it took me a while to understand, hayao

Dec. 16th, 2025 09:14 am
solarbird: (pindar-most-unpleasant)

Meta, the company controlled by babyfash Trump fan Mark Zuckerberg, the board of which thought it was reasonable to support Fascist politicians in the hope of avoiding regulation, and whose Facebook service has or had a “17-strike” policy for known sex trafficking accounts and not only doesn’t remove fraud posts but charges known fraud operations higher rates for their ads, puked this vile mixture of plagiarism, artist’s blood, and AI sludge posing as photography onto BART station walls in San Francisco:

an AI-generated wall-sized "Look Forward" ad from Facebook for their AI "enhansed reality" glasses, showing a woman in centre wearing their RayBan model, surrounded by AI renders of people looking down at their phones. The AI-ness is sloppy, obvious, and insulting.

And of course it’s shit. Of course it’s shit. Holy gods, it is such hot garbage, and I’m not even talking about the implied higher situational awareness of someone wearing an AI PHONE ON THEIR FACE over people looking down at their regular phones

tho’ that’s a pretty fuckin’ hot take for them to have right there too, I have to say

I’m talking about the raw clownery of this image. Holy hell. Let’s zoom in at one of the insults to imagery:

A Black man to audience right of the central figure with extremely unmatched distorted ears, one white hand and one black hand, vestigial third cuffs and buttons on his left arm, and two wedding rings, just for starters

And I’m not even mentioning the ghost in the room, by which I mean the four ghosts in this one particular rendered room:

Clip of the insult with the word GHOSTS in red and four arrows pointing to the translucent faces and heads in the crowd

And I have to ask:

HOW CAN ALL THIS STILL BE THIS SHITTY AND PASS MUSTER FOR THEM? HOW?

Christ it’s so insultingly bad. It’s infuriatingly bad. As photography substitute, as AI generated Not Art. It’s… it’s like it’s Anti-art, an opposite of art that mocks the real, that imitates while degrading both itself and its opposite.

Anybody can make bad art. I’ve made plenty. Also some good art.

But it takes real work to make anti-art.

And that’s what makes me want to fucking scream.

We all know how monstrously wealthy Fuckerberg is. How much money he and his company have. How he could jerk off with thousand dollar bills, wipe himself clean, and burn the dirties the rest of his wretched life and not even notice the difference.

So when you see that they’d rather put out this slapdash, revolting, uncaring – no sneering insult of a render than pay a photographer and a few models a few bucks for an afternoon photo shoot, what’s that say?

It’s not the money. He has all the money. All of it. Well, him, and the other TESCREAL fascists.

I think… I think I have to think… that it’s a matter of principle for them. A sick principle, but a principle nonetheless. It has to be, because otherwise it makes no. goddamn. sense.

I literally have to conclude that they hate art, and even more, hate artists. They have to, to consider this better. It must be principle for them to not care about artistic creative work, to not pay artistic workers. It has to be principle to hold all that in contempt, to say, “see? We just steal everything you’ve ever done, throw it into our churn machine, and then rub out our own version in half an hour to show you’re not any better than us. And you can’t do shit about it.”

They’ve made it clear that they’d not only spew this kind of rancid splatter, this metaphorical scrawl of shit, urine, blood, and theft across the walls of a city than break that principle.

And they’ll enjoy it.

I used to think, once upon a time, that Syndrome from The Incredibles was a little too on the nose,a little too pointed, maybe – dare I say it – a little too cartoonish for even a cartoon.

I’m starting to think maybe he wasn’t on the nose enough.

But that’s flippant, and maybe a little too easy.

What I really feel is that… I’m finally starting to understand – really understand, at a gut level – what Hayao Miyazaki meant when he called AI “art” an insult to life itself.

Because, well, almost anything can be art. Art is an observation and an intent, as much as anything else, and handing that mantle to something which has no awareness, no observation, no actual knowledge of meaning, no ability to opine, no personhood at all, a chum machine with less actual awareness than a housefly maggot…

…how could that be anything less than an insult to life, itself?

It took me a while to understand, Hayao. But I think I’ve finally got there.

