Orion Kidder
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orionkidder.bsky.social
Orion Kidder
@orionkidder.bsky.social
1.1K followers 460 following 13K posts
@orionkidder@mas.to (general account)
@orionkidder@writing.exchange (just for writing)
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orionkidder.bsky.social
I ask this again, because it still astonishes me, do Americans truly not know about Remembrance Day!? It's SUCH a big thing in the rest of the Anglophone world (except Ireland, IIRC, 'cause... yeah.)
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
November 7, 2025 at 7:24 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
Okay: #FirstMediaCrush! Human, alien, cartoon, TV, movies, video games, whatever.

Mine is Capt. Deering from BUCK ROGERS. This shot from the title sequence made my little brain go, "Who's... that?!" I didn't know why I was glued to the screen for that couples of seconds. I was way prepubescent.
A shot from the title sequence of BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY. There is a brass-coloured ring, and inside of it is Captain Wilma Deering. She is in the centre, foreground, walking towards camera left. She's wearing a very right white military-looking uniform with a tiny skirt but white pants. She also has a fighter-pilot kind of helmet on. She has her hand on a ray gun on her belt. There's an extremely loose group of other people costumed like her.
November 2, 2025 at 9:29 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
October 18, 2025 at 10:09 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
And here it is fully revealed, by double-tapping the super key:
The Gnome desktop fully opened: a system search bar is a the very top, with row of mini desktops running across underneath it, a collection of apps in folders is arranged in the middle, and finally, a row of quick-menu apps at the bottom.
September 29, 2025 at 4:28 AM
orionkidder.bsky.social
Here's what Gnome looks like when you tap the super key and reveal the desktop:
The Gnome desktop. A row of mini desktop previews runs across the top, and a row of quick-menu apps runs across the bottom, while a slightly miniaturized version of the current desktop takes up the middle of the screen and the edge of another like it is visible to the right.
September 29, 2025 at 4:25 AM
orionkidder.bsky.social
There is DEEP truth to this!

(I don't know where it came from.)
teaboot You see I too often sat in school classes and thought "when am / ever going to need this, I'm never going to be an engineer, I'm never gonna be a scientist, l'm never gonna be a linguist" and then I grew up and it turns out a lot of bigots and cults and scams and grifts hinge their entire business model on you just. Not knowing what a protein is or some shit
August 26, 2025 at 8:30 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
Captain James T. Kirk doesn't believe in no-win scenarios. The ring would use that element of his personality to take root.

Of course, if the One Ring showed up in Star Trek's world, it would follow those rules, and Kirk would use it to do one good thing, and then put it away forever.
August 18, 2025 at 4:56 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
I wrote this today, and it's still a bit rough, but I think I'm onto something good. For context, these characters can "make" weapons using psionics.

#WIPSnippets #WriteSky #WritingPrompts #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #writers #writing
"Sim's head whipped from side to side, wanting so much to find someone he could righteously kill. His mouth hung open. He was bearing his teeth while making twin weapons, one for each hand. A rapier and a basket-hilted dagger. History's most perfect dual weapons. They made him feel invincible. It was called Florentine. He'd looked it up."
August 16, 2025 at 1:44 AM
orionkidder.bsky.social
Friends, I love this.
An image of a police officer holding a contract in one hand and a mic in the other. Above their head it says "pirate" and in the lower third, the word "torrent" overlays the image. They're telling you you can use bittorent to download a sitcom. It's a thing of beauty.
August 2, 2025 at 2:21 AM
orionkidder.bsky.social
You can change that in the Settings under "Date & Time" under Gnome, so I figure Ubuntu must have the equivalent:
The "Date & Time" window of "Settings" in Gnome. There is a sub-window called "Time Format," and a drop-down menu with two options: "24-hour" and "AM/PM."
July 28, 2025 at 3:07 AM
orionkidder.bsky.social
And I think I'll finish on the 70s bc the point is that prominent muscles came into comics well before the 80s and WWF/Swarzenneger. This is a cover, again, but it shows what artists do when they have time to really work on their art.
A spider-man cover where he's fighting green goblin. Goblin's arms and legs have muscle lines, shading, and two tones of green to emphasize the hard edges of the muscles.
July 20, 2025 at 3:55 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
It's a little harder to find interior art on my phone, but here's some early 70s Superman. You have to really zoom in, but you can see muscle lines and shading to show how hit they are.
A Superman comic book page. He is sitting on a giant ant. His muscle lines are prominent, and there is some line shading to emphasize their size.
July 20, 2025 at 3:49 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
That Batman image isn't how everyone looked, of course. Other artists didn't bother with muscles, and the covers of course had more detail because they were advertising for the comic book. This interior image has almost no muscle lines.
Old Batman image. He has a cape shaped much more like bat wings, purple gloves, and no muscle lines at all.
July 20, 2025 at 3:44 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
Comics scholar you say? Well well well...

