What kind of racist ass shit is this?

Yes, but it will make your book look trashy.

You’re a machinist! Can’t you just like…make a better one? /s

Woah. Are we turning matchmakers into realtors with their own dating MLRS system? They could charge for their services not by a monthly fee, but by a commission of 6% of your wedding budget if you do find a match!

Not as many as you might think.

I do quite a lot of that as well. In fact, woodworking was what made me first consider wood science as a field of study.

My username is literal. I’m literally a wood scientist. Or more specifically, I’m a current PhD student in civil engineering and wood science. Identifying Wood by Hoadley was actually a textbook in one of the courses I took.

I’m just amazed that there’s apparently a middle-aged white guy in the Bloods.

I made a wizard staff. It’s about 7 feet long, is made from an old Christmas tree, and has a large amethyst crystal embedded in it.

I’m on the left, my partner is on the right.

For the extra bit of magic, I actually set the gem into the staff (set in with epoxy) at the peak of the October 2023 annular eclipse.

Either the wizard staff or the didgeridoo. Not sure which.

Did you know that actual historical alchemy was often banned by various kings and monarchs? They did so not due to superstition, or because alchemy didn’t work. Rather, they banned alchemy because it DID work.

We now know that you cannot use chemical reactions, however complex, to turn base metals like lead or copper into silver or gold. However, you can use alchemy to give these base metals the appearance of silver or gold. Alchemists could coat coins in durable coatings that would appear to be like silver or gold. Dip a copper coin in the right solution and it will take on the appearance of gold. And you can then take that coin out of the solution, clean it thoroughly, and the faux-gold treatment will remain. It’s not just a layer of paint resting on the surface; the upper layers of copper atoms have actually chemically reacted to produce compounds that give the appearance of gold or silver.

So, even though alchemy didn’t work to truly turn lead into gold, from the perspective of a monarch, that didn’t actually matter. Because when it comes to currency debasement, making a fake gold coin so good that it fools people is just as good as making real gold. The alchemists couldn’t turn create real gold coins, but they could create counterfeit gold coins that could be quite convincing in the right circumstances. They didn’t need to create a forgery that could fool a modern PhD chemist with a lab full of equipment; they just needed something that could fool an illiterate 12th century merchant at his shop. The process:

1. Take a mold or press a stamp of one of the king’s official gold coins.

2. Use the mold or stamp to cast, press, or forge coins out of cheap metals like copper or tin.

3. Apply an alchemical process to make the copper or tin coin look like gold.

4. Spend the counterfeit coin as a real coin.

Coins were a better target than bulk gold like bars. With a bar, you would notice that the “gold” has an incorrect density. But a counterfeit coin, mixed in with a larger number of legitimate coins? Easy to pass off as the genuine article.

Kings often banned alchemists from their realms. Practicing alchemy was often a capital offense. In terms of true elemental transfiguration, alchemy failed. In terms of the ability to create spendable wealth from nothing, alchemy absolutely did work. From the perspective of a monarch looking to protect their currency from debasement, alchemy was a very real threat.

The same people who love crypto love AI. It’s all lazy people looking to make a quick buck by lying to and manipulating others.

Your hair is the roof of your mouth.

My bugbear with Mc’D’s is how they now always ask you if you are using their damned app.

I know I shouldn’t, and that they’re just teenagers reading from a script. But I just can’t help myself. Whenever they ask if I’ll be using the app, I flippantly reply, “nah, I don’t want Ronald reading my email.”

I prefer the conspiracy ouroboros:

Conspiracy theories do not generate spontaneously. They’re all crafted deliberately by a nefarious cabal of corporate interests to distract and manipulate the public.

I’ve come up with the most cursed business idea in history.

I envision founding what is effectively a suspiciously cheap home-cleaning service. Like a cleaning service, we’ll require access to your home. We’ll need a key or door code. However, we don’t actually ever send anyone to clean your house.

Instead, we let you do the cleaning. We don’t DO the cleaning. We INSPECT your cleaning. When signing up for our service, you’re signing up to have a cleaning inspector show up to your house at any random time between 8 AM and 5 PM. It will be completely at random. It could be months between the random inspections, or you could get inspected 3 days in a row.

The inspector will be a form of your choosing. You can sign up for an angry boot camp drill-instructor type. You can sign up for someone who will more have the vibe of a grossed-out boyfriend/girlfriend. Or they can send a team of older inspectors that will make it feel like you’re being berated by your parents. The choice of shame is up to you!

The inspectors will go through your home, call you a slob, and belittle your cleaning ability. We won’t make it too ridiculous. By default, they would just expect you to keep things clean and neat, not lab-grade sterile. But if your laundry pile grows, you need to dust, or the bathrooms are a mess? Well you’re going to hear about it! If you are present, they will shame you in person. Regardless if you are there or not, you will be sent a report documenting in disgusting detail all the messes and cleaning errors in your house. The report will be filled with professional-grade photos of your filth. And to provide further damning motivation? The report will be posted on the public internet for anyone to view for free.

Note: customers who are clearly using this as a sex thing will be dropped from the service.