#SAP for small industries

[ingenx]

It's a powerful tool that can be tailored to fit the specific needs and budget constraints of small industries. Whether it's through RISE with SAP solutions or SAP Cloud’s accessible and scalable solutions, embracing SAP is an investment in your business's future.

[skysurge-sap]

Make manufacturing simple with SAP Business One Cloud! 🌟 Plan and track your work, check for missing materials, and keep everything running smoothly. It's like having a smart helper to make sure you finish on time and save money too

[cogniscient-business-solutions]

Emerging ERP Trends Shaping the Future in 2024

In today’s fast-paced business environment, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have become essential for streamlining operations and providing a unified approach to managing various company processes. As we navigate through 2024, several key trends are transforming the ERP landscape, reflecting the ongoing technological advancements and evolving business needs.

Augmented Financial Efficiency:

SAP ERP solutions are becoming increasingly vital across diverse industries. These systems not only provide valuable insights into profitability, revenue, and cost but also incorporate advanced forecasting and predictive analytics. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, modern ERP systems can analyze historical financial data to offer precise predictions and recommendations, enhancing decision-making processes.

Cloud-First Approach:

The shift towards cloud-based ERP solutions is driven by their robust security, flexibility, and scalability. The subscription-based model associated with cloud ERP systems offers cost-effectiveness while facilitating real-time collaboration among teams spread across different locations. These systems also provide easy integration with various applications and ensure seamless upgrades.

Mobile ERP Solutions:

Mobile ERP applications have gained prominence due to their accessibility and functionality. They simplify tasks such as expense reporting, workflow approvals, and performance monitoring. The optimized user interfaces for various devices ensure a consistent experience across smartphones, tablets, and desktops, making ERP systems more versatile and user-friendly.

Integration of Machine Learning and AI:

Machine learning and artificial intelligence are now integral to ERP systems, enhancing capabilities such as fraud detection, predictive maintenance, and customer segmentation. Natural language processing features enable users to interact with ERP systems using chatbots and voice commands, streamlining queries and data entry processes.

IoT Integration:

The incorporation of the Internet of Things (IoT) into SAP ERP systems allows for real-time monitoring of assets like vehicles and equipment. This integration facilitates optimized resource utilization and proactive maintenance by analyzing data to identify inefficiencies and automate necessary actions.

Enhanced Security Measures:

Advanced encryption techniques, anomaly detection algorithms, and multi-factor authentication are crucial for safeguarding sensitive data within ERP systems. Regular security audits and continuous monitoring help ensure compliance with industry standards, offering a secure platform for businesses.

Focus on ESG and Sustainability:

SAP ERP modules now emphasize sustainability management, tracking key performance indicators related to carbon emissions, waste generation, energy consumption, and social responsibility. These analytical tools provide insights into the environmental and social impacts of business operations, supporting data-driven sustainability initiatives.

Quantum Computing and Blockchain:

Blockchain technology enhances transparency and traceability in transactions, particularly in sectors with complex regulatory demands and supply chains. Meanwhile, quantum computing promises faster data processing and improved encryption, potentially boosting the performance and security of ERP systems.

Broadening Operational Scope:

Modern ERP systems are expanding to integrate with third-party services and applications, supporting comprehensive end-to-end business processes. Integration of modules like customer relationship management, supply chain management, and business intelligence provides a unified view of organizational operations and performance metrics.

Conclusion:

In summary, these evolving ERP trends for 2024 illustrate the rapid advancements in technology and their impact on business operations. Companies that embrace these innovations will benefit from increased efficiency, adaptability, and improved decision-making. For organizations seeking to implement these latest trends, Cogniscient offers specialized ERP solutions tailored to meet specific needs and goals.

[cogniscientsap]

SAP Business One Gold Partner Noida |Delhi |Gurgaon| Ghaziabad India

Elevate your interior decor and furniture manufacturing business with SAP Business One Take control of your success

Trusted SAP Business One Gold Partner with 500+ Successful Implementations including Kanpur, Jaipur, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Manesar, Indore, Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata, Faridabad, Sonipat, Raipur, Ambala Etc.

[syluses]

BREADWINNER┃sylus

cw. smut, boxer! sylus, literally purely nsfw, sylus is down bad but just a teensy bit mean here, below 1k words, fem reader, 18+ characters

this isn’t the best idea, he knows.

fucking you, he means. it’s not wise, it’s certainly not conducive to his upcoming match’s success (set to commence in the next half hour)— hell, it’s not even sanitary, not really. there’s something distinctly filthy about this all when sylus crams you against the shower wall, the rather grimy one his dressing room has to offer, and hoists you up to rut into you deeper as you cry.

you don’t want anyone to hear. his team, or more notably his coach- waiting outside the door and pacing as he readies his number one fighter’s gloves and gear.

sylus does.

there’s a whole stadium full of people waiting with barely-contained excitement just down the hall where the back area opens up to the seemingly boundless ring. he knows it’s all for naught but fuck he hopes they hear as he pounds into your poor cunt senselessly and makes a vow in your ear, saying, i’ll win it for you.

you’d admire his dedication if you were a little more lucid, but right now, the better part of your rationale has faded.

he feels good. so good. you can’t even be mad at him for going against his coach’s advice, being warned off intimacy before a match because it’ll sap him of his strength- his physical vigor- completely. there’s no room for frustration when you’re damn near certain his cockhead is rearranging your guts as you hold onto him for dear life, when he bites into your neck- not to a painful degree, but just to leave a pretty mark, proof you’re his- and moans.

he tuts when you whimper. bastard. but to his credit, and sometimes to your displeasure, his cocksure attitude is grounded: he wins all his battles. he has every right to brag, but that doesn’t mean that sometimes you won’t get fed up with his bravado and try to knock him down a peg… you think it’s good for him; you’re like his tether to planet earth as he makes a small empire off the boxing industry.

(albeit, he seems less interested in that and more so in impressing you with its wages.)

“nawh. what’s wrong, sweetie?” he asks, honey-sweet, tone deceptively cloying for the wicked, self-satisfied glint in his eye. and you make a silent swear right then and there that you’ll get him back for this later. (but not now. he feels delicious inside you and you can hardly swat his hands away as they grasp your hips to anchor you as he bullies his way in.)

“if i’m not mistaken, you were telling me just moments ago how we shouldn’t do this, how bad of an idea it is that i… touch you.” he breathes, playful.

maybe he’s being a little meaner now, okay, he’ll grant that much, but he hopes you know that adrenaline’s already coursing through him, that he can’t help the testosterone that spikes in his veins preceding a fight. it’s hard to not act on it. coach’s words be damned- sylus feels more hyped up, thrilled, than anything when he’s fucking you within an inch of your life in his temporary room’s bathroom. certainly not tired, or drained, or any other thing he sagely warned him about, painting sex before a match like it was anathema in itself, a ticket to a sure loss.

oh, okay, that’s great and all, but sylus doesn’t lose.

you manage a pout between gasping, delighted breaths. “you-! i- i hope you lose!”

pearly teeth flash at you, spotting your lie easily. his broad, muscled chest rumbles with a deep chuckle, the bass of it making your legs all the more weak where they wrap around his hips. “ouch, kitten, you’re hurting my feelings now. if i don’t have your support during the match,… then what’s the point in it?” he quips back, lighthearted, though you can tell he means what he’s saying.

that bold grin of his falters when he hits particularly deep and you clench around him, nails digging into his traps. he slants into you more, if that’s possible, bowing his head in the sweaty juncture of your neck and collar.

