Alistair Young @cerebrate@schelling.pt
- Fiction
- https://eldraeverse.com/
- Tech Blog
- https://randombytes.substack.com/
- Random Stuff Blog
- https://noiseinmysignal.substack.com/
- avatar@arkane-systems.net
Science fiction writer. Speaker to minerals. Consensualist. Illeist. Pony and kanmusu stan. Can call spirits from the vasty deep!
Joined Jun 2023
Pinned post
The Day We Were Raided By The Feds -
https://noiseinmysignal.substack.com/p/what-the-hell-happened?sd=pf
(I wrote this up to attach to the yard sign mentioned in previous toots with a QR code, and have something to pin to avoid telling the story over again.)
Pinned post
Before following me, you should be aware that if you have a political ideology, I probably despise it, even if it's mine.
🤔
No, actually - especially if it's mine.
Intent -
https://eldraeverse.com/2025/02/18/intent/
Because we actually care quite a lot about your motives.
Incursion (3/3) -
https://eldraeverse.com/2025/02/08/incursion-3-3/
In which I follow up on a piece from 2016. Better late than never!
My current 3D printer upgrade is now up to two brand new genuine parts returned for “received as defective”.
What, dear world, the shit?
Clem is basically the Buffyverse's Norm.
The more I learn about metal chemistry, the more I realize that the entire modern world is built on fucking voodoo bullshit.
According to a recent news popup, Canada will respond to Trump’s 25% tariff with a tit-for-tat 25% tariff of their own.
We may take comfort, therefore, in these troubled times, in the knowledge that our neighbor to the north is also governed by tapioca-brained imbeciles.
A trade disruption can mean only one thing.
(I should say that since I am a much worse person than that, intend this to be a learning experience, and have a crafty wife, these will not be regular bombs. They will be GLITTER BOMBS.)
I swear to all the chthonic deities below that when I'm done with this project I'm going to start mailing people bombs.
With QR codes linking to the disarming instructional video.
Have fun pausing the couple of frames where my big-ass hands aren't blocking which wire to cut.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THERE ARE LITERALLY ALL THE PLATFORMS MORE APPROPRIATE FOR WIRING DIAGRAMS THAN YOUTUBE.
I WOULD TAKE ASCII ART OVER THIS SHIT.
And a Bottle of Sun - https://eldraeverse.com/2025/01/30/and-a-bottle-of-sun/
It's always sunny on Esilmúr.
Alistair Young
boosted
“WHO DARES AWAKEN ME FROM MY AEONS-LONG SLUMBER?!”
“Yes, very good, excellent delivery, forgive me for not laughing, but you’re the sixth one today. You girls should have workshopped your jokes together before going into stasis”
“Oh. Ah? How long have we got until the big 10k, and how are my investments doing? And do you still have updog in the future?”
“It’s 2288, forget about year ten thousand we’ve got bigger problems. Your investments tanked in the quantum wars. And nice try but the last corpsicle got me with that one”
“Fuck. What now?”
“Asteroid impact is what
now”
“Cool, and you need programmers to calculate how to divert it.”
“Nope, we did that already.”
“And that worked?”
“Noooooot as such, no. Typo in the value of the gravitational constant.”
“Woopsy, so you need a cadre of 21st century digital girls to brainstorm a last minute plan B?”
“Nope, plan B worked just fine, the folks at the Indonesian moon base worked an incantation to kick the Earth a day forward in time, while the asteroid sailed through the empty spot. Well mostly fine; I can’t get used to the month being four days longer now.”
“Aha! You need us to work out how to get the moon back in orbit?”
“No, we’ll live with that. We need you to fix the timezone data files”
Been thinking about laser weapons being used as a reason for starships not to have windows.
Also been thinking about the intensities of starship-mounted laser weapons.
Conclusion: "Sure am glad there's no porthole in here," said Lieutenant Lucky, as he exploded into plasma.
It is the year of the snek.
No step on it.
Alistair Young
boosted
So, how old can nuclear power plants get?
PWRs, BWRs and CANDUs are the most commonly found nuclear reactors in the world, in that order. They're also amazingly longlasting. Units built in the 1970s are rated to run for at least 80 years today.
Get this: the reactor vessel of a PWR has no known upper age limit. We simply don't know. Is it a century? 150 years? Longer? We can keep replacing all the other parts, as long as the RPV is sound, it simply doesn't matter how long a reactor operates.
And a CANDU? You refurbish those every 30 years or so. Forever.
Here's a rule of thumb: if anyone tells you that a 40 year old plant is 'old', they have an agenda.
I'm not an artist, but it would be funny to make this script into a comic:
- Pane 1: "Hi there, I'm a fuel rod" "Hi there! I'm a PWR and I'm going to house you for the next five years"
- Pane 2: [after five years, a sad departure] "I'm going into storage for 300 years now, it was good knowing you 😭"
- Pane 3: the PWR just keep humming and humming and humming
- Pane 4: [300 years later] "Hi there, I'm a recycled piece of fuel and I'll be with you for five... wait, are you still around??" "Welcome home"
(Oh right, nuclear waste is not an actually existing problem)
People talking about ottomans today, and thus the Ottoman Empire, and for some reason I keep hearing it as the EMPIRE OF THE AUTOMEN.
Which sounds very pulp-SF-ish.
Maybe even too much so for me to use.
It's only a real inauguration if properly solemnized by divine omens communicated through the flight of birds.
Otherwise it's just a sparkling initiation.
No Step On Snek -
https://eldraeverse.com/2025/01/19/no-step-on-snek/
When amateurs get creative.
As a classical liberal, I believe that Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus make some good points, but their proposals really go too far in today's climate. They might even endanger the Republic!
A Knob On The End Is Optional - https://eldraeverse.com/2025/01/14/a-knob-on-the-end-is-optional/
- Fiction
- https://eldraeverse.com/
- Tech Blog
- https://randombytes.substack.com/
- Random Stuff Blog
- https://noiseinmysignal.substack.com/
- avatar@arkane-systems.net
Science fiction writer. Speaker to minerals. Consensualist. Illeist. Pony and kanmusu stan. Can call spirits from the vasty deep!
Joined Jun 2023
