On January 15th 1919 a tank filled with 2.3 Million gallons of molasses burst and sent a tsunami of slow pouring sticky substance that was said to be 40 foot high and weighing more than 13,000 metric tons through the streets of Boston killing 21 people and injuring many more. The molasses being much denser than water carried a great deal of potential energy with it.

The wave of molasses crested some 8 meters high in places and travelled at 35 miles per hour through the streets. Buildings didn’t stand a chance and horrifically people became stuck in the sticky substance. The unlucky ones were stuck under the surface and died. As the molasses was so heavy a rush of sweet smelling air proceeded it and knocked people of their feet only to be engulfed by the tsunami. In total 21 people were killed and 150 people injured across a 800 meter long trail of destruction.

Rescue efforts were very difficult and anyone who ventured into the area to search for survivors became stuck. Eventually most of the molasses was washed into the harbour using salt water. It stained the Boston harbour a deep brown for over an half a year. It was also reported that people tracked the molasses across the city making everything unpleasantly sticky for weeks, if anyone has kids you would know the torment of sticky messes. And for many years to come it was reported that on hot sunny days the air in Boston smelt of molasses.

Well, the US doesn’t have to worry about Fusion. It will take decades at least.

Right now, Chinese solar panels are below $0.02 per watt. This is from $100 in the 70s. That is 2 cents per watt.

Chinese solar panels are killing big oil and big gas. And it is being manufactured in mass quantities. 600GW of solar panels last year, 600+GW this year, and 900GW of solar panels in 2025. It will be over 1TW of solar panels in 2026 and beyond.

Each watt of solar panel can generate on average of 6 sun hours per day and 260 sun days per year of 1,500 watt of electricity.

Now multiply that by the amount manufactured. And this is going all over the Global South. Ironically China is making the Global South energy independent of the control by the West.

Which makes the US and the EU absolutely hate China. Because those panels will produce power for 30 years before dropping to 80% capacity and still keep going.

There is no oil to interdict or control to starve other nations by the West. Once those panels go in, the West will have to bomb them to get rid of them.

But if they are install on every rooftop then the West would need more bombs then they dropped in WWII just to remove them from a small nation.

This is true energy independence. Fusion will be great for places where the sun doesn’t shine or for large mobile applications or space.

Libraries in China.

The very first time I entered a library on campus, I was imagining something like this:

Shelves upon shelves of books. Chairs. People sitting around reading.

The library was about seven storeys, so I was psyched about all the books it could contain. I didn’t bother to check for a building map, I just entered the first floor, walked into a room. I saw: tables, chairs, textbooks and notebooks piled on tables, people busy studying.

“This must be the study room”, I thought to myself. I checked the next floor.

Same.

And the next.

Same.

I grew tired and checked the map in the elevator. The actual book-containing part of the library was apparently on the sixth floor.

“Oh finally, “ I thought.

Come to find, the “library” was just one room with about nine shelves of reading books.

A whole seven storey building called the library and this is the actual library?! A small room hidden away in the sixth floor while everyroom else were barebacked study rooms?!

The college is humongous. It has two campuses and four libraries, the smallest library having seven floors and the biggest having eleven.

You can bet your bottom the majority of the rooms in these libraries are just study rooms. What are even reading books, anyway? What kind of moron reads those things?

The study culture here is no joke. Kids pile their books on their reserved spots in the library and sit there studying for hours on end. They keep snacks, water bottles, power banks on site.

This library opens at 7 AM and closes at 11 PM. My deskmate, I think he lives here. He’s always here before I arrive and leaves after I do.

I took this picture one morning because it was a rare occurrence that my study room was bare. I felt like a real champ, a stellar scholar, to be one of the first to arrive.

Across is my deskmate’s side. We “reserve” our tables by keeping our books on them. We also reserve our chairs by doing something similar. He has an orange cushion on his chair to reserve his. I have a small bag draped over the back of mine. Others normally put a spare jacket over theirs.

Need a nap? Sleep on the desk, everybody else does.

Thirsty? Water machines on every floor will give you piping hot or ice cold water for ¥0.1 (0.014 USD) per litre.

Hungry? Bikes will deliver food straight from the mess to the library, you can use your phone to order. There’s also a canteen on the ground level. Their pot noodles aren’t the best but they have good ice cream. They have good bread but they’re always running out of those.

Need some fresh air? There are comfy seats in the court.

It’s like everything is conditioned to keep us here studying hard as much as possible. Libraries in China are truly something else; it was quite a culture shock for me.

