#weather would be a problem (canadian)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Circular battery self-sufficiency

I'm coming to DEFCON! On FRIDAY (Aug 9), I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On SATURDAY (Aug 10), I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

If we are going to survive the climate emergency, we will have to electrify – that is, transition from burning fossil fuels to collecting, storing, transmitting and using renewable energy generated by e.g. the tides, the wind, and (especially) the Sun.

Electrification is a big project, but it's not an insurmountable one. Planning and executing an electric future is like eating the elephant: we do it one step at a time. This is characteristic of big engineering projects, which explains why so many people find it hard to imagine pulling this off.

As a layperson, you are far more likely to be exposed to a work of popular science than you are a work of popular engineering. Pop science is great, but its role is to familiarize you with theory, not practice. Popular engineering is a minuscule and obscure genre, which is a pity, because it's one of my favorites.

Weathering the climate emergency is going to require a lot of politics, to be sure, but it's also going to require a lot of engineering, which is why I'm grateful for the nascent but vital (and growing) field of popular engineering. Not to mention, the practitioners of popular engineering tend to be a lot of fun, like the hosts of the Well That's Your Problem podcast, a superb long-form leftist podcast about engineering disasters (with slides!):

https://www.youtube.com/@welltheresyourproblempodca1465

If you want to get started on popular engineering and the climate, your first stop should be the "Without the Hot Air" series, which tackles sustainable energy, materials, transportation and food as engineering problems. You'll never think about climate the same way again:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/06/methane-diet/#3kg-per-day

Then there's Saul Griffith's 2021 book Electrify, which is basically a roadmap for carrying out the electrification of America and the world:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/09/practical-visionary/#popular-engineering

Griffith's book is inspiring and visionary, but to really get a sense of how fantastic an electrified world can be, it's gotta be Deb Chachra's How Infrastructure Works:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/17/care-work/#charismatic-megaprojects

Chachra is a material scientist who teaches at Olin College, and her book is a hymn to the historical and philosophical underpinnings of infrastructure, but more than anything, it's a popular engineering book about what is possible. For example, if we want to give every person on Earth the energy budget of a Canadian (like an American, but colder), we would only have to capture 0.4% of the solar energy that reaches the Earth's surface.

Now, this is a gigantic task, but it's a tractable one. Resolving it will require a very careful – and massive – marshaling of materials, particularly copper, but also a large number of conflict minerals and rare earths. It's gonna be hard.

But it's not impossible, let alone inconceivable. Indeed, Chachra's biggest contribution in this book is to make a compelling case for reconceiving our relationship to energy and materials. As a species, we have always treated energy as scarce, trying to wring every erg and therm that we can out of our energy sources. Meanwhile, we've treated materials as abundant, digging them up or chopping them down, using them briefly, then tossing them on a midden or burying them in a pit.

Chachra argues that this is precisely backwards. Our planet gets a fresh supply of energy twice a day, with sunrise (solar) and moonrise (tides). On the other hand, we've only got one Earth's worth of materials, supplemented very sporadically when a meteor survives entry into our atmosphere. Mining asteroids, the Moon and other planets is a losing proposition for the long foreseeable future:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

The promise of marshaling a very large amount of materials is that it will deliver effectively limitless, clean energy. This project will take a lot of time and its benefits will primarily accrue to people who come after its builders, which is why it is infrastructure. As Chachra says, infrastructure is inherently altruistic, a gift to our neighbors and our descendants. If all you want is a place to stick your own poop, you don't need to build a citywide sanitation system.

What's more, we can trade energy for materials. Manufacturing goods so that they gracefully decompose back into the material stream at the end of their lives is energy intensive. Harvesting materials from badly designed goods is also energy intensive. But if once we build out the renewables grid (which will take a lot of materials), we will have all the energy we need (to preserve and re-use our materials).

Our species' historical approach to materials is not (ahem) carved in stone. It is contingent. It has changed. It can change again. It needs to change, because the way we extract materials today is both unjust and unsustainable.

The horrific nature of material extraction under capitalism – and its geopolitics (e.g. "We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.") – has many made comrades in the climate fight skeptical (or worse, cynical) about a clean energy transition. They do the back-of-the-envelope math about the material budget for electrification, mentally convert that to the number of wildlife preserves, low-income communities, unspoiled habitat and indigenous lands that we would destroy in the process of gathering those materials, and conclude that the whole thing is a farce.

That analysis is important, but it's incomplete. Yes, marshaling all those materials in the way that we do today would be catastrophic. But the point of a climate transition is that we will transition our approach to our planet, our energy, and our materials. That transition can and should challenge all the assumptions underpinning electrification doomerism.

Take the material bill itself: the assumption that a transition will require a linearly scaled quantity of materials includes the assumption that cleantech won't find substantial efficiencies in its material usage. Thankfully, that's a very bad assumption! Cleantech is just getting started. It's at the stage where we're still uncovering massive improvements to production (unlike fossil fuel technology, whose available efficiencies have been discovered and exploited, so that progress is glacial and negligible).

Take copper: electrification requires a lot of copper. But the amount of copper needed for each part of the cleantech revolution is declining faster than the demand for cleantech is rising. Just one example: between the first and second iteration of the Rivian electric vehicle, designers figured out how to remove 1.6 miles of copper wire from each vehicle:

https://insideevs.com/news/722265/rivian-r1s-r1t-wiring/

That's just one iteration and one technology! And yeah, EVs are only peripheral to a cleantech transition; for one thing, geometry hates cars. We're going to have to build a lot of mass transit, and we're going to be realizing these efficiencies with every generation of train, bus, and tram:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/29/geometry-hates-uber/#toronto-the-gullible

We have just lived through a massive surge in electrification, with unimaginable quantities of new renewables coming online and a stunning replacement of conventional vehicles with EVs, and throughout that surge, demand for copper remained flat:

https://www.chemanalyst.com/NewsAndDeals/NewsDetails/copper-wire-price-remains-stable-amidst-surplus-supply-and-expanding-mining-25416#:~:text=Global%20Copper%20wire%20Price%20Remains%20Stable%20Amidst%20Surplus%20Supply%20and%20Expanding%20Mining%20Activities

This isn't to say that cleantech is a solved problem. There are many political aspects to cleantech that remain pernicious, like the fact that so many of the cleantech offerings on the market are built around extractive financial arrangements (like lease-back rooftop solar) and "smart" appliances (like heat pumps and induction tops) that require enshittification-ready apps:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

There's a quiet struggle going on between cleantech efficiencies and the finance sector's predation, from lease-back to apps to the carbon-credit scam, but many of those conflicts are cashing out in favor of a sustainable future and it doesn't help our cause to ignore those: we should be cheering them on!

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/12/s-curve/#anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-eventually-stops

Take "innovation." Silicon Valley's string of pump-and-dump nonsense – cryptocurrency, NFTs, metaverse, web3, and now AI – have made "innovation" into a dirty word. As the AI bubble bursts, the very idea of innovation is turning into a punchline:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/burst-damage/

But cleantech is excitingly, wonderfully innovative. The contrast between the fake innovation of Silicon Valley and the real – and vital – innovation of cleantech couldn't be starker, or more inspiring:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/30/posiwid/#social-cost-of-carbon

Like the "battery problem." Whenever the renewables future is raised, there's always a doomer insisting that batteries are an unsolved – and unsolvable – problem, and without massive batteries, there's no sense in trying, because the public won't accept brownouts when the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing.

Sometimes, these people are shilling boondoggles like nuclear power (reminder: this is Hiroshima Day):

https://theconversation.com/dutton-wants-australia-to-join-the-nuclear-renaissance-but-this-dream-has-failed-before-209584

Other times, they're just trying to foreclose on the conversation about a renewables transition altogether. But sometimes, these doubts are raised by comrades who really do want a transition and have serious questions about power storage.

If you're one of those people, I have some very good news: battery tech is taking off. Some of that takes the form of wild and cool new approaches. In Finland, a Scottish company is converting a disused copper mine into a gravity battery. During the day, excess renewables hoist a platform piled with tons of rock up a 530m shaft. At night, the platform lowers slowly, driving a turbine and releasing its potential energy. This is incredibly efficient, has a tiny (and sustainable) bill of materials, and it's highly replicable. The world has sufficient abandoned mine-shafts to store 70TWh of power – that's the daily energy budget for the entire planet. What's more, every mine shaft has a beefy connection to the power grid, because you can't run a mine without a lot of power:

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/02/06/this-disused-mine-in-finland-is-being-turned-into-a-gravity-battery-to-store-renewable-ene

Gravity batteries are great for utility-scale storage, but we also need a lot of batteries for things that we can't keep plugged into the wall, like vehicles, personal electronics, etc. There's great news on that score, too! "The Battery Mineral Loop" is a new report from the Rocky Mountain Institute that describes the path to "circular battery self-sufficiency":

https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/07/the_battery_mineral_loop_report_July.pdf

The big idea: rather than digging up new minerals to make batteries, we can recycle minerals from dead batteries to make new ones. Remember, energy can be traded for materials: we can expend more energy on designs that are optimized to decompose back into their component materials, or we can expend more energy extracting materials from designs that aren't optimized for recycling.

Both things are already happening. From the executive summary:

The chemistry of batteries is rapidly improving: over the past decade, we've reduced per-using demand for lithium, nickle and cobalt by 60-140%, and most lithium batteries are being recycled, not landfilled.

Within a decade, we'll hit peak mineral demand for batteries. By the mid-2030s, the amount of new "virgin minerals" needed to meet our battery demand will stop growing and start declining.

By 2050, we could attain net zero mineral demand for batteries: that is, we could meet all our energy storage needs without digging up any more minerals.

We are on a path to a "one-off" extraction effort. We can already build batteries that work for 10-15 years and whose materials can be recycled with 90-94% efficiency.

The total quantity of minerals we need to extract to permanently satisfy the world's energy storage needs is about 125m tons.

This last point is the one that caught my eye. Extracting 125m tons of anything is a tall order, and depending on how it's done, it could wreak a terrible toll on people and the places they live.

