Reposted by Billness as MetaphorProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026Hey, ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson here. I’m taking over the account to tell you about my new story. For months, I posed as a problem gambler on DraftKings to test the company's "responsible gaming" safeguards. Spoiler alert: They made me a VIP — and I lost $10K. Here's how it all went down. 🧵 19596023538
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Getting ready for beautiful darkness youtu.be/9llmjBUZLps?...youtu.beSandy Denny / Late NovemberYouTube video by Melancholy Rose 000
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Let’s keep the witch’s promise youtu.be/1qfMzljObgA?...youtu.beThe Witch's PromiseYouTube video by Jethro Tull - Topic 110
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Its Reynardine season again youtu.be/YfiXv9ZI4Jo?...youtu.beReynardineYouTube video by The John Renbourn Group - Topic 110
Reposted by Billness as Metaphorlog̷o, reanimated dad @loxophile.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Spirit Halloween taking a long, hungry look at the Kennedy Center 0275
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Seems at odds with the original intent of the place 010
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 11/09/2026I worked for several years in one of the drugstore chains that was later gobbled up by CVS. There were music tapes that the managers were supposed to rotate but never did, so one season the same 15 or so songs played endlessly. And now I feel weepy over Sting’s “Fortress Around Your Heart” 002
Reposted by Billness as MetaphorAdrian Weckler @adrianweckler.bsky.social · 05/09/2026If you're shopping on Google, its AI Mode (which it now boosts when you use Google) is showing you more expensive (by 21%) options for the exact same listing, a new survey claims. i.e. you're seeing more expensive vendors in the AI Mode. www.independent.ie/business/tec...independent.ieAdrian Weckler: Analysis of Google listings shows AI is making shopping 22pc dearerPlus, will you be running out to get the new €500 Dyson toothbrush? 34830
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 05/09/2026It’s almost as if continue to run an enormous city’s transit system on an ancient technology was a problematic idea (also: ugh, sorry) 010
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 03/09/2026No no, because I just saw this. And so glad I did. 100
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 03/09/2026A friend of mine was a producer on this and we saw an early version. Really beautiful! 000
Reposted by Billness as MetaphorIt's Abby. Yep @itsabbyyep.bsky.social · 01/09/2026Me: Time to quiet my mind with meditation— My Mind: Remember in 7th grade when you made a joke so dorky nobody laughed so you said it again 1039752
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 02/09/2026The rare phenomenon of one of the most warm-hearted examples of a genre being among its enduring glories. Leaves of Grass shit. 020
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 02/09/2026If you need a break from terribleness, me and the prog rock podcast boys went to the happiest place on earth: 1971’s THE YES ALBUM podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...podcasts.apple.comS2: Episode 8: Shining Flying Purple PodcastPodcast Episode · An Embarrassment of Prog · September 1 · 1h 19m 130
Reposted by Billness as Metaphorghost malone ergo propter bones @proptermalone.bsky.social · 29/08/2026also like i keep banging on about this but what USAID was doing was in many cases the first-dollar interventions, done at scale-- literally the best possible conversion rate from American resources into human welfare. there isn't another set of interventions that are just as good 320116
Reposted by Billness as MetaphorGregk Foley @gregk.co.uk · 28/08/2026Hate the petard, but man, do I love the hoist 2930172
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 28/08/2026The very specific and transitory bond that emerges when you and a stranger both go into emergency mode descending the stairs to try to catch a doors-are-closing subway and one of puts a largely symbolic hand in the doorframe until both of you are on. 000
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 28/08/2026How is this nakedly racist campaign against an entire people not a national scandal? How inured have we become? 001
Reposted by Billness as MetaphorRMJ @rmccarthyjames.bsky.social · 28/08/2026Levels of “Bitch what the fuck” are getting dangerously high 071
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 27/08/2026I prefer the term Mountain Orcas www.wsj.com/lifestyle/tr...wsj.comMarmots Are Terrorizing California Hikers and Stealing Their ShoesThe cute but destructive rodents are criminal masterminds, easily circumventing humans’ meager defenses. 031
