#System Restore Point

[techdirectarchive]

How to Create a Restore Point in Windows 11

In this article, we will learn how to Create a Restore Point in Windows 11. In previous Windows versions, let’s say, for instance, you were working on your system and suddenly experienced a fatal system failure. One of the ways to recover faster and restore your files, applications, and system sub-folders and filesystem back to a normal state is by restoring the system to its previous state using…

[nightmare-foundation]

Wash is SO fucking DID coded of COURSE he is

Like. He says that he doesn't remember a lot of freelancer, and a lot of what he does remember feels like someone else experienced them <- dissociative amnesia (possible host switch post epsilon incident)

He also?? Experiences essentially recreations of the people he's lost as a way to cope. AND HE SAID 'WE'. HE. SAID. WE.

He's ALWAYS been DID coded (he dissociates a lot, identity problems, etc) but it's SOOOO fucking blatant in Restoration. I'm not sure if that was the intention but I swear to God if I don't see fics with Washington discovering he has DID I'm gonna explode

[pochapal]

every few days windows 10 will forcibly update itself and ruin a good 75% of my computer's features

[azureoctahedron]

I want to take this, and push this one step further because I'm sure people aren't going to catch the nuances here. And it's going to be really easy to dogpile on this and say "10000% restorative, get rid of punitive!"

I'm going to be the Debbie Downer, and say both ideologies need to co-exist together. The more tools in your box, the wider range of options you have in dealing with a Problem.

But this requires full understanding of what each does, and where they might come up short.

Sometimes you're going to need to just take out the guy at the top - because they're a symbol as much as they're y'know, the guy at the top. Because they've gotten there through Very NotGood means and need to be stopped from harming more people, and you want to send a message to others thinking about doing the same to Not Do That.

Other times, you're going to need to attack the system and beliefs that put him there so you can prevent a repeat. You're going to need to take out the guy at the top because he's a Fucking Asshole, but you need to take down the system as well because that was how he got there. So you need the longer-term restorative approach because then enough people will learn what happened, and do better next time.

But for true long-term lasting change...punitive isn't going to work. You absolutely need the restorative justice option. You need people willing to see where they went wrong, and to change their ways, and then teach that lesson they learned to the next generation. You're going to need people to change sides and help you out from the knowledge of why going the way they did is a bad idea.

You can try to throw out punitive justice, and you can try to go fully to restorative justice...but restorative justice takes time. It takes effort. It takes teaching. It takes having something set up to keep working on these people.

Some crises are not going to have the patience for you to do that.

This is what I believe the OP means in case some of you missed that part.

Some situations call for using restorative justice for the correct message, and sometimes there will be so many moving pieces that you have to use punitive for the short-term, and get the setup for the long-term restoration going.

Have more tools in your toolbox, but understand them completely. Don't automatically discount one or the other, but look at what best fits your situation, and recognize that there's always more than one right way to fix a mess.

Also, media absolutely needs more takes on restorative justice. To reflect what I said above, you can't push people to use a tool they don't understand. That's going to make a worse situation. You have to be willing to take the risk and show that there are more options than only punitive justice.

Steven Universe I think went in the right track in not having the Diamonds die, but instead learn from their mistakes. That was so core to the show's messaging I think it actually works.

(My personal take as to why it went wrong in people's heads is that the heel-face-turn went too fast, and didn't seem to fully fit the Diamonds' misdeeds. I have a whole rant somewhere in the past about how the redemption arc has to fit the crime, or it feels like a handwave. This is my take on SU's approach. It wasn't wrong, it was in how quickly they wrapped that whole thing up. Had they gotten a longer runway for it and a little more time to offset the cognitive whiplash, it probably would've landed better.)

Star Trek in particular does a good job of pushing the more restorative justice aspects with almost all the Enemy Races. Klingons became allies, the Borg got humanized as unwilling drones forced into the Collective, even the Romulans ended up being a key part in fighting the Dominion, and so on.

Hell even Star Wars took a swing at it with Luke choosing to willingly face the Emperor to bring Vader back to the light. He still died, but he at least died a redeemed man who laid down his life for his son's survival. I think that's actually one of the better restorative approaches shown, because Luke actively looked for an alternative to the punitive method.

Babylon 5 had a restorative approach in ending the Vorlon-Shadow War by just sending both offending races (who were destroying planets left and right by that point) off to beyond the Rim. Sure it felt a bit pat (the network forced them into it basically by threatening to cancel the show), but they took the risk to do a full after-War season to show the fallout.

Even the Expanse takes a shot at showing both punitive and restorative approaches - showing both their successes and failures. But I like that it ended on a restorative approach - one of the warmongers causing trouble was dead, but one of the mainstay characters who started a warmonger went slowly but surely in a completely 100% different direction by the end. (Avasarala despised Belters to the point of torturing them in the beginning, but negotiates with and willingly helps them by the end).

The more often media actually approaches restorative justice and shows how well it can work for situations, I think the more kids will grow up and start using it as another approach to justice than only punishment.

