#alternative energy sources articles

[ms-demeanor]

Hey friend! So while I'm incredibly skeptical, I'm not strictly against alternative medicine, like you are. I saw you mention reiki, and thought you might geek out on this article like I did:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200308195914/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/04/reiki-cant-possibly-work-so-why-does-it/606808/

It's called "Reiki Can't Possibly Work. So Why Does It?" and I highly encourage reading the whole thing. It first of all thoroughly debunks a lot of the claims reiki practitioners make but it also details all of the studies that have proven its effectiveness and provides what I find a pretty compelling explanation: that much of modern western medicine is stressful and traumatizing. Of course laying in a quiet room with the lights dimmed while a kind person sits with you and wishes for you to be well is effective. It reduces stress and all of the negative biological processes it triggers, which promotes healing.

The article mentions that for years we didn't understand the mechanism by which acetaminophen worked - we just knew it did. I knew a man who was really into "chakra therapy" in the 90s where he had a set of colored sunglasses that, supposedly, would rebalance one's out-of-whack chakras through light therapy. He found that attending to his throat chakra, yellow, helped him sleep better. Years later, formal studies found that yellow lenses filter blue light and can help regulate circadian rhythms.

When I was really little, my uncle sold magnet therapy products (which claimed to promote circulation?? I think??). I had a huge meltdown at a family reunion and no one could get me to calm down. My uncle put a blanket full of magnets on top of me, and I immediately relaxed. Imagine my surprise hearing that story for the first time as an adult who now uses a weighted blanket for stress.

I agree that people need to be really careful about these practices, about getting scammed, and especially about herbal supplements that can have dangerous interactions. I also think there's an extent to which you can analyze the risks and benefits and say, "Okay, I have no idea why this works but it does and there's no major downsides."

Hey so I get a bit heated in this response but I want you to know that I approached this ask in good faith because I know you and I know that we have a lot of the same values and interests and this touched a nerve that was not at all your fault and once I get past the direct response to the article I think I come off a little less. Um. Like the aggression there is not directed at you, it's directed at the article and at one person mentioned in the article specifically who is part of why my reaction to the article is so not good. But I promise after the last bullet point I come off as less reactive, I think. (I'm also publishing this publicly because I think it may be helpful for people to see how CAM stuff often gets away with a veneer of skepticism-that-isn't-actually-skepticism - the article claims to be skeptical but then makes a ton of assumptions and cites some truly mind-bogglingly bad sources that a lot of people won't recognize as bad if they don't have a hair trigger trained by far too much time on the bad CAM parts of the internet).

I've actually read that article a few time times, and would like to do a quick rundown on why I find it unconvincing:

She doesn't cite any decent studies on reiki; one that she does cite is just a self-reported questionnaire response from 23 people in 2002.

While we don't know the exact mechanism of action for acetaminophen, we do know that it does work - it measurably reduces fever and in double blinded RCTs produces reproduceable results in reducing certain kinds of pain. The Science Based Medicine authors cited in the article who called for an end to studies on reiki did so both because there is no plausible mechanism of action for reiki (specifically as energy work, not as 'being in a room with a patient person who listens to you') and because there is no good evidence that it works. (And they wrote a follow-up to the Atlantic article; I like SBM but it's quite sneery, as are most of their write-ups of reiki). When Kisner asks "why should this be different?" when comparing reiki and acetaminophen, the answer is: because there is not only no plausible way that reiki *could* work, there is not any good evidence we have that it works better than placebo.

"Various non-Western practices have become popular complements to conventional medicine in the past few decades, chief among them yoga, meditation, and acupuncture, all of which have been the subject of rigorous scientific studies that have established and explained their effectiveness." This one sentence needs probably twenty or so links in response, suffice it to say that western medicine has emphatically not established and explained the effectiveness of AT LEAST acupuncture and the casually credulous way Kisner accepts that acupuncture is effective (effective FOR WHAT?) throws some serious doubt on her ability to assess these kinds of things.

The title of the article is "Reiki can't possibly work, so why does it?" and that's probably the Atlantic's fault more than Jordan Kisner's fault, but she doesn't ever demonstrate that it works. She says she got a buzzy feeling after her training, she says that patients at the VA were asking for reiki as treatment for pain and sleep disorders, she says that people remembered "healing touches" from parents and loved ones and that the same mechanism might be what makes reiki 'work.' She says that reiki "has been shown by various studies that pass evidentiary muster to help patients in a variety of ways when used as a complementary practice" and the two studies that she includes that weren't just a questionnaire were 1) a non-blinded study of heart rate variability post heart attack where the reiki arm involved continuous interaction with a trained nurse and the other two arms involved resting quietly or classical music (so relaxation as a result of additional focused attention by attentive medical professionals could account for this? Why was the control for this study not having a med student sit and hold the patient's hand?) and 2) a study of patients who sought out reiki who were surveyed after treatment and noted improvement on one of twenty mental or physical markers (this study is like, GOLD for an example of a bad study; no control, self-selected participants who believe in the efficacy of the intervention, exceptionally broad criteria for a positive result - I find it really really really challenging to grant any credence to someone who confidently cited this as an example of reiki "working")

Near the end of the article she says "At the same time, this recalled the most cutting-edge, Harvard-stamped science I’d read in my research: Ted Kaptchuk’s finding that the placebo effect is a real, measurable, biological healing response to “an act of caring.” - if she read any of Ted Kaptchuk's research she didn't link to it; what she did link to was a 2018 New York Times profile of him and Kathryn Hall, researchers at Harvard's Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter program. Being any flavor of journalist and citing Ted Kaptchuk as your source for cutting-edge, institutionally-backed science is disqualifying.

I now need to do some yelling about Ted Kaptchuk.

For clarity: I have as much medical training as Kathryn Hall and Ted Kaptchuk, which is to say: None.

Hall is a microbiologist with a PhD in Public Health, so she at least a background in science. Kaptchuk is an acupuncturist with a BA in East Asian studies and a doctorate in Chinese medicine - notably NOT a medical degree; he was forced to stop calling himself a doctor and had papers retracted after enough people questioned whether the school he claimed he attended even existed and the documents he presented to claim that he was an "OMD" were conclusively translated and did not have any indication that the granted a medical degree of any kind - Science Based Medicine was involved in investigating this because they've been comprehensively anti-quack forever and Ted Kaptchuk has been a quack forever (after recieving confirmation from the government of Macau that Kaptchuk's alma mater was not a medical degree granting institution SBM STILL gave him the benefit of the doubt and had people translate his documentation for final confirmation).

He is also an author on of one of my most beloathed ever studies, which showed that sham acupuncture, placebo, and albuterol all produced the same effect on patient-reported well-being, coming to the conclusion that patient reports can be unreliable and that "placebo effects can be clinically meaningful and can rival the effects of active medication in patients with asthma." That fucking line, that stupid goddamned line, gets cited in every piece of woo bullshit about how acupuncture or chiropractic or some scam-ass diet all work, I've run into this study while looking through at least twenty bibliographies and it is one of the biggest, reddest flags that whoever is writing the paper you're reading is full up on some bullshit. Because, see, the paper found that "placebo effects can be clinically meaningful and can rival the effects of active medication in patients with asthma" in terms of *patient-reported* markers, but the fucking study found that only albuterol produced an actual effect in lung function. Here's the sentence BEFORE the one that gets cited all the time: "Although albuterol, but not the two placebo interventions, improved FEV1 [forced expiratory volume in one second - the measure for lung function used in the study and used to diagnose asthma] in these patients with asthma, albuterol provided no incremental benefit with respect to the self-reported outcomes." It doesn't matter if the patient *feels* better if they can't actually breathe! It doesn't fucking matter - feeling better but still having poor breathing leaves you more vulnerable to dying of a fucking asthma attack! I hate this goddamned study so fucking much and it's used all the time to claim that placebo can be just as effective as medicine for making people FEEL better but, like, they're still sick even if they feel better! I HAVE HAD PEOPLE CITE THIS STUPID FUCKING STUDY TO ME AS EVIDENCE THAT I DON'T CARE ENOUGH ABOUT TREATING MY FUCKING ASTHMA BECAUSE I DON'T GET ACUPUNCTURE TO TREAT MY FUCKING ASTHMA. If sham acupuncture makes you feel better when you've got the flu but doesn't lower your fever or make you less contagious, you shouldn't act like you don't have a fever or aren't contagious this study makes me INSANE.

Okay done yelling.

I think this look at placebo in the midst of her article about reiki is really interesting because it's very common for CAM practitioners to claim that it's as effective as placebo - which just means that it's not effective. This is a great explanation from The Skeptic on why placebo isn't and can't be what Kaptchuk, Hall, and the like claim. It's also interesting to me that Kisner didn't choose to link to a 2011 New Yorker profile of Kaptchuk that is somewhat less rosy about his placebo studies and includes this absolutely crushing statement: "the placebo effect doesn’t appear to work with Alzheimer’s patients. Trivers suggests that this is because most people who have Alzheimer’s disease are unable to anticipate the future and are therefore unable to prepare for it."

But to the actual point of the ask: I honestly think it's fascinating how much CAM success probably rides on "well did you listen to the patient and pay attention to what was wrong with them and sympathize with them and help them lay out plan that made them feel like they had some agency in this exceptionally frustrating situation (chronic illness, newly diagnosed issue, totally undiagnosed issue) that they're dealing with?"

I know part of why people with chronic illnesses turn to CAM is because they're ignored and dismissed by allopathic practitioners who are largely looking for horses, not zebras - this is one of the reasons that I'm really big on reminding people that (at least in the US) DOs are fully licensed physicians who use a holistic and patient-centered approach so if you are someone with a chronic illness who has had trouble getting diagnosed or had trouble getting doctors to believe you, swapping your MD for a DO as a primary care physician might be really, really helpful to you.

But the flip side of that is that is that I worry deeply about the question of where harm starts; the example with your uncle is really great because you do have a solid instance of something working but for totally the wrong reason (pressure being the mechanism that actually helped, versus magnets being the reason given by the person who did the treatment). Some of this stuff has very little likelihood of causing direct harm, but has the distinct possibility of having indirect harms, which people in the anti-CAM space generally divide into two categories, treatment delay and unnecessary costs (opportunity costs, monetary costs, wasted effort, etc.)

I'm going to step outside of your specific example and look at magnet therapy generally, which really is a spectacular thing to focus on because it honestly doesn't have any direct harms; nobody is allergic to magnets, the kinds of magnets used aren't strong enough to interfere with medical devices, it's even safer than the whole "well herbalism is sometimes just a cup of tea" thing because there are "safe" teas that can do real harm to large populations! But simply being around magnets is not going to hurt anyone (unless they're swallowed; nobody swallow magnets please).

One of the things that I think goes under-discussed when talking about placebo and CAM is that the people trying the alternative solutions desperately WANT the alternative medicine to work (I suspect that this is why the self-selected study of reiki patients has such a significant finding). They are pulling for it; they may be looking at it as a last resort, or they may be hoping that it will work to avoid a treatment that is more frightening, expensive, or inaccessible. I think this actually contributes a lot to the delay of care that we see with CAM.

The absolute worst case harm I can imagine from magnetic therapy is delaying treatment. Let's suppose we've got a diabetic patient with gradually increasing peripheral neuropathy; they have reacted poorly to gabapentin in the past and are looking for something more natural, and they hear from their chiropractor that magnet therapy can be used to treat neuropathy. They buy some compression socks with "magnetic and earthing properties" and sleep in the socks. Whether through the compression controlling some edema or through the simple desire for the socks to work, they feel some relief from the nerve pain they were experiencing and decide that this is a success. The socks work! They continue wearing the socks with occasional pain, but less than before. However, because they are focused on the lack of pain, they don't notice that it's accompanied by increasing numbness. The numbness significantly increases their risk of injury to their feet, which significantly increases their risk of amputation.