But one question I learned to ask from Tim Harford and BBC More Or Less is "is that a big number?" 125m tons sure feels like a large number, but it is one seventeenth of the amount of fossil fuels we dig up every year just for road transport. In other words, we're talking about spending the next thirty years carefully, sustainably, humanely extracting about 5.8% of the materials we currently pump and dig every year for our cars. Do that, and we satisfy our battery needs more-or-less forever.

This is a big engineering project. We've done those before. Crisscrossing the world with roads, supplying billions of fossil-fuel vehicles, building the infrastructure for refueling them, pumping billions of gallons of oil – all of that was done in living memory. As Robin Sloan wrote:

Did people say, at the dawn of the automobile: are you kidding me? This technology will require a ubiquitous network of refueling stations, one or two at every major intersection … even if there WAS that much gas in the world, how would you move it around at that scale? If everybody buys a car, you’ll need to build highways, HUGE ones — you’ll need to dig up cities! Madness!

https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/room-for-everybody/

That big project cost trillions and required bending the productive capacity of many nations to its completion. It produced a ghastly geopolitics that elevated petrostates – a hole in the ground, surrounded by guns – to kingmakers whose autocrats can knock the world on its ass at will.

By contrast, this giant engineering project is relatively modest, and it will upend that global order, yielding energy sovereignty (and its handmaiden, national resliency) to every country on Earth. Doing it well will be hard, and require that we rethink our relationship to energy and materials, but that's a bonus, not a cost. Changing how we use materials and energy will make all our lives better, it will improve the lives of the living things we share the planet with, and it will strip the monsters who currently control our energy supply of their political, economic, and electric power.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/06/with-great-power/#comes-great-responsibility

[trulyhblue]

Armband

Niamh Charles x Chelsea! Canadian! Reader

Warnings: fluff, cocky! Niamhy, suggestive.

Masterlist

__________________

You were quite new to the team, only joining the Blue’s side in July, but it felt like you had known Niamh for a lifetime.

You were Canadian, but you grew up in Manchester with your parents, playing in the City Academy before playing professionally for them until your move to London. Because of this, you knew Jessie and Ashleigh well. You grew up playing alongside Jessie at the National Camps, debuting for the Senior team in the same year. Winning the Olympics was a dream come true, especially with girls you have known since you were little.

Manchester City was a dream worth chasing. You were friends with Lauren Hemp, Ella Toone — before and during her move to United — and all the rest. When you found Chelsea interested in you, it was undeniably difficult to say no. While you had grown up in the North, the move down was something that ignited a certain thrill within you.

You met Niamh at your first training session. Jessie had been partnered with you for drills, and you were in the middle of introducing yourself to Guro when the brunette came barrelling in. Her flyaways were barren across her face, cheeks nipped red from the cold weather. Her hands stuffed in her pockets, she nearly tripped you to the ground at the speed at which she ran towards you. You had known her from previous matches against her, both for Canada and City, but something about being on the same team with her felt distinct. Sure, you had admired her beforehand, but it was different now.

“Jeez, Charles, give her some room, will you?” Guro scoffed, playfully pushing the girl back a bit. You watched as she nipped the inside of her cheek, looking at you so intently that you struggled to keep eye contact.

Niamh held out her hand, grabbing yours and shaking it. You could hear Jessie giggling from behind you. “My name’s Niamh.” She announced, continuing to shake your hand. “I’m Niamh.”

Her nervous state was apparent, and Guro was in a fit of laughter at the interaction she was watching.

“Hi, nice to meet you.” You replied, hoping your dismissal of her apprehension would cool the flames in both your cheeks. “I’m Y/N.”

“Nice to meet you.” She gulped, obviously baffled at what to say.

You couldn't help but smile, nodding. “Erm, yes, you too.”

“Fuck, let go of her hand, Charles, you're ‘gonna tear it off.” A voice called from behind. You turned to find the Australian Captain trampling over, slinging a welcoming arm over your shoulder. Her laid-back persona made it easier for introductions. Unlike Niamh, who was a worrying mess in front of you.

“Right, sorry.” The English woman muttered, tearing her hand away and shoving right back in her pocket. Her cheeks seared with an even deeper embarrassment, and you shook off the motion with a tight-lipped smile.

“You’re alright, really.” You smiled, hoping the reassurance consolidated the girl.

It must've, since Niamh gave you a wide smile back, shuffling by your side ever since.

All of the Chelsea girls were lovely. You had no problem fitting into the Grove there. After a few weeks of making scare appearances as a super sub, you became a regular starter for the Blues. Your presence on the field was noticeable, and fans reeled at how you brought more opportunities down the field and into the back of the net.

“Would you be able to give this to Niamh for me, please?” One fan said after a game, handing two matching friendship bracelets with your names on one of them each. Erin was beside you, signing off the posters, when she caught a glimpse of them. Without a second thought, she waved over Niamh, who wasted no time in sprinting towards you.

“Hello.” She spoke, trying hard to discreetly slip her arm around your waist. You leaned into her side, showing her the two bracelets.

“Look how cute.” You smiled, ignoring the way some fans had started recording. You slipped a hand into Niamh’s jacket pocket, holding out the present with your other hand.

Niamh picked up the one with your name on it, slipping it on her wrist and displaying it to the little girl who had made it. “Very cute. I wish we could wear them during games.”

Subconsciously, you put yours (Niamh’s) one on too. The two of you were pretty much hugging at this point. The wind had sent chills through you, your kit doing little to warm you up.

The two of you took a photo with the fan before calling it a day and trudging off back to the changing rooms. You shivered as the wind picked up, holding your arms over your chest tightly as you tried to fight the cold.

Without much thought, Niamh shrugged off her jacket, hauling it around your figure and zipping it up for you.

When you got back to your apartment, engulfing the comfort of your bed after a hard-fought game, you opened up your phone to find hundreds of people tagging your account. You managed to click on the video, smiling to yourself at the sight of you and Niamh huddled together, talking to the little girl with bracelets adorned on your wrists. You clicked on another image, this time a photo, of you blanketed in Niamh’s jumper, your arm wrapped around her waist with one of her’s around your shoulder. The photo was everywhere on social media, including the Chelsea Account. 

After a couple more months, you ended up extending your contract until the end of 2027 by Christmas. You loved it there. Your friendship with the team had grown all the more closer. You felt a sense of home and solidarity that you had never felt before.

Your relationship with the team was selfless. Jessie and you had never been closer. Sam and Millie had taken you under their wing, calling you the baby of the group, since you were the shortest between you, them, Guro, Niamh, Erin, and Jessie. Fans had taken a ripe liking to you all over social media. But not just you by yourself, but with a certain brunette in your wake.

You and Niamh had grown very close over the time you spent in London. She wasn't as shy as she made herself out to be when you first met. She was cunning, confident, funny, and easy to be around in any environment. All of your teammates teased the living daylights out of the two of you, especially Niamh, who didn't waste a second in making sure you were always okay.

She would check on you when you went quiet. She always ran to you for partner work during drills, after goals, and when the full-time whistle would blow. The two of you had a habit of huddling together in any setting, holding each other’s hands or waist, cuddling their side or touching you in some way.

Everything you did with each other was full of love and adoration. It was only you two that didn't see your friendship blossom into a relationship. You weren't daft, you knew the speculations surrounding what the two of you were. There was no denying the physical acclimation you had around each other. Hell, Sam sent at least two memes a day about how whenever you were seen together, you were always touching each other.

Over Christmas, Niamh asked you out. She was a nervous wreck, which reminded you all too well of when you first met her. It was after a game, in the changing rooms. She had been given a bouquet of flowers by a group of fans, who told her to ask you out with them. She was reluctant, not only because she didn't want you to feel uncomfortable or pressured by the media to say yes, but the mere fact of ruining the relationship you already had with each other made her hesitant enough.

Of course, you said yes. It was a no-brainer, and after a few more dates you were officially together. It wasn't any more public than before. Only your close friends knew, but the public was already quite content with the PDA you already showed each other before you were dating. The only thing they needed was confirmation, but Niamh and you were happy to keep in vague.

After you said yes, the two of you became inseparable, both on and off the pitch. Niamh ended up extending her contract as well, and the chemistry you built made for an unstoppable case on the field. By the time the season came back after the break, you had moved in together. The happiness both of you felt was indescribable.

Today, Chelsea was up against Manchester United, your old rival team. Ella Toone was one of your childhood friends and was who you were marking. Not only was ManU a competitive, difficult team, but it was a team you were familiar with. They were always pushing in the midfield and up against the forwards. Their chances during set pieces were worrying to any defensive back line. With the combination of Mary Earps and a sophisticated midfield variation, you knew that you were in for a ride.

When Sam did her ACL, people started to underestimate Chelsea’s shot at winning the league. Everyone was starting to wonder whether the Blues were even contestable for the semis. After a poor attempt last week against West Ham for the FA Cup, you were adamant about proving yourself to the people who were doubting your ability to win. You were a midfielder, and while you had masterclasses in the centre field, your stats didn't excel in goals. You had many assists, but never many goals.

You were tying your laces when you felt your girlfriend's arms curl around your waist. You were leaning against your cubby, back facing Niamh. You were slightly bent as your finished the knot in your shoe, feeling the women behind you grasp your hips with a slight squeeze.

“You ready to smash it today, baby?” She muttered, her lips shadowing your ear, sending shivers down your body. You held composure well enough, straightening up and letting her wrap her arms over your abdomen.

“Mh, bit nervous, but yeah.” You replied, relishing Niamh’s pattern of breath. “How ‘bout you?”

Niamh pulled your body to face in front of her, your back now flushed against the wall. You managed to make eye contact with her dilated pupils, feeling one of her hands make their to the back of your neck.

Before she spoke, your eyes filtered down to the fabric that wrapped around her arm, the word ‘Captain’ sprawled across the armband. Niamh watched the way your eyes widened, and how you bit your bottom lip at the sight. Niamh smirked in response, pressing her front into yours so that most of your body was hidden to the rest of the room.

“What's the matter, baby?” She gloated, rubbing a hand up your side. Your cheeks flushed when she refused to break eye contact, holding tranquillity at the sight of your girlfriend as captain. It was a sight you weren't used to, but it was something you couldn't get enough of.

