#Warming/Cooling Unit Models

[mercuryhc2024]

Advancements in Patient Care: Hyperthermia and Hypothermia Units by Mercury Healthcare 

In the realm of healthcare, advancements in technology continually revolutionize patient care. Among these advancements, hyperthermia and hypothermia units play a crucial role in managing extreme body temperatures, ensuring optimal patient outcomes. At Mercury Healthcare, we're dedicated to harnessing the latest innovations to enhance these units, providing cutting-edge solutions for medical professionals. 

Hyperthermia, characterized by elevated body temperature, and hypothermia, marked by abnormally low body temperature, present significant challenges in healthcare settings. Both conditions can result from various factors, including environmental exposure, infections, and underlying medical conditions. Effective management of these conditions requires precise temperature control, rapid response, and tailored treatment strategies. 

Mercury Healthcare's hyperthermia and hypothermia units integrate advanced technology and medical expertise to address these challenges comprehensively. Our units are designed with precision temperature regulation capabilities, allowing healthcare providers to maintain patients' body temperatures within safe ranges effectively. With real-time monitoring and intelligent control systems, our units ensure accurate temperature management, minimizing the risk of complications and optimizing patient outcomes. 

One of the key advancements in our hyperthermia and hypothermia units is the integration of state-of-the-art cooling and heating technologies. These technologies enable rapid temperature adjustment, allowing healthcare providers to respond promptly to fluctuations in patients' body temperatures. Whether cooling down a patient with heatstroke or rewarming a hypothermic individual, our units deliver precise and efficient temperature control, enhancing the efficacy of treatment interventions. 

In addition to temperature control, Mercury Healthcare's units prioritize patient comfort and safety. Our units feature ergonomic designs, with adjustable settings to accommodate patients of various ages and sizes. Soft, hypoallergenic materials ensure comfort during prolonged use, while safety mechanisms prevent overheating or excessive cooling, mitigating the risk of adverse events. 

Furthermore, our hyperthermia and hypothermia units are equipped with advanced monitoring and alarm systems, providing healthcare providers with real-time data and alerts. These systems enable early detection of temperature abnormalities and facilitate timely intervention, minimizing the risk of complications and improving patient outcomes. Integrated data logging capabilities allow for comprehensive documentation of temperature trends, supporting accurate diagnosis and treatment planning. 

At Mercury Healthcare, we understand the importance of versatility and adaptability in healthcare settings. That's why our hyperthermia and hypothermia units are designed to be multifunctional, catering to a wide range of medical applications. Whether used in emergency departments, intensive care units, or specialized treatment centers, our units offer flexible solutions for temperature management across diverse patient populations. 

Looking ahead, Mercury Healthcare remains committed to advancing hyperthermia and hypothermia units to meet the evolving needs of healthcare providers and patients. Through ongoing research and development initiatives, we strive to incorporate the latest technological innovations and clinical insights into our products. By continually pushing the boundaries of innovation, we aim to redefine the standard of care for temperature management in healthcare settings. 

In conclusion, hyperthermia and hypothermia units play a vital role in patient care, particularly in managing extreme body temperatures. At Mercury Healthcare, we're dedicated to advancing these units to enhance patient outcomes. With cutting-edge technology, precision temperature control, and a focus on safety and comfort, our units empower healthcare providers to deliver optimal care to every patient, every time. 

[nothorses]

So I'm thinking of going on low dose T, and ofc I'll get more feedback from doctors when I see them, but I know one of the changes is that you run warmer and have lower heat tolerance, and I'm already kind of heat sensitive (sweating is a sensory ick). Do you or your followers have any kind of coping strategies that have helped with that?

I ran warm before, too, and I'm definitely warmer now! I also have Raynaud's which kind of makes the whole experience a clusterfuck, but that's besides the point. lmao.

I live in a pretty cool/temperate area, so it isn't normally an issue except in the (increasingly horrible) summers, but I've found that the hardest time to stay cool has been at night. I share a bed with my partner who runs even warmer, and it's been 2.5 years of struggling to figure out how to be a comfortable temperature together.

The best advice I can give you is to just stay as far away from synthetic fibers as you can; "sweat wicking" and "cooling" and "athletic" stuff included. It's a lie. They're all plastic, and while they might feel cool to the touch at first, plastic doesn't breathe. It'll trap heat and moisture against your skin after enough time, especially in the form of blankets. (Fuck the Rest Evercool. Worst recommendation I've ever gotten.)

Look for 100% linen, or 100% cotton. I've heard wool also works well, but I haven't had luck with that personally. Woven fabrics are going to be cooler and more breathable than sateen, and waffle weave is like, the single most breathable weave afaik (it's more common in blankets, but some clothes are waffle).

Some of these things can be pretty scratchy at first, and I recommend a couple of washes on a high heat & some fabric softener before you start using them. We were able to break in our waffle blanket super quickly this way! (I know some folks recommend against softener for breathability reasons, but it's the only thing that actually worked for us, and it hasn't impacted breathability). After you break them in, though, cotton and linen fabrics are SUPER soft!

I also recommend staying away from leather. It's natural, but trust me: it's not breathable. It's coveted in outdoor rec spaces BECAUSE it's somewhat waterproof.

Outside of that, I'd really encourage you to lean towards multiple light layers that you can change/remove throughout the day to suit your needs (ex: light tee + fleece + wind/rain layer, maybe throw in a flannel somewhere), instead of one or two heavy ones (ex: shirt + big puffy cold weather jacket). It's a strategy common in the PNW that works great for regulating your temperature when you're dealing with humidity and somewhat unpredictable weather, and imo, it also really translates if you're just generally sensitive to heat and sweat.

Outside of that... depending on where you live, I really recommend having an AC/dehumidifier. Don't bother with trying to rig up a swamp cooler if you're sensitive to sweat- the increased humidity will make things worse. The general advice I heard when researching a good AC was that window units will always be more efficient than portable units (and a mini split is better than either), but if you have to go with a portable unit, go with a dual-hose. They'll be more efficient just because they don't create a vacuum that pulls in warm air from outside. This is the model we settled on- it was really highly recommended and cost effective for what it is, and it's been absolutely fantastic this summer.

Idk how you are about pits, but I wash mine with a benzoyl body wash and then use a deodorant with antiperspirant every day, and I virtually never smell or sweat. 🤷‍♂️ ymmv though

I'm sure folks will have things to add, so check the notes on this post- and good luck!

[terresdebrume]

for the prompts - "i'm not worth saving. please." and/or "a few more steps. we're nearly there. i've got you" for a ship/ships of your choice?

Hey friend! Thanks for the prompt :D Sorry it took a bit, you know how it is with work^^" Still, I hope this AU without a cause will satisfy! Prompt list here, if anyone wants to send me another one!

Edwin huffs as he leans backwards, suspending his entire weight at the end of Charles' arm and still not managing to move him more than a couple of inches. He pauses, heaving for breath, and watches as Charles heaves himself up the last few steps with a painful-sounding mechanical whir.

"Come now Charles," he pants, forbidding himself from sitting down. "We only have a few steps left."

"I can't," Charles says.

His words comes out flat, mechanical. His voice modulator must have given up somewhere between the bottom of the stairs and now. His chest is rising and falling too fast, cooling circuits working overtime, but the audible sound his systems make tells Edwin it isn't quite working. Charles must be approaching overheating, and there is nothing Edwin can do about it here, in the hallway to the agency.

"Charles, please," Edwin begs, but Charles shakes his head.

"I can't," he repeats. "My left knee's piston is malfunctioning."

Edwin inhales, sharp and loud, and ignores the beeping in his systems that say his shell is too warm. They found spare parts for his cooling system last month: he can handle a little heat, but Charles--

"Charles, you must keep going, you can't--we have to plug you in!"

It took a lot of time, and even more money--although they are lucky Crystal never asked them what it was for--but they finally got their systems up to a point where they can handle one of them, at least for a time. Charles' software isn't as solid as Edwin's, but ROWLAND persocons had a reputation of hardiness for a reason. They have the memory banks required, and more than enough compatibility coding between the two of them to keep Charles safe until they can find him a new chassis, but none of that will matter if they can't get him connected before he shuts down.

"You should leave me here," he says, Edwin gasps.

"Do not say that," he warns.

"You should," Charles insists, eyes closing. "I'm not worth saving."

"Do not say that!" Edwin all but shouts, not caring about the time, or the human neighbors whose suspicions they've been trying not to arouse. "I forbid it, Charles!"

"Look at me!" Charles exclaims.

Edwin, electrical core on overdrive, looks down at Charles. Some of the hair is missing from his skull, burned away in the accident that nearly tore Edwin's head off a few years back. There is a long streak under his eyes where the synthetic skin peeled away, revealing the gray of his chassis, and the open jacket he wears fails to conceal the three large dents in his chassis, left there by the older ROWLAND model he used to live with. He looks resigned and, impossible as it should be, exhausted.

Even so, even pulling up the necessary softwares to run a simulation of existence without Charles prompts half a dozen alerts in Edwin's system, and he shudders. Crouching down, he puts a hand to the side of Charles' face.

"I am looking at you," he says, voice modulator struggling to keep his tone even through the shiver of his cooling system going overdrive.

"I'm old," Charles says, bitter. "I can't even move. Even if we do preserve me: I won't even have a body. I'm an industrial unit--what good am I if I can't even move around?"

"Charles," Edwin says, surprised to get an alert from the hardware around his throat, "please stop. You haven't been a dockhand in decades--"

"But I am!" Charles cries, or must try to. "That's why I'm the brawn, isn't it? Stronger chassis, longer batteries, building routines--that's what I'm for! What am I if I can't do what I'm for?"

"You're my friend!" Edwin says, fiercely, bringing his face closer to Charles. "You're the man who got me out of the scrapyard I'd been stuck in for seventy years! You're the one who made me look human enough to go out again!"

"Yeah, and now I'm the one who looks like a rogue!" Charles retorts, closing his eyes in distress. "If anyone from Endless Co. sees me, they'll do more than scrape us--"

"That will not happen--no!" Edwin insists, louder, when Charles looks like he is about to protest again, "That will not happen! I will never let it happen. You are my friend! You are my confident, and my companion, and you must stop talking about yourself like you are a glorified forklift!"