It probably sounds like catastrophizing to say "using magnets could lead to amputation" but honestly I don't think it's that far out of the realm of possibility (every time I post on this topic I get flooded with the saddest stories in the world about people whose loved ones died because of delayed treatment for cancer or heart disease).

The second category of harm is cost, which is honestly pretty minimal with magnet therapy, as long as you aren't spending $1049 on a magnetic mat

or paying a chiropractor to give you magnetic treatments. For some other medically harmless treatments like reiki, cost is the thing that I worry about - while I was looking up information related to the article I found that people are charging anywhere from $60 to $225 a session, and selling multi-session packages for thousands of dollars - and if someone thinks that something works, even if it only works by being in a soothing space where someone cares about you - they'll pay for it.

I'm aware that all of this is also extra complicated because of the cost and lack of access to allopathic medicine - a chiropractor broke my spine because I could pay her $60 per appointment but I couldn't pay $125 to see an MD when I didn't have insurance. People who are sick are going to look for treatment; people who have been denied treatment or dismissed by doctors are going to look for alternative treatments.

But man, I really wish I'd spent that sixty bucks on half of a doctor's appointment because the chiropractor didn't know about the benign tumor that I had that weakened the structure of that particular bone when she did her adjustment; it also didn't make the pain go away, it made a different pain start and get worse because it turns out I was having debilitating muscle spasms that then had a bone injury added in on top.

(Chiropractic, for the record, goes with chelation therapy and many many many many cases of herbalism where it's NOT just cost or delay; people claim these treatments are harmless and they are not. They can do tremendous harm).

But yeah I'm not going to deny at all that all of this would be a hell of a lot better if people (especially marginalized people) didn't have to jump through hoops to prove to a doctor that something is wrong with them, and didn't have to do so in an appointment that attempts to cram whole person care down into fifteen minutes, and didn't have the possibility of bankrupting you. Interacting with allopathic medicine is a nightmare and I totally understand why people want to look outside of it for treatment.

I've just heard too many horror stories and seen too much predatory CAM to cut much of it any slack.

At the end of the SBM response to the Atlantic article, the author (I can't remember if it's Gorski or Novella) makes the point that reiki is a spiritual practice, and that we've known for a long time that spiritual practices can improve a person's well-being in a number of ways; they can reduce anxiety, they can provide community, they can give people a space to feel and express emotions that they certainly aren't going to be able to process in a doctor's office. Spiritual practices can be wonderful, and we know there are a lot of people who they can help. But they aren't medicine, and attempting to replace medicine with them (which I don't think that most reiki practitioners are trying to do, to be fair, but which Ted Kaptchuk DEFINITELY is in trying to 'harness the power of placebo') is a disservice to people who need an inhaler instead of acupuncture.

Also, and I know this was not your point but I have to bring it up because people ask about it whenever discussions of placebo come up:

The placebo effect is not treatment. The placebo effect, whether achieved through deception or when someone says loud and clear "this is a sugar pill" does not improve an illness, but it may improve how a patient *feels* about an illness. In some cases, this may as well be the same thing - if you're dealing with muscle pain because you're stressed and no matter what you do it doesn't go away because your shoulders are always up around your ears and you're grinding your teeth and you're sleeping poorly, then literally just talking to someone who is in an office and says "this is a sugar pill, go ahead and take it" may make your muscle pain feel better, but it isn't going to reduce your stress and it isn't going to last, and if your muscle pain is because you're feeling angina as a result of a partially blocked artery then it SURE AS FUCK is not going to make you better and may mask symptoms that were a warning sign of a much more serious problem. People who are sick deserve actual treatment, and placebo is not treatment, which is part of why Ted Kaptchuk makes me want to tear my hair out.

[jadeharleyinc]

the scale of AI's ecological footprint

standalone version of my response to the following:

"you need soulless art? [...] why should you get to use all that computing power and electricity to produce some shitty AI art? i don’t actually think you’re entitled to consume those resources." "i think we all deserve nice things. [...] AI art is not a nice thing. it doesn’t meaningfully contribute to us thriving and the cost in terms of energy use [...] is too fucking much. none of us can afford to foot the bill." "go watch some tv show or consume some art that already exists. […] you know what’s more environmentally and economically sustainable […]? museums. galleries. being in nature."

you can run free and open source AI art programs on your personal computer, with no internet connection. this doesn't require much more electricity than running a resource-intensive video game on that same computer. i think it's important to consume less. but if you make these arguments about AI, do you apply them to video games too? do you tell Fortnite players to play board games and go to museums instead?

speaking of museums: if you drive 3 miles total to a museum and back home, you have consumed more energy and created more pollution than generating AI images for 24 hours straight (this comes out to roughly 1400 AI images). "being in nature" also involves at least this much driving, usually. i don't think these are more environmentally-conscious alternatives.

obviously, an AI image model costs energy to train in the first place, but take Stable Diffusion v2 as an example: it took 40,000 to 60,000 kWh to train. let's go with the upper bound. if you assume ~125g of CO2 per kWh, that's ~7.5 tons of CO2. to put this into perspective, a single person driving a single car for 12 months emits 4.6 tons of CO2. meanwhile, for example, the creation of a high-budget movie emits 2840 tons of CO2.

is the carbon cost of a single car being driven for 20 months, or 1/378th of a Marvel movie, worth letting anyone with a mid-end computer, anywhere, run free offline software that consumes a gaming session's worth of electricity to produce hundreds of images? i would say yes. in a heartbeat.

even if you see creating AI images as "less soulful" than consuming Marvel/Fortnite content, it's undeniably "more useful" to humanity as a tool. not to mention this usefulness includes reducing the footprint of creating media. AI is more environment-friendly than human labor on digital creative tasks, since it can get a task done with much less computer usage, doesn't commute to work, and doesn't eat.

and speaking of eating, another comparison: if you made an AI image program generate images non-stop for every second of every day for an entire year, you could offset your carbon footprint by… eating 30% less beef and lamb. not pork. not even meat in general. just beef and lamb.

the tech industry is guilty of plenty of horrendous stuff. but when it comes to the individual impact of AI, saying "i don’t actually think you’re entitled to consume those resources. do you need this? is this making you thrive?" to an individual running an AI program for 45 minutes a day per month is equivalent to questioning whether that person is entitled to a single 3 mile car drive once per month or a single meatball's worth of beef once per month. because all of these have the same CO2 footprint.

so yeah. i agree, i think we should drive less, eat less beef, stream less video, consume less. but i don't think we should tell people "stop using AI programs, just watch a TV show, go to a museum, go hiking, etc", for the same reason i wouldn't tell someone "stop playing video games and play board games instead". i don't think this is a productive angle.

(sources and number-crunching under the cut.)

good general resource: GiovanH's article "Is AI eating all the energy?", which highlights the negligible costs of running an AI program, the moderate costs of creating an AI model, and the actual indefensible energy waste coming from specific companies deploying AI irresponsibly.

CO2 emissions from running AI art programs: a) one AI image takes 3 Wh of electricity. b) one AI image takes 1mn in, for example, Midjourney. c) so if you create 1 AI image per minute for 24 hours straight, or for 45 minutes per day for a month, you've consumed 4.3 kWh. d) using the UK electric grid through 2024 as an example, the production of 1 kWh releases 124g of CO2. therefore the production of 4.3 kWh releases 533g (~0.5 kg) of CO2.

CO2 emissions from driving your car: cars in the EU emit 106.4g of CO2 per km. that's 171.19g for 1 mile, or 513g (~0.5 kg) for 3 miles.

costs of training the Stable Diffusion v2 model: quoting GiovanH's article linked in 1. "Generative models go through the same process of training. The Stable Diffusion v2 model was trained on A100 PCIe 40 GB cards running for a combined 200,000 hours, which is a specialized AI GPU that can pull a maximum of 300 W. 300 W for 200,000 hours gives a total energy consumption of 60,000 kWh. This is a high bound that assumes full usage of every chip for the entire period; SD2’s own carbon emission report indicates it likely used significantly less power than this, and other research has shown it can be done for less." at 124g of CO2 per kWh, this comes out to 7440 kg.

CO2 emissions from red meat: a) carbon footprint of eating plenty of red meat, some red meat, only white meat, no meat, and no animal products the difference between a beef/lamb diet and a no-beef-or-lamb diet comes down to 600 kg of CO2 per year. b) Americans consume 42g of beef per day. this doesn't really account for lamb (egads! my math is ruined!) but that's about 1.2 kg per month or 15 kg per year. that single piece of 42g has a 1.65kg CO2 footprint. so our 3 mile drive/4.3 kWh of AI usage have the same carbon footprint as a 12g piece of beef. roughly the size of a meatball [citation needed].

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

The [green hydrogen] facility has become an example of how oil-rich states like Texas — which leads the nation in annual wind power production and is behind only California in annual solar power production — are buying into the renewable energy boom. Much of this investment was spurred by former President Joe Biden’s administration and his legislative goals, such as the roughly $500 billion that Congress set aside through its approval of the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.   This eagerness to invest in renewable energy has come at a time when climate change has driven average global temperatures to roughly 1.1 degrees Celsius (and steadily climbing) above pre-industrial levels. To stave off the worst of the ongoing climate crisis’s effects, domestically and abroad, renewable sources like green hydrogen bear promise, scientists say. And that promise is already being fulfilled in nations like China, Saudi Arabia, and Sweden, all of whom are global leaders in green hydrogen production facilities that are in final planning or financing phases, according to a hydrogen projects data tracker published by the International Energy Agency last year.  Meanwhile, in the U.S., some 67 green hydrogen projects are planned through at least 2029, according to an energy transition paper published by the workforce solutions company Airswift.  The alternative fuel has always had promise, says Dr. Alan Lloyd, a renewable energy researcher at the University of Texas. It’s not a future pipe dream, he adds. But rather, now, “it’s happening.”

[frameacloud]

Some ways to avoid generative AI in web searches

Our web searches are being filled with more and more AI-generated slop. GenAI creates misinformation that can be difficult to tell apart from the correct answer to whatever question you're looking up. GenAI mixes things up that have similar names. In one example that is especially easy to recognize, genAI has thought that a baseball team and the bird that it was named after must both be the same creature, with a bizarre combination of their eating habits and behaviors. This mistake still happens with specialized topics that could be harder for you to recognize unless if you're already very familiar with the topic in question. GenAI also makes up fake sources and facts out of thin air, and you can't tell until you try to find them somewhere else. The tech is more like advanced predictive text than something capable of research or reasoning, even though it can look enough like it that it can fool you if you don't know how to spot its mistakes.

Not only are the results of genAI unreliable, the source texts and images that they’re based on were used without permission. Sometimes they aren't modified enough to avoid plagiarism, but it's worse than that. Source images have turned out to be private medical photos and intimate personal photos that hackers had stolen and leaked to harass the people in the photos. Another reason why this technology is unethical is that each genAI query has such a high energy cost that it's significantly harmful to the environment, contributing to the climate crisis.

Here are some things that you can do when you use Google, DuckDuckGo, or other conventional general web search engines:

To turn off Google's AI Overview, set "web" as default. Here's how to do that on your devices and web browsers.

Add this string to any web search to only show results from before the genAI fad. Before:2021

Install the web browser extension uBlacklist. You give it a list of web addresses to not show you in your web searches anymore. Other people maintain lists for it that you can subscribe to so that you won’t see certain types of results in your web searches. Follow the instructions in Laylavish’s Huge AI Blocklist to subscribe to that list which will rid your web search results of AI-generated pages or images.

