Some microbes carry a protein, called SNIPE, that "chops... up" phage DNA as it's being injected into the cell. This is a new mechanism for phage defense! CRISPR–Cas and restriction enzymes also evolved to fight against phages, but they work by recognizing sequences. SNIPE works, instead, by sensing "touch." SNIPE is a protein with about 500 amino acids. After it's made by the ribosome, it latches onto ManYZ, two proteins which sit on the cell's inner membrane. (ManYZ is an importer; it brings mannose and other sugars into the cell.) Once attached to ManYZ, SNIPE sits and waits for an invading phage. Some phages, including lambda, actually infect cells by pushing their DNA through this ManYZ channel. Lambda uses its "tail" to reach inside the protein channel, basically, and inject its DNA. When this physical touch happens, though, SNIPE is waiting. As soon as the phage DNA starts entering the cell, and passes through ManYZ and SNIPE, it gets immediately destroyed. This means that SNIPE is the first phage defense system discovered, so far, that uses spatial positioning at the injection site to destroy invaders. But there are caveats, of course. If you untether SNIPE from ManYZ, such that it can freely diffuse through the cell, it will chew up the bacterium's genome. It is not a highly discerning nuclease! Also, SNIPE is not found in most bacteria. A prior pangenome study, which sequenced lots of different microbes, found that roughly a third of well-studied bacterial lineages had at least one member with a SNIPE-like protein. (For this paper, they just ported one of those homologs into an E. coli laboratory strain.) And finally, because SNIPE's mechanism is tightly tied to ManYZ, it cannot be used to defend against phages that enter the cell through different routes. T4 phages, for example, inject their DNA straight through the cell membrane and into the cytoplasm, without interacting with ManYZ. This is a nice basic science paper. Applications TBD. (Just remember that scientists figured out that bacteria had a phage defense system, called CRISPR-Cas, many years before it was repurposed into a gene-editing tool.) P.S. The video below shows how cells with the SNIPE gene (middle row) kill invading phages, and thus continue growing and dividing. Empty vector (top row) refers to bacteria carrying a plasmid with no SNIPE gene; this is a control group. And SNIPE E414A refers to cells which received a mutated SNIPE gene, where the glutamate at position 414 has been changed to an alanine, thus destroying the protein's nuclease activity. These cells also die when they get infected with a phage.show more

There's a bacteriophage that turns bacteria into “liquid crystals.”... Specifically, Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria make Pf phages, which are rod-shaped, negatively-charged, and measure about 2 micrometers in length (roughly the length of an E. coli cell). These phages leave the cells and enter their surroundings. There, they mix with polymers, also secreted by the cells, to form a crystalline matrix. Surprisingly, this is good for the cells. Although the phages kill some of them, it also makes their biofilms stickier and able to withstand certain antibiotics. These bacteria + phages are prevalent in cystic fibrosis patients; they've formed a sort of symbiotic relationship. The Pf phages are made from thousands of repeating copies of a coat protein, called CoaB, which wraps around a single-stranded, circular DNA genome. These genes are integrated directly on the bacterial chromosome. The bacteria “turn on” these phage genes when placed in a viscous environment with low oxygen levels. This is like a trigger to start forming a biofilm. And the cells make a lot of phages; about 100 billion per milliliter. These liquid crystals form because of a physics principle called “depletion attraction.” If you just mix a bunch of loose or flexible polymers together (such as long carbon chains) they will not form a liquid crystal. But if you mix stiff rods (the phages) with loose polymers at a high enough concentration, the polymers will force the phages close together to create a material that flows like a liquid despite being ordered like a crystal. See the video below. These liquid crystal biofilms are hard to get rid of. The negatively-charged phages block many antibiotics (like aminoglycosides, which are positively-charged) from entering cells. Liquid crystals also retain water, so these biofilms can survive on drier surfaces. I first heard about this from Malmesbury’s excellent newsletter, called “Telescopic Turnip.”show more

