PSA From Blobby. Something We Should Talk About More ❤️

whalejellycs.github.io

Whale Map

Interactively explore satellite image distribution of four 🐳 species

Young-woo's tastefully assembled room provided the very first blueprint.

In Calibration … "I'm not strange." (Jung) Other than that, Cheese in the Trap is a surrealist drama which serves cheese-coated piano keys in a mouse trap, complete with a side dish of acrylic blood. Read this WordPress article to revisit the fascinating portrayal of human psychology that once kept viewers spellbound and made the recent turn of events doubly disappointing.

Responses from the non-human realm (Edited) 1. Elf sidekick

Your words have been wise - as much as any fairy. [Editor: *Blushes profusely*]

Gnome living is still living, and a life well-lived is still to be appreciated.

And maybe our wings will one day regrow, and we'll be even more magical than before.

2. Pumpkin-knitting cousin in eternal summer

I believe that the best way to do good in the world is to be yourself. While it may be tempting to pine for traits or characteristics that are seemingly out of reach, the key is to embrace one's own unique qualities and find ways to use them for good.

If you're a gnome, then be proud of it! Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do good because you're not a fairy. Gnomes have just as much to offer the world as fairies do.

3. Simulated realist

The keys to everyone's hearts may be more of a burden than a gift. Holding the keys to someone's heart can create a power imbalance in a relationship. It can also be overwhelming to keep other people's feelings in mind at all times and to make sure that you're not causing any harm. Without people doing the same around, this can lead to feelings of isolation. Don't envy the fairies. Support them wherever you can.

4. Supreme exterminator

Gnomes, fairies, gods, and mortals… it makes no difference. In the eyes of Eternity, they are all equally mortal. In the face of change, they are all equally brittle. In the pursuit of Eternity, they are nothing more than pawns to be used, or obstacles to be overcome.

Responses from the human realm (Predicted)

1. Productivity optimizer

If you have all the time in the world to do good, you won't feel the urgency to. The probable time complacence of long-living species offsets their chances to do good. Setting time limits for yourself is crucial in any task. Now excuse me while I get back to the spreadsheets atop my treadmill desk.

2. Involution coach

In this hyper-competitive corporate landscape, it's no longer enough to have an I- or T-shaped skill set. You need a pi-, or better still, comb-shaped skill set. Take classes in not only Gnome and Fairy but also Raccoon and Squirrel.

No, take that back. You need a hedgehog-shaped skill set. Make sure your Gnome, for example, includes Gnochemistry, Gnomadic Languages, Gnormosity Engineering and more. And your Gnomadic Languages must cover ancient Gnomadic epics, recent Gnomadic pop sensations on Tik Tok and Gnomadic computing.

Yes, I have a fondness for Māori art. In fact, my lifelong dream is a space sculpture where the patterns run from a galaxy scale all the way down to the nanoscale. Why do you ask?

3. Clueless media executive

That reminds me. There's still room in the market for Love Between Fairy And Gnome. We just need to excise the features posing product risks: the red-hat-blue-shirt thingy, the vertically challengedness and the white beard. There, we can now cast Handsome Oppar in the role.

4. Cynic

LMAO. You mean, who're the better hypocrites? Impostors or would-be demagogues?

5. Crystal ball-gazing, amphibious techie

Yo. Does no one see what I see? Talk about arms races. We're heading towards a wings race and a synthetic wings divide. Bionic wings. Genetically engineered wings. Wing stem cell transplants. When advanced enough, the post-gnome age will let the well-heeled buy the facade of niceness. Give full wings to the humanities first.

[Meteorizing Mondays] Expeditions

We're alien globes to each other remote-nursing other alien globes, so we don't really miss out that much stuck here in our seemingly little lives instead of roaming the globe.

Archives

Monday Purples

To someone, you may be the most compelling superhero.

Athletic / Aesthetic Passions

Athletic and aesthetic passions normally won't feed you, they say. What they don't say is how these sides of yourself can funnel into you vibrant, imaginative energy that powers you through all the drudgery, provided that late-stage capitalist and chronobiological logics spare these tiny selves breathing space.

An entire series awaits. Check back on another Monday.