Since genAI slop is getting to be such a big problem on them, use alternatives to conventional general web search engines some of the time:

Use a specialized search engine instead of a general one. For example, if you only wanted to find a particular science article, there are specialized search engines that only look for those. The blog post "Skip Google for Research" has a list of specialized search engines for academics.

GenAI is notoriously bad at math because that’s too far outside the scope it was designed for: advanced predictive text. In any case, genAI is overpowered for math that is easy for computers to do. If you want to use a very advanced calculator, or even ask a math question in natural language, use Wolfram Alpha.

For questions about how to do things, look them up in WikiHow, the Youtube channel Dad, How Do I? or The Ultimate Manuals Library.

You can search within Wikipedia, but unfortunately vandals have been putting machine-generated falsehoods into it, as well as genAI images. To avoid this, use the article history to view versions of the article from before 2022.

Ask yourself if there are some topics that you often do a web search for just because you keep forgetting an answer to something. Start saving those answers in a book or file that you can refer to offline. This is called a commonplace book. For an example of one, Beth and Angel made theirs into a zine, Stuff I Often Google.

How about a completely different sort of web search than present-day Google or DuckDuckGo? Marginalia Search only brings up results that are text-heavy and similar to the web of the 1990s and 2000s. Its software is independent and open-source.

Have you been using a web search engine to take you to the websites that you visit on a regular basis? Switch to saving them in your web browser's bookmarks folder. Your web browser, Firefox, can sync your bookmarks to your other devices. If you often need to refer to a large number of static web pages (ones that don't change what is on them every day), then you can save and organize them in your Zotero, a bibliography management program. You can sort them with folders and tags so you can find them again.

[psychotrenny]

I do think Low Tech Magazine is a pretty good source of info if you're interested in various pieces of old technology and paths of development, stuff that went obsolete or never really took off (largely due to competition from petrochemical based alternatives). Mostly for the sake of curiosity but honestly some of the stuff in there is at least worth considering; while full on "degrowth" is a misguided ideological dead-end there is a lot of reason to use energy resources more efficiently in a world where short-term enrichment of the bourgeoisie is not the guiding principle of all society.

The politics of the site certainly aren't great, all the contributors being some sort of vague left eco libertarian type as you might imagine, but their general emphasis on using technology in different ways rather than rejecting it altogether certainly puts them above any outright anti-civ type. The article on "sustainable weaponry" is pretty silly if taken at face value but, aside from being kinda the site's weakest article and certainly one of the more explicitly "anti-tech/anti-civ adjacent", it at least makes internal sense if you follow its deeply liberal logic (i.e. violence is inevitable, but if we can collectively come together to limit it then we can do the same for other social/ecological problems. If we can ban chemical weapon and hollow-point rounds then maybe we can ban guns altogether). Like I wouldn't go around touting the site as the greatest thing in the world but its entire collection of writing isn't something to dismiss entirely out of hand.

[reasonsforhope]

"It may sound surprising, but when times are tough and there is no other food available, some soil bacteria can consume traces of hydrogen in the air as an energy source.

In fact, bacteria remove a staggering 70 million tonnes of hydrogen yearly from the atmosphere, a process that literally shapes the composition of the air we breathe.

We have isolated an enzyme that enables some bacteria to consume hydrogen and extract energy from it, and found it can produce an electric current directly when exposed to even minute amounts of hydrogen.

As we report in a new paper in Nature, the enzyme may have considerable potential to power small, sustainable air-powered devices in future.

Bacterial genes contain the secret for turning air into electricity

Prompted by this discovery, we analysed the genetic code of a soil bacterium called Mycobacterium smegmatis, which consumes hydrogen from air.

Written into these genes is the blueprint for producing the molecular machine responsible for consuming hydrogen and converting it into energy for the bacterium. This machine is an enzyme called a “hydrogenase”, and we named it Huc for short.

Hydrogen is the simplest molecule, made of two positively charged protons held together by a bond formed by two negatively charged electrons. Huc breaks this bond, the protons part ways, and the electrons are released...

The molecular blueprint for extracting hydrogen from air

With Huc isolated, we set about studying it in earnest, to discover what exactly the enzyme is capable of. How can it turn the hydrogen in the air into a sustainable source of electricity?

Remarkably, we found that even when isolated from the bacteria, Huc can consume hydrogen at concentrations far lower even than the tiny traces in the air. In fact, Huc still consumed whiffs of hydrogen too faint to be detected by our gas chromatograph, a highly sensitive instrument we use to measure gas concentrations...

Enzymes could use air to power the devices of tomorrow

It’s early days for this research, and several technical challenges need to be overcome to realise the potential of Huc.

For one thing, we will need to significantly increase the scale of Huc production. In the lab we produce Huc in milligram quantities, but we want to scale this up to grams and ultimately kilograms.

However, our work demonstrates that Huc functions like a “natural battery” producing a sustained electrical current from air or added hydrogen.

As a result, Huc has considerable potential in developing small, sustainable air-powered devices as an alternative to solar power.

The amount of energy provided by hydrogen in the air would be small, but likely sufficient to power a biometric monitor, clock, LED globe or simple computer. With more hydrogen, Huc produces more electricity and could potentially power larger devices.

Another application would be the development of Huc-based bioelectric sensors for detecting hydrogen, which could be incredibly sensitive. Huc could be invaluable for detecting leaks in the infrastructure of our burgeoning hydrogen economy or in a medical setting.

In short, this research shows how a fundamental discovery about how bacteria in soils feed themselves can lead to a reimagining of the chemistry of life. Ultimately it may also lead to the development of technologies for the future."

-via The Conversation, March 8, 2023. Article written by the authors of the study.

[the-witchy-housewife]

｡+*✧ The Basics of Spiritual Safety & Wellbeing✧*+｡

This is an article from my website, The Witchy Housewife. You can read it at the source here or look under the cut to read it here on Tumblr. If you enjoy my work, please consider subscribing (at the bottom of this page) to receive articles as they're posted via e-mail, exploring the shop, leaving a tip, or reblogging this post. I run this all myself, so all support is greatly appreciated. 💜🔮✨

When asked the most important place to begin as a newcomer to the craft, to energy work, or even to simply walking a more spiritual path, more experienced practitioners will often share the basics of their magickal tool cabinet, suggest a bouquet of book titles and YouTube channels, or state plainly that the only correct answer is to let your heart and soul guide you. Only occasionally do I see or hear these types of questions answered with the recommendation to familiarize oneself with spiritual safety and wellbeing prior to diving head-first. But matters of protection, I feel, are one of the most important things to study up on when starting out, and today, I’d like to share my own thoughts and advice on the topic.

Cleansing, Purification, & Banishing

As I define them in my practice: To cleanse is to rid a person, place, or thing of stagnant, unwanted, draining, counterproductive, or otherwise negative energies or entities (though positive energies will often accompany them), to purify is to return a person, place, or thing to its original energetic state, and to banish is to cleanse by authoritative expulsion or removal using an outward-pushing energy. You may find others who define these terms differently or use these words interchangeably, but this is how I have come to define them, each offering their own unique function in my workings. If you are looking at correspondences in my digital grimoire, these energetic properties can be found in items marked as cleansing, restoration, and banishment respectively.

A cleansing may be performed when you find that energies are stagnant, stuffy, or negative. Unpleasant energies like these can be responsible for inviting in equally unpleasant entities, hindering the results of energetic workings, creating a state of mental or emotional discomfort, brewing a heavy tension in the air, or even causing feelings of sickness in those who are particularly sensitive. As such, it is usually recommended that cleansings be performed on a regular basis – especially if you live in a space that is regularly exposed to more negative energies. Some common methods of cleansing utilize the smoke of cleansing herbs (alternatively, a spray), water infused with cleansing herbs, or simply a visualization of brilliant white light – and this is just barely scratching the surface. As with many rituals, there are hundreds of methods of cleansing out there for you to explore, and it is paramount to choose one – or even create one – that works for you. Let your intention – your goal – be your guiding force. As a general rule, if you are putting your intention into it and you are going about it in a way that feels intuitively compatible, you will more than likely see the results you are looking for.

Often, cleansing – similarly to banishing – will result in a feeling of emptiness. You are essentially scrubbing the present energies “clean”, including energies that may be more positive. On the other hand, you may wish to perform a purification, or restoration, of a person, place, or thing if the goal is to reverse any energetic damage that may have been done while still retaining those unique individual energies. For this, you would utilize restorative herbs instead of cleansing ones and focus your intention accordingly. It seems it is common for practitioners to opt for cleansing over purification – and even more common for the terms to be defined as one and the same – but I enjoy having this as a separate option when it is needed. In my practice, this process typically comes into play when I want to remove any absorbed energies from a crystal, charm, or tool but would like to preserve its core energies as much as possible.

Finally, banishment is used when you want to push an energy or entity out of a particular space, and in this case, the original energies seem to remain wholly unchanged. For this reason, some practitioners choose to also perform a cleansing beforehand. Like cleansing, there are many methods of banishment out there that you can give a try, though the most commonly passed-around is the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (or LBRP) of ceremonial magick, sometimes given different flavors for different systems.

Enchanting & Blessing

The emptiness of a cleansing or banishing can feel pleasant enough, but I find that this sometimes allows unwanted energies to creep back in more easily. A blank slate becomes anyone’s game, so to speak. To mitigate this, you may choose to preemptively imbue the space with more intentionally – and typically positive – energies. For this, we use enchantment or blessings. To enchant is to fill a person, place, or thing with intentional (but not necessarily positive) energies, and to bless is to enchant with fresh, positive, and often divine energies.

Enchantment is one of those foundational things that is pretty crucial to get the hang of when first starting out in a magickal practice, and all it entails is focusing on an intention and willing the energy of that intention to fill the person, place, or thing being enchanted. To a beginner, this can be more difficult, which is why it is also important to learn what these subtle energies can feel like to you. Skipping this step can sometimes deter people away from magick altogether. Lady Gravedancer, one of my favorite witches on YouTube, has an excellent video on learning to work with and sense these subtle energies. If this is all new to you, I highly recommend it.

Typically, though, a blessing is more what we’re looking for post-cleansing – positive, even divine, energies that inspire a sense of wellbeing. If you work with deities, you may also like to ask them to bestow their own blessings in your stead or beside you. Otherwise, it’s just enchantment with a wholly positive intention, but if the idea of a blessing feels too religious for your comfort, stick with “enchantment” and don’t let semantics bog you down.

Warding, Shielding, & Cloaking

In all cases, I tend to feel that the energies we’re working through are not being totally destroyed, but are rather either transmuted, deterred, or even just fragmented. In my opinion, it is usually a good idea to follow up your cleansings or banishments with the re-energizing of your wards. To ward is to create an energetic protective barrier around a person, place, or thing as a semi-passive and long-term protective measure, to shield is to create a more short-term ward that surrounds a personal, place, or thing entirely and is envisioned as a bubble, and to cloak is to make a person, place, or thing energetically “invisible” or “irrelevant” to wandering energies or entities so that interests are directed elsewhere. You can find relevant correspondences in my digital grimoire marked as protection, security, and invisibility.

Warding can be thought of as the closing and locking of your spiritual entryway, though it is often done with the intention to protect from more than just matters of the spiritual. I’ve known people to create physical barriers around properties using salt and/or eggshells with protective herbs as a base and visualizing their wards rising from that barrier. You might also like to bury protective crystals at the four corners of the property for that additional kick. But once again, there are so many methods out there that it really comes down to personal preference.

