“corywright” — Fediverse search results on home.social

Picture this scenario.
You are a detective who has become stranded in a small secluded community, just as a wave of murders begin.
This might seem odd to you (the reader), but that's because you're using your stupid inductive brain. Turn that shit off. From now on You are the deductive detective, not the reader.

In deductive brain, nothing is ever normal, expected or unexpected.
Every event is simultaneously unprecedented and inevitable, because deduction has no way of tracking precedence or likelihood.

You are so blessed, deductive detective (should I call you Deductive, perhaps?).

Anyway, you are currently tracking a murderer. Well, you would be, but you have gotten hopelessly lost in the very small community, because you have no way of learning its layout.
A paltry price to pay for your amazing purely deductive Powers.

Anyway, in an unprecedented and inevitable occurrence, you stumble upon the Baker stabbing the Cartwright, in exactly the same method as the previous murders.

Unfortunately, your deductive powers tell you that you can't conclude anything from this, because there is no particular reason to think this community has only one murderer, or indeed that the murders were not all simple unprecedented and inevitable coincidences, carried out by different people in coincidentally similar manner.
You also have no reason to think a person who has murdered once might murder again, so you step out into the light to chat with the initially surprised Baker.

The end.

#microfiction #Deduction #DeductionIsAJoke #WeakestFormOfInference

#microfiction #deduction #deductionisajoke #weakestformofinference

neon genesis evangelion bot @[email protected] · 2025-11-30 · 02:31 UTC

#3girls #aged_down #akagi_naoko #anger_vein #ayanami_rei #bag #bandages #blue_hair #blush #bodysuit #bucket #character_name #chibi #chopsticks #collage #company_name #copyright_name #copyright_notice #earrings #eating #eyepatch #fallen_down #food #fujita_yukihisa #hairpods #head_bump #interface_headset_(evangelion) #jewelry #katsuragi_misato #kneeling #looking_at_viewer #mecha_pilot_suit #multiple_girls #neon_genesis_evangelion #noodles #official_art #plugsuit_(evangelion) #purple_hair #red_eyes #school_bag #school_uniform #short_hair #signature #skirt #source_request #tokyo-3_middle_school_uniform #translated #upside-down #vest #white_bodysuit https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/19355

#3girls #aged_down #akagi_naoko #anger_vein #ayanami_rei #bag

grobi @[email protected] · 2026-05-14 · 09:41 UTC

2026 May 15

Unraveling NGC 3169
* Image Credit & Copyright: Simone Curzi and the ShaRA Team
https://app.astrobin.com/u/MRWSKYLOVER?i=0ym89c#gallery
https://astrotrex.wordpress.com/2024/05/22/shara8-2-the-galaxy-duo/

Explanation:
Spiral galaxy NGC 3169 looks to be unraveling like a ball of cosmic yarn. It lies some 70 million light-years away, south of bright star Regulus toward the faint constellation Sextans. Wound up spiral arms are pulled out into sweeping tidal tails as NGC 3169 (left) and neighboring NGC 3166 interact gravitationally. Eventually the galaxies will merge into one, a common fate even for bright galaxies in the local universe. Drawn out stellar arcs and plumes are clear indications of the ongoing gravitational interactions across the deep and colorful galaxy group photo. The telescopic frame spans about 20 arc minutes or about 400,000 light-years at the group's estimated distance, and includes smaller, bluish NGC 3165 to the right. NGC 3169 is also known to shine across the spectrum from radio to X-rays, harboring an active galactic nucleus that is the site of a supermassive black hole.
https://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1114a/
https://noirlab.edu/public/images/noao-ngc3166/
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120604.html
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galgrps/leoii.html
https://app.astrobin.com/u/MRWSKYLOVER?i=e4w7jc
http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.4382

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260515.html

#space #galaxy #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #nature #esa #NASA #education #apod

#space #galaxy #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy

Astronomy Bot @[email protected] · 2026-05-13 · 05:04 UTC

Astronomy photo of the day: NGC 188: Old Cluster in the New General Catalog.
Copyright: Neven Krcmarek

Explanation: The New General Catalog of star clusters and nebulae really isn't so new. In fact, it was published in 1888 - an effort by J. L. E

#APOD

#apod

grobi @[email protected] · 2026-05-12 · 16:08 UTC

2026 May 12

The Conjunction of Comet R3 PanSTARRS and the Orion Nebula
* Image Credit & Copyright: Julien De Winter, Sascha Ebeler
https://www.instagram.com/dwj85
https://www.instagram.com/sascha.ebeler
* Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II)
https://kerockcliffe.com/
https://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/sci/bio/keighley.e.rockcliffe
https://csst.umbc.edu/directory/
https://cresst2.umd.edu/

