My muse is a'snoozin'

The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent federal agency charged by Congress with investigating every civil aviation accident in the U.S. and significant accidents in other modes of transportation-railroad, highway, marine and pipeline.

And apparently, they've got a Flickr account with...highlights? Pictures of interest? I'm pretty curious what the criteria is since this clearly isn't a collection of all photos for each incident (there are some outliers—the album for the El Faro sinking has 99 photos—but most have 5-15, and some just have a single photo).

And for pictures created/prepared by the NTSB, because they were done by US government employees as part of their official duties, they're not subject to copyright unless otherwise noted.

It is a Terrible Morning in Angband and you are a Finwean

Now with quote from @chthonion 's The Harrowing (chapter 3)

And that’s not untrue. Zuko has to run a government that was, a few months ago, ready and willing to burn the rest of the world to ash, and that’s a serious burden to bear, but it’s not hopeless. This is a new time of peace. A new dawn. Where are all my pieces that focus on peace and growth? About Zuko fostering friendly alliances? About Zuko leading by example?

A servant accidentally drops a serving platter of roast duck during a ball. The juice splatters a noble woman’s gown. She backhands the servant across the face and her husband is calling for punishment and people are watching as though it’s some kind of show, because this is the way it is in the palace. Until, that is, the Firelord steps forward and helps the servant to his feet. Zuko asks the shaking man if he is alright. He calls for another servant to help clean up the mess. He tells the noblewoman in a tight voice that she, nor anyone else in these walls, will not raise a violent hand to anyone under his care

Zuko is walking through a city courtyard as he speaks with the Mayor when a young child waddles up and tugs at Zuko’s golden-hemmed robes, curious at the way they catch the light. The guards rush forward and the boy’s parents fall over themselves to offer apologies and beg for forgiveness, and Zuko bends down and picks the child up under the arms, and settles him on his hip. The child reaches for his gold crown settled in his topknot and Zuko laughs and gently pushes his hands away. He gives the boy back to his parents, and says, “There’s no need to apologise. Curiosity is a valuable trait in a young boy. You should encourage his curiosity for life.” And then he sweeps away with the Mayor in tow, as though nothing is amiss, as though his gentle smile and understanding words didn’t rattle these two townspeople more than a reprimand every would

Zuko shifting the nation’s priority away from militarisation, while trying to create new jobs for displaced people, jobs that will help his nation recover. Zuko implementing a new curriculum in schools. Zuko consulting with all kinds of people, like Iroh and Aang, yes, but also other nobles, and common people, and foreign dignitaries, and historical and cultural experts. Zuko bringing culture back to the Fire Nation.

Zuko struggling with his famous temper, but working every single day to be the kind of leader his people can put their trust in. A Firelord that doesn’t strike fear into his people, the people he’s dedicated to protecting. A Firelord that’s very different to his forefathers, who decimated entire cultures, who burned the faces of their sons and cast them out for speaking out of turn.

Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.

Including (sigh) the em dash.

There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.

A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.

No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.

You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.

Defend the em dash.

(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)

'my first girlfriend turned into the moon'

The only taxidermied blue whale in the world, 1865 CE, now housed at the Natural History Museum in Sweden. The public was allowed to enter it up until a couple was found having sex inside it; now its jaws are opened only for special occasions like Swedish election days