Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

630 followers 120 following 150 posts

He/him, hi 🦆 “A cinnamon bun in a leather jacket” 🍊 It’s pronounced “young” 🪐 Playful design, mental health, queer anticapitalism, ducks ☀️ Electronics, artgineering, enthusiasm 🎨 @nickyonge everywhere 🌱

Posts Replies Media Videos

Pinned

nick yonge 🌱 @nickyonge.bsky.social · Dec 5

I’ve lowkey rebuilt my entire like, brand? Vibe? Around ducks. It brings me so much joy. If you want to put a lil yay in my day, send me a picture of a duck. I literally painted a duck on the door of my design studio. Which is called Duck Pond Studio.

It’s nice to discover what your ducks is 🥹

It’s a door, painted orange, with a duck painted on it. It’s a very cute duck. It’s white with an orange beak. It looks like it might be a little confused, but that’s okay. We all get confused sometimes. The important thing is to just keep waddling on, because eventually there will be peas to eat and ducklings to lead on a tiny parade. We will always have peas and ducklings.

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

I just lost like half an hour to debugging a strong contender for my dumbest typo in the 2020s so far. Try and find it, this is JS. If it takes you fewer than thirty Gregorian minutes you're doing better than me. Brb gonna go eat chocolate because am baby.

It's a block of Javascript for a string function called count. I guess I'll just copypaste the whole thing into the alt text? I can't believe it fits lol

String.prototype.count = function (countString, allowOverlap = false) {
if (isBlank(countString)) { return 0; }
// a string cannot contain another string longer than itself
if (countString.length > this.length) { return 0; }
if (countString.length == this.length) { return this == countString ? 1 : 0; }
let count = 0;
switch (countString.length) {
case 0:
// theoretically this should already be caught, but, failsafe
return 0;
case 1:
// one character, simply iterate through the whole string
for (let i = 0; i < this.length; i++) {
if (this.charAt(i) == countString) { count++; }
}
return count;
default:
// more than one character
// optimization, don't substring unless first char matches
let firstChar = countString.charAt(0);
// optimization, only search to this length minus one less target length
for (let i = 0; i < this.length - (countString.length - 1); i++) {
if (this.charAt(i) == firstChar) {
let sub = this.substring(i, i + countString.length);
if (sub == countString) { count++; }
// if overlapping values aren't allowed, skip ahead
if (!allowOverlap) {
i += countString.length - 1;
}
}
}
return count;
}
};

November 17, 2025 at 3:35 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Drew an amblypygi, or tailless whip scorpion. They’re sweethearts! Fully harmless to humans, and among the only arachnids to exhibit social bonds - mother/child, and even siblings, grooming each other.

Taking lil art breaks in between other projects is nice~

#sciart #insect #arachnid #procreate

Digitally drawn image of an amblypygi, an arachnid sorta halfway between a spider and a scorpion. It has six distinct legs, with its frontmost two legs having adapted into long slender “whips”, sensory limbs that give the bugfriend its name. Its pedipalps, grippy “arms” beside its mouth, are spiky and scary but harmless unless you’re a cricket or something. Its carapace is drawn purple and pink with a seafoam outline, against a pale yellow background. Colours are not true to life but stylistically chosen.

October 3, 2025 at 1:19 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Oh mannnnnn, I'm reminded of this absolute bop that sampled his speech. Big nostalgia for 2000s-era chiptunes 💖

www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7IE...

August 15, 2025 at 5:54 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

I'm supposed to be cleaning right now, so naturally I drew this picture of how a coffee machine works instead :)

#sciart #engineering #industrialdesign #productdesign

An illustration of how a coffee machine works! Water goes into the reservoir in the back, and flows into a tube around the bottom of the machine. The tube passes through the heating element, which both heats the water and the coffee carafe. The heated water becomes vapour, a mix of both liquid and gas. The hot vapour rises through the tube and passes a bubble valve, which lifts to allow rising water but lowers if water tries to backflow, ensuring water is forced up towards the grounds. A sprayer ensures the hot water is evenly dispersed over the grounds, which leach their delicious flavour into the water. The water then pours into the carafe, and you're left with a hot pot of fresh bean juice.

August 3, 2025 at 5:12 PM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Labeling maps is a WHOLE THING. Like, just the names of the continents - specifically, Australia / Oceania.

A screenshot of the art app Procreate, with a world map graphic that has Australia in the center. Above it in large text is the word "Oceania".

July 10, 2025 at 1:01 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Making closed captions is fucking delightful and I apologize in advance if this messes with anybody’s screenreader.

Picture of a caption editor showing a still image from a video. The text caption at the bottom reads “just walked everywhere”, the image shows me trying to paint a map projection onto a canvas while a cat strolls over my attempted art, and also there is secret bonus closed captions of a emoticon cat face. Emoticon, not emoji. We’re going OG MSN Messenger mIRC style baby.

July 2, 2025 at 4:16 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Visualization of latitudinal and longitudinal distortion on the Grieger Triptychial map projection. You can see how landmasses end up being largely accurate, thanks to distortion being centered in the oceans. #sciart

Distortion of Latitude and Longitude visualized on the Grieger Triptychial world map projection. Three maps are visible, a Tissot indicatrix and two heatmaps, that show lat/long distortion. This map projection manages to make landmasses very accurate because centers of distortion are located in the oceans.

