Mark Eichin
@eichin.bsky.social
I've called "recognizing the powers of two in unusual forms" Computational Numerology before ("why is this trying to sleep for a month and a half? wait, 4294967 looks familiar...")
February 10, 2026 at 7:17 AM
I've called "recognizing the powers of two in unusual forms" Computational Numerology before ("why is this trying to sleep for a month and a half? wait, 4294967 looks familiar...")
And it did kill a lot of the companies that advertised the concept at the superbowl...
February 9, 2026 at 5:25 PM
And it did kill a lot of the companies that advertised the concept at the superbowl...
That island looks like a giant sea otter head looming over the horizon (pareidolia or just the tiniest bit of photoshop? :-)
February 9, 2026 at 5:40 AM
That island looks like a giant sea otter head looming over the horizon (pareidolia or just the tiniest bit of photoshop? :-)
Reposted by Mark Eichin
I never noticed this either.
February 8, 2026 at 7:09 PM
I never noticed this either.
And then *keep going*. We need salt flat races of ThunderSteeds big enough to jump semis!
February 8, 2026 at 8:02 PM
And then *keep going*. We need salt flat races of ThunderSteeds big enough to jump semis!
(oops, missed that this was 2 days old, sorry; had the tabs open from getting the numbers for an offline friend :-)
February 8, 2026 at 8:31 AM
(oops, missed that this was 2 days old, sorry; had the tabs open from getting the numbers for an offline friend :-)
(so if you stripped down the ISS to just solar → GPUs → heat removal (no batteries, no life support), you could run 300ish A100s (assuming the hardware to plug them in is "free".)
February 8, 2026 at 8:28 AM
(so if you stripped down the ISS to just solar → GPUs → heat removal (no batteries, no life support), you could run 300ish A100s (assuming the hardware to plug them in is "free".)
www.nasa.gov/image-articl... confirms that's the solar array "The space station’s solar arrays contain a total of 262,400 solar cells and cover an area of about 27,000 square feet (2,500 square meters) — more than half the area of a football field" not the ATCS
Solar Arrays on the International Space Station - NASA
Expedition 43 Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency (ESA) photographed the giant solar arrays on the International Space Station on Feb. 12, 2015.
www.nasa.gov
February 8, 2026 at 8:21 AM
www.nasa.gov/image-articl... confirms that's the solar array "The space station’s solar arrays contain a total of 262,400 solar cells and cover an area of about 27,000 square feet (2,500 square meters) — more than half the area of a football field" not the ATCS
Why so huge? Is it just *entirely* uncompressed?
February 8, 2026 at 7:57 AM
Why so huge? Is it just *entirely* uncompressed?
(I did not have ice cream! Since we had proper fluffy French Toast Alert snow, ...)
February 7, 2026 at 11:56 PM
(I did not have ice cream! Since we had proper fluffy French Toast Alert snow, ...)
Just need a winter version and DC will have no trouble getting medals
February 7, 2026 at 6:53 PM
Just need a winter version and DC will have no trouble getting medals
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Cre... (first Saturday in February, ie. today)
Ice Cream for Breakfast Day - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
February 7, 2026 at 6:32 AM
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Cre... (first Saturday in February, ie. today)
"She's filing her nails while they're dragging the laaaaaake..."
February 6, 2026 at 11:56 PM
"She's filing her nails while they're dragging the laaaaaake..."
it wasn't directly what I wanted to do (draw from imagination) but it got me to stop starting with "cats have four legs" because in most pictures, they *don't* (obvious in retrospect! probably even obvious to you! but it really opened things up for me, as another late starter.) Good luck!
February 6, 2026 at 9:15 PM
it wasn't directly what I wanted to do (draw from imagination) but it got me to stop starting with "cats have four legs" because in most pictures, they *don't* (obvious in retrospect! probably even obvious to you! but it really opened things up for me, as another late starter.) Good luck!
Everyone's path is different, but one thing that helped me get the difference between drawing what a thing *is* and what it *looks like* was practice looking at drawings and photos rather than objects - in my case, starting with internet cat pictures and copying little features one at a time...
February 6, 2026 at 9:11 PM
Everyone's path is different, but one thing that helped me get the difference between drawing what a thing *is* and what it *looks like* was practice looking at drawings and photos rather than objects - in my case, starting with internet cat pictures and copying little features one at a time...
