#it’s a checkerboard pattern that’s three rows

[theworstcreature]

I made a danger days Kandi cuff and it’s kind of ugly but like anything danger days themed should be at least slightly garish

[territoart]

Balan Wonderworld 2: The Most Amazing Dream I Ever Had

Date: September 5th, 2023.

The night I had the most amazing dream ever.

Never before had I had a dream like this, and never afterwards.

This is the first dream - and only dream by far - that I have ever awakened from and returned back to three times in a row in a single night, like it came in chapters. And still remember it vividly to this day.

Each time I woke up and fell back asleep, a new chapter was added to the overarching story.

And of course such an impossible dream would involve Balan Wonderworld - a sequel, in fact.

Buckle up and enjoy this hell of a ride.

Balan Wonderworld 2 - Chapter 1: The Setup

I was in the palace-like halls of what I assumed was the Balan Theatre. The halls were elegant and fancily decorated, and the floors and walls had a checkerboard pattern...only, the checkerboard colors were in white and purple instead of red (purple being a significant color here), and the place felt somewhat unsettling rather than welcoming. There were strangely a lot of goblin-like creatures around, presumably Costumes though as they seemed harmless and did not attack. I asked if they had seen Balan or the Tims around, and they led the way through the halls. Eventually we found Tims, scattered here and there, and then gradually in large groups. (Also a seemingly new feature of Balan Wonderworld 2: the existence of Twin Tims. Apparently you can find "Brother" and Sister" Tims of the same colors and patterns to complete pairs. Some of these Twin Tims could be seen around the place.) Soon, the goblin-like creatures disappeared and there were only Tims. There was a small corridor that ended abruptly with a dark, purple-colored abyss. An ominous smoky aura emanated from this pit. A couple of larger Tims were staring down it. (These Tims had a brand new physical feature to them - they had short bird legs, making them look chicken-like.) I got the Tims' attention and asked if they had seen Balan. They simply turned back to the large dark pit, as if telling me to look down there. Immediately I had a terrible feeling, and I stepped back. Suddenly pools of dark purple poison came flooding in and surrounding me ("The Shining" much?), and everything cut to black. That's when I woke up for the first time, then went back to sleep...

______________________________________________________________

Balan Wonderworld 2 - Chapter 2: The Trailer

This time I dreamed of some kind of game convention inside of a large building. There stood a large booth shaped like a giant, fancy purple letter 'L', with the title of "Balan Wonderworld 2" on the side of it. I went inside, where several kiosks could be seen playing a demo intro cinematic, which I of course had to watch. ...Unfortunately, this part was very vague and fuzzy to remember, but basically there was a creepy man's voice telling of a revival of some dark lord, with creepy imagery (like familiar black tentacles). The title of "Balan Wonderworld 2" faded into view, and it was revealed to have a subtitle as well, though I no longer remember what it was. Though due to the letter 'L' seeming significant, being the shape of the booth and all, it is safe to assume it could have been something along the lines of "Balan Wonderworld 2: Lance's Revenge" or "Legion of Lance". (Lance starts with 'L' after all, and his signature color is indeed purple too...) Then there was a rather badass final shot of Balan himself, running along the walls of a castle-like structure, set to an ominous purple sky. I woke up for the second time, then fell back asleep one more time...

______________________________________________________________

Balan Wonderworld 2 - Chapter 3: The Gameplay

This last part was short, but sweet. This time, there was gameplay footage, where it was apparently possible to play as, of all things, a Tim. Possibly as side quests or mini games. The Tim could run and fly from enemies but also had a stamina bar. (And judging by the shot of Balan from the previous part, it was indeed confirmed he would be the main playable character too.) ...Then I woke up for the last time, and no longer returned to this marathon dream.

Dream end

[moongothic]

Do you ever start a project, thinking it'd be a fun thing to make, only to realize halfway through you hate and have literally no use for it and then get stuck unsure what the fuck you should do with it

Yeah

This is my Bag of Regrets

Okay so around March of 2023 I made my first-ever crochet bag out of the leftover yarn I had from my Blanket of Darkness. I loved how that bag turned out, but even then I realized I could've done a better job had I lined the bag, which I should've done really early into the project.