“Nothing. I'm— we should go line up in the tunnel.” Your breath hitched. Niamh was staring down at you while groping your waist.

Neither of you said anything until you were out on the field. You could hear the crowd cheering in anticipation. You shook your opponents’ hands aimlessly, your mind sauntering on the previous sight of your girlfriend.

“Earth to Y/N, hello?” Jessie’s voice snapped you out of your trance. She must've watched you wander to your position in a haze, since she was smirking knowingly at your flushed cheeks. Erin came up behind the two of you, laughing when she caught a glimpse of your state.

“She looks like she's already played the ninety minutes.” The Scottish woman quipped, bringing her hands up to play with your cheeks. You pushed her off playfully, gushing at the ground. “Shut up, you two.”

“God, if this is your reaction to Niamh in an armband, I wonder what Niamh would do if she saw you.”

“Go away, you pricks.” You snapped, flanking them away with your hands, trying to cool your cheeks before the game.

After the team photo, you ran back to your position, jumping up and down as the whistle blew.

The game was inevitably tough, but something had ignited inside of you at the sight of your girlfriend. As embarrassing as it was to admit, you were running up and down the pitch with the one endeavour to make your girlfriend watch you.

Chelsea was controlling the game for the most part, and it didn't take long for Guro to find you inside the box.

The crowd erupted in cheers, your teammates sprinting over to where you stood starstruck. This was one of the scarce amount of goals you had scored that season.

As you were making your way back to the middle, you felt a familiar figure creep up behind you with her hands soothing the tension in your shoulders.

“Making me so proud today, aren't you, baby?” Niamh whispered, running back to her spot in defence before you could reply.

The first half ended as quickly as it started. United had sent a flyer into the back of the net just before the whistle blew. You avoided Niamh like the plague in the changing rooms, knowing you would cave to her touch as soon as she laid hands on you. In any other circumstance, it was you who would tease, but it always ended with Niamh taking over. The two of you were strict in keeping your private life and career separate, but no one seemed to mind your change of game when Niamh was Captain.

You were having an absolute masterclass of a game by the sixtieth minute, scoring your second goal on seven minutes in. Chelsea was now up two-one, and Man U were starting to bring on subs after a close set piece that almost led to a goal.

You made a break down the wing after Lauren sent a cross-over to the field. You sprinted down the line, trying to find a way into the middle. United were tight in keeping you out, and by the time you had made it down the line, attempting to pass it to one of your teammates, you felt a pair of boots collide with your own, sending you face-first fo the floor.

The ball was long forgotten by the ref, who blew the whistle immediately, medics were sent over. While your muscles started to strain at the energy of the game, you didn't feel instantaneous pain from the fall.

You were rolling onto your back, wincing as you got up, when you first heard your girlfriend’s voice boom over the hustle of the crowd.

“Are you alright there, Zelem?!” She scoffed. You watched a smug Katie Zelem trampling off from where you sat. She didn't look like she meant the tackle, but the heat of the game left her feeling less apologetic than usual.

“Oh, let it go, Charles.” Zelem clapped back, walking towards Ella and Millie, who were tense at the sight of Niamh’s uncommon anger. “She's fine.”

“I don't think you understand.” Niamh marched towards her, grabbing the girl’s jersey, and forcing Katie to face her. “You get the fuck off her and the rest of my players. Don't be salty cause we’re winning.”

Katie rolled her eyes at that. “Don't be salty cause your girlfriend can't handle a tackle.”

Erin and Jessie were surrounding Niamh moments later, dragging her away from the United mob and towards you.

The medics have already cleared you to keep playing, and you were already up and ready to go by the time your girlfriends grabbed your hand.

“Are you sure you're okay?” She asked, taking in your flustered appearance. What she didn't know was that you were overwhelmed at the way Niamh looked just then, not by the absolute mouthful of grass you just inhaled.

You could only muster a nod, squeezing your girlfriend’s hand once before slipping away from her touch. You were now hungry for not only Niamh but that third goal. You wanted to prove yourself to everyone that you could do it.

And so you did.

It was a Chelsea corner, and you made the run from outside the box near the open post, where no one had thought to mark. You jumped as high as you could, feeling the ball hit your head in the right direction. You fell to the ground before you knew where the ball was going, letting the movement and relief of the crowd pull you to your feet. You ran to the corner of the field, taking in the shouts and cheers of the crowd and letting your teammates engulf you from behind. The weight of everyone sent you down as more and more girls piled on top of you.

This was your first hat trick ever at Chelsea, and you were relishing the feeling of the euphoria for the rest of the game.

When the final whistle blew, you nearly collapsed from exhaustion. Everything you wanted to go right in the game went right. You were reeling at the win, looking across the field for a particular someone.

“Guess I know what to do to make you score some goals.” Niamh chuckled, grabbing your waist and lifting you into a spinning hug. You gripped onto her and giggled, letting her twirl you around.

“Thanks, Niamhy.” You smiled, gazing up at your girlfriend’s proud eyes. “You looked so good today, baby.”

“You think so?” She asked, though both of you knew she was just egging you on.

“Mhm. Looked so good.”

“You always look good, my stargirl.” The taller girl grinned, looking down at you slyly. Her lips met your ear, her voice sending chills down your spine. “But I guess I’ll need to reward you for doing so well. Show you how good you were for me.”

You didn't get to respond, feeling Jessie pull you away with the Player of the Match trophy shoved into your chest.

You knew you’d see her soon… you were looking forward to it.

niamhcharles

niamhcharles — she scores more when I am Captain.

Tagged: Yourusername

Comments:

samanthakerr — yeah the girls 🙌🏼

*liked by yourusername, niamhcharles

User8 — they will never beat the dating allegations

^ user10 — at this point they are embracing it

guroreiten — she always score goals, Charles 🙄

^ niamhcharles — READ THE CAPTION

^ guroreiten — I DID

^ niamhcharles — i said she scores “more” goals

^ guroreiten — oh, okay.

^ user1 — LMAO

yourusername — always complimenting me 😍

^ erincuthburt — too much apparently… as if she didn't do it enough in the Change Rooms

^ niamhcharles — i did it more when we got home

^ erincuthburt — youre blocked.

User22 — they are so pookie together

^ user76 — omg yes

jflem_ — that armband ignited something within her

^ yourusername — EXCUSE ME?????

^ user2 — LMAO JESSIE

^ user3 — don't expose her like that 💀

^ yourusername — Ikr 😖

erincuthburt — Niamh needs to be in that armband more often 😂

^ yourusername — maybe I just had a good game?!?!

^ erincuthburt — we all have our superstitions

^ user6 — LMAO ERIN IM CRYING

User78 — If you look closely I’m jumping off the bridge

^ user90 — mood.

User67 — okay but when Niamh protected Y/N at the Man U game!? 😋😋😋 wishing I was Y/N right now.

laurenhemp — where were those hat tricks at City, Y/N???

^ yourusername — you stole them all

yourusername — can a girl just score a hat-trick because shes good? 😖😖😖

^ niamhcharles — you did it all by yourself 🫶🏼

^ yoursusername — thx niamhy 🥰

^ guroreiten — suck up

^ samanthakerr — suck up

^ milliebright — suck up

^ niamhcharles — a proud suck up x

^ jflem_ — 🤢

^ niamhcharles — ok bye.

user7 — THIS IS SO CUTE BYE

_________________________

[thesmegalodon]

Sorry didn't want to crowd that post about Groundhogs, but I recently read a paper about groundhog day and how American groundhogs are more a hodgepodge of unreliability. There is not one Master Groundhog, and it's clear some of these groundhogs are clearly slacking (I jest!)

Famous American groundhog Punxsutawney Phil (from the OG Pennsylvania) has only a 30-40% accuracy rate depending on how long ago you measure. And only a handful of groundhogs (out of 41) are above 50%

Staten Island Chuck and Chuckles (from Connecitcut) are the most consistently accurate groundhogs at 60% with Sir Walter Wally ranks about 58% HOWEVER all 3 are massively outshined by Beardsley Bart (pairie dog) and Sand Mountain Sam (oppossum) at 78% and 75% respectively (José Luiz Martiéz, CT Mirror 2022) Now this gets into "how do you measure if a guess is right" territory for these exact numbers so some of this is all over the place. Wiarton Willie gets reported as having a 25% accuracy rate a 39% accuracy rate (Canadian Encyclopedia) or a 54% accuracy rate (Ross et al 2021)

But the MOST ACCURATE GROUNDHOG is by far the Canadian Oil Springs Ollie with an 83% accuracy rating. The worst is Buckeye Chuck with a 10% accuracy rating who, out of the last 15 or so predictions, was wrong about 14 of them While there was no significant relationship between latitude and correctness when measured, a big problem is that groundhogs actually emerge in March, not Febuary and at least in Canada that means groundhogs have to be woken up to predict the weather or else they live in a zoo and are not out there in nature reporting from the field

It is unlikely any more scientific evaluation of the accuracy of animal meteorologists will be conducted with hard rigour, but it would be fun to see! I hope these Fun Facts were interesting!

