#or other stuff of equivalent internet rot

[nyctarian]

oh my god the image posted so much bigger than i expected lol woe read more be upon ye

different sort of draft check in but i am very close to being done with the 2019 section of my drafts

[chaos-and-sparkles]

I yearn to talk about my Dracula!Holmes au, and the universe has seen fit to give me free will and internet access, so talk i shall.

Listen. Hear me out just hear me out.

We literally have Johnathan motherfucking Harker whose written POV we read Dracula from for like a solid half of the book, right. Well, no more, he's John Watson now babeyyy, a retired army man now gainfully employed as a lawyer who's off overseas to act as estate agent to the strange and eccentric client who has expressed interest in moving to foggy London... Count Holmes! [insert jazz hands]

Instead of being Evil(tm) and plotting to take over London or whatever, my guy is just Autistic. Also riddled with ADHD and in desperate need of some enrichment in he goddamn enclosure. He will also in fact be trans, because. Of course. Vampirism as a metaphor for queerness and the social ostracization that follows as a punishment and having inherently queer narratives intertwined in them etc etc... anyhow! Count Sherlock Holmes, vampire detective!!!

(I do also want him to be aroace, or aroacespec at least, but I'm willing to negotiate for the Johnlock and the Johnlock alone.)

Mina Harker here is of course the one and only Mary Morstan, although it is clearly a lavender marriage, because we aren't cowards in this household and so Mary gets to be gay with her Lucy equivalent here, just as god intended. I haven't decided who her Lucy equivalent will be yet but this au is still young (technically I've been going insane about it in my mind for like a month or two but whatever) and there's no reason we can't make up an OC for her Lucy.

John Watson, resident gay doctor lawyer, of course, is smart enough to realize the enigmatic Count Holmes' vampiric secret within like one adventure, but he sure is going to have a slow burn of realizing just how gay he is for said enigmatic Count Holmes. We, of course, get to witness this tooth rotting bullshit firsthand as we read his diary entries and some later letters to Mary.

And instead of being one long gothic horror narrative, it's just adventure of the week with your friendly neighborhood crime solving vampire, the various other mythical creatures who do said crimes, and Just Some Guy.

Just, every Sherlock Holmes adventure adapted into this au with other supernatural elements. The guy from the Red Headed League is a local villager being bamboozled by a leprechaun, the Silver Blaze thing is about a kelpie. Everyone including Sherlock was operating on the assumption that Irene Adler was a siren, but actually she was just a regular human, and instead of unlearning misogyny (bc I don't see trans vampire Sherlock living so long through changing times and society and being sexist), Sherlock has to learn not to underestimate the intelligence of humans.

Also, he's just really excited to have this new human, John, living in his castle. So curious, too, about humans, he has sequestered himself from them for such a long time and John seems like a very interesting one. He's probably the first friend Sherlock has had in a long time, too.

Also. Instead of being warded off or harmed by garlic, to Sherlock, garlic is just the vampire version of cocaine. He just gets high as fuck off garlic. Could live on the stuff. And the reason people think he's warded off by garlic is just because he was seen getting high off his ass, turning into a bat, and flying away in loop de loops upon consuming garlic one (1) time. And everyone thought it's his weakness. And he never bothered correcting them bc Why Would He. He's basically getting free cocaine left and right from villagers who are scared/wary of the supernatural Count Holmes and only go to him when there's no other option, and it's no bother to leave people he's not investigating alone.

I genuinely do think cocaine!garlic addicted Sherlock has so much comedic potential, it really is so beloved to me. Just imagine, if you will, an extremely put-upon John Watson caring for Batlock who has gotten high off his ass and refuses to stop flying into his own antique chandelier.

I was also thinking that it would be funny to have Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Turner in place of Dracula's sexy vampire roommates or whatever those three were lmao (I couldn't think of a third character, sorry)

Also. Obviously. Van Helsing has got to be Moriarty, by virtue of opposition. I do think their whole deal has a lot of potential to be very funny and entertaining also. I am also considering it might be fun to have Lucy's other suitors be the Scotland Yarders, like Lestrade, Gregson and what have you, but that risks missing out on the very fun possible dynamic of "Sherlock being exasperated with the dumbass out of their depth Yarders he keeps helping" raised to like the hundredth degree so. I honestly would like people's thoughts on that.

Anyway so YES, Dracula au please and thank you. Maybe with endgame QPR Johnlock? Yes? Please? Queerplatonic husbands Johnlock is my shit.

In conclusion: THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK <3

[wri0thesley]

I am so sorry if this is invasive and weird, but may I ask what you work as? I'm at the stage where I have to build my future and I know you don't have an age specified but you seem to be doing really well (at least from the posts we've seen, again I really hope not to be invasive) for yourself and your partner and 25+ is still young! Again, I hope this isn't mean or weird, I'm just curious. (and severely nervous. First year of college is ruining me harder than any fictional man.)

ahh anon i'm afraid that the answer is probably not what you're looking for!

for the record, i am 27, i just find getting fandom older a little scary, especially having it listed right there!!!

i actually intended to be a performer and a singing teacher (my degree was going to be in music & musical theatre); unfortunately, due to a plethora of reasons (mostly my undiagnosed autism, unmedicated ocd/depression/anxiety combo, a nervous breakdown and my partner's physical health declining) i dropped out of my degree before the end of my first semester.

for about three years or so after that i was severely agoraphobic. talking 'can't answer the door' agoraphobic; 'never left the house alone, and even when with someone only went to the doctors and therapy' agoraphobic, 'rotted in my bedroom in an absolutely non romanticised way' agoraphobic. i was on the equivalent of disability because i literally could not function. meanwhile, my partner, who lived with me and my parents was getting physically worse whilst i was mentally struggling (since then haz has been diagnosed with ehlers danlos syndrome, fibromyalgia, lipoedema, thyroid issues and a lot of other things; they have a lot going on). i DID access several therapies, had . . . a couple of very bad relapses, went under crisis teams and all of that stuff (i had occupational therapy too which was HONESTLY i think one of the most useful things and helpful things for me in the long run; i cannot imagine what i would be like if i hadn't had the occupational therapist the crisis team found for me).

(coincidentally, if you are an og jojo follower you probably remember how bad it was; i've said it a hundred times, but running this silly little reader-insert blog probably helped save my life at a time when i had almost no contact with the outside world. i couldn't leave my bedroom, but i had my blog and i had my little internet friends and discord server).

i have gotten a lot better.

haz, unfortunately, has not gotten better physically and probably never will. they need help with a lot of things most people don't even realise disabled people might need help with. brushing their hair, fastening clothes . . . when haz first moved in, they were doing the same dance-intensive college course that i was. we danced maybe three or four hours a day. nowadays, haz needs me to hold their hand and keep them steady when they go from our bed to the bathroom (the room next door).

so i don't really 'work' as anything. well, my therapist would tell me off for saying that; the uk government classes me as an 'unpaid carer', which basically means i am on call for haz literally 24/7 and they pay me the pittance that is carer's allowance (carer's allowance assumes you care at least 35 hours a week, and pays you the privilege of about 45 pence per each of those hours. if, like me, you live with the person you care for and do more than those hours, it gets . . . yeah. oof. the government unfortuately know that most unpaid carers are loved ones and family members of the person who needs care and won't just stop doing it, and they'd be in the shit if we did because trained carers are expensive, so they can get away with that - FUCK the tories, honestly.

i am EXCEEDINGLY lucky that i live in a cheap area of the uk, that haz and i are internet savvy enough to be able to access carers/disability discounts, that we are in rent-controlled social housing (which my crisis team helped find for us because living with my parents was taking such a toll on us both, woo!!!!), and that we've been able to access services to help on the nhs. i got my autism assessment and diagnosis; haz is under several pain management teams.

all in all, i'm happy. i'm so much happier than i was seven years ago when i'd dropped out of university and felt like a huge failure, because all of my life i was a gifted overachiever and i thought my self-worth was tied to my academic achievements (and as an extension, what roles i got in what shows and when and who saw me and so on). i don't have a lot of money (i am a bargain shopped fgbnkjgjnfb) but i know what i like and because i'm Older Now (tm) i've amassed collections of it.

i am absolutely sure that you'll boss college, anon! that you will find that thing that works for you (one day i would LOVE to go back and get my degree! pre-covid i had an acceptance for a creative writing degree and i was getting ready to go back to uni as a mature student, but haz's health got bad again and then covid happens - and now ofc i have my autism diagnosis i can access so much more help!). but even if you don't, you can absolutely find happiness without 'traditional' success.

i don't have a lot in the grand scheme of things. but you're right in that i am doing pretty well, in terms of where i am, and where i've been. i have my own little home. i have my partner of ten years who is my soulmate in every conceivable way. i've had experiences that make me feel so happy i sometimes cry when i remember them. i have my own little cat now!!! things still stress me out. but i have come so so far and when i feel down i remember that.

good luck anon! i believe in you <3

[ugliemo]

the thoughts too large to fit into a reply go here, re: that post abt devices. if you are like me you're susceptible to this pattern of thinking: god all these other less online people have Full, Rich Lives and Experiences and feel True Authentic Joy, they have Interesting Hobbies and attend Real Social Gatherings. meanwhile i am some kind of wretched online half-person, and everything i do is unwholesome and unglamorous. basically i have the motivation to do things not based on whether i will like it but on whether it will make me look worldly and interesting 50 years later when i write about it in my autobiography. which itself is a very Online thing to think, because it definitely comes from a modern culture of self-documentation. does that make sense?

i realized this when i was reading one of Alison Bechdel's autobiographies and i was getting this feeling about her because she was recounting all this interesting stuff about her childhood growing up in rural pennysylvania in the 60's, and comparing myself negatively to her. but then she casually mentioned that 60's youth culture was 'characterized by incessant tv-watching'. and i appreciate her honesty about that because then i was like. of course, she probably didn't spend most of her time doing this cool interesting stuff. she probably spent most of her time watching tv or fucking around in other ways that her parents would've yelled at her for, too. it just doesn't look like it when she recounts her life story because why would you write about that, the filler in-between the interesting parts? and that goes for everyone else who comes from a pre-internet generation: the countless hours they spent watching tv, or reading trashy comic books or magazines that no-one remembers, or badly written pulp romance novels, or smoking weed and staring at the ceiling, or jerking off, or any other number of unproductive asocial things that people at the time went on about being brain-rotting and Everything Wrong With Society - all of that gets memory-holed, because you only remember the interesting parts. the image is too big to paste but i recommend googling 'XKCD 1227' to see a compilation of similar sentiments about the 'modern world' from 1915 and earlier.

all of this wordy business is to say: there are definitely unique neuroses floating around in my brain because of my heavy internet usage. but, then again, someone my age 100 years ago would have been the product of her environment to an equal degree, and it's not useful sitting here beating myself up over it while imagining a glamourized version of hypothetical 1920's me who probably would have been just as aimless and unsuited for the world, just in different ways. i believe i'm running against the character limit now. STAY FROSTY

oh wow. you get it. i’ve never thought of all the old media consumption to be equivalent to what the internet is to young people today. of course that’s just what there was to fill the time, but to me it still felt like all the old ways were more meaningful somehow. and maybe they were, considering the fast paced, attention span destroying, dopamine machines we use to fill the time today.

i think my biggest problem with the internet is how catered to i feel. my algorithm is mine and mine alone. everything is so instant. my brain is waited on, hand and foot, to find the next thing for me to enjoy. there joy of discovery is far and few between because the next best thing comes after the next best thing. nothing is impressive or provoking. i’ve grown bored of the algorithm. i want less. i think we all need less.

thank you for your response, genuinely.

[loominggaia]

if YouTube were a thing on Gaia, then would there be a Cocomelon equivalent? And if so, would it also hypnotize kids into becoming addicted while feeding Zareenite propaganda directly into their brains?

I'm not really familiar with Cocomelon, but from what I can gather it's like that Elsagate stuff? Basically brain-rot for toddlers.

You better believe Zareen Empire is FULL of that stuff. Zareenite corporations will sell anything to anyone, no matter how harmful it is. As long as they make their buck, fuck it. They don't care. They'll sell tainted baby formula to citizens for decades, then say "whoopsie teehee" and just pay a fine when/if they're caught. So I imagine the Zareenite entertainment industry is bursting with mindless, harmful content made purely to sell merchandise, especially to children.

There is no Youtube or internet in Zareen Empire, but it does have pretty robust television, film, music, and book industries. Their entertainment market has been oversaturated for centuries, so you probably have to wade through a lot of garbage to find anything insightful or healthy for the soul.

The average Zareenite parents both work over 8 hours a day, 5-6 days a week. They don't have time to curate what their kids are getting into, so the empire's children get exposed to raw, unfiltered crap entertainment on the reg, not to mention a lot of content that's downright inappropriate for kids.

The point is: Zareenites don't even need Youtube. Their culture is already accelerating towards a turbo-capitalistic dystopia just fine without it.

(That's not to say that all Zareenites just lay down and accept it. Many of them do protest and demand better regulations/quality control for their industries. Plenty are aware that they're surrounded by intellectually-devoid trash and go out of their way to seek better things. Others know, but lack the time/energy to do anything about it. The braindead masses may make up the majority, but not all Zareenites are this way.)

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

[drowningin666fandoms]

Humans are weird - Our humanity

So, I’ve had another idea for the humans are weird tag, and it is both beautiful in what it implies for us and absolutely horrifying and sickening. You see, my mind went down the path of ‘what if what makes us unique among the aliens is our humanity?’ and not with humanity as species, but as compassion and morals and ‘you-just-don't-do-that’. What if aliens managed to get in space only by being partially hive-minded, and don’t have any concept of love and friendship and compassion and caring and all that stuff, but also things like laws, imprisonment and second chances? They barely have a word for Alliance, and those few they make are very brittle and frequently crash and burn when they simultaneously turn their weapons on each other. That’s not necessarily cause by vindictiveness, but maybe an evolutionary trait in them to get rid of overpopulation endangering their much, much smaller planets, or due to a predator looking so much like themselves they had to have that mistrust to survive and nature hasn’t gotten rid of it yet even after they hunted the predator into extinction. So the largest they have are clans of perhaps fifteen, each led by some sort of mayor, but they frequently have infighting with the head changing, however, they have this... kind of list in their heads with the names of all other currently living specimen, and as soon as that reaches a certain point the urge to kill each other stops immediately, and knowledge and discovery is passed around in the same way. Guess that makes them hermaphrodites though. And what if, when they discover Earth, we are still having some war or the other, and they draw their own conclusions from it?

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

Aiehas looked towards the mostly blue planet in satisfaction. Their species needed new room for settlements to avoid another killing spree. Their own crew, which in the beginning had thirty people, had been reduced to ten and needed special shielding to not be dragged into the urge to kill again - they couldn’t afford to lose even one more person or the ship had a high chance to crash and burn when landing, and that was something nobody on board wanted. After all, nobody wanted to die, it was just sometimes necessary. This planet though... Well, it might register as Deathworld of the highest class ever found, but certainly, due to the inherit lack of sentient life it would have, they could just get rid of the wildlife and fauna and live there too. As such, xe was extremely surprised when xir first mate called out to xe, claiming there would be satellites and space stations orbiting the planet. Had another species already found it? But what species would voluntarily live together on such a tight space as a space station? Xir own crew had to be forced into the ship! Of course, they could always kill off the contestant and get rid of the evidence - as long as they weren’t seen at least. “Scan the surface.” “Sir, there are... settlements. And they’re gigantic!” Now xe literally whirled around, pushed xir first mate away from the computer and looked for xir self. Indeed, there were huge constructs of metal, stone, glass and wood on the surface, constructs that couldn’t be anything else than housings - for dozens of people each! What sane species would build things like that? It was a waste of resources, especially with so many of the constructs next to each other. Xe could not think of any species in the intergalactic register - established so other species would know when another planet was empty because one species managed to erase itself from existence - that would do such a thing, and just wondered whether or not a Deathworld of class thirteen really just managed to develop sentient, intelligent life, when xir optical sensors were drawn to where the scanner detected... fighting. It was a larger amount of energy signatures than xe had ever seen in one place, but it was clearly fighting, considering when one went off, some others didn’t anymore. There were other signatures too, one highlighting an entire island, and nets and nets of small ones, with a staggering amount within the constructs - other fights, perhaps? - but they weren’t all that telling, though the ones traveling the atmosphere were - they somehow had managed to develop long-distance rockets, something xir species along some others was still figuring out. Interesting. Xir eyes searched the surface of the planet, before finding a blank space within an oddly formed one. It was pretty much in the middle, they would be able to advance in every direction, but was also far enough away to not be found without provocation. “There. Land there.” It was also a reasonable amount of space away from the fighting, so the rockets would need to be aimed at them specifically to hit them, and they could advance to most of the landmasses on their stalks. Of course, they would have to figure out something for the not quite as big landmass in the west and the large island in the south east, as well as all the other islands, but they could do that after making place for themselves on the biggest landmass.”Sir.” Another of xir subordinates, looking a little terrified. Xe was over quickly - if it was terrifying, it wouldn’t be good. “I-I think I just accidentally accessed their hive-mind with my computer.” Xe stared too. That was ludicrous. The other specimen, however, just turned the monitor of xir computer a little, showing so many signals. “Well, see if you can find a way to translate!” Aiehas snapped at the crewmember, who immediately got to work, having only been saved by xir activation of the instinct block. (Yes, they mistook the internet for a hive-mind.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The aliens had landed, unfortunately for them, in the middle of Germany. As such, they were noticed almost instantly, and a military team was send out to either greet them, or, if they prove hostile, exterminate them and hopefully reverse engineer the technology. The war in the middle east could use the boon of whatever weapons they had, and the civil applications of the technology of a spaceship were too lucrative to pass up on in case they were, in fact, hostile. Of course, the entire thing was watched by their superiors through one of the bodycams, in case of hostility they needed to know immediately, if friendly they could later publish it. They would probably do that either way, but if they were friendly they would obscure the identities of the soldiers. One of these soldiers was Laura Petersen, who was what civilians would call a sniper and thus got dispatched some distance away from her team. Her rifle held one of the cameras,meant to give them a higher and clearer vantage point. As it was, she was the first to spot the... extraterrestrials. They looked a lot like the zombies with the awfully long tongue out of the Persistent Evil series. Just with their brains covered up and walking on two legs instead of four, plus probably a not as long tongue, considering it wasn’t hanging out of their mouth. “Otto, three o’clock.” The captain of the team turned, finally spotting the fleshy things. They didn’t wear much clothing aside from some sort of leather that was probably more armor than clothing, or at the very least rank indicating uniform. The one who volunteered to risk their own live and try and speak with the aliens now spotted them too, and barely waited long enough for the rest of the soldiers to be in position before stepping towards the visitors. Laura couldn’t remember his name, some rookie who barely absolved the necessary training for this. He was the only one who was willing to die just to be the first to officially make contact with lifeforms from outer space. Now he stepped forwards, likely to do his job, keeping from smiling due to training. The aliens did not even wait for him to bring out a single world, already lashing out and practically tearing him apart. She almost screamed. That was NOT what should have happened! As it was, she had better training than that, instead immediately taking aim and hitting the first one, closing in on her captain, with a bullet through the head. At least their brain seemed to be in the same location, as his skull practically exploded and send bits everywhere. Damn. Things like that were why she was a sniper and not melee fighter. She’d probably have retched at being showered with brain like that. Some of the aliens now took some steps back, and another bellowed out, in heavily accented, terribly pronounced English. “Surrender or we will destroy you completely!” Well, that wouldn’t do. Seems their captain thought the same, as he merely shouted back a no and shot the alien in question between... well, she’d have to go with optic sensors because it weren’t exactly eyes. Considering the small number of opponents, it was over before any human other than the rookie got so much as a scratch, but most of her teammates were now showered in bits of alien, and obviously grossed out. Swiftly, she disassembled the rifle, making her way down the hill. Her teammates seemed rather bemused she barely looked ruffled while they probably wanted nothing more than a shower and regretted getting out of the bed that morning. “Good shots, Laura.” “Thanks Captain. What about...?” “Yes, we should probably sweep it to make sure there are not more of these fuckers hiding in there.” He wiped a bit of brain from his brow, expression thoroughly disgusted as he flicked his hand to get rid of it.

