#Innovation in brick making

[snpcmachine]

World fastest brick making machine: BMM410

Snpc Machines: Factory of bricks on wheel

1st of it's kind. Patented technology by SnPC Machines Which comes with Massive production capacity. Fully Automatic and easy to use. It's a Mobile unit that gives us the freedom to produce bricks any-where, any-quantity, any-time.

[claybrickmachine]

Automatic brick production!

Snpc clay brick making machine

Automatic brick production!

BMM 410

1st of it's kind. Patented technology by SnPC Machines Which comes with Massive production capacity. Fully Automatic and easy to use. It's a Mobile unit that gives us the freedom to produce bricks any-where, any-quantity, any-time.

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Month - June 2024

💡Eco-friendly innovations building a better future—literally

1. Bill Gates-backed startup creates Lego-like brick that can store air pollution for centuries: 'A milestone for affordably removing carbon dioxide from the air'

The Washington Post detailed a "deceptively simple" procedure by Graphyte to store a ton of CO2 for around $100 a ton, a number long considered a milestone for affordably removing carbon dioxide from the air. Direct air capture technologies used in the United States and Iceland cost $600 to $1,200 per ton, per the Post.

2. Violent crime is down and the US murder rate is plunging, FBI statistics show

Violent crime dropped by more than 15% in the United States during the first three months of 2024, according to statistics released Monday by the FBI.

The new numbers show violent crime from January to March dropped 15.2% compared to the same period in 2023, while murders fell 26.4% and reported rapes decreased by 25.7%.

3. She thrifted this vase for $4. It turned out to be an ancient Mayan artifact

Anna Lee Dozier, paid about $4 for what she assumed was a reproduction of a Mayan vase. It turned out to be the real deal: an artifact that’s at least 1,200 years old from the ancient civilization. And now, it's headed back to its homeland.

4. U.S. Marshals Find 200 Missing Children Across the Nation During Operation We Will Find You 2

Of the 200 children found, 173 were endangered runaways, 25 were considered otherwise missing, one was a family abduction, and one was a non-family abduction. [...] 14 of the children were found outside the city where they went missing.

5. Amazon's ditching the plastic air pillows in its boxes

Amazon said the change will help it use nearly 15 billion fewer plastic pillows annually. The paper fillers are made from 100% recyclable materials and are curbside recyclable. The company began a transition away from plastic filler in October 2023 when it announced its first U.S. automated fulfillment center to eliminate plastic-delivery packaging.

6. Supreme Court rejects bid to restrict access to abortion pill

In a blow for anti-abortion advocates, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to the abortion pill mifepristone, meaning the commonly used drug can remain widely available. The court found unanimously that the group of anti-abortion doctors who questioned the Food and Drug Administration’s decisions making it easier to access the pill did not have legal standing to sue.  

7. Wild horses return to Kazakhstan steppes after absence of two centuries

A group of the world’s last wild horses have returned to their native Kazakhstan after an absence of about 200 years. Seven Przewalski’s horses, the only truly wild species of the animal in the world, flown to central Asian country from zoos in Europe

That's it for this month :)

This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation here:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Also don’t forget to share this post with your friends.

[autism-autobot]

LMK'S "REDEMPTION ARCS"

I like Lego Monkie Kid's "redemption arcs", and that is a hill I'm willing to die on.

It's no secret that the 'redemption arcs' in LMK aren't your stereotypical redemption arcs, AND THAT'S OKAY!!!!!

I think that it's very nice to have evil/villainous characters have a moment of "It was at this moment that he knew... HE. FUCKED. UP." and then doing a 180 from their original plans.

The Demon Bull Family's arc is a great example of this. Heck, Princess Iron Fan and especially Red Son might not have even been antagonists if it wasn't for Demon Bull King wanting to take over the city/world. They love him so much that they were willing to follow him to the ends of the universe if that's what it took to help him fulfill his goals and dreams.

Then came their run-in with the Lady Bone Demon. That's when the Demon Bull King realized just how much his plans could cost his family if he chose to continue down this path. IT COULD COST THEM EVERYTHING

Everything that he just got back. The family who freed him from captivity, likely in spite of having been told that it would be a fruitless endeavor. His family: a beautiful wife and intelligent, innovative son who love him so much that they'd lay down their lives for him in a heartbeat. His plans could cost them their lives and almost did. While under LBD's influence, he attempted to strike his son... and Red Son didn't even try to move out of the way. He had no reaction period. DBK is absolutely strong enough to kill his son. Had his wife not stepped in, Red Son might have been killed by his own hand if the blow was hard enough. That realization alone of what LBD almost made him do could very well be the thing that made him turn back on the idea of world domination.

It makes total sense for a man who's number one priority is his family (even if he doesn't always show it) to give up on all else if his family is the price he has to pay.

It's just not worth it.

He later lectures Azure Lion on this topic of "The price is worth more than the payoff" when he says in season 4:

"This pursuit of yours has warped your mind, brother."

The exact same thing happened to him. DBK tried to warn him to turn back now.

But he didn't.

And now he's dead.

Doing a 180 saved the Demon Bull King's hide and it works so much better for the story overall than a long fleshed out redemption arc.

The villain getting a reality check is in my opinion a much better storytelling device than a redemption arc and is criminally underrated.

A metaphorical (lego) brick to the face is much more powerful in my opinion.

[blueiscoool]

‘Ancient Roman’ Solar Roof Tiles Power Pompeii Villa

Ancient Roman ruins at Pompeii have been fitted with invisible solar panels, in a move that will contribute to the archaeological site’s sustainability efforts and cut costs. The innovative panels, which blend into the background by imitating traditional materials, were installed on the House of Cerere, on a thermopolium — a Roman snack bar — and on the House of the Vettii, which recently reopened following 20 years of restoration work.

“They look exactly like the terracotta tiles used by the Romans, but they produce the electricity that we need to light the frescoes,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of the archaeological park of Pompeii, in a press release.

Each year, 3.5 million tourists explore the vast ruins of the ancient Roman city, which was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. But due to Pompeii’s size, energy bills are expensive and conventional methods of providing power across the site can threaten its appearance.

“Pompeii is an ancient city which in some spots is fully preserved,” Zuchtriegel said. “Since we needed an extensive lighting system, we could either keep consuming energy, leaving poles and cables around and disfiguring the landscape, or choose to respect it and save millions of euros.” The new technology will help the archaeological site to cut energy bills and make it more enjoyable, he added.

The invisible solar panels — or “traditional PV tiles” as they are technically known — were created by the Italian company Dyaqua. They can be designed to appear like stone, wood, concrete or brick, and hidden on walls, floors and roofs, according to Elisabetta Quagliato, whose family owns Dyaqua, in the press statement.

“We are an archaeological site but we also want to be a real-life lab for sustainability and the valorization of intangible heritage,” Zuchtriegel said. “Our initiative is not merely symbolic. Through the million tourists who visit us every year, we want to send a message to the world: cultural heritage can be managed differently and in a more sustainable way.”

Other locations in Italy using the invisible solar technology are the commune of Vicoforte in Italy and, soon, Rome’s contemporary art museum Maxxi. Public buildings in Evora, Portugal, and Split, Croatia will also install the panels, according to the press statement.

Pompeii’s recent use of these panels is just the beginning, Zuchtriegel said. “From now on, we will be taking this solution into account for all future renovation and restoration projects.”

By Garry Shaw.

[deramin2]

For Juneteenth I want to tell you about Sarah Boone: inventor of the modern ironing board, and the second Black women to receive a US patent.

Sarah was born into slavery in Craven County, North Carolina in 1832. Legally barred from education, her grandfather secretly taught her instead. In 1847 she married freedman James Boone, and was herself freed for unknown reasons. They moved to New Haven, Connecticut before the civil war, and had 8 children together.

James worked as a brick mason, and Sarah worked as a seamstress and dressmaker. While other inventors of the 19th century had been slowly improving the design of ironing boards, Sarah found them inadequate for the job, so she set about making something better.

She wrote in her very detailed patent,

"The purpose of the invention is to produce a cheap, simple, convenient and highly effective device, particularly adapted to be used in ironing the sleeves and bodies of ladies’ garments."