^^^ groundhog meteorologist facts for your monday morning

[ummick]

How Skydiving Keeps Mick Schumacher Sharp

Mick Schumacher spends his free time jumping out of planes. He's notched up a staggering 1,600 jumps, and it helps him keep race sharp, having been something he "shared with his dad"

Mick Schumacher's demeanour changes the moment I pick up on one of his answers to my questions. I asked him how he likes to spend his free time and, among the usual responses of being in the gym and cycling, there was one extracurricular activity that caught my attention. "I also like skydiving," he says rather casually as we chat during the Canadian Grand Prix. Schumacher has underplayed the term "like," as he goes on to explain how much jumping out of a plane has formed part of his life. The former Haas driver, who remains hopeful of returning to Formula 1, tells Motorsport.com excitedly about his hobby: "My first skydive, if I remember right, I was eight or nine years old. It was obviously a tandem jump. Basically, going up, I did not really like it so much, and then my sister did it and I was like, 'Damn, if my sister could do it, now I have to do it.' So I jumped out with my eyes closed, but I loved it so much I went back up again straight away. When I was old enough I went out on my own; that was when I was sixteen. I have 1,600 jumps now and have a licence." Schumacher says his adrenaline-fueled pastime, which is also enjoyed by Lewis Hamilton and the two have skydived together, also allows him to improve his training as a racing driver. He explains: "It's not only an opportunity for me to get to know my body better; you have this ordination of feet, hands, body, head and eyes, and what they do. It gives you an idea of what to do when racing, but it also gives you knowledge about weather and winds. Sometimes you might get pushed into a peculiar position, so you have to act quickly. That, I knew how to do from racing, but it helps to emphasise it time and again, especially when you have no security around you like in a race car. I love doing it because it was something I shared with my dad." After a frustrating stint at Haas, Schumacher now finds himself as a reserve driver for Mercedes and competing in the World Endurance Championship with Alpine. His performance at this year's Le Mans 24 Hours was cut short, as both Alpine hypercars suffered engine problems after just six hours and were both forced to retire. Nonetheless, he says his experience with another team and racing in the WEC is allowing him to become a more rounded driver. He hopes that his time with Alpine and working with Mercedes will allow him to find a route to return to F1 after just two seasons at the back of the grid with Haas, where he did not have the chance to impress. Citing that he has a lot still to prove and a desire to silence his critics, he added: "Working with Alpine is an opportunity for a team on the F1 grid to get to know me better. It allows me to be a more rounded driver and try different disciplines, because it could give me [a better chance]. Even if it is an extra one percent, it could help me. Someone with my background now, I would be able to bring value to a team. You have to go through tough times to prove what you're made of, but I can walk into the paddock and still have a smile and be motivated. I will continue trying until I succeed, and I don't see any reason to give up. My focus is to get back to F1. That has been my dream since childhood and I will not give up on it. I still have a lot to prove. A lot of people who know me have seen it in the junior categories, but then those who only know me at Haas have not seen it. There is a lot I want to prove wrong for judging me. I don't think I need to go out and hand in a CV-people have seen what I have done-but what is not known is how I work internally, because that's kept behind shut doors. If people knew how hard I was working, it would make their mind up in a different way."

[randomfoggytiger]

From Vicki Gabereau Show, 23 October 1997

Vicki Gabereau Show (Canada), 23 October 1997 - This show is a Canadian talk-show. DD talked about the brouhaha over his wanting to leave Vancouver

I'm from Vancouver and I remember this story well! The problem wasn't just that he wanted to leave Vancouver, it was that everyone thought he was a super liar and a coward for blaming his wife who was in Los Angeles, as if there were no airplanes at the time and as if she was starring in Friends… the show she was on - a piece of crap that was nowhere near the success of The X-Files - had even been canceled. She was occasionally seen in Vancouver and everyone thought she was very nice and beautiful. People said that the real reason he left Vancouver was because he wanted to be - and rightly so - in Hollywood, close to better opportunities for his career, especially in the movies, as television at the time wasn't as powerful as it is today and science fiction was even more marginalized. Today Duchovny must find it hilarious how he, a literature graduate, could shoot himself in the foot in his interviews by wanting to make up stories instead of being honest.

I don't think he was being dishonest. From his perspective, that was what got him in trouble.

David had already talked about-- though he didn't understand-- the "arrogant actor who always got his way" angle that spawned itself at the time; but that was an abiding media narrative before the Vancouver weather comment. The latter exploded him into the stratosphere of picked-over conversation, to such extremes that CC had to come out and make a clearing-the-air statement--

In an interview by phone from Los Angeles Sunday, Carter admitted that he had promised Duchovny and Anderson that the show would not stay in Vancouver indefinitely.

Duchovny told several U.S. talk-show hosts late last year that he would sooner quit The X-Files than spend another year away from his wife, Naked Truth actress Tea Leoni, but Carter denied the actor had forced his hand.

“It’s important to remember that we originally intended to film the pilot [in March 1993] in Los Angeles,” Carter said. “When we couldn��t find a good forest, we made a quick decision to come to Vancouver. As it turned out, it was three weeks that turned into five years. The benefits of being in Vancouver were tremendous, and now, five years later, it is my home away from home.”

--multiple times.

As I was reading "older" interviews, I found Gillian and Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter and the other writers and actors on The X-Files, too, thought the anger directed at David was because of his weather jokes. They truly all believed this perspective; and figured it took off because Vancouver jumped from offense at his comments to miffed blame for the show's relocation.

They've stated this many times; and I can't disagree, to be honest: David was upfront and honest (sometimes too much so) in the five years leading up to his weather comment-- he was moving after his contractually obligated time or quitting the show-- before Tea became involved. (It was Chris, in fact, who dragged his feet and tried to dissuade him and Gillian from moving. And, when the show relocated, it was CC who mourned the move.)

Gillian also stated to the press, multiple times, that she was happy to leave Vancouver-- that California was home, that she was lonely, that she was going through hard times, etc.-- but no one was listening to her. It wasn't until I deep-dove into old articles that I realized how happy she was to leave; and that she insisted on relocating just as much as David did. (Wikipedia still, to this day, backhandedly cites the move as David's fault for wanting to be in Cali with Tea; but neither DD nor GA nor CC nor their contracts support this narrative.)

Further, I've read old Vancouver articles: they, too, fussed at him about the weather, sometimes with the criticism about him (quote-on-quote) leaving the show for his wife, and sometimes without. The weather really did predominant the talking points, no matter how people took it or what angle it was reported on.

If you were already known as the "arrogant" guy on The X-Files set-- which is especially delicious to a press that likes to paint cliche narratives instead of the full, funky truth-- being blamed for something changing on the show wouldn't be new. The fervor over weather was what threw David and his X-Files cohorts for a loop.

Those are my thoughts, anyway~

[ninja-muse]

February was a pretty good month! I read some books I really loved (and a couple that were simply meh), I got in a father-daughter visit and had really good luck at Scrabble, the weather was mostly not awful, and even if inventory at work took longer than expected, I survived it without brain mush, which has happened before. I am still the fastest scanner! My title holds.

Regular readers will be unsurprised to learn that Eve by Cat Bohannon and Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse were my top reads of the month, or that What Feasts At Night by T. Kingfisher ranks third. My T. Kingfisher problem is at least a year old, after all. (Also I read a couple delightful picture books, so be sure to click through to find them!)

I'm personally more surprised by my lowest picks, because they both sounded so up my alley but fell flat for nearly completely different reasons. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store ended up feeling disjointed and like it was trying for a theme it couldn't quite grasp, and A Market of Dreams and Desires hit all kinds of tropes I love, right down to random Dickens references and weird steampunk machines, but tied everything together a little too neatly for me. Ah well.

And right in the middle of my list is my sole physical TBR read of the month: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. This managed to tick off "Canadian author" and "classic" at the same time, so I get triple points. (This might have had a hand in me picking it.) Duddy has aged surprisingly well, in that it's still pretty fast-paced and amusing and also in that Richler wrote it with the understanding that scam artistry, hypermaterialism, and misogyny were bad and y'know what? They still are. I would recommend if you're looking for a Canadian teen anti-hero, more than anything. Duddy is a trainwreck and you can't look away.

I managed to get through the month with only three books hauled. (We won't talk about ARCs but the book fairies were kind.) The Unfortunate Traveller and Under a Pendulum Sun were bought during the habitual father-daughter bookstore date, and both because I never thought I'd see them and figured I might never see them again. The Unfortunate Traveller is essays and travel writing by a guy who co-wrote with Shakespeare and I didn't know it even existed. Under the Pendulum Sun was recced to me somewhere (here? bookish website algorithms?) and since it's essentially a gothic novel with properly weird fairies, it's been on my list.

The third book was a total surprise. Apparently I helped crowdfund it in 2019 and they've only just managed to get it printed and also I said I wanted a physical copy? The things we learn. Anyway, it's essays on aromanticism, agender identity, and asexuality so that tracks.

And I know I said I wasn't going to talk about ARCs but I got some good ones this last month and also in January, and there's a lot of them that are out or soon to be out and I'm having that problem where I want to be reading all of them at once. March is going to be interesting and probably a little panic-inducing.

Click through to see everything I read this month, in the rough order of how glad I was to have read them.

Eve - Cat Bohannon

A history of human evolution, through the lens of the female body.

8.5/10

warning: touches on sexism, mental illness, suicide, miscarriage, and rape

reading copy

Mirrored Heavens - Rebecca Roanhorse

The fractures following the eclipse have deepened and no one can see a way back to peace that doesn’t involve bloodshed. Out in June

8/10

Indigenous cast, 🏳️‍🌈 POV characters (bisexual, third gender), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (third gender, sapphic), Black-Pueblo author

warning: war, torture, mentions of child abuse

reading copy

What Feasts At Night - T. Kingfisher

Alex Easton has returned to kar hunting lodge to relax. Unfortunately, the locals claim there's a monster on a property.

8/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (third gender), protagonist with PTSD

Library ebook

The Twilight Queen - Jeri Westerson

Will Somers, jester to Henry VIII, is caught up in another mystery, this time of a corpse in Queen Anne’s bedchamber.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 main character (bi), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (gay)

digital reading copy

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - Mordechai Richler

A delinquent teen grows into a hustler, against the backdrop of mid-century Jewish Montreal.

7/10

largely Jewish cast, Jewish author, 🇨🇦

warning: racial slurs, misogyny

Off my TBR shelves

The Woman With No Name - Audrey Blake

Lonely and craving war work, Yvonne signs up to be the first female spy for the Allies in occupied France. Out in March

7/10

half a 🇨🇦 author

reading copy

The Frame-Up - Gwenda Bond

Ten years ago, Dani turned her art thief mom in to the Feds. Now her mom’s mentor has given Dani an offer she can’t refuse: use her magic to pull an impossible heist, get her life back.

6.5/10

Black secondary characters, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (sapphic)

reading copy

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store - James McBride

The Black and Jewish residents of a Pennsylvania neighbourhood are (mostly) in it together, not least of when the government decides to take a local Deaf kid to an asylum.

