a defiant potato

And then I went to the USAmerican Midwest

Rains frequently, but the worst is like standing under a bathroom shower. Genuinely inhospitable rainstorms are uncommon.

Along the coast, it's pretty easy in most areas to walk to at least one store, or else there's usually a bus or shuttle available. There are sidewalks and bike lanes everywhere.

It's a temperate boreal rainforest, so while there are many freshwater lakes and rivers, they're usually pretty cold. The biggest danger is typically getting caught in a strong current, and the most dangerous animals in swimming distance are on land.

Earthquakes happen almost every day, but the vast majority go unnoticed. Buildings are designed to withstand bigger seismic activity, so unless it's a 5 or higher it just kind of feels like having low blood sugar for a second. There are no tornados

Rural Illinois, USA:

One minute it's sunny, then ten minutes later that distant smudge on the horizon has swallowed the entire sky in black clouds and the water is coming down like waterfall and you literally CANNOT SEE. Then there's a crash like cymbals and you need to get indoors because the thunder and lightening are on TOP of you

No sidewalks until you are in the smack dab center of town, which is a three hour walk or twenty minute drive from wherever you are.

There aren't many natural bodies of water other than small ponds and creeks, and because the environment is so much warmer, those are filled with snapping turtles that can grow bigger than a nine year old child and water snakes that are incredibly venomous. These are paired with leeches and mosquitos for that sweet umami flavor.

He likes to ride...

If you were to write a Valerius story, what kind of scene would you write for this outfit?

And when you include blatant falsehoods in your messaging, now nobody believes you when you talk statistics on gun use in domestic violence or other serious issues.

Maybe I'm an outlier in the pro gun control group, because I'm a MechE and I love machines that perform a precise function with clever bits of steel, and i went to a summer camp when i was 11 or 12 where they had a shooting range with dinky little .22 rifles, but like

By which I mean, the kind of toy where if your angry dad said, "You need to respect this, it's not a toy!" he probably had a pretty good reason.

We've never had anybody accidentally discharge a pack of magic cards or a set of golf clubs in front of the valet station, to my knowledge.

Welcome back to Feel Good News! I’ve pulled together a few inspiring highlights to lift your spirits this week.

1. Australia generates so much solar that electricity companies must offer three hours of free electricity during the day

Starting on July 1, households in Queensland, New South Wales, and South Australia can choose an electricity plan under the Solar Sharer program, which offers three hours of free power daily from 11 AM to 2 PM (or noon to 3 PM in South Australia). A similar scheme, the Midday Power Saver, will be available in Victoria from October 1. The initiative aims to allow households to benefit from Australia’s abundant solar energy, even if they don’t have solar panels. The free power has a cap of 24 kWh per day, suitable for the average usage of a five-person household. To participate, customers need a smart meter, which can typically be requested from their energy retailer at no cost. However, the offer is not available to customers of smaller retailers, those in other states, or those on private electricity systems. Experts suggest that the plan is mainly beneficial for households with batteries or electric vehicles and those who can shift energy use to the free period. While the Solar Sharer plan might not always be the cheapest option available, it offers a structured approach to energy use during cheaper solar hours. Consumers are advised to evaluate their energy habits carefully to avoid higher costs at other times. The government and retailers must provide clear information about the potential trade-offs, emphasizing the need for customers to assess whether they can maximize savings by aligning their energy consumption with the free period. Additionally, various retailers currently offer similar plans, encouraging customers to shop around for the best deals, especially with new offerings expected from July.

2. Millions of People in Pakistan Got Tired of Blackouts and Built the World’s Fastest Rooftop Solar Boom, Making Solar the Country’s Largest Source of Electricity