Please read queer books all year round, not just in June

Remember, read queer all year

LGBTQ+ people don't disappear after June

Necessity and Sufficiency

Even the most fervent critic of metaphysics must have pondered from time to time: what is the meaning of my existence to this world? Feeling hopeless about her prospects in grades-obsessed South Korea on the day of the college entrance examination, mathematically challenged highschooler Jang Dan-bi jumps into a rain puddle transporting her to a drought-stricken Joseon, where Sejong the Great…

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Witchcrafting Programmers

Witchcrafting Programmers: Realism in the Not-So-Realistic Lucky Romance

Composition with Color Planes (1917) by Piet Mondrian “To hell with logic! Do not talk to me about logic when I’m leading an absurd life anyway.” Those words come from Shim Bo-nui, the computing whiz who first hunts down an extremely elusive bug in a recruitment contest held by game developer Zeze Factory in the surprisingly geeky romantic comedy Lucky Romance. Obsessed with superstitions, she…

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Escape From Everything Everywhere One by One —a film-inspired escape game

A series of escape rooms based on Everything Everywhere All At Once:

(Warning: Spoilerverse ahead!)

The first escape room: The first escape room is set in a laundromat, just like in the movie. The walls are covered in graffiti, and there are clothes and other laundry strewn about the room.

The keys: Players must find items that will allow them to travel to different universes. For example, they might need to find a pair of shiny buttons, a woman's and a man's, to travel to the universe where Evelyn is a movie star reuniting with her old love, or they might need to find a rock with googly eyes among many rocks to travel to the abiotic universe.

The puzzles: The puzzles in the escape room are all based on different universes that Evelyn Wang verse-jumps to in the movie. They block clues to the locations of the keys. For example, one puzzle might involve using the knowledge of a bagel chef to piece together the perfect bagel model, which acts as a knob of an oven cabinet where a key or clue to a key location can be found. Another puzzle would be translating Cantonese words on a signboard, by chaining up a jumble of bilingual dictionaries, only one of which contains English and none of which translates Cantonese to English, in the universe where Evelyn is a sign spinner.

The clues: Like in all escape game recommendations, some of the clues are obvious, while others are more obscure. For example, one clue might be a piece of paper with horrifying tax figures that would wake up even the deadest work zombie, while another clue might be a song lyric that only makes sense if you've seen the movie.

The physical challenges: Some escape rooms entail physical challenges. For example, in the universe where Evelyn is a cook contending with a rival who has a raccoon master, players can "knock out" an army of agile staff members dressed in raccoon costumes by hitting their fake tummies with paintballs. In the universe where Evelyn is an opera star, players are to wear Chinese opera costumes and gather in front of a camera within a time limit. In the hot dog universe—you've guessed it—players must work through everything using hot dog fingers. That, and playing piano keys correctly with their toes. The hot dog fingers could be made slippery, so that it's difficult to control them.

The ending: If players are able to solve all of the puzzles and overcome all of the challenges, they will be able to exit the multiverse through a giant everything bagel. Or maybe, they will beg the game host to let them stay for an eternity.

Obvious choices for background music: Laundry sounds, kung fu themes, Chinese opera, Le Festin, and the soundtracks of the film itself, In The Mood For Love, The Matrix, The Mask and maybe 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The escape room would be a great way to test film lovers' creativity and problem-solving skills while exploring the different universes that Evelyn Wang verse-jumps to in the movie.

Kindly remember to send this human editor and human generative filler the bagel donations.

Puuung’s Kickstarter Challenge

Love is : Puuung’s illustration of love   Puuung is a popular Korean illustrator with a large fan base and is best known for her ‘Love Is’ series. This series of illustrations, which is about the universal theme of ‘Love’, is regularly uploaded on NAVER’s Grafolio service. http://www.grafolio.com/puuung1

Since 2014, Puuung has uploaded her illustration series ‘Love Is’ every Tuesday and Thursday on Grafolio, a global platform provided by NAVER for single person creators, She already has a wide fan base that eagerly waits for her updated works. She has received great response from the Korean audience and greater response from those overseas.

A global funding was started through “Kickstarter”, the crowdfunding platform, in June 6, to introduce Puuung’s illustrations to more people around the world. Crowdfunding is a way of raising money via the social media or the internet. Kickstarter, which was launched in April of 2009, is based in the United States and is the world’s most famous crowdfunding platform. Now, let’s hear from the designer who has been responsible for the whole process, from planning the Kickstarter reward items to producing samples and coming up with the completed rewards.