7/10

Jewish and Black cast, major character with chronic illness and a limp, secondary Deaf character, Black author

warning: ableist characters and institutions, racist and anti-Semitic characters, sexual assault and molestation, (largely) reclaimed slurs

library book

The Market of Dreams and Destiny - Trip Galey

Deri may have a chance to buy out his indenture early when he meets a princess looking to sell her destiny. But in the goblin’s Untermarkt, nothing’s ever easy.

6.5/10

🏳️‍🌈 main character (mlm), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (mlm, genderfluid), British Indian secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author

warning: child abuse, enslavement

borrowed from work

Picture Books

No Cats in the Library - Lauren Emmons

Cats aren’t allowed in the library but that’s where all the books are!

🏳️‍🌈 author

Read at work

Family is Family - Melissa Marr

Chick gets a note before kindergarten, telling him to have his mom or dad walk him to school. Except that Chick has two moms.

🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters and themes

Read at work

Currently reading

Knife Skills for Beginners - Orlando Murrin

Paul Delamare is filling in at a cooking school when the resident celebrity chef has a, erm, "accident."

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (gay), Black British secondary character

Reading copy

True North - Andrew J. Graff

The Brechts move to Wisconsin to restart a rafting business. They hope it’ll save their young family, but it might do the opposite.

library book

Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century - Richard Taruskin

A history of early written European music, in its social and political contexts.

The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

Victorian detective stories

disabled POV character, occasional secondary Indian secondary characters

warning: racism, colonialism

Monthly total: 9 +2 Yearly total: 20 Queer books: 4 + 2 Authors of colour: 2 Books by women: 6 Authors outside the binary: 0 Canadian authors: 1.5 Classics: 1 Off the TBR shelves: 1 Books hauled: 3 ARCs acquired: 6 ARCs unhauled: 4 DNFs: 0

January

[fuck-customers]

So this lovely lady came in this past Tuesday (6/6) that straight up told my manager that I had no idea what I was doing (I did). I’d been near the door as there was apparently an Uber pick up someone had requested for an item they paid for over the phone. I’m starting to get stressed because she’s stressed trying to figure out how to deal w/ that (first time we’ve had to deal w/ an Uber pick up. We’re a clothing store). Also the air quality was shit that day because of the Canadian wildfires, so also an added stressor.

An older lady comes in, I greet her, and she tells me she needs white crew neck t shirts. No problem, I show them to her. Since the weather is warm we’re always selling out of our cotton t shirts, especially in white, so the stack on the floor is often low unless we randomly unpack some in our replen. She said she needed 2 smalls, but there was only one on the floor, so I ask over the walkie for the stock ppl to check if we have any more in the bays. While they’re looking she’s also asking for 2 navy and/or 2 black shirts. Also apparently the one small navy I had was super stretched out and how could I dare sell it to her. My manager that day decides to take that opportunity to ask what other sizes needed to be filled in the crew neck shirts, which normally would be perfectly ok, but both conversations are happening at the *exact* same time, so I’m talking to both this lady and the manager in every other sentence, I’m now incredibly stressed since I’m really not good at having more than one conversation simultaneously, and the lady is only hearing my end of the walkie conversation which I guess didn’t help her opinion of me. My manager is taking her sweet ass time despite me saying the customer was getting impatient (in a very increasingly Karen manner). She finally goes into the fitting room to try on while I’m waiting for the navy & black shirts, and I just basically walk away to I could get a minute to breath and calm down. After she’d left my manager came up to me to say that the lady complained that I had no idea what I was doing, thank fuck my manager knew that wasn’t true so she was just like, “ok thanks, bye.”

I have no idea if any of this made any sense, but if anything this tells me I should probably get out of retail.

Posted by admin Rodney.

[sparksinthenight]

Letter to the Canadian Government about Mandatory Human Rights and Environment Due Diligence Laws

Our names are ______. We are from ______. We are writing to you to ask that you create good Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence laws for all companies operating in, selling goods or services in, or headquartered in Canada. This will help workers, communities, and ecosystems around the world and contribute to the creation of a fair world where current people and future generations have what they need.

Right now, companies are doing horrific human rights abuses and environmental abuses all around the world.

First of all, workers are being horrifically overworked and incredibly underpaid in intensely dangerous working conditions. Three million workers die every year due to workplace accidents or poisoning. Fifty million people are literally being held in modern slavery. Ten percent of children worldwide are doing child labour. Two thirds of the world are in multidimensional poverty, where they don’t have five or more of their basic needs (such as food and sanitation and education) met. Forget living wages, most workers are not even paid bare subsistence wages. And experts have described working conditions as soul-destroying for workers around the world.

Local communities around factories and plantations and power plants and mines and whatnot are also being polluted. Chemicals from industrial developments leach into the ground, air, and water, poisoning people, destroying crops and plants, and killing local fish and wildlife. This leads to many people dying from being poisoned or losing their livelihoods. People lose their access to clean water and air, to food, and to life.

And the environment is being harmed by industrial activities too. We are at the start of the worst biodiversity crisis the earth has ever faced. Ecosystems all around the world are collapsing, and will continue to collapse. Not to mention, the climate is warming and causing devastation for people the world over. All humans rely on a healthy climate and healthy ecosystems for fertile soil, clean water, safety from extreme weather, pest and disease control, and the list goes on. But it is the actions of industry, companies, and supply chains that are the biggest contributor to the climate and biodiversity crises.

And often, when people stand up for the air and water and land, when they stand up for their communities and/or their fellow workers, they are threatened, intimidated, or even killed.

The companies that are headquartered in Canada or sell their products in Canada are benefitting from and causing all these problems. Their supply chains are rife with human rights abuses and environmental abuses, and they do not take adequate measures to stop the many abuses in their supply chains. Because of this, Canada and all Canadians are guilty of destroying the world and uncountable lives.

But a better world is possible. Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence Laws, or Mandatory Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Laws, or whatever you want to call them, would ensure that any companies that abuse the workers, local communities, and local environments tied to their supply chains are made to pay. Not just made to pay a fine, which companies don’t mind and only view as a cost of doing business, but actually made to face justice and jail time.

These laws are necessary in order to ensure that workers and other people are given the human rights and human dignity they deserve, and they are necessary in order to protect the world’s ecosystems so that future generations can live. Without due diligence laws, the situation will continue to get worse and worse. But with due diligence laws, we can see improvement.

Please enact Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence Laws.

Thank you,

Send to:

Prime Minister Trudeau- justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca

Deputy Prime Minister Freeland- chrystia.freeland@parl.gc.ca

Minister of Foreign Affairs Joly- melanie.joly@parl.gc.ca

Find your MP here: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en

Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Youth Ien- marci.ien@parl.gc.ca

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Guilbeault- Steven.Guilbeault@parl.gc.ca

Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Wilkinson- jonathan.wilkinson@parl.gc.ca

Minister of Export Promotion, International Trade, and Economic Development Ng- mary.ng@parl.gc.ca

Minister of International Development Hussen- ahmed.hussen@parl.gc.ca

Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry Champagne- francois-philippe.champagne@parl.gc.ca

Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard Lebouthillier- diane.lebouthillier@parl.gc.ca

[hot-take-tournament]

it's finally time to close the book on this

HOT TAKE TOURNAMENT:

SHOWDOWN AT HIGH NOON (#15)

Submissions 8, 24, 28, 33, 88, 98, 213, 261, 272, 280

IS PINEAPPLE ON PIZZA GOOD?

[ALL PROPAGANDA UNDER THE CUT]

Then we never have to talk about this again.

Pre-preliminaries will be used to determine what qualifies as a hot take. Propaganda is encouraged!

Also, remember to reblog your favourite polls for exposure! (exposure like when your exposed to deadly radiation)

YES:

(24)

Pinapple [sic] belongs on pizza.

There are many dishes that mix sweet and savory. Cheese and fruit as found on charcuterie boards is a prime example. What else mixes fruit and cheese? That’s right. Pineapple pizza. The salty savoriness of the cheese blends perfectly with the cooked pineapple, which is less tart than raw fruit. Add bacon, canadian bacon, or chicken for extra deliciousness. You either like pineapple on pizza or you’re a coward.

(28)

Pineapple on pizza is not only good, it’s the best pizza topping there is

Sweet and savory is a godly flavor combo. It hits all the notes at once. It provides the acid and the sweetness to an otherwise very heavy dish

(33)

Adding to the last one I sent [about milk before cereal], "pineapple does not belong on pizza" people are also annoying as fuck

I don't even like pineapple but it's the only pizza my best friend will tolerate and I'm tired of people calling her a freak for it

(98)

Pineapple on pizza is fine.

I work in a pizza place & have to see absolutely fucking horrific monstrosities that people call pizza. Here’s a list of things worse than pineapple that I’ve seen on pizza: any topping that people ask for “extra extra�� of (like mushrooms or spinach), fish, nacho cheese sauce, & a mix of beans and salsa

(213)

Pineapple on pizza is fine.

It's not mana from heaven or anything but it's not bad either. The flavors balance out pretty well.

(261)

PINEAPPLE ON PIZZA IS AMAZING!!!

it tastes good and pepperoni fans are just mean to us pineapple on pizza likers.

YES, but –

(272)

i like pineapple on pizza. the ham is the problem

listen i can do meat on pizza. but ham AND pineapple? no. something about that feels unholy. so i pick off the ham so i can enjoy my pineapple pizza. also i am allergic to pineapple. but we persevere

(280)

pineapple pizza is good in america

the sweet and savory combination is just… ough. but most native italian people don’t like the idea of pineapple pizza. why? the answer comes in the difference in tomatoes in italy and the united states. in america, tomatoes are very sour and savory, so pineapple can really do a pizza some favors. however, italian tomatoes, while still savory and tart, are very sweet. putting pineapple on an italian pizza would just be redundant.

(8)

I think people need to stop being so angry about Pineapple on Pizza. Weather [sic] you like it or not isn't a big deal

If we're supposed to 'respect other's opinions' then why do pizza toppings need to start a war? It's really pointless.

(oh... um... sorry dude. guess i'm not helping, am i)

NO:

(88)

pineapple on pizza should be outlawed

disgusting. crime against perfectly good pizza.

i’m RIGHT., i will FIGHT YOU, 🍍+🍕= 🚮

(266)

Pineapple should not be on pizza.