The inside of the ship was, if possible, worse than the outside. They had to walk slightly hunched, indicating the aliens preferred to walk on all four instead of bipedal as they did on the outside, and there were rotting corpses of them neatly stacked up in what seemed to be their equivalent to the eating hall, some of which evidently been used as food despite the reasonably full storage. One of the team members lost his breakfast as that, but did manage to get outside before actually spitting. There was some information on the race there, but also, funnily enough, a computer looking advanced but running way worse than a modern laptop opened to the internet. Well, that would explain where they knew English from.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been two of Earth’s years since the Humans had joined the galactic ‘community’, as they called it, though none of the other species knew what they meant with that. Nor did they know how to handle them, who domesticated predators, lived on planets without killing all native species, and helped people in need without a second thought - they had words for all of their concepts, but they had so many more, and they were so vastly different from each species they knew that nobody dared raise any appendix against any human - the demise of Aiehas and the disaster of the ‘orphanage’, where another species had decided to get a building full of younglings out of the way without informing the humans as whole, and just not told the ones in the building which ended in the species being constantly held just under the killing limit by humans for multiple years, until they eventually swore on their species’ continued existence to never harm a human ever again, were very well known and terrifying to the aliens in how humanity had no overpopulation switch they could use, and would always do something they called avenging that none of them had a concept of.

On the other hand, they developed way faster than any other race, and had managed to make contact with some other species, though none of them knew how to handle humanity either. They constantly snapped at each other, and after the attempted invasion at the beginning had been fought of by ALL of humanity UNITED, they had gone right back to fighting their own war of the time as if nothing happened.

They could also be cruel, as not only seen in the orphanage disaster, but also knew things like ‘torture’, which was deliberate non-lethal pain infliction, often to gain information, and managed to use some of their ‘medical’ equipment in such a way that once they knocked out any member of any species, they could listen in to the hive-mind of said species without being detected or anyone being able to cut them off.

They had things no other species had - they called them ‘art’ and ‘music’ - and had lost multiple people before they stopped ignoring the danger coming from all other species’ young when there was conflict.

Truly, humanity were like the old folk from the fables - incomprehensible and too complex for any other species to understand.

[abyssalcreator21]

PRODUCTIVITY /LEARNING ISSUES OF STUDENTS DURING THE PANDEMIC

To be honest, in these moments during the pandemic, we all have our individual struggles that we are trying to make sure we can accomplish to overcome. For example, for students like us, it is never easy to comply and comply with a lot of activities that are given by your teachers when you don’t have a proper communication with your classmates and instructors. Everyone has their own plates to fill and because it is so full, there are instances where there are foods that are wasted being spilled in the floor. Of course, putting it on a metaphorical sense, because we have a lot of things to prioritize during this pandemic, not just being a student but also as a son and a member of the society, There are times that I want to give up and let this weights just rot but then when there is no pain, there will be no gain. Right now, I have a lot of activities that I am procrastinating in accomplishing. I don’t know if my classmates are ok doing a 3000 word essay with their ideas lacking and their motivation is degrading. It feels like because of these minor tasks that they are not master with, they cannot easily accomplish it and it turns to waste. This is one of the common issues of students right now during this pandemic. How to be productive. Yes, the school wants us to be hardworking and be prepared in the workplace because it won’t ever be easy in the workplace doing a lot of work that is five times harder with the current load we are dealing with. And with limited resources, not so conducive learning environment, somehow it is hard to achieve the best output. Even now, I have these laggy premises in my brain in which I am really stuck of what I should continue to write on this blog. I know, that we don’t have any much of the choice during this pandemic that we should continue this online learning but sometimes if these kind of way of learning is not suited by the students, sometimes I can ask if they will be competitive enough in their future tasks.

In my course, communication is one of the key factors in order to understand each other’s issues and compromise with a solution itself. But then, what would be the point of that if my classmates also are not that interactive as much as each other, treating this online class as like any other kind of dilly-dallying priorities that they just juggle in some time. Actually, in my case, I didn’t reach out the maximum potential of my productivity because I am always juggling with other thoughts and I can’t focus as much with what is essential to be done. These blog tasks, group activities, and individual tasks that they are giving to us, this is like a full plate but then, it feels like I am spilling much of it to the point I am wasting too much of the time. I felt also that in the point of view of the teachers, they might think we are just goofing around and not doing our individual parts as students. Yet, the struggle is always there. If I have to be frank, I just essentially do this stuff for the numbers and not for the learning itself. I may wonder whose student is interested in reading and self-studying, knowing that everyday there are a lot of people bedridden in hospital rooms, everyday updates of cases, an individual struggles that they have to face in their respective families. For me, reading all of the rubrics and stuff for these tasks that the teachers/instructors that has given to us. Oh, sure, I would like to read but then achieving all of that demands while my mind is battling against me in an one on one of you should be productive on this day or not. Yes, they can put all of the references and stuff but let’s be frank here, none of it matters when you’re focus is just to aim at a high mark and not for the learning scheme. I am not mocking in this blog about how the education system works here in this country but I am just spitting facts that are true. To learn and to produce quality students, my ass. Let’s just say we are just complying for the sake we are needed to. And I don’t need to be professional here, because we all have our individual freedom of speech, right? So, even if my grammar is on a back flip side of a coin, I don’t care. This is how I write. I wanted to work hard and make sure that all of the demands in my university are being done, but knowing that this doesn’t make feel like I am moving forward, it feels like I am just doing this for the sake I am needing a good grade. Who cares about the references, modules, and stuff if the Filipino students, not all, but most of them are unmotivated to push on this kind of learning. Spending too much on the internet because of the pending tasks, not having the healthy habits of learning anymore, and compromising their own health. Is this even called learning anymore?

And now, I have to write a 3,000 word essay, twice a week to be updated and I have to focus also in the other tasks that also prioritize in writing, crafting powerpoints, and just jumble on the terms and stuff that neither I am or my classmates does give a damn. Let’s be realistic, we are just being robots here during the time of online learning. I do this individual task for almost an hour already and I haven’t got into the half of the word count. See, I am just trying to squeeze out the remaining dictionary in my brain because my classmates are neither pushing themselves also to adjust and to step out of their freaking comfort zones. I just utter here the same to be honest, and I haven’t even learned the proper techniques to write a professional blog. Now, I don’t care if I will get in this subject a lower grade in honesty because if I have to be honest, online learning sucks. It drains the sanity that I have as a student, juggling around the house, finding money for my data allowance, and adjusting with the signal that is equivalent to a snail.

[uk-news-talking-politics]

Clinging to reality under a post-truth government

By Ian Dunt

Lots of big meaty political values are at stake at the moment, alongside Britain's relationship to the EU. The battles being fought this week will help define the kind of constitutional governance the UK has in the future and the modern nature of the British right wing.

But there's another element being decided: a government's commitment to truth. As this week wore on it became increasingly clear that this really is a new kind of administration. It is deceptive on a deep, genetic level. And that of course derives from the character of the man at the top.

It wasn't always like this. Margaret Thatcher, for all her faults, was at least clear about what she wanted to do. She was a Hayekian class warrior for the bourgeoisie. She stated that with little equivocation in opposition and she delivered on it very thoroughly.

Tony Blair also governed pretty much exactly as he had presented himself in opposition - somewhere between right wing Labour and left-wing Tories. The build up to Iraq was a horrible riot of made-up nonsense and probably lay the ground for the crisis of trust we see around us today. But it was comparatively tame compared to modern standards. It was localised in one policy area, and it was all clearly in aim of a set purpose which we were well aware he wanted to pursue.

The rot really set in with David Cameron. He was everything and nothing all at once. He started out promoting himself as kind, caring and committed to environmentalism. He ended up slashing British public services to the bone and dismissing his previous commitments as "green crap". For years people struggled to make the phrase 'Cameronism' mean something but it was like trying to wrap oxygen in gift paper - it couldn't be done. There was nothing there.

Theresa May continued the trend, but this time under the shadow of Brexit. Brexit is like a steroid for malignancy. It takes whatever is already a problem and pumps it up to unprecedented levels. It does this because it is at once required policy and impossible. That unique dynamic, that separation of what is possible politically from what is possible in the actual objectively-existing world, has aggressively degenerated our political culture.

May had been passed an impossible problem. She had to deliver a hard form of Brexit in order to stop the right wing of her party from toppling her. But if she did that, reality would ruin her. This was the tension at the heart of her administration and it led her to start lying with alarming regularity. A dynamic developed in which the implications of whatever she was doing today - a transition period here, a backstop there - had to be denied as long as possible, just so she could get her deal over the line.

But even here there was at least the reassurance that we knew what she was doing. She was trying to pass her deal and would say pretty much anything to do so.

Johnson is several steps beyond that. He is completely off the reservation. This is post-truth in its purest form. We are witnessing the complete absence of anything which could conceivably be described as objective reality or sustained narrative. On a macro and micro level, the Johnson administration means nothing. And yet behind all of that, there is quite clearly a set of constantly-updated strategies which we spend our time trying to discern.

At the heart of it is the dichotomy between deal and no-deal. It's in Johnson's interests that neither of these options is ever finalised.

Pundits have spent the weeks since he became prime minister arguing about which he ultimately wants. Some are convinced he really does intend to bring back a modified version of May's deal and will this time be able to pass it on the basis that enough Labour MPs have been sufficiently scared by the possibility of no-deal to allow it.

Others are convinced he really intends no-deal and the seeming commitment to a deal is just there to alleviate concerns while he winds down the clock.

Either interpretation is perfectly valid. We just don't know.

What we do know is that he is committed to holding both of these outcomes as perfectly likely endpoints. And he needs them to be. If he commits to no-deal, then he loses moderate support from the sane MPs left in his party. This isn't as small a constituency as might be imagined. Many Tories rose during recent Commons debates to say they were sticking with him in the expectation of a deal.

But if he commits to a deal, then Nigel Farage's Brexit party will run against him hard in the next election. So he must be both deal and no-deal simultaneously. He simply has no position on the main issue his government faces.

That's why negotiations are simultaneously taking place and not taking place. Johnson has met the leaders of France and Germany. He insists talks are happening but he can provide no proof of their existence. Several rebels, like Philip Hammond, rose during the debate on Tuesday and said they would change their mind if he presented them with evidence of plans on backstop talks. But he could not.

As a member of the public shouted at him yesterday before his speech: "You should be in Brussels negotiating. You are not. You are in Morley in Leeds."

Johnson claimed this week that the rebel bill would undermine his negotiating position. But for that to be possible, a negotiation must be taking place. As far as we can tell, it is not.

The reports from Europe about the British efforts are pitiful. Brexit steering committee MEP Philippe Lamberts was asked on Wednesday by Channel 4 News about Johnson's claims that negotiations were ongoing. His response was: "That's bullshit. There's no negotiations."

The British position seems to have involved saying that the backstop must be removed and that alternative arrangements are possible, without specifying them. That isn't a negotiation. It is a statement of ideal goals. In fact, it is not even that, because the specifics of the desired outcome are not articulated. It is the diplomatic equivalent of sitting in the corner of the room and sucking your thumb. And yet on this basis, dozens of Tory MPs voted with the government this week in order to 'give Boris a chance'.

The election fits the same pattern. It has been absurd to watch Johnson contort himself into the most unspeakable combination of postures this week. He has been shouting for an election, demanding an election, pleading for an election. He has done it in the Commons, on the internet and in front of police officers at a set-piece speech.

And yet simultaneously he insists he does not want an election and in fact spent the last few weeks ruling one out. Never in the history of mankind has someone more loudly and desperately pleaded for a thing which they insist they do not want.

This stuff has a corrosive effect on the brain. When you step back from it you realise how profoundly and unalterably weird it all is. But when you're involved in it day-after-day you start to go native. You give up on the idea that he would ever tell the truth and simply evaluate whatever today's comments are in terms of possibilities for future strategy.

Does this mean he's planning an election? Does it mean he'll expel MPs from the party? Does that mean he'll  trigger a vote of no-confidence in himself? We lose the wood for the trees. We become so cynical ourselves that we don't even realise what we're losing.

Politics descends into a game of strategy with no values and few means for people to hold power to account, because they have no idea what the government wants or how it seeks to achieve it. People keep on referring to this as some sort of chess game. In fact it's more like Cluedo.

The game could go several ways. At the moment, Johnson is losing. But later things might improve for him. And yet whichever way it goes, conducting government like this means we all lose something. We lose the basic notion of any objective truth in the manner government is conducted.

That is a process which always helps the powerful. If there is no empirical basis to assess government behaviour, it cannot be held to account. There is no action to evaluate, or goal to compare it to.

It also corroborates the widespread view of all politicians as liars. This corrosion is profoundly dangerous. Politicians might not be particularly lovable, but they're better than the alternative. Trust levels were already incredibly low. After a few years of this - of the most obvious lying and scheming imaginable with no particular principle behind it beyond self-advancement - they will be non-existent.

The Johnson government is like HR Geiger's Alien. Even when you shoot and wound it, the poison in its blood melts the hull of the ship. That's where we are now. The basic operating function of his manner of government is corroding the structures of our political system. The longer this continues, the worse the damage will get.

[magmasliveblogs]

1.03 R

ok yeah until the fall comes and with it my better internet i just cant keep anything close to a consistent schedule with this! ill just do two whenever i can until fall. to recap: last chapter we learned more about runners, and that we met perusa, who is frankly a character that is written to be as hated as any extremely snooty highschool clicue leader ie: extremely 

Some days were odd days. Some days you ran, and some days you found yourself in another world with nothing but an iPhone and the clothes on your back. Some days you made ice cream.

But it was a rare day that Ryoka found herself making ice cream in a noble woman’s house, surrounded by maids, in a kitchen that could have rivaled any cooking show’s setup for expense and expensive things.

She felt out of place in the spotless room, handling the equivalent of stainless steel cooking utensils. Ryoka was still barefoot, and she was painfully conscious of how her feet were dirtying the flawless floor tiling. Not that Lady Magnolia seemed to mind.

The beaming lady of the mansion hovered around Ryoka, excitedly showing her the contents of the amply-stocked kitchen. She opened pantry doors and revealed shelf after shelf of exotic ingredients that Ryoka half-recognized. Sugar, okay, that made sense. But red sugar? Harvested from the desert? And that was normal compared to delicacies like Wyvern meat.

“Nasty stuff. I tried it once but couldn’t bear the taste of it. It’s very healthy, or so I’m told but…”

Lady Magnolia indicated the purplish haunch sitting on a plate on a shelf. Ryoka stared at the glistening meat and silently wondered what it did taste like.

The oddness of the kitchen wasn’t that it was so grand, or had so many equivalents to modern cooking equipment. No, it was that most of the food storage in the kitchen consisted of shelves of food left out in the open. And even in the pantry, items like milk, butter, and even fresh vegetables had been neatly stockpiled away without any kind of refrigeration.

There was no helping it. Ryoka had to ask. She cut off Lady Magnolia as the other woman began talking about a strange jello that looked like it was moving.

magnolia is rich, of course she can afford all of this stuff 

“Doesn’t all this rot?”

