havoc - Network

The autistic urge to be some sort of data system or perhaps a supercomputer

The autistic urge to be some sort of data system or perhaps a supercomputer

Been a hot minute since I checked in here. I think I kind of ended up treating this place as "the political action social media"...

Been a hot minute since I checked in here.

I think I kind of ended up treating this place as "the political action social media" and that ended up driving me away as I sought relief from political action elsewhere.

I should probably rethink how I treat this place.

King Gizzard and the Lynyrd Skynyrd

King Gizzard and the Lynyrd Skynyrd

I should play Titanfall 2 sometime

I should play Titanfall 2 sometime

long post: worldbuilding a biomechanical race for my new story, Metrophobia#worldbuilding #writing The Sparzonean people are inhabitants of...

long post: worldbuilding a biomechanical race for my new story, Metrophobia

#worldbuilding #writing
The Sparzonean people are inhabitants of the region known as Sparzon. Sparzon is a land of jagged peaks and liquid crystal lichen, once home to the highest elevations on the continent, until the megalopoloids overtook them with their artificial mountains of concrete and windows.

Sparzoneans differ from most races in that they're not directly descended from the humans of old. They are instead the result of convergent evolution; wild hogs, released from pig farms as masticulture overtook agriculture, began to hang around the automines in the mountains. The independently-opersting mining equipment paid no mind to their porcine neighbors, as excavators and other heavy machinery had already developed herbivorous and lithovorous tendencies, and thus had no incentive to prey on the hogs. Likewise, the ground disturbance caused by mining activities gave the hogs ample access to food and shelter. The superior foraging capabilities of the hogs also gave the autominers a broader selection of nutrients, which better allowed for the synthesis of difficult-to-replace substances like rubber and plastic. The two groups would come to be codependent on one another and, in the interim tens of thousands of years following the fall of the megalopoloids, hybridize into one.

Modern Sparzoneans vary widely in both shape and size. Their iconic nose and tusks are a dead giveaway of their species, and a coarse hair will cover any exposed hide, but their bodies are heavily biomechanical, with the specific make and model indicating their clan or family affiliations. Towards the towards the desert-mountains of the south, their mechanical parts tend to be turquoise, with exposed hydraulics allowing greater heat dissipation. Their larger, stockier brothers to the north usually have their metal parts covered in yellow instead, and often have hide covering their excavator arms or crane booms to keep the heat in. In either case, you can often find intricate patterns emblazoned in visible places, not unlike the markings on the solar panels of a butterfly. These patterns are illegible and lost to time, but perhaps someone from the far past might recognize words like "CAT" in the north or "KOBELCO" in the south.

Sparzonean culture is very insular and territorial. A group of families known as a clan will occupy a "Veign", a series of tunnels that they and their ancestors dug into the mountains. Clans will under no circumstances abandon their veign, choosing to die protecting if the issue is forced. These places are often crypts of ancient technology, with the Sparzoneans constantly experimenting and developing new modifications for their systems. Magnets are highly fashionable, especially if they can be used in flashy or functional ways. Sparzonean names tend to be compound, built from two monosyllabic words that could describe the newborn's appearance or circumstance of birth. Crosswise, for example, was born entangled by their own umbilical cable. Their brother Payload got his name from the dump truck bed occupying his back; a trait he inherited from his mother, Overhaul.

Found out about Scrivener as a story organizer. Seems pretty cool, has been useful so far for keeping things organized. I've got a real...

Found out about Scrivener as a story organizer. Seems pretty cool, has been useful so far for keeping things organized. I've got a real weird story to tell and it's well underway, so I hope y'all are ready to hear about things with names like excaphants and megalopoloids real soon!

I repainted an insurance fridge magnet into something more fun!#diy #Landback

I repainted an insurance fridge magnet into something more fun!
#diy #Landback

Spent some time today clearing out the garage, and found an old clunker of an alarm clock radio from 2004. So of course I did the reasonable...

Spent some time today clearing out the garage, and found an old clunker of an alarm clock radio from 2004. So of course I did the reasonable thing and nabbed it and scurried off to my room. Rest of my family thought it didn't work, and they were right. Plugging it in yielded a clock, but no alarm or radio. I'm no tech wizard, but I opened it up anyway. Something had broken loose and was flipping around. Gluing the square peg back into the square hole seemed like the sensible option, and lo and behold, it works just fine again.

