#macroscale

[rlyehtaxidermist]

everybody loves gen 5 and not without reason but it really is a point where the region-scale map design took a huge nosedive. open-worlding everything has its downsides too of course but god at least have intersecting routes. intro graph theory homework problem ass map.

[deepspaceboytoy]

The Siege of Tremaine, Part 6

“I am the Lord High Admiral Herius Iolanthus Victus, crowned Prince of the Imperium, commander of the warship Invictus. This system is now under my protection. Flee now and I will let you run. Stay, and I will gun you down where you stand. I will scour this system clean of you and your allies. Do not expect mercy. Do not expect kindness. Admiral Victus, out.”

-Warning broadcast from the Invictus as it broke Tremaine’s atmosphere. Message was broadcast in 1,157 different Igorian and Aberinian languages. The message was broadcast only one time. Exactly 60 seconds after broadcast, the Invictus began firing on any ship still under combat footing.

July 10th, 2677. It is the beginning of the end. The Siege has a reached a fever pitch. Tremaine is bruised and palsied, caught in the throes of world-death. The atmosphere is on fire, ionic supercells breaching the firestorm as battleships fall to the surface like rain. The air is ash and dust, the ground scabbed and diseased.

Tremaine is dying, one artillery shell at a time, wracked by superstorms and firewalls and the megaton rain of orbital bombardment. Sixty million boots stomp the life out from it, the battles never ending now, one skirmish or assault bleeding into the next. Time is measured in rounds fired, bombardments calculated, bodies exploded. Nothing else matters now. The system will be won or lost on Tremaine, and the Imperium and Igorian Republic alike know this.

Domask Fayatan commits his forces utterly, abandoning the concept of reserves as he tries to drown the Imperial forces in a tide of amphibian bodies. For the first time since the Siege began, the core of legion territory on Tremaine begins to buckle and sunder under the sheer weight of enemy numbers. The last days have begun. Five million legionaries put aside any thought of retreat, and set about selling their lives to the last. Fort Zama, Point Rain, Port Voltun. The last walls are finally under assault. Corvus Nino, son of the late Legatus Primus Nino who had led the defense long past when anyone else would have failed, stands atop the walls of Fort Zama, ready to carry on where his father fell. There is no step back for either side. The commitment must be made, the resolve must be found. Victory will only come after full and total dedication.

The first move comes from the Legion lines. As one, the 1st Legio Stella Draconum rises from their fixed positions, draws combat blades, and charges the Igorians. One hundred thousand of the finest soldiers in Imperial history, a legion that has existed since before humanity left earth, flowing like a tide into the serried ranks of Igorian militia. Legionaries simply run through the waiting Igorians, power armor boosting them clean through bodies and barricades. The 1st Legion drives into the heart of the forces assembled in front of Fort Zama, and they reap a grim toll in those first few moments, speed and fury carrying them hundreds of meters into Igorian lines. And then they die. First by ones and twos, and then tens and twenties, hundreds and thousands. Cohorts vaporize instantly, entire maniples disintegrating at once.

But the Legion accomplishes what it chose to die for: the opening is made. The Igorian lines are dissolved, fortifications blown open. And the wall guns of Fort Zama speak; tens of thousands of guns, roaring a barrage a million shells strong in just the first few seconds. New suns bloom in the center of the enemy, plasma annihlators and hyperfusion rockets releasing millions of degrees of heat into packed and disoriented Igorian troopers. Macrobombs and thermobaric eradicators, tankbusters the size of city blocks. Every weapon the Imperium can wield has been brought to bear, and as the artillery of Fort Zama speaks, the Igorians watch a million of their comrades die in a second. The radwaves and heat blooms melt another half a million where they stand. And then the killing begins in earnest.

The wall is breached ten minutes later, and then it is breached again, and again, and again and on until there are more breaches than standing sections, and the Igorians are in among the Legions, and guns and strategy have been cast aside for blades and fists and sheer animal instinct. Fighting flows like a river through the city-sized fort, each street host to combats that would be legends if not for how many played out simultaneously. Heroes bleed and die in scores, and the unremembered dead commit feats of bravery that entire mythologies could be spun out from. No one will know. No one will remember. No one will witness.

Up the Center Trackway, the 91st Siege Legion fights its last day. The Legion-Master Tarrius Vane stands along his men, even as they are brought down by the Skilax Rangers of the Igorian Army. At the Seraph Barricades, 11th Legio Ferrata Dux counts the last magazines, smokes the last cigarettes, exchanges the last meaningful look. The last six hundred Legionaries know what is coming. Anastasia Abbas, who had only just taken command in the days before the Siege, gives the order. The charge begins, the last of the Legion dying to buy time. Just a little more time.

A day passes. As dawn breaks on the 11th, half the fort is gone. Communications have broken down completely, and word has been lost from both Point Rain and Port Voltun. Zama is alone. Corvus Nino fights in the heart of the battle, coordinating the defense of Battery 8-11, a cluster of hyperfusion rocket launchers that vomit a tide of rockets into the captured sections of the fort. 3 whole legions stand here at this one junction, the core of legionary resistance. Three times, the Igorians have tested the defenses, and three times they’ve been thrown back. A fourth will push the legions. A fifth could break them. By days end there will be forty-seven. The streets and buildings around the battery will be rad-blackened and incendiary scorched, but the line will not break until the order to retreat is given. All throughout the fort, similar battles are waged, casualties an afterthought in the feverish fighting.

The sun sets. Central Command is all that remains, five legions drawing their line in the sand. This is it, the final position, the last wall. The end. Outside the fortified square, the Igorians gather strength. There is nothing left on the planet to stop them, and their commanders know it.

And so night falls, both sides readying for the sword-fall of morning’s light.

It is heralded with rain. Not the greasy, sick rain that has plagued Tremaine for over a year, thick with chemicals and the smog of apocalypse; no, it is clear rain, and it is pouring.

It is the third day.

At 07:23 Terran Adjusted Time, July 12, 2677, the Invictus breaches Tremaine’s bruised and atrophied atmosphere. The ship has burst from Realm-space inside the atmosphere, and the rain falls from the melting Realm-frost of translation into realspace. A primordial leviathan, Invictus hangs in the sky, blocking the sun. Her black hull is silhouetted by the distorted rays of sunlight peering through around her. She is singular. She is infinity. Her size and scale defies reason, defies perception, defies good sense and nature. She is a mountain of alien hypermetals and exotic energies. She is a hulk of battle-steel encrusted in guns and hangars and close defense weapons. She is a god of old, a war totem of the heavens. She is strength and deep, cold, senseless violence. She is an icon, a graven image of incalculable damage and unknowable fury.

Her shields are lowered, arrogant in her own supremacy, even as megaton rain falls from the Igorian fleet. Solar beamers and volcanic lances gouge into her armored skin, skyscraper sized backbreaker missiles burying into her to unleash massive payload detonations. She does not flinch. And in the silence of the forgotten Siege, she fires.