Sometimes I think about how and why some people had such a *bad* reaction to the end of Steven Universe, specifically in regards to the Diamonds living.

Even though they no longer are causing harm to others and are able to actually undo some of their previous harm by living, some folks reacted as though this ending was somehow morally suspect. Morally bankrupt, even.

And I think it might be because so many of us were raised on a very specific kind of kids media trope:

They all fall to their deaths.

Disney loves chucking their bad guys off cliffs. And it makes sense- in a moral framework where villains *must* be punished (regardless of whether their death will actually prevent further harm or not), but killing of any kind is morally bad for the hero, the narrative must find a way to kill the villain without the protagonists doing a murder.

It's a moral assumption that a person can *deserve* to die, that it is cosmically just for them to die, that them dying is evidence that the story itself is morally good and correct. Scar *deserves* to die, but it would be bad for Simba to kill him. So....cliff.

Steven Universe, whatever else it's faults, took at step back and said "but if killing people is bad, then people dying is bad", and instead of dropping White Diamond off a cliff, asked "what would actual *restorative*, not punitive, justice look like? What would actual reparations mean here? If the goal is to heal, not just to punish, how do we handle those who have done harm?" And then did that.

Which I think is interesting, and that there was pushback against it is interesting.

It also reminds me of the folks who get very weird about Aang not killing Ozai at the end of Avatar. And like, Ozai still gets chucked in prison, so it doesn't even push back on our cultural ideas of punitive justice *that much.* and still, I've seen people get real mad that the child monk who is the last survivor of a genocide that wiped out his entire pacifist culture didn't do a murder.

[starwolf53]

google how to restore 100+ year old record player

[asgardian--angels]

Planet's Fucked: What Can You Do To Help? (Long Post)

Since nobody is talking about the existential threat to the climate and the environment a second Trump term/Republican government control will cause, which to me supersedes literally every other issue, I wanted to just say my two cents, and some things you can do to help. I am a conservation biologist, whose field was hit substantially by the first Trump presidency. I study wild bees, birds, and plants.

In case anyone forgot what he did last time, he gagged scientists' ability to talk about climate change, he tried zeroing budgets for agencies like the NOAA, he attempted to gut protections in the Endangered Species Act (mainly by redefining 'take' in a way that would allow corporations to destroy habitat of imperiled species with no ramifications), he tried to do the same for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (the law that offers official protection for native non-game birds), he sought to expand oil and coal extraction from federal protected lands, he shrunk the size of multiple national preserves, HE PULLED US OUT OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT, and more.

We are at a crucial tipping point in being able to slow the pace of climate change, where we decide what emissions scenario we will operate at, with existential consequences for both the environment and people. We are also in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction, with the rate of species extinctions far surpassing background rates due completely to human actions. What we do now will determine the fate of the environment for hundreds or thousands of years - from our ability to grow key food crops (goodbye corn belt! I hated you anyway but), to the pressure on coastal communities that will face the brunt of sea level rise and intensifying extreme weather events, to desertification, ocean acidification, wildfires, melting permafrost (yay, outbreaks of deadly frozen viruses!), and a breaking down of ecosystems and ecosystem services due to continued habitat loss and species declines, especially insect declines. The fact that the environment is clearly a low priority issue despite the very real existential threat to so many people, is beyond my ability to understand. I do partly blame the public education system for offering no mandatory environmental science curriculum or any at all in most places. What it means is that it will take the support of everyone who does care to make any amount of difference in this steeply uphill battle.

There are not enough environmental scientists to solve these issues, not if public support is not on our side and the majority of the general public is either uninformed or actively hostile towards climate science (or any conservation science).

So what can you, my fellow Americans, do to help mitigate and minimize the inevitable damage that lay ahead?

I'm not going to tell you to recycle more or take shorter showers. I'll be honest, that stuff is a drop in the bucket. What does matter on the individual level is restoring and protecting habitat, reducing threats to at-risk species, reducing pesticide use, improving agricultural practices, and pushing for policy changes. Restoring CONNECTIVITY to our landscape - corridors of contiguous habitat - will make all the difference for wildlife to be able to survive a changing climate and continued human population expansion.

**Caveat that I work in the northeast with pollinators and birds so I cannot provide specific organizations for some topics, including climate change focused NGOs. Scientists on tumblr who specialize in other fields, please add your own recommended resources. **

We need two things: FUNDING and MANPOWER.

You may surprised to find that an insane amount of conservation work is carried out by volunteers. We don't ever have the funds to pay most of the people who want to help. If you really really care, consider going into a conservation-related field as a career. It's rewarding, passionate work.

At the national level, please support:

The Nature Conservancy

Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

Cornell Lab of Ornithology (including eBird)

National Audubon Society

Federal Duck Stamps (you don't need to be a hunter to buy one!)