Her ironing board was narrow, curved, symmetrical, and tapered so that the narrowest parts of a garment could fit around it flatly without ceasing while easily turning the garment for each side. It was padded so the fabric would drape more gently, also reducing ceasing. It had collapsible legs that started towards the center of the board so that there was plenty of room for clothes to fit around it while also being mobile and easy to store. It was easy and cheap to manufacture so that it would be accessible for anyone to buy. Especially important when Black people were (are) both poorer and more harshly judged for their appearance.

She submitted she her patient in July of 1891, and obtained United States patent number 473,563 in April of 1892. 132 years later we are still using Sarah Boone's design with very few changes.

She died in 1904 at the age of 72 and is buried in the family plot in Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven.

So next time you iron something, admire how well thought out and purpose built Sarah's design is. Black excellence and freedom made that possible. If she'd remained in slavery she would never have been able to design it or patent it.

I'm thinking about her story today and mourning the generations of Black innovation we never got because because of slavery. All that brilliance held back by such an evil and dehumanizing institution. All the Black innovation held back today due to the legacy of slavery and ongoing racism. The inmates who are still legally enslaved in this country and not given a chance to thrive and create. I'm thinking about how reparations could help other descendents of slavery have the money to work on their ideas. (Or just live other fulfilling lives because no one should have to be exceptional to be respected.)

I'm also thinking about how vital Sarah's ironing board has been to activist organizing. They're cheap, flat, long, fit in small crowded rooms, and historically everyone had one. The humble ironing board was vital to the Civil Rights movement, union organizing, and the queer rights movement among others. Ironing boards are an unsung hero of Black liberation.

Ironing boards are so simple that we never think about the care that went into their design or the woman behind them. But we should. And now you know the story.

[queercanon13]

The Karma music video is packed with queer and sapphic themes. But what’s with that yellow beret?

We all watched the Karma music video on Friday (or Saturday), right? And then we all watched it ten more times because there IS JUST SO MUCH THERE. Right?!

I can’t even begin to unpack the whole thing yet, but let’s talk about the yellow brick road scene.

Taylor is obviously wearing ruby slippers (“the rubies that I gave up”) alluding to Dorothy/the Wizard of Oz. But she’s not wearing the rest of Dorothy’s getup. That’s because she’s not Dorothy, but in fact a friend of Dorothy.

She’s holding a broom (lots of witchy themes from her lately) and blows a kiss of blue (iykyk) glitter to three grim reapers (the two SBs and…?).

She’s keeping her side of the street clean, which harkens to the YNTCD MV where she clearly shows which side of the street she’s on:

Other things of note: it appears there are daisies embroidered on her collar, as well as growing along the yellow brick road. Her braids are also looped (“your braids make a pattern”).

The yellow brick road itself may be a nod to Elton John and his album/song Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Here are some of the lyrics from that song, as well as a generally accepted analysis of the lyrics:

&

Seems like it would be super relatable to Taylor, right? Add in Elton John’s queerness/coming out journey, and the parallels continue.

There are probably a hundred other things I’m missing just from that scene alone, but what I really wanna talk about is the yellow beret, especially in light of current news surrounding Taylor.

When I saw the yellow beret, I furiously googled “yellow beret” + the names of Taylor’s muses, but I came up empty-handed. Because Taylor is specifically not wearing a Dorothy costume, I knew that fucking hat had to mean something. Then I remembered — isn’t yellow beret a military term? And we know she loves a good war story. To Google I went, and the results did not disappoint.

During the Vietnam war, all physicians in the US had a mandatory draft order. One of the ways to avoid the draft was to apply for a position with a Public Health Service program called the NIH Associates Training Program. Because the elite program was highly competitive, only a small percentage of doctors were able to serve their required military time without going to war.

Yellow beret was a self-deprecating and derogatory term used by and for doctors who avoided getting a green beret/going to war (yellow can be associated with cowardice, i.e. “yellow-bellied”) via the NIH program.

Sounding familiar? But wait there’s more.

Bob Seger wrote a song in 1966 called The Ballad of the Yellow Beret. It was written as a parody of the song The Ballad of the Green Berets. Here are some of the lyrics (I encourage you to read all of them!):

Verse 1: Fearless cowards of the USA // Bravely here at home they stay // They watch their friends get shipped away // The draft dodgers of the Yellow Beret

Okay, I’m seated.

Verse 3: Men who faint at the sight of blood // Their high-heeled boots weren't meant for mud // The draft board will hear their sob stories today // Only the best win the yellow beret

Oooookay.

Verse 4: Back at home a young wife waits // Her yellow beret has met his fate // He's been drafted for marching in a protest //Leaving her his last request

Are you screaming yet? Just wait.

Verse 5: Put a yellow streak down my son's back // Make sure that he never ever fights back // At his physical have him say he's gay // Have him win the yellow beret

And if that wasn’t enough, two of the last lyrics are “I've got a pimple on my trigger finger” (ew) and “well, we were planning on having children sometime soon” (devastating). These themes also align with The Great War, epiphany, etc.

But despite attempts to diminish their efforts through claims of cowardice, these “yellow beret” physician-scientists contributed to some of the most important and innovative medical research we have today. Dr. Fauci attended the training program, as well as nine others who went on to win Nobel Prizes.

Could it be that Taylor is trying to tell us that, while it looks like she dodged the draft (didn’t come out), she’s doing some important mastermind shit behind the scenes? Only time will tell, but since we are now at “dawn,” I believe daylight is soon to follow. ☀️

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Brinklump Linkdump

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

Life comes at you fast, links come at you faster. Once again, I've arrived at Saturday with a giant backlog of links I didn't fit in this week, so it's time for a linkdump, the 14th in the series:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

It's the Year of Our Gourd twenty and twenty-four and holy shit, is rampant corporate power rampant. On January 1, the inbred droolers of Big Pharma shat out their annual price increases, as cataloged in 46Brooklyn's latest Brand Drug List Price Change Box Score:

https://www.46brooklyn.com/branddrug-boxscore

Here's the deal: drugs that have already been developed, brought to market, and paid off are now getting more expensive. Why? Because the pharma companies have "pricing power," the most reliable indicator of monopoly. Ed Cara rounds up the highlights for Gizmodo:

https://gizmodo.com/ozempic-wegovy-wellbutrin-oxycontin-drug-price-increase-1851179427

What's going up? Well, Ozempic and other GLP-1 agonists. These drugs have made untold billions for their manufacturers, so naturally, they're raising the price. That's how markets work, right? When firms increase the volume of a product, the price goes up? Right? Other drugs that are going up include Wellbutrin (an antidepressant that's also widely used in smoking cessation) and the blood thinner Plavix. I mean, why the hell not? These companies get billions in research subsidies, invaluable government patent privileges, and near-total freedom to abuse the patent system with evergreening:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/23/everorangeing/#taste-the-rainbow

The most amazing things about monopolies is how the contempt just oozes out of them. It's like these guys can't even pretend to give a shit. You want guillotines? Because that's how you get guillotines.

Take Apple. They just got their asses handed to them in court by Epic, who successfully argued that Apple's rule requiring everyone who sells through the App Store to use Apple's payment processor and pay Apple 30% out of every dollar they bring in was an antitrust violation. Epic won, then won the appeal, then SCOTUS told Apple they wouldn't hear the case, so that's that.

Right? Wrong. Apple's pulled a malicious compliance stunt that could shame the surly drunks my great-aunt Lisa used to boss in the Soviet electrical engineering firm she ran. Apple has announced that app companies that process transactions using their own payment processors on the web must still pay Apple a 27% fee for every dollar their process:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apples-app-store-rule-changes-draw-sharp-rebuke-from-critics-150047160.html

In addition, Apple will throw a terrifying FUD-screen up every time a user clicks a payment link that goes to the web:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/01/second-verse-same-as-the-first/

This is obviously not what the court had in mind, and there's no way this will survive the next court challenge. It's just Apple making sure that everyone knows it hates us all and wants us to die. Thanks, Tim Apple, and right back atcha.

