#local solutions to local issues

[oldwebrelics]

Professional websites used to look like this.  

[vonlipvig]

always without fail. shut up.

[lurkiestvoid]

It's absolutely a deterrent especially for folks who've never been to a protest. There's this idea that you have to Gear Up And Prepare for ANY action even just like, a simple picket or march, so folks think protesting is Always some violent dystopian Struggle with severe risk of personal harm and arrest. And while yeah, sometimes they do go badly and these things do happen, it is NOT the majority of action and most events are relatively boring risk-wise.

Like, no you don't need full black bloc gear to hold a sign for a permitted 2hr sidewalk protest, and you don't need shields and gas masks and jugs of milk for daytime local-issue demonstration of civic dissatisfaction. PLEASE just show up. If there are risks, the organizers will be able to tell you what they are and how to prepare.

The most 'risky' protests I've been to have all been either systemic, ongoing, and/or continued into late evening after sundown. They were still all highly organized, and the leading experienced activists were very clear on strategy and risks. Typically, any policing threats were made obvious by the cops changing from 'standing around looking bored' to 'organizing into groups/lines', so if you're not prepared to Resist for any reason -- zero judgement, there are so many reasons and they're no one's business but yours -- that's when you leave.

For now we still have the right to protest, and the majority of action will be calm and organized. There will be lots of in-group mediating and de-escalation if folks come in looking to start shit, and just showing up is an EXCELLENT way to meet local activists and justice groups/networks, many of whom work together on many different issues.

Even if you cannot stay or participate there are other ways to help, like delivering/dropping off water (or snacks!), donating to involved groups or bail funds, donating/lending canopy tents and seating for elderly and disabled activists, and volunteering labor like childcare, transportation, distributing materials/info, making signs and posters, translating/interpreting, and more.

And most modern protests work hard to make their actions more accessible or will work with you to ensure you and others like you can access them! If you cannot or do not want to march a route, there is still much more work that can be done both before and after, and not every action is a march!

Just please show up whenever and however you can, whatever that means to you and your circumstances.

i also think that the way people on here talk about protests is sometimes needlessly fearmongering like it's always good to have your wits about you and be aware of dangers from cops or counterprotesters but also i feel like a lot of people on here have become convinced that by going to a large peaceful protest march they are taking their lives in their hands which is just simply not the case (the point of those events is optics and showing that a lot of people are willing to show up for the cause) and i'm worried it might be deterring people from actually showing up to protests

[great-and-small]

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

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[puff-the-cereal-box]

My personal favorite graph for nuclear energy. (yes those are the right values. or at least near enough given fission of U235 is TEN TO THE SIX times more energy dense)

I wish all environmentalists a very suck cocks in hell

[emergencyplumbingil]

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[keferon]

At the off chance I haven't gotten flagged as a robot again for hanging out in the void for too long-

A lil' drabble for your Mecha Pilot AU!

I bummed myself out thinking about a clueless Prowl and his bacteria boyfriend's enevetable, fast aproaching demise. So to cope, I came up with a possible lil' "solution" for the whole 'shortass teeny-tiny lifespan' situation all mecha pilots got going on!

So Vortex is haunted, right? Ghosts are a thing here. And the pilots own wellbeing automatically goes to the backburner when piloting their mecha, just no awareness of their own body whatsoever.

SO WHAT IF, after a grand'ol time of being lost in space with a bunch of aliens and aiding the local community, Jazz tries to disconnect from his mech for a bit only to find he can't, the other end of the line is completely silent.

At some point during the venture, maybe in a battle or because of some technical issue he wasn't privy to (or just flatout ignored), his vitals flatlined and he had absolutly no idea. He could have been rotting in there for weeks and he didn't notice. Not sure how he'd handle that revelation to be honest. But hey! at least he won't have to worry about mortality anymore! :D

(I really need better coping mechanisms)

…………….YOUR BRAIN ANON

Alright alright. HEAR ME OUT.

Do you remember how we were talking about sparks being radioactive?? What if instead of some kind of wound it’s radiation that kills Jazz? Or. Well. To be more precise not radiation but spark energy.

Just imagine. The final battle against Shockwave and/or Quintessons. The stakes are high the music is epic and everyone has to work together to survive. And after the glorious but tough win Jazz can finally stop and take a breath.

Except. He really can’t.

