#yes one: longitudinal

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

Jade: *cocks gun*

Jade: any last worms?

[therealieblog]

A big part of Intuitive Eating involves the de-stigmatizing of food. How do we de-stigmatize food? By not assigning it moral qualities, and by not using derogatory, negative language when we talk about food.

Examples of moralizing, derogatory and negative language we, under diet culture, still use regularly when talking about food:

"Sinful"

"Fattening"

"Unhealthy"

"Deadly"

"Bad for you"

"Clean"

"Pure"

"Healthy"

"Good" "

Junk/Junk food"

"Crap/Crappy"

Words to use instead of: Instead of "Sinful", or "Fattening", use "Decadent", "Rich" or "Delicious". Avocados and dark chocolate and many organic, "healthy" foods will make you fatter if you eat them often enough. Is this really about health? Or is it about fatphobia?

Instead of "Unhealthy", you can just say what it is about the food that impairs your health. "It hurts my stomach," "It makes my skin greasy/makes me break out", "I'm allergic to it" "I feel nauseous when I eat that." That at least is honest. Saying any food that isn't on some diet culture list of approved foods is "unhealthy" is just not scientifically accurate or backed by anything other than fear mongering.

Yes, eating foods high in fat and salt and sugar in large enough quantities, for long enough periods of time can negatively affect your health, but the vast majority of studies done on exactly how it affects your health, do not control for participants' smoking, drinking, drug use, genetic predispositions (genetics makes up a significant portion of health by the way), sedentary lifestyle, exposure to chemicals in the environment, mental health status, or literally anything outside of what they eat, so... yeah... f@ck that.

Ditto with "Bad for you." It's just so formless and un-researched and based in fatphobia. What does that even mean? In what amount is it "bad for you?" would it be equally bad for anyone to eat "unhealthy" foods at any time? Is there a magic threshold past which one's donut consumption goes from infrequent to "bad for you" levels? Or, are human beings a wildly diverse group of people, who all have very different bodies, metabolisms, genetics, tolerances, tastes and needs.

"Clean" is just as bad as "Bad For You", only worse, because it's so moralistic. If food is made out of animals, plants and grains, and is considered edible by human beings, it's fucking clean. Now if you're talking about gross things falling into the food by accident during the process of making it, or if you're talking about pesticides being used on your fruit and vegetables, then I get wanting to make sure the food is "clean". But if you're putting food on some sort of angelic pedestal for being free from sugar, or saturated fats, or carbohydrates, then you are still stuck in diet culture.

Instead of "Junk food", which implies that the food itself is garbage, which is honestly just a horrifying way to think about and talk about food, you could say "play food", "fun food", "snack food". These foods: chips, chocolate, cookies etc. aren't meant to fulfill your nutritional needs. We eat them for enjoyment, or to pick us up when we're blue, to calm us when we're stressed, or just because it tastes good and we like eating it. I think gentle nutrition is important, and paying attention to how food makes you feel is obviously important, but the way we perceive food and talk about food, reinforces what we think of ourselves when we eat it. If we are eating "bad" and "unhealthy" foods, then we are bad and unhealthy people, and that is a mind-fuck, believe me.

I've performed a 25 year longitudinal dieting study on myself. I know what it feels like to absolutely hate myself for what my body tells me it wants to eat. Not fun. So please have a care with the way you speak about food, and the way you look at yourself in relation to food. Food is sustenance and life. It is meant to be enjoyed, not feared. Lets not talk about food as if the thing meant to connect us to life also makes us inherently morally deviant.

[nellywrisource]

A writer’s guide to art and civil construction: worldbuilding insights – #1 Early Christian art (Part I)

In this guide, which delves into the history of art and civil construction, my aim is to explore the cultural and anthropological factors that influenced the emergence of particular art forms within their respective historical contexts. The goal is to inspire and offer practical insights for those engaged in worldbuilding, especially in crafting art and urban environments that resonate with their chosen settings. Throughout the guide, I will analyze various historical periods from a cultural and historical perspective, providing inspiration rather than prescriptive worldbuilding advice. It's worth noting that the focus will primarily be on the Mediterranean and Europe (I'm Italian ✨ so my academic studies focus on Italy and its surroundings), spanning from the end of the ancient age to the contemporary age.

The emergence of stylistic elements in early Christian art is fascinating because it inspires envisioning the characteristics of religious buildings in a situation where two coexisting religions, one significantly older, shape the cultural landscape.

Diachronic excursus

Let's briefly summarize the historical context surrounding early Christian art to better understand the culture and motivations behind the stylistic choices in urban and rural settings, as well as the care or neglect of these environments. 

Two key points to focus on for understanding this historical reality through our chosen lens are:

Spread of Christianity

Germanic invasions (which we'll discuss in the next post)

The spread — not birth — of Christianity occurred gradually, beginning around the time of the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, issued by Constantine, which declared Christianity a religio licita, meaning that it granted freedom of worship. It was further established as the “state religion” with the Edict of Thessalonica by Theodosius I in 380, mandating worship.

While Constantine had political motives for issuing this edict (yes, the legend about Constantine’s vision is just that), our focus lies on the socio-cultural context in which an emperor favored a religion amidst a predominantly pagan Roman aristocracy.

Origins of early Christian art

In its early stages, before Christianity became the state religion, Constantine, who oversaw the construction of the first Christian places of worship, took into account the pagan sensitivities of the aristocracy. As a result, these early buildings exhibited the following characteristics:

Located outside the city center, where pagan temples were typically found (often situated beyond the city walls, as was the case in Rome);

Featuring a simple exterior, often constructed with common brick (laterizio) and lacking elaborate decorations;

Boasting monumental dimensions to accommodate the public liturgy of Christianity, inspired by the Last Supper, as well as reflecting Roman appreciation for grandeur.

The decision to depart from classical norms stylistically served both to avoid offending the aristocracy and to visually distinguish Christian structures symbolically from classical temples.

Types of buildings

Basilica

The basilica, which predates Christianity, emerged in Italy following the Second Punic War in the first half of the 3rd century BC. Originally serving administrative functions, it featured a rectangular layout with three naves (side corridors) and two apses (semicircular protrusions) on either side, with the entrance situated along the longer side.

The architectural design of basilicas was chosen for its spacious layout, although modifications were made to suit the needs of Christian worship. Unlike their original purpose, which varied, Christian basilicas typically adopted a longitudinal plan with three or five naves. They featured an entrance on one of the shorter sides, leading to a single apse opposite the entrance.

This adaptation involved repurposing buildings originally intended for other functions, driven primarily by practical considerations. An important detail regarding the structural elements is seen in the narthex and the quadriportico.

Narthex: a sort of rectangular entrance area.

Quadriportico: a large external four-sided portico attached to the entrance wall.

Both spaces were used to accommodate catechumens (the unbaptized) and penitents¹. Initially, the quadriportico fulfilled this role, but it was gradually replaced by the narthex between the 6th and 8th centuries.

This transition was prompted by changes in baptismal practices. As the custom of adult baptism declined, it became apparent that many individuals were already baptized, rendering the extensive space for catechumens unnecessary. Consequently, the need for a large quadriportico diminished.

The narthex, too, began to decline in importance from the 7th century onward, reflecting a decrease in the number of unbaptized individuals attending services.

Another fascinating aspect illustrating the synthesis of paganism, Roman art, and Christianity is evident in the architectural feature known as the triumphal arch. Typically semicircular, the arch serves as a division between the central nave and either the presbyterial area.

The architectural concept of the basilica’s arch finds its origins in the Roman triumphal arch, a grand structure with one or more openings (fornix) traditionally erected to commemorate military victories. In Christianity, this symbol was reimagined to signify Jesus' triumph over evil and death. Moreover, the arch served a dual purpose as both a symbolic gateway between the space reserved for worshipers and that designated for the clergy (the presbyterial zone).

Now, I won't dive into discussing every single architectural detail of basilicas or the liturgical furnishings (although, if anyone desires, they can ask, and I'll gladly provide a glossary). Instead, let's briefly look at the different floor plans a basilica can have:

Latin cross: this design is longitudinal, with a shorter horizontal section intersected by a transept, either about ¾ along its length (immissa) or closer to the apse (commissa or tau).

Greek cross: here the transept intersects at the center, with arms of equal length to the nave. This layout was more prevalent in the Eastern tradition.

Circiform: this is a distinctive basilica design used for cemeteries, as well as for hosting specific masses like funeral banquets and an annual mass in honor of the titular saint's martyrdom. It lacks a transept and features a ring corridor intended for burials.

Baptistery

The baptistery was a centrally planned building², often octagonal, specifically designed for conducting baptisms, with the baptismal font positioned at its center. 

Was traditionally distinct from the main body of the church, it was commonly situated adjacent to or in front of the main facade, especially until the Gothic period, notably in Italy.

The octagonal design held symbolic significance; eight represented an eschatological number, closely linked with the Resurrection of Christ, who rose eight days after his entry into Jerusalem. Thus, the octagon came to symbolize the concept of eternal life conferred upon the faithful through baptism.