So.

I ended up with a bunch of this super thin cotton yarn, in a few colors. We're not gonna talk about how I got the yarn, I just ended up with it. And I did not know what to do with it, because the pink and the dark maroon-y color just are not my colors, at all. I do not like them what-so-ever. And so like, I had to figure out something to do with the yarn, didn't wanna waste it. And for some god damn reason I thought I could practise making more crochet bags using this yarn.

Like in theory, this was a fine idea.

But I don't even like pink, what the fuck am I going do with this god damn thing now.

But I was a fucking idiot and did not think about that fact until I was like 80% done with it

Anyway, I thought it'd be fun to try doing a checkerboard pattern on the tiny crochet bag. This was a huge mistake. I don't know what the fuck it was about it, but I had the worst time of my life trying to make sure the squares were even, with the same amount of rows and that the corners met at the right spots- like sometimes I made the right amount of rows but the corners didn't meet at all and sometimes I did the wrong amount of rows but the corners did meet. It was a fucking nightmare to crochet. I had a horrible time. Making the front and back panels took me months and I had to restart it so many times just to get it right. It was bad, I hated it man

Also, by the way. I don't mind working with thin yarn at all, but because this was a thin COTTON yarn, I just. The yarn has no stretch, it is hard. Working with it made me feel like I was going to cut off my left finger as the yarn was rubbing against it as I was crocheting.

The bottom piece of the bag was done in that dark purple-maroon-y color with... I can't even remember what stitch I did, it was something Alt Knots has a video tutorial for on their YouTube though

But, I made the three crochet panels

Then I cut out the piece of fabric I would hand-sew the crochet pieces onto. I have a ton of this red-brown fabric that I have no idea wha to do with, and I figured it would work fine for this (since you're not supposed to see this fabric anyways) so I cut the pieces from it

Pinned the pieces down and then I just sewed the pieces onto the fabric. I decided to use sewing thread so it'd blend into the crochet better (being a fine thread and all), using white for the checker board pieces and a dark red/maroon-y color for the bottom piece

Forgot to take a photo of the bottom piece but it's fine, you get the idea

Then I cut out the lining fabric. I didn't really have any fabric that would actually match the checker board crochet at all, and I didn't want to buy anything so I chose to use this black fabric (with itty bitty roses) for lining

Cut the pieces and pinned them down facing each other

I think I originally wanted to do the sewing by hand for a cleaner look but I wasn't happy with it, so after I did my innitial hand-stitching I went over it with a sewing machine, getting as close to the crochet but without sewing over it. And after checking it was okay, I cut the excess fabric and did some clean up to help keep the fabric from fraying.

Folded the pieces inside out and they were looking decent!

Now yes, I did still have to hand-sew one side shut for each piece, but it wasn't a big deal, though sadly because I had to make sure the handsewing wasn't visible on the outside of the bag, this was going to be a visible flaw on the lining anyways

You can see what I mean on the top edge of the bigger piece (with the white thread)

In hindsight I probably could've sewn the edge shut with a mattress stitch or something instead of going through all the fabric, but alas, I was stupid and didn't not realize this at the time

Sidenote I took like 5 month break from this project after finishing the front and back piece but before I did the bottom piece. Because yeah, this was around when I realized I hated what I was making and that I had no idea what the fuck I was gonna do with it once it was done. And I just could not get myself to even look at it, for months. And it HAUNTED me, made me feel bad about not having completed it every dang day. But yeah, finally in March I got back to it after finishing my last crochet blanket. Because I wanted to start another project but I did not want to start anything before finishing this fucking thing so yeah.

(Oh yeah I also I grabbed some metal accessories from my mom's stash that I attached to the bottom piece, so the bag can have a widdle handle)

With the pieces all done, it was finally time to sew them together. And this I was going to do by hand sewing them with a mattress stitch. I started by just attaching the smaller piece to the bottom, making sure it was centered right, and carefully sewed it together, starting from the middle and making my way up the sides, one at a time.

I did very specifically do sewing on the red-brown fabric

And it was looking good, according to plan!

Did the bigger piece the same way, and then all I had to do...