Not to be outdone in the monopolistic mustache-twirling department, Ubisoft just announced that it is going to shut down its driving simulator game The Crew, which it sold to users with a "perpetual license":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIqyvquTEVU

This is some real Darth Vader MBA shit. "Yeah, we sold you a 'perpetual license' to this game, but we're terminating it. I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Ubisoft sure are innovators. They've managed the seemingly impossible feat of hybridizing Darth Vader and Immortan Joe. Ubisoft's head of subscriptions, the guillotine-ready Philippe Tremblay, told GamesIndustry.biz that gamers need to get "comfortable" with "not owning their games":

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-new-ubisoft-and-getting-gamers-comfortable-with-not-owning-their-games

Or, as Immortan Joe put it: "Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!"

Capitalism without constraint is enshittification's handmaiden, and the latest victim is Ello, the "indie" social media startup that literally promised – on the sacred honor of its founders – that it would never sell out its users. When Ello took VC and Andy Baio questioned how this could be squared with this promise, the founders mocked him and others for raising the question. Their response boiled down to "we are super-chill dudes and you can totally trust us."

They raised more capital, and used that to create a nice place for independent artists, who piled into the platform and provided millions of unpaid hours of creative labor to help the founders increase its value. The founders and their investors turned the company into a Public Benefit Corporation, which meant they had an obligation to serve the public benefit.

But then they took more investment money and simply (and silently) sold their assets to a for-profit. Struggling to raise capital, the founders opted to secretly sell the business to a sleazy branding company called Talenthouse. Its users didn't know about the change, though the site sure had a lot of Talenthouse design competitions all of a sudden.

Finally, the company announced the change as the last founders left. Rather than announcing that the new owners were untrustworthy scum, warning their users to get their data and get out, the founders posted oblique, ominous statements to Instagram. The company started stiffing the winners of those design competitions. Then, one day, poof, Ello disappeared, taking all its users' data with it. Poof:

https://waxy.org/2024/01/the-quiet-death-of-ellos-big-dreams/

I'm sure the founders' decisions each seemed reasonable at the moment. That's every terrible situation arises: you rationalize that a single compromise isn't that big of a deal, and then you do the same for the next compromise, and the next, and the next. Pretty soon, you're betraying everyone who believed in you.

One answer to this is "Ulysses pacts": making binding commitments to do right before you are tempted. Throw away all your Oreos when you go on a diet and you can't be tempted to eat a whole sleeve of them at 2AM. License your software under the GPL and your investors can't force you to make it proprietary. Set up a warrant canary and the feds can't force you to keep their spying secret:

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

If the founders were determined to build a trustworthy, open, independent company, they could have published their quarterly books, livestreamed their staff meetings, built data-export tools that emailed users every week with a link to download everything they'd posted since the last week. Merely halting any of these practices would have been a signal that things were wrong. Anyone who says they won't be tempted in the moment to make a "reasonable" compromise in the hopes of recovering whatever they're trading away by living to fight another day is bullshitting you, and possibly themself.

The inability to project the consequences of your bad decisions in the future is the source of endless mischief and heartbreak. Take movie projectors. A couple decades ago, the studio cartel established a standard for digital movie distribution to cinematic exhibitors called the Digital Cinema Initiative. Because studio executives are more worried about stopping piracy than they are about making sure that people who pay for movies get to see them, they build digital rights management into this standard.

Movie theaters had to spend fortunes to upgrade to "secure" projectors. A single vendor, Deluxe Technicolor, monopolized the packaging of movies into "Digital Cinema Prints" for distribution to these projectors, and they used all kinds of dirty tricks to force distributors to use their services, like arbitrarily flunking third-party DCPs over picky shit like not starting and ending on a black frame.

Over time, the ability to use unencrypted files was stripped away, meaning every DCP needed to be encrypted, and every projector needed to have up-to-date decryption keys. This system broke down on Jan 1, 2024, and cinemas all over the world found they couldn't play Wonka. Many just shut down for the day and refunded their customers:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/1/24021915/alamo-drafthouse-outage-sony-projector

The problem? Something that every PKI system has to wrangle: an expired certificate from Deluxe Technicolor. The failure has been dubbed the Y2K24 debacle by projectionists and film-techs, who are furious:

http://www.film-tech.com/vbb/forum/main-forum/34652-the-y2k24-bug-major-digital-outage-today

Making everything worse is that Sony mothballed the division that maintains its projectors, so there's no one who can update them to accommodate Technicolor's workaround. Struggling mom-and-pop theaters are having to junk their systems and replace them. There's plenty of blame to go around, but Sony is definitely the most negligent link in the chain. Shame on them.

Big corporations LARP this performance of competence and seriousness, but they are deeply unserious. This week, I wrote, "we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Score one for team deeply unserious. The multinational delivery company DPD fired its support staff and replaced them with a chatbot. The chatbot can't tell you where your parcels are, but it can be prompt-injected into coming up with profane poems about how badly DPD sucks:

https://twitter.com/ashbeauchamp/status/1748034519104450874

There once was a chatbot named DPD, Who was useless at providing help. It could not track parcels, Or give information on delivery dates, And it could not even tell you when your driver would arrive.

DPD was a waste of time, And a customer's worst nightmare. It was so bad, That people would rather call the depot directly, Than deal with the useless chatbot.

One day, DPD was finally shut down, And everyone rejoiced. Finally, they could get the help they needed, From a real person who knew what they were doing.

This is…the opposite of an AI hallucination? It's AI clarity.

As with all botshit, this kind of AI self-negging is funny and fresh the first time you see it, but just wait until 3,000 people have published their own versions to your social feed. AI novelty regresses to the mean damn quickly.

The old, good web, by contrast, was full of enduring surprises, as the world's weirdest and most delightful mutants filled the early web with every possible variation on every possible interest, expression, argument, and gag. Now, you can search the old, good web with Old'aVista, an Altavista lookalike that searches old pages from "personal websites that used to be hosted on services like Geocities, Angelfire, AOL, Xoom and so on," all ganked from the Internet Archive:

http://oldavista.com/

I miss the old, good internet and the way it let weirdos find each other and get seriously weird with one another. Think of steampunk, a subculture that wove together artists, makers, costumers, fiction writers, and tinkerers in endlessly creative ways. My old pal Roger Wood was the world's most improbable steampunk: he was a gay ex-navy gunner who grew up in a small town in the maritimes but moved to Toronto where he became the world's most accomplished steampunk clockmaker.

I was Roger's neighbour for a decade. He died last year, and I miss him all the time. I was in Toronto in December and saw a few of his last pieces being sold in galleries and I was just skewered on the knowledge that I'd never see him again, never visit his workshop:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/16/klockwerks/#craphound

A reader just sent this five-year-old mini documentary about Roger, shot in his wonderful workshop. Watching it made me happy and sad and then happy again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqMGomM8yF8

The old, good internet was so great. It was a place where every kind of passion could live. It was a real testament to the power of geeking out together, no matter how often the suits demand that we "stop talking to each other and start buying things":

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

The world is full of people with weird passions and I love them all, mostly. Learning about Don Bolles's collection of decades' worth of lost pet posters was a moment of pure joy (I just wish more of it was online):

https://ameliatait.substack.com/p/the-man-who-collects-lost-pet-posters

That's the future I was promised: one where every kind of freak can find every other kind of freak. Despite the nipple-deep botshit we wade through online, and the relentless cheapening of words like "innovation" and "future," there are still occasional gleams of the future I want to live in.

Like the researchers who spliced a photosynthesis gene into brewer's yeast (a fungus) and got it to photosynthesize, and to display enhanced fitness:

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)01744-X

As Doug Muir writes on Crooked Timber, this is pretty kooky! Fungi – the coolest of the kingdoms! – can't photosynthesize. The idea that you can just add the photosynthesis gene to a thing that can't photosynthesize and have it just kind of work is wild!

https://crookedtimber.org/2024/01/19/occasional-paper-purple-sun-yeast/

As Muir writes: "Animals have no evolutionary history of photosynthesis and aren’t designed for it, but the same is true for yeast. So… no reason this shouldn’t be possible. A photosynthesizing cat? Sure, why not."

Why not indeed?!

