#action . accretion

[sigmadaily]

Kinda looks like a transformation into the Flying Dutchman?!

[merlions]

Something something you could binge that many episodes because there were filler episodes and the pacing was so so so much less dense, so your brain could rest sporadically at intervals throughout a longer time half-watching but you still were able to catch all the important details, instead of being exhausted from the need to maintain continuous lazer focus for 6 straight hours of content that's paced to be denser than a brick of pure elemental osmium. But what do I know, Netflix. What could anyone possibly know

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Some Science Vocabulary

for your next poem/story

Word — Science Meaning; Public Meaning

Bank - land alongside a river/lake; a place where people store money

Bar - unit of measure of atmospheric pressure; place to drink alcoholic beverages

Belt - collection of asteroids in a disc shape; materials worn around waist to support clothes

Bonding - electrostatic attraction between atoms; making an emotional connection

Charge - force experienced by matter when in an electromagnetic field; demand a price for rendered goods/services

Code - software/computer language; encrypted message

Crust - outermost layer of planet; edge of pizza/pie

Current - water or air moving in a direction; belonging to the present time

Cycling - flow of nutrients or elements; riding a bicycle

Dating - determining age of site/artifact; initial stage of romantic relationship

Driver - influential factor; someone who drives a vehicle

Dwarf - celestial body resembling small planet; characters from Snow White

Fault - fracture in a rock with movement; responsible for accident/misfortune

Fetch - distance traveled by wind/waves over water; go far and then bring back something/someone

Force - strength/energy of action/movement; make someone do something against their will

Grade - gradient/slope; level of proficiency

Hertz - the SI unit of frequency; rental car company

Jet - gas stream ejected from an accretion disk surrounding star; an aircraft powered by jet engines

Mantle - planet layer between crust and core; important role passed from person to person

Matter - physical substance in general; be of importance, have significance

Model - computer simulation; promotes fashion/product

Mole - SI unit used to measure amount of something; small rodent-like mammal

Plastic - substance that is easily shaped/molded; synthetic material

Pressure - force per unit area that gas/liquid/solid exerts on another; use of persuasion to make someone do something

Productive - creating organic matter through photo/chemosynthesis; busy and efficient

Sample - to take a sample for analysis; a small part of something

Scale - system of marks used for measuring; device used for measuring weight

Shear - difference in wind speed/direction; cut wool off of

Shelf - a submarine bank; a surface for displaying/storing objects

Stress - pressure/tension exerted on a material object; mental/emotional strain

Submarine - existing/occurring under the sea surface; a ship that stays submerged under water for extended periods

Surf - line of foam on seashore from breaking waves; riding a surfboard

Swell - sea movement in rolling waves that do not break; to become larger in size (e.g. a body part)

Source ⚜ More: Word Lists

[togglesbloggle]

🔥The ice giants

Oh, this one's tricky. Do people have strong enough feelings about the ice giants for opinions about them to be unpopular? Even NASA doesn't care enough about them to send a spacecraft more than once in a blue moon. I think I'll try to weasel out of this one with the opinion 'all planets are interesting, even Neptune,' on the grounds that uninterestingness is itself the dominant opinion.

The midcentury explorations of the solar system were, in retrospect, kind of crushing for the human imagination. We went from totally unbounded speculations about the diversity of worlds- imagining robust ecosystems on Venus and Mars as late as the 50s and early 60s- to a series of photographs showing cratered, dead, atmosphere-less worlds. And 'realism' became accepting these photographs, building a story of the cosmos that is not just sterile but quite simple, treating the solar system as conforming closely to low-complexity models of planetary formation. Gravity collects micrometeorites and gas particles in planetoids and moons according to the ratios predicted by temperature and distance from the center of the accretion disk; terrestrial worlds close in, gas giants further out, ice giants further still. The planets sort themselves by density, with interior deformation or sortition based on thermal gradients, radioactive decay, magnetic forces; moons find a stable orbit or don't, and that's that.

But the thing is, once you actually get past that superficial Voyager flyby-photograph, these worlds all tend to have dramatic and exciting particularities of their own. Look at Pluto! Look at Titan! Look at Enceladus! Look at Ceres! Probably the most boring and well-studied planet I can think of is Mercury, and even that has cool stuff like solid ice at the surface.

Part of this is just noticing over time that the interface between planets and space (that is, their surface) is not always or even usually the most interesting part of them, and assumptions to the contrary are an understandable but misleading form of Earth-chauvinism.