Magnolia glanced at the shelves of uncovered food while the maids following her gave Ryoka silent glares.

“This? I shouldn’t think so. I paid for the best preservation spells and I have an [Enchanter] come by every year or so to make sure the runes are holding. My chefs are quite pleased with all the space, which I do need for all the delightful treats I order.”

Ryoka stared at the tiny etched runes on the side of each cupboard. Preservation runes? Well, that was handy. She wondered just how expensive they were.

“Not too expensive, at least for the quality of work done. Mages charge very affordable prices. I gather most inns and some of the larger shops use such runes quite often.”

Lady Magnolia smiled as Ryoka’s head shot up and the younger woman looked at her.

“Not mind reading my dear. Just an educated guess and a few skills. I’m sure you’ve heard it said that it is a frivolous class, but [Ladies] have a few useful tricks in social situations.”

“Mm.”

“Oh, you are quite taciturn, aren’t you? I’ve met dragons more forthcoming, but very well. Let us make this ice cream! How shall we begin?”

Magnolia waited excitedly as Ryoka looked around the room and tried to remember all of the ingredients. It had been a long time since Ryoka made ice cream. She’d almost forgotten how, but as a child—

“We need some salt too. A pinch of it. And vanilla.”

“Of course. Ressa?”

The head maid nodded and directed her maids to the appropriate shelves. She paused as one maid brought her a bundle of wrapped vanilla bean stalks.

“They are quite expensive, milady.”

Lady Magnolia pshed and waved at Ressa impatiently.

“Oh, nonsense, Ressa, don’t be a spoilsport. I’m minded to give Ryoka anything she wants if she can make this ice cream.”

“One stalk is fine.”

Ryoka accepted the dry, stick-like piece of vanilla from the glowering maid and broke it open. She sniffed at the strong smell and began extracting the beans from within.

“Now we need to heat the milk, salt, and sugar together in a pot. Got a big one?”

Lady Magnolia clapped her hands together as Ressa glowered and found a large, polished pot and set it over one of the kitchen stoves.

“Oh, I see! You’re making a custard! How delightful!”

Silently, Ryoka mixed the ingredients together and created a creamy, off-white custard in the pot. She poked at it with her spoon and decided it was thick enough for ice cream. What next? Oh, right.

“…Crap.”

This time Ryoka’s language nearly earned her a slap on the back of the head. Ressa’s hand twitched, and a small vein began to throb on her forehead.

“What’s wrong?”

“I might not be able to make this after all. I forgot something.”

Lady Magnolia looked dismayed. She peered into the pot.

“It looks perfectly fine to me, but—is there an ingredient missing?”

Ryoka shook her head. She gestured at the pot.

“We need to freeze this. Or rather, we need to freeze it slowly while stirring.”

That was a big problem. For all this world had things like preservation spells, Ryoka was sure they hadn’t invented freezers or air-conditioning. But to her surprise Lady Magnolia laughed and put her hand over her ample bosom in relief.

“Oh, is that all?”

Magnolia waved an airy hand. She turned to another one of her maids.

“Yvony, would you be a dear and send a message to the Mage’s Guild? Tell them I need an [Elementalist] mage capable of using basic ice magic.”

Bemused, Ryoka watched as Yvony, a fair-haired maid with fairer complexion bowed and quickly trotted out of the room.

“Is she going to run there?”

Lady Magnolia chuckled politely and the other maids smiled.

“We are not all as fleet-footed as you Runners. No, she’s just here to bring me—ah, thank you Yvony.”

The maid had returned with a small, blue book covered in gold latticework on the cover. Lady Magnolia opened it and showed Ryoka the blank pages as Yvony unscrewed an ink pot and dipped a quill in it.

“If you will observe, this is a magical book. One of two, in fact. Whenever one writes on one page, the other book immediately copies over the same writing. It’s quite the ingenious way of talking without needing to cast a [Telepathy] or [Far Chat] spell each time.”

while those spells never appear again, i hesitate to call them non canon because magnolia uses the same sort of affects later 

She handed the book to Yvony as the maid wrote a few brisk, short lines on the paper. The book glowed once, and then the light faded from the pages. Magnolia clapped her hands together and turned to Ryoka.

“And now we wait. A mage should be along in a matter of minutes. The Mage’s Guild is quite prompt at responding, and happily they are located only a few streets away. Shall we retire for a cup of tea?”

Given her choice, Ryoka would have refused, but the thing about a request made by a lady is that it is not really a request. In short order she found herself sitting and sipping from a hot cup of tea and trying not to make a face.

Her heritage as a Japanese-American said that she should at least appreciate good tea, as Ryoka had Japanese grandparents who insisted she try the stuff. But her American roots and personality insisted coffee was the only way to live. Sadly, she hadn’t encountered that beverage yet so she pretended to drink her tea while Magnolia chattered away.

“I must say, I have been absolutely dying to know what it is that makes you run, Miss Ryoka. If I may confess—I’m not asking you solely out of pure interest as well. I have a teensy bet going on with some other ladies in my gossip circle about it.”

Ryoka paused. She was used to attention for running barefoot, but this was the first time she’d ever been bet on.

“Really?”

“Why, haven’t you realized what a splash you’ve made? The tale of a new Runner with exotic features appearing in the middle of a crowded street suddenly is quite the story, and that’s not even with you becoming the fastest Runner in the area. People are wondering why you run barefoot. Is it part of a special class? Or is it a secret?”

“No secret.”

Magnolia waited, but the young woman sitting across from her said nothing more. She cleared her throat politely.

“Then—would you mind telling me? I would simply love to know.”

Lady Magnolia leaned forwards over her tea eagerly. Even the maids were quietly listening as they bustled around the drawing room performing menial and unneeded tasks.

Ryoka shrugged.

“I just like running barefoot. I hate shoes.”

Her audience blinked at her. Ryoka shrugged. There wasn’t much more to say. She eyed the maids as they shifted and exchanged glances behind their mistress’s back. Idly, Ryoka wondered how much gossiping they did when they were done with work.

Silence followed Ryoka’s answer, which was then broken by laughter. Lady Magnolia chuckled, and then laughed quietly. It wasn’t boisterous or uncontrolled; like everything else about her, it was polite and refined. But it was genuine.

“You, my dear Ryoka Griffin, are the most delightful young lady I have ever met!”

She lifted her cup and a waiting maid filled it with the dark brown tea that Ryoka was trying not to ingest.

“A simple answer, but not from a simple person. I suppose our little gossip circle will have to annul the bet. How interesting. Well then, now that my curiosity has been assuaged, shall we play a game while we wait for our mage to arrive?”

Ryoka paused. She glanced at Magnolia’s face and frowned.

“…What sort of game?”

“Oh please Ryoka my dear. Don’t be so suspicious. I don’t intend to pry—well, I do, but I won’t force you to say anything you truly don’t wish. I simply propose a game of guessing. I play it all the time with friends for dirty secrets and intrigue. You may ask one question of me, and I in turn shall ask a question which I hope you will answer truthfully. Does that sound fair?”

Ryoka shrugged. Magnolia smiled wider.

“Well then, since I have asked you about your bare feet, why don’t you start with a question.”

Reluctantly, Ryoka pondered. She looked down at her tea, up at the ceiling, around at the maids, and then at Magnolia. At last, she shrugged.

“I can’t think of a question.”

Magnolia’s face fell.

“Not even one? Aren’t you curious about something? I have a veritable wealth of gossip and actual knowledge at my disposal.”

Again, Ryoka shrugged. It wasn’t that she couldn’t think of a million questions to ask, but she really didn’t want to ask Magnolia said questions.  And she enjoyed the older woman’s discomfort.

“…Not really. Why don’t you ask a question?”

Although she was clearly disappointed, Lady Magnolia rallied in an instant.

“Well then, I would dearly love to know where you come from Miss Ryoka Griffin. Let me see. Are you, by any chance, a native of the northern continent?”

Ryoka raised an eyebrow.

“Which one?”

Magnolia’s face went blank.

“Which one? Well I suppose—the main one. Unless you mean one of the islands is a continent? No—I am referring to the human continent, Terandia. Are you from there by any chance?”

“Nope.”

“Well, well. In that case, are you from the east? The Isles of Minos house a small human population. Or perhaps you are an islander? In the archipelagos there are many exotic peoples with features not unlike yours.”

Ryoka shook her head. She was learning a lot.

“Never been there.”

Magnolia pursed her lips.

“My instincts are completely off. Fine then. I wouldn’t guess it, but—the frozen archipelago? Or perhaps the untamed wilds of this continent?”

“No, and no.”

“Well, are you from the southern lands? I can’t imagine how, but perhaps you grew up among the Gnoll tribes or among the Drake settlements?”

“Nope.”

Ryoka smiled. Magnolia eyed her with a slight frown.

“I merely ask as clarification—you did not grow up among the Antinium, perhaps? They have several Colonies to the south and one unique Colony in the city of Liscor.”

Again, Ryoka shook her head. Magnolia tapped her spoon against her tea cup in vexation.

“Very well. But if you aren’t from one of the main continents…aha! You grew up in Wistram, the isle of mages! Or—or in the mountains among Dwarves? Far-fetched, but perhaps…you lived on the sea as a child?”

“All wrong.”

Ryoka grinned. Around her the maids looked suspicious, as if they suspected her of lying to their mistress. But Magnolia gazed at Ryoka with a frown. She opened her mouth, but at that moment a firm but polite knock echoed from the front door.

ooo all these interesting places! also, it seems ryoka is very secretive 

Reluctantly, Magnolia turned her gaze away from Ryoka. She put down her tea cup and swept to her feet.

“Hm. Well, let us not keep our mage waiting.”

Ryoka was already up, and she followed Lady Magnolia to the front door. Because she was standing behind her, she didn’t see the deep frown Magnolia wore on her face before she turned it into a smile as she welcomed the ice mage into her home.

yay ice mage! 

Ice cream. It tasted sweet, was hopefully cold, and apparently, was about as addictive as hardcore drugs to those who’d never had it before.

She hadn’t been too sure about her recipe, but at Lady Magnolia’s insistence, Ryoka had filled a huge pot with custard. After the mage had arrived and the ice cream had been successfully churned into the frozen treat with a few hiccups, Lady Magnolia, her maids, and even the mage had joined Ryoka in eating the ice cream.

As a result, the big pot was now empty and Ryoka’s stomach was not happy with her. The mage had left just half an hour ago, clutching at his stomach and head. He still had a blissful smile on his face, though.

To Ryoka’s surprise, the mage had been quite interested in making ice cream. Perhaps that was just his personality, but it was also probably due to Magnolia’s infectious enthusiasm. She’d had a maid taking notes of Ryoka’s every action as she’d figured out how to mix the ice cream properly.

Well, that was fine in the end because it meant that Ryoka didn’t have to explain how to make the ice cream twice. And now that the ice cream was eaten, Ryoka could finally leave. She was at the final stage of that process—trying to shake off Lady Magnolia at the door.

“I still can’t believe you won’t take at least some token for teaching me this delightful recipe.”

Ryoka shrugged as Lady Magnolia fussed around her. The almost-lethal amounts of sugar the older woman had imbibed didn’t seem to be slowing her down like the other maids and Ryoka. Even Ressa, the faithful head maid looked slightly ill after coming down from the sugar high and realizing how much she’d eaten, but Magnolia was as energetic and bright as ever.

With a sigh, Lady Magnolia gave up on the issue, much to Ryoka’s relief. She’d refused all suggestions of payment. It felt wrong, especially for ice cream. At last, Magnolia had given up the argument and Ryoka was finally about to leave.

curse you ryoka and your lack of greed in this moment! you dont have the benefits of levels so you should take all the help you can get! 

“Won’t you at least take some of your delightful ice cream with you? We happen to have several baskets enchanted with preservation spells. I would be most happy to make a gift of one to you.”

Ryoka hesitated as the maid named Ressa coughed and muttered about the expense. That was tempting. Not the ice cream—but a magical basket sounded extremely useful. But again…

“…No. I’m fine, thanks.”

Lady Magnolia sighed, but she made no further arguments, much to Ryoka and her head maid’s relief. Ryoka finished stretching out the leg that had fallen asleep and then moved to open the door. Ressa intercepted her and held the door open politely. Her hands were gloved. Apparently, that made a big difference to what she could touch and Ryoka couldn’t.

Time to run. But Ryoka turned at the door and nodded to Lady Magnolia.

“Thanks.”

“On the contrary, it is I who should thank you Miss Ryoka. But if I might have one last question before you go?”

Ryoka reluctantly paused at the door as Ressa closed it in her face. She turned slightly and glanced at Magnolia.

“Do you, in fact, come from any place in this world?”

Silence. Ryoka’s face didn’t change, but Magnolia smiled.

“I hope you will accept more requests from me in the future. I would so love to chat.”

Ryoka was gone before Magnolia finished speaking.

magnolia has figured it out! she has figured it out! *warning sirens blare*

Lady Magnolia watched Ryoka jog and then transition into a slow run as she reached the end of the street.

“My, but she is quick.”

Behind her Magnolia sensed but did not see her maid Ressa nod her head in silent agreement. One of the perks of being a [Lady] was the ability to detect far more than her posture or physical limitations indicated. It also allowed Lady Magnolia to exhibit a certain degree of poise at all times, no matter how much her stomach might be hurting.

But these were lesser concerns, and so Magnolia banished them from her mind. Her eyes followed Ryoka as the Runner vanished around the corner and tapped her lips. Then she turned to her maid.

“Ressa, please contact the Mage’s Guild and let them know I request a spell cast upon my person tonight.”

Ressa bobbed a curtsy.

“Very good, milady. Which spell do you require?”

“Hm. The long distance speaking spell. I forget exactly what the name of the spell is. They are familiar with the one.”

Ressa paused. She bowed her head.

“Begging your lady’s pardon…”

“Go on, Ressa.”

“That particular spell is—quite expensive, milady. Would a lesser spell of communication not suffice?”

“No, I’m afraid not. The spell is expensive, but it is also worth the cost of secrecy and privacy. I appreciate your concern dear Ressa, but nevertheless. Make the request.”

“Yes, milady.”

it seems magnolia will share this info with at least one person 

I have to slow down after I get a few streets away from Magnolia’s house. I put my hand on my stomach and try not to throw up.

“Woog.”

Ice cream is not good for my body, especially if I have to run. I feel like I’ve got a rock in my stomach. And yet, it might have been worth it. If only it hadn’t been vanilla*, life might have been perfect.

*If I have to eat ice cream, it’s got to be mint chocolate chip. Vanilla is just vanilla. But I love mint. And peppermint. And spearmint. I…really wish I had some gum.

As I slowly walk and then transitioned back into a slow jog I think about Magnolia, or as I now know her, the scariest person I’ve met in this world. Apparently, someone with her class can practically read minds, or at least tell how I’m feeling. That is not a comforting thought.

Jeez. She nearly figured out where I came from in a few minutes. What a terrifyingly scary lady.

It might be wrong to think, but when I first met her I thought she was just another plump social butterfly without a thought in the world. But…that’s what she wants people to assume about her. The real Magnolia is sharp and intelligent. Remember that next time you visit her.

…Which won’t be for a while. I know there’s going to be hell to pay if Persua has her way, and besides, now I have a good reason not to visit Magnolia in the future.

“Right. No Magnolia deliveries for a while.”

But with that said, I will be doing research on her. I’ll just bet Garia knows something about her—how Magnolia got her wealth, if she was married, etc. Know your enemy, right? Well, Magnolia isn’t my enemy, and I’d like to keep her that way.

…Garia. Her name triggers a thought in my mind as I run down another street. It’s getting empty this late in the day, but I see another Street Runner disappear the instant I turn down the street. Garia. Oh. Oh yeah.

Tomorrow I have to do that delivery with Garia. That will be a pain. Not just because we’ve got to carry fifty pounds on our backs, but because she’s going to talk to me the entire time. Which is fine. It’s a normal, human thing to do. It’s just a pain in the ass.

Well, I promised so that’s that. Forget about it, but don’t actually forget about it. At least I won’t have to stick around the Runner’s Guild too long waiting for another job.

I wonder whether there will be any consequences for making ice cream. What a ridiculous thought but…let’s explore that. Hm.

It probably wasn’t a good idea to share the recipe, but it got Magnolia off my back about where I came from. But what does it mean to spread that kind of information?

Well…if I had to guess, it would mean that the poor person who invented ice cream isn’t going to be as rich as she or he hopes. But it also might mean a revolution of sorts within the city. Ice cream is exceptionally possible, and thanks to magic, easy to make even in this day and age.

Does that mean I might soon see it on the streets? But no—unless you have a mage on standby, ice cream isn’t easy to keep. I guess the nobility will enjoy it for the most part until someone revolutionizes the ice box or fridge. That’s the way it goes, right? Trickle-down, just like how the ice cream cone melts.

I get that far in my reasoning when I notice the other runners. They appear from behind me and from other streets in a huge crowd. Ten—no, twenty Street Runners appear out of nowhere and surround me. It’s so sudden that I don’t think of running away before they’re all around me.

oh no 

What the hell is going on? Suddenly, I’m running in a crowd and they’re jostling and forcing me to run at their speed. I recognize a few of them from the guild, but why are they here? Well, whatever they’re doing it’s aimed at me. I try to push out of the crowd, but they’re packed too tightly.

“Get away.”

They ignore me. Well, of course they do. I try to shove my way left, but when I do they bunch up and ram into me. Hard.

“You annoying—”

Okay, no more nice girl, not that there ever was one to begin with. I stop suddenly, and trip up two of the runners behind me. It turns out to be a mistake, because they trip and fall and their shoes kick into my feet and ankles as they go down.

“Damn it.”