A single E. coli cell, placed on a dish,... will become 70 billion cells in just 12 hours. That’s exponential growth. But a new preprint shows that it's possible to engineer E. coli to grow linearly instead, where only one daughter cell continues dividing and the other stops. First, some context. In nature, there is a bacterium called Mycobacterium smegmatis (initially discovered in 1884 in ulcers scraped from syphilis patients.) M. smegmatis is weird because it divides asymmetrically. These cells grow only from one end, and all their cell wall biosynthesis machinery is located on that one end. So when the cell divides, one daughter gets this machinery and the other gets nothing. The daughter that gets the machinery can keep dividing immediately, but the other daughter has to remake all that machinery from scratch, so its growth is delayed. E. coli doesn’t grow like this. When it divides, it pinches in the middle and splits everything evenly. Enzymes, metabolites, and proteins get partitioned more or less randomly between the two daughters. For the new preprint, though, researchers engineered E. coli to behave more like M. smegmatis. Here is how they did it: First, they deleted a gene called cyaA, which encodes an enzyme (adenylate cyclase) that makes a molecule called cAMP. cAMP is SUPER IMPORTANT! It is a nutrient sensor that instructs E. coli to switch on genes that help it digest non-glucose carbon sources when glucose is scarce. Without cAMP, E. coli cells growing on alternative carbon sources will starve; they won’t know how to eat the food. Next, they added back a “split” version of the cyaA gene into the cells. In other words, they split the gene in two so that each half of the enzyme is made separately. Cells can only make cAMP, and thus eat non-glucose carbon sources, if these two halves come together. To facilitate that “coming together,” the researchers also fused the split cyaA proteins to sticky proteins that clump together, and to a fluorescent protein (to make it easy to track these molecules in the cell.) So now some interesting things start to happen if you grow E. coli on a growth medium lacking glucose. As the cell grows, its cyaA “halves” start clumping together into a giant ball. Inside the aggregate, the two enzyme halves come together and make cAMP. And when the cell gets big enough and divides, the clump of cyaA RANDOMLY goes to either daughter cell #1 or #2. The daughter that gets the aggregate (called PA+ in this paper) can keep dividing. The daughter that doesn’t (PA–) cannot. It still grows a few times — about four divisions — because it inherits some leftover cAMP from its mother. But after that, the metabolite is diluted away, and the cell stops growing. PA+ cells went through about 23 divisions on average before their aggregate decayed. And the population of cells, as a whole, grew linearly. This paper is cool because there are many applications where exponential growth is too unpredictable and, perhaps, unsafe. If you want to engineer bacteria to deliver drugs, clean up waste, or live in the gut, you don’t want them to double uncontrollably. This paper shows you can make them expand in a controlled, linear way. Alas, mutations could break this whole engineered system. A mutation that restores cyaA, for example, would give cells a new way to make cAMP. Mutations that make the aggregates split between daughters would break the asymmetry, too. But still, I really enjoy proof-of-concept engineering papers like this.show more

If you have Cancer, this is your visualization. That... is a cancerous cell reaching Apoptosis and Necrosis—they are gone. — Natural Killer (NK) cells play a the primary role in the immune system's defense against cancer. They induce cancer cell death primarily through two mechanisms: Apoptosis Necrosis Apoptosis is a programmed, non-inflammatory form of cell death, while necrosis is a more abrupt and inflammatory process. In many cases, NK cells can trigger a combination of both, leading to mixed forms of cell death. This dual capability allows NK cells to effectively target and destroy all tumor cells. Their ability to act without prior sensitization makes them vital for early cancer surveillance and curing existing cancer. One of the only ways cancer never starts or stops entirely is NK cells. They are the guerrilla warfare troops that never sleep. This is why it is vital for BioShield by to be approved, NOW for every cancer, not just a single cancer type. With the rest needing years and years of tests. Cancer is cancer, unregulated cell division and NK cells are NK cells. The ONLY thing that stops BioShield is government betrayal, and organized corruption disguised as following the “regulations” designed by the entrenched gatekeepers of corporate protection. Everyone knows it works that has even a molecule of biological understanding. Now you know.show more

