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looking to draw something from your favorite videogame, your rpg characters, fantasy family/pet portraits, and anything else you think would look sick as hell
email me at shaferbrownillus@gmail.com for rates and timeline

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Time to cast off lines and put Cape Town to our rudder as we set sail for Sint Maarten
in reply to Trammell Hudson

"Paquebot" allows mail to be marked "Posted at Sea" along with the coordinates and then delivered postage free by the next port of call.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Successfully climbed the 699 steps of the Saint Helena "Jacob's Ladder", enjoyed the view, and then climbed back down since there isn't much to do atop Ladder Hill.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

After a busy morning of unfurling and rigging work, we have sailed off our anchor and are making way towards Sint Maarten.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Enjoyed the sunset over the south Atlantic while finishing the fore mast stun sail rigging. Won't hoist them until morning, however.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Moved the outer sheets and other lines from port to starboard during the morning watch.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

The waxing moonlight is nearly strong enough to read by during the quiet night watches.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Found a point of chaffing on the ratlines and installed some antichaff that will last until we lower the halyard at sunset (and will try to find a better lead during the night watch)
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Sunset means it's time to douse the stunsails from the fore- and mainmasts and to prepare for the night watch.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

This time it worked! The overhauled gear on the main course and awkward hoisting position on the sloop deck makes it challenging to thread the Swedish furled stunsail and yard through a narrow window of staysail sheets.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

I love the way the gear, topping lifts and footropes can be seen in silhouette through the sails.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Prepared to wear ship during the maintenance watch by shackling blocks for the port stunsail gear to the mainmast yards and mousing them closed for safety.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

First visual contact by the lookout in a week as we approach the TSS near the coast of Brazil. We hope the northerner ocean currents will help carry us through the doldrums if the winds fail.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Enjoyed a beautiful full moon rise at sunset as we continue our run westward on a port tack towards the Brazilian coast.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Learning how to turn a three lead decorative knot into a five lead version is tricky but doable during a quiet watch.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Finally finished the French spiral and decorative knotwork on the foredeck ladder handrails using the bosun needle.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

And then relaxed on the fore royal yard to enjoy Sailors Sunday before evening watch starts.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Just before sunrise we lashed down the mainmast stunsail booms for the last time, marking the end of the broad reach of our Atlantic crossing as we switch to a downwind run north for the rest of the voyage (with both port and starboard stunsails set on the foremast)
This entry was edited (5 months ago)
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Unbent the heavy main course and tied the lighter weight "tropics sail" (480g/m2) onto the yard as we approach the equator.
This entry was edited (5 months ago)
in reply to Trammell Hudson

At sunrise we could just make out the buildings of Natal and nearby cities.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Enjoying the Vapor Wave aesthetic this sunrise, mostly since it means we're almost done with this watch and can go eat breakfast.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

We paused during the stunsail hoisting to appreciate the actual sunrise.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Noon sight just below the equator during the equinox means the sun is nearly 89° overhead and shadows are almost straight down.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Nearly two knots of northward current as we transit the doldrums at the equator, which means that around a third of our distance per day is not coming from our sails.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

1°S and the sun is directly overhead, making the nearly windless downwind run even hotter.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

One last night watch to enjoy the southern stars before we cross into the northern hemisphere.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

And we're past the equator on a fast beam reach! The line crossing ceremony will be later today once all the watches are awake.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Although the northern trade winds mean we will be on a beam reach for the rest of voyage, so we can properly furl the stun sails for stowage, unreeve the gear, and ship the booms inboard to lash them securely to the yards.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

We encountered squalls during the night watch and doused the skysail plus the main and mizzen royals. This also helped reduce the heeling.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Since crossing the equator we've been seeing more sargasso and am curious how the winds and currents create such long straight lines.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Be careful tightening the course tack on the capstan or you might be going aloft to repair the head lashing.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Chaffing inspection found wear between the main upper topsail halyard and a backstay deadeye. The three sheave block will need to be relocated next time the yard is down.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Due to the heeling and the waves we have moved the lookout station to the sloopdeck.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Steady winds on a beam reach means we set all the mainmast stay sails, including the "deckswabber".
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Just before sunrise the orders came for "more canvas!" So we laid aloft to release the clew gasket and unfurl the mizzen top gallant.
in reply to Trammell Hudson

Sunrise was spectacular with the waning crescent moon coming above the horizon just before dawn.


Sarah O'Connor (FT) warns students taking up AI to get them through their studies may be counter-productive;

Good careers depend on employees being able to demonstrate they add value & if they depend on AI to deliver what they claim to know, why would employers not just 'employ' artificial intelligence directly?

While clinging to AI might be understandable in a time of student stress & anxiety, educators (universities) should help them resist the siren call of AI!

I completely concur!

#AI

#ai
in reply to Emeritus Prof Christopher May



✨ HIRE ME ✨

I'm a Full Stack software engineer with 5+ years of experience, looking for my next opportunity. My personal values include psychological safety, D&I, and direct communication.