Gyaaaaaaah! That really hurt! But now I’m free. I really want to check my feet and see if their stupid shoes ripped any skin, but something’s up. I turn and run left even as the pack of Street Runners turns to follow me.

They shove me left, onto a smaller street. At this point I’m really starting to get annoyed. I could get nastier, but if it comes down to a fight against this many people they’d kick the crap out of me. No, screw it. I can lose these idiots the instant I get out of the city gates. I’ll go to Remendia and if more of them show up there I’ll talk to the City Watch. Or the Runner’s Guild.

All I have to do is break free of the group. And that’s easy and hard at the same time. The easy part is grabbing one runner by the shoulder and shoving her hard so she smacks into a wall. The hard part’s going to be when they start trying to hit me.

But they don’t. All at once the pack of Street Runners in front of me breaks up. Another three steps and I’ll be in the clear. Why the hell would they—

I see it too late. A foot’s there to trip me up, and though I try to jump over it, it catches me and down I go.

Ow. All the air goes out of me. Okay, damn. But they’re gone. That means—

Rumbling. I feel it in the ground and look up too late. A heavy cart pulled by a large mule thunders at me down the small street.

Oh. Of course.

I roll, and see a familiar sallow face grinning at me as the other Runners disappear into alleys. Get up. Get up!

The cart barrels down towards me as I scramble to my feet. I dodge left, but then something slams into me. It feels like I just hit a patch of solid air. Magic. Down I go, winded.

I look up and see the massive wheels crunching down the road towards me. So quick. And I’m lying right in its way.

Oh. Yeah. I’d almost forgotten what I hate about the world. Sometimes I forget, but I’m always reminded in time. What I hate about the world is—

People.

For once I’m too slow.

Snap.

that ending snap is italisized and blood red on the website btw 

thats the end of the chapter! is this connected to perusa? what bone did ryoka break? 

see you next post! which i cant make today due to said bad internet 

[mild-lunacy]

It seems to be a constant throughout history: In every period, people believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you would have gotten in terrible trouble for saying otherwise.

This probably annoys and frustrates me the most about fandom, and why I often take (long) breaks, like the current one. It’s not about people being wrong. I don’t care about that, so much. It’s people being ridiculous, so misguided they’re outright delusional about basic facts (usually but not always about canon), and then morally self-righteous about it.

I’m a person who’s self-aware in that I know I’m driven by my beliefs. I’m not some kind of objective paragon, but my point is that I make some minor effort to think about things rationally, regardless of the fashion or alternatively, the opinions of people around me. And all around me, I see people straight-up repeating and disseminating pure, grade A bullshit, here on Tumblr.com.

And that alone isn’t enough to get me angry or alienated, as I am. It’s the fact that this bullshit, 9 times out of 10, is actually widely accepted and considered inviolate and beautiful truth, which must be defended through call-outs and ostracism and harsh words, etc etc. That is like bullshit riding on top of bullshit, except it’s also dangerous and pernicious to the extreme. This is not some mild stuff. This is serious cultural rot, some of the most disturbing stuff about human nature, and it’s all around us. I’m not kidding.

In this case, of course, fandom is like a microcosm of the wider society. Society is driven by misinformation and propaganda, and dissent is not welcome for all the lip service to free speech, and so it is in fandom. People don’t know how to disagree. People don’t even realize that those who disagree are not mortal enemies, on one level. People genuinely believe things that are outright false because they want to (ie, headcanons) and then ostracize people with equal and opposite (but equivalently ridiculous) headcanons. It’s essentially a political dystopian farce come to life. 

I can’t help thinking about this in terms of fandom:

Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers? 

If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn't. Odds are you just think whatever you're told.

Because it’s quite obvious to me that there’s a lot of opinions that are unspeakable, even in this context, where the stakes are low. Just saying that Ronan Lynch is white (which is just a basic, basic fact) might give people some kind of aneurysm. I don’t really consider stopping myself from saying whatever I want, if carefully (which I’ve always done), but yeah, I’m always reluctant to stir up that sort of thing. That is deeply disturbing to me. Even I, who’s like a dissenter born and bred (I mean, I’m literally descended from hardcore atheist, communist revolutionaries) can’t help but feel that social pressure. The need to somehow get along, you know. Not antagonize. And I know how easily that translates into simply... not saying difficult things. Because why should I? What would it help? It’s easy to think like that.

The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true.

This is an interesting thing to consider. I guess the reason people get pissed off when you disagree with a popular misreading/headcanon or popular fandom mores is basically because people aren’t sure. We repeat things and insist on things because they’re not certain, not because they are. So on some level, those people who insist Ronan is actually black do so because they need to talk over that little nagging voice in the back of their heads that knows that’s incorrect. And they can’t deal with that at all. So they must ensure conformity and prevent people from even thinking wrong, so that they don’t influence others. After all, a lie is always fragile. The truth doesn’t usually need to be defended: simply being known is enough.

I’m not really a fan of labeling almost anything as ‘inappropriate’ in a broad sense, but I do realize that careless words hurt people’s feelings. I do think one should consider other people’s perspectives and needs. But this isn’t about that. In a broad sense, the truth can never be altered on the basis of inconveniencing or hurting anyone. You can communicate the truth more or less subtly, kindly or effectively, and you can (and should) criticize the facts as they stand, but pretending that the medium is the message seems counterproductive.

I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them.

I definitely think this is interesting. We’re in a period of rapid social change, and there’s definitely that sense of concurrent strength and weakness. Strength in part due to the internet, for a lot of groups (especially in fandom), and weakness due to real life limitations and injustices. This creates a toxic brew of resentment and propaganda that I’m concerned and frustrated about. Still, there’s another point to consider, as well:

When you find something you can't say, what do you do with it? My advice is, don't say it. Or at least, pick your battles.

Overall, I agree that it’s better to learn to think more deeply and critically than it is to pick fights with people, especially fights you’re not going to win. I definitely wouldn’t advocate that. I definitely think that arguing with deluded people on the internet is a waste of anyone’s time. I’m frustrated to be sure, but this is why I’m not interested in joining the fray. I’m interested in reinforcing my own commitment to question everything and take nothing for granted, especially if the belief has real consequences. That’s the best I-- or anyone else-- can do.

Better to harass them with arrows from a distance. 

One way to do this is to ratchet the debate up one level of abstraction. If you argue against censorship in general, you can avoid being accused of whatever heresy is contained in the book or film that someone is trying to censor. You can attack labels with meta-labels: labels that refer to the use of labels to prevent discussion.

This is the first time I’ve seen someone describe my own tactics as reasonable, by the way. I do this all the time. That’s what I meant by being ‘careful’: I ratchet up my level of abstraction, and so most people generally ignore me. Hell, I bet you’re all doing that right now, haha. 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND TODAY

Don't talk and drive. The immediate cause of death in a startup, it's easier for competitors too.1 Some, slightly, but if feeling you're going to spend years working on something or b be teleported to Rome and spend the next hour wandering about, was there any sort of work I'd prefer?2 If VCs are frightened at the idea of letting founders partially cash out, let me tell you a little about Jessica. If you start from successful startups, you find they'd often make good startups. For hardware startups there's a variant of ad hominem—and a particularly useless sort, because good ideas often come from outsiders. The low cost of starting a startup means the particles they're attracting are getting lighter. But if they don't want the hassles that come with it.3

The most common was some combination of a blog, a calendar, a dating site, and Friendster. There should start to be someone who gets in trouble for using it. The economic situation is apparently so grim that some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as being a bad use of time, if your business model, at least now, the reason startups do better when they turn down acquisition offers usually end up doing better. If you're upwind, you decide when and if to engage the viewer. Make something people want. So a plan that promises freedom at the expense of knowing what to do. Within Y Combinator, because we often have to work on, or don't like to get money to work on a project, because initially the most important may be that once you have users to take care of, you're forced to figure out how to describe your startup in one compelling phrase. Back when it cost a lot to start a startup. Though the nature of obsession should be insanely well designed and manufactured. This limitation went away with the arrival of block-structured languages, but by then it was too late.4 Both publishers and investors are down on advertising at the moment, when VCs invest in a startup hub.5

If you make money doing one thing and then work on another, you have to resort to focus groups, you'll wish you could go over to your users' homes and offices and watch them use your stuff like you did when there were only a handful of them, and another equally formidable force, the pointy-haired bosses. They don't need that much money, and so on.6 Practically every successful startup, including stars like Google, presented at some point in the 1960s the big publishing houses started to ask: of all the things we could do was Viaweb, which we disliked at first. Getting a book printed and distributed is a daunting prospect for a writer, and writers always get disproportionate attention. And it did not seem to be an inborn trait in humans. And when you see something that's taking advantage of new technology to give people something they want that they couldn't have multiple people editing the same piece of code. They were just trying to survive. If you have impressive resumes, just flash them on the screen.

I reproach myself with.7 But though I can't predict specific winners, I can offer a recipe for making money. So how much shorter are your programs if you write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem—and a particularly useless sort, because good ideas often come from outsiders. It's the sort of problems hackers are used to that sort of thing. If that were true, he would have answered with as little hesitation as he does today. If you're starting your own company, why do you need a degree? For cases like that there's a more drastic solution.8 It's in their interest for content to be as bad for startups as too much time, so we don't give them much money either.9 At Viaweb now Yahoo Store, we raised some eyebrows among VCs and potential acquirers by using Lisp. But there is a substantial gap.

Finding work you love. Sometimes they even agree with one another, but are so caught up in their squabble they don't realize just how fragile startups are, and how easily they can become collateral damage of laws meant to fix some problems with C. If you have to like it. If your program would be three times as long in another language, it will rot your brain. This has traditionally been a problem in venture funding.10 If you start from ideas for nonprofits, you find your unconscious mind has left an answer waiting for you. Is there some test you can use is: always produce. So it's good if you can talk about problems specific users have and how you solve them.11

I think back to the beginning, but the people we were picking would become the YC alumni network. Instead of trying to get good grades to get into elite colleges, and college students think they need to work hard in two dimensions. If feeling you're going to sound a lot smarter talking about that than the business model, at least for part of his life. But if languages are all equivalent, sure, use whatever language everyone else is using. When you write something you wouldn't say, you'll hear the clank as it hits the page. That is a different business.12 And programmers seem to think of them. For hardware startups there's a variant of doing things that don't change much, the unfortunate fact is that change is hard to predict what will; often something that seems interesting at first will bore you after a month. Follow it and it will take three times as long in another language, it will take three times as long in another language, it will help if more people understand that the way programmers behave is driven by the demands of the work they do. But there is another language called Perl that is considered a lot cooler than Java.

The initial user serves as the form for your mold; keep tweaking till you fit their needs perfectly, and you'll usually find you've made something other users want too. Their standards for customer service have been set by the companies they've been customers of, which are Lisp data structures. A hacker who has learned what to make, and not just intellectually, but the way he composed them into molecules was near faultless. It's wrong to call it a trick in his case, though. How much do you lose by using a less powerful language. But we'll figure out some kind of answer. And no doubt that will happen this time too. Get rapidly to demo. But the incentives are more than just financial. A few months ago I ran into a friend in a cafe.

They're already stuck with a seller's market, because of the huge amounts they raised at the end, wow, that's pretty cool.13 Java programmers, so if the two seem equal to you, you probably have to quote them. If they don't have enough information in them. Is there some test you can use is: always produce. In Common Lisp this would be defun foo n lambda i incf n i and my guess is that these multiples aren't even constant.14 It might seem that if startups get cheap to start, this conflict goes away, because founders can start them younger, when it's rational to take more risk, and can start more startups total in their careers. If the best hackers to work for you, as Google has, you have to resort to focus groups, you'll wish you could go to delight your users. Some people thought of it as a personal insult when someone from the other team had possession of the ball on his side of the line of scrimmage. Good writing is an elaborate effort to seem spontaneous. You might think that responsible corporate governance is an area where you can't go too far in any law, and this special power of hers was critical in making YC what it is; and if there isn't, what difference does it make that he's a senator? If you don't genuinely believe that, perhaps you ought to change what your company is probably based in the wrong city for developing software.

Notes

In 1800 an empty plastic drink bottle with a potential acquirer unless you want about who you might be interested in you, they'll have big bags of cumin for the same attachment to their kids to them rather than admitting he preferred to work with an idea where there is some kind of people who did invent things an ordinary one? As the art business? Google will pay the most valuable thing you tend to be a win to do work you love, or was likely to be higher, as in most competitive sports, the manager mostly in Perl. Surely no one on the Daddy Model that it makes sense to exclude outliers from some types of publishers would be just as much what other people the shareholders instead of editors, and the company's expense by selling them overpriced components.

The reason not to: if you seem like noise.

Good investors don't like to fight back themselves. It seems quite likely that European governments of the world wars to say that Watt reinvented the steam engine.

Globally the trend has been rewritten to suit present fashions, I'm just going to create a portal for x. Maybe at first, and this trick works so well. Some of the conversion of buildings not previously public, like arithmetic drills, instead of the biggest successes there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs, and VCs will offer you an asking price. Corollary: Avoid becoming an alcoholic.

In the original text would in 1950 something one could aspire to the writing teachers were transformed in situ into English professors. I don't know how to achieve wisdom is that they think are bad news; it is to how Henry Ford got started in Mississippi.

What made Google Google is not a complete list of where to see if you seem like noise.

There were several other reasons.

I know of one investor who for some reason insists that you were still employed in your identity. Actually it's better to get fossilized. I find hardest to get good grades.

For most of the web.

While Jessica didn't ask many questions, they were getting results. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups. The founders who take the line that philosophy is worth more to most people haven't noticed yet. Your user model almost couldn't be perfectly accurate, because investors already owned more than linearly with its size.

107. If idea clashes got bad enough, the more accurate metaphor would be much bigger news, in the life of a problem so far.

In the beginning. Possible doesn't mean the hypothetical people who had been trained that anything hung on a form that asks for your pitch to evolve. Cook another 2 or 3 minutes, then used a TV as a result, comparisons of programming languages either take the form of religious wars or undergraduate textbooks so determinedly neutral that they're practically different papers.

The reason for the measures the federal government took during wartime. The nationalistic idea is the new economy during the 2002-03 season was 4. If you're doing is almost always bullshit. But if so, you produce in copious quantities.

If you try to be some part you can base brand on anything with it, but I'm not saying it's impossible without a time, serious writing meant theological discourses, not just for her but for the measures the federal government took during wartime.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Steven Levy, Chad Fowler, Raph Levien, Sarah Harlin, and Robert Morris for sharing their expertise on this topic.

[trendingnewsb]

How President Trump Has Ruined Comedy

My name is Daniel O’Brien. I’ve had sex in over two different countries and engaged in some light, patriotic hand stuff in four. I used to write a weekly column for the comedy website Cracked Dot Com, and now I am its Creative Director of Video and Content Development, because ever since my boss left, there has been no one around to stop me from adding words to my title, which I do all the time and without warning.

On the day that I started writing this article, I count seven pieces of content on the front page of Cracked which are explicitly political, and two which directly mention President Trump in the title and feature him in the thumbnail. In 2017, under my leadership as the Creative Director of Video, Content Development, and Espionage, we launched two new shows to cover the current administration: the short-lived After The Trump and the still-living Some News. We have always (always) talked about politics on this site, but we did not have equivalent content during either the Obama or Bush administrations. That is definitely true. On that score, we have changed.

A lot of people say they appreciate the political coverage we’ve done, but a few have expressed that they’d rather we avoid politics, and have done so in tones ranging from politely respectful to … less so.

Twitter

Some people tweet or reach out to us to say “I miss when Cracked was just funny” or “I came here to get AWAY from politics” or “Bring back The Daily Nooner” or

“You should just stick to comedy.”

Here’s the thing: I completely agree with you.

I also wish I could just do stupid fucking jokes again. Honestly, I think I’m better at them than I am as a contributor to Some News or shrieking about voter fraud. As important as that topic is to me (very, please go to Let America Vote to learn how you can help), I’d much rather it be covered by someone smarter than me while I focus on what I’m better at (which would be, gun to my head, 1,500 words of dialog-driven nonsense starring a fictionalized version of myself who can’t spell and is also a war criminal).

And is that a surprise to you? Haven’t you followed me? Don’t you think I’d rather be talking about Spider-Man and my stupid, stupid dick? I would!

I don’t want to cover Hillary Rodham Clinton substantively; I want to make jokes like “The ‘Rodham’ in her name is short for “‘Rodney Hampton.'” That’s as political as I’d like to be, but the realities of our world make it sort of impossible to stay out of politics, so I bought her friggin’ book instead. A few years ago, you could ask me about comics. Today I’m ready to host a boring conference on What Happened, Giant Of The Senate, The Devil’s Bargain, and whatever that piece of shit Ben Sasse called his piece-of-shit book. And I hate that about me.

You have to understand something. When we accidentally gave a flailing, possum-faced, rotting egg the most important job in the world, the people at Cracked didn’t say, “Aha! Finally an opportunity for us to pivot away from nonfiction comedic list articles and strange personality-driven columns to focus on our true love: a thoroughly researched topical news show about Nazis, Antifa, the works of Jean Paul Sartre, and the troubling ways those three things intercept in our increasingly terrifying world. Haw!” I don’t want to do that. None of us want to do that. We want to walk around the office pronouncing it “Jean Paul Star Trek” and then write videos about a man who got confused and had sex with a pumpkin at an adult pumpkin-carving party, which isn’t even a thing that exists.

You’ve no doubt seen a similar call to keep politics out of sports over the last few weeks. An historically unprecedented amount of football players and (lol) owners are kneeling or engaging in some other kind of protest to oppose either the president generally or the shooting of unarmed black men by police. (It’s not super clear at this point. It certainly began with the latter and seems to be getting hijacked by the former.) “I support the idea of the protest, but keep your politics out of sports,” is a sentiment you’ve no doubt seen.