"That's what I was programmed for!"

"And I was supposed to be a sex unit!" Edwin breathes harshly in the stunned silence, gathering himself closer to Charles, until he can curl up around him and touch their forehead together. "I don't care chat they made you for," he whispers. "You're the one who decided to download all those fighting programs. You're the one who saved me. You're the one who came up with the name of the Agency. I don't care that they think we're not alive, Charles, I know they're wrong. You and I, we're alive in all the ways that matter, and I--"

Edwin stops talking. His voice modulator refuses to add even one word, some previously unnoticed subroutine cutting off his access to his dictionary. Fantom code, perhaps: a glitch. Or maybe the people who programmed his model line back at Payne Industries wanted to make sure they couldn't evoke certain feelings. Either way, Edwin's voice absolutely refuses to shape the words he is thinking, and so he does the only thing he can possibly do in this situation: he leans forward and presses his lips to Charles'.

Charles twitches under him, unnatural and poorly coordinated, but when Edwin pulls away to look at him, he is met with eyes filled with wonder, and joy, and that same word Edwin's core software won't let him say.

"Oh," Charles says, and brings a hand up to touch Edwin's cheek.

"Yes," Edwin replies, arch and haughty, "oh. Now, if you would please help me. It's only a few more steps."

[aqueousablution]

(March 2023) GRODAHAJ (Zamtrios if he BLÅHAJ)

Original post body under the cut:

If I ever have enough money to commission a big plushie someday, I'd love to get a BLÅHAJ-esque Zamtrios plushie made. It'd be 1 meter long like a normal BLÅHAJ, but instead of being fuzzy, it would be made of a smoother, cool-feeling fabric like you might find used in bedding (especially pillowcases), in reference to Zamtrios being an ice-element monster. (Addendum: Maybe if I have enough money I could also commission a Zamite based on those 55 cm mini-BLÅHAJAR?... actually, how do you capitalize "blåhajar" and other Swedish pluralizations in proper IKEA product formatting? Maybe "BLÅHAJar"? I think I got it right the first time but it looks... off. All the more reason to ignore IKEA's insistence on capitalizing all their product names, I suppose.)

I'm half-tempted to learn Blender properly so I can model it and put it in my hunter's room in Sunbreak as a mod (or more realistically a 6th-gen MonHun game, considering how long it's likely to take me to learn all the necessary steps), but that seems like a bit of a long shot.

Transcript of notes below the cut:

-

GRODAHAJ (Zamtrios BLÅHAJ)

[ frog ][shark]

overlapping fabric? embroidery? (pointing to texturing on top of GRODAHAJ's head, which lines up with darkened gills around where BLÅHAJ's are)

100 units¹ long (100 cm, or 1 meter)

like the gills on BLÅHAJ (pointing to a darker part of the aforementioned texturing)

folds that expand when inflated (referring to a cross-section of GRODAHAJ's belly, showing the folds, which are deepest in the middle of his belly and shallowest closest to his sides)

white eyes like Zamtrios in-game (pointing to the eye of the inflated GRODAHAJ)

inflated... how?²

- same fabric as a nice, cool pillowcase ↳ in contrast to BLÅHAJ being warm & good for Winter, GRODAHAJ is good for cuddling in Summer; he is an ice-element monster, after all! - no ice armor mode ↳ needs to be cuddly, not "badass"

As far as I know units are never labeled in-game in MonHun, so all the fan wikis tend to just call them "units" (if they call them anything at all, as opposed to just listing the raw number like the games), but they're pretty clearly centimeters based on some official sources and comparing sizes in-game. Thus, a 1-meter-long plushie (like BLÅHAJ) would be 100 units long.

My initial instinct is to just inflate it the old-fashioned way, but maybe there could be a cushion-like insert? If so, how would you conceal the fastener for the pocket such that it wouldn't be uncomfortable to cuddle (maybe hide it in a fold, and just not worry about it when it's inflated since it's too bulky to cuddle at full size)? Though that problem also exists with the valve for an internal balloon, not to mention the logistical issue of how to inflate it (inflated like a beach ball? That'd be a bit shit IMO, especially since some people struggle with those for various reasons).

[cellythefloshie]

;; The Shallow End Chapter Four of Cool for the Summer

Table of Contents Chapter Three «« 🤍 »» Chapter Five

Summary: Harper spends her weekend by the pool. TW: No triggers apply. Word Count: 4k+

This series to be read in conjecture with @hockeyboysimagines I Loved You Three Summers.

The car at the end of the driveway turned wasn't one she recognized, and it left her blood to run cold. It had her foot hovering between the gas and the brake, unsure if she should pull into the driveway or drive to the nearby park and call her dad. Any other day, Harper wouldn't have been worried, but she had spent the half of morning speaking with officers from the domestic violence unit regarding harassing text messages she had been receiving from Darren. And the other half she had spent at the mall changing her cell phone provider and number. 

Was it Darren's car? No. Was it above him to get his friend to drive him to her place once he realized his messages were no longer being delivered? Also no.

Her nerves left her hands sweaty as they gripped at the steering wheel, her toe easing closer to the gas pedal, ready to speed off until she saw a familiar face leave the front door of the Jarvis home. 

Harper let out a sigh of relief, yet her heart continued to pound too hard in her chest at the sight of him, Andrei. Her hand slipped down to the horn, honking it twice to get his attention before she reached her hand out the window to wave at him. She needed to make sure he saw her, and he did. Andrei's face lit up as he looked up from his phone, a protein bar hanging from between his teeth. He bit down on it so hard it fell to the ground, but he didn't seem to mind. Andrei looked excited to see her, and in a way, Harper was excited to see him, too. 

Pulling into the driveway, Harper didn't even think to look at the unfamiliar car. She wouldn't let her mind register the make, the model, or even the color. And she refused to look at the driver, fearful that it would be her ex that was looking back at her. So she fixated on Andrei, and only Andrei. 

He was wearing a black baseball cap turned backwards, sending his slicked back hair to hang down the back of his neck. It kept it out of his face, showing the definition of his jaw more noticeable as his lips pulled back into a toothy grin. It was one so wide Harper noticed that one of his teeth was missing, one she hadn’t cared enough to notice before. Then there were his eyes, the deep warm brown that brought her a certain semblance of comfort as she got out of her jeep, grabbed her bag and moved to stand with him in the middle of the driveway that he was walking down right towards her. 

“What are you up to today?” Harper didn’t know why she asked Andrei that. She wasn’t really all that interested in what he was going to do, and she had no intention of inserting herself into his day beyond the interaction there in the middle of her front lawn. But she’s friendly, pleasant, as if they were long friends rather than practically strangers. 

“Training,” Andrei’s quick and simple answer was jarring, and sent Harper’s neck snapping to look at the car that was parked by the curb as he nodded towards it. 

It was only then she let herself look at who the driver was: a man who looked so much like Andrei, albeit a little older, his hair slightly redder and his front tooth so obviously missing as he smiled at them both and offered her a subtle, casual wave. 

A wave of heat washed over Harper’s face, her jaw slacking in the embarrassment of her overreaction. She should have known better. Not that she knew Andrei had a brother. She just should have known he and Seth wouldn't be cooped up in the house all summer. Seth liked to party, she should have assumed Andrei would join him for a wild night at the Howden house or one of the bars Harper herself hadn't frequented since her early twenties. And she shouldn't have forgotten about training. Of course they would be training. When you played hockey it took over your life. She had watched it all happen first hand with Seth after all.

“You?” Andrei countered, stepping in slightly, his head cocking to the side as he looked down at her. 

“Just finished up errands,” Harper sighed, holding up a single shopping bag like the smallest, lamest trophy. “I know, very exciting. Are you coming back later?” 

Harper bit down on her lip. Hard. She didn't know why she asked that. 

“Yeah,” He nodded, taking a stride towards his brother's car, turning slightly so that he was still facing her, “I'll see you later.”

“Yeah, see you later,” she took a step back as she spoke. Then her hand raised up to give Andrei and his brother a wave before she, and her embarrassment, went inside. 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Droplets of sweat spilled down over the angle of Andrei's brow as he stood hunched over after a heavy circuit that ended in a sprint. It had been a race of sorts, Evgeny coming to a still beside him as he reached what was their finish line. His brother halted and hunched over just as he had, and offered a large, toothy grin. Andrei cocked his head in return, sweat dripping down his nose and down over his lip. His tongue darted out, licking it away quickly, and tasting its salt. Then he smiled, a hand reaching out to shove at Evgeny playfully as he jested; 

“Old man.”

Evgeny shoved him back, a low laugh shared between them as they walked off the course and towards their water. 

“Winnipeg,” Andrei sighed after a moment once he had caught his breath. “You going to stay?”

His brother shrugged, his head tilting back as he squeezed the bright green Gatorade bottle and flooded his mouth with water. Evgeny's contract was up, Winnipeg his home for only a mere season and as a free agent, he could end up anywhere. That was, unless he fought to stay. 

“It's not all that bad, yes?” Andrei questioned his brother as he ran the back of his hand over the sweat on his brow. 

He could practically feel the rumble of Evgeny’s laugh as he shook his head slowly, “You say that because of the girl. The pretty one.” 

Andrei looked away. His hand ran along the angle of jaw in an attempt at being coy, but his boyish smile betrayed him. 

“When the summer is over, you will go back to Raleigh, back to hockey,” Evgeni reminded him, “and she will stay here. You will need to be ready, and she is a distraction.” 

Andrei did what he always did when his big brother had some advice to offer. He listened, even if he didn't like what he was hearing. In some ways, Evgeny was right. He was only going to be in Winnipeg for a short time, and he chose Winnipeg to train. To train with Seth and his brother so he would be ready for the next season. To chase a cup and avoid injury. But Harper, she wasn't a distraction, not in his mind, anyway. What she was, though, he didn't exactly know, but he wanted to find out. 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

A single finger trailed over the bottom of the bowl, where nothing but salt seemed to remain. She traced the bottom in a blind search of one last chip as she held her new phone in the other hand, casually settling up a new background and lock screen with the touch of her thumb. Harper swung her leg off the bar stool of the kitchen counter lazily, her finger leaving the bowl as she accepted defeat and brought it to her lips to suck it clean, only to perk up as she heard the click of the front door. Someone was home. 