I tend to think of shielding – or bubbling, as some call it – as a more short-term and active form of warding. Shielding is especially useful as an emergency layer of protection when out and about or as an additional layer over your personal wards in outings that you suspect will be energetically taxing. Where wards are thought of as great and powerful walls, shields are typically thought of as entire bubbles surrounding a person, place, or thing on all sides. If you’re an empath like me – which is a sometimes-misrepresented term I’ll get into in a future article – shielding is a good practice to have in your pocket for going out into crowded environments, whether that crowd is physical, as in a theme park, or spiritual, as in a hospital. Whatever visualization you choose to use for warding, your shielding process can tend to be similar, and much of it, again, comes down to the intention. It is often the case, though, that this process takes more energy to conduct, and thus, if you choose to keep up a more permanent shield, it may require more care and more frequent energetic charging than your wards do.

Cloaking is something I don’t see discussed very often, but it can be very useful to consider when you are trying to be energetically off the radar. And obviously, I am not suggesting you go about doing sneaky, unsavory things. Instead, cloaking may be more beneficial for avoiding unnecessary conflict with nosy neighbors, finding peace to work in a coffee shop, or subduing the attention that can come from large-scale energetic workings. And as always, you may choose to hand-pick some herbs, crystals, or other mystical tools for this purpose, but the recommended visualization varies a bit from that typical bright light you may be used to working with. In the case of invisibility, you may choose to envision the person, place, or thing fading out of view or to mentally play the situation at hand out exactly as you wish it to transpire.

Safety Tips for Spirit Work

Certainly, if you plan to do spirit work – a line of spiritual work in which will regularly involve energies and entities completely independent of you – these concepts may be more important to familiarize yourself with than with someone whose only spiritual endeavor is manifesting a little extra spending money every once in a while. Aspiring spirit worker, the following tips are for you:

• As per the point of this article, it’s a good idea to have your preferred protective methods at the ready prior to actively working with spirits. This, of course, does not mean that your methods cannot change over time – but when starting out, you should find a method that is compatible with you and gets you the results you need. Once chosen, try to become familiar enough with it that you can cast it off-book in the event of some sort of spiritual emergency.

• As a spirit worker, you’ll want to cleanse your tools, your space, and yourself very regularly. My preference in my practice is at least once a month and more frequently if I feel it is necessary. Even if you aren’t involved with spirit work, regular cleansings are a good habit to get into, but it is especially important for those inviting a large number of outside influences into their home.

• Get to know your spirit guide(s), and keep them close during any sort of spirit work. I’ve heard from many people who feel that the connection you have with your guide(s) has a sort of solidity to it that can override other communications the moment you ask for it, and I myself have not yet seen evidence to the contrary. If you ever feel uneasy about a communication and are in need of a second opinion on who or what you may be speaking to, ask your guide(s) to come through and communicate with you. Still, as we communicate between realms, discernment is a necessary skill to develop, and having protections in place is always a good idea, regardless of whether you choose to involve your guide(s) or work on your own. If you are completely new to the idea of spirit guides, I do plan to write an article on the topic in the future – but in the meantime, if you’re interested in meeting yours, Lady Gravedancer also has a wonderful video featuring a ritual for communicating with your guides for the first time.

• You may also want to look into the idea of casting a circle (another topic I’ll likely be discussing here in the future). While an entire ritual may not be in the cards for your practice, it may help you to develop some alternative ideas for shielding the space around you during active spirit work. In doing so, you maintain greater control over what is permitted to enter. Afterwards, be sure to say your goodbyes and to close up your circle and any portals you may have opened to avoid uninvited visitors outside of working hours. If you are someone who chooses to always leave your space open to visitation – and some people do – be aware that anything can enter and be prepared for the circumstances that could stem from this.

• If you are someone who allows certain spirits to reside in your home – what I refer to as my “spirit family” – I think it is a hospitable gesture to let those spirits know when you are going to be performing a cleansing or banishing. I can’t imagine that having your energy forcefully transmuted or shoved out the door would be a terribly comfortable thing to experience, so I think of it as a sort of courtesy that exhibits the respect I have for them. This will give them a chance to temporarily leave the space of their own volition while you go through your routine. Alternatively, if you have a special space set up for your spirit family like I do, you may choose to shield that space with the intention for their energies to remain unaffected by the cleansing. I’m not sure that it’s the most perfect method, but it’s one that I’ve found to work well for my spirit family thus far. In both cases, there are those who would argue that this gives unwanted entities a chance to temporarily leave or take shelter within the shield, as well, but I tend to feel that my spirit family would act accordingly to keep our home safe. It is their home, too, after all.

Despite popular Hollywood tropes, working with spirits doesn’t necessarily equate to “terrifying and dangerous” – but this does not mean it is without its risks. And just as you wouldn’t find your way into a dark alley in the middle of the night without some pepper spray, it’s likely not a good idea to invite spirits into your home without compatible defense measures in place.

Safety Tips for Energy Work

Energy work, in general, tends to have the odd side effect of making you a sort of beacon in the realm of the spiritual – and the more you do, the more your energy builds, the more your awareness expands, and the brighter your whole being shines. No matter the level you find yourself at spiritually, the following tips are for you (though feel absolutely free to read through the previous section, as well; the additional knowledge can only benefit you):

• Whether it be through tarot, runes, pendulums, spirit boards, prayer, or some other form of divination you find useful, it is wonderfully wise to seek guidance regarding any workings you do. This practice can help you to avoid unwanted outcomes, to avoid manifesting something you may not truly want, and to uncover exactly what it is you need to add or take away from your workings to bring you the results that you are looking for.

• Keep a journal of what works and what doesn’t in your practice and of any intuitive insights you receive that you feel may be important. Your spiritual path is a deeply personal one, and one person’s experience will likely never be perfectly identical to another’s. There is an abundance of wonderful advice out there. There are many methods out there that work very well for many as-is. But at the end of the day, you must discover what works best for you, even if that is different from the teachings of the majority. Be sure to keep track of it.

• Be mindful of loopholes, especially in manifestation workings. Being too specific can sometimes be ineffective, but not being specific enough has the potential to cause even bigger issues. Manifestation, I find, tends to take the path of least resistance, so when putting your energies out there, you want to be sure your intentions don’t put anyone in harm’s way. Again, divination can be a wonderful source of guidance prior to your workings.

• If you are going to be working with negative intentions of any kind – which is something I don’t advise for a number of reasons, and especially not for beginners – be sure to deep-cleanse yourself and the space the spell or ritual took place in. In addition, it’s generally a good idea to not keep any items used in the working on or near your property. Also know that there are other options, like justice workings, that can be done in place of this. Sometimes when we feel very upset or very angry, we speak or act irrationally and come to regret it later. This can also be true for spellwork, but the results can sometimes be a lot more devastating. Ultimately, I cannot stop you from doing what you feel you must, but at the very least, I hope you’ll think things through.

• Finally, this may seem like common-sense, but don’t let your spiritual practice throw off balance in your life. The realm of the physical has its own value and importance, and that certainly includes your health and wellbeing. If you find yourself neglecting your health, your hygiene, your friends and family, your responsibilities, or your other hobbies, it may be necessary to take a break or dial it back until you’re able to find a good balance.

A Regular Cleansing Practice

You may have already seen this in my article on making the home more magickal, but I thought it would be good to include, here as well. The following are my two most often-used cleansing rituals – one which I perform monthly, and the other as-needed:

My Monthly Cleansing Ritual: I perform this ritual on the first of each month. Any cleansing tools to be charged on the altar should be set at least a day before performing the cleansing. The morning of, weather permitting, open windows and play uplifting music or cleansing affirmations, frequencies, or subliminals of choice. Take a cleansing shower. Clean the home as you normally would. When physical cleaning is complete, use a smoke or spray cleansing blend of choice, walking with intention from room-to-room. Pay special mind to corners and doorways. I like to use sound cleansing – bells, drums, or even snapping your fingers will do – in these spaces to really ensure the breaking up of any “stuck” energies. If you are someone who performs banishing rituals, you may choose to do so now. At this point, I also take a moment to cleanse myself, particularly as an empath. I then tend to my wards by first taking a blessed salt blend around the perimeter of the property, followed by sitting at the center of the property and funneling my own energy into the ward. If you would prefer to instead bless first and ward after, feel free to do so. It is your ritual, after all. Regardless of which order you perform the ritual in, the blessing process may be a deeply personal one, so this is a step I suggest thinking on a bit rather than following to the letter. In my ritual, I use a spray with positive energy-promoting herbs (as well as herbs that may promote the intention I wish to set for the month) and follow up with prayer to my deities. If you’re interested in a more in-depth look at my Monthly Cleansing Ritual, I do have detailed instructions available on my Monthly Blessings Patreon.

My As-Needed Cleansing Ritual: This is essentially a truncated version of my monthly ritual. If the energies are something I’ve tracked in or absorbed too much of, I will take a cleansing shower first. Following this, perform your usual smoke or spray cleansing, focusing especially on any room(s) that may be the most abundant in the energy that brought about this need for an emergency cleanse. You may also like to perform a shorter version of your regular blessing ritual. Unless the situation is really dire, I will generally stick to my spray in this case.

Just to reiterate, all of the information, including these rituals, are from my own practice and my own experience. You must do what works for you if you want to get the absolute best results and the most fulfilling experience. Take what serves you, and leave the rest. Much love and many blessings to you on your journey. Take care of yourself.

[genshin-impact-updates]

"Your credible source of the unbelievable truth!"

"...Euphrasie, three days ago, one of your journalists secretly followed a suspect all the way from the Court of Fontaine to Romaritime Harbor, and almost ended up being tied up and thrown into the sea by a gang of criminals. Whether or not there's any truth in the notion that 'nearer to the action is closer to the truth,' surely Miss Charlotte doesn't value her reports more than she does her own life?"

— Yet another exasperated exchange between Captain Chevreuse of the Special Security and Surveillance Patrol and Euphrasie, Editor-in-Chief of The Steambird

◆ Name: Charlotte

◆ Title: Lens of Verity

◆ Reporter of The Steambird

◆ Vision: Cryo

◆ Constellation: Hualina Veritas

Fontaine's famous newspaper The Steambird has a veritable legion of reporters it can call upon, each with their own area of expertise. Some specialize in celebrity gossip, others follow the word on the street, while others still focus on political affairs...

But among them all, there is one that stands head and shoulders above the rest thanks to her seemingly boundless reserve of energy and perseverance — the inimitable Charlotte.

Unswervingly committed to the principle that "nearer to the action is closer to the truth," Charlotte has a habit of popping up literally anywhere and everywhere in Fontaine — from its widest avenues to its narrowest back alleys, its highest vantage points to its lowest subterranean vaults, even its tallest mountains to its deepest undersea caverns. She captures the "truth" with her Kamera, records it in her articles, and finally unveils it for all to see.

And when the "truth" comes out, she's met with a variety of different reactions ranging from applause, to embarrassment, to outright fury. There are even some who would resort to any means necessary to make a particular article connected to themselves disappear. Or alternatively, just make Charlotte disappear.

For this reason, the newspaper's Editor-in-Chief Euphrasie has on numerous occasions felt the need to distance Charlotte from the Court of Fontaine by sending her off on faraway "field reporting" jobs, only recalling her once the Maison Gardiennage or Special Security and Surveillance Patrol had finally managed to clear things up.

But despite all this, neither the toil of the job itself nor the pressure of external denunciations and threats has ever phased Charlotte in the slightest.

With her trusty companion Monsieur Verite by her side, she invariably carries out her journalistic duties with unfaltering fervor, rushing about in pursuit of all the "truths" out there just waiting to be discovered.

