metal_0031

Inspired in equal parts by my wife's garden, Zoetica Ebb's "Alien Botany" series (collected in her exquisite CHIMERIC HERBARIUM book), Lynda Barry's scribble monsters, and my own scrap metal / 3D printing explorations (especially the daylilies I made for my wife, niece, and sister-in-law), the first of my series of imaginary scrap metal plants accompanied by my own 3D-printed vase designs. A fun experiment - and what I hope is the first of many.

536 sucked

via Science:

A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. "For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year," wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record "a failure of bread from the years 536–539." Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse, McCormick says.

On the bright side, we’re not there quite yet.

new 3d printer / first tiny test pot

After metal_0030 killed my Creality Ender V3 and an attempt at installing a new extruder failed something miserable, I upgraded to a Creality K1 SE and I’m floored: 37 minutes from start to finish on this tiny test succulent pot. Going to try another large piece for a metal combo tomorrow so if I kill this printer, at least I won’t have had time to get too attached.

wee little white plastic succulent pot, sans succulent.