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sayitwithsarcophilus · 11 months

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The thing about making generalizations about the aesthetic and cultural sensibilities of people who lived 100-150 years ago is that people of the post-Industrial Revolution, pre-digital age left behind a crapton of written ephemera, so it's not hard to find primary sources even if you don't have the full resources of an academic historian.

If I want to know what kinds of housewares middle-class Edwardian Americans were buying and how fancy they got, I can consult my reprinted 1906 Sears catalog, and armed with the magic of primary sources I can safely say that minimalism was not the dominant American middle-class aesthetic in the early 1900s.

#how the heck did that person come to this conclusion anyway?#did they assume the model T looked like that for aesthetic reasons #and not to facilitate mass production?#did they see one excerpt of an edwardian decorator talking about the virtues of simplicity and not realize #that they meant “simple compared to the late Victorians?”#was their only exposure to pre-boomer material culture #wwii utility furniture?

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chere-indolente · 7 months

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Treat #2 : The Reformer

This treat is a set inspired by the Dress reform movement (a bit of the Aesthetic movement too, lots of overlap between these two) from the 1895 to the late 1900s.

More pics and download below

It includes the following CC items :

Like the Aesthetic movement, the Reform dress movement dates back to the mid 1800's. It aimed at making women garments less constricting (for reasons varying from praticality, political leanings, supposed health downsides of corsets...). It was linked to feminism especially at the start and gave birth to the bloomers in 1851 for example.

Reform dress usually involved making it so that the main weight of the clothing would be carried by the shoulders and torso instead of solely the waist and thus get rid of the corset and masses of underskirts, to establish a "more practical type of dress that would facilitate a physical and productive life". This resulted most times in flowy dress, usually tea gowns. Like previously mentionned there's a big overlap between reform and aesthetic dresses since the medieval and antique (and even sometimes regency) influences fited the less structured reform dress silhouette of the late 1800's / early 1900's.

Once again this type of clothing wasn't well considered by the society at large, it took hold in specific artistic spheres such as the one surrounding the Wiener Werksträtte (a viennese artist association of which Emilie Flöge was a part of, the artwork is truly fascinating and very influencial look it up !).

This type of dress was so unconventional that apparently, the painter Henri de Toulouse Lautrec (who might I add painted prostitutes and such on the daily) was scandalised by Maria Sèthe Van de Velde's appearance when she welcomed him in a tea gown (see the blue tea gown below for reference) which he mistook for a dressing gown. I feel like this little anecdote helps to put things into perspective.

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Download : dropbox — simfileshare

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And if you’re curious here were my main visuals references for this set :

#my cc #simblreen #simblreen 2023 #1890 #1900 #clothes #grown up #ts4cc #ts4 clothes #ts4 historical #sims 4 cc #sims 4 clothes #sims 4 historical #maxis match #decade challenge #The Reformer

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dynared · 11 months

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As Dreamworks's deal with Netflix for exclusive shows expires (they first signed a deal with Hulu for exclusives and now seem to be given shows to them and Peacock), shows have begun to leave the service en masse. However, due to the nature of staggered contracts, many of these shows will not be leaving Netflix for at least a year, while others may have several years left on the service. What's on Netflix did some calculations based on when the final seasons were added and came up with some removal dates for the shows -

Voltron: Legendary Defender (N Original)December 14, 2018 December 14, 2024

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (N Original)May 15, 2020 April 10, 2026

3Below: Tales of Arcadia (N Original)July 12, 2019 August 7, 2026

Wizards: Tales of Arcadia (N Original)August 7, 2020 August 7, 2026

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia (N Original)May 25, 2018 August 7, 2026

There are plenty of other expiration dates on that list, but these are the big ones I noticed, mostly because they were attempts at franchise creation that fell completely flat. Voltron's big-budget Amazon movie is due for a 2025 release in a best-case scenario (worst-case scenario is more Robotech-style development hell) and with the rollout of a lot of classic Voltron merchandise including the oft-mentioned Voltron beer, the plan to erase VLD from everything come the film release is well underway. Dreamworks doesn't seem to mind, since they're still the video distributor for DOTU on behalf of World Events Productions, their name is on the Voltron beer.

