Thu Oct 15 09:50:41 AM EDT 2026
someone at worked mentioned (or linked?) the great molasses disaster of 1919 [1] talking about gitlab being slow. that sounds crazy.
so it turns out molases moves faster sideways [1]:
As molasses is a non-Newtonian fluid, its viscosity changes under stress, thinning and flowing quickly under pressure and heat. During the flood, this shear-thinning resulted in unexpected speed.[12]so the molases flooded all over the place super quick then stopped and became more viscus. it would rush in, grab a bunch of people, places, and things and just stop. everybody is stuck. a bunch of people drowned. very scary stuff.
so then i see this blurb about Anthony di stasio [1]
Anthony di Stasio, walking homeward with his sisters from the Michelangelo School, was picked up by the wave and carried, tumbling on its crest, almost as though he were surfing. Then he grounded and the molasses rolled him like a pebble as the wave diminished. He heard his mother call his name and couldn't answer, his throat was so clogged with the smothering goo. He passed out, then opened his eyes to find three of his four sisters staring at him.[6]and upon the second reading get distracted: ‘di stasio’. people’s surnames were often times where they were from originally, especially if ‘de’ or ‘von’ is involved so his family must be from ‘stasio’ so i look that up and its a place in greece with a population of 73 in 2021[2].so i spend a few minutes clicking around in stasio on google streetview wondering at the buildings.
the buildings in stasio are pretty! i saw one with a plaster wall! i dont see plaster walls that much. lots of buildings have barred windows and fences, theyre built for defence. is there crime in stasio? i learned most people in stasio are old [3] so maybe its just fear since theyre frail. lots of windows have shutters that are actually shut, which is neat since most of the shutters ive seen are just for decoration.
[3] also mentions a lot of greek orthodox churches and how church history created the town as “stasio” means “stop” as in its a place to stop on your way to another church related place. lots of Christianity going on in greence which makes sense.
going back to streetview i notice how close all the buildings are together and how old the foundations seem to be. the people that made stasio over the centuries would have known each other closely. i dont even know my neighbors here. the process to build a new house could have been something like making friends with everyone and asking where a good spot would be. now you probably couldnt afford to live close to anything but it may be different in a european country like this. there might be plenty of rural villages you could get an existing house in for an affordable price but here you can only find such things an hour away anywhere youd actually like to be, like work. theres this whole parasitic debt culture surrounding it where nobody owns anything and it costs them so much.
looking for more info i find what seems to be info about the region [4] where the town used to be called arcadia and was in the byzantine empire. but then you google it and arcadia is somewhere else (nearby?). but why and when did the franks build a castle there? i could research this all day but im sure ill lose interest by tomorrow. whatever it was fun. maybe ill come back to it.
references
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasio,_Greece
3 https://www.greeka.com/peloponnese/kyparissia/villages/stasio/