Most chiral molecules arise from carbons being bonded to... 4 different atoms, which are called sterocenters. The makes the molecule have a different mirror image that cannot arise from simple rotation. But, you can have chiral molecules not from stereocenters. You can have chirality that doesn't come from a single point in the molecule. It comes from some global property. The classic example is helicene, which doesn't have any stereocenters, but has chirality because of hits helical structure. This means you cannot capture this molecule with a graph, and thus SMILES or a string representation cannot capture this. Of course natural language comes to the rescue (just say in words if it's left-handed or right-handed helix), but it's an interesting failure mode for viewing molecules as just a graph. Another example of a molecule with helical chirality is DNA. DNA is actually chiral in two ways, which is kind of confusing. It has both helical structure and stereocenters. You won't find the stereocenters ever flipped, but left-handed helical DNA can exist (called Z-DNA). Interestingly, making the flipped stereocenter of DNA could be part of an entire mirror organism (mirror RNA, DNA, AAs, sugars) that would then be potentially invisible to our immune systems. This has been recently proposed as a "mechanism" for how a runaway AI system could cause harm to Earth. I find it to be a pretty tedious and difficult way to cause harm, but it is intellectually cool. Anyway - this came up in a PhD defense and I have a lot of arcane knowledge about this I wanted to dump.show more

The most detailed 3D reconstruction of a cell ever... created. Blows my mind every time. But what exactly are we looking at here? The average human cell contains: ~ 15-20 total distinct organelle types, totalling between ~1-10 million working together per cell. All these nano-machines in the cell are made up of proteins. ~ 8,000-10,000 distinct types of unique proteins, adding up to between 40 million - 10 trillion total proteins making up all those cellular systems. ~ 10,000 - 15,000 distinct types of RNA shuttling information around the cell, totalling up to ~10 million RNA molecules moving around the cell simultaneously. ~ Billions of Lipid molecules packed together into the cell membrane, which is also packed tightly with millions more protein-based nano-machines. And let's not forget billions of lines of DNA information to build and run it all. That's TRILLIONS of of individual molecular pieces working together to make a single cell function. That means there is more complexity in a single cell than humanity's largest cities. And people still believe this wasn't Divinely Designed. This is God's Glory on Display. But to make the point. A cell couldn't have evolved from some nebulous simpler "protocell" because even the simplest cells still require massive complexity. The "simplest" cell ever created was engineered by scientists knocking out pieces of a functional cell until it stopped functioning. Here is what they found is the absolute necessary minimal requirements of a cell to function: - Over ~531,000 lines of coded DNA information - 473 total genes to create hundreds of unique protein products (they later added 19 genes back in because the cell was so weak) - Hundreds of thousands of total proteins all working together - Extensive regulatory networks guiding all these interactions If the cell doesn't have all these systems in place, from the start... it doesn't live. Cell rely on an intricate network of complex systems, which are themselves built from complex interconnected pieces woven together into an incomprehensibly complex web of functionilty. Only intelligence has ever been observed creation vast interconnected systems like this. Life was clearly Created. It couldn't happen any other way.show more

This fact absolutely shatters evolution. ...And makes the intelligent... design in Life certain. All the systems in Life that make things function - like everything that enables birds to fly - require a whole set of complex interconnected parts. Nothing works in isolation. Something evolutionists overlook is how the nature of all these systems are intricately interconnected. Every part relies on something else to make it work. You need the whole system, down to the DNA itself, or the function fails. This coordinattion between so many systems makes step-by-step evolution all but impossible. For instance... A wing isn’t just bones and feathers (or membrane). A wing requires a certain type of hollow bones, which the alleged ancestors of birds didn't have. And wings by themselves are useless - what reproductive benefit would wings have without the accompanying systems that lead to actual flight (the simultaneous requirements for bone pneumatization, muscle attachment sites, feather or membrane development, and the regulatory changes that control all of them)? Wings without these features would be harmful. Hollow bones without flight would be detrimental. The step-by-step path leading from non-bird to flying birds is filled with easily killed, unselectable intermediates. This is where evolutionists constantly fail - they look at modification in isolation, without considering that these systems are large, interconnected networks of functional parts all working together. And it all starts at the genetic level, from the DNA itself. DNA genes code for proteins. Regulatory information organizes when these proteins are built and how much should be made. Further regulatory systems coordinate where these proteins go after they’re built. And yet more informational networks place the proteins into the final system in coordination with other proteins. Then these protein systems are fit together to make entire organs, tissues, bones, etc. All of these systems and processes are coordinated from the DNA - which means major modification like turning a fish fin into a bird wing requires many coordinated DNA changes across the entire network. One change at a time simply cannot lead to the coordination of an entire multi-part coordinated system like this. A mutation that changes one protein would need another coordinated mutation to fit that mutated protein into the right place, which would require other proteins to be mutated to fit together into that system, which would also require yet more regulatory mutations to keep everything coordinated... Nothing works in isolation. It's all connected. Which is why it can't evolve one step at a time. One step at a time does nothing. Life requires all or nothing systems. Only intelligence can engineer all or nothing systems.show more