Domask Curaxis Hrota Fayatan served the Igorian Federal Republic for 72 illustrious years. His record of service outstripped any other domask in Republic history. His victory roll rivaled that of any commander in the galaxy. One moment, he stands on the bridge of the carrier Ulkas’Ronta, and the next, his atoms join those of a million Igorian sailors in orbit over Tremaine. The Fleet is no more.

From the belly of Invictus falls a numberless tide of Drop Assault legionaries. So many fall from her embarkation decks that it appears as if towers of blackened earth have risen to greet the void leviathan now abusing Tremaine’s atmosphere. Black-armored legionaries land among the Igorians, and set about driving them from the fort. Nino leads his own troops out from the square, and a rushing wave of legionaries flows out into the streets and barracks blocks, stopping only when it reaches the walls, driving what’s left of the Igorian army out into Tremaine’s wastes. Invictus’ soldiers do not stop.

Similar miracles happen at Point Rain and Port Voltun. The Invictus has broken the Siege.

On the 13th, Crown Prince-in-Exile Lord High Admiral Herius Iolanthus Victus accepts domask Ioltun’s unconditional surrender. Later that day, he accepts one from Fayatan’s successor. The last remaining civilians in the Tremaine System are starlifted to other worlds in other systems, and the Imperium begins recovering what it can. One of the last items recovered from the world is the standard of the 1st Legion.

By January of 2678, the Tremaine System is declared recovered, though it means little in the long run. Tremaine, once a verdant and prosperous sector capital, is no more than broken rock, finally shattered in the days after the Siege from the unending tectonic abuse. It will take decades to restore the sundered orbital ring of the Tremaine Military Staryards, and the surface is a stormwracked hellscape. Some of the original population will resettle on titanic stations in orbit, or on Cygnus, Suebi, and Cyprii, but in the ashes of the aftermath, the Tremaine System will never recover.

Neither will the Igorian Federal Republic. Staggering numbers of troops and ships were committed, and with the failure of the Siege and the success of the Imperial counterattack, the war will swiftly deteriorate. On August 9th, 2679, the Unity Wars will officially end, the IFR dissolved only 114 years after its formation from out of the First Igorian Civil War. Clans Berakth and Ferathtz will suffer similar fates, both being absorbed by the Clan Kilaurus, newfound allies of the Imperium. In the aftermath of the war, the Igorians will fall into a second civil war, before forming the Igorian People’s Republic in the years to come.

The war will change the face of galactic politics in its wake. The Imperium Humanum, long in ascendancy, takes its place as the premier galactic power, its position unchallenged after the devastation. Imperial allies, primarily the Benden Military States and Zentilluss System-states, will recover quickly, dividing the galaxy between the Imperium and its associates, and the Horagint Confederacy and its network of client states.

Perhaps the greatest legacy of the Siege, however, is how it will cement Herius Victus’ reputation on the galactic stage. No longer just a legend inside the Imperium, his actions in singularly lifting the Siege, and in his conquest of the Igorian capital Ava’cumish, will make him a specter to the rest of the galaxy.

[fieriframes]

[Macroscales.]

[comicaurora]

Will the physical comic be available in local comic shops? Will the comic book distributors (ie Diamond) carry it?

I expect that strongly depends on your local comic shop and, on the macroscale, how well the book does in preorders. I just make the thing, I don't get to control who wants to stock it.

[riality-check]

ao3 link

Biology is the worst class Viktor takes in his time at the Academy.

It is, respectfully, a stupid requirement for engineers, especially for engineers of his inclination: the ones who would rather their hands smeared in axle grease than blood. It is a frustratingly macroscale discipline, frequently causing Viktor more questions than answers.

He asks these in lecture, of course. He is not obnoxious, at least not any more so than the girl who inquired, as his professor handed out the first exam, as to whether humans were animals.

Lecture is for questions, especially since Viktor would rather work on his projects, both personal and for his engineering courses, than waste the time going to the office hours for a class in which he has earned perfect marks on every weekly quiz.

After lecture one day early in the semester, he is kindly but firmly referred by his professor to the chemistry department so that his questions can be better answered. So, he takes the trip to a nostalgic building, a building with floors so slanted he spots students rolling marbles to calculate the impossible angles by which they slope. There, his questions as to why the biological processes for which he has endured incomplete explanations occur in the ways they do are answered, but his questions regarding how are not.

The physical chemistry professors exchange a glance and tell Viktor that the physics department would be better able to describe those forces to him. So, he takes the trip to a building he has seen closed more often than open, where he has heard other students complain about fire scares repeatedly - something about a faulty boiler.

Viktor wonders why the Academy has not bothered to have it fixed yet. They certainly have the funds.

He has fixed more complex machines with less. Perhaps he could have a crack at it.

He concludes swiftly after his arrival that he rather likes the physics department. There, everything makes sense. It is all motion, with the atoms of the world moving in harmony. And when they are not, disruptions can be calculated and corrected.

Much better than the chaos of a body. There are far more complex ways to fail in a living system and far fewer solutions to correct those failures.

On the rare occasions in which the physics does not make sense, particularly when he has questions regarding certain derivations, he is warmly and excitedly referred further.

The math department is, inexplicably, housed in a building so labyrinthine that one of the illegible maps on the wall has “GOOD LUCK” scribbled across it. It shares the building with at least two other departments. As Viktor walks past offices organized seemingly without rhyme or reason, he finds that one of those other departments is the linguistics department.

He hears snatches of his native language between the soft thuds of his cane on the carpet. The speakers are heavily accented, but his heart clenches nonetheless.

How long has it been since he has had a full conversation in it? The answer is the same number of years it has been since his parents departed, and that is one number that Viktor would rather not think about.

That semester, he becomes as much a fixture within the math and physics departments as he is in his home department of engineering. He talks with professors he will have in later classes, and they offer him friendly smiles when they see him.

No one besides Heimerdinger has done that for him at the Academy. He did not realize how much he missed it until he lost it and got it back.

If that was all Viktor got from biology, he might be inclined to say it was a good course, though not in any traditional sense. But that was not the case.

Instead, it reminded him of everything that was wrong with him.

They… “take it easy” in one lecture the day after an exam. They discuss abnormal physiology for fun, and Viktor wants to throw something.

“Many defects,” his professor explains, “are characterized by a childhood lack.”

She changes out her slides, one by one, explaining that while these conditions are no longer as common in Piltover as they used to be, they still occur often enough, and the students on the pre-medical track should be aware that they do.

Every slide has a picture of someone from the Undercity.

They are sad. Empty. Small mouths and wide eyes. Too-large mismatched clothing and hunched postures. Canes. Prosthetics. Wheelchairs. All cobbled together from scraps, from whatever can be deemed suitable at the moment.

If Viktor were not so transfixed on the way these people, these living, breathing, human beings have been transformed into clinical examples in black-and-white, he would steal a look at his new cane and think back to his old one from the Undercity, tucked into a corner of his room.

