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Matt C

@mattcivico.bsky.social
138 followers 384 following 378 posts

The Internet was a mistake. Blog at mattcivico.com

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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
A smartphone is a great tool. All it takes to keep it from being a millstone around your neck is to opt out of (mobile) social media. Messages, calls, music, maps, and Merlin Bird ID is all you really need. Post to bsky from a desktop computer — we’d all be better off!
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Made hot cross buns today and the yeast didn’t proof AND I managed to burn them. Tenebrae indeed.
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Tom Emanuel @realtomemanuel.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Bilbo is no more Tolkien's explicit, one-to-one self-insert than Frodo or Faramir. But knowing what we knnow about JRRT's final years and his relationship with Christopher, this reads as the most Tolkienian exchange imaginable.
An excerpt from the final chapters of The Lord of the Rings, when the hobbits return to Rivendell to visit Bilbo on their way home:

“‘I don’t think, Mr. Frodo, that he’s done much writing while we’ve been away. He won’t ever write our story now.’

At that Bilbo opened an eye, almost as if he had heard. Then he roused himself. ‘You see, I am getting so sleepy,’ he said. ‘And when I have time to write, I only really like writing poetry. I wonder, Frodo my dear fellow, if you would very much mind tidying things up a bit before you go? Collect all my notes and papers, and my diary too, and take them with you, if you will. You see, I haven’t much time for the selection and the arrangement and all that. Get Sam to help, and when you’ve knocked things into shape, come back, and I’ll run over it. I won’t be too critical.’ 

‘Of course I’ll do it!’ said Frodo. ‘And of course I’ll come back soon: it won’t be dangerous any more. There is a real king now, and he will soon put the roads in order.’

‘Thank you, my dear fellow!’ said Bilbo. ‘That really is a very great relief to my mind.’ And with that he fell asleep again.”

(LotR VI.6, “Many Partings,” 988)
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Phil Klay @philklay.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
“Oppressed beneath the weight of their own corruption and of military violence, they for a long while preserved the sentiments, or at least the ideas, of their freeborn ancestors.” —Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
May all your nights be pizza nights
A beautiful, golden (and crisp) homemade pizza with pepperoni
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St. Simeon the Holy Fool @simeonthefool.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
[opening the envelope] "Jim, the results of this test say..... you ARE mortal and will one day die!" —Memento Maury
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The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
A few of the stunning illustrations from a 16th-century treatise on comets — known as The Comet Book — created anonymously in Flanders (now northern France). More info and images from the book here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/t…
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
This is why I try my best to call restaurants directly for orders, and do pick up when possible. It limits choices, but I don’t *need* to choose from hundreds of restaurants for delivery.
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
The series finale vindicated my take on Hopper here, which I’m quite pleased about.
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BCP Minus Context @bcpminuscontext.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
O God, make speed to save us.
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Matt Zoller Seitz @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
It's wild that people used to go to movie theaters for films about people going through people type stuff.
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
The deep sadness one feels when their 4yo refuses to let you play the Bluey soundtrack…
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
I’ve never watched a baseball game before. Why am I still up??
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Currently enforcing a strict bedtime no-fly zone.
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Martyn Wendell Jones @martynwendell.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
this is astonishing
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Fighting with my 4yo about who gets to finish the cod liver
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Nathan Edwards @grackle.space · 22/09/2025
dudes rock
Tumblr post from every-lemon 
Sep 8