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Maps Release: Greater Northshore Bike Connector, MEGAMAP 2.0

Jul. 14th, 2025 04:38 pm
solarbird: our bike hill girl standing back to the camera facing her bike, which spans the image (biking)

Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 2.0 – 15 July 2025 – is now available on github, as is MEGAMAP 2.0.0.

The big update this release is making City of Seattle street labels legible when printed. This was a pretty big project, for several reasons, and involved patching many parts of the map by hand. This project is one of the reasons there are many small corrections in City of Seattle this release.

While yes, I can edit their PDF directly and change sizes that way, they use an $1850 typeface and I do not have that money, at least, not for this project. Also, their PDF is optimised… presumably for something… but whatever way in which it might be optimised, it’s in a way that makes it a nightmare to edit. So the hard way it is.

Additions and changes since 1.8:

  • ADDED: The abovementioned font embiggening. I only enlarged street names which are directly or indirectly related to bike routes; others, I left small, if they were present at all. I also added a lot of street names left out in the original. If you would find other absent or small street names useful, please let me know and I will add and/or enlarge those, too (Seattle)
  • ADDED: Bell Street improved bike facilities (Seattle)
  • ADDED WARNING: Construction underway for new bike lanes and sidewalk improvements on 61st Ave/Place (Kenmore)
  • RECONSTRUCTED: The north side of University Bridge in the U. District is a mess in real life, and I was asked to rework their map to at least try and make it more comprehensible. I tried. Feedback WILL be considered (Seattle)
  • WARNING: The East Thomas to Elliott Bay Trail bridge over the railroad tracks is closing for construction THROUGH AUGUST. Estimate for re-opening is September 3rd (Seattle)
  • WARNING: Cross-Kirkland Connector trail will be CLOSED due to construction at 85th Street until May of 2026. There will be signed detours (both ADA and not), but they’re out of your way (Kirkland)
  • CORRECTION: A major maps error in Lake City still present in Seattle 2025 has finally been corrected here. This involved one bike route off a cliff and another down a multistorey stairwell. You’re welcome. (Seattle)
  • Several other small Seattle 2023/2025 errors corrected – mislabelled streets, things like that (Seattle)
The Greater Northshore MEGAMAP, covering bike infrastructure from Lynnwood, Washington in the north to Renton, Washington in the south.

All permalinks continue to work.

If you enjoy these maps and feel like throwing some change at the tip jar, here’s my patreon. Patreon supports get things like pre-sliced printables of the Greater Northshore, and also the completely-uncompressed MEGAMAP, not that the .jpg has much compression in it because honestly it doesn’t.

Thank you! ^_^

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the delicate art of text replacement

Jul. 5th, 2025 09:35 am
solarbird: (ART-gonzo)

So I’m redoing the text on the Seattle 2023 bike map, because I figured out that while in digital form on a phone or something it’s okay, printed, it’s REALLY not.

And since the printed poster is the biggest single part of the point of this whole exercise, if I want this actually usable on streets people don’t already know… I have to fix it.

And fixing it means new text everywhere important, and often that means having to block out existing text.

The problem with this is that this sometimes means covering up streets. Not important ones, but streets nonetheless, where the old labels crossed that road and still need to be removed.

Let’s take Mary NW here:

The Seattle 2023 bike map, extreme closeup view showing several streets on Crown Hill, inside Inkscape, a vector-based graphics design application.

The original small label text for Mary NW crossed a road, probably… 95th street? Honestly not sure. It’s not labelled, so I’m not adding a label of my own.

To remove the old Mary Ave NW label, though, I had to block over it with the background colour. That removed part of a street line.

Now, sure, I could draw another line there and replace it. I’ve done that before and will do again if I have to. But that’s an extra step that I might be able to avoid, right? What if instead of labelling the road “Mary Ave NW,” I just labelled it “Mary NW” instead, and make sure the first vertical of the capital N lies where the street line should be?

There’s no Mary Street so there won’t be ambiguity, so why not?

N 90th Street lower and to the right is doing the same thing. So is NW 90th to the left, but it’s the leftmost diagonal bar of the W.