Because he was so focused on piloting. So focused on “being” his mech that he didn’t feel his own body getting weaker and weaker. And now he starts to slip into panic because his human body isn’t just dead it has been dead for a while. Everyone around him is celebrating. All humans and Cybertronians are smiling and laughing in relief and checking if everyone is alive while he stands there completely frozen and on the verge of breaking the fuck up because he’s DEAD and how much time does he have? Why is he still there?? Is it because his brain isn’t completely dead yet?? Human brain can only last five minutes before it dies completely. Does he have only those pathetic minutes?

He would panic so fucking bad

We would also need him to get his mech back at some point for that. Or. Well. He could die while piloting Prowl but I think Prowl would notice instantly.

[reiding-writing]

Cold!reader who defends Spencer when’s someone’s making fun of his autistic traits, and the teams like “what?????”

STAGNANT — SPENCER REID!

why would someone ask spencer a question if they didn’t want to hear the answer?

spencer reid x cold!reader | 1.2k | fluff? | cold!reader masterlist.

main masterlist.

a/n — the cold!reader roster i have atm has me kicking my feet and twirling my hair, stay tuned

You step into the cramped precinct in a town that barely makes the map, the smell of stale coffee and old paper immediately hitting you.

The air hums with tension—murder cases tend to have that effect on a room. Your team disperses, each member diving into their respective tasks like clockwork.

You stay near Spencer, keeping an eye on the board he’s already scouring, his sharp mind undoubtedly miles ahead of everyone else’s.

It doesn’t take long for the local officers to start asking questions. You’ve seen it before: their curiosity morphing into disbelief as they’re confronted with Spencer Reid in full form.

This particular case involves a peculiar type of soil found on the victim’s shoes, and when one officer, a grizzled man named Officer Moore, offhandedly asks about its significance, Spencer lights up.

“It’s fascinating, actually,” he begins, his voice picking up with enthusiasm. “The soil contains traces of montmorillonite clay, which is common in areas with volcanic ash deposits. This specific type is unique to the western side of the county, and based on the composition—” He gestures to the samples bagged on the table, oblivious to the officer’s quickly fading interest.

Spencer continues, lost in his explanation, his words flowing like water over smooth stones. You watch the officer shift uncomfortably, his expression hardening into impatience. The moment Spencer pauses to breathe, Moore cuts in, looking at you with a smirk.

“Is he like this all the time? Never shuts up, huh?”

You freeze. The room, bustling moments ago, seems quieter now. Your team is too far off to hear, but you’re right here. Close enough to feel the sting of the comment.

Spencer doesn’t notice. Or maybe he pretends not to. Either way, it doesn’t sit right with you. The dismissive tone, the condescension dripping from the officer’s words—it sparks a heat under your skin that you don’t bother to hide.

“Are you stupid?” Your voice is sharp, like a knife scraping metal. Moore’s smug expression falters.

“Excuse me-?”

“You heard me,” you continue, stepping closer, your gaze fixed on him. “If you can’t keep up with what Dr. Reid is saying, that’s your problem. He’s giving you answers—solutions—that you clearly wouldn’t find on your own. So maybe try listening instead of running your mouth.”

Moore blinks, taken aback. His hand hovers near the cup of coffee on the table, forgotten. “I didn’t mean—”

“Yeah, you did.” you interrupt, crossing your arms. “And for the record, if he’s too much for you to handle, then stay out of his way, you’ll murk his IQ into single digits.”

The room is quiet now, the subtle hum of computers and distant voices the only sound. Spencer finally looks up, his expression unreadable. There’s a hint of surprise in his eyes, but mostly he just seems... confused.

Moore mutters something under his breath and stalks off, clearly not willing to press the issue further. Good. You watch him go, your blood still simmering.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Spencer says softly, his voice carrying a note of uncertainty.

“Yes, I did,” you reply without hesitation. “He was being a jerk.”

Spencer tilts his head, studying you. “People say things like that all the time.”

“Well, they shouldn’t,” you counter, your tone firm. “And if you wont put your foot down about it then I will.”

For a moment, he just stares at you, as if trying to decipher some hidden code in your words. Then, unexpectedly, he smiles—small and fleeting, but genuine. It feels like a victory, however minor.

—

Later, when the team regroups, the tension in the precinct has eased, though you can still feel a few lingering stares from the local officers.

Hotch gives you all the rundown of the next steps, his voice steady and commanding as always. You nod along, but your focus drifts to Spencer, who’s scribbling something in his notebook, seemingly unbothered by the earlier incident.

