Lupi

(by @olivvybee)

Oh hey it's my pfp

Out of all the art I have of my derg, this one is probably the biggest source of species euphoria for me

Cute lil peets...

Art by Sachi / Xeshaire

so, steam locomotives in the US get a rap for being dirty and blowing lots of smoke when they didn't like, actually do taht generally.
if there was smoke billowing from the stack, the crew were dong a bad job firing and driving the locomotive, that smoke is all unburnt/wasted fuel and all, so in actual service they tried not to do it.
but steam heritage came early, and so did the era of photo charters. and photographers all felt that the billowing clouds of smoke were very pretty and very striking in photographs, so they would ask the crew to fire a little bit dirtier, draft a little bit less, put a bit too much coal in the firebox, to get that result for the pretty photo.

it's like how as a rocket launch photographer, i enjoy the (increasingly few) launches with solid boosters (Atlas, SLS, soon Vulcan) more than i do the ones without, it adds more visual drama when there's a huge smoke trail.

I keep wanting to write a little post about how SEO just basically killed everything. Which is in turn causes by adtech :)

I'm sorry for banging on this drum again, but this is yet another reason why capitalism should just fucking die already. "Money?" is not a valid measure of anything or anyone's worth; see the absolute Pacific Garbage Patch fire that is Elon Musk, or inversely how useful the internet was before corporate interests took over.

(I am not sorry for banging on this drum again)