OK, that's this week's linkdump done and dusted. It only remains for me to share the news with you that the trolley problem has been finally and comprehensively solved, by Sidereal@kolektiva.social, of the IWW IU 520 (railroad workers):

Slip the switch by flipping it while the trolley's front wheels have passed through, but before the back wheels do. This will cause a controlled derailment bringing the trolley to a safe halt.

https://kolektiva.social/@sidereal/111779015415697244

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/20/melange/#i-have-heard-the-mermaids-singing

[pocket-deer-boy]

A lot has been said i think about how a lot of internet "innovations" like Uber and Airbnb are really just capitalism circumventing pre-existing labor laws, and like, yeah, but i think it also applies more broadly. Youtube is a lot like TV but with no guarantee of pay, no labor rights protections for people making the videos (especially for people working behind the scenes, like video editors and such), and no oversight (a lot of obvious misinformation and plagiarism slips by)

I think the same honestly goes for influencers. Like okay fine you can all hate them, but are they not just advertisers with very few protections? Think of when Dylan Mulvaney did a brand sponsorship with bud light. The MASSIVE media backlash against what was ostensibly just a random civilian trans woman. Did she get any protections from bud light? Did she get any reparations for the enormous amount of harassment and threats she got? Fuck no. Immediately after the backlash the company dropped her like a brick, because of course, any association with her was now media poison. Influencers let companies shift the blame for bad PR entirely onto a workforce of untrained underpaid advertisers.

[i-smoke-chapstick]

'COME ON EILEEN!, [PART ONE]

-GOTHAM!VICTOR ZSASZ X READER-

⋆ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 ; You're not used to being seen, especially not by Jim Gordan. And especially not by Don Carmine Falcone.

⋆ tags/warnings. GOTHAM!victor x female reader. SLOW BURN!!! This is a 4 part fic. LOTS OF PLOT SET-UP!! AGE GAP ROMANCE! (reader is still in highschool). Some gore in the beginning. Takes a while for reader to meet Victor. Can I write a gotham fic without Victor being obsessive? Victor ends up getting REALLY protective later on. But also, eventual really soft Victor. Like, you're his world. Set during season 1.

⋆ 'PART ONE, - 'PART TWO, - 'PART THREE, - 'PART FOUR,

Special thanks to @adalwolfgang for giving me the courage to write this teehee

♫ “You are far too young and clever.” Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners

Your life had been strange. Ever since you moved to this goddamn city. You're parents thought it would be such a grand idea; move to the city of innovation. With WayneTech and a good classy old fashioned vibe. More like the city of crime, you think. This place is an absolute shit hole!

Well, sometimes it's a shit hole. Other times you understand the strange appeal. The school wasn't half bad, aside from the weird drug dealers you saw counting money in the hallways.

You made plenty of acquaintances, but not enough, really. All of the gothamite students kind of stuck to their own. Rich cliques and street trash. You didn't really fit in as a new comer.

Everything got even more complicated one day after class. You decided to stay late at the library, brushing up on whatever homework you had. Apparently you stayed later than you thought you had, because once you were done, the night had clouded over into a cool darkness.

You knew you shouldn't be by yourself at night in gotham. It was the biggest rule to living in this city. So, you quickly packed your shit and left.

Coming outside, the parking lot was damn near empty. You gripped the straps of your book bag and centered yourself. It would be a small walk home. No harm no foul.

Well, your false confidence quickly died out when you heard a man wailing from behind you. You wanted to keep walking, but you couldn't. Damn you and your moral compass.

You made the decision to sneak a peak behind you. Just behind the overarching brick wall of Gotham high, laid a student. And another man hanging over him. With a bloody baseball bat.

Your ears began to ring as you saw the face of the student, practically decimated and beaten inwards. You could only make out the vague words of "Help me!" and "This will teach you to bring me my money on time." Their voices overlapped, and the sound of metal hitting skin in a loud ca-thunk and a crunch. The man getting beat looked at you for help; well, with what was left of his face.

You immediately knew this was a weird drug deal altercation, and also none of your business. You turned on your heel and bolted, running for your life. The sound of the baseball and the sight of your fellow student beaten bloody haunted you the whole way home.

The next morning, it was all over the news. Well, not all over the news. Front page scoops were reserved for "Maroni's new take over! What's next for Gotham's Underground?" and "Wayne Enterprises launches new aerospace tech!" But if you looked hard enough and switched a few channels, you'd see the headline clear as day.

"Gotham High Student Found Beaten To Death on Campus"

You couldn't eat your breakfast that morning. A few bites an you needed to throw it up. You couldn't erase the memory. You did nothing.

You mustered up the strength to go to school though, knowing you would have too, or your mom would kill you. You felt sick the whole time getting dressed, brushing your teeth, and closing the door. What's worse was the walk to school, seeing your steps retraced from the night before. The city seemed awfully more cheery in the daylight.

When you finally made it to the campus, your heart dropped. At least 3 cop cars pulled up, caution tape and flashing camera lights. The body of the man was in the same spot you'd seen him in.

A cop was instructing wandering and gossiping students to get a move on to class and to stop staring. You heard them whispering. But you stayed stuck, unable to move. The memories played in your head.

You could hear the muffled yelling of the cop telling you to move, but you didn't seem to register it. Neither could you register the gruff voice of a man telling the cop to wait a minute.

A hand on your shoulder pulled you out of your thoughts. You turned around in a spasm, coming face to face with Jim fucking Gordan.

You'd seen him on the TV before. He'd been the cities hero as of late. Took out the balloon man. Red hood gang. Even the Wayne killer. Tons of others. You swallowed.

In a surprisingly gentle movement, he firmly grasped your shoulder and guided you to a more private area, away from the judgey glances of other students and cops who merely rolled their eyes at him. One in particular, which you knew to be his partner, Harvey Bullock, let out an obnoxious groan while taking a bite of a Sandwich.

"Hello. My name is Jim Gordan." He spoke to you softly.

"I know who you are." The words came out more defensive than you intended them too. He backed up a little bit, mouth open and nodding. He politely removed his hand from your shoulder.

He flashed a small, awkward smile. It made you furrow your brows.

"Did you see anything that happened here last night? Anything at all." His voice lowered to a whisper. Something about his voice was gentle, charismatic. His words illicited the memory of the student in a pool of his own blood.

Jim studied you and your every movement, and when you flinched, his eyes lit up. But he kept the same serious and soft expression.

"You did, didn't you?" He urged, bending down just a tad to be at your level. You backed up. "Listen, I need you to tell me what you saw."

You stayed silent. He inhaled through his nose.

"No one is going to hurt you. I promise. Just tell me your name, give me a statement." His tone is more firm this time, and nods in the far off direction of his partner. "I don't want to have to drag you down to the station."

You mulled over what he said, before sighing.

You bit your lip, and spilled your guts.

He took note of everything you said eagerly. And when he was done, he gave you a small thank-you. You nodded, and assumed that would be the end of things.

Hah! You were wrong.

Almost half the student body had seen you and Jim Gordan talking. Before long, you were the talk of the town. The newbie in town was privy to a case with Jim Gordan.

When Gordan caught the culprit? Now that was front page news. One of Maroni's men caught in the act of beating an underage student half to death over a few milligrams of coke. Selling it to minors actively. It reflected poorly on the entirety of his underground empire. Apparently even criminals had a conscious.

And in a strange way, you also got to reap some benefits. You made a lot of new friends now, on both sides of the school. The rich cliques applauded you for helping rid the city of cretins and return it to its former glory. Some rumors had spread, and now the street trash students thought you were some badass who gave Gordan a tough time before helping him. It was all bullshit- you thought. You just helped with a stupid case.

But now, it seemed you were the only one with a hand in both pools of water. And god, it was a lot of connections. You knew about every murder cover-up the rich kids parents paid for. You knew about every ATM robbery and drug deal the street kids made. Every creepy teacher sleeping with a student. Every staff member who faked their taxes. You were a walking encyclopedia of all the crimes in Gotham committed by students and adults alike.

You didn't ask for it. But...you were glad you could help, in away. None of your friends were really real. No, the only real friend you had was Jim Gordan.

He'd made it a point to come to you for almost everything now. Figured you made a better information source than penguin. Plus, you didn't ask for anything in return. You were just thankful for the company.

He'd come down and meet you in the library when he needed you, after school, away from prying eyes. He'd sneak the both of you into a storage closet, before asking for your help.

