#Circular No 14/2022 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Dow promised to turn sneakers into playground surfaces, then dumped them in Indonesia

Dow Chemicals plastered Singapore with ads for its sneaker recycling program, promising to turn old shoes into playground tracks. But the shoes it collected in its “recycling” bins were illegally dumped in Indonesia. This isn’t an aberration: it’s how nearly all plastic recycling has always worked.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/career-criminals/#fool-me-twice-three-times-four-times-a-hundred-times

Plastic recycling’s origin story starts in 1973, when Exxon’s scientists concluded that plastic recycling would never, ever be cost-effective (#ExxonKnew about this, too). Exxon sprang into action: they popularized the recycling circular arrow logo and backed “anti-littering” campaigns that blamed the rising tide of immortal, toxic garbage on peoples’ laziness.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/14/they-knew/#doing-it-again

Remember the campaign where an Italian guy dressed like a Native American shed a single tear as he contemplated plastic litter? Funded by the plastic industry, as a way of shifting blame for plastic waste from the wealthy, powerful corporations who lied about plastics recycling to the individuals who believed their lies:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-indian-crying-environment-ads-pollution-1123-20171113-story.html

When I was a kid in Ontario, we had centralized, regulated, reusable bottle depots — beer and soda bottles came in standard sizes, differentiated by paper labels that could be pressure-washed off. When you were done with your bottle, you returned it for a deposit and it got washed and returned to bottlers to be refilled again and again and again.

After intense lobbying from soda companies, brewers and the plastic industry, that program was replaced with curbside “blue boxes” that promised to recycle our plastic waste. 90% of the plastics created has never been — and will never be — recycled. Today, the plastic industry plans on tripling the amount of single-use plastic in use worldwide:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/26/plastic-fatalistic/#recycled-lies

You know those ads from companies like Bluetriton (formerly “Nestle Waters”) that promise that your single-use plastic bottles are “100% recyclable…and can be used for new bottles and all sorts of new, reusable things?”

Bluetriton is a private equity-backed rollup that has absorbed most of the bottled water companies you’re familiar with, including Poland Spring, Pure Life, Splash, Ozarka, and Arrowhead. When they were sued in DC for making false claims about their “recyclable” water-bottles, their defense was that these were “non-actionable puffery.” According to Bluetriton, when it described itself as “a guardian of sustainable resources” and “a company who, at its core, cares about water,” it was being “vague and hyperbolic.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/26/plastic-fatalistic/#recycled-lies

With this high standard for plastic recycling, Dow’s Singapore scam shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it seems to have surprised the government of Singapore. Writing for Reuters, Joe Brock, Yuddy Cahya Budiman and Joseph Campbell describe how they caught Dow red-handed:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/global-plastic-dow-shoes/

The method is actually pretty straightforward: Reuters hid tracking devices in cavities in the soles of sneakers, dropped them in one of Dow’s collection bins, and then followed them. The shoes were passed onto Dow’s subcontractor, Yok Impex Pte Ltd, who sent them hopping from island to island throughout Indonesia, until they ended up in junk-markets.

Not all the shoes, though — one pair was simply moved from Dow’s collection bin to a donation bin at a Singaporean community center. Of the 11 pairs that Reuters tracked, not one ended up at a recycling facility. So much for Dow’s slogan: “Others see an old shoe. We see the future.”

Dow blamed all this on Yok Impex, but didn’t explain why its “recycling” program involved a company whose sole trade is exporting used clothing. Dow promised to cancel its deal with Yok Impex, but Yok Impex’s accountant told Reuters that the deal would be remain in place until the end of the contract. Yok Impex, meanwhile, shifted the blame to the low-waged women who sort through the clothing donations it takes in from across Singapore.

Indonesia bans bulk imports of used clothes, on the grounds that used clothes are unhygenic, displace the local textiles industry, and shipments contain high volumes of waste that ends up in Indonesian incinerators, landfills and rivers.

In other words, Singaporeans thought they were saving the planet by putting their shoes in Dow bins, but they were really sending those shoes on a long journey to an unlicensed dump. Dow enlisted schoolchildren in used-shoe collection drives, making upbeat videos that featured students like Zhang Youjia boasting that they “contributed 15 pairs of shoes.”

Dow does this all the time. In 2021, Dow’s “breakthrough technology to turn plastic waste into clean fuel” in Idaho was revealed to be a plain old incinerator:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-oil-recycling/

Also in 2021, in India, a Dow program to “use high-tech machinery to transform the [plastic from the Ganges] into clean fuel” was revealed to have ceased operations — but was still collecting plastic and promising that it was all being turned into fuel:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-plastic-insight-idUSKBN29N024

Dow operates a nearly identical “shoe recycling” program in neighboring Malaysia, and did not return Reuters’ requests for comment as to whether the shoes collected for “recycling” in the far more populous nation were also being illegally dumped offshore.

The global business lobby loves the idea of “personal responsibility” and its evil twin, “caveat emptor.” Its pet economists worship the idea of “revealed preferences,” claiming that when we use plastic, we may claim that we don’t want to have our bodies poisoned with immortal, toxic microplastics, that we don’t want our land and waters despoiled — but we actually love it, because otherwise we’d “vote with our wallets” for something else.

The obvious advantage of telling people to vote with their wallets is that the less money you have in your wallet, the fewer votes you get. Companies like Dow have used their access to the capital markets (a fancy phrase for “rich people”) to gobble up their competitors, eliminating “wasteful competition” and piling up massive profits. Those profits are laundered into policy — like replacing Ontario’s zero-waste refillable bottle system with a “recycling” system that sent plastics to the ends of the Earth to be set on fire or buried or dumped in the sea.