And a larger share of it, I think, is just that once you get something substantially larger than an asteroid, the combined influence of so much volume, so much mass, and so much time just tends to amplify the variance of your system incredibly far beyond what you'd expect from your 'terrestrial, gas giant, ice giant' template. The model is actionably useful, don't get me wrong, and worlds rarely vary so much that they outright break their category. But nothing the size of a moon or planet is actually simple, and nothing on the scale of four billion years is actually stable. And so each of these things, no matter how straightforward the template, will gradually tilt and totter its way within an unfathomably large space of possibilities to something that is practically speaking unique, and which reveals something new about the cosmos that you can't find anywhere else.

If the ice giants seem simple, it's a reflection of our methods and our technological limits, not the planets themselves. We are, generally speaking, absolutely terrible about investigating gaseous worlds on their own terms- and maybe we simply don't have the right tools or the right questions yet to figure out what makes Neptune and Uranus special. But it's only a matter of time.

[magicwhiskers29]

“They found something the other day, Sonic,” Maddie said.

--

“You’ve been pronounced legally dead, buddy!”

Shadow’s eyes were as wide as saucers, expanding like red giants, so much of that unease and skittishness that he always carried burning away from the edges of their accretion disk.

You ever think about that look Maddie gave Sonic in the ambulance? I do. You ever think about her trying to help Sonic out later because of it, and how that might clash completely with Sonic trying to help Shadow? I do.

(Technically a sequel to these two fics, so I'll link 'em here)

[max1461]

I will reiterate again my views on private property, for those who have not heard them:

Property is a legal construct, by which an individual is recognized by the state as having essentially unilateral authority over some bundle of resources, and whereby this control is enforced by the state at the behest of the individual using the state's monopoly on violence.

Right-libertarians view the right to private property as a fundamental individual liberty that must be respected any just state, akin to freedom of speech. However, I believe this view is incorrect. At the most basic level, the difference is that freedom of speech puts restrictions on what the state may do—it may not arrest us for what we say. On the other hand, the "right to property" demands an enormous amount of active interference by the state in everyday life—to decide who is the legitimate owner of what, and thereby who may use what and step where, what is trespassing or copyright infringement and what is not. It demands that if you use the wrong resources in the wrong way, resources not recognized as yours, you must be jailed. It demands a constant management by the state of exactly who is using what where. Far from being the actions of a "small government", a pervasive system of private property is a status quo that can only be maintained by an extraordinarily large and everywhere-reaching government.

This difference needn't mean that private property is bad. In fact, I don't think it is in general bad! But I also don't think it is in general good, or in general conducive to the ideal of individual liberty and autonomy.

In our present society, private property serves a variety of social functions that I think are very positive. For instance, private ownership (or something basically akin to private ownership) of one's home provides them with certain guarantees of privacy and autonomy within their own living space that I think are vital in any free society. At the same time, when a home's resident is not its owner, as in the case where a home is owned by a landlord, the right to property is instead an obstacle to these basic individual liberties.

Furthermore, I think that owning a very large amount of property makes one a kind of de facto autocrat, backed by state force in the exercise of their own private whims. As goes the old quip: who has more control over your life, the president, or your boss? And which one is democratically elected?

The truth is that we almost all spend the majority of our waking lives within the workplace, a domain ruled autocratically by an unelected, unaccountable authority. Yes, we each have the meager freedom to choose which autocratic authority to submit to, or to submit to none and starve on the street. But this is not freedom in any sane sense. And I think the notion that we live in a free society when the majority of most of our lives are spent in submission to the arbitrary whims of state backed authority is ridiculous.

Does this mean that I think private property should be replaced with nothing? That all rivalrous resources should be allocated by first-come first-serve, or according to who can guard them by exercise of the most individual force? No, of course not! Rather, I merely think property as it exists today is something of an arbitrary system, an accretion of history, steered at every turn by the powerful to guard their own interests. I would like to see a wholesale reworking of the way that resources and their use are coordinated by society—this time, engineered from the ground up specifically to empower the greatest number of people with the greatest amount of personal autonomy. I think anyone who defends the present system of property against such efforts has no business calling themselves "libertarian".

This is no simple project, and though I have many ideas (which you can find by perusing my posts), I am almost certainly not equipped with the full set of skills necessary to envision an ideal system. This is a project which must be approached at the same time with a technical eye towards economic issues and a humanistic eye towards the broader effects of the new system on people and their wellbeing. I am, as always, interested in talking with anyone who can contribute towards a vision of better system.

