Infinite Wishes 🏳️‍⚧️🚀

The Lunar Mixtape

2026-04-17T01:34:00+00:00

Credit: NASA

The Lunar Mixtape

2026-04-17T01:34:00+00:00, by Emma Humphries, from Infinite Wishes 🏳️‍⚧️🚀

Musical wake-up calls to NASA crews in space dates back to at least the Apollo program¹.

Reactor.com published the list of the wake-up songs that Mission Control played for the Artemis II crew:

“Sleepyhead” by Young & Sick
“Green Light” by John Legend (feat. André 3000)
“In a Daydream” by Freddy Jones Band
“Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan
“Working Class Heroes (Work)” by CeeLo Green
“Good Morning” by Mandisa and TobyMac
“Tokyo Drifting” by Denzel Curry and Glass Animals
“Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie
“Lonesome Drifter” by Charley Crockett
“Run to the Water” by Live

Solid list. Putting André 3000 on it seems legitimizing².

But if NASA were to invite me³ on a flight around our Moon and back, I’d hope I’d get to make the playlist.

My list leans into road-trip but in free fall, with slack key/pedal guitars, instrumentals, harmonies, strolling bass-lines, and psych/funk.

“I’m Not Getting Excited” by The Beths
“Sherpa” by Angine De Poitrine⁴
“Rocky Mountain Way” (Flying Mojito Bros Refrito) by Joe Walsh⁵,⁶
“Deep Blue Day” by Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, and Roger Eno
“Interstellar” by Frankie Rose
“California Stars” music by Wilco and Billy Bragg, lyrics by Woody Guthrie
“Hammond Song” by The Roches
“Interstellar Love” The Avalanches (feat. Leon Bridges)⁷
“Shoulda Zenith” by Barry Walker Jr.
“All Night” by Ginger Root
“Archie, Marry Me” by Alvvays
“Hot Burrito #1” by Flying Burrito Brothers
“Cico Buff” by Cocteau Twins
“Avalanche of Love” WITCH (feat. Sampa the Great)
“Hanging On”, KNOWER

I’ve put the playlist on YouTube. Hope you enjoy it.

I don’t know if ISS crews get wake-up music. ↩
Do not @ me, Gen-Z and Gen-α. Give me some credit for knowing a little bit of early 2000’s Hip Hop. ↩
Seriously, call me, NASA. Even if it’s for help with the Artemis IV playlist. ↩
Hell yeah, pantomime math rock. ↩
The one who was in The Eagles, not the reactionary jerk. ↩
This is the big rave up for Trans-Lunar Injection (the one with the engine, not the estradiol valerate.) ↩
There’s a live version that’s so good. ↩

Books Read in 2025

2025-12-30T03:16:00+00:00

Books Read in 2025

2025-12-30T03:16:00+00:00, by Emma Humphries, from Infinite Wishes 🏳️‍⚧️🚀

I’ve doubled the number of books I’ve read each year since I started keeping track in 2020.

Harrow the Ninth, Tasmyn Muir
The Power Fantasy, Vol. One: The Superpowers, Kieron Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard
The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han – Short but super dense academic philosophy, I got sort of the gist but lots of references to classical, 19th C, 20th C, and contemporary philosophers
Neoreaction: a Basilisk, Elizabeth Sandifer – The primer on all the goons and weirdoes who inspired Musk and company. Reviewed here
Trans/Rad/Fem, Talia Bhatt
Seeing Like a State, James C. Scott – The origin of the “they said ‘legiblity,’ drink!” game
The Operating System: An Anarchist Theory of the State, Eric Laursen
The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar
Vera Rubin: A Life, Jacqueline Mitton, Simon Mitton
The Martian Contingency, Mary Robinette Kowai
The Splinter in the Sky, Kemi Ashing-Giwa – Is there a name for this genre of outsider goes to the imperial core, and gets mixed up in intrigues ? Arkady Martine’s A Memory of Empire is another novel exploring this
A Memory of Empire, Arkady Martine – So I reread it. I missed Three Seagrass
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses, Malka Older – The next “Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti” novel
Light from Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki
Automatic Noodle, Annalee Newitz – A wonderful novel about people (in this case robots) healing from the trauma of a war, and learning to exercise their agency
Nuts and Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World in a Big Way, Roma Agrawal
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain, Sofia Samatar
Lessons in Magic and Disaster, Charlie Jane Anders – Charlie Jane’s protagonist’s words to her mom really stuck with me:

“You don’t need to restart your career, or rebuild your resume. You just need to have a life once again. Which means getting money and finding things to do that make you feel fulfilled. Right? And maybe you can combine those two things, and get money for doing something you enjoy. But you don’t have to think of your job as your life, or try to be ‘high-powered.’”
Star Sword Nemesis, Christine Love – I appreciated the callbacks to Gundam, but this was so not for me
Joyful Militancy: Building Resistance in Toxic Times, Nick Montgomery and carla bergman
Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, Dan Wang
Service Model, Adrian Tchaikovsky – I want to write about this, in conversation with Plur1bus (which is the best thing I’ve seen on TV in ages)
Inventing the Renaissance, Ada Palmer

Whistle Bloc

2025-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

Credit: The author

Whistle Bloc

2025-10-25T00:00:00+00:00, by Emma Humphries, from Infinite Wishes 🏳️‍⚧️🚀

Folks who are adopting a corner by a Home Depot where day laborers look for work or are walking neighborhood patrols in cities where my horrible Federal government is kidnapping people¹ carry whistles to alert people when the goon squads show up. (Multiple short blasts means they’ve been spotted, long blasts means they are snatching people.)

At least we have 3D printers in this timeline so I can print whistles in bulk.

I’ve found this tiny whistle from ACstudio on Printables to print and function reliably and loud.

I print them with 0.15mm layer height, five layers top and bottom, and perimeters of two. You don’t need supports. Set up the seam in your slicer to keep it on the outside of the whistle, along a corner.

I’m using PLA. Make sure it’s dry because stringing on the inside will interfere with the airflow. You may want to put down a layer of glue stick. I like Overture’s PLA Professional² but I was out of it, so this batch was printed in “Galaxy Silver” Prusament PLA.

You can be fancy and put them on braided paracord leads if you have time.

When you see the kidnapping squads, alert your local immigrant rights group, they’ll have a hotline number you can call or text. Remember to follow SALUTE when reporting:

Size/strength of units (#number of officers and vehicles)
Actions (what are they doing?)
Location/direction (where are they and where are they heading)
Uniforms/clothing (what are they wearing, are they in plain clothes or uniformed)
Time/date (When did you see them, how long did you observe them)
Equipment/weapons (were they in armor, did they have guns)

Take good notes and pictures, and remember you have the right to record and report on their activities.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott worked because the organizers had supply chains and logistics. You don’t need an inflatable frog costume or a nightly confrontation with ICE in PDX, you need to make sure people get fed when they can’t leave home to work, that fliers with critical information are printed and distributed, and people in the field have supplies.

If you’re in the East Bay and need whistles, contact me.

If you’re going to claim “they are illegal,” I’ll remind you they are people, and to stop using that word. ↩
I like the “digital blue”. ↩

A Strategy for Donations in the Subscription Economy

2025-10-08T05:54:00+00:00

A Strategy for Donations in the Subscription Economy

2025-10-08T05:54:00+00:00, by Emma Humphries, from Infinite Wishes 🏳️‍⚧️🚀

Having written this, I think it might be an interesting research topic for someone in an economics or public service program, and there may already be existing work on this problem. If there is, let me know.

This is one of two weeks each year that KEXP¹, the independent music station, based in Seattle, but also broadcasting in the Bay Area, holds a fund raising drive. Since Mike Johnson (R, LA)² killed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting at the behest of Donald J. Trump³, pledge drives have become even more important for public media.

Credit cards have enabled public media and other non-profits to offer some sort of sustaining membership program. KEXP calls their sustaining members Amplifiers⁴. Sustaining memberships help solve the problem of one-and-done donations. Instead of having to convince the person who donated in the previous pledge drive to donate again, and convince another person to donate in their stead, the organization can focus on getting new sustaining donors to increase revenue (and replace sustaining donors who have left.)

On KEXP and most other public stations, the DJs and hosts try to announce every pledge made.

And I noticed, as I listen⁵, that not every donor is a new sustaining donor. There are still people making one-off donations. And many of them are for amounts greater than $120 or $10/month.