These first four work to acquire and restore critical habitat, change environmental policy, and educate the public. There is almost certainly a Nature Conservancy-owned property within driving distance of you. Xerces plays a very large role in pollinator conservation, including sustainable agriculture, native bee monitoring programs, and the Bee City/Bee Campus USA programs. The Lab of O is one of the world's leaders in bird research and conservation. Audubon focuses on bird conservation. You can get annual memberships to these organizations and receive cool swag and/or a subscription to their publications which are well worth it. You can also volunteer your time; we need thousands of volunteers to do everything from conducting wildlife surveys, invasive species removal, providing outreach programming, managing habitat/clearing trails, planting trees, you name it. Federal Duck Stamps are the major revenue for wetland conservation; hunters need to buy them to hunt waterfowl but anyone can get them to collect!

THERE ARE DEFINITELY MORE, but these are a start.

Additionally, any federal or local organizations that seek to provide support and relief to those affected by hurricanes, sea level rise, any form of coastal climate change...

At the regional level:

These are a list of topics that affect major regions of the United States. Since I do not work in most of these areas I don't feel confident recommending specific organizations, but please seek resources relating to these as they are likely major conservation issues near you.

PRAIRIE CONSERVATION & PRAIRIE POTHOLE WETLANDS

DRYING OF THE COLORADO RIVER (good overview video linked)

PROTECTION OF ESTUARIES AND SALTMARSH, ESPECIALLY IN THE DELAWARE BAY AND LONG ISLAND (and mangroves further south, everglades etc; this includes restoring LIVING SHORELINES instead of concrete storm walls; also check out the likely-soon extinction of saltmarsh sparrows)

UNDAMMING MAJOR RIVERS (not just the Colorado; restoring salmon runs, restoring historic floodplains)

NATIVE POLLINATOR DECLINES (NOT honeybees. for fuck's sake. honeybees are non-native domesticated animals. don't you DARE get honeybee hives to 'save the bees')

WILDLIFE ALONG THE SOUTHERN BORDER (support the Mission Butterfly Center!)

INVASIVE PLANT AND ANIMAL SPECIES (this is everywhere but the specifics will differ regionally, dear lord please help Hawaii)

LOSS OF WETLANDS NATIONWIDE (some states have lost over 90% of their wetlands, I'm looking at you California, Ohio, Illinois)

INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE, esp in the CORN BELT and CALIFORNIA - this is an issue much bigger than each of us, but we can work incrementally to promote sustainable practices and create habitat in farmland-dominated areas. Support small, local farms, especially those that use soil regenerative practices, no-till agriculture, no pesticides/Integrated Pest Management/no neonicotinoids/at least non-persistent pesticides. We need more farmers enrolling in NRCS programs to put farmland in temporary or permanent wetland easements, or to rent the land for a 30-year solar farm cycle. We've lost over 99% of our prairies to corn and soybeans. Let's not make it 100%.

INDIGENOUS LAND-BACK EFFORTS/INDIGENOUS LAND MANAGEMENT/TEK (adding this because there have been increasing efforts not just for reparations but to also allow indigenous communities to steward and manage lands either fully independently or alongside western science, and it would have great benefits for both people and the land; I know others on here could speak much more on this. Please platform indigenous voices)

HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS (get your neighbors to stop dumping fertilizers on their lawn next to lakes, reduce agricultural runoff)

OCEAN PLASTIC (it's not straws, it's mostly commercial fishing line/trawling equipment and microplastics)

A lot of these are interconnected. And of course not a complete list.

At the state and local level:

You probably have the most power to make change at the local level!

Support or volunteer at your local nature centers, local/state land conservancy non-profits (find out who owns&manages the preserves you like to hike at!), state fish & game dept/non-game program, local Audubon chapters (they do a LOT). Participate in a Christmas Bird Count!

Join local garden clubs, which install and maintain town plantings - encourage them to use NATIVE plants. Join a community garden!

Get your college campus or city/town certified in the Bee Campus USA/Bee City USA programs from the Xerces Society

Check out your state's official plant nursery, forest society, natural heritage program, anything that you could become a member of, get plants from, or volunteer at.

Volunteer to be part of your town's conservation commission, which makes decisions about land management and funding

Attend classes or volunteer with your land grant university's cooperative extension (including master gardener programs)

Literally any volunteer effort aimed at improving the local environment, whether that's picking up litter, pulling invasive plants, installing a local garden, planting trees in a city park, ANYTHING. make a positive change in your own sphere. learn the local issues affecting your nearby ecosystems. I guarantee some lake or river nearby is polluted

MAKE HABITAT IN YOUR COMMUNITY. Biggest thing you can do. Use plants native to your area in your yard or garden. Ditch your lawn. Don't use pesticides (including mosquito spraying, tick spraying, Roundup, etc). Don't use fertilizers that will run off into drinking water. Leave the leaves in your yard. Get your school/college to plant native gardens. Plant native trees (most trees planted in yards are not native). Remove invasive plants in your yard.

