The origin of oxygen

There’s a bit of a persistent rumour getting around on internet and extranet circles. Actually far too many, but today’s lucky topic is the notion that plants produce oxygen from carbon dioxide.

It’s a simple enough story. We know that photosynthesis consumes carbon dioxide, and produces surplus oxygen. Since CO₂ quite obviously contains O₂, well, there’s not even anything to question.

Except that photosynthesis has a few more aspects than just these two gases, and the whole system isn’t an atomic process.[1] Fortunately you don’t need to be within arm’s reach of …

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The packaging hypothesis

Let’s suppose you have a box. Ideally this is no mere supposition but you actually have a box nearby right now. If you don’t, you’ve surely had one at some point, so in that case we’ll talk about that box.

Boxes are made for storing things. You can put all sorts of things inside your box. You could even put another box inside it.

And you needn’t stop there. Another box can go inside your boxed box, or you could even put multiple boxes alongside each other inside the original box. All manner of boxes …

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Capricorn leaves capricorn

27 May marked a momentous Monday for people who ascribe significance to the interval between 22 December and 19 January everywhere, as it was on this day that Capricorn left Capricorn.[1]

“What?”

For those suitably stocked up on the applicable jargon, it was on this date that the point on the ecliptic with right ascension 20h referenced to B1875, and demarcating the western edge of Capricornus, now has an ecliptic longitude greater than 300°. Armed with this knowledge, you can go do something else now.

“Huh?”

Okay, so we need to step back a bit. Then step back another …

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What’s great about Xiphosura

In the last few years I’ve moved more and more towards theming my general online presence around horseshoe crabs. There’s a general reason for that, and to properly honour horseshoe crabs for what they are, it deserves to be explained.

First, we have to start at the beginning. Or, the best we lesser specimens can know of the beginning. Back around the late Ordovician, at least 445 million years ago[1], there was a chelicerate currently called Lunataspis, which looked something like this:

stippled drawing of an animal with a flat, round body and narrow tail

Reconstruction of external exoskeletal morphology of Lunataspis aurora. Figure 5 from [Rudkin2008].

Fast forward 445 …

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A new, (pseudo-)static site

It’s been a long, long time coming – years, really – but at long last I have a site I can maybe take enough pride in to use seriously and keep everything together. At least, theoretically; because strictly as I write this the site for it to appear on does not quite yet exist. I have spent weeks on development and testing though, with uncharacteristic productivity, so it should be all ready to go live more-or-less pending only these words.

For a while I’ve wanted to bring my various shenanigans together in a unified site that would present it appropriately …

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Limulus lotus

It’s no secret that I like and respect horseshoe crabs – for reasons that deserve to elaborated on some time. So when someone shared this CRABTCHA, I had no choice but to respond “Front and centre where it belongs 🧘‍♂️”

Happy World Ocean Day now prove you are not a robot.

(This CRABTCHA is brought to you by @jopabinia.bsky.social and yours truly.)

spoof captcha telling people to click on images containing crabs, but the images are of various true crabs and false crabs

franz

To which came the response “I'd like to see a horseshoe crab attempt a lotus position.”

Well, challenge accepted.

A horseshoe crab on a sandy surface, with its body upright. Unless someone told you, you wouldn’t notice the lowest pair of legs are crossed.

Phone picking

Lockpicking a phone through the USB port

How to unlock a phone

A silly idea I’d had for a while, made manifest over the Easter weekend.

This particular picture holds the dubious honour of being suspected to be “AI art that somehow knew how to make hands.” Or “probably traced off a real image.”

I confess – as a possessor of two hands, I did dare to glance at them a few times throughout.

Asteroid outpost

Some sort of complex built on and around an asteroid. A large spaceship is docked to it at the left.

This picture began all the way back in April 2023. I painted the rock fairly quickly and sketched some bits of station stuff, but it didn’t look all that great and was forgotten not long after. Fast forward to the very end of that year when it was spontaneously unforgotten, and I reworked the sketch into something decent. Then kept on sketching and outlining until, in the end, the actual process of painting the complex amounted to duplicating those hours of effort by doing little more than colouring in the fairly rough lines. Oops.

All in all, 283 days …

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The drunken master

The words “Behold! The drunken master!”, below which are a Tyrannosaurus with an alcoholic beverage and a pair of cliff racers

Morrowind is a game where you can consume vast quantities of sujamma. No further explanation is warranted or necessary.

Somehow I included Red Mountain but neglected the Ghostfence. I have no comment.

2023 inktober roundup

Last year was nice and all, but by the end of it I thought, this is nothing like what I ‘usually’ (implies free time) do; if part of the goal is to practise then next time I should do something more in line with my typical approach. So, more about shapes and shading than lines and stark contrast.

Hence were born the RULES:

  • one hour

  • one layer

  • one colour

  • one scale

  • one attempt

Basically a bunch of things to focus on streamlining the drawing process and not get hung up on diversions. It’s not really ‘ink’ besides the lack …

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