“i equip my trusty laser revolver. there’s basically no point in it being a revolver and not an automatic pistol except for the aesthetic. honestly it’s just really inconvenient to have only six shots of fuckin light energy at a time but it’s a labor of love for a space cowboy”
ok but consider: capacitors that recharge automatically but not instantly, so in the few seconds between each shot, you have 5 other capacitors to cycle through, leaving the first capacitor ready to fire again by the time it is again aligned with the lens assembly and trigger mechanism.
in that sense, the purpose of a laser revolver’s cylinder would be like the cylinder of a traditional ballistic revolver and more like a rotary barrel assembly (which is used to allow each barrel time to cool down before another round is fired through it, reducing wear-and-tear), though due to the fact that its direct function is to align the ordnance with the weapon assembly, it would still be considered a cylinder, making the weapon properly a revolver.
Yes! I want SCIENCE in my science fiction. Thank you.
i taught a baking class for 12 year olds today and we made your garden variety chocolate chip cookies, but i’m a big believer in Questioning Everything and the who/what/where/why/when/how behind things, so the first part of the class was purposely letting the kids do things the wrong way, to show and explain why we do things the way we do.
“why do we bake cookies at 180 for 9 minutes when we could do 400 for 2 minutes?” -enter the godawful lump of coal with a still gross wet and uncooked inside
“why do we have to scoop out little cookies instead of doing the whole tray?” -ok well that one you can technically do if the spread is even. you just end up with one giant, structurally unsound cookie. “PLEASE CAN WE MAKE GIANT COOKIES” (we did make 1 giant tray cookie)
we talked a lot about why consistency is important, but i don’t think it really hammered home until i said “okay everyone gets ONE cookie, that’s fair, right?” and then handed out cookies of hugely varying sizes. + baked one fat lump of a cookie that still wasn’t done at the 9 minutes, vs the regular one i put in that came out charred by the time the first was actually done.
we also made a row of cookies where each one had one single differing ingredient omitted, like a cookie with no flour, or a cookie with no butter, and laid them all out on a single tray to bake together to see how each ingredient affects the outcome.
two of the little girls added cocoa to their cookie doughs until it matched the colour of each others skin to make best friend cookies, and that almost made me tear up a bit 🥺
got briefly distracted (…for over half an hour…) talking about how eggs form when someone cracked an egg and it had 2 yolks
expertly tolerated being asked how old i am (just turned 31 the other day) which was immediately followed by asking if i watched the moon landing live on tv
was so focused on keeping track of all the kids that in the end i forgot to make a cookie for myself, but it’s ok because one of the girls gave me this
tiny……….
the class went well and they asked if i wanted to do another one in a couple weeks and i said yeah, and they’re taking uh… fuck, what’s the word for inventory when it’s people?? attendance?? whatever, they’re trying to see who’s interested to get a feel of if it’d be 1 three hour class again or if there’s too many kids so we’d do a couple classes. anyways, i love the emails from Concerned Parents.
“will there be knives involved?” we are baking cookies.
“what temperatures does the oven get to/will it be hot enough to burn?” we are baking cookies.
“will there be [insert ingredient used in cookies]?” we are baking cookies.
“are you using fahrenheit or celsius?” ??????? d-does it matter?? it’s going to get Hot. (also celsius; this is ontario)
“are the ovens childproof?” no?? i’m assuming you’re asking if i’m going to let your kids reach into the ovens while i’m staring out a window in another room. i will not be allowing your children to use the ovens. they will not be left unattended.
“why is the library baking class taking place at the high school?” the library does not have 10 ovens. the library does not even have 1 oven. the high school has many ovens.
“what if i don’t want my child to have cookies? can you let her make muffins instead?” this is a baking class for cookies. we are baking cookies.
“cookies aren’t healthy. why don’t you make [insert whatever]” do you know how many cookies i can make with a $40 budget and a trip to the bulk store? we are making cookies.
“who needs a class to bake a cookie, why not teach something more valuable?” IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT THE COOKIES, KAREN, IT’S ABOUT FAMILIARIZING CHILDREN WITH THE ART AND SCIENCE OF BAKING/COOKING/FOOD, ABOUT TRYING NEW THINGS, MAKING MISTAKES AND REALIZING THAT THE MISTAKES ARE NOT ONLY OKAY TO MAKE BUT VALUABLE IN AND OF THEMSELVES, FAMILIARIZING THEM WITH INDEPENDENCE, THE UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THINGS CAN COME TOGETHER TO FORM A NEW AND BETTER WHOLE, ALL WHILE HAVING TRYING TO INJECT A MODICUM OF JOY INTO THEIR LITTLE LIVES. SORRY THAT THERE ARE CONCEPTS AT PLAY YOU CAN’T SEEN TO UNDERSTAND HERE. MAYBE YOU SHOULD COME JOIN AND I’LL LET YOU MAKE A FUCKING COOKIE.