[raisingmybanner]

accretion [ə-ˈkrē-shən] noun: An accidental deposit of “foreign” material that was not part of the painting process, f. ex. dried liquid residue, flyspecks, etc. (from Stella Art Conservation, LLC) Riza Hawkeye has worked as Security Director for private art authenticator Roy Mustang for eight years with little trouble. However, recently Mustang has taken on riskier and higher-stakes jobs, putting himself and his team in danger of exposure and harm. The objective of a new undercover job – authenticating an elusive ink drawing while undercover on a three-week island retreat – hits too close to home for Riza. Secrets carefully kept threaten to be brought to light, exacerbated by the closeness required while posing as a young engaged couple. Hold on, they have to pose as an… engaged couple? For three weeks?!

I know, promo week for @royaibigbang 2024 is almost over and here I am with an actual promo post. Surprise! This story has been trying to escape my brain for years now, and I'm so grateful to the big bang for being the motivation I needed to get it into shape. I cannot WAIT to share it all with you on October 3 (SO SOON AHHHH).

Prepare yourselves for a romcom of royai proportions, featuring a modern-day AU, fake dating, forced proximity, slow burn, art nerdery, cameos from all your favorite (and perhaps least favorite) characters, idiots to lovers, heist vibes, and more feelings than you might initially expect.

I had the immense privilege of working with a team for this event, something that I've never done before. @aldrendaux was my wonderful beta, cheering me on and tidying up my mistakes every step of the way. (We've got Aldren to thank for the summary, too!) The story will also be featuring art by @areyousanta, @chewytran, @rizaposting, and @justanotherinterneruser. Sneak peeks of the art can be seen in Aldren's promo post here! Go scream at how gorgeous the pieces are!! (or maybe that will just be me, again, for the 400th time)

This fic was sooo much fun to write, and I hope you all enjoy reading it as well! Click through for a sneak peek of royai at a dancing class on their couple's retreat below the cut.

EDIT: Accretion is now live on AO3!

If her heart rate accelerated, it was just the surprise. It wasn’t the fact that her fingers slid through the hair on the nape of his neck for a moment before she quickly moved them down to his collar. It wasn’t the fact that the press of his body against hers felt too intimate, and too familiar. 

She was grateful for the fact that there was no time to linger on the sensations. Soon, Mustang was taking his first step, and Riza had to grip tighter to his hand and shoulder as she moved with him. She felt off-balance, pressed against him. Instead of supporting most of her own weight, she was now dependent on Mustang’s steps to be firm and guide her body along with his; it was a strange sensation for her. It was like clinging to the edge of a cliff face, trusting it not to drop her flat on her back.

Mustang, to his credit, stepped confidently, without wobbling. The added weight to his balance didn’t seem to throw him off at all, and she soon relaxed slightly against him and focused on keeping up with the music. If she concentrated hard enough, she could almost forget who the cliff face she was clinging to for dear life was.

“I told you I would keep your feet,” he said, quietly. 

The words made her look up at him automatically and — 

His face was far too close. Too close and too soft, with that small smile and that sparkle in his eye, with the hair starting to fall across his forehead. 

This look and the feel of him, strong against her wherever they touched, was continuing to make everything hopelessly confusing. She had clearly misinterpreted his actions the other night, but she still couldn’t seem to shake her own reactions to him, which was just embarrassing. She was thirty years old, not a hormone-ridden teenager, for Father’s sake.

She realized suddenly that she was just staring into Mustang’s eyes without speaking and felt her cheeks heat with mortification.

“Yes, well, the night is young,” she said, trying to sound normal and unsure whether or not she achieved it.

“I’ll convince you to trust me yet,” Mustang said, holding her gaze.

[ladyoftherefrigerator]

Accretion (12242 words) by Lady_of_the_Refrigerator Chapters: 4/? Fandom: Les Misérables (Movie 1978), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Javert/Jean Valjean Characters: Javert (Les Misérables), Jean Valjean, Cosette Fauchelevent, Fantine (Les Misérables) Additional Tags: Javert (Perkins) - Freeform, Jean Valjean (Jordan) - Freeform, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Enemies to Lovers, Lovers to Friends, Bottom Javert (Les Misérables), Top Jean Valjean, Sequel Series: Part 2 of Erosion Summary: "Anger rose up within Javert as the stark reality of the scene before him began to set in. Anger towards the innkeepers for their abhorrent conduct, to be sure, but perhaps even more anger that Valjean had been correct. The conditions at the inn were indeed abysmal, the girl neglected even worse than a lonely gamin living on the street. At least a gamin could squirrel away a possession or two of their own, and decide for themself their own actions, corrupt or legitimate. This girl had no such control of her own destiny."