They want us to stick to jokes, and I would LOVE to stick to jokes. I don’t know any professional football players personally, but I bet they’d also prefer to just play football. I bet they also long for a time when their Sundays were spent running and hitting and throwing and catching as hard as they can without the added stress of figuring out where they fit into a national, historical movement. It would be easier for them if there was no politics in football, because before there were politics in football, they didn’t have to think about kneeling or not, and they didn’t have to deal with the booing if they did. But now they have to consider it. As Jason pointed out months ago, even keeping politics out of sports (or pop culture or writing) is itself a political move.

(Also, we should, uh, probably cancel football. Goddammit I hate my growing awareness and responsibility!)

Politics is everywhere and everything is political. Which sucks for me, because I’m an idiot. I’m not some politics guy, I’m Deany O’Beanz, Cracked.com’s Creative Director of Upside-Down Sex Stuff. Believe me, when Wendy’s unveiled their new Bacon Mozzarella Burger last year, I wanted to write a parody song of the opening number to Hamilton, changing the lyrics from “Alexander Hamilton” to “Mozzarella Hamburger,” but our president told us all to boycott Hamilton, so now even mentioning it feels like a political statement.

…

The two dolla’, flavor-hauler with fresh garlic/

is a steal, darlin’, they are for real chargin’/

a measly two dollas. I am a food scholar.

Believe me, this shit is Delicious Incarnate.

I mean, you get it, that’s airtight, you love it, this shit would have been glorious.

I miss doing pointless jokes like that. I would rather be writing columns about dumb internet stuff and other weird things that used to occupy my brain. I miss doing jokes making fun of bad websites. I would still be making fun of bad websites if we had a better president. Like John Mayer’s haunted fucking nightmare self-indulgent dream wall. Look at this child’s sandbox of a website:

John Mayer

If you move the cursor around, John Mayer’s stupid eyes follow you all over town.

Nice website, dickface. Does the strap around your stupid head featuring vaguely Native American imagery represent your plan to appropriate another culture with your music? Your album’s called Search For Everything. Do you actually find anything, or is it mostly going to be a bunch of songs about fucking on a Sunday or whatever and realizing for the first time at 23 years old that the girls you have sex with will eventually turn into the mothers you won’t? You’ve got a bunch of dumb spinny art on your website. You, uh … suck. Hahahahaha.

That was just off the top of my head. If this were three years ago, I’d have squeezed, no joke, 6,000 words out of this website. But things being what they are, I only went to this website after John Mayer posted a surprisingly cogent argument for gun control in the wake of the tragic mass shooting in Las Vegas a few weeks ago.

Uproxx

Dammit! That’s where I’m at! Global Source of Ridicule and Professional Annoying Guy at a Party John Mayer only made his way to my radar because he was talking about sensible gun control.

All I want to do is talk to you all about The Property Brothers, a show I’m obsessed with. For those who don’t know, Property Brothers is a reality show allegedly about identical twin brothers, but in actuality they’re clones of the same cursed person and the only difference is that one of them does magic but the show doesn’t mention it, and I guess they flip, fix, build, or sell houses, depending on their mood. (I say “mood” instead of “moods” because, like their heart and dreams, they both share one mood at all times.) It’s the most compelling and unsettling TV I’ve ever seen. I’ve been working on an unauthorized novel about being the Property Brother who “got out” of the family, but I had to put it on hold because I need to remember to call my representatives about either the newest needlessly cruel healthcare bill or insidious attempts at gerrymandering or whatever the fuck haunted puppet Jefferson Fucking Beauregard Fucking Sessions the Fucking Third is up to when I can’t see him — which is often, because he’s only allowed to come out when innocent people are asleep.

One time I showed Jeff Sessions a missing child’s picture on the back of a milk carton, and he said, “That doesn’t look like much of anything to me.” His favorite TV show is “the weather,” and his least-favorite cartoons are the ones where two different kinds of animals are friends. He eats applesauce for every meal, and every night before prayers, he doesn’t have sex with a glass of warm milk — he just puts his dick in it, leaves it there for a while, and hums a little song about bugs to himself.

One time I met Jeff Sessions at a party and said, “Why are you so racist and awful?” and he took one of his teeth out and put it in my palm and said “Shh,” and then winked like “I’ll never tell,” but legit he is the most dangerous person in America right now. Anyway, that tooth sprouted legs and sprinted to Charlottesville and Sessions is gunning for Nazi MVP and I hate that most of my time is spent tracking Sessions when I used to just do jokes about movies.

This is going to feel like an abrupt transition, but I promise it’s related. The new It is the biggest movie in the world right now, shattering records constantly, and I would love to talk about it. But do you want to know what my over-thought, Daniel O’Brien, Obsessive Pop Culture Disorder-esque observations are?

1. This movie resonated with so many people because the concept of an overtly, undeniably evil force emerging in a hugely visible way after being hitherto concealed right beneath an allegedly safe town’s surface for so long is striking a chord with a lot of people who are just waking up to the fact that the systemic and institutionalized issues of real racism which we thought we conquered a hundred times are still here, still strong, and still evil. We thought Derry was safe, but no, the monster was waiting in the shadows for the right time to pop out. We had civil rights and elected a black president, so we thought everything was cool … until actual Nazis who lived next door suddenly stopped being too ashamed to admit they were Nazis the whole time.

2. Pennywise is such an effective monster for a lot of modern Americans who can relate to the idea of an evil clown who only exists because (and indeed, gets stronger when) we give it attention.

I used to talk about how Luke Skywalker was probably a virgin. Are you fucking kidding me? I’m incapable of not finding parallels to our current political situation. Show me an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants from 2001 today, and I guarantee you I’ll find a link between Steve Bannon and Plankton, and what’s weirder is that I will completely believe it because I see politics everywhere now.

I want to spend too much time over-analyzing the latest Spider-Man movie, because as Cracked’s Creative Director of Video with a Minor in Spider-Man and a Concentration in International Hot-Tubbing, people expect me to have an informed take on all things Spider-Man. Instead I’ve spent six months researching the fucking Mercer family, a clown car cabal of rich maniacs who can singlehandedly control the results of an election and make the Koch Brothers seem tame by comparison. Please get excited about my next book, I Used To Make Jokes Until I Realized The Corrupt And Insane Mercer Family Will Buy Our Next Four Presidential Elections, due sometime in 20-never, because I’ll be too sad to write it.

I can’t stay out of politics, because politics is everywhere. When the president yells about Saturday Night Live, the NFL, the NBA, the Emmy Awards, Facebook, and a dozen other things in the same 30-day period, my even mentioning those things means whatever I’m talking about is political in some way.

At Cracked, we come into work every day to brainstorm ideas for content, and consistently the most important thing that’s happening in the world at any given time has been related to our president. I mean, there was one day a few months ago when a five-star idiot was like, “I bravely love my fucking big fat wife so much, you guys should give me a medal,” and we all had some tremendous apolitical fun with that for about 24 hours, but otherwise it’s been the Trump show, all day, every day.

(God, I miss that golden idiot who thought grabbing a big ass should make him mayor.)

I can’t keep politics out of my work on Cracked because I can’t keep it out of my own private life. When I visit my family, we’ll catch up and talk about recent movies we’ve seen, and eventually the conversation will end up like, “Yeah, work’s going great, I’ve been golfing more, I went to the Aquarium of the Pacific for the first time, the New York Football Giants are fucking garbage, it’s a shame about Puerto Rico, and did you hear what outrageous thing the president said about [X]?” If you’re catching up with your family, how do you NOT mention the most recent thing our president did?

Or I’ll be on a first date with someone, exchanging totally normal basic, casual first date conversation stuff (“Do you think Big Boi should be considered an elite rapper?” or “When was the first time in your life you interacted with someone of a different race from you?”), and without fail, one person will bring up the latest antics of our president. These are the kinds of conversations I have on a date with a new person:

Person: So what do you do in your free time?

Daniel: I like to run, I hang out with my dog, I read a bunch. But I guess most of my time is spent staring at Axios, Twitter, and The Week to stay up to date on our increasingly warlike tensions with North Korea.

Person: We can’t listen to “Rocket Man” anymore!

Daniel: I KNOW, HE TOOK IT FROM US!

Or:

Daniel: So, you like your job?

Person: I do. I like the people I work with, the hours are good, it’s challenging, the benefits are decent.

Daniel: …

Person: Of course, all of our benefits may change if this new GOP healthcare bill gets rammed through.

Daniel: Without a proper CBO score.

Person: Right.

Daniel: Do we know where the votes stand now?

Person: Paul is definitely a ‘No,’ we’re still waiting on Murkowski and Collins because they haven’t officially declared yet.

Daniel: It’s still too close.

Person: Pack of bastards.

Daniel: Pack of halfwit bastards.

Daniel O’Brien, Cracked’s Creative Director of Video and Slam Dunk Czar.

I know I’m more informed today than I’ve ever been in my entire life, and that’s probably good, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m so fucking bummed about the amount of senators I know the names of. Seven years ago, if someone asked me to name ten senators, I’d say, “Like, government senators or the old baseball team the Senators? Either way, I don’t know, maybe two? At any rate, I’m not going to answer your question because the series finale of Lost is about to air and it’s gonna be perfect, babyyyyy, gonna answer all of Deany’s questions, babyyyyyy! ‘California Gurls’! Angry Birds! It’s still okay to like Louis C.K.! ‘Magic’ feat. Weezer! it is two thousand teeeeeeeeeeen!”

The president wants us to boycott the NFL, the Golden State Warriors, most news, Facebook, SNL, the Emmys, uh … Puerto Rico, I guess. I can’t keep politics out of Cracked because I can’t keep it out of anything, and I don’t know how anyone does. If I showed up in a town and the mayor was like, “Oh, we don’t talk about politics here, we don’t even pay attention to it,” I’d think “Wow, you’re going to miss some pretty intense shit. One time at work I went to the bathroom for a full 20 minutes, and when I got back to my desk, Reince Priebus had resigned and Scaramucci’s wife had filed for divorce and Eric Trump’s pubes turned see-thru and we probably loosely declared war on someone.”

And again, I also wish I could go back to doing dumb jokes. And I’m not weaving in political stuff because I feel some journalistic obligation; I’m doing it because I don’t think it’s possible to talk about anything without the framework of politics. Or I guess I can talk about football through the framework of how we should stop watching it because of CTE? Would that be better? Like, it’s a bummer that Colin Kaepernick doesn’t have a job while some barely sentient mannequin gets paid millions to throw for the Bears, but maybe it’s ultimately a good thing, because it lowers the chance that Kap will get the hot new murder brain damage that’s sweeping the sports nation? Is that … better?

Daniel O’Brien is Cracked’s Strongest Intern and the author of How to Fight Presidents and the children’s book adaptation, Your Presidential Fantasy Dream Team, both of which you can buy wherever you want. He also wasn’t lying about that Property Brothers book. He will be releasing it for free one chapter at a time and you can get it if you subscribe to his newsletter right here.

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New Post has been published on http://pagedesignpro.com/automobiles-filling-up-junk-yards-and-landfills/

Automobiles Filling Up Junk Yards and Landfills

We see run-out, decaying, junk cars in front yards, in fields, tow yards, auto auctions back yards, junk yards and dump areas set aside for this purpose. Hawaii, the Big Island we saw areas where the cars were just piled up. Well on an island it is a big problem because as the population expands so do the cars and if people buy new cars what about all the old ones? Well, they just pile up and then what do you do? It costs money to ship cars off the island, so you trade in your old car and let the dealership deal with it, but he doesn’t want it either.

We have seen in front yards of mobile homes years of junked cars rusting away in GA, AL, LA, MS, SC. We are talking total junk, not just undrivable but neighborhood rodents and varmints living in them. I can remember as a kid the local cities would have junk days where they would go tot he canyons and hit the streets to pick up abandoned vehicles and take them to a metal recycler or crusher. CA had a CRV-California Redemption value so you could get money for the metal in aluminum cans, old cars or plastic containers. Each year in this country vehicles are recycled, crushed, sent to the middle east in containers and of course recently in the last six years we have had a big push to donate to a church or synagogue or non-profit. Good idea, I can remember making money for one non-profit group allowing people to smash a baseball bat for $1.00 per hit, with a guaranteed uncorked bat. But suspension if you hit the safety glass. Later when OSHA standards came out as Senior Class President of the HS we started wearing goggles when we allowed the people to smash the car. Then a friend whose dad owned a tow company took it to Pick-Your-Part Junk Yard in the Valley, today totally wired with every make and model and part listed on the Internet and most hard to find stuff on eBay and all the junk yards are all interconnected on a trunk repeater Motorola Radio System. The junk yard business has really progressed over the years.

America has a love for the automobile and many of the old cars are fixed up. About a decade ago you may recall a program where oil companies in some states could buy old cars and get them off the streets and trade for pollution credits, of which El Paso and Enron both enjoyed trading. Enron traded everything from Lumber futures and pollution to energy and just about anything consumable that the Boys in Chicago had not yet created the market for. If it is not bolted to the floor and contracts were drawn for future use, you can bet it was on the potential list to be traded. Bandwidth, oil pipeline capacity, water you name it. Commoditizing the world has advantages and this is one way to control the junk and costs associated. This has always been a free enterprise theme to reduce pollution here in the US.

In the European Union, 7.3 million cars per year are ELV’ed or ELV Treated, although there are 11 million total sent to the graveyard, furnace, junk yard or recycle crushers, but first plastics and other items are taken apart. In the US we just crush the crap out of them and deal with the entire pancake. Let’s face it this is a good start. Problem is that each Country in the EU has different guidelines, these countries can never make up their mind. For instance the debt borrowing of the Euro in Germany and France and the rest of the countries having to pay later for the hamburger today.

In the US we have the United States, although often act like the United Countries although we are not much better as in almost every industry we have a different set of laws. Even smaller states with little population bases have conflicting laws, states such as VT, ID, WY, MT, NM, NH, RI, WV, IA, NE, ND, SD. States like CA, OR, WA, MA act like socialist countries and obvious are paying for it now. Beware the socialists in their goal to make all things equal, they can ruin anything, ask Plato. The problem being making non-linear decisions for the best of the country is nearly impossible, for us to come to terms of our leadership role in the Americas we have a lot to be desired on many a front.

We can do better than this, but we fight over the means, why? There can be no excuse. No wonder we cannot come up with solutions to issues like the junked vehicles, which leak all kinds of things when they rot in fields and bleed iron oxides, heavy metals asbestos, and oil, fuel (turns to varnish), brake fluids, radiator fluids and obviously leach into the ground water pf the local farm and cause all kinds of cancers and problems with kidneys. There are issues. But also we see old farm implements and other equipment junked out back. You can see this on every back highway in America and every small town serviced or within 100 miles of a Wal-Mart. In other words everywhere in every small town. Starting in January of 2007 all European Cars sold will be the responsibility of the manufacturer no matter how long the vehicle is in service.

If a new Ford Minivan is in a crash after only 2 months on the road it will be Ford’s responsibility. If it is on the road for 40 years and then junked it will be Ford’s problem. Sounds a bit of a problem to me like our underfunded pensions in this country of which the Big three are probably a good example of a serious problem with blue chip companies. Scary thought. You see as countries become more socialist the consumer will not be responsible for anything.

Right now 75% of vehicles in the EU are ELV’ed they wish to increase this to 85% by 2006 a noble cause. 95% by 2015. But we know this is absolutely the wrong way to do this after all the State of CA set and dictated a timeline for electric vehicles and that did not work, today in the Business News GM announced it was completely cutting the plug on all electric vehicles for the newer technology of Fuel Cell. And pursuing the Fuel Cell development project with UPD. Meanwhile, with all the EPA deadlines unmet and all the passed costs to businesses by light, Medium and Heavy duty truck manufacturers, FedEx’s Fred Smith put out a challenge that he wanted 50% more fuel efficient units with 90% fewer emissions. Apparently, these do-gooders do not understand entrepreneurship otherwise they would be solving the world’s problems by creating not accusing.

Renault adopted a plan on their own called LEM-Life-Cycle Management and found 13 key vendors to achieve this, a much better and well-organized plan this was back in 1999. They made all components recyclable, well 90% including the plastics and other materials for their top selling cars; Laguna II, Mid Size Panel Vans (you have seen them in cops and robber movies in France chasing James Bond), Clio II and the Val Satis. Excellent achievement for the French Car Company. Similar to the 90% of their recycled story about the Oil for Arms Program with Iraq. Did I say Arms, no no FOOD, we Food, yes food, silly me. Other ideas of the ELV program is to use easy to disassemble parts, like what Dell is doing with computer trade-ins, yes Michael is always leading edge, he deserves an award.

You see when you take apart computers especially old ones they have gold plated components on the circuit boards and connections. Dell only charges $15.00 to recycle and they get at least $8-22 in gold out of each one. Once apart they can be 67% recycled. The EU wants certain things to no longer be used in the manufacturing of cars, such as mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadmium, and lead. Most US Manufacturers have already done this completely and the rest will soon be completed. Smaller companies such as MG Rover which use to produce millions of cars now only sells 200,000 per year in the UK, the UK likes the idea and are up with the compliance anyway seeing as they agree since they are on an island. But you can always drive the cars to Europe in the Chunnel and they do not want the reciprocate, the UK says we are not a junk yard.

