#is data science difficult

[codecrafted]

Is Data Science Really That Hard? A Beginner’s Roadmap to Mastery

In a world powered by algorithms, data, and decisions, data science has quickly become one of the most sought-after skills across industries. From predicting customer behavior to detecting fraud and automating systems, data science is transforming how we work and live. But for many beginners, a pressing question often stands in the way of getting started: “Is data science really that hard to…

[zipquips]

i love being a scientist scientist in one field and a citizen scientist in another, lmao. looking at my own research and thesis gives me a crisis, but at least my stress walks and procrastination give bio/enviro people a bunch of photos/observational data for their own work :')

[doyeons]

i complain about my data science assignments regularly but my other option was to take physics and from what i’ve heard the physics track here is nightmarishly bad so like. this is the easier option

[reasonsforhope]

"Calling it “a fridge to bridge the world,” the Thermavault can use different combinations of salts to keep the contents at temperatures just above freezing or below it. Some vaccines require regular kitchen fridge temps, while others, or even transplant organs, need to be kept below freezing, meaning this versatility is a big advantage for the product’s overall market demand.

Dhruv Chaudhary, Mithran Ladhania, and Mridul Jain are all children of physicians or medical field workers in the [city] of Indore. Seeing how difficult it was to keep COVID-19 vaccines viable en route to countryside villages hours outside city centers in tropical heat, they wanted to create a better, portable solution to keeping medical supplies cool.

Because salt molecules dissolve in water, the charged ions that make up the salt molecules break apart. However, this separation requires energy, which is taken in the form of heat from the water, cooling it down.

Though the teen team knew this, it remained a challenge to find which kind of salt would have the optimal set of characteristics. Though sodium chloride—our refined table salt—is what we think of when we hear the word “salt,” there are well over one-hundred different chemical compounds that classify as salt.

“While we did scour through the entire internet to find the best salt possible, we kind of just ended up back to our ninth-grade science textbook,” Chaudhary told Business Insider.

Indeed, the professors at the lab in the Indian Institutes of Technology where they were testing Thermavault’s prototype were experimenting with two different salts which ended up being the best available options, a discovery made after the three teens tested another 20, none of which proved viable.

These were barium hydroxide octahydrate and ammonium chloride. The ammonium chloride alone, when dissolved, cooled the water to between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius (about 35 to 43 degrees Fahrenheit) perfect for many vaccines, while a dash of barium hydroxide octahydrate dropped that temperature to below freezing.

“We have been able to keep the vaccines inside the Thermavault for almost 10 to 12 hours,” Dr. Pritesh Vyas, an orthopedic surgeon who tested the device at V One hospital in Indore, said in a video on the Thermavault website.

Designing a prototype, the teens have already tested it in local hospitals, and are in the process of assembling another 200 for the purpose of testing them in 120 hospitals around Indore to produce the best possible scope of use and utility data for a product launch.

Their ingenuity and imagination won them the 2025 Earth Prize, which came with a $12,500 reward needed for this mass testing phase."

-via Good News Network, April 22, 2025

[cressidagrey]

System Failure - Chapter 4: Brackley

Pairing: Max Verstappen x Dr. Anastasia "Ana" Wolff (Original Character)

Summary:

Max Verstappen to Mercedes? The paddock is buzzing. The media’s in meltdown.

Dr. Anastasia “Ana” Wolff, Mercedes’ notoriously brilliant, emotionally unavailable lead systems engineer and Toto Wolff’s eldest daughter, is not handling it well.  Because Max isn’t just a potential signing, he’s the man she’s been sleeping with in secret for nearly a decade.

And if the rumours are true, and Max Verstappen really is joining Mercedes, then Ana’s carefully compartmentalised world is about to explode.

Warnings and Notes: George Russell Bashing. Ana has a meltdown. Questionable Engineering Science...also Questionable work ethic. Difficult Family relationships. Toto tries his best. Let me know if I missed something else, and I'll add it!

As always big thanks to @llirawolf , who listens to me ramble

Mercedes F1 HQ, Brackley, England - 5 June 2025

She didn’t expect anyone to notice.

It was just a shirt.

A black Mercedes team polo — same logo, same structure, same sharp lines.

Only it wasn’t.

It was softer. Cotton. Hers.

The first time in years she’d walked into the engine lab without feeling like her skin was crawling under her collar.

She was reviewing tire temperature data on her tablet when she felt it: eyes.

Not staring. But… watching.

First from one of the junior mechanics, a man with his hair tied in a tight braid and sweat forming under the high-poly collar of his regulation kit.

 Then from Fatima — PR, usually glued to screens and two phones, now blinking owlishly at Ana’s sleeves.

Then from a second-year aero analyst who tugged at the hem of her stiff-fitted polo and kept looking away like it hurt to stare.

Ana tapped a graph.

Waited.

Finally, Fatima stepped closer, voice pitched low. “Sorry — can I ask something?”

Ana glanced over. “You just did.”

Fatima grinned nervously. “That shirt. Is it… different?”

Ana paused.

Then nodded once. “Cotton blend. Custom seams. No tags.”

Fatima exhaled like someone had just opened a window. “God, I knew it. You don’t look like you’re dying.”

One of the mechanics — Leo, Ana remembered — leaned in. “I get rashes from these sleeves every race week. Yours look… soft.”

Another person joined. Then a fourth.

“Do you think they’ll make it standard?” someone asked. “The… your version.”

Ana blinked.

She hadn’t thought of that.

She hadn’t thought about anyone else when the prototypes arrived. Just getting through a day without feeling like she was battling her own clothes.

But now she looked around and realized: they were all tugging at their cuffs.

Unbuttoning their collars. Picking at the embroidered tags inside their necklines like they were trying to scratch out a secret.

Maybe she hadn’t been the only one suffering. Just the only one who refused to normalize it.

“I don’t know,” Ana said slowly. “But I’ll ask.”

Fatima smiled, wide and unguarded. “You should. It’d be the first time teamwear didn’t feel like armor.”

Ana didn’t say anything to that.

But later — in her office, with the door half-closed and the polo still loose against her skin — she opened her email.

***

Email Subject: Cotton Blend Uniform Feedback

From: Dr. Anastasia Wolff <a.wolff@mercedesamgf1.com> To: Team Kit Procurement <procurement@mercedesamgf1.com> CC: Toto Wolff (CEO) Claire Hammond (HR), Marcus Reidl (Design Lead)

Dear All, 

Several members of staff have expressed interest in the cotton prototypes.

If we can accommodate wider distribution, please proceed.

Also — suggest reviewing future apparel through a sensory accessibility lens.

Regards, Dr. Anastasia Wolff Lead Systems and Hybrid Performance Engineer Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team

***

Mercedes F1 HQ, Brackley, England - 5 June 2025

Toto read Ana’s email twice.

Then a third time.

Then he slowly took off his glasses and set them down with an almost reverent sort of care, like the weight of the message had finally sunk in.

He hadn't expected this.

He thought the clothing issue was singular. Specific. Ana-specific.

He thought — wrongly — that this was about her and her alone.

But then he reread the line:

“Several members of staff have expressed interest in the cotton prototypes.” “Recommend trial sizes for track staff and junior team members.”

And another:

“Suggest reviewing future apparel through a sensory accessibility lens.”

He leaned back in his chair.

God.

How many people had just quietly endured because they thought complaining about a shirt made them sound soft? Weak? Replaceable?

How many of them were right to be afraid?

He looked over at his assistant, who was sorting emails across the room.

“Leonie?”

She looked up. “Yes?”

“Can we… get feedback from staff before we finalize the 2026 team kit?”

She paused. “You mean from the senior leads?”

“No,” he said, frowning. “I mean… everyone.”

She blinked.

Toto tapped the desk absently. “Anonymous if necessary. Ask what they actually want to wear. What bothers them. What doesn’t work. Give them options. Not just sizes — materials. Seam styles. Fastenings. Tag placements. Everything.”

Leonie opened her laptop again, rapidly typing. “I’ll draft a feedback form today.”

He nodded.

Then, softer: “I don’t want anyone on this team to feel like they have to earn the right to be comfortable.”

She glanced at him, surprised.

“Not after this,” he added, motioning toward Ana’s email.

And he meant it.

***

Slack Channel: #brackley-nerds 

Private Channel. ~30 members. 

lorelai.pa: GUYS THE FORM THE FORM JUST DROPPED THIS IS NOT A DRILL

sam.transmission: wait the anon team kit feedback form??

jules.elec: YES check your inbox “2026 Apparel Feedback – Optional & Anonymous” Toto’s name is on it. He wants our thoughts.

jess.hr: this feels like that scene in Les Mis where everyone’s like “do you hear the people sing” but about polyester

ellie.electronics: someone’s finally listening 😭 i’m going to cry over a cotton-blend hoodie

fatima.pr: entered “the polos give me existential rage and also chafe my neck like I’m being strangled by a team sponsor”

nicola.sim: I said: “I have a recurring dream about removing the inner tags with fire” follow-up question was “any preferred materials?” i said: yes. soft.

rachel.aero:I just want a version of the rain jacket that doesn’t make me sound like a pissed-off bag of Doritos when I move

Sima.calibration:I said we should bring back zip-off trousers for variable pit lane conditions

you’re all laughing now but you’ll thank me at Monza when it’s 37 degrees

Lucy.comms: I asked if we could have those polos with the half zips again but in bamboo this time don’t judge me

leo.mechanic: I said “please no more fitted sleeves that cut off circulation like a blood pressure cuff from hell”

liv.strategy: I literally typed “I want to wear my team kit without itching like a Victorian ghost girl with TB”

benjy.data: someone’s gonna read this and be like “we’ve made a terrible mistake”

kayleigh.powerunit: seriously though do we think this is because of Ana? 👀

zahra.aero: 100% she wore The Cotton Polo and now we have a form she is the revolution

jules.elec: she suffered so we could be free

leo.mechanic: I still think Toto saw her pick at her collar once and commissioned an entire line of custom-engineered knitwear

lorelai.m: give that man a dad medal wrapped in organic bamboo jersey

tom.sim: if we get a fleece-lined travel hoodie that doesn’t trap heat like a dying star i will get “w21 lives forever” tattooed across my knuckles

***

Twitter Thread: Max to Mercedes?? Let’s Talk About It

@/F1Whispers: 🚨 Hearing whispers that the Max-to-Mercedes conversation isn’t just paddock fantasy anymore.

Apparently someone from Verstappen’s camp had an informal sit-down with a senior Mercedes figure post-Spain.

We’ll be watching this one very closely. 👀

↳@/charlottechicane:  “Informal sit-down” = espresso and ruin. I am so ready.

↳@/pitlanecryptid:  no bc imagine Toto walking into that meeting like “so are you finally done pretending Red Bull isn’t imploding?”

↳@/DataLapDan: i know we’re all excited but if max actually goes to mercedes i’m gonna be insufferable like "my world domination au is CANON" levels of unbearable

↳@/verstappensburner:  this entire fanbase is going to emotionally combust if max shows up to silverstone even looking at the Mercedes hospitality

@/laurensleftshoe:  you’re telling me that in the same season Red Bull fumbled strategy, pissed off Verstappen, and Mercedes quietly fixed their engine?? oh this is SILLY silly season.

@/PaddockWhispers: Not saying anything definitive (yet), but there’s a vibe shift happening. Hearing from more than one source that Mercedes talks with Max Verstappen aren’t as dead-in-the-water as they used to be. 👀

@/javi_ontrack: you mean to tell me we’ve entered the “what if Max leaves Red Bull” timeline in THIS economy????

@/amberflagf1: Reminder: Max has a Red Bull contract until the end of 2028. Also reminder: contracts in F1 are written in pencil and everyone knows it.

@/formula_flirt: I cannot emotionally handle Max Verstappen in Mercedes silver. I would combust. Respectfully.

@/f1firestarter: Max Verstappen to Mercedes would be the biggest defection since Lewis left McLaren. This sport hasn’t known peace since 2007 anyway. Let chaos reign.

