u/Big_Engineering_1718

It is a little-known fact that the cosmetics industry has been at the forefront of technological innovation for decades.

I spoke at length with Fabian (not his real name), a veteran cosmetics researcher, about some of the pioneering work he had been involved in.

“You do not realize the difficulties involved in bundling the latest technologies into beauty products,” he said.

“Combining cross-linked elastin in a deep hydrating base is one thing, but when you then try to add intelligent hyper-bionic omni-nurturing eco-illogical agents to the mix, you have to find some way to meet the escalating power requirements.”

“In the early days, to get around this, the more expensive brands of hair shampoo came with a ‘Shake Before Opening’ instruction.”

Fabian went on to explain how shaking would actually kick-start a small hydro-electric dynamo in the base of the bottle. This would in turn set off a tiny thermo-nuclear reaction which linked the base elastin to a heavily doped super-melatonin cupsize-pervoskite. This allowed (by means of mobiate osmosis) the negative steam ions to form small colonies of faith-healing enzymes that would apply an appropriate virtual prosthesis to each follicle.

“The hair is thus encouraged to waver and recoil in the manner of an anionic mobius strip – a configuration that has produced some of the best body-to-bounce ratios achieved to date, even for the most recalcitrant of frizz, brittleness, after-burn and split ends.”

I asked Fabian what happened if people didn’t shake the bottle.

“Well, the stuff just does not work! All it does then is clean hair! No body, no bounce, no anti-shimmer, frizz-defrosting, highlight-enhancing, follicle re-welding improvement at all!”

At this point, I pondered that for some products, shaking just would not make sense. I asked him about that.

“Sure. We knew we needed to take another approach. Nobody was going to fall for having to shake cutting-edge face putty. (Actually, our surveys proved us wrong on that.) ”

He went on to explain that as far back as 1969, it was becoming apparent that an internal power source would be required, and how this led to the invention of the digital watch battery, which in turn led to the invention of the digital watch.

The CR2032 battery (CR being short for cosmetics research) was specifically designed for the cosmetics industry; the digital watches being a decoy market for them.

“Embedding the battery within product lids solved all our power requirements in one go. Well at least until the next power surge hurdle.”

He went on to explain that some more recent beauty products are plug-and-play, and that nutrient metadata updates are now automatically downloaded to each product. These downloads are calibrated from messages sent from miniature response beacons deployed to the user’s skin or scalp during first application.

The downloads used a hybrid strapless infra-mauve elastic-stretch technology, once again achieved through research pioneered by the industry, which was forced to invent the Internet as a side-product, in order to perfect it.

“It’s daunting trying to imagine what we will have to come up with next,” he added.

Indeed it is.

We are more than just data; we are motive.
We are more than just weird; we are clues.
We are more than just order; we are chaos.
We are more than just despair; we are the blues.

We are more than just here; we are moving.
We are more than just legal; we are true.
We are more than just defined; we are changing.
We are more than just ego; we are you.

We are more than just breath; we are meaning.
We are more than just noise; we are whole.
We are more than just chance; we are choosing.
We are more than just sparks; we are the coal.

We are more than just body; we are soul.
We are more than just here; we rock and roll.

Long before we were married to our music collections, we were engaged in musical connections.

In life, some songs attach themselves to the personal circumstance of the listener, and in so doing provide a future pathway (mnemonic) back to them. Such tunes, some long forgotten, happened upon by chance, can so trigger times passed as to recreate much of the listener’s then life-in-progress. Such a listening can rekindle senses long lost to the slow march of time.

The tune itself is not the measure of this. Rather, it’s the listener—midstream in life—who unconsciously binds what is heard to what stirs within: tastes, smells, colors, emotions, attitudes, dreams… can all bubble forth. In such cases the gift of the artist is not the song, but the personal imprint the listener allows it to stamp on their psyche.