The UK has its own plan called: ACORD-Automotive Consortium on Recycling and Disposal. They are proposing a cash incentive for turning in a vehicle, the Economist and the Futurists have both had articles on this thought and it is similar to the Oil Companies paying to get off the road those cars which would not run on Unleaded fuels and needed the lead additive. People were paid to dispose, in this case, though people are paid to dispose properly and the UK would let the manufacturers off the hook and let the owner be responsible after all they own the car and there is no telling how many owners a car in Europe may have had during its life before it became an end of life vehicle like Logan in Logan’s Run and had to be renewed.

The UK’s Motor Vehicle Dismantlers Association agreed that the owner would be given the $75.00 equivalent in pounds as an incentive. Probably also would need to be based on inflation and the CPI-Consumer Price Index you know the Brits in their need to be exact, they are all wannabe economists. Failure to properly dispose and renew registration on the vehicle would mean that the fine penalty would be issued to their driver’s license, they are more connected there. But the problem is inconsistencies, for instance, Greece had no shredding sites, while Germany has 42, Italy 16, France 42 and in the UK 37 total. The problem too is that those cars from others countries in Europe would not be able to take their cars to the UK, they only want to dispose of their own cars, not everyone else’s. Obviously, they do not want to pay the $75.00 for every citizen in Europe who want their car melted and shredded.

In Austria which makes no cars, they want to be paid and have the other countries to come pick up the damn cars, Germany says we can do this since they will levy, guess what another TAX or they call it a LEVY of $100.00, but that levy is dry and Austria is saying that will be the day when I die, meaning Yah Right? Like you guys in Germany are so far in debt you will steal the money from Peter to pay Paul and we will never see a dime of that and we know it. Germany, of course, loves the upfront money. Ever since Hitler’s economic policy of collecting goods in the trade up front and holding payments against those goods until they strung out vendors (countries) like Sears and then owned you. No one is fooling the Austrians and they could care less because they do not make cars anyway, figuring it is everyone else’s problem so come get your cars and forget about us building any shredder plants in our beautiful country.

France and Spain are taking the approach that the manufacturer should pay the difference between the scrap that is collected value and the cost to scrap it. Good idea, but what about mergers of car companies or those succumbing to the economic pressure of the low dollar today against the Euro. What about those who will not be here in 2015 when these cars are junked, who pays for that? Like all these manufacturers are going to be here tomorrow? And in a merger is the new company responsible? Lots of questions, the UK is still talking with industry and the cars well they keep piling up, in the United States we have more room, but many of these old automobiles have other issues and materials of yesteryear, just like the old aircraft in the desert are slowly decaying and aluminum in the water may cause the immune system to attack the brain such in Alzheimer’s. Still not proven yet.

Another issue is if the Germans collect upfront and a premature incident such as the Floods in Prague where cars were junked early the junkyards would sell the engines and other components. But also in accidents, theft recovery vehicles already paid on, small car fires, or terrorist’s being killed and bullet holes these vehicles are not sellable but parts can be taken off, why should the manufacturer have to pay, shouldn’t they get a refund? But Germany cannot pay everyone not to work and still have money left. These vehicles have gearboxes, engines, body parts, which may still be sellable.

In the US the Argonne National Laboratories have been studying

ASR-Auto Shredding Residue

About 10 million vehicles are scrapped in us each year. Now, remember the net gain of 7 million is the traffic you see. You see the 10 million vehicles crushed or shredded in the US each year contains about a million tons of polyurethane Foam and about 1,500,000,000 pounds of thermoplastics, which is trucked to the landfill or incinerated. We need to look at the options for ELV as the US has to come to grips with the problem as junked cars increase.

By recycling the ASR-Automotive Shredder Residue as per Argonne’s tested model, a reduction of 75% of the waste can stop on the way to the landfill. In the US we have discovered this can be resold to make other products, both in automotive and other fields. This is done by a two stage trommel, it is like a rotating screen, the same principle as fishing for gold in Auburn, CA gold country. Or the Rock Crusher sisters in Sunlight goldmine in Butte, MT. The sifter splits up the debris into three parts, similar to the quarters, tokens and dimes sent into the coin-op car wash for processing into rolls for the bank and recycling of tokens back to the machine. In this process, the University of Chicago was able to build the machine able to take out the dirty foam, oxides of less than 6 mm, like rust chips and also the glass chips, dirt. Also taken out of the ELV junk cars would be sand granular, other metals, and plastics. Smaller holes allow these materials to filter and the foam rises and is left. It is merely dumped over the side and collected in a huge bin and trucked away. Very efficiently, however, recovering nearly completely debris free dirty foam larger and lighter foam chips. Like the water, which weighs more than the gold.

Foam and we have studied it on this board previously, go ahead and look it up after you are completed with this topic. the Foam is then washed, rinsed, dried and then of course re-used. Foam, when missed with chemical, is easily dissolved and then the chemical precipitated out and the foam is blown with gas and made into the next substance and preferable shape. Foam being 5% liquid and 95% gas until it hardens is cheap to make, but having the substance the 5% for free is also cool. The only issues are the same involved in bulky cardboard recycling and the economies of scale and mass production depend a lot on transportation issues, trains and trucks cost money to run and the stuff is bulky for its value. If the substance can be removed from a site it is much more feasible and the foam turned to liquid is reduced from 100 volume to 5% volume and now in liquid form and can easily be transported by CSX tanker car anywhere you want it and then shipped anywhere in the world in bulk. This is very cool.

Plastics can be easily separated by froth flotation and precipitates and therefore can be recycled cheaply, the Industries dealing with Mineral Separation use this method as well. The ABS-Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene is abstracted by a difference in density to the high-impact polystyrenes, which sinks faster. So you can separate the two types of plastic with 95 plus percentage accuracy. The recovered ABS can be used for a multitude of things in another automobile. There are a few issues also with the thin galvanized steel used to keep cars light which is used in modern cars, it is zinc coated and when your melt it, it gives off toxic clouds of dust.

The best idea is to strip the zinc before the process and there is a way to do this by using sodium hydroxide and electrolysis at room temperatures. To remove the zinc from solution use a centrifuge.

The Argonne is going to sell this entire process to Belgium, and the other EU countries are saying that for every 35 ELV cars just one engine can be sold, nearly 95% of all ELVs have negative value, yet the Argonne solution solves those issues. One issue with the recycling of steel is much is contaminated with copper, this could cause failure in steel frames on cars and especially with grain memory methods of manufacturing where the steel is trained to stay straight such as in steering rods, axles, truck frames, bridge components, buildings etc. if bent the steel returns to it’s intended design shape without worries of fatigue from torsion or other forces. The Japanese would buy it after all they claim their stainless is the same, but when 5% nickel is really used it does not rust like the Japanese steel, no wonder we are upset with their imported steel. Even with 505 stainless for underground tanks if we use the Japanese stuff our tanks will corrode much faster leaving us with significant damage to the environment and drinking well water and underground aquifer contamination although that was never discussed in the Kyoto treaty either.

You can recover about 50 lbs of zinc from a ton of steel and yes zinc has a value such as undercoatings of bridges, use in pigments or marine or aircraft corrosion prevention. Plastics recovered is about half the cost of producing plastics from corn due to corn prices, with other plastics, eating and ethanol. Also in drought years, plastics cost more due to oil companies getting more as less corn is produced for taco shells, Kellogg’s corn flakes, and Tony the tiger. In all seriousness, though this is correct along with the artificial manipulation of the commodity markets as margining players, market movers, farmers hedging their bet against the crop production and speculators let it all hang out. One issue still remains, window tint, laminated glass, antenna, and heating element materials often embedded in the windshields, windscreens and rear windows.

In the EU there are also the same issues we have here, those old five-gallon flush toilets, refrigerators, washers and dryers, all an issue. I cannot tell you a number of toilets traded in drought areas and the non-energy efficient refrigerators traded in, in nearly every city in America and this has helped America become more energy efficient, but the mountains of debris are unbelievable. Think about it.

Netherlands and Sweden have had auto disposal plans in effect for quite a while. I hope you learned something from this because as used car prices fall and cars are worthless, there will be more scraped. As we sell more cars and newer more efficient vehicles there will be more scraped, as fuel cells come into play and we work out the bugs of technology problems we will see all those cars on the road end up scrapped. We need to have a plan and we are well on our way in the states, we can work better since we are in the same country and all on the same team, as long as the other states follow the BMP that fits the needs of the American People and do not try to build some special program to pay off their over spending as their tax base dwindles from cutting off the hand of the businesses that fed them all these years.

[myupdatesystems-blog]

Automobile Junk Yards

New Post has been published on https://myupdatesystems.com/automobile-junk-yards/

Automobile Junk Yards

We see run-out, decaying, junky cars in front yards, in fields, tow yards, auto auctions back yards, junk yards and dump areas set aside for this purpose. Hawaii, the Big Island we saw areas where the cars were just piled up. Well on an island it is a big problem because as the population expands so do the cars and if people buy new cars what about all the old ones? Well, they just pile up and then what do you do? It costs money to ship cars off the island, so you trade in your old car and let the dealership deal with it, but he doesn’t want it either.

We have seen in front yards of mobile homes years of junked cars rusting away in GA, AL, LA, MS, SC. We are talking total junk, not just undrivable but neighborhood rodents and varmints living in them. I can remember as a kid the local cities would have junk days where they would go tot he canyons and hit the streets to pickup abandoned vehicles and take them to a metal recycler or crusher. CA had a CRV-California Redemption value so you could get money for the metal in aluminum cans, old cars or plastic containers. Each year in this country vehicles are recycled, crushed, sent to the middle east in containers and of course recently in the last six years we have had a big push to donate to a church or synagogue or non-profit. Good idea, I can remember making money for one non-profit group allowing people to smash a baseball bat for $1.00 per hit, with a guaranteed uncorked bat. But suspension if you hit the safety glass. Later when OSHA standards came out as Senior Class President of the HS we started wearing goggles when we allowed the people to smash the car. Then a friend whose dad owned a tow company took it to Pick-Your-Part Junk Yard in the Valley, today totally wired with every make and model and part listed on the Internet and most hard to find stuff on eBay and all the junk yards are all interconnected on a trunk repeater Motorola Radio System. The junk yard business has really progressed over the years.

America has a love for the automobile and many of the old cars are fixed up. About a decade ago you may recall a program where oil companies in some states could buy old cars and get them off the streets and trade for pollution credits, of which El Paso and Enron both enjoyed trading. Enron traded everything from Lumber futures and pollution to energy and just about anything consumable that the Boys in Chicago had not yet created the market for. If it is not bolted to the floor and contracts were drawn for future use, you can bet it was on the potential list to be traded. Bandwidth, oil pipeline capacity, water you name it. Commoditizing the world has advantages and this is one way to control the junk and costs associated. This has always been a free enterprise theme to reduce pollution here in the US.

In the European Union 7.3 million cars per year are ELV’ed or ELV Treated, although there are 11 million total sent to the graveyard, furnace, junk yard or recycle crushers, but first plastics and other items are taken apart. In the US we just crush the crap out of them and deal with the entire pancake. Let’s face it this is a good start. Problem is that each Country in the EU has different guidlines, these countries can never make up their mind. For instance the debt borrowing of the Euro in Germany and France and the rest of the countries having to pay later for the hamburger today.

In the US we have the United States, although often act like the United Countries although we are not much better as in almost every industry we have a different set of laws. Even smaller states with little population bases have conflicting laws, states such as VT, ID, WY, MT, NM, NH, RI, WV, IA, NE, ND, SD. States like CA, OR, WA, MA act like socialist countries and obvious are paying for it now. Beware the socialists in their goal to make all things equal, they can ruin anything, ask Plato. The problem being making non-linear decisions for the best of the country is nearly impossible, for us to come to terms of our leadership role in the Americas we have a lot to be desired on many a front.

We can do better than this, but we fight over the means, why? There can be no excuse. No wonder we cannot come up with solutions to issues like the junked vehicles, which leak all kinds of things when they rot in fields and bleed iron oxides, heavy metals asbestos, and oil, fuel (turns to varnish), brake fluids, radiator fluids and obviously leach into the ground water pf the local farm and cause all kinds of cancers and problems with kidneys. There are issues. But also we see old farm implements and other equipment junked out back. You can see this on every back highway in America and every small town serviced or within 100 miles of a Wal-Mart. In other words every where in every small town. Starting in January of 2007 all European Cars sold will be the responsibility of the manufacturer no matter how long the vehicle is in service.

If a new Ford Mini-van is in a crash after only 2 months on the road it will be the Ford’s responsibility. If it is on the road for 40 years and then junked it will be Ford’s problem. Sounds a bit of a problem to me like our under funded pensions in this country of which the Big three are probably a good example of a serious problem with blue chip companies. Scary thought. You see as countries become more socialist the consumer will not be responsible for anything.

Right now 75% of vehicles in the EU are ELV’ed they wish to increase this to 85% by 2006 a noble cause. 95% by 2015. But we know this is absolutely the wrong way to do this after all the State of CA set and dictated a timeline for electric vehicles and that did not work, today in the Business News GM announced it was completely cutting the plug on all electric vehicles for the newer technology of Fuel Cell. And pursuing the Fuel Cell development project with UPD. Meanwhile with all the EPA deadlines un-met and all the passed costs to businesses by light, Medium and Heavy duty truck manufacturers, FedEx’s Fred Smith put out a challenge that he wanted 50% more fuel efficient units with 90% less emissions. Apparently these do-gooders do not understand entrepreneurship otherwise they would be solving the world’s problems by creating not accusing.

Renault adopted a plan on their own called LEM-Life-Cycle Management and found 13 key vendors to achieve this, a much better and well organized plan this was back in 1999. They made all components recyclable, well 90% including the plastics and other materials for their top selling cars; Laguna II, Mid Size Panel Vans (you have seen them in cops and robber movies in France chasing James Bond), Clio II and the Val Satis. Excellent achievement for the French Car Company. Similar to the 90% of their recycled story about the Oil for Arms Program with Iraq. Did I say Arms, no no FOOD, we we Food, yes food, silly me. Other ideas of the ELV program is to use easy to dis-assemble parts, like what Dell is doing with computer trade-ins, yes Michael is always leading edge, he deserves an award.

[http://www.dailytexanonline.com/vnews/disp…0/3e799ec270c1a]

You see when you take apart computers especially old ones they have gold plated components on the circuit boards and connections. Dell only charges $15.00 to recycle and they get at least $8-22 in gold out of each one. Once apart they can be 67% recycled. The EU wants certain things to no longer be used in the manufacturing of cars, such as mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadium and lead. Most US Manufacturers have already done this completely and the rest will soon be completed. Smaller companies such as MG Rover which use to produce millions of cars now only sells 200,000 per year in the UK, the UK likes the idea and are up with the compliance anyway seeing as they agree since they are on an island. But you can always drive the cars to Europe in the Chunnel and they do not want the reciprocate, the UK says we are not a junk yard.

The UK has it’s own plan called: ACORD-Automotive Consortium on Recycling and Disposal. They are proposing a cash incentive for turning in a vehicle, the Economist and the Futurists have both had articles on this thought and it is similar to the Oil Companies paying to get off the road those cars which would not run on Unleaded fuels and needed the lead additive. People were paid to dispose, in this case though people are paid to dispose properly and the UK would let the manufacturers off the hook and let the owner be responsible after all they own the car and there is no telling how many owners a car in Europe may have had during its life before it became an end of life vehicle like Logan in Logan’s Run and had to be renewed.

The UK’s Motor Vehicle Dismantlers Association agreed that the owner would be given the $75.00 equivalent in pounds as an incentive. Probably also would need to be based on inflation and the CPI-Consumer Price Index you know the Brits in their need to be exact, they are all wannabe economists. Failure to properly dispose and renew registration on the vehicle would mean that the fine penalty would be issued to their drivers license, they are more connected there. But the problem is inconsistencies for instance Greece had no shredding sites, while Germany has 42, Italy 16, France 42 and in the UK 37 total. Problem too is that those cars from others countries in Europe would not be able to take their cars to the UK, they only want to dispose of their own cars, not everyone else’s. Obviously they do not want to pay the $75.00 for every citizen in Europe who want their car melted and shredded.

In Austria which makes no cars, they want to be paid and have the other countries to come pick up the damn cars, Germany says we can do this since they will levy, guess what another TAX or they call it a LEVY of $100.00, but that levy is dry and Austria is saying that will be the day when I die, meaning Yah Right? Like you guys in Germany are so far in debt you will steal the money from Peter to pay Paul and we will never see a dime of that and we know it. Germany of course loves the upfront money. Ever since Hitler’s economic policy of collecting goods in trade up front and holding payments against those goods until they strung out vendors (countries) like Sears and then owned you. No one is fooling the Austrians and they could care less because they do not make cars anyway, figuring it is everyone elses problem so come get your cars and forget about us building any shredder plants in our beautiful country.

France and Spain are taking the approach that the manufacturer should pay the difference between the scrap that is collected value and the cost to scrap it. Good idea, but what about mergers of car companies or those succumbing to economic pressure of the low dollar today against the Euro. What about those who will not be here in 2015 when these cars are junked, who pays for that? Like all these manufacturers are going to be here tomorrow? And in a merger is the new company responsible? Lots of questions, the UK is still talking with industry and the cars well they keep piling up, in the United States we have more room, but many of these old automobiles have other issues and materials of yester year, just like the old aircraft in the desert are slowly decaying and aluminum in the water may cause the immune system to attack the brain such in Alzheimer’s. Still not proven yet.

Another issue is if the Germans collect upfront and a premature incident such as the Floods in Prague where cars were junked early the junkyards would sell the engines and other components. But also in accidents, theft recovery vehicles already paid on, small car fires, or terrorist’s being killed and bullet holes these vehicles are not sellable but parts can be taken off, why should the manufacturer have to pay, shouldn’t they get a refund? But Germany cannot pay everyone not to work and still have money left. These vehicles have gearboxes, engines, body parts, which may still be sellable.