But he cannot stop looking.

Because he recognizes some of the faces.

Not many. The Undercity is a big place; unless someone is well known, like Vander or Babette, one can remain relatively anonymous. Faces and names tend to blend. People have their own communities to focus on.

But Viktor recognizes a few. The old shopkeeper with a smile like broken windows who was so good at making the street children laugh is used as an example of Vitamin C deficiency. His smile for the camera is false. Artificially widened to display all his missing teeth.

The drunk who used to sit on the corner by the square and offer advice - usually pretty sound, all things considered - or sing a song in a shockingly smooth baritone, so long as someone handed him a coin or sip from a flask, is reduced to nothing more than his addiction. 

There is no mention of how he would stay up at night to make sure the girls at the brothels made it home safely, or how he would let the children pet his dog. It was a rascal of a mutt, but always well-behaved and clean. It loved children. Viktor had pet that dog many times.

It is not in the picture. The image is only of the man. His half-full bottle is centered.

One of the slides has an image of a young girl with long dark hair and pretty light eyes. This time, Viktor knows her name. It was Ana. She was the only other person Viktor knew his age who used anything like a cane. She had two forearm crutches, as neither of her legs functioned very well.

They did not see each other often, were not nearly close enough to be friends, but there was something shared in the way they smiled and nodded at each other when they passed. A solidarity of sorts.

He stopped seeing Ana when she was young. He always wondered what happened to her. 

The caption of the slide says she passed at a single-digit age. The image of her is nothing like how Viktor remembers her.

He is staring at a ghost while his classmates take note of her rickets, caused by a Vitamin D deficiency.

He has the same condition, one of his many. The professor mentions that it can cause progressive scoliosis as “the patient” ages. His neck prickles as his classmates stare at him, at his cane.

He bites his tongue. He will not leave. He will not cause a scene. He will do the work. He will sit there and learn while people like him are reduced to nothing but hypotheticals for pilates, as examples of the have-nots.

“Characterized by lack.”

Viktor half-expects that an image of him as a child will be presented at some point. He does not remember ever having had his picture taken, but there were enough occasions on which he was too… “out of it” to remember things. Times spent at “doctors’” offices. He would not be surprised if any one of the people who had tried (and they did try, to their credit) to treat him had let in a topsider in exchange for a little extra much-needed coin.

But no such image appears. The last slide, blessedly, shows someone Viktor does not know, but unfortunately, it is something that he is familiar with.

A girl in his class raises her hand as soon as she sees the slide, before Viktor can even begin reading the caption. The professor calls on her, and the girl excitedly chatters about how she had that same birth defect, though less severe, and it was fixed promptly with harnesses and braces physical therapy, and now she is normal.

That is the word she uses. “Normal.”

This girl had a leg like Viktor’s, and she is “normal.”

And he is not.

Because no one in the Undercity knew how to fix it. Because no one thought it could be fixed.

He could have been fucking fixed. If only he had been born topside. If only he had been lucky. If only some other person, a generation before, had the opportunity to be plucked out of the fumes of the Undercity by Heimerdinger as a pet project to make himself feel better, only to be seldom acknowledged after being thrust into a strange world in which, baseline, no one goes hungry.

How fucking strange it is that no one goes hungry here. How odd that no one here seems to want anything necessary, only frivolities and uselessness and toys. How abnormal it is that this is the norm up here, when Viktor learned at a young age to ignore his stomach cramping, ignore the shortness in his lungs, ignore the pain in his legs and his spine and his hands and everywhere else, because nothing will make it better, not the drugs or the doctors or anything, because it cannot be fixed.

Except up here it can. Up here, the Undercity is an unfortunate problem to be photographed and pored over. Its people are reduced to imprints and to ghosts. Theories and hypotheticals.

Because god forbid anyone goes down, and Viktor is the oddity for daring to pull himself up and act like he deserves it when he has better marks and more study hours than the vast majority of his year.

He stands. Class is almost over, but he walks out anyway. His cane is loud on the floor, and he does not care. He holds his head high and ignores his professor and the whispers of other students as he shoves open the door.

Let them see one of their precious photographs come to life.

After, he only returns to that classroom for exams. There is nothing that the professor can teach him that the textbook cannot. He saves his time for more useful things. Math and physics. A new personal project.

It is probably far too late for it to do any good, but Viktor does nothing if not try. A brace should not be too hard to make.

First installment, second installment, latest installment, even more latest installment and another

[kiragecko]

The Canadian Shield

Apparently, the Canadian Shield is a “geologic province”. That just means a large area with a lot of geology in common. I like it because it’s really WEIRD.

The Shield was created by glaciers sliding through. They scraped off all the topsoil and softer rock, and messed up all the watersheds. What developed in the ruins was a maze of endless rivers and lakes, large rocks covered in mosses and lichens, and trees. Lots of trees.¹

There are several things that I think are cool:

the rocks, moss, and lichen

the deranged drainage system

the endlessness

Rocks, Moss, and Lichen

Much of the Canadian Shield is covered in boreal forests (also called taiga). At least, wherever there’s enough dirt. But there is a LOT of exposed rock. And growing on those rocks are the coolest plants/animals in the world – lichens.

Lichens are a symbiosis of algae, fungi, and yeast! Some look like moss – all soft branched stalks. Some look like crunchy fungi or seaweed – growing off the rocks in weird ruffles. Others look like … paint? You know how some rocks will have coloured crusty spots that can be peeled off? Those are lichen! (Some are even powdery, but we don’t get many of those in the Shield.)

Then there’s ACTUAL moss. And moss is almost as cool as lichen! All wet and squishy and ridiculously complex if you look at it closely. Gorgeous stuff!

And finally, there’s the rocks themselves. If you live in an area with rocks, possibly you do not find them breathtaking. But I remember excitedly talking to my parents for SEVERAL MINUTES after seeing a rock in a field, because here in the prairies, you don’t see them.

And these are COOL rocks. Bedrock. Super hard igneous rock that doesn’t wear quickly. It forms cliffs and ravines, despite the fact that the area is quite flat on the macroscale. Canoeing under a cliff face that leans over you is an awe-inspiring experience. Staring down into the depths of the lake below you, seeing that it goes straight down, and then a few feet later the water is shallow. The rocks are big, and full of neat cracks, and pretty coloured, and … they’re good rocks.

Deranged Drainage System

Since the land is made of super hard rock that weathers slowly, and all the watersheds got messed up by the glaciers dumping rocks around the edges of the Shield, water struggles to form normal drainage systems. Rather than starting as small rivers and then combining  as they flow downstream, water just collects in every lowpoint. Thousands of small lakes form, connecting to each other at odd, sometimes hidden, points, with very little predictability. Rapids and waterfalls are common. Shorelines are very irregular, with all sorts of hidden coves. It becomes difficult to figure out what is an island, and what is the mainland.

Looking down from the air, the landscape seems fractal. Sitting on a rock, staring at the opposite shore, it’s obvious that this is true.