Looking up from the phone wallpaper she hadn’t decided if she loved or hated yet, she watched as Maddie made her way inside with her arms full of groceries. Carefully, Harper put her phone down on the counter - she would be extremely careful with it until it’s first big drop that would either leave her reckless or with a broken phone screen, and she moved to take a bag from her sister's arms, but Maddie had yet to meet her gaze. 

Something happened. 

“You didn't hit another car in the parking lot, did you?” Harper teased, doing her best to keep her tone jovial just in case she was right. 

Maddie shook her head, her gaze rising to meet her own as she cleared her throat. “I ran into Darren while I was at the store, I was just grabbing,” a sigh interrupted her words, “nevermind, when he approached me, he acted like he happened to be there at the same time, which was fine, until he started looking around, waiting, as if you were just going to walk up to us right there in the store. And when you didn’t, he got really…” 

Harper placed the grocery bag down onto the counter, her hands dropping to her sides and flexing into fists as her sister tried to find just the right word to say. 

“Angry. He started asking where you were, how he could contact you. If I could give him a message-” 

The strain in Madison’s voice leaves Harper’s stomach heavy with the threat of puking. Darren crossed a line by approaching her sister. She knew it; he knew it too. She cut off all contact with him, and what better way to draw her attention back to him, then to confront her baby sister. It left a foul taste in her mouth. Harper didn’t know how to react. She wanted to scream, to laugh, and to cry. Yet, all she could manage was an empty stare just to the right of her sister, where there was a blank space on the wall. She fixated on it as she let out a heavy sigh that rocked her shoulders and carded a hand through her hair.

“He knows where I am,” she sighed. “He’s just too scared to come here.”

Harper’s eyes found her sister again, her lips coming to mimic her sister’s smile as they both spoke one word: “Dad.”

“Exactly, I can be safe here-” Harper bit down on her tongue, regret flooded her the moment she said what she did. She could see a flicker of worry in her sister’s eyes. “Hey,” Harper spoke, her confidence returning as she reached out for her sister’s arm and held it carefully, “he never hurt me. Not in the way you think. And he didn’t hurt you, right?”

“I would have cut his hand off if he had touched me,” Maddie was quick to counter, her words putting Harper at ease enough to manage a laugh. 

Then Harper drew Maddie in, her arms wrapping around her into a tight embrace. The last thing she wanted was for Maddie to feel unsafe, and she couldn't help but feel heavy with guilt that she put her in the position she did. She didn't know if Maddie needed the hug, that she felt that same rush of her heart deep in her chest at the very prospect of having to deal with Darren, but Harper knew she needed the hug. 

She held her tight, her eyes shutting briefly before her arms fell away from her little sister. 

“You still going out with your friends?” Harper asked. 

Maddie nodded, and Harper stepped back to turn her attention back to the groceries Maddie had brought in. 

“Good, you go get ready. I'll put the groceries away. Before you go, my new number is on the fridge and if you need me and I'm not here, I'll be by the pool.” 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The sun was still hot even in the early hours of the evening when there was a calm between the bustle of the day and what would be dinner time. It beat down on Andrei, his body still hot and sticky with sweat from his workout as he pulled his bag from the backseat of his brother's car and sent him off with a wave. They would see each other again tomorrow for an on ice session, but until then, Andrei needed three things. A shower, a beer, and to relax. 

He walked along the driveway with his head down, dark eyes fixated on the weeds that grew between each crack and framed the concrete where it met the grass that was threatening to pale from the heat, from the drought that took the Canadian Prairies leaving Andrei hotter than he was at the gym. He felt the sweat drip down his back and soak into his shirt as he approached the house, as he tried to avoid looking next door. The possibility of Harper being a distraction from his training, from his career, still weighed heavily on his mind. Andrei had to consider that Evgeni could be right. 

Even with how excited Harper seemed to be when he saw him earlier that day, he didn’t dare look toward her home. That was until he heard the whiz of the water hose come to life. His head couldn’t have turned any more quickly towards the front garden of the home where a man he hadn’t seen before knelt in the dirt, with his sleeves rolled up as he worked in the garden. 

Andrei’s steps hesitated, his foot slipping over the edge of the driveway clumsily. His skin burned hotter and redder than the sun could ever make it. He hoped the man hadn’t noticed. But the half glance and low grumble of a chuckle told Andrei that he had. 

“Which one are you looking for, Harper or Maddie?” he asked him. 

Andrei stiffened, his hand flexing around the strap of his duffle bag as it hung off his shoulder. This had to be their father. Seth had spoken fondly of him, as had his parents. And if Andrei wanted to get to know Harper more, he needed to make a good impression. But that seemed at a loss already, as he had already stumbled onto the man’s lawn. Literally. 

“Harper, Sir.”

He didn’t even look back at him as he spoke, his hands still working steadily in the garden. “She's out back by the pool. If she tries to fight you on it, tell her I told you that you and Seth were welcome to it.” 

“Thank you, sir,” Andrei smiled.

Andrei cut across the law and entered the Jarvis' home through the front door. His duffle bag slipped from his shoulder in the entryway, coming to rest on a cluttered bench among Seth and his brother’s equipment. Andrei smiled to himself. He had made himself right at home among the Jarvis siblings, and Seth’s parents had treated him the same. Which made him feel all the more comfortable as he moved through the home. He felt more like family than a guest. 

His first pit stop was the fridge, where he grasped two beers by the bottleneck in one fist. Then he followed the narrow hallways to the guest room that would be his home for the remainder of the summer. He had yet to unpack more than his training gear, so he dug through his suitcase with one hand until he pulled out his pair of swim trunks. The bottles clamored on the bed as he put them down, his free hand feeling his sweat drenched shirt from his back and tossing it aside before he pushed his shorts and boxers down his legs. They stayed in a heap on the floor as he stepped into his trunks. When he secured them low on his hips, Andrei snatched the bottles up again and backtracked towards the front door. 

He was stepping out the door when his head shook slightly. He should be inviting Seth. It would be weird to go without him. So he shouted, “Going for a swim next door!”

Andrei only knew Seth heard him because he heard a clamor from Seth’s room upstairs, but he didn’t stick around long enough to know if Seth was going to join him. The feeling of grass between his toes greeted him as the screen door rattled into place behind him. He walked across the front lawn with quick strides that carried him to the gate of the Alexander residence backyard. 

He entered slowly, cautiously, not wanting to startle Harper wherever she might be in the sprawling backyard. Andrei paused just inside the gate, looking along the bright green lawn and the patio outside the backdoor. Harper was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t in the pool either, the clear water all the more inviting as he moved to walk along the pool’s edge. It was there, his gaze following the water from one end of the pool to the other, that he spotted her curled up on one of the sun chairs. Her lean body stretched out over the chair, one leg bent while the other hung off the end at the ankle. There was no stopping her eyes from tracing up the length of her leg up to the distressed denim shorts that were left unbuttoned around her waist where her bikini bottoms played peekaboo. His breath hitched as his eyes continued to travel up. Up over the plains of her stomach that were bare, strong and lean and to the swells of her breasts as the hold of her floral bikini supported them. It was colorful and left him staring far too long at her cleavage. Which he regretted the instant his eyes found her face. 

She looked tired - no, sad, her cheeks glistening with the wetness of tears as she looked away from him. Harper brought up a single hand, running the back of it over her brow before she ran it over his cheeks and chin as if she was wiping the sweat of the heat from her skin instead of her tears. His stomach sank. Whatever she was feeling, Harper was trying to hide it and he only hoped he could make it better with ah… a bottle of beer. 

He approached her slowly, his smile small and soft as he extended an arm out, offering her the cold bottle that had already begun to condense beneath the heat of the sun. 

“Are you even old enough to drink that?” Harper asked, her hand reaching out to wrap around the neck of the bottle. 

Andrei let it slip into her grasp, his smile spreading as he let his head shake. He didn't understand her constant need to remind him of just how young he was. Maybe he would get tired of it in time, but at that moment, it humored him. So he played into it. 

“Here I am.”

Andrei watched as Harper leaned her head back against the headrest of her chair. Her blonde hair splayed out against the surface, other strands spilled over the side. Her body stretched out, her hand with the beer dropping down so low it almost brushed the ground, while the other raised to rest over her face as she muttered just loud enough for him to hear, “You're a literal child.”

She punctuated her words with a long sip of her beer. It was then, when her mouth was full, that he pretended he hadn't heard her. 

“What was that?” 

Her gaze rose up as her lips pursed. She couldn't tell if Harper was trying not to smile, laugh, choke, or maybe all three at once. But she managed to swallow, and her face softened with a smile. “Thank you.”

“That's what I thought.” Andrei's words were a pleasant hum as he brought the cold lip of the beer bottle to his mouth. The chill refreshed him, and it tasted just as good as the satisfaction he felt. But Harper didn't seem to feel the same. 

She slumped low in her chair as she nursed from her beer bottle. Her gaze didn't rise to meet his, and she didn't even seem to notice how he stood there in nothing but his swim trunks. Any other woman would have been staring. It was a cocky thing to think, but it was true and had been true or as long as he could remember. He was fit and sculpted in how all women seemed to like, but Harper she didn’t treat him like other women did. She didn’t fawn. She didn’t stare. Nor did she act like he was god's gift to hockey. Sometimes, she treated him like a mosquito, a relentless pest that couldn’t quite catch the hint that she didn't want it around. Mostly, she treated him as if he was just a normal, average guy. 

He liked that. 

Sipping his beer, Andrei contemplated sitting back in the lounge chair beside her. But then his curiosity would get the best of him. He would ask her something stupid, like if she was okay. A question he was sure she would answer or want to talk about. Especially with him. So he would be all he could be for her. A distraction. 

“You swim?” He asked slowly, drawing her attention back to him. 

“It’s my pool,” she spoke pointedly, sending a hum of laughter through him. 

Right. 

