The Tumbling Borg

I'm Mikhail. Thanks to a 1990 car accident, I'm also a Borg. I write and perform the podcast "Managlitch City Underground" and am working on a related novel currently called "Discordia's Glitch". If this Tumblr makes you think I like cosplay, Ponies, Crystal Gems, and Doctor Who, you're absolutely right.

[kikmessenger]

sits on my own blog like it’s the edge of a lake wistfully

[kikmessenger]

skips a stone over a few posts

[ferrettaur]

So like an hour ago I just lear🪨︵︵ned that— what the fuck was that. Someone just skipped a rock across my post did you see that

[dduane]

If this is for real, it's gonna be FAB

Per @tyranicus.net at Bluesky: "Here's a leaked photo of the upcoming Lego Star Trek TOS bridge set coming in September. "

[bisexualbaker]

Happy Moon Landing Eve! Remember to leave out milk and cookies for Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, and don’t let Michael Collins convince you to prank NASA!

[bisexualbaker]

If Tumblr is still here next July 19th, I fully expect this post to obliterate my activity feed.

[kidmograph]

Midnight (for Odesza 2022)

[originalleftist]

You need a bin to take out the trash.

[vincentpriceofficial]

I think for a lot of people “I am completely helpless and powerless” and “I am completely powerful and in control” are both basically comforting fantasies because most of us live our lives in an in between place where we have enough agency to be responsible for our actions but not enough agency to have true control over our lives and the tension between power and powerlessness in the day to day is psychologically wearing and exhausting

[barachiki]

Funny stuff.

I had another client today get confused and upset at how I labeled their final file.

(If you don't know already, I'm a graphic designer)

The filename was something like "ProjectnameFNL-BLEED-DIE.pdf"

I also named the email "Projectname Final File - Bleed & Die"

Now, for the non-designers out there, a bleed is how you get the picture to the edge of the page in a document. You can't just print an 8.5x11 page in that situation, you have to print a larger page, and trim it to 8.5x11, and that overprint that you cut down is called the "bleed".

Die is short for dieline. If you are printing something in a different shape than a cutter can make (basically anything without straight lines) then you need a die. A die also helps trim things a lot faster, some can do a hundred sheets at a time, as opposed to manually doing it (which I'm not even sure how you'd even do that)

In this situation, I was making a box. They are notoriously tricky, but I've done a bunch before. And the person I was dealing with was new, and she had to send along the final approval to her boss.

She wasn't rude, but was clearly uncomfortable in our meeting today. I really had to explain it to her, and said that these were industry standard things and her printer needs this info. I also have worked with her boss before and absolutely knew that they'd understand the terms.

This is a kind of sample of what I mean. The dieline is the pink line. It is where things will be cut. You can see that it is a special shape that can't just be cut out regularly.

Everything blue outside the pink line is the bleed. you won't see any of that in the final folded box.

And the white lines you see are just the fold lines. They are usually part of the die line, but have a different process to use them.

So yes. I had a client today assume I was telling her to bleed and die, and I had to explain that it was just print terminology and I'm not a psychopath.

[herbertwest]

IT'S GUINEA PIG APPRECIATION DAY!

Appreciate these guinea pigs!

It's not optional!

[socialmaya]

[mikailborg]

Picked up some indulgence the other day. Enjoying asking co-workers “Would you like a jelly baby?” while trying not to sound like Tom Baker.

[teethwreath]

god this tickles me

(OP's tiktok here)

[throo]

Wh-what do you mean it’s from a birthday cake

[throo]

We could have been eating him

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Sea hides its dead

Megan Bontrager: Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the sea hides its dead Bontrager: where are the dead? Bontrager: you'll never find 'em Bontrager: and why's that? Bontrager: cuz the sea is hiding them

Bontrager: so this big giant obelisk just rises up out of the ocean HP Lovecraft: out of the o-ocean?? Bontrager: yup! right out of the deepest watery, sodden depths Lovecraft: [sweats] nothing good comes from down there

Wile E Young: gotta love an obelisk Bontrager: i know, right?! Bontrager: they're the best Bontrager: especially from the sea Young: oh i don't know Bontrager: ESPECIALLY FROM THE SEA