On this last point, HERE ARE EASY ONLINE RESOURCES TO FIND NATIVE PLANTS and LEARN ABOUT NATIVE GARDENING:

Xerces Society Pollinator Conservation Resource Center

Pollinator Pathway

Audubon Native Plant Finder

Homegrown National Park (and Doug Tallamy's other books)

National Wildlife Federation Native Plant Finder (clunky but somewhat helpful)

Heather Holm (for prairie/midwest/northeast)

MonarchGard w/ Benjamin Vogt (for prairie/midwest)

Native Plant Trust (northeast & mid-atlantic)

Grow Native Massachusetts (northeast)

Habitat Gardening in Central New York (northeast)

There are many more - I'm not familiar with resources for western states. Print books are your biggest friend. Happy to provide a list of those.

Lastly, you can help scientists monitor species using citizen science. Contribute to iNaturalist, eBird, Bumblebee Watch, or any number of more geographically or taxonomically targeted programs (for instance, our state has a butterfly census carried out by citizen volunteers).

In short? Get curious, get educated, get involved. Notice your local nature, find out how it's threatened, and find out who's working to protect it that you can help with. The health of the planet, including our resilience to climate change, is determined by small local efforts to maintain and restore habitat. That is how we survive this. When government funding won't come, when we're beat back at every turn trying to get policy changed, it comes down to each individual person creating a safe refuge for nature.

Thanks for reading this far. Please feel free to add your own credible resources and organizations.

[theskyexists]

It's an endless ... Like. I wanna install stuff to get things exported..but then I'm scared something catastrophic will happen. So then I need a backup. But then the backup will take four hours for some reason. So I attempt to put files somewhere else. But that also takes one and a half hours. This HDD drive is......BAD!

[thecodeveronica]

Has anyone else had issues since the Windows 11 update a few days ago? I keep having issues when turning on my PC, that it'll either just blackscreen immediately or freeze up at the login screen, and I have to hard reset multiple times until it finally starts acting normal. Then it's fine the rest of the day, it's so weird

[crazy-hazy-sims]

Hey everyone it seems there a malicious individual trying to hack the sims cc community again and fill it with malware you need to stay vigilant as a creator and a downloader so

i have some tips for both to stay safe while downloading:

1- sims cc file extension is always .Package never download anything that is .exe

2- do not auto unpack zip files and rar files into your mods folder directly, open each zip or rar individually check the file extensions and drag them to your mods folder one by one

3- the only mods that have a .ts4script extension are ones that affect gameplay or how the game works, understand that if you are downloading cas or bb items you shouldn't have a .ts4script file

4- if you are downloading gameplay mods that do have .ts4script make sure that A) the creator hasn't announced on their pages that its infected B) you are downloading from a link provided by the creator of the mods themselves not something off of google or a link you got sent and make sure dates of upload match dated of announcements

5- if the mod or cc creator has retired and hasn't posted for a while LOOK AT THE DATES OF THE UPLOAD if it has been "updated recently" after the creator has left the community its most likely re-uploaded by a hacker and infected

6- download mod gaurd by Twisted mexi and keep it updated and keep your windows defender or malware detector Program up to date and always running do not disable it

7- make sure everything you download comes from a direct link from the cc creator, in this day and age do not trust link shortners, adfly, linkverse, etc get the universal bypass extension and ublock extension to stay safe but genuinely NEVER CLICK ON THOSE no matter how much the creator reassures you its safe it. is. NOT.

8- this is more of a general saftey precaution but, create a system restore point weekly before you run the game with new mods that way if anything happens you could have a chance to restore your windows to an earlier date before you downloaded anything.

9- BACK UP YOUR SHIT im serious right now either weekly or monthly put your files somewhere safe like a usb a storage card a hard drive even an online cloud if you dont have any of the previous.

10- files you should back up are your media from games and media everything else, any mods, games saves, work files, passwords, saved bookmarks, any documents txt files word files pdfs, links you saved, brushes or actions for Photoshop if you have any, any digital bills or certificates if you have any, and keep a physical list of all programs you have installed and where you installed them from

11- turn on any 2 factor authentication and security measures for any account you have

12- google and firefox have the option to check your paswords and emails against any data leaks USE THIS FEATURE and change any leaked passwords

13- regularly check your logged in sessions to make sure all the logged in devices or computers are yours and log out any that aren't and any old devices or unused sessions do this for every website and app you have an account on if available

14- change your passwords often. I know this is a hassle i know its hard to come up with new passwords but changing your passwords every few months will help you against anything mention previously that wasn't detected.

15- and as a cc creator check your cc and the accounts you host cc on and its uplaod and update dates make sure nothing has been changed without your permission :(

16- generally try not to get swept up in the "i must get it" fever you do not need to "shop" for mods weekly or monthly you do not need to download everything by that one creator you do not need to download new cc everytime you want to make a sim, im guilty of this so i know how hard it is to resist but take a breath and think "do i want this or do i need it" before downloading.

These are prevention methods i cant claim they are 100% will prevent any hacking but its better to be safe than sorry and these do keep you safe so

Brought to you by someone who has had their laptop ruined and data leaked from downloading cc once upon a time

[claire-starsword]

also, because i keep seeing misinfo on my dash, this is not a Windows problem, it's a Crowdstrike problem. If you just have a windows machine it's not gonna get bricked, it only affects those who have the crowdstrike program installed, which, to my understanding, is geared towards workplaces, not common users.

i'm also gonna nitpick all the comparison to y2k going around, because y2k was a general and predictable problem about the way dates were stored in programs, and fixes could be discussed and developed years before it was meant to happen. This is one single company pushing a bad update and immediately bricking everyone, plus both them and the companies having no decent strategy to restart the systems or activate alternate systems during such an error.