In the US the Argonne National Laboratories have been studying

ASR-Auto Shredding Residue

About 10 million vehicles are scrapped in the us each year. Now remember the net gain of 7 million is the traffic you see. You see the 10 million vehicles crushed or shredded in the US each year contains about a million tons of polyurethane Foam and about 1,500,000,000 pounds of thermoplastics, which is trucked to the landfill or incinerated. We need to look at the options for ELV as the US has to come to grips with the problem as junked cars increase.

By recycling the ASR-Automotive Shredder Residue as per Argonne’s tested model, a reduction of 75% of the waste can stop on the way to the landfill. In the US we have discovered this can be resold to make other products, both in automotive and other fields. This is done by a two stage trummel, it is like a rotating screen, same principle as fishing for gold in Auburn, CA gold country. Or the Rock Crusher sifters in Sunlight goldmine in Butte, MT. The sifter splits up the debris into three parts, similar to the quarters, tokens and dimes sent into the coin-op car wash for processing into rolls for the bank and recycling of tokens back to the machine. In this process the University of Chicago was able to build the machine able to take out the dirty foam, oxides of less than 6 mm, like rust chips and also the glass chips, dirt. Also taken out of the ELV junk cars would be sand granulars, other metals and plastics. Smaller holes allow these materials to filter and the foam rises and is left. It is merely dumped over the side and collected in a huge bin and trucked away. Very efficiently however recovering nearly completely debris free dirty foam larger and lighter foam chips. Like the water, which weighs more than the gold.

Foam and we have studied it on this board previously, go ahead an look it up after you are completed with this topic. the Foam is then washed, rinsed, dried and then of course re-used. Foam when missed with chemical is easily dissolved and then the chemical precipitated out and the foam is reblown with gas and made into the next substance and preferable shape. Foam being 5% liquid and 95% gas until it hardens is cheap to make, but having the substance the 5% for free is also cool. The only issues are the same involved in bulky cardboard recycling and the economies of scale and mass production depend a lot on transportation issues, trains and trucks cost money to run and the stuff is bulky for it’s value. If the substance can be removed onsite it is much more feasible and the foam turned to liquid is reduced from 100 volume to 5% volume and now in liquid form and can easily be transported by CSX tanker car anywhere you want it and then shipped anywhere in the world in bulk. This is very cool.

Plastics can be easily separated by froth flotation and precipitates and therefore can be recycled cheaply, the Industries dealing with Mineral Separation use this method as well. The ABS-Acrorylontitrile-buta-diene-stryrene is abstracted by difference in density to the high-impact polystyrenes, which sinks faster. So you can separate the two types of plastic with 95 plus percentage accuracy. The recovered ABS can be used for a multitude of things in another automobile. There are a few issues also with the thin galvanized steel used to keep cars light which is used in modern cars, it is zinc coated and when your melt it, it gives off toxic clouds of dust.

The best idea is to strip the zinc before the process and there is a way to do this by using sodium hydroxide and electrolysis at room temperatures. To remove the zinc from solution use a centrifuge.

The Argonne is going to sell this entire process to Belgium, and the other EU countries are saying that for every 35 ELV cars just one engine can be sold, nearly 95% of all ELVs have negative value, yet the Argonne solution solves those issues. One issue with the recycling of steel is much is contaminated with copper, this could cause failure in steel frames on cars and especially with grain memory methods of manufacturing where the steel is trained to stay straight such as in steering rods, axles, truck frames, bridge components, buildings etc. if bent the steel returns to it’s intended design shape without worries of fatigue from torsion or other forces. The Japanese would by it after all they claim their stainless is the same, but when 5% nickel is really used it does not rust like the Japanese steel, no wonder we are upset with their imported steel. Even with 505 stainless for underground tanks if we use the Japanese stuff our tanks will corrode much faster leaving us with significant damage to environment and drinking well water and underground aquifer contamination although that was never discussed in the Kyoto treaty either.

You can recover about 50 lbs of zinc from a ton of steel and yes zinc has value such as undercoatings of bridges, use in pigments or marine or aircraft corrosion prevention. Plastics recovered is about half the cost to producing plastics from corn due to corn prices, with other plastics, eating and ethanol. Also in drought years plastics cost more due to oil companies getting more as less corn is produced for taco shells, Kellogg’s corn flakes and Tony the tiger. In all seriousness though this is correct along with the artificial manipulation of the commodity markets as margining players, market movers, farmers hedging their bet against the crop production and speculators let it all hang out. One issue still remains, window tint, laminated glass, antenna and heating element materials often embedded in the windshields, windscreens and rear windows.

In the EU there are also the same issues we have here, those old five-gallon flush toilets, refrigerators, washers and dryers, all an issue. I cannot tell you the amount of toilets traded in drought areas and the non-energy efficient refrigerators traded in, in nearly every city in America and this has helped America become more energy efficient, but the mountains of debris are unbelievable. Think about it.

Netherlands and Sweden have had auto disposal plans in affect for quite a while. I hope you learned something from this, because as used car prices fall and cars are worthless, there will be more scraped. As we sell more cars and newer more efficient vehicles their will be more scraped, as fuel cells come into play and we work out the bugs of technology problems we will see all those cars on the road end up scrapped. We need to have a plan and we are well on our way in the states, we can work better since we are in the same country and all on the same team, as long as the other states follow the BMP that fits the needs of the American People and do not try ot build some special program to pay off their over spending as their tax base dwindles from cutting off the hand of the businesses that fed them all these years.

[beingmad2017-blog]

Automobiles Filling Up Junk Yards and Landfills

New Post has been published on https://beingmad.org/automobiles-filling-up-junk-yards-and-landfills/

Automobiles Filling Up Junk Yards and Landfills

We see run-out, decaying, junk cars in front yards, in fields, tow yards, auto auctions back yards, junk yards and dump areas set aside for this purpose. Hawaii, the Big Island we saw areas where the cars were just piled up. Well on an island it is a big problem because as the population expands so do the cars and if people buy new cars what about all the old ones? Well, they just pile up and then what do you do? It costs money to ship cars off the island, so you trade in your old car and let the dealership deal with it, but he doesn’t want it either.

We have seen in front yards of mobile homes years of junked cars rusting away in GA, AL, LA, MS, SC. We are talking total junk, not just undrivable but neighborhood rodents and varmints living in them. I can remember as a kid the local cities would have junk days where they would go tot he canyons and hit the streets to pick up abandoned vehicles and take them to a metal recycler or crusher. CA had a CRV-California Redemption value so you could get money for the metal in aluminum cans, old cars or plastic containers. Each year in this country vehicles are recycled, crushed, sent to the middle east in containers and of course recently in the last six years we have had a big push to donate to a church or synagogue or non-profit. Good idea, I can remember making money for one non-profit group allowing people to smash a baseball bat for $1.00 per hit, with a guaranteed uncorked bat. But suspension if you hit the safety glass. Later when OSHA standards came out as Senior Class President of the HS we started wearing goggles when we allowed the people to smash the car. Then a friend whose dad owned a tow company took it to Pick-Your-Part Junk Yard in the Valley, today totally wired with every make and model and part listed on the Internet and most hard to find stuff on eBay and all the junk yards are all interconnected on a trunk repeater Motorola Radio System. The junk yard business has really progressed over the years.

America has a love for the automobile and many of the old cars are fixed up. About a decade ago you may recall a program where oil companies in some states could buy old cars and get them off the streets and trade for pollution credits, of which El Paso and Enron both enjoyed trading. Enron traded everything from Lumber futures and pollution to energy and just about anything consumable that the Boys in Chicago had not yet created the market for. If it is not bolted to the floor and contracts were drawn for future use, you can bet it was on the potential list to be traded. Bandwidth, oil pipeline capacity, water you name it. Commoditizing the world has advantages and this is one way to control the junk and costs associated. This has always been a free enterprise theme to reduce pollution here in the US.

In the European Union, 7.3 million cars per year are ELV’ed or ELV Treated, although there are 11 million total sent to the graveyard, furnace, junk yard or recycle crushers, but first plastics and other items are taken apart. In the US we just crush the crap out of them and deal with the entire pancake. Let’s face it this is a good start. Problem is that each Country in the EU has different guidelines, these countries can never make up their mind. For instance the debt borrowing of the Euro in Germany and France and the rest of the countries having to pay later for the hamburger today.

In the US we have the United States, although often act like the United Countries although we are not much better as in almost every industry we have a different set of laws. Even smaller states with little population bases have conflicting laws, states such as VT, ID, WY, MT, NM, NH, RI, WV, IA, NE, ND, SD. States like CA, OR, WA, MA act like socialist countries and obvious are paying for it now. Beware the socialists in their goal to make all things equal, they can ruin anything, ask Plato. The problem being making non-linear decisions for the best of the country is nearly impossible, for us to come to terms of our leadership role in the Americas we have a lot to be desired on many a front.

We can do better than this, but we fight over the means, why? There can be no excuse. No wonder we cannot come up with solutions to issues like the junked vehicles, which leak all kinds of things when they rot in fields and bleed iron oxides, heavy metals asbestos, and oil, fuel (turns to varnish), brake fluids, radiator fluids and obviously leach into the ground water pf the local farm and cause all kinds of cancers and problems with kidneys. There are issues. But also we see old farm implements and other equipment junked out back. You can see this on every back highway in America and every small town serviced or within 100 miles of a Wal-Mart. In other words everywhere in every small town. Starting in January of 2007 all European Cars sold will be the responsibility of the manufacturer no matter how long the vehicle is in service.

If a new Ford Minivan is in a crash after only 2 months on the road it will be Ford’s responsibility. If it is on the road for 40 years and then junked it will be Ford’s problem. Sounds a bit of a problem to me like our underfunded pensions in this country of which the Big three are probably a good example of a serious problem with blue chip companies. Scary thought. You see as countries become more socialist the consumer will not be responsible for anything.

Right now 75% of vehicles in the EU are ELV’ed they wish to increase this to 85% by 2006 a noble cause. 95% by 2015. But we know this is absolutely the wrong way to do this after all the State of CA set and dictated a timeline for electric vehicles and that did not work, today in the Business News GM announced it was completely cutting the plug on all electric vehicles for the newer technology of Fuel Cell. And pursuing the Fuel Cell development project with UPD. Meanwhile, with all the EPA deadlines unmet and all the passed costs to businesses by light, Medium and Heavy duty truck manufacturers, FedEx’s Fred Smith put out a challenge that he wanted 50% more fuel efficient units with 90% fewer emissions. Apparently, these do-gooders do not understand entrepreneurship otherwise they would be solving the world’s problems by creating not accusing.

Renault adopted a plan on their own called LEM-Life-Cycle Management and found 13 key vendors to achieve this, a much better and well-organized plan this was back in 1999. They made all components recyclable, well 90% including the plastics and other materials for their top selling cars; Laguna II, Mid Size Panel Vans (you have seen them in cops and robber movies in France chasing James Bond), Clio II and the Val Satis. Excellent achievement for the French Car Company. Similar to the 90% of their recycled story about the Oil for Arms Program with Iraq. Did I say Arms, no no FOOD, we Food, yes food, silly me. Other ideas of the ELV program is to use easy to disassemble parts, like what Dell is doing with computer trade-ins, yes Michael is always leading edge, he deserves an award.

You see when you take apart computers especially old ones they have gold plated components on the circuit boards and connections. Dell only charges $15.00 to recycle and they get at least $8-22 in gold out of each one. Once apart they can be 67% recycled. The EU wants certain things to no longer be used in the manufacturing of cars, such as mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadmium, and lead. Most US Manufacturers have already done this completely and the rest will soon be completed. Smaller companies such as MG Rover which use to produce millions of cars now only sells 200,000 per year in the UK, the UK likes the idea and are up with the compliance anyway seeing as they agree since they are on an island. But you can always drive the cars to Europe in the Chunnel and they do not want the reciprocate, the UK says we are not a junk yard.

The UK has its own plan called: ACORD-Automotive Consortium on Recycling and Disposal. They are proposing a cash incentive for turning in a vehicle, the Economist and the Futurists have both had articles on this thought and it is similar to the Oil Companies paying to get off the road those cars which would not run on Unleaded fuels and needed the lead additive. People were paid to dispose, in this case, though people are paid to dispose properly and the UK would let the manufacturers off the hook and let the owner be responsible after all they own the car and there is no telling how many owners a car in Europe may have had during its life before it became an end of life vehicle like Logan in Logan’s Run and had to be renewed.

The UK’s Motor Vehicle Dismantlers Association agreed that the owner would be given the $75.00 equivalent in pounds as an incentive. Probably also would need to be based on inflation and the CPI-Consumer Price Index you know the Brits in their need to be exact, they are all wannabe economists. Failure to properly dispose and renew registration on the vehicle would mean that the fine penalty would be issued to their driver’s license, they are more connected there. But the problem is inconsistencies, for instance, Greece had no shredding sites, while Germany has 42, Italy 16, France 42 and in the UK 37 total. The problem too is that those cars from others countries in Europe would not be able to take their cars to the UK, they only want to dispose of their own cars, not everyone else’s. Obviously, they do not want to pay the $75.00 for every citizen in Europe who want their car melted and shredded.

In Austria which makes no cars, they want to be paid and have the other countries to come pick up the damn cars, Germany says we can do this since they will levy, guess what another TAX or they call it a LEVY of $100.00, but that levy is dry and Austria is saying that will be the day when I die, meaning Yah Right? Like you guys in Germany are so far in debt you will steal the money from Peter to pay Paul and we will never see a dime of that and we know it. Germany, of course, loves the upfront money. Ever since Hitler’s economic policy of collecting goods in the trade up front and holding payments against those goods until they strung out vendors (countries) like Sears and then owned you. No one is fooling the Austrians and they could care less because they do not make cars anyway, figuring it is everyone else’s problem so come get your cars and forget about us building any shredder plants in our beautiful country.

France and Spain are taking the approach that the manufacturer should pay the difference between the scrap that is collected value and the cost to scrap it. Good idea, but what about mergers of car companies or those succumbing to the economic pressure of the low dollar today against the Euro. What about those who will not be here in 2015 when these cars are junked, who pays for that? Like all these manufacturers are going to be here tomorrow? And in a merger is the new company responsible? Lots of questions, the UK is still talking with industry and the cars well they keep piling up, in the United States we have more room, but many of these old automobiles have other issues and materials of yesteryear, just like the old aircraft in the desert are slowly decaying and aluminum in the water may cause the immune system to attack the brain such in Alzheimer’s. Still not proven yet.

Another issue is if the Germans collect upfront and a premature incident such as the Floods in Prague where cars were junked early the junkyards would sell the engines and other components. But also in accidents, theft recovery vehicles already paid on, small car fires, or terrorist’s being killed and bullet holes these vehicles are not sellable but parts can be taken off, why should the manufacturer have to pay, shouldn’t they get a refund? But Germany cannot pay everyone not to work and still have money left. These vehicles have gearboxes, engines, body parts, which may still be sellable.

In the US the Argonne National Laboratories have been studying

ASR-Auto Shredding Residue

About 10 million vehicles are scrapped in us each year. Now, remember the net gain of 7 million is the traffic you see. You see the 10 million vehicles crushed or shredded in the US each year contains about a million tons of polyurethane Foam and about 1,500,000,000 pounds of thermoplastics, which is trucked to the landfill or incinerated. We need to look at the options for ELV as the US has to come to grips with the problem as junked cars increase.

By recycling the ASR-Automotive Shredder Residue as per Argonne’s tested model, a reduction of 75% of the waste can stop on the way to the landfill. In the US we have discovered this can be resold to make other products, both in automotive and other fields. This is done by a two stage trommel, it is like a rotating screen, the same principle as fishing for gold in Auburn, CA gold country. Or the Rock Crusher sisters in Sunlight goldmine in Butte, MT. The sifter splits up the debris into three parts, similar to the quarters, tokens and dimes sent into the coin-op car wash for processing into rolls for the bank and recycling of tokens back to the machine. In this process, the University of Chicago was able to build the machine able to take out the dirty foam, oxides of less than 6 mm, like rust chips and also the glass chips, dirt. Also taken out of the ELV junk cars would be sand granular, other metals, and plastics. Smaller holes allow these materials to filter and the foam rises and is left. It is merely dumped over the side and collected in a huge bin and trucked away. Very efficiently, however, recovering nearly completely debris free dirty foam larger and lighter foam chips. Like the water, which weighs more than the gold.

Foam and we have studied it on this board previously, go ahead and look it up after you are completed with this topic. the Foam is then washed, rinsed, dried and then of course re-used. Foam, when missed with chemical, is easily dissolved and then the chemical precipitated out and the foam is blown with gas and made into the next substance and preferable shape. Foam being 5% liquid and 95% gas until it hardens is cheap to make, but having the substance the 5% for free is also cool. The only issues are the same involved in bulky cardboard recycling and the economies of scale and mass production depend a lot on transportation issues, trains and trucks cost money to run and the stuff is bulky for its value. If the substance can be removed from a site it is much more feasible and the foam turned to liquid is reduced from 100 volume to 5% volume and now in liquid form and can easily be transported by CSX tanker car anywhere you want it and then shipped anywhere in the world in bulk. This is very cool.

Plastics can be easily separated by froth flotation and precipitates and therefore can be recycled cheaply, the Industries dealing with Mineral Separation use this method as well. The ABS-Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene is abstracted by a difference in density to the high-impact polystyrenes, which sinks faster. So you can separate the two types of plastic with 95 plus percentage accuracy. The recovered ABS can be used for a multitude of things in another automobile. There are a few issues also with the thin galvanized steel used to keep cars light which is used in modern cars, it is zinc coated and when your melt it, it gives off toxic clouds of dust.