[olderthannetfic]

A bit of a distraction: The only reason I know that Onmyoji exists is because I saw a doll of one of the characters, black hair, big red symbols over his brows, fox ears. I kinda really wanted it but since those dolls are expensive as all hell, and I only wanted the doll because I like the head, I had to come to the conclusion that it wasn't for me. That smile tho, pity pity.😔Especially since I prefer getting a naked doll and making my own clothes, and the only option was getting all the clothing, make-up and hair. Seeing that it's not a show on netflix brought all those thoughts back, and now I'm gonna watch the show because I'd like to see who that character is, in case he's part of the show.

I hope this was a good distraction from some of the more tense asks. Confusion is also a form of distraction.

--

Haha.

Sounds like a particularly foxy take on Abe no Seimei who is an actual historical figure but also basically Japanese Merlin—i.e. the prototypical wizard figure constantly borrowed into pop culture of various types.

One of the pieces of folklore about this guy is that his mother was a fox spirit. He accreted a pretty hefty body of legends in ye olden times, making him ripe for pop culture use now.

Basically, Yumemakura Baku wrote a bunch of novels about him in the 80s where he's hanging out with Minamoto no Hiromasa (another actual historical person, though not someone known to be buddies with the real historical Seimei), and it kicked off a feeding frenzy as everybody put five-pointed stars (Seimei's symbol) all over everything and adapted the novels a billion times.

Some of the more recent takes have been two Chinese movies: the lulzy Yin-Yang Master, based on the cell phone game based on the novels, and Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity, where Hiromasa got an upgrade via a lot of black leather and a bad attitude.

(Boya and Qingming are just the Chinese readings of Hiromasa and Seimei's names in Chinese characters.)

I'm partial to the old Japanese live action version that YYM: DOE was heavily referencing. Less black leather. Similar level of hoyay.

[aresgodofwar23]

Danny phantom, Randy Cunningham, Eltigre, and kick buttowski fight the powerful Gravtitox .

They must take out the invaders that invading the city. They must find away back to

The heroes are dodging left and right, barely escaping the powerful pull of Gravitox's gravity flux. It's a high-stakes dance as they try to outmaneuver his relentless hyperspheres, each one hitting with the force of a small meteor. The action is non-stop, hearts are racing, and Gravitox is proving to be one tough cookie – his moves are calculated, his attacks are fierce, and the heroes have to dig deep to keep up.

The robots swarm like a metallic storm, but El Tigre and Randy are ready. They're slicing and dicing through the robots, a dynamic duo against the mechanical horde. Meanwhile, Danny's swooping in, icing robots in a chilly aerial ballet.

"Cool off, bots! This fight's just getting started!" Danny quips, his voice echoing with confidence as each icy blast from his hands sends another robot into a deep freeze. The air crackles with frozen energy.

Gravitox's laugh echoes, a confident villain enjoying the spectacle.

Graviton stands defiant, his range is formidable. Kick fires his blaster, only to have the energy absorbed by the villain's seemingly invincible powers. Randy skillfully deflects a hypersphere with his sword, but it explodes on impact, showing just how dangerous Gravitox's weapons can be. Unfazed, Randy calls upon his earth attack, Hydro Hand, to shake things up.

Meanwhile, El Tigre, with his razor-sharp claws, tears through Gravitox's accretion layer, finding a way to land a blow. Danny swoops in for air support, his hands casting a freezing aura, and lands a series of chilling strikes. The heroes unleash their fury, but Gravitox is prepared, summoning protective shields to soften the heroes' relentless assault.

The battle rages on, with each hero pushing their limits and Gravitox laughing in the face of their efforts. It's a clash of titans, full of suspense and high stakes, as our heroes fight not just to win, but to survive.

Graviton levetated back to the ground and brought void accelerator staff   Of Nanites knocking  Eltigre back to the ground.

Graviton uses his electromagnetic field and hits Danny and tosses him towards Kick who evaded his attacks and got hit by Grabitox staff. Randy was clinging swords vs Gravitox who was very versatile.

You lose!!!