This architectural feature reflects influence from Roman traditions, drawing inspiration from thermal buildings, particularly the frigidarium, which the Romans referred to as a baptisterium (derived from the Greek, meaning “place where one receives enlightenment”). Hence, the origin of the term can be traced back to this context.

Martyrium

Another centrally planned building (circular or polygonal) prevalent in the 4th century, the martyrium (from the Greek “witness”) was erected on the site of a martyrdom or over the tomb of a martyr.

Over time, they also began to serve as repositories for the remains of martyrs, often located at the center of the building. The martyrium's origins lie in the cult of martyrs, which itself evolved from the more common pagan reverence for the dead. Its architectural design was influenced by classical mausoleums, grand tombs traditionally used to house the remains of significant individuals.

Images, iconography, and iconology

The influence of architecture extends to imagery as well; Christianity originally spread through pagan iconography and symbolism. Art served as a means of proselytism. Why? Because classical art had long been used to convey the divine, and Christianity also drew inspiration from Roman culture in this aspect. 

Even the artistic techniques bore similarities to those of the pagans:

Sculpture, as evidenced by sarcophagi.

Mosaics, widely employed for adorning basilicas (which in Roman art were mainly used for floors but eventually shifted to the apse — see subsection on the hierarchy of light).

It can be argued that from this classical influence emerged the conceptual link between wealth, splendor, and divine grandeur; gold symbolized divine light (indeed, numerous mosaics featured golden backgrounds) — a motif that would resonate throughout the Middle Ages — reminiscent of the portrayal of the deified emperor in the declining centuries of the Roman Empire. Pagan iconographies were thus reinterpreted, with scenes of apotheosis transformed into representations of the Ascension, pastoral imagery adapted to depict the Good Shepherd, and even the apostles portrayed akin to philosophers.

A clearer Christianization and a distancing from pagan iconography will be seen as we move forward in time, in the upcoming posts. If you're interested in a post focused on the various iconographies and their resemantization, lemme know!

Acheropite images

An intriguing outcome of the fusion between ancient cultural practices and evolving concepts of imagery is the phenomenon of “acheropite images”.

It's essential to understand that early Christians adhered closely to Jewish traditions, which forbade the creation of divine images to prevent the risk of idolatry. Moreover, due to the threat of persecution, early Christians concealed references to their faith in the catacombs through subtle allusions understood only by fellow believers, akin to a form of coded language.

The incorporation of images into Christianity, particularly in the Western world, occurred gradually, as apprehension about inadvertently creating idols spawned legends surrounding acheropite images - icons purportedly “not made by human hands”, but possessing a “miraculous” origin. These images were believed to be not products of human craftsmanship, but rather “revealed” through divine intervention, thereby attaining status as revered relics (e.g., the Shroud of Turin, the Madonna of Guadalupe, etc).

The hierarchy of light

Why do mosaics transition from the floors to the apse and, more broadly, to the walls?

We first notice this transition at the onset of the 5th century, exemplified by the apse mosaic of the Basilica of Santa Pudenziana in Rome. The driving force behind this change is light, or more precisely, the hierarchy of light. This hierarchy derives from the earlier discussed concept: the translation of divine light into the symbolism of gold and actual illumination within a basilica.

Light holds great significance in this context. It is strategically channeled through windows, particularly illuminating the apse (the sanctuary area closest to God, traditionally restricted to the clergy) and the central nave, with the side naves receiving less light. Mosaics, meticulously crafted with tesserae to reflect and enhance light, are placed in the apse to intensify this effect, emphasizing the hierarchical importance of light in this central space.

¹Penitents: in the ancient and medieval Christianity, penitents were faithful individuals who, after committing serious sins post-baptism, sought forgiveness from God. They publicly assumed a specific status within the community. ²Central plan: buildings where all parts are organized around a center are termed as having a central plan. This plan can take the form of a square, a circle, an octagon, or other regular polygons, such as a Greek cross. The centrality of space is usually emphasized by a dome.

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[evidence-based-activism]

This has been on my mind a lot lately, but I couldn't find anything about this. I saw a data that says young people regardless of gender feel more lonely especially after covid. But articles everywhere describe the phenomenon as male loneliness epidemic. Is it true that loneliness affect men more than women?

Yes, I've noticed this as well! (It's definitely frustrating!)

In short, no, women and men experience similar amounts of loneliness. (Therefore, it should simply be a "loneliness epidemic" not a "male loneliness epidemic".)

First:

A pre-covid meta-analysis [1] concluded that "across the lifespan mean levels of loneliness are similar for males and females". This is a robust finding because a meta-analysis synthesizes the results from many different studies; this one covered 39 years, 45 countries, and a wide range of other demographic factors from a total of 575 reports (751 effect sizes).

An interesting longitudinal study [2] used both indirect and direct measures of loneliness and (essentially) found no significant effect of sex. (But there were some interesting interaction effects between sex and age or sex and loneliness measure, if you want to look at the study!)

This literature review [3] states that "sex differences in loneliness are dependent on what type of loneliness is measured and how" and it's possible sex only "correlates with other factors that then impact loneliness directly". The first quote here is referring to similar sex-age/sex-measurement interactions found in [2].

During/after the COVID-19 pandemic however:

The earlier review [3] stated that "most studies found that women were lonelier or experienced higher increases in loneliness than men with both direct and indirect measures", but this may be a result of participant selection bias during the pandemic.

That being said, both a rapid review [4] and a systematic review and meta-analysis [5] found that women were either more or equally likely to report loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, the Pew Research Center has collected some relevant data:

Prior to the pandemic, 10% of both men and women in the USA reported feeling lonely all or most of the time [6].

And while this doesn't measure loneliness directly, 48% of women and 32% of men in the USA reported high levels of psychological distress at least once during the pandemic [7].

References below the cut:

Maes, M., Qualter, P., Vanhalst, J., Van Den Noortgate, W., & Goossens, L. (2019). Gender differences in loneliness across the lifespan: A meta–analysis. European Journal of Personality, 33(6), 642–654. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2220

Von Soest, T., Luhmann, M., Hansen, T., & Gerstorf, D. (2020). Development of loneliness in midlife and old age: Its nature and correlates. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118(2), 388–406. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000219

Barjaková, M., Garnero, A., & d’Hombres, B. (2023). Risk factors for loneliness: A literature review. Social Science & Medicine (1982), 334, 116163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116163

Pai, N., & Vella, S.-L. (2021). COVID-19 and loneliness: A rapid systematic review. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 55(12), 1144–1156. https://doi.org/10.1177/00048674211031489

Ernst, M., Niederer, D., Werner, A. M., Czaja, S. J., Mikton, C., Ong, A. D., Rosen, T., Brähler, E., & Beutel, M. E. (2022). Loneliness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review with meta-analysis. American Psychologist, 77(5), 660–677. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001005

Bialik, K. (2018, December 3). Americans unhappy with family, social or financial life are more likely to say they feel lonely. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/12/03/americans-unhappy-with-family-social-or-financial-life-are-more-likely-to-say-they-feel-lonely/

Gramlich, J. (2023, March 2). Mental health and the pandemic: What U.S. surveys have found. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/03/02/mental-health-and-the-pandemic-what-u-s-surveys-have-found/

[tired-and-healing]

Local Dumbass Has OceanGate Titan Sub Theory

I don't know shit about this except what I have looked into and thought about regarding my mechanical engineering degree.

Yesterday afternoon, when I first heard about it, I thought the extent was that Titan had gotten tangled in some wreckage and also had a communications failure. Granted, I was in the middle of a 15 hr car ride home so I couldn't do much research into it.

Today, I've done some research and thinking about it because the mystery of it fascinates me. I am going to kinda journal/ record my thought processes as I was messaging my partner about it earlier.

I felt inspired by the twitter user Peter Girguis and wanted to do the research myself in understanding the materials and design of the vessel in addition to understanding the timeline of events.

Background:

At 9:47 am on Sunday, June 18th, the vessel had lost communication contact with the Polar Prince, and the last known location was received at 10:00. Though the communication system and location tracking were separate, previous history denotes either one or the other experiencing blackouts before successful recovery. This time, both of these have failed in a 13 minute timeframe, approximately halfway through its 2.5 hour dive time.

Initially, I feel strange about the fixation of criticism over the usage of a game controller. Yes, I do find the humor in it, about the indication of cheapness, but it doesn't feel right to just blame the interruption of input connection from the controller for the loss of communications and then the location tracker.

Honestly, my interest piqued at the mention of the use of a new material being used for the design - carbon fiber

I watched the Sunday Morning segment about David Pogue's 2022 expedition because I wanted more context about the design and to get a better mental picture. The parts that struck me was the verbiage of the contract in combination with the attitude of the OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush. It concerns me in the beaming pride that the man shows in his sourcing of shockingly cheap parts and the callousness of tossing the controller around. I find the lack of discussion around safety concerns or mitigation of risk factors incredibly disturbing.

