Deb Chachra

@debcha

Engineering professor. Author of HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS (on Riverhead in the US+, on Torva in the UK+). Interested in embodiment, materiality, metacognition, and systems. All enthusiasm is 100% genuine. debcha.org

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Deb Chachra@debcha· 18d

It’s suggested that this ramming behaviour might be related to orcas ramming yachts, which kind of reminds me of this old Far Side cartoon.

In a black and white line-drawn cartoon, two polar bears stand over an igloo. The top of the igloo is broken open. One of the bears, mouth full, is saying (as a caption): “Oh hey! I just love these things! … Crunchy on the outside and a chewy center!”

Deb Chachra@debcha· 20d

For avoidance of doubt.

A head of iceberg lettuce, wrapped in plastic packaging which is emblazoned with a large red maple leaf and the words PRODUCT OF CANADA.

Deb Chachra@debcha· 21d

I took this photo of World Cup food specials at a pub in the Vancouver area on Sunday. It’s difficult to overestimate how angry Canadians are at the US.

Menu listing food specials illustrated with country flags. The menu item next to the US flag is called ‘The Tariff Burger’.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Jul 5

I would prefer not to. (In general I’m more excited about leadlights — the simpler, often geometric panels you see in buildings — than I am about more representational stained glass.) But how about some Voronoi patterns?

Three small panels of iridescent blue stained glass, in small irregular polygons.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Jul 5

By request: this is the TV test pattern stained-glass window that’s providing the colours (I made it at a workshop I took at Corning last summer to learn how to build using lead channel).

A stained glass panel sitting in a window. It’s made of rectangular panels of coloured glass, mimicking an old-school television test pattern.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Jul 5

My cat Leroy always relocates to the most dramatically lit spot in the house for her evening snoozes. [the colour bars are from a stained glass piece I made that’s a TV test pattern — it’s sitting in the west-facing window]

A grey tabby lying on her side on a grey ottoman. She is snoozing while bathed in coloured light, also visible on the wall behind her.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Jul 3

Some Vancouver World Cup transpo, as seen while I was biking home from dinner yesterday. (Those are the Vancouver SkyTrain tracks leading to the stadium and the Science World dome decked out to look like a World Cup soccer ball.)

Sunken train tracks with trees on either side, dramatically lit by a sunset through clouds. In the distance, a stadium and what looks like a giant World Cup soccer ball.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Jul 1

Canada Day breakfast.

A butter tart (with pecans) on a small white plate in front of a white and blue coffee mug with the text “I LOVE THE SMELL OF INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE MORNING” and a drawing of a suspension bridge.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Jun 28

Saw a post: “250 years old? How cute! The pub down the road is a century older!” Gee, I wonder if there’s anything in UK history that explains why there’s so little physical evidence of human settlement in North America that’s more than a few hundred years old…? native-land.ca/maps/native-...

Map of North America with coloured overlays showing traditional territories of indigenous/First Nations peoples.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Jun 21

I can’t find video, but the clam-themed childhood TV sketch that is permanently lodged in my head is “Clyde, the coool claaaam from Cleeeeveland” and it looks like it was (or at least, someone else remembers it as) on The Electric Company? muppetcentral.com/forum/thread...

Xerus
Well-Known Member
Nov 1, 2021
#310
Does anyone remember this cartoon? Two clams see a third clam with sunglasses. Clam one asks, "Who is that CLAM?" The second clam replied, "That's CLYDE.
The CLEVER CLAM from CLEVELAND. Clyde took out a suitcase and a shower popped out soaking Clyde, while he started gargling soap. When the shower stopped, Clyde made a huge toothy smile. His suitcase went back to normal, and Clyde picked it up and started scooting away. Clam 2 said, "The CLYDE, he's CLEAN." And Clyde made two cute jumps and went
away.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Jun 9

@mikell.bsky.social I went to the Royal Tyrell Museum a few weeks ago (which is incredible, unsurprisingly) and I feel like you would appreciate seeing microscopically small fragments of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

Deb Chachra@debcha· May 23

How it started / how it’s going. [At the phenomenal Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta]

A fossil of a gingko leaf, with its characteristic fan shape, black against rough grey stone. The museum label below it reads:

Ginkgo sp.
~69 MILLION YEARS AGO
Late Cretaceous, Horseshoe Canyon Formation Horseshoe Canyon, Alberta
ORIGINAL
TMP 1984.014.0006

Section of gingko biloba trunk with branches and green leaves

Deb Chachra@debcha· Apr 27

Did someone say ‘giant pile of sulphur’? [Vancouver Harbour, at dawn on New Year’s Day this year.]

