Nanoraptor
@nanoraptor.danamania.comWhat the hell. One like on this post, I reply with one piece of Nanoraptor lore.
Make me regret this.
1. I still sometimes get anxiety. Thank you for reminding me of this. NINE MINUTES, PEOPLE.
2. I used to have anxiety and depression even worse. I barely studied or worked from about 1996 to 2009, with a few notable exceptions before falling apart again.
3. I got over it by giving up. By releasing myself to the world and just truly taking "oh fuck, I just give up" to heart. Had a bright blue flash at 6pm on December 8 2009 and boom! 99% better ever since. A total eckhart tolle moment.
4. I'm still a hermit. People look and smell weird. But I love you all.
5. I transitioned decades back, starting early 1997 as far as I can tell. Shit's changed a lot. Individuals and institutions have gotten WAY better. Even in this small town.
6. I first came to bluesky by invite and after 35k people following me on twitter thought HOLY HELL i can just go have a small anon-like account again and say stupid shit and immediately found two people from school, one from primary, and two BBS people here following me.
7. I went to a private school but don't hold that against me, I went through it in a haze and everyone hated me.
8. I have studied comp sci, industrial mathematics, geographic info systems, database systems admin, and some other things.
All great grounding for now being a graphic artist.
10. I've had migraines since I was about 12. Spent a whole school term bar a week in hospital with the pain in my head coming and going. I got scanned a million different ways and it showed nothing weird (other than being my head y'know)
11. My migraines stopped hurting for the most part in my late 20s - only a few years after starting HRT. Occasionally one jumps up and hits me, but they're mostly a bearable weirdness now.
12. Speaking of HRT, One of the biggest things I noticed early on was women smelling like walnuts and men smelling like battery acid. This eased off after a while.
13. Another thing is I swear I was colourblind as a kid. My parents remember it, I remember failing ishihara tests too. Definitely not colourblind now though - I work with colour day in/day out professionally. No evidence of the failures before, though, in school results either way.
14. Back to the enlightenment moment, December 8th I consider my second birthday, my Me birthday even though I was born on the coldest day of the year in July.
15. Oh yeah, I'm Australian.
16. I was diagnosed with ADHD this year! I'm on day 210 of medication. It has changed SO MANY THINGS for the better, like I can't believe. I cried the first night I tried dex and my head worked.
All the stereotypes about ADHD kids worked against me for 50+ years. I am still so much better for it.
17. As an Australian I *have* wrestled* both an Emu and a Kangaroo as part of wildlife rescue I did in the '00s.
* Both were sedated at the time, and it was different times.
18. I have a heterochromia of the hair. The left side of my head is dark brown, no more than a grey or two - the right side is quickly going solid grey. I find this cool as hell.
(18b)
19. I have an upper wisdom tooth that's sitting there quietly, unreachable, and it's somehow just millimetres away from the bottom of my eye socket in a little curled up knot. Also holy hell the root post to this has 206 likes now and this is only 19...
I love you all but really!
20. I have been digitally arting since my parents bought me a Mattel Children's Discovery System, which had a bitmap art app on its 48x16 display. Never stopped. en.wikipedia.org
Children's Discovery System - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
21. Soon after, I got a Commodore 64 for Christmas. I smashed that thing so hard, wrote a little 16-colour art app and made SO MUCH ART and lost it all. Boo.
22. Then suddenly I was an Amiga kid. Not sure just when that happened, sometime after the A500 came out. That lasted until 2000. I was still using an Amiga 1200 as my main machine at the start of 2000, before I got a Mac of my own.
I still have most of my art from those times. That's a story...
23. I think my first edit of a computer into something stupid was a Mac though! in the BBS days for a fellow who ran a Mac BBS. I made him a Quadra 9000 that was three storeys tall in deluxepaint. @damianm.com would remember the fellow cos HE WAS THERE.
24. My first foray onto the internet proper was an IRC channel at a uni open day in October 1989. I was on some mailing lists via BBSs that bridged to the internet a year or so before that.
25. Then when I got to uni in 1990, I got access to all the unused accounts that semester for students who applied but never turned up, and handed them out to friends for free internet access.
