#the current insulation clearly isn't enough

[starstruckpurpledragon]

so I told my parents that I'd gotten some paint colors to test out to determine what my new color schemes are and...

and my dad just had to remind me of my somewhat joking goal of replacing my two shallow closets in my bedroom with a single walk in closet and...

I mean...

I'm gonna yank out the old carpet anyway, if ever I was going to do it the time would be now

I'm gonna have to measure everything and determine what the room would look like, but I do feel like the change in the master bedroom's footprint would be worth it. I'd be losing some space in one area and gaining back space in another and there's the question of the door - if I put it on the short side of the new closet vs the long side there's different trade offs. And then there's the electrical to consider - new lighting, moving and/or adding outlets...

my dad - an architect - thinks it would add value to have the walk in closet and generally he's right about this sort of thing, so that's something for me to keep in mind too

I suppose it all comes down to price and how much I'm willing to pay for this unexpected reno. But I did take the doors off my shallow closets because they made seeing what was in them more difficult. Being able to see what's in a walk in closet is a matter of... walking into the closet. But I'd still be able to shut the stuff in the closet away from sight in a way I can't anymore with the doors down...

I think I'm probably talking myself into the walk in closet already, to be honest. but there's a lot to decide before actually going forward with the idea so... I guess I've got a lot of measuring and taping the carpet and deciding which closet gets expanded into the walk in and which one becomes part of a small nook area of the room - a sitting nook maybe? since I use one of the spare bedrooms as my home office it wouldn't need to serve that purpose, though whenever I sell the house - years down the line - it could easily stage as one (resell is important, but what makes me happy and comfortable while I live here is definitely more important by far) though it could also be where I put my dresser.... or I could get new bookcases @_@ ... boooooks...

um...

anyway

can't take too long to decide, of course, but I've got time to figure out what I really want and how much effort I want to go through to get it

Estelle might have to go stay with my parents for a few once the reno work happens, regardless, which will upset her to be there when I'm not even if my parents do utterly spoil their grand-puppy while she's there (which they do every time, but she's a sweetie and snuggle fiend so I can't blame them)

[angeloncewas]

i feel like that anon is maybe missing how this whole learning thing works. When Dream was 17 he was a sheltered white kid in Florida who was raised a republican from what i recall him saying didn't even own a cell phone. Once he started using the internet more and became exposed to things you visibly could see him change because he wanted to and he didn't believe in what he was clearly raised to.

Tommy at 17 has been lucky enough to be exposed to the same exact audience and opportunities for growth and when he asked his parents about the gr**ming jokes the first time they said that he should apologize and they weren't good. He did apologize and then he did the exact same thing again. And this is new humor for Tommy he's learning in the opposite direction. Obviously, my personal thoughts but it's new humor that I've been told is very similar to Sidemen humor and we know he desires for their audience to like him. Would be a shame if this is how he decides to do it.

When being exposed to political and socially liberal online discourse you can choose to embrace it like Dream did and let go of things that upset people. Or you can reject it and keep pushing to be an edgy cool guy who says offensive jokes because no one can tell you what to do. Like with the r-slur Dream explained he stopped using the word and encouraging other people to as well because well why would you keep saying something that hurts people? I think that's the type of thing I hope Tommy considers is his jokes hurt people and if he's going to keep making them I'd prefer he not give half-assed apologies.

(Lol sorry for the rant Angel)

~sallysalmonkin

No worries about the rant ! (though I don't know how to respond without sounding repetitive LOL.)

I don't think I wholly agree with you because everyone's pace of life is different, but in that same way I don't wholly agree with the other anon (which I should've realistically said on their ask but whatever). Comparing Dream and Tommy, as similar as their current situations may be on some level, is really like comparing apples to oranges. Different cultures, upbringing, stages of life, senses of humor etc etc the list goes on and on. And while I do think that anon was correct to say that acting as though Tommy's irredeemable when Dream clearly isn't is bullshit, I also find a lot of merit in the part of the argument about Tommy's very progressive (so we've heard) environment versus Dream's insulated Floridian childhood. There's a lot of layers to it.

The apology bit of this is one of the things that upsets me the most, I think. I've said over and over that I find it hard to place faith in content creator apologies because it's abundantly easy to lie and here we are on the other end of things. I don't really think that Tommy's pushing to be an "edgy cool guy" (not sure what he's doing, to be frank) but if he wasn't sorry and was gonna do it again then he could've at least been true to what he believes, y'know? Idk.

Growth isn't linear though. I mean, Dream doubled-down on the r-slur thing before he changed his mind, didn't he? And that's growth in and of itself, I'm not saying it's some horrible thing that he did, I just think that it's another aspect to take into account.

This feels rambly, I don't know where I'm going. I also hope he's not doing this to appeal to the Sidemen, because considering what I've heard about KSI that's a slippery fucking slope.

[the-littlest-kojin]

Standing and collecting three shallow bowls and a skin full of water, Conroy seats himself at the table once more.

"While more information comes to light every day, here is a metaphor to help you understand the current model used to represent types of aetheric corruption."

Pouring water into all three dishes, Conroy indicates them once they are full. "These bowls represent your body, and the water represents your Aether. For the first bowl, we will discuss Voidsent. If I take a fire crystal and drop it in..."

Befitting his words, the Archon drops a red crystal, the size of a fingernail, from a pouch into the water. Immediately, there is a hiss of steam and the water starts to roil, visibly heating up and starting to boil, bubbling vigorously.

"The Aether becomes agitated and active, and in its activity, it expends itself. It doesn't take very long at all before..."

