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Bill Kaminsky

@itinfer.bsky.social
57 followers 120 following 604 posts
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Bill Kaminsky @itinfer.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Maybe it's a little wrong to use a quote from a "meta"-Simpsons episode --- this one being the Season 11 finale that's a parody of those VH1 "Behind the Music" documentaries of musicians' sordid, career-derailing personal lives --- but, man oh man, do I find this quote applicable to so many people!
Screenshot from the Season 11 finale "Behind the Laughter" of _The Simpsons" (Season 11, Episode 22, original airdate 2000-05-21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behind_the_Laughter)

In the screenshot you see Homer sitting in a director's-style folding chair behind the scenes on a set being interviewed in a parody of those VH1 documentaries "Behind the Music" that became stereotyped as being more about how oh-so-many rock and pop musicians' careers were derailed by drug problems or other sordid things in their personal life than about those rock and pop musicians' actual music.

Homer sits next to a big TV showing the scene from Season 6, Episode 5 "Sideshow Bob Roberts" in which he clings to a wrecking ball that the nefarious Sideshow Bob, now Mayor of Springfield after election fraud engineered by the Springfield Republican Party, is hoping will destroy the Simpsons home on Evergreen Terrace, ostensibly to create a new freeway (but actually for revenge, natch!)

As this is a "meta"-episode parodying VH1's "Behind the Music" the conceit is Homer is actually an actor and this scene where he grabbed onto a wrecking ball in a silly, cartoonishly, and comedically doomed effort to stop it wrecking his house was actually a major stunt, one that greviously injured Homer, sending him on his addiction spiral to pain killers.

Ok, with all that overkill of context, finally the quote!  Homer says to the documentarian's camera:

"Why did I take such punishment?
 Let's just say that fame was like a drug.
 But, what was even more like a drug was the drugs!"
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Bill Kaminsky @itinfer.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
1/2 Though since this is Bluesky, maybe my last post (ie, Snoopy & Woodstock fanart as James T. Snoop & Mr. Stock) isn't that mix of lefty-yet-bound-to-piss-off-other-lefties that's Bluesky's stock and trade. Also, it arguably wasn't enough of a "not quite Star Trek". So, here goes...
The design of the "Propaganda Trek" t-shirt from sci-fi-focused cultural critic Damien Walter, aka "DAMO" [e.g., https://www.youtube.com/@DamienWalter for his video essays, has links to his writings and other work]  Available for purchase at https://damosays-shop.fourthwall.com/products/propaganda-trek-2

The design is has a overwhelmingly red-and-black color scheme, befitting the topic advertised in big red text on a black background at bottom: FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY SPACE COMMUNISM (a reference most directly to the ideas of the 2019 book with that title by Aaron Bastani, for summary see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_Automated_Luxury_Communism which in turn, IIRC, can be seen to be directly inspired by this essay by Peter Frase from 2011 (think "Occupy Wall Street" Era) and the line of work it inspired https://jacobin.com/2011/12/four-futures [novelty link to get around paywall if you're that type of Commie who opposes private *intellectual* property https://archive.ph/UljTT ]

The design has a very Leon-Trotsky-looking Mr. Spock on the left facing a Starfleet insignia in the center to which a sickle has been added to mash it up with the Hammer and Sickle that was the key symbol of the USSR's flag, and then mirroring Trotsky/Spock, we see a very Vladimir-Lenin-Looking Jean-Luc Picard looking at the Hammer andd Sickle Starfleet Insignia
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Bill Kaminsky @itinfer.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
At the risk of seeming weird, here's fan art that I made of Captain James T. Snoop and his BFF/Science Officer/#1 Mr. Stock.
Snoopy and Woodstock dressed as Kirk and Spock in _Star Trek_ (The Original Series) uniforms.   Thus, Snoopy is in black pants and a yellow command officer's top a la Original Series Kirk.   His eyes are closed looking pensively cute.   Woodstock is in black pants and a blue science officer's top.  He additionally has the Mr. Spock bowl cut hairdo and pointy ears compared to normal.  He's looking very logically serious.   