...Was clean up, by mattress stitching the crochet pieces together. Chose to use white because I figured I'd rather have small amounts of white peeking through on the bottom piece than have the dark red/purple on the front pieces. Though thankfully the white yarn isn't even that noticable, it sinked into the stitches quite nicely

With that done, I did this one final little touch-up. On checker crochet pieces you could kind of see my starting row, as the row had quite large holes in it. And I wasn't a huge fan of how it looked, so I just took some of the white yarn and wove it into the loops to fill it out

One final thing I did but didn't bother documenting was the strap. I did considder crocheting it, and even started it, but I did not like the stitch I was trying to use for it, and at this point I was so fucking done with the project I couldn't be bothered. I had some white cotton ribbon with nothing to do with it, so I decided to just grab some of that to make a lil strap. It's... not great, it's just that the ribbon is quite thin so it FEELS really flimsy. But I had reached the "I don't give a fuck anymore" stage and so. Yeah whatever

My shitty little bag of regrets is done. Yay.

I probably could've done something to clean the edges of the bag better because you can see the red-brown fabric peeking through, but... Like I can't think of what I could do to fix that, and again, I'm at the point where I don't have the energy to even try anymore

It's done, and that's what matters

Probably throwing it in the trash because what else am I gonna do with it

(Final note; I did have left-over yarn from this, but I used that yarn to make tiny mesh fruit/grocery bags. Ones I will actually use! Yay)

[portrait-paintings]

The Sargent Family

Artist: American 19th Century

Date: 1800

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, United States

Description

A man, woman, four children, and a black and white dog stand and sit in a row in a wallpapered room with a checkerboard patterned floor in this horizontal painting. The man stands to our left wearing a tall, black, brimmed hat, a black coat, a high-necked white shirt or kerchief at the neck, and knee-length breeches over white stockings. His pointed shoes and breeches have silver and gold buckles. He stands with his body angled to our right but he turns to look at us. He tucks his right hand, closer to us, into the opening of his jacket and he clasps the hand of a young girl with his other. This young girl and the three other children all have blond hair and green eyes, and all wear white, scooped-neck garments. The girl holding the man’s hand turns to look up at him, and she touches his coat with her other hand. To our right, another child swings a ball at the end of a long string for the small dog who leaps up for it.

[poetry-for-ghosts]

[ID: eight skeins of yarn stacked up together. Two are black, three are green and three are purple. There is a grey crochet hook with a rubber red grip resting on top of them. The background is a marbled green bedspread. End ID]

Long time no original post.

I've got a backlog of a few digital pieces I should post up soon, but I've also been busy with a new hobby. My carer offered to teach me to crochet and, well, now I'm hooked (no pun intended). Almost everything I've done until now has been practise so I haven't really felt like sharing, but I'm about to throw myself into my first big- and I mean BIG- project. I'm going to be crocheting a quilt.

Futher details below the cut.

So the plan is to sew together 48 granny squares in a 6 by 8 rectangle. There will be a green and purple checkerboard pattern with a black border, which should very nicely hide all of the stitches that will attach them together. Then I'm going to make a metric fuckton of spooky appliques so I can have one for each square. I made a quick diagram for reference:

[ID: a rough drawing of a green and purple checkered quilt with black borders. The first row of six squares has different spooky motifs drawn on. From left to right: a moon, a tooth, a black mushroom, a bat, a skull and a spiderweb. These are all black and white. End ID]

I only drew in the appliques on the first row to save time, but the plan is for every square to have something on it. I'm also going to be crocheting some little gifts for my loved ones this holiday season, and I think swapping between those and the quilt should help break up the monotony of both.

More updates to follow :)

[altercontrollerproject]

--3 examples of a standard square grid--

Chess:

The square grid in chess is fundamental to the game's structure and strategy. Comprising of an 8x8 grid, the chessboard consists of alternating dark and light squares. Each player begins the game with 16 pieces placed on specific squares, including pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, a queen, and a king. The square grid serves as the battleground for maneuvers and engagements. Each piece has unique movement patterns, and the squares play a crucial role in determining the scope of their influence. The strategic depth of chess lies in the arrangement and control of these squares.

