Proportionwheel

@proportionwheel.bsky.social

1099 Followers 1930 Following

Caregiver, husband, grandpa, artist, ex-graphic designer, of left-liberal political views, amateur telescope maker, improvisational cook. Real name Michael Patterson.

NYT opinion headline: Gen Z-ers Are Ditching Sex. They Might Be Onto Something
person falling from the balloon (very small crop from photo poste)
a tiny crop from the posted image, of a hot air balloon labeled “HOT AIR”
the partially drained reflecting pool, looking toward the Washington Momunent, through a chain-link fence, with longitudinal stripes that some have seemed to interpret as tire tracks from Trump’s motorcade inspection, but look to me like subsidence deposits of algal debris as the water level dropped. On the other hand, I do not see any damage to the surface as claimed by Trump. And the “American Flag Blue” is mostly obscured, by wear or by algal debris.
Generated alt text: An abstract painting features a vibrant and chaotic mix of thick, impasto brushstrokes in various colors. Dominant hues include bright red, deep blue, orange, purple, and white, with accents of gold and black. The texture is highly pronounced, creating a three-dimensional effect with visible ridges and peaks of paint. Shapes are fluid and undefined, suggesting movement and energy, without depicting any recognizable objects or figures. The overall mood is dynamic and expressive. my original alt text: abstract expressionist painting in acrylics, roughly 1990, on paper, with reds and blues and ochres, about 22 × 30 inches
abstract expressionist painting in acrylics, roughly 1990, on paper, with reds and blues and ochres, about 22 × 30 inches
one of Musk’s fans, one Hunter Ash, post: “Do these people not beliebve in genetics at all?”
To this day I regret that I failed to put a date on this. It is an 72pt alphabet of Bruce Rogers’ Centaur font and a caption that states that the font family is not available from “today’s computerized typesetters.” Of course now it is. But this was the mid 1990s, I think
cover of Chetna Makan’s “30-Minute Indian” cookbook
Sign mockup: IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE THAT JD VANCE IS AN ASSHOLE
“The Supreme Court as currently constituted is terrible but if actually do Court Reform the next Republican Trifecta does it too and then you actually do lose birthright citizenship and everything else that for now we aren’t losing—it’s why 2016 was so important”
screen shot of a post with eyeball emoji and the post it is referring to is deleted
many discrete clouds of various types and altitudes, not “marching together.” Trees at the edges of the photo, The Camel’s Hump just visible at the bottom.
“My Town Wants to Build a Homeless Camp. What Can I Do”
Cover of Thomas Levenson’s new and angry and IMPORTANT book. A POX ON FOOLS The true believers, grifters, and cynics who convinced us to reject vaccines Please buy or check out this book. I wondered whether that Dawkins blurb on the back would help or hurt sales. I suspect help, fwiw, which is not really a compliment to Dawkins.
cover of Thomas Levenson’s important book, A Pox on Fools.
a photo of Williams Hall at UVM, in all its red brick and sandstone gingerbread glory
1970 AMC Rebel coupe, in burgundy paint
account’s header photo, a jowly scowling man about 50-60 yo with graying hair and the look of a guy about to throw hands at his partner
Erik Loomis post: There’s no one else and liberals need to deal with this. It’s Platner or Collins. That’s it. Any other conversation is nonsense.
Ad for fertilizer claiming it has all the elements in the periodic table
a can of strong IPA from my local (pop: 4600) brewery. I have extensively explored the available-in-local-stores universe of IPAs, and this is the finest I’ve found. I wish it tasted just like this and only had 5%ABV alcohol.
pale lilac blooms in foreground, lawn and shadowed trees in background
title page of Stanley Karnow’s “Vietnam - A History”
pale purple lilacs blooming in foreground, lawn and driveway in background, a couple of white birches back there amongst the maples
photo of 79-YO hand (mine)
elderly lady, seated, singing along with a rudy valee song...and kind of selling it.
cropped from ai generated image, showing a camera hanging from the “persons” neck, with the lens about 3 or 4" from the frying mushroom slices.
