Origami Around
#extradirty
pixel skylines
Monterey Bay Aquarium
JVL
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Love Begins
Xuebing Du
occasionally subtle
gracie abrams
Cosmic Funnies
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
noise dept.
blake kathryn
Mike Driver
Kiana Khansmith
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★
will byers stan first human second
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@narahatenarrative
RepairPal is the leading provider of auto repair and maintenance information to consumers. Our RepairPal Certified shop network helps you fi
Aptera has partnered with RepairPal shop network. There's 2 within walking distance for me. I'd mostly planned on an EV not needing maintenance (also my policy for doctors), but it's nice to know that about as far as you can get from Carlsbad, I'd have a local shop that knows what an Aptera even is.
I was expecting them to be later because I forgot to check that email account for a month.
They are very serious heavy paper, and there's a metallic silver in the cover. (foreshadowing!)
There's new art (I think) on the reverse of the chapter title pages and Book 2 has a letter from Sette, in addition to the extras in the back.
The next kickstarter is soon!
A lot of people genuinely believe that permanent disability isn't a thing that happens to good people who work hard and make responsible choices. A lot of people genuinely think that we get the life we work for and deserve. And this is definitely part of the explanation for why ableism is so prevalent
Aptera Motors Resolves Legal Matter with Zaptera USA, Inc. Carlsbad, CA — April 14, 2026 — Aptera Motors Corp. (NASDAQ: SEV), a solar mobili
Summary: The current Aptera Motors bought the IP from the estate of the guy who ended up with it after the liquidation of the original Aptera. Zaptera contested that, saying they owned it the whole time. This assertion has been thrown out of court.
Detail: Zaptera USA, Inc. didn't exist until after they filed the lawsuit, then had the ownership on a patent changed. This is perhaps suggestive that they did not own it the whole time.
Another minor point: the original company liquidated. It did not go bankrupt. That is not the same thing. I've seen that in a number of articles. To the point of the lawsuit, liquidation is a controlled process, but also one that did not take place in court, so the records of what got assigned to creditors or investors are not official documents in the court system.
I personally would love to see a rip-off Chinese Aptera. The Chinese EVs are great stuff, but generally unimaginative. (Like the new cities. Why recreate a mid city 10 times when you could do something that might be better? Or 10 different things, see what works?) Copy the aggressive lightweight-ing, max out the build efficiency, make it look more like a UFO. The electric revolution wasn't the introduction of electricity. People put the lights where their gas lamps were, or the motor where their water wheel or steam engine was. One could argue that Aptera, as odd as it is, is still in the old world. Do the in-wheel motors, lose the wheel pods with torque and rear wheel steering (with drive-by-wire to make that not feel weird), exotic batteries, flexible solar printed on vinyl for the sides, and use Chinese manufacturing to make all that cheap and efficient.
Thanks, Obama
I got a huge tax refund because the expense of the health insurance was too high compared to my variable income. Unfortunately, I already dropped the health insurance for this year. If I'd known this money was coming, I might not have.
I might have anyway because the price went up 50% and it was my impression that the subsidy was being dropped anyway. Is 'the subsidy' the cost increase or this refund? I wouldn't know, and no point in finding out now.
Kat Abughazaleh figured out you can use campaign funds to help people directly. Maybe as an add-on, if you pass legislation, you could spend some campaign funds helping people understand what it actually can do for you.
A somewhat gentle political message.
Babylon 5 Survived an Industry That Wanted It Gone
One of the reasons I have such a persistent chip on my shoulder about Babylon 5 has very little to do with fandom tribalism and everything to do with how hard the television industry worked to kneecap it before it ever had a fair shot.
This was not a case of two similar shows accidentally arriving at the same time. This was a deliberate and coordinated attempt by Paramount to undermine a competing series that dared to exist outside their control.
J. Michael Straczynski pitched Babylon 5 to Paramount first. They sat on the series bible and the pilot script for over a year before finally passing. Only after the show was sold elsewhere did Paramount suddenly announce Deep Space Nine in the trades. Not only that, they rushed production so DS9 would hit the airwaves first, ensuring that Babylon 5 would look like a cheap knockoff to anyone paying half attention.
That was just the opening move.
