A bit of disability representation in my art. Reposts of past comics.
A lot of my comics not included here represent disability also. I just choose not to blatantly tie it to it, as I recognize it can represent other experiences for others.
(I'll come back and input alt text when I have the bandwidth...)
Actually I’m incredibly upset about how tween fashion has essentially vanished from the market. I think that the tween period is wildly important for childhood development and developing personal sense of style. Like??? I was slathering myself in green body glitter every day and wearing purple eye liner. That shit is highkey important
As someone who works in a school, I can tell you for a fact that it hasn't gone anywhere. There's still kids in awesome and ridiculous eyeliner, there's still glitter, there's dyed hair there's cliques and subcultures...
Most people just don't see it because the internet now focuses on other things, and unless you work in a school, you don't interact with people of this age group anymore.
Good news, he was not next! In fact, she accepted him as her mate, he learned the crane mating dance and now every year, he artificially inseminates her with crane semen to expand the very endangered crane population. True story.
Sorry, he WHAT? Imagine being this man's boss and having to sit him down like. Listen. Brian. We need you to fuck the bird. You have to act like you're excited about it.
(WalWaPo makes you jump through like three separate hoops before you can read the article, so I will share some of the highlights:
Walnut was born in a species-recovery breeding program in the 1980′s. The program had crane chicks hand-raised by human volunteers, and at that time they did not fully understand the measures necessary make sure that the chicks do not imprint on humans and retain their identity as cranes.
As a result, her keepers believe, Walnut does not recognize other cranes as members of her own species.
It has not been proven that Walnut killed her previous suitors; however, there is a persistent rumor in the white-naped-crane-conservation community that she did.
Because this species is highly endangered, and the gene pool of the captive population is small, it’s pretty important for the survival of her species that Walnut A) mate, and B) not kill a bunch of other cranes.
The actual name of the keeper is Chris Crowe.
They both arrived at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in 2004.
Walnut immediately began paying special attention to Chris--and ignoring the eligible male crane in a nearby enclosure.
Walnut initiated their courtship, performing the opening moves of a mating dance.
Chris realized that if he reciprocated the mating dance, it might be possible to artificially inseminate Walnut with her participation and consent. (The process normally involves restraining the bird.)
It worked!
Chris and Walnut have had five children, who were raised by other crane couples at the facility--sometimes the biological dad and his mate--both because it’s unclear whether Walnut would accept the chicks as her own, and because Chris is not equipped to be a Crane Dad.
However, the Institute provides her with artificial eggs to sit on, and Chris takes his turn looking after them. (This would not work with real eggs because he can’t sit on them properly, but Walnut seems to feel that he is on the job if he just stands over them.)
Chris accepts that he is pretty much married to this bird. White-naped cranes live to be about 60, and they mate for life, so he knows he can’t retire while Walnut is alive. (At the time of the article, Walnut was 36, and Chris 42.)
she has not been PROVEN to have killed her exes, but there is a PERSISTENT RUMOR (really officers she's simply DEVASTATED, she sobs, wearing a new feather boa unfortunately resembling her most recent deceased husband)
His name is Chris CROWE. (Mrs. Walnut Crane-Crowe?)
the mental images of a whole human man learning and performing the crane mating dance, and "sitting" on artificial eggs so she thinks he's performing his duties as a husband and father (and apparently OBJECTS if he does not?)
"chris, buddy, you gotta marry the possibly-murderous crane lady for the GOOD OF THE SPECIES." (alternately: "chris, my man! good news! we found you a very interested lady! She's 36, she's very spirited and independent, she holds a very important and rare status in her society! ...Is there a downside? WELL...")
chris sits any potential human partners down, like "my love, you must understand before we wed,,, i am already... Attached" (camera drifts wistfully to the above photo) "Lady Walnut and I have an,, Understanding... the relationship is open, but very committed"
Not only is he 'married' to walnut, this has apparently happened SEVERAL times, so he has MULTIPLE crane wives, none of which know about any of his other crane wives. This man is, for some unknown reason, irresistible to cranes
the “this content has been removed for violating Tumblr’s Community Guidelines” notice really adds a lot of flavor to this post and somehow makes it MORE obscene than whatever that actually was
I regret being the bearer of bad news, but I thought it should be shared that Walnut passed away in January of this year (2024). There's a lot of mixed info about the lifespan of cranes (due to people misunderstanding what a median is...) but the average for most species I know of is 20-30 years (in the wild if nothing eats them/they don't die young), and 30-45 in captivity, with the oldest known white-naped crane having loved to be 46. Given that she was 42, this old gal did good, and I'm certain she will be missed by folks here.
i thought the “this is the face that launched a thousand ships, although now it would maybe be five-hundred.” line was just an internet joke but apparently that's a line Menelaus actually says in Nolan's Odyssey??