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 26/08/2026I will say that absorbing all the various reviews and advertisements on the 1970s arts pages adjacent to reviews of the actual Public Theater shows was one of the more valuable things I studied in the 1990s and I now regret leaving it behind for more desiccated grad-school work. 130
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 26/08/2026I may be off with the phrasing. Or even with the attribution to the Times. I’ll try to look it up later. 110
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 26/08/2026…including of course the coverage of the (1973?) Shakespeare in the Park production of “As You Like It.” It’s possible that there was no use of “Mr. Loaf” but there was certainly an arch-sounding reference to a young singer who “calls himself Meat Loaf” playing Amiens. 120
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 26/08/2026In the dark backward of time I had a part-time gig helping prepare the press archive of the Public Theater for a grant funded transfer to microfiche (or microfilm, I forget). Read through nearly every page of NYC print theater coverage they had… 100
Reposted by Billness as MetaphorJesse Hawken @jessehawken.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Dolly Parton making a naughty joke with a safe sex message on network tv during the AIDS crisis, she was an ally youtu.be/DAB1BohKAB4youtu.beDolly (ABC, 1988) - Dolly Parton tells a naughty joke!YouTube video by Life in Analog 225157
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 26/08/2026-The Sting -Buckaroo Banzai -Casablanca -Persuasion -Dazed and Confused 040
Reposted by Billness as MetaphorIron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Honestly now would be an amazing time for all of us to donate what we can to her flagship charity, The Imagination Library. imaginationlibrary.comimaginationlibrary.comDolly Parton's Imagination Library | USA, UK, IE, CA, AUDolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a book gifting program that mails free books to children from birth until they begin school in participating areas. 11247726
Reposted by Billness as MetaphorWilliam Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 25/08/2026[Exit Queen.] 2063894011010
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 17/08/2026Seen yesterday at the Morgan Library. A little inspiration for Monday. 000
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 05/08/2026There’s not another film with a soundtrack like this—incredible pastiche (“Hot One”), cover versions that threaten the original (“H2B”), classics given a fresh spotlight (“Make Me Smile”)…hit me like a drug in the theater. 000
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 03/08/2026One more because I can’t not: Swordfishtrombones Rain Dogs Frank’s Wild Years 141
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 03/08/2026Fables/pageant/document is a hell of an answer 010
Reposted by Billness as MetaphorDr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 01/08/2026There's a lot in this thread & its multiple & various reply/quote offshoots that i disagree with, & am exhausted by, but i want to focus on 1 that i keep trying to press on: Let's stipulate LLMs *Can* do grad- & even expert-level math & we should prep for a revolution in the field… So what then?… 214049
Reposted by Billness as MetaphorJohn Scalzi @scalzi.com · 01/08/2026There is a certain level of obtuseness in (some) "AI" apologists when they flounce up to point out what "AI" is good for in science, etc, while eliding the fact that almost none of that use is driving the current market capitalization, environmental degradation and resource hogging of the field 411177193
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 01/08/2026The way my imagination is works is that I fantasize about proposing a book on Selling England by the Pound and some implacable authority then demands that I do one on Invisible Touch 000
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 01/08/2026Next Met Gala to Honor Encyclopedia Brown 120
Reposted by Billness as MetaphorAdam Chalmers @adamchalmers.com · 28/07/2026Neuromancer is chillingly relevant today because it asks: what if a guy would rather Die than stop Going Online 81139296
Billness as Metaphor @tripleblip.bsky.social · 29/07/2026I agree: watch this and listen to this unconscionable violation of peoples’ lives. Don’t miss the CEO having the gall to say that if you don’t like it they’ll just buy your house. This, by the way, is all for bitcoin mining. It’s monstrous that this is being allowed to happen. 041