The ruling class’s pet economists have a name for this policy laundering: they call it “regulatory capture.” Now, when you hear “regulatory capture,” you might think about companies that get so big that they are able to boss governments around, with the obvious answer that companies need to be regulated before they get too big to jail:

https://doctorow.medium.com/small-government-fd5870a9462e

But that’s not how elite economists talk about regulatory capture: for them, capture starts with the very existence of regulators. For them, any government agency that proposes to protect the public from corporate fraud and murder inevitably becomes an agent of the corporations it is supposed to rein in, so the only answer is to eliminate regulators altogether:

https://doctorow.medium.com/regulatory-capture-59b2013e2526

This nihilism lets rich people blame the rest of us for their sins: “if you didn’t want your children to roast or freeze to death in the climate emergency, you should have sold your car and used the subway (that we bribed your city not to build).”

Nihilism is contagious. Think of the music industry: before Napster, 80% of the music ever recorded was not for sale, banished to the scrapheap of history and the vaults of record companies who paid farcically low sums to their artists.

During the File Sharing Wars, listeners were excoriated for failing to pay for music — much of which wasn’t for sale in the first place. But today, fans overwhelmingly pay for Spotify, a streaming service that notoriously pays musicians infinitesimal sums for their work.

Spotify is a creature of the Big Three labels — Sony, Universal and Warner — who own 70% of all the world’s recorded music copyrights and 65% of all the world’s music publishing. The rock-bottom per-stream prices that Spotify pays were set by the Big Three. Why would the labels want less money from Spotify?

Simple: as co-owners of Spotify, they make more money when Spotify pays less for music. Musicians have a claim on the money they take out of Spotify as royalties — but dividends, buybacks and capital gains from Spotify are the labels’ to use as they see fit. They can share that bounty with some artists, all artists, or no artists.

Not only that, but the Big Three’s deal with Spotify includes a “most favored nation” clause, which means that the independent artists who aren’t under Sony/UMG/Warner’s thumb have to take the rock-bottom rate the Big Three insisted on — likewise the small labels who compete with the Big Three. The difference is that none of these artists and small labels have massive portfolios of Spotify stock, nor do they get free advertising on Spotify, or free inclusion on hot Spotify playlists, or monthly minimum payouts from Spotify.

The idea that we shop at the wrong kind of monopolist in the wrong way is a recipe for absolute despair. It doesn’t matter whether you listen to music with the Big Tech-owned monopoly service (Youtube) or the Big Content-owned monopoly service (Spotify). The money you hand over to these giant companies goes to artists the same way that the sneakers you put in a Dow collection bin goes to a recycling plant.

Think of the billions of human labor hours we all spent washing and sorting our plastics for a recycling program that didn’t exist and will never exist — imagine if we’d spent that time and energy demanding that our politicians hold petrochemical companies to account instead.

At the end of Break ’Em Up, Zephyr Teachout’s outstanding 2020 book on monopolies, Teachout has some choice words for “consumerism” as a theory of change. She writes that if you’re on your way to a protest against a new Amazon warehouse but you never make it because you waste too much time looking for a mom-and-pop stationers to sell you a marker to write your protest sign, Amazon wins:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up

The problem isn’t that you shop the wrong way. Yes, by all means, support the creators and producers you care about in the way that they prefer, but keep your eye on the prize. Structural problems don’t have individual solutions. The problem isn’t that you have chosen single-use plastics — it’s that in our world everything for sale is packaged in single-use plastics. The problem isn’t that you’ve bought a subscription to the wrong music streaming service — it’s that labels have been allowed to buy all their competitors, creators’ unions have been smashed and degraded, and giant accounting scams by big companies generate minuscule fines.

The good news is that after 40 years of despair inducing regulatory nihilism and “vote with your wallet” talk, we’re finally paying attention to systemic problems, with a new generation of trustbusting radicals working around the world to end corporate impunity.

Dow is a repeat offender. A repeat, repeat offender. Chrissakes, they’re the linear descendants of Union Carbide, the company that poisoned Bhopal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

They shouldn’t be trusted to run a lemonade stand, let alone a “recycling” program. The same goes for Big Tech and Big Content company and the markets for creative labor. These companies have repeatedly demonstrated their unfitness, their habitual deception and immorality. These companies have captured their regulators, repeatedly, so we need better regulators — and weaker companies.

The thing I love about Teachout’s book is that it talks about what we should be demanding from our governments — it’s a manifesto for a movement against corporate power, not a movement for “responsible consumerism.” That was the template that Rebecca Giblin and I followed when we wrote Chokepoint Capitalism, our book about the brutal, corrupt creative labor market:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

We have a chapter on Spotify (multiple chapters, in fact!). For our audiobook, we made that chapter a “Spotify Exclusive” — it’s the only part of the book you can get on Spotify, and it’s free:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/#stunt-publishing

Next Thu (Mar 2) I’ll be in Brussels for Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy, along with a who’s-who of European and US trustbusters. It’s livestreamed, and both in-person and virtual attendance are free. On Fri (Mar 3), I’ll be in Graz for the Elevate Festival.

[Image ID: A woman kneeling to tie her running shoe. She stands on a background of plastic waste. In the top right corner is the logo for Dow chemicals. Below it is the Dow slogan, 'Others see an old shoe. We see the future.']