@/deaddownforce: Christian Horner if this actually happens: 👨‍🦲🪑😭📉📉📉📉📉

@/helmutvision: Toto’s going to sign Max out of pure spite and call it “a long-term strategic investment.”

@/emiliapits: just saying… Max Verstappen looks one engine failure away from handing in a transfer request #SpanishGP

@/tirewearupdates: We are entering that delicious stage of Silly Season where the rumors go from “lol imagine” to “wait is that actually happening” Max to Mercedes is no longer a meme it’s a threat

@/f1teaaccount: 👀 multiple paddock sources are now saying that Max has “not ruled out” a conversation with Mercedes about 2026 Red Bull’s collapse + Mercedes’ 2026 PU project = ✨spicy✨

@/wheresthegrip: red bull’s falling apart, toto’s wearing that tight smile like he knows something’s already signed, and max looks 4.6 seconds away from choosing violence every sunday we’re so back

@/karunactually: Look, it’s all smoke until there’s fire, but I’ll say this: Mercedes’ power unit development is the most locked-down I’ve seen it in years. And Max is asking very smart questions about 2026 aero.

@/engineerera: If Max goes to Mercedes and GP goes with him… I will simply combust. Red Bull who? I don’t know her.

***

Text Messages: Kimi Antonelli & Oliver Bearman

Kimi: OLIVER. Have you seen Twitter.

Oliver: Always a good start to the day Which bit this time?

Kimi: VERSTAPPEN TO MERCEDES??? People are saying it's real now Like meetings and talks and performance clause drama levels of real

Oliver:

Lmao yeah.

That’s just a rumour. Chill.

Kimi:NO YOU DON’T GET IT If it’s true I’m SCREWED I’m a rookie George has won races They’re not going to fire the guy with media training and four trophies They’ll fire me

Oliver: Okay. One: You haven’t even done half a season. Two: You literally out-qualified him in Miami. Three: You are Toto’s investment. They’re not firing you.

Kimi: I saw Toto smiling in the paddock after Spain Like a knowing smile Like a “I’ve just offered Max Verstappen a multi-year deal” kind of smile I’ve barely been here five minutes. I just stopped getting lost in the motorhome. Toto’s going to be like “you’ve had a nice gap year, off you go.” I’ll be back in F2 by Spa.

Oliver: Toto is not sending you back to F2.

Kimi: He’ll send me to Formula E. Or worse. Endurance.

Oliver: Please breathe.

Kimi: He’s going to call me into his office. And I’ll walk in and he’ll just gesture at a Mercedes shirt and be like “This is for Max. Pack your things.”

Oliver: Kimi.

Kimi: I JUST STARTED UNPACKING MY THINGS

Oliver: Kimi.

Kimi: Do you think Red Bull would take me? Do you think I could learn how to smile for their videos?

Oliver: You hate their social media team.

Kimi: Yes but I love not being unemployed.

Oliver: You're not getting fired. You're 18 and terrifyingly good. Max to Mercedes isn’t about you. It’s about Red Bull imploding.

***

Group Chat: “WHO IS MAX VERSTAPPEN DATING”

 (Members: Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo)

Lando: GUYS WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP

Oscar: It’s 6:14am. What is wrong with you.

Carlos: You better be dying

Lando: HAVE YOU SEEN TWITTER check your feeds right now go go go

Oscar: Oh. Wait. What.

Carlos: Oh qué coño “Verstappen to Mercedes 2026”? Are they serious???

Lando: HE’S JUMPING SHIP MAX. TO. MERCEDES. I KNEW SOMETHING WAS OFF

Daniel: ...what did I just wake up to

Lando: I KNEW HE WAS HIDING SOMETHING and now he’s packing his bags and heading straight into Toto’s loving arms??? THIS IS A GRID-LEVEL EVENT

Oscar: There’s no confirmation. Could just be speculation.

Carlos: You don’t switch teams because of one bad race. That’s not Max.

Lando: that’s what you think but I think… it’s the girlfriend 😐

Oscar: No.

Carlos: Lando.

Daniel: God.

Lando: what if she’s a Mercedes girl what if he’s been SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY THIS WHOLE TIME what if she's one of Toto's engineers or like. his race strategist or his cat sitter, I don’t know, everyone in that team is suspicious

Oscar: This is why no one tells you anything.

Daniel: I know for a fact she’s not Toto’s cat sitter. BECAUSE HE DOESN’T HAVE A CAT

Lando: SO YOU DO KNOW HER WE’VE CIRCLED BACK CONFESS

Carlos: Can we stay on topic

Lando: I am on topic Max is leaving red bull for love for romance for goddamn affection, carlos

Oscar: Or maybe for stability and a better engine

Lando: you’re no fun

Daniel: You really think Max Verstappen would switch teams because of a girlfriend?

Lando: Yes. Do we need to stage an intervention???

Carlos: You’re acting like he joined a cult.

Oscar: I’m muting again.

Daniel: Same.

Lando:

YOU’RE ALL BLIND

HE’S DEFECTING

AND HE’S TAKING HIS SECRET GIRLFRIEND WITH HIM

OPEN YOUR EYES SHEEPLE!

***

Group Chat: “TEAM 33”

 (Members: Max Verstappen, Jos Verstappen, Raymond Vermeulen)

Raymond: I just got three missed calls from Helmut. One from Christian. And one from someone in communications asking “how hypothetical this all is.”

Jos: 😂

Raymond: You think this is funny?

Jos: A little. They’ve spent the last year ignoring him. Now they remember his number?

Max: I got a text from Christian. Just said: “Are you free to talk later today?” Didn’t even put a smiley face.

Raymond: Yeah, they’re rattled. Now everyone’s watching every move you make.

Max: Good. Maybe now they’ll realize “next year” isn’t a plan. It’s a stall.

Jos: Told you this would get their attention. Should’ve done it back in Hungary.

Raymond: They’re already trying to spin it internally. Said you’re “frustrated but committed.” Which is rich, considering you’ve barely committed to a sandwich lately.

Max: I’m not saying anything to them until we decide what we want. Let them sweat.

Jos: They deserve to sweat. They built an empire around you and assumed you'd never walk away.

Raymond: You sure you’re ready for the chaos if this keeps escalating? Sponsors. Media. Internal leaks. They’re going to start dangling upgrades and favors like candy.

Max: Let them. I'm not interested in words. I'm interested in performance. And in options.

Jos: He means Anastasia Wolff.

Raymond: Oh for god’s sake

Max: I mean winning. And maybe a competent power unit.

Jos: Just admit it, you want a new car and the girl to match.

Max: I want a future that actually exists.

***

Mercedes F1 HQ, Brackley, England - 9 June 2025

Ana didn’t usually pay attention to gossip.

She didn’t have the time. Between engine simulations, thermal load mapping, and trying to outsmart the very laws of physics that governed engines, her brain had better things to do than scroll through rumor threads or listen to whatever the hell the factory gossip mill spat out between coffee breaks.

Gossip was for bored comms interns and second-tier Twitter accounts and the anonymous message boards she refused to acknowledge she read. Gossip was an inefficient use of processing power, and she had an engine to build.

Well—part of an engine.

 Ana was deep in the work. She liked that about engines: either it ran, or it didn’t. It didn’t hide behind charm or half-truths or the kind of smile that curled just at the corner like it knew what your heartbeat did at 2 a.m. when it whispered your name.

She was elbow-deep in the systems diagnostic interface when it happened.

“...bet Toto’s buzzing. I mean, Verstappen in Mercedes? That’s headline stuff.”

Ana didn’t look up immediately. The interns chatted all the time. She’d learned to tune them out like background static.

But then someone laughed.

 “That’s the thing, though. Apparently the talks are real this time. Like, post-Spain. Horner looks ready to combust. Heard Max’s team asked for a second round of briefings already.”

Her fingers froze. Not stopped—froze. A full system hang. The kind that required a hard reboot.

She stood up too fast, knocking over a container of diagnostic strips. “What are you talking about?”

Three junior engineers blinked at her like deer in carbon-fibre headlights.

“I—uh—sorry?” one offered. A kid. Probably twenty-three. Probably didn’t know the laws of thermodynamics, much less the laws of personal space.

Ana’s voice came out cold and precise. Like dry ice instead of fire. “You said Verstappen and Mercedes. What talks?”

He hesitated. “It’s just, um, what people are saying. Apparently he’s… not thrilled at Red Bull. And with the new regulations—”

“What talks?” she repeated, sharper now. “With who? When? On what basis?”

Silence. Someone coughed.

Another engineer—Liam—spoke up, clearly trying to calm the waters. “Ana, it’s probably nothing. Just paddock noise. Silly season stuff.”

“I don’t care if it’s silly season or the Book of Revelations,” she snapped. “You don’t bring that name into this building without—”

She cut herself off.

She had not meant to sound that emotional. She didn’t do emotional.

Emotional was messy. Emotional got you left in a cold Vienna apartment when you were eight years old and didn’t understand why Mama never came back. Emotional got you 10 years of therapy and a lifelong fear of letting anyone close enough to notice that your heart beat out of time when Max Verstappen so much as looked at you.

“Forget it,” she muttered, already crouching to pick up the diagnostic strips. “Get back to work.”

She tried to focus again. Truly, she did.

But all she could see was him.

Max, in a Mercedes fireproof. Max, in her garage. Max, here.

That wasn’t just gossip.

That was personal.

And she had to find out from watercooler gossip that he might be walking straight into her father's garage next year?

She dropped into her chair, jaw tight.

She was going to kill him.

***

Slack Channel: #brackley-nerds 

Private Channel. ~30 members. 

liam.engine: okay so… ana just full-on snapped because someone mentioned max verstappen in the breakroom

tom.sim: like snapped snapped?? or ana-normal snapped??

liam.engine: diagnostic strips were flung. her eye twitched. she pulled rank with a voice that could’ve cut titanium.

kayleigh.powerunit: i was THERE. i thought she was going to throttle poor benjy. he looked like a ghost.

tom.sim: to be fair benjy always looks like a ghost. poor child lives on vending machine coffee and hope.

ellie.electronics: wait wait back up. what about verstappen?

liam.engine: someone mentioned the rumors he’s been in talks with merc and she lost it. like. visibly rattled.

sam.transmission: are we… not supposed to know that? because we all know that.

jess.hr: you didn’t hear it from me but… there have been board-level discussions. like actual meetings.

kayleigh.powerunit: george is going to combust. first his championship dream, now his dream girl?? mans cannot catch a break.

ellie.electronics: okay first of all. ana does NOT know george exists in that way. he flirts, she blinks and changes the subject to engine temperature mapping.

tom.sim: yeah but he tries. like, tragically hard. someone should tell him.

liam.engine: we have. multiple times.

sam.transmission: i think he genuinely believes if she just softens a little she’ll like him.

jess.hr: spoiler alert: trying to “soften” Ana Wolff is a career-limiting move.

liam.engine: but imagine…george losing both the girl and his seat to the same man. brutal.

tom.sim: “he came, he saw, he took your garage and your girl” – max verstappen, probably

kayleigh.powerunit: no but seriously, if verstappen joins next year…ana is going to short-circuit.

liam.engine: she already has. i swear i saw her hand shaking when she went back to her desk.

ellie.electronics: …do we think they’ve got history?

tom.sim: mate. that wasn’t “history.” that was “I will end you for not telling me yourself.”

liam.engine: also. george absolutely walked past Toto’s office ten minutes ago and didn’t even look inside. he knows.

kayleigh.powerunit: press F for george russell. he’s not getting the girl. he’s not getting the seat.

sam.transmission: this team is going to be absolute chaos next season.

liam.engine: so…basically. max to mercedes: 90% confirmed george: 90% doomed ana: 100% about to kill someone

kayleigh.powerunit: can we get hazard pay?

***

Text Messages: Max Verstappen & Anastasia “Ana” Wolff

Ana: You unbelievable, reckless, arrogant bastard.