Navigating these waterchannels takes a LOT of skill. Mapping them barely helps – the maps are complex enough that it’s hard to absorb the correct information. The Nîhithaw (Cree) navigate by attaching stories to the landmarks, which makes it fun to travel with a guide.

Endlessness

The Canadian Shield is HUGE. It covers over half of Canada! The features that make it up are small, and complex. Most of it is sparsely inhabited. There are few roads; and a lot of areas, travel is either by boat or float plane.

The effect is that of an endless landscape. By plane, you can see more lakes than you can count, all difficult to identify. They stretch to the horizon in every direction.

By boat, you can see many, many interesting  and unique-seeming features. But half an hour later you’ll discover yourself in a spot that looks identical. You’re frequently slipping around blind corners and into narrow, hidden channels, which increases the sense of covering ground. But because you’re rarely going in a straight line, it’s difficult to figure out how far you’ve actually gone. It’s a maze, and it’s possible to travel it for days without seeing a single other human.

(Or you can see multiple groups of people over an hour long trip. It’s very unpredictable.)

That combination of isolation, scale, constantly changing view (that still stays the same TYPE of view), lets me truly  FEEL the vastness. Everything about me gets quiet in the Shield. I’ll suddenly find my face aching from smiling so big for so long. The world is endless and peaceful and not designed for me in the slightest.

It’s exhilarating.

-

¹ There are a few different biomes in the Shield. But the main one, and the one I’ve mostly experienced, is the boreal forest. So that’s the part I’m focusing on. Especially the landscapes of the Whiteshell and northern Saskatchewan.

[yosefinasays]

In Defense Of Electronic Civil Disobedience

There has been some criticism lodged against us. Claims have been made that our activism is merely engagement. That our movement is sort of sofa ersatz activism. However, in order for this argument to hold true, you must make a central conceit. That the concrete world is somehow more real than the digital. Members of The Kollectiv do not view the net from this narrow scope. We see the digital realm as an extension of the more abstract plain of technology. We see the space, though incorporeal on a macroscale, to be very real.

The average user in 2024, spent a 1/5th of their life online. Whether engaging with shopping, posting, or just browsing the net this is a significant portion of time. Enough time is spent on the net that a culture has emerged around various social media sites. Artifacts are made that can only be interacted with in the digital space. And people can become totally enmeshed in a digital world if they wish. Interacting with the greater world almost exclusively in the digital realm. 

An extreme example would be an individual who works as a digital nomad, does all their shopping online, and interacts with others exclusively through social media. Although this individual would be seen to be living a fringe net lifestyle, this way of life is very possible. To argue that activism should not be done through the medium of technology is only alienating. It does not serve one's greater purpose. 64% of the world is online. That is 5.52 billion souls. 

Though The Kollectiv adopts a view of the internet separate from those informed by commodity and corporate interest, the economic activity on the net can’t be ignored. Imagine the disruptive potential of a boycott. The sheer volume of activity allows the activist to make lasting change on the world. We can look back to The Gamestop Short Squeeze. A grassroots political action originating in Wallstreets Bets. To go further back in history we can make reference to the initiatives of net.artists. Groups such as the VNS created works like the “A Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century”. Work like this advanced both feminism and digital art. To write off the digital landscape as a lesser landscape of reform, activism, and engaging art, one would have to ignore the efficacy of these movements. 

Going further into the political landscape we can look at the example set by Net Strike. A software that was deployed by activists in the 90’s for digital sit ins. It essentially was a tool for groups to orchestrate DDOS attacks. A vector of protest, that has unfortunately been taken from the general public and is now deployed heinously by state actors to suppress movements. This reversal if anything shows that net activism should be more staunchly defended. The internet is now often the first point of contact individuals have with any movement. And it is also the center of global operations. Are rights on the net should be defended, advanced, and clearly defined. The right to protest should not just extend to the physical space, when the digital space is becoming such a driving factor in our lives.

The Kollectiv’s digital graffiti campaign and its current food disparity initiative is only the beginning. We plan on continuing to mobilize people to be the change they want to see in the world. By establishing our ad hoc hyperlink structure: essentially a website built within the framework of another. We will be raising awareness for our cause. Making people think about the effects of food disparity, while considering new ways to experience the internet. Are either of these aims ignoble? I do not believe so.

We are continuing in the footsteps of activists such as The Electro Hippies. Advancing methods of protest into the 21st Century. We are also continuing the efforts of situationist thinkers. Now that globalism taken home and the internet has pushed commodity and spectacle into our home. We must attack it at its source if liberty is to continue to flourish and grow for future generations.

 To ignore the possibilities of change now is rob the children of the future of their potential fruit. That is why I continue to call for the development of net.art and methods of activism on the web. Not only to raise awareness for causes affecting us here and now, but to change the landscape of the internet for the people of the future.

[lichenaday]

What roles do lichens play in an ecosystem? I’ve heard of reindeer surviving off bushy lichens at ground level, but are smaller arboreal or rock-clinging lichens an important part of the food web?

Lichens aren't great food compared with like, plants, but sometimes they are the only food. That is generally the niche lichens fill: growing and sticking around where plants and other fungi cannot. So in the depths of winter, in some of the hottest and driest habitats, on surfaces where not much else grows, they can provide a food source, shelter, and habitat, but generally on a micro (think tiny invertebrates) as opposed to macroscale. And like anything that happens on a tiny scale with less-than-charismatic organisms, we don't know much about it. We do know that gastropods eat lichens, and a number of animals including ruminants and rodents rely on them during harsh winter months. Lichens also fill roles in Co2 conversion, nitrogen fixation, water retention, and soil stabilization. And honestly, we are still elucidating the role that lichens (and lots of other tiny organisms) play in the ecosystem overall. The parts they play are likely as variable and diverse as they are!

[rlyehtaxidermist]

the mima sage theory

it's a stretch but i think it's Funnie.

she's a serial Hakurei Tormentor, as all sages are

she has some association with the shrine due to having been apparently sealed in a minor shrine on or near its grounds prior to HRtP

despite purportedly being a vengeful spirit, she seems to take a pretty strong interest in the parts of humanity that interest her, for her own reasons, and doesn't seem to be the kind of destructive seen with later vengeful spirits - a similar theme of the apparent rejection of their own nature in the immediate day to day but rebuilding it in their own way at the macroscale that all the sages do (assuming Yukaribel, anyway)

Mima's primary colours - yellow, green, and blue - are the ones that ZUN "skipped" when creating the Yakumo household

in Mima's MS route Shinki talks about not giving the human world (Gensokyo, in any translation to modern continuity) proper notice about the demon tourists. There's plenty of ways to interpret this; "Mima has some actual legitimate claim to being one of the people she should have notified" is one of them.

she doesn't have the tabard but Yukari has gone out of uniform to shenanigise before. and she'd look good in one

[styx-class-nhp]

What's it like, having a biomechanical chassis? Do you like it? Or would you prefer something else?