“y-you’re lucky i even go to your stupid matches,” you mewl back, brows furrowed with all the indignity you can possibly muster.

he gives a low hum, voice strained, words meaningful beneath all the layers of want and hunger. “i am lucky,” he pants. “and you’ll watch me again tonight, hm?” he plants a doting kiss to your clavicle, oddly tender for the moment, peering up at you with ruby eyes aflame.

“when i bring that belt home for you?”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Greenwashing set Canada on fire

On September 22, I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

As a teenager growing up in Ontario, I always envied the kids who spent their summers tree planting; they'd come back from the bush in September, insect-chewed and leathery, with new muscle, incredible stories, thousands of dollars, and a glow imparted by the knowledge that they'd made a new forest with their own blistered hands.

I was too unathletic to follow them into the bush, but I spent my summers doing my bit, ringing doorbells for Greenpeace to get my neighbours fired up about the Canadian pulp-and-paper industry, which wasn't merely clear-cutting our old-growth forests – it was also poisoning the Great Lakes system with PCBs, threatening us all.

At the time, I thought of tree-planting as a small victory – sure, our homegrown, rapacious, extractive industry was able to pollute with impunity, but at least the government had reined them in on forests, forcing them to pay my pals to spend their summers replacing the forests they'd fed into their mills.

I was wrong. Last summer's Canadian wildfires blanketed the whole east coast and midwest in choking smoke as millions of trees burned and millions of tons of CO2 were sent into the atmosphere. Those wildfires weren't just an effect of the climate emergency: they were made far worse by all those trees planted by my pals in the eighties and nineties.

Writing in the New York Times, novelist Claire Cameron describes her own teen years working in the bush, planting row after row of black spruces, precisely spaced at six-foot intervals:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/opinion/wildfires-treeplanting-timebomb.html

Cameron's summer job was funded by the logging industry, whose self-pegulated, self-assigned "penalty" for clearcutting diverse forests of spruce, pine and aspen was to pay teenagers to create a tree farm, at nine cents per sapling (minus camp costs).

Black spruces are made to burn, filled with flammable sap and equipped with resin-filled cones that rely on fire, only opening and dropping seeds when they're heated. They're so flammable that firefighters call them "gas on a stick."

Cameron and her friends planted under brutal conditions: working long hours in blowlamp heat and dripping wet bulb humidity, amidst clouds of stinging insects, fingers blistered and muscles aching. But when they hit rock bottom and were ready to quit, they'd encourage one another with a rallying cry: "Let's go make a forest!"

Planting neat rows of black spruces was great for the logging industry: the even spacing guaranteed that when the trees matured, they could be easily reaped, with ample space between each near-identical tree for massive shears to operate. But that same monocropped, evenly spaced "forest" was also optimized to burn.

It burned.

The climate emergency's frequent droughts turn black spruces into "something closer to a blowtorch." The "pines in lines" approach to reforesting was an act of sabotage, not remediation. Black spruces are thirsty, and they absorb the water that moss needs to thrive, producing "kindling in the place of fire retardant."

Cameron's column concludes with this heartbreaking line: "Now when I think of that summer, I don’t think that I was planting trees at all. I was planting thousands of blowtorches a day."

The logging industry committed a triple crime. First, they stole our old-growth forests. Next, they (literally) planted a time-bomb across Ontario's north. Finally, they stole the idealism of people who genuinely cared about the environment. They taught a generation that resistance is futile, that anything you do to make a better future is a scam, and you're a sucker for falling for it. They planted nihilism with every tree.

That scam never ended. Today, we're sold carbon offsets, a modern Papal indulgence. We are told that if we pay the finance sector, they can absolve us for our climate sins. Carbon offsets are a scam, a market for lemons. The "offset" you buy might be a generated by a fake charity like the Nature Conservancy, who use well-intentioned donations to buy up wildlife reserves that can't be logged, which are then converted into carbon credits by promising not to log them:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/12/fairy-use-tale/#greenwashing

The credit-card company that promises to plant trees every time you use your card? They combine false promises, deceptive advertising, and legal threats against critics to convince you that you're saving the planet by shopping:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/17/do-well-do-good-do-nothing/#greenwashing

The carbon offset world is full of scams. The carbon offset that made the thing you bought into a "net zero" product? It might be a forest that already burned:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/11/a-market-for-flaming-lemons/#money-for-nothing

The only reason we have carbon offsets is that market cultists have spent forty years convincing us that actual regulation is impossible. In the neoliberal learned helplessness mind-palace, there's no way to simply say, "You may not log old-growth forests." Rather, we have to say, "We will 'align your incentives' by making you replace those forests."

The Climate Ad Project's "Murder Offsets" video deftly punctures this bubble. In it, a detective points his finger at the man who committed the locked-room murder in the isolated mansion. The murderer cheerfully admits that he did it, but produces a "murder offset," which allowed him to pay someone else not to commit a murder, using market-based price-discovery mechanisms to put a dollar-figure on the true worth of a murder, which he duly paid, making his kill absolutely fine:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

What's the alternative to murder offsets/carbon credits? We could ask our expert regulators to decide which carbon intensive activities are necessary and which ones aren't, and ban the unnecessary ones. We could ask those regulators to devise remediation programs that actually work. After all, there are plenty of forests that have already been clearcut, plenty that have burned. It would be nice to know how we can plant new forests there that aren't "thousands of blowtorches."

If that sounds implausible to you, then you've gotten trapped in the neoliberal mind-palace.

The term "regulatory capture" was popularized by far-right Chicago School economists who were promoting "public choice theory." In their telling, regulatory capture is inevitable, because companies will spend whatever it takes to get the government to pass laws making what they do legal, and making competing with them into a crime:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/13/public-choice/#ajit-pai-still-terrible

This is true, as far as it goes. Capitalists hate capitalism, and if an "entrepreneur" can make it illegal to compete with him, he will. But while this is a reasonable starting-point, the place that Public Choice Theory weirdos get to next is bonkers. They say that since corporations will always seek to capture their regulators, we should abolish regulators.

They say that it's impossible for good regulations to exist, and therefore the only regulation that is even possible is to let businesses do whatever they want and wait for the invisible hand to sweep away the bad companies. Rather than creating hand-washing rules for restaurant kitchens, we should let restaurateurs decide whether it's economically rational to make us shit ourselves to death. The ones that choose poorly will get bad online reviews and people will "vote with their dollars" for the good restaurants.

And if the online review site decides to sell "reputation management" to restaurants that get bad reviews? Well, soon the public will learn that the review site can't be trusted and they'll take their business elsewhere. No regulation needed! Unleash the innovators! Set the job-creators free!