[yewdales]

🏹 Hail and well met! My name is Jordan, and this is my new devotional blog! This post is both a community introduction and pinned bio. ➴

I'm an inclusive animist heathen, meaning that I follow a Norse pagan path centered on the natural world and our more-than-human neighbors. My own queerness aside, it's important to me that my practice is a source of love and welcoming for all walks of life, and I try to decolonize myself and my path.

My patron is Ullr, lord of archery, yews ᛇ, hunting, winter, and skiing. I've been worshiping and working with him for 4 years. I work with no deities other than him, and the rest of my practice is dedicated to non-gods. Ullr is a massively important part of my life, and I consider myself very fortunate for the relationship we have.

I'm especially working on improving my intuition skills and studying divination tools (runes and tarot). I've been practicing these for many, many years, but never with enough dedication to really learn them. That's changed over the past 6 or so months and I think I'm finally starting to get pretty good. I also do some energy work every now and then.

I'm not an expert in anything and consider that a blessing -- learning new information is what keeps me excited about life. I'm fascinated by the history of our beliefs and how we carry them in the modern world. Reading recs as always very appreciated. My personal recommendation is that you read Braiding Sweetgrass.

Feel free to message or otherwise strike up a conversation. Hateful or inciting messages will be deleted and ignored, but I enjoy sharing the love of heathenry with others. Community is an important part of my practice.

❆ This is a sideblog, and I follow from @dia-tribe ❆

Commonly used tags under the readmore.

#my post - Original posts by me.

#photos - Real-life pictures and videos; aesthetics.

#art - Original or credited.

#texts - Screenshots or quotes from credited books, articles, essays, etc.

#basics - Intructory or foundational information for heathenry, animism, spellcraft, etc.

#advice - Mundane tips for safety and sanity.

#resource - Posts linking to or referencing outside sources.

#reference - Informational posts.

#practice - Broad tag for posts that inform my cultus.

#philosophy - Daily spirituality. Habits, reminders, outlook shifters.

#ullr - Posts about my patron god.

#gods - Information on deities and their veneration.

#ancestors - General tag for posts about the humans that came before us.

#wights - General tag for non-human, non-god spirits.

#animism - Regarding the belief that all parts of nature have spirit, and thus have intrinsic rights.

#neighbors - Real-life observations of other-than-human individuals with species identifications.

#hails - Prayers, poems, honors, affirmations. Magical words.

#holidays - Dates and traditions of relevant holidays.

#rituals - Spells, blots, and rites.

#components - Magical associations of plants, stones, etc. Magic items, symbols.

#divination - Information on types of divination and ways to use them.

#shadow work - Topics, questions, starters, tips.

#attestations - Quotes from myth texts.

#history - Relevant historic information.

#ecology - Posts about natural science.

#crafts - Artistic creations with a devotional twist.

#DIY - How-tos for alternatives to purchasing.

#recipes - Practice-adjacent food ideas.

#community - Promo posts, introductions.

#wishlist - Things I'd like to purchase from independent makers and artists.

#memes - Relevant meme/humor posts.

[essential-randomness]

Enter the FujoVerse™

Starting 2024's content creation journey with a bang, it's time to outline the principles behind the FujoVerse™: an ambitious (but realistic) plan to turn the web back into a place of fun, joy, and connection, where people build and nurture their own communities and software. (You can also read the article on my blog)

The Journey

As those who follow my journey with @bobaboard or read my quarterly newsletter (linked in the article) know, the used-to-be-called BobaVerse™ is a collection of projects I've been working on since 2020 while pondering an important question: how do we "fix" the modern social web?

Obviously the joyless landscape that is the web of today is not something a single person can fix. Still, I loved and owed the internet too much to see it wither.

After countless hours of work, I found 3 pillars to work on: community, software ownership and technical education.

Jump in after the cut to learn more about how it all comes together!

Community

Community is where I started from, with good reason! While social networks might trick us into thinking of them as communities, they lack the characteristics that researchers identify as the necessary base for "true community": group identity, shared norms, and mutual concern.

Today, I'm even more convinced community is a fundamental piece of reclaiming the web as a place of joy. It's alienating, disempowering, and incredibly lonely to be surrounded by countless people without feeling true connection with most of them (or worse, feeling real danger).

Software Ownership and Collaboration

As I worked with niche communities "software ownership" also became increasingly important to me: if we cannot expect mainstream tech companies to cater to communities at the margins, it follows that these communities must be able to build and shape their own software themselves.

Plenty of people have already discussed how this challenge goes beyond the tech. Among many, "collaboration" is another sticking point for me: effective collaboration requires trust and psychological safety, both of which are in short supply these days (community helps here too, but it's still hard).

Education (Technical and Beyond)

As I worked more and more with volunteers and other collaborators, however, another important piece of the puzzle showed itself: the dire state of educational material for non-professional web developers. How can people change the web if they cannot learn how to *build* the web?

(And yes, learning HTML and CSS is absolutely important and REAL web development. But to collaborate on modern software you need so much more. Even further, people *yearn* for more, and struggle to find it. They want that power, and we should give it to them.)

Once again, technical aspects aren't the only ones that matter. Any large-scale effort needs many skills that society doesn't equip us with. If we want to change how the web looks, we must teach, teach, TEACH! If you've seen me put so much effort into streaming, this is why :)

And obviously, while I don't go into them in this article, open source software and decentralized protocols are core to "this whole thing".

The Future

All of this said, while I've been working on this for a few years, I've struggled to find the support I need to continue this work. To this end, this year I'm doing something I'm not used to: producing content, gaining visibility, and putting my work in front of the eyes of people that want to fight for the future of the web.

This has been a hard choice: producing content is hard and takes energy and focus away from all I've been doing. Still, I'm committed to doing what it takes, and (luckily) content and teaching go hand in hand. But the more each single person helps, the less I need to push for wide reach.

If you want to help (and read the behind the scenes of all I've been working on before everyone else), you can subscribe to my Patreon or to my self-hosted attempt at an alternative.

I deeply believe that in the long term all that we're building will result in self-sustaining projects that will carry this mission forward. After all, I'm building them together with people who understand the needs of the web in a way that no mainstream company can replicate.

Until we get there, every little bit of help (be it monetary support, boosting posts, pitching us to your friends, or kind words of encouragement and support) truly matters.

In exchange, I look forward to sharing more of the knowledge and insights I've accrued with you all :)

And once again, to read or share this post from the original blog, you can find it here.

[hae-yeon]

533.U.S.-bound (2)

미국 갑니다 (2)

While waiting for our departure at the airport, I perused the news articles that had come out on Chatterbox. After the initial appearance he’d made for the first broadcast, Chatterbox had been conspicuously absent, only sending out the Prophets who acted as his delegates. It had succeeded in drawing immense curiosity from the public regarding the mastermind himself, as a matter of course. Among several circulating theories, the one that had proved to be most popular centered around a certain influential French figure.

‘They’re calling him the ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ huh.’

Though he’d never showcased any singing, of course. But the Ghost in the novel I’d looked up did seem to share a fair amount of similarities with Chatterbox, when it came down to it. After all–little did the people who had come up with the comparison know, but that Chatterbox bastard was also embarking on this insane crusade of his due to an one-sided obsession, too.

‘‘The Youngest, Incomplete Maze(1),’ was it.’

It was an insidious-sounding Title that conjured a penchant for constructing underground labyrinths. To help put things into perspective, I supposed that I would likely be Raoul in this scenario–with the mad Phantom bent on forcing Raoul into becoming a proxy for his dead Christine, it seemed. A bit abhorrent, no. Had it been someone else’s problem, I might have been able to marvel ‘woah, how melodramatic,’ as I indulged in some popcorn but–well, the cross was mine to bear, unfortunately.

In any case, there was a lot of speculation about how ‘Chatterbox was filthy rich, and dangling all of the SS-rank weapons and Items he’d amassed over time as bait, to gather all of the S-rank Hunters from the world over.’ It was common enough practice for wealthy individuals to buyup  high-rank Items, despite being un-Awakened themselves, after all. The purpose varied; sometimes it was viewed as an investment, or the acquisition of a showcase piece, or–since Items would still work for un-Awakened as well–a means of self-protection. 

This was especially true in the U.S., where enough high-profile celebrities had gone down that route for it to have even resulted in official government sanctions. Not that such measures had been effective, anyway. I wasn’t too informed on the details, but  involvement of weapons dealers in Item trades had apparently rendered it a more volatile situation than they could feasibly handle. And then the mafia, terrorist groups, and et cetera, as well as other armed factions had made an entrance……. Ah, plus, Big Oil. Since it was ludicrous to think that they’d simply sit still, when magic stones started to become an alternative energy source to oil, naturally.

In short, it was a clusterfuck.

“Are there really a lot of organizations that hate S-rank Hunters in the United States, sir?”

Yermie asked, bringing over a plate laden with food.

“There are very few people like that in Korea, after all, sir. And particularly not to the point of organizing.”

“It’s not just the U.S., but that general region. All the way to the Middle East, basically. There’s even a joke about how ‘when a Hunter dies, you know that it’s OPEC that killed him.’”

One fine day, A-rank Hunter Thomas-ssi was discovered dead. The police identified Thomas-ssi’s teammates, his lover, his neighbor, and his favorite Item as being the most likely suspects. Who, then, was the culprit? The answer: the OPEC, from overseas.

“‘The OPEC,’ sir?”

“The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. The entity that despises Hunters and Dungeons the most in the world, you could say.”

“Ah, oil!”

Yerimie nodded emphatically, apparently enlightened. On the flip side, Gyeolie quizzically tilted his head from his perch on my shoulder. He may have been well-learned for having been born not too long ago, but he was still behind when it came to basic knowledge like this, after all.

“Not to mention their disdain for the American shale industry, too. If Hunters and Dungeons disappeared overnight, causing the supply of magic stones to dry up, that lot would probably throw a party that would stretch on for a hundred days.”

Of course, there were still many things that still utilized petroleum. Just because a new energy source had popped up in the form of magic stones, didn’t mean that all of the cars and assorted machinery in the world could be switched over to run on them instead in short order. And it had various uses aside from simply being used as fuel, too. But if things continued on in the same trajectory, once magic stones became a commonplace alternative, the collapse of the oil industry seemed to be a foregone conclusion. The presence of petroleum might remain ubiquitous, but the biggest factor for its export was for its function as fuel, after all. 

“Because Korea doesn’t have a native source of fossil fuels, things were relatively peaceful for us. Making the switch over to magic stones as a primary energy source has been going fairly smoothly, too. But the Hunters in other regions have had to wage battles with conglomerates. And while Awakened might be a formidable force, the ones they’re running up against are well-established entities that have already amassed a hoard of wealth and power.”

No matter how powerful a Hunter might be, they were all ultimately members of a society, in the end. Unless they were prepared to live out the rest of their lives in complete isolation, it was inevitable that they would be beholden to the machinations of society. Moreover, organizations such as ‘Guilds’ or other unifying groups hadn’t even existed at the start.

“They had a finger in everything–beginning from politics and the press, they’d also poured a staggering amount of money into infiltrating religious, medical, and environmental organizations as well, just to name a few. And once the Dungeons appeared, even before everything with magic stones had come to pass, they’d invested a fair bit into establishing a foothold into the Hunter world as well, due to the calamitous situations that were unfolding–and that influence still remains to this day.”

“How peculiar, sir. After all, it isn’t as though money and such would matter, if the situation with Dungeons really blew up.”

“With the Dungeons being an immovable factor, rather than endeavor to get rid of Hunters altogether, they likely intended to bring them to heel while they could, and possibly monopolize the distribution of magic stones too, while they were at it. Though being rid of Dungeons and Hunters both would’ve been the most appealing outcome for them, when it was all said and done.”