She-Ra is a similar story. The franchise is also with Amazon via Dreamworks, for a live-action show directed by one of the directors of the Watchmen TV show. Hopefully, whoever plays Hordak can chew the scenery as hard as Jeremy Irons did. It probably will air sometime in 2025-2026 best case scenario as well, just in time to see SPOP eliminated from everything (something Mattel is only too happy to facilitate given their release of classic She-Ra figures for their Masterverse brand of toys).

Trollhunters was meant to be a franchise but despite a lot of big names attached to it, it went absolutely nowhere and everyone seems to have disavowed the whole thing after the ending. So it's just getting tossed to one side.

The internet means IP gets recycled and discarded faster and faster these days. And these are three examples of shows set to disappear from the face of the earth, to the glee of the license holders.

#dreamworks #netflix #voltron #voltron: legendary defender #voltron legendary defender #keith #shiro #lance #she ra #she ra and the princesses of power #amazon studios #prime video #trollhunters #tales of arcadia

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communistkenobi · 1 year

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I get what you mean through that post about TWD but for the sake of someone who can't articulate why, what is political abt TWD?

do not take what I’m about to say as the only possible interpretation of the walking dead - or zombie apocalypse media more broadly, but twd acts as a handy representative for the genre in the popular north american consciousness I think, so I will be using it interchangeably. But I think there are a couple productive perspectives you can take with this kind of media.

fundamentally I think twd is horror aimed at the middle class. It presents a world where the state is no longer present, where your fear of other people cannot be soothed by calling the police (the protagonist of the show being a cop is notable here). the state in this imaginary is the sole barrier between civilisation and savagery. People turn on each other, loot, destroy property, and are generally untrustworthy. Zombies are an unthinking hoard of non-persons who only spread disease and death. The suburb is no longer safe. The ‘message’ or thesis of twd and shows like it is that human beings are only orderly and polite to one another so long as there is a state to enforce these social norms, and absent that, everyone will turn on each other (the “social contract”). Zombies in this case are less an expression of medical anxieties about a pandemic (although that’s not not a concern), but more so an expression of concerns about ‘mass immigration’ and a general racial intrusion into white suburban life. Zombies aren’t just a plague people deal with, but almost always cause the complete dissolution of American society. I don’t think you can decouple zombies in popular American consciousness from the racial anxieties of white people.

and more deeply than that I think american zombie media is a similar type of expression of what Cesaire calls the boomerang effect - what colonial powers do overseas they will eventually do to themselves. Now he was speaking of Europe’s turn to fascism (fascism in this instance being framed as a form of domestic colonialism), and twd is not necessarily presenting zombies as a punishment we bring on ourselves. America and Canada are also both settler colonial states, meaning that settlers permanently occupy the land they have invaded instead of returning home, so this is slightly different. But I think when people imagine zombie apocalypses, they are working through a scenario where their own civilisation is devastated by some invading force, where their stolen property and land are stolen back from them. They are working through an imagined boomerang effect, a fantasy where they are the blameless victims and their ill-gotten gains are taken from them unjustly. The history of settler colonial states is such a horrific, apocalyptic state of affairs that projecting that back onto oneself is a way of working through that history without ever reckoning with what that means. It is easier to fear colonialism happening to you than to extend sympathy to those who have been dispossessed by your ancestors, and in this configuration, you don’t have to confront your own way of life or the part you play in this history.

And it’s doing other stuff too. I think there’s a lot you can dig into with how masculinity is portrayed in these types of shows - men protecting their families by killing hoards of zombies, by being rewarded at every turn for distrusting other people and being generally anti-social. White men in particular have internalised ideas about masculinity that are bound up in violence and racial superiority, and zombie media provides a handy fantasy in which you’re forced to protect your wife and kids by killing as many people as humanly possible. In this framework, the zombie apocalypse is almost a welcome state of affairs, facilitating a return of traditional masculinity where men can freely express their violent desires, and their victims are mindless diseased non-persons who you are morally obligated to destroy. Zombie apocalypses provide a scenario where masculinity is valuable again. It might be instructive to consider zombie media as “inventing a guy to get mad at” so you have some place to put these ideas about masculine and racial domination. White middle class Americans are probably the safest group of people on planet earth, but because of that sustained safety you need to invent imagined scenarios where the violence of your identity as a white person or a man is still relevant, and so shoving that into a fantasy where you HAVE to kill people is alluring. Of course, whiteness and masculinity still produce a lot of violence in the world and these people are generally violent in both direct and indirect ways (calling the cops on black people, mass shootings, etc), but like it’s harder to consider yourself a conquering hero while dialling 911 you know. I think this is a wish fulfilment fantasy in its purest form, confirming all of their racial paranoias and providing them with a space where they are REQUIRED to kill shitloads of people.