I began to look for papers documenting the behavior of carbon fiber material under compressive load and surprisingly found this article detailing plans for a near identical vessel from a few years previous. I find it interesting that the sole reason carbon fiber was selected for use was because it would cut down on the cost of the vessel. Not safety, or because existing research pointed to increased durability, or anything. Just that theoretically, the material would make the hull lighter in weight and they wouldn't have to pay for the foam applied to metal-hulled vessels to offset the metal's weight.

I then found a paper detailing the failure mechanism of carbon fiber reinforced composite under longitudinal stress detailing the effects of the material under compression. From my understanding of the failure modes detailed in the paper I created my initial assumption.

What I think happened is that the carbon fiber hull could not handle the load cycling of repeated dives. At a significant pressure providing a compressive force on the material at freezing cold temp, the carbon fiber became too brittle and failed either along the the middle in an axial line or at the penetration sites required to attach the titanium end caps.

Also I noted that the monitoring system depends on strain gauges attached to the titanium pieces that measures the metals' deformation, but wasn't sure if they would be as effective in use for the carbon fiber. Furthermore I couldn't see how it was effective in use as an appropriate safety monitor, or how an evac plan was supposed to be constructed around it given the requirements of the human body and recovering from depth pressure.

The carbon fiber hull is entirely shielded from view from the outside because it is encased by the sleek looking glass fiber shell. This shell is incapable of standing up to the depth pressure and provides no structural support whatsoever. What it does do, however, is make the whole craft look nice and capable.

The hull is about 6" thick and thankfully when carbon fiber begins to fail under compression, the failure can be visible from the outside of the thickness to the inside. If the hull itself is thoroughly checked before each and every submersion, signs of failure and weakening can be noticed before a complete failure. The mission can be aborted and lives can be saved.

However, if failure is detected, then the entire hull must be scrapped and replaced by a newly manufactured one. Even if the visible signs of damage don't look "that bad", the extreme pressure placed on it is too much to fuck around with.

I also do not assume that the hull can be patched with additional layers of carbon fiber. I feel it is extremely important that all of the fibrous threads used throughout the hull are continuous and unbroken to prevent shear stresses from forming in between the undamaged remaining section of the hull and the patch.

Personally, I think there was a lack of effort on ensuring safety. I think they became overly familiar with the craft and began to think of it more as a reliable vehicle that enabled them to do research and secure funding instead of a material testing experiment where theye were cycling it though who knows how many loads with lives inside. I genuinely believe that when the incident reports are written, it will expose that the hull was exposed to many more cycles of loading in extreme conditions than previous lab testing experiments under controlled conditions. If we (the engineering and scientific community) are lucky, we will be able to recover and analyze the fracture surfaces from the wreckage and understand how carbon fiber fails in a cold and highly compressive environment.

Then I take a break and think about the role of Journalist David Pogue as people condemn him for poor reporting on his segment report, and look up his history in reporting and journalism

There's more I want to add to this later but for rn this is all I wanted to put down for rn.

[milkywayes]

WIP Wednesday

and now it's Thursday. ah yes, the passage of time

Tagged by @westernlarch! Thanks so much!

I have no actual clue how this tag meme works. I'm just assuming I'm supposed to share part of my WIP. This is from the last scene I've written for Cipher, chapter 10. Not thoroughly edited yet.

Her pace quickens, the shadows of old airlocks flashing by like doors branching off into the unknown, their keys lost to the void. The hallway bends around the flattened disk shape of the station, and another burst of ill-advised speed brings into view the extended line of a turian leg, his body bent over it as he stretches and catches his breath. Shepard slows back down. For all that endurance running is a point of human pride, it looks less than impressive when going up against the alien equivalent of an ostrich or perhaps a cassowary; as she trudges onward, more or less steadily, she has the dubious pleasure of watching Garrus lope ahead with unmatchable speed, his body like a projectile let loose, to leave her in the dust. She’ll find him again eventually—already has, several times now—but even knowing that his frequent breaks are less for her sake than his own, the fable of the turtle and the rabbit has never felt less inspiring to her than when she catches up to where he has been resting. Approaching him in a leisurely jog now, she watches Garrus lift his head, then straighten. Agitated hands tug his jacket back into place.  Her pants come loudly in the night-cycle quiet, though somewhere in the distance Grover is tightening a screw with one of his pneumatic drills, and Garrus doesn’t comment on it. She closes the distance—sees the opportunity for pulling ahead, turning the tables on him—sweet vindication—but she knows well enough what she’s here for and winning isn’t it. She stops in front of him, heart thudding. “You sure you’re not ruining your threads this way?” she asks, gesturing at the entirety of him. Pointedly, she eyes first the stiff fabric of his jacket and then his equally-stiff boots. He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet, the longitudinal arches flexing as she watches, his ankles bending, and the creak of the patent leather is almost as audible as her slowing breaths. “I’m not attached to them,” murmurs Garrus. As his attention drifts from her and back to the long curve of the perimeter, he’s looking every bit the racing hound, yearning for the run even as he’s flagging. She suspects he didn’t say yes to doing a few laps just to humor her. “You sure about that? They look to be in the ‘had to promise your firstborn’ price class.”  The phrasing serves its purpose; his focus snaps back to her like a rubber band. Even then, there’s no confused mandible-flapping, no analyzing tilt of his head. Either he has become more proficient in human idioms or he has lost the will to put up with them. She’s certain it’s the latter, though that conviction wavers when he says, “It’s not that bad. Hierarchy turians believe in overpriced fashion about as much as they believe in any form of democracy.” “And are you?” she asks. “A ‘Hierarchy turian’ now?” Garrus stops bouncing. He eases off the tips of his powerful toes, down to his regular height, then crosses his arms. Jutting elbows. She must have stumbled her way onto a truly touchy subject. The sudden absence of his frenetic energy leaves her a little woozy, though she rediscovers it a second later in the speedy tap of his fingers onto his arms, the slash of his fringe through the air. None of it bleeds into his tone; if anything, his voice is droll and smooth when he says, “In about as much as you were ever an ‘agent of the Council.’”

tagging @that-wildwolf @zellink @callista-curations if you feel like it!

[trainsinanime]

I have a cold and I'm tired, so I'll post better pictures later, especially ones of the new T-Trak module I recently built. But I did want to show at least this little thing I did with some of the leftover material. Not all of the leftover material, though. I have so much leftover wood strips…

Anyway, this is a very small section of a North American style railroad trestle (I think they're also a thing in Australia?), based on plans by the Great Northern, but then adapted with more bracing because I think that looks better. The height is chosen so that it can be connected to T-Trak modules if you replace the connectors. The track is… I don't actually know. Might be Minitrix? Something I found on my desk.

The wooden structure is all built by hand, out of 2x2 mm balsa wood (main frames), 3x3 mm pine (the sections under the plastic track piece and 1x1 mm linden for the bracings in the longitudinal direction. All cut by hand with a sharp cutter knife (except the 3x3 mm pine, I used a tiny saw for that) and glued together with wood glue.

The locomotive is either Athearn or Atlas, I can never remember which of these is which. I think Atlas. And yes, the rear truck isn't on the rails properly, as I said, I'm sick.

This project was a lot of fun, as was the full T-Trak module (I'll post about that later, hopefully in a couple of days), but also sometimes a bit annoying. I know a couple of places that I could do better, but the main one is the ties. They should be much wider for a bridge like that, but I am not aware of commercially made wide ties. Maybe I'll need 3D printing for that, because I don't think gluing rail profiles to wooden ties is the proper solution. Still, it looks neat as it is. Feel free to ask questions if you have any!

[coochiequeens]

Yes it's form a conservative source. But it's one of the few articles that doesn't focus on reproductive purchasers who felt entitled to a child.

by Emma Waters, @EMLWATERS

Olivia Maurel was 30 years old when an ancestry DNA test confirmed what she had known all along: she is the product of a costly commercial surrogacy contract. In Olivia’s case, the woman that her parents paid to gestate and birth Olivia is also her biological mother. 

In a recent article with Daily Mail, Olivia shared how “becoming a parent myself — entirely naturally, in my mid-20s — has only crystallized my view. The sacred bond between mother and baby is, I feel, something that should never be tampered with.” After going viral for her testimony before the parliament of the Czech Republic, Olivia now campaigns for the universal abolition of surrogacy. 

In the United States, only three states prohibit or do not enforce commercial surrogacy contracts. One of the states, Michigan, is poised to overturn their ban on surrogacy-for-pay through a nine-bill “Access to Fertility Healthcare Package.” Legislators are tying their efforts to the national conversation on in vitro fertilization in hopes of garnering additional support. I detail the concerns with this legislation in detail here, but suffice it to say it undermines motherhood by reducing the intimate relationship between a woman and the child she carries to a highly-lucrative rental agreement. 

Several well-respected researchers and pundits claim that surrogacy does not harm children. Yet we know very little about its long-term impact on a child’s psychological well-being. 