In 2025, Pakistan emerged as the world’s largest importer of Chinese solar panels, achieving this milestone without government subsidies or formal programs encouraging the adoption of solar energy. This rapid transition reflects a significant grassroots movement as individuals sought solutions to persistent power outages and rising electricity costs, making Pakistan’s solar boom possibly the fastest deployment of distributed solar energy globally. As of 2025, solar energy became the predominant source of electricity in Pakistan, contributing around 25% of total electricity generation during peak periods. An estimated 33 GW of distributed solar capacity was installed, predominantly on residential rooftops, driven by a mistrust of the unreliable grid and escalating electricity prices—average tariffs tripling from 2015 to 2025. Despite the boom, Pakistan’s transition serves as a cautionary tale. With an oversupply of electricity generation capacity, the country faces a circular debt issue exceeding 2 trillion rupees, where public utilities struggle to recover costs and manage electricity distribution. Higher fixed costs, compounded by a shrinking customer base as wealthier households turn to solar, risk creating a utility death spiral, wherein those remaining on the grid face higher bills and further drive others to solar solutions. This scenario raises equity concerns, as solar adoption tends to be higher among wealthier households, leaving low-income consumers burdened by the costs of an increasingly strained grid. The government has attempted to mitigate these issues through regulatory changes, but these measures may hinder solar adoption and protect the failing centralized model. Looking forward, Pakistan’s experience may foreshadow similar patterns in other developing nations grappling with energy demands, suggesting that widespread adoption of distributed solar can occur without traditional development pathways. However, the challenge lies in developing a supportive infrastructure, regulatory framework, and equitable distribution of grid costs to sustain this growth without deepening systemic crises. Jan Rosenow, an expert in energy policy, emphasizes that while deploying solar is straightforward, creating a viable market system around it is considerably more complex.

3. Weird Al Yankovic Pulled Out of AI Ad Despite Offer to Make a ‘Nice Pile of Money’: ‘I Can’t Be the Poster Boy for AI’

“Weird Al” Yankovic recently discussed his reservations about artificial intelligence (AI) in an interview ahead of his “Bigger & Weirder” tour stop in Syracuse, New York. He revealed that he declined a lucrative offer to star in a commercial for business software after discovering it involved AI. Yankovic stated, “I can’t be the poster boy for AI,” emphasizing his disapproval of the technology. His sentiments align with other Hollywood figures who have expressed concerns about AI. For instance, director Kane Parsons labeled AI as “genuinely harmful,” while actress Emma Thompson described it as inducing “intense irritation” in her creative process. Madonna also commented on the adverse effects of AI and algorithms on artistic expression, asserting they contradict the risk-taking essential to art, despite her own project utilizing AI artists.

4. Scientists Regrew Knee Cartilage in Human Tissue That Had Deteriorated to the Point of Requiring Replacement Surgery

A Stanford Medicine-led study has shown that a treatment targeting the protein 15-PGDH, linked to aging, can restore knee cartilage and prevent arthritis in older mice. This approach has also yielded promising results in human cartilage samples collected during knee surgeries, suggesting potential for reversing damage caused by aging or osteoarthritis with injections or oral medications. Current osteoarthritis treatments mainly alleviate pain without addressing the underlying issues. The study highlights how inhibiting 15-PGDH can enhance tissue regeneration, as previous research showed its correlation with other age-related degenerative conditions. Unlike other tissues, cartilage regeneration occurs through existing chondrocytes shifting to a more youthful state rather than relying on stem cells. The team observed significant cartilage thickening in treated mice and reduced risks of developing arthritis after ACL-like injuries. The study indicates a pivotal shift in understanding cartilage repair mechanisms, with future clinical trials anticipated to explore the efficacy of this treatment in humans. The research received funding from various institutes, and the authors have filed patents related to the findings.

5. Scientists built a solar reactor that eats plastic bottles and burps out clean hydrogen at scale 7-2-2026

A team from Cambridge University has developed a new device that addresses two pressing environmental issues: plastic pollution and the production of hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel that is currently largely derived from fossil fuels. The device is capable of using sunlight to break down plastic waste into hydrogen and was constructed using simple materials and a paint sprayer, making it feasible for large-scale production. This new reactor measures about one square meter, significantly larger than a previous version tested only in laboratory conditions. It uses room temperature processes to create light-absorbing panels and employs a special catalyst made of cobalt and zirconium. Tested outdoors, the reactor successfully extracted hydrogen from sources like plastic bottles, glucose, and cellulose, with glucose yielding the highest amount of hydrogen. The innovative spray-coating method significantly reduces production costs, but the hydrogen generated remains expensive. Ongoing work is needed to enhance the reactor’s efficiency and durability. The findings have been documented in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering.