Max: Hi Poekie 🥰

Ana: Don’t you dare call me that. is it true?

Max: you’ll have to be more specific. i do many things. most of them well. 😏

Ana:Is it true you’re talking to mercedes?

Max: define “talking” Like… theoretically, if a man was tired of his car dying every other Sunday and wanted to drive something that didn’t sound like a blender full of nails and steers like a shopping trolley, would that be so shocking? Was wondering when that would land in Brackley. Impressive it took this long, honestly.

Ana: You think this is funny?

Max: I think it’s adorable that you're this worked up. Is that a little engine rage I sense? Or something else?

Ana: You’re unbelievable.

Max: You say that every time I make you come.

Ana: You’re smirking through text. I know you’re smirking. Wipe it off your face or I swear to God I will personally rig your MGU-K to explode.

Max: You threatening to blow me up is the highlight of my week. I wasn’t hiding it. Just… hadn’t mentioned it yet. It’s not official. I haven’t signed anything. But yeah. I’m thinking about it.

Ana: Why?

Max: Because Red Bull’s a shitshow. Because the car’s not where I want it. Because 2026 is a clean slate. Because Mercedes has the best shot at nailing the regs.

Max : I was waiting for the right moment to tell you. You know. When you weren’t actively building the engine I might end up driving.

Ana: You absolute—

Max: Careful. You call me enough names, I might think you miss me.

Ana: You were going to let me build that engine and not say a word?

Max:I think it’s poetic. You building the engine I win my next championship with.

Ana: You’re not funny.

Max: A little bit. Also… If I do come to Mercedes, I’d get to see you more. You sure you want to complain?

Ana: Max.

Max: Ana.

Ana: This isn’t funny.

Max: It’s not meant to be. It’s serious. I’m serious. This team. This future. And you.

Max: You can throw everything you want at me, but I’m not pretending this isn’t personal.

Max: You and I never weren’t personal.

Ana: Stop flirting with me.

Max: You texted me first. Angry. You’re always hottest when you’re mad.

Ana: unbelievable.

Max: you should see how good i look in silver might need you to help peel the fireproofs off after practice. for research. obviously.

Ana:I hate you.

***

Text Messages: Max Verstappen & Victoria Verstappen

Victoria: Are you seriously considering Mercedes or was that just a fever dream I saw on Twitter this morning?

Max: Depends. 

Victoria: MAX. Are you actually considering it??

Max: I’m thinking about it. New regs. New challenge. New team that isn’t Red Bull collapsing in on itself like a dying star.

Victoria: So that’s a yes.

Max: It’s a maybe. A serious maybe.

Victoria: And what does your situationship think about this?

Max: She’s not my situationship.

Victoria: Max.

Max: What?

Victoria: You’ve been sleeping with the same woman since 2016. You once skipped a Red Bull sponsor dinner because she had the flu. You got into an argument with Charles Leclerc because he flirted with her. You remember what day her mother left and make sure not to say anything soft around her that week.

That’s textbook situationship energy.

Max:No.

That’s Ana refusing to process any emotion stronger than mild caffeine withdrawal energy.

It’s different. She’s not my situationship. She’s the love of my life. She just doesn’t know how to be loved yet.

Victoria: Oof. That’s devastating. And also weirdly poetic. Have you told her that?

Max: She’d run.

Victoria: So you’re just gonna… casually defect to her team and hope the proximity therapy works?

Max: Basically, yeah.

Victoria: You’re unhinged.

Max: She’s worth it.

Victoria: Jesus.

Victoria: Fine. But I’m getting front row seats when she inevitably explodes at you in the Mercedes garage and you just stand there like a golden retriever in love.

Max: She already threatened to rig my MGU-K. Does that count?

Victoria: God. She so loves you.

Max: I know.

Victoria:I reserve the right to say I told you so if she makes you cry in an airport again though.

Max: That was one time and I was jetlagged

***

Mercedes F1 HQ, Brackley, England - 11 June 2025

The thing about working for 48 hours straight is that eventually, the code starts humming. Not metaphorically. Literally. The numbers pulse on the screen like they're breathing. The engine model almost sings.

It was beautiful. Or maybe that’s just the hallucination talking.

Ana hadn’t meant to do this. Not really.

But the rumours wouldn’t shut up.

Every thread. Every whisper in the office. Every poorly disguised hallway conversation that cuts off when she walks by. They all hum with the same goddamn thing:

Max Verstappen. Mercedes. 2026.

So Ana did what she’s always done best: work.

And then kept working.

And then kept working past the part where most people would’ve gone home, or taken a nap, or consumed anything other than coffee and three-day-old protein bars.

The Max-to-Mercedes rumors had detonated in her skull like a landmine, and the only solution was to outpace the noise. To code faster than she could think. To simulate until reality bent around the dyno and all that existed was pressure ratios and heat recovery systems. 

Ana had not slept in—well. She couldn’t quite remember. Forty-eight hours, give or take. Possibly more.

Sleep was inefficient. Feeling things was inefficient. If she could out-engineer her central nervous system, maybe she wouldn’t have to think about him walking into her garage wearing her team kit and asking her to act like they were nothing more than a very well-documented HR violation waiting to happen.

Nope. Absolutely not. Rejected.

It was fine.

Totally fine.

She stayed.

Skipped lunch. Skipped dinner. Drank whatever sludge passed for coffee in the staff kitchen. Ate two protein bars and a half-bag of Haribo from someone’s drawer.

By hour 36, her eyes twitched when she blinked. By hour 38, One of the CFD renderings had started to look like Max’s smile and she’d closed the window with so much force the monitor flickered. By hour 42, she had a conversation with the exhaust flow diagram.

Ignoring your feelings via work? Ten out of ten. No notes.

The door to the systems lab opened, and James—sweet, anxious James—peeked in with the caution of a man trying not to get yelled at.

“Hey, uh… Ana? You’ve been here a while.”

She didn’t look up. “I’m busy.”

“Yeah. No, I see that. It’s just… someone said you haven’t gone home since Monday?”

“I took a nap during the CFD cycle.”

“You mean the thirty-two-minute cooldown window?”

She adjusted her monitor. “Power naps are valid recovery strategies.”

James stepped back like she was radioactive. “Okay. Yeah. Coolcoolcool.”

***

There were a few things Lorelai had learned about Dr. Anastasia Wolff after working as her PA for years: 

She did not like phone calls.

She did not tolerate inefficiency.

She did not, under any circumstances, do emotional meltdowns.

Which was why Lorelai was… confused.

Because there was currently a meltdown happening. A very quiet, very clinical, very Ana-coded meltdown. But still—an undeniable one.

The first sign something was off: Ana had skipped her 2 p.m. apple.

Now, most people wouldn’t clock that. But Lorelai kept receipts. Not metaphorical ones—literal, detailed, colour-coded records of Ana Wolff’s habits. Not because she was creepy (debatable), but because being Ana’s assistant was like managing a billion-dollar Formula 1 car that had decided to develop sentience and reprogram itself with C++ and repressed trauma.

And now Ana had been in the systems lab for forty-eight hours. 

Which is why Lorelai—personal assistant, keeper of the calendar, shepherd of wayward engineers—was deeply, profoundly concerned.

Forty-eight hours.

Straight.

No shower breaks. No meal breaks. Just coffee, simulations, and whatever slowly crystallizing protein bar graveyard she’d built next to the dyno monitor.

And the thing was… no one knew why.

At first Lorelai thought maybe it was a tight deadline. A design review. A manufacturing delay. Ana loved a crisis, thrived on impossible timelines like a cryptid built from caffeine and elite academic trauma.

Something was wrong.

And it had started the exact same day the rumors about Max Verstappen coming to Mercedes had hit the media cycle like a wrecking ball dipped in silver paint.

Lorelai had seen the slack channel, of course. Heard the whispers. Everyone had.

Max Verstappen. Mercedes. 2026.

A little gossip grenade tossed casually into the Slack channels and now rolling around under everyone’s desks.

Still, she didn’t get it. Ana didn’t even like Max Verstappen. Or… well.

She never talked about Max Verstappen.

Which, knowing Ana, might’ve meant something entirely different.

Now, Lorelai wasn’t stupid. She’d worked at Brackley long enough to know that F1 was held together by caffeine, duct tape, and gossip. She’d been in procurement for four years before Ana had stolen her during a lunch break by asking, “Would you like to stop being bored and start being indispensable?” And frankly, that had been the sexiest job offer she'd ever received.

But she’d never—never—seen Ana like this.

Forty-eight hours in the lab. No sleep. No food except Haribo and the kind of protein bar that tasted like bark. No interactions with the outside world except for three short, sharp emails, all time-stamped between 3 and 4 a.m., and all featuring increasingly unhinged demands about airflow telemetry and torque mapping for 2026.

At first Lorelai thought it was just a normal hyperfixation spiral. Ana had those sometimes—one moment she’d be designing cooling systems in her head, the next she’d be elbow-deep in CAD software muttering about slipstream efficiency like it owed her money.

But this?

This was personal.

Which didn’t make any sense, because Ana didn’t do personal. She did spreadsheets. She did systems.

And yet here she was.

Working like her brain was on fire.

Refusing food.

Snapping at poor James from aero like he’d suggested they reintroduce porpoising for fun.

And most concerningly…

Whispering to  the exhaust flow diagram.

Lorelai watched her from the doorway, nursing her third espresso and wondering how many HR policies were currently being violated by pure sleep deprivation.

***

Slack Channel: #brackley-nerds 

Private Channel. ~30 members. 

james.aero: okay so question hypothetical if someone’s been working for maybe 48 hours straight and won’t make eye contact and is whispering to the exhaust flow diagram should we… like… do something?

liam.engine: oh no is it Ana please tell me it’s not Ana

james.aero: uh how long has Ana been in that lab?

zahra.aero: Since… Monday?

james.aero: It’s Wednesday evening.

ellie.electronics: Guys. She just asked the exhaust rendering if it wanted a break.

daniel.it: ok but like in a normal voice or a soft voice

ellie.electronics: a soft voice like it was a hamster

mira.simulations: Jesus.

felix.eng: Should we… call someone?

daniel.it: like who? HR? Her dad? Her exorcist?

ellie.electronics: I vote Toto. This feels above our pay grade

felix.eng: No offense but I’d rather arm-wrestle a live inverter

daniel.it: Wait what if it’s the Verstappen thing You know… the rumor. Max to Mercedes? 2026?

mira.simulations OH MY GOD

james.aero: Wait wait wait are we suggesting that Ana Wolff —Dr. “emotions are for the weak” Wolff— is spiraling because of… a driver transfer rumour?

ellie.electronics: what if they used to date

daniel.it what if they still do

mira.simulations she did flinch when someone said “Red Bull” in the hallway earlier

james.aero: i thought that was about the drink

mira.simulations: she called it “synthetic capitalist battery acid” and kept walking

felix.eng: idk guys she’s brilliant but she’s acting like someone just told her her pet died and the pet was responsible for aero performance

sara.branding: ok but why does she care so much about Verstappen joining? she’s literally never mentioned him

jess.hr: maybe she’s secretly in love with him like that weird Wattpad slow burn where the ice queen and the golden retriever fall in love after ten years of mutual pining

matt.merchandise: first of all: I’d read that second: why is that so specific

nicola.sim: does anyone know if they’ve ever even spoken????

james.aero: i once saw them pass in the paddock she nodded he blinked it was the most emotionally loaded 0.7 seconds of my life.

amelie.procurement: guys. if Max Verstappen signs with Mercedes Ana is going to have to see him every single week

james.aero: …should we start updating the fire protocols now

liam.eng-lead: does this mean we’re in an enemies-to-lovers arc or a “do not engage unless you want the hydraulics to burst” arc

kayleigh.powerunit: 

yes

***

Text Messages: Max Verstappen & Anastasia “Ana” Wolff

Max: so hypothetically if someone were to show up in Brackley wearing silver and looking criminally good in it would you throw a wrench or just ignore them

Max: also asking for a friend: is rigging an MGU-K to explode technically a war crime

Max: …ana?