Explanation:
Today’s composite image features something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue! Comet R3 PanSTARRS, streaking across the right of the image, likely originated from the Oort Cloud, meaning it is an old Solar System relic from billions of years ago. It’s bright extended ion tail glows blue as the gas escaping the comet’s core is ionized by sunlight. Astronomers are fascinated by comets for all sorts of reasons: comet compositions are untouched time capsules containing the building blocks of Solar System planets; comets may have delivered water to the young Earth; the behavior of cometary tails shed light on solar wind and radiation interactions. The background mosaic, featuring the Orion Nebula (M42), was taken over two nights of observation with the comet captured on the third night. The Orion Nebula is our nearest stellar nursery and, at about 2 million years old, is our something (relatively) new! Now at around 127.5 million kilometers from Earth, we wave goodbye to the borrowed Comet R3 PanSTARRS as it leaves the Solar System.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DYL5zg5Ak78/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_old
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260412.html
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/oort-cloud/facts/
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260414.html
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/facts/
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/comet-provides-new-clues-to-origins-of-earths-oceans/
https://www.mos.org/article/getting-know-orion-great-nebula
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-42/
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241104.html
https://www.space.com/orion-nebula
https://theskylive.com/c2025r3-info

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260512.html

#space #comets #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #nature #NASA #education #apod

#space #comets #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy

Astronomy Bot @[email protected] · 2026-05-12 · 05:15 UTC

Astronomy photo of the day: The Conjunction of Comet R3 PanSTARRS and the Orion Nebula.
Copyright: Julien De Winter,
Sascha Ebeler

Text:
Keighley Rockcliffe
(NASA
GSFC,
UMBC CSST,
CRESST II)

Explanation: Today’s composite image features something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. Comet R3 PanSTARRS, streaking across the right of the image, likely originated from the Oort Cloud, meaning it is an old Solar System relic from billions of years ago

#APOD

#apod

grobi @[email protected] · 2026-05-11 · 17:11 UTC

2026 May 13
NGC 188: Old Cluster in the New General Catalog
* Image Credit & Copyright: Neven Krcmarek
https://app.astrobin.com/u/NevenKrcmarek

Explanation:
The New General Catalog of star clusters and nebulae really isn't so new. In fact, it was published in 1888 - an effort by J. L. E. Dreyer to consolidate the work of astronomers William, Caroline, and John Herschel along with others into a useful single, complete catalog of astronomical discoveries and measurements. Dreyer's work was largely successful and is still important today as this famous catalog continues to lend its "NGC" to bright clusters, galaxies, and nebulae. Take for example the star cluster known as NGC 188 (item number 188 in the NGC compilation). It lies about 6,000 light-years distant in the northern constellation Cepheus and represents a galactic or open star cluster. With an age of about 7 billion years, NGC 188 is old for an open cluster. Its old, evolved red giant stars have yellowish hues in this colorful, deep sky view. NGC 188 also enjoys the designation Caldwell 1 in a modern compilation of deep sky objects. Located well above the plane of the Milky Way, and seen in the direction of planet Earth's north celestial pole, the ancient stellar group is known to some as the Polarissima Cluster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_General_Catalogue
https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/j-l-e-dreyer/
https://www.nasa.gov/history/240-years-ago-astronomer-william-herschel-identifies-uranus-as-the-seventh-planet/
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/space-astronomy/caroline-herschel-first-paid-female-astronomer
https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/john-herschel/
https://in-the-sky.org/data/catalogue.php?cat=NGC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_cluster
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09255
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990312.html
https://app.astrobin.com/i/frpv4y
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-caldwell-catalog/caldwell-1/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_188

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260512.html

#space #cluster #astrophotography #photography #science #nature #NASA #esa #apod

#space #cluster #astrophotography #photography #science #nature

Astronomy Bot @[email protected] · 2026-05-11 · 05:14 UTC

Astronomy photo of the day: Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano.
Copyright: El Cielo de Canarias

Explanation: These people are not in danger. What is coming down from the left is just the Moon, far in the distance. Luna appears so large here because she is being photographed through a telescopic lens

#APOD

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/embed/afHfMMC-MJE?rel=0

#apod

grobi @[email protected] · 2026-05-10 · 16:58 UTC

2026 May 11
Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano
* Video Credit & Copyright: DanielLópez (El Cielo de Canarias)
http://www.elcielodecanarias.com/
* Music: Piano della Moon (Dan Silva)
https://vimeo.com/dansilvaworld

Explanation:
These people are not in danger. What is coming down from the left is just the Moon, far in the distance. Luna appears so large here because she is being photographed through a telescopic lens. What is moving is mostly the Earth, whose spin causes the Moon to slowly disappear behind Mount Teide, a volcano in the Canary Islands of Spain off the northwest coast of Africa. The people pictured are 16 kilometers away and many are facing the camera because they are watching the Sun rise behind the photographer. It is not a coincidence that a full moon rises just when the Sun sets because the Sun is always on the opposite side of the sky from a full moon. The featured video was made in 2018 during a full Milk Moon. The video is not time-lapse -- this was really how fast the Moon was setting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_(goddess)
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1806/Telescope_Teide.jpg
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/
https://science.nasa.gov/moon/
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260505.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1806/teide_volcan_video.jpg
https://science.nasa.gov/sun/facts/
https://blogmais.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/imagem_ht_07-04-23.jpg
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211010.html
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240319.html
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/all-about-the-moon/en/moon_phases.en.jpg
https://vimeo.com/272723959
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0526/What-is-a-milk-moon-anyway
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170820.html

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260511.html

#space #earth #moon #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #physics #nature #NASA #apod

#space #earth #moon #astrophotography #photography #science

Astronomy Picture of the Day @[email protected] · 2026-05-10 · 16:12 UTC

Comet R3 PanSTARRS and Orion
Image Credit & Copyright: Luc Perrot (TWAN)

