(via Inflating spider corpse creates robotic claw game of nightmares | Ars Technica)

Shortly after the Preston Innovation Lab was set up at Rice University, graduate student Faye Yap was rearranging a few things when she noticed a dead curled-up spider in the hallway. Curious about why spiders curl up when they die, she did a quick search to find the answer. And that answer—essentially, internal hydraulics—led to delightfully morbid inspiration: Why not use the bodies of dead spiders as tiny air-powered grippers for picking up and maneuvering tiny electronic parts?

Yap and her colleagues—including adviser Daniel Preston—did just that. They transformed a dead wolf spider into a gripping tool with just a single assembly step—essentially launching a novel new research area they have cheekily dubbed "necrobotics." They outlined the process in detail in a new paper published in the journal Advanced Science. The authors suggest the gripper could be ideal for delicate "pick-and-place" repetitive tasks and could possibly be used one day in the assembly of microelectronics.

If there are supposedly hordes of trans women sniffing out shy moody androgynous goth boys and turning them into extroverted freaky raver puppygirls explain why hasn't it happened to me yet. Am I not pretty enough

*screams manically* shut up thinking about being changbin's passenger princess:(( he always has to hold your hand or he will literally whine and ask you "why arent you holding my hand?" and he gets all pouty when you refuse to hold it just to tease him:(( but he doesnt like that so he grabs your thigh instead !! and hes sooo content with just squishing you every once in a while, ignoring your cute little whines of "stooop, hurts:(" because he knows it doesnt really hurt, you're just acting cute for him.

imagine he acts all tough at first too, looking out the window (like in the first pic oh god hes so fine i need him so bad im gonna cry but anyway) and he offers you his hand. usually you take it like its muscle memory, locking your fingers with his as he has one hand on the wheel. but when you decide to playfully tease him just to see how he reacts, he gets all annoyed and pulls his hand away, a cute little "hmph!" leaving him when you don't give him what he wants:((

but when you do decide to humor him and hold his hand, he rubs little circles on the back with his thumb subconsciously, sometimes tapping your skin to the beath of the music that's playing on the radio:((

HES SO BOYFRIEND GOODBYE.

taglist: @abcdefgiwsmcty@n034sy@148-seungmin

hm ok so for a while i was thinking that Wally, for the most part, only perceives reality as "Home", the neighborhood. that's his entire world, it's all he knows

but then i slapped myself and went wait. the Live Interview. Wally has been outside of Home, and has interacted with humans (presuming that the interview did actually happen, of course). and through Wally's interactions - or rather, attempt at interactions with Us, the QA, and the WHRP, it can be strongly assumed that he knows that there's an Elsewhere. there are places outside of Home. maybe he doesn't quite understand that there's another reality of sorts, but there's no way he's unaware that there's more than just the neighborhood out there

(and then of course there's the fact that Clown has said that humans are deeply involved (not a direct quote, im paraphrasing) in Welcome Home. maybe Wally interacted with them / regularly interacted with them. there could have been an adjustment period after he gained consciousness where humans helped him learn how to walk/talk/fine motor skills - this could be why he has such a seemingly inherent / desperate trust in Us & the WHRP & the QA... humans made him and cared for him. it's possible he could view them as a sort of higher power to trust & have faith in

& maybe he's been off-set or could go off-set. i mean, the houses' rooms were all different sets - the buildings themselves were empty husks, right? who's to say Wally wouldn't physically walk to the individual set pieces whenever he went over to someone's house (but then that leads me into speculation on how the puppets' consciousness works and how multiple copies of them could co-exist and wondering which is the - im getting off track. but there's all of that and then the two part "you're okay!" art pieces of Wally & Eddie, which are technically canon - dont quote me on that - and that's Another ramble/theory post i could go on about & have strong feelings on. Anyway!)

"but wait," i hear someone protest, "what about Barnaby? he was in the Live Interview too"

but was he? was he really? was that Barnaby, or was that a person in a suit playing the character Barnaby B. Beagle? i mean, if it was Barnaby, there had to be some memory fuckery going on that prevented him from either fully comprehending/realizing the situation, or just made him forget as soon as it was over.

and actually wait, Wally has to be aware of the reality discrepancy. because it was certainly him in the Interview as himself. He had to have understood on some level that either that wasn't really Barnaby, or that Barnaby wouldn't remember the interview.

(there's a connection in my head between all of this & how he would view an apple pie. "it isn't the same anymore. something's different". but i can't pin it down for the life of me.)

and with the Talking Telephone calls, Wally explicitly tells Us that he's not going to tell anyone who was behind the calls. i remember listening to the "original" prank call audio tests, which while were very similar to the canon in-website ones, have a few changes. one of which was Wally - in the tests - saying that the others weren't ready to meet Us yet. now in canon that tidbit has been swapped out for "You have to go too. You have work to do" but i think it's still implied through Wally's purposeful withholding-of-information that he doesn't think the others are ready to know. or he straight up doesn't want them to know

i mean, one little theory i previously had is that Wally wants them all to catch on to the nature of their reality and situation, but he doesn't want to - or Can't - tell them outright. they have to figure it out. and that can't was either something keeping him quiet, or because if they learned too soon / inorganically, their little puppet heads would pop into confetti like Red Guy's in dhmis 4