No, you lose!!! Danny yelled

Danny uses his ghostly wail to destroy everything in front of the force of nature building collapsed on Gravitox., he unleashes that wail, tearing through the chaos like a force of nature. Buildings crumble under the might of his sonic assault, burying Gravitox beneath the rubble. As the dust settles, there's a moment of eerie calm. It looks like the heroes might have just turned the tide! 🌪️🏢💨

You fools!

With his gravity flux and that chilling declaration, "Het universum zingt voor mij!"—which means "The universe sings for me!"—he's showing he's still a force to be reckoned with. The battle's intensity just skyrocketed! 🌌

The heroes are suspended mid-air, helpless under Gravitox's command: "Submit to gravity." The pressure is immense; they can barely move and are plummeting fast. But then, Danny springs into action, channeling his freezing powers to his advantage. Gravitox's arm is encased in ice, his gravitational grip failing. As Randy, Kick, and El Tigre brace for the hard fall, Danny, ever the hero, glides in just in time to save his fellow warriors from a crushing defeat. What a thrilling save!

I think Danny "says you guys can thank me later and admit I saved y'all from sudden death the second time ." they all looked in disagreement Randy, with his signature sass, probably threw back, "We had it under control, but thanks, Danny!" El Tigre, with his fierce pride, might growl out, "I don't need saving, but your timing isn't bad, amigo!" Gotta love that spirit! 🐯💥

The kick would be all about brushing it off with a line like, "I had it under control, but I'll take the assist!"

They examined the Gravitox who was frozen but could look at the heroes. Randy uses his scarf to tie him up.   "Now we need answers from you what's your plan and how we defeat your syndicate. Gravitox had his schizophrenic  He chuckled with his two split personality.

"I'm just a scientist, not a bad guy. You, heroes, think you're saving people, but you're the ones who need saving from yourselves," Gravitox sneers with a manic laugh. "I just want to examine what makes y'all tick. More experiments! Y'all are ineffective!!!" As his laughter fades, a hauntingly beautiful melody fills the air, capturing everyone's attention. 🎵😈

The heroes, locked in a relentless battle, are overwhelmed by Gravitox's Nemesis mode. With each nanite swarm that strikes, they feel a burning agony, as if their very life force is being siphoned away. Despite the pain, they push forward, knowing that surrender isn't an option. Their resilience shines even in the face of despair. Keep that scene going; your readers will be on the edge of their seats! El Tigre's muscles tensed, the gravity's crushing embrace pinning him mercilessly to the earth. "Can't... get up," he gasped, his voice a strained whisper. Kick lay still as stone beside him, the force of Gravitox's power rendering him immobile, a silent testament to their dire situation. Danny and Randy, though on their feet, fared little better. Each step was a battle, their bodies swaying like trees in a tempest, unsteady and unsure. Danny's heart hammered against his chest, a drumbeat slowing to the inevitable end, his energy seeping out of him like water from a cracked vase.Gravitox, towering over them, was a force untamed, his power unleashed in full, merciless display. His voice, once that of a man, now boomed with the depth of a chasm, echoing the darkness of his soul. "You will suffer as I, Gravitox, have suffered! Your torment will outlast the stars. When the universe dwindles into dust, there you will be, still suffering as I have suffered!"The heroes' plight was palpable, their agony a mirror to the torment etched into the very being of their nemesis. In this moment, the line between hero and villain blurred, bound together by the shared currency of pain.The heroes, battered and bruised within the crater's embrace, look up as Gravitox looms over them. His triumphant sneer cuts deeper than the rubble around. "Still alive, I see!" His voice drips with malice, and the sound of a nightmare comes to life. "I had a fun time with you heroes, but all things must come to an end beneath the earth!" Shrinking back to his mortal form, he summons a monolithic rock, casting a shadow over the sun—and their hopes. Commander Arcturus called. It's like the universe hit pause on the heroes' doom. "Oh, it's you. What is the meaning of this?" Gravitox's frustration is almost tangible. "Gravitox, Shadowstrike orders you to return to the facility to speed up the process with our prisoner." The tension! "But I'm in the middle of something!!" "Then it has to wait. Mr. Warner needs everything in top shape before he arrives." The authority in Arcturus's voice is clear, with no room for argument. "BUT!!" Gravitox's anger is a storm on the horizon. "Don't make me report this to Shadowstrike. I'm warning you." And just like that, the heroes catch a break. "It looks like luck prevents your fate. I'll kill you later then." With a final glare, Gravitox vanishes, leaving the heroes in the shadow of what could have been.🌀

Danny turned back into a human as he and his friends were in the crater. Randy went back to normal and Eltigre depowered. Kick was still injured as his armor was damaged.  Danny barely felt like moving. ANYONE LIVE?!! Yeah...  "Sorry guys I probably shouldn't have gotten distracted. You think you're sorry dude I let my anger get the better of me which let us fight each other. Kind of wild don't you think ." Danny said. The group laughed until their bones ached. Uhh oww!!"

