iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 06/09/2026

I'm at the HI-SCORE Hannover arcade and museum today for the ROAD TO B1G ONE Deutschland Pump It Up tournament! twitch.tv/HiScoreHannover Here's the schedule in local time; subtract 9 hours to get Pacific Time! I'm also helping out a bit with commentary for the pro and co-op compos!

The Schedule:

10:30: Attendance Confirmation & Player Package Handout
11:00: Intermediate Seeding
11:40: Pro Seeding
12:20: Swiss Rounds Intermediate
13:50 (already done): GROUP PICTURE
14:00: Co-Op
15:00: Swiss Rounds Pro
16:30: 3rd Place Match Intermediate
16:55: Finals Intermediate
17:20: 3rd Place Match Pro
17:45: Finals Pro
18:10: AWARDS CEREMONY

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 01/08/2026

Binder Clips Georg, who requested 50 binder clips, is an outlier and has been excluded from the study (from Xu, Schwarz, and Wyer, "Hunger promotes acquisition of nonfood objects", www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.14177… )

Exclusions.

One participant in the hunger condition requested 50 binder clip samples, which was more than 7 SDs away from the sample mean (mean = 3.90, SD = 6.48). One participant did not follow the instructions to complete the binder clip survey. The data from these two participants were excluded from further analyses. One participant reported a potential food allergy and skipped the blind taste test. However, because this participant was in the hunger condition and the taste test was introduced after the binder clip survey, the responses to the binder clip survey were unaffected. Therefore, the data from this participant were included in the analyses.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 29/07/2026

LIVE YAKUMAN REACTION Thank you to Mani ( vgen.co/xinmoni ) for doing this very silly photo paintover commission of the time I dealt into www.twitch.tv/chiqn_p[...]

Echo takes an excited selfie of a riichi mahjong board where Chiqn reveals the glorious 13 Orphans yakuman hand he has just won by taking Echo's discarded tile, the 9-pin. The word "Yakuman" is superimposed atop it.

Echo is a foxgirl with orange hair and under-rim glasses; she's making a peace sign and is clearly astonished just to have seen a yakuman in real life. Like, she's going "omg this is so cool what the heck!!!". The fact that she lost to it is really third or fourth in her mind. Chiqn is represented here by a white anthropomorphic cat wearing a turtleneck and a long bluish-gray jacket with ruffled white sleeves, with two tails and a halo around one ear.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 27/07/2026

Well, if you can believe it, I dealt into twitch.tv/chiqn_p 's 13 Orphans hand at the OffKai riichi mahjong tables yesterday

Chiqn_p's completed Riichi Mahjong hand, viewed from the opposite side. Chiqn had 13 of the tiles needed: white dragon, two green dragons, red dragon, south wind, north wind, west wind, east wind, one pin, nine sou, one sou, nine man, one man. The only tile remaining is the 9 pin, pictured left, ron'd from me. Chiqn's discards are also suspiciously 13 Orphans-looking; no terminals or honors at all.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 25/06/2026

omg, Periphery was amazing to see live! Matt has so much fun with his drum parts; it's such a joy and honestly refreshing to see him play. Also they did Wildfire!!

A selfie of me smiling in front of Periphery's stage set as the crew breaks it down for the next stop on the tour.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 17/06/2026

me when the wifi's down but I'm trying to find which computer here has a copy of a free and open-source digital audio editor

"Who the hell has the audacity?!!!!" says Iwao Washizu

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 30/05/2026

the duality of riichi mahjong, in 2 games:

On hand 1 of a riichi mahjong game, Josh immediately wins by ron'ing a massive 12-han hand, taking 36,000 points from me. This makes my point total negative and the game immediately ends.

In another game, I managed to get to 92,600 points after a series of very fast hands, 5x as many as the second-place player and driving the third player into negative points. Yay!

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 10/05/2026

also Bitwig wins my award for the coolest SUPERBOOTH carpet; real Tauba Auerbach-like patterns here. Bitwig's audio interface with patch cable I/O is a clever idea (especially at SUPERBOOTH), even though I've been avoiding modular synths because I know I'm in a high ri... see complete post

The carpet at Bitwig's booth: squares and rectangles of blobby grid patterns, probably something involving sine waves, run through gradient maps.

Bitwig Connect 4/12, an audio interface connected up to a small synthesizer using patch cables

A synthesizer that resembles a hedge maze. I think this was the Feedback Gardenscape, from Synthux.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 10/05/2026

that was fun! Here's a few photos from the event. Thank you to the @kilohearts.com folks for letting me try their New Thing, make some horrible sounds, & then later return and make a slightly less horrible sound. I think it's really cool and people are going to make some really wild things with it!