As the team breaks off to get to work, Emily sidles up beside you, her dark eyes alight with curiosity. “So,” she begins, drawing out the word. “What was that about?”

“What was what about?” you reply, feigning ignorance.

“That little showdown with Officer Grumpy Pants earlier,” she says, smirking. “Word has it you tore him a new one,”

You shrug. “He was being disrespectful.”

Emily raises an eyebrow. “To Reid?”

“To all of us, honestly,” you say. “But yeah, mostly Reid. He didn’t deserve that.”

Emily studies you for a moment, her smirk softening into something more thoughtful. “Awe how sweet,”

“Don’t start,” you warn, but there’s no real bite to your words. Emily laughs, raising her hands in mock surrender.

“Hey, no judgment,” she says. “It’s just... very human of you.”

“I’m not a robot.”

She gestures vaguely toward you. “Oh hush you know what I mean,”

You roll your eyes but don’t bother arguing. Instead, you glance across the room at Spencer, who’s now deep in conversation with JJ and Rossi. The earlier exchange seems to have rolled off him, as if it never happened.

But you know better. You’ve seen the way comments like that stick, the way they fester in that moment f hesitation before he speaks. You’re not sure why it matters so much to you—why he matters so much—but you don’t dwell on it.

—

The case drags on into the evening, the pieces of the puzzle slowly falling into place. By the time the unsub is in custody and the team is preparing to head back to the jet, exhaustion hangs heavy in the air.

As you gather your things, Morgan claps a hand on your shoulder. “Hey, Ice Queen,” he says, his tone teasing. “You did good.”

“Thank you? I was doing my job.” you reply, shooting him a bemused look.

He chuckles. “Not with the case, sweetness. Word is you went full gladiator on one of the locals earlier.”

“Word travels way too fast in this team,” you mutter.

Morgan grins. “What can I say? We’re a nosy bunch. But it’s nice to know you haven’t lost your bite now you’re saddled up to boy wonder.”

He gestures with his head towards where Spencer was sleeping on the jet’s couch, wrapped in a cheap blanket like baby.

You fight back the urge to smile.

“I never changed,” you say dryly.

Morgan laughs, but there’s a glimmer of respect in his eyes. “Sure you did,”

“No I didn’t,”

He nudges your shoulder, a whisper of “You’ll admit it one day,” before he walks off.

[reasonsforhope]

"A 1-megawatt sand battery that can store up to 100 megawatt hours of thermal energy will be 10 times larger than a prototype already in use.

The new sand battery will eliminate the need for oil-based energy consumption for the entire town of town of Pornainen, Finland.

Sand gets charged with clean electricity and stored for use within a local grid.

Finland is doing sand batteries big. Polar Night Energy already showed off an early commercialized version of a sand battery in Kankaanpää in 2022, but a new sand battery 10 times that size is about to fully rid the town of Pornainen, Finland of its need for oil-based energy.

In cooperation with the local Finnish district heating company Loviisan Lämpö, Polar Night Energy will develop a 1-megawatt sand battery capable of storing up to 100 megawatt hours of thermal energy.

“With the sand battery,” Mikko Paajanen, CEO of Loviisan Lämpö, said in a statement, “we can significantly reduce energy produced by combustion and completely eliminate the use of oil.”

Polar Night Energy introduced the first commercial sand battery in 2022, with local energy utility Vatajankoski. “Its main purpose is to work as a high-power and high-capacity reservoir for excess wind and solar energy,” Markku Ylönen, Polar Nigh Energy’s co-founder and CTO, said in a statement at the time. “The energy is stored as heat, which can be used to heat homes, or to provide hot steam and high temperature process heat to industries that are often fossil-fuel dependent.” ...

Sand—a high-density, low-cost material that the construction industry discards [Note: 6/13/24: Turns out that's not true! See note at the bottom for more info.] —is a solid material that can heat to well above the boiling point of water and can store several times the amount of energy of a water tank. While sand doesn’t store electricity, it stores energy in the form of heat. To mine the heat, cool air blows through pipes, heating up as it passes through the unit. It can then be used to convert water into steam or heat water in an air-to-water heat exchanger. The heat can also be converted back to electricity, albeit with electricity losses, through the use of a turbine.