———-

That’s it for last week :)

This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation here:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

The Arcana Game

HELLO you are asking questions that literature and poetry THROUGHOUT the middle ages has asked, and it is from this questioning that we derive things like the Codes of Chivalry (which is not "how to treat a noble lady really nice" but is actually "how to be an ethical person when you're rich and you own a horse" and includes such things as "don't run people over with your horse")

In fact I daresay you already know instinctively just from cultural osmosis what a good boss -- a good liege lord -- is and does based on the tropes that have survived to the current day and the kinds of things that get Hugely Praised in things like legends of King Arthur.

A good boss (liege lord) is:

Merciful. He is not having his peasants killed for things like poaching rabbits during a famine. In fact, he is working to mitigate famine. During times of individual hardship, he might negotiate with a peasant for a payment plan on their annual rent.

Patient. He is not impulsive, he does not lose his temper.

Prudent. He makes choices that are thoughtful, considered, conservative (in the sense of not needlessly risky--he's not investing his entire fortune in having everyone plant an unproven crop). He is making sure local infrastructure like roads and public buildings are maintained and kept in good nick.

Gentle. He doesn't haul off and slap a servant or a tenant for breaking a dish or making a mistake. He doesn't abuse animals, his wife or children, or his employees. He doesn't rape the servants.

Generous (both in money and in spirit). He is not extorting the peasants for an amount of rent that is beyond their means, he is not raising taxes every year to cover his own lavish lifestyle. He is paying his servants a living wage (or, if wages are low, he's giving them room/board/clothing to make up the difference). If someone in a tenant's family dies, the lord is sending a gift of condolence, or helping to pay for the funeral, or possibly even ATTENDING the funeral and speaking a few kind words about the deceased, ESPECIALLY if they were a really upstanding and important member of the community. If one of his tenants is gravely sick, the lord is sending a basket of food or paying for a doctor. He is giving charitably (generally this will be, like, a bequest to the church so that they can run a hospital or an orphanage or a school for the local village children).

Pious. This classically means "goes to church, submits with humility to God" but to me this quality is subtextually standing in for "maintaining an ongoing sense of Perspective that HE'S not god, that there are higher powers he is Accountable to, that he too can be Judged, etc, so that he doesn't end up going on a weird fucked up power trip"

Humble. One of the most admiring things you hear about a lord doing in literature and epic poetry is, "He ate off of wooden plates while his followers ate off of gold and silver." Humility isn't about being meek, it's just about not thinking so much of yourself that you turn your nose up and sneer at what "lesser" people do. In other words: Don't be a fucking diva. If your carriage gets stuck in the mud, climb out and help everybody else push, you're not gonna die from getting mud on your shoes.

Condescending. This word has changed wildly in meaning/tone over the last couple centuries -- it's now a rude thing to do (because we've done away with legal social hierarchies, so someone acting like they're lowering themselves to your level IS insulting), but in older times, a high-ranking person "condescending" to a servant was worthy of praise and admiration: it means they were setting aside rank and privilege to speak to them with the easygoing, friendly respect and compassion they'd give a peer. This is things like... Treats those beneath him with courtesy and respect (ie: listens soberly and attentively when one of his servants or tenants comes to complain about a problem). Having a sense of humor and kindness about it when the lord and a servant both come around a corner at the same time and run into each other and the servant gets knocked to the ground and starts babbling apologies--the condescending (positive) lord helps them to their feet with his own hands and cracks a joke to show them that it's ok (as opposed to just walking off without a word or insulting/scolding them). This is also things like trusting a farmer, woodcutter, or artisan to speak with expertise about their own livelihood and taking their advice into consideration if they tell the lord that one of his ideas won't work.

Good boundaries. The ethical liege lord knows that it's normal for the staff to probably be softly bitching about him in private (even with a really good boss, we all grumble from time to time). He's not eavesdropping on them, he's not going into the staff areas where they should reasonably expect to have a degree of privacy, etc.

Righteous and protective of "the weak". The "weak" here doesn't necessarily mean physically weak, this is often used in the sense of someone politically or socially weak, aka The Marginalized -- the poor, the disabled, women, children, the elderly, etc. If a lord sees someone like this being mistreated or abused, he's supposed to step in and put a stop to that.