Most of those who assert that surrogacy is psychologically harmless rely on a longitudinal study by Susan Golombok, Professor Emerita of Family Research, and former Director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of We Are Family (2020), a synthesis of 40 years of research on non-traditional family structures—same-sex, single parent by choice, and the use of all forms of assisted reproductive technology, including third-party conception. She concludes that such arrangements pose no additional harm and can benefit children.

Professor Golombok’s “Families Created Through Surrogacy” study began in 2003 and assessed parental and child psychological adjustment at ages 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, and 14. The impact of this single longitudinal study on both public opinion and policy cannot be overstated. To date, it is the only study that specifically examines the surrogate-born child’s psychological adjustment, as well as the only study to do so over an extended period. It is also the only research on child psychological well-being that policymakers in New York used to argue for the legalization of commercial surrogacy. 

Professor Golombok’s sample of surrogacy families comes from the General Register Office of the United Kingdom for National Statistics (ONS) and from the UK’s “Childlessness Overcome Through Surrogacy” (COTS) agency. The original sample included 42 surrogate-born children but declined to a mere 28 children by age 14. The study relied on a group of families formed through egg donation and children born of natural conception to serve as the comparison groups. 

With such a small sample size, and some families participating inconsistently year-to-year, the study itself runs the risk of selection bias and non-representative outcomes. The study lumps both children born through gestational surrogacy and traditional surrogacy together, too. This means some surrogates are both the genetic mother and the child's gestational mother. 

Additionally, only altruistic surrogacy is legal in the UK, so these arrangements do not involve surrogates who legally receive an additional sum of money, beyond generous reimbursements. For context, surrogacy-for-pay brings in an additional $25,000 to $70,000 in the United States, which may affect how a child views his or her conception, gestation, and birth. 

In each study, the scholars rely on the mother’s own assessment of the child’s well-being. It is not until age 14 when scholars begin to directly ask children questions to assess their self-esteem.

Overall, Professor Golombok concludes that children born from surrogacy agreements of any sort do as well, if not better, psychologically than their natural-born peers. 

For ages 1, 2, and 3, Professor Golombok finds that parents in surrogacy families showed “greater warmth and attachment-related behavior” than natural-conception parents. One explanation for this, as Professor Golombok’s notes, is that “parents of children born in this way [may] make a greater attempt than parents of naturally conceived children to present their families in the best possible light.” Such a bias seems likely, given that parents may feel the subconscious desire to justify their uncommon path to parenthood. 

By age 7, both surrogate-born children and donor-conceived children in the control group were doing noticeably worse than their natural-born counterparts. This is the point when many children learned of their biological or gestational origins. The scholars note that this corresponds with adoption literature as the period in a child’s life when they begin to comprehend the loss of one or both biological parents. What goes unnoted, however, is that unlike adoption, surrogacy is the intentional creation of a child for the express purpose of removing the child from his or her gestational and/or biological parent(s). 

Beginning at age 10, scholars report that the child’s psychological adjustment returns to a relatively normal state compared to the natural-born children, but the study itself reports little data compared to previous papers. By age 14, when the study concludes, the remaining 28 children seem to fare about the same as natural-born children, despite slightly more psychological problems reported. 

Despite these methodological limitations, Professor Golombok’s data from this longitudinal study remains the basis of child psychological adjustment research on surrogacy. Examples of this may be found in prominent pieces such as Vanessa Brown Calder's review of surrogacy at the Cato Institute or Cremieux Recueil's widely shared Substack with Aporia Magazine. Their conclusions that surrogacy confers “no harm” to the psychological well-being of the child are premature, to say the least.

In Calder’s article, she cites three studies in her discussion on the psychological well-being of surrogate-born children. A quick review of each study shows that these authors rely solely on Professor Golombok’s longitudinal study data to draw their conclusions. 

In Recueil’s Substack, "Surrogacy: Looking for Harm," he primarily relies on Golombok’s work to claim that “psychological harm appears to be minimal.” Again, this statement is premature and formed on limited data primarily from her longitudinal study. The other five citations in the “Psychological Outcomes for Kids” section tell us little about the psychological well-being of surrogate-born children. 

Recueil twice cites “Are the Children Alright? A Systematic Review of Psychological Adjustment of Children Conceived by Assisted Reproductive Technologies,” from 2022. Of the 11 studies that examine the intersection between surrogacy and child psychological outcomes, they fall into three categories: 

the longitudinal study by Professor Golombok 

child outcomes compared with other children born from assisted reproductive technology, not compared with natural-born children 

studies that examine the impact of non-traditional parenting types, such as lesbian mothers or gay fathers, on the well-being of the child. The impact of surrogacy is not directly assessed; it is simply mentioned as a requirement for male-to-male family formation. Of these three categories, the only studies that directly address the claims that Recueil makes are the research of Professor Golombok, which he already cited before these additional studies. 

Hence, the widespread claim that surrogacy does not harm the psychological well-being of children primarily relies on a single longitudinal study of 42-to-28 surrogate-born children by the intended mother’s own assessment. That’s it. 

This isn’t to say we should discard Professor Golombok’s study. But honest scholars and lawmakers should be far more modest in claiming that surrogacy does not harm the psychological well-being of children. 

The most accurate conclusion regarding the psychological adjustment of surrogate-born children is that we do not have enough data to draw a conclusion either way, especially not in favor of surrogacy itself. When the well-being of children is at stake, lawmakers and researchers should employ the utmost scrutiny before advocating for any form of childbearing. 

Children rightly desire to please their parents, and there are few conversations more complicated than questioning the method one’s parents chose to bring one into the world. There is reason to believe that many surrogate-born children will not have the emotional or mental maturity to understand their conception and gestation until they are much older.

There is a huge difference between no harm and no known harm. Regardless of one’s stance on surrogacy, we should be able to agree that we need more data and reporting requirements to enable researchers to assess the impact of surrogacy contracts on the well-being of children. In my view, a single six-part longitudinal study does not justify this practice. 

Emma Waters is a Senior Research Associate for the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion and Family at The Heritage Foundation.

[willcodehtmlforfood]

The last section tho:

This challenge in narrowing down search results to chat responses in an AI interface has just been highlighted by Leipzig University; its research specifically looked at the quality of search results for product reviews and recommendations.

The paper, titled “Is Google Getting Worse? A Longitudinal Investigation of SEO Spam in Search Engines,” asks whether SPAM and SEO gamesmanship has a disproportionate impact on the quality of results filtering through.

“Many users of web search engines complain about the supposedly decreasing quality of search results… Evidence for this has always been anecdotal, yet it’s not unreasonable to think that popular online marketing strategies such as affiliate marketing incentivize the mass production of such content to maximize clicks.”

In short, the answer appears to be yes.

“Our findings suggest that all search engines have significant problems with highly optimized (affiliate) content… more than is representative for the entire web.”

This is not specific to Google, of course, and the researchers also examined Bing and DuckDuckGo over the course of twelve months. Ironically, given Google’s focus on integrating generative AI and search, the researchers warn that this is a “situation that will surely worsen in the wake of generative AI.”

We have all become conditioned to judging the likely independence of search results as set out in our browsers, and we have learned to scan such results as today’s shop window equivalents. But in a world when you ask a chatbot “where’s the best place to buy a Samsung TV,” or “what’s the best pizza restaurant in Denver,” the format of your results will be very different. We all need to remember, it’s not really a chat.

The AI update coming to Google Messages is part of a trend, of course, and you can expect multiple such AI add-ons to come thick and fast, especially with Google driving much of the momentum. This should be good news for Android users.

We have just seen an official Chrome announcement on the introduction of three new helpful AI releases making their way into beta. Automated tab management and theme creation sound good, but it’s the Help me Write feature within Chrome that’s likely to be the most useful, especially on an Android mobile device.

We have also seen GMail’s own Help Me Write feature adapted to combine AI and voice, as spotted by TheSPAndroid, “Gmail's ‘Help Me Write’ can help you draft emails with ease and definitely can save you some time. Currently the functionality is available on both web and apps, but you have to write the email prompt yourself using the keyboard. On the Gmail app for Android, Google is working on a feature which will let you draft emails with voice [prompts].”

And there was the earlier news that Android Auto will use AI to intelligently filter information in and out of the system, while you keep your hands on the steering wheel and your eyes on the road.

Many positives, clearly, but that core risk in narrowing search results isn’t the only word of warning here. Google Messages chats with Bard are not secured by end-to-end encryption, and Google (being Google) will store your data and use it to improve its algorithms. Just as with other such models, be careful what you ask.

No news yet on timing, but in all likelihood it isn’t far away. According to Bard, “Google has not yet announced an official release date for Bard in Google Messages, but it is expected to be available sometime in 2024.”

[boxeboxer]

Samya’s bad horrible no good day at Loxton-Duchêne (3.3k word practice intro)

As the air marginally warms, the fog that had loomed over the ocean like a dark, dreaded thought comes to swallow the skyline above them. It’s hard to make out where the cityscape ends, the cream-grey concrete silhouettes losing their rigid form as they dissolve into the humidity. The uniform color of it all washes out the dirt-laden snow that creeps at the edge of the tracks, making Samya squint and curl her lip. She puts her hand against her brow.