Paramount then used its weight to pressure local stations not to carry Babylon 5. This was not competition. This was strongarming. In the syndicated television landscape of the 1990s, that kind of pressure could absolutely determine whether a show lived or died. Paramount knew that. They used it.
And this is not paranoia or JMS reading intent into coincidences after the fact. Walter Koenig had lunch with a Paramount executive long before either show aired. That executive openly described the strategy. Koenig relayed that conversation to Straczynski. Later, there was a lawsuit that was quietly settled out of court. Corporations do not settle lawsuits like that unless there is something they do not want examined in daylight. What often gets left out of this conversation is that this was not a case of two creative teams independently arriving at similar ideas. Paramount had access to the Babylon 5 series bible and pilot script. They did not just know the premise. They knew the structure, the ambitions, and the long term storytelling plan. So when elements that Babylon 5 was built around later surfaced in Deep Space Nine, it is not unreasonable to question how those ideas migrated. No one is claiming DS9 copied Babylon 5 wholesale. But it is impossible to ignore that one studio had early access to another creator’s roadmap, and that access came before DS9 was fully defined as a series.
You do not have to hate Deep Space Nine to acknowledge this history. I do not hate DS9. I like DS9. But pretending these shows were born into equal circumstances is historically dishonest.
What really gets under my skin is that Babylon 5 was not just another space show. It was doing something genuinely new. At a time when The Next Generation trained audiences to expect a reset button, where no matter what happened you knew the characters and their relationships would snap back into place by the end of the episode, Babylon 5 refused that safety net. It told a long form serialized story with planned arcs from beginning to end. Consequences actually mattered. Characters evolved and sometimes broke. Friends could become enemies and stay that way. Characters could die and stay dead. Moral ambiguity did not resolve itself neatly in the final act, and nothing was guaranteed to return to normal just because the credits rolled. It was not comfort television, where part of the appeal of The Next Generation was spending an hour with familiar characters and knowing everything would be basically fine when you left them.
It challenged the narrative space that Star Trek and Star Wars had dominated for decades. And instead of allowing that challenge to stand on its own merits, the established powers tried to crush it before audiences could make up their own minds.
So yes, when people casually dismiss Babylon 5 as a ripoff, or refuse to engage with it at all, or act as though it only exists in the shadow of Star Trek, it makes me angry. Not because I need my favorite show to be validated, but because the history is being rewritten to favor the winner with the bigger marketing budget and the louder megaphone.
Babylon 5 survived sabotage. It survived network indifference. It survived budget constraints that would have killed a lesser show. And it still changed television.
And it is worth remembering who tried to bury it, and why.
Weird Fantasy (1950) #18 written by Al Feldstein and drawn by Joe Orlando, with editor Bill Gaines
So he said it can't be a Black. So I said, "For God's sakes, Judge Murphy, that's the whole point of the Goddamn story!" So he said, "No, it can't be a Black". Bill just called him up and raised the roof, and finally they said, "Well, you gotta take the perspiration off". I had the stars glistening in the perspiration on his Black skin. Bill said, "Fuck you", and he hung up.
Al Feldstein, Tales of Terror: The EC Companion
Just to add context for those not aware of the impact of this story.
The reason it was so important for narrative purposes, was that the plot concerns the visit of the Astronaut, in his completely opaque spacesuit, to a planet populated entirely by self-aware robots (originally from Earth) who have built their own society and are petitioning to be allowed to interact with Earth again as equals.
They have a democratic government and free choice of careers etc. as the orange robot serving as guide tells the Astronaut.
The Astronaut notices that there are two different types of robot on this world; the orange ones, who are in charge, gifted access to all information and facilities. and the blue robots, who are seen as more limited in function, have less access to information and resources, and are not allowed positions of power or as wide a choice of employment opportunities. Even transportation is segregated.
The Astronaut investigates further and discovers that the blue and orange robots are actually structurally identical, there is absolutely no difference between their potential or capabilities, and it is only because the orange robots are instructed by their Educator system to consider themselves superior, that the difference exists.
The Astronaut tells the robots they are not ready for re-alignment with Earth, until they come to terms with their own unfairness, and how Earth had had to deal with this issue themselves. When that time comes, the robots will be able to ally with Earth.
Then he leaves in his spaceship, and it's only in that one final panel that we see the Astronaut is black.
