自由な鳥 | A Free Bird

Simon, smirking: Kinky.

Grace: I think you're sweet and beautiful.

Simon: What—?

Grace: You deserve to be cared for.

Simon: Stop, now—

Grace: Your feelings are valid and deserve to be heard.

Ambush hunters

Part 3 of the comic

Eridian kindergartners may be strong and VERY enthusiastic but they don't have that much stamina

and oh nooooo Rocky in a ball. Rocky can not help at aaaaaall ~~~~

previous instances of adventures of babysitter Grace [first comic] [second comic]

the way both stratt and grace stops at some point as the tied of people just keeps going, how he stops, he's not looking at her but he is facing her direction

how she stops and waits for him, how she keeps turning back to keep an eye on him and just waits for him to come back to her side

plus

the way he keeps giving looks in her direction as he speaks with yao

the main purpose of this scene is to state grace would never want to be in space for the shock that comes later when stratt has to send him to work best, also is to state that rocky is that someone grace was brave for

Another design is using 2 20x25x1 filters, taping them to the sides of the box fan and then to each other so they sort of make a triangle, then cutting cardboard to make a top and bottom to the triangle.

This was discovered as a more effective design during the 2020 US west coast fires.

https://tombuildsstuff.blogspot.com/2013/06/better-box-fan-air-purifier.html

OP: Why couldn’t traditional Chinese Yinpiao银票/silver drafts be forged if they were merely slips of paper? (cr大明宝钞，渐越)

Traditional Chinese yinpiao/silver drafts were paper vouchers issued by private banks starting from the Song Dynasty(960–1279). People could exchange these slips for physical silver at bank branches across the country.

Silver drafts were made in multiple copies with matching serrated seal edges. One copy went to the customer and others stayed at the bank. All edges had to fit perfectly together to withdraw silver. The unique split edge marks were almost impossible to copy.

This mechanism is known as qifeng骑缝 (split-joint seal) in China. It first originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046–771 BC). The Rites of Zhou records that contracts were written on bamboo or wooden slips in duplicate. Notches and marks were carved in the middle before splitting the slips, with each party keeping one half. The two halves would be matched by their notches for verification.

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770–221 BC), this idea evolved into hufu虎符/tiger tally tokens. A military tally was split into two pieces with identical inscriptions carved along the split edge. Troops could only be deployed if the patterns and characters on both halves perfectly aligned, serving as a metal version of the split-joint anti-counterfeiting system.

The technology matured in the Tang Dynasty (618–907). Government documents and private contracts commonly used split-joint seals stamped across the dividing line. The Chinese character "hetong合同" (contract) was written across the middle before the paper was torn apart, so the complete characters would only appear when the two halves were put together. This split-coupon system was later adopted for Song Dynasty (960–1279) jiaozi paper money and yinpiao/silver drafts of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1912).

Official Song dynasty paper money (Jiaozi交子) was abolished in 1107. Private silver drafts issued by Qing-era piaohao票行 (ancient exchange banks) vanished completely in 1951, hit hard by modern banks and currency reforms. Nowadays silver drafts no longer circulate as currency. Their collectible value depends on their rarity and physical condition.

First they were called "chirographs", but later the word "indenture" (in its earliest meaning as just a legal document of any kind between two people) came to be used, originating from the practice of a contract being written twice on a single piece of parchment and then cut in half with serrated edges (as in dent, "teeth" -> indents -> indenture) in order for each party to take one half, so they could later piece them together and verify that there had been no forgery -- same as the Chinese silver drafts!

(Charter of the Clerecía de Ledesma, 1252, showing the serrated indents at the top -- presumably they are cutting rather than tearing because they're using parchment, which I expect is much harder to tear than wood-pulp paper like the Chinese were using)

“Grace, I need your signature.”

Grace looked up from his work in his closet of an office. Stratt closed the door behind her.

“An autograph? I’m flattered.”

She pushed the work off his already disheveled desk and set a single paper on top. It kind of looked like his degree, it kind of looked like-

“A marriage license? Well, now I’m really flattered.”

“For legal reasons. Just sign.” Stratt muttered.

“Are you serious?”

Of course she was serious. She only was serious. But she seemed…uncomfortable? The feeling looked strange on her. Eyes dart between the paper and him. Arms crossed over her chest as if hugging herself. It was definitely a new look. They were in new territory.

“I’m not the marrying type.” said Grace. “And I think I forgot to propose.”

Stratt breathed in deeply. Steeling herself.

“Grace,” Her hands were fidgeting with the cuff of her sleeve. “What I’m doing here is illegal. I’ve broken alot of rules to give the crew a chance to save us. But once the mission begins…the world order will need to go back to how it was.”

Grace listened intently trying to make eye contact with her glassy gaze. He hadn’t thought to much about the legality of it all. After all, that was her job.

“I will be put on trial. I will be found guilty. I will serve the rest of my life behind bars. That is my cost.” Stratt continued, “You, the team, will all be fine. But-”

She pushed the license closer to Grace.

“Spouses don’t testify in court.”

Finally she looked at him. She wasn’t telling him to sign. If that was the case she probably would’ve just forged his signature. Hell, she probably has a whole team just for that purpose. She was asking him.

His choice. Just between the two of them.

“We don’t have to sleep together, right?”

Her eyes went big. “God Grace! No! Just sign the damn paper!” she huffed.

He smiled. And put his name under hers.

Husband and wife.

Well, more like “Most powerful person in the world” and “Some guy she kept around.” But still. Till death do they part.

Tens of thousands of years ago people foraged and hunted for their food and ate whatever they could. Among their forage were wild cereals, which included the ancestors of modern cultivated wheat, barley and others.

People like sweet things. Grains are starchy, but if sprouted they start converting those starches to sugars, so people would've left grains in water to sprout. These sprouts are also easier to digest, thus more nutritious, which bestowed an invisible advantage on those sprouting their grains.

If grains are left in water too long, however, they begin to ferment. Alcohol is produced. People like alcohol.

In ancient Mesopotamia the fermented grains were experimented with, resulting in an early form of beer. The process of making that beer was quite complicated and involved a combination of sprouted and mashed grains.

People wanted beer all year round, but early beers did not have long shelf lives and the grain could only be harvested at certain times. So the ancient Mesopotamians invented a way of storing the ingredients for beer.

It was made of the grain mash, honey, dates and spices that were fermented to make beer. For storage, prior to fermentation, the mixture was baked dry, cut into smaller pieces and baked again to remove all water. This produced bapir, a product very much like biscotti, which could be stored for later rehydration and fermentation. Sometimes it was eaten instead.

I've made bapir, and I've eaten it. It is brittle but delicious. It's also a form of unleavened bread.

Bread was invented as a way to store the ingredients for beer, which was most likely a development from a chance discovery. Leavened bread (that is, with bubbles) may well have been discovered when a mixture like that for bapir was accidentally allowed to ferment before baking. Yeast is responsible for both alcohol production and leavening.

Plant Talk - Part 1

In which I take "Simon became the Last Tree", tree-mutated Simon, cult Eden, eldritch blood hivemind voices, and Bloodymary and blend them all together into my fucking insane "Simon can communicate with plants and he's not sure how he feels about it" AU

Bonus stuff