A KORG phase8 with a stack of 3D-printed...sliders? Knobs of some sort, mounted above the resonating bars. This perspective reminded me of the cranes above Oakland's bay.

An array of Sony Trinitron monitors showing partial scanlines of an empty stage.

A modular synth where three panels are filled with round, LED displays of some sort. One displays glitchy patterns, and another displays some sort of 2D oscilloscope-type thing.

A window display resembling a grassy mountain cliff with flowers in the background. There is an object that looks like a kalimba, but on closer inspection it's something different: there are touch sensors on its prongs, it doesn't seem like it vibrates at all, and there's rows of knobs and buttons.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 01/05/2026

I've also released its source code, stems, project files, and Reaper JSFX! There are some clever tricks involved in fitting notes, envelopes, samples, and a lot of effects (including variants of Chroma and au5's Ultracomb) into such a tiny space. git.sr.ht/~parallax/chromatite

Four of the different applications involved in taking [chromatite] from a REAPER project to a 32KB executable music app. On the top-left is the original REAPER project. On the bottom-left, the REAPER JSFX editor showing the plugin for an "Ultraflanger": "inspired by au5's Ultracomb, but I got distracted and made it all out of scrolling flangers instead". On the bottom-right, Python code translating the REAPER project to C++ arrays. Finally, on the top-right, Visual Studio (this project's old enough that it targeted Windows) shows the executable project open at source code for a Reese bass.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 01/05/2026

[chromatite_32k].exe, my color drum 'n' bass track in the form of a 31,744 byte executable, is finally finished and online at echoparallax.bandcamp.com/album/chr…! It also includes its hi-fi version, B-side star_struck, and art by the incomparable @transendium.bsky.social!

The cover art for the single "[chromatite] / star_struck", by echo~parallax. It's a sort of abstract, glitchy representation of a dark mineral. Perhaps it's like a cave with stalactites and stalagmites, but if you ran your finger across one of them you'd feel hard cubical edges. In some places there is subtle chromatic aberration.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 26/04/2026

(sickos voice) ha ha ha! yes!! wobbly windows!!!

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 18/04/2026

I may as well fill out one of these grids, why not? Honestly I'm surprised I've played enough games to fill it out, sometimes it feels like I haven't played anything at all. (From grids.fun/t/video-game-grid-4-real-…)

VIDEO GAME GRID 4 REAL ONES, filled out with 20 games.
Cold Glass Of Water Gaming: Pippin Barr's v r 3
White Knuckle Gaming: UNBEATABLE
It Ain't Easy Bein' Cheesy: Sonic Frontiers
The Enemies Are Pretty Cool: BEASTIEBALL
It Really Had To Grow On Me: Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
I Love Fucked Up Controls: HYPERBOLICA
Someone Please Iterate On This: Mirror's Edge
Put It In The Louvre: uff! what a day! time for a nice cup of tea!
The Bonus Game Is The Real Game: Caves of Qud
On Paper This Game Sucks But It Rocks: Salamander County Public Television
Sealed In The Box Of Memories: Psychonauts
Don't Tell My Friends: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
Feels Shitty To Play But Rocks: NaissanceE
Ecnolalia: Pseudoregalia
Beautiful Structure: Patrick's Parabox
Satan's Dark Delight: Trombone Champ
Perfected By Users: Beat Saber
It Insists Upon Itself: The Looker
One Day I'll Lock In (truth): StepMania (X)
One Day I'll Lock In (lie):

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 30/03/2026

here's what it looks like in the editor! The setup is from the [StudioCanal Behind The Scenes video](https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=8i8OcOpFDAE), and the material for the glass is pretty close to @azra.dev 's [Blender dispersion node graph]( www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPNvq7SXPoU).

A Blender editor showing the scene setup: a camera looks at many panes of glass, which reflect textures modulated by thresholded Perlin noise. On the top-left is a shader node graph that chooses a random IOR, and tints the color on the first bounce with that of a random wavelength. (Azra uses transmission depth instead of camera rays to choose whether to apply the tint, which is better.)

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 30/03/2026

I finally figured out how to do the 2010's Studiocanal logo setup in Blender!