Fruit allergiers, particularly pineapple allergies, are steadily on the rise and this topping will legit kill someone if there's not at least some proper storage.

I work in a pizza place, and have been working with pizza for years. There is NO proper storage for pineapple at most pizza places. It comes from a can and the juice gets on every surface. Same with 90% of other toppings.

If you have a friend who is allergic to pineapple, do not recommend pizza for dinner during hang outs. Opt for anything else.

Pineapple should not be on pizza. The hell fruit should stay out of pizza kitchens.

[weatherman667]

Climate Change

Long Post

Climate Change is a completely and utterly bullshit term.  What they mean is Global Warming.  The reason they changed it is the Global Warming is something that can actually be MEASURED.  And if it can be measured, it can be refuted.

Every time a major weather event happens, people bring it out as proof of Global Warming, without the slightest effort to look into the data.  I live in an area that became a worldwide exemplar for how Global Warming is killing us, but the fun thing is I’ve lived here my entire life.  We had a similar heat dome 25-ish years ago.  The reason it had record temperatures was that it happened earlier in the year than the last heat wave.

The Canadian government also uses REARWARD PROJECTIONS to prove the veracity of it’s forward projections for temperature.  What this means is that we cannot believe anything the Canadian government says about temperature data.  For the record, before the government did this, the temperature graph was basically flat.

Just before the change happened, there was a study that looked at mostly rural sites around the country, and showed no change.

But wait, is Carbon Dioxide a greenhouse gas or not?

Yes, yes, yes it is.  And yes, for a time, the increase in global temperatures did match the increase in Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.

So, Global Warming is real then?

First, to put it into perspective, the three biggest contributors to global temperature, other than the Sun, obviously, (we’ll get to that later), is:

Water Vapour

Rayleigh Scattering

All Other Gases.

Carbon Dioxide is the biggest contributor from All Other Gases, but Oxygen and Ozone also apply.

Gas light absorption graphs are logarithmic.  You need an order more gas to produce a linear increase in absorption.  What this means is that at a minimum, for Carbon Dioxide to absorb more light, we’d need to double the current levels, and 10 times is not out the realm of the possible.

Before we jumped on the Global Warming bandwagon without any proof, (more on that later), the scientific consensus is that we were likely going towards a new ice age.

None of these theories are mutually exclusive.  We added Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere, and put off Glaciation, and then Carbon Dioxide reached saturation, (reached a point that it would require 10x more to increase the Greenhouse Gas Effect it can produce).

No onto some other issues that are often brought up as counterproof for Global Warming:

Acid Rain:  We restricted the chemicals that were making acid rain.  We did a fantastic job of cleaning up our emissions, until we started worrying about Carbon Dioxide.

Hole in the Ozone:  This was caused by CFC’s, and we banned them.  And the Ozone layer healed everywhere but Australia.

By contrast, CO2 is, literally, plant food.  A number of green houses use CO2 generators because higher concentrations of CO2 allows them to grow more.

Alright, let’s say we want to stop producing CO2.  Even if not for Global Warming, then as my father suggested, to save some carbon for when we’ll risk going back to glaciation.  So, we want to reduce our carbon emissions, what do we do?

Solar Power:  This takes a of energy to create.  There are other problems, but the biggest one is that we don’t have storage.  California has too much solar power, as they cannot store it for usage when they actually need it.

Wind Power:  We are doing this in an insanely stupid way.  I’m seriously, most wind turbines are the worst way we would do it.  Wind Power is also highly temperamental, and we don’t have a good way of storing it.

These both work on smaller scales, and are something we can slowly lean into, but they cannot provide most of our power.  Actually, we can learn from Germany.  Germany had the highest amount of power from renewables in the world, and decided to increase the ratio.  The rest of their power was from nuclear, so they shuttered nuclear power plants to replace them with solar and wind.  But, solar and wind are temperamental, and you need something that can quickly spin up to make up for any shortfall.  And that is fossil fuels.

So, Germany trades nuclear for fossil fuels, which they were getting from Russian.  And then the Ukraine war started, and the US convinced the EU to no longer pay Russia for gas.  And that’s how you get an energy crisis.

Nuclear Power:  Canada solved all of the problems with Nuclear Power in the 60′s.  And I do mean all of them.  CANDU reactors CANNOT go critical, cannot meltdown, and can use natural uraniums, so they don’t need enrichment.  Nuclear power is the only method we can quickly scale up for out usage.  Quite frankly, if we are going to replace fossil fuels, this is the only method of producing power we can use to do it.  Like I said, Solar and Wind can be developed slowly, but we need to work on storage.

The best / only way to store power in the grid currently is pumped hydro.  Which works, extremely well, but the problem is that regions that can use pumped hydro can just use hydroelectric dams.  Hydroelectric dams and geothermal power are both fantastic, but you have to have the right environment.

How can we store power?

Lithium:  It works.  It’s extremely expensive, extremely inflammable, and we probably don’t have enough for the entire world’s needs.

Hydrogen:  Hydrogen fuel cells work.  Hydrogen combustion engines work.  Hydrogen never went away.

Synthetic Fuel:  One of the major car racing organizations, (can’t remember which one), is planning to switch to wind-generated synthetic fuel that is made using atmospheric gases, (primarily CO2), and water.

And now for electric cars.  If everyone switched to electric cars, it would be better for the environment?  No.  Ignoring the fact that a lot of people cannot use electric cars, the switch would cost most energy than we would save.  Gasoline cars can work for 20 years without a problem.  Electric / hybrid cars typically need a battery replacement after 5 years, which is often the same value as the car at that time.  This means you cannot buy the car for any price, as you will have to shell out thousands, (maybe tens of thousands for a truck), for a used car.  I bought my first car for $1,000.  I traded it in for $500.  Not only are we locking most people out of the car market, but we are making it so that financially, you might as well just buy a new car.  For electric cars (US):

New Nuclear Power Plant every 2 weeks for 20 years.

Quadruple the electrical infrastructure in all regions, without taking growth into account.

Have every - single - apartment building have individual garage stalls that can have a charger hooked up.

Even then, it’s still terrible for people living up North, as the cold takes a HUGE amount of power from the batteries.  With gasoline cars, we use waste heat from the engine to heat the cabin.

[carolrain]

Trivia Wednesday

Creators: give a “behind the scenes” look at one of your works. This could be things that got removed or changed, the origins of ideas/details, whatever you like!

I am delighted, delighted by this whole thing. I love “behind the scenes,” love talking about writing, love learning about other kinds of creating.

I love @mostlyinthemorning’s post about making graphs—it answered about a dozen questions I wanted to ask and more questions I didn’t realize I wanted answers to but I did. I love metadata, love that kind of analysis. I am so pleased to be tagged, thank you.

Here is a list I started keeping of things I've researched/googled as I’ve written my work in progress. I’m copying it straight from my notes without cleaning it up or explaining so I don’t get perfectionistic about it. (I actually would be happy to explain, elaborate, or tell you what I found out about anything, as long as you promise not to laugh at those many items that reveal a basic ignorance about Canada or life in general.)

Things I've Researched for “Piecing It Together” (still a WIP)

amnesia in general

amnesia in fiction

amnesia in fanfiction

types of memory in general—muscle memory

prematurity circa 1983

nicus in toronto in 1983

30 weekers

adults who were born preterm

weather in that part of Ontario for fall 2020

weather in that part of Ontario in general

vegetation in that part of Ontario—garden, trees, planting

butter and how it’s packaged and referred to in Canada

what measurements are used for babies in Canada

head injuries in general

healing times and staples vs. stitches vs. glue on head wounds

who was the prime minister in March 2016

Covid and hospital emergency rooms in Sept 2020

Blue Jays schedule for August 2020

OHIP cards and how health care works in Canada

lockdown and non-essential businesses in Ontario

pandemic-related business help from Ontario government

timeline of Covid/lockdown guidance and rules in Ontario

if you could actually donate money to Teen Vogue

SC timeline

nosejobs circa 1996 and if they could be outpatient

psychology—compartmentalization

fall Canadian holidays

fall Jewish holidays

the geography of that part of Ontario

wildfire smoke in Sept 2020

what Alias Grace is about

timeline of Canadian elections

kilts vs skirts

MRIs vs CT scans

what was popular to watch in Sept 2020

names of colors

lyrics to songs

John Prine’s concert history

planting times for gardens in Ontario

what flowers mean

what scents go well with apple

“good baseball news website canadian”

do they eat peanut butter in Canada

meghan markle’s bouquet

episode of friends looking out the window u2

what do people do on labor day

tundra animals

the color of the motel walls—what did Dan call it?

details of baby Patrick Kennedy—include a footnote?

Susanna Moodie

busy highway toronto

what shows were on tv in spring 1996

patrick’s actual outfits patrick bluer

herbal remedies for memory problems

tomato cages

how to help someone with retrograde amnesia

the canadian postal system

how to dry curly hair

teenagers late 90s

koolaid hair 1990s images

“where do rich people hang out in spain”

where to buy tennis balls—canadian tire—do they ship them

what’s a postal code I can use for research

gardening zones canada

videos man throwing ball

sunset sunrise times ontario 2020

moon phases sept 2020

amplifier vs receiver

neck anatomy massage

what is made out of beeswax

link to fuse bead examples?

do they sell pyrex in canada?

adrenaline is the hormone I mean, right?

harpsichords

canadian cheese crackers

do they have lucky charms?

movies september 2020

disney movies released to video dates 1990s

lion king scary for seven year old

scary parts of lion king

kindergarten in ontario

soho live-work spaces images

art in galleries 2014 new york

photographers 2014 art shows

expensive cool beauty inventions 2014

vodka made in canada

how long do bouquets of flowers last

do they have best buy and the geek squad in canada

is soho in manhattan

what the creek would look like

various locations, etc.

what trees would be there, when their leaves change

fall smells

gourmet chocolate flavors

Tagging @five678patty @apothecarose @beaiola @chelle68 to share a deleted scene or other behind-the-scenes content from their creations. 