You'd asked him a few times if you could get involved more; first hand. You thought you could do more than just being a reference. But he always just gave you that awkward smile. "Next time." He'd promised. Next time never came.

You were getting tired of your role as an informant. And you weren't the only one who noticed.

You damn near kicked and clawed. You woke up one day, blindfolded and strapped to a leather chair. Light leaked through the blindfold, and you went to scream. But there was tape covering your mouth

You knew you shouldn't have told Jim Gordan any of this shit. God, were you a snitch?!? A rat for the GCPD. Of course some gang was going to tie you up and kill you at one point!

You felt your chest heave as you struggled against your restraints.

A voice boomed, and it shut up your struggling.

"Miss L/N." It was a mans voice. Much older. "Forgive me for shocking you."

The blindfold was taken off your eyes by another figure behind you. You squinted as the light hit your retinas, and you stood face to face with Don Carmine Falcone.

You were rendered speechless.

"Let me give you some context here," He continued, and you felt your heart drop. "I have a proposition, of sorts."

You breathed against the tape on your mouth, deathly silent. A proposition. What the hell did that mean? Were you going to get to choose the way you died?

"See, I admire those who have methodical approaches. Good work ethic. You seem to have both." He circled you, standing up. "I heard whispers of a young girl that seemed to have wormed her way into the GCPD."

He paused, looking you directly in the eye.

"You are an incredibly useful asset, Miss L/N. Does Gordan tell you that enough?" The man urged. You felt your heart rate settle; and your mind do flips. No, you thought. He really doesn't.

"...I propose, you do a job for me. A small one, I assure you." He put his hand up. "You attend school with a student whose father is deep into Maroni's operation. I assume you know who I'm speaking of."

You do.

"I also assume you know all about where said man resides, with the rest of his crew. I want you to tell me where exactly that is. And, I want you to go there with Victor."

The words coming out of his mouth were terrifying. Victor...Victor, Victor, Victor. You repeated the name over and over. And then it clicked.

Victor Zsasz.

Oh god, this couldn't be happening. A million questions rushed through out your head. Jim had told you about his incident with him.

You managed to turn to look over your shoulder in the direction Falcone nodded too. Sure enough, there the man stood.

Victor looked at you stoically, leather hand coming up to wave at you, like this was a joke. A frightening smile played on his lips as he took in your shaking form.

You looked back to Falcone, and he gently tore off the tape covering your mouth, and undid the restraints on your right hand. You breathed shakily.

"Why do you want me to go with Zsasz? I get being an informant- why do you want me to go kill a bunch of guys?!?" Your voice sounded strained. You meant for it to be more confident. You flexed your wrist where the restraints had been.

Falcone nodded. "That's for me to know." He stated bluntly, obviously not further elaborating. "Do we have a deal?"

"And If I say no?" You wavered, watching the Don stretch out a hand to shake on it. Falcone merely pursed his lips and frowned.

In a swift movement, he motioned back to Victor who stared you down intently. Victor mouthed the words, "I'm gonna stab you." With a stabbing gesture of his hand.

You swallowed.

And then you shook Falcone's hand.

[aloneinthehellfire]

Chapter Three: Bad Dreams

The Pariahs That Saved The World [Masterlist]

Word Count: 3.4k

Warnings: mentions of death, lots of angst

[A/N: I even surprised myself at the ending of this. Whatever my original plan for this series was has now been thrown out of the window just because I can never write without the angst-]

Bad Dreams

“Creepy.” You comment, staring up at the house in front of you.

“Can say that again.” Steve sighs, hands on his hips as he joins you.

“Creepy.” You repeat, smirking while you walk away with his irritated gaze on your back.

The Creel House stood tall despite its worn down exterior, the blackening wood and peeling paint only adding to the horrors you’ve heard of this place. Everything had been boarded up, blocking people from coming and going as they please. You’re just surprised they had never torn down the place.

Nancy and Steve grabbed some of Mr Wheeler’s borrowed tools and start working on the door, trying to tug out the nails holding it in place. You stand with your arms folded beside Robin, sending worried glances at Max every so often. You couldn’t help it, and you hoped she couldn’t feel your anxiety.

“I mean, what exactly are we looking for in this shithole?” Steve groans, discarding a nail on the ground.

“We’re not sure.” Nancy says and you clear your throat.

“This house is important to Vecna.” You speak up and you feel Robin’s eyes on you, making you feel hotter than you should. “Max wouldn’t have seen it in that mind world if it wasn’t.”

“Great.” Steve grumbles.

“Maybe it holds the key to where Vecna is. Why he’s back… Why he killed the Creels.” Dustin suggests, shrugging. “And how to stop him before he comes back for Max.”

“We don’t think he’s in here, do we?” Lucas voices and Max tightens her lips.

“Guess we’ll find out.”

With an agreed nod, Steve and Nancy pull back the board and let it thump onto the ground, the force whisking away leaves on the porch. Robin notices Max’s widened eyes and looks at the revealed door, viewing a stained glass window of a blue rose. Just like in her drawings.

The door rattles when Steve tries to open it, shoulders dropping in defeat.

“It’s locked.” He says and you snort, earning his glare. “Should I knock, see if anybody’s home?”

“Maybe Vecna is out grocery shopping.” You offer, trying to lessen the obviously tense mood of the whole situation. “Could always see if there’s another entrance…”

The comfort of Robin’s presence disappears from your side and you turn to see her grabbing something from the ground.

“No need.” She announces, holding up a discarded brick and smirking at you. “I found a key.”

“Innovative.” You smile, your eyes lingering a moment too long on eachother before you clear your throat and step aside, allowing her to launch the brick through the stained glass window.

You all could hear the brick rattling in an echo on the other side of the door before Steve slips his arm through the man-made hole and twists the door open, an eerie creak playing tricks with your mind.

Steve lets out a low whistle as you follow Nancy through, your boots crunching on sprinkled shards. It was dark in here, the dust forming a thick cloud even in the air as you squint. You feel Robin’s shoulder bump against yours and you look over to see her motioning to her flashlight. You nod, sticking by her side as everyone else piles in.

“Looks like someone forgot to pay their electric bill.” Lucas quips, standing back from the failed attempt at turning on a lamp.

Everyone immediately switches on their flashlights, leaving Steve puzzled.

“Where’d everyone get those?” He frowns and Dustin sends him a look.

“Do you need to be told everything? You’re not a child.”

“Thank you.” Steve deadpans, noticing your mouth opening slightly. “Don’t say another word.”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything.” You defend and he shakes his head. Robin hides a smirk, revelling in the fact that someone other than her could make him fidget like that.

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

“Back pocket.” Dustin hands his backpack over with a sigh, letting Steve pull out a spare flashlight and dump it on the ground when he was done.

You, Robin, and Nancy head into the first room you see, their flashlights sweeping over the place. Ratted curtains, dusty frames and untouched furniture told Robin this used to be a lounge, her eyes focusing on the old books scattered across the place. A family once used this space for leisure, and now they were dead.

“They just left everything.” Nancy frowns.

“I guess a triple homicide isn’t good for resale value.” Robin says and you feel your heartbeat quicken.

Four years ago, you had been investigating this place, the family, the murders, unsure of what you were going to discover. So much had been redacted and forgotten, making you think that maybe it was just another freak accident, that maybe the father did kill his family out of insanity. But part of you couldn’t believe that. You wanted to know the truth. Now that you did… you wished you had never started researching in the first place. For four years, you’ve been letting yourself be haunted by this place and its stories. You weren’t ready to know what made things go bump in the night.

“Hey, guys?” Max’s voice calls out from the hallway. She was stood in front of a grandfather clock, it’s age well past any working function. “You all see that, right?”

You all murmur in agreement and you frown, staring at the face with intensity. You had seen this before. In a record somewhere, presumably, but you couldn’t remember Victor mentioning anything about a clock. Why was this important?

“Is this what you saw? In your visions?” Nancy asks and Max nods, gulping.

“I mean, it’s… just a clock. Right?” Robin tries to calm her, gently moving past and wiping a hand across the dusty glass. “Like a normal old clock.”

