AAAAHH

(To see what my aquarium looked like over a year ago, click here)

(If you want to see how it started, click here)

Two years on and my filterless biosphere is alive and supporting life. It has persisted and continued to grow even during long months of my absence. The only maintenance I give it is occasionally topping up the water (using tap water that has sat long enough to lose any chlorine, if any existed in the first place). I also feed it now, because I have four little fish swimming around in there.

I am not sure what type of fish these are, but I think they are rasporas. They are TINY. Only a couple centimeters each! I put a lot of faith in my aquarium to support these guys, and I was right in the end. I don’t test my water anymore–haven’t been motivated to do so. In this case, two+ years of ecosystem building paid off. There is more than enough of a biological filter to sustain my small school of fish. Even when I was not actively feeding the tank with flakes, the cycle sustained itself on snail poop and rotting plants. If there is any nitrogen left over, my pothos clipping likely sucks it up. I *should* probably test just to make sure there isn’t a slow buildup of some harmful substance, but for now the tank seems completely stable.

I got these fish back in December, so they have survived a whole month at this point. The little fishies were pretty nervous when I first added them. They zoomed around the glass perimeter and stuck together like a cabal. Now, they venture freely. They like to stay near the top of the water column, probably in search of food. They peck at little specks that pass them by, but I do not know if there are any microorganisms for them to actually eat. Every few days, I feed them crushed fish flakes that my grandmother left when she stayed here. The fish are so small that even a single crushed up flake provides a feast! The fish dart to the surface like sharks and yank the floating debris from the top of the tank. No names have been given to them.

The tank itself is overgrown. At first, I tried to prune any shoots that wandered in front of the tank, but the plants kept marching even after I left. Huge fronds now block the central “stage” of the tank, but I am not sour about it. The tank looks more natural now, and the rock is still visible behind. The gravel bottom is covered in a hairy film of algae that the shrimp and snails seem to ignore in favor of easier food. Most of the val leaves are covered in tiny white specks which I imagine are either snail eggs, bite marks, or dust. I wonder, do the rasporas eat the snail eggs as a supplemental snack?

The floral inhabitants of the aquarium has changed as species die off, but the diversity remains. The old lamp bulb died at some point, so I replaced it with another I had on hand that wasn’t quite the right wattage. It seems too intense, but I really don’t know. Either way, the all the duckweed turned white and died. I now understand why some people hate duckweed. Though the plant has died, the corpses remain. Skeletal white eyesores clinging like a film to everything at the top of the tank… The horn wort, which once grew incredibly thick and expanded constantly, turned brown and shed its needles. That is gone too. The last of the hornwort needles are breaking down at the bottom of the tank. My primary clump of dwarf hairgrass grew up huge then turned brown and died away. It exists still, but less vigorous. Strands of blades still poke out of the gravel in spots, though it seems to enjoy growing right up against the glass. In fact, a lot of the plants seem to prefer trailing the sides of the tank. I have two theories for this: the wandering shoots either bump up into the glass and remain, or the gravel next to the glass has more pockets so it is easier to send roots downward into the soil layer.

To replace the fallen species are a few new plants. A hitchhiker algal vine that looks like a fuzzy stem has been weaving itself throughout the tank. It came with one of the animals, possibly the amano shrimp. I also have some floating frogbit to replace the lost hornwort. I picked up the frogbit alongside the rasporas, and it has already grown two new floating islands! Some of the leaves are already yellowing, however, so I am afraid it may meet the same fate as the duckweed. The store I picked it up from had a canopy of frogbit covering most of the tank, and there were crabs living on it. I would LOVE to build a crab tank with a lush floating island of stems and plants.

A pothos clipping placed against the tank has sent roots all the way downward into the soil. The terrestrial side of the plant doesn’t grow too much, so I wonder if nitrogen is a limiting factor. Maybe the plant can detect that it will fall out of the tank and die if it gets too top heavy?

In short, all is well. I am moving out of my parent’s basement again in about a week, so the tank will be left to its own devices. I am going to ask my brother to feed the fish, but I do not have much faith honestly. In the meantime, I will try to give these fishies the best life possible. Maybe I will run and pick them up some brine shrimp to hunt?

新年好!

I miss you every day. I hope you are well, and I hope you find ways to make the passing days feel special. Your time has come!

I originally came on to AI generated art because of an article published in the NY Times a few days ago. In the article, Frank Pavich, director of the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, shows a series of images that look like they are ripped directly out of an amazingly costumed and fantastically designed Tron move from the 80s. He then reveals that these images came from a movie that does not exist–an AI generated them! And apparently, the fake scenes were created using Midjourney, the same generator I have been using.

I tried the keywords “Jodorowsky’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” To get something a little more beautiful, I will need to describe a specific scene or setting. Obscure media is sometimes lost on Midjourney, however.

Stålenhag-esque subject and composition.

My favorite aspect of AI generated art so far is the ability to specify an artist. If the AI recognizes the artist’s name, it will attempt to render the piece in that artist’s style. Jean Giraud Moebius, for example, gives amazingly crisp landscapes with bright, almost cell shaded colors. Others work less well. I tried “Van Gogh” and got a shitty aproximation of the artist’s brushy pointalism. It looked like a child’s rendition. Perhaps with some refinement on my end, however, I could select the right keywords to produce the desired level of style. I haven’t tried to specify specific eras or real pieces as points of reference yet. If the AI is sophisticated enough, those details could produce something work looking at.

My adventures in Midjourney have revealed to me vistas beautiful and strange.