Did you know that one of the world’s first coins had the symbol of a bee?

Did you know that honey contains live enzymes?

Did you know that these enzymes die when in contact with a metal spoon? The best way to eat honey is with a wooden spoon; if you can’t find one, use a plastic spoon.

Did you know that honey contains a substance that helps the brain function better?

Did you know that honey is one of the few foods on earth that alone can sustain human life?

Did you know that bees saved people from starvation in Africa?

Did you know that propolis produced by bees is one of the most powerful natural antibiotics?

Did you know that honey has no expiration date?

Did you know that the bodies of the world’s greatest emperors were buried in golden coffins and then covered in honey to prevent rot?

Did you know that the term “Honeymoon” comes from the fact that the bride and groom consumed honey for fertility after the wedding?

Did you know that a bee lives less than 40 days, visits at least 1000 flowers and produces less than a teaspoon of honey, but for her it is her life’s work.

Thank you beautiful bees!

When I was in high school, I had a summer job at a theme park. Visitors came from all over the country, and it wasn’t uncommon to see people from outside the U.S. as well.

There were the usual dumb theme park questions: “Why isn’t [Ride] running?” (Because it’s raining with lots of lightning, and a giant metal rollercoaster would basically become a lightning rod.) “My son is two feet shorter than the height requirement. Can he go on this ride anyway?” (No.) “Can I use your employee discount?” (Also no.)

But the least intelligent thing people did was to come to spend an entire summer day in an outdoor theme park without bringing sunscreen or water. Then they would have to buy ridiculously overpriced sunscreen and water in the park ($12 for a bottle of sunscreen and $5 for a bottle of water, and this was about 15 years ago).

The ones I felt the most sorry for were a British family, a dad and two young kids. This was on one of the hottest days of summer, about 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) with not a cloud in the sky. I had never seen anyone get that sunburned before. They were so lobster-red, it looked like something out of a cartoon. They came into the shop I was working in and bought two water bottles each. That cost them about $40, just for water. I asked if they wanted some sunscreen as well and the dad said, “A bit late for that, isn’t it?” I pointed out that they would keep getting more sunburned if they didn’t put on sunscreen, and he just sort of laughed like he thought I was joking and left without buying any sunscreen. I felt so sorry for the kids.

Vivisepulture is the scariest fact that used to happen in the history because of lack of knowledge of medical practitioners and lack of resources.

Vivisepulture is more commonly known as Buried alive or Premature burial.

In the olden days premature burial was common as the medical practices lacked proper knowledge. One such incident which happened in Woodstock, Canada in 1800s is the case of Collins, a girl who was buried alive.

Above is the image of Collins’ body when it was exumed after two days of her burial.

The incident happened in Woodstock, Canada in 1800s where the girl (Collins) who was declared to be dead was buried. Her body was to be exumed after two days so that she could be buried in some place else.

After her body was dug up, people were shocked to see what they saw. Her knees were up to the chin (in the image), her arm twisted behind her head, there were scratch marks on the inside of her coffin and her shroud torn into pieces. This clearly shows that she was alive (in some sort of Coma) at the time of burial which was not recognizable by the medical Professionals of that time.

We can only assume as to how much terrorized she must have been feeling at the time when she woke up from her so-called coma. This is just one case — there have been so many cases of people being buried alive in the past that they made speciality safety coffins.

Below in Fig. 1 is a safety coffin with a flag. The person assumed to be dead had a safety rope which they can pull and the flag will be in upright position.

Now in Fig. 2 below, if the person buried is alive, can pull the rope and the flag will be upright alerting anyone who is nearby.

There were other coffins which were designed with bells, emergency air flow valves and with flags.

Death in such cases was actually caused by dehydration, hypothermia and starvation.

However, premature burial was a punishment as well in the olden days. People convicted of henious crimes would be buried alive to die of choking. There is intentional as well as unintentional premature burial.

But the most scary part is what happened with Collins: imagine a little girl trapped inside with no one — what would have happened to her, what she would have felt, what she went through — she had to die several deaths before actually dying.

May her soul rest in peace.

I would prefer to be cremated rather than being buried.

There were many mixed reactions to the loosening up of visas for people to visit China.

On here there was a mixed reaction to it.

I’ve swung from both sides, in that seeing is believing making them question what the western state controled media tells them vs what they see.

Shun himself was more concerned about criminals and bad people getting into China…

But that itself has a positive side effect. I wrote recently how Chinese people in China are blissfully unaware of how shitty many westerners are and how there is absolute dripping hatred from many of them.