Committed to reciprocity. In a highly hierarchical system like feudalism, every person (from the lowest peasant all the way up to the crown prince) legally OWES their liege lord certain things (taxes, labor, service, loyalty, etc). A good liege remembers and takes very seriously the idea that this should be a balanced and reciprocal relationship -- in other words, he owes something BACK. Feudalism is modeled very strongly on the family system: If children owe their parents obedience and service, then parents owe their children care and protection. This still applies when the "child" is a farmer and the "parent" is a local baron. Or when the "child" is a duke and the "parent" is the king.

Basically, we get so caught up in the aesthetics of nobility that we forget that it literally is a managerial position that comes with responsibilities that were... very similar back in the day to the same ones we have now. Humans have not changed all that much. At the end of the day, a really good boss in the 1400s versus in one from the 2020s displays most of the same qualities of personality, even if the details of execution are different.

The next question is, of course, "well, but this theoretical liege lord is HIGHLY idealized -- how often did that actually HAPPEN? Wasn't it more likely that everyone was exploited all the time?" and to that I say: Well, maybe. But again, I don't think humans have changed all that much. Just like the bosses of today, there's a SPECTRUM: A really really good boss is rare and precious and one that you tell stories about for years after you've left that job, but a truly, genuinely, homicidally nightmarish boss is also pretty rare. Most bosses are sort of meh -- they have their good moments, they have their shitty moments, but they're tolerable and you can get along with them well enough to do your job, and then you roll your eyes at them behind their back. Generally, humans don't take outright exploitation lying down. Being a bad boss in the historical period is how you get peasant uprisings and revolts, and you know that to be true because your parents raised you with that knowledge, so unless you are very stupid or inbred or an egomaniac, there is literal personal incentive to at minimum be a Tolerable liege lord. And that means hitting at least SOME of the above bullet points.

TL;DR: In the words of Honore de Balzac, "Everything I have just told you can be summarized by an old word: noblesse oblige!"

World’s most dangerous bird has bizarre, glowing headgear

Structures on cassowaries’ skulls fluoresce under UV light, hinting at a hidden visual signal

Often labeled “the world’s most dangerous birds,” cassowaries just got even more intriguing. The aggressive, flightless birds have structures on top of their heads called casques, the purpose of which has long confused scientists. To the human eye, casques look fairly plain—but new research published last month in Scientific Reports finds this headgear fluoresces under ultraviolet (UV) light, possibly aiding the birds’ visual displays...

like i mean im sure those people exist but i absolutely cannot relate, if i was struggling with something financially and someone more well off than me offers to handle it, fuck yeah i'd accept. pride is nothing, hunger and medical issues are real.

and like listen at a certain point i think you might just have terrible priorities. its like that thing with the rabies vaccine, how it doesn't have any warnings against taking it with allergies or while pregnant or whatever, because untreated rabies has a 100% fatality rate so the chance of complications doesn't matter. someone MIGHT give you money with strings attached, but its almost certainly still better than starving to death or dying of treatable disease.

and the reason this is odd is because i am NOT talking about real human beings here, i am talking about a common trope, where "pride" is usually explicitly mentioned as the motivation. I'm being condescending towards fictional characters, and by extension their writers, not real people who are struggling.

the thing about the trope though is that it's honestly probably upstream of a lot of those [x] reasons (especially the ones based around "shame" or "being a burden"), because the existence of the trope is both reflective of and perpetuation for the overarching idea, which is that being poor is pathetic and annoying to rich people and above all, your own fault. It is a piece of the larger conservative social machine, where social welfare, charity, and generally caring about your fellow man is discouraged.

"People back then always married young it's natural!!!" Every single 1800s guide I've ever met casually mentions that, of course, you really shouldn't get married before you're at least 20, and waiting until 25 is usually better.

Or, like. Okay here's a long segment:

Just firmly going "it is crazy sexist to blame The Wife for overspending when thirty seconds of asking questions will immediately establish that her husband was outright lying to her about how much money they had. Talk to your wife like a normal person."

Or--okay, here. A section on being honest and not writing love letters in secret, because that's usually a good sign that there's something untoward going on....

....except that he then immediately acknowledges that sometimes, the reason you're hiding this from your parents is that your parents suck. That there are parents who frankly have not earned the right to approve or disapprove of your partner.

"Men and women being friends with each other is literally normal. Don't be a controlling freak."

"If you have to abuse a child to keep order in your classroom then you're a bad teacher."