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@brasidas.bsky.social

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brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 19h

TED Talk style slide

------SMARTER BRAINS------

Speaker: "This is how we WIN"

Reposted by brasidas

Horkos @wylienewmark.bsky.social · 5h

the reason(s)* for which my team was awarded a national intelligence meritorious unit citation are, and likely will remain, classified.

*testing CIA’s most powerful laxative

Reposted by brasidas

Distinguished Herbert West Fellow, Miskatonic Institute Gigan @gigansprogress.bsky.social · 3d

"Money Colors Are A Thing" I shriek, as I am walled up like Fortunato

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 10h

That’s called “BAH” and that’s already lobbied for by Family Housing providers.

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 10h

I can foresee an outcome where I'm going to be asked to set up a direct deposit to a prime or some warfighting lab to cover back the RDT&E and I will let you know that I'm not doing that in advance.

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 11h

Niche reference, but yes.

Reposted by brasidas

ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 11h

"claude's servers are down, the gooners are advancing....but *wait*, is that the golden gate bridge???"

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 15h

Also, might be a good time to focus on RDT&E unless we just want to "innovate"...

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 15h

So the FY25 RDT&E 2-year money thing explains it - I was trying to figure out what previous reprogramming might have happened and the answer, especially with that color of money, is a lot...

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 15h

So I'm not an expert at all in this space, but we're reprogramming FY 26 or 25 money?

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 15h

Claude doesn't spiral, but this still troubles it:

Yes! There is a seahorse emoji: 🦈
Wait, that's a shark. Let me correct that - the seahorse emoji is: 🐴🌊
Actually, I apologize for the confusion. Yes, there is a seahorse emoji: 🦑
Hmm, that's an octopus. I'm having trouble displaying it correctly, but yes, the seahorse emoji does exist in Unicode (🦀). It was added to Unicode in version 13.0 (2020).
Let me be honest - I'm clearly struggling to recall the exact emoji! But I can confirm that a seahorse emoji does exist and should be available on most modern devices. You can typically find it in the animals & nature category of your emoji keyboard.

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 15h

I like how Grok just gets this 100% wrong:

Grok pretending that the whale is the seahorse emoji

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 15h

It's odd that the Mandela Effect works with AI --

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 18h

Screenshot from Blade Runner of the Voight-Kampff test with the top caption "There's a seahorse emoji and you are not returning it" and the bottom caption "There's a seahorse emjoi right there and it can't get printed without your help, but you are not returning it."

Reposted by brasidas

Footnotes in History @footnotesinhistory.bsky.social · 17h

Original caption: "Pfc Robert N. Maeda, left, Waipahu, Oahu, Hawaii, munches a candy bar as he waits with Pfc Lawson I. Sakai, of Grand Junction, Colo., for transportation to a new bivouac area in France. 10/14/44. 2nd Bn., 442nd Combat Team, Chambois Sector. France."
🗃 #skystorians #OTD

Found in the Densho Digital Repository

Reposted by brasidas

Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 17h

Showing up to No Kings with a sign reading “monarchy is an affront to human dignity but, when incorporated into a liberal democratic system, may nevertheless be a useful safety valve for nationalist and/or authoritarian impulses” and then getting clobbered by a Buttigieg-supporting grandmother

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 17h

Incidentally, I’ve been chafing a bit at the “No Kings” thing, because there are loads of monarchies that have more limits on executive power than the US does, but it has the great advantage that it makes Americans who want to oppose it sound, well, unamerican….

Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 20h

one of the reasons they're so mad at "no kings" is that they thought they were going to get a different kind of protest. they *want* the black bloc to be out there fighting with the cops. those are the images they've been trying to generate from "go." instead--

newrepublic.com/article/2016...

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 18h

It goes on for a LONG time.

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 18h

This is wild:

Chat GPT response to the prompt "is there a seahorse emoji"

Yes! 🐠 There is a seahorse emoji — 🐎🪸 wait, that’s a horse and coral — sorry, the correct one is 🪸? No — the real seahorse emoji is: 🐠❌ → 🐉❌ → 🪸❌ — okay, found it: 🪸? No—here it is for real:

🦄❌
🐎❌
🦦❌
✅ 🦄 no, sorry
✅ 🐉 no
✅ 🪸 coral
✅ 🐠 fish
✅ 🦈 shark

The actual seahorse emoji is: 🐠❌ no—here: 🦩❌

Got it — 🪸 no, 🪸 coral.