But shitty people = their shitty behaviour in China… meaning we get to see things like this.

5 hours 6000+ views on Douyin (that was clipped from a couple days ago). Maybe it will sway the views of Chinese people of foreigners to be more critical rather than have an automatic assumption they’re going to be great people.

‘Get out of my classroom, NOW,’ shouted my history teacher, a kind and calm man whose raised voice I had never heard.

He was shouting at two older kids who’d suddenly burst in and interrupted our lesson on the Romans, or the Germans, or the Gold Rush (you get the picture). They were yelling, quite aggressively, to my sheltered 13-year-old mind, about how unhappy they were with something. It was a long time ago so forgive me but it was something like their recent test scores and how Mr McVeigh (I still remember his name now) was to blame.

Us younger students sat aghast at the heated exchange. This was unusual to say the least and I started to feel really sorry for our lovely teacher.

The shouting went on for a bit and just when I seriously thought it might turn physical, Mr McVeigh told them to leave NOW and they turned and marched out the classroom, slamming the door hard enough to make the glass panel shake.

‘I am so sorry about that,’ said our teacher (such a nice man). ‘This is all very embarrassing.’

‘I need to let the headteacher know. Please can you take a new sheet of paper and write down what just happened and a description of both of them.’

I scribbled away – two guys, think they’re in sixth form, came in and loudly shouted, one was wearing a blue shirt… Etc, etc.

We handed the sheets in. And what happened next has stayed with me since.

You might have guessed…

Our lovely Mr McVeigh had stitched us up good and proper. The ‘aggressive older students’ were acting.

He was about to teach us an amazing lesson about the trustworthiness of history’s eye witnesses.

He started to write all the conflicting descriptions and accounts on the whiteboard. Blonde hair… Brown hair… Jeans… Khakis… Said he was gonna sue… Said he’d burn your car… Blue shirt… Grey shirt…

‘Few of your descriptions match, and that’s about an event which happened only a few minutes ago. Imagine you are being interviewed about an historic event you witnessed, days, weeks or even years later. You can start to see how – although important – the eye witness does have some weaknesses.’

Blew my little mind.

Steak-Stuffed Portobello with Creamy Poblano Sauce

Seasoned grilled steak is combined with mozzarella cheese, stuffed into a portobello mushroom, then covered with a creamy poblano chile pepper sauce.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

• 2 (8 ounce) beef flat iron steaks
• 2 fresh poblano chile peppers
• 1 small onion, cut into 1/2 inch slices
• 4 large portobello mushrooms, stems discarded
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
• 3/4 cup shredded reduced-fat mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro, divided
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 1/2 ripe avocado, thinly sliced

Instructions

1. Place poblano peppers and onion slices on grid over medium, ash-covered coals. Grill, covered, 15 to 20 minutes (over medium heat on preheated gas grill) or until onion is tender and pepper skins are blackened, turning occasionally.
2. Place peppers in food-safe plastic bag; close bag. Set peppers and onion aside to cool.
3. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
4. Coat each mushroom cap with cooking spray and place on aluminum foil-lined shallow-rimmed baking pan.
5. Bake mushrooms in 350 degrees F oven for 15 to 17 minutes or until mushrooms are fork tender.
6. Remove and discard skins, stems and seeds from peppers. Chop peppers and onion.
7. Heat oil in small sauce pan over medium heat. Add poblanos peppers, onion and garlic; cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in cream; bring to a boil. Remove from heat; set aside.
8. Season steaks with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Place steaks on grid over medium, ash-covered coals. Grill, covered, 10 to 14 minutes (over medium heat on preheated gas grill, covered, 12 to 16 minutes) for medium rare (145 degrees F) to medium (160 degrees F) doneness.
9. Increase oven temperature to 400 degrees F.
10. Carve steaks into 1-inch strips. Cut strips into 1 inch cubes.
11. Combine steak and cheese in medium bowl, mixing gently but thoroughly. Evenly divide beef mixture among prepared mushroom caps, mounding as needed.
12. Bake mushrooms in 400 degrees F oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until cheese is melted.
13. Meanwhile, place poblano mixture in blender container; add 1/4 cup cilantro, lime juice, remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and remaining 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Cover; process until smooth.
14. Divide sauce evenly among 4 plates; top sauce with steak-stuffed mushroom. Garnish with avocado slices and remaining 1/4 cup cilantro, if desired.