“Excuse me,” she says, waving at an ice blue krtrim that walks away from its group to puff on its miti, leaving the rest to load material up and onto the doodlebug. It looks up at her, large yellow eyes twinkling in the dim overcast, sleet collected on its shoulders. “This is Loxton-Duchêne, isn’t it?”

Its voice, cold: “Yes, ma’am.” Steam rises from its mouth and forms dew on its glass eyes.

“Which way to the assembly yard? Is it far?”

It points to the idling train engine where its fellow krtrim crawl about it like ants. “We’re bringing alloy to the blast furnace, north. Follow the line and it’ll take you there. It’s past the refinery.”

She can feel the tug of north at her back without turning to face it. The earth pulls her longitudinally along its axis, orienting her as naturally as it was to know up from down. She smiles. “Thank you.”

The krtrim takes another drag, narrowing its eyes, exhaling vapor. A dull pain has formed at its temple, which it presses a finger to. Samya strides past it up and onto the doodlebug. In the next moment, the ache is gone, and it had never seen her. Its coworkers call for its return, and she catches the end of sentence: “who are you talking to…?”

She takes a seat on one of the worn aisle chairs, their cushions flattened against the wood arches. It’s nice to take the weight off her feet, and she crosses her legs over one another while holding a hand over her knee. Where she’s sat at the front, she can see out the driver’s window, perched next to it being a heavily-clothed krtrim who reads a faded CRT display embedded into the dashboard. Its mouth opens to shout something in Krtrim Binary, miti steam rising with its voice, then it bangs on the metal wall with a piece of rebar it pulls from the console. The workers from outside file in like mice in rows.

The driver barks at them again as they sit. She can’t understand the words in sound, but she can get the gist of it through the electric fields which weave themselves through her. “Slow krtrim get fed to the furnace! If you’re not worth more than your circuits, don’t bother coming!”

There’s a murmur of agreement, and the engine shifts into gear. They gain speed to a crawl, then a walk, until they have enough momentum to settle into a comfortable cadence just fast enough to send a breeze through the empty windows. The air brings the smell of hot coke, and the ice along the tracks gradually melts away as they get closer to the furnace.

She turns to watch the scenery, what little there is of it. The Loxton-Duchêne campus sits upon the land like an open wound. Seemingly built to rust, its iron skeleton is a rich, crimson brown, dotted with aviation lights that give it a faint red sparkle. Smog rises from towers as the heat of this place, this organism, is exhaled in a great breath back into the sky. Mixing with the hanging clouds, it casts a silver shadow over it all—a cold, lingering sadness, the weight of which is heavy upon their shoulders. It might’ve been a serene view if not for the noise. The ruminating chew of the railcar engine, steam spitting from exhaust pipes, hydraulics and air brakes, bells ringing in doppler-warped tones, hammer strikes igniting, a constant coronal buzz from the pantographs above, the synchronized movement of every worker and their footsteps—they mesh into each other until they become a singular, unified sound, a roar like that of a seashell pressed to her ear. Piercing the wall of noise, there’s the sharp voices of the krtrim in the cab, talking and gossiping amongst themselves. They speak of missed quotas, interpersonal quarrels, or express a dull excitement at the prospect of a full ration ticket by the end of the day. In their outerclothes, hair covered by scarves and brimmed caps, all wearing the same khaki romper, they look identical. Their blue-white faces peek out from under all the fabric, smooth and semi-translucent. When the light hits them just right, the conduits under the skin draw symmetrical root-like lines under their dark yellow eyes.

The tracks enter a bank angle. They’re lifted up onto an overpass, the stone ballast giving way to a trellis bridge which carries them over a railyard. Long lines of sinter flatcars, sugar-coated alabaster with the thin snowfall, trudge to the depots where they drop their freight to be carried by skip cars to the top of the furnace which is just ahead. She can trace the venous piping, erupting from the ground, to its center. The tuyeres that slither and coil about the structure obscure its true shape. It beats with a rhythm that carries through the ground, a massive heart hidden behind ribs, sinews and lungs—its heat, even from this far away, urging a flush to her mouth that brings her pulse against her teeth.

The car shudders as it slows. The brakes squeal, grinding them to a halt in front of the snaking catwalks which lead to the tapping point. At once, the workers bustle past her, the driver blowing a horn with the tug of a wire. Samya stretches and gets up. Once everyone else is out, she drops down onto one of the railings.

The yard is bustling with motion. Steam from air compressors and hydraulic pumps hiss and whistle from pipes, while the flutter of electrolarynx voices from every moving body fill in any silence there might have been. Much taller than the doodlebugs, the freight cars groan with strain against the tracks. A cloud sweeps over them as coke is dumped from the rolling hoppers onto conveyors, throwing up dust that makes the air smell like campfire.

She threads herself to the other side of the crowd, as agile as a needle through fabric. The krtrim, which all stand at five-foot, don’t look up as she passes them. She sticks out—half a foot taller, paired with the silent work of her muscles and the brown, blood-rich tone of her skin, she’s an alien in the sea of blue faces. If she were somebody else, then she’d certainly catch suspicion. But they say nothing, spare her no looks, just flow around her like water, a stone parting tides in a stream.

Weaving together at the other side of the incline is another depot, and more doodlebugs. One has just set off, headed further north as it drags cargo on wheels behind it. She picks up the pace so she’s at a light jog. An updraft pushes into the small of her back, nudging her into a sprint that she times carefully with the movement of the cane in her hand. The ground departs from her feet and is replaced by the steel plating of the car, and she pulls herself up and onto the rear ladder with her right hand. Inertia forces her body back at an angle which she corrects and begins climbing. With some effort she’s able to step onto the caboose landing, bringing her in front of an exit door and the small terraced balcony that encases it. Some rocks she’d kicked up clatter back over the edge.

She, with a huff, opens the sliding door. There’s less krtrim here than before—dressed differently, too. Their colored hair is allowed to fall to their shoulders, half-covered with scarves that keep a ball cap snug against their heads. They pay her no mind as she finds a seat no one’s claimed yet.

A conversation picks up where it left off. “Did you hear Sonam got close to the cat yesterday?” says one whose smile catches on the sharp consonants of Krtrim Binary. “We’re going to compile our tickets to buy some meat.”

“I thought we were feeding it dough,” another says.

“Cats only eat blooded-flesh," says a third, indignant.

“I hope it doesn’t need to be alive. Asalee markets only sell it dried, and it’s expensive.”

“That’s why we’re pooling our tickets for a direct cuprum exchange. The dry flesh has to be better food than the mice running around here, anyway.”

Samya fishes around her pocket and finds a couple loose bills. She considers sharing it, but it’s harder to scrub a memory of charity than just her presence here alone, so she doesn’t. She already looks out of place as it is.

“Let it eat the mice! They chew on the wires.”

“What? That makes more work for us, then!”

They continue talking, pulling out their tickets, folded and wrinkled from their coverall sleeves. The laughing, interrupted by banal, muttered non sequiturs, all droning into the lull of the engine noise. Just listening to it has made her lose focus of her surroundings, a conclusion she comes to with a jump. She turns her head, eyes darting from the front of the cab to the back. It’s only her, still alone, isolated via the invisible salt line she’s drawn about herself. The racing of her heart in her ears ebbs away.

She swallows and peers out the open window. Breathing in the fresh air helps the adrenaline break down in her bloodstream. Outside, it’s darkened a bit. The blast furnace is shrinking over the horizon. The stacks about it remind her of minarets, slender tubes rendered black against the haze where they crown the great shape of the furnace. She thinks of those faded polaroids of masjids her father kept in frames, aged and faded, showing a world where the sun was still warm on the skin. If you looked close enough, you could see the small figures of her family in the corners, unnamed, forgotten. She imagines them now, as apparitions in the fog. Smiling.

Her hand slithers from under her outerclothes over the sill to place itself in the wind. When she flattens her fingers into a blade, the lift raises her palm. She rides it up and down, then again. Some stray raindrops pull the warmth from her knuckles. Her fingernails go from a light pink to oyster purple. She keeps that position even when pins and needles gather under her skin.

The shuffling of fabric and limbs brings her attention back to the cab. Across the aisle, a warehouse rises into view. The krtrim stuff their belongings back into their bags, inching to the edge of their seats. Samya retracts her hand and rubs it.

She concentrates. She plucks one of the krtrim from the rest, using an unseen hand to take its chin and make it face her. She asks, without words, “Is this the assembly yard?”

“Yes,” it thinks. “The next stop.”

She lets it go. It blinks, then turns around and forgets. She begins to wring the straps of her satchel like a child squeezes their shirt when they cry. The pressure in her chest is making the lights flicker.

She had been taught to hide herself well—hide this clairvoyance, the thing that bloomed in the space just behind her eyes, leached out of her like ink through parchment, twisting and weaving and winding around everyone, everything, these great vines that rooted her and the world to something deep in the ground. Her mother’s hand, soft on her shoulder, voice to her ear, sewing it into a shape she could hold, could touch. Tamed. That power, raging like a flame between her ribs where the heart should be. It swells now, forcing hot breath out her nose, electricity to her feet. But her face remains still. Body rigid as stone.