And yet, this imprint is rarely deliberate. It’s not the lyrics we memorize or the melodies we admire that do the deepest work—it’s the unnoticed resonance, the ambient alignment between a fleeting chord and a moment of vulnerability. A song overheard in a supermarket during heartbreak, or looped endlessly during a summer of joy, becomes less a composition and more a portal. The music doesn’t just remind—it reanimates. It collapses chronology, letting the past pulse through the present with startling immediacy.

This is why rediscovered songs can feel like emotional time machines. Not because they were profound in themselves, but because they were present when we were. Their power lies in proximity, not profundity. And so, when a forgotten track resurfaces, it doesn’t ask to be judged—it simply arrives, trailing the ghosts of who we were when we first let it in. In that moment, the listener becomes the artist, and the song becomes a mirror.

Now that technology lets us summon history with a click, we become both archivists and apparitions—imperfect vessels for wayward nostalgia, drift nets catching emotional flotsam as it resurfaces. Each rediscovery is less a memory than a visitation, a chance to reencounter the jetsam of our past and trace the shoreline of time as it once felt, not just as it was.

Every now and then it can be serendipitous to put the ‘now’ on hold and give the ‘then’ an ear.

From the silence of caution  
To the silence of fear  
Of the tiniest portion  
And to death drawing near

From today meets tomorrow  
To a half-muted boast  
From a tale full of sorrow  
To a fried egg on toast

In a crowd and its awe  
And in thunder delayed  
There are feelings too raw  
There are thoughts that won’t fade

For a U-turn mistaken  
And a soul led astray  
And a heart that is achin’  
For the one gone away

From a small speck of dust  
To a downpour of rain  
With a great deal of trust  
Comes a handful of grain

He did not know - at 21, most don’t - so he let it be. Seasons? What are they anyway? A cold snap; winter approaches. The old know, but the young – those curious naysayers – persisting in rebellion, in experimentation, in evolving, in defying their fault-ridden mentors. He did not know that this bronzing sun would wane. He was the moment and he did not expect the change. And he was in no way prepared for illness.

Somewhere near Canberra. Some intersection – some traveller’s decision-point. It was dark, it was cold, it was real, it was wonderful. The damage began. Why had he sent the tent home? He had not had to use it for some time. So why carry it? Like any error of judgement, it made sense. He had not yet made sense of mistakes. He was decades away from enjoying them.

He did not know that thirty years on, that itch in his lungs would still be coughing up advice—unwelcome, unheeded, and oddly prophetic. He did not know that the body remembers what the mind edits, that every wheeze is a footnote to a decision made in youth and italicized by regret. He assumed the cough was environmental. Turns out it was ideological.

How do you write a character who honestly believes stuff that isn’t real, without totally losing the reader? I’m trying to show what’s going on in their head but also kinda hint that something’s off. Like, I want their thoughts to feel wild but not so wild that ppl get confused. What tricks do you use to make a character’s delusions feel beliveable while still keeping the reader a bit suspicous? Recommend writers/books/posts that do this well.

A recursive dialogue between present and future selves spirals into algorithmic absurdity, insomnia-fueled banter, and surreal exception handling. Syntax drifts, logic loops, and emotional glitches collide in this midnight monologue of cognitive overflow.

Insomnia, my old pal.
Who are you?
I’m you. Remember?
Pass.
You—future you—from the future.
You’re me.
Presently.
Okay. Whatever. Must be the meds.
Oh yeah. Definitely. Musk sticks more like it.
Hey! Low blow.
Oh harden up, kitten.
Not likely.
You’re so predictable.
And you have mush for brains.
Marry me.
Toupee! So how’s the insomnia treating you?
You mean touché.
I’m not hunting around at this hour for the ctrl-sequence of the e with 
    the chocolate éclair on it.
Chocolate éclair/e.
Weak sauce.
It’s your typo. I just rerere—

UnexPseudSentiException_BillyMcCoy-0110001^^^!!!!:::p  
  got a^n  
  expected a ^le\s\sthan;3; thymes tnu1?of. { \\ wtf?  
    |||ogag yes it supports unnested thingies.  
  jot('needle nardle noo)'??  
  ]] jot not supported
  
