Paul Drye
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pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
Paul Drye
@pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
8 followers 2 following 140 posts
Software design by day, table-top RPG and science fiction/fantasy writing by night. Fascinations: Unbuilt crewed space projects, phantom islands, alternate […]

[bridged from https://spacey.space/@pauldrye on the fediverse by https://fed.brid.gy/ ]
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Reposted by Paul Drye
cat-news.mas.to.ap.brid.gy
Doug (Somerset, UK) is, in theory, a very camouflaged cat, especially at night. Unfortunately his humans think this may have made him somewhat complacent, and his recent hiding places have not been very thought through. Hiding under a cushion is not quite enough to […]

[Original post on mas.to]
A cartoon of a black cat underneath a pink cushion.
December 9, 2025 at 8:08 PM
pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
Another new entry to Passing Strangeness, this time about the rise and fall of the Beardmore relics -- Canada's answer to the American pre-Colombian "Viking" artifacts like the Kensington Runestone and the Newport Tower.

Canada's got the only firm evidence of a Norse presence in North America […]
Original post on spacey.space
spacey.space
December 3, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Reposted by Paul Drye
tomgauld.bsky.social
My cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com books.

Lots more here: www.theguardian.com/books/series/tom-gauld-s-cultural-cartoons
Panel 1. A character holding a mobile phone. Ping! An alert arrives: "Your order has been received!" (Image of happy-looking book) Panel 2. Ping! "Your item has been dispatched!" (Image of happy-looking van, driving along) Panel 3. Ping! "Your package has been delivered!" (Image of happy-looking box on doorstep) Panel 4. Ping! "Your book has been neglected: left on the shelf, unread and forgotten, gathering dust for several months." (Image of unhappy-looking book, dusty and covered with cobwebs, accompanied by a spider) Panel 5. The character looks sad and guilty about the unread book. Panel 6. Ping! "Your order has been received!" (Image of new, happy-looking book)
November 29, 2025 at 11:59 AM
pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
Interestiing-looking book coming out next week, focusing on smaller but still substantial empires that form on the periphery of hegemonic empires, and how they can become hegemonic themselves later.

In other words a book for those who are at the PLEASE NO MORE ABOUT ROME OR CHINA stage of their […]
Original post on spacey.space
spacey.space
November 25, 2025 at 6:42 PM
pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
One country-building projects announced by the PM yesterday is adding to the electrical grid in the Prince Rupert/Port Simpson area of British Columbia.

It reminds me of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway's plan to build Prince Rupert as a fourth and most-northern […]

[Original post on spacey.space]
Black and white schematic drawing of a hotel front reminiscent of the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec city, with a tall central block with a high-peaked roof and two shorter symmetrical blocks on either side of it.
November 14, 2025 at 2:41 PM
pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
One of the sources for my new article on the orphan tsunami of 1700 reprinted this image from a public safety booklet, complete with startled kitty:

#earthquake #tsunami #cats #thisisprobablyyourfaulthuman
A schematic diagram of a subsidence fault causing an earthquake and tsunami. A cutaway of the earth below shows the crust in yellow and the mantle in red, with arrows showing plate motion and a dashed line demonstrating the land slip of the earthquake. The ocean is riled up with its surface a complex wiggly line. On land a yellow apartment building it cracking in half horizontally and a pink man and cat are being thrown around flailing. Both have O.O eyes.
November 7, 2025 at 10:55 AM
pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
In 2009-10 I wrote a book on odd historical events named Passing Strangeness. I sneaked up on it by writing it 1500 words at a time on a blog of the same name. Apart from three posts added in 2015 it hasn't seen any activity in 15 years.

Until now! The last year or so I've caught myself […]
Original post on spacey.space
spacey.space
November 6, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Paul Drye
juergen-hubert.mementomori.social.ap.brid.gy
I've reached a milestone: There are now 300 translations of German folk tales on my wiki.

