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Merideth [introvertebrate]

@stellarplexus.bsky.social
397 followers 496 following 752 posts

Give me SPACE! Astro nerd, naturalist, animal friend, research librarian, writer, reader, sketcher, former island hopper, aspiring forest witch

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Reposted by Merideth [introvertebrate]
ESA Space Science @science.esa.int · 14h
Inspector Smile is ready for science! 🫡 This is Smile’s first ultraviolet view showing an auroral substorm. With the ultraviolet camera now operational, Smile becomes the first spacecraft since 2008 to capture the full ring of northern lights around the north pole in ultraviolet light. 🔭 🧪 ☀️
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I think about this interview with the distinguished philosopher Conan O'Brien a lot. I actually think this is a healthy way to live your life! www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/a...
Is this how you want to go out, with a show that gets smaller and smaller until it’s gone?

Maybe that’s O.K. I think you have more of a problem with that than I do. [Laughs.] At this point in my career, I could go out with a grand, 21-gun salute, and climb into a rocket and the entire Supreme Court walks out and they jointly press a button, I’m shot up into the air and there’s an explosion and it’s orange and it spells, “Good night and God love.” In this culture? Two years later, it’s going to be, who’s Conan? This is going to sound grim, but eventually, all our graves go unattended.

You’re right, that does sound grim.

Sorry. Calvin Coolidge was a pretty popular president. I’ve been to his grave in Vermont. It has the presidential seal on it. Nobody was there. And by the way, I’m the only late-night host that has been to Calvin Coolidge’s grave. I think that’s what separates me from the other hosts.