Thoughts and prayers for u this morning Chrissy, hope your work hasn’t been too hectic!!

The issue isn’t a Microsoft issue and I’m not IT, so luckily I’ve dodged any bullets related to this. I’m in fact LESS impacted than most since Microsoft doesn’t use third-party antimalware.

I am however watching this whole thing unfold because it is absolutely unbelievable.

[reasonsforhope]

Although dam removals have been happening since 1912, the vast majority have occurred since the mid-2010s, and they have picked up steam since the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provided funding for such projects. To date, 806 Northeastern dams have come down, with hundreds more in the pipeline. Across the country, 2023 was a watershed year, with a total of 80 dam removals. Says Andrew Fisk, Northeast regional director of the nonprofit American Rivers, “The increasing intensity and frequency of storm events, and the dramatically reduced sizes of our migratory fish populations, are accelerating our efforts.”

Dam removals in the Northeast don’t generate the same media attention as massive takedowns on West Coast rivers, like the Klamath or the Elwha. That’s because most of these structures are comparatively miniscule, built in the 19th century to form ponds and to power grist, textile, paper, saw, and other types of mills as the region developed into an industrial powerhouse.

But as mills became defunct, their dams remained. They may be small to humans, but to the fish that can’t get past them “they’re just as big as a Klamath River dam,” says Maddie Feaster, habitat restoration project manager for the environmental organization Riverkeeper, based in Ossining, New York. From Maryland and Pennsylvania up to Maine, there are 31,213 inventoried dams, more than 4,000 of which sit within the 13,400-square-mile Hudson River watershed alone. For generations they’ve degraded habitat and altered downstream hydrology and sediment flows, creating warm, stagnant, low-oxygen pools that trigger algal blooms and favor invasive species. The dams inhibit fish passage, too, which is why the biologists at the mouth of the Saw Kill transported their glass eels past the first of three Saw Kill dams after counting them...

Jeremy Dietrich, an aquatic ecologist at the New York State Water Resources Institute, monitors dam sites both pre- and post-removal. Environments upstream of an intact dam, he explains, “are dominated by midges, aquatic worms, small crustaceans, organisms you typically might find in a pond.” In 2017 and 2018 assessments of recent Hudson River dam removals, some of which also included riverbank restorations to further enhance habitat for native species, he found improved water quality and more populous communities of beetles, mayflies, and caddisflies, which are “more sensitive to environmental perturbation, and thus used as bioindicators,” he says. “You have this big polarity of ecological conditions, because the barrier has severed the natural connectivity of the system. [After removal], we generally see streams recover to a point where we didn’t even know there was a dam there.”

Pictured: Quassaick Creek flows freely after the removal of the Strooks Felt Dam, Newburgh, New York.

American Rivers estimates that 85 percent of U.S. dams are unnecessary at best and pose risks to public safety at worst, should they collapse and flood downstream communities. The nonprofit has been involved with roughly 1,000 removals across the country, 38 of them since 2018. This effort was boosted by $800 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. But states will likely need to contribute more of their own funding should the Trump administration claw back unspent money, and organizations involved in dam removal are now scrambling to assess the potential impact to their work.

Enthusiasm for such projects is on the upswing among some dam owners — whether states, municipalities, or private landholders. Pennsylvania alone has taken out more than 390 dams since 1912 — 107 of them between 2015 and 2023 — none higher than 16 feet high. “Individual property owners [say] I own a dam, and my insurance company is telling me I have a liability,” says Fisk. Dams in disrepair may release toxic sediments that potentially threaten both human health and wildlife, and low-head dams, over which water flows continuously, churn up recirculating currents that trap and drown 50 people a year in the U.S.

Numerous studies show that dam removals improve aquatic fish passage, water quality, watershed resilience, and habitat for organisms up the food chain, from insects to otters and eagles. But removals aren’t straightforward. Federal grants, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or the Fish and Wildlife Service, favor projects that benefit federally listed species and many river miles. But even the smallest, simplest projects range in cost from $100,000 to $3 million. To qualify for a grant, be it federal or state, an application “has to score well,” says Scott Cuppett, who leads the watershed team at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program, which collaborates with nonprofits like Riverkeeper to connect dam owners to technical assistance and money...

All this can be overwhelming for dam owners, which is why stakeholders hope additional research will help loosen up some of the requirements. In 2020, Yellen released a study in which he simulated the removal of the 1,702 dams in the lower Hudson watershed, attempting to determine how much sediment might be released if they came down. He found that “the vast majority of dams don’t really trap much sediment,” he says. That’s good news, since it means sediment released into the Hudson will neither permanently worsen water quality nor build up in places that would smother or otherwise harm underwater vegetation. And it shows that “you would not need to invest a huge amount of time or effort into a [costly] sediment management plan,” Yellen says. It’s “a day’s worth of excavator work to remove some concrete and rock, instead of months of trucking away sand and fill.” ...