Explanation: Orion never had a sword like this. As Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) heads out of the inner Solar System, it is putting on quite a show for long exposure cameras. Currently seen toward the constellation of Orion the Hunter, the distant Orion Nebula is visible on the upper right. Comet R3 PanSTARRS is now showing two distinct tails: a short dust tail pointing toward the top of the image and a long and wavy ion tail trailing off toward the upper left. The ion tail points away from the Sun and glows blue from excited carbon monoxide. Large particles in the dust tail somewhat resist the radiation pressure that push them away from the Sun and so retain a bit of the comet's orbit. The dust tail shines by reflected sunlight. The featured image was taken a few days ago from France's Reunion Island in the southern Indian Ocean.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260510.html #apod

#apod

Astronomy Bot @[email protected] · 2026-05-10 · 05:14 UTC

Astronomy photo of the day: Comet R3 PanSTARRS and Orion.
Copyright: Luc Perrot
(TWAN)

Explanation: Orion never had a sword like this. As Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) heads out of the inner Solar System, it is putting on quite a show for long exposure cameras. Currently seen toward the constellation of Orion the Hunter, the distant Orion Nebula is visible on the upper right

#APOD

#apod

Astronomy Picture of the Day @[email protected] · 2026-05-10 · 05:12 UTC

Messier Craters in Stereo
Image Credit: Apollo 11, NASA; Stereo Image Copyright Patrick Vantuyne

Explanation: Many bright nebulae and star clusters in planet Earth's sky are associated with the name of astronomer Charles Messier from his famous 18th century catalog. His name is also given to these two large and remarkable craters on the Moon. Standouts in the dark, smooth lunar Sea of Fertility or Mare Fecunditatis, Messier (left) and Messier A have dimensions of 15 by 8 and 16 by 11 kilometers respectively. Their elongated shapes are explained by the extremely shallow-angle trajectory followed by an impactor, moving left to right, that gouged out the craters. The shallow impact also resulted in two bright rays of material extending along the surface to the right, beyond the picture. Intended to be viewed with red/blue glasses (red for the left eye), this striking stereo picture of the crater pair was recently created from high resolution scans of two images (AS11-42-6304, AS11-42-6305) taken during the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260509.html #apod

#apod

grobi @[email protected] · 2026-05-09 · 22:37 UTC

2026 May 10

Comet R3 PanSTARRS and Orion
* Image Credit & Copyright: Luc Perrot (TWAN)
https://www.lucperrot.fr/bio

Explanation:
Orion never had a sword like this. As Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) heads out of the inner Solar System, it is putting on quite a show for long exposure cameras. Currently seen toward the constellation of Orion the Hunter, the distant Orion Nebula is visible on the upper right. Comet R3 PanSTARRS is now showing two distinct tails: a short dust tail pointing toward the top of the image and a long and wavy ion tail trailing off toward the upper left. The ion tail points away from the Sun and glows blue from excited carbon monoxide. Large particles in the dust tail somewhat resist the radiation pressure that push them away from the Sun and so retain a bit of the comet's orbit. The dust tail shines by reflected sunlight. The featured image was taken a few days ago from France's Reunion Island in the southern Indian Ocean.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2025_R3_(PanSTARRS)
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260420.html
https://starwalk.space/en/news/comet-c2025-r3-panstarrs
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/constellations/en/
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250420.html
https://theskylive.com/c2025r3-info
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/comets/en/anatomy-of-a-comet.en.jpg
https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/*/Cometary+Dust+Tail
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220110.html
https://science.nasa.gov/sun/
http://www2.ess.ucla.edu/~jewitt/tail.html
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/global-maps/carbon-monoxide/
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS1DfzgrmAlBOsFVYpD2zBqj6FDI5z77THEpQ&s
https://van.physics.illinois.edu/ask/listing/31796
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap221227.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France
https://youtu.be/MUEVBSiWWR8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260510.html

#space #comets #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #nature #NASA #education #apod

#space #comets #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy

Astronomy Bot @[email protected] · 2026-05-09 · 05:14 UTC

Astronomy photo of the day: Messier Craters in Stereo.
Copyright: Unknown

Explanation: Many bright nebulae and star clusters in planet Earth's sky are associated with the name of astronomer Charles Messier from his famous 18th century catalog. His name is also given to these two large and remarkable craters on the Moon

#APOD

#apod

grobi @[email protected] · 2026-05-08 · 17:52 UTC

2026 May 9

Messier Craters in Stereo
* Image Credit: Apollo 11, NASA
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo11info.html
http://www.nasa.gov/
Stereo Image Copyright Patrick Vantuyne
https://apollojournals.org/alsj/ApAnPaVa.html

Explanation:
Many bright nebulae and star clusters in planet Earth's sky are associated with the name of astronomer Charles Messier from his famous 18th century catalog. His name is also given to these two large and remarkable craters on the Moon. Standouts in the dark, smooth lunar Sea of Fertility or Mare Fecunditatis, Messier (left) and Messier A have dimensions of 15 by 8 and 16 by 11 kilometers respectively. Their elongated shapes are explained by the extremely shallow-angle trajectory followed by an impactor, moving left to right, that gouged out the craters. The shallow impact also resulted in two bright rays of material extending along the surface to the right, beyond the picture. Intended to be viewed with red/blue glasses (red for the left eye), this striking stereo picture of the crater pair was recently created from high resolution scans of two images (AS11-42-6304, AS11-42-6305) taken during the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon.
https://science.nasa.gov/people/explore-the-night-sky-hubbleatms-messier-catalog-bio/
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/383
http://lunarnetworks.blogspot.com/2012/04/lroc-rays-of-messier.html
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/resources/project/roverview-3-d-glasses/
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS11-42-6304
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS11-42-6305

