clew @clew@octodon.social
Math, soil, ecology, feminism, material history, literature of the long nineteenth, waltz, polka, leavened bread. Seattle and parts northwest.
I don’t see anything tagged #sewing or #tailoring , but I have a bunch of such projects to finish and more to begin. Joining #yarnuary . Hello!
The Orange
At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I got a half.
And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.
The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.
— Wendy Cope
#happynewyear #poetry
I have often heard that a collective needs to remain small (under 40 people) to maintain its collective identity in practice. Has this been documented anywhere? What is the size limit for a collective (as opposed to a co-op) and how did that number get arrived at? #collectivesize #coop
WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM?
"Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?"
NO.
"Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact."
THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.
"Really? Then what would have happened, pray?"
A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.
They walked in silence for a moment.
“Ah,” said Susan dully. “Trickery with words. I would have though you’d have been more literal-minded than that.”
I AM NOTHING IF NOT LITERAL-MINDED. TRICKERY WITH WORDS IS WHERE HUMANS LIVE.
All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
MY POINT EXACTLY
Getting a lot of happy birthday emails from all the services where I lie about my birthday.
Let’s see. I didn’t see any movies, I barely read a (nontext-)book, I don’t watch tv, but I ran into some cool life-y stuff in 2017:
Best slime mold: Wolf’s milk slime
Best fungus: Coral fungus
Best mycoherterophyte: Ghost pipe
Best lichen: Peltigera sp.
Best bryophyte: Liverwort sp.
Best plant: Tiny orchids by the trail
Best insect: Caddis fly larvae coccoons
Best spider: Mama Wolf spider with spiderlings.
Best mammal: Black bear IN the trail 👀 eating...
Best nibble: Blue huckleberries
Ice Loss and the Polar Vortex: How a Warming Arctic Fuels Cold Snaps
The loss of sea ice may be weakening the polar vortex, allowing cold blasts to dip south from the Arctic, across North America, Europe and Russia, a new study says.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27092017/polar-vortex-cold-snap-arctic-ice-loss-global-warming-climate-change
The suitable #FOSS alternative I found is called #Manuskript and although it is primarily for novel #writing, it has templates for #nonfiction and #research writing as well.
So my youngest daughter gave me a miniature rose for Christmas. She bought it early. It lived under her bed through several hot days. By Christmas morning it was all but a pot of dead twigs.
It's been my holiday project, to revive it with hard pruning, compost and worm juice.
And here it is, a week later, ablaze with life.
Grace and growth to all of us in 2018. Let's not underestimate the will to survive.
https://mastodon.social/media/OBKJ4GTUoq0oeC3P6Nw
Self-inventing, _wildly popular_, Black American anarchist speaker in the 1880s.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/books/tell-us-5-things-about-your-book-goddess-of-anarchy.html
So this piece doesn't mention Mastodon or the Fediverse but it does a nice job at outlining something I've been thinking about and something that, I think, is helping bring people to Mastodon
"The year we wanted the internet to be smaller" https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/28/16795090/internet-community-2017-post-mortem-tumblr-amino-drip-tinyletter
Habari gani, fam? Sorry about missing yesterday's post -- well, sort of. I wrote it and put it up but forgot to mention it here. Also, day 6!
Nia (Purpose): https://jakebe.com/2017/12/30/kwanzaa-day-5-nia-purpose/
Kuumba (Creativity): https://jakebe.com/2017/12/31/kwanzaa-day-6-kuumba-creativity/
@SteveJohnson You can start the solar panel habit slowly. I've seen small set-ups available at many stores at a reasonable enough price. Mine came from Harbor Freight. The panels offered now are 100W and comes with everything you need to get started, except storage battery which your RV probably has/had. Any amount of time you don't have to run that generator is good for the environment. Oh, price on those solar panels is about that of 60 gallons of fuel in Indiana.
If Planned Parenthood thinks that sending me six different emails today about this 3x matching thing is going to get me to donate... they're fucking right, I absolutely am.
Hi, Artists!
Things I am working on:
- series of "composite" paintings (multiple related images superimposed; see below)
- children's book about a kid and her dog going on some adventures
- illustrated novel about beauty and mortality and also a really interesting parrot
- my almost 90-year-old dad's memoire https://mastodon.art/media/GRrOjmzgFV9PTtzwfrI
"You've been chosen," the spirit said.
"What?"
"Save the world, make it kinder, cleaner, safer."
"Me?"
"Yes."
"Alone?"
"We chose everyone."
#MicroFiction #tootfic #smallstories
look what the prusa dragged in
chain test! for a crossbody bag chain
calibration for the mad overhangs was a bitch, two totally fubared prints before I figured it out
my only problem now is that if I make this bonkers crazy cool bag there will be nothing on youmagine that can top it
so yeah I'm learning blender
Apparently ads are now scraping usernames and passwords that are autofilled thanks to password managers.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/30/16829804/browser-password-manager-adthink-princeton-research
(Use a password manger, but be sure auto-fill is off.)
Whoever posted about spinach puffs recently, can you please make yourself and the recipe known. Thanks so much.
Yours truly,
Puff dreamer
Lost Roman roads could be found as Environment Agency laser scans whole of England from air