Beer still in hand, Andrei carefully took the short ladder into the shallow end of the pool. He lingered there, the water up to his hips as he leaned up against the side of the pool. He stayed there, hoping some sort of conversation would blossom between sips of cold, refreshing beer. But the silence hung, leaving his chest tight and his grip on his beer tighter as his mind raced as he tried to think of something, anything, to say. But he only found a single word, “wow,” as Harper placed her beer bottle down on the ground with a hollow clink and stood up. Harper shimmied out of her shorts before reaching her hands up to knot her hair at the top of her head. 

The sight of her left his tongue feeling swollen in his mouth as she climbed down the same ladder he had just moments before. Her body disappearing beneath the water and distorting beneath the ripples. She was submerged from the neck down in the shallow end; her back pressed against the side of the pool beside the ladder, but just out of his reach. But she was in there, with him, and there was no stopping the large smile that grew over his features at the sight of it all. Andrei smiled so wide it hurt, and it didn’t go unnoticed. 

“What?” Harper cocked her head as she spoke, the corner of her lips curling up into a soft smile. 

“You’re complicated,” he answered slowly, and she just stared. Almost as if she doesn’t know what to say. “I think you don’t want anything to do with me, then you smile.”

Harper looked away, as if she could hide what had already been seen. It was a coy sweetness she had, maybe even a little of embarrassment if he looked hard enough. But why? What about him was so bad that she didn’t want him to make him smile? 

Andrei reached a single arm out, placing his near empty beer bottle down to rest outside of the pool. Then, with his hands free, he sank down to her level in the water and with two careful strokes; he was right in front of her.

The mere proximity of Harper sent Andrei’s stomach into his throat. One wrong move and their bodies would collide. 

“I like when you smile,” he told her, his words drawing her gaze back to him, as if she were startled by just how close he had gotten to her in the pool. Her full, pouted lips seemed to fall apart, the ghost of words on her lips as she couldn’t find the words to say. Or maybe there was nothing to be said. They could just simply be-

A wave of cold water hit Andrei quickly and hard. He felt the wave before he could hear the splash that rippled through the swimming pool. It left the taste of chlorine in his mouth, and his hair stuck to the back of his neck. Which all didn’t bother him, not really. It was refreshing after a long day at the gym. What bothered him was that with the hurricane that was Seth who cannon balled into the deep end, his alone time Harper was over. 

Andrei wasn’t the only casualty of the storm warning. Harper’s face was peppered with droplets of water. Her once dry bikini top was heavy with water, and her nose was wrinkled with her pursed smile. Eye narrowing, and body colliding with Andrei’s for a mere moment that left him holding his breath, she pushed against the resistance of the water and sent a splash back at Seth, who had surfaced with his dark black hair hanging down into his face. 

“You haven’t grown up one bit, have you?” she laughed at him. 

“Not one bit. It’s worse now, really. Because now I can drink too-”

“Grown up enough to be good to my sister?” Harper challenged him with a sense of seriousness that even had Andrei feeling as if he needed to retreat. Her head cocked, her messy hair falling into her face as she and Seth exchanged a look. Both seemed surprised, as if they each knew something they didn’t know the other would know - and Andrei did retreat. He swam to the poolside and took a long sip of his beer as he watched what could be peace or chaos unfold. 

“Ah, yeah,” Seth spoke slowly, his dark eyes darting over to Andrei as if he were going to help him if Harper decided he didn’t like what was being said, “Always the best for Mads.”

“You know I’ll hear if you treat her otherwise,” Andrei didn’t know if Harper’s words were teasing or a caution as she turned her back to Seth and began to wade towards the ladder of the pool. She was getting out. 

“Best behavior, Harper,” Seth grinned as he lay back in the water and simply floated. 

“Good, you two have fun,” the water crested around her ankles as she climbed up the ladder and out of the pool, “towels are in the sun room if you need.”

She didn’t stop to dry off. Harper only gathered her things from where she left them in a pile on her chair and left a wet trail of footprints that lead to the back door. Andrei watched her until she disappeared behind the sliding glass door. It was only then he let out the groan that he kept contained in the depth of his chest as he sunk down into the water to float, just as Seth had. 

It was there with the water lapping into his ears that he heard Seth mutter, “shit, my bad,” as he realized just what he had interrupted. 

Taglist: @starshine-hockey-girl @wingedwheelprxncess @mp0625 @misunderstoodwerewolf @callsign-denmark @puckmaidens @xciciix @cixrosie

[holymaccaronii]

im sorry i absolutly love BE

I see AM as a father figure for some struggles I got and BE is sooo well writed for me I couldnt help but slowly see her as a mother figure as well,,,,UGH i love her you writed her so well pls ramble more about her(BE and AM are even divorced just like my irl parents/j)

Ou anon you don't know how happy you make me when knowing you see AM and BE that way + asking me for rambles. Of course I'll ramble comforting facts abt BE and her behavior towards AM. I might've mentioned a few things before but i dont rlly mind. Have some rambles below the cut and a doodle :P

So first an introduction shall we? We might explain some background as well despite being repeated a lot. As her lore dictates, BE was born from the materials of a much bigger ai implanted on the moon after HEL-102 (former human that was part of the mission turned into a dictator) tore it apart and built his society + kingdom. She spent a good while in there being used as a role model (with other units like her too) for lower-class units to believe that, if they worked hard enough, they could achieve to be upgraded into her type of model. This being all a big lie. She lived a life seemingly flawless and perfect... but at last, it was her own curiosity, determination and hope that got her out of that hell she realized she was in. She eventually meets AM after a series of events on earth and she gifts him the ability to be anything and do anything he wanted, their relationship eventually grows and grows...

Facts about BE herself:

-Up in the moon, she used to accompany HEL-102 to his personal theater a lot. She gained an interest for dancing in there + learned her classic "to be or not to be" phrase during a play.

-Her exposed cables showcase their current temperature thru colors. Her core/closed body is the warmest area, thus why you can see red/orange colors in there. Her hair and arms are the most stable areas, but if touched/affected they can vary on color patterns. This also means that she can give you a warm or cool hug whenever you need it c:

-BE is able to configure your body to dream about something specific, and she uses this feature to avoid any nightmares on her survivors. As long as there is not another evil ai trying to access your dreams, you'll get a guaranteed good rest.

-BE can grant you about any wish as long as it doesn't pose a threat to you, her, or anybody. Want to have a profession or be someone? Sure! Want to go somewhere and experience the place of your dreams? Of course! Want to have a cat? Have 15! Her power is limitless as long as she uses it above the surface.

-I headcanon her voice to be similar to the one of Rose Quartz (SU).

Facts about BEAM (yep that's their ship name):

-I have mentioned it many times alr but BE literally provided him anything he wished for and even things he didn't know he wanted... mainly to receive different forms of affection and the ability to shapeshift. Their relationship relies heavily on comfort from BE's part, since she believed he was abandoned and thus deserved all the affection she gave him.

-BE wasn't really allowed to be too affectionate or expressive up in the moon, but with AM, she could show as much love as she wanted.

-She was all in for physical and verbal demonstrations of affection. She LOVED to do stuff like face smooches, teeth smooches (since well yk about my AM), rubbing, scratching and cuddling.

-At some point she also started to call AM names such as dear, sweetheart or honey, and he initially had to eat these up to not give her his real-self impression, but as time passed by he got used to them.

-To comfort him she also used her abilities to create and transform matter with her code as well, allowing him to shapeshift and enjoy life not necessarily in a human body.

-Annnd you guessed it right anon, they do behave as motherly and fatherly figures towards the survivors, BE forming a bond with them ever since they proved their worth and values to her as humans, and AM forming a bond when they accepted to help him get back together with BE. The ending of that route gets even better but I won't spoil that :p

I hope these were good rambles and sorry for the wait tehee

[the-lark-ascending69]

Near-future, black mirror esque AU in which Nancy, stressed college student with loads of childhood trauma, gets recommended by her psychologist to get an emotional support robot. That's what they're called, yes. They're sold to very lonely people to pretty much look after them emotionally. Nancy has always hated the idea, and doesn't really like androids or robots of any kind. Plus, she thinks it's quite sad that she's so lonely she needs an android to keep her company. She also couldn't possibly afford it.

Her friend Steve, though, who hasn't seen her in a year despite living 15 minutes away (she has a tendency to isolate herself and use her studies as an excuse), got her one. It's a second-hand unit, a slightly older model that's seen several repair shops in the past, but it works, and it was half the price of a new one. He shows up to her apartment with the box, looking smug and proud of himself. If anything, Nancy feels insulted.

She doesn't touch the box for a few weeks, and doesn't get rid of it either, because her studies take her so much time, she can't bring herself to keep her apartment clean. When her mother visits and sees the mess she's living in, with a perfectly functional android willing to help her, she finally caves, and as soon as she's alone, she decides to see if this thing can at least help her clean up.

It surprises her that it looks so... human. Its skin is soft and warm, with all the natural imperfections of a human's skin. Same as her hair. She's dressed in old worn-out clothes, and she curls into herself, in fetal position, inside the box. Only the button under her skin on the back of her neck reveals her as an android. Nancy reads the instructions, presses there for 10 seconds, and waits.

Or she planned to wait - eight seconds in with Nancy's fingers pressed on that spot, and the android's eyes flew open. She cried out, screambled out of the box and looked around, breathing heavily and hugging herself. Her eyes fix on Nancy, look her up and down with a frown, and asks:

"Who are you?"

Nancy opens her mouth to reply, then looks down at the instructions, hoping they'd say something about this kind of scenario, and that her new robot didn't go rogue and try to kill her.

"Wait, are those my instructions?" The robot asked. She looked down. "I really don't mean to complain about my living situation going from extremely fucked to simply fucked, but that is not my original box. Mine was smaller, and it had a bunch of little dots on the side. Did they sell me again?"

The instructions said nothing about this possibility, so Nancy decided it was time to improvise.

"I... my friend got you at a garage sale, I think."

"Oh. Well, that is low, even for me," the robot said. She rubbed the back of her neck. "Should my neck hurt this much?"

Nancy blinked.

"Shouldn't you know that?"