“A normal old clock that wasn’t there before.” You mutter to yourself and Nancy looks at you expectedly. You only shake your head, unsure of how you could even explain anything you didn’t even know.

“Why is this wizard obsessed with clocks?” Steve shakes his head. “Maybe he’s, like, a clockmaker or something?”

“Think you cracked the case, Steve.” Dustin spits sarcastically.

“All I know is… the answers are here. Somewhere.” Nancy looks at you again, brows furrowed. “Right?”

“Nance-” You whisper, but she’s already turning away.

“Okay, everyone stay in groups of no less than two. Robin, Y/n, upstairs.” She commands and Robin salutes in agreement, stepping down from the clock and stopping by your side when she notices you haven’t moved.

Your eyes were still fixated on the clock and Robin places a hand on your arm.

“You okay?”

“Huh?” You peel your eyes away from the hands that remained frozen in time and blink at her. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”

When you reach the top of the staircase, you still feel Robin’s eyes on you, making you turn back to meet her. There’s a soft frown on her face until it drops completely when she realises she’s been caught, coughing.

“What?” You say with a breathy laugh and she avoids your eyes, head down.

Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Robin feels like her entire body is flushing red just under your gaze. Why was she staring? Could she not be normal? She literally met you not even two days ago and she was already out of her mind trying to make you like her. As a friend, of course. It’s not safe to make assumptions like that in this town. Between you and Vickie, she was having the worst spring break of her life.

“Robin?” You call out to her again and she takes a deep breath, straightening up.

“Guys.” Nancy’s head pokes out of the doorway, gesturing for you both to join her. Robin exhales in relief and immediately walks away, leaving you a little dumbfounded.

“She does that.” Steve comments as he and Dustin come up the staircase behind you, a hand on his hip as he shakes his head at Robin’s retreating form. “Kind of reminds me of someone.”

“Who?” You frown and he stares at you for a moment too long, making your lips purse in annoyance.

“Bingo.” He says before Dustin eventually drags him away.

Robin’s flashlight illuminates a desk in a bedroom, the surface covered in cobwebs and dust. She tries to study the small things scattered across it; some books, perfume, a box. It kind of reminded her of Nancy’s room a little bit. The light shone onto the edge and her breath catches, brows furrowing. This part wasn’t as dusty as the rest.

“So,” Nancy comes back through the adjoining room she was investigating, smiling at Robin. “You and Y/n are…”

“What?” Robin almost drops her flashlight, muttering an excuse about Nancy making her jump. “Are, uh… are what?”

“Friends, I assume.” Nancy shakes her head like it was obvious, “You seem to be getting along.”

“Oh.” She nods, forcing herself to act casual as she inspects the shelves. “Yeah. I mean, she’s nice. I don’t really know her that well, though. And it’s only been like, what, a day? Obviously not enough time to know eachother but she’s cool, not like too cool for us kind of cool but cool like… yeah, she’s nice.”

Nancy hums, her smile growing when you walk into the room.

“What did I miss?” You ask, barely glancing at the room around you. Robin turns her head in your direction, looking at how you stood right next to the bed.

“Nothing.” Nancy sighs, looking around her one last time. “Maybe we’re approaching this the wrong way? I mean, the answers aren’t gonna be in plain sight.”

A massive crash echoes out from down the hall and Nancy’s eyes widen before she goes to investigate.

“Nice room, right?” Robin says and you blink, an unnatural head movement making you look around.

“Yeah, I guess. Could use a cleaner.” You add and she smiles, hearing Steve’s voice mutter something about a black widow. You mouth it at her in curiosity and she shrugs, following you to the noise.

“I got it.” Nancy says, picking something out of Steve’s hair as he lets out a breathy ‘thank you’.

“If there’s a spider nesting in there, you’re never gonna find it until it lays eggs and the babies spill out.” Robin says as you round the corner, making you laugh.

“What’s wrong with you?” Steve sighs in frustration and Robin chuckles. “Robin, seriously. She’s got problems.”

“Yeah.” Nancy agrees in a whisper and you roll your eyes. Some little part of you hated the way they talked about Robin.

“Did you get the spider?” You question her and she nods, “Shame. It might be the only thing that will ever be attracted by the amount of products you put into that hair.”

“Wha-” Steve turns in surprise, shaking his head. “Have you got a problem with me or something?”

“Ooh.” You blink, crossing your arms. “I don’t have the time in the day to even begin answering that.”

“Hey, you wanted to be here.” Steve frowns, both of you ignoring Nancy’s attempt at defusing the situation. “It’s not like I dragged you into this, why are you taking it out on me?”

“I have never once blamed you.” You scoff, “You’ve been nothing but shitty towards me since I got here.”

“Oh, and you’ve been a peach?” He challenges, making you narrow your eyes. “What is your problem with me?”

“Uh, guys? You’re both very pretty, how about we calm down?” Robin interjects this time, slightly taken aback by how furious you looked. Your eyes soften when you turn to her, however, losing that angry spark.

“Robin’s right, this isn’t the time.” Nancy says softly and your lips tighten.

“Right.” You slowly nod, a sad laugh leaving your lips. “We wouldn’t want emotions getting in the way.”

Robin watches as both of their faces drop, Nancy’s eyes widening while Steve started looking very uncomfortable. She knew about your dad, about how he had died like so many other people last year. But this didn’t look like guilt on their faces. It was regret.

“I think I saw another staircase, so…” You vaguely gesture behind you before taking off.

Robin hesitates for a moment before following you, rushing to your side. As soon as you hear her footsteps approach, you sigh.

“You don’t have to-”

“You need a light.” She says, flicking on her flashlight. “I also think you might need a friend.”

When you both turned the corner to the staircase you had in mind, you didn’t ascend them. Instead, you plop yourself down on one of the lower steps and put your head in your hands, feeling Robin’s comfort settle beside you.

For once in her life, Robin doesn’t speak first. She doesn’t try to fill the awkward silence with her forced ramble of words because she doesn’t feel like she has to. So, when you lift your head and take a deep breath, she knows she’s finally made the right choice.

“Last year…” You begin, turning your head towards her but never meeting her eyes. “I had to make a lot of decisions. A lot of them were easy, but… I swore to myself that I wouldn’t let anyone I love get hurt.”

“Your dad?” Robin asks quietly and you let out a breathy laugh, looking at her.

“I didn’t really have a good relationship with him.” You admit and she nods along, looking back at you like she knew exactly what you meant. “He worked at the Post. Um… I had been working there for a while after I graduated. I managed to get Nancy and Jonathan jobs there, too. He was one of the… he got flayed.”

“Shit.” Robin sighs and you nod. Nancy had only told her he died last year. She had no idea it was because of that thing.

“When he showed up at the hospital, I got… scared. All I wanted to do was run away.” Your face scrunches and she can tell you’re holding something back from her. “Um, Nancy and Jonathan convinced me to stay, told me they needed me there. And I ended up getting hurt. It’s not… I don’t blame them. It was my decision. They just… it’s hard to explain.”

“So you went to college.” Robin nods along and you smile at her. “I would’ve done the same. If I was even out of high school yet. God, I completely forgot about that part.”

“Spring break, right?” You smirk at her and she laughs, clapping her hands.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure everyone else is in, like, Spain or something. But what could ever compare to hunting down an evil wizard from an alternate dimension?”

“Honestly, they’re missing out.” You joke and, for a moment, you completely forgot about why you were sat here with her in the first place. But then that anger creeps in again, caged emotions you’ve been tucking away into the back of your mind threatening to break free. “I think… I think it was a bad idea for me to come.”

“What?” Robin’s head whips up, eyebrows scrunching together beneath her bangs. “No, we- we need you here.”

“Do you?” You ask, scrunching your face again. “Everything you guys know right now, that’s all I have to offer you. I wanna be here for Max, I really do, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be here when I obviously can’t-”

You gesture to the direction of where you had left Steve and Nancy, sighing. Robin was quiet and you started to think that maybe she was agreeing with you. You were only causing arguments and living in your feelings from the past, dishing out the blame like it wasn’t your choice to stay at that hospital.

“I think you know more than you’re telling us.”

Your wide eyes find Robin’s, her own still remained soft and inquisitive, studying your reaction.

