evilstevie @evilstevie@mastod1.ddns.net

No one would have believed, in the early years of the 21st century, that human affairs were being watched from the server racks in cyberspace. No one could have dreamed we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

no dear tech giants, an alternative to "yes" isn't "later"

it's "no"

Fascists online love to be like, “Uh oh, looks like I TRIGGERED the little BABY who had to BLOCK ME!”

Shutting the screen door to keep the bugs out does not mean I care what the bugs think of me. There’s a reason you’re in my replies and not the other way around and we both know what it is.

Everything I write to go with this reads like a poor quality motivational poster.

Look. It's struggling to stand as upright as it did in its youth, and needs a bit of support, OK?

Like we all do, now and then.

Be the stick people.

BE THE STICK.

#sillyScribbles #photography #silly #drawing #Scotland #standingStoneSunday

Here’s a short poem entitled ‘Name Calling’.

A political leader should take public transit, send their kids to public school, use the same healthcare as the rest of us. At the very least they should have done so regularly before taking office. We don't need to be ruled by aristocrats. You aren't qualified to run the city if you use your money to opt out of living in it.

Frog Believes In You*

‘The Mortimiser' is something I’ve been chipping away at for a few months now.

It uses the Bob Mortimer naming formula of ordinary first name with a noun/nonsense/mundane word. Who will you be today? Kenneth Warhammer? Agnes Buttery?

That's all it does. Nothing fancy!

https://hicks.design/else/mortimiser

Sad to hear they're discontinuing work on the Apple car

Scotland in the sunshine is a happy place. Just look how happy!

#sillyScribbles #photography #Scotland #drawing #silly #nonsense

The correct pronouns to use for addressing hills are them/thar

Don’t fuck with moon dust. No seriously, do not fuck with moon dust.

Absent any moisture or atmosphere, millennia of asteroid impacts have turned lunar regolith (soil) into a fine powder of razor sharp, glass-like particles. What’s more, the solar wind imparts an electric charge on the dust, causing it to cling to any and every surface it touches through static electricity. On earth, sand tends to get smoother over time as wind and water tumble the grains about, eroding their sharpness. Not so on the moon – lunar dust is sharp and deadly. This is Not A Good Time if you’re an explorer looking to visit our celestial neighbor.

During Apollo, the astronauts faced a plethora of unexpected issues caused by dust. It clung to spacesuits and darkened them enough that exposure to sunlight overheated the life support systems. Dust got in suit joints and on suit visors, damaging them. It ate away layers of boot lining. It covered cameras. Upon returning to the cabin, astronauts attempting to brush it off damaged their suit fabric and sent the dust airborne, where it remained suspended in the air due to low gravity.

Inhaling moon dust causes mucus membranes to swell; every Apollo astronaut who stepped foot on the moon reported symptoms of “Lunar Hay Fever.” Sneezing, congestion, and a “smell of burnt gunpowder” took days to subside. Later Apollo missions even sent a special dust brush with the team to help clean each other and equipment. We don’t know exactly how dangerous the stuff is, but lunar regolith simulants suggest it might destroy lung and brain cells with long-term exposure. 1

In fact the dust is so nasty that it destroyed the vacuum seals of sample return containers. We no longer have any accurate samples of lunar dust, “Every sample brought back from the moon has been contaminated by Earth’s air and humidity […] The chemical and electrostatic properties of the soil no longer match what future astronauts will encounter on the moon.” 2

Whats worse, the solar-charged dust gets thrown up off the moon’s surface via electrostatic forces. The moon doesn’t technically have an atmosphere, but it does have a thin cloud of sharp dust itching to cling to anything it can find.

And it probably isn’t just the moon. “A 2005 NASA study listed 20 risks that required further study before humans should commit to a human Mars expedition, and ranked "dust" as the number one challenge.” 3

The coolest solution I’ve heard about in next-gen spacesuit design is a mesh of woven wires layered into the suit. When activated, the wire mesh would form an anti-static electric field that repels dust. Quite literally a force field. 4
#astronomy #apollo #moon #lunardust

BWAHAHAHA! VICTORY IS MINE!

*ahem*

I am pleased to announce that I have successfully created a proof of concept tile image for the tessellated hugs, and I did not spend excessive time working round problems due to a 0.35 pixel discrepancy.

None whatsoever.

#sillyScribbles #cute #drawing #tiling

Me: And I believe you offer a señor discount.

Waiter: You mean the senior discount?

Me, wearing a poncho and sombrero: I knew it was too bueno to be true.

I use a motorised wheelchair and, when I feel a fart coming on, I slow down slightly so that when I do fart I can speed up as if it was a turbo boost.

Just closing my computer down prior to sleep and had forgotten that I had been playing around with the idea of a "tessellated hug".

I hadn't managed to do what I wanted to do, and abandoned it to do something else, but popping back up on screen it looked rather cheery.

Sometimes failures can be quite endearing.

'Night all 😴 💤

#sillyScribbles #cute #colourful #drawing

The Doctor: The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried.

Voice from outside: This is the Lock Picking Lawyer, and what I have for you today is a Type 40 TARDIS....

My favourite thing about Rishi Sunak is that he's old school animatronics - no CG used.

What idiot called it "our glorious AI future" instead of "Nightmare on LLM Street"?