Incredible numbers

it's weird learning about older animal groups because it both drives home that evolutionary "progress" is pathological cultural baggage, and also makes you sit with things like the evolution of an upright gait or specialized dentition, which really did allow much of modern mammalian diversity.

i've found some good references over the past few days! estemmenosuchus has fascinating crests or hornlike protrusions from some of the skull bones. proburnetia and some other biarmosuchids had interesting ornamentation as well.

Our Top 5 Ant Moments.

Microsoft will no longer allow Israel to use its cloud services to enable its mass surveillance of occupied Palestinians – "the first known case of a US technology company withdrawing services provided to the Israeli military since the beginning of its war on Gaza"

oromycter dolesorum

it seems like such a step backward that the android photo edit now only has destructive color + value adjustments. you used to be able to re-edit starting with the previous parameters.

i am having trouble sleeping so i am up late drawing synapsids. inostrancevia.

i'm working through a survey of synapsid skulls and trying to figure out the particulars of the species i am working on. what are they related to, but more importantly what features emerge in what clades, what is plastic, what is fixed.

i am having trouble sleeping so i am up late drawing synapsids. inostrancevia.

scientists: we have to use scientific names so everything can have a unique name and it won't be confusing also we are using "dinocephalia" as a clade of synapsids and also a genus of beetles

testing out the new walnut ink. i changed a few things about my process. i filtered it multiple times through cheesecloth and once through a high thread count piece of an old dress shirt, so it should be lower particulate. second, i am experimentally preserving it wil cloves instead of alcohol!

making black walnut ink.

wasps are beautiful and ecologically important and one of my missions in life is helping people appreciate them.

i am currently reading two pieces of genre fiction which i'm constantly delighted and impressed by: the Viriconium series, by M. John Harrison "Rakesfall", by Vajra Chandrasekera

one distinction playing difficult games has made me think about a lot is that learning based challenge is not at all the same thing as adversity, but a lot of developers are not very savvy about the distinction.

[silksong spoilers]

nonfossilized remains of moas. these have such a remarkable feel. it's like finding pieces of a dragon.

i cannot count the number of times i've seen the researchgate captcha recently. today i'm doing synapsid skulls and some comparative vertebrate anatomy.

Roguelike celebration — loveliest community, most inspired virtual conference space, greatest juxtaposition of in-field and out-of-field topics if you haven't been, come this year! October 25-26 🎲💫 if you have, welcome back! see you there

nonfossilized remains of moas. these have such a remarkable feel. it's like finding pieces of a dragon.

i think i am going to update my world building article on [selka] (the not-lizard people) with some of the new art. i'm unsure how much of a rewrite i will do. i may not incorporate much of the conjectural evolution work. i think there is a place for it, but an overview may not be it.

still have to truck on. over on the #patreon. released the live document for SWORDS AGAINST HEAVEN fourth-edition inspired ruleset for esoteric dark fantasy wuxia gaming through OSR lens. written like poetry. diegetic classes, disco elysium-esque skill system www.patreon.com/posts/introd...

I found the best way to enjoy this (audio on!)

working out skeletal details for [selka], the synapsid not-lizard people in my game.

there is a thunderstorm, and we are watching an old nature documentary.

i have read so many paleontology papers recently y'all

working out skeletal details for [selka], the synapsid not-lizard people in my game.

i haven't read the news yet because my power was being repaired but i am so happy to hear RFK, who of course is a trained scientist, personally discovered so much useful information about autism which will definitely not be used for eugenics.

[selka] skeleton thumbnails. i'm learning about analogous forms like theropods and lizards. i think if you got a partially bipedal synapsid with a large tail, you'd get projections (or an overhang) on the pelvis so you can have stronger muscles on the back legs.

over several games of poschengband, i made it all the way to level 23. i'm currently doing the orc dungeon, which is one of my favorite locations in the game so far. traded my shovel for an umber hulk.

me: ok bsky, i prescaled my pixel art. you're not going to mangle it, are you? bsky: no, i got this. me: you sure? bsky:

more [selka] archer variants. a few of these are exploring the idea i mentioned earlier- dropping the tail or even using it for a kangaroo style tripod stance (lower right) for stability. (bonus [hopper] with a portable ballista, lower right.)

beetle friends

can someone get me this paper. it's for terrorism. www.nature.com/articles/nat...

[silksong spoilers again (end of act 1 screenshot again)]

did synapsids shed their skin like reptiles, and mammals lost it, or was that a later adaptation?

new + reworked [selka] sprites. (the one i was talking about, the new variant of the very, very first sprite with these proportions, is in the lower right.)

fun fact: i actually did chibi versions of the [selka] in the early days of this project. these are my three favorite sprites. and actually the one on the right here was the branching off point for the more fine-boned style i ended up going with!

i was like oh, i got a little iterative and detail oriented with the [wind speaker], i should get a little more gestural and i promptly subconsciously switched to the species for which i'm using actual comparative anatomy and reading papers about synapsid skeletal and muscular anatomy.

modified [selka] archer, with some readability tweaks and altered center of gravity. some work on a new upright pose which is shorter, with some very high density work around the torso and legs to try to convey the pectoral and pelvic structures a little more clearly.

i forget which of their many sudden rightward swings made me cancel but i haven't missed it! cancel your subscription. do you think Nemik would be paying Disney $19.99 a month.

does anyone know why the start menu search in windows 11 not populating results? eg i type cmd, and i want to run cmd in administrator mode. the results don't populate but it actually does run if i hit enter.

proposal to fix the web: find the spiders

perfect timing to have encountered this rebecca solnit quote this morning

more [selka] thumbnail sketches. i think working tiny is nice for feeling out masses.

i've been looking at synapsid shoulder and hip structure and trying to work out poses and how [selka] might carry themselves. masses, tensions, center of mass. they have massive tails, so they would have stances where the feet are further back than ours (counterbalanced) or further forward (prop).

[silksong spoiler- screenshot from end of act 1]

i am working on a few turn order things right now. for instance, what exactly happens if you attack something and it moves?

a thing which is challenging but useful to hold, right now, is that there are many questions about how to practice resilience, make useful political art, protest, etc. and that other people who are aligned with you are also trying to find their way. it's ok that we don't have 100% the same solutions