Even literally writing "Imagine a picture of ..." (and not involving AI at all) is going to express more closely what you intend, by not having layers of loss...
February 6, 2026 at 9:04 PM
Even literally writing "Imagine a picture of ..." (and not involving AI at all) is going to express more closely what you intend, by not having layers of loss...
Important Pierogi News!
IMPORTANT OLYMPIC NEWS:
THE POLISH FIGURE SKATING TEAM HAS A PLUSH PIEROGI
THE POLISH FIGURE SKATING TEAM HAS A PLUSH PIEROGI
February 6, 2026 at 5:43 PM
Important Pierogi News!
As it is understood in Massachusetts: "turn signals reveal information to the enemy." (As with street name signs.) The *moderate* form is "turn signals are a post-lane-change victory sign :-)
February 6, 2026 at 5:36 PM
As it is understood in Massachusetts: "turn signals reveal information to the enemy." (As with street name signs.) The *moderate* form is "turn signals are a post-lane-change victory sign :-)
It's hard to beat "Actual WWII" for military aesthetics (though Pacific Rim did an excellent job.) But I really like Drive's shipcrafting consistency mixed with *character* form diversity!
February 6, 2026 at 5:16 PM
It's hard to beat "Actual WWII" for military aesthetics (though Pacific Rim did an excellent job.) But I really like Drive's shipcrafting consistency mixed with *character* form diversity!
As the article says, "Its energy efficiency is “still lower than conventional vapor-compression-based air conditioning,”" but apparently the issue there is that it's a *mechanical* system and some of the inefficiency (that they're working on) is turning electricity into force...
February 5, 2026 at 10:36 PM
As the article says, "Its energy efficiency is “still lower than conventional vapor-compression-based air conditioning,”" but apparently the issue there is that it's a *mechanical* system and some of the inefficiency (that they're working on) is turning electricity into force...
Reposted by Mark Eichin
<Don'tSayThisIsCoolDon'tSayThisIsCoolDon'tSayThisIsCoolDon'tSayThisIsCool> D'oh!
Ooh my latest article for @spectrum.ieee.org has been published! It's on a refrigerant-free freezer, developed by researchers at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) 👩🔬🧪⚛️
spectrum.ieee.org/subzero-elas...
spectrum.ieee.org/subzero-elas...
Researchers Achieve Sub-Zero Cooling Without Harmful Refrigerants
A new elastocaloric device can freeze water using solid-state tech, offering a greener cooling solution.
spectrum.ieee.org
February 5, 2026 at 9:56 PM
<Don'tSayThisIsCoolDon'tSayThisIsCoolDon'tSayThisIsCoolDon'tSayThisIsCool> D'oh!
Reposted by Mark Eichin
ok the bird dashboard is the most distracting thing in our house now
February 5, 2026 at 10:09 PM
ok the bird dashboard is the most distracting thing in our house now
My birdcams are all inside windows, this might be a reason to finally do proper outdoor installation of at least one...
shifted my bird-listening & detecting over to Birdnet-Go from Birdnet-Pi, for a better interface & ability to add my Unifi outdoor cameras as audio streams and it's just told me it's heard a tawny owl, which sounds kind of amazing for west London. @levparikian.bsky.social, is it likely to be right?
February 5, 2026 at 8:32 PM
My birdcams are all inside windows, this might be a reason to finally do proper outdoor installation of at least one...
Reposted by Mark Eichin
“Got a call that the higher ups (i.e., at Amazon) were upset with how our marquee marketed their movie (i.e., Melania), that, per them, Sunday would be its last day here.”
Oregon Theater Owner Says Amazon Yanked Melania Over Marquee Joke
Since 2007, Jezebel has been the Internet's most treasured source for everything celebrities, sex, and politics...with teeth.
www.jezebel.com
February 5, 2026 at 5:52 PM
“Got a call that the higher ups (i.e., at Amazon) were upset with how our marquee marketed their movie (i.e., Melania), that, per them, Sunday would be its last day here.”
Reposted by Mark Eichin
The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions!
This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...
This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...
Spotlighting The World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell
Somewhat devastating news today from the CIA: One of CIA’s oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset. There's not even a hint as to why they …
simonwillison.net
February 5, 2026 at 12:25 AM
The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions!
This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...
This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...