[eopederson]

Smoke Fills North American Skies

"Raging fires filled the skies of southern Canada and the northern United States with smoke in mid-May 2023. The fires had scorched 478,000 hectares (1,800 square miles) in Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan, as of May 16, which is 10-times the average area burned for this time of year.

This image, from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 18 (GOES-18), shows smoke from the fires sweeping over southern Canada as well as North Dakota, Minnesota, and several other states on May 15, 2023. GOES-18 is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); NASA helps develop and launch the GOES series of satellites. 

As of May 16, there were 87 wildland fires burning in Alberta, a quarter of which were classified as out of control, meaning the fires were expected to grow in size. A majority of the 478,000 hectares burned have been in Alberta, according to the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System, but several fires were classified as burning out of control on that day in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. 

Smoke from the fires has caused poor air quality and reduced visibility in several cities. Wildfire smoke contains tiny particles called aerosols—some of which can degrade air quality and exacerbate respiratory and cardiovascular health problems. Air quality conditions on May 16 in some Alberta cities were ranked as “very high risk”—the highest ranking in Canada’s Air Quality Health Index. 

Hazy skies were also observed by a global network of ground sensors called the Aerosols Robotic Network, or AERONET, which is comprised of more than 500 carefully calibrated Sun photometer instruments that measure aerosol optical depth (AOD) around the world. The instruments are pointed at the Sun and record the intensity of incoming light. Scientists use this information to deduce the amount and size of the aerosols in the atmospheric column by calculating the difference between the light received and what would be expected in cloud-free conditions. 

“A perfectly clear blue sky would produce a very low AOD value, less than 0.05, in visible wavelengths,” said Pawan Gupta, an atmospheric scientist and co-lead of AERONET at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “An AOD reading of 3 would make it difficult even to see the Sun.”

Wind brought smoke from the fires down to Maryland on May 10, making the Sun look milky in the sky. The AERONET instrument at NASA Goddard in Greenbelt, Maryland, had an average AOD value of about 1 in visible wavelengths. On May 16, smoke contributed to hazy skies and hazardous air quality in North Dakota and northern Minnesota. An AERONET sensor at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks measured an average AOD of 2.3 on that day, with peak values close to 3. 

Unseasonably hot weather is expected to continue over the next few days in Western Canada. In British Columbia, temperatures are expected to reach 30° Celsius (86° Fahrenheit) through May 18, according to Environment Canada. 

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using GOES 18 imagery courtesy of NOAA and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS). Story by Emily Cassidy."

Source: NASA Earth Observatory

The smoke has been visible high above the Washington, DC area, 4000 or so km east of the fires, for a number of days in the past couple of weeks. Thankfully it has remained in the stratosphere and thus has not had much impact on air quality. Those in the middle states and parts of Canada have not been so lucky.

[rottenbrainstuff]

We’ve had some lovely blessed rain this week, but now today it’s immediately back to dirty choking smoke. I’m wondering how the air quality tracker on my weather app works because it’s yellow outside, but my tracker is saying the air is normal. ??? I think everyone here was kind of like, yay, a little rain, guess that fixes the wildfire problem! Meteorologists pointed out though the rain was not enough to change the course of the wildfires so no one should be breathing a sigh of relief. (Not that we can breathe here anyways) Meanwhile I haven’t heard a single thing spoken by a single person in leadership about what is going to be done to address this increasingly serious issue, how we can lessen or ideally prevent these awful wildfires which are now becoming an annual Canadian feature. Not a single word. Only blathering about support for the people who have been forced to evacuate homes, and the absolutely ASININE suggestion that it’s maybe being caused by arson. I hate this. If I could move, I would. I would live with my oldest daughter in Europe if that was even the slightest possibility for me.

[themculibrary]

Weather (Themes) Masterlist

A Good Idea At The Time (ao3) - DaveCumstaine drax/peter E, 3k

Summary: Peter and Drax get separated from the other Guardians during a mission in a snow storm and take refugge in a cave, where keeping their body temperature up results in some physical activity.

ah, but it’s cold outside (ao3) - Merideath darcy/steve T, 4k

Summary: Snow is falling thick and heavy in the fading daylight and Darcy presses closer to the glass to watch through the small patch not covered in a thick lacework of ice. She scrapes her nails on the ice, and shivers at the cold seeping into her fingertips.

Below Freezing (ao3) - aftersoon (notboldly) rhodey/tony M, 11k

Summary: When Rhodey crash lands in the Himalayan wilderness, it tests more than just his survival skills.

Blame It On The Rain (ao3) - methusalahoneysuckle bucky/darcy E, 9k

Summary: Bucky and Darcy get trapped in the middle of nowhere during a storm. Darcy has some suggestions about what they can do to pass the time.

Eavesdroppers Never (ao3) - Sineala steve/tony T, 7k

Summary: When Tony made the decision to have a secret identity, he had several well-considered and carefully thought-out reasons. But there were a few scenarios he never took into account. He never imagined that he, Iron Man, would be cuddling naked with Captain America in a Canadian shack in the middle of a snowstorm. He also never imagined that Captain America would pick that moment to tell him, Iron Man, about his feelings for Tony Stark. Uh-oh.

Leave Those Umbrellas At Home (ao3) - rohkeutta steve/bucky T, 2k

Summary: Bucky watches the watery snow come down and thinks about it, his mood deflating steadily. He imagines Steve going home the next morning, sitting down at his desk and opening his Super-Secret Sexcapade Journal and writing Bucky’s name in next to a carefully-thought Preparation & Performance Grade.

B+ for the effort to look nice naked, C- for being embarrassingly vanilla and wanting to do it face-to-face so he could scritch his fingers through Steve’s beard and hair. Not worth a repetition. Kinky Grade: F.

Bucky’s being uncharitable and he knows it, but Hangry Barnes can be a sad sack of shit when he wants to.

like a clock in a thunderstorm (ao3) - shellybelle clint/natasha E, 3k

Summary: Natasha is a quiet mind raised in silence, Clint a whirlwind raised in chaos. In the early days of their partnership they are drowning under the weight of unanswered questions, and when the heavens open, Natasha breaks, and Clint is a good man after all.

Our Secret (ao3) - Finely Honed (jaqen_hgar) bucky/tony M, 3k

Summary: Imagine Tony and Bucky being caught in a snowstorm and having to shelter in a cave, maybe because Steve's injured, and the two of them have never worked together before, but work perfectly together in a crisis. Only when they get back they're all awkward around each other and Steve wants to slam their heads together. Well, Stark was certainly good for getting his blood up, so on the bright side at least Bucky had his irritation to help keep him warm.

shatter every window till it’s all blown away (ao3) - superhusbands4ever (Potterwatch97) steve/tony M, 16k

Summary: Tony Stark has spent his life growing up in Tornado Alley Oklahoma with his disgraced, drunk, widowed father. At 16 years old, Tony can’t wait to escape the horrible town he’s grown up in. The only thing that makes living there bearable is his boyfriend Steve Rogers, which he has to keep a secret from his father. But after an incident at school, Howard finds out about Tony’s relationship with Steve and he isn’t happy about it. After things with Howard take a turn for the worse, Tony has to figure out a way to escape his house with it’s dark secrets hidden inside - or will a stronger force present Tony with the opportunity to quickly eliminate the problem himself?

Shelter From Cold (ao3) - torchestogether peter/wade M, 7k

Summary: The snowstorm was too severe for anyone to sleep out on the streets. Peter knew it was a bad idea, but even Deadpool deserved to have someone looking out for him.

Sweater Weather (cause it’s too cold) (ao3) - UnderwhelmingAlchemist sam/bucky G, 4k

Summary: Despite Delacroix having fairly mild winters, all things considered, living with Bucky highlights exactly how poorly he handles the cold. And of course Sam seeks to remedy this as soon as possible, wanting to make the lead-up to the holidays more manageable for him.

The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time (ao3) - MemoryDragon steve/tony T, 7k

Summary: After their plane went down, Steve and Tony only just barely managed to find a cave for shelter. If only it weren't always the wrong place and the wrong time for Tony.

Yippie ki-yay.

Thunderstorm (ao3) - blackhawkinbudapest darcy/thor E, 6k

Summary: Darcy’s plan was to have a quiet night, watch the storm roll in over the New Mexican desert and drink beer. It wasn’t to chat with a god, get naked and rained on and have the night of her life.

Waking Up Slow (ao3) - odetteandodile steve/bucky M, 44k

Summary: In 1945 Steve Rogers crashed the Valkyrie into the Arctic Ocean and was never recovered.

In 2019 Bucky Barnes is walking along the beach below the decommissioned lighthouse where he lives with his sixteen month old daughter when he finds the body of a man washed up in the surf, half frozen but miraculously alive.

Bucky manages to revive him, but finds that the stranger has no memory of who he is or how he got here aside from a name: Steve. Snowed in by a blizzard soon after and unable to get Steve a medevac, Bucky discovers that the funny, good-hearted man slips into the fabric of his and Alice’s life faster than he would have thought possible. The two are undeniably drawn to each other, but as their feelings grow so does the looming possibility that the answer to the question “who is Steve?” might be much more complicated than either of them realized.

whose arms will hold you (ao3) - biblionerd07 steve/bucky G, 10k

Summary: Steve needs a ride home for Christmas. Bucky needs a passenger.

You know what, scratch heating blankets (ao3) - Lequia G, 6k

Summary: In which Peter Parker does something even he considers to be stupid, Tony Stark turns into a giant pillow, and Pepper Potts is, well, Pepper.

[pumpumdemsugah]

AG is a high quality Canadian shampoo brand my stylist recommended because other brands aren’t always affordable here! And you didn’t mention it but protective styles also aren’t for everyone. I know they have a grip on black women, including myself at times but that doesn’t mean that keeping one style in for months is helpful. Going months without washing is a huge reason why so many black woman have issues with their hair because a dirty scalp is the root of a majority of problems for any race and simply washing will give you so much relief. Whenever I see those TikTok’s where women brag about not washing for 3, 5 or 6 months all I think is damn y’all STANK. I recently saw one where the girls lap was covered on debris and she wasn’t ashamed. Idgaf what anyone says, there’s nothing protective about dirt. It’s dirt styling—same with keeping wigs on for months like I know their scalps are on fire and the glue is now a second skin. Just nasty. I still get braids but for 3 weeks max and I wash weekly. But it’s rare these days because I actually enjoy my hair lol. That’s something I feel like a lot of BW don’t wanna admit, all the style puddings and growth oils and 10 hour methods are sometimes just ways to avoid the reality of our hair and what it can do 🤷🏾‍♀️

Ahhh thanks . Lmaoo you're funny.