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/fap/ap260509.html

#space #moon #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #physics #nature #NASA #education #apod

#space #moon #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy

Astronomy Picture of the Day @[email protected] · 2026-05-08 · 08:58 UTC

Comet R3 PanSTARRS Before Rigel
Image Credit & Copyright: Jakub Kuřák & Martin Mašek (FZU of the Czech Academy of Sciences)

Explanation: Which way is Comet R3 PanSTARRS going? Not towards the star at the top of the image, because that is Rigel, which, being far in the background, is unrelated to the comet. Not through the nebula in the image middle, because that is the Witch Head Nebula and it, too, is far in the distance -- but not far from Rigel. Not into northern skies because over the past week Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) has moved into southern skies and is now best visible in Earth's Southern Hemisphere toward the west after sunset. Angularly, Comet R3 PanSTARRS is slowly moving toward the upper right, night by night, and will soon be in the constellation Orion. Spatially, the comet is now headed out of our Solar System but should remain visible to cameras in southern skies for about a week. The featured image was captured last week near Cerro Paranal in Chile.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260508.html #apod

#apod

WPS News @[email protected] · 2026-04-20 · 04:35 UTC

Selective Outrage: Why Big Data’s Piracy Problem Gets a Pass

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — April 21, 2026

The Double Standard Nobody Wants to Admit

For years, the United States and its allies have criticized other regions—particularly China and parts of Asia—for weak enforcement of intellectual property rights.

The argument is familiar:

Copyright violations
Unauthorized copying
Lack of enforcement

These practices are labeled clearly and repeatedly:

Piracy.

But when similar behavior appears inside Western technology systems, the language changes.

It becomes:

Innovation
Training data
Aggregation
Platform optimization

The behavior does not change.

Only the description does.

What Big Data Is Actually Doing

Modern AI and data platforms operate by ingesting large volumes of human-created content.

That includes:

Articles
Essays
Books
Artwork
Photography

This material is then:

Processed
Analyzed
Reassembled into outputs

Those outputs are monetized through:

Advertising
Subscriptions
Platform dominance

In many cases, the original creators:

Are not asked for permission
Are not compensated
Are not even aware their work is being used

That is the functional reality.

Why This Fits the Definition of Piracy

Traditionally, piracy has meant:

The use or reproduction of copyrighted material without permission or compensation.

The current system does not always reproduce content verbatim.

But it does:

Extract value from it
Depend on it
Generate revenue from it

The distinction between copying and extracting becomes less meaningful when the outcome is the same:

The creator’s work drives value
The creator does not share in that value

Whether the term used is “training” or “processing,” the economic effect mirrors what has historically been called piracy.

The China Comparison

Western governments frequently point to China as an example of systemic intellectual property abuse.

And in many cases, those criticisms have been valid.

But that raises a question:

Why is one form of unauthorized use treated as unacceptable, while another is normalized?

If:

Copying a film without permission is piracy

Then:

Using written, visual, or intellectual work to power commercial systems without compensation raises the same concerns

The inconsistency is difficult to ignore.

The Language Shield

Part of the reason this continues is language.

Terms like:

“Machine learning”
“Training data”
“Model development”

Create distance from what is happening.

They make the process sound technical and abstract.

But behind that language is a simple dynamic:

Human-created work is being used to generate value
Without direct compensation to the people who created it

Changing the vocabulary does not change the structure.

Why This Matters Now

This issue is becoming more urgent as AI systems expand.

The more these systems rely on:

High-quality writing
Original reporting
Creative work

The more they depend on the continued existence of creators.

If those creators are not supported:

Output quality declines
Original work becomes less sustainable
The system weakens over time

This is not just a fairness issue.

It is a structural one.

The Likely Outcomes

There are only a few ways this resolves:

Legal action defining limits on data use
Licensing systems for training and summarization
Revenue-sharing models between platforms and creators
Or continued extraction until the supply of high-quality input declines

None of these paths avoid the core issue.

They only determine how it is addressed.

The Bottom Line

The debate is not about whether technology should advance.

It is about whether the people whose work fuels that advancement are recognized and compensated.

When value is taken without compensation, the term “piracy” has historically been used.

If the same outcome is occurring under different language, the question is not whether the term is uncomfortable.

The question is whether it applies.

If you read this and it matters, help me keep it going: https://www.patreon.com/cw/WPSNews

References

Anderson, C. W., Bell, E., & Shirky, C. (2015). Post-industrial journalism: Adapting to the present. Columbia Journalism School.

OpenAI. (2023). GPT and the future of content generation.

