To be honest, I still have no idea

A new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope of a portion of the Helix Nebula highlights comet-like knots, fierce stellar winds, and layers of gas shed off by a dying star interacting with its surrounding environment. Webb’s image also shows the stark transition between the hottest gas to the coolest gas as the shell expands out from the central white dwarf.

This is a very old, but almost dead, textile craft called sprang. It's not exactly weaving - I'd say it's closer to braiding in that it only has warp threads, no weft. I'm using some metal rods as shed sticks, and also to keep the holes open enough to be fishnet-y.

My original goal was to make fingerless fishnet gloves/sleeves, but I think the material's going to be way too wide for that; it has a LOT of horizontal stretch. It's hard to tell exactly how much with it still tensioned, but if I'm lucky I might be able to make a short tube top of it!

Free Graphic Novels (DC, Marvel, Image, etc), Music, TV shows, and music on HOOPLA.

Free music that you can KEEP on FREEGAL

Overdrive: https://www.overdrive.com/

Hoopla: https://www.hoopladigital.com/

Freegal: https://www.freegalmusic.com/home

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More places to find FREE EBOOKS:

Standard eBooks (basically stuff off of Project Gutenberg, but prettified)

Baen Free Library

Book Bub - Free eBooks and Free Kindle books

Bubblin Books

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Don't be fooled by bullshit like Turbotax. If you make less than $89,000 a year (I'd say confidently that's 99% of Tumblr), you are entitled to use the IRS free file tool for your taxes. This page from the IRS lists all the software providers they have partnered with to provide this service. I have only used one on the list, but it was as good as or maybe better than Turbotax, and I repeat, free for the federal tax return. You MIGHT still have to pay a fee to file a state tax return, but it should be nominal. If you don't want to do it online, you can also go to the IRS to print out the forms directly and turn them in.

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(also, btw, the book links are to the Storygraph, which includes content warnings for each one!)

smth funny and lighthearted about a security robot who’d rather watch TV then do its job? all systems red by martha wells (first novella in the The Murderbot Diaries series, 6 books, ongoing)

a complex, intricate political space opera following a warship AI who’s lost (almost) everything? ancillary justice by ann leckie (first in the Imperial Radch trilogy) (fun fact! bc of space linguistics reasons, all characters in this series are referred to with she/her pronouns, making gender a non-factor - it’s really cool!)

a dark story about travelling between parallel universes and a woman who is dead in almost every single one? the space between worlds by micaiah johnson (standalone) (SO good, i don’t get to recommend it often enough!!!)

a story about grief and letting go, and a unique take on alien invasion? the seep by chana porter (standalone novella)

hey, how abt some dystopian YA, for old times sake? specifically, one with sapphics and sick mechas? try gearbreakers by zoe hana mikuta (first in duology)

or, if you’d prefer something a bit less angsty, YA about a ragtag group of teens and a space heist? the disasters by m. k. england (standalone)

alternate history steampunk that blurs the line btwn science fiction and fantasy? the black god’s drums by p. djeli clark (standalone, novella)

a dark gone girl-esque thriller about clones? the echo wife by sarah gailey (standalone)

poetic sapphic romance and time travel? this is how you lose the time war by max gladstone and amal el-mohtar (standalone)

a hopeful utopian future and a human-robot friendship? a psalm for the wild-built by becky chambers (novella, first out of two) (this author’s got a whole bunch of hopepunk sci-fi novels in general, if that’s smth you’re looking for!)

africanfuturism, coming-of-age, and cool jellyfish aliens? binti by nnedi okorafor (novella, first in trilogy)

spicy lesbian cyborgs? and shall machines surrender my benjanun sriduangkaew (novella, first in the Machine Mandate series, 6 books)

cosmic horror with an autistic scientist, cyborg angels and AI gods? the outside by ada hoffmann (first in trilogy, 2 books are out)

also, if you’re a fan of Janelle Monáe, may i draw your attention to the fact that they’ve recently come out with a Dirty Computer short story collection, each story co-written with a diff writer?

this list is long enough, but have some more authors (who are not cis men) also worth checking out: rivers solomon, yoon ha lee, charlie jane anders, aliette de bodard, xiran jay zhao, mary robinette kowal, corinne duyvis

This has finally been delivered to its new owner, so I can post it on here.

When I made the first of these blankets, I really wasn't thinking about how it would become a thing. But here I am with blanket number 5? And I think it's officially a thing now. I also think I'm getting better at it.

As usual, this is about 1m square, that's 175 columns (though double knitting, so 350) and 262 rows.

“The Only Witness to a Vanished World”, crochet sculpture by Caitlin McCormack.