This isn’t a big flashy trick. If I do it right, nobody will ever notice that I did it. That’s the goal, really. It’s not something anyone should see.

But it is a good example of the delicate art of text placement. Particularly on a map.

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Maps Release: Greater Northshore Bike Connector, MEGAMAP 1.8, and a decision about Seattle 2025

Jun. 8th, 2025 08:03 am
solarbird: our bike hill girl standing back to the camera facing her bike, which spans the image (biking)

Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 1.8.0 – 8 June 2025 – is now available on github, along with MEGAMAP 1.7.1. This version is mostly, but not entirely, about Seattle.

Seattle DOT have dropped a new bike map for 2025/2026, but have chosen to show several incomplete and/or entirely unstarted projects as completed. We respectfully disagree with this decision, as it will direct map users to infrastructure which is not actually present for most or all of this year.

Therefore, we have chosen to stay with Seattle 2023 as our Seattle-area base map. We will take on the additional work of updating it over the next year, continuing work we have already been doing. In addition to not showing incomplete/nonexistent infrastructure, this means we will continue to group “Neighbourhood Greenway” and “Healthy Street” under the same common green colour, rather than separating them into green and blue markings.

(Seattle 2025 breaks them out into greens and blues, but unfortunately at the same intensity, meaning there’s no difference for those with colour vision limitations.)

As additional Seattle projects are completed, we will add them to our maps. Once all projects shown on Seattle 2025 are completed, we will most likely transition to Seattle 2025 as our Seattle base map.

There’s only one change since 1.7.1 for outside Seattle, but it’s big:

  • Juanita Drive bike lanes are finally open (again) in Juanita! There’s still a little construction on sidewalks, but functionally, they’re done

I’ve been looking forward to that finally being finished since they started work! The bike lane standard is meaningfully higher than it was before. It’s not consistently up to Kenmore’s standard, but it’s a significant and welcome improvement.

Note that sidewalk construction isn’t quite complete, but there’s very, very little left and should not interfere with biking the route.

Updates since 1.7.1 in Seattle include:

  • 1st Ave NW neighbourhood greenway north of Greenwood to Broadview added
  • S. Walden/Della neighbourhood greenway added
  • Ashworth Ave mix of neighbourhood greenway and ped/bike shared path added
  • N. 120th St. neighbourhood greenway from Ashworth Ave to Corliss Ave added
  • N. 130th St. bike lanes north of Haller Lake added
  • W. Marginal Way SW bike lanes extended north to 17th Ave SW
  • 6th Ave NW steepness indicator in Fremont corrected
  • 6th Ave NW Neighbourhood Greenway corrected (was marked as bike lane)
  • Alki Drive/Beach Drive SW Healthy Street in West Seattle added
  • Maple Leaf Reservoir Neighbourhood Greenway and related ped/bike path added
  • Pike Street bike lane hillclimb over I-5 updated to reflect upgraded status
  • 21st Ave Greenway/Health Street from Columbia to Yesler added
  • Greenway/Healthy Street connection between 30th Ave S east of MLK to Mountains-to-Sound Trail added
  • 39th Ave South Greenway/Healthy Street from south of Othello to Kenyon added
  • One block of Neighbourhood Greenway on 27th Ave NE north of Lake City REMOVED
  • Several small corrections/adjustments, carrying forward Seattle map corrections/adjustments

Rather than the usual MEGAMAP preview, here’s a comparison between on section of Seattle across the two maps.

The same area of map from Seattle 2025 and Greater Northshore/MEGAMAP 2025 June 8. The Seattle map shows a Neighbourhood Greenway which does not yet actually exist. It also inaccurately describes on-the-ground conditions of the Ashworth Ave N Greenway in ways which cause confusion on the ground. The Greater Northshore/MEGAMAP corrects both of those, but fails to distinguish between "Neighbourhood Greenway" and "Healthy Street."

All permalinks continue to work.

If you enjoy these maps and feel like throwing some change at the tip jar, here’s my patreon. Patreon supports get things like pre-sliced printables of the Greater Northshore, and also the completely-uncompressed MEGAMAP, not that the .jpg has much compression in it because it doesn’t.