The train stops. Everybody’s on their feet, filing towards the door which has opened at the front. She’s the last out.

The warehouse sits before them, sagged and sunk into its foundation. Instead of windows, it displays open bays shadowed by retractable garage shutters which have been raised. The roof’s awning expands across the pad where krtrim carry boxes, push handtrucks and smoke. A gate places a barrier between the train depot and the inside. Following it, it leads to a checkpoint where the workers find their punch cards and stamp them. Samya separates from the line and walks ahead.

It’s all noise. Conveyors are squealing on their belts as shards of electronic miscellanea are carried about. Krtrim work away on stools, grabbing assemblies from the line and poking at them with tweezers, soldering irons and voltmeters, yelling at one another. The rest are pulling carts of material, entering data into terminals or manning forklifts. One trundles past her while it carries a pallet of multicolored wire. She steps past it, finding herself running into the fast-moving bodies of the workers. One looks at her.

She places a question in its mind. “Where is the employee named Deepali?”

It’s who she’s come here for, who she’s stepped foot back into greater society for, after living as a recluse longer than she’d ever been any part of it. Samya isn’t even sure what she looks like; a human with brown hair, brown eyes, a skin tone just a few shades lighter, maybe? That described a lot of people. At least here, it’d be like finding a needle in a haystack. So she hoped.

The krtrim shakes its head, not knowing. She asks another. When she again gets no answer, she sends the message to them all.

“Tell me where Deepali is.”

A wave of thoughts rush into her. Most are variations of “I don’t know,” but she picks out the few that say something else.

“In the back.”

“Ask Simrun.”

What to do next is easy. “Show me.”

Field lines flash by them, curling around the crowd and piercing toward the east, where a door is being propped open with a traffic cone. She trails behind it, hand still tight ‘round her satchel strap.

It’s a little quieter back here, the madness replaced with fan noise and the sporadic scream of a drill. Around 30 workstations, which look more like cubicles, fill the space. There are maybe half as many krtrim occupying them. While they sit perched on their chairs, two per table, they position a convex lens to more closely see the bench, using pneumatic tools to tighten shining green boards onto metal plates. The delicate, spider-like shape of fleming valves are pulled from trays to be pressed into the vacant circuits, then soldered. She watches them as she walks.

They wear name tags on their breast pockets. A blue-haired krtrim displays one that reads SIMRUN, sitting alone. Its face is shadowed by its hat, a sugar stick between its lips that it chews while it breaks apart a new set of resistors. Samya puts a hand on its shoulder. It freezes.

“Where’d your friend go?” she asks, smiling at the empty chair.

Simrun doesn’t look up. “Hiding from Bharat,” it says, twisting the sugar stick with its tongue. The immediate association that follows the name implies Bharat must be a superior. “She’s probably smoking. Check the depot.”

Her gaze is nudged towards the open bay, where rows of unloaded crates have been stacked on wood pallets. Their hide-skin covers are wet with the rain. The wind catches them, and makes them flutter under the tension of the bungee cords. When she looks closer, lifting her chin, she sees a wisp of vapor rise over the edge of a wrapped box.

Samya’s hand squeezes, then releases. “Thank you.”

The clatter of Simrun’s sugar stick falling from its mouth is the only response it gives. It wipes its glass optic with its sleeve, the memory of her reduced to a trick of the eye.

The distance from where she stands to the depot ahead stretches before her, the short expanse of concrete loosening into a thick mud that holds fast onto the soles of her shoes. Her grip on her cane is making the wood creak. She’s shaking.

What should she say? She ruminates on it. It’d be easy to look into her mind, sure, but that was just a temporary solution to her problem. The information she needed would certainly be deeper between the brain folds, and harder to pry out. The question she wants to ask, “Tell me about your father, his research, his life, who I am, who you are,” is too forward. Planting it in her head will be too much, too fast. It’d make her vomit, as surges of clairvoyance usually do. Samya was never any good at these segues.

It was simple with the mundanity of routine. People don’t remember most fleeting glances from the corners of their eyes, or conversations half-heard in daydream. That’s all she was to them—a sliver of a reflection that made them look twice, a phantom itch, the interruption of thought.

She’s still deciding on what to say when she rounds the corner. All the anticipation she’d built up immediately shrinks back into her stomach. The person on the other side is just another krtrim, sitting cross-legged and coxing steam from a miti. It, unlike the others, reacts to her presence, whipping its head up to stare at her.

“I’m looking for…” the words fall from her mouth.

Something isn’t right. As she extends her clairvoyance, it’s met with a sudden wall. A shockwave erupts through her, like she had swung a hammer at an immovable object, and the force of it was now ricocheting up her arms, resonating into her bones as if she were a tuning fork struck on metal. She sees flashes of chimerical light through her eyelids until the sensation subsides into an ache. The taste of salt burns at the back of her throat.

She swallows and forces herself to finish her sentence. “… I-I’m looking for Deepali. Do you know where she is?”

The krtrim is wholly unremarkable. Its short auburn hair just barely peeks out the bottom of its scarf. It almost looks brown where it frames its blue-green face. “I’m Deepali,” it says in a rising tone, bordering between a question and a statement. Its hand presents its nametag, and it’s true.

Samya laughs. “No, no, not you, someone else.”

“I’m the only Deepali here,” it retorts.

She loses the smile she’d made, chewing at the inside of her cheek. “You’re sure? I’m looking for a human, asalee, in blooded-flesh.”

The krtrim raises its brow. “She isn’t here.”

“It’s really, really important that I talk to her,” she emphasizes, holding out her clenched fist. She stiffens her jaw as she tries to press an answer out of it, but its mind is sealed off too tightly, and it’s making her dizzy just trying.

It regards her closer, eyes going from her head to her feet and back. Miti vapor blows past its lips. “Who are you?”

Samya stumbles on her voice. “I’m… I don’t….”

It stands, and she backs up into a box. The abrupt movement, unseen by her clairvoyance, startles her. This is a proxy, her common sense screams, a vessel piloted somewhere else, from far away, where you can’t see it.

“Forget it,” she manages. “She’s not here.”

The krtrim watches as she spins on her heel and walks away, eyes boring holes through the back of her head. Adrenaline stings where it pierces her sternum.

[shychick-52]

[Gyro is forced to teach a kindergarten class in the lab, drawing equations and diagrams on the whiteboard to explain the workings of one of those toys that kids push which makes the colored balls pop inside the bubble]

Gyro: Ahem! So, the compression and expansion of the longitudinal waves cause the erratic oscillation- you can see it there- of the neighboring particles.

[A girl raises her hand. Gyro sighs in annoyance at the interruption]

Gyro: Yes, what is it? What?! What is it?!

Girl: Can I play with it?

Gyro: No, you can't play with it! You won't enjoy it on as many levels as I do. [He chuckles insanely as he gleefully continues to demonstrate science with it] The colors, children!

[lucysweatslove]

Things I did today:

Met with PMHNP and developed a plan for going forward this next week

Finished a book! That I already talked about.

Got an email from the rural program director in my state bc the mail rural office was like “this student hasn’t finished her rural clinic assignments” (that are due on Friday??? Not today??) and she was letting me know to get them in ASAP. Emailed her back to say I was on top of it and will have them all in by Friday (I have 2/4 done and the other 2 are just quick page-max write ups). She emailed back and said they may have gotten my dates mixed up or something bc it did seem like a real fast turnaround. Listen, i haven’t even gotten a tuition statement yet, I’m gonna protect my peace and give myself a couple days to relax before finishing these assignments thanks.

Mom called to talk about school stuff and check in, asked about tuition, what else she can do to support me

Figured out how much tuition should be so they can get ready for that (yes I am incredibly fortunate that my family can pay for school- that said my tuition for this first term is literally only like $3400 and it’ll be like $12k for the first year which is amazing considering that the other school I got into was $90k a year. That tuition rate isn’t forever tho, my program is weird with tuition)

Figured out what medical equipment I need this year and got tuning forks and a set of reflex hammers (a few different types to figure out which ones I like best, I’m putting my bets on babinski or tromner and not the annoying Taylor one) and a penlight and pocket eye chart AND a fancy set of bp cuffs. My mom was all “why is it $215? This set on Amazon is only $60” well bc it’s Welch-Allyn? Designed to last as long as I want them? Lifetime calibration warranty?

Ordered 3 books I’ll need for my first real class. Technically recommended and not required but I need them. I think there may be more I need for some longitudinal “threads,” and I’ll look into them more tomorrow, the ebooks are available for free via the school’s library but I know me and I’ll probably want my own physical copy.

Also learned that apparently when people ask for feedback on what could be better, you’re supposed to not actually tell them anything? Or like sandwich it very delicately? My mom told me this and so I asked why do they even ask specifically for the negative feedback?? And it’s an accreditation thing, they have to ask, but they don’t want you to actually say anything. Wtf. Why are neurotypicals like this.