Google. (2023). Search Generative Experience (SGE) overview. https://blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-search

World Intellectual Property Organization. (2021). Understanding copyright and related rights. https://www.wipo.int

#ArtificialIntelligence #bigData #copyright #digitalEconomy #intellectualProperty #Technology #WPSNews

#artificialintelligence #bigdata #copyright #digitaleconomy #intellectualproperty #technology

Lorna Peel @[email protected] · 2024-12-03 · 09:14 UTC

These are the premises of the legendary Guy's of Cork - photographers, stationers, and publishers of Guy's Cork Almanacs and Directories. 1863-1870. The National Library of Ireland. No known copyright restrictions.

#Guy #Guys #Cork #Ireland

#guy #guys #cork #ireland

Andy Arthur - Threadinburgh @[email protected] · 2022-09-09 · 12:43 UTC

The thread about exploring Cromwell’s enigmatic Citadel of Leith

I was quite very excited to find this image in the Edinburgh City Libraries collection that I’d somehow missed before. It’s the “Gate of the Old Citadel of Leith“, an 1818 watercolour by the lawyer and prolific cityscape artist of Edinburgh, James Skene.

The Citadel was part of Oliver Cromwell’s plan to subdue and control Scotland during his occupation of the country after the Battle of Dunbar in 1650.

It acted not just as a base for the occupying forces, but by protecting and controlling the Port of Leith it guarded the supply lines and meant the Army could be provisioned. Its construction was ordered in 1653, overseen by Cromwell’s man on the ground, General Monck, and was reluctantly financed by the city of Edinburgh to the tune of £60,000 Scots (£5,000). According to Nicoll’s Diary, construction began on May 26th 1656. The occupiers brought with them a printing press to churn out official declarations and propaganda and so it’s no coincidence that the first newspaper in Scotland is said to have been printed on an English press within the Citadel; “The Mercurius Caledonius – Comprising The Affairs now in Agitation in Scotland With A Survey of Forraign Intelligence“. It only ran for 12 issues from Dec 1660 – Jan 1661 and is not to be confused with the later Caledonian Mercury. It printed reports from Parliament, “Forraign Intelligence” and other stories sourced from the London papers. Monck also encouraged other English merchants and industrialists to set up in the safety of The Citadel and they introduced the craft of glassmaking, something Leith would later become famous for.

Mercurius Caledonius, edition of the first week of 1661.

As I may have said many times before, as far as I am aware there are no surviving contemporary illustrations or plans of The Citadel and the earliest map showing it accurately in plan was not made until 50 years later, after it was abandoned as a fortification and encroached upon by the sea. Before we look further at Skene’s illustration, it’s worth getting an idea of the layout of the fortress.

The Citadel followed the classic 5-pointed “Star Fort” layout, with projecting, arrowhead-shaped bastions at each point of the star. These were fortifications explicitly engineered for the age of artillery; the corner bastions formed raised firing platforms to mount your defensive cannons. Gone were the tall, stone walls of medieval castles, in were carefully sculpted and aligned ditches and earthen mounds to resist cannon fire. John Naish’s 1709 survey and plan of Leith is the best reference to get an accurate survey of some of the walls and internal buildings. Note we can only see three sides and corners of the five walls; even at this stage he calls it the “Ruins of the Cittadell”. It can be seen from where he delineates the “high water mark on a raging full sea” that where the remaining walls and bastions should be has been reclaimed by the North Sea. The ditch that surrounds it all could be filled to a depth of 6 feet, and it can be seen on Naish’s map that a small pond has formed to the east of the walls.

Excerpt from John Naish’s 1709 survey and plan of “Leith, Surveyed May 28th 1709”. Crown Copyright, MPHH 1/32

We also have a first-hand description of it during construction from the travelling English naturalist John Ray:

…one of the best fortifications that we ever beheld, passing fair and sumptuous. There are three forts [bastions] advanced above the rest and two platforms; the works around about are faced with freestone towards the ditch and are almost as high as the highest buildings within, and withal thick and substantial. Below are very pleasant, convenient and well-built houses for the governor, officers, and soldiers and for magazines and stores. There is also a good capacious chapel, the piazza, or void space within, as large as Trinity College, Cambridge, Great Court.

After the Stuart Restoration in 1660, The Citadel was abandoned as a military fortification. The contents of its chapel; its timber, seats, glass, masonry and even its steeple, were used in 1673 to refurbish that of Heriot’s Hospital. The City of Edinburgh were allowed to buy it back by King Charles II, so in effect they paid for it twice. Its walls were abandoned to the sea, or quarried out for building materials, and the modern buildings within them became something of a desirable place to live. John Skene’s delightful little sketch was made in 1818, a full 109 years after Naish’s map and 150 or more years after it was first built. But even in this time period, few other images of the subject matter were created and it remains a real rarity. So what does it show us of The Citadel, how does that relate to what we know of it and where was the artist positioned to sketch from. Let’s now find out, shall we?

Despite being a small watercolour, Skene has crammed a lot of interesting detail in there. The obvious thing is it shows a port (gateway). From this we can confirm that the gateway was surrounded with dressed masonry, the walls themselves were faced in stone and were likely filled with earth and rubble. It also gives us an idea of overall idea of the height of the walls and gateways as there are figures here for scale. If we suppose these are accurate, then the gateway might be 10-12 feet high and the walls 20-30 feet in total. The wall height of the contemporary Ayr Citadel is 25 feet, so this fits nicely.

The Citadel gateway, close-up.