#pluralistic

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ancientegyptdaily · 2 years

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14th September 2022: 200th Anniversary of Decipherment of Hieroglyphs:

“According to Hermine Hartleben, who wrote the most extensive biography of Champollion in 1906, the breakthrough came on 14 September 1822, a few days before the Lettre was written, when Champollion was examining copies made by Huyot. One cartouche from Abu Simbel contained four hieroglyphic signs. Champollion guessed, or drew on the same guess found in Young's Britannica article, that the circular first sign represented the sun. The Coptic word for "sun" was re. The sign that appeared twice at the end of the cartouche stood for "s" in the cartouche of Ptolemy. If the name in the cartouche began with Re and ended with ss, it might thus match "Ramesses", suggesting the sign in the middle stood for m.

Further confirmation came from the Rosetta Stone, where the m and s signs appeared together at a point corresponding to the word for "birth" in the Greek text, and from Coptic, in which the word for "birth" was mise. Another cartouche contained three signs, two of them the same as in the Ramesses cartouche. The first sign, an ibis, was a known symbol of the god Thoth. If the latter two signs had the same values as in the Ramesses cartouche, the name in the second cartouche would be Thothmes, corresponding to the royal name "Tuthmosis" mentioned by Manetho. These were native Egyptian kings, long predating Greek rule in Egypt, yet the writing of their names was partially phonetic.

Now Champollion turned to the title of Ptolemy found in the longer cartouches in the Rosetta Stone. Champollion knew the Coptic words that would translate the Greek text and could tell that phonetic hieroglyphs such as p and t would fit these words. From there he could guess the phonetic meanings of several more signs. Upon making these discoveries Champollion raced to his brother's office at the Académie des Inscriptions, flung down a collection of copied inscriptions, cried "Je tiens mon affaire!" ("I've done it!") and collapsed in a days-long faint.” [X]

#egypt #ancient egypt #egyptology #archaeology #historyedit #mine #my edit #documentary #doc: the nile 5000 years of history #champollion #rosetta stone #hieroglyphs

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princesscatherinemiddleton · 5 months

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Princess of Wales - 2023 Statistics (FULL YEAR)

In 2023, the new Princess of Wales completed (by my count) 137 engagements. While this is around 30 engagements fewer than 2022, 2023 is still Catherine's second busiest year and - by far - her year with the most appearances not in the Court Circular. As well as this, she was sighted (or appeared) 17 times and appeared in a whopping 43 official (or unofficial and leaked!) photographs.

She gained three new military positions throughout the year and finished with 29 patronages. Of her 137 engagements, 76 were related to one of her patronages, averaging at one patronage visit every 2 engagements. Her most visited patronage was, of course, the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales, with 48 visits. This was followed by the Rugby Football Union and the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (with 4 visits each). She performed no engagements on behalf of Action for Children, The Air Cadet Organisation (she visited the air cadets during her visit to RAF Fairford, but this was not recorded as an official engagement), EACH, Family Action, the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, the Natural History Museum, NHS Charities Together (although she met with NHS workers to celebrate the NHS's 75th birthday), Place2Be, RAF Coningsby, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal Photographic Society, or the 1851 Trust.

Of her engagements, 70 have been solo and 41 accompanied by her husband, the Prince of Wales. Three were also with her children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, five with a range of foreign royals, as well as 16 with either the whole or most of the working British Royal Family, and two with both foreign royals and members of the BRF.

118 of her engagements physically took place in England, with all bar 3 physically occuring in the United Kingdom (with none in the Republic of Ireland). Of the 118 engagements which took place in England, 37 occured in London and 51 in Windsor. Catherine’s engagements also took her to 31 other areas of the UK. Catherine also performed engagements in Wales and Scotland. Catherine also undertook two engagements in France (for the Rugby World Cup) and one in Jordan (Crown Prince Hussein's wedding).

During the year, she performed engagements on a variety of themes. 42 of those engagements were predominantly related to her Early Years initiative, while 12 were linked to the military and 11 linked to culture, sport and diplomacy apiece. 10 engagements were specifically linked to the Coronation, while she also completed 9 engagements linked to mental health, 7 linked to children and young people, 3 linked to the outdoors, and 2 linked to the Commonwealth. Catherine also completed 19 engagements which could not otherwise be categorised.

Clotheswise, her most worn designer has been Alexander McQueen, with 28 outfits, followed by 14 outfits from Holland Cooper, while 11 items of clothing were unidentified. Her most carried bag designer was Mulberry (11), followed by Emmy London with 6, and 1 which was unidentifed. Mulberry has been her most carried bag designer in every year apart from 2020. Her most worn shoe designer continued being Gianvito Rossi (with 39 wears), followed by 8 pairs from Emmy London, and 6 from both Veja and Aquazzura. Once again, Catherine predominantly wore pieces inherited from either Diana (10) or the Queen (16). Aside from them, she also wore Daniela Draper jewellery 12 times. When it comes to accessories, her most worn item was her Anderson's belt (6 times), and she continued to return to hats made by Philip Treacy (6 times). She also wore 9 unidentified pieces. According to my (100% wrong) calculations - created from my own criteria (where items are counted each time she wears them), she wore £65,669.41 worth of new clothes this year and £267,495.29 worth of clothes in total.

#mine #kate #yearreview #statistics

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rkherman · 1 year

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How it took a whole year and six pieces to evolve a concept

Sometimes you have a great idea, but the finished art looks a lot worse than how you imagined it, and that’s okay! You can always shelve it and come back to it later when you have a lightbulb moment on how to improve it. In my case it took multiple iterations as well as a style evolution throughout the process.

~~~~~

1. Aquarium II - Nov 14, 2021

I started with a pretty solid idea of fish inside glass baubles of water, with a palette of yellow, orange, pink, lavender, and sky blue. I kind of like how the design turned out with the filigree and the cats, but the palette just wasn’t working out. It’s probably because I didn’t put in enough contrast and dark areas, but I hit a wall with this one and put it aside, unfinished.