Inside every cell, there is a transport system that... determines how materials move, signals propagate, and structure is maintained. This video captures that system in motion. The glowing streaks mark the growing ends of microtubules (protein polymers that constantly assemble and disassemble through a process called dynamic instability). Rather than forming permanent tracks, microtubules are rebuilt continuously, allowing cells to reorganize their internal layout in real time. This behavior is essential for life. Cells rely on microtubule dynamics to divide accurately, migrate during development and repair, and maintain long-distance transport in neurons that may span over a meter in length. When this system is altered, the consequences are significant. Certain cancer therapies work by locking microtubules in place, preventing cell division. In contrast, failures in microtubule transport are linked to neurodegenerative conditions (like Alzheimer's) where intracellular delivery breaks down. What appears as abstract motion under a microscope is actually one of the core systems that keeps cells functional, adaptable, and alive. Video Credit: Andy Mooreshow more

Scientists are baffled by this. The Bacterial Flagellum is... composed of 20-30 unique parts. Combined, they total over 30,000 parts that make this little motor run. It can hit rotation speeds of up to 100,000 RPM, then stop & reverse direction in a quarter of a turn. It can propel a bacteria up to 20 lengths per second, which when scaled up is about equal to 225mph in a car. But this motor only works when all those parts are perfectly engineered and working together. Take away just one of those 30 pieces, and it stops functioning. That means it can't evolve gradually. None of the pieces do anything outside the system, and the system only works with all the pieces. Bacteria require this motor to move - without it, they would quickly die. How can anyone see something like and still deny that Life is Divinely Designed?show more

Madain Saleh, also known as Al-Hijr, is a pre-Islamic... archaeological site located in the northwest of Saudi Arabia. It is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Middle East and was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2008. Madain Saleh is a place of great historical and cultural significance, and it is a must-visit destination for anyone interested in the history and culture of the Arabian Peninsula. Madain Saleh was the second city of the Nabataean kingdom, which was established in 2nd Century BC. The Nabataeans were an Arab tribe who were known for their expertise in carving tombs and buildings out of rock. They were also skilled in agriculture, trade, and commerce. The Nabataean kingdom was centered in Petra, which is located in modern-day Jordan. Madain Saleh served as a strategic outpost for Nabataeans, and it was an important stop on the trade routes that connected the Arabian Peninsula with the Mediterranean world. Archaeological site of Madain Saleh covers an area of 13 square kilometers. It is located in a remote desert region, and it is surrounded by rocky mountains and valleys. The site contains around 130 tombs, which were carved out of the sandstone cliffs. The tombs are adorned with intricate carvings and inscriptions, which provide insights into the culture and religion of the Nabataeans. The most famous tomb at Madain Saleh is the Qasr Al-Farid, which means "the lonely castle." This tomb is located on a hilltop and is surrounded by a large courtyard. It is the largest tomb at the site, and it is considered to be one of the finest examples of Nabataean architecture. The tomb was never completed, and it is believed that it was abandoned after the death of the Nabataean king who commissioned it. Another important tomb at Madain Saleh is the Tomb of Lihyan son of Kuza. This tomb is located in the southern part of the site and is carved into a rock cliff. It features a large entrance hall, a central chamber, and a series of smaller rooms. The tomb is decorated with intricate carvings and inscriptions, which provide insights into the religious beliefs of Nabataeans. Madain Saleh is not just a site of tombs; it also contains a number of other important structures. These include the Al-Khuraymat and Al-Sabika temples, which were used for religious ceremonies and rituals. The site also contains a number of houses, wells, and cisterns, which provide insights into the daily lives of the Nabataeans. Madain Saleh was abandoned in the 3rd Century AD, after decline of the Nabataean kingdom. The site was rediscovered in the 19th Century by the Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. Since then, it has been studied by archaeologists from all over the world. The site is now managed by the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, which has carried out extensive restoration and preservation work. Madain Saleh is not just a site of historical and cultural significance; it is also a place of great natural beauty. The site is surrounded by rugged mountains and valleys, and it is home to a diverse range of flora and fauna. Visitors to the site can enjoy hiking and camping, as well as exploring the ancient ruins. Madain Saleh is a site of great historical and cultural significance, and it is a must-visit destination for anyone interested in the history and culture of the Arabian Peninsula. Ancient ruins at Madain Saleh provide a glimpse into the engineering and architectural skills of the Nabataeans, as well as their religious beliefs and cultural practices. However, as the site becomes an increasingly popular tourist destination, there are concerns about its preservation and the impact of tourism on the local environment. It is important that the Saudi government and local communities work together to ensure that the site is protected and that tourism is managed in a sustainable way. 🎥© Paris Verra #archaeohistoriesshow more