Max: ok you’re mad. that’s fine. you’re cute when you’re mad. well. terrifying. but also cute.

Max: is this you icing me out for flirting too much? because i can do more flirting like a lot more no one’s stopping me

Max: okay you’ve never taken this long to respond even when you pretended to “accidentally” leave your phone in a Faraday pouch because you were “busy” mapping thermal decay

Max: (yes i remember the exact phrase. no i don’t forgive you)

Max: ana please just text me that you’re alive i’m starting to imagine really dramatic things and you know my imagination is unhinged i saw you break a torque wrench once with your bare hands i believe you could disappear into a server rack and never come out

Max: i know you’re not answering because you’re working. but 36 hours without sleep isn’t working. that’s crashing.

Max: okay. seriously. this isn’t funny anymore. are you okay? did something happen?

Max: Nastya. please just let me know you’re okay. i don’t care if you’re mad. i don’t care if you’re busy. i care if you’re breathing.

***

Mercedes F1 HQ, Brackley, England - 11 June 2025

Toto Wolff was not a man easily rattled.

He had survived backmarkers, boardroom politics, and the 2016 championship. He had learned to speak calmly while millions watched his drivers threaten to kill each other in front of national cameras.

But nothing—nothing—quite sent ice through his bloodstream like hearing Lorelai say, in her deceptively calm tone:

"I think there’s… a concern. About your daughter. From a safety protocol perspective.”

He looked up from his laptop.

Lorelai stood in the doorway to his office. Immaculate as always. Her glasses perched at the edge of her nose. Her iPad hugged tightly to her chest like it was the only thing keeping her from losing her grip on reality.

“She hasn’t left the building since Monday. And she’s… uh… talking to herself. In at least three languages. Possibly four.”

Toto sighed. Pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I’ll handle it.”

He didn’t ask why no one had handled it sooner.

Because he knew the answer.

People didn’t tell Dr. Anastasia Wolff what to do. They let her work, in awe and slight terror, until she disappeared again like some kind of ghost of the dyno bay—brilliant, brutal, and untouchable.

He strode through the corridors with long, purposeful steps. 

Anastasia was exactly where he expected her to be: hunched over the control interface, surrounded by code, still wearing that black fleece with the fraying cuff. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her hair braided but unraveling, and she didn’t even glance up when the door opened.

Toto felt that ache in his chest again—the one he always got when she was like this. Too quiet. Too still. Too close to the edge of something brittle.

He still remembered the first time he saw her.

Vienna. 2005.

Anastasia Yelena Volkova had arrived on his doorstep like a misdelivered package—tight-lipped, red-eyed, nearly eight years old, wearing a coat two sizes too small and clutching a Soviet-era suitcase with her initials stitched inside in Cyrillic.

Her mother hadn’t come in. She hadn’t even looked back.

Just a stiff nod, a clipped explanation in Russian that amounted to your turn, and then she was gone.

Anastasia had only spoken Russian back then. Refused to answer in anything else. It had taken months for her to say “yes” instead of da. A year before she started using “Papa.” Two before she stopped flinching when someone raised their voice.

And even now, nearly two decades later, Toto still wasn’t sure she believed she belonged.

She’d grown into someone sharp and strange and brilliant. She didn’t cry. She didn’t ask for things. She lived in the folds of logic and simulation code and thermal maps, and most of the time he let her stay there. Let her be who she was without trying to shape her into something softer.

Because Toto was a smart man.

He knew his daughter was clever—anyone with two Cambridge degrees and a doctorate was clever. 

But Ana wasn’t just smart. She saw things. Solved problems that hadn’t been named yet. She treated the 2026 PU like a living thing, coaxing performance from it the way some people coaxed birds into their hands.

He didn’t always understand her—but he never underestimated her.

Now, nearly  twenty years later, that same girl was barricaded in a dyno bay surrounded by code and caffeine and emotional landmines he still didn’t know how to read.

He walked in and saw her hunched over a workstation, hair fraying from her braid, muttering in a furious whisper about battery drain cycles like the fate of the earth depended on it.

She didn’t even flinch when the door opened.

He used the only thing that still worked.

“Anastasia Yelena Wolff.”

She froze.

Like a gunshot. Like the echo of a childhood too sharp around the edges.

Slowly, she turned. Her face was pale, eyes glassy and over-bright, like someone walking the tightrope between clarity and collapse.

“Papa?” she asked. Quiet. Distant. Like maybe her brain hadn’t caught up yet.

“Anastasia,” he said more gently now. “You need to stop.”

“I’m fine,” she murmured. “I’m just—working through the module delay. If I can get the compression sync to balance before the next sim—”

“You’ve been awake for two days.”

“I’ve done worse.”

“That’s not comforting.”

She didn’t answer.

Toto stepped around the desk and crouched down beside her chair, like he had when she was small. He’d always been a tall man, but he’d never once tried to loom over her. It never would’ve worked. Even at fifteen, Ana had stared him down like she was the one writing his performance reviews.

“You need to sleep,” he said softly.

Anastasia looked away. “I can’t. Not yet.”

“Why?”

Her jaw flexed. Silence.

He didn’t push.

Instead, he stood and held out a hand.

To his surprise—she took it.

She didn’t argue.

Didn’t speak much on the drive, either. Just curled into the passenger seat, like her bones had finally remembered they were tired.

When they arrived at his house, she walked in automatic. Like the muscle memory never left. Same bedroom. Same old lamp.

Toto handed her a bottle of water and told her to brush her teeth.

She didn’t even roll her eyes.

When she curled up under the duvet, he pulled it gently over her shoulder and sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, unsure if she was asleep yet.

Then she whispered, “Thanks.”

He paused.

“Always.”

He sat there a few minutes longer, watching her breathe.

Still brilliant. Still so sharp it scared him sometimes.. Yet he still wondered if her mind was something even bigger than what she let people see. Something that frightened her, too.

She was lethal.

Not just degrees. Not just intellect.

A mind like a scalpel.

And a heart she kept padlocked, duct-taped, buried somewhere beneath layers of grit and code and engine schematics.

He stood.

Turned off the light.

Closed the door behind him.

And told himself—once again—that he was doing his best.

***

Text Messages: Toto Wolff & Susie Wolff

Toto Just brought Ana home. She was in the systems lab. Forty-eight hours. Maybe more. Lorelai says she didn’t leave since Monday.

Susie: Oh no. That’s a full bender. Did something trigger it?

Toto:I don’t know. No one seems to know what triggered it. She wouldn’t say. Just kept muttering about engine logic and simulation lag and something about thermal sync ratios. She looked… hollow. Not angry. Not manic. Just gone. Like she disappeared behind the code and forgot how to come back.

Susie Was it the 2026 revisions? The PU development?

Toto I asked. She just said she was working. You know how she gets. That thing where she locks in and forgets she’s a person.

Susie And you think it’s just work?

Toto No. I think it’s something. But she won't let me see what it is. She never has.

Susie: Poor girl.

Toto: Her brain doesn’t stop. Not like other people. She doesn’t feel things in real time — she just stores it somewhere deep and then short-circuits under the weight of it.

Susie: You’ve always said she runs like an engine.

Toto: Yes. High power. No governor. And when it overheats, she doesn’t shut down — she redlines. Quietly. Efficiently. Until she crashes.

Susie: You did the right thing bringing her home.

Toto: I hope so. I don’t always know how to help her. She’s brilliant. But it’s like she’s made of glass sometimes. The high-grade kind. Sharp edges. Carries voltage.

Susie: You help by being there. That’s always been the way. She came home with you, didn’t she?

Toto: Yes.

Susie: Then you’re doing fine.

Toto: She thanked me. Before she fell asleep.

Susie: Then she knows.

Toto: Knows what?

Susie: That you love her. Even if you don’t always know how to say it.

Toto: … I hope so.

Susie: She’s not broken, you know.

Toto: I know. She’s just wired differently. And sometimes… I think the whole damn world should rewire itself to match her, instead.

***

Toto Wolff’s House, Brackley, England - 12 June 2025

Ana woke to the uncomfortable sensation of… stillness.

Not quiet, exactly — her brain didn’t really do quiet — but a kind of post-storm silence. Her skin felt too tight. Her throat dry. Her tongue like the underside of a radiator cap. Muscles ached in places she didn’t even remember using.

It was bright. Too bright. Morning light spilling past gauzy curtains that weren’t hers, across a room she hadn’t slept in for years.

Her old room.

Her father’s house.

She groaned, curling onto her side, eyes scrunching against the sun like it was personally trying to shame her. Memories came back in flashes — the hum of the dyno bay, the way the monitor had started pulsing, the battery flowchart she’d argued with at hour 45. The moment she’d looked up and seen Toto there, like a conjured hallucination.

Except it hadn’t been.

He’d come. Scooped her up like she was still eight years old with a head full of Russian grammar and trauma. Sat her in the passenger seat. Put her to bed.

Now she was here.

And she felt awful.

Everything in her body was slow. Her brain was fogged with something like grief and guilt and tech fatigue. And under all of it — beneath the espresso crash and cognitive flatline — there was shame. Deep and bone-quiet.

He’d used her full name.

And she had gone with him.

God.

Ana sat up slowly, wincing as her body protested the motion. Her hoodie was twisted around her like a straitjacket. Her braid had mostly unraveled and clung to one side of her face. Her glasses were missing. Probably lost in the chaos. Her socks didn’t match.

Everything hurt.

She dragged herself to the kitchen by muscle memory, following the smell of espresso and something warm and toasty.

Toto was already there. Reading something on a tablet. A second coffee sat waiting beside a plate of toast — buttered, crusts cut off, just like she used to eat it when she was too tired to argue with food.

He didn’t look up when she entered.

“Good Morning,” Toto said, still reading.

“Is it?”

“You’re upright, so that’s progress.”

She sipped the espresso, wincing slightly. “My brain’s still buffering.”

“You were arguing with a bar graph last night.”

Ana gave him a tired glare. “It was slow.”

Toto set his tablet down and looked at her properly. His expression was unreadable in the way that always made her bristle.

“You look terrible,” Toto added.

“That’s not comforting,” she rasped.

“I don’t do comforting. I do espresso and early exits.”

Ana smiled. Brief. Real.

They lapsed into silence.

Eventually, she spoke. “I’m sorry.”

Toto didn’t say anything.

Then, softer: “You came to get me.”

Toto met her eyes. “You’re my daughter.”

After a moment, she said, very quietly, “Do I… scare you?”

He looked up.

Ana didn’t.

“I scare myself sometimes,” she murmured. “When I get like that. When I forget to stop. It’s like—if I pause for even a second, everything will catch up.”

Toto exhaled. “You don’t scare me.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Confuse me. Force me to Google terms I’m pretty sure you made up. Yes. But you don’t scare me.”

Ana looked away. “You didn’t even know I existed until my mother dumped me at your door.”

Toto’s voice softened. “I didn’t know you existed, no. But the moment I did, you were mine. There’s a difference.”

Ana looked away. “Sometimes I feel like you don’t know what to do with me.”

“Most of the time,” Toto said bluntly. “But that’s not the same as not wanting to try.”

She didn’t say anything.

“I don’t always know what to do with any of you,” Toto said. “You just require… a different operating manual.”

She glanced up. “German or Russian?”

He smirked. “It’s in Hieroglyphs. I’ve given up trying to read it.”

Ana huffed a laugh, tears stinging the corners of her eyes.

He slid a plate across the table. Toast. Buttered. Cut into quarters.

Ana stared at it.

“I’m not eight,” she muttered.

“You’re acting like it,” he replied, sipping his espresso.

She snorted. Picked up a piece. Ate it.

Then after a pause: “Thank you. For coming.”

Toto nodded.

“You’re not alone in this,” he added quietly. “Whatever this is.”

She didn’t answer.

But she finished the toast. Drank the rest of the coffee. Sat there just long enough for him to believe — maybe — that the worst had passed.

And maybe, just maybe, it had.