Please share for reach ❤

docs.google.com/document/d/11R…



#Mutualaid for March

Made 70% of last month's goal—thank you to everyone who helped make it happen.

If y'all contribute $162/day we'll be able to meet the goal this month!

18 of you are monthly patrons, which is a KEY way to help us get financially stable ♥️

0/5000

ko-fi.com/nullagent

cashapp/venmo: nullagent

@nat #blackmutualaid #mutualaidrequest #blackmastodon #helpfolkslive2025 #queermutualaid #solidarity #crowdfunding #mutualaidsaveslives #blacklivesmatter #reparations

in reply to nullagent

#Mutualaid for March

Just $10 bucks away from covering the PO box renewal fee. Thanks so much for the help so far!

Having been housing insecure for a bit having a PO box is a tremendous safety net so I really appreciate the help maintaining that.

$245 / $5000

ko-fi.com/nullagent

cashapp/venmo: nullagent

@nat #blackmutualaid #mutualaidrequest #blackmastodon #helpfolkslive2025 #queermutualaid #solidarity #crowdfunding #mutualaidsaveslives #blacklivesmatter #reparations

in reply to nullagent

Thanks so much for the support so far this month!

We making slow progress on our March fundraising goal, can we break $500 before this weekend? We've got a couple bills (cell phone and credit card) due in the next few days.

So far y'all have really helped me survive capitalism while taking time to focus on our tiny human and look after my partner as they recover from childbirth.

$245 / $5000

Cashapp / Venmo / Paypal $nullagent

#MutualAidRequest #Parenting #BlackMastodon #HelpPeopleLive2025

This entry was edited (6 months ago)
in reply to nullagent

URGENT:

Our phone and other bills are due tomorrow. Hoping for some help raising $250 by the 15th.

c/v: nullagent

ko-fi.com/nullagent

#MutualAidRequest #helpfolkslive2025

in reply to nullagent

URGENT:

Our phone and other bills are due today. We raised about 30% of what we need for bills this weekend. Just $175 to go, can you help us get across the finish line?

$238 / $250

c/v: nullagent

ko-fi.com/nullagent

#MutualAidRequest #Helpfolkslive2025 #BlackLivesMatter

This entry was edited (5 months ago)
in reply to nullagent

URGENT #MutualAid

We're urgently needing to send in our rent check, but there's more.

With @nat's postpartum depletion, I'm falling behind on work, and we need childcare ASAP to start catching up.

We got to 70% of our Feb goal; this month we're only 15% of the way.

So right now we need a HUGE push. I have over 4k followers and 18 monthly subscribers. If even 1% of y'all made a monthly donation, that would double my monthly patrons.

ko-fi.com/nullagent

#blackmutualaid

in reply to nullagent

PS Thanks so much for your boosts and support. Got some racist hate on my fundraising posts this week. I really appreciate y'all recognizing that it's fucking hard to ask for help and it means a lot when this community comes thru for us.

cashapp/venmo/wise: nullagent

ko-fi.com/nullagent

#blackmutualaid #MutualAidRequest #racism #blackmastodon #helpfolkslive2025 #blacklivesmatter #MutualAidSavesLives

in reply to nullagent

EXTREMELY URGENT MUTUAL AID

Trying to send rent check TODAY but we still need $1920 (have $450 on hand). I know a lot of people are struggling and don't have much to give, but if you're able to help, it would mean SO much.

Help a Black activist & my partner & baby!

450/2220

cashapp: nullagent

venmo.com/u/nullagent

#BlackMastodon #MutualAidRequest #helpfolkslive2025 #mosstodon #lichensubscribe

This entry was edited (5 months ago)

Trivial Einstein reshared this.


in reply to luce !!!

@luce !!!

In today's society The Bible is a book people can hold in their hands. So it is not as obvious to them that The Bible is not a book but is a collection of books. Revelation 22:18 is referring to the book of Revelation not the entire collection of books.

As to whether the Catholics added Apocrypha or it was removed by the Protestants is really of no concern to me. I am an Atheist, more specifically a Secular Buddhist and have no horse in the race. Though it is nice for people to practice tolerance and allow everyone to believe as they choose to believe.



Interesting how you can confuse people by calling a spreadsheet a spreadsheet instead of "an excel".


chat, and let's be very civil about this; Anyone not behaving will be blocked:

What debian flavor should I try out? Keep in mind my laptop is a 2-in-1 with touch and a fingerprint sensor

in reply to Mia Rose 🎸 | Pretty Cat

as much as i might be killed for this, Ubuntu

regular Ubuntu works just fine, and the annoyances can be removed with 5 minutes of your time

in reply to Makura

i personally daily drive Ubuntu and like… it’s fine

it’s nothing to write home about. but it isn’t broken or “bad” it just works ive had no real issues with it other than my own fuckups

in reply to Mia Rose 🎸 | Pretty Cat

@Mia Rose Winter

The latest version of Debian will be just fine. Is there a reason you are limiting yourself to just Debian derivatives?



Congratulations to Gints Zilbalodis and the entire Flow film crew for the Academy Award win!