There’s definitely more you can say but I’ll cut it off for now. And just to be clear I’m not saying enjoying twd or the last of us or anything else makes you a white suprematist or whatever, but zombies in popular consciousness are (at least partially) tapping into the anxieties present in white supremacist settler colonial states. I can’t speak to the entire genre, and I’m sure there are instances where zombie apocalypses are presented differently, but at least in this instance twd is generally reactionary and provides a safe space for people to work out their feelings about whiteness and masculinity while living in the imperial core

#asks #book club #<- tagging for cesaire mention. discourse on colonialism is rly good highly recommend #racism tw #zombies

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communist-ojou-sama · 4 months

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Okay so I'm gonna go ahead and put a disclaimer up top that these are the ramblings of a dilettante that shouldn't be taken too seriously, but I think that people (understandably) frustrated with with the ICJ ruling and convinced it will have no material consequences should consider some things before they say that.

The first thing I want to remind everyone is that the west is far from invincible. Their rule is not iron-clad and their ability to enforce their will on the world is far from complete and is waning apace.

I think a lot about how in the process of the transition to late capitalism (as I personally define it), one consequence of the mass financialization of the economy is the pricing-out of most common consumer commodity-based manufacturing enterprise in favor of transactions that are most elastic in price, and how the result of that is a mass outflow of raw productive capacity from the imperial core to the global periphery.

If I can frame that in another way, and forgive me in framing this in very neutral terms, but it turns these countries from production-rich countries to production-poor countries with economies defined by the phenomenon of asset-price inflation.

The resulting global situation is that, similar to the assertion that Africa for example is rich because it's where the natural resources that facilitate the global economy are located, Mexico is rich. Vietnam is rich. Bangladesh is rich. These countries are awash in raw capacity to create goods that have a use value. What is the one thing that keeps them relatively cash-poor?

That is, the law. There's a bit of poetry in the idea that just as how within imperial core economies the most important economic instruments are legal contracts to either some percentage of a company's equity or its debt, what sustains its (nominal) riches over the global periphery is a legal regime of ownership that entitles them to the rights to all of the profits going on in these incredibly production-rich countries in the Global South.

It is absolutely correct to say that at the highest level, these legal regimes are enforced at the barrel of the gun, we've seen how too much refusal to to honor these laws by heads of state can lead to mass disinvestment and eventually coups d'état, and even now it would not be a good idea to say, seize the productive assets of a bunch of US firms.

However, and this is where the ICJ comes back in to my point, let's not think about the US. Let's think about, for example, the Netherlands or Belgium. These countries maintain fantastic financial wealth via contracts of ownership with countries in the global south but they are also small and geopolitically unimportant, with little in the way of individual military power.

For little countries like these, genuinely the Only thing that secures their ability to act as a parasite on the global productive economy is the strength of legitimacy that international law affords them, and the position of overwhelming power the west Once had, decades ago.

But the power and prestige of the West continues, as I said, to wane apace. it's too early to happen now but these less militaristic countries are aware of how exposed their assets are to simple seizure if over time international law comes to be seen as a joke.

As awful and condamnable as the current global system is, it is not total dictatorship. It is only able to perpetuate itself because the overwhelming majority of countries that are parties to it have buy in and because, albeit much more slowly than they could have under socialism, they have been able to make dents in their own poverty with it.

The exposure of the international law framework as having absolutely no legitimacy, as being a naked tool of domination of rich countries over poor countries has knock-on effects that stand to be incredibly dangerous to less militarily capable countries that rely on them for their economic structures. On a long-term scale, especially as these countries become richer and more geopolitically influential in their own right, they may well begin to pose the question: why Shouldn't I seize these french factories in my country? Why Shouldn't I seize this Belgian-owned diamond mine? Why Should I pay back this IMF loan, if the ICJ framework can't even compel the Zionist Enemy to end a genocide? And I promise you, this is a reality of which at least some people in those countries are highly cognizant and wary, so I'd wait and see a bit before being Too pessimistic.