Not only that the language itself sounds straight out of a marvel forcibly funny haha moment, but Menelaus? The Menelaus who all thoughout human history, from Homer, to Sappho, to Euripides, to Virgil, to Shakespeare, to Brooke, to Barth; from Classical vases to Medieval poetry to Reinessance art, has been known as the man whose sword fell from his hands at the sight of his wife after 10 years apart?
"What joy for me to hold my wife" Menelaus?
"He flung the sword away, and kissed her feet" Menelaus?
"I believe all. I understand nothing. I love you" Menelaus?
"I have no fault to find; my wife, he daughter of Zeus and Leda, is mine again, she whom her brothers on their snow-white steeds, whilst torches blazed, made my happy bride, but gods removed her from my home." Menelaus?
The Menelaus who was picked out of the suitors by Helen herself? The Menelaus who couldn't kill a begging Trojan so his brother had to do it for him? The Menelaus who rescued Odysseus and got out Patroclus' body? The Menelaus who volounteered to fight Paris one on one so everybody could go home? Who kept expressing his guilt about himself being the cause of war through every assembly he spoke at in the Iliad? Who after 10 years away at Troy, took his wife through a 7-year long journey at sea back home, where he reinstated her as the queen of Sparta? Who wept like a child in front of Telemachus recalling the war and his brother and all the friends he lost and the only consolation being his wife' gentle hand on his?
You want me to believe that man scarred Helen's face and called her only worth half the ships because of it?
I'm actually physically sick just thinking about it.
actually annoyed by long distance friends again. i want to go for a walk i want to get drinks i want to sit in the grass and write i want to go to the fucking store together
I talk a lot about politics, a field in which I am, at best, an amateur, but this one is actually almost completely in my expert wheelhouse. Ready for a LONG RANT (TM) about datacenters in space?
INTRODUCTION
Look, Elon Musk just launched SpaceX as a public company. If its valuation were based on its actual business of launching things into orbit and providing satellite communications, it would be a company of middling value, probably in the tens of billions of dollars, maybe approaching $100 billion. Instead, Musk merged it with his AI company, xAI, and declared that its valuation should be based on his new idea: putting AI datacenters in space.
This is a terrible idea for lots and lots of reasons, but I want to specifically address what I think is the biggest one and the one I see people get horribly wrong most often: putting AI datacenters in space doesn't solve the problem of dissipating heat, it makes it worse.
Let's dive in starting with the general case.
HEAT TRANSFER TYPES
I want to start off by looking at different ways to move heat. In classical physics, there are basically three ways: conduction, convection, and radiation and you can find the relevant math here.
Conduction is when two solid objects are touching. Different objects transfer heat differently and a lot depends on the quality of surface contact, but the basic idea is that if you get your object to touch an object at a different temperature that is good at transferring heat, this is a very efficient way to change the temperature of your object. Obviously, though, we don't have that option in space because, well, your spacecraft isn't generally touching other objects and, if it does, they're usually not large enough to absorb all of the heat transfer and will quickly become saturated.
Convection is when a fluid flows over a solid object. Again, this varies depending on the fluid and the quality of contact, but we usually use air or water and both can be very effecient at transferring fairly large amounts of heat if they can contact a significant surface area. Again, this isn't really an option for a spacecraft because they're in a vacuum and, thus, not in contact with any fluids except those inside the spacecraft itself which, while they are useful for moving heat around the spacecraft, don't help with heat going into or out of it.
That only leaves radiation, the least efficient method of transferring heat. Which isn't great! Honestly, making sure that you can get rid of enough heat to prevent your spacecraft from overheating is a major problem in spacecraft design and that's before you add a whole bunch of hardware whose main function generates a metric crap-ton of heat!
HOW MUCH WOULD IT TAKE?
Okay, so let's start breaking down the problem. First off, how much heat are we going to need to radiate away? I found a source that indicates that a leading data center can contain 45 million chips, which seems like a decent place to start. Looking a bit more, it seems like the newest chips generate about 1 kW of heat. Putting these together, it looks like, just for the chips, we're going to need to be dissipating about 45 GW of heat for our space-based datacenter.