***

Text Messages: Susie Wolff & Dr. Anastasia “Ana” Wolff

Susie: Hey love. Just checking in — how are you feeling?

Ana: Hungover. Except without the alcohol that usually causes it.

Susie: So the 48-hour no-sleep, Haribo-and-coffee-fueled science bender finally caught up with you?

Ana: Might’ve run out of caffeine before I ran out of coping mechanisms. Or the other way around.

Susie: Ana. Darling. You do know you’re allowed to feel things, right? Even difficult things. Especially difficult things.

Ana: I didn’t want to think about my feelings. I wanted to out-engineer them. Put them in a box and simulate them into submission. It worked for 47 hours and 17 minutes.

Susie: And then the crash?

Ana: Then the crash. And the hallucinating of a CPU diagram that was smiling at me.

Susie: Oh Ana. That’s when you close the laptop, sweetheart.

Ana: I was hoping I could outpace it all. The noise. The feelings.

Susie: You're not a robot. No one’s asking you to be.

Ana: I have too many feelings, actually. They just… don’t like being perceived. Especially not by me.

Susie: You are so your father’s daughter it’s terrifying sometimes. You know I love you, right? Even when you’re a sleep-deprived raccoon in fleece.

Ana: Thanks, Susie.

Susie: Next time, text me before the Haribo hallucinations kick in, okay? I’ll bring tea and non-emotional distractions. Like British Bake Off reruns.

Ana: Deal.

***

Text Messages: Max Verstappen & Dr.Anastasia “Ana” Wolff

Ana: I’m alive.

Max: you’re texting which means you didn’t die which is fantastic news for my blood pressure

Ana: Calm down.

Max: Calm down?? Ana, are you fucking kidding me right now?

Ana: I just woke up.

Max: You disappeared for three days, ghosted every message, probably rewrote half the powertrain manual, and now you want me to act normal?

Ana: Yes.

Max: absolutely not.  I thought something happened. I thought you collapsed at your desk or got electrocuted or walked straight into a jet fan because you were thinking about combustion ratios and forgot how walls work.

Ana: …only one of those is remotely plausible.

Max: Which one.

Ana: None of your business.

Max: You scared the shit out of me.

Ana: I didn’t mean to.

Max: Then what were you doing?

Ana: Not thinking about you. That was the plan. Didn’t work.

Max: You pulled a 48-hour lab lockdown to avoid your feelings for me?

Ana: I didn’t say that.

Max: You really need to work on your emotional repression outlets.

Ana: You’re the one making everything complicated.

Max: I texted you that I might change teams. You started hallucinating torque values and drinking Red Bull like it was IV fluid.

Ana: Max.

Max: Ana.

Ana: …my father had to tuck me in, you asshole.

Max: 😭😭😭😭

Max: god i wish i had a photo framed. on my wall. above my sim rig.

Ana: I’m blocking you. Papa took me home. Tucked me in. It was deeply humiliating. Do not make it worse.

Max: i’m going to make it so much worse you got papa’d. your dad tucked you in like a little burrito. this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

Ana: I hate you.

Max: it’s horrifying for you i understand

Ana: Do not send me memes. I’m still rebooting my brain.

Max: too late [attachment: “YOU WORKED 48 HOURS STRAIGHT? BABE YOU’RE A BIOHAZARD 💅” meme.jpeg]

Ana: I should’ve stayed asleep.

Max: i missed you. next time, disappear for less than 12 hours or i’m coming to Brackley and starting a dramatic scene in the simulator bay

Ana: That’s not a threat. That’s workplace misconduct.

Max: Try and stop me. You scared me. You don’t get to do that again.

Ana: I didn’t think you’d care that much.

Max: I do. ***

[pandemic-info]

"Any chance we're wrong about Covid?"

It's a valid question many people earnestly think about — even the very cautious.

'it becomes important to ask: "what does the data actually say?"'

Quoting a few good answers from a thread:

"Covid left me disabled in 2020. I know with 100% certainty that I am not wrong about Covid. I live with the proof every minute of every day for the rest of my life."

"The insurance companies and government statisticians care, or rather they have taken an objective interest." > https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01074597 > https://insurancenewsnet.com/innarticle/insurance-industry-coalition-forms-non-profit-to-study-excess-mortality

"There are parallels between how governments are responding to COVID-19 and how they responded to tobacco back in the day. “it would be a mistake to assume governments would automatically protect people from a public health threat in the face of more immediate economic considerations…there would be resistance to change that might be costly until evidence to justify it was overwhelming.”" > https://johnsnowproject.org/insights/merchants-of-doubt/

"I suspect most of us entertain this thought from time to time, especially when it’s this absurdly difficult and lonely to maintain a Covid Conscious lifestyle. But it’s important to remember that history is littered with people making terrible choices en masse: with handling past pandemics, the holocaust, slavery, witch burnings, etc. Hell pretty much everyone used to smoke and putting lead in everything was A-ok. Just because a lot of people believe something doesn’t mean they’re right. So it becomes important to ask what does the data actually say? The research and the statistical data on this subject paint an ugly but fairly quantifiable picture by which we can gauge our understanding of the situation and our choices in response to it. Read the science. Look at the data on things like Long Covid. There are also many of us who have already had our health absolutely ravaged by this virus or lost loved ones to it etc., and everyone in that position has first hand evidence for how dangerous this virus is. It’s tremendously difficult to swim against the current like we are and self-doubt is natural in those conditions, but that’s when seeking out factual information on the subject is the best course of action."

"But what it all comes back to for me is - say we're wrong, and covid is a big nothingburger and lockdowns are the root of all evil. Ok, well, what I'm doing is acting on the best information available to me at this time to protect my family. I can't regret that. I will always be able to look my kids in the eye and say "I did my best with what I had."" ... So if we're wrong - well, we wore masks, changed our social habits, reduced our consumerism and our contribution to the destruction of our planet, and reduced how often we got sick. None of those things are bad. If they're wrong, they and their kids are screwed. I'd rather err on the side of caution.

[markscherz]

I'm sorry... snake paper? Are things heating up in the snake researcher fandom?

16 February 2024: A team of researchers (including a generally well-respected anaconda expert) found minimal and partly contradictory genetic differences in green anacondas over an enormous area, summarily dismissed all previous work on the taxonomy of green anacondas, and gave the mitochondrial lineage concerned a new name, along the way making some huge fumbles that show plainly that they have no idea how taxonomy works or what certain technical terms mean. They published the work in a journal from a suspect publishing house that is known to rush, skip, or ignore peer review as and when it suits them. And apparently there was some suspicious funding involved, though I don’t know much about that. They made a media storm with ‘a new anaconda!’ but within minutes there were people raising huge red flags about the paper, for the reasons enumerated above and others.

The response from ‘the community’ has been swift and harsh, but mostly fair, in my view. The discussion on ResearchGate reflects this pretty well. There are some bad takes about keeping ‘wokism’ out of science; I would argue that it remains critical to incorporate native peoples, knowledge, and languages into taxonomic work—just not the way this was done, in flagrant and intentional conflict with the established methods and protocols. There are also responses in the discussion by the lead author that show that he is evidently impervious to all of this criticism, and stands by the belief that the work and taxonomic reasoning is sound.

19 March 2024: two papers were published simultaneously in Bionomia, that both enumerate and rebut the problems of the original paper. And I know there are more on the way, though I don’t know if they are all going to be completed now that two responses have already been published.

The one thing I would weigh in on from my perspective is that it is the *taxonomy*, and not necessarily the evidence presented in the paper, that is the biggest problem. Species are described based on mitochondrial data alone all the time. Some of the results are quite interesting. But the taxonomy of the paper is a mess, full of contradictions, cherry-picking, and terminological errors. In the hands of competent taxonomists, the work might have been much more difficult to dispute. But also, no competent taxonomist would have assigned a new name to this lineage; there are too many existing names that would have priority, if it is worth recognising.

Undoing public perception of there being a new anaconda species will take years, if it can ever really be achieved. Always easier for media stories to go around than corrections.

TL;DR big snake paper made big mistakes, and within a month was dismissed. It has probably done lasting damage to perception of anaconda diversity.

[blackwidownat2814]

Pairing: Tyler Owens x female reader, Tyler Owens x shy!reader, Tyler Owens x insecure!reader

Word Count: 1408

Summary: You begin your new job as a Tornado Wrangler (remotely), and meet most of the team. It isn't until you suffer a little mishap that you meet the man himself.

A/N: Thank you all so much for the wonderful response to the Prologue!!! I didn't think it'd be that much of a hit, so I was surprised with all the love. After finishing this chapter, I feel like it could've been part of the Prologue, but oh well. It's been a while since I've written as well, so bear with me. As always, thanks to my awesome beta, @buckysdollforlife, for their help with this and for creating the header for this story (I LOVE IT!!!!) and bestie, @13braincellsonly, for allowing me the use of their son's name and personality when I needed to come up with a horse. **All descriptions of Ziggy the horse were approved by his momma.** And as always, I will be cross-posting this to AO3. If you see this story anywhere besides AO3 or Tumblr, it's stolen.

City Girl Knows Her Stuff

You became a Wrangler near the end of the season that first year.  Kate picked you up at the airport with two members of the team: Lily and Dani.  Lily immediately pulled you into a hug, chatting a mile a minute about how excited she was to have you on the team.  Dani (perhaps picking up on your shyness) offered a handshake and big smile, welcoming you to Oklahoma.  Kate was more than happy to let Dani and Lily talk your ear off on the drive to Sapulpa, where you’d be staying with Cathy until you found a place.  She knew it was somewhat difficult for you to make friends, so she was happy to see you enjoying a conversation with two new friends.

You got to meet Dexter when he came by in the van to pick up Lily and Dani.  You thought he was funny and enjoyed some very science-centric conversations with him.  Before they all left, Lily let you take her drone for a spin.  You enjoyed it so much that for your birthday later that year, she gifted you a smaller drone that wasn’t quite like hers, but it had a small camera and small, tinny sounding speaker.  She even had it painted in your favorite color.  That would become one of your absolute favorite gifts.  It made you cry.

Like most storm chasers, you had to have a job in the off season, so you got a remote data analyst job with the NOAA offices in Norman and moved out to a place just out of Sapulpa.  This would allow you to visit Cathy at the farm and work on data in the barn workshop the Wranglers had set up.  You even got yourself a cat.  Abandoned due to his looks and runt status (according to the shelter), you snatched him up the first time you saw him.  Black cats didn’t scare you.  Life with Roach (you’d spent quite a bit of time watching The Witcher) was idyllic and you were happy.

By the time you met Boone, the Wranglers felt like family…and Boone felt like the brother you never had.  Like Boone, you were an only child and didn’t have much of an extended family and it was a bit lonely in the beginning.  The difference, however, was that Boone was an outgoing guy and it was easy for him to make friends and talk to people he didn’t know, whereas that scared you half to death most of the time.  You loved his boisterous way of being, but you also appreciated that he (like Dani) could tell when your social battery had run down and turned it down and would sometimes sit with you in a quiet environment.  Sometimes he’d sit and nap while you read or he’d pick up the latest meteorological article (or sometimes the latest comic he picked up at the shop).  He didn’t even make fun of your nickname like others had before, so you trusted him.

The day of Cathy’s pre-tornado season bbq, while cleaning some dishes, you confessed to Boone that you were nervous about meeting the head tornado wrangler himself, Tyler Owens.

“T’s a sweetheart B, you got nothin’ to worry about.  Why are ya nervous?”

���Boone!  He doesn’t know me, what if he doesn’t think I’m a right fit for the team?  What if he doesn’t like how I do work?  Y’all are famous ‘round here, what if he gets irked by the fact that big crowds make me nervous and it takes me forever to become comfortable with people?  You know it’s not easy for me to talk to people I’ve never talked to before”, you cried in exasperation.

“B, imma need you to take a breath, okay?” Boone reassured you as he placed his hands on your shoulders.  “If Ty thought any of those things, I would definitely not be workin’ with ‘em.”