Not subtle, nor should it be, but for 1950 this was a breathtakingly powerful statement, perhaps the first of it's kind in the genre.
The black character was not a caricature, or comedy relief, he was a main character in his own right, a human who "simply" was black.
When I was a professor I fucking LOVED teaching this comic. You can read the full thing here (and please read the letters to the editor at the bottom as well—including a message from Ray Bradbury).
please dont leave your fox in the hamper too long or she'll go musty. it's better to put her straight in the washing machine
she's gonna be nice and clean :)
Ok now what
okay lemme just
there we go :)
my most sick and twisted fantasy
Ch01, page 02
•►LATEST UPDATE HERE◄•
A few strangers to start us off. Careful, crew.
If you're a newcomer and not familiar with the regular update flow, the comic posts three pages a week: a page each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Occasionally there'll be a multiple page update, often with a skip afterwards to make up for it. I'm very insistent on keeping up a buffer of pages, as I think it's crucial for quality control that time passes between a page being done, and it being shared. You need an editing window!
For now if you would, please head on over to the Fanworks Contest page and check out all the beautiful entries! There are illustrations and animations to gawk at, music to sample, and lots of fics to read. Vote for your favourites! Polls are open through the week and weekend, and I'll announce the winners next Monday. Thanks to all the lovelies that entered - and to all the lovelies that vote!
~Ashley
It is known that there are two types of Isekai: portal fantasy where the protagonist seeks to travel back home vs reincarnation where protagonist uses their knowledge of Earth technology to overhaul and conquer the new world they found themselves in (aka The Chronicles of Narnia vs a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court).
What most people don't realize, however, is that The Vision of Escaflowne is both types at once (spoilers ahead).
From the point of view of the main protagonist, Hitomi, this is of course the Narnia type.
But from the point of view of main antagonist, Emperor Dornkirk, it's the Yankee type. Because Dornkirk is actually a reincarnated Isaac Newton [this isn't a joke, this is canon] who combined his knowledge of physics, alchemy and the occult with the local magiteck to create an industrialized military empire with literal fate-altering technology, when the rest of the world is basically stuck in the pre-gunpowder middle ages with the odd magitek powered mech and airship here and there.
This is a story where the male fantasy of the super intelligent and knowledgeable hero who is reborn into this new world, takes charge, revolutionizes everything and becomes a savior, yeah, here that guy is the villain.
That show is from 1996.
the more i watch star trek tos, the more it becomes abundantly clear that the reason why modern trek doesnt get kirk at all is because they dont utilise mccoy nearly as much anymore
in modern trek, they always present the idea of logic vs emotion, with spock being logic and kirk being emotion, but thats not how tos has it. in tos, the logic vs emption debate is spock vs mccoy. kirk is supposed to be the mediator between the two, sometimes siding with one side over the other, sometimes finding a middle ground between the two. thats why hes the captain, hes able to see all angles and pick the best course
when you make kirk the emotional one, it completely breaks the format, because 9 time out of 10, it means kirk has to be correct. theres no more balance
mccoy is just as important to tos as spock is, and while i do understand why spock is as popular as he is, without mccoy, the show doesnt work. you need them both. kirk spock and mccoy are the three leads of the show, and removing one requires you to change the others, which is whats happened to kirk
TIL the guy who made the original "Leopards Eating People's Faces Party" tweet is the lead writer for warframe. warframe players stay winning
TIL that the reason lead levels in children’s blood have dropped 85% in the past thirty years is because of an unknown scientist who fought car companies to end leaded gasoline. He also removed it from paint, suggested its removal from pipes, and campaigned for the removal of lead solder from cans.
via ift.tt
Yep. It also correlates extremely strongly with an increasing decrease of violent crime. One of the symptoms of low level constant lead exposure is increased aggression and volatility.
“Unknown scientist”? That was Clair Cameron Patterson.
Gas companies are still so mad at him he’s “unknown scientist”, know his name
Daily reminder that health and safety standards like these are what politicians mean when they talk about “deregulation.”
Patterson died 5 December 1995.
Petition to make his date of death a Tumblr holiday celebrated by talking about cool shit the gas and petroleum industries don’t want us to know about, and fighting to continue his work.
Happy Clair Cameron Patterson Day! Remember to hold Big Business and our country’s leadership for safety regulation and environmental preservation standards!