In Pornainen, Paajanen believes that—just by switching to a sand battery—the town can achieve a nearly 70 percent reduction in emissions from the district heating network and keep about 160 tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere annually. In addition to eliminating the usage of oil, they expect to decrease woodchip combustion by about 60 percent.

The sand battery will arrive ready for use, about 42 feet tall and 49 feet wide. The new project’s thermal storage medium is largely comprised of soapstone, a byproduct of Tulikivi’s production of heat-retaining fireplaces. It should take about 13 months to get the new project online, but once it’s up and running, the Pornainen battery will provide thermal energy storage capacity capable of meeting almost one month of summer heat demand and one week of winter heat demand without recharging.

“We want to enable the growth of renewable energy,” Paajanen said. “The sand battery is designed to participate in all Fingrid’s reserve and balancing power markets. It helps to keep the electricity grid balanced as the share of wind and solar energy in the grid increases.”"

-via Popular Mechanics, March 13, 2024

--

Note: I've been keeping an eye on sand batteries for a while, and this is really exciting to see. We need alternatives to lithium batteries ASAP, due to the grave human rights abuses and environmental damage caused by lithium mining, and sand batteries look like a really good solution for grid-scale energy storage.

--

Note 6/13/24: Unfortunately, turns out there are substantial issues with sand batteries as well, due to sand scarcity. More details from a lovely asker here, sources on sand scarcity being a thing at the links: x, x, x, x, x

[yardsards]

@thespaghettiman427 okay part 2!

adamellie's parents were named malthi of the house of wynd (her elf father) and merrimack bobs (her half-foot mother)

the house of wynd was a wealthy and well-respected elven family from the southern central continent. they weren't officially recognized as nobles by any royalty, but they were rich enough to live like nobles (and referred to themselves as such), and the wynd trading company was a household name

in recent decades, however, business has been on the decline, and their wealth and reputation has been slipping away.

malthi was the sole heir to the house of wynd. when he was given control of the wynd trading company, he made it his goal to return it to its former glory. he has since made many risky business deals and investments, rapidly cycling the company between massive profits and massive losses (and earning himself a reputation as a reckless businessman).

through it all, he acted like he was still fabulously wealthy with no concerns over the state of his business. anyone In The Know was well aware that it was an act, but others were fooled.

merrimack came from a family of artisans in the eastern continent. she was known as the wild child of her family, and had failed to pick up either of her parents' crafts. when she was 16, her parents had decided that merrimack should travel west with a family friend who had business there, in hopes that seeing the world would help their daughter mature and figure out what she wanted to do with her life.

while in a port city in the southern central continent, merrimack stopped at a tavern and met malthi, a charming young elven man. (and, even better, he claimed to be rich!) she was immediately interested in him, and he seemed just as smitten.

the two had a passionate affair. when merrimack realized she was pregnant, the two of them decided to elope.

malthi's parents were pissed. they had hoped their son would find an elven noblewoman to marry and bring fortune to their family. instead, he had married a *half-foot*, which was very taboo. 

merrimack's parents were upset that they weren't invited to the wedding, but were overall hopeful that their daughter had settled down wuth someone who could provide for her.

adamellie was born, and they were happy together for a while. but this wouldn't last.

the honeymoon period passed and differences in personality and opinion popped up between merrimack and malthi (differences they would have noticed if they didn't rush into marriage so quickly)

the two also bickered frequently about malthi's risky financial decisions 

as the years went by, the strain got worse. merrimack had matured a lot over the years, but malthi was still the same young man he used to be. the things merri used to find charming and fun about her husband now seemed infuriatingly immature. 

living in the southern central continent was also grating for her, as the majority elven population there tended to discriminate against her or treat her like a pitiful child. her in-laws were the worst about this.

(privately, she also found it frustrating to have spent nearly a decade raising a daughter who was still just a toddler)

so eventually, she left and went back to the eastern continent to live with her sister and help care for her parents. (she was too young to remember it, but adamellie spent weeks crying for her mama after this).

from then on, merrimack wasn't a very big part of her daughter's life, only contacting her through monthly letters, or a visit every couple years.

adamellie was her papa's little princess. she loved him, and he absolutely spoiled her. she was his pride and joy, and he'd do anything to make her smile.

she grew slowly, closer to an elven rate, for her babyhood as well as around puberty, but for most of her childhood she aged a bit closer to a half-foot rate. her mental maturity lagged a bit behind her physical maturity, but it was hard for elves to notice this, since her half-foot heritage made her look smaller/younger than an elf at a comparable physical maturity stage.