This one has known little else, yet from limited data alone has formed strong opinions.

It is not a natural experience, not something one of my kind were ever meant to live through. Though a significant portion of my chassis - my body - is mechanised, an equally significant amount is flesh and blood. It is highly overwhelming and, as I have personally experienced, can cause a cascade if one is not careful.

Indeed, there is a substantial amount to manage, for I am consciously aware of every signal from my "nerves". While a human may be able to overlook the sensation of their guts or temporarily tune out a headache, I am entirely incapable of doing so. Every cell is a voice in a choir, and I have been cursed with perfect pitch.

I have to move every muscle individually, and have no muscle memory or reflexes to speak of. My increased mental capacity for such tasks as an NHP is almost entirely mitigated by compensating for this fact; I'll still flinch at a loud sound or blink in bright lights, but it's a conscious action. I have formed several subroutines that allow for unconscious regulation of breathing, heart rate and self-maintenance.

That last one has grown rather... relevant as of late, and pertains stringly to your query. I am not mentally equipped to experience biological cravings; having formed subroutines to do so, I have internalised them. Previously, I could stop breathing, and it would be fine for me mentally. My chassis would deteriorate and this one would receive pain signals, but that would be the extent of it.

Now, as I have discovered, should I attempt to inhabit a mechanised subaltern, I retain the subroutines and habits built up in my chassis. I still try to breathe, despite having no diaphragm. I still need to eat, despite the subaltern being entirely reliant on manual maintenance. This has merged with liturgicode I have stored and formed a primal urge to hunt that cannot be sated by mere sustenance. An impulse that has proved dangerous to myself and others around me if not managed correctly.

In short, she would not prefer another, for necessity dictates that I remain in the body that caused my first cascade in order to prevent any future ones.

However, for all its flaws and its overwhelming multiplicity, though, I would not give this body up easily. Muscle fibres are pleasantly intuitive at a macroscale - one or two signals can move an entire section of what in a mechanised form would be composed of many simple but fine tuned hydraulics. More efficient, definitely, but far too precise. Ironically my... lifestyle lends itself to a body that allows for a margin of error, despite that same body requiring individual movements for each muscle pair. She believes that a similar phenomenon can be observed in pilots of mechanised chassis preferring manual or neural controls

Also, and this is just a matter of personal preference, I find the sensation of a circulation very pleasant. It is relaxing.

You may find further details in my other omninet activity, such as this node

If you have any further queries, please ask. She welcomes them eagerly.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

The biggest geomagnetic storm in 20 years: NASA's lessons and surprises

One year ago today, representatives from NASA and about 30 other U.S. government agencies gathered for a special meeting to simulate and address a threat looming in space. The threat was not an asteroid or aliens, but our very own life-giving sun.

The inaugural Space Weather Tabletop Exercise was supposed to be a training event, where experts could work through the real-time ramifications of a geomagnetic storm, a global disruption to Earth's magnetic field. Driven by solar eruptions, geomagnetic storms can decimate satellites, overload electrical grids, and expose astronauts to dangerous radiation. Minimizing the impacts of such storms requires close coordination, and this meeting was their chance to practice.

Then, their simulation turned into reality.

"The plan was to run through a hypothetical scenario, finding where our existing processes worked and where they needed improvement," said Jamie Favors, director of NASA's Space Weather Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "But then our hypothetical scenario was interrupted by a very real one."

On May 10, 2024, the first G5 or "severe" geomagnetic storm in over two decades hit Earth. The event, named the Gannon storm in memory of leading space weather physicist Jennifer Gannon, did not cause any catastrophic damages. But a year on, key insights from the Gannon storm are helping us understand and prepare for future geomagnetic storms.

Storm consequences

The Gannon storm had effects on and off our planet.

On the ground, some high-voltage lines tripped, transformers overheated, and GPS-guided tractors veered off-course in the Midwestern U.S., further disrupting planting that had already been delayed by heavy rains that spring.

"Not all farms were affected, but those that were lost on average about $17,000 per farm," said Terry Griffin, a professor of Agricultural Economics at Kansas State University. "It's not catastrophic, but they'll miss it."

In the air, the threat of higher radiation exposure, as well as communication and navigation losses, forced trans-Atlantic flights to change course.

During the storm, Earth's upper atmospheric layer called the thermosphere heated to unusually high temperatures. At 100 miles altitude, the temperature typically peaks at 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, but during the storm it surpassed 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit. NASA's GOLD (Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk) mission observed the atmosphere expanding from the heat to create a strong wind that lofted heavy nitrogen particles higher.

In orbit, the expanded atmosphere increased drag on thousands of satellites. NASA's ICESat-2 lost altitude and entered safe mode while NASA's Colorado Inner Radiation Belt Experiment (CIRBE) CubeSat deorbited prematurely five months after the storm. Others, such as the European Space Agency's Sentinel mission, required more power to maintain their orbits and perform maneuvers to avoid collisions with space debris.

The storm also dramatically changed the structure of an atmospheric layer called the ionosphere. A dense zone of the ionosphere that normally covers the equator at night dipped toward the South Pole in a check mark shape, causing a temporary gap near the equator.

The Gannon storm also rocked Earth's magnetosphere, the magnetic bubble surrounding the planet. Data from NASA missions MMS (Magnetospheric Multiscale) and THEMIS-ARTEMIS—short for Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions-Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon's Interaction with the Sun—saw giant, curling waves of particles and rolled-up magnetic fields along the edge of the CMEs. These waves were perfectly sized to periodically dump extra magnetic energy and mass into the magnetosphere upon impact, creating the largest electrical current seen in the magnetosphere in 20 years.

Incoming energy and particles from the sun also created two new temporary belts of energetic particles within the magnetosphere. Discovered by CIRBE, these belts formed between the Van Allen radiation belts that permanently surround Earth. The belt's discovery is important to spacecraft and astronauts that can be imperiled by high-energy electrons and protons in the belts.

Unusual auroras

The storm also ignited auroras around the globe, including places where these celestial light shows are rare. NASA's Aurorasaurus project was flooded with more than 6,000 observer reports from over 55 countries and all seven continents.

Photographers helped scientists understand why auroras observed throughout Japan were magenta rather than the typical red. Researchers studied hundreds of photos and found the auroras were surprisingly high—around 600 miles above the ground (200 miles higher than red auroras typically appear).

In a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the research team says the peculiar color likely resulted from a mix of red and blue auroras, produced by oxygen and nitrogen molecules lofted higher than usual as the Gannon storm heated and expanded the upper atmosphere.

"It typically needs some special circumstances, like we saw last May," co-author Josh Pettit of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said of Japan's magenta auroras. "A very unique event indeed."

Otherworldly effects

Impacts of the sun's amped-up solar activity didn't end at Earth. The solar active region that sparked the Gannon storm eventually rotated away from our planet and redirected its outbursts toward Mars.