Flow is the manifestation of Blender’s mission, where a small independent team is able to create a story that moves audiences worldwide.

Thank you for the shout out! 🧡 #b3d

#b3d

Unus Nemo reshared this.


in reply to Chewie

@Chewie @A Sweet Gentleman

Keeping Snow Off Solar Panels

Personally, I prefer the Install a heating system solution. It involves less labor on my part. Who, wants to be out in the cold brushing Snow off your Solar Panels?



glHack - a port of the game NetHack, using hardware acceleration via OpenGL(R) to render the 2D tile graphics. glHack is just one of the many NetHack front-ends. archivegame.org/glhack/ #game #rpg #linux #bsd #unix

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in reply to ArchiveOS

Hardware Acceleration. Nethack. 2025.

*rubs back of nose with thumb and index finger*

I guess this was totally needed with current CPUs. And this truly demanding game.

in reply to Christian

@Christian @ArchiveOS lol, I felt the same. Though I am sure it gave some developer their start in using OpenGL.


Flow just won Best Animated Picture at the #Oscars. A film made in #Blender

They shouted out @Blender during the acceptance speech.

This is a great achievement for Open Source.

youtube.com/watch?v=edcULvPtKD…



There's a real chance millions of women voters will be disenfranchised soon. That's certainly the goal.

It is true: The proposed nazi SAVE Act, now considered a priority for Republicans in the House, will make it harder, if not practically impossible, for millions of women to vote.

newrepublic.com/article/191420…

#usa #stopthecoup

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retrocomputing, heads up about a bad vendor

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Pokémon, Linux Distro, Star Wars, or Baseball?

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in reply to 4 8 15 16 23 42

re: Pokémon, Linux Distro, Star Wars, or Baseball?

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in reply to 4 8 15 16 23 42

re: Pokémon, Linux Distro, Star Wars, or Baseball?

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Finished V2 of the truncated icosahedron, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. The sides are 32 hexagonal and pentagonal PCBs, joined by 3D printed corner connectors and covered with 3D printed diffusers. The pixels are mapped and it's running 3D animation patterns on a #pixelblaze.

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Yesterday I figured I'd try setting up something I could use to work with my critique group. I was looking for collaborative editing, chat, etc. Nextcloud looked like a good candidate, so I gave it a go.

Well, Nextcloud is obviously designed to be an enterprise solution. That thing repeatedly hammered my poor little VPS into the ground on the simplest of operations. I took it out and restored Mattermost, which is great for chatting with a curated group and some other Slack-like tasks, but doesn't support collaborative editing.

The search continues.

#NextCloud #GoogleDocs #Mattermost #collaboration


in reply to Ravensrod 🫖 🍰



Sometimes the question comes up if we have any DNS servers to point at. The answer is no, we only do authoritative DNS (for now anyways :neocat_3c:).

There are multiple other projects that do recursive DNS in the EU or based out of the EU though, like
- quad9.net (@quad9dns)
- mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-h… (@mullvadnet)
- stats.ffmuc.net/d/tlvoghcZk/do… (@freifunkMUC)
- digitalcourage.de/support/zens… (website in German, @digitalcourage)

european-alternatives.eu/alter… also has some more




We all need a bit o' peace and quiet.

So, until April 30th, you can grab a lil old-timey queer romance of mine, that I wrote specifically to escape the world into, for free.

Use the coupon "APBZF" on Smashwords, and get Red Castello for free.

smashwords.com/books/view/1389…

#RedCastello #Reading #Promotion




This little ferret is practicing for a catnapping examination. :blobcatfluffowo:


A Confused Country




gnome 47 is so beautiful with the new accent color thing
in reply to jade

@jade It is funny, when Gnome was initially released in 1999 as an Open Source Alternative to KDE (which had just released in 1998) I was not impressed. It was lack luster and was missing a lot of features that I thought I wanted. Later on I decided that having all those features I never used was not so great. I have been using Gnome as my preferred Desktop Environment for decades now. I have tried many others and really am not impressed. I am not likely to change DE anytime soon.
@jade




“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”
theguardian.com/media/2017/feb…

in reply to Esther Schindler

Try posting lots of photos of Ukranian churches. I've found MAGA don't know anything about the history of Christianity in Ukraine (or elsewhere.)





Would you like to see a restaurant doggo? Of course you would. He’s a ginger eyebrow dog, and everyone knows those are very good dogs



Trump Signs Executive Order Making Official Language Of U.S. Remedial English
theonion.com/trump-signs-execu…

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I have never been more ashamed to be an American.
in reply to Jennifer

@Jennifer I Have never been proud or ashamed of an accident of birth. I did not chose nor have any influence in being America. Nationalism is just another form of prejudice.

I am proud of the fact that I voted against what is transpiring today in America. That I did everything I could do to avoid it. It is unfortunate that I failed; though I did what I could reasonably do.

If you also have done what you could then you have no reason to be embarrassed. You did the right thing. We are not responsible for the rash and irresponsible behavior of others. Even if we must live with their mistakes.

We can get through these four years together. Stay strong.
Take Care