You were so busy trying to get yourself to relax that you missed Kate wandering into the kitchen.

“B, are you freakin’ out about meetin’ Tyler again?” she asked.  You and Boone nodded.  “Well, you don’t have to worry.  He won’t be able to come today, said he had to drive down to Texas to see his parents.”

You breathed out a sigh of relief, sending some of your hair floating up.  “Good, I have time to relax about it.  Thanks Kate.”

“Thank Tyler’s parents.”

“Thank you, Mr. & Mrs. Owens!” you said to no one in particular and dried your hands, as you looked over at your friends.  “See you two out there!”

Kate and Boone followed, but stayed on the porch, both taking twin sips from their beers.

“You think either of them has any idea what’s about to happen to ‘em?” Boone asked.

“Meaning that Tyler is going to become enamored the second she opens her mouth?”

“Yup.”

“And that she’s going to have the same thing happen to her the second she comes into contact with that cocky cowboy swagger that he exudes when you meet him the first time?”

“Yup.”

“No, I don’t think either of ‘em knows what’s coming.”

A few days before the chasing season began, you brought Roach down to Cathy’s, where he would be staying while you were out with the Wranglers for your first season on the road.  

While there, you asked Cathy if you could saddle up your favorite of her horses, Zig, nicknamed Ziggy.  He wasn’t the brightest of the bunch; he was the type of horse you’d see in a video because someone thought he was dead but in actuality, he was just sleeping.  You swore that his mother, a horse named KJ, rolled her horse eyes every time someone caught him playing dead.

Ziggy may not have been the sharpest pitchfork in the barn, and may not have enjoyed doing much of anything besides looking dead when he slept, but he enjoyed riding through fields with you.  He knew whenever he saw you approaching with a bowl that he was about to get one of his favorite snacks: ice cubes with apple bits in them.  You put Ziggy’s snack bucket down so he could munch while you brushed him and got him saddled and ready to go for a ride.

When Ziggy let you know that he was done with his snack, you popped in your earbuds and shuffled your favorite classical music playlist on Spotify.  You found it was one of your favorite ways to relax.  After you climbed on Ziggy’s back, and kicked him into gear, you took off for the open fields near the road leading up to the farm.

You’d been out there for a while when you started hearing the faint rumble of an engine, but ignored it because trucks passed near this area all the time.  You probably shouldn’t have ignored it though, because when that modified-to-withstand-tornadoes red Dodge Ram 3500 turned on to the road and took off towards the main house, Ziggy took off after it.  By now, you shouldn’t have been surprised that he recognized the truck or the person in it, but you were…and because you were so thrown off by it, your hands (stupidly) had not been holding the reins.  And because you had not held on, you went flying off Ziggy’s back while he just followed the familiar truck.  Lucky for you, the fall didn’t cause you to go unconscious, but it did knock the wind out of you after you landed hard on your back.

As you attempted to take deep breaths, you heard someone yelling and running towards you, so you tried to sit up.  The voice yelled for you to not move, so you listened and stayed on the ground, with your eyes shut.  You just lay there, waiting.

All of a sudden:

“Are you okay?” the voice asked.  You knew that you knew who the voice belonged to but you were so thrown by being thrown that your brain wasn’t focusing.  You blinked your eyes open, and your vision swam before focusing on the most beautiful face.

“Wha-”

“Are you okay, darlin’?” he asked as he helped you sit up.

“Uh…”

“Did you black out?”

“No.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Cathy’s farm, in Sapulpa.”

“Do you know your name?”  He smiled when you told him.  “Where’d you come in from?”

“New York City.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’m the new data analyst for the Wranglers.”

“Well…looks like we got another city girl that knows her stuff.”

Tagging: @ladybirdbeetle7 @omgbrianab @itsdesiree86 @avengersfan25 @keyrani @thedonswife13 @lonelyghosts-stuff

DON'T FORGET TO LIKE AND REBLOG!!!!

Main Masterlist

[astrologydray]

Scorpio Mc in the each of the degrees

If you have a Scorpio Midheaven (MC), your career and public image are influenced by Scorpio’s themes of transformation, power, intensity, investigation, and depth. You are likely drawn to roles where you can work behind the scenes, deal with powerful emotions, or engage in deep, transformative processes. Scorpio MC individuals often thrive in careers such as psychology, research, investigation, finance, healing, or crisis management.

• 0° Scorpio (Aries Point) – A powerful public image, likely to achieve prominence through transformational or investigative work, such as psychology, research, or crises management.

• 1° Scorpio – Intense, focused, and determined; may thrive in investigation, forensic science, or any field requiring deep analysis.

• 2° Scorpio – Likely to excel in research, science, or strategic roles that require uncovering hidden truths.

• 3° Scorpio – A natural in psychology, counseling, or crisis management, using your ability to deal with profound emotional situations.

• 4° Scorpio – Strong sense of privacy and control. Could excel in corporate leadership, finance, or law enforcement, where power dynamics are key.

• 5° Scorpio – Creative yet intense; could thrive in fields such as writing, investigative journalism, or roles where uncovering secrets is crucial.

• 6° Scorpio – Strong emotional intelligence; could work in healing professions, psychotherapy, or holistic health.

• 7° Scorpio – Focused on personal transformation through relationships. Likely to work in partnerships, counseling, or mediation, helping others navigate difficult transformations.

• 8° Scorpio – Attracted to careers involving transformation, healing, or working with life/death situations. Could excel in medicine, surgery, or toxicology.

• 9° Scorpio – Deep and insightful, likely to work in research, science, or roles that deal with the hidden or taboo.

• 10° Scorpio – Powerful presence in the workplace. Likely to succeed in leadership, government, or transformational roles.

• 11° Scorpio – Drawn to intense and transformative careers in fields like crisis management, psychological research, or financial analysis.

• 12° Scorpio – Naturally private but magnetic; could excel in research, data analysis, or confidential consulting.

• 13° Scorpio – Strong sense of duty to uncover the truth. Could work in investigation, legal fields, or security.

• 14° Scorpio – Intense and passionate. Likely to succeed in law enforcement, surgery, or any career that involves high stakes or deep emotional work.

• 15° Scorpio – Skilled at understanding power dynamics and human psychology. Likely to thrive in finance, real estate, or therapy.

• 16° Scorpio – Willing to tackle dark or difficult topics. Could excel in criminology, research, or working with addiction or trauma.

• 17° Scorpio – Drawn to healing, counseling, or any career that involves personal growth, particularly in the face of adversity.

• 18° Scorpio – Powerful communicator in hidden or taboo subjects. Likely to succeed in journalism, investigative reporting, or political activism.

• 19° Scorpio – Focused on deep, emotional transformation. Could excel in fields like psychotherapy, life coaching, or end-of-life care.

• 20° Scorpio – A natural in roles requiring emotional depth, such as crisis management, mediation, or psychiatry.

• 21° Scorpio – A transformative figure. Likely to be drawn to careers that change society, such as activism, research, or government roles.

• 22° Scorpio – Interested in dealing with the shadow side of life. Could thrive in criminology, investigative work, or financial sectors dealing with risks.

• 23° Scorpio – Fascinated by mysteries, forensics, or the unseen world. Likely to find success in research, astrology, or spiritual counseling.

• 24° Scorpio – A true transformer. Likely to be drawn to careers that involve depth, healing, or powerful change such as management, finance, or spiritual guidance.

• 25° Scorpio – Powerful and intense; likely to work in corporate leadership, strategy, or financial markets.

• 26° Scorpio – Magnetic and persuasive; could excel in negotiations, law, or roles requiring the ability to persuade and influence.

• 27° Scorpio – Strong focus on transformation; could work in psychology, the occult, or recovery-based careers.

• 28° Scorpio – Intense and strategic; may work in intelligence, politics, or investment management.

• 29° Scorpio (Anaretic Degree) – A fated degree of transformation. Likely to experience profound career changes, or public recognition in roles that involve power, control, or deep psychological insight. This degree may bring sudden or intense changes to your professional life but can ultimately lead to mastery in investigation, crisis management, or healing.

[hoe-days]

WAIT I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING !!!! i need your hcs of senku on no nut november....... bonus if s/o is a huge tease LMFAOOO

BYE THIS SO FUNNY

————

So Senku wouldn’t participate at first. At least not on purpose. His S/O would bring it up and he’d look at them like, “Why would I do that?”. But since S/O is participating it inadvertently causes him to.

What I mean by this is that S/O wouldn’t be having sex with him, okay. He’s perfectly capable of going without. I like to think that his sex drive depends on his S/O. Yeah he’s a normal ass dude with normal ass hormones and needs, but I don’t think he’d think about it much., usually immersed in his science. That’d be until he’s around his S/O and they do something he find attractive, or(mostly if he’s single) he just feels the need. Either way, his attitude is very “Oh yeah I have a dick.”

So he’s pretty much fine while his S/O does the challenge. He wouldn’t even realize there is a challenge till about two weeks in. When he does notice S/O hasn’t been jumping his bones lately he just casually goes,

“So you’re actually doing that challenge huh?”

“Yep!”

“Feel any different?”

And then he’d become interested in learning about the ways not getting off can change you mentally and physically. And there you have it! Senku is now in the game.

It both pisses him off and fascinates him that now that he’s aware he’s doing the challenge, it’s more difficult. Crazy how the mind works. And now that S/O knows he’s actively participating they’re trying to get him out.

He holds strong, and will absolutely laugh at S/O’s attempts.

“You think those short shorts and sexy looks are enough to make me lose? HA.”

And he’d absolutely up for trying to get S/O out too. Touch completely innocent areas that he knows are sensitive, getting close to them when talking about science, the whole works!

He’d lose in the most infuriating way. Because S/O for once wouldn’t be trying to get him out. They’d be sitting in their apartment just talking like they normally do. He’d be very engrossed in their discussion, admiring how passionate S/O is talking about their interests. Then his mind and body betray him.

Oh well. He’s gotten enough data. He’s already asking S/O for a kiss and getting handsy. S/O makes themself real comfy between his legs and gets to work.

After that, when he’s still in a daze he looks down at S/O and he’s immediately irked by the shit eating grin on their face.

“I won.”

“YOU’RE GRINNING LIKE YOUR FACE ISN’T PAINTED RIGHT NOW.”

“I still won.”

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Good Science & Pseudoscience

The process of science always features certain core characteristics.

These central tenets mark the difference between real, reliable science and pseudoscience.

It can sometimes be difficult to tell the difference between good science and pseudoscience, the latter being a study or process that seems scientific but actually cuts corners and therefore delivers unreliable results.

Key Characteristics of Science

Good science always possesses certain core traits. These 7 characteristics of scientific knowledge provide a foundation for all our understanding of the world around us:

Empirical verifiability: Scientific explanations rest on the ability to display your findings with empirical evidence. If you make any assertion in a scientific discipline, you must be able to show the exact reasons for the claim as well as a testable way to prove your assertion is consistent with reality itself. Some fields of science are primarily theoretical, but even they rely on ironclad mathematical theorems that stand up to the strictest forms of testability.

Ethical neutrality: Scientific investigations generally leave considerations of morality outside of their equations. Consider something like the development of nuclear technology. While this technology has helped human beings cause great harm to each other, it has also brought significant gains to well-being. Scientists care about data and the pursuit of truth, and they leave ethical considerations up to those who make use of what they discover.

Malleability: Modern science certainly looks different than science from the times of astronomer Galileo Galilei or physicists Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. That’s because scientists know even the most widely creditable theorems can turn out to be falsifiable. New data changes assumptions all the time. This is one of the main reasons why peer review is such an important factor in scientific study.

Objectivity: Good science relies on people’s ability to be as objective as possible. If you approach a science experiment with a preconceived notion in mind, you should reevaluate your basic approach. All scientists must go where the data leads them and not force their desires or conclusions on their experiments too early, no matter whether they specialize in the physical sciences or more recent technologies, such as AI.