Planning the Kickstarter Reward Items While planning rewards items for Puuung’s Kickstarter project, we had to come up with product designs that best displayed the artist’s illustrations. Overseas delivery was also an important factor, and therefore items also had to be compact and light enough so that it can be delivered to people across the world. After looking into various items in numerous price ranges, and upon final review with the artist herself, fabric posters, an art book and a postcard collection were selected as rewards for Puuung’s first Kickstarter funding project.

Launching the Kickstarter Page We needed a webpage that provided detailed information on the reward items in order to start the funding. To do so, we made samples of each reward in advance and launched our Kickstarter page!! https://www.kickstarter.com We waited with great anticipation until 8 o’clock in the morning in Korea, since the project campaign webpage was to be launched in US standard time. And to our great surprise, we achieved our goal of 10,000 dollars within just two hours from the launch of the funding and collected over 126,000 dollars, which was more than 1000% of our target amount, during the one month funding period. In addition, Puuung became the first Korean in Kickstarter to reach third place in the illustration section, which is an enormous feat. More than 1,800 backers from 70 countries, including English speaking countries of the United States and Canada, European nations including France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Asian countries of Singapore and Hong Kong, participated in the funding. Backers will be given rewards such as postcard collections, art book and posters that contain Puuung’s illustrations.

Producing Kickstarter Reward Items The unexpectedly large number of backers meant that we had to increase the number of items we had to produce. Since a limited quantity of rewards was being produced through funding, we wanted to provide backers who love Puuung’s work with high-quality rewards. We therefore placed extreme care into the paper, material and print quality of the rewards. [Fabric Posters] We especially went through many trials and errors while we were producing the sample for the fabric posters. Canvas fabric, the most commonly used material for fabric posters, was unable to provide us with satisfactory print quality. Multiple tests were done with various fabrics before we were able to find a fabric that gave us a print quality that most closely resembled the original illustration.

[Art Book] The art book is 116 pages and contains Puuung’s illustration as well as drawings of three couples that were selected from Puuung’s photo competition event. The background of the illustrations has a lot of detail and illustrations are shown from various angles, so the layout was arranged to show the illustration in its original proportions. The epilogue of the art book contains information fans were interested in, including the artist’s “thank you” message and photos of her workroom, sketches and of herself. Puuung, despite her busy schedule, also created an original cover for the art book and postcard collection that were to be given to Kickstarter backers. This special cover, which contains original and unique illustrations, is only available in the Kickstarter rewards!!

[Postcard Collection] The postcard collection consists of 100 illustrations and contains never-before released illustrations created by Puuung. Comments left by Kickstarter backers, such as “I want to give your illustrations to my son for his one year wedding anniversary” or “I bought your postcard collection because I wanted to use your work in our wedding invitation” show the backers expectation and affection towards Puuung’s art book.

100 copies of the art book contains Puuung’s autograph, which were each carefully signed by the artist herself. We look forward to more of Puuung’s heartwarming illustrations as she continues to draw about even the smallest happiness that is felt between people in love. :-)

Confession 91-02

This is a tale of three time-defying knights, but we shall start with humdrum glory.

16 years felt like half an eternity within the high walls of a mansion with seemingly as many rooms as there were visible stars in the night sky. Is there a better half elsewhere? Ilera often pondered. Born to parents who were slaves themselves in this aristocratic household, she spent her days hauling up trash, scrubbing off grime and wringing wet rags while other slave girls giggled among themselves when they could, sharing gossip about its master, who was always hanging out with a Somaku game buddy who practically lived in a house of ill repute. Hear no evil. That was the natural gift of her complete hearing loss. Why not finish the work quickly so that all of us could have time to teach ourselves to read and live second lives in the worlds of books, where we may travel anywhere we want?

Determined to dissuade her husband from spending time with his friend anyway, her mistress was busy mastering the board game herself. Fascinated by the strategy plays, Ilera would watch the piece patterns shift and shape between the couple, bringing life into the once blank numbness of her servitude. Back in the servants' quarters, she would picture the board on the tattered walls and test out move sequences while lying on her pallet.