“But aren’t magic stones supposed to be more environmentally friendly too, sir. Did all of those environmental protection agencies still bend the knee to them, even then?”

“There was an incredible amount of misleading reports released back then about how the energy byproducts generated by magic stones had harmful effects, I’m pretty sure? Though I’m admittedly murky on the details.”

“It even swayed Korea for a bit too, earlier on. But we moved past it quickly enough.”

Yoohyunie commented, setting down a plateful of fruits on the table in front of me.

“Meanwhile, overseas, there were various testimonials coming from individuals claiming they’d been afflicted by an illness due to the use of magic stones. And Hunter Guilds were inundated by assorted lawsuits as well. In Korea, Hunters weren’t assigned responsibility for the collateral damage incurred while hunting monsters spawned from a Dungeon break, but that wasn’t the case for the U.S.”

Yoohyunie explained that there had been early Hunter Guilds that were forced to close down over that sort of litigation. What in the world. They would even entice ordinary, well-intentioned citizens into ‘taking advantage of their rights’ with the promise of legal aid, allowing them to simultaneously boost their own public image. ‘Two birds with one stone,’ huh. 

“Maybe I’ll just stay put, sir, and give up sightseeing or whatever.”

Yerimie mumbled, a slightly dejected look coming over her face.

 “If I happen to break a building or suchlike on accident, it’d probably result in a ten billion won plus lawsuit, huh, sir?”

“It’d probably be closer to a hundred billion won, if it’s something in New York. There are buildings valued at approximately the same amount in Seoul too, right. Then, if you consider the associated compensation costs for damages suits… It might even come out to be in the ballpark of a trillion won or so. But you shouldn’t go around breaking buildings no matter the country, to begin with.”

“Apparently it's a far trickier matter overseas, sir. Team Leader Kim-nim kept pleading with me to please make sure that I avoid being caught at all costs, if I do happen to cause a spot of trouble while I’m in the U.S.”

Since in Korea, S-rank Hunters typically tended to get a pass on most things, but that wasn’t the case in other countries. And they’d be far more opposed to letting a foreign Hunter off the hook, at that. If anything, it’d probably be closer to dropping a lump of fresh meat in front of a pack of starving wolves. From that standpoint, Sung Hyunjae sure had been incredibly cocky, going around causing incident after incident the way he had.

“Though we engaged in subterfuge in the case of China, since we’re going to the U.S. on official invitation, we’ll have to be particularly mindful.”

Regardless of Dungeons and Awakened becoming new players, the world remained a place driven by capitalism, first and foremost. The reason high-ranked Hunters had gained such prominence was because magic stones and Items could be turned into money and profit, after all.

“Well, I suppose I’m the one that needs to be exercising the most amount of caution, though.”

For a number of reasons. It would’ve been nice to have things be a bit more simplified, where all I had to worry about was Chatterbox and those Filiality Addicts, and that was that. But in reality, things like ‘my side’ and ‘your side’ weren’t so cleanly defined. 

- Don’t worry too much, appa.

Gyeolie piped up, having slipped down to the table to fidget with a tangerine.

- Gyeolie has a great idea for how to take care of things if people try to blame appa, and say that appa did something bad, for some reason.

“Appa’s okay, y’know.”

There wasn’t much a young child like him could do, in any case. But the fairy dragon’s eyes gleamed with a determined light.

- It’s an absolutely fool-proof plan.

“Gyeol-ah, children shouldn’t–”

“Hear him out, at least.”

Yoohyunie said, cutting in. Yerimie was wearing an intrigued expression as well. 탁, assertively slapping a forepaw down on the tangerine, Gyeolie continued with his speech.

- Scandals are best covered up by an even bigger scandal!

…should I have given him a cellphone without internet surfing capabilities, after all.

- All Gyeolie would need to do is give an interview, as a little human kid. He’ll tell them that the Seseung Guild Leader heartlessly abandoned his mommy, and pretended that his bastard kid didn’t exist. That’s sure to kick up a huge hubbub, and then they’ll completely forget about appa’s stuff!”

…had this kid been watching soap operas.

“Gyeol-ah, you–if you keep watching strange content, I’m going to have to confiscate your cellphone.”

- Hnnnnghh.

Gyeolie shook his head furiously. His ears flip-flapped with the motion.

“Besides, they’d find out you were lying about being related to him once they ran a genetics test on you. And the results would probably show up that you’re not human, too.”

- We can forge the results!

“That’s it–no cellphone, young man.”

- Appaaa!

“A parent choosing to shun their biological offspring should hardly merit such significant outrage regardless, I’d assume.”

Yoohyunie spoke up levelly.

“That sort of thing is commonplace, isn’t it.”

“No, it isn’t. Of course, it tends to get glossed over quickly enough when the people involved aren’t very well-known, but…….”

I turned to look at my dongsaeng, a pang shooting through my heart. The expression on Yoohyunie’s face was one of complete indifference.

“...it’s only proper that parents should look after their children. They were in the wrong, our parents. Yoohyun-ah, I. I just needed to pretend as though everything was fine, back then.”

I may have been young, but I’d been dimly aware, still. That if the state of our family wasn’t ‘acceptable,’ then–that both I, and particularly my dongsaeng, would end up being abandoned.

“I had to act as if everything was normal. Because being an ‘ordinary, well-adjusted family’ was the only way to have things stay the same. If mom and dad hadn’t been able to endure it any more and gave up, and separated–it would’ve meant that we’d end up being separated, too.”

That had been my biggest fear. After all–such an outcome might have resulted in Yoohyunie becoming abandoned outright. Because neither side would’ve been willing to take him on. And it was likely that I would have been rejected by my mother and father too, as a consequence. Since my existence would’ve been a constant reminder of how they’d chosen to desert their secondborn.

Therefore, it had been paramount that I maintain the pretense of everything being alright, of being peaceful. I’d tried to convince myself it was true, too. And everyone else had thought us to be a ‘normal’ family as well, all told. It wasn’t as though we’d argued or been physically abused, and we’d had our basic needs met, when it came down to it.

“Hyung. I really was okay, back then.”

Gazing at me, Yoohyunie spoke calmly.

“Even if those circumstances had been ‘strange’ or ‘unnatural,’ I wasn’t affected by such things. So, what I’m trying to say is… At minimum, hyung created as ideal a family setting for me as possible. For hyung, it may have amounted to an inescapable situation, but as far as I was concerned, I really did feel fine, and even happy.”

“...yeah.”

Stretching out a hand, I stroked my dongsaeng’s head. Belatedly, Yoohyunie tacked on that ‘I know it was difficult for hyung, though,’ placatory.

“Mhn. But more than that, it makes me glad to hear that you were fine.”

Truly, from the bottom of my heart. It had been impossible to avoid gossip around our home situation, pre-Regression. That it was because I’d done such a terrible job of looking after my dongsaeng, that he had chosen to shun me as he had; I’d heard enough of those kinds of words to make my ears ache. Since I’d been young back then too, of course I’d been lacking. Even if I’d tried my best–and that kind of guilt still remained embedded in my heart. 

And so, my dongsaeng’s words acted as a soothing balm.

“...I know it’s rude to speak badly about another person’s family, sir–but your parents were most definitely in the wrong, mister. Even if Han Yoohyun isn’t anything like a human, he was still a kid back then.”

“They were just ordinary people, after all. So I can understand why, at least.”

“Just because you can understand their reasoning, sir, doesn’t make their wrongs any less wrong.”

That… was true. At the very least, it wasn’t something I should have had to shoulder the burden for. And Yoohyunie hadn’t asked to be born the way he’d been, either.

“In any case–we’re doing well enough now, aren’t we, sir. Not that we’re a ‘normal’ family still, but… no. As long as we’re getting by well together, that’s ‘ordinary’ enough anyway, isn’t that right, sir. It’s no-one’s business but ours.”

“You’re right–what we have is plenty enough.”

Who was to say that a family had to comprise a parent-offspring configuration in order to be considered a ‘proper’ family, after all. As long as the ones living together were pleased with the arrangement, wasn’t that what mattered. Even if other onlookers were to view it as being strange, so what–on what basis were they deeming it to be ‘strange,’ anyway. If you weren’t causing others any harm and were happy together, that should be sufficient grounds to consider it ‘acceptable,’ no.

“We’re still family, whether or not some of us are completely different species altogether.”

- Mhn, appa!

And from my lap, Peace purred loudly, as though he’d understood what I’d said, too. A smile on my face, I held a hand out towards Gyeolie.

“Cellphone.”

- Hnnnhng.

“But hyung–I don’t think what he’s proposed is such a bad plan. We’ll say that he abandoned his child, and covered up the fact that he’d murdered his wife by arranging it to look like an accident. The genetic testing results showing that he’s not a human might actually work out in our favor, too. It can be explained as a result of the experimentation Seseung’s done on him.”

“...hey, are you planning on sending the Seseung Guild Leader to prison.”

It would ensure that any of my own grievances would be buried, true, but Sung Hyunjae would be buried alongside them as well. Of course, I expected that the bastard would manage to dig his way out of it well enough in the end, but it’d definitely weigh too heavily on my conscience for it to be a feasible option.

“Besides, even before the Seseung Guild Leader, it’d end up harming Gyeolie first and foremost. That’s absolutely not allowed. And the same goes for you two, too. Mark my words–if any of you put yourself at risk to try and protect me, I’ll go out on an even bigger limb in response. Just you watch.”

“That’s a bit frightening, sir.”

“...I won’t, hyung.”

- …Gyeolie will be good, too.

All three of them shook their heads furiously in unison. No matter the sort of problem they might stir up, I was confident that I could still manage to outdo all them. 

“It has been relayed that Breaker Guild’s private aircraft should be landing in New York in three hours’ time.”

As we conducted a last round of surveyance on American Hunters while polishing off some tea snacks, Song Taewon entered the room.

“It’s really quite a flight, huh, sir. Considering that Noah-ssi left last night.”

Noah was affiliated with Dodam Rearing Facility, but had left to travel with his teammate Moon Hyuna in this instance. The Hunters who had embarked on Breaker Guild’s private plane the day prior included Moon Hyuna and Noah, Liette, and Kang Soyoung. Soyoung-ssi was one of Seseung’s Hunters, too, but had joined that party because of Liette’s S-rank status. And in order to establish a long-distance Gate, Yoon-Yoon had accompanied them as well. 

“Apparently, it takes over ten hours to reach America by plane, sir.”

It was no joke, huh. But at least an airplane would get you there within a day; had we been going by boat, we probably would’ve ended up having to celebrate Yoohyunie’s birthday while still at sea. I wondered how long it would take a ship. A month, maybe?

“Mister Government Official, sir–you’re good at English, right?”

Yerimie prodded, staring expectantly at Song Taewon with glittering eyes. Shishio may have given her a translation Item, but it wouldn’t work on transcription, after all. 

“...my reading speed is rather slow, miss.”

“But you can still read it just fine, sir! And since you’re a government official, you’re well-versed on laws and stuff, right, sir? I could definitely count on you, right, sir?”

“.......”

A panic-stricken expression crossed Section Chief Song-nim’s face. He seemed to be at a loss for how to respond. Yerimie was a completely different type from Sung Hyunjae, after all. And even though she was an S-rank, she was still young, too. Do your best, Section Chief Song-nim.

“...as it may end up being a matter of national concern, please take care to conduct yourself in a cautious, orderly manner, miss.”

“Yessir! But would it be alright for me to pop by Hollywood, maybe? Just for a teensy bit, if I flew.”

“It takes upwards of five hours to reach Los Angeles from New York by aircraft, miss.”

“...wow.”