I had a great conversation with Albert Brooks once. When I met him for the first time, I was kind of stammering. I said, you make movies, they live on forever. I just do these late-night shows, they get lost, they’re never seen again and who cares? And he looked at me and he said, [Albert Brooks voice] “What are you talking about? None of it matters.” None of it matters? “No, that’s the secret. In 1940, people said Clark Gable is the face of the 20th Century. Who [expletive] thinks about Clark Gable? It doesn’t matter. You’ll be forgotten. I’ll be forgotten. We’ll all be forgotten.” It’s so funny because you’d think that would depress me. I was walking on air after that.
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 18h
This is a photograph of the edge of one of Saturn's rings, looking down from above. Those spiky dark shapes are shadows. Shadows of giant towers of ice and dust grains clumped together that rise up to three *kilometres* above the 10-m thick rings.
A series of bands cross the image from left to right, brighter at the bottom and darkening towards the top. A band of empty space is at the top of the image. About a quarter down from the top is a complex pattern of jagged, spiky shadows cast onto the rings. The icy towers casting the shadows are seen here at a highly oblique angle.
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Maria Popova @mariapopova.bsky.social · 19h
In the autumn of 1883, a national paper reported that "an Iowa woman has spent seven years embroidering the solar system on a quilt." Ellen Harding Baker used her stunning quilt to teach astronomy in an era when women could not attend college www.themarginalian.org/2018/12/06/e...
themarginalian.org
Cosmic Threads: A Solar System Quilt from 1876
A serenade to the universe in wool and silk.
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026
I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility
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my ordinary life @calne.ca · 27/09/2026
im very busy
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Merideth [introvertebrate] @stellarplexus.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
So much has already been poured into precious and highly successful missions such as this, and it can continue to reshape our perceptions of the universe for decades to come, so long as we don’t quietly let jokers and fools plunder and despoil what does not belong to them.
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SkyCalPro | Kev @skycalpro.com · 27/09/2026
Comet Churyumov Gerasimenko in Crescent Additionally, neither Rosetta nor its Philae lander detected a magnetic field around the comet nucleus, indicating that magnetism might have been unimportant in the evolution of the early Solar System. Credit: NASA APOD (2015) #Astronomy
Comet Churyumov Gerasimenko in Crescent
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Nereide @drnereide.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Think you know Jupiter? In ultraviolet light, it can look like almost another planet. Dark poles, a dark Great Red Spot, one bright oval that fades. #Hubble reveals clouds and hazes the eye cannot see. 📷NASA, ESA, Hubble, Judy Schmidt apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap18101... 🧪🔭⚛️ #planetsci #astronomy
Jupiter sits big and round against black. This is near-ultraviolet, false color.
Bands run across the disk in cyan, pink and muted brown instead of the usual cream and orange. The poles look darker  brown with slightly pinkish clues. On the left side of the planet a large storm, the Great Red Spot, is also dark rather than red. Just to its right a smaller oval that would look white in visible light is similarly dark. Farther right a chain of storms, the String of Pearls, stands out bright pink.A small round disk at upper left, off the planet’s limb, is Ganymede.
A thin credit line at lower right reads NASA, ESA, Hubble, Processing: Judy Schmidt.
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⤵️ @bryce.lol · 27/09/2026
If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber’d here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend; And, as I am an honest Puck, Show is over, off you fuck.
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Dakota Smith @weatherdak.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The Eastern Pacific is printing major hurricanes. A spectacular satellite view of Hurricane Nolo this evening.
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Nereide @drnereide.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This extraordinary image was created by reprocessing & merging 16 frames from Voyager 1's flyby of Jupiter in 1979. Just right of center, you can see the Great Red Spot, a huge storm system. ➡️ apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap20062... Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Tranchandon 🔭🧪⚛️ #histsci #planetsci
Voyager 1 view of Jupiter. Banded clouds wrap the planet in beige, cream & pale brown. Just right of center sits the Great Red Spot, an oval storm flushed orange-red. Lower left, the bright disk of Europa is visible. Upper right, a round dark patch marks Io’s shadow on the cloud tops.
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Oregon 🕎🎲 @oregonthedm.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Most riveting thing I've seen all week
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Astronomy Picture of the Day 🪐 @apod.shinyakato.dev · 24/09/2026
🔭 The Ghosts of Five Supernovas Image Credit & Copyright: Stephane Vetter, Yann Sainty Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II) ap260924
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
the highest resolution version available.
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Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
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Sarah Andersen @sarahseeandersen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The image is of a four panel comic.
In the first panel we see Sarah, the protagonist, next to a stick figure labeled “AI”. The stick figure says, “my outputs look just like yours now.”
The second panel zooms in on Sarah’s face. Above her we see text reading “I think”.
The third panel zooms in closer on Sarah’s face. Text above her reads “you missed”.
The fourth panel shows Sarah drawing happily in a sunlit room. The text above her reads “the point”.