The best idea is to strip the zinc before the process and there is a way to do this by using sodium hydroxide and electrolysis at room temperatures. To remove the zinc from solution use a centrifuge.

The Argonne is going to sell this entire process to Belgium, and the other EU countries are saying that for every 35 ELV cars just one engine can be sold, nearly 95% of all ELVs have negative value, yet the Argonne solution solves those issues. One issue with the recycling of steel is much is contaminated with copper, this could cause failure in steel frames on cars and especially with grain memory methods of manufacturing where the steel is trained to stay straight such as in steering rods, axles, truck frames, bridge components, buildings etc. if bent the steel returns to it’s intended design shape without worries of fatigue from torsion or other forces. The Japanese would buy it after all they claim their stainless is the same, but when 5% nickel is really used it does not rust like the Japanese steel, no wonder we are upset with their imported steel. Even with 505 stainless for underground tanks if we use the Japanese stuff our tanks will corrode much faster leaving us with significant damage to the environment and drinking well water and underground aquifer contamination although that was never discussed in the Kyoto treaty either.

You can recover about 50 lbs of zinc from a ton of steel and yes zinc has a value such as undercoatings of bridges, use in pigments or marine or aircraft corrosion prevention. Plastics recovered is about half the cost of producing plastics from corn due to corn prices, with other plastics, eating and ethanol. Also in drought years, plastics cost more due to oil companies getting more as less corn is produced for taco shells, Kellogg’s corn flakes, and Tony the tiger. In all seriousness, though this is correct along with the artificial manipulation of the commodity markets as margining players, market movers, farmers hedging their bet against the crop production and speculators let it all hang out. One issue still remains, window tint, laminated glass, antenna, and heating element materials often embedded in the windshields, windscreens and rear windows.

In the EU there are also the same issues we have here, those old five-gallon flush toilets, refrigerators, washers and dryers, all an issue. I cannot tell you a number of toilets traded in drought areas and the non-energy efficient refrigerators traded in, in nearly every city in America and this has helped America become more energy efficient, but the mountains of debris are unbelievable. Think about it.

Netherlands and Sweden have had auto disposal plans in effect for quite a while. I hope you learned something from this because as used car prices fall and cars are worthless, there will be more scraped. As we sell more cars and newer more efficient vehicles there will be more scraped, as fuel cells come into play and we work out the bugs of technology problems we will see all those cars on the road end up scrapped. We need to have a plan and we are well on our way in the states, we can work better since we are in the same country and all on the same team, as long as the other states follow the BMP that fits the needs of the American People and do not try to build some special program to pay off their over spending as their tax base dwindles from cutting off the hand of the businesses that fed them all these years.

[baburaja97-blog]

New Post has been published on Vin Zite

New Post has been published on https://vinzite.com/automobiles-filling-up-junk-yards-and-landfills/

Automobiles Filling Up Junk Yards and Landfills

We see run-out, decaying, junky cars in front yards, in fields, tow yards, auto auctions back yards, junkyards and dump areas set aside for this purpose. Hawaii, the Big Island we saw areas where the cars were just piled up. Well on an island it is a big problem because as the population expands so do the cars and if people buy new cars what about all the old ones? Well, they just pile up and then what do you do? It costs money to ship cars off the island, so you trade in your old car and let the dealership deal with it, but he doesn’t want it either.

We have seen in front yards of mobile homes years of junked cars rusting away in GA, AL, LA, MS, SC. We are talking total junk, not just undrivable but neighborhood rodents and varmints living in them. I can remember as a kid the local cities would have junk days where they would go tot he canyons and hit the streets to pick up abandoned vehicles and take them to a metal recycler or crusher. CA had a CRV-California Redemption value so you could get money for the metal in aluminum cans, old cars or plastic containers. Each year in this country vehicles are recycled, crushed, sent to the middle east in containers and of course recently in the last six years we have had a big push to donate to a church or synagogue or non-profit. Good idea, I can remember making money for one non-profit group allowing people to smash a baseball bat for $1.00 per hit, with a guaranteed uncorked bat. But suspension if you hit the safety glass. Later when OSHA standards came out as Senior Class President of the HS we started wearing goggles when we allowed the people to smash the car. Then a friend whose dad owned a tow company took it to Pick-Your-Part Junk Yard in the Valley, today totally wired with every make and model and part listed on the Internet and most hard to find stuff on eBay and all the junk yards are all interconnected on a trunk repeater Motorola Radio System. The junkyard business has really progressed over the years.

America has a love for the automobile and many of the old cars are fixed up. About a decade ago you may recall a program where oil companies in some states could buy old cars and get them off the streets and trade for pollution credits, of which El Paso and Enron both enjoyed trading. Enron traded everything from Lumber futures and pollution to energy and just about anything consumable that the Boys in Chicago had not yet created the market for. If it is not bolted to the floor and contracts were drawn for future use, you can bet it was on the potential list to be traded. Bandwidth, oil pipeline capacity, water you name it. Commoditizing the world has advantages and this is one way to control the junk and costs associated. This has always been a free enterprise theme to reduce pollution here in the US.

In the European Union, 7.3 million cars per year are ELV’ed or ELV Treated, although there are 11 million total sent to the graveyard, furnace, junk yard or recycle crushers, but first plastics and other items are taken apart. In the US we just crush the crap out of them and deal with the entire pancake. Let’s face it this is a good start. Problem is that each Country in the EU has different guidelines, these countries can never make up their mind. For instance the debt borrowing of the Euro in Germany and France and the rest of the countries having to pay later for the hamburger today.

In the US we have the United States, although often act like the United Countries although we are not much better as in almost every industry we have a different set of laws. Even smaller states with little population bases have conflicting laws, states such as VT, ID, WY, MT, NM, NH, RI, WV, IA, NE, ND, SD. States like CA, OR, WA, MA act like socialist countries and obvious are paying for it now. Beware the socialists in their goal to make all things equal, they can ruin anything, ask Plato. The problem being making non-linear decisions for the best of the country is nearly impossible, for us to come to terms of our leadership role in the Americas we have a lot to be desired on many a front.

We can do better than this, but we fight over the means, why? There can be no excuse. No wonder we cannot come up with solutions to issues like the junked vehicles, which leak all kinds of things when they rot in fields and bleed iron oxides, heavy metals asbestos, and oil, fuel (turns to varnish), brake fluids, radiator fluids and obviously leach into the ground water pf the local farm and cause all kinds of cancers and problems with kidneys. There are issues. But also we see old farm implements and other equipment junked out back. You can see this on every back highway in America and every small town serviced or within 100 miles of a Wal-Mart. In other words everywhere in every small town. Starting in January of 2007 all European Cars sold will be the responsibility of the manufacturer no matter how long the vehicle is in service.

If a new Ford Minivan is in a crash after only 2 months on the road it will be Ford’s responsibility. If it is on the road for 40 years and then junked it will be Ford’s problem. Sounds a bit of a problem to me like our underfunded pensions in this country of which the Big three are probably a good example of a serious problem with blue chip companies. Scary thought. You see as countries become more socialist the consumer will not be responsible for anything.

Right now 75% of vehicles in the EU are ELV’ed they wish to increase this to 85% by 2006 a noble cause. 95% by 2015. But we know this is absolutely the wrong way to do this after all the State of CA set and dictated a timeline for electric vehicles and that did not work, today in the Business News GM announced it was completely cutting the plug on all electric vehicles for the newer technology of Fuel Cell. And pursuing the Fuel Cell development project with UPD. Meanwhile, with all the EPA deadlines unmet and all the passed costs to businesses by light, Medium and Heavy duty truck manufacturers, FedEx’s Fred Smith put out a challenge that he wanted 50% more fuel efficient units with 90% fewer emissions. Apparently, these do-gooders do not understand entrepreneurship otherwise, they would be solving the world’s problems by creating not accusing.

Renault adopted a plan on their own called LEM-Life-Cycle Management and found 13 key vendors to achieve this, a much better and well-organized plan this was back in 1999. They made all components recyclable, well 90% including the plastics and other materials for their top selling cars; Laguna II, Mid Size Panel Vans (you have seen them in cops and robber movies in France chasing James Bond), Clio II and the Val Satis. Excellent achievement for the French Car Company. Similar to the 90% of their recycled story about the Oil for Arms Program with Iraq. Did I say Arms, no no FOOD, we Food, yes food, silly me. Other ideas of the ELV program is to use easy to disassemble parts, like what Dell is doing with computer trade-ins, yes Michael is always leading edge, he deserves an award.

You see when you take apart computers especially old ones they have gold plated components on the circuit boards and connections. Dell only charges $15.00 to recycle and they get at least $8-22 in gold out of each one. Once apart they can be 67% recycled. The EU wants certain things to no longer be used in the manufacturing of cars, such as mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadium and lead. Most US Manufacturers have already done this completely and the rest will soon be completed. Smaller companies such as MG Rover which use to produce millions of cars now only sells 200,000 per year in the UK, the UK likes the idea and are up with the compliance anyway seeing as they agree since they are on an island. But you can always drive the cars to Europe in the Chunnel and they do not want the reciprocate, the UK says we are not a junk yard.

[http://europa.au.int/comm./environment/waste/endvehic.htm]

The UK has it’s own plan called: ACORD-Automotive Consortium on Recycling and Disposal. They are proposing a cash incentive for turning in a vehicle, the Economist and the Futurists have both had articles on this thought and it is similar to the Oil Companies paying to get off the road those cars which would not run on Unleaded fuels and needed the lead additive. People were paid to dispose, in this case though people are paid to dispose properly and the UK would let the manufacturers off the hook and let the owner be responsible after all they own the car and there is no telling how many owners a car in Europe may have had during its life before it became an end of life vehicle like Logan in Logan’s Run and had to be renewed.

The UK’s Motor Vehicle Dismantlers Association agreed that the owner would be given the $75.00 equivalent in pounds as an incentive. Probably also would need to be based on inflation and the CPI-Consumer Price Index you know the Brits in their need to be exact, they are all wannabe economists. Failure to properly dispose and renew registration on the vehicle would mean that the fine penalty would be issued to their drivers license, they are more connected there. But the problem is inconsistencies for instance Greece had no shredding sites, while Germany has 42, Italy 16, France 42 and in the UK 37 total. Problem too is that those cars from others countries in Europe would not be able to take their cars to the UK, they only want to dispose of their own cars, not everyone else’s. Obviously they do not want to pay the $75.00 for every citizen in Europe who want their car melted and shredded.

In Austria which makes no cars, they want to be paid and have the other countries to come pick up the damn cars, Germany says we can do this since they will levy, guess what another TAX or they call it a LEVY of $100.00, but that levy is dry and Austria is saying that will be the day when I die, meaning Yah Right? Like you guys in Germany are so far in debt you will steal the money from Peter to pay Paul and we will never see a dime of that and we know it. Germany of course loves the upfront money. Ever since Hitler’s economic policy of collecting goods in trade up front and holding payments against those goods until they strung out vendors (countries) like Sears and then owned you. No one is fooling the Austrians and they could care less because they do not make cars anyway, figuring it is everyone elses problem so come get your cars and forget about us building any shredder plants in our beautiful country.

France and Spain are taking the approach that the manufacturer should pay the difference between the scrap that is collected value and the cost to scrap it. Good idea, but what about mergers of car companies or those succumbing to the economic pressure of the low dollar today against the Euro. What about those who will not be here in 2015 when these cars are junked, who pays for that? Like all these manufacturers are going to be here tomorrow? And in a merger is the new company responsible? Lots of questions, the UK is still talking with industry and the cars well they keep piling up, in the United States we have more room, but many of these old automobiles have other issues and materials of yester year, just like the old aircraft in the desert are slowly decaying and aluminum in the water may cause the immune system to attack the brain such in Alzheimer’s. Still not proven yet.

Another issue is if the Germans collect upfront and a premature incident such as the Floods in Prague where cars were junked early the junkyards would sell the engines and other components. But also in accidents, theft recovery vehicles already paid on, small car fires, or terrorist’s being killed and bullet holes these vehicles are not sellable but parts can be taken off, why should the manufacturer have to pay, shouldn’t they get a refund? But Germany cannot pay everyone not to work and still have money left. These vehicles have gearboxes, engines, body parts, which may still be sellable.

In the US the Argonne National Laboratories have been studying

ASR-Auto Shredding Residue

About 10 million vehicles are scrapped in us each year. Now, remember the net gain of 7 million is the traffic you see. You see the 10 million vehicles crushed or shredded in the US each year contains about a million tons of polyurethane Foam and about 1,500,000,000 pounds of thermoplastics, which is trucked to the landfill or incinerated. We need to look at the options for ELV as the US has to come to grips with the problem as junked cars increase.

By recycling the ASR-Automotive Shredder Residue as per Argonne’s tested model, a reduction of 75% of the waste can stop on the way to the landfill. In the US we have discovered this can be resold to make other products, both in automotive and other fields. This is done by a two stage trummel, it is like a rotating screen, same principle as fishing for gold in Auburn, CA gold country. Or the Rock Crusher sifters in Sunlight goldmine in Butte, MT. The sifter splits up the debris into three parts, similar to the quarters, tokens and dimes sent into the coin-op car wash for processing into rolls for the bank and recycling of tokens back to the machine. In this process the University of Chicago was able to build the machine able to take out the dirty foam, oxides of less than 6 mm, like rust chips and also the glass chips, dirt. Also taken out of the ELV junk cars would be sand granulars, other metals and plastics. Smaller holes allow these materials to filter and the foam rises and is left. It is merely dumped over the side and collected in a huge bin and trucked away. Very efficiently however recovering nearly completely debris free dirty foam larger and lighter foam chips. Like the water, which weighs more than the gold.

Foam and we have studied it on this board previously, go ahead an look it up after you are completed with this topic. the Foam is then washed, rinsed, dried and then of course re-used. Foam when missed with chemical is easily dissolved and then the chemical precipitated out and the foam is reblown with gas and made into the next substance and preferable shape. Foam being 5% liquid and 95% gas until it hardens is cheap to make, but having the substance the 5% for free is also cool. The only issues are the same involved in bulky cardboard recycling and the economies of scale and mass production depend a lot on transportation issues, trains and trucks cost money to run and the stuff is bulky for it’s value. If the substance can be removed onsite it is much more feasible and the foam turned to liquid is reduced from 100 volume to 5% volume and now in liquid form and can easily be transported by CSX tanker car anywhere you want it and then shipped anywhere in the world in bulk. This is very cool.

Plastics can be easily separated by froth flotation and precipitates and therefore can be recycled cheaply, the Industries dealing with Mineral Separation use this method as well. The ABS-Acrorylontitrile-buta-diene-stryrene is abstracted by a difference in density to the high-impact polystyrenes, which sinks faster. So you can separate the two types of plastic with 95 plus percentage accuracy. The recovered ABS can be used for a multitude of things in another automobile. There are a few issues also with the thin galvanized steel used to keep cars light which is used in modern cars, it is zinc coated and when your melt it, it gives off toxic clouds of dust.

The best idea is to strip the zinc before the process and there is a way to do this by using sodium hydroxide and electrolysis at room temperatures. To remove the zinc from solution use a centrifuge.

The Argonne is going to sell this entire process to Belgium, and the other EU countries are saying that for every 35 ELV cars just one engine can be sold, nearly 95% of all ELVs have negative value, yet the Argonne solution solves those issues. One issue with the recycling of steel is much is contaminated with copper, this could cause failure in steel frames on cars and especially with grain memory methods of manufacturing where the steel is trained to stay straight such as in steering rods, axles, truck frames, bridge components, buildings etc. if bent the steel returns to it’s intended design shape without worries of fatigue from torsion or other forces. The Japanese would by it after all they claim their stainless is the same, but when 5% nickel is really used it does not rust like the Japanese steel, no wonder we are upset with their imported steel. Even with 505 stainless for underground tanks if we use the Japanese stuff our tanks will corrode much faster leaving us with significant damage to environment and drinking well water and underground aquifer contamination although that was never discussed in the Kyoto treaty either.

You can recover about 50 lbs of zinc from a ton of steel and yes zinc has a value such as undercoatings of bridges, use in pigments or marine or aircraft corrosion prevention. Plastics recovered is about half the cost of producing plastics from corn due to corn prices, with other plastics, eating and ethanol. Also in drought years, plastics cost more due to oil companies getting more as less corn is produced for taco shells, Kellogg’s corn flakes, and Tony the tiger. In all seriousness, though this is correct along with the artificial manipulation of the commodity markets as margining players, market movers, farmers hedging their bet against the crop production and speculators let it all hang out. One issue still remains, window tint, laminated glass, antenna, and heating element materials often embedded in the windshields, windscreens and rear windows.

In the EU there are also the same issues we have here, those old five-gallon flush toilets, refrigerators, washers and dryers, all an issue. I cannot tell you a number of toilets traded in drought areas and the non-energy efficient refrigerators traded in, in nearly every city in America and this has helped America become more energy efficient, but the mountains of debris are unbelievable. Think about it.

Netherlands and Sweden have had auto disposal plans in affect for quite a while. I hope you learned something from this because as used car prices fall and cars are worthless, there will be more scraped. As we sell more cars and newer more efficient vehicles there will be more scraped, as fuel cells come into play and we work out the bugs of technology problems we will see all those cars on the road end up scrapped. We need to have a plan and we are well on our way in the states, we can work better since we are in the same country and all on the same team, as long as the other states follow the BMP that fits the needs of the American People and do not try ot build some special program to pay off their over spending as their tax base dwindles from cutting off the hand of the businesses that fed them all these years.