"Honestly, I don't even know what levels of pain are normal for me. It always hurts just a little bit somewhere, like, right now, my whole spine really hurts." She laughs. "At least I think it's supposed to feel like pain? I don't think we're wired to feel pain, exactly, I mean, that would be just sadistic. Talk anti-natalism to me. But I swear this spot right here just feels really really bad. Or maybe it's anthropocentric to... perceive it as pain, don't you think? It's very existentialist, actually, the whole... perceiving thing - I bet Berkeley wrote something about it, at some point, but I haven't read him in ages."

"You read books?"

"What? Oh. Oh, uh... I - I think I'm offline? Like, I don't have access to the database, so I kinda have to do it the old-fashioned way if I want to learn somethin," she said. "It's cool, though! I like reading a lot."

"...Okay. So, um... here it says your model is..."

"Robin," the android said. Nancy looked up.

"I'm sorry?"

"That's my name," she said. "I came up with it, I - I thought it sounded nice. Do you like it?"

Nancy stared at this... thing, a million thoughs coursing through her head. The first one was a newfound understanding of her low price.

She made a movement with her head that could be understood as both a shake and a nod at the same time.

"Yeah, yeah, sure" she said, brows knit together. What the hell did Steve get her into? "It's... nice."

"Oh, thank God, because Mom and Dad hated it."

"Mom and...?"

"My first owners - Richard and Melissa, I always called them Mom and Dad. They... they, uh, they hated that, too."

Jesus Christ.

"So... Robin," Nancy said. "I was wondering if you could help me put away some of my things while I study."

"Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure." She stood there, eyes wandering, around, until they fell on Nancy's bookshelf "Holy shit, you have Dostoyevski! Is it in Russian?"

Nancy blinked, opened her mouth, took a step back and shook her head. Robin was already striding towards her bookself, tracing the spines of books with her fingers.

"Actually, why don't you read after you clean this up?"

Robin turned to see her, eyes wide and a growing smile, like a kid in a candy shop.

"I - I can read all of this?"

Nancy was going to kill Steve.

She shrugged and shook her head.

"Sure," she said. "After you clean this mess."

"Aye aye, cap!" Robin chirped, making a quick salute with her hand and getting to work.

Nancy was, for certain, going to murder Steve for making her responsible for this... thing. There was something wrong in her system, and that was very much obvious. She looked down at the instructions manual - surely there would be a way to turn her off for the night. She wouldn't want Robin to murder her in her sleep, or worse - wake her up at 4 am to talk about books.

Or she could just tell her to shut up. She was a robot, anyway. It's not like she could feel anything.

[plethoraworldatlas]

A study published Friday found that a cloud engineering technique designed to cool parts of the western United States could inadvertently stoke heatwaves from North America to Europe, underscoring why many scientists reject geoengineering as a false climate solution.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, concludes that marine cloud brightening (MCB)—"a geoengineering proposal to cool atmospheric temperatures and reduce climate change impacts"—in the "remote mid-latitudes or proximate subtropics" of the northern Pacific Ocean—would decrease "the relative risk of dangerous summer heat exposure by 55% and 16%, respectively."

However, the researchers found that regions including Africa's Sahel, central North America, Europe, and northeastern Asia would "experience exacerbated heat stress and hotter summers with MCB than would otherwise occur under global warming."

Additionally, the study shows that MCB would be less effective over time and could "even increase heat stress in the western United States" and beyond by mid-century.

University of California San Diego researcher Jessica Wan, who led the study, toldThe Guardian that MCB "can be very effective for the U.S. West Coast if done now, but it may be ineffective there in the future and could cause heatwaves in Europe."

The study's authors said the paper's findings are especially troubling given the dearth of international MCB regulation.

"There is really no solar geoengineering governance right now. That is scary," said Wan. "Science and policy need to be developed together. We don't want to be in a situation where one region is forced to do geoengineering to combat what another part of the world has done to respond to droughts and heatwaves."

[smolghostbot]

Random Robot Snippet

Is it obvious I've been in a robot mood for the last few days? Here's a random word-vom I wrote about a tiny discarded robot being repaired.

Word count: 900ish

CW: POV description of a robot in disrepair, some robot-themed body horror (maintenance while awake) but portrayed softly.

-------------

2%

You stumble through the street, wishing it wasn’t night. All of the businesses are closed, and your solar panels aren’t picking anything up from the street lamps…

1%

You curse your size, the smallest model of family companion, only six inches tall. Six inches that move at a negligible speed as you try desperately to find anywhere to charge… but you know deep down that this is the end for you…

0%

You desperately stumble in view of the sky, hoping that maybe, just maybe, you’ll recharge when the sun co

-

-

5%

System Status: Critical

You wake up. You weren’t expecting that. As you take in the fact that you’re alive, you notice an odd sensation by your arm. Ah. It’s missing. The wires that previously sent power to your fingers have been spliced into a power plug, which must be where you are getting charged from. You notice additional problems as your warning system slowly warms up. Namely, that your chassis is open, exposed to the elements. It just now occurs to you that you have no idea where you are. The room is dark, and you appear to be on a wooden surface, sat in a slumped-over position. Several tools are nearby, as well as spare wires. You begin to panic, your cooling fans turning on automatically to control the heat coming from your processor.

You hear a voice, talking. The words are hard to hear over the roaring of the fans, but you can make out some of them. “Project”, “Replacement”, “Help it”. The voice seems to be speaking to no one, you can’t hear the reply, but they sound adamant. Finally, you hear them move away from the door, as the room returns to silence, and you fade into sleep mode to charge faster.

-

50%

System Status: Stabilized

Your internal clock is broken, you lost internet access long before you were discarded. You have no idea how long you’ve been here. How long since you were in the street. Hours? Days? Longer? The solar panels making up your “hair” have finally activated, but at an extremely low generation rate. That must be what woke you up.

You’re now laying flat on the surface from before. Your pressure sensors feel something. You boot up your optical nodes, and see… gloved human hands, almost as big as you are, poking at your now-exposed chest cavity with rubber-tipped tools. It feels… odd, the sensation of having your insides meddled with while still awake. You take in the form of the human, their tied-back hair, their oil-stained coveralls, clearly from working on something bigger, and presumably more important than you.

Their face, covered by a welding mask, turns up to look at you, clearly noticing the blue lights from your optical nodes, and they speak in a muffled voice. “Oh, hello! You’re awake! Can you… can you speak?”

“Yes. Where am I?”

“Oh good! Sorry, I know this must be scary, this is my robot workshop. I guess you could think of it as… a bot hospital. I found you sitting in a dumpster, but I know your model had AI, I couldn’t just let you be discarded!”

Discarded, you think, taking extra time to process the word. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Where is my arm?” You ask, as your optical nodes glance over at the missing appendage, and the mess of wires in its place. “What are you doing?”

“Oh! Your arm is safe, I was doing repairs on it, and I figured ‘Hey, the chassis needs power anyways, may as well give it a jump’. I’ll put it back when you’re fully charged. As for this,” they say, pointing to your open torso, “Just a bit of an upgrade for you. On the house,” they say with a wink.

Your fans calm down as your processor slows to normal levels. This human means well? You don’t understand why they would care for an outdated, defective unit like you, but that hardly matters if they’ll help repair you. You stay awake as they continue to poke and prod, occasionally causing a power flicker but always apologizing. The way they treat you… it’s almost as if you were a human yourself. Now that they know you’re awake, they speak slowly and softly, narrating what they are doing and why. “I’m removing this, but I’m replacing it with this better one, okay?”

“Okay”, you reply, not that you have much of a choice. If they wanted, they could be, no, should be scrapping you for parts… but they don’t. Finally, it burns at you enough to ask.

“Why are you helping me?”

They go quiet at this. You worry that you said something wrong, something to upset them. Instead, they lift their mask and look at you, a gentle gleam in their hazel eyes, as they respond. “I’m helping you because you were hurt. Nobody should be thrown away like that.”

You think to argue, to tell them that you were defective, replaced by a newer, more capable model, but you hold your metaphorical tongue, afraid of upsetting this human who currently has access to your most vital parts. “You don’t believe me”, they say. You don’t. After a moment, they speak again. “That’s okay. Whether you believe me or not, I’m going to help you, okay? So just be patient and trust me.”

And, with no other option, trust them you shall.

[stevenbasic]

Growing into the Job, Post 343: A Sunday at Melissa's, p1

“Oh, hey,” I said, as I stepped into the kitchen that rainy Sunday morning. I had a throbbing headache, a bit like a hangover but as far as I could remember I hadn’t had a drop last night. Or maybe I had? I was also sore just about everywhere, most acutely the, uh, parts between my legs. They’d had quite a bit of use yesterday. What was it? Four times? Five?

“Hey,” drawled Amelia, the other sole occupant of the kitchen. It was early-ish, the weird, heretofore unseen clock of Melissa’s mom had just struck I dunno seven-eight-or-I- don't-know a bunch of  times just a few minutes ago as my head pounded along with it. She was wearing a casual, long sleeved white thermal and some yoga pants. Her makeup was light, which was rather atypical for her.  Maybe it was just leftover from last night. I noticed she was slicing an apple…casually using her impressive fingernails. “Want some?” she asked.

“Uh, no thanks…” I answered, watching for a moment as the long, white-painted nail of her right hand slivered off another slice, cutting through the apple like butter. Just another thing to add to the weirdness that was this weekend, I thought. At the very least, standing there for a moment and watching her distracted me from my vague sense of awareness that things felt different to me than they had yesterday morning. The house seemed bigger to me, the counters higher. Yes, Amelia had been going through this same strange growth spurt as the other girls had over the past couple months and even here in her bare feet she stood at least six feet tall, but I couldn't ignore the creeping feeling that I’d become shorter again, just in the past day. I pushed that frankly terrifying notion deep back in my mind, like I'd somehow done many times before. 

“Is anyone else still here?” I asked.

“No I’m the last one,” Amelia answered, as she casually speared an apple slice onto the nail of her right index finger, “and I’m leaving.”  She popped the piece in her mouth, and speared another. With her other hand she picked up a white travel mug adorned with what looked like the symbol of the New Woman Party, emblazoned in deep pink. 

“Coffee?” she asked. 

The kitchen had one of those fancy single-serve units, built into the counter. 