Bontrager: now naturally when you see a giant obelisk rise out of the sea Bontrager: you would probably think it was related to that ancient eternal ocean-based cult that we all know and love Lovecraft: an ocean based cult?? Bontrager: yes Bontrager: very sodden Bontrager: much watery

Bontrager: so naturally an obsessed academic investigates Lovecraft: oh an obsessed academic? i like this part Bontrager: yeah, i thought you would! Barker: oh wow, howard likes an obsessed academic? Barker: what a surprise Barker: someone alert the media

Bontrager: there is something that you should know about this obsessed academic though Bontrager: it's that he's a massive jerk! Bontrager: who is sleeping with his grad student! Lovecraft: hey! what are you trying to pull here?? Lovecraft: this isn't the literary fiction campfire!

Bontrager: but he puts together a team Bontrager: but it turns out that everyone on this team has a dark secret Bontrager: and before the end, in this watery tomb… Bontrager: all secrets will be revealed! Bontrager: all questions will be answered! Bontrager: all socks will be sodden!

Bontrager: cuz it turns out that the eldritch god of this obelisk Bontrager: forces you to confront your greatest trauma and atone Koontz: like the guy in Star Trek V?? Bontrager: Bontrager: what Bontrager: no

Bontrager: not like star trek V Bontrager: no, more like god would demand Bontrager: i mean god is always demanding that kind of thing Bontrager: it's kind of god's whole bit Bontrager: why would you think of star trek Koontz: i just thought Koontz: i just Koontz: god was in star trek V Diane Duane: that was a false god, dean, and they destroyed him

Bontrager: look, the important thing is this eldritch god forces you to confront your trauma Bontrager: and through it, you will do a personal growth Bontrager: as you come to terms with some heavy shit Bontrager: if you think about it, this eldritch god is actually really good for your mental health Lovecraft: oh i don't like that :(

[mollyringle]

I accidentally typed “sinner” instead of “dinner,” and my mind instantly went, “Sinner sinner chicken dinner,” which should be the title of someone’s irreverent horror novel if it isn’t already.

[dduane]

I have been rereading the young wizards series and for the life of me cannot figure out what Dairine’s specialty is as a wizard. I know she works with Naleid using the sunstone after Roshaun disappears, but other than being a powerhouse due to her age, I can’t find a reference to her specialty. Can you point me in the right direction, or shed some light on it?

Looking back over her arc in the books so far, I think it's probably safe to say that there hasn't been any kind of judgment call on Dairine's specialty because she doesn't know for sure what it is yet. (And possibly she doesn't feel any need for there to be a hard-and-fast determination of what it might be. Or alternately, she may not see it as particularly important to make any such kind of determination.)

I should probably clarify the general landscape on this issue by saying (speaking ex cathedra, as it were) that it's not an ironclad requirement for a wizard to have a declared or recognized (or even recognizable) specialty. Lots do, of course: especially early on in their careers. But these aren't seen as any kind of limitation, then or later. A wizard can shift declared specialties with no problem if they find their interests (and the kind of errantry work they enjoy doing) have shifted focus with age or experience. The Powers that Be have no intention to force any wizard to do work in which they don't find satisfaction. The exercise of wizardry is difficult and dangerous enough as it is without adding any kind of expectation-fueled compulsion to it.

Dairine in particular is kind of an interesting case, as—almost uniquely among the major YW characters we've met so far—her own practice of the Art keeps getting knocked sideways into interest areas that look to be mostly of benefit to others and only less directly so to herself. (Though this might be one of those judgments that's best left to the Powers that reside outside of time.)

The connection to machine life via the ability to connect in very basic ways with unusual forms of matter, though, which was initially laid out in High Wizardry, has (to my eye at least) some resonances in her ur-matter work during A Wizard Abroad, to her connection to the Sunstone, and to the plasma-based and other high-energy stuff that goes down at the end of Games Wizards Play. So we might be able to make a case that Dairine is (at least glancingly) a specialist in exotic-matter and -materials technology.