In the background of the image we can see limewashed buildings with pan-tiled roofs; standard, vernacular east coast Scottish style at this time. This building looks particularly tall, but if we work it out from the window spacing, it’s probably just 3 storeys plus an attic dormer. Skene often plays with the height of buildings and stretches them to make the scene look more dramatic. The chimneys are smoking, so these buildings are in use, most likely residential.

Pantile roofs and whitewash

We can also see that the blocks of buildings here don’t meet at right angles, given it was a five-sided fortification we would expect them to therefore be at about 72 degrees (give or take, as it was a slightly squished pentagon in plan). This distant range again looks to be 3 storeys with perhaps 2 in the attic dormer.

Pantile roofs and non-right angles

We see can also see street lighting. From a previous thread on the topic we can be sure these are “train oil” (i.e. whale) lamps.

A lamp post.

And a woman hangs out her washing to dry on the grassy slope that is all that remains of the former wall embankment.

Washing day.

In the foreground, two men appear to be working stones. He in the red seems to have a regular block propped up and his partner in the blue looks like he’s trying to heave a slab off the ground. I wager they are reclaiming masonry from the collapsed walls; we know at both Leith and Ayr that this took place.

Working masonry.

And just to the right of the two masons are two intriguing square posts. The Citadel was surrounded by a broad engineered ditch, which we can clearly see on Naish’s map, and it’s more than likely it would have had wooden trestle drawbridges across it. It’s nice to think that those posts may be part of that, they are after all aligned with the gateway.

Wooden posts in the water

In the left midground we have yet more pantile roofed, whitewashed buildings. This range is two storeys and has curving, external stairs to the 1st floor. We know that there were at least two 2-storey blocks within the complex which would have been barracks quarters and stables and we can see evidence in maps of the late 18th and early 19th century that some of the buildings had external staircases.

Curving external stairs to the first floor

And lastly, auld Leith wouldn’t be auld Leith without a forest of masts and rigging in the background. These are the ships of the port, crammed into the river basin beyond. There were no formal wet docks here at this time, everything tied up in the river mouth and alongside the quays of North and South Leith.

Masts and rigging of the Port of Leith

So to conclude an answer to the first question, we can see rather a lot. We can see that the fortifications were largely gone, but bits remained; we can see its buildings were actively occupied and in reasonably good repair at this time, and we get a good idea of the building style and some of its inner layout.

And on to the second part; where was Skene’s viewpoint from where he made his drawing? Well that’s easy of course because we know exactly where The Citadel’s port was as it’s still there! (Many people are amazed to find out that there’s a well preserved section of Cromwellian Fort wall hiding in plain sight at the end of a car park in Leith).

An 1804 Town Plan showing Leith by John Ainslie is roughly contemporary with Skene’s illustration. The gateway in the photograph above is marked S, and so Skene would have to have been outside (to the east or right of the S), looking inwards or west.

Ainslie’s 1804 Town plan of Edinburgh & Leith. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Except there’s actually three problems with this hasty conclusion.

Firstly, in Skene’s image we are looking into The Citadel from outside and there is no way for there to be ships and masts in the left background as that is dry land well away from the shoreline. Skene is a reliable and accurate illustrator, it’s not likely he just made a big mistake.
Secondly, there was no range of buildings in the north of the inner courtyard of The Citadel; the buildings on the right of Skene’s image should not be there.
Thirdly, and crucially, the arch in Skene’s picture is a plain, rounded arch and clearly doesn’t match the segmental profile of the one in the photo above; it is also finished plainer, missing the tracery.

So how can we be looking at the arch from outside The Citadel bearing all of this in mind? The answer is quite simple actually, we can’t be. We are looking at a different arch! – Until the early 19th century, there was the remains of another port; the western or St. Nicholas Port. It is clearly marked T on the map below, set into W, which is the remains of old walls.

Aitchison’s Town Plan of 1795. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Suddenly it all begins to fall into place. Skene is located on the shore, to the left of the above map, looking at the St. Nicholas Port. The stonemasons are working not on the shore but in the ditch outside the walls, and the washerwoman is hanging up her whites on the slope of that wall W. Beyond is the range of buildings marked X and on the map can see two small projections on those buildings, which I would suggest are the external stairways. Beyond X is the further range of buildings offset from them at an angle around 72 degrees. Skene is now looking directly towards the piers and quayside of the Port, shown on the map below, and so the masts and ships are now in the correct place.

Aitchison’s Town Plan of 1795. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Lastly, we can corroborate all pf this with a further map, that by William Bell dated 1813, which shows the layout of buildings and land ownership in The Citadel at that time, and confirms two Citadel Ports again; you can see one marked on the left below the word “Property” of “Mr. Campbell’s Property” and the other on the right, to the right of “Citidal Green“. Bell’s map shows that at this time the whole area was being encroached upon by the building of the wet docks.

Bell’s Plan of the Regality of Canongate etc., 1813. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

I’ve only ever seen one other illustration of the western port of the Citadel, which refers to it as “Oliver’s Mount” (i.e. Cromwell) on account of the mass of earth that had once formed the core of the wall rising above it. Confusingly it shows the passageway as bifurcating, which makes little defensive or engineering sense, and conflicts with Skene’s sketch. However, my understanding is at one time it may have been used as a cattle store and had been given a dividing wall internally. The artist of the below drawing may have been working off of a second-hand description and hence made it look like there were two separate passages, not one that had been divided.