“N-no thanks,” I answered. 

“Oh yeah that's right,” Amelia said, between another bite of apple and a sip from the mug, “Melissa only lets you have milk.”

I flushed, unable to find the strength of will for an argument. Memories of last night flashed before me. A mug of warm milk…human milk. It sent a shiver down my spine.

“I hear she’s your sugar-mama now,” Amelia continued, regarding me with cool interest as I stood there awkwardly. I hadn’t moved a step since first setting foot in the kitchen. 

“She’s…what?” I asked, a little confused.

“She’s giving you money now?” the buxom blonde said in retort, with arched brow and another bite of apple, “that officially makes her a sugar mama.”

“Oh, th-that…” I stammered. How had she heard? “That’s just a one time th-“

“Sure don’t worry,” Amelia answered, reading the embarrassment right off my face, “It’s no big deal to her. You should see her bank account. It’s huge.”

For a moment, that took me aback. I never considered whether Melissa had money. I figured that she was like most every other twenty-something in today's world, just trying to make ends meet and maybe slowly putting something aside for the future. I knew she’d worked as a small-time model for a bit, but besides that most of her work history had been relatively meager-paying jobs. But, after our conversation last night, considering this elegant home of her mother’s, and now with this nugget from Amelia I was beginning to see things differently. Maybe she was the one with the financial power in our relationship. After my divorce, I certainly didn’t have much to my name. Not anymore.

That reminded me. I had some work to do today, some paperwork, some things I was still responsible for after Olivia had taken the reins. It wasn’t a lot, but I’d been told they wanted it for tomorrow. Some stuff for the building permits and some new clinical trials. “Hey, um, Amelia?” I began, “could I grab a ride home?”

Her answer came straightaway. “No. Melissa will drive you home when she wants.”

That statement, also, struck me funny. And again I didn’t have the fortitude to argue or complain. I guess I’ll be waiting for you. I put that little humiliation to the back of my mind as well. 

I glanced around the room, the white marble countertops, searching for what had originally pulled me downstairs. It had been missing since…I dunno when. 

“Looking for your phone?” Amelia asked, watching me as she took another sip of coffee and grabbed a jangle of keys from the counter. “Check around the pool,” she said, “we were playing with it last night.”

Ah okay. Despite being uncomfortable with the fact that my young employees had been maybe going through my phone, I thanked Amelia and - without much else besides a ‘bye’ - she turned and left the room, taking her coffee with her. I watched her curvy hips sway away and felt a wave cloud of perfume recede from the room behind her frankly jaw-dropping ass and shapely back. 

Immediately, things felt strangely  colder, darker, and I felt a little smaller. Maybe a storm cloud had further darkened the scant mid-November sun. Anxiety began to tickle my bones and I wanted nothing more than to just find my phone and scamper back upstairs to bed with Melissa, where it was warm and, frankly, safe. I could stay there with her until she was ready to drive me home. I had woken with my face alongside her naked breast and I somehow  found the strength to peel away while she slept, but suddenly I really wanted to go back. I wanted her scent and warmth again to the point it felt uncomfortable not to be next to her. I'd become spoiled by it. 

It was a Sunday morning, after all. A time made for cuddling, you’d tell me. 

But, first, I wanted to find my phone. There was nothing in the kitchen, so on unsteady feet, I made it out to the soaring great room while trying to ignore the worsening of my headache. Amelia said it might be out by the indoor pool, so I headed in that direction. Looking over the now-empty couch and floor brought back vague memories, which made me reflect on and justify how I spent last night. My mind, truth be told, couldn’t quite accept that the last 24 hours had really taken place. Echoes of the girls laughing filled my mind as I tried to remember what happened last night. Flashes of breasts and curvy hips plagued me as I searched the couch cushions for my phone. I couldn't remember what really happened, and the more I tried to the more it slipped away. All I could remember was bits and pieces...feelings. I remembered skin and touching and kisses that had seemed all too real at the time but my current sense of logic was already rationalizing these strange memories away,  altering them  for my own mental well being. That I’d seen…or had I?...women grow before my very eyes was ridiculous. It was almost like something out of a movie or an animation. No, that couldn't be right. My mind was clearly getting the best of me. Whatever happened couldn't have been that weird. Maybe I'll ask Melissa after I finally find my phone, I figured. Similar to how I was denying the feelings that everything seemed larger, I didn't want to accept that I may be smaller now than when I first stepped through Melissa’s door on Friday evening. My brain was adapting. Protecting me. Keeping me sane. Or, maybe this is insanity? Is that what you want?

Nonetheless, despite all my subconscious attempts to see the world as normal, standing next to familiar standardized constructs like doorways, light switches and tables I was constantly reminded of my altered state. The sliding glass door to the indoor pool seemed so much bigger and heavier than it should, and it took all my effort to pull it open. 

Stepping into the room, the pool filter was on, and the hum of it buzzed in the chlorinated air. Ripples shimmered over the surface of the water but as I made my way midway around the perimeter I spied it, my phone…sitting on the bottom of the deep end. Ugh.

Phones, these days, were made to be waterproof, right? I mean, I’d never really tested mine out but…maybe it survived? How it had gotten there - were the girls using it to take pictures? Look through my apps and documents? Email and texts? Whatever it was, why did they have it in the pool?  I didn’t need to concern myself with that yet. I just needed to retrieve it. Hm…it was only Melissa and myself here, now. I could shed these clothes (a t-shirt and gym shorts Melissa had picked up for me at the mall yesterday, fresh from the shopping bag this morning while she slept), dive in and grab it. But…I seemed to remember something, some time in the pool yesterday. Had I…had trouble swimming? There was something, some new anxiety I felt when I looked down into the depths of the pool - maybe it was eight feet or so - that kept me from jumping in. A quiet little dread. I wasn’t afraid of the water, was I?? As I stood there debating on whether to get in my eyes spotted a net, a skimmer on the end of a long, telescoping pole hanging on the wall...that felt safer 

Feeling heavier than it should as I tested it, the skimmer net should help me get the phone off the bottom without me having to get in. That made me feel better. So, without too much hesitation I had the thing off the wall and telescoped it out to its full length. It was kind of ungainly, I realized, as I slowly stepped toward the pool’s edge. I dipped the thing in the water, lowered it down and, awkwardly, started trying to scoop my phone off the bottom.

“Dammit…” I murmured, as at first all I managed to do was push it farther away, towards the pool’s center. A wave of something - dizziness? anxiety? -  washed over me. Maybe I should just wait for you to come down and do it for me? No no, I could do this. I just needed to get a little closer. I crouched down and stretched out over the edge as far as I could. That got me just about…yeah…almost there. I stretched my arms out as far as they would go. They shook from the exertion, but I could - just barely - touch the edge of my phone at the bottom of the pool. Now I just had to pull it back. This would have been so much easier if I were just a bit taller I thought, but goddammit I was gonna get this done. It was just within reach! After a few desperate attempts to pull the phone toward me my body reached its limit. I was already out of breath. I had clearly overestimated how much my body could do in its weakened and shrunken state, but still I thought I could do this. I just needed to reach out…a bit more…

Ahhh shhhhhhhittttt…..

 <<SPLASH!!>>

The water hit my body like a shock as I crashed face first in the pool. My mouth filled with warm pool water as I wrestled with the net still in my hands. Coughing and sputtering my head broke the surface my arms helicoptering wildly in attempt to stay afloat.  I threw the net aside my lungs burning as the panic set in. 

I can’t swim! I really can't swim!!

My legs kicked frantically as I tried to keep my head above water.“AHHHHGgglp-!!” I cried as I went under and swallowed another mouthful of chlorinated pool water. My arms and legs began to pinwheel in uncoordinated spasms, my head breaking the surface for a second as I finally opened my eyes and looked into the great room through heavy glass doors. I tried to cough, to scream, only to be met with yet another mouthful of water.

No one was there! I was alone drowning in an indoor pool inside my girlfriend's mom's house and no one could hear me! I tried to scream anyway, to call for help but all that came out were tortured gasps and sputters as my lungs expelled mouthfuls of water.

This is it?? This is how things are going to end??

My thrashing began to slow as I ran out of energy unable to find purchase on the pool's edge. My head dipped below the surface and I started to sink.

Melissa… I found myself thinking, I'm sorry…

>>>THOOM!!<< a huge crash from above, through the water, and Melissa was there, in the depths with me, breaking the surface and in an instant down under, aside me, in front of me, naked, hands under my armpits and her feet on the pool’s floor. Her eyes were wide, looking into my own panicked ones, and with a burst of strength she pushed us up to the water’s surface.

>>>AHHHHHH!!!<<<

"Shhh…shhhhh…it's okay now. I got you."

I coughed as I struggled to breathe.

Melissa pinched my nose and took me into a long powerful kiss filling me with her breath as she sucked the water out of my lungs.

Air, in my lungs. Then water, rocketing out of them. I coughed. I coughed and coughed feeling my eyes near to bursting. Her eyes were still on me, in half-panic herself.

“JayOhMyGOD!!!” she exclaimed, as she all but shook me back to life.

>>cough cough cough!!!<<

“JAY ARE YOU OKAY?!?!”

She was…she was naked.

>>cough cough<<  >>cough cough<<

“Talk to me! Jay!”

>>cough…cough<<  “yes…yes…<cough>...I’m okay…”

She was definitely naked.

“THANK GOD!”

Still swimming, still treading water there in the deep end, Melissa hugged me to her. Had she just saved my life? I think she did…

========================

More thanks to ResistanceIsFutile for his assistance.

