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Mary Holstege

@mathling@mastodon.social

mastodon 4.7.0-beta.1

Retired software engineer. Now I write programs to make art and, lately, make art with words.

Will natter on about tech in general with forays into linguistics, football, cooking, politics, climate, and random stuff.

Maker of jam. Petter of cats. Viewer of stars.

she/her or they/them

RSS feed: https://mathling.com/art-rss.xml

0 Followers

0 Following

39 Posts

Joined October 29, 2022

Personal:

https://www.mathling.com/

RedBubble (Merch! Prints!):

https://www.redbubble.com/people/holstege

Books2Read author page:

https://books2read.com/ap/xqYAAW/Mary-Holstege

DeviantArt (Bit out of date):

https://www.deviantart.com/lingmath/gallery

Posts

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Aug 02, 2026

Boosted by

Trending Bot @trending@homestead.social

#Caturday #Photography Halki knows she's soooo cute

103

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Jul 19, 2026

Replying to @paulrickards@mastodon.social

@paulrickards@mastodon.social Love it

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Jul 19, 2026

I despise the creeping NFLization of soccer:

eliminating ref judgement
effing VAR, effing ball sensors, effing magic offside detectors
hand ball when they didn't handle the ball
millimeter precision of offside calls
endless subs
overly complicated rules
"quarters"

I don't care who you have lined up to perform, the half-time show has no place in a WC Final and I hate it already

#WorldCup

Old woman shakes fist at cloud

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Jul 16, 2026

BWA-HAH-HAH What shall we do with you, my lovelies? Present from the Cat Whisperer, who knows me Far Too Well

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 19, 2026

Replying to @jauntywk.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

@jauntywk.bsky.social thank you! That's very kind

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 18, 2026

Replying to @mathling@mastodon.social

We can play with different shapes; orient them inwards or outwards. Here, a storm of arrows

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 18, 2026

Replying to @mathling@mastodon.social

We can play with different shapes; orient them inwards or outwards. Here, a storm of arrows

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 18, 2026

Replying to @mathling@mastodon.social

For diamonds, the asymmetry gives an impression of directionality. The amount of shift dependent on placement of the ends along the strand. Whence the impression of turning, swirling spirals here? I have no idea. We have straight strands of diamonds, just as before.

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 18, 2026

Replying to @mathling@mastodon.social

There's more going on here than meets the eye. The widening of the shapes dependent on the placement of each end relative to the focal point. The subtle glow around each shape. The Zipf-distribution of size, but the biasing of larger sizes away from the focal point.

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 18, 2026

#GenerativeArt interlude

Diamond chains

#XQuery #SVG #CreativeCoding #HumanArt

mastodon.social

Mastodon

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 18, 2026

Chapter 50 of Atraxian Blue (@b6ElAx@books2read.com) is up at
http://mathling.com/books/index.html

Tea with Tressa

In which Renny gives Tressa tea, plus a whole lot more than she bargained for

#scifi #writing #AtraxianBlue #indieauthor

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 17, 2026

#SilentSunday #Photography

mastodon.social

Mastodon

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 16, 2026

#Caturday #Photography

Yes, she is full grown.

Yes, her tail really is that small.

No, not an injury.

mastodon.social

Mastodon

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 11, 2026

Chapter 49 of Atraxian Blue (@b6ElAx@books2read.com) is up at
http://mathling.com/books/index.html

The third corridor

In which Lila shows Renny something she's been hiding all this while and comes up with something better than his pointless drama queen noble self-sacrifice nonsense plan

#scifi #writing #AtraxianBlue #indieauthor

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 10, 2026

Replying to @lisamelton@mastodon.social

@lisamelton@mastodon.social Yes. It's on mine too. And I don't like it one bit.

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 10, 2026

#SilentSunday #Photography

mastodon.social

Mastodon

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 09, 2026

#Caturday

Penny, getting scritches

mastodon.social

Mastodon

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 06, 2026

#GenerativeArt interlude

Oh look! A kuwahara filter turning my photo into something painted.