On a sunny winter afternoon, Feaster, of Riverkeeper, stands in thick mud beside Quassaick Creek in Newburgh, New York. The Strooks Felt Dam, the first of seven municipally owned dams on the lower reaches of this 18-mile tributary, was demolished with state money in 2020. The second dam, called Holden, is slated to come down in late 2025. Feaster is showing a visitor the third, the Walsh Road Dam, whose removal has yet to be funded. “This was built into a floodplain,” she says, “and when it rains the dam overflows to flood a housing complex just around a bend in the creek.” ...

On the Quassaick, improvements are evident since the Strooks dam came out. American eel and juvenile blue crabs have already moved in. In fact, fish returns can sometimes be observed within minutes of opening a passageway. Says Schmidt, “We’ve had dammed rivers where you’ve been removing the project and when the last piece comes out a fish immediately storms past it.”

There is palpable impatience among environmentalists and dam owners to get even more removals going in the Northeast. To that end, collaborators are working to streamline the process. The Fish and Wildlife Service, for example, has formed an interagency fish passage task force with other federal agencies, including NOAA and FEMA, that have their own interests in dam removals. American Rivers is working with regional partners to develop priority lists of dams whose removals would provide the greatest environmental and safety benefits and open up the most river miles to the most important species. “We’re not going to remove all dams,” [Note: mostly for reasons dealing with invasive species management, etc.] says Schmidt. “But we can be really thoughtful and impactful with the ones that we do choose to remove.”

-via Yale Environment 360, February 4, 2025

[augustameretrix]

now i dont know anything about anything of course, but isnt it kinda fucked to implement restorative justice while leaving the systemic and cultural root causes untouched

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

The S1 Bentley is For Sale! 👀

link

from the description :):

Mary is a 1934 Derby Bentley Thrupp & Maberley bodied Coupe. BLE 430 – B 96 BN. Two were made but the other one has not been seen since WW11, so she is unique. She is also the only Bentley in the world to have been blown up twice on screen. She was owned by Speed King Donald Campbell in the early fifties.

I acquired her in 2009, to go with my 1947 Mark VI. Since then the engine has been completely re-built, including a new head and block, with a new clutch put in at the same time. She has also been re-wired, new kingpins, total brake overhaul, new radiator and fuel pump with suspension and one shot lubrication system overhauled. Also had the speedometer and rev.counter serviced in 2018. She runs superbly and has just had her annual service at AB Classics, who specialise in pre-war Bentleys & Rolls Royces. (He also looks after my 1936 25/30 RR ).

She is currently insured for £295,000 and I will be looking for an offer around £265,000.

History

Ordered for Jack Odling in September 1934. One of two 3 ½ lt Coupes made by Thrupp & Maberley. The other one has not been seen for several decades and presumed lost during World War 2. Not much early history but owned by Speed King Donald Campbell in the early 1950’s. We have a photograph of the car at that time being offered for sale, with silver wheel discs. His ownership is acknowledged by all the relevant history available in various publications and agreed with both Bentley Drivers Club & Rolls Royce Enthusiasts Club records. She went through three owners from October 1954 to October 1961. Next piece of history is she was acquired by a Mr Silk of Romford in 1973 and underwent extensive professional restoration up to 1994, with a mechanical overhaul in 1994. She was back on the road in 1998. She was then purchased from P & A Wood by Andrew Smith in August 2001. He kept her until early 2008 when he sold her to Brian Classic as he did not wish to re- wire her. I bought her from Brian Classic in April 2009 with money left to me by my late Mother, Mary. We only just made the 100 miles home with many electrical problems. I am glad to say that Brian Classic eventually made a substantial contribution to the re-wiring by Jeremy Padgett. The following year going into the RREC Concours the heating nearly went into the red so back to Jeremy Padgett to sort out. Result was a complete engine re-build by Ristes, also replaced the radiator core and new clutch plate. Finally back on the road in May 2012. Very expensive period. However, she is now in superb condition, being regularly serviced by AB Classics. More recently the carburettors have been re-built. Following an accident on set in 2017 she was sent to Steve Penny at Penny Vintage to restore the damaged door. Sadly this was one of his last jobs before retiring. What a superb craftsman he is, he made a fabulous job of restoring her. Needless to say she still looks superb. I have owned and enjoyed classic cars since 1969 and Mary must be my ultimate car.