Checkers:

The square grid in checkers, also known as the checkerboard, is the essential playing field for this board game. Consisting of an 8x8 grid, the checkerboard is marked by alternating dark and light squares. At the start of the game, each player places their 12 checkers on the dark squares of the three rows closest to them. The square grid determines the movement and capturing abilities of the checkers, highlighting the strategy required to play the game. Checkers can only move diagonally forward until they reach the opponent's back row, at which point they can become "kinged" and gain additional movement options.

Battleships:

In the game of Battleship, the square grid is the key element that facilitates naval warfare between two players. Each player has their own 10x10 grid, with rows labeled numerically and columns labeled alphabetically. Players position their ships on their grid, ranging from the small boats to the larger battleships. The opposing player attempts to locate and sink these ships by calling out coordinates on the grid, specifying a row and a column. The simplicity and organization of the square grid allow for precise communication of target locations and tracking of hits and misses.

[smallpotatoknitwear]

Shamrock Sweater #1

I’ve done two shamrock (before you @ me, yes I know that technically these are four-leaf clovers, not shamrocks, but I don’t want to hear it) sweaters, and this was the first! I started it in February 2022 with the goal of finishing it for St. Patrick’s Day that year… and then abandoned it halfway put together for a full year 😅 I finally got around to finishing it the day before St. Patrick’s Day 2023, and wore it for the next three weeks straight, before it got too warm out for such a heavy sweater!

This sweater was made using this granny square pattern. I made 48 squares and blocked them, then connected them in two 2x4 panels for the front, one 5x4 panel for the back, and two 3x2 tubes for the sleeves, then seamed the sides, attached the sleeves, and seamed the top. The sleeves turned out a tad shorter than I had wanted, so I did five rows of crochet moss stitch to lengthen them before doing eight rows of 2x2 knit ribbing for the cuffs. Around the bottom, sides, and neck of the cardigan, I did five rows of crochet moss stitch. I used a US size I hook for all of the crocheting, and US size 8 knitting needles for the cuffs. The color pattern of the shamrocks is a checkerboard; half of the squares were made with the same green yarn I used for the joining, border, and cuffs, but unfortunately I lost the label of it, so I don’t know the brand or color name—however it is almost identical to Loops & Threads Impeccable in Moss, if you’re looking for something similar. The other squares were made with Loops & Threads Impeccable in Fern, Moss, and Forest. The white yarn is Vanilla Glaze by Caron O’Go Donuts. If you want to make a pattern similar to this, I would recommend gridding it out, because I had the wrong numbers of some of the secondary colors, so the one sleeve doesn’t match up with the pattern of the rest of the sweater.

[neopronouns]

original | striped

retroshakic: a gender related to retro aesthetics, 80score, milkshakes, glass milkshake cups, and retro milkshake stores

for anon! the top three stripes represent milkshakes, the fourth represents glass cups, the fifth and sixth represent retro aesthetics and 80score, and the checkerboard/bottom two stripes represent milkshake stores!

flag id: the flag on the left has 7 stripes, with the seventh being twice as large as the rest. in order, they are cream, dull light pink, brown, blue-white, red-pink, sky blue, and two rows of a checkerboard pattern. the squares are as wide/tall as the stripes are tall, and they are near-black and white. each row has 14 squares, with the first and fourteenth being cut in half by the right and left edges of the flag.

the flag on the right has 8 stripes. in order, they are cream, dull light pink, brown, blue-white, red-pink, sky blue, white, and near-black. end id.

dni transcript here

[eahstims]

//tw for weapons and fake food

chase redford stimboard for anon x2

[id: a mostly red, white and black stimboard themed around chase redford from ever after high. there's an icon of him in the centre.

row one: the first gif is of someone slicing kinetic sand that was made into a checkerboard pattern. the second gif is of someone cracking clay made to look like an apple. the third gif is of someone moving a chess piece forward during a game.

row two: gif one is of glitter being scooped up and then dropped back into a container. gif two is of someone petting a white bird.

row three: gif one is of someone stretching and poking red and white slime. gif two is of someone squishing down red kinetic sand. gif three is of a blacksmith scraping a sword with a piece of metal. /end id]

credit: x - x - x | x - x - x | x - x - x

[id: a dni banner reading "dni if racist, lgbtq-phobic, proship, antisemetic, bigoted, 18+ blog, etc! / this blog is run by a child. sfw interaction only". the background is red and on the far right side is a transparent of lizzie hearts from ever after high winking. /end id]

[thora-jane]

Hey Thora! I need some help😭 😭

So I was crocheting this checkerboard/patchwork blanket for my sister and I thought wool would be a great idea, but uhm it's kinda wayyy itchy, and there is a way when you hand wash it to use a little leave-in conditioner to soften the fibers(?). But I was wondering if you knew anything about that, or had any other ideas??