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I’m so tired of US politics, I propose we abolish existing states and make new ones based on the ancient Cicada brood territories.
Map “Active Periodical Cicada Broods of the United States” showing various colored splotches across the eastern central United States.
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SETI Institute @setiinstitute.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
#PPOD: Mars turns purple near its south pole! Morning light, airborne dust, surface frost, and dark volcanic material create the striking colors in this Mars Express view of Thyles Rupes. 🧪 🔭
False-color satellite view of Mars' cratered polar plain, showing multiple round impact craters, bright frost or ice deposits, layered dunes and eroded reddish terrain.
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Merideth [introvertebrate] @stellarplexus.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
“Chrysocolla is on the Do Not Lick list due to the heavy metal content of this hydrous copper silicate, but if you did unwisely touch a rough specimen to your tongue it would feel sticky as its porous and relatively dehydrated state sucked the water out of you.” #Chrysocolla licks YOU!! #MinCup26
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Merideth [introvertebrate] @stellarplexus.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is how travel brochures should be written.
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Merideth [introvertebrate] @stellarplexus.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Feels almost as if you can reach through and plunge your fingers into the coarse, rusted sand of a different world… I mean, for how long did our ancestors look up and wonder why that one wandering star was so much redder than the others, yet we get to look at it up close so casually? BADASS 😍
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Dr. Sarah Parcak @indyfromspace.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Tired: STEM (Science Tech Engineering Math) Wired: STEAM (Science Tech Engineering Arts Math) On Fire: STEAM PUNK (Science Tech Engineering Arts Math+ Pyrotechnics Ukulele Ninja Klezmer)
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Jennifer Lynn Bartlett @bartlettastro.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
"And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by" (Sea-Fever, Masefield) ... & a quadrant for sights & calculations celestial #navigation in the #GoldenAgeofPiracy #celnav #astrophysics🧪🏛️ #talklikeapirateday #histsci #MarinersMuseum #instrumentation #timekeeping
Antique wooden gunter-type quadrant with engraved calendar and hour lines, photographed on white padded fabric, with a thin string and small metal plumb bob extending from one side. c. 1690. Mariners' Museum accession # 1991.0057.000001
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Merideth [introvertebrate] @stellarplexus.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
“The Uncompahgre Ute[…] harnessed [triboluminescence from electrical charges under mechanical stress] by making ceremonial rattles of translucent buffalo rawhide filled with quartz crystals. When shaken[…] the crystals smashing into each other produced enough glow to be visible through the rawhide.”
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Kevin Earp @astrokev.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
A few images from a quick solar session this morning, before the clouds rolled in. Taken with my 100mm Esprit refractor and Quark chromosphere. Processed in AS4, Imppg and Affinity Photo 🔭
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Debra's Astrophotography @debraceravolo.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Feeling very lucky to have clear skies and northern lights while in Iceland. Taken on September 8, 2026 near Vestrahorn Mountain. I love how the shadows and streaks in the sky resemble a mountain. #astrophotography #astronomy #northernlights
Brilliant green northern lights streak through the sky and reflect off a river near Vestrahorn mountain in Iceland on September 8th, 2026
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William Butler Yeets @yeets.biz · 19/09/2026
i need to know what happened
sign in a restaurant "due to recent events Bigfoot discussions are no longer permitted on the patio"
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Bruno Dias @brunodias.dev · 18/09/2026
A version of the "Aella's birthday gangbang" Sankey diagram but it's about Bluesky posters thinking about posting Sankey diagram jokes, leading from "thought about Sankey diagram joke" through various iterations of workshopping and writing the joke (with various dead ends due to forgetting about it, losing interest, etc). Eventually at the end the joke is finally posted; some posters do numbers with it, some don't, some came in a fluffer
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Mike Melton @mikemelton.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Mountain Chickadee for #Paridae #birdoftheday #birds #nature
Small gray-and-white songbird with a black cap and throat standing on a wet rock beside the water.
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Dr Alfredo Carpineti @drcarpineti.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Last night was a dream come true! Went on the roof and saw a supernova for the first time! That's galaxy NGC 7331, which is 45 million light years away. It was a Type Ia supernova: a thieving white dwarf steals so much material from a companion that it collapses under its own mass! 🤩🔭
A photo of a little spiral galaxy with red lines pointing to a blueish dot right off the galactic centerA photo of a little spiral galaxy with red lines pointing to a blueish dot right off the galactic center - similar to the other one but zommed in
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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 17/09/2026
Another great image from @ajamesmccarthy.bsky.social He was working this image of NGC 7331 when a supernova happened! cosmicbackground.io/pages/ea-civ... #astrophotography
A 100 hour exposure of the Deer Lick Group reveals not just a stunning arrangement of prominent galaxies- but thanks to it's position roughly 20° off of the plane of the Milky Way and very little interstellar dust blocking the view, you can see a smattering of distant objects, with some galaxies over a BILLION Light years distant. 
 