This is the Ur-nihilism from which all the other nihilism springs. It contends that the regulations we have – the ones that keep our buildings from falling down on our heads, that keep our groceries from poisoning us, that keep our cars from exploding on impact – are either illusory, or perhaps the forgotten art of a lost civilization. Making good regulations is like embalming Pharaohs, something the ancients practiced in mist-shrouded, unrecoverable antiquity – and that may not have happened at all.

Regulation is corruptible, but it need not be corrupt. Regulation, like science, is a process of neutrally adjudicated, adversarial peer-review. In a robust regulatory process, multiple parties respond to a fact-intensive question – "what alloys and other properties make a reinforced steel joist structurally sound?" – with a mix of robust evidence and self-serving bullshit and then proceed to sort the two by pantsing each other, pointing out one another's lies.

The regulator, an independent expert with no conflicts of interest, sorts through the claims and counterclaims and makes a rule, showing their workings and leaving the door open to revisiting the rule based on new evidence or challenges to the evidence presented.

But when an industry becomes concentrated, it becomes unregulatable. 100 small and medium-sized companies will squabble. They'll struggle to come up with a common lie. There will always be defectors in their midst. Their conduct will be legible to external experts, who will be able to spot the self-serving BS.

But let that industry dwindle to a handful of giant companies, let them shrink to a number that will fit around a boardroom table, and they will sit down at a table and agree on a cozy arrangement that fucks us all over to their benefit. They will become so inbred that the only people who understand how they work will be their own insiders, and so top regulators will be drawn from their own number and be hopelessly conflicted.

When the corporate sector takes over, regulatory capture is inevitable. But corporate takeover isn't inevitable. We can – and have, and will again – fight corporate power, with antitrust law, with unions, and with consumer rights groups. Knowing things is possible. It simply requires that we keep the entities that profit by our confusion poor and thus weak.

The thing is, corporations don't always lie about regulations. Take the fight over working encryption, which – once again – the UK government is trying to ban:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/24/signal-app-warns-it-will-quit-uk-if-law-weakens-end-to-end-encryption

Advocates for criminalising working encryption insist that the claims that this is impossible are the same kind of self-serving nonsense as claims that banning clearcutting of old-growth forests is impossible:

https://twitter.com/JimBethell/status/1699339739042599276

They say that when technologists say, "We can't make an encryption system that keeps bad guys out but lets good guys in," that they are being lazy and unimaginative. "I have faith in you geeks," they said. "Go nerd harder! You'll figure it out."

Google and Apple and Meta say that selectively breakable encryption is impossible. But they also claim that a bunch of eminently possible things are impossible. Apple claims that it's impossible to have a secure device where you get to decide which software you want to use and where publishers aren't deprive of 30 cents on every dollar you spend. Google says it's impossible to search the web without being comprehensively, nonconsensually spied upon from asshole to appetite. Meta insists that it's impossible to have digital social relationship without having your friendships surveilled and commodified.

While they're not lying about encryption, they are lying about these other things, and sorting out the lies from the truth is the job of regulators, but that job is nearly impossible thanks to the fact that everyone who runs a large online service tells the same lies – and the regulators themselves are alumni of the industry's upper eschelons.

Logging companies know a lot about forests. When we ask, "What is the best way to remediate our forests," the companies may well have useful things to say. But those useful things will be mixed with actively harmful lies. The carefully cultivated incompetence of our regulators means that they can't tell the difference.

Conspiratorialism is characterized as a problem of what people believe, but the true roots of conspiracy belief isn't what we believe, it's how we decide what to believe. It's not beliefs, it's epistemology.

Because most of us aren't qualified to sort good reforesting programs from bad ones. And even if we are, we're probably not also well-versed enough in cryptography to sort credible claims about encryption from wishful thinking. And even if we're capable of making that determination, we're not experts in food hygiene or structural engineering.

Daily life in the 21st century means resolving a thousand life-or-death technical questions every day. Our regulators – corrupted by literally out-of-control corporations – are no longer reliable sources of ground truth on these questions. The resulting epistemological chaos is a cancer that gnaws away at our resolve to do anything about it. It is a festering pool where nihilism outbreaks are incubated.

The liberal response to conspiratorialism is mockery. In her new book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein tells of how right-wing surveillance fearmongering about QR-code "vaccine passports" was dismissed with a glib, "Wait until they hear about cellphones!"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

But as Klein points out, it's not good that our cellphones invade our privacy in the way that right-wing conspiracists thought that vaccine passports might. The nihilism of liberalism – which insists that things can't be changed except through market "solutions" – leads us to despair.

By contrast, leftism – a muscular belief in democratic, publicly run planning and action – offers a tonic to nihilism. We don't have to let logging companies decide whether a forest can be cut, or what should be planted when it is. We can have nice things. The art of finding out what's true or prudent didn't die with the Reagan Revolution (or the discount Canadian version, the Mulroney Malaise). The truth is knowable. Doing stuff is possible. Things don't have to be on fire.

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/2023/09/16/murder-offsets/#pulped-and-papered

[marlynnofmany]

Unexpected Inconveniences

Ever park your car under a tree, then regret it? Come back to find it covered in tree sap or bird poop? Turns out that sort of thing is much worse on an alien planet. And when it’s a spaceship.

We couldn't get the dang door open.

I stood in the cargo bay, watching Captain Sunlight supervise an attempt to un-stick the big door. Blip and Blop were putting their muscles to use in shoving mightily, while the captain worked the controls and Mimi kept a careful watch out for stresses on the machinery. Mur shoved some narrow tool into the gap, muttering that the captain should let him use his tentacles.

Captain Sunlight told him sternly, “No body parts in danger. That’s what tools are for.” She kept both scaly yellow hands on the controls and gave him a look.

I asked, “Is there anything I can do? Help push, or get another crowbar?”

Blip grunted, her frills slicked back in effort. “It’s moving!”

With an unpleasant sticky noise and a creak of metal, the bay door began lifting open an inch at a time. Mimi’s rough voice yelled, “Stop!”

The Frillian twins stopped pushing. Mimi scuttled over on quick green tentacles to figure out what part of the door had creaked.

Mur shoved his prying tool in farther and managed to poke through the gooey golden stuff just barely visible from inside. But the hard-earned gap started to close. Blip and Blop pushed again, gently, while Mur’s blue-black tentacles danced in frustration. Then he lunged for the toolbox Mimi had brought, grabbing something I recognized as a hydraulic jack. He shoved it into the gap and cranked it until the door stopped closing.

I said, “Nice job,” kicking myself for not thinking of it first.

Captain Sunlight thanked everyone for their efforts so far. Mimi reported no significant damage, at least nothing he couldn’t fix later with the right tools and a bit of muscle. I got the impression that the twins were going to be roped into helping with that, which seemed only fair.

Mur was busy poking at the goo, clearing away a tiny opening that looked like a promising start. I peered into the toolbox, but didn’t want to get unknown nastiness on any more of Mimi’s tools without permission.