26. When I was a kid mum couldn't find me for a while. When she did eventually, I was hiding behind her bedroom door eating all her birth control pills. Three months worth in a go. I joke that I started HRT early, around age 3.
27. I'm a petrolhead. give me an old Falcon V8 and I'm happy. Or part of me is. Cars suck, big petrol guzzling ones more so, but still - there's one of the contradictions of humanity.
I own a 1969 Ford Falcon Futura with a 302 Windsor.
28. I say own, not drive, as it's currently in resto hell and has been for years. I don't want to think about it.
29. I suffer (greatly, at the moment, it's consuming my life) from endometriosis. I know that sounds like it conflicts with my earlier Lore, but I only found out this year that...
30. I'm intersex. At this point life feels like I got the worst of two worlds. I was surgically altered at or near birth. I have organs you wouldn't expect. I'm missing some you would. I'm still figuring myself out - I say I'm still cooking, though the picture is coming clearer.
31. This probably explains the cool hair.
32. and probably the migraines, and their changing response to HRT
33. I adore bunnies. They are strange alien little creatures, distant from us in time but still mammals. I've had three - Jett, who lives 11 years, Moppet who didn't quite get to 2 ( :( ) and currently Vanillabean, who is the rabbit personification of the abyss - but also cute as hell.
34. I used to own rats. They are SUCH JOY but also such heartbreak. An inbuilt lifespan barely 3 years if you're lucky. Buns have brains the size of a walnut but at least they'll go a decade. probably.
35. Any of my photoshopped equipment shit is free to the world. Use it, share it, enjoy it, add to it, I don't need credit - though it's funny when someone pings me with a thing I worked on decades ago and it's circulating again.
36. Why do I do it? I find it comforting. I lose myself in it, and often don't want to think too long on something. a VHS SE/30? sure! let's lose myself in it.
4 hours later the daftest thing ever comes out. Should have been Betamax of course. or is it betacord? I don't know but I know I'd have to.
37. I learned how to do this coming up through from pixel only art, to pixel peeking newtek demos, to editing photos on deluxepaint (if you've ever used it you know it's NOT the tool to do that well) and by the time I his PS I had 15 years experience at the pixel level. I think that helps greatly.
38. I hope roko's basilisk chokes on my stuff. I hope AIs do too. I hope feeding all I've done into generative image creation makes it all the more obvious to future users that it's a clumsy mess, much like text lies have broken LLMs.
39. I am a middle child, but didn't know I was until my 20s, I was the eldest of two until mum told me she was looking for my older sister. She was from a different father, 5 years before me. WE FOUND HER VERY SOON!
40. So I suddenly became an auntie dana, and now I'm the middle of three. My older sis got me into actually working in graphic design/illo/print. Absolutely changed my life.
41. I believe she's looking for work in print and she can do as much as I can or more. Pixel work vector work, indesign, technical print work, advertising, lenticulars, frickin *sales* and estimating and quoting, design, signage measuring, all of it. East coast .au but!
41b ever see the david jones building prints in every window around christmas? The old dick smith catalogues? lenticulars around circular quay? all her. dm me.
42. I have not yet been arrested.
43. I am a giant by practically every definition. Lindsay Kay Hayward is a larger than me, but not too much - and apparently she's shrunk down to about my size lately. I peaked near 6ft6. In damned good boots and a beehive* I top over 7ft.
* fancy dress party at a friend's, ~2002.
44. Nobody else in my family comes close. Dad was 5'10, an uncle 5'11". Everyone else ~5'4" to 5'6". Maybe related to #30, but who'd know.
45. I have a whole bunch of little disorders I think I only *just* avoided. Mum is very close to being a hoarder, if not already a low-level one. A slightly organised hoarder, and I have that vibe in me. I redirect it to old Macs, and the need to have an aesthetic collection. It's SO HARD to resist.
46. I self-treated a kind of OCD as a kid. I used to have to walk home from school the exact same way I walked to school. around the same trees, streets, cars. If I couldn't I'd wake at 2am and sneak out and re-walk to comfort the proto-OCD in my head.
47. I did this by purposely walking in ways I couldn't remember. loops around cars, or blocks, or trees. I'd purposely make it impossible to know how to undo the walk to school, and it drifted away.