Cause I've already crocheted an entire row of squares plus three on the second row. (I thought a nice throw blanket would be good at the time-) I'm thinking of fixing it into like a tote bag maybe? And then a bunch of pot holders to go with it? I don't know help please

Ok I know that this was from forever ago but at this point I'm just responding to try and show you that I haven't forgotten you:

You could:

-make it a ~decorative~ blanket or hanging tapestry type thing if it's a fancy or colorful pattern

-make it into a bag

-make potholders

-if it's a heavier blanket you could finish it but have it be a blanket used with other blankets in layers?

Whatever you do, I know it will be great. Also I've missed you and I love you and I'm so sorry responding has taken this long.

[the-dan-sargent]

All organized.

by Dan Sargent

My bed is made. My pillows are fluffed. My blankets are folded. My stuffed animals are seated All organized, side by side In a nice, neat row.

My shelves are straight. My books are placed atop the shelf In alphabetical order. Leroux, Maguire, Shelley. Graphic novels to the left. Nonfiction to the right. The bigger books on the outer edges. To the left of my books are my movies. To the left of my movies my video games. To the left of my video games my sketchbooks. All organized, side by side In a nice, neat row.

More stuffed animals protect my books. Three of them are seated to the right. Panda, Snoopy, Biff. Five of them are seated to the left. Rose, Pinky, Bean, Rafi, Willie. Next to them, on the very end of the shelf Is my yearbook from my senior year of high school. On the very end of the shelf, all the way to the right Are my board games In the corner, on the shelf Leaning against the wall. The entirety of my shelf is All organized, side by side In a nice, neat row.

My closet is nearly overfilled with shirts.

From left to right, we have The crop tops The tank tops The small t-shirts The large t-shirts The short-sleeve button-up shirts The baseball t-shirts The long sleeved shirts The light jackets The sweatshirts The sweaters The Christmas sweaters The flannel button-up shirts The plain button-up shirts The cardigans The vest The trenchcoat All in that very specific order. All organized, side by side In a nice, neat row.

My shoes follow a similar pattern. They sit on four shelves in my closet. The top shelf is where I keep My black slides, my black flats, my checkerboard Vans. The second shelf is where I keep My rainbow slides, my blue flats, my brown dress shoes. On the third shelf lives My blue high tops and my two gray pairs of high tops. And the bottom shelf Is where the rest of the shoes wind up. All organized, side by side In a nice, neat row.

Not a wrinkle out of place. Not a book on its side. Not a stuffed animal fallen over. Not a shirt on the floor. Not a shoe left behind.

There is no chaos allowed In this space. If there is any hint of mess It is instantly picked up And folded Or lined up perfectly Or hung up on a hanger Or pushed into place.

All organized, side by side In a nice, neat row.

There can be no mess here. If I see a mess I go into overdrive. I hyperfixate on it. It must be cleaned. I need to organize it.

If any part of my exterior world Reflects the disastrous mess That is inside my brain I will go insane.

I can’t have that. I refuse to have that.

Therefore, I will do my best To keep absolutely everything All organized, side by side In a nice, neat row.

------------------------------------

MY BLOG

MY PORTFOLIO

<3

[deepartnature]

In Fields Sown With Bombs, Ukraine’s Farmers Risk Deadly Harvest

“BERYSLAV, Ukraine — Oleksandr Hordienko stepped gingerly into a wheat field that had recently served as a Russian tank position, following closely behind an assistant with a metal detector. He stopped when he came to a row of metal disks glinting in the late-winter sun. They were tank mines, hundreds of them, laid out in a checkerboard pattern  across his field and presenting a deadly conundrum before the spring planting season. Farmers who choose to climb into their tractors and work their land risk death or dismemberment by the mines, shells and other ordnance that litter the fields. Those who do not risk an economic crisis: The fighting has already cost the southern Kherson region three harvests, and there is no sign that farming will resume its role as an engine of Ukraine’s economy anytime soon. ...”