"Well, June can't beat us if we already hurt ." Danny chuckled.

[sigmadaily]

coincidentally, also circuit royale

[burlveneer-music]

memotone - Fever of the World - obviously a Fourth World devotee, and good at it

Following releases on Sähkö Recordings and The Trilogy Tapes, "Fever of the World" is the Soda Gong debut by Memotone, the nom de plume of UK-based multi-instrumentalist Will Yates. As a collection, it is both intimate and expansive, like the feeling of gathering one's thoughts before setting off on a long journey or committing to an irrevocable course of action. Throughout, Yates' talents as both player and sound designer are on full display, as are the sonic signatures that have come to characterize the Memotone catalog: low-lit, ECM-inflected noir; evasive and evolving loop-based accretions; and mellifluous mosaics of keys, guitar, reeds, and percussion. It is patient and focused music, built around production techniques and compositional ideas that have been perfected both in studio and in live performance over a period of several years. "Catherine, On Fire" sets the scene, one of two languid, longform selections, and develops slowly from a spare, harmonic-laden guitar loop into a bed of rippling textural ambience and woozy clarinet filigree. Later, "The Bus" and "When the Bakery Has What You Want and It's Cheap" conjure images of rain-streaked windows, fanciful baked confections, and grey skies broken finally by sunlight. Warm, generous, and comfortable in its own skin, this is music that reminds us that when it feels easy to resign ourselves to world weariness, we should pause for a moment and listen to the rustle of the leaves. The wind knows not to linger. All music by Will Yates Art/design by Alex McCullough and Felix Luke

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Astronomers witness the in situ spheroid formation in distant submillimetre-bright galaxies

An international team of researchers including The University of Tokyo Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI) has found evidence showing that old elliptical galaxies in the universe can form from intense star formation within early galaxy cores. This discovery will deepen our understanding of how galaxies evolved from the early Universe, reports a new study in Nature.

Galaxies in today’s Universe are diverse in morphologies and can be roughly divided into two categories: younger, disk-like spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, that are still forming new stars; and older, elliptical galaxies, which are dominated by a central bulge, no longer forming stars and mostly lacking gas. These spheroidal galaxies contain very old stars, yet how they formed has remained a mystery—until now.   The discovery of the birth sites of giant, elliptical galaxies – announced in a paper published today in Nature – come from analyzing data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) on over 100 Submillimeter Bright Galaxies (SMGs) with redshifts dating to the “Cosmic noon” era, when the universe was between around 1.6 and 5.9 billion years old and many galaxies were actively forming stars. This study provides the first solid observational evidence that spheroids can form directly through intense star formation within the cores of highly luminous starburst galaxies in the early Universe, based on a new perspective from the submillimeter band. This breakthrough will significantly impact models of galaxy evolution and deepen our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve across the Universe.   In this study, researchers led by Chinese Academy of Sciences Purple Mountain Observatory Associate Researcher Qinghua Tan, and including Kavli IPMU Professor John Silverman, Project Researcher Boris Kalita, and graduate student Zhaoxuan Liu, used statistical analysis of the surface brightness distribution of dust emission in the submillimeter band, combined with a novel analysis technique. They found that the submillimeter emission in most of sample galaxies are very compact, with surface brightness profiles deviating significantly from those of exponential disks. This suggests that the submillimeter emission typically comes from structures that are already spheroid-like. Further evidence for this spheroidal shape comes from a detailed analysis of galaxies’ 3D geometry. Modeling based on the skewed-high axis-ratio distribution shows that the ratio of the shortest to the longest of their three axes is, on average, half and increases with spatial compactness. This indicates that most  of these highly star-forming galaxies are intrinsically spherical rather than disk-shaped. Supported by numerical simulations, this discovery has shown us that the main mechanism behind the formation of these tri-dimensional galaxies (spheroids) is the simultaneous action of cold gas accretion and galaxy interactions. This process is thought to have been quite common in the early Universe, during the period when most spheroids were forming. It could redefine how we understand galaxy formation.   This research was made possible thanks to the A3COSMOS and A3GOODSS archival projects, which enabled researchers to gather a large number of galaxies observed with a high enough signal-to-noise ratio for detailed analysis. Future exploration of the wealth of ALMA observations accumulated over the years, along with new submillimeter and millimeter observations with higher resolution and sensitivity, will allow us to systematically study the cold gas in galaxies. This will offer unprecedented insight into the distribution and kinematics of the raw materials fueling star formation. With the powerful capabilities of Euclid, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and the China Space Station Telescope (CSST) to map the stellar components of galaxies, we will gain a more complete picture of early galaxy formation. Together, these insights will deepen our understanding of how the Universe as a whole has evolved over time.