[madam-of-lithuania]

You like historical clothing, yes? Would you be willing to either give me some tips or resources about historical Lithuanian clothing for men? Thank you!!

Sure I who not mind, i choose the ancient baltic clothing

Early Iron Age (I–IV centuries AD)

Clothing is believed to be of a tunic style. Tablet-woven sashes with simple, longitudinal designs are worn, tied at the waist or to embellish the garment edges. The cloth is woolen, woven on vertical frame looms in a 3-shaft twill pattern. Women’s headwear is embellished with small, round or flat metal pieces, their fronts adorned with ornaments hung on twisted, two-stranded wire. Another special type of women’s headwear from this period covers the temples with a symmetrical pair of flat, ring or coil shaped ornaments. We still do not know if this jewelry was worn for specific occasions. The metal ornaments from the period are subtle in form, made of silver filigree, with incrustations of azure blue glass and framed in red, black or green enamel.

In the later part of this period, these types of ornaments, as well as elaborate multicolored glass bead necklaces brought from the Roman Empire, are no longer in evidence. The dominant technique for making ornaments becomes metal casting; decorative elements echo patterns found in tablet-woven sashes: longitudinal designs made up of dots, triangles, or series of open circles. Designs on brooches consist primarily of arched ladders. Long needle-like pins worn by women are bobbin shaped, or less commonly they have rounded blue ends, worn in pairs, joined together with one or two small chains and pinned to the shoulder region. Ornaments worn around the neck have trumpet or cone-shaped ends, often with azure blue dangles. Bracelets are massive and cut from a round piece of metal, or less commonly, made from braided pieces of metal. During this period both men and women wear such arm decorations, usually one on each wrist. Bracelets made of braided metal are especially popular.

Middle Iron Age (V–VIII centuries AD)

The clothing style as well as the cloth worn during the Middle Iron Age remains much the same as before: the woolen cloth is still woven on upright frame looms, and sashes have the same linear patterns. The metal ornaments, however, are not as subtle in style as before. They are much larger and the bodies of many of the pins and brooches are made of bronze and covered with a thin layer of silver; minimizing the amount of precious metal used.

During this period women begin wearing skull caps – a few rows of short woven decorative elements, interspersed with cast flat metal pieces, decorated with metal eyelets and strung together on woolen thread. Bracelets are still massive, with only the portion encircling the wrist being somewhat narrowed, their ends are now wider. Women wear one or two on each arm, while men adopt the habit of wearing one very large bracelent on the left wrist. This is the so-called “warrior” bracelet, intended to protect the wrist when holding a battle shield.

Necklaces made of glass beads are typically worn only by women, although men of the Aukštaičiai tribe also wear such neck ornaments. Both men and women wear amulets made of amber – typically a large bead, cone-shaped at both ends, that was hung from a brooch, sash, or woman’s straight pin. As before, needle-type pins are worn in pairs, connected with small chains and decorated with small hanging ornaments. In the northern regions these are a woman’s primary accessory clothing element; brooches, such as those worn by men, are not found with their clothes.

The women of the southern Baltic tribes use brooches to fasten their clothing. These are circular in shape, cast in bronze or silver, and often decorated with serpent head motifs, or sometimes with poppy seed pods. Men wear leather belts with raised metal clasps, and sashes from which they hang their weapons, and tall boots fastened at the knee with belt buckles.

Late Iron Age (IX–XIII centuries AD)

During the Late Iron Age the ornamentation of the clothing worn (and, we believe, the clothing silhouette itself) changes. Brooches now have a horseshoe shape rather than the earlier circular shape. We find some of them in men’s graves, leading us to surmise that men’s clothing from the period was cut down the center and that the brooches were used as buttons. The tablet-woven sashes now have more complicated patterns of geometric rhombi, and cross and swastika motifs.

Along with woolen cloth, beginning with the 10th century, we now find cloth made of linen. The larger quantity of woven material leads us to believe, that towards the end of this period, the Balts, like other European peoples, have now learned to use horizontal looms. With the advent of flax cultivation, we begin to see the use of thread made of a wool/flax combination in woven sashes and later, in scarves.

As before, women enjoy wearing knotted skull caps, although now their small metal ornaments are no longer cast, but rather hammered into various shapes and embellished with intertwined ellipses, swastikas, triangles and rhombi. These pieces are strung on braided or spun linen thread rather than on strands of wool. Bracelets are mostly of braided metal. Men continue wearing a massive bracelet on their left wrist, but now these are wrapped in a long woven sash and strung with small rings (chainmail). The Semigallian wimples are adorned similarly with small chains strung together on a long string, as are Samogitian womens’ hats/headwear. Maple tree whirligig-shaped ornaments hang from their fronts.

Clothing often is embellished with tiny round metal beads, a style especially favored by Semigallians. Samogitian women string and hang beads in a flat rhombus shape on their robes, so that as they move, the beads touch each other and make a tinkling sound. Selonian women like to pin tubular bronze pins on their robes to form various geometric designs; the tunics of the Latgalian men are similarly adorned.

Important parts of the “dress uniform” of warriors/soldiers are tall boots and a leather belt covered with hammered bronze plates ending in woven bronze tassels. During this period neck ornaments are made of braided metal with loop and hook closures. Those worn by Selonian women have flat, curved ends decorated with geometric motifs; some have additional flat metal pieces or small round bangles arranged in a trapeze shape. Often these bangles are used to form a part of womens’ necklaces along with braided elements and glass beads. As before, bracelets are mostly of braided metal, although their central portions are widened and geometric forms added.

XIII–IV centuries AD

The changes in outfits worn during the 13th – 14th centuries are even greater. Along with the traditional and locally made garments of linen and wool, we now find imported weaves of silk and brocade. Because of their expense, these materials are used only in sashes and textile-based headwear. Plaid scarves can now be found. Headwear has also changed; now it is made of sashes of wool or silk and decorated with small, four or five-sided flat plates; spaces between them are filled with threaded bead embroidery (biserio).

The shape of brooches changes, such that now we find round, cast brooches with a hole in their center used for fastening. Small horseshoe-shaped brooches are found arranged vertically on the right side of the neck, most likely having been used to fasten the opening of a dress or underclothes. Bracelets are uncommon and the ones found are now of a different shape – in the form of bands made from pieces of bent, decorated sheets of metal, or tripartite and joined with loops.

Necklaces are made from small glass beads, with rounded, four-sided, or cross-shaped dangles and seashells. Earrings are a new accessory and are worn primarily by Balt women, who also begin to wear metal-plated belts of the type that men wear, as well as a new “invention” from the West – leather pouches with closures attached to their belts. Also worn are amulets – claws of male bears encased in bronze, and cast bronze keys with rhombus-shaped tops in a gothic style.

The men’s outfits of this period are much harder to determine from the available archaeological material. Nevertheless, we can deduce that men wear woolen socks and tall boots, and linen underclothes. They sport wool tunics woven on a three shaft loom, with their garments held together with bronze plated belts from which would hang a leather pouch and knife.

[sukimas]

I understand I'm prompting a discipline-adjacent hot take here, so please answer at your own discretion: in your view, what are the barriers to biology producing sufficiently rigorous and efficacious studies regarding concerns as popular as the effects of microplastics? I'm definitely familiar with Fail Methodology applied to good topics, but I'm completely in the dark on what the issue you're seeing would be stemming from here - very out of discipline.

my primary concern is that it is very, very hard to control environments that can match up with levels of microplastics in the natural environment while also providing suitable control environments (i.e. environments without microplastics). the majority of the studies i've read have either used extremely large amounts of microplastics (and used "ambient" levels of microplastics as the control), or simply not controlled at all. multiple studies i've seen have used nanoplastics as a substitute for microplastics. nanoparticles have, um. significantly different properties from normal particles of substances, to say the least.

now, the thing with biology (i say biology rather than toxicology, because the studies i'm griping about are specifically animal exposure studies rather than the multifarious angles toxicology approaches these things from) is that it normally deals with effects that one CAN extrapolate from. for example, say, chromium (VI) is toxic in large amounts- and it turns out it's not great in small amounts, either! heavy metals are the golden child of animal toxicity studies, because their effects are fairly linear wrt exposure and they build up in bodies over time. one of the studies i looked at on microplastics also had a section on mercury exposure in bivalves, for example, which was quite good.

biology is an excellent science at creating models out of small amounts of data, because it is simply extremely difficult to collect large amounts of data on living things without possibly drastically affecting their environments in some way, temperature-controlled agar agar for unicellular organisms aside.

the problem, then, is when you want to study an effect on a large living organism (so you can extrapolate its effects to other large organisms, such as mammals), but that effect does not scale linearly. you still have your two options (well-controlled environment or large number of samples). but you are now faced with a problem.

for example, let's consider potassium in human beings. potassium is necessary to power the na+/k+ ion channels that operate within nerves, and therefore, too little potassium can result in death. however, too much potassium can stop the heart. there is a nonlinear curve of human health with exposure to potassium.

but suppose you wanted to study if the levels of potassium in the environment were bad for people? are they at the local maximum of human health, for example?