Secondly, let's look at our heat equation. Taking the net radiation loss rate equation from this site, we've got most of the variables, but we still need the temperatures. For simplicity I'm going to assume that we need to keep the temperature of the chips below 80 C (353 K) which seems like a high estimate for max temperature, but it should mean we're being conservative in our assumptions, so I'm okay with it. As far as the outside temperature, the environment in earth orbit, either LEO (Low Earth Orbit) or MEO (Middle Earth Orbit) is extremely variable depending whether you're in direct sunlight or not. I'm using this temperature profile and taking the average outside temperature of about -32.5 C or 241 K.
Calculating with those numbers, what I'm getting is that you'd need a radiator area of over 65 million cubic meters to cool all of this. For reference, that's over 9,000 football fields.
Now, according to this presentation from two years ago (shout-out to CalPoly, my alma mater!), current radiator technology generally comes in at a density of about 19 kg/m^2 but there is a stated goal to get that down to 6 kg/m^2 for long-range missions. Running both numbers, I come up with a weight of over 1.2 billion kg for the current density and almost 391 million kg for the lower goal density. A Falcon 9 has a payload capacity of 22,800 kg to low earth orbit, so it would take over 54,000 launches just for the radiators needed to cool the datacenter chips at current densities, though that drops to a little over 17,000 launches if we can get down to the goal density. A Falcon 9 launch costs about $45,000 per kg to LEO, so that puts your cost of launch somewhere between $55.7 trillion and $17.5 trillion.
Also, how long would that take? Well, I found a timeline of SpaceX launch missions each year (https://spacexnow.com/stats) and it looks like, starting in 2021, the trend line is pretty linear. If the number of launches keeps increasing at that rate and if all launches were dedicated just to launching radiator panels for datacenters, they could launch enough of the current radiator panels to cool the chips of one datacenter by 2065, though it could be done by 2046 with the lower density panels they're working on.
Keep in mind, that's just the radiators to cool the chips, that doesn't include the rest of the spacecraft or the datacenter itself. I'd also note that I didn't even really consider solar heating or the reflected heat from Earth or any other heat generated by the spacecraft (including the heat generated by generating the power for the chips in the first place!), I only considered the heat generated by the chips themselves, so this is probably way smaller than what would actually be needed.
THAT'S CRAZY!
Right? Look, I don't doubt that we'll have orbital infrastructure at some point in the future, probably including computational datacenters, but the amount of problems that need to be overcome before that is a possibility are immense. I've only detailed out one of them and it's already completely prohibitive with current technology and even with reasonably projected technology.
For comparison, if you were to try to cool all of that here on Earth with water, as they're often doing, you'd need a surface area of about 49 million square meters (about 6,800 football fields) assuming water at 10 degrees C and you'd need to run absolutely epic amounts of that water through it to maintain the temperature. But that's something that you can do on Earth! Don't get me wrong, there are all kinds of negative externalities in terms of the way that excess heat affects the environment, but even if all of those were priced in it doesn't approach nearly the multi-trillion dollar price tag of cooling a space-based datacenter.
Also, caveats again, keep in mind that I only looked at the amount of radiative capacity that would be necessary to cool the chips themselves. I didn't consider the cost of launching the datacenter or all of the heat that would be generated by all of the other components necessary to run it or issues with maintenance and longevity, all of which are much worse in space than on the ground. I'd also note that I tried to make every assumption in a way that would reduce the size of the radiative capacity necessary, so even just my estimate for this one thing is probably too low.
Long story short, I don't think that datacenters in space are a near-term possibility and they're definitely iffy in the medium term as well. Long-term? Sure, I think it'll probably happen, but I think that space-based datacenters are unlikely to happen anywhere near in time to justify SpaceX's current sky-high stock valuations.
CONCLUSION
Look, I'm a big space guy and I absolutely think that, in the future, there will be lots of things in space, even datacenters. That said, the economics and just the pure physics of what it looks like today are so monumentally, over-the-top bonkers that anyone trying to sell you something premised on the idea that it's just around the corner, say, SpaceX shares at today's valuation of $132 which would make the whole company worth $1.786 trillion when it generated only $4.7 billion in revenue last quarter for a net loss of $4.3 billion, is probably selling you the modern equivalent of seaside property in Nebraska.
