A 3D-printed RoboDuck figurine holding a tiny gun, used here as satire: this is the level of ‘threat’ Washington’s 3D printing bills treat everyday makers like criminals for.

A confiscated untraceable handgun laid out in an evidence box, illustrating the real problem lawmakers claim to target while writing laws that instead regulate printers, files, and lawful makers.

Washington’s 3D Printing Bills Are Bad for STEM, Bad for Business, and Bad for Open Source 🖨️⚠️

blog.adafruit.com/2026/01/25/w...

Purple sandpiper, Maine. #addBirder #maine

A strutting Northern Pintail in central Maine. #birds

Our trail ride to May Creek today. We started low in the fog and then climbed up to an overlook above it all. Beautiful light.

Great video to relay to relatives losing track of the need for privacy, but also for the dark matrix cat reaper, from about 15:00.

‘Phonetic’ is not.
‘Abbreviation’ is 12 letters.
‘Thesaurus’ doesn’t have a synonym.

Say what you will about English, but it has a sense of humor.

You have control over your feed, here and on mastodon. I too am needing a reprieve from depression, so I cultivated that. You could also split content to different feeds if there are friends you want to follow but not deal with daily.

Mars rover makes epic climb to explore some of the oldest rocks in the Solar System The uphill trek jumpstarts a new era of discovery for NASA’s Perseverance.

Meanwhile, on Mars, the Perseverance rover has made it out of Jezero Crater and is heading onto the ancient plains beyond. Words by me from #AGU24 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

‪PatriotTakes 🇺🇸‬ ‪@patriottakes.bsky.social‬ · 22m Watch out for contrarian AI reply bots. This account is likely one of them: bsky.app/profile/ange... ‪ilhan‬ ‪@god229.bsky.social‬ · 19m I disagree with this claim. AI reply bots can provide valuable and informative responses, not just contrarian ones. There's no inherent reason to distrust all AI responses.

this is art

It's Advent of Code time

“Flight of the psychonautilus.”

#Aiart #Midjourney #Machuca #Psychedelic

Con: though it's vastly better than Facebook and Twitter, Bluesky is still a for-profit company, technically a Public Benefit Corporation which means accountable to both stockholders and public mission. But seed money is never free; promises are vague. In this regard, Mastodon has the high ground.

Con: blocklists are also sometimes made in bad faith, so that you think you're blocking one type of user, but actually a bad actor has stuck in maybe the opposite.

Of course, all this 3rd party stuff is fundamentally hard, so to some extent it will always be caveat emptor.

Con: it is hard to tell which accounts are fake. There is an inundation of fake accounts, to the point where the search button loses its purpose. If person is famous, there will be dozens of fake accounts that look like the real one. If not famous, and only one search result, still might be fake.

Con: 300 char limit--I understand the purpose, and will strive to be brief. But the thing that needed a couple paragraphs becomes a reply thread. Is frustrating, am ambivalent.

Pro: related to the last one, the idea that you are allowed to just see your feed in sequential order, so you can see what's new and be done, without the facebook-style abusive hell of endless scrolling trying to make sure you don't miss something important from someone you care about.

Pro: you can have multiple feeds, and control the order they are shown, e.g. one for Science, one for Linux, one for Art. There's an "OnlyFrom" feed which shows you just the post directly written by people you follow (i.e. not boosting/reposting) for when you're in a hurry.

Pro: some escape from the walled garden--you can get a link to your post and use that URL elsewhere, and people can click and view your post without having to become bluesky subscribers. Similar to Mastodon in that regard. Hope the intent is for it to always be thus.

Pro: you can subscribe to third party moderation labelers. For example, if you feel strongly about AI-generated images they have a labeling service for that. I do like seeing a warning.

Pro: user-specified moderation policy. They have built-in labels for things like NSFW, disinformation, impersonation, hate speech etc. But you can go into your profile and specify your personal policy for each one, e.g. warn me about NSFW but block hate speech completely.

Pro: a separate marketplace of blocklists, e.g. if you don't really want to deal with scammers or MAGA people, there are lists maintained by independent people and you choose which ones to subscribe to and whether to block or just mute.

Pro: nice feature implementation velocity. I like that for instance you can edit and expose your own starter packs of personal suggestions. Here's mine:
go.bsky.app/7TAoCxQ

My impression of BlueSky so far: not bad.

I can configure it so it makes my day better, rather than worse like fb, threads, twitter, etc.

I prefer Mastodon because fully open, but it seems like BlueSky is more accessible to non-geeks, so the future is probably here.

Detailed pro/con in comments.

Eat, Fry, Love: A Cautionary Remix (REUPLOAD) YouTube video by Dingle Dangle

Don't forget to keep William Shatner safe this Thanksgiving!
youtu.be/Z4Qxqmhqj1A?...

“Summoning the tempest.”

open.spotify.com/track/14XWXW...

New outdoor section of the Seattle Aquarium. I haven't been to the waterfront for a while so it was neat to see how things are shaping up.

FreeCAD 1.0 Released After 22 Years in Development - OMG! Ubuntu Good things come to those who wait. And for 3D modelling professionals using open-source software, the wait for FreeCAD 1.0 has been a long one – over 22

ICYMI: FreeCAD has finally hit version 1.0 after two decades in development - a huge milestone for this #opensource alternative to software like Autodesk Fusion.

Tre bele! Kia kortuŝa gesto. Bonvolu pardoni mian gramatikon.

The all-caps make this just perfect.