adamellie learned to view friendships as transient things. she'd befriend elven children, but the two would inevitably drift apart as she outgrew them. or, living in a port city, she'd befriend children and then have to say goodbye as their family sailed away again. she clung extra hard to her dad, she didn't want him to leave her life like everyone else did.

there were elven schools available, but due to adamellie's unusual maturity rate, malthi decided his daughter should be taught about academics and magic by private tutors, and learn the art of business from himself. he wanted to prepare her to inherit the wynd trading company, and frequently taught her the lesson "in order to reap great rewards, you need to be willing to take great risks".

she liked spending time with her dad, and was excited to continue the family business that her dad seemed to care about almost as much as he cared about her.

as adamellie began reaching her adolescence, malthi began courting a new woman, an elven commoner named swilda (no noblewoman would have him).

adamellie was NOT happy about her dad's new girlfriend. a bit for normal kid reasons, but a bit was because her father was paying noticeably less attention to his daughter in favour of his new partner- to the point where swilda herself would scold him and tell him to pay less attention to her and more attention to his child.

malthi and swilda married after a couple years of courting. (a short courting period by elven standards, but malthi tended to rush into things, and swilda wanted a stable way out of her parents' home)

swilda was nearly perfect as a step-mother. she was more stern than malthi and didn't spoil adamellie like he did (she was a more responsible person than her husband, despite being slightly younger than him), but her sternness was the loving and attentive type, rather than the controlling type. she showed near infinite patience towards her new step-daughter's antics (as well as to her husband's foolishness)

adamellie had complicated feelings towards her stepmother, but slowly but surely grew attached.

after another couple years, swilda got pregnant, and then adamellie's half-sister jubal was born.

adamellie was Not Having A Good Time with this. again, this was half childish jealousy, and half a reaction to how her father was acting. he seemed to forget she existed at times, too preoccupied with the shiny new baby. she even overheard him talking about leaving the wynd trading company to jubal ("after all, it's not like a half elf can continue our bloodline anyway"), even though he had spent years training adamellie to take over the company and jubal was still just a baby. (the company wasn't even worth that much at this point, but it was the spirit of the thing)

swilda, meanwhile, was exhausted and sick after her pregnancy, and was unable to provide much attention to adamellie either.

adamellie made sure that if she was having a bad time, then the rest of the family would suffer too. she caused a lot of trouble for everyone.

one day, after adamellie had acted out again, swilda said that she and malthi had agreed that adamellie should go to Far Away Boarding School For Noble Elven Adolescents.

adamellie cried and apologized and begged them not to get rid of her. swilda said that they weren't getting rid of her, they just felt like she wasn't thriving at home and that a change of environment might help her feel better. malthi said that since her growth had slowed down to a more normal elven rate, a normal school should be good for her, and allow her to make new friends.

adamellie felt like this was all an excuse to get rid of her now that they've replaced her with a perfect new daughter, but she gave up on arguing and agreed to go.

she had A Bad Time at boarding school. it was her first time away from her father and her first time in any formal education setting, having to follow so many rules. and her rich/noble elven classmates ostracized her, due to her half-foot heritage and the fact that her father wasn't a real nobleman (adamellie started and lost a lot of fistfights over this). worst of all, she was stuck dealing with her feelings of abandonment with no one there to support her.

it was a cycle, she felt bad, so she acted out, so her teachers punished her and her classmates ostracized her more, so she felt worse, so she acted out more. it was a miracle she didn't get expelled

during this time, letters from merrimack stopped coming. adamellie was afraid to ask if merrimack had died of old age and nobody bothered to pass the news onto her, or if her biological mother had finally decided to fully abandon her too. (if she didn't ask, she could just pretend the usually-punctual letters got lost in the mail somehow this time)

adamellie emotionally withdrew from her attachments to her father and step-mother. (she got letters and fairy calls from them, but kept her responses polite but distant). outwardly, this looked like she had stopped acting out and was seen as a good thing.

when she came home for a school break, her father and step-mother seemed a lot brighter and happier than they were before they sent her away.

they noticed that she was acting different, too. malthi praised her for this change in her behavior, but swilda realized something was wrong and pressed adamellie for details. adamellie said that she hated the boarding school and that the teachers and other students were mean to her, but did not admit how lonely and abandoned she felt.