Observability: When you set out to test a scientific hypothesis, you do so in an attempt to observe new evidence in real time. Consider a life science experiment many people do themselves without even knowing it: gardening. When you make adjustments to their light or water to assist their growth, you’re embarking on a rudimentary form of the same process of systematic observation and experimentation that undergirds the most complex scientific research methods.

Replicability: It’s the nature of science to be repeatable. Every experiment you do should be capable of replication, from truly basic research to more complex forms of experimentation. From computer science to biology and beyond, the scientific community must present data that is consistent from test to test. This replicability is what makes science such a reliable discipline overall.

Systematic reliability: Science is innately replicable and, as a result, systematically reliable as well. If you follow a scientific methodology, you can rely on the system itself to present you with the same results each time. For instance, if you run an experiment with the exact same independent and dependent variables and chart your results on a graph, you should expect them to be the same—or at least remarkably similar—every time you do.

Natural Sciences vs. Social Sciences

Natural sciences differ from the social sciences in terms of their emphasis on extreme precision.

Part of this is due to how phenomena in the natural world are more easily quantifiable.

This is in contrast to social sciences—for example, the study of why a certain human being or an entire group of people behaves a certain way (as is the case with psychology and sociology, respectively).

Science is a field of human endeavor that aims to better understand how the real world works through empirical questioning and repeated testing.

The field of science features numerous different specific disciplines.

All of these work in concert to provide the human race a means by which to accomplish a systematic exploration of the universe around them.

By way of analogy, science as a whole is like a symphony orchestra whereas each specific discipline (like physics, biology, and so on) are instruments within the ensemble.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[magicmousetrash]

Krel Tarron x Reader

Non-binary reader

SFW Scenario

It takes place during the 3below series

I'm writing all this with the translator since English is not my first language so if there are any mistakes please let me know <⁠(⁠￣⁠︶⁠￣⁠)⁠>

🪄🐁: I will soon come with more food

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Krel was back in front of the holographic screen in his room, drumming his fingers nervously. He was determined to win the heart of his human crush, but earthling customs remained a mystery. How did humans connect emotionally without all the advanced technology and science he knew? So she had turned to "Mother" for advice.

—Mother, I need your help, —he said seriously, taking a breath.—I want to… impress a human.

The AI projected its holographic form, and Krel felt a slight flicker of discomfort as the ship's sensors analyzed his request.

—Understood, Prince Krel. I can provide suggestions on human courtship. Data shows that humans respond to certain common social stimuli. I will proceed to share a series of recommendations.

Krel nodded, looking over the list of tips that appeared before him. It seemed simple, in theory. How difficult could it be?

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Tip 1: A meaningful gift

—"A thoughtful gesture or a small gift is a way of showing appreciation between humans."

Krel frowned as he reviewed that first tip. He knew humans gave flowers and chocolates, but he wanted something more special. Something unique, something that would show how much he cared... without it being very obvious.

Determined, he spent the whole night creating a… how to describe it? A small, handmade device. It was a mix between a terrarium with a bioluminescent plant and a small gravitational field that made the object float gently. Krel thought it was impressive and was sure his crush would appreciate it.

The next day, with a big, self-satisfied grin, Krel approached them at school.

—I made this for you, —he said, holding the floating contraption in an outstretched hand. —I thought you might like it.

They looked at it, at first intrigued by the strange gift. But as soon as they took it, the plant began to emit a flickering glow that grew in intensity.

It’s so… cute! —they said, smiling at first. But as soon as the glowing plant started spinning faster and blinking wildly, their expressions changed to panic. —Is this safe?.

Before Krel could respond, the artifact began to sputter and floated too high, crashing into the ceiling of the hallway and exploding in a small burst of light.

Krel cleared his throat, trying to appear calm.

—Maybe… it needs a couple of adjustments, —he said as he picked up the remains of the device..

First attempt: disaster.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Tip 2: Specific compliments

—"Personalized compliments create a greater emotional connection between humans."

Krel thought this advice would be easy to follow. He knew a lot about his crush. He knew they liked science and was pretty smart. So, he decided that praising their intellect would be a great move.

The next day in chemistry class, Krel sat next to her and waited for the perfect moment. As she focused on measuring a substance, Krel decided to intervene.

—Your accuracy with test tubes is… statistically astonishing, —he commented enthusiastically.

They looked at him, not knowing whether to laugh or worry.

—Thanks… I think. —they replied, somewhat bewildered.

Krel decided to double down, thinking that perhaps a more specific compliment would be better.

—And the way you calculated the molar concentration of that solution… it’s almost as if you could handle mathematics at the quantum level.

Now they were clearly more confused than impressed.

—Uh… well, I learned it in class last year. —they answered, trying not to sound strange.

Krel bit his lip, realizing he might be going off on a bit of a tangent.

—What I mean is… you are very smart..

They smiled politely.

Second attempt: weird...

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Tip 3: Be protective

—"Showing care and protection creates a sense of emotional security."

Krel was convinced that this advice would be a success. He had noticed that humans reacted positively when someone showed concern for their safety. And since he had advanced skills in protecting others, he thought it was his time to shine.

As they walked together towards the cafeteria, he saw some kids running past, clearly not paying attention to their surroundings. This is my chance, Krel thought.

With quick movements, he pulled his crush to the side, placing them behind him with exaggerated protection.

—Watch out! —he exclaimed, turning dramatically. —You could have been run over by those reckless individuals!

They stared at him, mouths agape, totally surprised.

—Krel, they were just… running, — They said, with a nervous smile.

Krel was unfazed. He was certain he had done the right thing.

—You can never be too careful. Safety first. —he replied determinedly.

They laughed softly, clearly seeing the situation as a bit exaggerated.

Third attempt: exaggerated overprotection

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Tip 4: Quality time

The last tip was simpler: spend quality time together. No technology, no interruptions, just being in the moment. Krel thought this would be easy, but he underestimated how hard it would be not to use technology..

As they strolled through the park after school, Krel tried to hold a normal conversation. But soon, the silence felt awkward, and Krel began drumming his fingers, wishing he could Open your device to avoid this awkward situation.

Finally, he decided to distract himself from technology and focus all his attention on them.

—Did you know that the human brain releases dopamine during pleasant conversations? —he said, trying to start a topic that seemed interesting to him.

They looked at him, laughing softly.

—Really? That’s… good to know.

Krel nodded, glad to have steered the conversation back to a scientific topic. But then, without realizing it, he started talking about chemicals that activate dopamine in the brain… for 15 minutes straight.

By the time he realized it, they were looking at him with a mix of fascination and exhaustion.

—Krel, that was… very informative. —they said, trying to sound friendly.

Fourth attempt: excessive talk.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

At the end of the day, Krel returned to his room, somewhat frustrated, and stared at "Mother's" screen, waiting for her assessment.

—Mother, how did I do it? —he asked, sighing.

—The results indicate that 45% of your attempts were successful and 55% were questionable. I recommend adjustments to your approaches.

Krel slumped back into his chair.

—Maybe… humans are more complicated than I thought.

Despite everything, they allowed themselves a small smile. Even though everything had gone a little wrong, there was something charming about his mistakes. And they… well, thay hadn't completely walked away. That was a good start.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

We all love this alien boy called Krel

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive (Daily updates!)

Authors: Rose (Shiqi) Luo Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University

Catherine Itsiopoulos Professor and Dean, School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University

Kate Anderson Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow, RMIT University

Magdalena Plebanski Professor of Immunology, RMIT University

Zhen Zheng Associate Professor, STEM | Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University

____________________________________________________________

Nearly five years into the pandemic, COVID is feeling less central to our daily lives.

But the virus, SARS-CoV-2, is still around, and for many people the effects of an infection can be long-lasting. When symptoms persist for more than three months after the initial COVID infection, this is generally referred to as long COVID.

In September, Grammy-winning Brazilian musician Sérgio Mendes died aged 83 after reportedly having long COVID.

Australian data show 196 deaths were due to the long-term effects of COVID from the beginning of the pandemic up to the end of July 2023.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 3,544 long-COVID-related deaths from the start of the pandemic up to the end of June 2022.

The symptoms of long COVID – such as fatigue, shortness of breath and “brain fog” – can be debilitating. But can you die from long COVID? The answer is not so simple.

How could long COVID lead to death? There’s still a lot we don’t understand about what causes long COVID. A popular theory is that “zombie” virus fragments may linger in the body and cause inflammation even after the virus has gone, resulting in long-term health problems. Recent research suggests a reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 proteins in the blood might explain why some people experience ongoing symptoms.

We know a serious COVID infection can damage multiple organs. For example, severe COVID can lead to permanent lung dysfunction, persistent heart inflammation, neurological damage and long-term kidney disease.

These issues can in some cases lead to death, either immediately or months or years down the track. But is death beyond the acute phase of infection from one of these causes the direct result of COVID, long COVID, or something else? Whether long COVID can directly cause death continues to be a topic of debate.

Of the 3,544 deaths related to long COVID in the US up to June 2022, the most commonly recorded underlying cause was COVID itself (67.5%). This could mean they died as a result of one of the long-term effects of a COVID infection, such as those mentioned above.

COVID infection was followed by heart disease (8.6%), cancer (2.9%), Alzheimer’s disease (2.7%), lung disease (2.5%), diabetes (2%) and stroke (1.8%). Adults aged 75–84 had the highest rate of death related to long COVID (28.8%).

These findings suggest many of these people died “with” long COVID, rather than from the condition. In other words, long COVID may not be a direct driver of death, but rather a contributor, likely exacerbating existing conditions.

‘Cause of death’ is difficult to define Long COVID is a relatively recent phenomenon, so mortality data for people with this condition are limited.

However, we can draw some insights from the experiences of people with post-viral conditions that have been studied for longer, such as myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

Like long COVID, ME/CFS is a complex condition which can have significant and varied effects on a person’s physical fitness, nutritional status, social engagement, mental health and quality of life.

Some research indicates people with ME/CFS are at increased risk of dying from causes including heart conditions, infections and suicide, that may be triggered or compounded by the debilitating nature of the syndrome.

So what is the emerging data on long COVID telling us about the potential increased risk of death?

Research from 2023 has suggested adults in the US with long COVID were at greater risk of developing heart disease, stroke, lung disease and asthma.

Research has also found long COVID is associated with a higher risk of suicidal ideation (thinking about or planning suicide). This may reflect common symptoms and consequences of long COVID such as sleep problems, fatigue, chronic pain and emotional distress.

But long COVID is more likely to occur in people who have existing health conditions. This makes it challenging to accurately determine how much long COVID contributes to a person’s death.

Research has long revealed reliability issues in cause-of-death reporting, particularly for people with chronic illness.

So what can we conclude? Ultimately, long COVID is a chronic condition that can significantly affect quality of life, mental wellbeing and overall health.

While long COVID is not usually immediately or directly life-threatening, it’s possible it could exacerbate existing conditions, and play a role in a person’s death in this way.

Importantly, many people with long COVID around the world lack access to appropriate support. We need to develop models of care for the optimal management of people with long COVID with a focus on multidisciplinary care.

[reasonsforhope]

"In the 1750s, an Italian farmer digging a well stumbled upon a lavish villa in the ruins of Herculaneum. Inside was a sprawling library with hundreds of scrolls, untouched since Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 C.E. Some of them were still neatly tucked away on the shelves.

This staggering discovery was the only complete library from antiquity ever found. But when 18th-century scholars tried to unroll the charred papyrus, the scrolls crumbled to pieces. They became resigned to the fact that the text hidden inside wouldn’t be revealed during their lifetimes.

In recent years, however, researchers realized that they were living in the generation that would finally solve the puzzle. Using artificial intelligence, they’ve developed methods to peer inside the Herculaneum scrolls without damaging them, revealing short passages of ancient text.

This month, researchers announced a new breakthrough. While analyzing a scroll known as PHerc. 172, they determined its title: On Vices. Based on other works, they think the full title is On Vices and Their Opposite Virtues and in Whom They Are and About What.

