When I first looked at the photos of your books, I didn’t see the border in between the images and I thought they were all laid out together on the bedspread:
And I was like, holy shit! Those books are tiny!!
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Like Soph the lil bean 
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Update on the magpies!
I hadn’t seen them in weeks, I was already thinking they’d abandoned their nest a second time. But lo! There they are again. Flitting to-and-fro the nest like crazy. I’m guessing they kept hidden close to the nest, brooding on the eggs, and now they’re taking turns foraging.
I’ll keep a close watch on them and tell you when the lil’uns take wing.
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I wish! I can’t actually pick up or hold the large trilogy compilations while reading, so instead I just flop on my bed or a carpet with the book down to read.
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Okay, so I went with a ramjet for a few reasons.
But if anyone wants an answer, then a Saturn jet fighter using an oxygen fuel supply (and using aerodynamics similar to an F-16 jet) can fly about 2 kilometers below the haze layer before stalling out from either lack of lift or choking jet.
For those wanting an Earth comparison, that would be like flying at 90,000 feet (or about 27,500 meters) above sea level.
Because of the energy in hydrogen-oxygen reactions, the jet is also surprisingly economical. Until about 30 kilometers below the haze layer, fuel economy is about what you’d expect (a kilogram-per-second flow rate), but then it’s only like 60 grams per second of fuel around 50 kilometers below, and every tiny spritz of oxygen into the ramjets does quite a lot for acceleration.
(EDIT: I did my best, but the numbers might have some errors. The stuff NASA had available was creating completely nonsensical results, such as backwards thrust when no fuel was sprayed at all. So I used a simpler model, based on a few other sources, but it should follow physics and be maybe 80%-90% efficient. The NASA sources were using a lot of in-house terms without explaining anything, and Google wasn’t finding definitions for some of them, so it was entirely my own errors.)
I think the sheer amount of acceleration being performed would be too intense for a human pilot, but I have robots flying these planes. We’re talking 10 gravities of acceleration here, just for less that 1 gram of oxygen being sprayed into the ramjet.
Of course these things are also flying at Mach 1 (which is like 1,300 meters per second on Saturn, because the speed of sound in hydrogen is almost 4 times faster than air, which means you can go a lot faster without experiencing supersonic effects).
Anyway. Kinda surprised these can’t fly above the haze layer. But that would be like 120,000 feet above sea level (36,500 meters or so). Which is, uh…pretty thin for atmosphere, lol. That’s like 250 times thinner than atmosphere at sea level.
Also I found out that there’s apparently a water cloud layer about 240 kilometers below the haze layer, so I’m thinking there might either be some drones with specialized propellant/fuel, or maybe just a reeeeeeeaaaaaaally long filament, and this could be used to gather oxygen for fuel, without resorting to harvesting the rings.
Anyway…those are my findings, if anyone was curious.
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This wins my jawdrop-aha!-award for the month.
It’s both amazing and of-course-when-you-think-about-it.
Thank you!
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Yay!!
And yeah, it was also something that also made it really difficult to get data. A lot of resources on ramjets are based on experimental results, but all those experiments took place in Earth’s atmosphere, so I had to sorta stumble around and note stuff that like down, and figure out what other things it would affect.
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I snipped my bangs back to a good length with a pair of safety scissors and I’m quite satisfied with the wispy blunt look.
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Despite feeling like an over exerted Project Zomboid character that’s getting crushed to death under the weight of carrying around a can opener because their carry capacity’s dwindled down to 0, I’ve been all snuggled up in my blankets and listening to one of my favourite bands, Rainbow Kitten Surprise.
I’ve been looping ‘All’s Well That Ends’. It’s a sort of atmospheric song in the sense that it feels ‘spacious’ and rumbly and it sort of reminds me of how sound bounces around in my da’s car when he’d drive with the windows cracked slightly on the highway and the cool night air would rush in and rumble. It’s really relaxing.
And I don’t want to die alone, but I don’t wanna die at all
I’m not gonna keep you by the phone, dear
Hang up when you’ve had enough, too much to talk
Call me when you’re coming down, call me when you hang
All is well that ends well, but all is well that ends
Do you wanna know my name?
Is that all you want to take from me?
In your arms, the end is in my eyes
And I don’t want to die in my sleep when you’re left
The story behind the band’s name is really sweet. They went to visit a friend in the hospital- blasted out of his mind on drugs, because of being quite seriously ill, and through a haze of morphine came up with it for them.
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Autoheart is still one of my favourite groups. Music can bring about a great deal of catharsis- because like poetry, it’s a way to feel seen, and understood- and like someone else understands, so you aren’t so alone, and you aren’t so singularly terrible as to have earned your wretched little fate.
I used to blast them on loop through some of the darkest periods of my life. I wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea to pop them on again- Years & Years was a group that I similarly leaned in on when I was going through really painful times, and the evocations stirred up by certain songs really hurt when I played them again. Not a trigger- but a painful little flicker of a memory I thought I’d stomped out years ago.