~~~~~

2. Koi Pond (Winter) - Jan 3, 2022

Using the palette of ‘Aquarium II’ as well as the two circling koi, I expanded it into a pond of circling fish. I did like this one and even made an animation of the fish swimming, but it still felt like something was missing.

~~~~~

3. Circular Motion - Feb 21, 2022

I decided to go full Escher with the fish tessellation (everything is flush, no spaces between) and also push the palette and contrast. I really didn’t like the result. The colours look dull and bland, and the fish look weird. It was partly because of this piece that I decided I wouldn’t do perfect tessellations if it made the animals look weird.

~~~~~

4. Aquarium - May 25, 2022

The first true success from this concept! This is part of the trio that uses the same palette, including ‘Arboretum’ and ‘Archives’. I put the aquatic creatures in clear baubles once again, and my lineart style is more established at this time.

~~~~~

5. Koi Pond - Jun 18, 2022

I fell in love with this palette of yellow, orange, pink, green, and dark green. It’s just a recolour of the previous ‘Koi Pond (Winter)’, but the lines feel wishy-washy to me now that my style has thicker lineart.

~~~~~

6. Flow - Dec 21, 2022

The final success of this concept! This is part of another trio that includes ‘Flock’ and the upcoming ‘Flutter’. I kept to the theme by adding cats observing the main subject, and used a minimal palette so that the center koi would stand out more.

~~~~~

In the end, I am still attached to the two ‘Koi Pond’ variations. I want to get them to a place where I feel like they are complete, but I don’t yet know how. So, they will just hang out in their respective folders until then.

#artthoughts

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scenefromthesidewalk · 10 months

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"ROSA"

Rast

At 14 self-taught French artist Rast moved from drawing in his notebooks to tagging. Fast forward another 14 years and Rast abandoned lettering to paint textured portraits inspired by the faces of the world. In 2022 real estate developer / art curator Marty Kotis invited Rast to paint his first work in the United States as part of Greensboro, North Carolina's unlikely role on the leading edge in transformation of urban space to outdoor gallery. This composition on the back of Westover Gallery of Shops III, includes several motorized pinwheels and circular floral components capable of being set in motion.

LOCATION: 1500 Mill St, Greensboro, NC 27408

Instagram: @artisterast @kotisstreetart

#art #streetart #urbanart #publicart #mural #Rast #GreensboroStreetArt #KotisStreetArt

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sapphyreopal5 · 6 months

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I've recently started watching Jared Padalecki's show Walker. I just finished the Season 2 Episode 14 titled "No Such Thing As Fair Play". Like this review said, some elements from "Supernatural" were brought aboard in this episode because it is also the episode Jensen Ackles directed. This episode aired on April 14, 2022 which happens to be exactly 80 days before Bevin Prince's husband died on July 3, 2022 (equivalent to 2 months and 19 days). https://www.instagram.com/p/CcVxLtWuO4q/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CcV591cOzgr/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=42ed91ca-41dd-48ea-baef-84153ad406b1 While watching this episode, as someone who is very interested in writing about divination including tarot readings I noticed the tarot cards Perez pulled while in the psychic's tent/stand (who was noted to be absent during this scene) with Trey. I also am interested in writing about divine blueprints and divine plans, as well as noticing the small "clues" and "hints" about possible outcomes/futures that show up in every day life. They say hindsight is 20/20 but I have written about some hints regarding the aforementioned lawsuit in other posts of mine. I noticed some of them in this particular episode Jensen coincidentally directed and the following episode. The reading had the cards Death, Strength, and The Tower as seen below. The psychic was noticeably not present for this scene and it was Ranger Cassie Perez pulling the cards while talking to Trey some about Micki and other things. They simply talked about things being uncertain and made a toast while saying "to finding answers even when they hurt" and mentioned "different kinds of strength". As someone who is interested in the Tarot and does some readings, I wanted to point out what I've noticed in this reading (and surrounding elements on the table cloth in particular). In the Tarot, Death is numbered 13 and represents endings, change (and possibly resistance to), transformation, transition, and possibly inner purging. Strength in the Tarot is numbered 8 and represents strength (inner and outer), courage, persuasion, influence, compassion, self-doubt, low energy, and raw emotion. Finally, we have The Tower ,which is numbered 16 and represents sudden change, upheaval, chaos, revelation, awakening, personal transformation, fear of change, and possibly averting disaster. The Tower card is the card with the lightning bolt striking the tower and people falling out of it. Many times in the tarot, Death symbolizes more of a metaphorical "death" and following it a "rebirth" or "renewal" of something. Given this is a television show, it's fairly likely these particular cards were used because it's either pointing to a previous death of a character and/or the way things were before (death of Marv, the loss of the Walker Ranch due to Cordell losing the horse race, Trey and Ranger Ramirez breaking up after she returns to San Antonio following the death of her ex fiancée, etc.) or more likely, hinting at a future death that will be quite significant. The Tower and Death cards both point to personal transformation, loss, catastrophe, things of this nature. The Strength card here of course can point to compassion, being strong during tough times, self-doubt, and raw emotion. To be brief, it's fairly likely that this reading in terms of the show's context is pointing to a literal death that will be coming up and will have a disastrous aftermath. Question is who and how?