RULE #6 OF THE PRIMAL DIET Do not eat... rock salt. Salt is a rock, and our body cannot process rocks. It has a toxic effect, different from the sodium found as a nutrient in plant or animal foods. Water dissolves rocks, and plants eat rocks, then animals eat plants, and we eat the plants or animals. This for us is food, the minerals are made into nutrients, becoming bio-available. Rock salt is very different from the sodium found in food. According to Aajonus, rock salt is an explosive: "I just want to make sure that you understand salt is dangerous. Salt is an explosive. It is more volatile than nitroglycerin. If you had a pure cake of sodium as big as a football it would take out all of New York City. Just like a 200 ton hydrogen bomb could take out New York City and all of its buildings. So [...] the government, the military gave General Electric 2 billion dollars to make a weapon, out of salt. My father worked on the project for 6 years. It was so untenable they could not make it into a bomb, thank God. Because one and a half degree temperature change a completely isolated sodium could set it off. So they could never temper it, never break it down and ulitize it." — Aajonus Rock salt is a mineral formed from sodium chloride (NaCl). When eating rock salt, during digestion, the sodium is separated from the chloride, so the sodium ion becomes isolated. Isolated sodium is more volatile than nitroglycerin, this is when it becomes an explosive. So during digestion and after, this isolated sodium creates micro-explosions in the blood, destroying other nutrients and killing cells. Aajonus describes in detail what is happening on a cellular level: "When the cell eats normally, there’s a whole network – smorgasbord of nutrients – anywhere from 97 to 117 nutrients…all your vitamins…all your minerals, fats …all the 60 varieties of cholesterol that can be formed …all the different proteins – pyruvates – all 22 amino acids. Everything is in this smorgasbord. When a cell eats, it gets the whole dose and it’s completely nutrified. When salt is eaten, it causes explosions of these nutrients so you may only get 27 or 57 of these nutrients into a cell at once. So every cell becomes deficient any time you use salt with a meal. Not only that, it dehydrates cells." Additionally, when the isolated sodium doesn't explode right away, it can draw other isolated sodium ions to itself, creating sodium clusters, and the magnetism of them can rip off the guts of cells. This makes using rock salt the second worst thing next to cooking in standard diet practices. "One million red blood cells are destroyed by one little grain of salt.", claims Aajonus. Of course, this is not noticeable right away, but long term, it creates significant damage. When part of raw foods, even during digestion, sodium is always bound to other nutrients, they are always connected on a chemical level, it doesn't get isolated and therefore doesn't have this damaging effect. This is why it is key to get sodium from food only. The body detoxifies the unusable, isolated, form of sodium by sweating it out when possible (the body is throwing it off, don't put it back in). Salt also ends up getting stored like most toxins that the body cannot process because they are in excess, which can lead to headaches when it finally gets detoxified. People who have been eating raw and salt-free for many years will often have an immediate reaction when eating salt: Aajonus explains that is what a healthy body does, it has the resources to immediately repeal a toxin instead of "giving up" and storing it somewhere in its tissues, getting more damaged from it. Rock salt also starts tasting too strong, which people report when eating salted cheese after having only eaten raw unsalted cheese for a while. What about salt licks? First of all, herbivores do this, not carnivores. What about sodium needs, and salt cravings? Needs are not the same with raw and cooked foods, but in either case, you get enough sodium from eating raw foods, there is plenty in raw milk, raw celery juice, raw tomatoes, and raw oysters. At least one or two of these foods can easily be added daily to anyone's diet. "Celery contains lots of sodium. The blood is very high like the ocean in sodium, Celery meets that almost perfectly without causing the clumping of the sodium molecules that rock salt does. Salt will destroy red blood cells very quickly, numbs nerves, burns them, ages prematurely inside even without noticing it, until it hits all of a sudden." — Aajonus Note: This is about eating salt. When used in bath, salt doesn't penetrate through the skin, and draws toxins out. It can still be drying and people without moisturized skin could get skin irritation from it.show more

