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Wonderful animation made by https://www.instagram.com/robin.animates/

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"Hunger" — work-in-progress. Original digital sketch April 2024, this sketch today (February 2025).

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Re-queued as an experiment...

"Doodle" in progress. Tentative title: "Enlighten Us, Please"

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February 2025 drawing-theme ideas

Some drawing theme ideas I've gathered this February 2025 (personal notes):

Resisting is still on the agenda

Do not fear the Nazis. You do not have to punch them per se, but you do not have to obey their every threat either.

The Nazis are still wrong and stupid

The ants voting for insecticides and killing everyone (see the Portuguese ant-voting meme...)

Keep moving and breathing and mutual-supporting

Vaccines still save many many lives and still essentially don't cause autism.

the Proud Boys lost the copyright to their name & branding. (See this Associated Press report from Feb 6, 2025)

There is hope, and there is no need to preemptively shrivel up & die.

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Autumn Vibe Or as we Californians call it: fire season

and there is no such thing as winter

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that's the good stuff, man

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The thing about the kind of person who encounters something they can't seem to understand, then they just flat out refuses to even try to understand, and then proceeds to immediately declare the thing they can't understand as ugly...

Yeah...

[/Proceeds to eat a banana that had just been duct-taped to a wall.]

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It's starting to feel right now like I'm part-time-freelance employed. Which is better than feeling like being completely unemployed. I'm grateful.

To be clear I'm not yet making my own living though. I'm still depending on support from my siblings and mom. Still need to improve to get to a place where I'm socioeconomically supporting myself. So, not done yet.

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Artist: Noriyoshi Ohrai

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Laws are not self-enforcing. If Congress, the Courts, the agencies and the people do not prevent people from doing illegal things, those things are, effectively, legal. It doesn't really matter that the president cannot shut down federal agencies willy nilly, or that he can't empower someone else to do it on his behalf --although that is certainly true. What matters is that they are stopped from doing it. Alas, whether they will be is a whole lot less clear than I wish it was.

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My cartoon for this week’s Guardian Books

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FAFO, Elon. Heck yeah.

Ontario province, Canada, cancelling their Starlink contract worth about $300 million, their governor directly mentioning Elon's latest antics in the past two weeks as a motivation.

A drop in the bucket in the billionare scheme-of-things, perhaps. But I hope the World can continue to inflict more & more pain upon that musky-elmo of a man-child. The more direct the better.

(Source: various tech & business news publications within the past 24 hours.)

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"Hey Dad, why did you marry mom?""Well son, when an eldritch goddess beyond human comprehension asks for your hand in marriage, you have few options."

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The Insane Scale of Tokyo’s Disaster Megaplan (published Dec. 2024)

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Lol... 😂😆😆 ...all that said though: Lovely couple, may they live long & be happy ever after 💖💖

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All-Star Moments in Space Communications and Navigation

How do we get information from missions exploring the cosmos back to humans on Earth? Our space communications and navigation networks – the Near Space Network and the Deep Space Network – bring back science and exploration data daily.

Here are a few of our favorite moments from 2024.

1. Hip-Hop to Deep Space

The stars above and on Earth aligned as lyrics from the song “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” by hip-hop artist Missy Elliott were beamed to Venus via NASA’s Deep Space Network. Using a 34-meter (112-foot) wide Deep Space Station 13 (DSS-13) radio dish antenna, located at the network’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California, the song was sent at 10:05 a.m. PDT on Friday, July 12 and traveled about 158 million miles from Earth to Venus — the artist’s favorite planet. Coincidentally, the DSS-13 that sent the transmission is also nicknamed Venus!

NASA's PACE mission transmitting data to Earth through NASA's Near Space Network.

2. Lemme Upgrade You

Our Near Space Network, which supports communications for space-based missions within 1.2 million miles of Earth, is constantly enhancing its capabilities to support science and exploration missions. Last year, the network implemented DTN (Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking), which provides robust protection of data traveling from extreme distances. NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) mission is the first operational science mission to leverage the network’s DTN capabilities. Since PACE’s launch, over 17 million bundles of data have been transmitted by the satellite and received by the network’s ground station.

A collage of the pet photos sent over laser links from Earth to LCRD and finally to ILLUMA-T (Integrated LCRD Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal) on the International Space Station. Animals submitted include cats, dogs, birds, chickens, cows, snakes, and pigs.

3. Who Doesn’t Love Pets?

Last year, we transmitted hundreds of pet photos and videos to the International Space Station, showcasing how laser communications can send more data at once than traditional methods. Imagery of cherished pets gathered from NASA astronauts and agency employees flowed from the mission ops center to the optical ground stations and then to the in-space Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), which relayed the signal to a payload on the space station. This activity demonstrated how laser communications and high-rate DTN can benefit human spaceflight missions.

4K video footage was routed from the PC-12 aircraft to an optical ground station in Cleveland. From there, it was sent over an Earth-based network to NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The signals were then sent to NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration spacecraft and relayed to the ILLUMA-T payload on the International Space Station.

4. Now Streaming

A team of engineers transmitted 4K video footage from an aircraft to the International Space Station and back using laser communication signals. Historically, we have relied on radio waves to send information to and from space. Laser communications use infrared light to transmit 10 to 100 times more data than radio frequency systems. The flight tests were part of an agency initiative to stream high-bandwidth video and other data from deep space, enabling future human missions beyond low-Earth orbit.

The Near Space Network provides missions within 1.2 million miles of Earth with communications and navigation services.

5. New Year, New Relationships

At the very end of 2024, the Near Space Network announced multiple contract awards to enhance the network’s services portfolio. The network, which uses a blend of government and commercial assets to get data to and from spacecraft, will be able to support more missions observing our Earth and exploring the cosmos. These commercial assets, alongside the existing network, will also play a critical role in our Artemis campaign, which calls for long-term exploration of the Moon.

On Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, at 12:06 p.m. EDT, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

6. 3, 2, 1, Blast Off!

Together, the Near Space Network and the Deep Space Network supported the launch of Europa Clipper. The Near Space Network provided communications and navigation services to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, which launched this Jupiter-bound mission into space! After vehicle separation, the Deep Space Network acquired Europa Clipper’s signal and began full mission support. This is another example of how these networks work together seamlessly to ensure critical mission success.

Engineer Adam Gannon works on the development of Cognitive Engine-1 in the Cognitive Communications Lab at NASA’s Glenn Research Center.

7. Make Way for Next-Gen Tech

Our Technology Education Satellite program organizes collaborative missions that pair university students with researchers to evaluate how new technologies work on small satellites, also known as CubeSats. In 2024, cognitive communications technology, designed to enable autonomous space communications systems, was successfully tested in space on the Technology Educational Satellite 11 mission. Autonomous systems use technology reactive to their environment to implement updates during a spaceflight mission without needing human interaction post-launch.

A first: All six radio frequency antennas at the Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex, part of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), carried out a test to receive data from the agency’s Voyager 1 spacecraft at the same time.

8. Six Are Better Than One

On April 20, 2024, all six radio frequency antennas at the Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex, part of our Deep Space Network, carried out a test to receive data from the agency’s Voyager 1 spacecraft at the same time. Combining the antennas’ receiving power, or arraying, lets the network collect the very faint signals from faraway spacecraft.

Here’s to another year connecting Earth and space.  

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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"Doodle" in progress. Tentative title: "Enlighten Us, Please"