“You cannot write for children. They’re much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.”

Maurice Sendak

from Muddy Colors!

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to apply for the role of financial analyst with your prestigious firm.

I believe my skillset and background in finance and computer science closely aligns with the requirements of this position. At Cornell University, I closely studied and developed an affinity to microinvestment in developing countries. In Colombia, my family worked closely with former women captives of The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a US-designated terror organization. Through the work of our dedicated team, we helped these women establish businesses for their handmade goods and connected them to global marketplaces. Using my technology background, I was able to build a web presence for these individuals complete with online point of sale and social media.

My time in Colombia gave me a deep appreciation for service. I want to continue to impact global communities by driving finance that advances the bottom line and promotes global equity.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to being able to discuss what I can offer Goldman Sachs further in an interview.

Sincerely,

CLICK HERE

Thought of this while watching Avatar: The Way of Water.

Translated from Russian.

In Better Than Wolves, time expands before you. You see a vastness of experience that you have never imagined.

Mockingjay, the movie, is really cool. Kid me didn’t give the Hunger Games film trilogy a fair shot because I was still high off the masterpiece that is the original novels. I started reading Battle Royal (basically a 1999 Lord of the Flies x Hunger Games crossover, and also the book adaptation of PUBG) last week, so we decided to start watching on a whim. The third movie is particularly striking; it is a claustrophobic war film told from inside a subterranean fortress. Occasional outings into the surface wilderness or a battlefield are our only windows into the real world. The rest is told through propaganda and transmissions, like a war game.

There is one really cringe part though. After filming Katniss Everdeen’s lived battlefield trauma to create a propaganda piece. They show the final product on screen, a film within a film (kind of neat actually). A few minutes earlier, we saw Katniss shoot down a plane with an arrow, which is sick btw. Gale doesn’t even bat an eye, which is really poor character writing because the real Gale would be popping the fuck off at that. Anyway, the propaganda piece played for the audience in District 13 include a shot of Katniss shooting down the plane, but this shot is the same one that we (the literal viewers) saw a few minutes before. This is jarring because it implies that the camera used to film the Mockingjay movie physical object is momentarily one and the same with the in-universe film crew creating the propaganda. If we think about it too hard, we realize this can’t be true–the crew was not buzzing around Katniss during the battle scene. Nor could they have gotten that same exact angle. And even if they could have scurried up to Katniss and gotten that perfect angle… the fact that it is the same shot as the one we just saw makes us think of all of this in the first place.

Is it really the same shot? I’m not actually 100% certain, but I certainly got a cheesy vibe from it while watching. I had to rewind. The issue with having a movie, especially a novice/purposely shitty movie inside a movie is that the viewer is suddenly given time to reflect on the mechanics of their own viewing experience. Or maybe I just have a college degree that arbitrarily makes me think of this stuff for no practical purpose.

So, once again the pollsters and the pundits were wrong. The repubbies didn’t sweep. In fact, congress is now perfectly locked between a democrat senate and a repubbie house. If you remember high school history class, you know that that means a law cannot be passed in this country until both parties agree to it. So, in essence, the mechanics of the grid lock have changed internally but the practical effect is the same: Biden isn’t going to have very many bills to sign on his desk.

But the big picture is inspiring: American’s aren’t swayed by the white nationalists to the extent that we were screamed at about. In fact, I think we could have won this thing if the dogma machine didn’t try to repress all policy driven discussion…. that said, maybe all the talk of fighting the fascists really did mean something to people.

Regardless, there is now no more excuse.

“Voters rewarded Democrats for protecting the lives and livelihoods of struggling families in a pandemic; modernizing infrastructure, not just talking about it; allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices; capping insulin costs for older Americans; making tax-dodging corporations pay up on billions in profit; lowering carbon emissions and reducing utility bills; and canceling student debt for over 40 million Americans.” – Liz Warren

BASICALLY, POLICY WORKS. There is no more excuse. We have to fight zombie Reaganomics with real ideas and policies for our legislators to implement. We must DEMAND action over words! Seriously, we cannot bicker about these asinine ideas anymore. In Kentucky, they voted to shoot down abortion restrictions, republican senators are just fucking wrong and lying. Mitch McConnel is actually talking out of his asshole when he says that banning abortion is an issue of national importance. His own state can’t even commit. Americans don’t want to ban abortion, but Americans do want SOLUTIONS. Solutions to problems like inflation, energy, jobs, the future of a dying planet. I swear to fucking god, the republicucks want to be lead by a good daddy so badly. They want a good leader so badly that they are electing TV stars. BE THE LEADER AMERICANS SEEK! DON’T LET PAYED ACTORS FILL THE ROLE FOR YOU YOU STUPID INBRED

Ok enough of that. Basically, don’t let complacency win. Hammering home that educating a generation of productive, intelligent, creative, and motivated kids is as valuable as ever before. If we as a nation want to make stuff again and be self reliant, if we do not want to be beholden to tyrants in other countries, then we need smart people willing to step up to the task of actually literally making America great again. That can be you and me. That can be older people. That can be a new generation of kids. We need to invest in that though. It isn’t going to magically happen by banning abortion and declaring the USA a Christian state.

We are paying for it after all. Easy to forget that part.

Republicans are going to try to gum up the legislature until 2024. Let’s make that hard for them. Threaten them with your ballot. Voting is proving more powerful with each election. More people are doing it than ever before. Then, we can focus on the true enemy, the Deep State Democrat Industrial War Oligarchy.

“I have no sexual habits whatsoever. None.”
– Leto II, the God Emperor