Category: Uncategorized

Astrology Timeline

Astrology Timeline Measuring Tool A rough mock up of a tool to measure planetary aspects along a timeline.

Something for the “weird ideas kicking around my head” bin. Born of my frustration with current astrology tools and really wanting to visualize these things in a different way, I started think about what that might look like.

I have no idea how to go about even starting a project like this, but I figured getting it out of my head would be a good start. 🙂

The idea is an adaptable framework that can attach to any dated timeline and display the aspects between one planet and a series of others utilizing colour coding and markings. Initially, it could focus on mundane aspects, but eventually adding the ability to use birth information to display aspects in relation to natal charts. Ideally, it would be simple and extendable to enable it to be adapted to different situations.

I remember timelines being popular in the mid 00s, photo management systems and sharing platforms had a variety of different timeline displays- I haven’t seen a lot of that sort of thing lately, but it’s an example of where it may be used.

I also had the idea of a program for generating personal timelines- something that could be very personal and private that you could enter as much biographical information as possible to see an overview of your life. Starting with all the places you’ve lived, school and work history, marriage/partnerships, significant births and deaths, etc. Filling in as much dated info as possible. Then having a variety of different ways of displaying that timeline, including tying it to the astrological timeline.

Could make for an interesting tool for self reflection.

Finally, A New Post

Still trying to get some kind of posting workflow happening, very much a work in progress.

I’ve been down the AI rabbit hole with Stable Diffusion, using the AUTOMATIC1111 script- keeps things relatively easy to set up and update. What’s fascinated me most is the animation extension, Deforum. I’ve created a new Youtube channel for the experiments-
https://www.youtube.com/@webmadmansstablediffusionexper

There’s also some folders in my Junk Drawer-
https://sketchbin.webmadman.net/2022/stablediffusion/
https://sketchbin.webmadman.net/2023/stablediffusion/

I just finished this video for my main Youtube channel-

In putting the video together, and other exploring, I generated large number of images. I wanted to share a few here. The captions are the artists I prompted.

John William Waterhouse
Egon Schiele
Austin Osman Spare
Norman Rockwell

I’ll. hopefully, be posting more. Maybe dive into the workflow of these things.


AUTOMATIC1111 getting started- https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui/wiki

Outside the walled gardens

Many folks online are unaware of the decentralised roots of the online world. To them, the Internet is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google and the like- understandably, that’s where the focus is- the problem is, these platforms are, subtly and not so subtly, manipulating us. Internally, by constantly tweaking the interface to keep us inside the platform. And externally by marketing based off of the harvesting of our collective unconscious.

I will go into detail on what I mean by that in a future post. In this post, I would like to explore some of the alternatives…

First, there’s email- it’s been around for a long time- most people use things like Gmail, Yahoo or other corporate run services. Luckily, it hasn’t been closed off, I don’t need to have a Gmail account to send and receive email to/from someone with a Gmail account. There are many ways to get an email address- beyond the mentioned services, many Internet Service Providers provide one with their account (this is less common now). The email address I use is part of my webhosting package- where this blog is located- I pay less than $10/month for all my webhosting needs, an unlimited number of email addresses and a bunch of other stuff- it’s pretty inexpensive, but here are some free alternatives-
https://protonmail.com
https://tutanota.com
https://mailfence.com

There’s also https://riseup.net where they vet new accounts, but offer more than just email- their mandate is to empower people and groups working on liberatory social change. Beyond email there are a variety of other communication tools they offer.

The precursors of social networks have been around long before Facebook and the like, in the form of forums, newsgroups ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_newsgroup ) and chat clients (like http://www.irc.org ).

These days there is a growing list of alternatives to Facebook, Twitter, etc. The ones I’m most interested in are decentralised- they aren’t tied to a single server or company. Here’s a couple that I use-

https://diasporafoundation.org
Diaspora* is similar to Facebook, but gives you, the user, a lot more control over who sees what you share and what you see.

https://joinmastodon.org
Mastodon is similar to Twitter, but is self moderated and, again. gives the user more control over who can see what you share and what you see in your feed.

For more direct communication there’s https://about.riot.im
Based on the decentralised matrix.org network, Riot.im is based on “rooms”- you can create a room that is completely open and public or closed and encrypted- members of the room can then meet and chat at the same time, or leave messages and files for others members to see and access at any time. Roit.im has been expanding with numerous plugins that offer functions such as collaborative document editing and a whole lot more.

Riot.im, Diaspora* and Mastodon can be used in a web browser or with apps- available in mobile and desktop versions.

So that’s a start, I’ll expand on this in time.

Head image from https://openclipart.org/detail/277506/Centralized-Decentralized-and-Distributed-Networks