From KEXP’s point of view, while the donation fills a pressing need, it’s not recurring revenue.

If one has limited income, then making a small, one time donation of what one can afford is optimal.

But, why, then does a person make a one-time donation of $1,000 instead of a recurring monthly donation of $83?

Maybe that person is donating out of a bonus or other windfall income that they don’t expect to have again. They might derive pleasure from giving a large amount at once.

Or there might be costs to the subscription.

I’m close to retiring and one of things I’m having to do is finding all the subscriptions to software, services, and charities and either canceling or decreasing the amount of money I’m giving them ~~as I diminish, go into The West, and remain Galadriel~~ because I’m going to be on a fixed income. And I’ve either missed or glossed over reminder emails about renewals, had trouble finding where one can go online to cancel or change the subscription⁶.

And that is a good reason not to set up a sustaining membership. If it’s not going to be easy to cancel or change it when one’s circumstances dictate.

If you’re a charitable organization trying to maximize the amount of sustaining funding you receive two things you can do is:

Provide a donor portal website, and make sure every email you send from receipts, newsletters, and requests for donations has the link to that donor portal and that donors and potential donors can find that portal on your website. And that portal should allow donors to change or cancel their sustaining membership as well as change how they pay.
Don’t jump from one donor platform to another unless necessary. I’ve had to send emails asking for help because I set up monthly donations two platforms ago and the current one doesn’t have my info (but Stripe still has my CC number.)
Make sure that transaction receipts identify who the charity is and again, have a link to where the donor can manage.

I know that #2 is going to be harder, especially as Trump and cronies try to find ways to cut off charities they don’t approve of from their donors, but reducing uncertainty and that “wat?” when you get a notification on your phone for a $10 charge and can’t immediately recall who the payee is, or heaven forbid one loses their job without warning or severance and need to cut spending will make it easier for someone to select that “$20/month sustaining member” item instead of a one-time donation.

I’d like to take the opportunity to remind Mozilla they could fund Firefox through sustaining memberships instead of all the AI and ad nonsense they are chasing after at the moment.

I made a mini-site that reads the API for KEXP’s real-time playlist to display what’s currently playing there. It used to be on Glitch (RIP.) I also should add some more features to it. ↩
Professional Rat Fucker ↩
Convicted Felon and Sexual Abuser ↩
Cynthia and I are sustaining donors and plan to be as long as we’re able. ↩
What, like I’m going to listen to a streaming service run by a guy who thinks murdering people in Gaza with drones is cool? ↩
Some, such as Planned Parenthood, don’t let you modify your donation online, one has to call and talk to a staff member. ↩

Definitions

2025-09-18T05:48:00+00:00

Credit: The author

Definitions

2025-09-18T05:48:00+00:00, by Emma Humphries, from Infinite Wishes 🏳️‍⚧️🚀

Tech is a performative game of stock manipulation. Technology is the Haas Three Axis Mill I’m learning how to program and run.

Making gender moot

2025-09-02T05:30:00+00:00

Credit: Image by the author

Making gender moot

2025-09-02T05:30:00+00:00, by Emma Humphries, from Infinite Wishes 🏳️‍⚧️🚀

Cynthia and I cleaned out a storage locker last week, and spent some of the weekend going through the detrius. One box was full of my old photos. I saved a few of a friend’s wedding and teenaged Emma doing model rocketry things. There was also a folder full of zines I wrote over 30 years ago. I decided to shred them, they were for the small readership of an Amateur Press Association (APA) I was in during the late 1980s to mid-1990s (an earlier form of social media.)

But I wanted to read through them one last time, and I came across this gem (pictured above:)

I think that we won’t be free of gender until we render it moot. This is where we, as readers and creators of SF, have the advantage: at least in terms of considering technological gender redundancy. LeGuin, Banks and Varley took the idea of gender redundancy and jam on it. In [T]he Culture, gender swapping is done with a virus.

[John] Varley’s new book, Steel Beach, opens with the zinger: “In five years the penis will be obsolete.” When I cited that at the book discussion Laura Spiess retorted, “it already is.” – From the fanzine Ozone Broadcasting for The Turbo Charged Party Animal APA

I wrote that back in 1991. Reader, my gender stuff has a history, and it wasn’t some “sudden onset contagion,” or whatever it is the centrist Democrats are saying this week.