Indicating the bowl as the superheated water is evaporating away, revealing the top of the crystal, Conroy continues "... It burns away, leaving only a thirst for more. But any more added would burn away just as fast."

Moving to the second bowl, Conroy fishes in the pouch for a thin sliver of ice-blue crystal, continuing in the same even tone and steady cadence. "This bowl we will use to represent Sin Eaters. The introduction of an extreme element of stasis, like an ice crystal..."

Dropping the sliver into the water, the Viera indicates the way that the liquid quickly spiderwebs with traceries of ice before freezing solid inside a minute.

"... causes the entire pool to become static itself. If the pool was large enough, it would itself cause its own stasis to spread to nearby other pools. That's what you would call a Lightwarden."

Moving to the third bowl, Conroy does not produce a third crystal, instead getting out an eyedropper of oil.

"This one represents enthrallment, from deiform entities. A little bit of influence films the mind..."

A few drops of the oil quickly spread across the surface of the water, covering it in a slick sheen.

"... But this stage can be cured by the techniques designed by Ms Leveilleur. But too much more of the influence, and..."

Squeezing more oil out, the water visibly gets murkier, covered under more and more of the oil.

"... At some point this isn't a bowl of water with some oil in it, it's a bowl of oil with some water. Your Echo and Blessing insulate you from this, but the 'oil', if safely removed, will always leave the same water behind. You have nothing to fear in that front if the entity were taken away. And the nature of your gifts means that you would need an exorbitant amount of expenditure on the part of the entity to warp you to any meaningful degree."

An attempt at a reassuring smile crosses Conroy's face, clearly something alien to his visage. "Does that help?"

He made a soft noise as the tingling sensation got stronger but otherwise continued to hold still regardless of whether or not squirming would be disruptive and watched the play of light from his back until the Viera stepped back around in front of him.

So it turned out that being in a little unusual in terms of his aetheric density, something he’d had others remark upon before, had essentially saved his life.

His ears did lower at the mention of there being something concerning even if it was probably to be expected. Being taken over was one of the things he feared, along with being left a half-empty vessel should Griever see fit to take his aether back. What he’d not considered was the possibility of enthralling others inadvertently. That was a frightening proposition and suddenly called into question each of his friendships. They hadn’t been tempered in the traditional sense as with others in the presence of a Primal but what more influence could he be having over them.

Brows furrowed, set his feet back to the floor and then lowered himself into the indicated seat once more.

“I guess I should start at the beginning then,” he mused, reaching up to tug on the end of his ear.

“When I first received his aether, I remember feeling warm and everything tingled. It was pointed out to me that my colour had changed. My fur used to be brown, my eyes too. And the mark was there too,” he explained, absently pointing out the tribal tattoo-like mark on his cheek. “The tribe’s elders explained that Griever reaches out to see through the eyes of a tribesman and experience the world through them, to see that everything is in balance. If it is, he leaves well enough alone and if it’s not, he’ll… uh… return the world to how it must once have been for him? That was the tribe’s belief anyway.

“I’ve… never really noticed much after that specifically pertaining to him. He doesn’t communicate with me, though I suspect that he could manifest in a way similar to how Midgardsormr has to me previously. I wonder if I could wield his power similarly to how Ysayle did with Shiva though I’ve never dared to try. I feel like I can sense him sometimes though, when I’ve expended a lot of my own aether but I don’t get the impression that I’ve much value to him as a vessel, like I could perish and it wouldn’t matter to him.”

[zigdirty]

I love how incorrect this is. Just so everyone knows the actual facts:

Natural gas resources in the state cannot keep up with the amount of demand.

The lack of electricity to water plants, and the lack of insulated plumbing, restricts water to all of the energy plants. Nuclear, oil, and natural gas plants require water to successfully produce energy.

Wind turbines can be insulated and weatherproofed against cold. They are currently frozen and unable to generate energy from the high winds because they have not been weatherproofed.

The renewable energy model includes storing and stockpiling excess energy when it isn't being used. For an individual house, this could be a battery, like a Tesla Powerwall. For a power grid, there could be systemic storage facilities to keep extra energy for emergencies just like this. Our current grid cannot handle too little or too much energy as it does not have a backup system built into it.

Our current electrical system is not modern or weatherproofed in any way. Moderate winds, rain, even temperatures at or slightly above freezing can disable traffic lights, power lines, and transformers. It happens regularly. Designing a more robust transmission system that can withstand regular and some extreme weather events would be necessary.

Yesterday and the first part of today Tezas had extremely clear skies, as well as almost perfect coverage of snow on the ground. This actually allows additional solar energy to be reflected off of the ground, allowing solar energy and reflective heat energy to be utilized more efficiently and easily than in normal weather.

Countries like Iceland, and the component countries of Scandinavia, utilize green energy, with Iceland being 100% green, and they regularly experience weather like this. They use geothermal energy sources as well as weatherproofing the other methods.

The problem is that people gullible enough to believe the clearly biased media also usually aren't intelligent or experienced enough to know when information is either bullshit or just totally wrong.

Educated individuals know not to listen to them, but that doesn't really help people that don't know better. In other words, they are easy targets.

Fascist media (Fox News, Breitbart, Newsmax, OANN, etc...) is relentless in pursuit of fascist goals. They never let a tragedy go to waste when they can use it to make the world a shittier place.

They are currently spinning a narrative that green and renewable energy are to blame for the current disaster in Texas. Every word out of their fascist mouths in this regard is 100% unadulterated bullshit.

Our problem in recent years is that our policy has always been that it’s best just to ignore their stupid mouth noises, but the result has been their ability to brainwash a large portion of the country.

We need to find a way to counter this relentless death cult.