Footsteps in the hall turned out to be Paint, trotting in with a bottle of cleaning solution held high. Her scaly orange face was delighted. “The stuff dissolves!” she announced. “Kavlae finally got through to the local database. We have the right cleaner to get rid of it; we just have to spray it down. Apparently this is extra effective in direct sun.” She stopped next to the captain and looked at the door. “Which could be tricky, if we can’t actually get outside.”

“Speak for yourself,” Mur said, poking industriously with his prying tool. “Mimi, are you up for a squeeze through a tight space? If the captain allows it, of course.” That part sounded a little sarcastic.

I bent to get a better look. The gap was still only a couple inches wide.

I remembered stories of octopus escape artists on Earth, sneaking from one aquarium tank to another through exceptionally small openings. I stood back, ready to be impressed.

Captain Sunlight asked Paint, “Did Kavlae say whether it’s toxic at all?”

“Right, yes, it’s fine,” Paint said. “Not an irritant to any known species. Except, you know, mentally.” She grimaced. “It’s sticky.”

Mimi tentacle-walked over to join Mur. He grumbled, “I’ve seen worse. Lemme just put the other jack in place, and we can get out there. We’ll want that cleaner in some smaller bottles, though.”

“I’m on it!” Paint declared, setting down the big bottle and dashing off.

By the time Mimi had set up the second jack and pronounced the door safe to crawl under, Paint was back with three tiny spray bottles. She lost no time in filling them from the big one. I opened my mouth to offer to help, but she was on top of it.

Captain Sunlight told Mimi, “I’ll trust your expertise with the tools. The two of you may proceed carefully. In fact—” She pressed a button on the intercom for the cockpit. “Wio, will you join us? Kavlae can handle things there, and we need Strongarm capabilities.”

In no time, our ship’s three tentacle aliens were all armed with tiny spray bottles and ready to squeeze through a gap that I’d be lucky to get my hand through. Blip and Blop stood at the ready in case the jacks slipped (though Mimi assured them they would not). Then one after another, the Strongarms pushed up against the gap and squished on through.

It was really weird to watch.

When the last tentacle disappeared outside, Captain Sunlight knelt to ask for a report on what it looked like from the other side.

Mimi’s gravelly voice said, “Disgusting. Good thing it didn’t get the entire ship, or we’d be here all day. We’ll keep you posted on how fast it dissolves.”

They went to work, and there really wasn’t much for me to do. I wouldn’t fit through that hole, and the goo wasn’t dissolving instantly, so there promised to be something of a wait before anyone else could get outside.

I thought, Maybe I can find a poking thingy that could stand to get gooey. I headed off to check the most likely storage area. Something I can wave around through the gap to help get the door open sooner. There’s got to be SOMETHING I can do to help out.

My thoughts of spare pipes and prybars were derailed when I got near the medical bay, and heard beeping.

Urgent beeping. The kind that the machinery did when there was a big problem.

I ran down the hall and swung through the door of the medbay. I found Eggskin looking annoyed but not alarmed, poking at a display screen while alerts flashed. The medical table behind them was empty. Lights shone on it as if a major surgery was underway. I peeked over Eggskin’s shoulder to see that the screen was saying something about vital signs.

I asked, “What’s the problem?”

Eggskin looked up, surprised to see me. The beeping was very loud. They lashed their tail in irritation and tried again to remove the alarm. That just shrank the message so it covered less of the screen. “The problem,” they said over the beeps, “Is that the system thinks there is a patient on the table, and is distressed that it cannot detect signs of life.”

I winced, considering plugging my ears. “Can you just tell it the patient’s dead, and its job is done?”

“It’s not accepting commands,” Eggskin said, rubbing a hand over their scaly face. “Normally the system is much more reliable than this. I’d ask Mimi to take a look, but he’s busy.”

“Yeah he is,” I agreed. The beeping continued. “What if you turn it off and on again?”

Eggskin gave me a blank look that could have meant anything. Then they opened a side panel to reveal the power cord that connected the medical suite to the ship’s power. With a yank, they unplugged it.

Everything in the room except for the ceiling lights lost power. Eggskin waited a moment, then plugged it back in and closed the panel.

Screens glowed back to life. A polite recording about reinitialization played. Minimal lights shone onto the table.

Nothing beeped.

“Thank you,” Eggskin said with a sigh. “I probably should have thought of that.”

