you're supposed to avoid lighthouses

Pilot projects in Germany & France show that the combination of solar panels and vineyards are both a solution to generate more renewable energy and make good wine! Great news for the sometimes brought up conflict of agriculture VS solar power generation.

How it works:

Panels mounted high to leave room for vines + machinery

Semi-transparent, with a tracking system to follow the sun

Rotate to let in more light on cloudy days

Insulate ground by ~2°C—protects against late frosts AND heatwaves

The benefits:

higher yields:

Chardonnay: +61% 

Marselan: +31%

Grenache Blanc: +18%

better quality:

1% lower alcohol (with better acidity balance)

Fruitier taste profile

preserving the typical taste of German Riesling

harvesting at optimal maturity

Bonus perks:

60% less irrigation water needed

15% reduction in vine death

Even though the focus on top crop quality reduces the yield from solar panels you get better wine and power for several hundred homes. And if electrification of agricultural machinery progress it could even lower the carbon emission on growing the wine!

"why do the dwarves not know? why have they forgotten? did someone make them forget? how can they not care what i did to them?"

"do you miss the stone? do you know what i took from you?"

"look at what i did to you. your people are mutilated, forever forced to change from what they once were. and i did this to you."

"you don't even know what i did to you. the horrific crime i comitted against you and your people. you have no idea what you lost or what i did. you're not even angry at me. why aren't you angry at me?"

"you should be angry at me and trying to restore what i took. how can you continue on the way that you are? how are you even whole?"

and then we have harding's comment in da:tv

this comment from harding, after all of the conversations with varric, in hindsight, really does highlight something about solas. for all his guilt and regret, being practically one of if not THE only person who knows what truly happened to the titans. being one RESPONSIBLE-

at no point does he make attempts to fix that until he is convinced to potentially at the end of da:tv.

his conversations with varric are clearly some self projections, and wondering how varric can't be like HIM- he DOES know what the elves lost and what was done, and so he DOES want the old world to be restored. it's to absolve himself of his own guilt, along with trying to fix his mistake. how can he NOT fight? how can his own people not see what they lost and not try to put it back? he has to undo what he did.

but he never does this for the dwarves.

he often will say how he doesnt relate to the elves, and how when asking him 'who are your people', he avoids the topic. because the elves are NOT his people. he is a spirit! and his priorities always align with one simple thing:

that he regrets being made flesh. if he could go back to being a spirit, if all the elves could, if it could all just go back to the way it was before, everything would be fine!

it takes at least four people at the end of da:tv to make him see that this is ultimately selfish and unrealistic. that no amount of regret or attempts to put things back the way they were will undo what he did. in his obsession with self absolution, he completely forgets about the titans, and the blight, all being because of HIM.

he talks to varric, he talks to harding, all the while knowing what he did and being oh so sad about it but never stops to think. wow i actually may have the power to help with this!

he is so, SO focused on his own crusade for himself while also convincing himself that it's for the greater good. telling himself that oh! this time his great plans for the 'right thing' will go well, surely! the last few times, with the titans, and the blight, getting mythal killed, the sealing away the evanuris and changing the world because he messed up the ritual, then trying to awaken his orb only to give it to an immortal blighted magister that explodes the veil- those were all just! flukes! this one will go right FOR SURE!

and is that not just very similar to varric? how varric repeatedly also makes mistakes, and then doesn't face them? he brought hawke into the deep roads and put them in danger, possibly got their sibling blighted, brought back the red lyrium which led to (gestures) all THAT, introduced hawke to anders which led to (gestures) BOOM, led hawke to corypheus, told bianca about the deep roads which led to corypheus getting his hands on red lyrium.

but their key difference? varric simply accepts his mistakes and attempts to do better the next time. varric accepts that the past cannot be changed, no matter how badly he regrets it. he has to move on, he has to do better, he is still here, people are still here, and theyre worth trying for.

"That's the world. Everything you build, it tears down. Everything you've got, it takes. And it's gone forever."

"The only choices you get are to lie down and die or keep going. He kept going. That's as close to beating the world as anyone gets."

like of course. of course solas couldnt keep rook inside a prison of regret by using varric as the catalyst! because that's just not who varric is! that's who solas is. solas saw parts of himself in varric, but didn't listen enough to what varric has always been saying. he never does! he doesn't self reflect, he doesn't consider, truly consider that he's wrong until he is being held at knifepoint and confronted with the literal specters of his past telling him to stop fucking self flagellating and convincing himself that he knows best or that this isn't just out of self pity. 'it's for the elves', he says every morning when he wakes up.

for all solas' wisdom, he truly is poisoned by pride and regret. it's just so. (clenches fist)

he spent all this time using varric's memory, surely he is familiar enough with how varric thinks and feels at this point? surely he undersands now?

"The elven people of today do not deserve to see the world they love be torn apart to salve your conscience."

he HOLDS mythal in his arms as she dies BECAUSE HE KILLED HER and he still DOES. NOT. LISTEN. his self pity is dressed up as some kind of martyrdom.

and you contrast it with varric, in dai, saying 'i dont deal with things! i know its a problem and im sorry!' but he still tries. he still says why sit and wallow in regrets of the past when we can keep trying?

THIS is why varric as the key to rooks prison can NEVER work. varric would always think of others, and not want people to doom themselves for something they cannot possibly even fix now.

And I think that extends to Varric's memory in the Regret Prison as well. That's still your memory of the man talking, not Solas's.

Which still connects to the Regret Prison, because absolutely, Varric could never remain the key to Rook's prison. The man is too good at working through things even when he talks about not dealing with them. As the focal point of Rook's regrets, even if Rook is the type who wants to run and hide and dwell on things instead of working through them, Varric is going to point a finger at them and tell them to stop it. They don't get to wallow in Varric's choices. They don't get to doom themselves for something that can't be fixed. They just have to move past it, and keep going.

*idea gets more complicated*

*idea gets more complicated*

*idea gets more complicated*

*idea gets more complicated*

she found this out the first time when she auto-started her truck to warm it up before work one below-freezing morning and came out ~5 minutes later to find (the then unnamed) diesel with her head stuffed in the tail pipe hanging limply by her idiot neck and thought that she was dead, ran over and pulled her out, and the chicken went "oh hi! anyways mind if i get back in there?" and did it a-fucking-gain??

best guess is bc she feeds her chickens with a pvc gravity pipe like this

Just a reminder that I am available for commencement speeches, birthdays, and Bar Mitzvahs.

Check out the bonus panel on the site.

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AVE (Avian Vector Encyclopedia) updates:

Avilist proposes splitting the European Robin to elevate two island populations to species status.