#first effortpost (of a sort) in a while because I really needed to get this off my chest in a relatively concentrated form

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nattaphum · 9 months

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Man Suang Press Conference [08/08/2023]

Interviewed: Pond (Exec Producer and CEO of BOC, Nat (Director), Mile, Apo, Tong, Bas, and Kru Ning (Script Writer and Acting Coach).

Q. What is Man Suang and how did it start?

Pond: Man = human, Suang = heaven; together heaven x human such as entertainment complex. Man Suang represents an entertainment complex where anyone can be anything. People chosen to be in Man Saung are carefully selected. Within the equality in Man Suang, it also represents the landscape of the real world. The Man Suang production is really brought together by people's love of art and the dream to create great production and quality work that also at times does not match the budget or traditional work culture. But the crew and everyone really have the same the dream and is willing to do what it takes to make Man Suang on the scale, goal, and vision we have.

Q: Why did this project require 3 directors?

Nat: i knew about KPTS and Kru Ning as an academic working on project that is being appreciated by the mass. And knowing Pond, who has the same goal, as a director, my role is to facilitate the process as it should be done on this scale.

Kru Ning: i works with Kru Bua on the script making. We both played a role in chosing the actors and actresses who will be in the film despite the actors' busy schedule. The challenge is bringing out the potential of all actors.

Pond: having three directors i was often told that it would’ve been a problem, but i’ve been through it on KPTS already. The three directors worked because we all respect each other. I represent the newer generation, Nat represents the experienced director, Kru Ning also represents the knowledgeable person. The key to successful work is that the younger is respectful and the seniors are not egotistic.

Q: Why choose this time period (between Rama III and Rama IV) as the setting?

Nat: This is the period where foreign powers start coming into the kingdom and has a rich history.

Q: What do you expect from this film seeing the anticipation?

Nat: i didn't expect this much reception, but also i believe we’ve done our best to meet the expectations. Thai period film is something not everyone would choose to do, but we gave it all.

Kru Ning: i expect that this film will inspire the new generation of film makers to also create period films or pick up pieces of history as their work.

Mile, Apo, Tong and Bas introduce their characters

Mile: I play Chat as a person caring for others. He came to Man Saung because of something that happened in his life. He's the 'leather man' the person who works on leather for drum. Meet different kinds of people, the very good and very bad.

Apo: I play Khem. I believe that in any generation or anywhere there’s who wants to step up and grow in their work, like Khem. He is a peasant that wants to have a better life, so he wants to use the dance that he likes as a stepping stone. Something made him enter Man Suang. For me, with any kind of role, I will believe in the role and the character. What is difficult, is imagining the character within the constraints of the time period. What he can and cannot do in that time period/culture. And the dance was a challenge. I told myself that I can do it since the mental training merges with the physical training to practice and learn the dance.

Tong: I play 'Hong'. The challenge of the role is also imagining the character in the time period and what the character can or cannot express. Even though in Man Suang you can be anything, there's still things you cannot be or tabooed. But we are lucky to have a great team who helps us. The script was redone multiple times.

Bas: I play Wan, who is best buddies with Khem, like we go anywhere together. I'm also a peasant, so the character background is at the lowest social ladder. Even the smallest mistake means death.

Q: How does working on KPTS influenced your work on Man Suang?

Apo: Going to events overseas, in France, in events with A-listers is kinda a private event. So going to closed events, where people live as the elite as their normal life helps me understand how it's like being Man Suang. Imagine myself as a small person going into private world of elites.

Mile: Starting of with KPTS makes me feel this big fulfilling energy when seeing fans or people who just started watching KPTS. Such show opened me up to opportunities of intertwining social culture issues, and Man Suang is doing the same. KPTS is a BL in a small group, but Man Suang will open up to more people.

Q: Let’s talk about the production standard that Man Suang set.

Pond: It's something I'm really proud of where we have set hours, everyone on set is treated equally in things like catering. Sometimes it becomes over budget but everyone on set is treated equally. Equality is something that we can easily talk but difficult make happen, but they tried it on this set, and it works. I want to make it the standard.

Q: Let’s talk about the support from the Ministry of Culture. Pushing Thai soft power.

