a tiny fairy @atinyfairy@computerfairi.es

@DeliaChristina

In 1999 to 2000 I was going through a very rough patch in my life. What with the state of things, I didn't get to see #GalaxyQuest when it was first released. Finally, on a day I was feeling particularly low, and shortly before the movie left the theaters, I canceled work and took myself out to a midday matinée.

I was the *only* person in a vast theater, of a size that no one builds anymore, sitting and waiting for the lights to go down. At one point, I turned and peered up at the projectionist's booth. I saw a shadowy figure moving back and forth behind the window, bending and straightening. This was in the days before automated, digital films. The Phantom Menace had been released digitally in 1999, but the equipment to show such films was extremely expensive and most theaters hadn't converted yet; "projectionist" was still real job.

While I was looking, the figure paused, strode to the window and peered back at me, then disappeared quickly.

I turned back around and continued to fidget and ponder the misfit pieces of my life.

At the top of the aisle behind me, the theater door swung open and banged loudly on the wall. The projectionist strode down the aisle toward me, a tall barrel-shaped man with a thick beard and glasses. My first thought was that the matinee was canceled due to low turnout, and I'd be getting a refund. Just as I'd resigned myself to that, the marching projectionist shouted out in a booming voice,

"WELCOME to your PRIVATE viewing oooooooof GALAXY QUEST!!!"

He stopped in front of my row, and I saw that he had an *armload* of STUFF. One by one, he began presenting each thing to me, and as the pile in his arms dwindled, the one in my lap grew.

"As our SPECIAL VIP Galaxy Quest GUEST today, YOU are entitled to..."

"- A commemorative t-shirt!"
"- A poster suitable for framing!"
"- A limited edition refrigerator magnet!"
"- A button to pin to your lapel!"

The list and the shwag went on. With every ridiculous item, I laughed harder and harder, until there were tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes.

Then he bowed and shouted, "WE HOPE YOU ENJOY THE SHOW!" and turned on his heel to march back up the aisle and out the exit door.

Alas, of all the shwag only the magnet has stood the test of time. But the humor and kindness of the unknown projectionist lives on.

The winners of this year's "Small World" micro-photo competition are out. I'm especially intrigued by this astonishing shot: a struck match, caught at the exact moment of ignition.
(It ended up in second place, go figure.) #science #photography
https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2023-photomicrography-competition

We already try to eliminate single-use plastics but this was what finally tipped me from “Ugh I don’t have time to worry about *completely* avoiding plastic” to “Jfc fine everything’s going in glass or metal.”

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/can-you-put-plastic-in-the-microwave

about half of my colleagues at #Bandcamp just got laid off, after Epic Games sold us to Songtradr a few weeks ago

so if your company has any vacancies and you want to hire compassionate and highly-driven people, especially in any musical or altruistic tech businesses, please share your links and I'll pass them along

I've got a retrogaming 'zine project on the go and have produced an 'Issue Zero' test issue.

Inspired by anime and video game fanzines of the 90s, Scanlines will be humble in production, though a little bit flashier and have twice the page count (or more!) in full issues.

I'd love for y'all to take a look and hope you enjoy reading this experimental issue as I try things out and compile issue one.

If anyone can suggest a file host other than Google Drive, I'd welcome one.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16VQHIXUpzqmF535PUQqXPc7wiPRuMCHE/view?usp=sharing

#Retrogaming #fanzine #retrocomputing

Netflix has released a free 358-page digital artbook for Nimona!

https://artofnimona.com

#nimona

Yesterday’s annular eclipse as viewed from a city park on the outskirts of Hondo, #Texas. There was a broad layer of high clouds when we arrived but luckily they broke up & blew away just in time for the main event. Had to get up in the wee hours and drive 225 miles (362 km) west to get right in the center of the path but it was well worth it.