One fateful night, the master teasingly left a difficult game situation for the lady to solve. As the frustrated lady went for a bathroom break, Ilera toyed with the pieces and found the correct move. Just then, the lady returned and saw Ilera's solution. Enraged, she accused Ilera of trying to seduce the master with her smart aleckiness, gave her a hard slap and tortured her with a burning iron. Ilera felt like she was in a world of fiery torment, her body writhing and wracking in anguish and her mind reeling, trying to escape the torture she was being put through.

As Ilera cried out in pain, two identical knights whose armor glowed with a bluish energy suddenly appeared in the room to save her. Their footsteps were muffled by the pads that lined their boots, and their swords were made of a glossy black material, their sharp edges glistening in the dim light. The knights moved with grace and precision, their movements carefully calculated as they stepped forward to whisk away Ilera. The shocked aristocrat lady could only nod in fear as they admonished her on the girl's rights. Ilera thanked the knights and gestured for their names and addresses so that she could repay them someday.

"Hold up. There's something you should know," one of the knights suddenly spoke up. "We may look like two people, but in fact, we are actually just a single man, a professional bodyguard from the temporal cluster 91-02. We have traveled back in time using a mechanism that caused us to emerge as multiple individuals in order to ensure moa-antimoa balance across spacetime according to the understanding of physics in our time."

"You mean to say that you're actually just one person?" Ilera wondered to herself, completely bewildered as she read his lips. But as they spoke on, she could tell that they were telling the truth.

Her mind blown by this incredible feat, Ilera spent years studying and eventually figured out how to travel to the time zone referred to as temporal cluster 91-02. However, upon her arrival, she realized that a person traveling forward in time would turn up at their destination invisible. Not used to speaking, she could not verbalize her existence either, for fear of startling the bodyguard. Being touched by an invisible entity or seeing writing or the like appear from nowhere would also make meeting again a one-time acquaintance he did not plan to see anymore eerie.

So Ilera merely watched in silence as the bodyguard went about his everyday life, shielding him from danger without him knowing. Sometimes, it involved diverting human and cyborg enemies with noise in a different direction. Sometimes, it involved altering the trajectory of an optoelectronic dart. Sometimes, she blocked off blows with her thin body, taking the hit for him. At night, she traded her imaginary game board for an imaginary map of hazard zones in his next work day's mission, and her shabby pallet for cold pavements.

On one mission, attack from assassins was so intense Ilera frenetically but astutely pulled off a spectacular series of stunts she picked up in the cluster. Just when she defeated the last assassin, a container of glistening rejuvenation capsules overhead toppled over, the translucent pills of liquid blinking with icy golden hues on contact with her body. Touched by the shimmering silhouette of her fighting pose, the bodyguard was finally certain someone invisible had been protecting him. He expressed his thanks out loud and invited Ilera to dinner.

As Ilera sat down at the dinner table, she was surrounded by a sea of colors and shapes, each formed by light bouncing around in seemingly endless layers of reflections and refractions. She reached out to touch the shining crystals forming the table, which rippled outwards as ripples in a pond, bending the light and creating a brilliant display of optical phenomena. The bodyguard gently smiled. As she explored this new world of physics and light, she couldn't help but find herself utterly transfixed. Bokeh spots then danced around, sharpened into focus and arranged themselves into words: I have traversed grand and unforgettable ancient millennia / But now I only want a future with you / No matter your age or gender.

Blushing in her surprise, Ilera never considered this before but at least had the assurance to type out her story on an airbound screen for him now. However, when the bodyguard learned Ilera's true identity, he choked in disbelief.

"Is this what it is? I am a highly trained professional, yet I … (laughs) I rely on the assistance of a deaf peasant girl from an ignorant, oh okay, bygone era to protect myself and my job? And I cultivated feelings for a mockery of me!" He pointed at her with a fat finger on impulse.

Ilera was shaken as his mouth trembled in rage. Repaying a kind deed was all that was previously on her mind. Never had she been in love with him. In the end, her fellow exponents, no matter the field of practice, place or time, saw her only as a rival or potential object of desire. We forever voyage on Atlantic trade ships propelled by our threatened primitive interests and our lurking thirst for power, every one of us bound by each other's history, ravaged by rich seas of little. Another light shone. With determined steps, the former slave girl disappeared into the mists of time. The cosmos was now her board, and she would be its game architect.

Credits

Plot + scifi terminology: Human

Prose: Human + 3 AI services

Atlantic trade note: Human's musing on Liu Cixin's afterword in the English edition of The Three-Body Problem