NY Times

Guardian: What happened in the Russia-Ukraine war this week? Catch up with the must-read news and analysis

BBC - Ukraine war: Why Bakhmut matters for Russia and Ukraine

Aljazeera: Wagner mercenary chief demands more ammunition for Bakhmut battle (Video)

The Intercept_: Conflicting Reports Thicken Nord Stream Bombing Plot

Piles of wheat rotting in a half-destroyed grain storage facility at a farm complex in the village of a Shyroke, Ukraine, near the city of Kherson in February.

[just-wishes-and-faeries]

They startled at the timer, but settled down as Cube handled the kettle. They continued to watch Cube as they did stuff, twiddling their hands as they waited. —•

They look through the cabinet a little more, pulling out a few more cups of similar size and comparing them before putting the bigger ones back. They then set down about a dozen of the smallest ones. They're still bucket sized compared to you but they're a little smaller. "I hope these aren't too big for you," they say. "Feel free to pick one out!" Most of them are white with other colors across the surface. They look like they're from a child-sized tea set.

[ID: an mspaint drawing of a set of twelve small cups, arranged in a checkerboard or diagonal pattern of 3-2-3-2-2, with the middle of the last row being empty. The first eight cups are white with a single line of color near the top. The colors are, in order, light blue, yellow, green, pink, purple, gold, red, and dark blue. The other four cups have a floral pattern in the same area. The two on the left are two colors of flower, while the two on the right are only one color of flower. Each flower is made of two colors, and a green "vine" pattern connects the flowers in a ring around the top. The first of the left side has two gold and yellow flowers alongside two light blue and dark blue flowers. The second has two light and dark purple flowers alongside two red and reddish-brown flowers. The first of the right side has four red and pink flowers. The second has yellow and tannish yellow flowers.]

They also set down a few larger ones that are probably closer to being seats than buckets, each with colorful lettering on them; one has pink, another has greenish blue, and three of them have different shades of blue. The greener one also has speckles of pink.

[ID: a size comparison of the bigger cups and the smaller cups. Cube's hand has been drawn next to both as reference. Arrows with writing have been added to the drawing to make things clearer. One points to the bigger cup, labeling it as a "Big cup" while another points to the smaller cup, labeling it a "Small cup[.]" A third arrow points to Cube's hand, labeling it "Cube's hand[.]" The bigger cups are slightly larger than Cube's hand and might require two hands to carry, while the small cup could be capable of fitting into their hand multiple times.]

[serahpattern]

Tapa - Week 3

TASK: Analyse the paintings of John Pule through Hiapo

The most noticeable difference is the difference in colour and the materials used. Pule’s work is on canvas using oil paints, unlike Hiapo which traditionally uses Tapa cloth/ Mulberry tree bark and dyes. Pule uses green and red earth tone colours in his piece, which tends to be a preference of his, as seen in many of his different pieces, whereas traditionally Hiapo is made in black dye, contrasting the cream-colored tapa cloth underneath.

Pule uses a different composition than my chosen Hiapo. He lays out his patterns in a checkerboard like way, while the hiapo uses many horizontal and vertical rows to accommodate the patterns. The Hiapo repeats several different patterns all throughout the piece whilst Pule uses various different symbols and patterns, each box seemingly depicting a different story. I would attribute this to both pieces having their own way of telling a story. The Hiapo traditionally uses these patterns to illustrate the journey and history of the Niuean people and similarly, Pule does the same, using his work to illustrate his own personal journey. In the third row, I see a set of three dates, which I assume to be references to certain milestones in his life. 1962, when he was born, 1964, when he and his family moved to New Zealand, and 1992, perhaps refers to the year he published his first novel, “The shark that ate the sun”. Pule also references his own perceptions of romantic and sexual love, which can be seen in different symbols throughout his painting. Through research I found Pule references Christianity and colonisation in the pacific and I can see references to that in the fourth row. Another thing very prevalent in Pule’s painting is the bird and lizard-like illustrations seen throughout his painting. I later found out that this is a reference to Niuean mythology.

