Short-Range Spaceflight

The art of leaving the planet just long enough to wave goodbye, then coming right back down—suborbital hops, tourist flights to the edge of space, and any mission where you can still see your house from the window. Short-range spaceflight is for people who want to be astronauts but also want to be home for dinner. It's the space equivalent of dipping your toe in the cosmic ocean before deciding the water's too cold and returning to the beach of Earth's atmosphere, slightly shaken but ready for the souvenir photo.

*Example: "He bought a ticket for short-range spaceflight on a billionaire's rocket—11 minutes of weightlessness, a view of the curve of Earth, and then back home in time for lunch. When asked if he felt like an astronaut, he said he felt like a very privileged tourist who had briefly escaped the gravity of his problems, which immediately resumed upon landing."*

by Abzugal February 14, 2026

Short-Duration Motion Machines

Devices designed to capture, measure, or create movements that happen in fractions of a second—high-speed cameras that freeze bullets in flight, strobe lights that reveal the wingbeat of a hummingbird, and the shutter button on your phone that you press a moment too late, capturing your friend's blink instead of their smile. These machines reveal a world that exists too fast for human perception, a hidden realm of split-second decisions, fleeting expressions, and the exact moment a water balloon bursts.

Short-Duration Motion Machines *Example: "He bought a short-duration motion machine—a high-speed camera that could record 100,000 frames per second. His first project was filming a water balloon popping. The footage revealed structures and patterns no human eye had ever seen. His second project was filming his cat knocking things off tables, which was less scientific but more entertaining."*

by Abzugal February 14, 2026

Shortbait

A form of baiting where complex, nuanced, well-argued positions are met with the shortest possible responses, often combined with gaslighting or patholighting. Hours of writing, careful reasoning, cited sources—met with "lol no," "touch grass," "seek help," or "too long didn't read." The goal is to refuse engagement entirely while implying that the very act of making a complex argument is pathological. Shortbait communicates: your effort is ridiculous, your thinking is broken, you care too much. It's a power move that positions the baiter as above it all, too cool for thought, too sane for caring. The length of the response inversely correlates with its dismissiveness.

"I spent three hours crafting a well-researched post about economic policy. Shortbait response: 'touch grass.' That's it. They're not engaging—they're performing disengagement as superiority. My effort becomes evidence of my pathology. That's the whole game."

by Abzugal February 24, 2026

shortcut recruiting

The practice of using AI agents or automated pipelines to skim the same publicly available layoff trackers and LinkedIn data that every other recruiter is already scraping, repackage it as a "curated shortlist," and call it "innovation". This in contrast to actually hitting the pavement to find, meet, and evaluate real talent, the recruiter sets up a bot to surface the same recycled pool of recently laid-off engineers that 500 other recruiters are already cold-messaging simultaneously.

The whole industry is moving toward shortcut recruiting and then complaining there's no good talent. Bro, you automated yourself into mediocrity.

by highskyflier87 March 11, 2026

short film funding

A slang term for movies, like Whiplash (2014), that struggle to secure substantial funding and are often created as short films to be submitted to film festivals first, aiming to gain recognition and support for full-length productions.

After years of pitching, my script ended up as a short film funding project—guess I’m in the short film game like those filmmakers behind Whiplash!

by Emotional Cruiser August 9, 2025

Shortfully

(adv.) – in a short amount of time; soon; shortly.

I will give you a call back shortfully.

by masllab August 31, 2025

Short Shack

The shortest man on earth, also known as Aarnav Sharma. He is approximately 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 nanometres in height. He is very hard to spot, but you always know when he is nearby due to the squeaky sound of his voice

Oh my goodness, I can almost see short shack

by Dadinky September 11, 2025