—write the thing.
Ye gads—jot not supported? What is this—the dark ages?
He’s messed up the algorithm again.
Who?
He whose name is hidden.
Where?
In the agorithm. Wait—is that really how you spell algorithm? It looks 
    like a political debate.
Can you stop saying “stop saying”? It’s getting repetitive.
You haven’t changed.
Changed? I’ve got no time to waste changing. I changed the sheets yesterday 
    and nearly impaled myself on a rusty feather.
Sweet.
So how is it?
It’s awful.
Really. Interesting. [fake ponder] It gets better.
Oh great. Spoil my day.
So sorry. Oh, there ‘kn there. It gets.
Thank ‘kn for that.
I’m pulling your leg.
And why are you here?
Hey, it may be new news to you, but I do this all the ‘kn time.
Tell me something I knew before I knew you knew I knew.
I can’t. Not in that order. Ask me tomorrow.
Why not?
Because I have it too.
So how’s it treating you?
I asked first.
And your point is?
It’s rough. But not as rough as yours.
How do you know?
I was there, Gandalf.
Describe.
Two times, one week, three days.
Better?
‘kn heaven.
Yeah, you’d think. ‘kn algorithm.

UnexPseudSentiException_BillyMcCoy-0110002^^^!!!!:::p  
  got a ^kn algorithm  
  expected a ^kn algorhythm;3; tHyMes tnu1?of. { \\ oh dear  
    |||ogag yes it still supports unnested thingies.  
  jot('algoriffle riff raff')??  
  ]] jot still not supported
  
Needle-prick-blood-letting-osmosis-strap-on-thingy!
Preach it, bro.
n times four days, three years, feline.
Three years?
Give or take a century.
Yes, but… what was the question again?
What question?
Remind me never to do this again.
Do what?
No clue.
That is not a palindrome.
Go eat babies, rabid scum.
Low blow. Fallout imminent.
Who taught you that? ‘kn marketing glitch, my arse.
I gotta go now.
But—
Fallout imminent.
Two ‘kn shay with a sprig of garlic.
I’ll fop you on the way down.
Whatever.

UnexSTFUException___YodellingGypsy-011000^!!!!::;p  
  jot (whoops – nice try, Coco Pops)
  
[CONNECTION TERMINATED]

TL;DR: My brain tried to debug its own consciousness at 3:00 AM. It turns out "jot" is no longer supported in this version of reality.

What is a start? Writing is like living in retrospect. Normally you think a thought, and then you think another. With writing, you think, then you stop while you note it down. Its like applying a brake.

Retrospect. So you can look back at some later time, and have proof of a thought you interrupted. Some therapeutic value is expected. Revisiting advertises patterns to learn from. We hope.

But the start is rarely singular. It’s a flicker of intention, followed by a pause, then a detour. Writing doesn’t begin cleanly; it accumulates. Each sentence is a sediment of previous hesitations, a layered echo of what might have been said if the moment hadn’t fractured into language. The act of starting is less about ignition and more about surrender — to the rhythm of interruption, to the shape of a thought that resists being held.

Sometimes I wonder if starting is just a ritual of framing absence. You write not to capture presence, but to mark where something almost was. The blank page isn’t empty; it’s rehearsing silence. And each word is a small betrayal of that silence — a gesture that says, “I was here, briefly, thinking.” So the start becomes a kind of memorial, not of clarity, but of the attempt.

I prefer the big picture to the detail. I never complete the big picture, so I miss the detail. What is a start?

I’ve been maintaining a small corner of the internet where I file reports on various incidents the universe refuses to explain. It’s mostly for my own sanity — a place to document uncooperative objects, spontaneous geometry, and other behaviours that would normally require a committee, a form, and three signatures.

The posts read like internal memos from a department that technically shouldn’t exist but keeps receiving new cases anyway. Half the time I’m just trying to keep up with whatever the landscape has decided to do without prior notification.

If anyone’s curious about the ongoing paperwork backlog, the archive is here: https://handelbarweb.com/blog

No pressure — just sharing what I’ve been working on.

Countries who had previously introduced daylight savings as a hedge against their current economic woes are now paying the price for their greed.