I am also interested in the fact Jensen directed this episode which aired 80 days before Bevin Prince's husband's death of being struck by lightning on July 3, 2022 while on a boat on the ocean in Myrtle Beach, SC. Looking at the surrounding elements of this Tarot reading in the episode itself, I noticed the cards touch some particularly interesting "elements" on the table cloth and are also near the cards themselves. The Death card happens to be touching the Pisces symbol on the Zodiac wheel on this circular table cloth. Both Jensen Ackles and Danneel Ackles' astrology sign is Pisces with the symbol being essentially two fish tied together by a rope swimming in opposite directions ("Just 2 lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year" [direct quote from the FBBC website under Danneel and Jensen's section on their "The Family" page], meaning Danneel and Jensen who happened to direct this episode of Walker and also were Executive Producers for The Winchesters and who are both Pisces). Both the Strength and The Tower cards are touching Aquarius the Water Bearer on the Zodiac wheel with the symbol being 2 wavy lines thought to represent waves of water (hmmm, perhaps like being on a wavy ocean?) . The Tower card also happens to be touching both The Moon and The Star cards on the Tarot circle on the circular table cloth. The Sun is adjacent to the tarot cards in the reading. I also noticed during the next episode of Walker (season 2 episode 15 "Bygones") where Twyla and Cordell were talking about the past on a bench a song started playing called "Together" by Michigander. At the beginning of this song the lyrics start with: "Well, oh my god, the world is ending Do you still want to meet me for dinner? I feel the thunder, see the lightning And these darker days keep getting dimmer" It seems this song choice playing in the Walker episode following the one Jensen directed with the Tarot reading is quite an interesting "hint" in Jensen's divine blueprints. I did the below tarot reading on 8/2/2023 where both The Star and The Tower appeared, which was exactly 28 days before the lawsuit was filed. It seems to me overall that this Walker episode's tarot reading and surrounding elements did in fact hint to the (back then) upcoming disasters for both Bevin Prince and her husband, as well as Jensen and Danneel... and of course alludes to SOMETHING that happens in the show (DON'T spoil it for me please as I'm currently watching as of today 11/27/2023 at 11:27pm EST ha ha). It turns out that the first hearing for The Winchesters lightning lawsuit is on 01/23/2024 at 09:00 AM in Burbank, CA per this link someone was kind enough to send to me via PM over the weekend. I could not also help but notice the fact this first hearing takes place 3 days after the start of Aquarius "governing". I also could not help but notice that Aquarius is the 11th sign of the Zodiac. I've spoken with multiple people here on Tumblr over the last few months who have pulled The Tower card (depicted with a lightning bolt striking the top of a tower) with relation to Jensen Ackles prior to the lightning lawsuit being filed on 8/30/2023. When I was shown this link over this weekend, I couldn't help but notice the time and date in which the last case update occurred when I had checked (11/19/2023 at 11:18:11 UTC). I've mentioned before in multiple posts including this one why I believe 11 is a warning number for Jensen, not so much a positive one. It seems that perhaps this case being "last updated" at the time and date over this past Thanksgiving weekend AND it being scheduled 3 days into the time Aquarius governs, which is the 11th sign of the Zodiac may be more reasons to add to the list of reasons to support my theory.

I am going to start off this commentary with the following IG post from FBBC's page that was made today 11/28/2023 some time after 4pm EST. I clicked "post" to send off the above post just last night, 11/27/2023 at 11:27pm EST (which effectively became 11:28pm by the time it actually posted). The post image below is of an ad they came up with for bands that will be playing on Friday 12/1/2023 at FBBC. This poster ad from FBBC's post has an image of an ocean with the bands Candlebox, 3 Doors Down and Madam Radar being mentioned. Madam Radar happens to have what appears to be a lightning bolt below it serving as an underline. The caption for this post reads as follows:

"If you haven’t heard yet Riptide Society is an amazing charity that we will be working closely with in the future. If you’re free this Friday 12/01 (and not already enjoying beer in our taproom) come out and support!

We’ll have some of our team at the event and they will be talking about some of the cool stuff we have coming up that we’ve been working on together.

Cheers and we’ll see y’all soon"

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FamilyBusinessBeerCo (@familybusinessbeerco)

instagram

For visual reference, this is a photo of the Tarot reading I made the above post from last night about.

Reviewing my post from last night quoted above, I mentioned the number 3 in the context of the first hearing for The Winchesters lawsuit with Danneel and Jensen Ackles being named 2 of several defendants being held on January 23, 2023, which is 3 days after Aquarius starts to "govern" from Jan 20 to Feb 18. I also talked about Aquarius being represented by 2 wavy lines indicating water and specifically quoted "Both the Strength and The Tower cards are touching Aquarius the Water Bearer on the Zodiac wheel with the symbol being 2 wavy lines thought to represent waves of water (hmmm, perhaps like being on a wavy ocean?)".

I also talked about Bevin Prince's husband's death occurring exactly 80 days after the Walker episode with this tarot reading aired last year, where he was struck by lightning while on a boat on the ocean in Wrightsville Beach, SC on July 3, 2022. Per the article I linked regarding Bevin Prince's husband: "Prince said she believes there was "divinity" in his passing. "He was 33 years old. It was July 3 and I believe the exact time that the lightning struck was 3:13 p.m. So knowing that all the resources were there to potentially save him, I have to believe that something bigger beyond me was calling him," she said."

#spn family #FBBC #celebrity readings #psychic readings #manifestations #bevin prince #tarot readings #divination #the winchesters lawsuit #Instagram

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365knitsocks · 7 days