At first glance you may see a couple galaxies in this crop below- but then, the longer you look, the more you see. 

Stars have a very consistent "point spread function" that determines their shape, so they're all essentially identical in structure, just with slightly different colors and luminosities. Everything that doesn't fit that pattern, is an ENTIRE GALAXY.
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Ana Marie Cox @anamariecox.com · 17/09/2026
New cat just dropped. Landed on its feet, it’s fine.
nationalgeographic.com
Meet the First New Cat Species Discovered in 100 Years
A small, spotted tiger cat from Bolivia may just be the beginning of a wave of new small cat species.
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Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 17/09/2026
"Total eclipse, Bergonzano, Italy" Stanislao Farri, 1961
mulitple exposure shot of a solar eclipse over a snowy vineyard
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Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · 16/09/2026
Hubble has observed many Messier catalog items over 35+ years, including the Orion Nebula, the Omega Nebula, globular star cluster Messier 75, and galaxy Messier 109. Scroll through Hubble’s Messier images, and find your favorite: go.nasa.gov/3Ui2kHl 🔭
Messier 42: A vibrant and colorful image of the Orion Nebula, showcasing swirling clouds of gas and dust in hues of purple, pink, and orange, dotted with bright stars. The nebula is set against a dark cosmic background.Messier 17: The Omega Nebula features a dense field of stars and interstellar dust clouds. The image showcases vibrant blues, with bright stars scattered throughout the nebula.Messier 75: A densely packed star cluster, known as Messier 75 (M75), fills the image. The center radiates brightly with numerous stars, surrounded by a halo of smaller, glimmering stars. The background is black.Messier 109: A large spiral galaxy with a bright core surrounded by swirling dust and stars. The image depicts various shades of blue, illustrating large dust lanes and bright groups of stars.
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US National Gemini Office @usngo.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Throwback post: Our friends at Kitt Peak (home of DESI and NEID) also got a spectacular view of the Lunar eclipse. Note the "tiny" dot in the Southeast starting at 15 seconds! #Astronomy
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S.M. Pritchard @smpritchard.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
On 09/01, a new supernova was found in the galaxy NGC 7331, so last night I tried to image it and record a spectrum. It's about mag 12 right now. The spectrum shows the silicon absorption of a type 1a supernova. From this I got an expansion velocity of about -9200 km/s (3% the speed of light). 🔭🧪☄️
An image of a spiral galaxy seen at an oblique angle, with many foreground stars. To the left, several smaller yellowish-gold galaxies form a small arc. Near the core of this galaxy is a bright blue-white star, which is actually a supernova explosion.The same image as before, but now the location of the supernova is clearly marked by a red crosshairs.A plot of the supernova's spectrum, from 3400-7400 Angstroms. There are several prominent dips due to the absorption from various elements. The right-most dip is labeled as "Si II" at 6159.75 Angstroms, representing the characteristic silicon absorption feature of type 1a supernovae.
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Natee (they/them) @himmapaan.bsky.social · 22/09/2024
Clip from October 2023, sped up ×2. I enjoy inking grass. 😅
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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Briefly popping my head back in to unveil the cover of my upcoming book, LIFE BEYOND MEASURE: Nature's Hidden Wonders at Every Scale. It’ll be out on April 6 in the U.S. and April 29 in the U.K. and you can pre-order it right now! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757705... 1/
A book cover featuring a beautiful closely cropped portrait of an Anna's hummingbird. The cover says LIFE BEYOND MEASURE: Nature's Hidden Wonders at Every Scale, by Ed Yong. The image also says US: 4/06/27 and UK: 4/29/27
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Merideth [introvertebrate] @stellarplexus.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
As much as I adore a good phosphorescent (and I do!), that deep blue is just too ridiculously gorgeous and so is the pigment it makes. Team #Azurite all the way. #MinCup26
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Jonathan @jsench.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by private equity and data science.
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Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · 15/09/2026
#NASARoman activated the Wide Field Instrument—a 300-megapixel infrared camera that will allow it to explore wide swaths of the cosmos quickly. This test image captures the very first photons of starlight to reach the instrument—taken as an initial performance assessment: go.nasa.gov/4rg4qEc
At the top, a grid of 21 panels shows a series of blue images with tiny neon green and yellow circles. A larger image highlights a section of the grid with circular patterns, and an inset presents a detailed star-like diffraction pattern. The colors consist of blue, green, and yellow.
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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
22 years of Roman. It may outlast us all.
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ESA Space Science @science.esa.int · 15/09/2026
Webb reveals one of its largest images to date! 😲 This starry view shows the nearby star-forming region IC 348. Here, astronomers searched for brown dwarfs, objects which are less massive than the smallest stars. Read more 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭🧪
A star-forming region. It is blanketed in thick clouds of gas and dust, millions of kilometres across, that form swirling patterns. Bright stars are scattered throughout the clouds, with the densest cluster situated in the centre of the scene. Each is crowned with six long points created by the optics of the telescope’s mirrors. In the upper right, a couple of hidden stars blast out long, glowing jets of material. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, K. Luhman, C. Alves De Oliveira, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
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Thomas Kole @thomaskole.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
In ~1940, Ola Apenes took two photos from the Xaltepec volcano in the Valley of Mexico. It shows a sweeping image of the drying Texcoco Lake, and three towns (former altepemeh) at the foot of the Sierra de Santa Catarina. All this is now Iztapalapa, Mexico City.
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Hourly Cosmos @hourlycosmos.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Aurora over Raisting Earth Station with Moon - From Simeon Schmauß (stim3on.bsky.social) - flic.kr/p/2pQoiDV
What a crazy night, we went into it not expecting much since the solar storm was forecast for after sunrise in central Europe. 
However, before the sun had even set, I got the alert that the first CME had impacted Earth, so the chances immediately looked a lot better. What then unfolded surpassed even our wildest expectations.
We ended up driving to this satellite ground station south of Ammersee in southern Bavaria and just when we arrived we spotted the first diffuse pillars north of us. 
We experienced three waves of incredibly strong Aurora, especially for our rather Southern latitude. During the second wave we saw individual pulsating filaments dancing over our heads. What a breathtaking experience! 

Many thanks to Christopher for accompanying me on this adventure, Max for being an all round great guy, and Sebastian who lent me his wide angle lenses that made these shots possible.
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StarCatcher 🇨🇦 @starcatcherjohn.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
🧵(1/2) NGC 6888 A.K.A. The Crescent Nebula is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, about 5000 light-years away from Earth. Taken on 26-09-11 from my backyard 🔭 William Optics Pleiades 111 📷 QHY Mini 8 Exposure: 4 hours and 15 minutes #Astrophotography #Space #DeepSpace #Astronomy
The Crescent Nebula is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, about 5000 light-years away from Earth. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1792.
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Merideth [introvertebrate] @stellarplexus.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
There are a lot of gems in this thread, but this one gets better every time you think about it
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Merideth [introvertebrate] @stellarplexus.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Oh look, it’s “Werner Herzog’s Sad Beige [Little Tikes toys] for Sad Beige Children”
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Merideth [introvertebrate] @stellarplexus.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
“That’s an exaggeration,” I say with confidence as I affectionately survey the painstakingly constructed garden on my deck, which this morning yielded one (1) fine, sweet salmonella-deficient tomato and three (3) delightful e. Coli-free green beans.
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Joshua Eaton @joshuaeaton.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
“There’s a new Mr. Beast book.” You bolt awake in your workshop in Mainz. It’s 1450. You’re Johannes Gutenberg, and you’ve changed your mind. The future cannot come to pass. Your printing press must burn.
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