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Maps Release: Greater Northshore Bike Connector, MEGAMAP 1.7.1

Jun. 2nd, 2025 09:14 am
solarbird: our bike hill girl standing back to the camera facing her bike, which spans the image (biking)

Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 1.7.1 – 1 June 2025 – is now available on github, as is MEGAMAP 1.7.1.

Additions and changes since 1.7:

  • Extension of bike lanes in Kenmore on 80th Ave NE up to NE 185th/186th street – this is new paint, done because they could; they also made their own city bike map;
  • Refinement of intersections with streets on Interurban Trail North in Snohomish County;
  • Small additions (short bike lane, shorter trails) around Totem Lake;
  • Small addition (short mixed-use trail, pedestrian first but bikes permitted) in northern Woodinville at 130th/132nd;
  • Addition of north bike exit from Shoreline North 1 Line station – possibly part of the Trail Under the Rail system? It’s not signed as such but it’s in the right place for it;
  • Text cleanup in Redmond, replacing/moving certain street name text which gets cut off on the Greater Northshore map so that it is no longer cut off.
Screen-resolution preview of MEGAMAP 1.7.1 released 1 June 2025

All permalinks continue to work.

If you enjoy these maps and feel like throwing some change at the tip jar, here’s my patreon. Patreon supports get things like pre-sliced printables of the Greater Northshore, and also the completely-uncompressed MEGAMAP, not that the .jpg has much compression in it because it doesn’t.

Thank you! ^_^

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Maps Release: Greater Northshore Bike Connector, MEGAMAP 1.7, and a quandary

May. 10th, 2025 10:25 am
solarbird: our bike hill girl standing back to the camera facing her bike, which spans the image (biking)

2 Line Eastside Bike Connector updated their map to include the new train stations opening today! If you’re seeing this on May 10th, you can go to the opening events!

Naturally, we’ve picked up the new version, and Greater Northshore Bike Connector and MEGAMAP 1.7 – 10 May 2025 – are now available to download.

Move Redmond have also expanded their core area further north. Online, they’ve started doing the Seattle thing where they have some infrastructure information outside their region.

I’m not including their extended area at all, and I’ve also only extended their core map very slightly further north. There are a few reasons, the biggest of which being that we have features they don’t, and I think those features are important in lower-density infrastructure areas like north Kirkland and north Redmond. Without them, Briar wouldn’t have any markings at all.

They’ve also left me with a bit of a quandary: they’ve changed their map key on me. The markings are different, now. Fortunately, only a little, but it’s still a change.

In their area, fully separate bike paths are now dark green, rather than red. Given that I specifically used their key system – before expanding upon it – for consistency, I should probably go along. But to be honest, I don’t like the change. I think it adds confusion, because before, all bike infrastructure was red. Now most is red, but some is dark green, instead.

All one colour was simpler and easier.

On the other hand, having now three different systems – two of which are only very slightly different to each other – is more confusing than having two, and I could fix that.

Any thoughts on what I should do? Should I move to theirs, despite not liking the change? I’m genuinely uncertain.

Anyway, additions and changes since 1.6.1:

  • MAJOR EASTSIDE UPGRADE with the freshly dropped 2 Line Eastide Bike Connector Map. There are several updates, but the biggest are the two light rail stations opening today, 10 May 2025. If you’re reading this on the 10th, there are opening day celebrations and you can go join them.
  • Notes about infrastructure continuance off-map now appear on both Greater Northshore and MEGAMAP, with the notes and arrows relocating as appropriate.
  • Same for the two major directional notices to Alderwood Mall and City of Snohomish, both of which are too far north for this map.
  • Addition (with reservations) of a short section of what are technically bike lanes in Woodinville. I don’t like them and have marked them as undermarked, because they are.
  • Construction on NE 132nd has extended bike lanes! And made the crossing of I-405 more confusing and probably slower! But also maybe safer despite that. It’s a tradeoff, and it’s on the maps now.
  • NE 116th in Redmond has extended bike lanes now, but without the added complexity of 132nd.
Screen-resolution preview of MEGAMAP 1.7, a large-area Greater Northshore and Seattle-area bike map, updated with 2 Line Eastside Bike Connector Map, released 10 May 2025.