I know, crazy to think that Elon Musk might be trying to scam people, but there it is. Anyways, let me know if you think I missed something and I hope you enjoyed this or at least found it interesting.
so. i do this thing where i wake up still half-asleep, write a note in my phone, and then fall back asleep and forget about it completely until i find the note later.
and i need to show you all some of these because ?????
[image transcription: a series of notes labeled "sleep thoughts" that say:
So, esrlier today I was eating lettuce off rhe ground like a borse
I have 33 husbands. One for each day of the month
Fanfic- my dad is regina george
"Noo don't shoot i have a family" rvrryone has a family you idkot. I bave a family of dormice living in my grand pisno anr like z7 uncles. youre not special
When your dreams was to open a flock of seagulls here but there's already a flock of seagulls here
it’s ninety-nine degrees outside, four fuck-thousand percent humidity, and my husband was like, “i’m gonna go for a bike ride.” and i was like “why. no. why. don’t put us on the news like that. local fool collapses on unnecessary journey. don’t do it.” so he says he doesn’t want to “hide in the house” because the sun is shining. bruh. honeybruh. “the sun is shining” does not cover it. its hot outside. its motherfucking hot as fuck outside. our outdoor plants have been crying into their hands all week. whole cars are melting into the sewer. our fucking patio umbrella developed sentience to ask me for lemonade this morning
this is a great idea, thank you. here goes. my audition tape for the weather channel. dearly beloved. we are gathered here today to have a fucking funeral for the outdoors. it had a good run, with all its creeks and clouds and shit. pretty great. now it’s ten-thirty at night but still ninety-two asshole-sweating degrees and humid as fuck. everything is hot and slimy, like being a “borrower” that got trapped inside a bottle of shampoo and then accidentally microwaved. you can see on my doppler radar that nothing is moving around out there because everything is probably dead. the only alive thing is the mosquito currently trying to drill a hole in my leg. no surprise that all the shitbag mosquitos are fine, since the thermostat of hell is always at the devil’s preferred temperature. this forecast has gotten away from me a little, but in conclusion fuck the sun
ninety nine???? thats IT????????? buddy here in the 7th circle of h*ck, California, we get up to at LEAST 110 degrees every single gosh darned summer. the bugs seek revenge. the sun wreaks havoc on the mere mortals it surveys. every plant has turned brown in its thirst for water. the very air itself has been sucked dry of every drip of moisture it ever had.
well since you asked so politely, let’s talk about something very important vis a vis weather-hotness that you clearly ain’t ever heard of, called
humidity
oh alas, you say. oh papa, whatever shall i do, it is ever so hotte and drye in california. the very air hath been sucked of all its moisturey droplets and whatnot.* one hundredy and tennith desiccated degrees!
*(yo, drought is serious. i am pretty obviously not making fun of that.)
alright. let’s check it out. here’s a random california city, right about now:
thirty-two percent. and here’s a random mid-atlantic city located somewhere in the wet fleshy crease behind a demon’s knee*:
*(confession: i do not live in dc, but several years ago i spent three weeks steaming like a tinned ham in arlington in august. none of the pants i took with me could ever keep a crease again.)
huh! funny thing! “see, dc’s actually seven degrees COOLER,” you say, because you’ve obviously never gone outside and taken a deep lungful of wet sock trash air in your life. and now for added bliss, here’s what early wednesday morning’s gonna be like for these poor clowns:
that’s right! eighty-two percent humidity! the point at which showers no longer matter, because you’re all caught in God’s grease trap! just stressed human eels miserably slip slidin’ their way through a damp melty bathwater-flavored hellscape that feels like it’s actively sous viding their top layer of skin! a hundred thousand people packed into public transit breathing air that feels like deepthroating swamp thing! and you wanna talk to me about fuckin california!
[cue science voice]: human bodies cool through evaporation, a process by which the body sweats and sweet invisible angels towel us off, whisking away our unwanted moisture into the air and literally chilling us out. (it’s also why air conditioned air feels so fucking deliciously refreshing: it’s not just being cooled, it’s being conditioned, aka, dehumidified. it’s cool dry air.) but. if the air is already made out of fucking chowder and can’t absorb shit then guess what the fuck our bodies can’t do.
so is this weak fool gonna remain indoors and hydrated through this only medium-hot but fuckoff-humid season? you bet your dried out ass.