IMAGE: Schematic diagram shows how spheroid formation occurs in distant submillimetre-bright galaxies, and how this process connects to the evolution of giant elliptical galaxies in today's Universe. On the far left, we have RGB images from JWST (using F444W for red, F227W for green, and F150W for blue) showcasing examples from our sample of galaxies. The cyan dashed ellipse marks the concentrated region of submm emission, with zoomed-in views highlighting the ALMA submm images. Also shown is a classification of the galaxies' intrinsic shapes. The average shape parameters for our full sample (green ellipse), a subsample of submm-compact galaxies (orange ellipse), and a subsample of submm-extended galaxies (blue ellipse) are compared to local early-type galaxies (red ellipse) and late-type galaxies (represented by purple and cyan spiral shapes).  Credit: Qing-Hua Tan

[explorermoo]

Artifact 00M.α1

"This mural was recovered from the ruins on Alpha Oom, in the Pleiades sector. It showcases the first intact depiction of Entity Ἄτλᾱς. In this artistic representation, the Entity is shown wielding the energy of a Class O Blue Supergiant. If this is a show of power or if it represents an action undertaken by the Entity it is yet unknown. The presence of a black hole, depicted by the event horizon and accretion disk, suggests the Entity might have had enough power to face the extreme spacetime conditions of a singularity. Our historians haven't yet determined what the imagery actually represents, if it's either legend or fact. The writing at the bottom of the mural hasn’t yet been able to be translated, due to the lack of cross-referential texts. However, the recurrent motifs seen in ancient civilizations across the galaxy, such as the Oom Collective, the Eta Carinae Station, and the Alnitak Tomb Worlds, seem to suggest there is more truth than flair regarding the presence of Entity Ἄτλᾱς in art and artifacts." The Galactic Museum, "The Starbound Entities - An Eons-old Mystery" Exposition

Posted using PostyBirb

[wellofdean]

So, about the Winchesters:

Have you ever had a dream where you think you're dreaming about someone, but suddenly they are someone else, or they're the person you thought you were dreaming about, but with a different face? And, in your dream, you accept it because dreams have a different logic than waking life? Like, it seems normal, or it's ok to just shift in the dream from it being about one person, to it being about another? Because, all the while, you are really just inside your own well of perception, explaining yourself to yourself, and all the people in your dream are you?

That's The Winchesters.

For example: John and Mary talking about that time when they were in a locked room, with the Akrida pounding on the door wanting to kill them, and they kiss (in an episode ever so subtly titled 'Reflections'). Then, think about how close the word 'Akrida' is, phonetically, to the word 'accretion', which means 'growth or increase by the gradual accumulation of additional layers or matter' and then think about the obvious way this parallels/reflects/is a mirror of Dean and Cas, with their 12 years of slowly building and layering moments and actions and interactions (one accretion) that made it feel both momentous, but also obvious and relieving when Cas told Dean he loved him. Think about how Billie also parallels the Akrida: coming after Dean in Despair because of all the rules he'd broken, all the deaths he'd defied, and all the chaos she feels he created, and where part of that is Cas falling (another accretion).

What?! Even the Akrida are Dean!? Yes. Yes they are.

Compare too, the contrast between the two scenes: Cas's confession comes after so much water under the bridge. It's earned. Mary and John have just met, and we only feel it's obvious that he loves her because we know their future. Dean and Cas's scene in their locked room with accretion pounding at the door is infinitely more compelling and romantic than John and Mary's, where a CGI insect monster is threatening them, even without a kiss.

So to recap: John and Mary reflect Cas and Dean, and the Akrida reflect Billie and all the years and years that have accumulated, accreted into the relationship Dean had with his world, and the threat he and Cas faced in Despair.