Pond: i want to start with thanking Srichand because they represent Thai culture as well. Thanks to Srichand for collaborating and supporting us. Man Suang has a distinct culture footprint and Thainess that the ministry should support. So proud to be selected and that tax payers' money are being used to support Thai people work and art.

Interview with Ohm Cocktail

Both Pond and Ohm know the 28 Orchestra Band and they reached out to Ohm saying Pond has a project. Ohm likes historical stuff and was excited about the work. After knowing the overall scope of the project, and seeing the anticipation it was quite challenging, he hoped the idea will come to him, until he got the original script. But the script doesn't have the plot so it's hard to understand the story. He couldn’t understand the emotions until he saw the teaser. The overall theme is about going into a location hiding your identity in order to find something, that is an intriguing plot and good substance for the song writing.

END OF CONFERENCE

Translation provided by mileapo_sp 💜

[mileapo’s cut with eng subs here]

+ bonus:

#kinnporsche #mileapo #apo nattawin #mile phakphum #tong thanayut #bas asavapatr #man suang #mileapo movie

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probablyasocialecologist · 9 months

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The production of consumer goods such as sugar, coffee and tobacco on the plantations proved crucial to reducing the costs of labour-power in Britain. In contrast to Europe, where labour and land costs were comparatively prohibitive, the cheaper use of slave labour in the ecologically ‘boundless’ American colonies facilitated increases in productivity. The result was reduced prices on these so-called ‘luxury items’, enabling access to and consumption of them on a mass scale. The effect on British workers was significant, since sugar provided ‘virtually free calories’ that had previously been unobtainable with their wage via the market. The plantation was thus instrumental in widening the scope of market dependence, and reducing the proportion of the working day required for British workers to reproduce themselves. Hitherto luxurious items such as sugar, coffee and tobacco both metaphorically and literally fuelled the British Industrial Revolution, allowing labourers in the factories to work more productively over longer periods of time.

Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancıoğlu, How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism

#How the West Came to Rule #british empire #colonialism #slavery #industrial revolution

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brooklynmuseum · 1 year

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We began work on January 28, but the highlight of this week was the January 31 visit to the site by Anne Pasternak, the Brooklyn Museum Director, and members of the Museum’s Board of Governors. We were thrilled to be able to show them the site where Brooklyn has worked for the past 40+ years. We hope they enjoyed their visit.

As promised last week, here are the members of our team. Our foreman again this year is Abdel Aziz Farouk Sharid (left). He and our inspector, Haitham Mohamed Sa’ad el-Din are discussing the season’s work. The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) assigns an inspector to every expedition to act as liaison with the SCA and help facilitate the work. We are happy to have Haitham with us this season.

Besides Abdel Aziz, the Qufti who working with us this year are Abdel Aziz’s brother Ayman Farouk Sharid (center), the foreman for the Johns Hopkins University expedition who works with us when Hopkins isn’t in the field; and Mamdouh Kamil, who has worked with us for many seasons. All are from the village of Quft (ancient Coptos), which has a long tradition of archaeology going back to the late 19th century. Ayman and Abdel Aziz are the sons of one of the great Egyptian archaeologists, the late Farouk Sharid Mohamed, who was a beloved friend and treasured colleague. His sons are worthy successors to him.

You are looking northwest at the first court of Temple A, which stands northeast of the Mut Temple. We are working in two areas of the court this year. In 2019 we were able to confirm that that the row of limestone features on the court’s south side were sphinx bases. This season we want to see if there are remains of corresponding bases on the north side (right). We are also clearing the corridor between the south colonnade and the south wall of the court (left).

By the end of the week (February 2) the results in the north square were equivocal. Looking north, you can see an area of decayed limestone on the right side of the square that might be the remains of a sphinx base. On February 1, Mamdouh uncovered the round, dark feature to the left of the “sphinx base” that might be a tree hole. Sphinx avenues often had trees planted between the sculptures.

The work on the corridor was more productive. By the middle of the week Ayman had cleared a mass of broken stone and revealed the lowest course of the court’s south wall (left) and the footing of the temple’s 2nd Pylon. Both sit on a sand foundation that you can see below the blocks of stone. It was common to use sand in the foundations to level out uneven ground.

On February 1 our Dutch colleague, Jacobus (Jaap) van Dijk joined us for another season. First thing on the morning of February 2, Ayman called us over to show us an interesting find: a large relief-decorated block. Jaap immediately got down to have a look.