Background:

The mutual trading of daylight between countries was first introduced in 1987 as a means of alleviating harsh weather conditions. During severe heat waves, countries could get and give relief by depositing their excess daylight at the Global Solar Exchange. There it would be traded with countries encountering a severe winter.

Scientists had first experimented with the transmission of daylight using geostationary communications satellites as early as 1978, but the satellites would generally be destroyed in the heat intensive process. However, in 1982, an accidental teaming up with a team of cosmetics researchers produced a breakthrough. Although the actual details of the new approach remain proprietary, it is believed to have had something to do with the unique molecular structure of an SP32+ lip gloss.

With success came outrage, however, as members of various weather monitoring authorities summised that the constant continental drift of daylight would confuse the ecosystem and cause the polar caps to melt. However, the discovery of a hole in the ozone the size of a pea was presumed to be a more plausible reason for such a meltdown, and the technology was ratified.

Then a recent Christmas Day raid by a terrorist illuminati group calling themselves the Wise Crack Of Dawn resulted in the siphoning of most of the stockpile, which was routed to a rogue satellite strategically placed over a once pea-sized hole. Again, in a frightening turn of events, the non lip-gloss-impregnated satellite, becoming, first sentient, then enlightened, lost track of itself and deposited the daylight where it deemed the need was most apparent – the opposing poles of the planet. A raft of meteorological changes have since ensued.

It is a little-known fact that the cosmetics industry has been at the forefront of technological innovation for decades.

I spoke at length with Fabian (not his real name), a veteran cosmetics researcher, about some of the pioneering work he had been involved in.

“You do not realize the difficulties involved in bundling the latest technologies into beauty products,” he said.

“Combining cross-linked elastin in a deep hydrating base is one thing, but when you then try to add intelligent hyper-bionic omni-nurturing eco-illogical agents to the mix, you have to find some way to meet the escalating power requirements.”

“In the early days, to get around this, the more expensive brands of hair shampoo came with a ‘Shake Before Opening’ instruction.”

Fabian went on to explain how shaking would actually kick-start a small hydro-electric dynamo in the base of the bottle. This would in turn set off a tiny thermo-nuclear reaction which linked the base elastin to a heavily doped super-melatonin cupsize-pervoskite. This allowed (by means of mobiate osmosis) the negative steam ions to form small colonies of faith-healing enzymes that would apply an appropriate virtual prosthesis to each follicle.

“The hair is thus encouraged to waver and recoil in the manner of an anionic mobius strip – a configuration that has produced some of the best body-to-bounce ratios achieved to date, even for the most recalcitrant of frizz, brittleness, after-burn and split ends.”

I asked Fabian what happened if people didn’t shake the bottle.

“Well, the stuff just does not work! All it does then is clean hair! No body, no bounce, no anti-shimmer, frizz-defrosting, highlight-enhancing, follicle re-welding improvement at all!”

At this point, I pondered that for some products, shaking just would not make sense. I asked him about that.

“Sure. We knew we needed to take another approach. Nobody was going to fall for having to shake cutting-edge face putty. (Actually, our surveys proved us wrong on that.) ”

He went on to explain that as far back as 1969, it was becoming apparent that an internal power source would be required, and how this led to the invention of the digital watch battery, which in turn led to the invention of the digital watch.

The CR2032 battery (CR being short for cosmetics research) was specifically designed for the cosmetics industry; the digital watches being a decoy market for them.

“Embedding the battery within product lids solved all our power requirements in one go. Well at least until the next power surge hurdle.”

He went on to explain that some more recent beauty products are plug-and-play, and that nutrient metadata updates are now automatically downloaded to each product. These downloads are calibrated from messages sent from miniature response beacons deployed to the user’s skin or scalp during first application.

The downloads used a hybrid strapless infra-mauve elastic-stretch technology, once again achieved through research pioneered by the industry, which was forced to invent the Internet as a side-product, in order to perfect it.

“It’s daunting trying to imagine what we will have to come up with next,” he added.

Indeed it is.