Okay, so the next day, Mary and John talk about their kiss in that locked room. John says 'I want to live with the consequences' and Mary says 'I need time'. Both of those reactions are, arguably, Dean's reactions to Cas, but he never got the opportunity to say anything to Cas, or to have any reaction to his love beyond stunned pleading that it not be a goodbye. He loves Cas too, but he didn't have time to process and speak. It's like Dean is having a conversation with himself. I mean, remember that all of this is what he's writing in his journal, where he is telling his own story, and at the very least, all of these characters and events are being filtered and given meaning by Dean's perception, and that is built into the bones of the show, because Dean is the narrator.

And then later, Dean is Carlos, who won't be forced to dance by a capricious cosmic entity, and his refusal to play saves his friends and sets him free to sing. And then, Dean is Lata, who has a dark, secret guilt and Cas is Carlos, trapped in a cold room, fading away because of a secret kept. And, Dean is Millie, who just wants to be a mechanic and love her family and he's Mary, who wants to give up hunting, but can't just let people die, and on and on...

tl;dr? Deanception. Into the Deanverse. Dear Diary, the Dean Winchester story as told by Dean to Dean in the fever dream of Dean's perception. All your base is belong to Dean. Deannnnnn!

[max1461]

I've sometimes said "when it comes to fiction, I'm not that interested in narratives", but I think perhaps that's not really true. Maybe I should have said, and maybe what would be a more useful analytical frame, is "when it comes to fiction, I'm not that interested in narratives about human characters". I think that I am interested in, and consistently enjoy, narratives whose characters are institutions. It's why I love stories based on the "fall of Roman democracy" trope—these stories are particularly fun because they have one human character (Caesar) and one non-human character (the Senate). It's why I love Cold War stories (two non-human characters: the US and the USSR). And it's why I enjoy Lovecraft so much. Lovecraft's real monster is not Cthulhu but the cult of Cthulhu, and it's precisely the survival of this cult through the centuries which terrifies Lovecraft so much (and which, conversely, I find so appealing—but Lovecraft's near mirror-image aesthetic sensibilities to my own are something I've written about elsewhere).

Anyway, this all comes on the heels of me feeling deeply dissatisfied with the kinds of stories other people seem to like. I have trouble with litfic and its ilk, because litfic, at least at the present moment, seems kind of myopically focused on portraying the complexities of human characters and human relationships. And I think that's a fine goal, but it doesn't tend to interest me that much. I'm just not that compelled by human stories most of the time, one way or another. And then in contrast to litfic you have specfic, which tends to focus on big ideas. Sci-fi and whatnot. And to my eye these big ideas are not typically best explored in narrative form. Narrative is linear, and big high-concept sci-fi hooks are non-linear, they permeate the entire world of a story all at once. This makes presenting them in the most compelling way challenging to do in narrative form. They can work in short stories, but I just don't think long-form narrative is the ideal way to explore them. What is the ideal way? I don't know, something like a Randall Monroe "What If" article, or maybe a mockumentary. Or a worldbuilding wiki. I hear this is what Greg Egan does, and then he also write books. Anyway, the point is that the traditional objects of narrative are often either not that interesting to me personally, or feel worse off for being presented in narrative form. And this leaves me somewhat disillusioned with narratives generally.

The thing is though, there are examples of narratives that I like, narratives that really make me feel something, and I kept trying to figure out what they had in common. And then it hit me—I like narratives about institutions, and to my eye institutions are the perfect objects for narrative. Institutions can be characters, because institutions are generally agents: they have goals, and take actions in the world to achieve those goals. This opens the door for narrative conflict. Institutions progress linearly through time and accrete experiences which change and transform them, much like human characters do. This makes narrative presentation an ideal form for talking about institutions. Institutions exist at human scales, or near-human scales, in all of space, time, and complexity. This makes them far easier to narrativize than sociological or alternative-science conceits. And, perhaps most importantly, unlike human characters, the inner workings of institutions are accessible to us. The way they function can be laid bare, or near-bare, for an audience in a way that a human mind cannot. And yet institutions, by virtue of being made up of people, still retain a level of dynamism and uncertainty in their behavior that makes narratives exciting.

And I realized that basically every story I've really liked has had an institution as at least on prominent character. I think this is why I like conspiracy stories so much—the villain is, invariably, an institution. Anyway, we need more of this. We need more stories that are, in some sense, about institutions more than about people or about ideas. You know, sometimes, when I want to read a story, I don't want to read about foibles of democracy in general—that's too big. And I don't want to read about the rise of Caesar—that's just some guy. I want to read about the fall of the Roman Senate. Now that's the kind of shit that I dig.