471 further tales to go. Of course, by the time I have added _those_ I will probably have finished a few dozens of further translations...

#folklore #wiki #translation […]
Original post on mementomori.social
mementomori.social
October 24, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Paul Drye
vicgrinberg.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
When an interstellar object passes close by, all eyes are on it!

#esa is making its solar system mission look at the #comet 3I/ATLAS: first #exomars TGO and #marsexpress when the comet passes close to Mars and then the #juice, currently on its way to […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]
Infographic showing the path of comet 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object to enter our Solar System. It displays the orbits of Earth, Mars and the Juice spacecraft around the Sun, along with key dates and events as comet 3I/ATLAS travels through the inner Solar System in 2025. Coloured and numbered dots mark important observation points by telescopes and spacecraft.
September 30, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Reposted by Paul Drye
bruces.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
*If you need an interstellar warp-drive, you don't wanna mess around with those clunky, old-fashioned warp-drives that lack the modern features

https://medium.com/@timventura/beyond-alcubierre-a-tour-of-modern-warp-drive-physics-74661939fe45
September 30, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Paul Drye
bigjackbrass.social.vivaldi.net.ap.brid.gy
Now reading:

#books #fiction
Book cover. Title at the top: BINSCOMBE TALES THE COMPLETE SERIES. Author's name at the bottom: JOHN WHITBOURN. Cover illustration is a drawing of an older model television with twin aerials on the top, the screen filled with an eyeball in extreme closeup. Wallpaper, carpet and curtains can all vaguely be made out in the illustration, which is chiefly blue and black, fading to darkness towards the edges.
September 25, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Paul Drye
juergen-hubert.mementomori.social.ap.brid.gy
It's been about two months since I started creating my wiki for the German folk tales I have translated. Since then, I have put about a fifth of all my translations on it. At my current speed, it will take me until late May to add them all - although by that date I will probably have a hundred […]
Original post on mementomori.social
mementomori.social
September 25, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Paul Drye
greenfire.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
This could be great news for Carbon Dioxide Removal.

Similar to Calvin cycle but capable of outputting a two-carbon molecule without re-emitting the carbon dioxide molecule that had just been captured. What they came up with is the malyl-­CoA-­glycerate cycle […]
Original post on mstdn.social
mstdn.social
September 12, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by Paul Drye
juergen-hubert.mementomori.social.ap.brid.gy
1/ I do not have any further #map -themed folk tales to share for this #mythologymonday , but I do want to share the interactive map for German folk tales I am working on at the moment. It can be found on my new #mediawiki installation, and uses the combined power of #semanticmediawiki […]
Original post on mementomori.social
mementomori.social
September 8, 2025 at 2:05 PM
pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
Artist: Ellis Rosen

https://www.gocomics.com/junk-drawer
Lying on a Hollywood lounge chair by a swimming pool, a skull is on the phone to his agent yelling "Find me something else! I am not doing Hamlet again!"
September 5, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by Paul Drye
tomgauld.bsky.social
My new book of cartoons is out soon. I am bringing it to SPX/BETHESDA TORONTO, NEW YORK, CHICAGO, MONTREAL and QUEBEC CITY in the next two weeks. Visit www.tomgauld.com for more details and preorder links!
Image: A scientist stands at the crossroads at mifnight, he holds out a bowl to the devil who looks rather cross. Caption "Thanks to a typo in the contract, the professor gained complete mastery of all the knowledge in the heavens and the earth, in exchange for his soup." Text below: From 'Physics for Cats' by Tom Gauld - Preorder it at www.tomgauld.com
September 5, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by Paul Drye
mconley.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy
My city has history.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/forgotten-toronto-inside-the-great-clown-riots-of-1855-and-the-coverup-that-changed-the/article_7a58b68a-7fc4-42d6-9c48-0123701e2ddd.html
A screenshot from a Toronto Star article entirled: "Forgotten Toronto: Inside the great ‘clown riots’ of 1855 — and the coverup that changed the city’s policing forever" with the tagline: "How a normal circus visit turned into a vicious battle between clowns, firefighters and the powers that ran Toronto."
August 29, 2025 at 9:53 PM
pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
So here's the thing: if you commit to setting stories in a pre-existing universe and then you have six of the first nine of them invalidate one of its established premises because it will stop the plot cold, I'M GONNA NOTICE.