The block has a beautifully carved relief of Amun that clearly is Thutmoside in style, that is, from the reign of Hatshepsut and/or Thutmosis III, of the mid-15th century BC. What makes it particularly interesting is the small, shallowly carved graffito of a God’s Wife of Amun facing the Amun and dating stylistically to Dynasty 25 or 26, about 700 years after the god’s face was carved. God’s Wives of Amun were priestesses, usually the sisters or daughters of kings, who wielded great political power in the Third Intermediate Period and later.

Just west of the Amun block was smaller cube of stone with a sunk relief depiction of a man’s foot on base lines with the top of a cartouche and the “son of Re” title below. The style of the foot (very long) and the vertical element of the cartouche date it to the reign of Akhenaten. It probably came originally from his temple in East Karnak, built before the king moved the capital to Amarna. The artist paid attention to detail when painting the relief, painting the head of the goose (“son”) blue but its beak and eye red. The Brooklyn Museum has an interesting group of Amarna Period reliefs showing a pastoral scene.

By the end of the week Ayman and his crew had cleared the bases of the first 3 columns of the colonnade, working from west to east. The blocks of the bases are large: 70 cm by 125 cm and almost 100 cm thick.

We are also planning on restoring 2 fallen columns in the colonnaded porches in front of the Mut Temple. The one in the East Porch is shown here as it was found in 1979. Work hasn’t started on these yet; there will be more about the restoration next week.

One of our favorite birds is the tiny, bright bee eater, so called because it catches insects in mid-air. This is the first we’ve seen this season.

An unusual cloud formation seen at sunset one night. Angels? Extraterrestrials?

Posted by Richard Fazzini and Mary McKercher

#BkMMutDig #MutDig #Mut #temple #Egypt #excavation #BkMEgyptianArt #egyptian art #egyptian #amarna period #Akhenaten #Thutmoside #archaeology #Brooklyn Museum #brooklyn #museum #art

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balthazarslostlibrary · 2 months

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What are your opinions on fertilizer runoff from industrial farming? Its ingredients such as phosphate and nitrogen can facilitate algae blooms, which in turn can cause artificial eutrophication, and or release toxins like microcystins.

My opinions are mixed! Also, this is a long post, so I've put the rest under a keep reading. Please do read! I just don't want to fill people's dashes with a long post every time they scroll lol.

Firstly, I need to say that if we were to broadly ban or heavily restrict fertiliser usage in agriculture, it is undeniable that the agriculture economy would collapse. Most industrialised farming is incentivised to sell the 'ideal products' to consumers, which inevitable means a shitload of food production in order to get the highest amounts of 'perfect' product. This requires a lot of fertiliser usage in order to mass produce and harvest monoculture farmland, and also results in a LOT of food waste. Unfortunately, the agricultural economy, combined with the half century of brainwashing by advertising companies telling people that so called 'blemished' food is somehow bad for you, is so based on this excess that if we did immediate drastic action, it would implode and likely send the prospective country into a recession.

With that being said, the system of heavy use of fertiliser is still not good!! Fertiliser runoff causes eutrophication as you point out, and can lead to toxic algal blooms, or even oxygen dead zones further down stream. However, it is not solely the use of fertiliser products that contribute to fertiliser run-off, as contradictory as that sounds. In fact, soil quality has a large part to play in the production of run-off.

For example, most modern agriculture uses monoculture, which is when one plant species is grown in the same place with little to no diversity in the field. A result of this is that only a single type of root system is grown, which is not enough for a healthy layer of topsoil to develop, especially if it is tilled and plowed every season. This means that the soil is very poor at retaining water, meaning that it requires LOTS of irrigation. With lots of irrigation, the fertiliser nutrients can't stay in the soil long enough to be absorbed by the plants fully, and they get washed away and have to be constantly topped up.

If we used less monoculture in our farming, we could use less fertiliser and still gain the same benefit, with also less runoff, which would be ideal!

I would also note a few things, namely that fertiliser runoff is not the only source of nutrient pollution from farming, and especially in places that have heavy cattle farming like my country, nitrates and phosphates from stock effluent is more of a problem. Cows shitting near streams is a big problem, and can be mitigated by proper filtering and nutrient-recovery technologies. One of these that I think is a big winner in terms of green technology wastewater treatment are Floating Treatment Wetlands, which are essentially artificial wetlands that are engineered to be part of wastewater treatment, and also provide habitats for birds and insects at the same time.