“No problem!” I said with a grin. “Glad I could be useful somewhere. Do you know where I can find a long stick we don’t need?”

~~~

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.

The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).

[uberoll-oystercrackers]

okay. so, prefacing this by saying i've been having such a horrible time in life. i've been very very ill lately and the mental health is a classic case of muy mal. i am a real person with real problems that have actual weight and consequence attached to them. cartoons are not one of those problems lmao.

but when i tell you waking up the other day to see multiple dms and various server messages confirming the dark news that i knew in my soul was coming for years (shoutout to my small, tight ass group of su homies we've been in this together for so long and the way we put the pieces together through breadcrumbs always amazes me. we're so smart and jaded lmao)- i really felt like god himself was spitting right into my fucking eyeballs.

i do not want this shit. i have been hoping and praying that this shit was either just a rumor or wouldn't get greenlit for YEARS, even before rs and ijq started dropping hints on twitter. particularly with the state of the industry. and yet, here we are, confirmed as all hell. they've even got an ugly as hell logo. fantastic. waiter? i'll take the sawed off shotgun, please! let me say that one more time since this is my blog on a dying platform on a dying internet on a dying global economic chain and i can be as mean and nasty and putrid and vile as i want: i do not want this shit!!! i don't!!!!!!!! i really hoped if we got any more SU shit, lord forbid, it would focus on more gem lore. the fandom will enter gladiator death matches for a fun sunday brunch activity but the one thing that is as close to a unanimous opinion as we'll ever get is that: we want more gem lore. according to LotS (what a horrible acronym. cannot get over this), we will be getting exactly that. but at what cost lmao.

i will obviously be watching because i hate myself and i LOVE death and dying but i know the way they're going to handle lars and the offbrands is going to grate on my nerves like i'm a well aged hard cheese. and you know. perhaps i am that well aged hard cheese, after all.

putting out little alien antennae to plead for at least a few episodes that don't have them in it at all/at the very least don't center them so i can at least get some more gem history that will also piss me off but in a more satisfying way.

this has been an exercise in making my own post to be a grinch without hijacking some other poor sap's celebratory posts.

[ingenx]

From its SuccessFactors Employee Central platform, which optimizes human capital management, to its specialized ERP solutions tailored for small businesses, and its comprehensive utilities suite, SAP empowers small industries to streamline operations, enhance productivity, and drive growth.

[skysurge-sap]

FMCG

[cogniscient-business-solutions]

Discover the advantages of SAP Business One, the top ERP choice in India. Benefit from its affordability, comprehensive support for decision-making and inventory management, and tailored solutions that meet your business's unique needs.

[cogniscientsap]

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[dewdropdinosaur]

A Truth Universally Denied - CH. 4

Lucifer x F. Reader Masterlist

When a struggling, reclusive, but wealthy single father calls upon the help of a governess to help tutor his coming-of-age but unruly daughter, one has no choice but to accept the most gracious invitation of employment. Especially if your new employer is the King of Hell. (aka if Hell, but if it was set similar to Victorian Era England, so like circa 1830 to 1900 A.D.)

It was a relatively calm mid-afternoon Thursday, when the fragrance of a thousand blossoms and the subtle promise of summer yet to come. Summer was rapidly approaching, as was the start of the new social season, meaning Charlie’s studies were rapidly intensifying. So, Y/N had taken it upon herself to accompany Charlie into the garden as a momentary reprieve from the long hours spent in study. 

The Moringstar’s garden, a sprawling and artfully tended expanse of land close to twenty-five acres or so, was often left to the industrious and rather peculiar care of Mr. Husk. Husk was, to the untrained eye, a rather forbidding figure as previously mentioned. His countenance was fixed in a perpetual grimace, and his attire was perpetually stained with soil, sap, and a faint but distinctive scent of brandy. It was said among the household staff that he was indentured to Mr. Alastor, though none dared press the matter directly. 

Still, whatever his past may have entailed, Husk’s devotion to the garden, and in particular to its roses, was nothing short of reverent. Charlie had taken a sudden interest in botany as of late, much to Husk’s visible disdain, though he betrayed the slightest fondness when she leaned in with shining eyes to ask how the thorns coiled just so or what compelled a bloom to blush so pink in the sun. He bent low, with an uncommon gentleness, to show her the base of a stem or how much sun was required to make petals an elegant hue.

“I have some brand new roses around back, Miss Charlie. If you would go take a look, I am sure you would see the same stem pattern.”

“Oh, of course!” 

Y/N watched with no small amusement how the very sight of Charlie’s eager expression softened the demon’s hardened exterior and ran off to view the new flora. Brushing a speck of pollen from her sleeve, spoke softly, “You are quite the naturalist, Mr. Husk. A philosopher of petals.”

Husk snorted, though not unkindly. “They don’t scream, don’t argue, don’t lie,” he muttered, patting the soil around a white rose. “Unlike people.”

Charlie, in the meantime, had grown restless and tired of searching for the roses. For while roses might charm her intellect, trees, it seemed, stirred her sense of mischief. An old and large oak tree stood proudly at the far right end of the garden, filled to the brim with leaves and strong branches, and it had earned itself the name ‘Job' in reference to the unwavering prophet.

“Miss Y/N,” she called sweetly, already a few feet up the gnarled branches of a venerable apple tree, “look at me!”

Y/N turned with immediate alarm. “By every Circle of Hell, Charlie Morningstar, get down this instant !” Y/N cried, rushing toward the base of the tree. Her heart leapt into her throat as the child swayed, one foot perched perilously on a narrow branch. “What possessed you?”

But Charlie only laughed, climbing higher with an enviable agility. Of course, if she fell, her demonic nature may save her, but there was never full certainty. Heart pounding and all thought of poetic gardens forgotten, Y/N darted beneath the tree. Her skirts gathered in one hand, looking up in dread as Husk muttered a few choice words not fit for ladies' ears and turned on his heel, disappearing into the house, undoubtedly to search for help.

With a nervous exhale and a quick look around, Y/N placed one gloved hand on the tree’s rough bark and began to climb up towards the young girl in an attempt to rescue her. Her Tavistok boots* slipped more than they held, her petticoat caught on every twig, and yet upward she climbed until she reached the girl, clinging to a limb that bowed just so beneath their combined weight.

“It’s alright, Charlie,” she breathed, extending a trembling hand, “grab my hand, please. I’ve got you.”

Charlie, now struck with obedient fear by her governess’s pale face and quiet terror, did as she was told. Inch by inch, they descended, though it seemed to take a lifetime. Just as they reached the lower branches, Husk reappeared, breathless and red-faced, trailed by Lucifer in dark velvet and Alastor looking mildly entertained. As they stepped into the clearing, Charlie blinked down from her perch, visibly wilting under the weight of her father's gaze.

“Well now,” Alastor drawled, folding his hands behind his back, “I had no idea Miss Y/N’s studies included teaching aerial acrobatics in crinoline?”

“Enough, Alastor,” said Lucifer, his voice quick but firm, and at once Alastor fell silent, his smile never wavering, though it was now clearly hollow.

Y/N, drawing on a flicker of her magic, gently lowered Charlie to the grass with a flash of golden light. The child landed safely and was promptly gathered by Husk, who bundled her up in a quiet lecture about the dangers of climbing off where she wasn’t supposed to. But Y/N, now alone in the branches, thought the end was near. Only until she felt her foot slip, her fingers clutching nothing but air as she cried out with a high-pitched yelp. Eyes collapsed shut, she braced for impact, yet it never came. Instead, as her eyes cracked open, she was met by a handsome face and waiting arms.

Lucifer’s wings were vast and seemed to be laced with starlight, and he caught her as though it were nothing, as though her descent were expected. Her breath caught, more from the shock of his eyes, those endless depths of calm, than from the fall itself.

“Thank you,” she whispered, barely audible over the pounding of her heart.