I’m glad to see that I still like their music- and can listen to it outside of just using it as a double edged soothing mechanism. Lent and Oxford Blood are some of my favourite songs by them.
Should I stay? Should I go? Should I run far away
To the point where I can’t even see the universe?
I know I’m killing time
And baby that’s not fine
You, you feel like Oxford blood
A sedative too much
When the effects of you wear off
I always come for moreLast night I dreamt that we were falling apart
So I insisted we begin at the start
To turn us back into a work of art
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And something a little silly that made me laugh: I never knew that our Kit was the originator of the black-coffee-with-a-blueberry-shot post on Tumblr. It’s one that I’ve jokingly applied as a headcanon to Warren Kepler from one of my favourite audio drama podcasts (a space opera, where he’s a pragmatic, charming silly little man overly fond of dramatic speeches and longwinded stories of his past- long story short…) and we had a brief chat about explaining all of that. Plus, cute kitty pictures! It really is such a small world. I was very cheered up by the fact that hey- I know Kit! That’s a friendly meowmeow from the forums! Like seeing an old elementary school friend in unexpected circumstances.
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My Rose Lamy Safari came in! Nestled next to her Cream brother.
The nib on the Rose writes slightly too thickly to be a EF- it writes more like a F nib. It’s more of a feedback issue than writing wise- most people wouldn’t notice at a first glance, but I do, and it bugs me a little- but not enough to go through the hassle of exchanging the pen. The packaging was lovely- from a local pen shop, that also included a handwritten card and was generously insulated from being jostled about with crinkle shreds and pretty wrapping paper.
I’m happy overall- she’s pink and pretty and here! Oddly, I almost prefer the cream- the matte is quite elegant, but now I have a diary and a draft pen.
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I managed to push through procrastination and actually apply myself at work today.
In addition, the issue behind my Inform 7 bug report was fixed by Graham. I’m happy about that; it feels like the new version of Inform is coming along.
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I remember when I’d buy the occasional (usually remainder-priced) hardcover, I’d always remove the jacket because naked books look better on a shelf, and often they are beautiful under the jacket.
I was weird, but what I’d then do is trim the spine of the jacket with the title and author name into a bookmark for that book, and if the cover art was great I’d trim it down and glue-stick it to the inside of the back cover (or leave it loose if the cover endpapers were delightful.)
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In the past, I’ve bought secondhand terrible books simply for their cover art. $0.25 isn’t much for a tiny unique poster for a teenage nerd’s bedroom wall.
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Found my old birthstone ring (I didn’t wear rings for awhile after a gnarly calling things off) and it’s still as comfy as ever. Also, I can still totally fit earrings in still*, so I’m wearing a diamond floral stud from my grandmother. Bit tricky getting the backing on blind, but we got there in the end.
(*Would not suggest, but the piercing came before my official hemophilia B diagnosis at 14- and I didn’t want it, but it happened. It’s been closed over for some years- last summer I just kinda jammed one in, and this summer was much less painful and just an unsettling pop of skin as it gave way.)
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Genius ideas. I’ve never thought about being so creative with my books.
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Last year, we got a gigantic rainwater tank and all the expensive stuff to live off rainwater instead of our incredibly hard well water that ruins all our faucets. And that was just in time for the worst drought year in decades-- if you look at a drought map of Texas from last month, you’ll see a large dark red circle in the middle of the state indicating the highest level of drought, and we are spang in the middle of that circle. So our rain tank has never been full. It’s never been more than half full, and for much of last year we’d ask ourselves, “Do I really need to wash my hands with actual water right now? Or should I use a wet wipe?” Showers have been very quick affairs here for the last year.
And the last week has been rainy. Not extremely rainy, just regular rainy. And oh joy and rapture-- OUR RAIN TANK IS FULL. All the way to the top. We watched water pour out of the overflow spout down into the creek because it’s so full. Any day where you have a four-month supply of water (6 if we’re really careful) is a good day.
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My brother is getting a little pet fish- the tank has been cycling for some time apparently. He’s letting me borrow one of his mechanical keyboards to take her out for a test drive (before committing to purchasing one for myself) and I’m really loving it so far- it’s super tactile and fun and anything that can be made to glow rainbow is a blast. I’ve been using a super flat keyboard for awhile so it’s really nice to have that feedback and feel how the keys spring back up. I will be keeping the flat one for travel and when I’m studying late at night, since it’s basically impossible to type quietly on this one, but it’s really fun, and makes it a lot more rewarding to write…
Can’t wait to meet the little alien betta he’s scooping up- me and our other brother get the honour of naming the new house pet, as with our last fish named Hamster.
Also spent like two hours crushed beneath the weight of my blankets and blissed out on how lovely it is to be all warm and cozy and tucked in. We’re experiencing a bit of a cold front this summer, paired with a fan I keep running since this room runs about 10 degrees above the rest in the summer and 10 cooler in winter, though it’s not as frigid as the basement, which is mostly glass…
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Sounds like an insulation issue.
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