Karen
@valkyriekaren.bsky.social
600 followers 570 following 3.4K posts
Socialism's orphan child Love, music, wine, and revolution
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valkyriekaren.bsky.social
I'm old enough to remember the post coming twice a day, with the first post normally being before I left for school and the second being around 11am (Tyneside in the 1980s). Now I'm lucky if it comes before lunchtime!

Of course online shopping means posties have a lot more parcels than letters now
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
AI-generated ads WITH MY FACE IN THEM? *wordless screaming forever*
arstechnica.com
With legacy pay TV providers already dealing with dwindling subscriptions, the introduction of new types of ads risks making DirecTV less appealing as well—and it’s likely that things won’t end there.
DirecTV screensavers will show AI-generated ads with your face in 2026
Like other companies with streaming businesses, DirecTV is leaning into ads more.
arstechnica.com
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
I seem to recall from my abortive attempts to engage with pop culture as a teen through reading girls' magazines that it's supposed to be a sign of vitamin/mineral deficiencies, but honestly I just think some people have bumpy nails like some people have curly hair.
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
I'd probably also take issue with that depiction of all the accused as "vulnerable and impoverished" as well - they weren't all the stereotypical "poor old crone living in a shack in the forest" - many were respectable people in good standing in their community before they were accused.
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
In England, about 15%, so small but not negligible, I'd say.

In other countries it was a very different picture - men were as likely or more likely to be accused as women, and the motivation was often financial (to seize property or claim an inheritance).
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
I'm reminded of the old Jo Brand bit about "my doctor said I should do something every day that made me slightly out of breath. So I started smoking again..."
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
Not to mention taking livelihoods away from actual flesh-and-blood actors, writers and other creatives, but that's just par for the course with AI. Are we doomed to a future of endlessly recycled, rehashed content devoid of meaning?
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
So will we be kicking out all the illiterate gammons, or does this rule only apply to brown people?
....
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yeah, that's what I thought.
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
Only if you're talking about American gravy though. British gravy is a very different thing!
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
Why would anyone confit a burger?
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
Of all the foodstuffs that the term "food porn" should not be applied to, gravy is the most.
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
I feel like even Dickens would think that nomenclature was a bit on the nose.
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
What are the people who leave called? X-vets? Ex-X-Men?
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
Even in my own family with a fairly simple surname (Howdon) you only have to go back a generation or two to find variant spellings (Howden, Hoddon).
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
I think we also tend to forget that literacy levels, particularly for working class people, weren't what they are today. So spellings could vary even within families, or end up "wrong" on official documents due to mishearing or writing phonetically because the subject couldn't spell it out.
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
Because they know how stupid they would look trying to tackle a dancing frog. Honestly I think this is genius - the government desperately want pictures of Scary Scary Antifa to justify their oppression and all they're getting is improv theatre kids in wacky costumes. Makes it look like overkill.
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
I don't either but I also don't think at this stage America is getting its democracy back bloodlessly, unfortunately.
Reposted by Karen
ledbydonkeys.org
TANK vs TESLA

"We've crushed fascism before and we'll crush it again"

- ⁠WW2 veteran Ken, 98, in the tank
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
Slightly foxed, somewhat tuunbaq'd.
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
Not just in the US - many immigrant families to the UK also anglicised their names either before or after arrival.
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
History: it's just one fucking thing after another (thank you Alan Bennett)
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
Sorry, but this just reminds me of Rimmer's typo-based religious sect in Red Dwarf: "And the greatest of these is hop"
georgetakei.bsky.social
You gotta give ‘em hop.
A tweet from the Anonymous account says, “Make sure the dude in the frog costume in Portland knows he's an icon.” The image is a stylized poster of a frog wearing a stars-and-stripes scarf with the word “HOP” below, in the style of the Obama “HOPE” poster.
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
Worst case of girl I've ever seen! 😍
valkyriekaren.bsky.social
Nah, the far right is even worse than the left at splitting off into increasingly weird and balkanised little factions.