All permalinks continue to work.

If you enjoy these maps and feel like throwing some change at the tip jar, here’s my patreon. Patreon supports get things like pre-sliced printables of the Greater Northshore, and also the completely-uncompressed MEGAMAP, not that the .jpg has much compression in it because it doesn’t. If you have an iPhone, please use the website interface and not the app, because Apple takes 30% if you use the app. I’ll keep doing this regardless, but you know. Thank you! ^_^

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Let’s make it a maps beta test

Apr. 16th, 2025 08:19 pm
solarbird: our bike hill girl standing back to the camera facing her bike, which spans the image (biking)

Okay, been pretty burnt out this week, so have a beta Version 1.6 bike map [Edit: Here’s the latest Maps Release, download this instead!]. The Greater Northshore now goes up to 200th in Snohomish County, and the MEGAMAP expanded edition will go up to 194th.

This marks the first time that the MEGAMAP edition expands both to the north and the south over the core map. Neat?

This further expansion north was prompted by actually biking up there a little more. if I really want to be able to say that I’m including Lynnwood City Centre, I have to go up to at least 200th, and really, should include both sides of 196th.

Unfortunately, going up to 194th on the smaller map would make it too big for casual printing purposes. But since 196th doesn’t have any sort of bike support, I figure I can leave it off that version.

Even so – even with only going up to 200th – I’ve had to trim a bit off the south in order to stay on my own 17.5″ tall paper. This matters because I really want to be able to print the smaller map on three sheets of paper, and not have to cut and assemble six page. But between very careful placement of text on the north edge, and the addition of a new category of conditional text along the south edge – placing words like “to UW via Burke-Gilman” and “Woodland Park Zoo” and “Redmond Town Centre” with arrows as appropriate – I think I’m managing to keep the usefulness at the about the same level.

I hope so, anyway.

As always, love some test reactions. Here’s the beta. I’ll be dropping a release pretty soon, so, idk, get it in while you can, and thanks.

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the sort of thing you discover when working on a map.

Apr. 11th, 2025 09:34 am
solarbird: our bike hill girl standing back to the camera facing her bike, which spans the image (biking)

I’m finally expanding the Greater Northshore and MEGAMAP the extra mile or so into Snohomish County as I’ve been promising. This expansion gets users to Edmonds and Lynnwood Town Centre – including the light rail station – so there’s some real meaning to it. In the east, it’ll eventually be important for the expansion of the Rail Trail, too.

Sometimes, tho’, when you’re doing stuff like this, you discover something. That happened tonight.

Check out this incomplete little map section-in-progress. There’s something to infer from it:

The crossings of Highway 99 at 208th and 228th have weight. Cyclists use them, even where the infrastructure stops short of the highway. They’re okay with both.

But they don’t use 220th. That’s fine – 220th interacts badly with I-5 not much further to the east, and has no infrastructure east of Highway 99 anyway. Of course they don’t use it.

212th, on the other hand, doesn’t have those problems. Infrastructure on both sides, even if a little short on the east. No I-5 issues.

And yet, people DO NOT WANT TO CROSS there. They REALLY don’t. They want to go half a mile or more out of their way north and cross at 208th, or a mile and a half out of their way south and use 228th instead.

It’s very specific to the crossing, too. They do use the infrastructure on 212th, on both sides. It lights up on the heatmaps, nice and bright.

But they don’t leave it. They don’t cross 99. Not there. They go north. Or maybe south, but mostly north.

And I can’t for the life of me tell you why. Not from looking at the maps I have. The intersections at 212th and 208th seem much the same to me, even from streetview. Infrastructure’s a little more complete at 208th, but not all that much – what’s half a city block between friends?

And yet.

People who bike there, they know something. Something I don’t, and something I can’t see on a map or from a satellite.

Neat, eh?

I wonder what they know.