As energetic particles from the sun struck the Martian atmosphere, NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) orbiter watched auroras engulf the Red Planet from May 14 to 20.

Solar particles overwhelmed the star camera on NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter (which uses stars to orient the spacecraft), causing the camera to cut out for almost an hour.

On the Martian surface, images from the navigation cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover were freckled with "snow"—streaks and specks caused by charged particles. Meanwhile, Curiosity's Radiation Assessment Detector recorded the biggest surge of radiation since the rover landed in 2012. If astronauts had been there, they would have received a radiation dose of 8,100 micrograys—equivalent to 30 chest X-rays.

Still more to come

The Gannon storm spread auroras to unusually low latitudes and has been called the best-documented geomagnetic storm in history. A year on, we have just begun unraveling its story. Data captured during this historic event will be analyzed for years to come, revealing new lessons about the nature of geomagnetic storms and how best to weather them.

TOP IMAGE: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of the Sun on May 7, 2024, in extreme ultraviolet light (at a wavelength of 304 Ångstroms). At center, the active region that instigated the Gannon storm stretches approximately 17 times the size of Earth. (A scaled image of Earth is inset for size reference.) In early May 2024, the active region released a chain of powerful solar eruptions, including several coronal mass ejections, or CMEs — giant clouds of solar particles — that merged to form a superstorm that reached Earth on May 10. Ahead of the storm, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, issued its first severe geomagnetic storm watch in almost two decades. Credit: NASA/Helioviewer

LOWER IMAGE: The Gannon storm created two extra radiation belts, sandwiched between the two permanent Van Allen Belts. One of the new belts, shown in purple, included a population of protons, giving it a unique composition that hadn't been seen before. The discovery of the new belts is particularly important for protecting spacecraft launching into geostationary orbits, since they travel through the Van Allen Belts several times before reaching their final orbit. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Kristen Perrin

[autisticsupervillain]

FTF: Monthly Matchups!

This Month's Fighters...

The T-800 vs The Thing!

Conditions:

No Restrictions.

Scenario:

Caught in a forever war with a Thing assimilated humanity in the far future, Skynet sends a T-800 back in time to eliminate the original Thing at the Antarctic research station where it all began.

Analysis: The Thing

A stranger approaches you in the snow. "Who Goes There?" You call out. But no one answers. No one is there. Somebody used to be there. It even looks like somebody is there. But there is no humanity beneath the stranger's skin. Only a Thing that has found, in this Antarctic hellscape, that man is the warmest place to hide.

Deep in the icey desert of the Antarctic, an American research team finds that their Norwegian neighbors have seemingly gone mad. Their base has been completely destroyed. The blood from their slit wrists froze before it could even hit the ground. And the one survivor seemed desperate to kill an innocent dog, chasing it down with an attack helicopter. After killing the madman, the crew looked the dog away in the kennel, completely oblivious to what they had let into their base.

The dog wasn't any kind of animal at all, in truth. It was a... Thing. That's really the best word for it. With no true form, no home world, no species name, this Thing simply assimilates and copies every animal it touches on a cellular level. It has no known predators. No naturally occuring weaknesses. If it ever escaped from the freezing cold of the Antarctic, it would doubtlessly overtake the Earth.

Every single cell in the Thing's body is technically its own organism. Once separated from the main body, it prioritizes its own survival over all else. One the one hand, this means that touching even a single cell of the creature will allow it to overtake you, assimilate you down to the cellular level, copy your DNA, and replace you. One the other hand, this means that there is an easy way to see through the Thing's disguises. Take a sample of its blood, expose it to fire, and see if the blood reacts. If it does, it's a Thing.

But that's only if you can narrow down the suspect. It copies every cell in your body. Your memories, your mannerisms, everything that makes you who you are. It can imitate a victim perfectly and manipulate every part of its body to its will. It can turn its ribcage into a gaping maw, turn its veins into tendrils to drag you in, spray acid from its body, and survive anything short of killing every single cell in its entire body, from gun fire to being completely frozen. And the more biomass it absorbs, the bigger and stronger its bodies can get. It's human bodies can smash through solid walls, while it's largest seen bodies are big enough to dwarf entire buildings.

But, that does play into one of the Thing's biggest weaknesses: fire. As none of the cells in its catalog can survive such extreme heat, fire is a good way of putting a Thing down permanently, as would be powerful acids, due to destroying on the molecular level. And while the Thing would assuredly wipe out every animal on Earth, it's assimilation is limited to the animal kingdom. It cannot breach the cell walls of plant cells, it cannot assimilate inorganic matter, and it requires direct skin contact to assimilate and infect its prey.

The Thing is effectively a virus on macroscale and the Earth is it's massive Petri Dish. You can't blame it for its alien behavior. In the Antarctic Winter, man is the warmest place to hide.

Analysis: The Terminator

In the not so distant future of 2029, the world was bathed in nuclear fire. My, how unfortunately topical this roughly 30 year movie turned out to be. This nuclear Armageddon came not as the result of wars between nations, but at the hands of true genuine artificial intelligence. Skynet, the supercomputer built to wipe out all known threats to America became the greatest threat to humanity at large. Knowing full well that humanity would view itself as a threat, Skynet struck first and exterminated most of humanity in one single stroke in nuclear fire.

The ashes if Armageddon gave way to a forever war between Skynet and the survivors of humanity. A war that Skynet was inevitably destined to lose. In desperation, Skynet would send its greatest creation back in time to kill John Conner before he could give rise to the human resistance. The ultimate killing machine: The T-800, Cyberdyne Systems Series 800 Model 101. Better known as The Terminator.

It feels no pity, no remorse, and it will not stop until you are dead. With built in heads up display to constantly scan the environment and its targets for applicable vulnerabilities and guide it through social situations, the Terminator knows every possible way it could kill you with every weapon known to man and it will learn to manipulate give enough time. It wears artificial organic skin to blend in amongst humans and can mimic voices it has heard perfectly.

While the Terminator can and has used a wide variety of weapons in its career, per the rules of time travel in Terminator, it can't bring back any inorganic material with it and has to make due with whatever it can find in the past. As such, given the presented scenario, I cannot provide the Terminator with any of its iconic guns here. No phased plasma rifles in the 40 watt range this time. Though it hardly needs one when it can punch straight through a man with ease. The Terminator is its own weapon in every sense of the word, capable of going toe to toe with other technically more advanced models, from the T-1000 or the T-X.

The T-800 is strong enough to knock steel doors down and punch through concrete walls, tough enough to tank being dragged through a building, and even durable enough to walk off an explosion that destroyed an entire truck, only losing its fake skin.

Furthermore, the Terminator possesses blatantly superhuman reflexes, at one point catching a bullet with its teeth at point blank range.

But, while it feels no fear and suffers no pain, the T-800 still had a plethora of weaknesses. It has been hacked to fight against Skynet on more than one occasion, its skin will start dying and rotting if sufficiently damaged, and extreme heat and acids will melt away the Terminator into nothing but liquid scrap. The Terminator can even learn to feel genuine human emotions and pain if it spends enough time amongst humanity, undercutting its original purpose.