“You are most welcome,” he murmured, though he did not comment any further as he continued to gaze into her eyes. Shining orbs filled to the brim with relief and trust, boring onto him with a reverence he hadn’t seen in a long time. It nearly took his breath away at the sight of such beauty. Once her feet met the ground again, Y/N steadied herself and remembered propriety, or tried to. She straightened her skirts with more fluster than grace and turned to Charlie with hands on hips.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?” she said, though her voice was gentler than she meant it to be. “You could have fallen and broken your neck, or worse!”

Charlie, cheeks flushed, eyes wide with regret, looked to the ground. “I just wanted to see the view. I’m sorry, Miss Y/N. Truly.”

“I know you are,” Y/N replied, pressing a kiss to the child’s hair, “but there are safer ways to fly than in trees.”

Charlie nodded solemnly, cheeks red with shame, and trudged toward the manor, Husk gently guiding her inside with a hand on her shoulder. Y/N watched her go, then turned slightly, feeling the heat of Lucifer’s gaze still upon her. She looked up, meaning to offer her thanks once more, but found herself instead saying nothing, merely sharing a look that seemed to last forever in the space of a breath. Then, he simply walked away.

When the effects of her hopelessly romantic heart wore offer, Y/N soon began realizing the state of her unruly appearance. With a soft sigh, she proceeded quickly through the back of the veranda and into the kitchen, towards the backmost corner. Quickly grabbing a rag and turning on the faucet, she tried to make quick work of her messy state. The water basin in the manor kitchen was made of cold porcelain, deep and wide enough to bathe a hound, and still somehow barely accommodated the trembling rush of water that now rushed over Y/N’s hands. She scrubbed at her palms with lavender-scented soap, the same she’d used on Charlie earlier that morning, as if she could erase the memory of rough bark, fear, and the slow-fading heat of Lucifer’s arms. The stone floor was cool against her now bare feet, shoes discarded due to their now obvious wear, and the only sound in the room was the gentle trickle of water and the occasional clink of a glass bottle settling on the shelves behind her. She bent over the basin, splashing some water over her face. The cold bit at her skin, shocking her nerves into clarity. It was just a fall. Just a scare. She had handled it. Charlie was safe. All had ended as it should.

“Careful not to scrub yourself out of existence, Miss L/N,” came a syrupy voice from the door. “Although I suppose if you did, it might save us all some trouble.”

Y/N did not turn. She reached for a cloth and dabbed her face with measured grace. “To what do I owe the displeasure, Mister Hartfelt?”

He stepped further in, boots clicking softly on the stone. “You were meant to watch her. Not to let her climb trees like some undignified squirrel.”

“And you,” she said, turning to face him now, her voice calm but steel-laced, “were meant to assist in the household, not lurk in corners issuing threats and condescending quips. Charlie is alive. Unharmed. Which is more than can be said of the last governess under your supervision, who quit in tears and bruises of pride.”

Alastor’s grin did not falter, but the air changed. It grew colder, hungrier . Shadows gathered at his feet, curling and twitching with a mind of their own. The green aura that marked his magic shimmered behind his eyes like a distant wildfire. 

“Do not mistake my civility for silence, dear. I’m the one who keeps this house running when its Master refuses to. I’m the one who held the child’s hand through nightmares while her father buried himself in grief. And you… You traipse in here with your tidy skirts and your parlor tricks and pretend to understand what this family needs.”

Y/N’s spine stiffened, but she did not look away. Not from the way his shadows slithered up the edges of the cabinets. Not from the ghostly whisper of static in the air. “I never claimed to know everything, Mister. Hartfelt. But I do know that terrorizing the help and undermining progress because you feel entitled to misery is neither noble nor helpful.”

Alastor’s smile slipped, just for a moment, revealing something jagged beneath the polish. His voice dropped to a near-growl, silken and venomous. “Just remember, girl: I am the one who decides who stays and who rots . And it would do you well to keep your place, before you lose the privilege of having one.”

With that, he turned on his heel and vanished into the dark of the corridor, the door swinging shut behind him with a soft, decisive click. The scent of ozone and rot lingered in his absence.

Y/N exhaled slowly, setting the damp cloth on the basin’s edge. She didn’t tremble. Not yet. But her reflection in the kitchen window flickered faintly with the candles behind her, unsteady, uncertain. Still, she stood her ground. She always had. And some red-headed demon wasn’t going to make her run now. 

The hallway was dim on her way back to her room, the sconces** burning low with flickering golden light that barely touched the ceiling’s ornate crownwork. Y/N walked slowly, the hem of her petticoat dragging slightly across the marble tile, her arms wrapped around herself. A rogue draft had settled in the house, a strange thing for it being so close to summer, but she thought nothing of it. Her steps were quiet as she all but marched back to her room, until a voice stopped her. 

“Oi,” came Husk’s grumble from behind. He stepped forward, ears twitching, a half-smoked cigarette tucked between two fingers, and the faint scent of ash and rosemary trailing behind him. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t,” Y/N replied gently, though her hand had flown to her chest. “Just… walking off a long day.”

There was a beat of silence. Husk scratched at the back of his neck and muttered something too low to catch, then, louder: “Look, I ain’t good with this kind of thing, but… don’t let what Alastor said get in your head. He doesn’t speak for everyone.”

Y/N blinked. Her voice, when it came, was cautious. “How did you…?”

“When you’ve worked beside him as long as I have,” Husk said, eyes half-lidded, “you learn the rhythm of his cruelty. Man’s like a broken radio, you always know what tune is coming. And you learn to listen through the static.”

A breath of laughter escaped Y/N then, small and weary. “Well, I’m grateful, truly. Though I’m not sure I’m doing much right these days.”

“You’re doin’ plenty right,” Husk muttered. “Charlie’s happier. More focused. Fewer teeth in everything she says. That’s all you. Ain’t none of us seen her like this in… a long time.”

Y/N’s throat tightened at the kindness, rare and gruff as it was. She reached forward without thinking, rising to her toes and pressing a kiss to Husk’s scruffy cheek, soft and warm. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Really.”

He flushed a dull rose beneath his fur and muttered something about turning in for the night before skulking off down the corridor, tail twitching behind him as Y/N followed suit and resumed the trudge to her quarters. What neither noticed was the figure at the far end of the hall, motionless in shadow.

Lucifer had stepped from his office just in time to witness the kiss. His expression did not change, not at first. He only stared, frozen in place, a cut-glass tumbler*** of bourbon dangling loosely from one hand. It was a strange thing, the sharp pain that bloomed in his chest, small but precise, as if someone had pressed a glass shard into the hollow place where his hope had just begun to grow.

She had kissed Husk. Of course, she had. Y/N was warm, kind, and practical. No, means a stunning beauty, Lucifer could admit to that, but she radiated…normalcy. Husk, though gruff, was honest and present. And what was he? A recluse. A monarch. A man whose grief had made him a ghost in his own home. There had never been a future to imagine between them, only flickers of it. False hopes. Fragile things.

He had hoped when he stared into her eyes earlier that afternoon that maybe she felt some affection towards him. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, society would never allow them to couple. But the hope, despite the harsh reality, remained. 

Lucifer turned slowly and retreated into the quiet of his study, the door shutting with a soft click behind him. The hearth had long since gone out, the room lit only by the dying embers in the grate. He poured himself another glass of whiskey and drank it in one long swallow, the fire catching in his throat but failing to warm anything beneath it. Perhaps this, too, was worse punishment than falling.

The manor had fallen quiet into the late hours of the night, dinner long over and most of the inhabitants retiring for the evening. Even the torches along the hallway had burned low, casting flickering shadows that made the marble gleam like bone. All the hallways in the manor were decorated in this way. Sleek marble floors, dark golden panelled walls made of gilded oak, and gothic sconces every yard or so. It was certainly magnificent during the day, but often left Y/N with the feeling of being watched in the later hours. Especially when the wooden panels of the ceiling would creak as if someone were walking above her. 