48. This DID start the counting OCD, but that faded eventually. I'd count to ten, then backwards, then 11-20, then backwards. or count 120,947 then 749,120. I ended up piking at I think 240,000 or so.
Now I'm a proofreader, among other things. I think that soaks up that need.
49. I still exercise that in some little more productive ways. I learned all thirteen stanzas of The Man From Snowy River last month or two and can recite it to myself without thinking. As a lark. Cos my head wants things to do.
50. What the hell three hundred and something to go I do regret this :)
51. I thought I just typed this out already but it’s disappeared. Maybe long threads don’t work well here. The xfiles episode The Field Where I Died is one of the greatest hours of television ever. Right to the heart.
52. Most tv shows should get just one season and go out on top. Let the rest sit in our imaginations instead of go all westworld.
53. Westworld S1 is about as good as TV gets.
54. I am actually kinda uncomfortable talking about myself but I know my meter for when I go too far is set so incredibly low so I go overboard and nobody much cares so it’s okay.
55. It’s been a point of annoyance in my whole life that everyone else in the family got red hair and I didn’t. Much. Maybe I’m auburn brown in the sun, sometimes. Pfp is grown-out dye. Cousins, uncles, mum, grandparents. All ginger. I share that with The Doctor. STILL NOT GINGER.
56. But I do have a TARDIS. bsky.app
Hi, I'm Dana and I work in a TARDIS.
Literally the doorway into my workplace:
Nanoraptor
@nanoraptor.danamania.com
57. I have no art training and I probably suffer for it. I self taught the *editing* I do but it’s not quite full creation. I used to draw but fell out of the habit and it’s been years.
58. If I didn’t get the ginger hair I did get the Scottish+Irish skin of my grandparents and I begin to smoke in direct sunlight. A slight exaggeration but my burn time is minutes.
59. I’m the daughter of an immigrant, my dad, who came out after WWII aged about 10. He spoke Italian, French, Russian, German and Polish enough to survive the countries he came through.
60. I have an ancestor named Roy Batty which cheers me no end.
61. I’m also descended from a far far back Scottish fellow named Black Duncan of the Cowl which is far enough back there are millions by now likely, but that’s cool as.
62. Another ancestor was a short ruddy Irish lady who regularly drank too much, smoked, fought the police and was deported.
63. I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t say I look up to *some* level of that.
64. I’ve been attacked physically I think four times for being trans. I am lucky to have size on my side. I only came off second best once and it feels shitty to think in near thirty years that’s not bad odds.
But it’s terrible. I got lucky. It should be zero.
65. I am aro and ace but I have crushes on everyone. EVERY. ONE.
I don’t understand it either but I run with it.
66. I used to smoke like a chimney, 100-120 cigs a day. That was a long while ago. I probably have some kind of addictive personality thing going on. Would have loved to see the inside of my lungs then compared to now.
As for how I found the time - I was unemployed and made it a hobby.
67. I was born with long black hair. That fell out and it came back blonde. Then went ginger for something like ten days then dark brown. Now I’m greying am I allowed to say I was ginger once?
68. When I was really anxious I practiced heart rhythm medication. Then when I recovered I kept it up. On a good day I can get into the 30bpm range. On an exceptional day down to 28-29. Then I get excited cos I equaled my best record and it goes back up to the 40s.
69. Nice.
70. While getting my heart rate down I can do 1-1.5 breaths a minute. That’s a fucking nice state to be in. Can’t do that in a day I’ve had coffee though, and it takes a bit longer on Vyvanse.
71. I was *that* dinosaur kid but I never did anything with it because I was into too many things. I totally nervously fangirl @restingdinoface.bsky.social cos she does what I wanted to.
72. I was a language nerd too and in preschool when we could bring new words in to learn I brought up PALÆONTOLOGY complete with the conjoined Æ - part because it was *right* and part because I’m a showoff.
73. I think it’s damned near child abuse to push gifted and clever kids into fields that are known to need smarts. Let them (me, sometimes) find their way to make their intelligence serve them, not be slaves to some nebulous ‘potential’. That way lies all kinds of burnout.