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Have a resource

Mar. 13th, 2025 06:03 pm
solarbird: (korra-on-the-air)

If you’re thinking of going to one of the many Tesla dealership protests, here is a high-resolution protest sign for you. It’s a high-resolution re-implementation of a poster going around in London, with a few changes to make it a bit more 1930s-ish. It’ll work well on 11×17 paper for protest signs, should that be of interest.

It will also go twice as large and still be okay, really.

Here’s a lower-resolution preview for you. Go to the link above for full size.

[ETA: enough people like this other one too that it gets a direct link. I’ve got one on one side, the other on the other side of my sign.]

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Maps Release: Greater Northshore Bike Connector, MEGAMAP 1.5

Feb. 21st, 2025 09:03 am
solarbird: our bike hill girl standing back to the camera facing her bike, which spans the image (biking)

Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 1.5 – 21 February 2025 – is now available on github, as is MEGAMAP 1.5.

With this version, the Greater Northshore Map has adopted our MEGAMAP’s former Empty Quarter, previously a basically empty paste-in of King County Regional Trails. It is now a peer map section with Greater Northshore proper, City of Seattle, and 2 Line Eastside Bike Connector.

There may not be a lot down there, but what’s down there is now properly mapped and included.

MEGAMAP 1.5 bike map, in screen-resolution preview, covering south Snohomish County down to Newcastle and northern Renton.

Additions and changes since 1.4.6:

  • ALL OF NEWCASTLE, as far as I know. Thanks to Kerry Sullivan (City of Newcastle) for help on unpublished but completed new May Creek Park Drive bike lanes
  • NORTHERNMOST RENTON, including substantial upgrades to Lake Washington Loop route markings, particularly street names for the chunk where it’s just bike lanes
  • New-to-me bike lanes around 100th Ave W. in Edmonds, now mapped
  • Upgrade to 15th Avenue S bike lanes in the Seattle map – they now have physical separation. There’s a warning flag because they’re still intermittently being worked on a little? But as far as I can tell they are generally open.

All permalinks continue to work.

If you enjoy these maps and feel like throwing some change at the tip jar, here’s my patreon. Patreon supports get things like pre-sliced printables of the Greater Northshore, and also the completely-uncompressed MEGAMAP, not that the .jpg has much compression in it because it doesn’t. If you have an iPhone, please use the website interface and not the app, because Apple takes 30% if you use the app. I’ll keep doing this regardless, but you know. Thank you! ^_^

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everything is stupid but here i made this

Feb. 18th, 2025 01:20 pm
solarbird: (made her from parts)

I made a video for Monsterdon, the weekly mostly-monster-moving event on Mastodon.

For some reason, people voted to watch Frogs (1972) this week. The title sequence I’m riffing on can make anything look action-packed, but, uh, I’m told… don’t be fooled by that.

I mean, it’s terror frogs. Don’t expect too much. xD

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They’re working overtime down at Montlake

Dec. 7th, 2024 11:54 am
solarbird: our bike hill girl standing back to the camera facing her bike, which spans the image (biking)

Lots of weekend landscaping work happening at the Montlake lid this rainy Saturday – it’s crunch time before the opening ceremonies that’re finally happening next week.

I will, naturally, be dropping a revised MEGAMAP the day before, this coming Friday afternoon or evening (depending upon scheduling). I’ll also be dropping an updated Greater Northshore since there’s some Seattle-area updates which show up in its coverage area as well.

They’ll be posted here for free download, as always. The current version is from November.

And if you like my bike nonsense – or any of my other nonsense, for that matter – I have a patreon. And if you’re already there, as always, you have my heartfelt thanks! ^_^

A blurred-by-rain image of several landscaping/construction workers along the new unopened section of bike/ped trail connecting Bill Dawson to SR-520 trails, seen from the east. It has been a very rainy day, and is still rainy in the photograph. A support cargo truck in frame, has its headlights on despite it being 11:30am, showing that it is a very dim day.

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google’s latest fuckery: if you write online, read this

Nov. 30th, 2024 10:14 am
solarbird: (korra-on-the-air)

The Google app for iOS now adds THEIR links to YOUR posts from YOUR website unless you opt-out.