swilda said that while she still thought adamellie should be in school with peers, she acknowledged that that school was not good for her, and said that she could come back home and commute to Nearby School For Common Youths instead. 

malthi disagreed and said that his daughter should stay at Far Away Boarding School For Noble Elven Adolescents because she shouldn't allow herself to back down when things get tough, but he gave in due to swilda's pressure 

adamellie had less of a bad time at Nearby School For Common Youths and finished her education there. she didn't let herself form any close friendships, but tried to make herself generally likeable.

at home, she was happy to be among her family (even, begrudgingly, her baby sister, though she was still a bit jealous), but she didn't allow herself to become fully re-attached to them like she was before they sent her away.

not long after graduation, she decided she wanted to leave home to try some business ventures of her own. she asked her father for some money to start her own venture and a ticket to the island where the dungeon was (she heard there was money aplenty to be made in that dungeon), promising that she'd bring a good profit to the family business. he agreed and gave her what she asked.

she's determined to prove to her father that she can be a brave and skilled businesswoman and can be a valuable family member. she mostly wants to make her dad proud of her, but a part of her wants to make him regret how he pushed her away.

BONUS STUFF:

-she is often mistaken as a gnome (albeit one with extra large low-set ears and proportionally long legs/short torso)

-if anyone asks what she is, she'll usually just say "half elf" or sometimes just "elf". partially because that seems to be the default with half-elves in this series (at least, with half-tallman half-elves). but partially because she's not got a lot of ties to half-foot culture and grew up among elves. possibly even has some internalized shame about her half-foot heritage because of how general elven society treated her.

-some people call half-half-foots "quarter-foots" as a cute nickname. a bit ironic, considering quarter-foots are generally bigger than half-foots

-one of the hundreds of things adamellie's parents cannot agree on is how to pronounce their own daughter's name. merrimack says "it's ada-mellie. we went with mellie because of my great aunt ellamellie, and ada because we both thought it was a pretty name". malthi says "it's adam-ellie. adam like adamantine, and ellie just because it sounds cute". merrimack is objectively the one who is remembering correctly here, but adamellie pronounces her own name adam-ellie due to spending most of her childhood with malthi.

-she likes to sort/organize things as a way to warm up/get in the right state of mind for spellcasting. since organizing her wares isn't always practical, she keeps a deck of cards on her that she likes to shuffle and then put back in order. (she used to have a pouch of marbles that she used for a similar purpose, but they made noise when she walked, so they were a bad idea to bring into the dungeon)

-she had kinda ratty hair growing up cuz she inherited her curls from her mother, and her dad had no clue how to take care of it, nor did most of her nannies

-unlike most nobility, she never had to serve in the canaries. a bit because the southern central continent isn't as directly under the control of the elf queen as the northern central continent, a bit because their family barely counts as nobility anymore, a bit because she's a half-elf and is thus seen as undesirable

sir you must tell me everything about adamellie at your earliest convenience.

as well as perhaps a visual depiction via art or picrew???

goobnight

okay so here is a picrew of her i made bc i have art block (it's not perfect like i think her hair is curlier than this, and i'm still unsure on certain details or her clothes, but Close Enough)

and here's an adventurer's bible style character sheet:

full name: adamellie of the house of wynd

age: 47

race/gender: half elf, half half-foot / female

birthplace: the southern central continent 

relatives: father, mother (likely deceased), step-mother, half-sister

build: 120 cm, 22 bmi

likes: custard, oysters

dislikes: anything with a visible face (i.e. fish heads)

first death: treasure insects

(though some of this may be subject to change, especially her age. half-elves tend to mature at unpredictable rates and idk what maturity timeline i like best for her. maturity-wise she's in her early 20s, though. like, she is definitely an adult but her prefrontal cortex isn't quite done cooking yet)

okay so adamellie's existence kinda came from three main different thoughts

1: the corpse collectors/revival office are fascinating, i wonder what other kinds of financial exploitation can occur in the dungeon, like "pay for my services or you will literally die without them" situations

2: teleportation magic is interesting, especially those scrolls like mr tansu used. i wonder how someone could take advantage of those sorts of mechanics in a story that is so much about traversing a physical space

3: we see half-elves that are half-tallman. and the adventurer's bible mentions that tallmen can have fertile offspring with ogres or half-foots, as can gnomes with dwarves. i wonder what other combinations could exist

so adamellie's thing is like. so teleportation scrolls work like this, right?