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Pair 118

I think that this is my favorite pair of socks that I have knitted.

Pair – 118

Summer Sock Camp 2022 – 11

Project Started – 8/14/2022

Project Completed – 8/27/2022

Pattern – Heritage Socks

Designer – Rachel Nutting/Woodland Yarn Co

Needles – US 1/2.25 mm – 40 inch circular needle

Method – Top Down/Magic Loop/Heel Flap & Gusset

Yarn – Knit Picks Bare Stroll Fingering

Naturally Dyed with – Avocado Pits

Amount of Yarn Used – 79 gramas

Recipient – Me

Size – Women’s 10.5

Notes/Modifications – none

#knitting #knitting socks #sock knitting #knitblr #knitters of tumblr #knit picks #knit picks yarn #yarnblr #natural yarn dyes #natural dyes

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vs120shound · 9 months

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Would be terribly surprised to learn she is not trending on Bigo Live!

AHOY! IT IS THE RETURN OF TURKISH BEAUTY DILOY! FOR HER SECOND POST HERE (TURKISH GIRLS SMOKING No. 8)

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ | Four-and-a-Half "Stars"

From "Sebas" YouTube | ★★★★ (L)

Multi-Media 8-Pack (Megapost!)

Pardon us for the delay with Dilay! Correcting our mistake from 12 days ago when we announced her name as "Diloy." We apologize. It is the cardinal sin within journalism. Blogging and journalism, not exactly symbiotic. Bad to get the facts wrong; worse to get a name wrong. Not pleased with our operation over this one but it is important to note the importance of transitioning. Thus . . . We move on. And we move smoothly into another Megapost of Dilay, a Dual-Media 8-Pack Megapost to be exact. So now we proclaim that The 'Turkish Smoking Girls' series is still operating with a measure of momentum with this post, our eighth in the series overall and second within the past 13 days for a total of 3 "Turkish Smoking Girls" installments within 20 days. That's essentially one per week. We are committed to this series!

Dilay still looking mighty fine in her second video within the domain. Still a nice, tight 8.0 on the Bo Derek "1 to 10" meter, as we articulated in her debut post on August 18, 2023. But please compare and contrast her look nowadays to how she appeared in these videos and photos from her Social Network platforms. There is a noticeable difference, although not exactly stark in magnitude. But it's her statement. In one of her photos on her Instagram page from within the past 2-plus years -- which we have not included because flattering pictures are best for SF posts -- she is considerably overweight. Dilay has trimmed down. But with some folks -- some women in particular -- when they start heading in that direction, it can be tough to know when to put on the breaks. This might be the case here. Summarizing: She got too heavy a few years ago, she recognized the unhealthy trend and how it impacted her appearance negatively and she decided to take action, she slimmed down and looked marvelous. Remains real hot now but she might have left slender for skinny. And after skinny are serious health risks and a different set of emotional problems. As we know, smoking cigarettes suppresses appetite. Not eating as much as previously leads to weight loss. Continued weight loss can lead to different problems from the excess weight on her frame that started this all off. It all can be so circular/circuitous. And where does that get anyone? Not where anyone would want to be. Added in late-August 2023. Hope you enjoy seeing Dilay again! It might become a regular type of occurrence soon.

Here is the first post of Dilay from August 18, 2023, Number 7 in our Turkish Girls Smoking series . . .

The Media

From June 25, 2022 (Instagram@diiloscux)

Translation from Turkish: "Girls, I can't come to the mall, I'm very sick, you go!"

From February 14, 2022 (two Valentine's Days ago) off of Dilay's Instagram

Translation from Turkish: "I showed my friend the photo of the date!"

From February 2, 2002 (TikTok@diloscux)

Some photos of Dilay (Instagram@diiloscux) . . .

July 10, 2022 (IG@diiloscux)

September 11, 2022 (IG@diiloscux)

October 30, 2021 (IG@diiloscux)

#SF #Hot women who love smoking cigarettes #Smoking cigarettes #Smoking #Dilay!#Turkish Girls Smoking Series -- Installment No. 8!

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kingwilliamv · 2 years

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Court Circular || 14 September 2022

The Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall this morning held a Meeting with the Duchy of Cornwall Finance Committee via video link.

The Coffin bearing The late Queen was borne in State from Buckingham Palace this afternoon on a Gun Carriage of The King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, flanked by the Escort Party found by 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, to travel to the Palace of Westminster to Lie-in-State in Westminster Hall.

The Coffin was followed by The King, The Prince of Wales, The Duke of Sussex, The Duke of York, The Earl of Wessex, The Princess Royal, Mr Peter Phillips, The Duke of Gloucester, The Earl of Snowdon and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence.

The King and The Queen Consort, The Prince and Princess of Wales (…) were received at the North Door of Westminster Hall by the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Lord Speaker and the Speaker.

The King and The Queen Consort and other Members of the Royal Family attended a Service for the Reception of the Coffin conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean of Westminster (the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle).

#cc:sep2022

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compneuropapers · 2 years

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Interesting Papers for Week 37, 2022

State-dependent representations of mixtures by the olfactory bulb. Adefuin, A. M., Lindeman, S., Reinert, J. K., & Fukunaga, I. (2022). eLife, 11, e76882.

Evidence of the role of the cerebellum in cognitive theory of mind using voxel-based lesion mapping. Beuriat, P.-A., Cohen-Zimerman, S., Smith, G. N. L., Krueger, F., Gordon, B., & Grafman, J. (2022). Scientific Reports, 12, 4999.

Interplay of tactile and motor information in constructing spatial self-perception. Cataldo, A., Dupin, L., Dempsey-Jones, H., Gomi, H., & Haggard, P. (2022). Current Biology, 32(6), 1301-1309.e3.