Yerimie’s jaw dropped. I was a bit surprised to hear the number, too. I’d known that the U.S. was incredibly vast, but it was still a single nation when it came down to it, right. But that sort of distance was equivalent to several-fold the distance between Korea and Japan, wasn’t it.

As the time for takeoff drew close, Sung Hyunjae and Evelyn arrived with minutes to spare, and we all boarded the plane that would that would be taking us to the U.S.

- - - - -

(1) 끊어진 미로의 막내 → ‘broken/fragmented/incomplete/marooned’ + ‘maze/labyrinth’ + 의 + ‘maknae’

when yoojin says 'our parents,' there's no 'our' in kr, it's just '(the) parents'

+(Q&A)

Q) if han yoojin’s kids who were born from magic stones underwent genetic testing enabled by modern science&technology, would the results show yoojinie as a biological relative? A) as the species are different, straightforward genetic testing results would be difficult to obtain ^^ as han yoojin’s blood is mixed in, if you were able to separate only the human portion out and test that, then they would in fact appear as his children. for han seol’s case, the results would indicate that he takes after han yoohyun as well. yet, as the human portion is a mere fraction of the whole, at present, it would take very careful and thorough testing to show a distant relation between [han yoojin and the children].

+(Q&A)

Q) what were some of the things that you thought were important, when writing an entity that’s far from being human? A) (about han yoohyun) only, as han yoohyun isn’t ‘a lifeform concerned about continued survival(self-preservation),’ he’s an outlier even among the non-human entities ^^ in polar opposite to the ones mentioned above, his natural disposition is to completely disregard the surrounding environment. the sole exception for that flame was han yoojin, and accordingly, han yoohyun only experiences change through han yoojin. no other environmental factors or beings are capable of influencing him.

+(Q&A)

Q) then, did the parents take care of yoohyunie too, instead of ostracizing him? or did they only provide yoojinie with food to eat and clothes to wear, and it was yoojinie who made sure that yoohyunie got to eat and was properly dressed? A) they didn’t go out of their way to prepare meals for him or the like, but made sure there was plenty of food available^^ because han yoojin was too young back then to take care of himself, much less his dongsaeng, if the parents had completely forsaken them, it would have been difficult for either of them to survive. the brothers’ parents didn’t harbor ill intent towards their children. to be precise, they simply wished to divorce themselves from any meaningful connection with the two. as their desire to avoid reality was so great, rather than attempt to either abandon or kill han yoohyun, they opted to maintain the status quo instead. with rice left in the rice cooker and side dishes stockpiled high in the refrigerator, the parents would either stay out of the house or go about their life as though the brothers didn’t exist. because it would draw scrutiny if they wore misfitting clothes, han yoojin was bought clothes of an appropriate size and han yoohyun would typically wear his hand-me-downs. starting from the time han yoojin was in middle school, rather than having his things bought for him, he was instead given a generous allowance that would allow him to acquire necessities such as clothes, shoes, school supplies, etc.; han yoojin used that money to buy his dongsaeng clothes as well. as the parents had been unsparing with money spent on clothes when han yoojin was younger, until about seven or so, there was no issue with han yoohyun only receiving his hand-me-downs. if only to assuage their feelings of guilt, they made sure to take good care of their basic necessities, and han yoojin would console himself through rationales such as ‘mom and dad love each other too much, and that’s why there’s no room left for me and yoohyunie’

[clessiennethms]

Articles linked with my final project + relevant themes from Keith Negus's Popular Music in Theory:

Hi everyone :) 

Today I’d like to explore various themes of Keith Negus’ Popular Music in Theory that align with my project which is: ‘How does Playboi Carti uses gothic and vampire themes in his ‘Whole Lotta Red’ album cover and lyrics to construct a unique persona within hip-hop culture?’ I will also present you 2 articles that I consider to be very useful for my analysis of the album. 

Negus’s work gives insight into how artists construct their identities through media, which aligns with Carti’s dark, vampiric persona. Carti’s gothic aesthetics create a mediated identity, standing out within hip-hop by challenging traditional norms. This echoes Negus’s idea of using media to shape alternative personas. Playboi Carti’s vampire imagery also mirrors the rebellious energy of punk cultures, positioning him as an ‘outsider’, a sort of ‘countercultural’ symbol.

Another theme Negus discusses is aesthetic pluralism in subcultures, where distinctive styles are crafted by blending elements (clothing, symbols, language…) to challenge mainstream norms. Similarly, Carti’s gothic visuals are based on dark, dramatic imagery, fused with hip-hop to form a unique style. This aesthetic pluralism reshapes hip-hop’s boundaries. It actually puts Carti in the position of an artist who embodies subcultural values of defiance.

Concerning the articles, I’ve chosen: ‘The 'King Vamp': Vampiric Aesthetics of Playboi Carti’s ‘Whole Lotta Red’" by D. Green. This article is particularly useful as it explores the vampiric themes in Carti’s album. It analyzes aspects like the stage design, the album cover, the lyrics, and overall sound. It provides an in-depth look at how these elements work together to create Carti's unique persona within hip-hop culture. 

I’ve also picked the article ‘Playboi Carti 'Whole Lotta Red' Album Review’ by Vivian Medithi posted on HipHopDX. This one praises the album's innovative approach, describing it as "the sound of a new legend dying to be born" and predicting it will be the album of the year in 2022. He also makes an important contrast between the people who absolutely love Carti's innovative style, and the others who clearly hate it.

The last article I chose is 'Playboi Carti, Rap Iconoclast" by The Nation. This one emphasizes how his style sets him appart in the Hip-Hop genre.

Finally, as my 'main' secondary source, I considered using the book 'Goth: Identity, Style, and Subculture' by Paul Hodkinson. This one focuses on the gothic subculture and explores how aesthetic choices create an identity within a cultural context. It shows how gothic themes are adopted and reinterpreted by different genres. This is why is think that this is a great book to examine Carti's use of gothic and vampire motifs in his album.

Thanks for reading my post,

Thomas

[tornadoartz]

A critique of 2011X

So, a bit more of a serious post from me this time.

In this post, I will go over my issues with the modern incarnation of Sonic.EXE. I will go over not only the character, but also his game, SONIC 2011. I will go over all aspects of the character individually (except his design, which I don’t have any issues with). This post is made out of nothing but respect for JoeDoughBoi and his team, as I see lots of potential in this character, but see flaws as well.

Backstory

For this section, I will be quoting the “Sonic Oddities Wiki” as I’ve heard this is an accurate source. Please correct me if I’m wrong in this. If you haven’t read the article, I suggest you do it before reading this review: You can find it by going on Sonic Oddities and looking up “X”

This is actually my first complaint. Why is X’s story relegated to Twitter posts and a fan wiki? Why can’t I understand this character and his stories by just consuming said stories?

“After X was born, he explored the recesses of subspace, floating in the darkness as a giant blob of pure dark energy with two red eyes. Suddenly, he discovered a dimensional window that revealed planet Earth and all that it contains. It is here that X learned about humans and Sonic the Hedgehog, and right then and there he was utterly fascinated by both, mostly by Sonic, who he was smitten with.”

If X is an organism of pure primordial energy, then how does it feel human emotions like fascination? Perhaps he learned the intricacies of emotion through observing Earth? That’s my guess at least, the story doesn’t elaborate on that. Also, what is a dimensional window? I was fine with using complicated terms when describing what X is made out of, as it ads to the mystery of the creature (and knowing the exact ingredients to X isn’t crucial to the story either). But X looking through a “dimensional window” is pretty important to his tale, and “dimensional window” is a pretty loose term as well. How much did/could he see through this thing?

“X then copied Sonic's very image and formed a suitable body that would house all his energy,”

“This is how he discovered his true power: X can manipulate reality in any way he desires.”

“X decided that all the living creatures on Earth (namely the humans) were meant to be under his control, that he was born to have all of humanity to himself and himself only until the very end of time.”

If X can “manipulate reality in any way he desires” than why doesn’t he just teleport all the humans’ souls to his realm? The story later states that when you play X’s game, he can manifest in real life and put you in a vegetative state, taking your soul. Why can he manifest THEN but not NOW? What is stopping him, the story never elaborates on that. He is also really evil for no real reason I can gather. He was created, he floated around for a bit and then found a realm full of people. What is his motive to be so evil, exactly?

“X used his powers to find a way into the human world, and found a suitable alternative through an unknown computer programmer. This programmer was highly skilled at what he did, in fact, his skills were said to be near U.S. government levels, and X believed him to be his ticket to glory. With his powers, X "influenced" the programmer to create a computer game that would serve as a temporary doorway between the human world and his own.”

How can a U.S government level programmer program a gateway into a entirely different REALM?! Unless the government has been hiding some stuff from us, I don’t think any programmer on Earth can do that. The only way I could see this making sense is if X was whispering the way to code it into his ear or something, but I’d imagine someone who knows how to code at U.S government levels would be intelligent know to go to a doctor if they we’re hearing voices in their head.

“The final tool required to make such an object is a sample of X’s own essence, so he could have full control over the system of the game within. X sent out a piece of his dark power to the human world, which arrived into the game in a manner similar to that of a meteorite. The newly made game disk survived the resulting explosion brought on by the shard of power, but the programmer was nowhere to be found, and thus presumed dead. The piece of X's power is said to have made a huge X-shaped crater when it landed.”

“X began his human collecting when the disk started getting handed down person to person,”

“As the attacks continue over the few years, news starts to come in about them and the police begin to classify the case as "the Sonic.exe Murders" (it's not entirely accurate to call them murders due to the bodies of the victims still being technically alive), based on the evidence that the downloaded game called "Sonic.exe" remains inside each computer but is unplayable.”

Ignoring the insanity of X summoning a sperm meteorite to strike down a copy of Sonic The Hedgehog, then I still have a question: Okay so a meteorite strikes down a programmer (found dead at the scene), creating suspiciously X shaped crater with game disk found at that same scene with not but a scratch; HOW IS THIS NOT BIG NEWS?! Wouldn’t they take the disk with them to research how a disk survived a meteor strike? Also, how does someone get a hold of this disk so easily? If a few days later, the guy who acquired this disk is found dead in his house, sitting at his computer with the last program he opened being the program on the disk, wouldn’t the cops immediately destroy that disk? ESPECIALLY considering that it apparently happened again and again and again, they would surely notice a pattern at some point and destroy the disk, probably under the impression that it’s some sort of tracking device made by a killer or something.

Character

Now moving on to his characterization. When it comes to his personality, (ignoring the point I made about it being weird that a sentient piece of dark matter feels emotion in the first place) I think it’s great! No real complaints, he feels unique in this regard. What I do have complaints about however are his powers; as far as I know, he is completely boundless and cannot be defeated, and I find that incredibly boring. What fun is a villain that the main characters can’t defeat? A villain that always wins, no matter what? You creatively block yourself by doing this. This also makes potential horror encounters/fights INCREDIBLY boring; the audience will never care for when a character is being chased or fought by your villain, because they know that said encounter will always, no exceptions, end in your villain utterly demolishing the character with 0 trouble at all. This destroys all possible tension, which horror basically relies on.