Pule’s painting and my chosen Hiapo have many similarities and differences. The most prevalent theme is definitely the act of storytelling through art and pattern. Pule’s contemporary take on Hiapo uses the same principals of the traditional Hiapo, as well as all different kinds of Tapa. They are both used to document history. I think the difference is Pule is able to look back on his culture's history and incorporate his personal stories with the stories of his people and make something new from it, with whole new meanings.

John Pule source: (https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/1230921)

Hiapo source:

(https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/161424)

[jackettranscribes]

[ID: Three flags made of a checkerboard pattern with five columns and six rows. The checkers alternate between light blue and blue. /End ID.]

[Plain text]

Sillycheckerguy

A gender related to being a silly little guy and checkered patterns

Flag made by the goddess of love! Requested by (@)squidken

[End plain text]

🌀 ── ꒰ SILLYCHECKERGUY ! ꒱

a gender related to being a silly little guy && checkered patterns ~

flag made by the goddess of love ~ ! requested by @squidken !

[orbemnews]

NASA Sent a Secret Message to Mars. Meet the People Who Decoded It. As NASA’s Perseverance rover fell through the Martian atmosphere last week, a video camera on the spacecraft captured the breakneck deployment of its parachute, which was decorated with splotches of reddish orange and white. Those splotches were a secret message. During a news conference Monday, Allen Chen, the engineer in charge of the landing system, narrated what could be seen and learned in the slowed-down video. He added, cryptically and nonchalantly, that his team hoped to inspire others. “Sometimes we leave messages in our work for others to find for that purpose,” he said. “So we invite you all to give it a shot and show your work.” Across the Atlantic Ocean, Maxence Abela, a 23-year-old computer science student in Paris, realized what Mr. Chen was saying: The seemingly random pattern on Perseverance’s parachute contained a code. He called his father, Jerome, a software engineer at Google working in London, and the two set to solving it. “We like those kinds of little challenges,” Mr. Abela said. “We didn’t think we would be able to solve it, but we would at least try.” Collaborating via teleconference, they downloaded the video, isolated images showing the fully inflated parachute and started piecing together the bits. So did others around the world, trading insights on Twitter and forums on Reddit. “It’s just exciting that NASA is putting these little puzzles in their missions,” said Adithya Balaji, a graduate student in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh who independently tackled the problem. Mr. Balaji compared the parachute puzzle to a couple of science fiction movies: “Contact,” where a scientist played by Jodie Foster unravels an alien message, and “The Martian,” where Matt Damon’s character Mark Watney communicates with people back on Earth using a similar code. “I think that it’s exciting that real life can be sometimes even more exciting than the movies,” Mr. Balaji said. The person who came up with the idea for embedding a message was Ian Clark, who led development of the parachute. NASA’s previous rover, Curiosity, used the same system when it successfully landed on Mars in 2012. But a failure of a prototype parachute intended for future missions spurred engineers to improve the design. While watching video of a high-altitude test of the new parachute for Perseverance, Dr. Clark noticed that the checkerboard pattern on the canopy made it difficult to track how individual portions of the parachute unfurled and inflated. Because Perseverance would be outfitted with video cameras, Dr. Clark wanted a pattern that would be visually distinct. That, in turn, provided an opportunity “to have a little fun with it,” he said. He asked Matt Wallace, a deputy project manager for the mission, for permission. “I told them OK,” Mr. Wallace recalled. “Just make sure it was appropriate and couldn’t be misinterpreted.” The 70-foot-wide parachute consisted of 80 strips of fabric radiating outward from the center to form a hemisphere-shape canopy, and each strip consisted of four pieces. Dr. Clark thus had 320 pieces to work with. Some of his ideas would have required additional colors, but that could have threatened the parachute’s integrity if untested dyes weakened the fabric fibers. “We were unwilling to go to a cloth that was dyed in a color that we had never used before,” Mr. Wallace said. Even a pattern of just orange and white, the two colors of previous parachutes, raised potential issues. “There’s all kinds of second-guessing questions,” Dr. Clark said. “Like could having more white than orange, or vice versa, mean that the parachute was going to warm up differently and maybe that would change its behavior?” After