The Galápagos islands, given their location, happen to be comically oversized lol

May 28, 2025 at 12:05 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Would love thoughts on which animation transition you prefer, simple (flat) or bumped. Having a hard time choosing. I've def lost objectivity over if the bump animation looks "good", and whether it takes away from the fact that the animated linework is superimposed over the painted lines.

May 24, 2025 at 10:50 PM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Video rendering 😪 I’m getting a blistering 5FPS on a ~3 minute 30FPS video. I hate tasks that both hold up your entire workflow and can be measured in “seconds per second”

May 23, 2025 at 7:17 PM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Animation I made for a project I’m working on involving map projections~

May 19, 2025 at 10:59 PM

Reposted by nick yonge 🌱

Karla Ortiz

@kortizart.bsky.social

1/8 Fun update on that GenAi Christies show.

They lie quite a bit about their own show. Here’s a few:

Lie #1 Christies says work on the show comes from data which was trained on participants own inputs in this article below:

techcrunch.com/2025/02/08/c...

This just isn’t the case.

"The artists represented in this sale all have strong, existing multidisciplinary art practices, some recognized in leading museum collections," said a Christie's spokesperson. "The works in this auction are using artificial intelligence to enhance their bodies of work and in most cases, Al is being employed in a controlled manner, with data trained on the artists' own inputs." Says Christies

February 15, 2025 at 5:51 PM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Progress! I'm making an animation that details the Grieger Triptychial world map projection. Frame-by-frame animation takes TIME but it's so fun and rewarding. Next up: highlighting the equator, and (time permitting) latitude and longitude in 15º increments. #animation #cartography #sciart

February 14, 2025 at 11:09 PM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

First animation I've ever exported from Procreate! Happy with how this turned out. Gonna use this to make some map projection infographics :)

February 10, 2025 at 2:45 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

WIP, converting my duck model to vector art. Vitruvian quack

screenshot of Amadine for iPad, showing a 3D duck with circles drawn over it

February 9, 2025 at 6:40 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

I've been making maps! My current project, painting the Grieger Triptychial world projection. It’s a rearrangement of the Adams Hemisphere projection. Distortion is ocean-centered, leaving land mostly accurate. I LOVE IT.

Playing with colours, materials, patterns. Almost done ☺️

#sciart #maps

Close-up view of the Grieger Triptychial map projection, hand painted on a green canvas. Latitude and longitude lines are labeled in 15° increments.

Me standing beside another canvas, this one in orange.

Close up showing the projection map I use to make the paintings, projected partially over my hand, but mostly onto a black and white checkerboard map canvas.

Me sitting on a couch, holding a hand painted map of the Earth in the Grieger Triptychial projection. I’m surrounded and covered by similar canvases.

February 9, 2025 at 3:22 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Hello Bluesky, hello Flashes @flashes.blue

A photo of me, being all smiley, wearing a sweater with big goose on it

February 5, 2025 at 10:40 PM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

I just finished a lil commission for a friend making stencils for signage in her pottery studio.

My desk is COVERED in tiny burnt letters lol

View of my work desk with a spare piece of wood, and hundreds of tiny charred paper letters (like, alphabetical lil guys)

January 14, 2025 at 9:44 PM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Happy new year, lovely folks 💖

Late 2024 I started gutting old housewares and putting lights inside, that only activate when you interact with it - eg picking it up. May our 2025s be filled with glowy magical secrets 🎊

(I also catsat for a friend’s very playful kitty, can u tell)

January 2, 2025 at 3:07 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve programmed any chips and, even tho it’s just a simple little test pattern, uggghhhhh it feels good to be playing with LEDs again.

December 11, 2024 at 6:31 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Yesterday I did a TON of work on optimizing this model, including building out all the hardware and cleaning up the in-file organization. Makes it easy to make little animations like this :3

#art #industrialdesign #electronics #ducks

December 10, 2024 at 1:09 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Progress! Cut the body out of wood. Something small and colourful and cute coming together. (Ignore the fact that I cut through the bottom lol, the clearance gaps are tiny)

#art #wood #industrialdesign #cnc

A small wooden cylinder, about 2” tall and 3” in diameter, made of four layered pieces, held in my hand. A small button is visible on the side.

The same, but slid at an angle so all four pieces can be seen individually.

A top-down view showing the inner workings of the individual pieces. A hole is visible through the bottom - I’ve accidentally cut all the way through, past where the battery is supposed to go, and out the bottom.

December 7, 2024 at 11:55 PM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

What AM I making? 🦆

#sciart #art #3dart #cad #industrialdesign #electronics #arduino

A view of a 3D model made with CAD software, exploded to reveal all its component parts. The body is cylindrical and appears to be made of wood, with several electriconic and mechanical components within, including a button, dials, a battery, and several PCBs.

A visual render of the assembled 3D model. It appears to be a cylindrical wooden piece, with dials and a button on the side, and a black sheet on top with the shape of a duck cut out of it.

A schematic view of the bottommost wooden body part. Several dimensions are visible, detailing the size of the slot cut out for the battery pack. The slot is 2 inches by 1.4 inches, and it can be implied that the entire object is about 3 inches in diameter.

December 7, 2024 at 2:34 AM

nick yonge 🌱

@nickyonge.bsky.social

Made this for a friend’s birthday a few years back, because her cat Bort is an absolute slut always showing off the goods 🥹 Lasercut into wood with glittery acrylic on top.

#art #laserengraver #lasercut #wood #woodart #acrylic