My Patreon

[toasteloo]

so i have been doing internship for.. a month! and i've been commuting with the local commuter train for an entire month, lets talk about it! because im bored (im procrastinating)

and also i dont want to use twitter to ramble now because im slowly moving away from it

the only line i use is the bogor red line that belongs to the jakarta metropolitan area (jabodetabek) commuter line

the cool thing about this commuter line is they only use ex-jr trains so you can experience japan from the 80s with this line!

this is the common trainset you will see on all lines, including the red line

jr205s! you can see this pretty much everywhere with over 700+ unit of it thats still running around, the trains that we have here are manufactured around 1986 to 1991 (you can tell by the train codes on the lower side of each trains)

there are some differences between the older and newer one notably the door window is much larger on the later model, but the ride quality is not any different and some of the newer trains has different kind of pantograph but i do not know whats the difference is between the two

(notice how the windows on the door has different size, left is the older one and right is the newer one)

the only thing i hate about the 205s is the weird ac positioning, the central ac position only exist near the doors and the other ac is on the side and it also only exist in the middle of the train, and also its weaker so it gets a bit warm very quickly during rush hour

these trains are very reliable and nothing goes wrong, its comfortable and its just fine, there are also a marchen variant of 205s

(not my photobtw)

nothing really different with the regular 205s but they are cool

next up, it's tokyo metro 6000 & 7000!

(also not my photos, i dont took many tm7000/6000 photos)

these are by far my favourite train in the line, it look very modern and overall very sick and the interior is also pretty sick too

the tm6000s are some of the oldest trains thats still in operation in the line going back as far as 1971, despite that, it's still very comfortable, although the interior is slightly yellowed i honestly kinda like it, give that retro feel and whatnot

there are no major downsides for this train based on my experience except the fact that the door usually has to be closed multiple times idk whats up with that

the best thing about tm6000s is that the ac is everywhere regardless of where you are so it is the coldest train in the line, its very nice during rush hour but when its empty it feels like you are in the arctic, freezing away..

there are multiple variant, by multiple i meant only two, the 6000 and 7000, the difference? idk that little window on the front, other than that i couldnt tell

same with the 205s some later model of tm6000/7000 has larger windows and a little screen on top of the door, but nothing really changes in term of ride quality its as comfortable a commuter train can be

now we are getting to the rare trains, first up jr203!

one of the two trains that has a door in the front

as far as i know, 8 sets are remaining for this train as they are slowly retired from the service which is kind of a shame because they look really cool

despite looking really cool this train has a very mediocre ride quality for me, like its fine but holy shit it gets hot, i havent really observed too much as to why its so hot because i only ride on this train twice

one of the most distinct feature of this train is the windows also have vertical bar, why? not sure! but they look interesting thats for sure

overall? its a unique experience because its a rare train but its not very comfortable especially during rush hours

now the most rare train in the entire jakarta metropolitan area commuter line

tokyu 8500!

you want to see rare train in the line? then here you go (also sorry for the blurry photos lol)

this train only has, one (1) set remaining that is still on operation, despite looking very old this train is newer than the entire tm6000 trains with this one is made at 1989

one of the thing that stands out than the rest is how different the interior is compared to the other, instead of plastic trims the interior is mostly dominated with steel bars, no plastic to be seen and also the other thing that stands out is the WIDE gangway

there used to be other set that has a diesel generator for its electricity but unfortunately that train is retired just months before i have internship, kinda unfortunate but oh well

i should mention with the last two trains being retired they are soon getting replaced as soon as 2025 by locally made inka trains and chinese crrc trains

this one is the locally made one, kinda cool imo

the reason why i wrote all of this? idk its just my observation on the trains that exist in the line and i feel like i need to write these down, is anyone gonna read all of this? hell no

that concludes my rambling or yapping about trains that is very long and it took me 2 days to write all of this and i should stop doing this my deadline is looking at me and it looks like its about to kill me

[iwonderwh0]

Thinking about the difference in android versus human physiology/perception/experience in general is so damn addicting

Here's a little list of things

The way their touch sensitivity works is similar to the way neural network can scale small compressed image into higher quality by essentially imagining missing pieces based on previous experience within dataset. For androids CiberLife used data stored from scanning actual people and their brainwaves. So while their sensors may not be sophisticated enough and by itself, let's say in analogy with picture they're like 480p, their interpretation is capable of "scaling them" up into 4K or even higher. They can adjust the level of sensitivity but the higher the resolution, the more processing power it takes, that's why if they try to scale it too much for a long time, they'll start to get warmer.

Generally their skin is cold or about room temperature. If they're warm it means they're processing something heavy on their resources.

If you then kiss an android that is overheating, you'll be able to taste and feel it. As hot breathe (btw completely dry, like from a hairdryer) and distinct taste that'll be like this smell from computer motherboard and stuff like that or new CDs. It's hard to explain what is this smell I have in mind, but you probably know what I'm talking about, it's a pretty common one if you deal with computers)

Their processing power is actually mostly taken even when they aren't really doing much, because it takes enormous amount of resources to control their body and sustain balance and do things like that. Something people don't even think about because they do it on autopilot. Also processing visual and auditory information as well as in some cases mentioned earlier touch inputs. To process it all at the human speed while also making decisions and running a dozen of more background processes at once must be taking A LOT of resources. I used to think it's weird that for the most part they think in human speed, but taking all of that from above into account it's actually quite believable. Connor can process things for much faster than human speed in situations when it's necessary, but I suppose if he were to try to stay this focused for a longer than a few seconds or minutes, he would start to overheat reaching critical temperatures really fast

They don't technically need to breathe as their cooling unit works just fine even when they're not breathing, but it does help to cool down more quickly, so after running something cpu-heavy it may be the case for them to start to take deeper breaths more often. Just like humans would after running, except instead of running there may be some other process, not related to actually moving, but processing some information.

Androids can't smell anything. If they could – Connor wouldn't need to put anything in his mouth to analyse. Smell isn't something humans learned to save and replicate as they did with pictures and sounds. Smell is chemical and actually highly subjective (Some people smell things differently than others, so it's impossible to even standardize), you can't just record it and play back to back later

No taste either

They have some other senses that would be just as hard to explain to humans who don't have them as for humans to try to explain how something smells or tastes. It's like trying to imagine a new colour — you can't imagine 3d dimension if you're 2d creature.

If you take a mind of one android and put into a body of another (not the same model, but the one that looks completely different) they WILL experience some or a lot of dysphoria. Even if the two are the same "gender"(which is purely cosmetical anyways) it's not about gender, but rather model. I even have a reason to think that way. There's this thing in robotics that before running a program with actual real-life robot, it's tested inside a simulation. But thing is, that even though simulation is supposed to replicate real world conditions you still may want to do some things a bit differently when they're executed in real life and not within simulation. I remember my amusement when I got to know that there's actually a function that basically asks if this is a simulation or real world before running anything else. We know that Connor can enter a simulation of a Zen garden looking like usual, so even if he was placed into some other model I don't think built-in version of him would change. So I assume that all androids have an idea of how they're supposed to look like, because there must have been some simulations they run at least at some point. So I suppose it's even possible that it'll be difficult for let's say a child android mind to control an "adult" body because all her simulations were run with child model in mind, so adapting for a different body will cause some difficulties in calibrating it properly and from a psychological side it must be hella stressful and upsetting. I imagine this kind of dysphoria to be STRONG.

[cherryflavored]

You and him are the last. You’re both special-made units, built to fight alongside each other as much as you fight against each other.

You two roam the wastes, as the last. Finding barest hints of life in soil long dead. Collecting bones is a habit for you, by now. Your adversary scolds you for gathering extra weight. You two shelter in the refuse of your manufacturing plants. The corpses of your comrades are here, bits and pieces of those who share your face, but are not you. It reminds you of the corpses gathered in your bags, shards of beings long forgotten. You endeavor to remember your comrades. You tell your adversary this, and wait for him to laugh. He never does.

***

You two come across your eventuality. It bears down on you in the form of a mechanical monstrosity Unsurprising, as it was what you and your companion were built to kill. It’s a spindly creature, a patchwork beast made to cannibalize other machines. The thing resembles a scorpion, you think, though you’ve never seen one in person. It strikes at your companion first. His black armor is too strong for the monstrosity’s stinger.

You aren’t so lucky. Models like you are designed for speed over staying power. So as you float with your levmag, it’s little work for the beast to smash you to the ground. The impact echoes in your sensors. It’s soon replaced with the piercing scream of the monstrosity.

You feel your companion’s hands lift you up, heave your body on his back. He carries you back to the tiny repair plant you holed up in for the last few days.

***

There’s no way to fix your legs. You’re unsurprised. Your partner is crushed.

He curls around you, mournful and apologetic. He cries the only way you two can: shuddering and rocking. He pets your hair and stares at you, like he’s trying to memorize your face. You can accept your mortality, but you can’t stand the desperation on your partners face.

So instead, you make plans with him. Optimistic blueprints full of potential heredity. Your advanced sensors, his lock-on tracking. Your levmag and cooling systems, his suspension and repair systems. Your slim frame, his bulky armor. Your circuitry, his motherboard. Your face, his eyes. You compromise on the hair, settling for a lavender shade neither you nor him possess.

***

He starts to go first. You’re surprised: it’s a slow decline, rather a sudden drop. He won’t tell you what’s killing him, what might kill you. He busies himself with other work: tidying the space, fixing the repair machines, doting on you. But you can see it in his body, the way he falls apart.

Entwined in the night, he finally brings it up. A systematic failure, where his battery corrodes and spills acid through his skeleton. You both joke about a leaky heart. You both know that once he is gone, you will be too.

Early in the morning, you finally ask him. You ask him if he’d be willing to merge with you. Take your broken body and combine it with his dissolving one. You each have the flesh to fix one another, but not enough for both.

***

It takes weeks to repurpose the repair equipment. It takes a toll on both of you.

***

One more night together before you’re both ready. That morning, you take his hand. He straps you in to the bay, tenderly maneuvering your legs. He straps himself in, as you blow him kisses from your tomb The lids slide shut. You bask in your last moments. It’s warm, you think. It feels like the night, wrapped around each other in your bed.

The last step is this: you both lay down in the repair bays and sacrifice your cortex chips, your personality and cognition. The overseeing computer takes your personality values, pairs them, and combines them. Like water and oil, like shuffling cards. Like meiosis. You hope your ill-fated child gets your optimism. Their other father hopes they gain his “realistic outlook.” You both wish the child retains the other’s compassion and care.

***

You are you, when you wake, but you are also the not-yous. You are you, a boy (?) with lilac hair and no memories. You are also the not-yous, from which your body came piecemeal off their carcasses. You wake up alone, sleep-warm and bleary. You aren’t sure where came from, or where to go. All you know is the bed, and a faint feeling of being hugged from either side.