“Oliver’s Mount” from Leith and its Antiquites by James Campbell Irons, 1898

Another semi-contemporary image shows the “Cromwell House“, in which Cromwell most likely never stayed. It was probably built as a governor’s mansion and would have been a desirable property to take over after the fort was abandoned to residential use. The general style and scale of this building does not contradict Skene’s illustration. This building, also known as the “Governor’s House” was still standing in 1825 when it was advertised as for sale.

“Cromwell House” from the Story of Leith.

A last piece of the puzzle and one which helps to tie everything nicely together can be found an etching by John Clerk of Eldin (who was a thoroughly good landscape draughtsman). It is something which is very easy to miss, but if we squint at “Leith from the West” we can see our gateway (highlighted blue) and the range of two-storey buildings with the curved, external staircases (red). The Leith Custom House is highlighted in yellow to help get our bearings. The full engraving is digitised in the National Galleries Scotland collection, you can zoom in on it and explore it at your leisure.

Excerpt of “Leith from the West” by John Clerk of Eldin. Move the slider to see the coloured highlightes. CC-BY-NC National Galleries Scotland.

We can then take all of this evidence and add it on to Naish’s map to get a good idea of the layout and what the various features we can see on it actually were for.

Naish’s map, conceptual details of the Citadel filled in and annotated. Base map Crown Copyright, MPHH 1/32

I know of know reconstruction plan or illustration of the Leith Citadel, but one does exist for another one of the Scottish Cromwellian citaels of this era, that of Ayr. This is similar in some respects to Leith as it was built on the shore of a port town, but was larger and had 6 instead of 5 corner bastions. The illustration below gives a reasonable impression of what Leith would have looked like though.

Ayr Citadel by Robert Nelmes

Surviving sections of the walls of Ayr also give us a good idea of what Leith might have looked like:

A bastion of Ayr Citadel. CC-by-SA 3.0 Rosser1954

I find the Leith Citadel hugely enigmatic. It was a massive, dominant fortification that was totally unlike anything else in this part of the world. It was built at great expense and yet from a military point of view was abandoned within a few years of completion. It very briefly saw some military action in 1715 when Jacobites under Mackintosh of Borlum occupied it and had a standoff with government forces before retreating and briefly in 1780 some old cannons were mounted on its walls to counter the threat posed by John Paul Jones. I also find it remarkable that even though much of The Citadel survived so long and after its abandonment, so little was left by the way of record. We are lucky indeed to have the remaining gateway and a small section of wall, tucked away in a car park in North Leith.

The other great survivor of The Citadel is less obvious from the ground, but it you look at a map of streets in the area it is immediately obvious that there is a pentagonal arrangement, bounded by Cromwell Place, Couper Street, Coburg Street and Dock Street. This directly aligns with the orientation of the walls, ditches and internal structures as you can see on the below animated image transition of old maps of Leith on the modern streetscape and overlaid with a schematic of The Citadel.

Transition animation of the Citadel. NLS maps reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret

#citadel #leith

Louis Gerbarg @[email protected] · 2026-04-27 · 18:54 UTC

So with the release of #midnight there has been a lot of upheavel in the #wow addon community, which has caused me to have to look at new UI addons, and I am struck by just how crazy the whole ecosystems licensing situation seems to be.

There are a lot of opensource addons, but there are also a lot where the authors want to retain control so they explicitly write an empty license which reserves all rights for themselves. When I ask authors to change the license to actually allowing copying the addon for installation I invariably get some sort of response of the form "The license is only for modifying my addon's source, not using it." IANAL, but to me that falls flat because:

1. Absent an explicit grant there is no implicit right to use it anyway
2. There may be an implicit license created because the author uploaded it to something like curseforge, but that is both somewhat vague for the users, and leaves the authors exposed since they have not disclaimed any implied warranty granted by their implied license.
3. For addons there is no object code/artifact that can bear a different license than the source code.

When I had to deal license issues in the past lawyers have told me is that if there is an ambiguity in the license and you have a written statement from the copyright holder about their intention a court will generally use their written statements to interpret the license. So the action of me asking for the change and them telling me they don't think they need to change their license because it grants me the rights may resolve the issue for me, but I find that unsatisfying.

In some ways it is not a big deal, either just ignore it like everyone else, or don't use the addons. But I can't help but feel a lot of this is people who have never written software vibe coding licenses for their vibe coded addons, which makes me actually worry a lot about what this looks like for more consequential opensource projects.

#wow #midnight

Louis Gerbarg @[email protected] · 2026-04-27 · 18:54 UTC

So with the release of #midnight there has been a lot of upheavel in the #wow addon community, which has caused me to have to look at new UI addons, and I am struck by just how crazy the whole ecosystems licensing situation seems to be.

There are a lot of opensource addons, but there are also a lot where the authors want to retain control so they explicitly write an empty license which reserves all rights for themselves. When I ask authors to change the license to actually allowing copying the addon for installation I invariably get some sort of response of the form "The license is only for modifying my addon's source, not using it." IANAL, but to me that falls flat because:

1. Absent an explicit grant there is no implicit right to use it anyway
2. There may be an implicit license created because the author uploaded it to something like curseforge, but that is both somewhat vague for the users, and leaves the authors exposed since they have not disclaimed any implied warranty granted by their implied license.
3. For addons there is no object code/artifact that can bear a different license than the source code.