Creeping quietly through the hall, cradling a small oil lamp in one hand, the other holding the edge of her cream robe closed. It was one of the newer items of her wardrobe, though still second-hand. But the soft silk material lay plush against her skin and provided a sense of clean warmth she had come to love. She pushed open the apple and gold embellished door to Charlie’s room with care, its hinges protesting only slightly.

Inside, the young lady was already curled beneath the covers, her golden hair spilling across the red-apple embroidered pillows like a halo. The winged-lamb doll was nestled against her chest, its fabric worn and fraying around the ears. Clearly well-loved. Y/N paused in the doorway a moment, just long enough to admire the soft rise and fall of breath before stepping inside.

“I thought you might already be asleep,” she said softly, setting the lamp on the bedside table.

Charlie blinked up at her with large, dark eyes, their usual shine dimmed beneath the weight of the day. She hadn’t spoken much since the tree incident, barely a word beyond dinner, and though Y/N had given her space, concern had settled quietly behind her ribs. Y/N smoothed the coverlet down and sat at the edge of the bed. 

“Sweetheart,” she said gently, brushing a few curls from the girl’s forehead, “is something the matter?”

Charlie hesitated. She looked down, fingers twisting into the edge of the quilt. “Are you… mad at me?”

The question was so small, so tentative, that it struck Y/N with a sudden ache. “No, darling,” she said at once, her voice warm and sure. “I was frightened, yes. Terrified, really. But not angry. When I saw you up in that tree, so high, so close to danger, it scared me. That’s all.”

Charlie’s lip trembled, and she sniffed, though no tears fell. “The last two governesses got mad when I did things like that,” she murmured. “One of them yelled until I cried, and the other left in the middle of the night.”

Y/N felt something cold twist in her chest. She leaned down, brushing Charlie’s hair back again with delicate fingers. “I’m not them,” she said quietly. “I’m not going anywhere. Not when you climb a tree. Not when you throw a tantrum. Not when you make mistakes. I’ll stay, even when it’s hard. That’s a promise.”

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the soft hum of wind against the windowpane. Then, without a word, Charlie sat up and flung her arms around Y/N’s waist, pressing her face into her side. “I love you,” she whispered, barely audible.

Y/N felt her throat tighten. Tears stung the corners of her eyes, but she held them back with practiced grace, pressing a kiss to the top of Charlie’s head. “I love you too, duckling,” she murmured. She smoothed her hand down the girl's back in slow circles, letting the warmth settle between them like a quilt all its own.

When Charlie finally lay back down, eyes already fluttering with sleep, Y/N tucked the covers around her with gentle care and turned down the lamp until only a dim glow remained. She lingered at the door a moment longer, watching the girl she had come to care for more deeply than she ever expected. No, she would not leave. Not now. Not when she was needed most

FOOTNOTES-------------------------------------------------------------

*Tavistock boots: A popular buttoned boot during the 19th and early 20th century **Sconces: Typically, lamp-shaped fixtures on walls to hold candles that can be intricately designed ***Cut-glass tumbler: Popularized during the Victorian era, glass tumblers became a popular method of cup used to drink whiskey post-dinner.

[mariacallous]

On a sunny Wednesday in Paris, the city’s mayor inches down a ladder into the blue-brown water of the river Seine, one cautious step at a time. After a few seconds, once Anne Hidalgo’s wet suit is completely submerged, she dons small dark goggles and dunks her face underwater—proving to the photographers and TV cameras following her by boat that she believes this water is clean.

This is a historic moment for Paris, which many people believed was not going to happen. Swimming in the Seine has been banned for the past century, and a river clean enough for a political photo op has long been an ambition among French lawmakers.

This cleanup operation has become the centerpiece of what Paris is calling “the Greenest Ever Games,” and the legacy of this effort is expected to last. After Hidalgo dries off, the Seine will stage several Olympic swimming events; three public bathing areas will open in the Games’ aftermath.

But the €1.4 billion ($1.5 billion) cleanup operation is not really about swimming. The ability to bathe in the Seine is simply a sideshow—payback to Parisians for the use of massive public funds to complete such an ambitious river restoration project. Instead, the real goal is to protect a source of drinking water and help life return to the river, so fish—such as the famous Parisian catfish—can continue to thrive.

The promise of swimming is intended to guard against the kind of criticism that pits environmental projects against the needs of ordinary people. Online accounts have already pledged to poop in the Seine en masse under the hashtag #JeChieDansLaSeine, or #IPooInTheSeine, to protest the amount of money spent on the project, as ordinary people struggle with the cost of living. (There is no evidence anyone actually has done this, and whoever set up the original website did not reply to WIRED’s request for comment.)

“Having this totemic goal of swimming in the river is something that really helps politically … because it’s very expensive,” says Caroline Whalley, a water pollution expert at the European Environment Agency. “It's a way to get public support, because they can see the benefit. There's something in it for them.”

The Seine started to die at the onset of the 20th century. For 50 years, raw sewage was released into the river, prompting the city to put an end to idyllic scenes of families cavorting in the water and rule bathing in the water (mostly) illegal from 1923. In the years that followed, the Seine became a grim symbol of industrialization.

“There was no life in the river Seine during these 50 years,” says Jean-Marie Mouchel, a professor at the Sorbonne University, who has been studying the river since the '80s. The sewage sapped the water of oxygen and created obstacles for river traffic. “There was so much sediment and deposits from the sewers that [they created] mountains of deposits on the bottom [of the river],” says Mouchel, “so boats couldn't even pass through.”

It wasn’t until the 1960s that restoring the river began to attract political attention, first with the establishment of the French water agency, and later with a pledge by then mayor of Paris (later Prime Minister) Jacques Chirac. “I will bathe in the Seine in front of witnesses to prove that the Seine has become a clean river,” he declared in 1988, promising to complete the stunt by the early '90s. Chirac, who died in 2019, never did take that public plunge. But his idea would live on in French politics, and the Olympics created a new deadline to complete the cleanup.

Macron has repeated his pledge. “I’ll do it,” he told reporters in March, refusing to be pinned down on a date. Both he and Hidalgo, however, were beaten into the water by sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who plunged into the Seine with an ungraceful flop on Saturday. Her office did not reply to WIRED’s questions asking whether she was feeling fine after her swim.

Without the promise of swimming in the Seine, what Parisians get for the $1.5 billion cleanup operation is not immediately obvious. It is not actually possible to clean the river. Instead, the operation is focused on preventing new, raw sewage from entering in the first place. The city cracked down on houseboats and apartments with questionable plumbing, which had been dumping sewage straight into the Seine. Then officials started to tackle the problem being caused by intense rainstorms, which cause water to flow from the street into the city’s drains, swelling the amount of liquid in the sewers underneath. Too much rain means the city has a choice: Either let raw sewage back up through people’s toilets and flood bathrooms across the capital, or release untreated waste into the river to create space, regardless of the consequences.

To prevent this from happening, Paris built a giant storage tank near Austerlitz metro station, capable of holding 20 Olympic swimming pools of dirty water. “The idea of this is to be a buffer, so when it rains a lot, instead of the sewage network immediately overflowing, we have a basin that fills up,” says Dan Angelescu, founder and CEO of Fluidion, a company that tracks levels of E. coli in the Seine and had worked with the city on the cleanup project until last year. The basin created a “drastic” improvement of the water quality during small amounts of rain, says Angelescu, yet a rainstorm last week still caused levels of E. coli to peak above the level of 1,000 E. coli per 100 milliliters considered safe for the Olympics. “There is a limit to everything,” says Angelescu when asked about the basin’s effectiveness.

Recent heavy downpours have created lingering uncertainty around whether the Seine will be judged ready in time for the Games, and if it is, whether swimmers will be able to descend into the water without getting sick. Hidalgo may already have taken the plunge, but the real guinea pigs will be the Olympic athletes signed up to take part in the open water and triathlon events scheduled in the Seine, as long as the water analysis comes back safe.