Their links lead people away from your site and back to Google. Because that’s definitely what you want, right? That’s why you have a blog or portal or web site or whatever. You want people to leave your site and go back to Google.

Oh, it’s not?

If you don’t like it, you can “Opt out.” Opting out is a pain in the ass. Here’s where you go to do it. You have to enter every variation of each of your domains or it won’t work. It will take up to 30 days, during which time Google will continue to pollute your work and your writing and your website with their modifications and their added links to take people away from your site and back to themselves.

For example, here’s the list of what I need to opt-out just for this one blog:

solarbird.net
http://solarbird.net
https://solarbird.net
www.solarbird.net
http://www.solarbird.net
https://www.solarbird.net
web.solarbird.net
http://web.solarbird.net
https://web.solarbird.net

Yes, you explicitly have to file no prefix, http:, and https: variants separately. They say so.

Making it difficult like this is 100% intentional and entirely designed to make it as annoying as possible, and also, to make sure you slip up if at all possible and forget one or more combinations.

(Tho’ I am just going to depreciate web. as a prefix right now, to bring down the load a little. Still gonna list ’em, though, because spite is why.)

Right now it’s only in the Google app for iOS and it’s probably a test to see whether they can get away with it without complaint, and how much revenue it generates. Let’s make that a combination of no and as close to zero as possible. Because otherwise they’ll roll it out everywhere, and probably derank you if you don’t go along.

Fucking hell, Google. Fuck you. Just… fuck you.

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last one for this year I promise

Nov. 1st, 2024 01:26 pm
solarbird: (ART-gonzo)

“Look, everyone – it’s clearance sale day at Dracula City! Can you believe these values?!”
— Vincent Price, probably

Basil Rathbone, Peter Lorrie, Vincent Price, and I think Boris Karloff all hanging around in various coffins. Lorrie is holding a lit candelabra; Price is reading Variety, apparently out loud, relaying some bit of news to everyone else, who are looking at him with interest.
open ’til midnight!

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Happy Halloween! ^_^

Oct. 31st, 2024 09:02 am
solarbird: (pony-zebragirl)

Dracula City! DRACULA CITY! Dracula City!

The OG Dracula, Bela Lugosi, lurking behind Sy Greenbalm, owner of Dracula City, hypnotising him and whispering into his ear the words "I liked their Draculas so much I bought the company" which he repeats with a dead-eyed stare into the camera

This Halloween, take advantage of our special liquidation sale!
Buy nine Draculas, get the tenth one for just one penny!

A still frame from the UHF faux commercial for Spatula City, changed to Dracula City, with a woman in a light blue dress surrounded by an arc of Draculas: Leslie Nielsen, Bela Lugosi, Kate O'Mara, Klaus Kinski, The Count from Sesame Street, William Marshall, Alyson Hannigan, Peter Cushing, and whoever the hell played the Space Vampire in Buck Rodgers. Jutting in at an angle from the left is Vampire Princess Miyu, saying DRACULA CITY in red on black text. The woman is holding a Robot Dracula from Robot Chicken.

🎶 Dracula City
we sell Draculas
🎵!
and that’s all! 🎶

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this went over well on monsterdon

Oct. 20th, 2024 09:29 pm
solarbird: (ART-gonzo)

I’ve been making a series of dracula city edits based on spatula city from the weird al yankovich movie UHF and today’s went over well on monsterdon ^_^

Where do you go when you want to buy name brand Draculas at a fraction of retail cost?

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Maps Release: Greater Northshore Bike Connector, MEGAMAP 1.4.3

Oct. 19th, 2024 08:39 am
solarbird: our bike hill girl standing back to the camera facing her bike, which spans the image (biking)

Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 1.4.3 – 19 October 2024 – is now available on github, as is MEGAMAP 1.4.3 a pasteup of Greater Northshore, City of Seattle, 2 Line Eastside Bike Connector, and a little bit of King County Regional Trails to get us all the way to the south end of Lake Washington.

Most of this are changes in Seattle that won’t be showing up on their map for another couple of months, or whenever they finally release Seattle 2024. So GETCHER HOTTEST FRESHEST SEATTLE BIKE MAPS RIGHT HERE xD

A screen-resolution preview of the Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 1.4.3, released 19 October 2024.