TV & Film work

...

when the call��came. Jeremy, I am looking for a 1926 Derby Bentley, preferably black. Can you find me one please. I explained that they were not invented until 1933 and that mine was made in 1934 and is grey and black and has not changed since Endeavour three years earlier. Half an hour later phone goes again, can you bring your car down for production to have a look at in Ealing early next week. Production were delighted with Mary, especially after a bit of a run round Ealing. At this point no-one would tell me what it was all about, apart from the fact that this was “The Big One”. Two days later phone goes again, she is going to be Crowley’s Bentley in “Good Omens” by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. My wife quickly ordered the book and read it. The Bentley was mentioned almost 80 times. Can I please take her to a specialist body maker for her cab to be replicated for studio scenes. Can I find an interior etc. I phoned Hew at The Real Car Company, who was a tremend ous help. A complete set of instruments and a steering wheel duly arrived. Next, I was asked if I could take the car to Wokingham to be copied. Absolutely staggered to discover they wanted the car at Rushton’s Farm, where I lived from 1957 to 1963. Father’s chicken sheds had been converted into industrial units. A half hour drop off turned into four hours, as I took an old photograph album to show the current owners. The farmhouse had been separated from the rest of the farm by this time. A real trip down memory lane for me. Looking for a Derby body, seats etc, Hew recommended talking to Bob Petersen. He was stripping down a Thrupp & Maberley saloon to make one of his famous specials, so that was purchased complete with dash, seats etc so Mary could be well and truly replicated. Even changed the indicator switch so that both were identical. By this time the cast list had leaked out on the Internet. David Tennant and Michael Sheene are the main stars with others being added on a daily basis. I met many people but mainly worked with these two, especially David. He is one of the nicest guys you could ever wish to meet. Very hardworking but happily chats to everyone. I got Mary back from the farm in September, ready to start filming. The first scene was near Marlow for a two day shoot where I started to meet the cast and crew. 

Trying to teach David how to drive Mary was a bit of a struggle. Most people in their forties haven’t a clue about cars without syncromesh on all gears, and David normally drives an automatic! However, Rob, the stunt driver did know how to drive Mary and quickly picked up the fact that the clutch cannot be depressed for any length of time. The main problem with David and Rob changing over was about six inches in height. Don’t think the seat had been moved so much for years, with a gentle application of oil on the runners and avoidance of catching the carpet. During this period Mary used the registration NIATRUC, Curtain spelt backwards (the subject is the end of the world ). The Morris Minor had SID RAT , TARDIS spelt backwards. David was an earlier Dr Who! Being the grandad on set meant that I was well looked after by everyone, who made sure I had Mary in the right place and usually a radio as well. There is a lot of hanging about on set then a burst of activity. Some shots are repeated over a dozen times to get differing angles and eventually sort out which take will be used. Within a few days I was getting the hang of it, meeting the directors, the camera guys, the sound technicians, moving from location to location, usually in or around the M 25 then in central London. Naturally you can watch Good Omens on BBC iplayer and see how much Mary appeared. There are a few pictures of what it is like on set. 

[mesetacadre]

what's wrong with the concept of technofeudalism?, honest question 😅

It's based on disregarding capitalism as an antiquated term to refer to the current economic structure of society, it's no longer capitalist (for varoufakis meaning when there is a market with more or less free competition between different agents) but technofeudal (high levels of monopolization of markets and logistics like feudal lords (?) but it's modern instead of medieval, so technofeudal). Jeff Bezos (it's Amazon's board, actually) controls large amounts of global shipping which means Bezos is like a feudal lord but with technology instead of tilled fields, and with employees instead of peasants. It's an extremely liberal point of view, it's positing capitalism as a system based on the free market, and the logical conclusion of this outlook is a "restoration" of "free market capitalism". The defining trait of capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of labor-power carried out by a class lacking in that private property, only upheld by the salary they're paid, a fraction of the value they create. This has not changed regardless of the amount of capitalists that make up the capitalist class.

[httpsserene]

snoring — 𝐥𝐧. 𝟒

˖♡ - ̗̀ ⇢ listened to heart to heart by mac demarco on repeat while doing this writing exercise at two a.m. happy reading, loves x

⌕ join taglist | upcoming chapters | table of contents ↻

lando snores when he sleeps on his back.

he doesn’t snore when he’s on his side, when the curve of his body cradles yours.

like this, his face nestles into the nape of your neck, nose and lips brushing the skin tenderly. his chest radiates warmth against your back, spilling through your skin and warming you from head to toe. he sacrifices the arm tucked under your head, knowing it’ll be dull with numbness come morning. his other arm drapes around your waist, his large hand splayed on the softness of your belly, drifting upward at some point in the night to hold the plushness of your chest.

the first morning you woke with his hand resting on your bosom, he murmured a sleepy explanation into your skin, feels nice. and, it was nothing more than that.

like this, the only sounds you hear are the snuffles of his breath, warm and fuzzy on your neck.

lando snores when he’s deeply asleep.

he doesn’t snore when he rests his eyes, when he leans onto any surface to nap.

like this, whether it’s a chair, couch, floor, table, or tire stack—if he can close his eyes for a few seconds, he’ll be unconscious within the minute. by far though, his favorite napping spot has to be you.

lando will seek you out for the pure purpose of shutting his eyes for a moment. he crawls into your arms with his eyes already closed and asks, put me to sleep?

you massage his scalp, nails scraping along his crown gently, untangling the curls that your fingers get caught in. your other hand scratches up and down the length of his back soothingly. you speak to him softly, about anything that comes to mind and if you’re lost for words, you hum.