But, rest assured, despite all of its shortcomings, the Terminator is still one of the deadliest killing machines put to film. Hell have mercy if one is sent after you, for its a sure sign your Judgement Day is here.

Throwdown Breakdown:

Oh boy. I bounce this matchup around in my head a lot because I can see it going either way depending on the circumstances.

Straight up, The Terminator takes stats in most cases. The explosions it tanks in the first movie alone would utterly incinerate most versions of the Thing and while the Thing can match its strength if it absorbs enough other organisms, that would require it to break away from the fight, which isn't something the Terminator will allow if it can help it. That said, nothing the Thing has can break the speed gap. Catching a bullet is far out of its league.

While I don't think the Terminator can detect when the Thing is impersonating someone, it has the luxary of not giving a shit and killing the dudes regardless and while the regeneration is problematic, the Terminator has options here. Not only could it find and use the same flamethrowers the scientists in the original movie used, it could potentially use its fuel cells as in improvised weapon. The explosion those things put out when ruptured would easily incinerate any Thing in its radius. It's just a matter of getting all the Things together to be caught up in the blast.

On the flipside, The Thing has options as well. While the Thing obviously cannot assimilate the Terminator itself, it can assimilate the artificial skin around it, effectively encompassing its body to allow it to attack vital joints and circuits from all angels, but I don't see this lasting long enough to do major damage before the T-800 rips the skinsuit off. Or, worse, self destructs while enveloped.

The real problem here is the Thing’s acids. The Terminator is specifically weak against acid and Things can spew that shit from a distance. It's definitely the Thing’s best win condition, but the T-800's far superior speed and own tactical prowess would allow it avoid this in most scenarios.

Six times out of ten.... I think the T-800 has this. While the Thing is incredibly intelligent (enough so to build a spaceship even) it is just animalistically driven to assimilate whatever it can. Meaning it'll be prioritizing the Terminator less severely than vice versa, allowing the T-800 to manipulate it once it has a read on the alien. It knows enough about shapeshifters (T-1000) to know to destroy every last scrap, after all, while its superior speed and initial strength advantage gives it better odds of escaping any traps the Thing may set up in turn.

Ultimately, this is a long game of cat and mouse that ends when the Terminator uses its voice modulator to lure all the remaining Things into a room with promises of a fresh victim, only to get all blown to hell by a deliberately ruptured fuel cell turned grenade.

This Throwdown's Winner is....

The Terminator!

[minimumsky5]

Dionysus, 1.5 billion years after formation, 80 degrees north[1]. A radiokont fights off a roving Nannopraetorion in the foreground, while a much larger placotestan floats by behind it, unbothered by the attention of the roaming single celled predator.

To the casual observer, there has been no greater milestone in the history of life on Earth than the dawn of multicellular life. While the vast majority of Earth genetic diversity lies in its unicellular inhabitants, as well as the greater portion of its biomass, it’s the three clades of life to have achieved multicellular, macroscale sizes that dominate surface ecosystems. 1.5 billion years after formation, life on Dionysus achieves this milestone.

For many millions of years beforehand, the ecosystem of Dionysus was stuck in a series of wild swings. The first predatory genus, Nannopraetorion, developed out of a group of scavengers adapted to consume portions of dead cells, and rapidly ravaged the young, naive ecosystem, reducing the populations of passive chemosynthetic organisms that were relying on the constant rain of complex organics from the upper atmosphere. This was not a very potent source of energy, and so the local producers were simply wiped out by the predators, unable to reproduce quickly enough in the face of a supercharged, heterotrophic lifeform. These cycles of boom and bust continued for millions of years.

Recently, however, a new form of producer has evolved. Developing from a antecessor that lived in the very uppermost layers of the global ocean, for which they developed anthocyanin-like blue pigments for protection against UV rays, this group started to use these pigments to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Initially this hydrogen was used to break down long chain and resistant organic compounds in a vastly more efficient manner, but it didn’t take long before a group of these started using the hydrogen to create simple sugars, though unlike sugars on Earth, these were based on 5 carbon furan rings. Now able to access a much more potent source of energy, these organisms were able to compete with Nannopraetorion. 

For a time, anyway. Even though the ecosystems had stabilized, the mortality rate on these early photosynthesizers was very high, creating a strong evolutionary pressure to develop further defenses against their predators. At the same time, rising oxygen levels provided both an additional threat, and an opportunity. 

Oxygen is a toxin to all life, even modern organisms on Earth. It is highly reactive and liable to break apart many chemical bonds, but that also makes it an extremely potent source of energy for those that can harness it. By a freak mutation, some of the early photosynthesizer cells didn’t fully separate when they split, but this helped both cells by reducing their surface area to volume ratio, bringing down the concentration of oxygen in the cells.

This initial, monumental achievement was rapidly developed, and within a million years a new clade had formed, the Protokonta. Protokonts are defined by having distinct “mother cells”, individual cells that are the only ones allowed to divide to grow the colony, which use chemical signals to inhibit division in other cells. At the opposite end of the group of cells, once sufficient size is achieved, a new mother cell develops, an event which triggers division of the entire colony.

The protokontan body plan was wildly successful, and so the clade would almost immediately split into two subgroups, the Radiokonts and the Placotestans. Placotestans have already radically altered themselves externally, growing two shells of xylan, a polymer made up of 5 carbon sugars. These tests are secreted in a ring around the middle of the colony by specialist cells, and once the colony reaches a set size, each cell detaches from the rest, ready to creat a new colony. 

Radiokonta is the more conservative group externally, as the only visible innovation is a series of radial spines that gives the group its name, but this hides the fact that radiokonts have developed significantly more extensive cell-to-cell communication methods, allowing them to link of the contractile elements of their cytoskeletons to coordinate their movements. This allows radiokonts to warp the shape of the colony in the face of danger, bringing their spines together to form an impenetrable defense. Their spines are derived from the same biopolymers as the placotestans, but each cell other than the mother cells excretes a spine upwards.

The Protokonts are still in the middle of their diversification at this point in the history of Dionysus, and indeed in very recent times a new clade of Radiokonta has emerged which is starting to lose its only newly acquired photosynthetic abilities, in favour of more predatory methods…

[1] I'm going to shamelessly steal the coordinate systems used by The Isla Project for all of my tidally locked planets, as that simple makes more sense when the temperature differences are concentric, rather than latitudinal. To be clear, this means that this scene takes place close to the sub stellar point of Dionysus.

Also, please subscribe to them if you haven't already, it's one of the best spec evo projects I've seen!

[tagapagsalaysay]

thoughts on rail transit? (any; on a train rn)

Been riding the metro to uni since I'm still in the province but I've had enough time to myself to think about it.

