Whew, this has been one of the busiest weeks I’ve had in months! We’ve been working hard. @TrevorHawkeHRG stopped by on Tuesday—I already wrote about that—and then Jake @MetaElenchus came by on Thursday. To Budapest, Hungary, yeah. A loooong way from home, respect 🫡 Thank you both for coming and for the chance to work together! Every time I collaborate with someone, I learn something new—usually not just one thing, but two, three, or even four. I love working with others; their experience always opens up new horizons! Together with Jake, we mixed the following types of stones: -an artificial rock made from desert sand (which, of course, is impossible!), -another one from pine 🌲 wood ash -an artificial limestone from wood ash lye, “by popular demand”, we also made Egyptian blue pigment by etching the top of one of my granite boulders. Who’s visiting me next? 🤣

Hello everyone! It’s peer review time again! With this step-by-step “Stone Softening” video, the Peer Review period is officially open. Phew! It took me a while! Over the past few weeks, I didn’t just randomly post “CAST!” There were two reasons for that. One was that I simply didn’t have the time to post or respond to people properly because I was working full throttle on this problem. So why didn’t I just stay quiet? That’s the second reason. I couldn’t stay silent while, for the sake of the video, I went through the entire cycle—from melting stone to recasting—twenty-eight times. Sorry, but I really do have a point. CAST! In this video, you can see the full cycle—from “stone softening” to stone casting. A closed loop. I could have done it using only ancient methods and tools if I lived in intact Peru. This isn’t a “trust me bro” thing—watch the whole thing, and you’ll understand. Well, that’s the end of another mystery. That’s how it is. Peace to its ashes. Huge stones, hundreds of tons, cast, and done. The heaviest object the ancient Peruvian Indians had to lift was a bucket. Sure, I know the road toward Ollantaytambo is decorated with massive stones. There are a few on the mountainside too. Yes, that’s true. But from now on I wouldn’t ask how they carried them down from the quarry (they didn’t). Instead, I’d ask: isn’t the stone’s binder accidentally amorphous silicon dioxide (aka glass)? Because it totally is. “Stone softening” brings these feats down from a superhuman level to something easily doable. It's just masonry work, sorry. Again: this isn’t an opinion. This is a working technology—check out the video. I’m not interested in naysayers’ opinions because they’re wrong. Bye! So, who’s joining me for the peer review? Let's GO!