Changes in 1.4.3:

  • Updating Juanita Drive construction area with a temporary downgrade to sharrow, recommending detour
  • Slope markers on the closest, most obvious detour route (NE 123rd, NE 132nd)
  • NEW BIKE UNDERPASS from Montlake to Bill Dawson trail is open, added to Seattle’s map
  • Additional sharrows in Kirkland near Mark Twain Park
  • New 6th Ave NW neighbourhood greenway in Fremont, yes I’m updating Seattle’s map for them again
  • Updating/clarifications around Montlake Boulevard at SR-520; it’s in flux but this is close

All permalinks continue to work.

If you enjoy these maps and feel like throwing some change at the tip jar, here’s my patreon. Patreon supports get things like pre-sliced printables of the Greater Northshore, and also the completely-uncompressed MEGAMAP, not that the .jpg has much compression in it because it doesn’t. If you have an iPhone, please use the website interface and not the app, because Apple takes 30% if you use the app. I’ll keep doing this regardless, but you know. Thank you! ^_^

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i made a couple of silly debate things

Sep. 11th, 2024 01:13 am
solarbird: (korra-on-the-air)

As I mentioned on Patreon, work has eaten my life, but I did follow along secondhand on the debate tonight once my Mastodon feed became 100% “concept of a plan” feed posts.

Here’s my contribution, I figure four of five of you will apprecaite it. Depends upon whether you remember System of a Down. xD

Then Taylor Swift endorsed Harris and it became a mix of memes and Taylor Swift. That was also fun!

I also made a video annotating Harris’s “…former President” pause. That one seems popular, people seem to be enjoying it. Hopefully you will too. ^_^

55 days remain.

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Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 1.4 RELEASE

Aug. 29th, 2024 10:50 am
solarbird: our bike hill girl standing back to the camera facing her bike, which spans the image (biking)

Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map 1.4 – dated 30 August 2024 – is now available on github, as is MEGAMAP 1.4, a pasteup of Greater Northshore, City of Seattle, 2 Line Eastside Bike Connector, and a little bit of King County Regional Trails to get us all the way to the south end of Lake Washington.

A bike map of several northwest King County cities along with the southernmost two kilometres of Snohomish County

New in this release:

  • New data type: 1 Line Link Light Rail stations are now mapped, both on Greater Northshore and the MEGAMAP! They allow bikes onboard, so count as bike infrastructure. (Note that all 1 Line stations north of Seattle proper open on August 30th, not before.)
  • Added several street names, particularly around 1 Line rail stations, for better wayfinding
  • Cleaned up other street names where bike infrastructure overlaid KCGIS labels
  • NEW SEATTLE ROUTE: New MLK bike lanes from north of S. Winthrop all the way up two blocks north of I-90. Seattle’s big map doesn’t have this yet, but mine does, Greater Northshore Megamap FTW ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
  • Upgraded block connection on 68th between Bothell Way and NE 181st/Remington in Kenmore to Sharrow after upgraded street painting
  • “Very Bumpy” advisory removed from Shoreline Interurban Trailhead due to repaving, thank you wildjo on Github for the contribution
  • Re-added very short trail exit from Shoreline Interurban Trailhead that got lost somehow in a previous map revision
  • Added two more short starter sections of what will become the “Trail Along the Rail” in Shoreline, and adjusted exact ending point of the largest section already on the map, thank you https://social.ridetrans.it/@bobco85 on Mastodon for the contribution

Here’s today’s Seattle Times article about the new stations, too. First train leaves Lynnwood (CORRECTION) around 12:30pm on the first day.

See you at the opening!

ps: my patreon, if you feel like throwing some change at the jar. I mean, I’ll keep doing this regardless, but you know. ^_^

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mappity map

Aug. 9th, 2024 05:44 pm
solarbird: our bike hill girl standing back to the camera facing her bike, which spans the image (biking)

test print of Late August 2024 (preliminary), with all these new light rail stations for the 1 Line added ^_^

A Greater Northshore bike map printed, assembled, and glued, ready for folding on top of a table.

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