“I don’t-”

“You knew where this staircase was.” She stops you, looking behind her at where it trailed up, “Except, you couldn’t have just noticed this here. We couldn’t see it from the main staircase, and Nancy never led us over in this direction.”

You hear Lucas’ voice call for everyone and you stand up, clearing your throat. “We should-”

“I kept seeing cleaner spaces everywhere.” Robin stands and holds out her arm to block you from leaving. “The bedroom, I- I saw a spot that wasn’t as dusty as the others, like someone more recent than the Creels had been in there. And when you walked in, you didn’t even try and look around, like you had seen it all before.”

Your breath hitches in your throat and Robin’s eyes widen.

“Because you have been here before.” She frowns at you, and she’s never seen you look so small. “Y/n. Have you been here before?”

“Guys?” Steve’s voice calls out from below as you struggle to answer her. His feet come bounding up the steps, peering around the corner to find you both staring at one another. “Hey, hope I’m not interrupting or whatever, but we’ve got company.”

When Robin doesn’t answer, he raises his hands in surrender and backs away. “Whatever, just be ready.”

“He’s here.” You whisper out when Steve was out of earshot, your begging eyes set on Robin. “Robin, we can’t be here, it’s not safe.”

She starts to shake her head, feeling like her heartbeat was thrumming in her ears. “What-”

The flashlight in her hand starts flickering wildly, a rush of footsteps echoing out from the hallway. Nancy mentions something about following Vecna, the lights leading them up the staircase and straight past you both, assuming you’d be following.

“What’s up there?” She asks, her voice almost inaudible.

“The attic.” You say, shaking your head as if you were surprised you even knew it. “Robin, I don’t-”

“Have you been lying to us?” She questions, chest heaving. “Did you know what was going on this whole time?”

“No!” You grab onto her jacket when she moves towards the stairs. “No, Robin, please, you have to believe me. I had no idea who Vecna was, I didn’t know any of this was going to happen! I- I don’t-”

“You don’t, what?” She challenges, staring at you like she was afraid. “How do you know what’s up there, how did you know about the bedroom-”

“Because I dreamt about it!” You finally blurt, a tear slipping down your cheek. She looks startled, frozen in place, and you take the chance to finally explain yourself. “Four years ago, I had a really vivid dream about a house, about murders. I- I thought it was just another nightmare, but something didn’t feel right about it so I researched and that’s when I found out about the Creel massacre. That’s why I started researching it in the first place. I wanted to know why I was seeing it. When I couldn’t find any photos of the place, I broke in here. I told myself it was just for research, but I… I started looking everywhere, and I couldn’t find it- I couldn’t…”

“Find what?” She almost slips on a step as she moves back towards you, a fearful look in her eye.

“The clock.” You say, wiping your tear. “I remember seeing a clock in my dream, and it wasn’t here. Not before, not when I looked. But then Max found it, and I- I don’t know what’s happening, I can’t- I can’t explain any of it but I just have this really bad feeling that we shouldn’t be here, we shouldn’t-”

The light in Robin’s hand starts beaming brighter, making her drop it out of shock. It rolled across the ground, hitting the bottom step of the staircase and then, without warning, it shattered completely.

You both jump, Robin’s hand grabbing your arm as she looks away. You can both hear the murmurs from the attic, telling you this was happening to everyone. And, for some reason, you felt numb. Completely numb.

When Robin finally shakes away her fear, she lifts her head, closer to you now than before. There was a trickle stain of a tear running down your cheek, your bottom lip red from where you would gnaw on it constantly when you were stressed. There was so much about you she didn’t know, so much you probably would never tell anyone else.

“I promise.” You start, bringing your eyes to meet hers. “I will tell you everything. But you can’t tell anyone else. Please.”

Fuck, Robin thought, staring back into your eyes. How could she say no to you?

taglist: @kryztalglear / @dejerw / @officerrrfriendly / @a-simpfortessa-lesbriean / @spacedoutdaydreamer / @endurexxsurvive / @em16cor / @gray-cheese / @chaosofmanyfandoms / @kitdjarin1

[snpcmachine]

May the colors of Holi ignite the flames of creativity and inspiration within you

SnPC Machines: Factory of bricks on wheel

Brick Making Vehicle Or Best Brick Making Company: Our Machines Are Designed To Be Mobile Or Portable Units And Can Be Easily Transported To The Site Where The Clay Bricks Are Required We Have A Assembly Plant In India. Our Mobile Brick Making Machines Are Viral And Trending In The Name Of SnPC Clay Mobile Brick Making Machines India, SnPC Clay Mobile Brick Making Machines Nepal, SnPC Clay Brick Making Machines In Bangladesh, Clay Brick Making Machine In Afghanistan, SnPC Brick Making Machine India, SnPC Red Brick Making Machine In Tamilnadu, SnPC Brick Making Machine In Tamilnadu, SnPC Brick Making Machine In Assam, SnPC Brick Making Machine Utterpradesh, SnPC Brick Making Machine Rajasthan, SnPC Brick Making Machine Punjab, SnPC Brick Making Machine Uttarakhand, SnPC Brick Making Machine Haryana, SnPC Brick Making Machine Bihar, SnPC Brick Making Machine Karnataka, SnPC Brick Making Machine Andhra Pradesh, SnPC Brick Making Machine Telangana, SnPC Brick Making Machine Odisha, SnPC Brick Making Machine Maharashtra, SnPC Brick Making Machine Gujarat, Clay Brick Making Machine In Uzbekistan, Clay Brick Making Machine In Kyrgyzstan, Clay Brick Making Machine In Kazakhstan,SnPC Brick Making Machine In UP, SnPC Mobile Clay Brick Making Machine In Saudi Arabia And Clay Brick Making Machine With Dryer.

[claybrickmachine]

Bricks for a solid foundation

SnPC Clay bricks making machine India

At SnPC Machine, We Are Committed To Providing Our Customers With The Best Possible Products And Services For Both Indian And Overseas Customers. Our Team Of Experts Is Always On Hand To Provide Advice And Support, And We Offer A Range Of After-Sales Services To Ensure That Our Machines Are Always Running At Their Best. Contact Us Today To Learn More About Our Range Of Brick Making Machines.

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Month - August 2024

1.Negative Power Prices Hit Europe as Renewable Energy Floods the Grid

European power markets are experiencing a notable shift as renewable energy sources, particularly wind and solar, become a larger part of the energy mix. On Wednesday, power prices in several European markets, including Germany, dipped below zero due to a surge in green electricity production.

2. Taiwan introduces ban on performances by captive wild animals

Live performances by wild animals held in captivity, including performances by dolphins, tigers, and other non-domesticated mammals, will no longer be permitted in Taiwan under new Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) regulations.

3. FTC bans fake online reviews, inflated social media influence; rule takes effect in October

The FTC voted unanimously to ban marketers from using fake reviews, such as those generated with AI technology, and other misleading advertising practices.

The ban also forbids marketers from exaggerating their own influence by, for example, paying for bots to inflate their follower count.

4. Chinese drones will fly trash out of Everest slopes

Come autumn, Nepal will deploy heavy lifter drones to transport garbage from the 6,812-metre tall Ama Dablam, south of Everest. This will be the first commercial work an unmanned aerial vehicle does in Nepal’s high-altitude zone.

The heavy lifter from China’s biggest drone maker, Da Jiang Innovations (DJI), will take on tasks traditionally handled by Sherpas. Officials believe it will help reduce casualties on Everest.

5. Swiss scientists have found a way to use the whole cocoa fruit to make chocolate and not just taking beans and discarding the rest.

Kim Mishra (L) and Anian Schreiber (R) cooperated on the new chocolate making process

Food scientists in Switzerland have come up with a way to make chocolate using the entire cocoa fruit rather than just the beans - and without using sugar.

The chocolate, developed at Zurich’s prestigious Federal Institute of Technology by scientist Kim Mishra and his team includes the cocoa fruit pulp, the juice, and the husk, or endocarp.

6. Six-year-old boy found in Vietnam forest after five days

A six-year-old boy who was missing for five days has been found deep in a forest in Vietnam. Dang Tien Lam, who lives in the northwestern Yen Bai province, was playing in a stream with his nine siblings on 17 August when he wandered into the hills and got lost, local reports said.