all, mission managers would have been embarrassed if they had to explain how they lost a $2.7 billion mission because a parachute engineer had sneaked in a secret message. But Dr. Clark’s analysis showed no ill effects, and the plan went forward. Until this week, only about half a dozen people knew about it. When computer scientists see something in black and white — or, in this case, orange and white — they think of binary code, the 1s and 0s that are the language of computers. That was the first clue that the puzzle solvers pursued on Monday. For each orange section on the Perseverance parachute, Maxence Abela and his father wrote down a 1, and for each white section, they assigned a 0. That translated into a long string of 1s and 0s. They thought that perhaps the digits could be rearranged into a picture, like the message that scientists broadcast in 1974 from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico to tell distant alien civilizations of humans on Earth. “We couldn’t find anything that looked like anything,” Mr. Abela said. They tried breaking up the digits into groups of 8 — a common practice used in computer programming — but that too yielded gibberish. Then the elder Mr. Abela noticed that the digits seemed to fit in groups of 10. “Every 10 bits, there would be three zeros in a row,” Maxence Abela said. That, they decided, was not a coincidence. Still, the resulting numbers did not make sense until they realized they had read the 1s and 0s in the wrong direction, anticlockwise instead of clockwise. When they wrote down the digits in the opposite order, the 10-digit chunks of binary code translated into small numbers, which could then be assigned to letters. The number 1 corresponded to the letter A, the number 2 was B, 3 was C, 4 was D and so on. The message on the inner three rings: “DARE MIGHTY THINGS.” Mr. Abela posted on Twitter his answer at 4:36 p.m. Eastern time, about two hours after Mr. Chen had dropped his cryptic hint during the news conference. This is a credo often cited at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, which built and operates Perseverance. It comes from “The Strenuous Life,” a speech by Teddy Roosevelt in 1899: “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” There were still some numbers and letters in the fourth ring that neither Abela could make sense of. Those turned out to be the longitude and latitude of the NASA center: 34°11’58” N 118°10’31” W. “If you look in Google Earth, if you type in those coordinates, I think you’re about 10 feet from the door of the JPL visitor center,” Dr. Clark said. In the evening, Adam Steltzner, the chief engineer for Perseverance, posted an annotated diagram explaining the solution. The parachute was not the only fun that the builders of the Perseverance rover had. Eagle-eyed observers spotted a series of drawings that represented the five rovers NASA has sent to Mars, from the small Sojourner in 1997 to Perseverance now. A plaque that will be used to calibrate one of the rover’s main cameras includes patches of colors, but there are also whimsical drawings that include DNA, a rocket and a dinosaur. On the edge of the calibration plaque is an inscription: “Are we alone? We came here to look for signs of life, and to collect samples of Mars for study on Earth. To those who follow, we wish a safe journey and the joy of discovery.” Elsewhere on the rover is a piece of a Martian meteorite that landed on Earth and is now back on its original planet. That is to be used for calibration of SuperCam, an instrument that uses lasers and a camera to identify carbon-based molecules and other compounds in rocks and soil. (Before going back to Mars, the same well-traveled rock made a round-trip visit to the International Space Station.) Also on Perseverance are three small chips with the names of 10.9 million people stenciled on them, part of NASA’s efforts for the public to participate in its robotic missions. A more solemn addition was an aluminum plate that honors hardships of those affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The practice of adding fun or solemn pieces to spacecraft is not new. In NASA jargon, it is called “festooning.” The two Voyager spacecraft that are now in interstellar space have discs full of images and sounds of Earth. Two earlier Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, had parts made from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. The New Horizons spacecraft, which flew past Pluto in 2015, carries some of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered that world. On Perseverance, a few more surprises have yet to be revealed. “There’s some things on the front of the vehicle that we’ll have a chance to see once we deploy the robot arm,” Mr. Wallace said. He declined to say what they were or provide hints. “We’re going to let people enjoy the imagery when it comes,” he said. Source link Orbem News #decoded #Mars #Meet #message #NASA #People #secret