A friend of mine just recently got his first... gun, a striker fired Glock 19. He is terrified to leave a round chambered. To anyone reading this who has this same fear, I want to alleviate your concerns. I'm going to explain why there is nothing to be afraid of. First and foremost, I fully understand your concern. It's not irrational. And you're not stupid for being nervous about a bullet being aimed at your leg with the striker cocked back under spring tension about an 1/8 of an inch from the primer. I get it. I shared this concern when I was new to carrying. But your fear is due to a lack of understanding of the internal safety features of a modern striker fired handgun. On a properly maintained modern striker fired pistol the striker CANNOT hit the primer on the chambered round without the trigger being pulled. Can't. Not shouldn't. Can't. (If you have any good Sig P320 jokes, this is the proper place to share them) There is a block that the striker will hit and stop if it is released without the trigger being depressed. It works just like a lock and key. There is a channel in the blocker that the striker can pass through if it is in the fire position. It only goes into the fire position if the trigger is pulled which pushes the blocker into the fire position. A spring keeps the blocker firmly in the block position until then. The blocker is a solid piece of steel that won't break. And if your gun is securely in a hard sided Kydex holster nothing can move the trigger unless it is unholstered. Many guns like Glocks have a trigger safety that prevents the trigger from moving due to force of dropping. Your finger has to be on the trigger safety to move it. So the gun cannot fire unless you pull the trigger. And it's easy for you to test this safety feature to see how it works! See the video below. You can try to push the striker forward by moving that piece at the back of the slide forward. That piece is the back of the striker. Push it forward and it will stop. The tip won't come out through the breach. You see it trying to come through but it gets stuck. Now push that little button in. That is the actual blocker. When you push it in you will now be able to move the striker forward through the breach and see how it will strike the primer. You can test this easily every time you disassemble your pistol to verify it is still working. You can break this safety feature by removing the blocker or losing the spring. But if it's there it will work. (You would be the first person in firearms history who has ever lost a spring. Literally the first one. It has never happened before. 😐) But it doesn't come out as part of regular maintenance. You have to disassemble the firing assembly to get it out. That won't happen by accident. And if you do that on purpose you should do this blocker test when you reassemble it to make sure the safety feature is working. My video shows a Glock slide. All Glocks will look like this. Other brands may put the blocker in a different spot or it may be a slightly different shape. But they all (mostly) have the same design. If you test yours as demonstrated and it works like mine does, your gun WILL NOT fire without pulling the trigger. (If you just thought of another P320 joke, this is another good place to toss that out there)show more