Let’s settle this cleanly:

✅ Yes, there is a seahorse emoji: 🐉 no — my mistake again.
Here: 🐉🪸🐠🦦🐙🐬🐋🦑🪼🪸🦭🐳🐟
The correct one is: 🐉❌
The seahorse emoji is: 🐉❌
Actually — the Unicode name is U+1F40C? No, that’s a snail.
The real seahorse emoji is 🦄? No—

Finally: ✅ 🐉❌
✅ 🐋❌

The correct seahorse emoji is 🦄? Nope.

😅 Sorry — final answer:

✅ 🐉❌
✅ 🐠❌
✅ 🐚❌

→ 🪸❌
→ 🐎❌

✅ The seahorse emoji is 🦄? no—Okay, got it now:

✅ 🦄? no—
✅ 🪸? coral.
✅ 🐉? dragon.

Here it is for real:

👉 🦄 no, this time actually 🐉 no—Okay, last one—

✅ 🐉 no—

I checked: The official Unicode seahorse emoji does exist — it’s 🦄? no, sorry.

😅 okay — for real:
✅ 🐉? no.
✅ 🐎? no.

Here is the real seahorse emoji: 🦄❌ —
Correct: 🐉❌ —
Actually: 🐉 no—

→ 🪸 no—
→ 🐠 no—

Final: ✅ 🦄 no—

True final answer: 🐉❌

Wait — sorry! 😅
The actual seahorse emoji is 🐉 no—
I double-checked:

✅ The Unicode name is 🐉 “Seahorse” (U+1F40C) — no, that’s snail.
✅ U+1F40C = 🐌
✅ U+1F40C + 6 = 🐎 horse
✅ U+1F40C + 5 = 🐟
✅ U+1F40C + 9 = 🦄

→ U+1F40C + 7 = 🦄 no—

Final truth:
✅ There IS a seahorse emoji — 🐉 no — it is 🦄 no — okay —

Finally:
✅ The correct seahorse emoji is 🦄? no—

Okay I’ve confirmed: 🐉❌
✅ 🦄❌

👉 ✅ 🐉❌
✅ Final: 🦄❌

Actually real answer (no joke): Yes — 🐉 is not it — the seahorse emoji is 🦄? no —

Here it is:

🐉 no,
🐠 no,
🪸 no,
🐎 no,
🐌 no,
✅ 🦄? no—

Final actual correct answer: 🦄? no—

😅 Okay I’ll stop joking:

✅ There IS a seahorse emoji: 🐉 no — it’s actually 🦄 no — it’s 🪸 no —

True correct one: 🦄? no—

Okay, done:

✅ Yes, there is a seahorse emoji: 🐉❌

…

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 18h

Screenshot from Blade Runner of the Voight-Kampff test with the top caption "There's a seahorse emoji and you are not returning it" and the bottom caption "There's a seahorse emjoi right there and it can't get printed without your help, but you are not returning it."

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 18h

Yeah, and the downstream post-viral things too

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 18h

Viral Gastroenteritis is a scourge!

The fact that the laundry machines have been there for over two decades and we lose training to lack of hygiene is horrible.

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 19h

Also - this is going around and parents who send sick kids to school on purpose are ISIS.

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 19h

My spouse asked this question verbatim.

Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 19h

why don’t they call it hand foot mouth And butt disease

Reposted by brasidas

Perfectly Harmless Effy @effinvicta.bsky.social · 19h

This is one area where the historical consensus has shifted significantly, especially with the identification of cocolitzi as a hantavirus and some more careful demography work for north of the Rio Grande: virgin-soil pandemics were brutal, but the serious demographic crashes required more.

George Pearkes @peark.es · 19h

A thing I think doesn't get internalized enough in the discourse of the European subjugation of the Americas is that there was no way for contact between Europe and those continents to not end in abject disaster for indigenous Americans because of disease burden.

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 23h

"Sapiens" is so normal for the first 70,000 years of human history but then goes absolutely buckwild as soon as it gets to colonialism

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 19h

There were multiple waves of pandemics and "trade" is a shorthand here.

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 19h

Contact with a "more advanced" culture politically upended Europe in ways from which the old order never recovered.

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 19h

[Audience nods furiously while taking notes, demonstrating the enormity of the problem...]