$The text "page fault" in Utopia Std Italic, a font with a good amount of variation in stroke weight, surrounded by vertical panes of glass reflecting and refracting images from two projects I worked on. Chromatic aberration smears some edges while others are high-contrast. There is also a glitch-like effect going through the middle of the words "page fault".$

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 22/03/2026

Some additional commentary + a version with dithering:

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 22/03/2026

I wasn't expecting to do this on Thursday, but I got Bad Apple running on a Vision Master E290 E-ink devkit! Frames here are RLE-compressed to fit in ROM. Thank you to ... see complete post

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 22/03/2026

Homemade onigiri, undisclosed location. After I returned from the previous trip I went on a tear trying to make my own onigiri at home. Even though there are more complicated flavors, my favorite is still umeboshi onigiri. Proper onigiri is much harder to find here in... see complete post

Umeboshi onigiri drizzled with soy sauce and furikake in a frying pan.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 22/03/2026

Grilled onigiri with cheese, やきとり大吉伏見稲荷店 (Yakitori Daikichi), Kyoto, Japan. This wound up being one of the most memorable things I had on my trip back in 2024; I didn't expect the melted cheese to work so well! So much about it speaks to the skill of the chef.

A triangular rice ball, dipped in sauce then grilled with a piece of cheese on top (I forget what kind unfortunately) and sprinkled with minced parsley, if I remember correctly.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 08/03/2026

Kouign-Amman at LOQUAT, San Francisco, California

A kouign-amann, a braided dough pastry, on a plate on a marble counter with sun shining from a window onto it. In the foreground is a blurred cup of coffee.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 08/03/2026

YEAH!!!!! (maybe I should actually play more than episode 2 of the story at some point)

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 06/03/2026

Caffè Latte and Bircher Muesli, Hommage Café, Cologne, Germany You *know* you are looking at a lv. 20 barista when they've got their own custom-anodized milk frothing pitcher. This remains one of the best coffees I've ever had.

A latte served in a short, round transparent glass, almost like a bowl, with extremely intricate latte art - a branch of a tree with eight petals, surrounded by a laurel wreath of swirls. sheesh!

A really tasty-looking bowl of muesli with fruit on a table.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 05/03/2026

Iced Catnip Coffee with Milk and Snickerdoodle, Java Cat Cafe, Vancouver, Canada sorry to disappoint, but despite the name, this does not contain catnip, nor is the cafe a cat cafe! I think this was either 50/50 brewed coffee + shot of espresso or 50/50 espresso + tea, if I remember correctly.

An iced coffee next to a snickerdoodle on a wooden table against a concrete wall.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 04/03/2026

Tiramisu at Mayfair Coffee, Bakery & More, Saarbrücken, Germany

Tiramisu, a dessert with layered cocoa, cream, and coffee-flavored savoiardi biscuits, on a plate covered with powdered sugar. On part of the plate there is the silhouette of a heart.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 03/03/2026

Kakushi Izakaya, Fremont, California

Sushi and chicken skewers on an izakaya table.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 26/02/2026

Pancakes (ft. Ferdinand the frog), Black Bear Diner, Monterey, California

A plush frog with a mushroom on its head sits next to a plate of pancakes.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 24/02/2026

Black cat Jiji parfait, Parfaiteria beL, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan Gaku's shops turn the relatively simple parfait -- cream, granola, fruit -- into kind of overwhelming and extravagant art pieces, working both as temporary sculptures and as structured sequences of flavor... see complete post

A dessert in a large inverted cone glass. The appearance is that a black cat with a red bowtie sits on a bed of flowers; below it is chocolate sponge and a cookie, then an agar ball that looks like an eyeball, then more chocolate, other ingredients, and finally a sauce.

The list of ingredients for this dessert printed on a card in front of the parfait, surrounded by a black cat with a long tail. Its title is "Black cat Jiji parfait -Halloween version-". The list of ingredients is:
- Cocoa glassage
- Candy
- Chocolate
- Valrhona 70% chocolate gelato
- Ruby chocolate
- Edible flowers
- Macérer jelly
- Black tea gelato
- Genoise chocolate
- Chopped fresh orange
- Blood orange mousse
- Chopped Almond
- Fermented milk agar ball
- Almond florentine
- Valrhona 70% chocolate mousse
- Butterfly peatea jelly
- Chopped fresh grapes
- Macérer sauce

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 23/02/2026

Black sesame matcha latte, Best Boy Electric, San Francisco, California

A cup of matcha with a four-petaled latte art rose, sprinkled on the side with black sesame. It is served in a black cup and sits on a wooden table.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 23/02/2026

Finally got to 9-star rank in UNBEATABLE! Though I hear the path to 10 stars is much longer:

$echoparallax's scorecard in UNBEATABLE. I have a point total of 9211 points, which comes from the accuracy and level of one's top 20 tracks; rank 10 requires 10000 points. My average accuracy is 93.60% (not amazing; I need to clean things up more) and 56.41% unlocked (this is a fraction of all unlockable charts cleared, I think? I haven't unlocked the tracks you get from playing the main game yet for various reasons). My top title is "Cartridge Eater", middle title is [rookie], and bottom title is "acab".$

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 22/02/2026

Latte, undisclosed location

A cup of coffee next to a house of cards on a wooden countertop. The latte art has about a dozen petals.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 22/02/2026

Homemade fettuccine pasta with Hatch chili peppers, furikake, and additional cheese mixed into an already heavy sauce. I saw the show *Cooking Class Wars* in 2024 and became enchanted by the fresh pasta so many chefs made; later that year, fearing tariffs, I bought a ... see complete post

A white ceramic bowl of fettuccine pasta on top of the white finish of a stove. Inide the bowl is fettucinne with heavy cream sauce and green Hatch chili peppers mixed in. On top of that is furikake -- bonito, sesame seeds, and seaweed.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 21/02/2026

Camaron, Baja, and Nopal Tacos plus chips and orange Jarritos at The Taco Stand, San Diego. I spent about half of my time here looking at the fresh tortilla maker in action. Check out that cheese layer in the second image!

A close-up of tacos overflowing with ingredients next to a Sony FX3 camera viewscreen showing a wider photo of the three tacos, chips, and orange Jarritos on a concrete table. Fun fact: in the state of Indiana, a 2024 case ruled that tacos count as sandwiches.

A wide-angle closeup of a taco, half-eaten, showing the really interesting cheese layer these tacos had. Are tacos really sandwiches, though?

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 20/02/2026

Pistachio einspanner, CAFE UPPER, Los Angeles

A top-down view of a savoiardi cookie atop a pistachio einspanner: ground pistachio sprinkled atop whipped cream and cocoa powder floating on a coffee base.

A view from a low angle of the pistachio einspanner. To me, it somewhat resembles an island. In the back you can see, blurred, one of CAFE UPPER's distinctive orange chairs.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 19/02/2026

Three mocktails (stawberry purée / blood orange purée / guava purée and lychee syrup, all with lemon juice and sparkling water) and phở with friends at Phở Hà Nội, Palo Alto:

Three floral juice mocktails in red, orange, and mahogany in tumblers. In the foreground, part of a bowl of phở, somewhat reminding me of water lilies.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 19/02/2026

After much deliberation and consultation, I've decided to start posting my favorite food photographs from my travels in a thread. Here's the garlic pretzel and honey butter bread from Coffee Tomo, Sawtelle, Los Angeles:

A pretzel in a basket with a yellow paper sheet and a thick half-cube of bread covered in honey, butter, and whipped cream on a dark metal grated table in the bright Los Angeles sun.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 16/02/2026

anyways, my favorites from yesterday (with more notes in alt text):

Matsubara Naoko, Sylvan Snow, 1970. Woodblock print. Imagine the roughness of the chiseled food as your fingers run over it, you feel the edge grain as angled slabs have been torn off, but — even though it could happen — you feel safe knowing pieces won't tear off, splinters won't enter your fingers and require delicate precision to remove. Matsubara is known for working in a style that emphasizes the physical qualities of the wood, and the hard-edged, high-contrast texture in this abstract print is striking. It resembles a forest in snow, but the texture is the improtant part — I am unsure whether it reminds me more of bark, charcoal, or heat-treated paint.

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Moonlight: Walls of Tangiers. A series of buildings appear blurred and absinthe-soaked, as if in a memory or a dream. There are so many strokes yet you cannot see the details. Looking closer, there are tiny blobs of paint or curls of the canvas that cast hard shadows in the gallery light, as if the scene is melting out of the painting and into our world. That's scary... I said to my friend Mark, "I think if I looked at this one for long enough I would go mad."

$Paulina Peavy, Untitled (circa 1930-1970). Refractions and reflections of gems in green, red, blue, and yellow. The text describes how big Peavy was into gems. Hell yeah. I'm not into gems myself for any number of reasons, but it takes a real gem fiend to paint them like this.$

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 15/02/2026

Whoa, they made the place from *Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art* real!! No way! Can you believe it chat??