Loss of audiovisual facilitation with age occurs for vergence eye movements but not for saccades. Chavant, M., & Kapoula, Z. (2022). Scientific Reports, 12, 4453.

Meaning and reference from a probabilistic point of view. Feldman, J., & Choi, L.-S. (2022). Cognition, 223, 105058.

Neuronal codes for arithmetic rule processing in the human brain. Kutter, E. F., Boström, J., Elger, C. E., Nieder, A., & Mormann, F. (2022). Current Biology, 32(6), 1275-1284.e4.

From hallucinations to synaesthesia: A circular inference account of unimodal and multimodal erroneous percepts in clinical and drug-induced psychosis. Leptourgos, P., Bouttier, V., Denève, S., & Jardri, R. (2022). Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 135, 104593.

An action potential initiation mechanism in distal axons for the control of dopamine release. Liu, C., Cai, X., Ritzau-Jost, A., Kramer, P. F., Li, Y., Khaliq, Z. M., … Kaeser, P. S. (2022). Science, 375(6587), 1378–1385.

Larger visual changes compress time: The inverted effect of asemantic visual features on interval time perception. Malpica, S., Masia, B., Herman, L., Wetzstein, G., Eagleman, D. M., Gutierrez, D., … Sun, Q. (2022). PLOS ONE, 17(3), e0265591.

The role of color in the perception of three-dimensional shape. Marlow, P. J., Gegenfurtner, K. R., & Anderson, B. L. (2022). Current Biology, 32(6), 1387-1394.e3.

Dissociating the Neural Correlates of Subjective Visibility from Those of Decision Confidence. Mazor, M., Dijkstra, N., & Fleming, S. M. (2022). Journal of Neuroscience, 42(12), 2562–2569.

The Relationship Between Tactile Intensity Perception and Afferent Spike Count is Moderated by a Function of Frequency. Ng, K. K. W., Tee, X., Vickery, R. M., & Birznieks, I. (2022). IEEE Transactions on Haptics, 15(1), 14–19.

Intrinsic mechanical sensitivity of mammalian auditory neurons as a contributor to sound-driven neural activity. Perez-Flores, M. C., Verschooten, E., Lee, J. H., Kim, H. J., Joris, P. X., & Yamoah, E. N. (2022). eLife, 11, e74948.

A nasal visual field advantage in interocular competition. Sahakian, A., Paffen, C. L. E., Van der Stigchel, S., & Gayet, S. (2022). Scientific Reports, 12, 4616.

Developmental differences in memory reactivation relate to encoding and inference in the human brain. Schlichting, M. L., Guarino, K. F., Roome, H. E., & Preston, A. R. (2022). Nature Human Behaviour, 6(3), 415–428.

Visual consciousness dynamics in adults with and without autism. Skerswetat, J., Bex, P. J., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2022). Scientific Reports, 12, 4376.

Associative learning drives longitudinally graded presynaptic plasticity of neurotransmitter release along axonal compartments. Stahl, A., Noyes, N. C., Boto, T., Botero, V., Broyles, C. N., Jing, M., … Tomchik, S. M. (2022). eLife, 11, e76712.

Telencephalic outputs from the medial entorhinal cortex are copied directly to the hippocampus. Tsoi, S. Y., Öncül, M., Svahn, E., Robertson, M., Bogdanowicz, Z., McClure, C., & Sürmeli, G. (2022). eLife, 11, e73162.

Medial prefrontal cortex and anteromedial thalamus interaction regulates goal-directed behavior and dopaminergic neuron activity. Yang, C., Hu, Y., Talishinsky, A. D., Potter, C. T., Calva, C. B., Ramsey, L. A., … Ikemoto, S. (2022). Nature Communications, 13, 1386.

An STDP-based encoding method for associative and composite data. Yoon, H.-G., & Kim, P. (2022). Scientific Reports, 12, 4666.

#science #Neuroscience #computational neuroscience #Brain science #research #neurons #neurobiology #cognition #cognitive science #neural networks #neural computation #psychophysics #scientific publications

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usafphantom2 · 1 year

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The Pentagon, in a technological war with China, is moving to launch its first electric aircraft

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 12/29/2022 - 22:08em eVTOL, Military

U.S. Air Force Major Jonathan Appleby (left) and Beta Technologies test pilot Camron Guthrie sit in the cockpit of Beta's Alia electric aircraft during a flight test on March 14 over Plattsburgh, N.Y. (Photo: Beta Technologies)

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The U.S. government has taken a direct approach when it came to the development of consumer drones. Now, a single Chinese company, DJI, has conquered more than three quarters of the world market, and Washington fears that its drones may be a tool for Chinese espionage in the U.S. heavens.

To avoid a similar error and the alarming national security implications, the U.S. Air Force's Agility Prime program has channeled more than $100 million since 2020 into another promising but unproven innovation: battery-powered aircraft known as eVTOLs for "electric vertical takeoff and landing", which many companies are developing for civilian use as air taxis and cargo transportation.

The military's commitment helped U.S. eVTOL developers raise billions of dollars and made them more likely to survive to fight for an eventual civilian market.

“The involvement of the U.S. Air Force attests that these are real planes – not toys, not flying cars,” said Will Roper, who launched Agility Prime when he served as head of purchasing for the USAF during the Trump administration.

After decades of high development costs for military aircraft, Agility Prime is an experiment to see if the Pentagon can take advantage of advanced, cheaper and ready-to-use commercial technology. The military foresees the use of eVTOLs in utility functions to transport people and cargo away from the airstrips at a lower cost than conventional helicopters. Because they are silent, they can also be useful for placing troops behind enemy lines and conducting rescue operations.

The 15 companies participating in Agility Prime include creators of piloted eVTOLs, such as Joby Aviation and Beta Technologies, and startups that develop cargo drones such as Elroy Air and Talyn. The program provided not only funding, but government testing resources and the potential to earn revenue from military sales before the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave the green light to start civil service.

The HEXA being prepared for loading on a C-130.

