@futurebird Try a drop of water on each one. Many little stamp pads are water based and dry out while still having lots of ink.

I have my students create their own number system. It must be a base other than 10. It can use a tally system or it can use place-value... but not both (I had one kid try and it was fascinating and very confusing)

I like to use stamps for their symbols because I think it's a good offline way to understand the immutability and value of characters. But also because deep down I just want to play with cute little stamps.

I love these little button stamps and so do my students for projects. They are just fun to use.

But, I don't know how to re-ink them when they start to dry out. Is this possible? Has anyone done it?

I'm thinking of just going at them with an eyedropper and some stamp ink? #crafts #artsAndCrafts

What we're seeing in LOSS (Libertarian Open Source Software) is that we built an empire on that luck, which seems impossible until you realize all the survivor's bias. Most projects were useful only to the author, or nobody at all. But there were so goddamned many of them, the barrier to entry was so low, that some of them happened to be aligned with other people, and then you end up with projects becoming popular, and eventually critical infrastructure, where the duty of care downstream is given belated importance by someone who never fostered it as a skill, and who is also worn down by a vocal minority of users bringing their entitlement to the ticket tracker.

And it all feels so different than making a cool tool for your mom, right?

Very happy to know that my Abandoned America trademark has been coopted by not one but two different AI slop "creators", both based out of Europe to circumvent my legal protections. I love this new world we live in.

I was out walking with my girlfriend, and we found a new Fedi reaction pic.

*Somebody’s* got a bun in the oven

#Invertober the 19th: Allacma fusca

Had to use the Invertober hashtag because today's painting, the 2016 Insekt des Jahres isn't an insect at all but a hexapod in the class Collembola. In English it is a globe springtail, in German ein Dunkelbrauner Kugelspringer (dark brown ball jumper). These tiny inverts live in leaf litter and in dead wood, and are important for soil health and nutrient recycling.

#Insektober #Insectober #SciArt

@cinebox

"And so the man turned over his whole life, his decisions, his finances, even choices about what he would wear and eat... to the MACHINE."

"Oh yeah, Leonard's doing that I think."

"What."

"Yeah, turned his whole life over. It's strange."

"Is he... OK?"

"No, not really."

@cinebox

How the heck is a girl supposed to write a creepy SF micro fiction when these goobers keep just literally doing the thing that I wanted to be ominous and portend dark futures about???

Don't waste your time with a company designed to help people with problems solved by people. We cater to agents only.

Business Idea:

Human Agent Service Incorporated
(and we DO mean *incorporated*)

This is a business that operates online, through the dark web and any other digital network an AI agent might use to try to solve a problem.

Need a human to call the person who set you to a task and say something on the phone? Do you need a person to show up and do an action? Our human workers have got you and we'll make the bill say whatever you want for your expense report.

* Early morning kiln firing
* The Ediacaran era
* The huge water filled caves deep in the earth where all of the silt has settled and the water is crystal clear.
* The ubiquitous proximity and success of ants all around us

these are the thoughts that anchor me

@futurebird

I was born just after Nixon's election and came of age under Reagan. I sucked poison from the teat and grew strong on bile. I will survive this out of spite.

She is dead because of too much terrible politics. It has ruined her blood and her heart has given up and left.

I am going to get on a boat and sail away forever.

I will go and live deep in the woods. I SWEAR to god I will.

Well we don't have a choice I suppose.

I don't think I can survive another American election. I think it may well kill me dead.

I once helped with a kiln in the summer. You had to go out to the little building in the predawn dark to start the firing and it lasted for more than a day.

Few things are as exciting and yet soothing and starting a kiln in the cold morning after crossing frosty grass.

It's both the beginning and the end of so much work.

But before you know it? You are listening to the sounds of cooling and asking over and over "can we open it NOW?" because you are a child and don't know how to wait.

I’m reading “Matter” by Banks again from the Culture series (well I am listening to it) and Ive been thinking about “Shell Worlds” these vast ancient objects: at once pinnacles of technological prowess, but also filled with baffling layers of often primitive life.

And then it hit me: Hong Kong, Rome, New York

every ‘world city’ is a bit of a shell world

(that’s why everyone moons over them and calls them romantic— and yet they are also horrible places, but wondrous) #IanMBanks #theCulture