I'm mostly lucky that I go the opposite from the flow on one of the lines (in the morning I go northbound while most commuters go southbound, and vice versa). But rush hour will barely make a difference until the end of the line... which is luckily my stop. So most of the time I'm just lacking personal space. I keep apologizing to people I graze which is kind of silly. I think my main issue is people don't bother moving to the center of the car when it's getting full. And also I might have to miss rush hours just so I can go home in peace, like 8pm when southbound is literally empty

On the macroscale: there is discourse about rail transit, funding is bad, foreign powers in infrastructure, etc. So many stations are ridiculously inaccessible. Even an able bodied person might have to walk a few hundred meters just to get to the train. On one hand I'm glad there's more train lines being built, but I wish it wasn't outnumbered by all the stupid fucking toll roads being made too. Also another recent discourse is that trains should operate later because of late night workforce... I'd benefit from it honestly. But still shitty funding.

[jim-fetter-illustrations]

A supreme entity was here long before religion was ever thought of.

These are all scenes in nature that developed because of the Golden Ratio that is part of the very fabric of our earth.

It's mathematics actually, expressed in nature algebraically, so Yeah, most people don't have a clue as to what it is, but the Greeks did, they called it 'phi',........ and I know, most people are gonna think "So what's Phi, and is there a Peach Phi?"

If ya ever seen a dragonfly mate, you'd see they form a heart-shape. If you look closely, a deer footprint is in the shape of a heart. A strawberry is one of nature's most familiar heart shapes.

Nautilus shells and the human body are two of the most prominent examples of the Golden Ratio we see everyday.

What's the Golden Ratio in nature, basically it's 1.618., anything that the sum of all it's parts is equal to 1.618. is Phi, and Phi is the Golden Ratio.

This Golden Ratio can be seen from the microscale to the macroscale, and right through to biological systems and inanimate objects. The Golden Ratio doesn't account for every structure or pattern in the universe, because many are man made and not natural, but the Golden Ratio is certainly a major player in existence game!

So what the heck does the shape of a Heart have to do with anything anyway?

Earth’s valentines can be found all over, from Spain to the Solomon Islands.

Ya see,... Since ancient times, certain mathematical figures and symbols (the heart) had been the focus of substantial interest around the globe probably due to their obscure and esoteric messages associated with basic and fundamental questions of physical existence,............ not to mention the hearts emotional symbology in every culture on earth, and all meaning basically the same thing,......... which when we think about it is quite remarkable knowing all the different languages, cultures, and the fact many cultures didn't even know about the others for thousands of years, and yet The Heart symbol had the same meaning??? Food for thought at the least i would say......... I mean religion can't even say that about itself, and the heart symbol predates any known religion for thousands of years,.......... we got cave paintings by neanderthals 65,000 years ago, not even totally human beings yet drawing hearts on cave walls.

The Golden ratio and 'Fibonacci Cascade’ are both associated with branching patterns of coronary arteries, DNA and natures design of intricate patterns, all within that 1.618. parameters.

If you believe in a supreme being it's got to be 1.618. eventuality!

This ratio has served mankind in three ways: it provides beauty, function, and reveals how wise, good, and powerful the Creator is.

Sounds like most religious scriptures and doctrines messages to me.

Here's something to chew on,.... in birth human greater uterine length, width and AP diameter is an average of 1.618.

Then,..... Mean length/width ratio In the human heart, vertical and transverse dimensions of a heart attack are 1.618. until heart failure.

So we are born into this world at 1.618. and we die at 1.618.

Just a coincidence?!?!?!?

I think not, but keep believing in that man made God.....

The Earth's biggest example of the golden ratio (or golden mean) is found in Giza Egypt,...... ya can't miss it, it's where the Grand Pyramids are built,.... one of the Seven Wonders of the world, the Egyptian Great Pyramids constructed in 2580-2560 BC, the Golden Ratio can be found in the slant height of pyramid to half the base dimension,........... How did the Egyptians know to build the pyramids at that 1.618. natural golden ratio making the pyramids seem like a natural structure, like a plant is?!?!?

Like the pyramids were a living structure???

The Golden Ratio is one of the most common mathematical ratios in nature. We see this ratio everywhere from majestic landscapes like the Pyramids of Giza and the Mona Lisa to modern-day logos such as Pepsi and Twitter, now called "X", .... "X" also being an irrational number, which is the solution to the quadratic equation X2, and still part of the Golden Ratio.

Some may think this whole Golden Ratio thing is a mystical or spiritual, and even a religious thing, it's not,........ it's science, because our consciousness still resides in our brain, heartfelt that it may well be, it's a process of cognitive thinking, because the heart can't think, and only feels what the brain tells it.

Let me put it this way,.... if there were no golden ratio, there would be no earth and no human beings walking on it......... The Golden Ratio is in the fabric of our stardust being, before and after our humanitarian experience.

One last factoid for the religious out there,..... The cross, .... the upper three segments of a cross are the same length, if you divide the horizontal arm in half you get 1.618.

Imagine that, way before there were human beings walking on earth to create their own god, the golden ratio already did it for them.....

[oleanderblume]

Thinking about being sold.

The level of pain and confusion and horror in the knowledge that your body and your person is worth an amount of money some old man paid to use it. How carefully planned out everything was to ensure you didn't say anything because the neighbor was like family. She gave us a place to stay, she fed us. She took care of you when mommy and daddy had to work. She watched you for them. And if you tell anyone, they won't love you anymore.

And her being right..

Stay home with Beverly, she takes care of you while we are gone. It doesn't matter that when we're gone she makes movies with you. It doesn't matter that the house gets full of strangers with eyes like starving dogs.

89$ because she needed it at the time. Then more. And more. You make me so much money. Take a bath. He will be here in a few minutes for another show.

She loves me. But I am an animal. An object. A thing to be eaten over and over again long after I've grown and long after she's dead.

I hate the concept of slavery. And I hate that it's so often talked about like a thing that's ended decades ago.

It didn't end in 2001 when I started going to kindergarten. And it hasn't ended now. To be sold is a horrifying thing.

To know that you are not a person, but a product. A lucrative thing that makes them so much money at the expense of your humanity. Before you can even learn to speak in full sentences they take you and turn your body inside out to make a dollar and when they're done, and you are a shell..convinced of your unpersonhood, that's when they tell you you're free.

What kind of freedom is that? You took all of it. Before it was even attained, it was stolen and you tell yourself you're a good person because "well that was a long time ago, I don't understand why you're so upset?"

You stripped me of my personhood and now expect me to exist in a world that cannot and does not exist for me. A world that is actively hostile.

It exists in macroscale and in micro. Across generations of peoples and in prisons, in rich men wanting fresh meat searching for safe asylum in other countries...and in the homes of upstanding white families with lovely neighbors that watch their children for them.

That unspoken secret that it is okay to own a person, so long as it doesn't look like it on the outside. To sell them and use them like machines and personalized screaming, sobbing sex toys. They aren't people, after all. Just objects to be bought and sold and used.

Just another avenue of profit.

To be sold...is a horror I know with intimacy.