well, you could study the health of humans in an environment with no potassium, and the health of humans in an environment with lots and lots of potassium. you would conclude from your results absolutely jack shit, because humans can't survive in either situation. but the problem with observing your control- humans in the average potassium environment- is that human beings live for fuckin ever, in terms of longitudinal studies! you'll never publish anything at this rate, even if you're an immortal inhuman creature (which is presumably the reason you're doing human experimentation in the first place, you'd have gotten rejected by the ethics board ages ago if you weren't)

thus you end up with the option of poor analogues for what you actually want to measure or absolutely no data whatsoever.

microplastics, luckily, aren't THIS bad to study, though- many animals live for very short periods of time, and it's also unlikely that "no microplastics" is worse for an animal than "yes microplastics".

but the basic problem presented here is that beyond even controlling the level of microplastics itself, controlling the environment for long enough to get useful data out of experiments is tedious and takes a long time. the field of biology as a whole tends to go "well, yes, sometimes effects are nonlinear, but we can just extrapolate that because A Lot Of Microplastics is This Bad, that the slope linearly descends to zero, and thus the amount we're currently exposed to is This minus X bad."

however, a lot of things have, for example, exponential ill effects on health- where getting exposed to an amount N can cause mild, even unnoticeable ill effects, but exposure to an amount 2N can cause serious, dangerous effects, and exposure to an amount 3N can leave you dead. carbon dioxide is one such example (though to be frank a lot of chemicals follow this trend).

this means that a linear approximation of toxicity is going to cause... interesting extrapolations of effects.

now, why does biology tend to do this? the main reason is "it works really, really well for a lot of other things" and a secondary reason is "it works well enough for government work for most things". biology, of the Three Big Sciences, has its work cut out the most for it in experimentation- living things are INCREDIBLY complex systems, and controlling their environments is hard enough without bringing genetics into it. microbio gets off a little more easily here, but once you get to in vitro studies, good fucking luck expecting your results to generalize to multicellular organisms lmao. rat LD50s per kg don't even generalize to human beings to start with! you're sisyphus!

but basically biology is incentivized to work from looser models, as a. they work pretty well for most applications and b. if you don't, you never manage to finish any study. it's not the fault of the scientists necessarily, but there could be more work done to avoid the effects of these unfortunate incentives IMO. see medicine for the apotheosis of "does this fucking work at all" even when observing the effects of one independent variable on one dependent variable, much less life expectancy or overall health.

there are, IMO, a couple of ways to approach the microplastics problem without running into the "oh jesus living things" wall. one is to ditch the studies on organisms entirely and to observe the effects in vitro. there are problems with extrapolating this to large organisms, of course, but if you view how, for example, monomeric PTFE affects the cell membrane, etc. you may be able to analyze how microplastics would potentially have ill effects on organisms. there are a couple of studies in this vein, but they're not... great.

the other option is to run studies on animals exposed to ambient microplastic levels with the control being zero (or as close to zero as possible) microplastics. aquatic organisms are best for this, as water can be filtered more efficiently than air. essentially, we want to observe the effect that microplastics may potentially have on us- so we want to observe the effect of actually extant levels of microplastics, not the effect of getting blasted by 10k ppm microplastics. this would be a huge pain in the ass to set up because everything has microplastics in it, but could be done.

teal deer: my gripe with biology is that it heads out the door without its pants on from preliminary results, which works about 20% of the time but the other 80% is either not really useful information or proven entirely false in the non-experimental case. this is not necessarily inherent to the field, but is incentivized heavily by the modern publish-or-perish environment- while we have it rough enough as is without living beings involved, matching timescales to lives causes Difficulties Very Quickly and shortcuts must be taken in order to get tenured.

microbio is exempt from a lot of these concerns but isn't really relevant here for previously stated reasons, but because microbio can get things done real fast, the rest of bio is pressured to "keep up" when doing so is not necessarily realistic.

anyway i should really write this project proposal instead of talking about poor proxies for what you want to measure, but there you go

[fdataanalysis]

Lewis, on Max: 🔊"I don't know how or why, but he passed me with impressive speed." 🔊"I didn't even bother to defend because there was a huge difference." He's right: 📈RB was the car with the most effective DRS (tied with Haas) 📉Merc with the 3rd least effective Read on👇 All cars have the DRS that reduces the drag of the upper (moveable) rear-wing plane However, this does not mean that its effectiveness is the same for all: a lower-load upper plane (Mercedes) will produce a lower drag reduction when the DRS open than more loaded ones (RB) I estimated the drag reduction due to the DRS by considering how the longitudinal acceleration achieved (for a given speed) grew when the DRS was active vs when it was inactive. The tow effect is included, but its impact is averaged when analysing each race lap. The results are: Team / Drag Reduction (the effect of the tow is included for all teams) -Aston: 20.7% -AT: 21.5% -Merc: 23.8%⬅️ -Alfa: 27.7% -McL: 27.9% -Alpine: 28.0% -Ferrari: 28.3% -Williams: 30.4% -Haas: 31.5% -RedBull: 31.5%⬅️ So yes, the RB had a significant advantage when opening its DRS: compared to when the DRS was inactive, opening the DRS gave RB an additional 7% drag reduction, which boosted its top speed by around 8km/h (for a given engine power, top speed decreases with the cubic root of drag) It turns out the Aston had the least effective DRS: this explains why PER had no trouble overtaking ALO on the straight, while ALO could not re-overtake PER despite running close to him for many laps. That's it! If you have questions write them as a comment: I will try to give you an answer! I'm a mechanical engineer doing research in vehicle dynamics, and I love explaining F1 tech in a simple way: follow me at @F1DataAnalysis for the best content! 🏎️📈🛞 ——————————————————————————————— #F1 #Formula1 #Formulauno #Formulaone #Formule1 #Car #Race #Motorsport #DataAnalysis #Ferrari #RedBull #Mercedes #Alpine #Mclaren #AstonMartin #Verstappen #Hamilton #Leclerc #Alonso #Norris #Perez #Russell #SkyF1 #Racing #F1Testing #BahrainGP#F12023 #SaudiArabia #SaudiArabianGP #Jeddah https://www.instagram.com/p/CqFo_uptmqs/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[noidretina]

Fun fact: There is more evidence to suggest that 'woke' is a slur than there is evidence to suggest that 'cis' is a slur.

Merriam Webster defines woke in a few different ways.

The first is, "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)". This is a strictly positive definition, however, the additional context is added of, "often used in contexts that suggest someone's expressed beliefs about such matters are not backed with genuine concern or action". This seems to suggest that woke can be used as a derogatory term.

The second is, "reflecting the attitudes of woke people". There are examples provided, but the usage of the word 'woke' in the definition of the word 'woke' would almost certainly mean that the usage of the word relies on that of another definition, meaning this definition is irrelevant.

The third is, "politically liberal or progressive (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme". This is a definition that strictly is used as derogatory.

The final definition is: "past tense and past participle of wake". Clearly, this is not the definition of 'woke' we are referring to. It's informational and irrelevant.

This means that only the first and third definitions are relevant, to which the first can be used in a positive way or a negative way, and the third can be used in a negative way.

Compare that to definitions of 'cis'.

dictionary.com defines cis as, "Cis is short for cisgender, which refers to when a person’s gender identity corresponds to their sex as assigned at birth. Cisgender is the opposite of transgender." This is a strictly informational meaning.

Merriam Webster defines cis in a few ways:

"characterized by having certain atoms or groups of atoms on the same side of the longitudinal axis of a double bond or of the plane of a ring in a molecule". This is not the usage of cis we are looking for. This is informational, and irrelevant.

"[by shortening] : cisgender". This takes us to the cisgender definition, which we'll move over to shortly.

"relating to or being an arrangement of two very closely linked genes in the heterozygous condition in which both mutant alleles are on one chromosome and both wild-type alleles are on the homologous chromosome". This is not the usage of cis we are looking for. This is informational, and irrelevant.

(abbreviation) "Commonwealth of Independent States" Clearly, this isn't what we're looking for. Informational, moving on.

(prefix) "on this side" Informational, not relevant nor irrelevant.

(prefix) "cis" Wow, the definition of cis is, cis? Sarcasm aside, this seems to be relying on the other prefix definition of cis in chemistry contexts. Informational, not relevant.

Onward to 'cisgender' definitions:

Merriam Webster provides only one definition: "of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex the person was identified as having at birth". This is a strictly informational term.

Even if we include irrelevant definitions, we end up with multiple derogatory means to use woke, while informational means to use cis. Yes, there are positive ways to use woke as well, but the point is that there is no basis in definition to classify 'cis' as a slur, but there is basis in defintion to classify 'woke' as a slur.

Disclaimer: Nearly any word, if not every word, can be used in a derogatory way. This includes cis and cisgender. However, definitions evolve based on popular usage of how the words are used(see 'literally'). Being that no definition has been added to cis or cisgender to be used in a derogatory way, this would mean that any derogatory usage of cis or cisgender makes up a negligible portion of uses of the word.