he’s never down long enough to reach deep sleep. his body twitches with hypnic jerks as his sleep cycle begins.

like this, naps are when lando’s silent. he extends the length of his snooze session by not handing the team a map to his location, the marked path of his snores erased.

lando snores when he’s on his back and deeply asleep.

like this, he lies flat with you curled up to his side. your head rests on his chest, the steady beat of his heart amplified with your ear pressed close. his arm around your back anchors you to him. your arm lays across his torso and your leg hooks around his.

lando is called to sleep first, as always. there was a time where you were jealous of how quickly he drifts away but now, you fight unconsciousness to wait for him to reach a deep slumber.

because if you do, you’re rewarded with a snore. the sound is throaty and nasally, it rumbles through his chest and interrupts your focus on the pumping of his heart. aptly, you’d compare it to an idling engine.

snoring is annoying to most people, for good reason. it’s disruptive, loud, and if the repetitive noises prevented you from getting your own sleep, you’d have lost your mind already.

but to you, it’s proof that lando is resting well. that his sleep is restorative, that his body is recovering, that his immune system is strengthening, and that his worries and stressors are far from mind. so, you listen to him snore for a few minutes.

however, you don’t allow yourself to treasure the rumbles for long—long term snoring can lead to other risks later in life.

you don’t want snores to be the reason you aren’t allowed a lifetime with lando.

so, you slide off of his chest, huffing quietly as you strain to shift the limp weight of his prone body onto his side. it takes effort, eventually trapping him in the embrace of your arms, throwing your leg around his hip, and tucking his head under your chin.

like this, his snores taper off into nothingness and the little strength you had left to keep your eyelids open is diminished.

lando snores when he’s in your dreams. the raspiness of his exhales mimicked by your subconscious mind calms you. you are able to rest well knowing that he’s doing the same.

© httpsserene - do not repost. photos in header from pinterest.

[jesuistrestriste]

but android!art wireplay hhnnnnggg im shortcircuiting

cw (18+) : android!art, wireplay, implied corruption, first orgasm/simulated release

android!art asking you for help when his daily diagnostic tests sense that one of his wires has disconnected inside of his chest, opening up his chassis for you to dig your fingers inside and hopefully fix the issue.

and he’s fine with it all; no pain, no discomfort, no intense sensation linked to your touch there—at first.

but then your fingernail catches on the outside of a thick, blue wire close to his thirium pump, and suddenly his back is arching and his eyes are rolling under his lids and he’s gasping raggedly. he grabs onto your wrist, panting and writhing while his LED flickers from blue to red. he looks like a scared puppy, and you immediately notice that his pupils are unusually large beneath his fluttering lashes.

“i.. i’m sorry, i—.. that’s never happened before, i think my systems are just overworked and malfunctioning.. please, continue..”

so you do. you search through the colorful mess of his innards, your fingertips grazing each electrical tendril as you pass them by. it takes several long moments before you find the problem wire, and you’re just about to tell art the good news, but when you look up you find your breath catching in your throat.

he’s artificially flushed all over his face, his hands are gripping the edge of the sofa with white knuckles, and his head is lolling back lazily like he’s lost control of his expertly-engineered musculature.

“art?” you hum, “are you okay?”

he begins to quake, moaning lowly, and you can feel the scorching waves of heat radiating off of him.

he releases his grip on the couch only to readjust it and squeeze harder. you watch his adam’s apple bob as he swallows around a barely-contained whine.

“please, just— just plug it in, i can’t—“ he mewls.

you’ve never heard him sound so out-of-control before, but you want nothing more than to help him feel better. you line up the yellow wire with its designated socket, making note of the way his body jolts when you pinch it between the pads of your digits, and push it forward to click it back into place.

as soon as the connection is restored, art’s eyes are flying open—wide and wild—and then he’s wailing. his hips rush upward and knock your elbow in the process, his legs kicking out and convulsing as he curls in on himself. your own stomach swirls and flips as you take in the sight of his abdomen repeatedly tensing and relaxing in a vicious cycle of what appears to be.. hmm..

it takes a hand on his shoulder and your whispered reassurance for his cognitive capabilities to come back to him, but he can’t resist leaning forward to bury his face in your neck. his hands clutch your back, his breathing heavy and exhausted. his vision flares with pop-ups. “warning: systems overheating” and “warning: coolant levels low”.

“some.. something just happened.. i.. i’m embarrassed, i’m so sorry—please, will you exclude that from your memory? i’m.. i’m so hot inside.. i’m.. i don’t know wh—aah..”

he nuzzles the bridge of his nose into your skin, still holding you tight like he’s afraid you’ll go. you realize that he’s become an entirely different android in the last few minutes. some part of him has sprung loose.

you have to let him cool down for the entire rest of the evening before he’s back to normal, at which point you assume all is well again—only for him to pad sheepishly over to you the next afternoon to announce that another one of his wires has mysteriously slipped out of its port..

what a coincidence.