so my spouse is part of a weirdly intense but mostly benign men's workout group that meets at like, 5:30am outside every day, even in winter. they do a lot of burpees and lugging cinder blocks up hills and stuff.
they take turns leading the workouts and tomorrow is his turn. I asked what he was planning. he handed me a sheet of William Carlos William poems from a large stack he'd printed.
I said "what" and he explained, helpfully, "it's a William Carlos William themed workout." I asked what inspired it and he said "l've been planning this for months."
Follow up tumblr post 
every-lemon
Sep 9
it was a smash hit.
a dozen guys showed up (more than usual). spouse brought a red wheelbarrow and they took turns bringing cinder blocks up the hill with it. then they broke up in teams and did a relay with an "icebox" (cooler filled with 40lbs of ice). at the end he opened the cooler to reveal it was full of beach plum lacroix and all the guys cheered. they drank sparkling water as he read 'approach of winter' out loud.
he was home by 6:30am.
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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
If generations of the enslaved boldly prayed for freedom while never seeing it themselves, why am I acting like it’s the end of the world that I can’t order safety and justice to my door on an app.
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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 21/09/2025
I still can’t believe this guy said this. What more proof do people need that this is a bubble? What exactly do you think “overbuild” means other than “the demand isn’t there”? When will everybody stop running the stupid asshole Olympics?
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Sheila Liming @seeshespeak.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
“Not only is the ratio of AI’s resource rapacity to its productive utility indefensibly and irremediably skewed, AI-made material is itself a waste product: flimsy, shoddy, disposable, a single-use plastic of the mind.” www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...
nplusonemag.com
Large Language Muddle | The Editors
The AI upheaval is unique in its ability to metabolize any number of dread-inducing transformations. The university is becoming more corporate, more politically oppressive, and all but hostile to the ...
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
I’m canceling every subscription that licks a boot.
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Nikolaj Bill @nikolajbill.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
A too online man came to Jesus and asked, “What must I do to receive eternal life?” Jesus told him to keep the commandments, to which the man replied that he had. Jesus then told him to delete his accounts and stop trolling. When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he was based.
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Boze Herrington, Library Owl @sketchesbyboze.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Whatever its merits, the internet has become a psychologically destructive force. You will be happier and healthier if you don’t spend excess amounts of time online. Stop scrolling. Water your garden. Read a book to your kids. You will not regret a life spent in this world.
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Today is a good day to love your neighbour. Yes, even that one.
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Rising political violence is bad, even when it happens to someone I do not like, whose views I find reprehensible. The road of endless escalation leads nowhere good for society.
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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
I commend him to God’s mercy. Even as I do not mourn him. I pray divine grace prevents us from yet more cruelty and violence, and that God help me resist lowering myself to hatred because Kirk was himself so hateful.
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Matt B @mattbernico.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Political violence signals a failure of the left to organize a coherent and effective resistance to fascism and a deepening of the spiral of violence.
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Hey, @samreich.bsky.social is in my crossword… Has he… been here? THE WHOLE TIME??
Unfinished crossword grid. Clue says “Game Changer host Reich”

Answer: Sam!
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
How does anyone post, ever? I’ve written and discarded 3 replies to that terrible Taylor Lorenz student phone ban take. I’m gonna go eat the zucchini fritters I just made instead
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
Listening to 4 dudes talking about how great it is to talk to ChatGPT. “I love treating it like shit.”
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
About to see Hamilton live after 10 years of waiting ⭐️
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
The best part? It would’ve been wrong either way. ✨Dumbass Autocomplete ✨
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frozen.f8 @frozen-f8.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
From my Montreal Metro series: Station Beaudry 📷 Leica M3 🔘 Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 🎞️ Ilford HP5 #believeinfilm #filmphotography #LeicaM3 #voigtlander15mmf45 #ilfordHP5 #ilfordphoto #Montreal #MontrealMetro
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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
I'm convinced that Vonnegut's dictum "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be" is an indispensable piece of wisdom for our current moment, for a whole host of reasons
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Addison Del Mastro @ad-mastro.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
"If someone is good enough to deliver your packages or mow your grass or tar your roof or clean your house or be a nanny to your kids, then they’re damn well good enough to be your neighbor." thedeletedscenes.substack.com/p/who-is-my-...
thedeletedscenes.substack.com
Who Is My Neighbor?
Long thoughts on characterization and fact in regional housing arguments
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Orcspiration @orcspiration.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
PUT AWAY YOUR GREATSWORD, TODAY YOU WILL BATTLE DESPAIR. AND YOU WILL WIN.
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Plough Quarterly @plough.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
“A good life is not merely one indefinitely extended through meticulous attention to bodily wellness, but one spent in community and with joy.” @malcolmguite.bsky.social
plough.com
In Defense of Pint and Pipe
Smoking and drinking carry known risks. Here’s why I haven’t given them up.
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Le Devoir @ledevoir.com · 28/06/2025
Chronique | Travailler en juillet? Travailler en août? Il doit y avoir une erreur. L’été, l’été, l’été, c’est fait pour jouer.
ledevoir.com
L’été rêvé, l’été réel
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Orcspiration @orcspiration.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
SEIZE JOY FROM THE JAWS OF PAIN. HAVE YOU HAD ENOUGH WATER TODAY?
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Amy Hoy @amyhoy.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
and this is why even “AI skeptics” will “believe” the lie machine when it lies to them about what it’s doing, or how it was trained, or that it can or can’t do something 100% of LLM output is generative, which means 100% of it is potentially total fabrication, even “status messages”
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
You’ve been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who is coming to save you? (Nice.)
The kids from Season 3 of Stranger Things.

But I believe Joyce, Hopper, and Steve are on a related side mission.
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Draft the post. Discard the post. Enjoy evening!
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Just watched Heat for the first time and I want the hardboiled Hong Kong version
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
The perfect saboteur is a 4yo
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BCP Minus Context @bcpminuscontext.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
make me ready, Lord, for whatever
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
Know who you could ask instead of chatGPT? Literally anyone.
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
Reposting this as my employer pursues and rushed and wrong-headed return to office commonpursuits.com/remote-work-...
commonpursuits.com
Remote Work & Renewing Neighbourhoods
Remote work should give people more freedom and flexibility, but how we use that freedom matters.
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
Underrated take
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Matt C @mattcivico.bsky.social · 27/04/2025
You can have a hot drink and then go bed early. You really can!
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