#botany #agriculture #inbox things #farming #sustainability #monoculture

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happyinjection · 1 year

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X-Playing Cards and Cartomancy

High Card takes a lot of ~stylistic inspiration~ for its X-playing cards system from the standard 52-card deck and related card games, but it never occurred to me until someone pointed it out that the French deck was also based on tarot cards, precisely the minor arcana! (media usually make parallels from the major arcana so it took me longer to connect the dots)

More elaborate explanation under the cut...

1. The abilities and meaning of each suit

To be frank this one is obvious enough from the beginning, both the standard deck and minor arcana have 4 suits, and each suit (hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs) symbolizes emotions, wealth, creativity, and will, in that order! I think the description of each suit’s abilities fits quite well with its original symbolism.

It’s also interesting to note that the spades is associated with military/nobility. I can see that with Wendy, given that her father owns a dojo, but Finn...? Yeah, so I guess we know what’s coming.

2. Correlation between the five main characters and the interpretation of their respective card in minor arcana

Note that I’ve never dabbled in tarot reading before (I know someone who does, but asking them a favor especially for cracking anime lore is embarrassing, so no), and this is all based on a quick Wikipedia search, please bear with me.

I see a lot of... similarities, but you decide.

2 of Swords/2 of Spades (Finn): Intuition, balance, calmness, it’s also related to the justice and judgement card of major arcana (making moral decisions, essentially carries the same meaning). In general, 2 in tarot represents opposing forces, seeking balance and peace of mind, then moving forward from an inner struggle once they find it.

5 of Cups/5 of Hearts (Chris): Grief over past events, inability to see the bright side in any situation. 5 card symbolizes tragedy in all suits... it either means loss, defeat, or betrayal, but the meaning is somewhat brighter when reversed, and I think it’s the only card to do so? Tarot cards generally have better outcome when upright. Its major arcana counterpart, the hierophant, can represent a role model.

7 of Pentacles/7 of Diamonds (Leo): Success, commitment towards work. In reverse position it also means bad investment haha. 7 in general represents not only determination and self confidence, but also overcoming challenges in the “survival of the fittest” sense.

1 of Swords/Ace of Spades (Wendy): Conquest, triumph, a great force in everything, so it can either mean victory or disaster. In tarot 1 symbolizes beginnings, potential, and early stages of endeavor. I like the sound of that!

3 of Wands/3 of Clubs (Vijay): Achievement, optimism, fresh start, partnerships. It’s a calm card? 3 in general represents communication and interaction, also influence over partners in friendships and work. It can mean facilitating creation, growth, development, and growth as well.

3. Original design of each suit’s King card

Okay so this one is one of the less important details but it’s just too interesting to pass up. Apparently the visual interpretation of the Kings is like this:

...sounds familiar, huh?

I just want to appreciate Ebimo aka HC character designer, it seems that she really did her research right lmao.

Another interesting point is the King of Hearts is sometimes called the “suicide king” because he appears to be “stabbing his own head” in his card due to mass production error, but it’s hilarious to me.

4. Correlations with the major arcana?

The 52-card deck we have right now have nothing to do with the major arcana, but we can still draw lines between some of the cards and figures in the Fourland folktale?

The Magician card, for example, fits right with the role of the Mage from whom X-playing cards’ abilities originate. The Magician represents manifestation of desire and one’s potentials, and the card illustration itself show all four of the suits symbols (cup, sword, coins, club). Meanwhile, there is also The Fool card, sometimes called to be the Joker of tarot, as it can be the highest or lowest trump. The Fool represents a “protagonist” or just “humankind itself”, which I think fits right with the role of the boy-king.

Let me know what you think!

#highcard #high card #finn oldman #chris redgrave #leo constantine pinochle #wendy sato #vijay kumar singh

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ccchloister · 10 months

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It's so strange how the problems that come with existing online have forced me to find words to explain concepts that I assumed were mostly universal. I thought knowledge, talent, expertise, hard work and persistence were skills that were valuable and should be encouraged in everyone. A.I. has taught me otherwise.