He was found on Wednesday by local farmers who heard a child's cry while they were clearing a cinnamon field close to the forest.

7. Lego plans to make half the plastic in bricks from renewable materials by 2026

Lego plans to make half the plastic in its bricks from renewable or recycled material rather than fossil fuels by 2026, in its latest effort to ensure its toys are more environmentally friendly.

The Danish company last year ditched efforts to make bricks entirely from recycled bottles because of cost and production issues. At the moment, 22% of the material in its colourful bricks is not made from fossil fuels.

----------

That's it for this month :)

This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation here:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Also don’t forget to share this post with your friends.

[visit-new-york]

Are there any interesting events or stories related to the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge?

The Brooklyn Bridge stands as an iconic symbol of engineering prowess, connecting the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn in a testament to human ingenuity. However, behind its majestic silhouette lies a tapestry of captivating events and stories that unfolded during its construction. From tragic accidents to innovative engineering solutions, the history of the Brooklyn Bridge is as rich and intriguing as the structure itself.

The Visionary Engineer: John A. Roebling

The inception of the Brooklyn Bridge can be traced back to the vision of German-born engineer John A. Roebling. His dream was to create a bridge that would span the East River and provide a vital link between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Unfortunately, Roebling's life was cut short by a tragic accident during the bridge's preliminary survey in 1869. Despite this setback, his son, Washington Roebling, stepped up to fulfill his father's ambitious vision.

Washington Roebling's Struggle: Overcoming the Bends

Washington Roebling faced numerous challenges during the bridge's construction, none more formidable than the perilous conditions of working underwater. The construction required workers to descend into caissons, massive underwater chambers used to build the bridge's foundations. However, this came at a cost – the bends, a debilitating condition caused by rapid changes in pressure. Washington Roebling himself fell victim to the bends, but his determination led him to supervise the project from his sickroom using a telescope and a system of communication through his wife, Emily.

The Roebling Connection: Emily Roebling's Role in Completion

Following her husband's illness, Emily Roebling played a crucial role in overseeing the completion of the bridge. She became the de facto chief engineer, managing the day-to-day operations and communicating with engineers and workers. Emily Roebling's leadership and intelligence were instrumental in ensuring the project's success, making her an unsung hero in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Great Roebling Feud: A Clash of Visions

The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge witnessed a clash of visions between Washington Roebling and his brother, Ferdinand Roebling. Ferdinand advocated for alternative engineering approaches, leading to a bitter feud that strained family relations. Despite the discord, the bridge continued to take shape, a testament to the unwavering commitment of those involved.

Innovations and Firsts: A Bridge of Many Milestones

The Brooklyn Bridge was a pioneering project that introduced several engineering innovations. It was the first bridge to use caissons on such a massive scale, and its cable design by John A. Roebling set new standards in bridge engineering. The completion of the bridge in 1883 marked the first time in history that Manhattan and Brooklyn were physically connected.

Conclusion:

The Brooklyn Bridge's construction is not just a story of bricks and steel; it's a narrative woven with tragedy, perseverance, and innovation. From the ambitious dreams of John A. Roebling to the indomitable spirit of Washington and Emily Roebling, each chapter of the bridge's history reveals the human side of monumental engineering achievements. As the Brooklyn Bridge continues to stand as a symbol of connection, its story remains etched in the annals of both engineering marvels and the human spirit.

[silverskye13]

Crawls in, summones. Don't think I didn't see that tag. Rancher SOS AU? - Dove

[looks around conspiratorially.]

Just... Don't tell anyone where you got it okay?

[slips you this snippet]

[tips my hat]

On the house!

Tango was muddling through his clockwork horse’s engine, making sure all his tinkering from the weeks before wasn't falling apart. There were some signs of tension from the heat -- going from a dead stop to a gallop had probably done that -- but nothing looked like it was about to explode or melt or fall apart. He moved on to the less crucial bits, staring into the shoulders to make sure the sockets weren't breaking down from the strain of pulling.

“Does she have a name?”

Jimmy’s voice was so close by his ear, Tango felt it as much as he heard it. He gave an inglorious cry filled with half a dozen incoherent syllables. He spun on his heels and, startled again by how close Jimmy was standing, smacked the swordsman on the arm. He might as well have smacked a brick wall.

“Hey hey hey! Personal space!” Tango shouted, taking a step backwards only to press his back against the horse’s flank, cornered. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack or what?”

Jimmy’s eyebrows raised in surprise, his blue eyes so pale in the morning light, they were nearly white. He raised his hands placatingly and laughed, a loud, bubbling sound that turned everything from the expression on his face to the tilt of his shoulders into a grin. “Woah! Sorry Big Man! I thought you heard me come up.”

“Well I didn't!” Tango snapped a little too fiercely, his heart racing. His mouth was dry, and there was a fearful moment where he wondered if Jimmy had seen him, had known what he was doing.

Wonder workers weren't taboo -- at least, not in Anuket City, where innovation was something fervently pursued, and anything that could grant someone a head start was expected to be exploited. But he heard tales of wonder workers who were run out of their villages because of the strangeness of their gifts; of priests of the Hanged Mother and similar cults who would use any excuse to persecute people. More recently, there had even been rumors of a rogue wonder worker to the north whose horrible clay creations came to life and chopped off people's heads. Being a wonder worker was starting to get dangerous again, and Tango… Tango was scared. And it was obvious he was scared. And it struck him suddenly, standing there, pinned between this massive swordsman and his stupid clockwork horse, that he didn't know anything about the man he was traveling with, besides the fact that he whistled and enjoyed small talk, and was capable of great violence.

Jimmy offered an apologetic smile. He kept his hands forward, fingers splayed to reinforce their emptiness, and took a large, exaggerated step back. “I really am sorry, Tango. I should've figured you'd still be a bit keyed up from yesterday. You okay?”

It was all Tango could do not to audibly sigh with relief. He latched onto the excuse like it could save him from drowning. “I’m… yeah I'm a little freaked out I guess. It was hard to get to sleep last night.”

Both not technically lies.

“First time having your life threatened?” Jimmy asked lightheartedly, his smile still apologetic.

“Er… no.” Tango mumbled, scuffing his boot across the ground, feeling embarrassed. “I had a rival engineer sabotage one of my machines once.”

“No kidding?”

“It exploded,” Tango said. “I was lucky I was out of the room when it went off.”

“I did notice you were lacking the ah, outward signs of a close shave with an explosion,” Jimmy laughed nervously, and Tango thought that was probably the most roundabout way to say ‘You've got all your limbs, and aren't covered in burn scars.’

Tango swallowed hard, and decided to change the topic before they dipped into new, perilous territory. “How about you? Feeling… uh… jumpy?”

“What? Me?” Jimmy gave a dashing grin, “I've had worse than a pair of robbers running at me before.” His expression mellowed a bit, and he thumbed the bandages on his forearm thoughtfully. “I'd be lying if I said I was used to this kind of thing. You don't just get used to people trying to kill you. But… I dunno. It's like -- it's like dealing with a fear of deep water by learning how to swim, isn't it? It's scary, but you know how to keep your head above water, yeah?”

Tango blinked, struck momentarily speechless by the unexpectedly profound answer. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Well, fear not, dear Tango of the Tek Variety,” Jimmy said, reclaiming his bravado. He flashed Tango a winning smile and a sweeping bow. “As long as I'm kicking around, you’re safe. Or as safe as anyone can be, anyway. It is what I'm here for.”

“Right, yeah, exactly,” Tango chuckled, a blush heating the tips of his ears. He could say with honesty he'd never been offered a knightly bow by anyone before. Up until this exact moment, he probably would have called such a gesture showy and stupid. He didn't know how Jimmy had managed to make it charming, Tango could feel his pulse quickening a bit in his chest.

Oh gods.

“We should -- we should get going.” Tango said, desperate for a distraction from this over-friendly swordsman and his dashing bravado. “We’re burning daylight.”

“Right you are,” Jimmy smirked, and, whistling, got to work striking camp. Tango muttered a few choice words under his breath about stupid nonsense feelings and stupid pretty people, and finished checking the horse for repairs.