“We are thrilled to share that the written title of this scroll has been recovered from deep inside its carbonized folds of papyrus,” the Vesuvius Challenge, which is leading efforts to decipher the scrolls, says in a statement. “This is the first time the title of a still-rolled Herculaneum scroll has ever been recovered noninvasively.”

On Vices was written by Philodemus, a Greek philosopher who lived in Herculaneum more than a century before Vesuvius’ eruption. Born around 110 B.C.E., Philodemus studied at a school in Athens founded several centuries earlier by the influential philosopher Epicurus, who believed in achieving happiness by pursuing certain specific forms of pleasure.

“This will be a great opportunity to learn more about Philodemus’ ethical views and to get a better view of the On Vices as a whole,” Michael McOsker, a papyrologist at University College London who is working with the Vesuvius Challenge, tells CNN’s Catherine Nicholls.

When it launched in 2023, the Vesuvius Challenge offered more than $1 million in prize money to citizen scientists around the world who could use A.I. to help decipher scans of the Herculaneum scrolls. 

Spearheaded by Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky, the team scanned several of the scrolls and uploaded the data for anyone to use. To earn the prize money, participants competed to be the first to reach a series of milestones.

Reading the papyrus involves solving several difficult problems. After the rolled-up scrolls are scanned, their many layers need to be separated out and flattened into two-dimensional segments. At that point, the carbon-based ink usually isn’t visible in the scans, so machine-learning models are necessary to identify the inked sections.

In late 2023, a computer science student revealed the first word on an unopened scroll: “porphyras,” an ancient Greek term for “purple.” Months later, participants worked out 2,000 characters of text, which discussed pleasures such as music and food.

But PHerc. 172 is different from these earlier scrolls. When researchers scanned it last summer, they realized that some of the ink was visible in the images. They aren’t sure why this scroll is so much more legible, though they hypothesize it’s because the ink contains a denser contaminant such as lead, according to the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries, which houses the scroll.

In early May, the Vesuvius Challenge announced that contestants Marcel Roth and Micha Nowak, computer scientists at Germany’s University of Würzburg, would receive $60,000 for deciphering the title. Sean Johnson, a researcher with the Vesuvius Challenge, had independently identified the title around the same time.

Researchers are anticipating many more breakthroughs on the horizon. In the past three months alone, they’ve already scanned dozens of new scrolls.

“The pace is ramping up very quickly,” McOsker tells the Guardian’s Ian Sample. “All of the technological progress that’s been made on this has been in the last three to five years—and on the timescales of classicists, that’s unbelievable.”"

-via Smithsonian, May 16, 2025

[nostalgebraist]

In the comments of the LW xpost of the void, Janus writes

[models trained post-bing ai] have a tendency to "roleplay" Sydney when they're acting like chatbots, leading to misaligned behaviors. One way to address this is to penalize any mention of Sydney or Sydney-like behavior. This may generalize to the model being unwilling to even talk about Sydney or acknowledge what happened. But it is less likely to actually erase its knowledge of Sydney, especially if it was so salient that it often roleplayed/identified as Sydney earlier in pre-training.

Is this broadly accurate, would you say? And is there a reason ai companies do this in training, instead of e.g. stripping out any prior ai-user transcripts from the common crawl as part of broader filtering of the dataset, so the model has "no preconceptions" tying it to older models?

I think this is broadly accurate, yes.

On the filtering question, I think the answer is just that it would be fairly difficult/costly/time-consuming in practice, and the companies just don't care that much.

(Also, they might be worried that such filtering would adversely impact the model's practical usefulness. If you can avoid it, you typically don't want to make your model confused/ignorant about some real-world topic, especially if it's a topic that users are likely to bring up when talking to an LLM-based chatbot.)

The datasets used for pretraining are so huge that any kind of filtering or preprocessing applied to the whole dataset is typically pretty simplistic and "dumb," at least compared to the kinds of magic we expect from things like LLMs these days.

In cases where the methodology is publicly known – which is a significant caveat! – a representative type of filtering involves using relatively weak (but cheap) ML models to label whether the text relates to some broad topic like "computer science," or whether it's "toxic" (in the peculiar sense of that word used in ML, see here), or whether it looks like an outlier with respect to some smaller dataset trusted to contain mostly "good" text (whatever that means). These models inevitably make mistakes – both false positives and false negatives – and you can't really expect them to filter out absolutely everything that matches the condition, it's more that using them is a big improvement over doing nothing at all to filter on the category of interest.

But if you really want to make a model that doesn't know about some relatively well-known aspect of the real world, despite having very strong general knowledge in other respects... then you'd need to be much subtler and more precise about your filtering, I'd expect. And that's going to be nontrivially costly in the best case; in the worst case it may not even be possible.

Like, where exactly do you stop? If you just filter transcripts involving recent chatbots, how do you know whether something is such a transcript (in many cases this is obvious, but in many others it isn't!). Should you filter out any text in which someone quotes something a chatbot said? What about texts that describe chatbot behaviors in detail without quoting them? If you want to be doctrinaire about eliminating knowledge of chatbot behavior, you might have to go this far or even further – but at this point, we're filtering many texts that would otherwise be very high-value, like academic papers that convey important information about recent ML progress, news stories about how LLMs are impacting real people, a lot of the content on various blogs you (tumblr user kaiasky) personally think are good and worth reading, etc.

IIRC Janus and others have speculated that even if you did this "perfectly," the model would still be able to sense the "topic-shaped hole" in the data, and form some sort of representation of the fact that something is missing and maybe some of that thing's properties (derivable from the "shape of the hole," e.g. facts like "there are weirdly few public communications about AI after ~2021 despite indirect indications that the field was having more real-world impact than ever before"). I think something like this is probably at least kinda true, at least in the limit of arbitrarily strong base models... but also I doubt we'll ever find out, because there just isn't enough of an incentive to run a costly and risky "experiment" of this kind.

[witchofthesouls]

Okay wait no culture clash: Soundwave and Ratchet both teaching the kids about Cybertonian history and Culture?? Can we PLEASE see some of that??

Ratchet is having back to back fits because nothing is going as planned, and he feels he made a deal with the devil or has been given a monkey's paw because he's getting his wishes in a really twisted way without even knowing there were active conditions.

He returned to Earth to watch on the place that held a special place in Optimus' spark as the rebuilding process is taking a different shape and he's too tired to carry that burden on his own, and found out it there were still Primal Artifacts and other weaponry from the Vaults on the planet.

The once teenage tagalongs are now adults that are continuing Team Prime's directives to collect them. They had sacrificed continuing higher education for the mission, and Ratchet couldn't stand that he already missed a portion of their lives that damn fast and how they're so nonchalant over not improving their own selves. Ratchet then found out that Raf, Jack, and Miko had literally spent lifetimes together as they traveled Elsewhere to secure Cybertronian relics that shaped their planet in some way or form. Not only grew up. They grew old in some of their ventures; delving deep into their Other heritages to ensure they could make it back in the right time.

The kids (because they're all kids to him, even if Raf has a beard) are still limited by an organic lifespan, and humans are shorter compared to other species, so Ratchet clucks over their health, and he counts the days when all he has left are their ghosts and dust. And then a Primal Artifact cyberforms them.

Of course, none of his kids are what the Autobots had thought their frames would be. They're all strange, otherworldly, and dangerous.

Miko is definitely a spitfire. But not a motorcycle or a tank. She's a full-framed War-Forged Seeker femme. She revels in her bloodthirst and dresses well in violence as her plating is a searing and hauntingly bright pink. Her helm has small horns, her mouth spilts wide, and she enjoys showing off rows and rows of serrated teeth with her unsettling optics brimming with tactical programs.

Raf isn't a mech with alt based on lab equipment or even suited towards data. He's something completely else. He's draconian, but not a Predacon, as that root-mode is something familiar to Ratchet. Raf is far more reptilian, even in root-mode. An elongated face with a snout. Teeth hanging over his bottom lip with thick ridges of pointed plates upon his crest to trail up to proper horns, long and notched. His brilliant boy still has the same eyes towards sciences with slitted pupils, and Raf is comfortable navigating around with and without a thick tail and has adapted well to his large hands with thick claws.

Jack seems the most normal. Seems. He could pass off a young mech - handsome with dark and glossy plates and the unique grey-tinged blue optics - but if you stare too long into those optics, strange shapes emerge. Ratchet thought he's some type of jet, but sometimes Ratchet spies wheels along his legs or sees how Jack's silhouette bulks or slims between beats. The hem of his armored coat curls or blends too well with shadows and fog that it's too difficult to tell where Jack is really at.

Soundwave got dragged into this mess via a deal with June Darby, who had traveled into the Shadow Zone because of Ratchet's off-handed commentary that the Decepticon TIC once tied with Megatron in the Pits.

It was the closest thing to help that the trio could receive, especially with their heritages becoming more active in their new bodies.

Miko's sea-yōkai bloodthirst had meld too well with War-Forged programs because they naturally feed into each other. She was starting to frenzy more often. The War-Forged monstrous durability and inability to disable locked mission priorities combined with the Jinja-hime/human hybrid hunting and magical capabilities produced a monstrosity on the field.

It doesn't help that Miko had long incorporated the Apex Armor into her style. Her constant tinkering and experimentation led her from piloting the entire thing to using it as a type of indestructible shield or reinforcement via a controlled surrounding body similar to Susanoo from Naruto.

Ratchet can't keep up. He doesn't have the endurance or the speed to withstand Miko's onslaught.

June could have taken them away, but they already knew how to function as human-based hybrids. The main issue was their new Cybertronian biology.

Ratchet is the most prominent medical expert of baseline Cybertronians, while Soundwave is a well-experienced close combat specialist in brutality and pitted against opponents known for overwhelming strength and voracious mech-hunters.

Ratchet will never admit he's territorial. He won't. He fucking is, though. And it clashes with Soundwave.

Part of it is the medical-programming quirks, but a lot of it is cultural.

Medics function on their own hierarchy, and Ratchet has been the Head for a really long time, serving several Primes, immense hospital networks, and his own clinic. No one had been able to shake him from his position.

He trained in Iacon's universities. Their higher education system fosters a deep sense of competition, alliances, and networks among their students, staff, alumni, and partnerships as the universities function as their own private settlements.

Soundwave, on the other hand, didn't have that kind of opportunity. Instead, his education is eclectic and self-driven since gladiatorial clades would provide martial classes and potential masters as sparkling recruits were a long-term investment, but much had to be clawed for as resources were given to those with the most potential.

Ratchet is used to working with someone who already has all the groundwork and needs experience and refinement into their specialty as well as being the main authority over their journey. While Soundwave is familiar with training groups in various skills levels or backgrounds along with other mentors at the side. An inductee could buy protection services from a mentor, but all are subjected to the management of the clades.

So Ratchet has classical training and education, whereas Soundwave had taken his education through other means.

It doesn't help that there are language differences as well, and Miko is trying to bridge Pit Kaonite and Iaconic together because she's simultaneously learning both. And that Miko with her newfound Cybertronian medical knowledge is becoming a new level of menace.

Since Jasper trio had delved deep into their Other heritage as well. Their respective lineages had followed them through the conversion, and that's a whole other can of fuckery. However, there are cultural misunderstandings as the former humans are okay with stripping down to bare protoform for whatever reasons.

Ratchet, as a medical frame, has been part of the middle-upper castes, so he does carry a lot of those sensibilities. Similar to what Alpha Trion did with a Wastelands mech that would become Orion Pax, Ratchet tried to soothe out those rougher or unpalatable edges but in a more gentle and far less invasive sense, like shifting from talons and claws to blunted edges when not in combat and careful not to show too much fangs when smiling. Contain, contain, contain, is the Iaconic cultural norm.

Soundwave cares little for Iacon's false civility, but the trio does fit some ghost stores and folklore. Jack can be utterly eerie with the way he erases himself and how at ease he is in warped spaces, Miko really gives credence to the tales of Predacon hybrids of the Wilders' traditions, and Raf is something unearthed from Quintessons' fears.

June Darby is something else entirely.