#XQuery #SVG #CreativeCoding #HumanArt

mastodon.social

Mastodon

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Apr 24, 2026

Replying to @Edelruth@mastodon.online

@Edelruth@mastodon.online Staff vs self, IMHO

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Apr 18, 2026

#Caturday #Photography

The mighty huntress waits for her prey, completely hidden from view

mastodon.social

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Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Mar 28, 2026

Replying to @RickiTarr@beige.party

@RickiTarr

Joints/back

Yoga/daily spin on the cycle to loosen up that old knee
2gm hyluronic acid
Hot bath
The distraction of making things (yes, typing hurts my wrists, but only if I'm not lost in the flow of what I'm typing...)

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Mar 22, 2026

It's almost as if we have learned precisely nothing from the decades of literature and research on specification languages.

Nah, I kid. It is that exactly.

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Mar 20, 2026

#ScribesAndMakers March 20. Self-promotion day!

The Belle Epoch trilogy is done (#3 is available for pre-sale, out next month, #1 is being serialized at http://mathling.com/books/index.html)

Art! AIs! Space ships! Alien artifacts! A melange of somewhat messed up characters. It's a ride.

Check it out: https://books2read.com/ap/xqYAAW/Mary-Holstege

#scifi #SpaceOpera

mastodon.social

Mastodon

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Mar 14, 2026

Replying to @jimfuller@mastodon.social

@jimfuller@mastodon.social Yes. The utter incuriousness.

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Mar 14, 2026

Every word of this

https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/the-slow-death-of-the-power-user/

fireborn.mataroa.blog

The Slow Death of the Power User — fireborn

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Mar 10, 2026

Replying to @mathling@mastodon.social

Millipede

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Mar 10, 2026

Replying to @mathling@mastodon.social

Beetle

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Mar 10, 2026

#GenerativeArt interlude

Generative bugs

I'm not claiming this is entirely anatomically correct, mind you, but I think they're adorable

Ant

mastodon.social

Mastodon

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Feb 16, 2026

Replying to @barefootliam@floss.social

@barefootliam Well dang. That sucks. I am doubly sad because I won't be able to make it this year. (Eclipse, Majorca, yadda yadda)

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Feb 14, 2026

#Caturday #Photography

Luna

It's all fun and games until the grocery bag slides off into the trash bin...

mastodon.social

Mastodon

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Feb 13, 2026

Replying to @kristinHenry@vis.social

@kristinHenry@vis.social Thanks! I do like how this series came out.

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Feb 13, 2026

Replying to @mathling@mastodon.social

Glistening rain

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Feb 13, 2026

Replying to @mathling@mastodon.social

Shimmer crystals Colouring is gradients among a random set of colours from a parent gradient.

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Feb 13, 2026

#GenerativeArt interlude

Leaves

Take a *really* wild tile shape
Spatter it about in swoops over the canvas
Iterate multiple transparent layers
Add some dusty streaks

#XQuery #SVG #CreativeCoding

mastodon.social

Mastodon

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Jan 04, 2026

Replying to @cstross__dup_483@wandering.shop

@cstross@wandering.shop Dear god

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Jan 04, 2026

Replying to @cstross__dup_483@wandering.shop

@cstross@wandering.shop As the NTSB guy said: "All that safety is built on the wisdom of dead bodies." More amusingly, my favourite design fail photo (from a toilet)

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Dec 13, 2025

Replying to @JamesBaker@social.openrightsgroup.org

@JamesBaker 500 BC -- writing rotting your brain panic

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · May 17, 2025

Replying to @neauoire@merveilles.town

@neauoire@merveilles.town @yomikoma@weirder.earth Love this so much

Mary Holstege @mathling@mastodon.social · Dec 28, 2024

Replying to @khobochka@mastodon.social

@khobochka@mastodon.social Can confirm. They are a huge fraction of my website traffic and they don't honour any constraints I put on them short of hard blocks

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The Slow Death of the Power User — fireborn

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