The Game

The game that 2011X stars in, SONIC 2011, is very standard Sonic.EXE: You play as 3 different characters, who explore a creepy environment only to be met with Sonic at the end, who they have a brief encounter with before being killed. This game is different though, that being in the regard that the characters playable aren’t actually the Sonic characters they look like. Instead, they are human souls captured by X, placed into empty vessels of Sonic characters. This is a cool concept on paper, but in execution kind of falls flat. Characters in horror media are essential because they are the people that cause the audience to be afraid, perhaps even more than the killer themselves. When a character is being chased by a murderer in a slasher movie for example, the audience is scared FOR the character being chased, because a good story would have built up a sort of bond between the audience and the character up to that point. We are scared because we care for the character enough that we don’t want to see them die in such a horrible manner. This is where Sonic 2011 fails horrendously. The characters, Alan as Tails, Dave as Knuckles and Paul as Dr. Robotnik, have ZERO build up or personality. We are given ZERO information on who these people are, what they are like as people or what they’re relation is to each other and X; not in the game, and not in outside sources like social media or the aforementioned wiki. How am I supposed to care that I’m seeing Alan getting his spine ripped out if I don’t know who the hell he is? In real life this is obviously different, but these are fictional characters. If you gave me information or maybe even a story about who Alan is, than I would absolutely feel something when he’s in danger. Because then, I know that, I don’t know, he has like a wife and daughter that miss him every day who don’t know that he’s stuck in this eternal limbo or something. Or maybe he was best friends with Paul before they we’re transported and they we’re gonna meet up in Scrap Brain Zone and on the way Alan goes through the events of Hill zone. Just throwing stuff out there, but currently he’s relegated to a meat puppet that only exists to be killed.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed reading this review. This is my first ever time writing a serious review like this, so criticism is accepted and appreciated. If I got anything wrong, please point this out as well. I want to make it clear once again that this was in no way created out of malice towards JoeDoughBoi or his team, the opposite really. I deeply admire Joe’s work as an artist, and have been keeping up with his work for a little while now. I apologise if I come off as aggressive during this review. It’s not because I don’t like it, it’s because I care.

Thank you for reading.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Poly(methyl methacrylate) Recycling

Poly(methyl methacrylate), PMMA, also known as acrylic, is a non-crystalline plastic often used as an alternative to glass. It is often mixed with other polymers or other monomers to improve flexibility and other properties. As such, recycling rates for PMMA are relatively low as the pure product is difficult to produce from such methods, in addition to the high energy costs required. It is estimated that only around 10% of this plastic is recycled. When it is recycled, PMMA is often mechanically or chemically recycled, with chemical recycling the more common technique.

Sources/Further Reading: (Image source - Book chapter) (2018 article) (Sustainable Plastics) (Wikipedia)

[adamrosner]

Exploring Special Diets: Gluten-Free, Keto, and Other Healthy Eating Plans

As awareness of health and wellness grows, more people are turning to special diets to meet specific health needs, manage conditions, or pursue better lifestyle choices. Popular dietary plans like gluten-free, keto, and other specialized diets are not just trends—they represent meaningful ways to optimize nutrition and address medical concerns. However, cooking for these diets can feel complex, especially for those unfamiliar with the requirements. This article will explore the essentials of cooking for special diets, the benefits of each, and how to create delicious, healthy meals that adhere to these unique dietary guidelines.

The Gluten-Free Diet: Essential for Some, Beneficial for Many

Adhering to a gluten-free diet is essential for the health and well-being of individuals with celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or wheat allergies. Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition in which consuming gluten—a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye—triggers an immune response that damages the lining of the small intestine. Even those without celiac disease but with gluten sensitivity may experience bloating, fatigue, and digestive discomfort when consuming gluten.

Cooking gluten-free meals involves more than just removing gluten from the diet; it requires careful substitutions to maintain taste, texture, and nutrition. Luckily, gluten-free alternatives have become more widely available, including products like gluten-free bread, pasta, and flours made from rice, almonds, or coconut.

A simple way to begin gluten-free cooking is by focusing on naturally gluten-free foods, such as vegetables, fruits, meats, fish, and dairy. For example, grilled chicken with roasted vegetables and quinoa is a naturally gluten-free meal. When baking, gluten-free flour like almond or rice flour can replace traditional wheat flour. However, these flours may require adjustments to liquid ratios in recipes since they behave differently than wheat flour.

Using naturally gluten-free grains such as quinoa, buckwheat, or millet also ensures that you can create satisfying, hearty meals without compromising taste. A significant consideration for gluten-free cooking is preventing cross-contamination, especially in kitchens where gluten-containing foods are also prepared.

The Keto Diet: High-Fat, Low-Carb for Energy and Weight Loss

The ketogenic (keto) diet focuses on high-fat, moderate-protein, and low-carbohydrate intake, designed to force the body into a metabolic state called ketosis. In ketosis, the body burns fat for energy rather than carbohydrates, leading to fat loss and, for many, better overall health markers. Originally developed to treat epilepsy, the keto diet has become a popular choice for weight loss and managing conditions like type 2 diabetes.

The cornerstone of the keto diet is limiting carbs—usually to under 50 grams per day—while consuming plenty of healthy fats like avocado, nuts, seeds, and oils. Protein intake comes from sources like fatty fish, eggs, and meats, and vegetables are chosen from low-carb options such as leafy greens, broccoli, and cauliflower.

Cooking for the keto diet involves finding replacements for traditionally carb-heavy foods, such as bread, pasta, and potatoes. Cauliflower rice, zoodles (zucchini noodles), and lettuce wraps are great low-carb swaps that still provide volume and flavor to meals. For example, a stir-fry made with chicken, cauliflower rice, and low-carb vegetables offers a satisfying, keto-friendly alternative to a typical rice-based dish.

One critical challenge with keto cooking is creating sweet treats without traditional sugars. Fortunately, keto-friendly sweeteners like stevia, monk fruit, and erythritol allow for the creation of low-carb desserts such as cheesecake, fat bombs, or keto-friendly chocolate treats.

Paleo Diet: Back to Basics with Whole Foods

The paleo diet, inspired by the eating habits of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, promotes consuming whole, unprocessed foods while avoiding grains, dairy, and refined sugars. The idea behind this diet is that our bodies are better adapted to the foods available to early humans, and modern processed foods contribute to various health issues, including inflammation, obesity, and chronic diseases.

Paleo cooking focuses on whole foods like meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. Processed foods, legumes, grains, and dairy are eliminated, making the paleo diet rich in nutrients while also helping reduce the intake of inflammatory ingredients. Cooking paleo meals involves using alternative ingredients such as almond flour, coconut flour, and sweeteners like honey or maple syrup.

For example, a paleo breakfast might consist of scrambled eggs with spinach and avocado, while a dinner could include grilled salmon with roasted sweet potatoes and a side salad. Paleo baking involves using grain-free flour, such as almond or coconut flour, to create treats like muffins, pancakes, or bread.

Vegan and Plant-Based Diets: Focusing on Plants for Health and Sustainability

Vegan and plant-based diets focus on whole, plant-derived foods. Veganism excludes all animal products, including meat, dairy, and eggs. A plant-based diet is more flexible, allowing some animal products but still prioritizing plant foods. These diets are praised for their potential health benefits, such as reducing the risk of heart disease, and their positive environmental impact.

Cooking vegan or plant-based meals requires creativity to replace animal proteins with plant-based alternatives. Staples include legumes (such as beans, lentils, and chickpeas), tofu, tempeh, and whole grains. Nuts, seeds, and oils provide healthy fats, while leafy greens, fruits, and a variety of vegetables ensure a balanced nutrient intake.

One challenge in vegan cooking is ensuring adequate intake of nutrients such as vitamin B12, iron, and protein, which are typically found in animal products. Fortified plant-based milk, nutritional yeast, and a wide variety of legumes and grains can help meet these nutritional needs.

Vegan baking often uses flaxseed or chia seed as egg replacements, while aquafaba (the liquid from a can of chickpeas) can mimic egg whites in recipes. Desserts can be made using ingredients like almond milk, coconut oil, and natural sweeteners to create indulgent treats like vegan brownies or ice cream.

Tips for Cooking Special Diets

Ingredient Substitutions: Finding creative substitutes for restricted ingredients is critical. Almond flour and coconut flour are versatile replacements for wheat flour, and cauliflower can replace rice or potatoes in many dishes.

Meal Prep: Planning and preparing meals ahead of time ensures that healthy, diet-compliant meals are always available. Batch cooking and freezing meals can make adhering to a particular diet more manageable.

Experimenting with Recipes: Don’t be afraid to try new recipes or modify existing ones to fit your dietary needs. Many classic dishes can be adapted using alternative ingredients, ensuring you don’t feel deprived.

Cooking for special diets—whether gluten-free, keto, paleo, or plant-based—may seem challenging at first, but with the right approach, it becomes a rewarding and sustainable way to eat. These diets offer numerous benefits, from managing medical conditions to promoting overall wellness, and with the abundance of available alternatives and resources, following them has never been easier. By embracing dietary changes and finding joy in experimenting with new ingredients, anyone can cook healthy, delicious meals tailored to their unique needs.

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Exploring the Benefits of Semen Retention for Improved Well-being

In recent years, the practice of semen retention has gained significant attention as more individuals seek ways to enhance their physical and mental well-being. This ancient practice, rooted in various spiritual and holistic traditions, involves deliberately abstaining from ejaculation during sexual activities. Advocates of semen retention believe that it can lead to numerous health benefits, improved energy levels, and heightened spiritual awareness. In this article, we’ll delve into the concept of semen retention, explore its potential advantages, and offer tips for those interested in incorporating it into their lifestyle.

Understanding Semen Retention

Semen retention is based on the idea that semen contains vital life force energy, and by conserving this energy, individuals can experience greater vitality and health. While ejaculation is a natural process, proponents argue that frequent ejaculation can deplete this life force, leading to fatigue and decreased motivation. By practicing semen retention, individuals aim to redirect their sexual energy towards personal growth and well-being.

Historically, semen retention has been practiced in various cultures and spiritual traditions, including Taoism and certain branches of yoga. It is often linked to the concept of transmuting sexual energy into creative or spiritual energy, enabling practitioners to achieve heightened states of consciousness and improved mental clarity.

The Benefits of Semen Retention

There are several potential benefits associated with semen retention, ranging from physical health improvements to enhanced emotional well-being:

Increased Energy and Vitality: Many practitioners report feeling more energetic and alive when practicing semen retention. This boost in energy can be attributed to the conservation of vital nutrients and hormones present in semen, which are thought to contribute to physical vitality.

Enhanced Mental Clarity: Semen retention is believed to improve focus and mental clarity, helping individuals stay sharp and attentive in their daily activities. This mental boost can enhance productivity and creativity, allowing for more effective problem-solving and innovation.

Improved Sexual Stamina: By learning to control ejaculation, individuals often experience increased sexual stamina and endurance. This can lead to more satisfying sexual experiences for both partners, as well as a greater sense of control over one’s body.

Emotional Stability and Balance: Semen retention may help in achieving emotional balance and stability. Many practitioners find themselves more centered and less prone to mood swings, experiencing a sense of inner peace and contentment.

Tips for Practicing Semen Retention

For those interested in exploring the benefits of semen retention, it’s important to approach the practice with mindfulness and patience. Here are a few tips to get started:

Practice Mindful Breathing: Focus on deep, rhythmic breathing to help manage arousal and maintain control over your sexual energy.

Engage in Meditation: Meditation can assist in channeling sexual energy towards other areas of life, promoting a sense of calm and focus.

Set Clear Intentions: Define your goals for practicing semen retention and remain committed to the practice to experience its full benefits.

Explore Alternative Pleasures: Find joy and satisfaction in non-sexual activities, such as hobbies or physical exercise, to help balance your energy and maintain focus on personal growth.

Semen retention is a powerful practice that offers a range of potential benefits for those willing to explore it. By understanding the principles behind this ancient tradition and incorporating it into modern lifestyles, individuals can tap into a source of increased energy, clarity, and overall well-being. As with any personal practice, it is essential to approach semen retention with an open mind and a willingness to discover its unique benefits for oneself.