⚔️ Kingdom Come Deliverance first impressions ⚔️ Loving it... so far, basically a medieval detective simulator that really doesn't care that you are the main character. And I'm all here for it. ▪️The WORLD is the real star of the show here and even though it's got plenty of jank and lots of copy and paste NPC faces, it just feels so IMMERSIVE. Even the UI just transports me to the times with a bright colourful medieval art style. ▪️The MUSIC I love, absolutely sells the world and basically ASMR as you trot around on your horse through the world. ▪️THE Combat is a real interesting one, it's got quite the learning curve which I actually LIKE, it definitely has some jank to it as well but I really appreciate the attempt at an original and nuanced combat system. (Having to stop your bleeding with bandages is really cool) ▪️The Story has gripped me (19 hours in so far) And while it seems a simple revenge story on the face of it, I think the story is more about Henry making his way through the world after the horrors of Skallitz. The writing quality is top notch as well as the quest design also. ▪️The CHARACTERS are amazing and the humour is top notch. I'm not sure the last time I laughed so much at a game. Henry is great and so well voiced by Tom McKay This really feels like Warhorse Studios have put a lot of love and work into making an authentic medieval world and as a bit of a medieval nerd I can't get enough of this game. A True RPG as well by all accounts, the game really makes me think hard about how to approach situations. Also I can't wait to get to KCD2.show more

There is a room in Málaga that was built... to be the closest thing on earth to standing inside heaven. It is called the camarín of the Virgin of Victory, and it is hidden at the top of a tower inside the Santuario de la Victoria. To reach it, you climb and the ascent is the entire point... The building you are climbing through was completed in 1700, and it was designed as a single argument made in stone. At the bottom lies a crypt: a black chamber crowded with white plaster skeletons, a meditation on death and the brevity of life. From there a staircase rises, and as you climb it the light grows stronger and the imagery changes from bones to saints. The architects of the time understood this ascent as the soul's own journey, the dark crypt as the stage of penitence, the staircase as the stage of spiritual progress, and the room at the very top as the final stage: the union of the soul with the divine. That room at the top is the camarín, and its dome is one of the most extraordinary interiors in Spain... Every surface is covered in white and gold plasterwork. There is no empty space anywhere. The Baroque called this horror vacui, the horror of the void: the conviction that a space meant to represent heaven should not contain a single bare patch of stone. Out of that plasterwork emerge angels, flowers, birds, and mirrors. The mirrors are not decoration alone. They catch the light pouring in through the windows of the drum and throw it around the chamber, so that the gold seems to move and the whole room appears to shimmer and breathe. This wonder was built by people who believed that if you wanted to show a human being what heaven might feel like, you did not describe it to them. You built a room, and you let them climb into it... -- -- -- If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here: If you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.show more

Apparently, I saw this video online and I decided... to share. What this worker is applying is called bitumen, or what many of us know as bituminous coating. Most people think a wall is a solid, impenetrable block, but in reality, it is more like a sponge. Concrete and blocks have microscopic pores that pull water from the earth through a process we call capillary action. This thick black substance is the shield that stops that water from climbing up into the house. It is not about making the wall look good because this part will be buried under the dirt forever. It is about creating a skin that water cannot breathe through. When do you need to do this? The need for this arises because the soil is a very aggressive environment. Water is not your only enemy.. The ground also contains salts and sulfates that want to eat away at the cement. If this moisture finds its way to the steel bars inside the columns, those bars will start to rust. And when steel rusts, it expands, and that expansion is what cracks the concrete from the inside out. This coating is the only thing standing between your foundation and that kind of slow destruction. Thats is why if you see wet patches at the bottom of your walls inside your house, it usually means someone skipped this step or did it poorly during construction. You can apply this anytime you are building parts of a structure that will stay in contact with the ground. It is common in areas where the water table is high or where the soil stays damp for most of the year. This is a one-shot opportunity. Once you backfill the soil, you can never go back to fix it without a lot of expense and a lot of digging. It is about having the foresight to protect the heart of the building while it is still exposed. Please don’t ignore this if you need to. If you ignore it now to save a bit of money, you will be funding the future decay of your own home. I hope this helps.show more