The thing's almost 20 years old, and definitely would've been destined for the garbage without an intervention. It wasn't rocket science to fix, but I think that's the point. Repairing things is usually WAY easier than you might expect. It's nice to just give it a shot, and see what happens.
#repair #radio

Naughty By Nature is such a banger fucking band name

Naughty By Nature is such a banger fucking band name

my superpower is that I'm immune to fiberglass. Carried a whole roll of that shit to the trash (it was unraveled and fucked up (same)...

my superpower is that I'm immune to fiberglass. Carried a whole roll of that shit to the trash (it was unraveled and fucked up (same) which is why we're throwing it away) and I felt no ill effects from it

Take this Hot Wheels car, for example. I found it in the bottom of a toy chest in a closet in my grandparents' house, where it'd sat...

Take this Hot Wheels car, for example. I found it in the bottom of a toy chest in a closet in my grandparents' house, where it'd sat for probably a decade and a half or so. I spent a few hours today tearing it down, restoring it, and putting it back together.
The rivets holding it together were drilled out so I could access the insides. The clear plastic windows were given de-yellowing treatment, and the wheels had their chrome repainted. The car once had a spoiler, but it'd long since broken off, so I cut and smoothed the jagged edges. The axles were straightened, allowing it to actually roll again for the first time in many years.

Of course, none of that is obvious from the picture. You'd be able to tell something were off by looking at the hole where the spoiler once was, because I made no attempt to hide it, but other than that, all the repairs made were rather subtle. That's what repair should be all about. Subtle, but not hidden. Natural, not disguised.

Bless the machine.

#spirituality #repair #toyphotography

Thinking about the #spirituality of #repair. Tearing down something broken to extract useful spare parts is an act as violent as it is...

Thinking about the #spirituality of #repair. Tearing down something broken to extract useful spare parts is an act as violent as it is holy. Repaired objects ought to be treated with dignity, and the process of putting things back together should feel ritualistic.

The process of taking something broken and making it whole again is holy. Especially so if the object in question is permanently changed in function or appearance in the process. Repairs should be celebrated, not hidden.

Take me to snurchI worship like a slugin the slime of your lightI'll tell you my sninsso you can sharpen your snife

Take me to snurch
I worship like a slug
in the slime of your light
I'll tell you my snins
so you can sharpen your snife

Paper wasps are cool as shit tbh

Paper wasps are cool as shit tbh

Uh oh. A stray post on my timeline caught my attention in juuuuuuust the right way and one rabbit hole later I guess I gotta check out...

Uh oh. A stray post on my timeline caught my attention in juuuuuuust the right way and one rabbit hole later I guess I gotta check out #emacs.

(thanks to @otfrom for the post that started it all btw, this shit looks interesting as hell and I'm excited to try it out)

It's cool to see my image color correction capabilities blossom. I'm learning all sorts of stuff about "Levels" and...

It's cool to see my image color correction capabilities blossom. I'm learning all sorts of stuff about "Levels" and "Curves" and the ways RGB and CMY are connected.

Less cool that I'm doing all this to prepare photos for my grandfather's unexpected memorial service, but y'know. Take the wins where we can find them

TL;DR: Go pick up some litterSince the weather is nice and all again, I figured I'd talk about how good it is to go pick up litter in...

TL;DR: Go pick up some litter

Since the weather is nice and all again, I figured I'd talk about how good it is to go pick up litter in your area.

Back when I was at college, my dorm was drowning in litter. It felt like people just didn't care enough to pick up after themselves, and so the whole place was infested with wrappers, dryer sheets, plastic bags, and the like.

Because of this, I started devoting one hour per week to picking up trash. No set time or day, just as long as I could put in an hour a week.

After about a month and a half, I was snuffling through flowerbeds like a pig searching for truffles. I had almost instantly outpaced my community's (almost 300 people) litter production, and I'd now resorted to digging up garbage that'd been sitting for 10+ years.

As it turns out, people don't actually produce litter that fast, not nearly as fast as I'd assumed. It's just that there was nobody to pick it up, so litter from five years ago was still swirling around.

All this to say, if you can go pick up some trash, then do it. You'll almost immediately start seeing a difference in your community and it's a really good way of giving yourself that sense of accomplishment we all need when it comes to fighting the environmental crisis.

#litter #environment #pollution #directaction

Bring me the Beach BoysI'll eat their soulI wanna get lost in a fucken Holeand drift away

Bring me the Beach Boys
I'll eat their soul
I wanna get lost in a fucken Hole
and drift away

Looks like #Reddit is killing off third party apps by requiring an insurmountably high API subscription, starting July 1. Apollo App would...

Looks like #Reddit is killing off third party apps by requiring an insurmountably high API subscription, starting July 1. Apollo App would expect to pay $20M/yr for their current traffic. Guess when that day comes, I'll see what #Lemmy is all about.

what? sunglasses? no, I said "hung lasses"

what? sunglasses? no, I said "hung lasses"