plus they might not even know!
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Emelia @thisismissem.social · 02/04/2025
I'm incredibly proud to announce the Fediverse Security Fund from Nivenly Foundation (@nivenly.bsky.social). It's a time-and-funds limited experiment, where they will pay for the responsible disclosure of high & critical security issues in open-source Fediverse software: nivenly.org/blog/2025/04...
nivenly.org
Nivenly Fediverse Security Fund
Security bounty fund to sponsor contributors who responsibly disclose security vulnerabilities in popular open source Fediverse software.
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mcc @dryad.technology · 16/03/2025
LOL wow a dude just argued in the EU courts that misgendering is a GDPR violation and he *won*. www.wearequeeraf.com/a-trans-refu...
wearequeeraf.com
A trans refugee's court case against Hungary just improved Trans+ rights across all of Europe
A landmark case at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on Thursday set a significant precedence for Trans+ rights across Europe.
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erin plasma @plasmasword.blacksky.app · 18/02/2025
aint nobody out here doing more with less, baybeeee
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Liz Fong-Jones (方禮真) @lizthegrey.com · 03/02/2025
transparency is not just streaming a firehose of BS at someone, it's making sure they can *understand* it.
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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 01/02/2025
These are the same picture.
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Elizabeth No War or ICE @fenbeast.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
I am genuinely, viscerally terrified of what might happen to PubMed.
screenshot of a Facebook post that reads:
CDC databases are being purged of anything not in keeping with the agenda of the current administration.

So here's the thing.

Any presidential administration that comes in DOES NOT OWN the information and data generated by scientists and scholars employed by previous administrations. That information belongs to the US taxpayer, who paid for the research that generated it. For them to make these data and the reports that were generated in the past inaccessible to the people who paid for them is outright theft (or vandalism, depending on what they're doing with the servers storing the data).

This is not just a nerd crying about the library of Alexandria, here. This is the real-time destruction of a huge repository of valuable information about health and wellness that has taken the United States decades to amass, being done to appease the prejudices and whims of people who are profoundly ignorant about health, mental health, and epidemiology.

Giving props to people on r/DataHoarder for frantically downloading terabytes of CDC data so it can be preserved.
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
i think an important thing for people outside the US to understand is that elon musk seized control of the government today and most americans don’t even realize it happened.
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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...
blog.archive.org
End of Term Web Archive – Preserving the Transition of a Nation | Internet Archive Blogs
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Cara Ramsey @cairenntairisu.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
After extensive review, France has established very positive gender affirming care guidelines, and they’ve rejected the highly politicized Cass Report as simply false. www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/12/new-...
lgbtqnation.com
New French guidelines show doctors overwhelmingly support gender-affirming care - LGBTQ Nation
The medical guidelines contradict numerous conclusions from the UK's infamous Cass Review.
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bailey? 🏳️‍🌈 🇿🇦 @bailz.bsky.social · 04/01/2025
People keep on saying that GenAI and LLMs are gonna replace us all and unlock all knowledge of the universe, but none of them can tell me definitely who the biggest user of glitter is. Smh.
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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 22/12/2024
Loved the article! Well, I didn't read it. Either way, I've got a few thoughts
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Danielle Froom 🏳️‍🌈 @danifroom.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
"You may not rest now, there are monsters nearby" repeated many times
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m. r. sauter @oddletters.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
i love being trans. medical transition saved and continues to save my life every day. the only bad thing about being trans is the reactions of cis people.
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bailey? 🏳️‍🌈 🇿🇦 @bailz.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Spotify, I know I subscribe to too many podcasts, but you don't have to rub it in by crashing half the time I open "New episodes" 😕
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 13/11/2024
i would happily pay a few dollars a month to keep this place viable.
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💉Josh Rubin, MD @drsandman11.medsky.social · 12/11/2024
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bailey? 🏳️‍🌈 🇿🇦 @bailz.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
I should really replace my Reddit doom scrolling with browsing here. Reddit makes me maybe overly suspicious of people being bots in a lot of the bigger subreddits.
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bailey? 🏳️‍🌈 🇿🇦 @bailz.bsky.social · 10/10/2024
🎵 "I'm always there when you curl, always online..." 🎵 (I'm sure this joke has been made already)
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v buckenham @v21.bsky.social · 01/12/2023
any file can be a csv file if it has a comma in it for example:
Jolene by Dolly Parton, parsed as a csv file by Numbers.app
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bailey? 🏳️‍🌈 🇿🇦 @bailz.bsky.social · 01/12/2023
"Don't make me think" and "Head empty, no thoughts" have a kind of similar vibe, alluding to a top secret being kept from us about the bimbofication of software engineers leading to the ideal developer platform, in this essay I will
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