There were pretty significant implied muscles on characters going back to the beginning. They had a smaller number of lines to denote the actual muscles, but you have to be damned cut to look like this. Remember, the look was based on circus "strong men."
July 20, 2025 at 3:40 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
The moneyed classes don't want you having access to the liberal arts. The liberal arts are the "managerial" majors. I *love* science, and science degrees also do well. But finance and "business" are chimeras.

www.cnbc.com/2025/07/12/c...
Although finance majors had higher salaries compared to most other majors, grads with nutrition, art history and philosophy degrees all outperformed both finance and STEM fields when it comes to employment prospects, the New York Fed found. For finance and computer science, the unemployment rate in those fields was 3.7% and 6.1%, respectively. By comparison, the unemployment rate for art history majors was 3%, and for nutritional sciences, the unemployment rate was just 0.4%, the New York Fed found.
July 15, 2025 at 4:23 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
If you see this, quote post with a robot that isn’t from Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr Who or Transformers.

(I think I once had this as a poster, but the memory is fuzzy.)
The (original?) cover of Asimov's I, ROBOT. Now, Asimov was a creep and an overrated writer, but these stories left a strong impression on me. The cover of the book has in the foreground a very 50's looking robot--segmented, armour-like, bit antenna on its head--and is carrying a human in a red space-suit: sort of realistic, but with the old fishbowl helmets from the 50s. The human is slack, like they're unconscious, so it *suggests* the robot is rescuing him (which I think is sort of one of he stories in the collection, but it's been a LONG time since I read those). In the background is a planet that's probably supposed to be Mars (it's desolate and red with mountains rising up and dome habitations as well as a *tiny* rocket way off in the distance), and another human in a silver space suit is off to one side as well, passively regarding the robot with the human in its arms. There's a blurb type of thing at the top that says "MAN-LIKE MACHINES RULE THE WORLD! Fascinating Tales of a Strange Tomorrow," which is literally the opposite of what happens in Asimov's stories (ha ha ha).
July 10, 2025 at 5:44 AM
orionkidder.bsky.social
I am beginning to be concerned that James Gunn doesn't have any ideas of his own, and not just because his most beloved film, Guardians of the Galaxy, was initially written by someone else, but also because of a fairly tired gag like this one (search for DC Comics' Ultraman to find out what I mean).
A screen cap of a James Gunn post that says "Ultraman" and depicts a figure in weathered, military-looking costume including a full face mask with goggles and a torn nose/mouth that kind of looks like a skull.
June 24, 2025 at 6:33 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
Oh my. Well. I knew cape comics were rife with straight-up theft, but Carmine Infantino's got some 'splaining to do. (This cover is from 1964.)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine...
June 23, 2025 at 2:58 AM
orionkidder.bsky.social
"Long lost son comes to visit his dad's new workplace."
A poster from the original STAR WARS. Luke stands in the middle with a blaster pointed at the viewer with Han and Leia on either side of him, the rest of the cast smaller and placed around the central trio. Darth Vader's head lords over them from a distance and holding a light sabre above them all, and way in the background, X-Wings, TIE fighters, and the Death Star are visible.
June 12, 2025 at 12:56 AM
orionkidder.bsky.social
BLADE (1998), everybody's favourite daywalker.
The poster for the movie BLADE. Wesley Snipes is in a black leather trench coat with body armour underneath. He has a close-cropped haircut and a pencil moustache. He holds a short sword in his hands, looking like a straight, double-edged katana. Behind him is a collage of vampires doing various vampire things, but all coloured blood-red. It is more badass than the year 1998 could contain.
June 10, 2025 at 4:14 AM
orionkidder.bsky.social
Pretty much. Would you rather go bowling or have an entire discreet universe where you can do *anything* you want?
A shot from the show Star Trek: Lower Decks. Mariner, a young Black woman, is centred, and she is pushing a hovering dolly full of large cylinders with "danger" logos on them. She is standing in a Star Trek holodeck: a cubic room with black walls and a light yellow grid of fine lines. Behind her is an open hatch, from which she took one of the cylinders. THe hatch emanates a cloud of noxious, green gas. These are "holodeck filters," and although it is never stated directly, this is a VERY dirty joke about what people do in the holodecks.
June 2, 2025 at 5:00 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
A screen cap of zap.zapistan.net's post directly next to another one with the exact same content, as it if were copy/pasted, but this one is from someone called "climbtech.bsky.social"
May 26, 2025 at 3:56 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
A screen cap of climbtech's post directly next to another one with the exact same content, as it if were copy/pasted, but this one is from someone called "zap.zapistan.net."
May 26, 2025 at 3:55 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
I mean, thousands, but I'll say TERMINATOR II because it had bonus scenes.
A poster for Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Arnold Schwarzenegger is dressed in a leather jacket, sitting on a Harley-Davidson, and holding a sawed-off shotgun. He's on a black background, and the image is essentially black and white except for the white has a lot of blue in it.
May 18, 2025 at 6:23 PM
orionkidder.bsky.social
And like clockwork, this "article" is an advertisement for the petroleum industry. What utter horseshit.
A screen cap of the byline at the bottom of this alleged article. It says that the author, Lisa Baiton, is "the president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers."
May 13, 2025 at 6:35 PM