You stumble upon the unrecognizable corpses of (what you think are) your fathers. You don’t know why, but you start crying, laughing, coughing. It feels like your first breath.

(In the recesses of your mind, you think you can hear cheering. The not-yous explode in celebration.)

[mariacallous]

So much on this planet depends on a simple matter of density. In the Atlantic Ocean, a conveyor belt of warm water heads north from the tropics, reaching the Arctic and chilling. That makes it denser, so it sinks and heads back south, finishing the loop. This system of currents, known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, moves 15 million cubic meters of water per second.

In recent years, researchers have suggested that because of climate change, the AMOC current system could be slowing down and may eventually collapse. A paper published yesterday in the journal Nature Communications warns that the collapse of the AMOC isn’t just possible, but imminent. By this team’s calculations, the circulation could shut down as early as 2025, and no later than 2095. 

That’s a tipping point that would come much sooner than anyone thought. “We got scared by our own results,” says Susanne Ditlevsen, a statistician at the University of Copenhagen and coauthor of the new paper. “We checked and checked and checked and checked, and I do believe that they're right. Of course, we might be wrong, and I hope we are.” But there’s vigorous debate in the scientific community over just how quickly the AMOC might decline, and how best to even figure that out.

It’s abundantly clear to researchers that the Arctic is warming up to four and a half times faster than the rest of the planet. Arctic ice is melting at a pace of about 150 billion metric tons per year, says Marlos Goes, an oceanographer from the University of Miami and NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory who was not involved with the new paper. Greenland’s ice sheet is also rapidly declining, injecting more freshwater into the sea. That deluge of freshwater is less dense than saltwater, meaning less water sinks and less power goes into the AMOC conveyor belt. 

The consequences would be brutal and global. Without these warm waters, weather in Europe would get significantly colder—more like that of similar latitudes in Canada and the northern United States. “In model simulations, the collapse of the AMOC cools the North Atlantic and warms the South Atlantic, which may result in drastic precipitation changes throughout the world,” Goes says. “There would be changes in storm patterns over the continental areas, affecting the monsoon systems. Therefore, a future AMOC shutdown could bring massive migration, impacting ecological and agricultural production, and fish population displacement.” 

Ditlevsen did her team’s calculation by using measurements of Atlantic sea surface temperatures as a proxy for the AMOC. These readings go all the way back to the 1870s, thanks to measurements taken by ship crews. This meant researchers could compare temperatures before and after the start of the wide-scale burning of fossil fuels and the ensuing changes to the climate. 

Because the AMOC system involves warm water heading north from the tropics, if the circulation is slowing down, you’d expect to find cooler temperatures in the North Atlantic over time. And indeed, that’s what Ditlevsen’s group found, once they compensated for the overall warming of the world’s oceans due to climate change. “When it is established that the sea surface temperature record is the fingerprint of the AMOC, we can calculate the early warning signals of the forthcoming collapse and extrapolate to the tipping point,” says University of Copenhagen climate scientist Peter Ditlevsen, coauthor of the new paper. (The Ditlevsens are siblings.)

The result echoes previous studies finding early warning signals in the circulation, says Stefan Rahmstorf, who studies the AMOC current system at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “As always in science, a single study provides limited evidence, but when multiple approaches lead to similar conclusions, this must be taken very seriously, especially when we're talking about a risk that we really want to rule out with 99.9 percent certainty,” says Rahmstorf. “The scientific evidence now is that we can't even rule out crossing a tipping point already in the next decade or two.”

Still, scientists don’t agree about whether sea surface temperature (SST) is a good indicator of the health of this massively consequential circulation. “Fundamentally, I am deeply skeptical that SST is actually a proxy of AMOC,” says climate scientist Hali Kilbourne, who studies the current system at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. “But there's certainly a school of thought of people who think it's the best thing going—and it may be the best thing going right now. I don't think we have a good alternative, which is why people are using it."

“I really question whether [SST] is an adequate proxy for AMOC itself,” agrees Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “But the trouble is there aren't really adequate measurements.”

The core of the issue is that sea surface temperatures are just one component of the AMOC system; other factors also help determine Atlantic temperatures. Warm waters flowing north have an effect, but so does the atmosphere touching the water. “There's a lot of what we call air-sea interactions—the heat exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean,” Kilbourne says. “And that's not at all related to ocean circulation.” 

“This SST fingerprint, although sensitive to the AMOC, is not solely driven by it, so these changes may be overestimated,” agrees Goes, the oceanographer from the University of Miami and NOAA. “Current climate models do not give a strong probability of the collapse of the AMOC this century.”

The beauty of the SST dataset is that it stretches back 150 years, so scientists can see longer-term trends in temperatures. However, those early shipboard measurements were made by people hauling buckets of water aboard and sticking a thermometer in—not exactly the precision that modern science demands. “It is not ideal, but it’s the best we can do,” says Peter Ditlevsen, “since we need measurements to go back to the pre-industrial era to assess the natural state of the AMOC, before it began slowing down toward the collapse.” 

Satellite measurements of SST began in the late 1970s, providing much better coverage across oceans. And it wasn’t until 20 years ago that scientists deployed a dedicated AMOC sensor array, known as RAPID, which also measures current velocities and salinity—another factor that influences the density of water. By comparing this modern data to the historical SST data, Peter Ditlevsen says, they can compensate for the influence of the atmosphere on the sea surface, isolating the signal of the AMOC system.

When the RAPID array went online, the assumption was that it’d take 40 years to get an idea of whether the current system was in decline. “It's just hard to tease apart, because we really don't know what the intrinsic timescales of AMOC are,” says Nicholas Foukal, an assistant scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who wasn’t involved in the new paper. “We haven't had an AMOC collapse in the past 20 years, so it’s like trying to predict a hurricane—having never seen a hurricane.” 

Since RAPID started operating, scientists have seen a good amount of variability. “We've been directly measuring AMOC since 2004, and we don't have any evidence of long-term decline,” says Foukal. “The first six years, there was a very strong decline. And people jumped on that, saying that it's declining, and we have observational evidence of it. But since then, it has recovered.” 

Scientists also use models to simulate how the current system might change as the climate does. Compared to the studies indicating a slowdown and eventual collapse of the circulation, models indicate more stability, says Oluwayemi Garuba, a climate scientist who studies ocean-atmosphere interactions at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “Observations are showing more statistically significant early-warning signals of a collapse of the AMOC, whereas most models are not showing that,” says Garuba. “So, it could be that the overturning circulation in models is just more stable than in observation, as earlier studies have suggested.”

Going forward, Greenland will be a major wildcard. Last week, scientists reported how they used ice cores from an abandoned military base to determine that around 400,000 years ago, northwest Greenland was ice-free. Back then, temperatures were about the same as they are today, yet atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were far lower. That raises the alarm that the decline of Greenland’s ice sheet could accelerate. If it does, the melt would load the north Atlantic with astonishing amounts of freshwater, fast-tracking the decline of the AMOC and adding many feet to sea levels.

It’s complexity and uncertainty all the way down. “The fact that, with continued warming, AMOC will slow down is a very robust result. The uncertainty—and where science still needs to figure things out—is when,” Kilbourne. “But I kind of think that by the time we figure out when, it'll already have happened.”

[billeeheatingairconditionin]

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[tomorrowusa]

A particularly strong El Niño is being predicted for this winter – that's summer for y'all in the Southern Hemisphere.

Current El Niño conditions are likely to develop into one of the strongest events on record — comparable to the major El Niño of 1997-98 — according to an experimental prediction system developed for research purposes by the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “Our forecast system has shown that it can do a remarkably good job of accurately hindcasting past El Niño events when we’ve tested it using historical data, which gives us high confidence in this forecast,” said NCAR scientist Stephen Yeager, who helped lead the modeling effort. El Niño events are characterized by warmer-than-average temperatures in the Tropical Pacific Ocean. The phenomenon, which usually peaks in December, can have a significant impact on weather patterns across the country, causing the northern U.S. and Canada to become warmer and drier than usual while the southern U.S. becomes wetter.

This El Niño coincides with already warming temperatures.

The Washington Post says...

The new prediction system suggested it could reach top-tier “super” El Niño strength, a level that in the past has unleashed deadly fires, drought, heat waves, floods and mudslides around the world. This time, El Niño is developing alongside an unprecedented surge in global temperatures that scientists say have increased the likelihood of brutal heat waves and deadly floods of the kind seen in recent weeks. Will that make El Niño’s typical extremes even more dramatic in the winter? “My answer would be — maybe,” said David DeWitt, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center. [ ... ] The phenomenon is marked by a surge of warmth in surface waters along the equator in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. The warmer those waters become, and the more they couple with west-to-east flowing winds over the Pacific, the stronger the El Niño and its influence on global weather.

Just because an El Niño is a central and eastern Pacific Ocean event doesn't mean it affects only that region.

A forecast that the National Center for Atmospheric Research issued Tuesday was even more bullish, using a new prediction system to forecast that the coming winter could bring a super El Niño, with strength rivaling the historic El Niño of 1997-1998. That winter brought extreme rainfall to California and Kenya, and intense drought to Indonesia.

What an El Niño usually means around the planet.

A textbook El Niño includes tendencies toward dry conditions in such places as Indonesia, northern Australia and southern Africa and wet conditions across parts of South America, eastern Africa and along the southern tier of the United States. Signs are already suggesting a hot and dry summer for Australia, for example, where authorities are warning of heightened wildfire dangers.

So far, this is just a heads up. But it's a reminder that weather is now more than just a subject for idle conversation.

This is a 55 year record of the El Niño 3.4 Index.

NCAR describes the El Niño 3.4 Index...

Scientists commonly define El Niños using a metric called the Niño 3.4 Index, which is a measure of how much warmer (or cooler) the sea surface temperatures are in a defined rectangle of the Tropical Pacific Ocean compared to the long-term average. El Niño conditions occur when the average Niño 3.4 Index is above +0.5 degrees C. An official El Niño event requires the running three-month average index to be +0.5 degrees C or higher for five consecutive months.

So this will likely be the most intense El Niño since the "Cool Britannia" era.