74. I am not a goth or any kind of goth but I do think almost all the goth folk I’ve known have been especially excellent. Maybe because they too keep away from the light and other people.
75. I have not yet broken any bones. of mine.
76. About half the time I’ve flown in a plane I’ve been the pilot.
77. I like things that are technically true like #76 with a couple of flying lessons and only two other flights or thereabouts. Or being on the internet across 5 decades (80s, 90s, 00s, 10s and 20s) if only 35 years (‘89 to ‘24).
78. I love time and our perception of it. The original apple 1 was built closer to the 1920s than today. Why does this seem a surprise? How deep is deep time? Can I ever hold 14 billion years in my head in any meaningful way? Or even my own lifetime?
79. I was raised on old 2nd hand sf books. I read Dune way too young and it’s embedded in me in ways it shouldn’t. I’m glad I wasn’t exposed to Heinlein at the same age. I wish I was exposed to more Clarke and Asimov.
80. Some of my fave memories are watching Star Trek, Logan’s Run, The Martian Chronicles, Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica with mum.
81. Pertwee is My Doctor. And Matt smith. Also Jodie Whittaker.
82. I like Star Trek and Star Wars but I’m not *deep* into either. I’m much more Trekkie though. Strange New Worlds is some of the best of Trek.
83. My mother once told me she watched some sf show once with a captain who reminded her of me and it turns out it was a Voyager ep and she meant Janeway and holy shit have I mentioned how much I love my mum.
84. Gaining and losing weight, transitioning, multiple puberties kicking in and out, looking after myself and then not, and back again - all overlaps in every mix and makes me feel like I’ve been dozens of different people. But life’s too short for one lifetime.
85. I now have a fear I’m going to annoy the hell out of everyone continuing this as I have, so might slow down a bit and just keep on plodding in because a promise is a promise and I did ask you to make me regret this. Also I think there’s no shame in quitting things. But not yet!
86. I love the feeling of sanded primer, of fine dust, the leaves of succulents, raw concrete, rust, gels, wood, squishy things, thick hair, tacky adhesives, the heads of pins, pet fur of so many kinds, fans blowing on me all day, cool changes and oppressive storms.
87. I dislike the feeling of soggy lettuce, too-dry bread, dried dirt on my hands after gardening, spider webs, sharp edges, marbles and broken glass, flaking varnish, that tight woven office carpet, 5.25” floppy disks, and many things of wool.
88. When my sis wants to diss me she calls me an influencer. When my mum wants to do the same she says “fuck you’re a nerd Dana”. I am proud of both of those.
89. I LOVE VACUUM FLUORESCENT DISPLAYS.
90. The greatest song from the 1980s is Breakfast Club’s Right on Track. www.youtube.com
Breakfast Club - Right On Track
YouTube video by The Best Of - Home Of Classic Music
m.youtube.com
91. When I left twitter I deleted every one of almost a decade of my old posts by one by one manually because at heart I am a dorkarse.
92. Is this whole thread indicative of Poster’s Madness? Or do I need to find some kind of dead-end bad idea to defend and double down on?
Is it both?
I ask myself things like this regularly. I often don’t answer and just keep barreling along.
93. Kurt Russell’s hair in The Thing Is glorious.
94. I often have pairs, sometimes triples of celebrities I can’t quickly tell apart in my head. Kurt Russell, David Keith, and Patrick Swayze are three. Also John Gielgud and Alec Guinness. Christopher Lloyd and Lance Henriksen. Cameron Diaz and Charlize Theron. Winona Ryder and Zooey Deschanel.
95. I once had a blog that for some reason half the news sphere for a few years just lifted parts of it wholesale and published it for real. I just made shit up and funny. The Register. Slashdot. The Australian. CNET. I think it was when content scraping began its rise.
As an extension on this - I had one story spread really wide, and I read through my webserver logs. One news site published it first and linked back to me. Within a single digit number of minutes about thirty other sites had a version of their own out & linking to me. Not even enough time to check.
And most were different to each other. I thought maybe it was automated and some kind of AI at the time (2005ish) but probably just speedy low level journos only being paid to copy & pump out new news by the pound - and all pouncing at once.