A grey-blue sky over grey-blue water. On the water’s edge, in the mid-ground, is a processing facility with cranes and lights. The brightest element of the scene is a light yellow pile of sulphur.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Apr 27

Watching the northeast coast roll by under the spring sunshine. My favourite bit remains the staging area for (I presume) the Block Island Wind Farm — all the giant components on the New London State Pier (and across the river from General Dynamics Electric Boat).

Huge tubular wind turbine components are standing on end. A crane is next to them. In the foreground are smaller components.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Apr 8

It’s 17776 Day! @jonbois.bsky.social created one of my favourite works of science fiction of the 21st century, ft. immortal humans humaning together, sentient space probes, friends, and American football (which I have zero interest in, and yet.) Like nothing else. www.sbnation.com/a/17776-foot...

Deb Chachra@debcha· Mar 31

The button on my coat collar (from @margaret.bsky.social, lo these many years gone) says all I really want to say for Trans Day of Visibility.

A rust-spotted white button on the knit collar of a black jacket.

The button reads:

I WILL DO MY
BEST TO FUCK
UP ANY BIGOT
WHO FUCKS
WITH YOU

Deb Chachra@debcha· Mar 27

I just heard that Tracy Kidder passed away this week — I read his THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE as a teen, and it’s one of a handful of books I can point to as having a significant impact on my life, starting with going to engineering school. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

Mass market paperback edition of THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE (in glittery, boxy grey-blue letters] by TRACY KIDDER

Deb Chachra@debcha· Mar 21

I’d planned to visit Vancouver museums over the winter, while the weather was bad, and mostly failed to. Needed to go to the UBC Museum of Anthropology this afternoon for research and was kicking myself on the way over because the atmospheric river had just, finally ended but…this was pretty okay.

View of a number of totem poles inside a high-ceilinged, glass-walled atrium. Outside are trees and a blue sky.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Mar 19

There’s a coffee chain here (Doe) that really foregrounds ‘no tips’ and I guess that’s why. [I’m agnostic (all those years in the US, I guess) except when the minimum tip prompt is 18% and I’m getting a 12oz drip and a >$20 bag of beans, in which case I hit ‘no tip’ and drop a toonie into the jar.]

Deb Chachra@debcha· Mar 18

Deb Chachra@debcha· Mar 7

Oh I know these feels. Me and Leroy still miss her big sister Zoe.

Leroy, a grey tabby cat sleeping on a grey armchair.

Zoe, a caliby cat on grey bedcovers, three thousand miles away and a couple of years ago.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Mar 7

Came across this old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon today and immediately thought about the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. *glances at headlines* No, no reason.

Four panel b&w Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. In panels 1-3, Calvin has a watering can and addressing himself to a few flowers in the ground, with increasing stridency:

“SO YOU WANT SOME WATER, HUH? WELL, IVE GOT A BIG CAN OF IT HERE.”

“ITS UP TO ME TO DECIDE IF YOU GET WATER OR NOT! I CONTROL YOUR FATE! YOUR VERY LIVES ARE IN MY HANDS!”

“WITHOUT ME YOU'RE AS GOOD AS DEAD! WITHOUT ME, YOU DON'T....”

In the fourth panel, it is pouring rain.

Calvin looks nonplussed.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Jan 7

Leroy says hi from East Vancouver and thanks you for putting your skill and energies towards the public good.

A tabby cat lies on a grey cushion on a black plastic chair, gazing imperiously at the camera. In the background are bookshelves and many books.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Dec 25

Leroy is blissfully ignoring the driving sleet outside the windows of East Van, distant in all ways from her feral kittenhood on the mean streets of Boston. (And a blissful and luxuriant holiday to you and yours!)

A grey tabby is asleep on her side, nestled against (and partly occluded by) the large comfortable cushions of a grey armchair.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Dec 24

My photo of some pomegranates near Naples — I remember seeing some large pomegranates hanging from a small tree in someone’s front yard in East LA and being gobsmacked that they…just…grow on trees? In people’s yards?

Deb Chachra@debcha· Dec 21

I didn’t know much about Jake Paul so I was looking at his Wikipedia page shortly after the fight yesterday. I learned enough to feel fortunate I didn’t know more, and also I LOLed.

Screenshot of Wikipedia entry for Jake Paul, timestamped 10:37 pm. The sentence “Anthony Joshua is his daddy.” is circled in blue.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Dec 1

"Women naturally want to do womanly things because God created us with those womanly desires in our hearts."

A woman (Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley), in a mechanical exoskeleton (the Power Loader), in a still from the movie ALIEN.

Deb Chachra@debcha· Nov 17

And this is closer to the teal that I love in mid-century government office buildings. [almost all the furniture in my flat is black or grey, you’ve now seen the exceptions].

Deb Chachra@debcha· Nov 17

IKEA very briefly did this metal cabinet in mid-century industrial green and I managed to snag one — it now lives in my workroom.