Entropy and Enchiladas

like it is actually very important that you learn about who initially came up with the centrifuge design system for the Hail Mary and that she was one of the scientists that disagreed with Grace and he still doesn't like her for it and the feeling is mutual but he still acknowledges how fantastic her idea is because of course it is. She is the whole reason the ship works in a way that is vital to the mission.

It's important that you understand that Strat finds the world's leading climatologist to tell her exactly what mandmade catastrophe would increase greenhouse gases exponentially because it doesn't matter that it fucks with the world's ecosystem as long as it buys the earth more time while the sun actively cools down due to the astrophage infection.

It matters that you know she took a man out of prison for involuntary manslaughter because of his idea to pave vast amounts of land with solar panels to breed astrophage faster. It matters that you remember with Grace that paving a vast chunk of the Sahara Desert with these solar panels fucked up weather all the way up to Europe.

It matters that you understand the gravity, the desperation, and how all of it was necessary because there just wasn't enough time to work with without sacrificing something. Someone. Anyone.

It matters that you know how quickly Strat hired these people, blew off court appearances, hired convicts, and ordered bombings of the Antarctic to release gases into the atmosphere to make global warming worse. You need to understand the level of urgency, how Strat moved through these hurdles and approached solutions. How she was a history major in college and it's why she knows damn well how bad it's about to get for Earth.

Because once you know how little time the earth has, how limited the resources are, how risky the science is, how so few people are well equipped for this particular mission that is well and truly the world's only shot at surviving, you understand a lot better why forcing Grace to go was their only option after their other scientists died due to a simple, fatal flaw. Even with one scientist left in the world who was willing to go.

love the wording on this. even asexual……. “those horrible satanists arent having sex, which is what we wanted but they’re Doing It Wrong!”

Agersø cattle (pronounced kinda like ayersoe (more specifically like ˈæˀjʌsøˀ)) is a medieval breed from Denmark. They were thought to have gone extinct in the 1950s, but in 1990 a heritage breed enthusiast named Stig Benzon discovered a tiny population on the island of Agersø, owned by a hermit named Lars Peter Nielsen:

Lars informed Stig that these cattle had been isolated on his family farm since the 1700s. And they were discovered just in time, as 3 years later Lars had to retire due to a double leg amputation, and all his cattle would've been sent to slaughter if not for Stig.

In 2004 the cattle were genetically analyzed, and they were found to have 9 unique alleles, found in no other European breed, proving that they were actually a holdover from the 1700s!

Today their population sits at about 150, all of whom live a semi-free life of luxury at Stig Benzon's heritage farm.

when Amherst, Massachusetts was considering changing its name to sever ties to the history of Lord Jeffery Amherst, one of the originators of the Smallpox Blanket tactic used against Native Americans, they thought of their most famous daughter, the poet Emily Dickinson

but they didn't want to name the town Dickinson

they wanted to name it Emily