Dawn in the Desert

2025-08-12T06:16:00+00:00

Credit: Photo by the Author

Dawn in the Desert

2025-08-12T06:16:00+00:00, by Emma Humphries, from Infinite Wishes 🏳️‍⚧️🚀

Orion fully rose just a little before sunrise started when I was out at Black Rock Desert to fly rockets on the first of the month. Dawn in the desert in the summer, in that window before the sun is up and it starts warming up fast, with a cup of coffee at hand, is wonderful.

Revisting "The Third Man" (1949) In Light of the Current Situtation

2025-08-10T01:48:00+00:00

Revisting "The Third Man" (1949) In Light of the Current Situtation

2025-08-10T01:48:00+00:00, by Emma Humphries, from Infinite Wishes 🏳️‍⚧️🚀

Harry Lime: Monologs at Martins about the glories of Italy under the Borgias.

Holly Martins: Rolls his eyes as Harry goes on, looks down to see the cat from the start of his film at his ankles. The cat is tired of Harry’s monologing as well. Also the cat is now Jiji from “Kiki’s Delivery Service” (1989).

Harry Lime (oblivious to Holly and the cat’s annoyance): “In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Holly Martins: “Harry, I’d rather have a quality timepiece than be a fascist.”

Martins shoots Lime, then walks off while whistling Anton Karas’ theme, followed by Jiji. We linger on Lime’s surprised face as he bleeds out.

Go on, take the vista point exit

2025-06-23T21:43:00+00:00

Credit: Photo by the Author

Go on, take the vista point exit

2025-06-23T21:43:00+00:00, by Emma Humphries, from Infinite Wishes 🏳️‍⚧️🚀

It’s at least a six hour drive back to Oakland from Black Rock Desert. If you stop to wash the playa off you at the first truck stop on the route, and have something other than drive through to eat, it’s closer to 8 hours.

At that point, accept that you’re taking your time, so pull of the road when you can so you enjoy things like this view of the Emigrant Gap.

I love an anthropomorphic guillotine

2025-06-17T23:54:00+00:00

Credit: Photo by the author

I love an anthropomorphic guillotine

2025-06-17T23:54:00+00:00, by Emma Humphries, from Infinite Wishes 🏳️‍⚧️🚀

I took only one photo at Saturday’s “No Kings” march and rally in Oakland. Googly eyes on anything is a win.

Cyn and I encountered an old friend at the march. I met them the first weekend after I had moved to the Bay Area. Another friend had organized a brunch for my ex and I to meet folks. D had just cashed out after the company he had been working at had gone public. This was still possible in 1996.

Since then, he became a sailor, earning several Coast Guard certifications in ship operations. He’s sailed on tall ships and freighters and is a union seaman. Eleven years ago, I clicked through to a CNN report of people rescued off of Cape Hatteras and saw D’s distinctive orange watch cap as he was hustled off a helicopter. The tall ship he was on was caught out during a run for a safe harbor when the hurricane they were trying to stay clear of changed course. They had to sea anchor and ride it out, but the storm overwhelmed the ship.

Seeing D at the march reminded me of changes in my life. I didn’t get to cash out, but I’m on a new path out of tech. Instead of ships and sailing (though I did take a look at the California Maritime Academy last year,) I’m in design, fabrication, and machining. I’d like to find a job in a maker space, less likely to capsize in a storm.

After the arrest of the evangelical who murdered and wounded Minnesotan politicians Saturday morning, there was a groundswell of “No True Scotsman” fallacy posting by liberal christians. Tallia Lavin’s response to this is on point.

“im saying disavowal is cowardly when people are actively using jesus as a sledgehammer to crush other people, and if your primary interest is in defending jesus’ brand, i question your priorities” – Tallia Lavin on Bsky, 17 June 2025

In other news, I’m still annoyed I have to use Bksy to keep up on political discussions.

The billboards as you come into the City, over the Bay Bridge, are dominance displays. We are not welcome here.

“In San Francisco, the billboards are telling a story about the dominance of the tech industry. This is a dominance that has waxed and waned, most notably with the dotcom bubble and subsequent crash, but is currently in full swing again; tech billionaires are building skyscrapers, putting their names on hospitals, launching newspapers, and ousting local politicians.”