(I note in passing, BTW, that the only reference to her in work that's closer to our own time coordinates, in Owl Be Home For Christmas, merely says that at that point [2020] she was doing some "computer work" on Carmela's new starship. [shrug] It's also entirely possible this reticence had to do with main-timeline continuity issues intended to unfold in YW 11 that I wasn't prepared to get involved with at that point.)

Anyway: the tl:dr version of this: Jury's still out on this issue... and it's okay for it to be. 🙂 ...Anyway, thanks for the question!

[mikailborg]

How in the heck did I miss the mention of “Carmela’s new starship”?

I’m such a fan of that woman. 🥰

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

[ID: Screenshot of tumblr tags reading “please op i am desperate for the context.” End ID.]

Sure, here ya go:

Lord George Gordon Byron was an English poet in the early 1800s.

He wrote several narrative poems that influenced the gothic genre and was a HUGE fucking slut. HUGE. This bisexual mess slept with so many fucking people it was insane, no gender was safe. Unfortunately that “no one was safe” mentality did not work out well for him bc there were a LOT of rumors that he impregnated his half-sister.

His only child from a legitimate marriage was from his wife, Lady Anne Isabella Noel Byron, who straight-up left him after a year. You know how divorce was uncommon in the 1800s? His wife was just so fed up with him that she did not care and left when her daughter was five weeks old.

This daughter was named Ada and would become known as Ada Lovelace.

Byron signed the separation papers and then left the country to have sex elsewhere and would later die when Ada was eight.

During that time if a couple divorced, usually the Dad would get full custody, so just in case he tried anything Lady Byron made sure to play the devoted and overattentive mother.

Lady Byron was absolutely paranoid that her daughter would become an insane gothic mess like her dad so she decided the only thing to do would be to make sure she did not become a Poet™. So she heavily encouraged Ada’s interests in science and mathematics.

Around the 1830-40s, Ada met Charles Babbage through a mutual friend and he showed her his prototype for a mechanical calculator. She got absolutely obsessed with this machine and began helping him out with it to the point where her notes on it became more extensive than his.

She also added notes to a translation of a paper on this engine that is considered to be the first published algorithm.

These notes on the engine and translation became the basis for computer programming.

She’s considered The First Computer Programmer™

So, because Lord Byron was a little slut and his wife wanted their daughter to Not Be, we now have to deal with tumblr discourse. Thank you and goodnight.

[autisticexpression]

Vampire fiction and science fiction as we know it today also exist as a direct result of his friends being stuck in a cabin with him during a storm so there’s that as well. Hot vampires and sci-fi nerds are also his fault.

[airandangels]

She was one of the people stuck in the cabin (well I think it was more of a 19th century Airbnb that the group of friends rented for a holiday that was then ruined by the weather) with him. Since they couldn’t do any outdoor activities they decided to write spooky stories and read them together instead. She wrote Frankenstein, kicking off the science fiction genre, and Dr John Polidori wrote… I’ve forgotten the title and it might just be “The Vampire” or “Vampyre” or something like that but anyway he did that. Dracula is much more influential now but that was the first big vampire novel. Byron didn’t create either genre but arguably motivated their creation by being an annoying horndog so they wanted to stay in their rooms writing instead of hang out with him.

[rattleroze]

It’s also worth mentioning that the summer they were stuck in that cabin is referred to as the Year Without Summer and was directly caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia the year before. It is also blamed for failed crops and mass famine on almost every continent, and the explosion could be heard something like 1600 miles away. The eruption of Tambora and the subsequent lack of summer worldwide is estimated to have killed anywhere from 100,000 to many millions of people. If all the deaths from diseases such as cholera and typhoid that found perfect conditions to spread rapidly during the famines are included, the total death toll could be estimated around 40 million people worldwide, which would put it on par with world war one.

TL;DR: Byron being a goth slut led directly to his daughter inventing computer programming, and being stuck in a cabin with him during crazy weather patterns caused by the largest volcanic eruption in modern history on the other side of the globe directly led to the invention of the genres of science fiction and gothic horror

[brightlotusmoon]

Tumblr dragging Lord Byron is similar to its dragging of Ea Nasir, but more verbose and maundering and blunt and intense, which also describes Lord Byron.