I am pointing, stunned, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's distinctive open-air area with red I-beam pillars

The cover of Arcane Kids' Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective at yhe Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Bubsy is standing on a floating checkerboard rock looking at the LACMA campus. Chris Burden's Urban Light, the open-air area from the previous photo, and the modern art building (up to 1960) are recognizable.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 08/02/2026

If you're ok with it loading the first page of posts in the background, then adding the following to the Theme Editor under > More is one way of doing it: css app-dashboard app-post-list { display: none; } app-dashboard::after { content: "no"; }

The WAFRN dashboard, but all the posts have been removed, leaving only the text "no"

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 04/02/2026

My cat's wound up in dramatic lighting again, it seems

Bitsy a.k.a. Kiki, a black cat, lies in a sunbeam, looking back up at a wire. She is at the bottom of a prism of dappled light shining through unseen trees.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 31/01/2026

This post (vido.social/v/dzdd1UsL0D) made me think about a bit of a math problem. In this video, the train travels over most of its path twice before returning to its starting point. Are there any setups like this where the train travels over its *entire* path... see complete post

Among the puzzles is this “railway maze,” contributed by Roger Penrose. Make your way from Start in the upper left to Finish in the lower right. The catch is that your train has no reverse gear — you must move continually forward, following the natural curve of the track and making no sharp turns.

(Followed by a picture of a railway maze with many nested loops.)

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 31/01/2026

Looks like Roblox's contact point for DMCA takedown requests is copyright_agent@roblox.com, according to create.roblox.com/docs/production/p…, I think:

- How can I submit a DMCA claim?

If you are a copyright owner or an agent of a copyright owner and believe that any content on Roblox infringes upon your copyrights, you may submit a notification pursuant to the DMCA by contacting our Copyright Agent (links to copyright_agent@roblox.com), or Legal, Roblox Corporation, 3150 S. Delaware St. San Mateo, CA 94403. You may also contact us by phone at (888) 858-2569.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 24/01/2026

if you read this and went "wow, that's an *extremely* bad pun, I bet she's about to read a 1973 architectural guide to OSHA she got at Los Angeles' Illiad Books many years ago after watching Brian David Gilbert's videos when he was at Polygon", you'd be almost correct! It's actually from 1975:

A well-worn cover of a book: "Designer's Guide to OSHA: A Design Manual for Architects, Engineers and Builders to the Occupational Safety and Health Act" by Peter S. Hopf, A.I.A..

Other text follows:
A first for design professionals!
The OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ACT
completely explained and illustrated

1. INCLUDES THE FULL OSHA TEXT
2. TRANSLATES OSHA'S TENS OF THOUSANDS OF WORDS INTO MORE THAN 500 EASY-TO-FOLLOW DRAWINGS, DIAGRAMS, CHARTS AND GRAPHS
3. EXPLAINS HOW OSHA'S INSPECTION PROCESS WORKS
4. TELLS HOW TO APPEAL TO THE OSHA REVIEW COMMISSION

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 23/01/2026

ha, I *did* wind up messing up my DNS! Kind of a relief to figure out what I missed.

My account is marked as an "Invalid Handle" on Bluesky's appview.

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 19/01/2026

first recorded case of DNS mania

Me: Yeah I know, right??

Me: If Tuta becomes the next Gmail I am sitting *extremely* pretty

Me: and echo@parallax.fyi seems to correctly go to the Tuta servers now!! I'm so good ar DNS

The other person: "I'm so good at DNS"
And other things Icarus said while flying

Me: these waxen wings are awesome!! I bet they'll never melt!
(laughing emoji react)

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 05/01/2026

A day or two after that previous score, I finally got my setup calibrated! Here's my most unusual scoreline so far. (I think I missed one of the hold notes on this sightread)

A close-up of the statistics: 236 perfect, 0 great, 0 good, 0 okay, 0 barely... and 1 miss. rip.

The results screen for a playthrough of the Unbeatable track "stolen".

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that's Nia @echo.par.all.ax · 05/01/2026

wow! I got world #1 on a track in UNBEATABLE! nobody look at the really niche category this was in (do check out the double-time category, though; if nothing else it's certainly an experience.) #1

Wow! echoparallax (that's me!) is ranked #1 on the Jamie Paige track "square up" with! In normal difficulty, in the double-time category, though. Normally 1.6 million points would place one 50-500th. In 2nd is kasane teto herself with 1523346 points.

A detailed statistics breakdown of the score: 190 critical (with Critical enabled, you get penalized if you hit a note outside the Perfect window, but you get more points especially if you hit a note within the smaller Critical window), 94 perfect, 23 great, and 1 good.

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