With-shaking-hands - Tomatoes Are Pretty

the children have arrived

elon musk did a nazi salute twice at the inauguration, and republicans are defending him.

trump revoked executive order 11246, which prohibited discrimination.

trump put all dei employees on leave to be fired.

trump banned all lgbtq+ flags from being hung in government buildings.

trump rolled back biden’s executive order to lower prescription drug costs for people using medicare and medicaid.

trump rescinded the $35 cap on insulin, and prices are expected to rise to $1500 a month.

trump ordered the national institutes of health to cancel their review panels on cancer research.

trump ended the guidelines to prevent ai misuse. the guidelines prevent many things, but notably it prevents production of ai child pornography.

when sean hannity asked trump about the economy, he said “i don’t care”, after campaigning with the economy as his main talking point.

trump has withdrawn the us from the world health organization.

trump is ordering health agencies to stop reporting on bird flu and halt publications of scientific reports.

trump has pardoned over 1500 people who stormed the capitol on january 6th.

trump changed mount denali back to mount mckinley.

trump signed an executive order to rename the gulf of mexico to gulf of america.

trump shut down cbp one, an app which granted legal entry to 1 million+ immigrants.

trump is allowing ice raids at churches and elementary schools.

trump announced plans to declare a national emergency at the us-mexico border.

trump signed an executive order to expand the use of the death penalty.

trump disbanded the school safety board that works to prevent school shootings. it was comprised of survivors, educators, and gun violence prevention advocates and formed after the school shooting in parkland.

trump withdrew from the paris climate act.

trump revoked all protections for transgender troops in the us military.

trump rescinded executive orders made by biden that benefited and protected women, lgbtq+ people, black americans, hispanic americans, asian americans, native hawaiians, and pacific islanders.

trump is attempting to make it legal to refuse to hire or fire pregnant women.

multiple state legislators are drafting bills to allow the punishment for abortion to be the death penalty.

trump pardoned 23 individuals convicted under the freedom of access to clinic entrances (FACE) act for their anti-abortion activism, including oftentimes violent protests at abortion clinics.

trump signed an executive order allowing deportation of foreign students who they believe express support for hamas or hezbollah.

trump announced that the us government will from here on out only recognize male and female as sexes. intersex is not legally recognized anymore.

trump refused to swear on the bible during his inauguration. (i’ve gotten some comments about this specific point. i didn’t include it because i’m christian, because i’m not. i’m agnostic. i included it because he’s the first president in history to refuse to swear on ANYTHING, bible or not. in the bible it teaches that the only person who cannot touch the bible is the antichrist, yet that on TOP of everything else will never convince his followers that he’s unfit.)

andy ogles drafted a constitutional amendment to allow trump to be president for a third term.

georgia republican congressman mike collins called for the deportation of new jersey born mariann budde, the bishop who urged trump to “have mercy” on the lgbtq+ community and immigrants during a service at the national cathedral.

six states (arizona, idaho, iowa, kansas, mississippi, and north dakota) are planning on challenging obergefell v. hodges, which would end same-sex marriage nationwide. about a dozen more states have representatives who are also considering filing similar resolutions.

amazon revoked protections for lgbtq+ and black employees.

every single republican told us we were overreacting. trump swore he had nothing to do with project 2025 yet continues implementing details outlined in it. not a single person has the right to tell us we’re being dramatic anymore.

hope “cheaper eggs and gas” was worth it.

am i a freak or does everyone else also take a bite of a banana and then split it into three with their tongue like some kind of alien make out session

Also, I took a most perfect picture of a bug yesterday

me: computer, imagine a triangle.

computer: no sweat man. im doing it.

me: ok, now imagine another one.

computer: psh, sure. i can handle two triangles.

me: ok, now imagine another one.

computer: you know it.

[several hours later]

me: can you imagine another one?

computer, starting to sweat now: yeah. yeah, i can.

Short Story Recommendations

These all fuck me up to a varying degree of emotions

Crime

Philomel Cottage - Agatha Christie

Lamb to the Slaughter - Roald Dahl

Death and the Compass - Jorge Luis Borges

Horror

The Landlady - Roald Dahl

A Walk in the Dark - Arthur C Clarke

The Wife’s Story - Ursula K Le Guin

The Veldt - Ray Bradbury

The Hanging Stranger - Philip K Dick

The Colour out of Space - H P Lovecraft

The Spider - Hanns Heinz Ewers

Sad

The Life You Save May Be Your Own - Flannery O’Connor

A Small, Good Thing - Raymond Carver

Cathedral - Raymond Carver

The Haunted Boy - Carson McCullers

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - Ursula K. Le Guin

The Chef - Andy Weir

The Martyr - Ngugi Wa Thiong’o

Jambula Tree - Monica Arak de Nyeko

The Rats Do Sleep At Night - Wolfgang Borchert

Sci-Fi

Love is the Plan the Plan is Death - James Tiptree Jr

The Last Question - Isaac Asimov

The Nine Billion Names of God - Arthur C Clarke

The Star - Arthur C Clarke

Reunion - Arthur C Clarke

The Commuter - Philip K Dick

Exhibit Piece - Philip K Dick

To Serve Man - Damon Knight

Brothers Beyond the Void - Paul W Fairman

What the Fuck?! 

The Lottery - Shirley Jackson

A Collapse of Horses - Brian Evenson

Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby - Donald Barthelme

Hopeful Monsters - Hiromi Goto

The Box Social - James Reaney

He-y come on ou-t - shinichi hoshi

The Garden of Forking Paths - Jorge Luis Borges

Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang (just the entire collection bro)

Other

Broken Routine - Jeffrey Archer

A Man Who Had No Eyes - Mackinlay Kantor

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been - Joyce Carol Oates

The Lady, or the Tiger - Frank R Stockton

The Continuity of Parks - Julio Cortázar

The Dinner Party - Mona Gardner

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings - Gabriel García Márquez

On Exactitude in Science - Jorge Luis Borges

figured it out

very very important how do you block tags on here i can’t figure it out

i used to have this nightmare as a kid where i got teleported to north korea and had to live a whole new lifestyle under a dictatorship. and i had like really severe anxiety about it to the point that i had to hold my breath and pray i wouldn’t get teleported every time someone mentioned north korea.

now that i’m having to live a whole new lifestyle under a dictatorship, i’m lowkey disappointed that i didn’t get to teleport. kinda the only fun part.

i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.

there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.

anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.

A Better World - create an alternate history timeline

Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game

Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet

Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games

Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones

Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy

ZenGM - simulate sports

Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi

IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)

Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface

The Cafe & Diner - mystery game

The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game

Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions

Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game

Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game

Miniconomy - player driven economy game

Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes

BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators

Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil

Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.

if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.

if elongated muskrat and the stupid orange fascist had a ship name it would be Felon.

because their names are felon and elon, right?