As someone who lives in a high desert and has had a few Ohioan summers inflicted on me-
I will GLADLY take 105 and the 5% or less humidity I had in Durango, wherein the outer layer of my entire epidermis dried and split like the scorched earth out in the parking lot, leaving me looking like I’d been assaulted by an SFX artist high on 5 hour energy-blasted Monster whilst napping but it was REEEEEEAAL and every movement caused me to split like a tectonic plate and Ooze some unmentionable substance, than EVER be subjected to humidity over 80% again.
[id. A twitter post by @/Bennieeexyz
Jury duty letter came addressed to my cat.
Not a mistake. "Felix Martinez" - that's his full name according to his vet records.
My last name. His first name. Somehow he's a registered voter now.
Called the county clerk.
Me: My cat got summoned for jury duty.
Clerk: Is the name correct on the summons?
Me: Yes, but he's a cat.
Clerk: Is Felix Martinez a legal resident of this county?
Me: He's a legal cat.
Clerk: Sir, if the name matches our records, he needs to appear or file an exemption.
Me: He can't file anything. He has paws.
Clerk: You can file on his behalf.
Me: Under what exemption? There's no box for "is a cat."
Clerk: (pause) Check "unable to serve due to medical reasons."
Me: What's the medical reason?
Clerk: He's a cat.
Me: That's not a medical condition.
Clerk: It is if it prevents him from serving.
Sent in the form. Got rejected two weeks later.
"Insufficient documentation. Please provide medical professional's statement."
Took the letter to my vet.
Me: I need you to write that my cat can't do jury duty.
Vet: Why is your cat summoned for jury duty?
Me: Excellent question. No good answer.
Vet: This is the weirdest request I've gotten.
Me: Can you just write that he's medically unfit to serve?
Vet: On what grounds?
Me: He's a cat.
Vet: (started typing) "Patient is unable to serve due to species-related limitations including inability to speak, read, or comprehend legal proceedings."
Me: Perfect.
Sent it in. Got another rejection.
"Summons is mandatory. Failure to appear will result in contempt of court."
My roommate thought this was hilarious.
Roommate: Felix is going to jail.
Me: This is serious.
Roommate: Bring him to court. See what happens.
Decided that was actually the only option left.
Day of jury duty, put Felix in his carrier. Brought the entire paper trail of rejection letters.
Checked in at the courthouse.
Clerk: Name?
Me: Felix Martinez.
Clerk: (looked at the cat carrier) Is that Felix?
Me: Yes.
Clerk: (long stare) He's a cat.
Me: I've been saying that for six weeks.
Clerk: Why didn't you file an exemption?
Me: I filed three. All rejected.
Showed her the letters. She read through them, expression shifting from confusion to disbelief.
Clerk: Someone rejected the veterinary documentation?
Me: Twice.
Clerk: (called her supervisor over) You need to see this.
Supervisor read everything. Looked at Felix. Looked at me.
Supervisor: How did a cat get registered to vote?
Me: You tell me.
Supervisor: This is a data error.
Me: Took you six weeks to figure that out.
They dismissed Felix immediately. Apologized for the inconvenience.
Supervisor: We'll remove him from the voter registry.
Me: Appreciate it.
Supervisor: (pause) Out of curiosity, how would he have voted?
Me: Probably whatever party supports universal treats.
Got a formal apology letter a week later and a voter registration card.
For me this time. Apparently I wasn't registered, but my cat was.
Roommate: Felix committed voter fraud.
Me: Felix committed nothing. He's innocent.
Roommate: That's what they all say.
Felix is sleeping on the jury summons now.
Fitting end to his legal career.
end id]
Being asexual means not experiencing sexual attraction. Sex repulsion, in the context of asexuality, means being repulsed by the idea of yourself having sex. Things it's totally possible to do while being a sex-repulsed asexual:
Have a sex drive
Support other people's right to have sex
Support other people's rights to talk about and/or depict sex and sexuality
Engage with art explicitly depicting and/or discussing sex and sexuality
Create art that explicitly depicts and/or discusses sex and sexuality
Beat someone to death with your bare hands in the dead of night
Grapple with what you've done as lights flash in the distance
Dig a shallow grave
As you lay the last shovel-full of dirt, catch the glint of metal in the corner of your eye
Rush toward the gun, eyes wild and shovel forgotten
Grapple less figuratively, fighting to get the upper hand, clawing with teeth and dirt-covered bloody nails
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
romaincrisis
izzy806
kianamaiart
dailybridgerton
tangentwithtanner