Among them is a slightly nervous Daniel Wiffen, a world record holder who is set to compete in the Seine, representing Ireland. Paris will be the 23-year-old’s first “big race” in open waters, and he is worried about the water quality. “It’s a big issue,” he says. Ideally, he’d like to take a trial run in the Seine to better understand the currents, and he’s been asking fellow athletes whether they think it’s worth the gamble. “Do you risk two days before your race, getting in the Seine and getting ill the day before your race?” he says.

Yet he’s still hoping the race goes ahead. The idea of swimming in the iconic Paris river spurred him to sign up. “I want to swim beside the Eiffel Tower,” he told WIRED. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

[daughterofbearsandrivers]

Horror | 0.5

She couldn't breathe. It was the first thing her mind registered as she came to consciousness. Her body felt lethargic and stiff limbed from being an awkward positioning for who knows how long. She blinked away the crusty edges of her eyes, feeling grains of dirt shift down in her hair and grimy clothes uncomfortably rubbing against her damp skin.

'It's cold.' She thought.

Encasing in strong sap like chrysalis made from secreted goop those things produce after ingesting organic materials, more preferably human remains, stuck to her body and other harvested corpses hung from the ceiling like a meat packing plant. She could literally taste the metallic iron of the rotten old blood.

'So disgusting.'

The female gripped the edge of her confining hardened goop, muscles in her arms and back burned like summer's sunrays. After several attempts she broke out, peeling away her hair and clothes from the other corpses, strings of undried fluids dripped down to the semi slippery tiled floors. She didn't have much energy to dwell on the fact she was absolutely filthy and in dire need of several washes.

'Vacations are overrat- shoot my nail is broken.'

She fleeting noticed as she tiptoed around the area, tentatively using her hands to feel around the place that is nearly pitch black. A very faint breeze of a broken air conditioning until brushed over her skin, briefly making her heart and spine become filled with ice. Swallowing back her nerves and increasingly permanent fear of the dark, the female noticed a dimly flickering light in the room across the hallway and swinging set of double doors separating the kitchen and dining area of the restaurant.

Just as she took a step in the direction of the light, she sensed it before it could she herself processed the swift action of jumping over the long industrial sized preparation table and crouching so low behind it, she might've been on all fours.

The trilling hallow clicks followed up by a rumbling growl and nearly nonaudible footfalls made the tiniest cracking noises as it's weight weakened the secreted hard goop on the floors.

She didn't dare breathe in it's looming presence. Taking small mercies and a vague sense of comfort in the fact most of the equipment here was aluminum or having an alloy of that same material. Or she would've gone the second she jumped over the table.

It steadily moved to the back areas of the restaurant in a practiced cautious manner that showed it's restraint and discipline in that moment. If she wasn't too much concerned about living, she might've found his physique to be...appealing.

The female inched her way forward to her previous designation, the flickering yellowed light that emitted low buzzing hum. Testing to make sure the swinging double doors didn't squeak or whine, she slipped through the opening. Moving in a half crouch she reached the light and found the dining areas of the restaurant to be in complete disarray of carnage and flies swirling in the air. The urge to vomit came to mind though there was nothing to regurgitate.

The remaining working streetlights of the main street spilled in an orangish yellow. Ceiling high windows were broken and it's glass fragments littered the floor like tiny diamonds. Sticking to the walls of the establishment, she carefully maneuvered around the glass, stepping on carcasses, not chancing they wouldn't hear the smallest noise.

'If there was an Olympics for 'A Quiet Place', I'd be reigning champion.'

A slow process that made her cheeks burn out of supposed embarrassment of an invisible audience and being caught unawares for making her escape too long. She swallowed thickly, she couldn't make mistakes, not one. Once she reached the door, she gently shifted the lower half of broken glass off then placed it on the ground before she quickly crawled out onto the sidewalk.

She shivered, rubbing her hands and forearms though wincing at the amount of mud she felt crusting and sticking to her skin. Lines of cars were crashed or abandoned in the main streets of the town. Looking around she waited a moment before she went over to the many vehicles, doing a quick cursory inside to look for anything she can use. Some of the vehicles were still on, a few emitting the silent broadcast of radio stations.

Seconds went by as the time ticked on burrowed minutes that stretched on for hours. On her knees in the passenger seat, she leaned towards the back as she found some water bottles and day old groceries. Just as her fingertips touched the cap of the water bottle, she felt the thin hairs of her arms raise up. Her eyes flicked up to see them, a black mass that sneered out a hiss.

'Oh shit.'

She didn't move but she couldn't stay with the passenger door open and being in a position that served her demise rather her survival. An echoing thump on the sidewalk behind her and on the rooftop of the car she was in made her cheeks blush and her ears hot out of anxiety. Most importantly they were sniffing or letting out raspy chuffs while they stood perched on the vehicles.

'I'm so screwed-'

The sudden wail of a car alarm shattered the silence, making the creatures screech then give chase to something. The panicked footsteps and labored breathing of a person sprinted by, they didn't see her as they shoved pass the open passenger door, sending her tumbling towards the back and her leg ache from getting hit by the door.

Their screams drew several more creatures from the shadows, the sheer volume of it giving ample time for her to get into the back seat of the car to sit among the groceries. Their shadows passed over head, their movements carelessly bashing into the side of the vehicles as their excitement for prey overruled their situational awareness.

'This is a nice car.'

She opened up the backseat, pulling it forward as she slid through the narrow opening of the back and pulled herself into the trunk. It was warmer in there, giving her a moment of solace and reprieve to let her body rest so her mind wouldn't be affected by lack of sleep tomorrow.

[mobilefruit-gundam]

Reading Rachel Laudan’s Cusine and Empire which really got me thinking about like- decolonized and deindustrialized food ways and what that looks like practically as well as the possibilities for new food technologies that remain unexplored due to the homogeneous adoption of the ingredients and processing of the colonial palate.

Just take wheat flours and refined cane sugar for example, the demand for which has for centuries justified the mass theft of land, forced labor of enslaved people, and widespread ecological destruction in order to cultivate. These products have unique qualities but are only one of hundreds of possible flours or sugars that can and have historically been processed by the human animal for consumption. But the vast majority of alternatives have ended up in stasis (at best) after colonization pushed aside traditional staple starches and sweeteners made from local ingredients and using regional methods. Food sources and technologies of course spread through more friendly means, not just via subjugation / cultural genocide, and when exchanged willingly can still outright replace extant staples but it’s infrequent. More often they are adopted alongside preexisting cuisines, ingredients or techniques mixed and matched with those already at use in a region.

Considering my own locale as an example i wonder what my diet might look like if methods of acorn meal and manzanita flour refinement and extraction of sugars from fruits and saps had been allowed their natural course of advancement. It also encourages me to get into more projects around this line of thought: making sustainable foods that are of place both in material ingredients and the processes of their transformation. Reforming the palate is a piece but we also continue to limit ourselves creatively, nutritionally, and practically by not looking beyond a small selection of staples. Literally a million sources for protein, carbs, fats, sugars, salts, etc and as many ways of refining said necessities without monoculture, factory farming, exploitive labor, or mass waste. And there are a lot of resources to start from when it comes to indigenous recipes and food ways, most of that knowledge isn’t totally lost it’s just been undervalued and ignored. Anyway… a long and likely incoherent post all to say i wanna start compiling a regionally specific cookbook for the post-industrial world.