screenshot paragraph from NYT column by Tom Friedman: “In a development that received too little attention because of the Iran war, Trump is reportedly now considering imposing oversight on A.I. models before they are made publicly available. That is very wise of Trump. People need to wake up: We are entering a world in which private companies can now, in effect, split the atom, in terms of the power they can unleash in every direction.”
screenshot from my profile page: 988 followers, 1.6K folloing, 4/4K posts
a lot of purple triliums where there used to be one
Kirkland Balsamic Vinegar bottle’s label
VT License plate KXW 217 with no handicap plate or tag
small clip from poll result: White: R+6 Black: D+56
Crudely applied makeup on the back of trump’s hand, zoomed in to the knuckles of his first and second fingers. Badly color-matched, crudely applied concealer makeup covers the area behind his knuckles. His skin is very wrinkled. It is not publicly known what it conceals. (Roberto Schmidt/Getty)
Red 1984 Alfa Romeo Spider
Spiegelman: What is the one thing that shouldn’t be OK, but currently is? Piker: So many things. Extraction of surplus labor value. Spiegelman: Great. You went really slowly with it. I appreciate that.
white columnar flowers I’m ashamed not to know the name of, and a Monarch butterfly
thicker coat of snow on lilac tree
new snow on budded branches of lilac tree, evergreens in the background with dusting of snow
“Congratulations! You solved a Saturday Crossword in 28:29”
photo of Musk with weird haircut
screenshot from linked post with “actors use the financial system to extract value from society rather than to contribute to it” highlighed
very quick brush sketch of trees out my office window, still bare, and a bird fluttering upward from left to right, as a series of brush splotches
setting that purportedly lets you turn off autoplay on videos and gifs
image of pinned skeet: “Liberals are not welcome to comment on my posts, if you come into my replies I will block you”
Both—“The Wittgenstein Result”
The phrase “to the degree that there are such movements” is highlighted in this text excerpt: However, in the spirit of restorative justice, I would like to propose the following course of action for the Representative to begin a process of repairing her relationship to the socialist and workers' movements (to the degree that there are such movements). Of course, the representative is more than welcome to offer a counterproposal, as are other workers and socialists. I take no pretense that this
Image of a device once used in shoe stores. You climbed a couple stairs, stuck your toes into an opening, and looked down through a viewer at the top.
rime ice crystals on an evergreen bough
Cell snap of the bag “cosmic crisp” apples came in. The logo is “C*Smic” with the asterisk representing a stylized apple made up of improbably polka dots in a vaguely galactic looking pattern, with a stem and a leaf at the top. There’s also a picture of an apple.
Two big maple trees, their branches covered with rime ice, formed when fog condenses and freezes on the branches. All the twigs appear white.
All sauces come in a super cool gift box. It's the best gift box ever made. It's got pictures of the hot sauces. It got pictures of habanero peppers. Pictures of Margaritas. Pictures of freaking CONFETTI. You know you're excited.
view out window of snow on deck railing and nearby lilac tree, and more distant evergreen trees. Icicles hang from eve at top.
Closeup cell-snap down the inside of a lightly-fluted tumbler, with a little beer left at the bottom. The glass turns background straight lines into waves visually. The inside has an interesting pattern of remaining foam, which looks like a map showing an inland sea, surrounded by two continents and a straight, undistorted by the fluting but with bands of warm exterior light across it diagonally refracted by the fluting.
photo of Vance walking and looking sort of like a badly operated marionette
a 7-foot tall pile of dense snow where it slid off my roof. a little of the exterior wall extends above it, and there’s a bit of sky above the roof.
A sort of spoon once marketed as an ice cream scoop. It was not a good ice cream scoop but is an excellent sauté tool. It’s made of stainless steel with wood sandwiched to the handle, a shallow spoon shape, and a straight-ish edge on the front that’s sharp and useful to chop things in the pan.