When I had to deal license issues in the past lawyers have told me is that if there is an ambiguity in the license and you have a written statement from the copyright holder about their intention a court will generally use their written statements to interpret the license. So the action of me asking for the change and them telling me they don't think they need to change their license because it grants me the rights may resolve the issue for me, but I find that unsatisfying.

In some ways it is not a big deal, either just ignore it like everyone else, or don't use the addons. But I can't help but feel a lot of this is people who have never written software vibe coding licenses for their vibe coded addons, which makes me actually worry a lot about what this looks like for more consequential opensource projects.

#midnight #wow

Louis Gerbarg @lgerbarg · 2026-04-27 · 18:54 UTC

So with the release of #midnight there has been a lot of upheavel in the #wow addon community, which has caused me to have to look at new UI addons, and I am struck by just how crazy the whole ecosystems licensing situation seems to be.

There are a lot of opensource addons, but there are also a lot where the authors want to retain control so they explicitly write an empty license which reserves all rights for themselves. When I ask authors to change the license to actually allowing copying the addon for installation I invariably get some sort of response of the form "The license is only for modifying my addon's source, not using it." IANAL, but to me that falls flat because:

1. Absent an explicit grant there is no implicit right to use it anyway
2. There may be an implicit license created because the author uploaded it to something like curseforge, but that is both somewhat vague for the users, and leaves the authors exposed since they have not disclaimed any implied warranty granted by their implied license.
3. For addons there is no object code/artifact that can bear a different license than the source code.

When I had to deal license issues in the past lawyers have told me is that if there is an ambiguity in the license and you have a written statement from the copyright holder about their intention a court will generally use their written statements to interpret the license. So the action of me asking for the change and them telling me they don't think they need to change their license because it grants me the rights may resolve the issue for me, but I find that unsatisfying.

In some ways it is not a big deal, either just ignore it like everyone else, or don't use the addons. But I can't help but feel a lot of this is people who have never written software vibe coding licenses for their vibe coded addons, which makes me actually worry a lot about what this looks like for more consequential opensource projects.

#midnight #wow

Louis Gerbarg @[email protected] · 2026-04-27 · 18:54 UTC

So with the release of #midnight there has been a lot of upheavel in the #wow addon community, which has caused me to have to look at new UI addons, and I am struck by just how crazy the whole ecosystems licensing situation seems to be.

There are a lot of opensource addons, but there are also a lot where the authors want to retain control so they explicitly write an empty license which reserves all rights for themselves. When I ask authors to change the license to actually allowing copying the addon for installation I invariably get some sort of response of the form "The license is only for modifying my addon's source, not using it." IANAL, but to me that falls flat because:

1. Absent an explicit grant there is no implicit right to use it anyway
2. There may be an implicit license created because the author uploaded it to something like curseforge, but that is both somewhat vague for the users, and leaves the authors exposed since they have not disclaimed any implied warranty granted by their implied license.
3. For addons there is no object code/artifact that can bear a different license than the source code.

When I had to deal license issues in the past lawyers have told me is that if there is an ambiguity in the license and you have a written statement from the copyright holder about their intention a court will generally use their written statements to interpret the license. So the action of me asking for the change and them telling me they don't think they need to change their license because it grants me the rights may resolve the issue for me, but I find that unsatisfying.

In some ways it is not a big deal, either just ignore it like everyone else, or don't use the addons. But I can't help but feel a lot of this is people who have never written software vibe coding licenses for their vibe coded addons, which makes me actually worry a lot about what this looks like for more consequential opensource projects.

#wow #midnight

Louis Gerbarg @[email protected] · 2026-04-27 · 18:54 UTC

So with the release of #midnight there has been a lot of upheavel in the #wow addon community, which has caused me to have to look at new UI addons, and I am struck by just how crazy the whole ecosystems licensing situation seems to be.

There are a lot of opensource addons, but there are also a lot where the authors want to retain control so they explicitly write an empty license which reserves all rights for themselves. When I ask authors to change the license to actually allowing copying the addon for installation I invariably get some sort of response of the form "The license is only for modifying my addon's source, not using it." IANAL, but to me that falls flat because:

1. Absent an explicit grant there is no implicit right to use it anyway
2. There may be an implicit license created because the author uploaded it to something like curseforge, but that is both somewhat vague for the users, and leaves the authors exposed since they have not disclaimed any implied warranty granted by their implied license.
3. For addons there is no object code/artifact that can bear a different license than the source code.

When I had to deal license issues in the past lawyers have told me is that if there is an ambiguity in the license and you have a written statement from the copyright holder about their intention a court will generally use their written statements to interpret the license. So the action of me asking for the change and them telling me they don't think they need to change their license because it grants me the rights may resolve the issue for me, but I find that unsatisfying.

In some ways it is not a big deal, either just ignore it like everyone else, or don't use the addons. But I can't help but feel a lot of this is people who have never written software vibe coding licenses for their vibe coded addons, which makes me actually worry a lot about what this looks like for more consequential opensource projects.

#midnight #wow