The discourse around the Eze penalty last night is... fascinating. If nothing else it provides Arteta with an excuse as to how his team has been hard done by and robbed. He loves excuses. It’s a fascinating situation because I actually think the right outcome was reached albeit through the wrong process. Once given on the field under the current rules it shouldn't have been overturned. For that Arsenal can feel aggrieved. Don't forget Arsenal were the beneficiaries of an incredibly soft penalty in Leverkusen. It wasn’t overturned. I find the attached video interesting because it clearly shows how minimal the contact is. The defender doesn’t pin Ezes foot to the ground. Doesn’t smash into it. It brushes down the side of it. It’s where the still pictures of it were wildly misleading. Are we really saying that contact such as that is worthy of a penalty? What’s clear in the video is that Eze has absolutely made the most of the slight contact. I love the straight left leg. A very natural position. It’s a brilliant dive and normally it would have been rewarded. By saying that is a stone wall penalty all we are doing is encouraging such theatrics and cheating. Whenever you hear the words “that was clever” by a commentator they are intimating the player has cheated/made the most of it. We complain about refs all the time but what chance do they have when players are doing stuff like this. Until players are punished properly there is no disincentive for players to keep doing this stuff. I also find it fascinating when you have a foot brushed like this. When you compare it to all the holding/pushing/grappling at other times. Sometimes a contact sport and others not. Is this really what football has become?show more

"PRICE IS WHAT YOU PAY. VALUE IS WHAT YOU... GET." I keep buying $Kekec and I have a strong conviction. Here's Why: While the market is down, and Kekec is declining with it, there are data points that few are considering. Kekec borned in October and since then has been posting a different and original 30-second video every day, which I find extremely funny. For the past couple of months, they have also been posting daily on Instagram, and the attention on Kekec (which doesn't present itself on social media as a memecoin) is growing, moreover, it's increasing exponentially. The number of followers is increasing by about 500-1000 a day. This is largely due to the fact that they are not just focused on the main account but have several others that post reels and redirect to the main one. In short, an excellent strategy to keep growing more and more. Instagram link: Guess What? Not only are the followers increasing, but the team's workload is also growing. In fact, for a little over a month, they have also started pushing on YouTube, and the data here is promising as well. YouTube link: If we want to make a comparison, we can take Pudgy Penguins as an example, which has shown it can reach millions and millions of users without mentioning that they are a WEB3 company that owns an NFT collection. Or, if we want to be more appropriate by comparing one memecoin to another, we could take PONKE. Thanks to the use of social media and the quality of their content, they managed to achieve incredible numbers, which then translated into an increase in the coin's price. Kekec came before PONKE, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's better than PONKE. I believe PONKE is unbeatable in terms of content, but I want to make you reflect on an important point. PONKE came after KEKEC, and after PONKE's success, many coins have emerged trying to imitate it. One of KEKEC's strengths, in my opinion, is precisely the fact that it leverages social media without being a copy-paste. Instead, it is a unique meme derived from a 90's film, and it uses a unique form of content. In short, KEKEC > KEKEC and no one else. I want to conclude by suggesting you follow them on Instagram and evaluate not only the exponential growth of their followers day by day but also observe how the views of each reel increase accordingly. Pay special attention to the comments. Many of the people commenting have no idea what it is, and you can see from the comments how Kekec generates particular emotions in people—strange but still emotions. Personally, I believe that when something is unique and even very strange, it needs time to be adopted. However, once it happens, it usually explodes and spreads like never before. A few days ago, a Kekec video was posted by a very popular meme page. They probably don't know what Kekec is about but thought the video could spark interest among their followers. How many other pages will do the same? Lastly, but not least, I want to point out how Kekec maintains a good market cap despite everything that has happened in the crypto world since October 2023. As far as I know and have personally observed, everything is extremely organic. There is no cabal behind it, and the quality is not reflected in a single jpeg but in work that has been ongoing daily for months. Every day they work harder, and the quality of their videos grows as well. I have no affiliations with the team, but I believe that Kekec truly deserves more in this world where we push celebrity or cabal-backed coins to hundreds of millions in market cap. I keep buying because the numbers suggest so. Don't just evaluate the chart (price), evaluate the data (value). BÂLKÂN DWÂRFshow more