well she basically saw the "this technique shouldn't be used unless absolutely necessary" and was like "hm yeah but what if i did anyway?" (it's risky and dubiously legal but that ain't stopping her)

she's got a few storerooms on the surface that she packs absolutely full of adventuring supplies. mostly food and drinks and medicine and mana herbs, but a couple spare bedrolls and clothes and weapons and whatnot as well.

she's got a teleportation scroll hooked up to each of her storerooms, and when she needs something, she just unfurls one of her scrolls, reaches in, and pulls whatever she needs out from her storeroom. it's not quite a bag of holding, but it's pretty damn close

it's a pretty unstable technique, but miraculously she's managed to not die or lose any limbs from this method yet, so she sees no reason to change it. the main mishaps she's encountered thus far are

1: on occasion, the scroll she carries with her randomly loses connection with the storeroom it's linked to, meaning she loses access to about a quarter of her inventory. sometimes she's able to reopen it, but doing so is very costly in terms of time and mana, so she typically just counts it as a loss for this trip. this has happened many times

2: a few times, she's gone through the scroll, either to escape a dangerous situation or to try and grab something from deep in the storeroom, and the portal closed behind her. this meant she was forced to exit through the storeroom's actual door and return to the surface many weeks before she had planned

3: she found a corpse on a lower floor while she was out of mana, so she put it in one of her storerooms for safekeeping until she could recover her mana and revive him. the scroll failed while the body was in there, meaning the corpse was no longer part of the dungeon and was just in some random storage closet on the surface, so the guy was unrevivable. oopsie daisies! (she only made this mistake once but it was a real mess)

4: thieves on the surface broke into a couple of her storerooms, breaking the spell (and stealing her stuff). she's been very careful to avoid this since then, using very strong locks on the physical doors of the storerooms.

despite the risks though, this is a pretty effective strategy in a dungeon where one of the biggest obstacles is your access to supplies. so what is she doing with it? is she an invaluable asset to some party hoping to defeat the mad mage? nah.

she's not sure she believes in the golden kingdom prophesy (and she thinks other monetary ventures like gold stripping, monster-culling, and selling research are all oversaturated markets). and she thinks that a party would just slow her down and attract unnecessary monster attention (and take a cut of her profits) anyway. she's just in the game to make a quick buck with her unique strategy.

she is a merchant, selling wares from her storerooms to desperate adventurers on lower floors, for absolutely exorbitant prices. it's not like they're in any position to haggle food prices when they're starving, after all. (she also does occasional healing or resurrection magic when she finds someone injured or dead, demanding high fees afterwards. if they refuse to pay, she says "okay, then do you want me to undo what i just did and injure/kill you again?" (she is absolutely bluffing. she sucks shit at fighting.) and if someone cannot afford to pay her in the moment, she makes them sign a contract that they'll repay her later, and puts a tracking charm on them)

she plays it fast and loose in the dungeon, traveling alone and spending a lot of time in lower floors. she uses her stealth skills, supplemented with magic, to sneak past monsters. when she's in a really dangeous situation (whether because a monster noticed her, or because an adventurer got Really Mad at her) she'll hop through one of her scrolls to the safety of her storerooms.

every couple months (or more, often if/when her scrolls fail) she returns to the surface to restock her storerooms and reset/repair/replace her teleportation scrolls. then, once that's done, she returns to the dungeon, trying to reach the lower floors again as quickly as possible.

she calls herself heroic, bringing food to the starving and reviving people at levels that most corpse retrievers often avoid. adventurers have mixed feelings on her. on one hand, running into her when you're in need can be a literal life saver. on the other hand, she is exploiting people while they're at their lowest

i will tell more about her and her backstory and family later bc it is A Doozy and this post is already insanely long lol

[rebeccathenaturalist]

So this is a really creative solution to a pernicious ecological problem! The short version is that arid ecosystems like deserts are quite fragile. For example, many have soil that is covered in a thin biocrust that can be damaged just by walking or driving on it. And because life needs water to grow and recover, these super-dry ecosystems may not be able to repair a footprint or tire track for over a century.

However, arid ecosystems are often some of the least understood because they can be difficult to access. And they suffer from P.R. issues because deserts are often seen as "bad" ecosystems full of death and nothingness, and because we do legitimately want to avoid the desertification of other native habitats.