However my views have Changed and i'm pretty sure Wally is purposefully not telling anyone to maintain the illusion that everything is fine and can continue on as it always has. maybe it comes from a place of protectiveness, of love? whatever the motive i think he wants them all to keep being unaware and dare i say, Complacent while he "fixes" their situation.

which is delusional, but we all know Wally is digging his metaphorical claws into a desperate bid to keep everything the same / return it to its original state, leaving bloody scratches in something already rotted. or something like that!

all this to say i think it's interesting how it seems that he's the only one aware of humans / an outside/other world, yet he's so determined to stay in his lane. he wants connection & communication yet he doesn't want to leave or change. he wants help in keeping things the same (some could say in keeping Our reality & his separated) but in the process he's dooming everyone/everything and tearing down those walls himself

(Wally: i'm going to stay where i am, and you're gonna stay where you are, and we're gonna help each other keep me and my friends where we're meant to be. anyway i wonder what this sledgehammer does)

i just found out about one of the most powerful adhd tools i've ever seen online. i think i'll actually use this one in real life. holy shit

features:

Magic ToDo, which helps you break down tasks into smaller tasks

Formalizer, which helps you adjust your tone depending on your situation - it can make you sound more or less formal, or more or less decisive/clear

Judge, which assesses your tone to help you understand how you're coming across, or you could put in someone else's text to see what it thinks they meant

Estimator, which can help you guess how long a certain task is going to take you

and last but not least, the Compiler, which takes an amorphous braindump and magically rearranges it into a list of tasks, which can then be sent to the Magic ToDo list and broken down into more managable pieces!

I didn't realize this was perfect to post for spooky month

Here she be, I hate her /r

butcher's knife is nanami's chosen weapon because it takes more strength to wield. this should tell you everything you need to know about him, frankly

The Instructional i bought has been really handy but its kinda funny how the whole first half was about Gripping Very Broadly, with a couple of specific goals to get to, and then the second half where he demoes all the takedowns its like. A demo and he shows all the details to make a technique work. And then he does the exact same thing from like 5 different stances/grips. Its very comprehensive, but to the point its a bit overwhelming.

I def think its meant to be a resource you go back to repeatedly once you have specific questions but its just kinda funny watching it chronologically where hes like “i love collar drags. You should first start with Uke Waza (the collar drag).” And then he does 5 collar drag set ups 5 ankle pick set ups 5 double legs 5 single legs “i actually dont like single legs all that much compared to knee picks” 5 knee picks and now we’re on to snap downs like.

would you tell us about #10, from the ask meme?

10: what's your favourite bookbinding tool?

my bone folder!! I didn't know this would end up being my favourite tool, or most appreciated tool, when I started out. at the time I was fixated on presses and I wanted both a finishing press and a nipping press and also a sewing frame and punching cradle and whatnot. I got myself a starter kit that had a bone folder, an awl, and a knife, and I DIY'd the rest (and no longer feel the need to get any presses or anything), and the bone folder just..wound up being so useful for so many things. before I got into bookbinding, when folding paper to tear the paper at the crease, I'd use the fingernail on my thumb to get the crease sharp enough to tear along. amazing that I can now use the bone folder for the same thing, and to fold signatures, crease hinges sharp, and fold down turn ins and smooth down surfaces and so on and so forth...

I have two bone folders now, they're actually the same size and shape, but I know which one is my original first one because it feels different in my hand - I can't imagine making a book without it. if I lose the awl, no big deal I'll probably just DIY one out of a tapestry needle and a cork instead of bothering to replace it, but I'd be genuinely upset to lose my bone folder. even if I have a second one I can use instead, I don't like using it. it's almost as if my bone folder has become an extension of me when I work.

20 questions about bookbinding ask meme

a long time ago i think i saw a post abt how ikea is shit bc they make furniture from cheap materials and you have to assemble it yourself waah waah and actual wood etc furniture is better n aesthetically more pleasing but like im just wondering... did the ppl agreeing w that post ever try to assemble and disassemble or move w siad wood furniture?? like shits heavy as fuck and wieldy and sometimes hard to clean... ikea stuff is easy to pick up and move and clean and assemble alone like different furniture is nice but i love ikea stuff bc i can just pick up that shelf myself and move it its all smooth so i dont have to clean the small ridges etc... like they make furniture for our contemporary hellscape of having to do a lot of housework and moving a lot etc mostly alone and they design furniture to make those things easier... like if i had a house n i never had to move and i had help w cleaning and lived w other ppl like that i would love having a lot of unique pieces but man...

I can't stand morons who verbally attack you when you say you wouldn't mind living in x decade. They'll say stupid shit like....

..wh- wha -tt ah bout -wacismm!!?

..wha- wa- t about warrr!!??

Certainn -med-icanss didn't existtt yet!!!???

Like shut the fuck up all I said was I wouldn't mind living in the 60s and then your dumb dick headed ass hits me how "selfish" I am along with the possibility of me ecountering/experiencing racism,war and incurable diseases as if racism,war and incurable diseases still don't exist today in 2024. Like yea I get it certain things were majorly worse back then no doubt about it but damn...we're not exactly living in ah utopia either people.

Daily warmup sketch 24/2/24:

Faithful old work torch

The fruits of my training. Soon I'll be able to draw Amaterasu without references.

Enough people have been requesting that I make an Instagram so they can see more of my woodworking that I think I'm going to, which is an L in itself, but the worst part is trying to think of a good handle :/

my ability to lose a cintiq pen that was just in my hand is rival to none