Back in my forum days, protective styles never meant don't wash your hair and keep your scalp clean. Even when women were wearing braids for long they would dilute shampoos, put it in an applicator bottle and gently apply it to their scalps to clean it and wash their braids in a way that kept it neatish. Even with women on forums that used half wigs and lace fronts as a protective style, they would deep condition weekly or bi monthly and properly moisturise their hair if they knew it wouldn't be possible to get to their actual hair.

Also you might be fine with having 10 inches of hair as long is not for you. The one time my hair was 24 inches everything took so long lol but I kind of want it that long again lol

There is nothing wrong with turning up to the office in 10 large twists in a bun and a hairband if you want to feel fancy. That's what I do and some Black women I've seen around work.

I saw a comment under this stylist doing a 6 month weave for hair growth and this Black woman said, I don't care if your hair is healthy, Black women have got to stop doing everything to avoid touching our own hair. Your hair isn't going to get any easier avoiding it. Sometimes you just have to shave your head if you're that over your hair. My older sister hates doing her hair so she keeps it short

Get acquainted and let things go badly and when it goes badly, it's fine. Actually learn to manage your hair in a way that doesn't make you feel like you're losing your mind but to get there takes trial and error.

My protective style is a messy bun. My ends don't need to be hidden because my hair isn't that fragile, she just hates being combed. On forums some women would only have a protective style and actively try to grow their hair during winter and autumn and have fun in summer and spring when the weather is kinder. Or have one week on and off or wear their hair the same way everyday but they aren't fussed about styling ( like me lol ).

I can get going an extra week if you're busy but if it's months and months and there isn't a mental health issue, you're scared of your hair or have lots of negative experiences.

[20k-leagues-speedrun]

CHAPTER XIX THE GULF STREAM

This terrible scene of the 20th of April none of us can ever forget. I have written it under the influence of violent emotion. Since then I have revised the recital; I have read it to Conseil and to the Canadian. They found it exact as to facts, but insufficient as to effect. To paint such pictures, one must have the pen of the most illustrious of our poets, the author of The Toilers of the Deep.

I have said that Captain Nemo wept while watching the waves; his grief was great. It was the second companion he had lost since our arrival on board, and what a death! That friend, crushed, stifled, bruised by the dreadful arms of a poulp, pounded by his iron jaws, would not rest with his comrades in the peaceful coral cemetery! In the midst of the struggle, it was the despairing cry uttered by the unfortunate man that had torn my heart. The poor Frenchman, forgetting his conventional language, had taken to his own mother tongue, to utter a last appeal! Amongst the crew of the Nautilus, associated with the body and soul of the Captain, recoiling like him from all contact with men, I had a fellow-countryman. Did he alone represent France in this mysterious association, evidently composed of individuals of divers nationalities? It was one of these insoluble problems that rose up unceasingly before my mind!

Captain Nemo entered his room, and I saw him no more for some time. But that he was sad and irresolute I could see by the vessel, of which he was the soul, and which received all his impressions. The Nautilus did not keep on in its settled course; it floated about like a corpse at the will of the waves. It went at random. He could not tear himself away from the scene of the last struggle, from this sea that had devoured one of his men. Ten days passed thus. It was not till the 1st of May that the Nautilus resumed its northerly course, after having sighted the Bahamas at the mouth of the Bahama Canal. We were then following the current from the largest river to the sea, that has its banks, its fish, and its proper temperatures. I mean the Gulf Stream. It is really a river, that flows freely to the middle of the Atlantic, and whose waters do not mix with the ocean waters. It is a salt river, salter than the surrounding sea. Its mean depth is 1,500 fathoms, its mean breadth ten miles. In certain places the current flows with the speed of two miles and a half an hour. The body of its waters is more considerable than that of all the rivers in the globe. It was on this ocean river that the Nautilus then sailed.

I must add that, during the night, the phosphorescent waters of the Gulf Stream rivalled the electric power of our watch-light, especially in the stormy weather that threatened us so frequently. May 8th, we were still crossing Cape Hatteras, at the height of the North Caroline. The width of the Gulf Stream there is seventy-five miles, and its depth 210 yards. The Nautilus still went at random; all supervision seemed abandoned. I thought that, under these circumstances, escape would be possible. Indeed, the inhabited shores offered anywhere an easy refuge. The sea was incessantly ploughed by the steamers that ply between New York or Boston and the Gulf of Mexico, and overrun day and night by the little schooners coasting about the several parts of the American coast. We could hope to be picked up. It was a favourable opportunity, notwithstanding the thirty miles that separated the Nautilus from the coasts of the Union. One unfortunate circumstance thwarted the Canadian’s plans. The weather was very bad. We were nearing those shores where tempests are so frequent, that country of waterspouts and cyclones actually engendered by the current of the Gulf Stream. To tempt the sea in a frail boat was certain destruction. Ned Land owned this himself. He fretted, seized with nostalgia that flight only could cure.

“Master,” he said that day to me, “this must come to an end. I must make a clean breast of it. This Nemo is leaving land and going up to the north. But I declare to you that I have had enough of the South Pole, and I will not follow him to the North.”

“What is to be done, Ned, since flight is impracticable just now?”

“We must speak to the Captain,” said he; “you said nothing when we were in your native seas. I will speak, now we are in mine. When I think that before long the Nautilus will be by Nova Scotia, and that there near New foundland is a large bay, and into that bay the St. Lawrence empties itself, and that the St. Lawrence is my river, the river by Quebec, my native town—when I think of this, I feel furious, it makes my hair stand on end. Sir, I would rather throw myself into the sea! I will not stay here! I am stifled!”

The Canadian was evidently losing all patience. His vigorous nature could not stand this prolonged imprisonment. His face altered daily; his temper became more surly. I knew what he must suffer, for I was seized with home-sickness myself. Nearly seven months had passed without our having had any news from land; Captain Nemo’s isolation, his altered spirits, especially since the fight with the poulps, his taciturnity, all made me view things in a different light.

“Well, sir?” said Ned, seeing I did not reply.

“Well, Ned, do you wish me to ask Captain Nemo his intentions concerning us?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Although he has already made them known?”

“Yes; I wish it settled finally. Speak for me, in my name only, if you like.”

“But I so seldom meet him. He avoids me.”

“That is all the more reason for you to go to see him.”

I went to my room. From thence I meant to go to Captain Nemo’s. It would not do to let this opportunity of meeting him slip. I knocked at the door. No answer. I knocked again, then turned the handle. The door opened, I went in. The Captain was there. Bending over his work-table, he had not heard me. Resolved not to go without having spoken, I approached him. He raised his head quickly, frowned, and said roughly, “You here! What do you want?”

“To speak to you, Captain.”

“But I am busy, sir; I am working. I leave you at liberty to shut yourself up; cannot I be allowed the same?”

This reception was not encouraging; but I was determined to hear and answer everything.

“Sir,” I said coldly, “I have to speak to you on a matter that admits of no delay.”

“What is that, sir?” he replied, ironically. “Have you discovered something that has escaped me, or has the sea delivered up any new secrets?”

We were at cross-purposes. But, before I could reply, he showed me an open manuscript on his table, and said, in a more serious tone, “Here, M. Aronnax, is a manuscript written in several languages. It contains the sum of my studies of the sea; and, if it please God, it shall not perish with me. This manuscript, signed with my name, complete with the history of my life, will be shut up in a little floating case. The last survivor of all of us on board the Nautilus will throw this case into the sea, and it will go whither it is borne by the waves.”

This man’s name! his history written by himself! His mystery would then be revealed some day.

“Captain,” I said, “I can but approve of the idea that makes you act thus. The result of your studies must not be lost. But the means you employ seem to me to be primitive. Who knows where the winds will carry this case, and in whose hands it will fall? Could you not use some other means? Could not you, or one of yours——”

“Never, sir!” he said, hastily interrupting me.

“But I and my companions are ready to keep this manuscript in store; and, if you will put us at liberty——”

“At liberty?” said the Captain, rising.

“Yes, sir; that is the subject on which I wish to question you. For seven months we have been here on board, and I ask you to-day, in the name of my companions and in my own, if your intention is to keep us here always?”

“M. Aronnax, I will answer you to-day as I did seven months ago: Whoever enters the Nautilus, must never quit it.”

“You impose actual slavery upon us!”

“Give it what name you please.”

“But everywhere the slave has the right to regain his liberty.”

“Who denies you this right? Have I ever tried to chain you with an oath?”

He looked at me with his arms crossed.

“Sir,” I said, “to return a second time to this subject will be neither to your nor to my taste; but, as we have entered upon it, let us go through with it. I repeat, it is not only myself whom it concerns. Study is to me a relief, a diversion, a passion that could make me forget everything. Like you, I am willing to live obscure, in the frail hope of bequeathing one day, to future time, the result of my labours. But it is otherwise with Ned Land. Every man, worthy of the name, deserves some consideration. Have you thought that love of liberty, hatred of slavery, can give rise to schemes of revenge in a nature like the Canadian’s; that he could think, attempt, and try——”

I was silenced; Captain Nemo rose.

“Whatever Ned Land thinks of, attempts, or tries, what does it matter to me? I did not seek him! It is not for my pleasure that I keep him on board! As for you, M. Aronnax, you are one of those who can understand everything, even silence. I have nothing more to say to you. Let this first time you have come to treat of this subject be the last, for a second time I will not listen to you.”

I retired. Our situation was critical. I related my conversation to my two companions.

“We know now,” said Ned, “that we can expect nothing from this man. The Nautilus is nearing Long Island. We will escape, whatever the weather may be.”

-CONT-