Base picture was made with Microsoft Copilot off the prompt "Can you draw a cute cartoon white beagle a la Snoopy wearing a Star Trek (Original Series) yellow shirted uniform a la Captain Kirk and a cute yellow bird a la Woodstock with pointed ears and a Star Trek (Original Series) blue shirted uniform a la Mr. Spock?"

I then did minor manual drawing over with my Apple Pencil in iPad Photos since Copilot does bizarre eyebrows in my experience, plus it gave Woodstock a rather demonically sharply pointed nose, also weirdly left certain black outlines of the figures incomplete.
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Bill Kaminsky @itinfer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Post a #Vampire that isn't Dracula...
Snoopy and Woodstock as Vampires, sitting on the ground.  Snoopy is on the left smiling and generally looking not at all like an unholy representative of The Damned in a cape with a purple outer lining, red inner lining, and a green circular amulet(?) clasping the cape together around his neck.  He also has fangs that extend beyond the closed lips of his smile.   Woodstock sits to the right next to hip in a similar cape (though it's not open enough to see its inner lining.  To me he just looks bemused about whether this bit is landing or not. ;)
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Bill Kaminsky @itinfer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on its Midichlorian-Content?
A modified (desecrated?) version that I made of the top half of the first page of the first officially published English translation of Albert Einstein's famous 1905 paper that derived E =mc^2, namely:

Einstein, Albert. "Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhängig?" Annalen der Physik, vol. 323, no. 13, 1905, pp. 639–641. Reprinted in English translation as "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy-Content?" in _The Principle of Relativity: A Collection of Original Memoirs on the Special and General Theory of Relativity_, translated by W. Perrett and G. B. Jeffery, Methuen and Company, Ltd., London, 1923, pp. 67–71.

[Sidenote: The paper, being inarguably one of the top physics papers of all time, can be freely and legally obtained online from all sorts of places.  The one I screenshot was: https://fermatslibrary.com/s/does-the-inertia-of-a-body-depend-upon-its-energy-content ]

My two modifications appear both in red pen (well, red pen digital effect from my Apple Pencil on my iPad):  

1) The word "ENERGY" in the title has been crossed out and replaced with "MIDICHLORIAN"

2) "A. EINSTEIN" in the byline has been crossed out and replaced with "Me!"
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Bill Kaminsky @itinfer.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
The Vector, aka The Rank-1 Tensor in some markets.
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Bill Kaminsky @itinfer.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
1/2 Sonny Rollins has passed. First, if anyone needs a gift link to his NYT obituary, here's one from yours truly: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/25/a...
nytimes.com
Sonny Rollins, Giant of the Jazz Saxophone, Is Dead at 95
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Bill Kaminsky @itinfer.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
media.tenor.com
a green planet in space with the words `` you win again gravity '' written below it .
Alt: _Futurama_ meme from Season 3, Episode 1, "Amazon Women in the Mood" in which you see the fancy restaurant flying-saucer-ish looking spaceship on which Leela & Zapp and Amy & Kiff were having a bad double date toppling end over end as it careens into a crash landing on the big greenish planet Amazonia. Caption is Zapp's hilariously simultaneously-bombastic-and-pathetic cry "You win again, gravity!"
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Reposted by Bill Kaminsky
Sophia_Nyx 🐰 @sophianyx.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Name your fav Futurama quote.
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Bill Kaminsky @itinfer.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
1/2 To turn over a new leaf and post something of my own and stop being a prolific "reply guy", here's something sorta out of metaphorical left field in honor of the celebrations in Hungary for Peter Magyar and Tisza's supermajority victory over Orban and Fidesz: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEOK... ...
youtube.com
St. Stephen's Cross
YouTube video by Vienna Teng - Topic
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