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Dr Andrew Skinner

@flight-elements.bsky.social

155 followers 241 following 150 posts

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

They will run out of swords eventually.

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

The Sandia National Labs WIPP report - the one with the famous spike-forests and obelisks - is a kinda remarkable read. Meditations on human failings and the travails of the far future. Scraps of poetry. Things that track like found documents in a post apocalyptic RPG.

Screenshot of Sandia National Laboratories Report (SAND92-1382) Appendix F (Team A Report), p. F59:

You can get “in” it, but the streets lead nowhere, and they are too narrow to live in, farm in, or even meet in. It is a massive effort to deny use. At certain seasons it is very, very hot inside because of the black masonry’s absorption of the desert’s high sun-heat load. It is an ordered place, but crude in form, forbidding, and uncomfortable.
Some blocks can be of granite, or faced with it, and carry inscriptions. Their closeness to other blocks reduces their exposure and increases their durability.
Note our use of irregular geometries and the denial of craftsmanship. None of our designs use any of the regular or “ideal” geometric forms, and only crude craftsmanship is sought, except for the precision of engraved messages. Why? The geometry of ideal forms, like squares and cubes, circles and spheres, triangles and pyramids is a fundamental human invention, a seeking of perfection in an imperfect world. Historically, people have used these ideal forms in places that embody their aspirations and ideals. In our designs, there is much irregularity both of forms and in their locations and directions, yet done by people with obvious knowledge of pure geometry. This shows an understanding of the ideal, but at the same time a deliberate shunning of it.. .suggesting we do not value this place, that it is not one that embodies our ideals.
The same is true of craft and workmanship. Historically, people use good workmanship to bestow value on things they value. In most of our schemes, the structures that cover or define the Keep’s “cover” are made crudely, or of materials that prohibit workmanship (such as rubble, or earthworks, or a large slab). At the same time, we make an enormous investment of labor in these rude materials. It speaks of a massive investment, but one not tinged with pride or honored with value-through-workmanship.

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

The elf on our shelf has a rather specific mandate.

A bright red-and-white striped Christmas elf sits on a shelf, next to an embroidered sign which reads 'PLEASE DON'T DO COKE IN THE BATHROOM'.

(Coke can be done elsewhere without issue.)

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

How is it that time of year again

Still from "Not Quite Almost Christmas Time" by Tom Cardy. Featuring Tom Cardy looking adorably bemused, and the subtitle 'premature Michael Buble'

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Brain immediately went right here:

Screenshot of the Unreal Tournament (1999) CTF map 'Facing Worlds'; two interconnected towers float in orbit above planet Earth.

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

The Airstrike Devil

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

Looking for some light reading this afternoon? May I suggest SAND92-1382? Specifically, appendices F and G. Reading how these folks were thinking is wild. But I guess that's to be expected when you're trying to build an immortal shrine to invisible dangers digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/m...

Figure 4.3-6 of the Sandia National Laboratories report 'Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (SAND92-1382).' The figure is labelled "Spikes bursting through grid, view 2 (concept by Michael Brill and art by Safdar Abidi)", and that's a pretty good description. The image is a noisy monochrome photocopy, depicting a single human figure (centre) surrounded by large architectural spikes, intended as concept art for aboveground markers for long-term nuclear waste disposal sites.

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

More like medical attention

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

Out on a recent survey, my colleague snapped a shot that makes me look way cooler than I ought to

A strip of light and greenery shows through a gap in a cave, running right to left, with a person standing in the left third, looking over some archaeological deposit.

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Drop a ship that's not from Stars Wars/Trek

Screenshot from the 2003 film 'Master and Commander: Far Side of the World', with Captain Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) in the foreground, and the sail-ship HMS Surprise behind and to the right.

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

Today in spellcheck

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 16/02/2024

And 1755:

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 16/02/2024

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (1785) has a complete scan online: publicdomainreview.org/collection/s... Here's the relevant page from the 1773 edition (Japan at bottom left):

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Dr Andrew Skinner @flight-elements.bsky.social · 16/02/2024

From Webster's International (1907). It's a very big, delicate book, so difficult to photograph cleanly

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