ONE DAY on the clock, with less that 50 sold left to reach the funding goal! Help me make the MAX PLUSH real! You can find it HERE!
Just a few hours left in the campaign with 30 more to go to get it funded! You can find the Max Plush here!
Makeship extended the campaign and gave me a 10% discount code to help it reach its goal! You now have a whopping 12 more days to get a Max plush. Thank you everyone who’s gotten it this far and helped push close to the coal in the home stretch of the campaign!
The discount code is: 63G2SZX7TPGV
Thank you everyone who’s contributed! If you pledged without the discount, that means more support for me and Paranatural. You have my sincere thanks!
Brown junior Mia Tretta was injured in a California school shooting, and sophomore Zoe Weissman was in class next door during the Parkland, Florida, high school massacre.
Dec. 14, 2025, 12:52 AM MST / Updated Dec. 14, 2025, 9:06 AM MST
Amid the scores of fearful and worried students following Saturday’s shooting at Brown University were two who have been here before.
Mia Tretta, 21, was shot in the 2019 mass shooting at Saugus High School, about 40 miles north of Los Angeles. A 16-year-old boy carried out that attack, killing two, including Tretta’s best friend, and injuring three before fatally shooting himself.
Zoe Weissman, 20, attended Westglades Middle School, adjacent to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, when a former student opened fire, killing 17, in 2018.
Have this Zuko I did for Mother’s Day. (Zuko is my mom’s fav)
[image description: a digital illustration of Zuko smiling. He is looking up to where there is a baby turtleduck siting on his head. He has his arms raised to make sure they don’t fall. End id]
Ironically, hard light is bad for recording sexy time.
It will highlight every pore, every vein, every wrinkle on your nutsack.
One day I will end this ring light fad. It is my ultimate side quest.
It seems my lighting advice has given people a mistaken impression…
These outtakes where the flash didn’t go off are also AI generated.
I like this spooky dutch angle one.
I was just starting to learn flash and I didn’t have all the equipment I needed. Since corgis are quite short, I had to put the lighting on the ground. The off camera flash was on a tipped over lightstand with a shoot-through umbrella to diffuse the light.
But I had no wireless triggers. And the only other way to trigger a flash, is with another flash. So I used the on-camera pop up flash to trigger the main flash.
But I had two issues.
First, I did not want that dinky on camera flash affecting my picture.
Second, triggering a flash with a flash is best done indoors. The flash will bounce all around the room and eventually hit the sensor so the main flash triggers. When you are outdoors, there is no bouncing.
SO… I took a little handheld makeup mirror and angled it toward my main flash. This blocked the dinky pop up flash and sent the beam of light towards the main flash to trigger it.
I was lying on the wet morning grass, holding a camera in one hand, a mirror in the other, trying to aim the mirror exactly toward the main flash, making crazy noises to get Otis’s attention, and trying to get the focus point on his face so I didn’t get a blurry photo. Also, Otis was much more interested in sniffing things than posing for a photo.
Here is an overhead view that might help explain.
I await all of your comments saying my amazing drawring is clearly AI generated.
Only 30% of the time did the flash actually go off. Aiming the mirror was tricky and I was doing like 8 things at once. I wasn’t even sure I got the photo I wanted. But when I came back to the computer there was one that stood out and it is one of my favorites I’ve ever taken.
It was the best combination of monumental effort, great discomfort, perfect foggy sunrise light, and just pure luck.
Unfortunately, people like me who use advanced sculpting light techniques are getting accused of using AI more and more. Not really sure what to do about it—other than show the 30 awful photos it took to get the good one.
My 80s sunglasses photo and spoon photo get called out the most.
But it’s just good old fashioned gradient lighting which has been used in product photography since the days of film.
So, no need to be suspicious.
Photography like sirfrogsworth’s is what the fucken AIs were TRAINED on.
My inbox is full of people begging me not to raw dog that muppet.
“It’ll kill you!” They scream. “Overexposure to the deadly muppet hole will poison your body, mind, and soul, my liege!”
Heh. You think I don’t know this? Do you know who I am? Not even the prospect of death could stop me from nutting with all my might into all of the holes of my sweet, sweet Kermit.
Yes, sometimes we use protection. Sometimes we even get out the
and it slows down the poison. But it’s not the same. I NEED it raw. And besides. When I use my True Flesh Rod to pleasure him, I feel us connect. He wants me dead, wants to take over my life, but I know him. He is dear to me. I look into his froggy muppet eyes, pulsing within him, and for a moment, the murderous rage within him is clouded over with pure pleasure.
“MAKE ME MEGNANT,” He howls;
“MUPPET PREGNANT,” He clarifies.
I kiss him on the top of his head as I blast hot, sticky rope inside of him. “I love you,” I whisper, and I almost call him Colter. He hates that name. So instead I call him Kermit.
He doesn’t say anything back. But he does hold me, after.
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