*Especially* if it's the same premise. *Double especially* if you […]
Original post on spacey.space
spacey.space
August 30, 2025 at 12:34 AM
pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
It's the long weekend and I have the afternoon off too. Armed with a days-long free trial subscription and 28 episodes of ST:SNW, hold all my calls....
August 29, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Paul Drye
bigjackbrass.social.vivaldi.net.ap.brid.gy
Michael Surbrook's H.G. Wells sourcebook for the Hero System, "The Shape of Things to Come," is out now in PDF:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/534645/the-shape-of-things-to-come-hero-6e

#rpg #games #herosystem #hgwells #scientificromance
Cover of "The Shape of Things to Come - The H.G. Wells Sourcebook" from Surbrook Press for the Hero System. White page with central illustration of a scene from "The War of the World's," depicting the torpedo ram Thunder Child attacking a three-legged Martian war machine.
August 25, 2025 at 10:36 PM
pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
How, in this far future year of 2025, can an application not support nested folders for files?
August 19, 2025 at 1:16 PM
pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North. It doesn't quite stick the landing, IMHO, but the rest of it astonished me. I still think about it years after I read it.
August 16, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Paul Drye
aleks.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy
'So much for heliocentrism.' - Lead sentence in a press release about our work with JWST. https://futurism.com/james-webb-free-floating-planetary-systems
James Webb Finds Evidence of Free-Floating Planets So Large They Can Gather Their Own Planetary Systems
So much for heliocentrism. An international team of astronomers using observations made with the James Webb Space Telescope have found evidence that there's massive planets out there capable of forming their own planetary systems — without a star. These planets would be the center of a mini version of our solar system where other planets revolve around it. But without the light of a star, these would go largely overlooked by our telescopes. The work, published in a yet to be peer reviewed study, focuses on free-floating "rogue" planets which are not gravitationally bound to a star. While some rogue […]
futurism.com
August 10, 2025 at 5:59 PM
pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
The spelling checker in LibreOffice has some weird gaps: bedmate, divulgence, indigenously, POWs, pseudoscientific, squirrely, subcomponents, unmoving....
August 9, 2025 at 11:26 PM
pauldrye.spacey.space.ap.brid.gy
Indulging my obsession with all things atomic-powered from the early nuclear age, here's the Saunders-Roe Princess, a turboprop flying boat that was to recreate the aerial sea routes used by BOAC before WWII once the war was over.

Delays made it obsolete by the […]

[Original post on spacey.space]
A complex cutaway diagram of the Saunders-Roe Princess. It is a high-wing configuration with six turboprop engines and small pontoons near the tips. The fuselage shows two decks within. The upper deck is divided into two pieces, fore and aft, with what appears to be structures supporting the wing roots separating them. The foredeck is partly for the crew to work in, but there is also a dining room and kitchen for the passengers at the wing end. A stairway leads down from the dining room to the lower deck. The aft part of the upper deck has a bar and another stairway down. The lower deck has a cargo and baggage compartment to forward and passenger cabins (seating, and bunks slung high up on the wall), TWO more bars, and the toilets. The keel of the plane is typical of a flying boat, shaped like the keel of a ship. The fuel tanks are in the wings. The plane is flying over water, but a small mountain and some beach-circled shore suggests that they're crossing onto land. The caption says this is Rio de Janeiro. The signature L. Ashwell Wood is in the lower left corner of the picture, in Wood's, uh, signature style -- A large L twice the size of the Ashwell and Wood, which are placed vertically one on top of the other.
August 9, 2025 at 1:13 PM