Lawmakers seem to like the program: in the defense appropriations bill passed by Congress on Friday, they gave Agility Prime $50 million more in funding for fiscal 2023 than the $73.9 million the Biden government had requested. However, they denied an order for $3.6 million to rent a handful of eVTOLs during the year for exploratory use, citing a “lack of clear acquisition or field strategy”.

Several companies participating in the program believe that the military will start acquiring their aircraft in 2024. The move to the acquisition would be a major milestone in the Department of Defense, according to Roper, who is currently a board member of Beta Technologies. "It's a different color of money," he said. Before the completion of the allocation bill, AFWERX, the U.S. Air Force technology accelerator that manages Agility Prime, said in a statement that the program “continues to evaluate the acquisition of eVTOL aircraft in Fiscal Year 2023”.

Among the first aircraft acquired is a small Lift Aircraft multicopter called HEXA - single-s seat partially closed on top by a circular structure with 18 rotors. The Lift says that the ship can fly up to 15 miles and carry a maximum of 300 pounds. The military is considering using the HEXA for search and rescue, transporting small loads around bases and emergency response. The company expected some form of acquisition of the U.S. Air Force in 2023, said founder and CEO Matt Chasen.

The HEXA weighs only 430 pounds and its small size means it is relatively affordable. Lift, based in Austin, Texas, offered the first models as recreational vehicles for $500,000. In comparison, Beta Technologies expects its electric aircraft, Alia, which can carry up to 1,250 pounds of cargo or four passengers in a maximum of 200 miles, will cost from $4 million to $5 million.

The HEXA from Lyft Technologies.

Other Agility Prime participants say they are progressing to put the aircraft into military service.

Joby, based in Northern California, which received contracts through Agility Prime worth up to $75 million to support R&D and unmanned flight testing, told investors last month that it is in negotiations to deliver aircraft to the military in 2024 - by disclosing that it postponed its target date to launch urban air taxi services by one year by 2025, blaming the pace of drafting federal Its electric tiltrotor for four passengers is designed to take off and land like a helicopter and spin its wings like an airplane for up to 150 miles.

President Paul Sciarra said that it is possible for the military to start receiving aircraft as early as next year, giving the company, which is starting to manufacture the titrotor in reduced numbers, "a really important exhaust valve to ensure that we have a productive and local revenue-generating environment for aircraft to go."

Major Victoria Snow of the 413st Flight Test Squadron remotely controls an HEXA elevator while Sergeant Master Tim Nissen monitors the aircraft's telemetry on November 16 at Eglin Air Base, Florida. It was the first flight of the HEXA controlled by the military. (Photo: U.S. Air Force)

Beta, based in Vermont, which aims to market Alia first as a cargo carrier, expects the Air Force to buy the aircraft in 2024, after test operations at the base in 2023. In March, Alia became the first electric aircraft controlled by U.S. Air Force pilots, with manned flight, but with landing and takeoff on a conventional runway. Beta received contracts worth up to US$ 44 million through Agility Prime.

An initial test mission that the U.S. Air Force is considering for electric aircraft is to move equipment and personnel around its test and training areas in the U.S., many of which are in remote areas with uneven roads. If eVTOLs perform well in this task, they will be tested to transport "illustrious visitors" on trips ranging from 30 to 90 one-way

Colonel Nathan Diller, who left the position of head of AFWERX earlier this month, said last year that the test and training areas are a perfect "low-risk" initial environment, with eVTOL aircraft expected to allow faster configuration and removal of communications and test equipment by fewer service members, which is usually done now with ground vehicles.

Another basic use: transporting small parts for repairs that would be a waste to carry in helicopters such as the Black Hawk or the V-22 Osprey, which cost thousands of dollars an hour to fly.

Heaviside's Kitty Hawk.

Another first-generation mission that Roper says is "acephalo" is to use eVTOLs for security in military bases, which can extend for hundreds of kilometers and are still patrolled from the World War II era by troops in land vehicles.

In the future, the U.S. Air Force is interested in using autonomous or remotely piloted eVTOLs for the risky mission of rescuing pilots killed behind enemy lines. The quieter electric propulsion and the smaller size of some of the aircraft compared to rescue helicopters can give them a better chance to get in and out without being seen. “You can send them to areas of higher risk without putting life or limbs at risk,” Diller said.

Agility Prime boasts of having helped the companies in the program raise $7.5 billion in funding, but as developers move from the prototype phase to the most expensive stage of civil security certification testing and expansion for manufacturing, not everyone will be able to find the money to continue. The pioneering eVTOL developer, Kitty Hawk, was the first company to conduct an operating year through Agility Prime in 2021. Billionaire investor Larry Page abruptly closed the company in October amid doubts about whether he would be able to bring his autonomous aircraft to market soon.

Roper believes that there will be a healthy civil market for the winners. With Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall supposedly skeptical of eVTOLs, Roper argues that the military needs to recognize that U.S. competition for primacy with China is taking place mainly in commercial technology, so focusing on how much the Pentagon benefits directly from electric aircraft is not the only decisive factor.

“The biggest impact of Agility Prime is that this is an emerging market that will probably be worth a lot in terms of value, in terms of jobs created, in terms of global impact,” Roper said. "It will be a market with a US zip code."

Source: Forbes

Tags: AFWERXAgility PrimeMilitary AviationeVTOLUSAF - United States Air Force / US Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.