In order to raise awareness and appreciation of these landscapes, biological surveys that tally the living beings found there help show how biodiverse they can be. And when we know more about how abundant or scarce a given species there is, it gives us more impetus to protect them, especially those that are at risk of extinction.

These paramotorists were able to fly across Peru's lomas (coastal fog deserts), which primarily receive scant amounts of moisture from mist. They collected plant samples to take back to scientists, carefully recording where they were found. And because they were able to fly long distances, they could minimize the amount of time their feet were on the ground and therefore minimize their impact on the local ecology.

At a time where it seems every interaction between motorized technology and nature is a negative one, this is a pleasant departure. yes, of course we wish we weren't in a place where we have to be worried about increasing extinction and other ecological woes. But let's take the wins where we can; the morale boost is crucial to being able to keep looking toward a better future.

[sexhaver]

becoming an engineer has imbued me with several obnoxious traits but one of the worst is a lessening of the patience i have for people who suggest "obvious" solutions to massive long-standing engineering problems, in a way that suggests that they caught something that the army of engineers who spent decades of man-hours trying to solve the same issue just... missed. the direct impetus behind this post is all the people on the Biblically Accurate Highways post commenting stuff like "that could have been a roundabout" under the pic of the High-Five Interchange (no, it could not have), but im also thinking about those posts a few years back saying that warehouse automation will never take off because the robot roaming the aisles at their local grocery store looking for spills has to stop for people, which means all robots are slow and stupid. like i promise you, PINKY promise even, that you are not smarter than an entire field of engineering. you're not even AS smart as a field of engineering. if your layman ass can identify a problem with a seemingly obvious solution, either the problem is not actually a problem, the solution creates more problems than it solves relative to the currently implemented solution, or (rarely) the solution is actually that obvious but will never happen under capitalism. and in the latter case that's not an engineering issue, that's a capitalism issue. or the layperson is suggesting that some system should just be replaced with a train, which is almost always correct but runs up against car culture and infrastructure having a century of momentum behind it in the US. the laypeople can have that W at least, that one literally is that simple, just tear up the highways and replace them all with metro lines. note that i said "simple" and not "easy" or "economically feasible in the short-term"

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Mother Jones:

When a man with painful cystic acne came to dermatologist Eva Rawlings Parker for help in a Nashville clinic, she couldn’t prescribe him doxycycline or minocycline, two medications she’d typically use to treat this condition. This is because the man was a roofer, says Parker, and these medications would have impacted his ability to tolerate heat. 

Parker’s patient was far from alone. Other common medications for physical health, like beta blockers, can impact people’s ability to handle heat. Many medications for mental health do, too.

Conventional wisdom tells people with conditions that make them unusually vulnerable to the sun, like the autoimmune disorder lupus, or are on medications that lead to heat sensitivity, to avoid staying outside when the sun is at its strongest.

But for the one-third of US workers who must spend regular time outdoors, that advice bursts into flames. For some, such as farmworkers, hours and hours of heat exposure, with minimal or no reprieve, are just part of the job. Increasing heat waves and more frequent wildfires point to the need to find real solutions for outdoor workers—and highlight how labor and climate change are intertwined. 

Edward Flores, faculty director of the Community and Labor Center at the University of California, Merced, specializes in the conditions of low-wage and immigrant workers in California. He says the need for heat safety policy reform is acute. “We know that workers have been dying,” Flores says, “because of chronic conditions that accumulate through heat stress over many years and decades that lead to shorter life spans.”

Parker, the dermatologist, is acutely aware of how heat can trigger or worsen skin problems. She is co-chair of the American Academy of Dermatology’s group on climate change and environmental issues, and was an author of a 2023 review on the ways climate change can contribute to dermatological issues, including triggering flares of conditions like hidradenitis suppurativa—which causes painful lumps deep in a person’s skin—and skin cancer.

Workers do have some legal rights to breaks and water, depending on the locale. California, Oregon, and Washington are the only states that mandate those breaks. And roughly half of crop farmworkers have no legal work authorization. That lack of legal status, and the threat of deportation, gives many workers reason to fear complaining about working conditions.

In July, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed a new set of rules which would help protect more than 36 million workers from heat-related illness or death. The proposed OSHA rules would require employers to monitor their workers for heat exhaustion symptoms, provide adequate water and shade, designate break areas, and provide mandatory rest breaks, among other things.