#Eclipse #Eclipse2023 #EclipseSolar #Sun #Moon #photography #astrophotography

Fragile Feelings has been released on Steam and Itchio!
It's a sweet, slow burn yuri VN about a shy teacher & a gothic school nurse.
Loosely inspired by Flowers, it's a soothing story which should heal your heart! ❤️

💉 https://store.steampowered.com/app/2025700
💉 https://ebihime.itch.io/fragile-feelings

#visualnovel #yuri #indiedev #indiegame

MP3 is supported by everything, everywhere, and is now patent-free. There has never been another audio format as widely supported as MP3, it’s good enough for almost anything, and now, over twenty years since it took the world by storm, it’s finally free.

https://marco.org/2017/05/15/mp3-isnt-dead

Star Trek Prodigy has been saved! 🥳​
By, of all streaming services, Netflix.

It's a funny old world sometimes. 🖖​
#StarTrek #SaveStarTrekProdigy

https://www.startrek.com/en-un/news/star-trek-prodigy-to-stream-on-netflix

#trickleDownTheory

✨📜🖋️✨👀🐲🐯❣️

#October8th #PenQuote #BeKind #HoweverYouCan #Always

As many of you have noticed, being an "antifascist" means you are federally classified as an "anarchist violent extremist" under domestic terrorism laws.

Since your own government has labeled dissent as terrorism, and you a terrorist, it might be time to start preparing for "when it happens here."

What does this mean?

Well, terrorist is a scary word, right? It's a charged word, and that's important. They call people scary words to justify sending their militaries to kill them. They just so conveniently happen to be super funding their domestic militaries as they do this.

We shouldn't fall into false comfort that, because they aren't busting in doors left and right, that they don't absolutely mean what they say, or that they would never do that here. They already do - in targeted communities, SWAT, Parole, ICE, DEA, ATF. Why not you?

You are criminalized, and you need to be planning accordingly.

You need to begin thinking like a criminal and building sympathy for other criminals it you're going to survive the coming decade. Criminalization causes diaspora, forced migration, incarceration, displacement, dehumanization, death.

You should be taking these things with utter seriousness and understand that just because our government is inefficient in helping us doesn't mean it's inefficient. It's two most efficient outputs is violence and death, and they will absolutely come for you before the ink dries from their pen.

Plan accordingly, plan locally, and plan secretly. We are not clandestine because the cloak and dagger is cute and attractive - there are tools for self defense targeted people have used to protect themselves from the government for hundreds of years. Learn them and use them. Think like a criminal.

Do not think because you washed your hands and wiped your ass and showed up to work on time that you're magically safe. In fact, repression normally begins at the soft targets and works its way up to the harder to reach fruit, so you may be shit outta luck on two counts for keeping your hands clean.

Be smart. Be safe. Be dangerous, and plan accordingly.

Check out our linktree for the community antifascist guide and learn about affinity groups, doxxcare and security culture. Safety starts with you. Fight with the tools that work and protect each other.

Patreon got rid of their cute randomly generated fox avatars in favor of weirdo blobs, and in doing so they also deleted the GitHub repo for the old generator and the blog post they made about it

which is just. bizarre, to me

I found a fork of the generator, but it was outdated (latest commit 2017) — the Wayback machine had only the repo homepage as of 2020, but that was enough to get the commit hash for the latest commit at the time

GitHub hasn't GC'd the repo yet, so I was able to pluck that commit off their servers and make an archive of it despite no current repo referencing it

it might still be out of date, but it's better than the random fork i found

the blog post: https://web.archive.org/web/20230522195254/https://blog.patreon.com/an-open-letter-to-boring-avatars-everywhere-meet-foxes

the generator: https://git.sleeping.town/mirrors/foxy-moxy

it's funny to me because their new avatar generator has exactly the issues the writer of the original fox avatar blog post was complaining about

Punk and its hyphenates are rooted in rebellion, sure, but one thing that isn't talked about often enough is how they're also rooted in the joy of creation. You and a couple of friends bought some second-hand instruments, learned a few chords, and figured out a way to turn that into a song, and the buzz of that—the sheer amazement—will power you for weeks, months maybe, the rest of your life.

PuzzleScript, the free open source web-based tool for making 2D grid-based games, is 10 years old today!

I wrote a little about the occasion on Cohost:
https://cohost.org/draknek/post/3075528-puzzle-script-is-10-y