A.I. might as well stand for Anti-Intellectualism, because that's the spirit behind the excitement. It literally takes the skill and labor out of skilled labor. Learning is being treated like an inconvenience, a problem to be eliminated in the name of efficiency. Entire disciplines are being treated as grand sacrifices in the name of mass production and instant gratification.

Why does art need to be efficient? It's not food. It's not medicine. It's not shelter. How fast are people shoveling content into their gob that between social media, streaming, and physical media, it's still not enough? Technology has already pushed creators to pumping out content at an unhealthy and unnatural rate just to try to appease social media algorithms. Now that same output is being used to train new algorithms to pump it out even faster while cutting creators out entirely. It’s sick and cruel. And instead of this exploitation being treated like an injustice that needs to be corrected, I'm told "It's inevitable. Adapt or die. Don't put your work online if you don't want it taken", delivered either with condescending pity, callous apathy, or malicious glee.

If A.I. fans aren't taking the "hardened pragmatic realist" approach, then they are shallowly aping socialist ideas, blaming capitalism for exploitation, not the tech. A very "guns don't kill people, people kill people" take. Just because exploitation of creatives is not a new concept doesn't mean A.I. isn't responsible for making it INFINITELY WORSE. They’ve also decided that people shouldn't be pursuing art and knowledge for the sake of profit and that the skilled creators trying to protect their labor are greedy, elitist gatekeepers trying to keep art from "the common man" (because creatives aren't the common man, apparently). It's that same resentment and distrust of experts that's typical of anti-intellectualism, except creative fields are in this weird place where they aren't even respected the way STEM is, so there's an extra layer of belittling and disrespect to the othering. Consumers feel entitled to art, but they don't understand how it's made, and they definitely don't respect it as a discipline.

The glut of creative content available for "the common man" to consume has never been greater or more accessible, but it's still not enough. It's not enough to just consume art. They want ownership. They want the sense of accomplishment that comes from making something, without having actually *made* it. And despite their finger-wagging at creatives wanting to protect their careers, they also want to make some money. Etsy is flooded with A.I. prints, kindle is filled with A.I. books, spotify is loaded with A.I. songs. There’s even A.I. kickstarters. Along with replacing writers and animators, CEOs want to replace actors, voice actors, and models with simulacrums they can make do whatever they want, forever, and A.I. fans are hoping they'll be the ones hired to facilitate that process. Even without actively profiting, A.I. still devalues the work of skilled laborers. Why commission a skilled artist when for 15 dollars you can buy a machine that will give you infinite works of the same or better quality, instantly? Do you have faith in consumers to prioritize ethics over convenience? Do you think it's right and fair and good to make compensating skilled creators an act of charity rather than a necessity?

A.I. users overestimate their contribution to the final product, thinking their idea is so unique and their vision so strong, that of course they should claim ownership… conveniently ignoring all the infinite little decisions A.I. made for them based off the knowledge and fine motor skills of millions of artists. It's like they think fully realized Good Ideas are a natural resource waiting to be excavated, and traditional creators had the unfair advantage of pickaxes, physical strength and a knowledge of geology to find the rich veins. Now A.I. is providing scanners and and powerful machinery so "the common man" doesn't need strength or knowledge to quickly mine those same veins first.

But that's not what art is, and that's not how creation works. Art is communication. Imagination is fostered through life experience, observation and processing information with your human brain. It's something every living person could do, because every person is unique with unique life experiences. Creation is practice, study, experimentation, problem solving, and adapting to limitations. There is nothing stopping anyone from doing these things. Natural ability has been grossly overvalued: most people with "talent" were not making hyper-realistic paintings at 13 like Picasso. What happens is a child shows a slight aptitude, the adults in their life notice and give them positive reinforcement, and then they are motivated and encouraged to pursue that interest. So instead of treating the naturally talented as having an unfair advantage, why not blame the adults in your life for not encouraging your interests at a young age. Or if you want to be brutally honest, blame yourself for not pursuing your interests despite a lack of external validation. You have agency.

I try to imagine, what is an A.I. fan's idea of a perfect future? One where no one has any advantages that another person doesn't, where "everyone's special so no ones special"? Where all labor is automated and no one has to do anything they don't want to and everyone spends their infinite free time bettering themselves for it's own sake rather than for money? Every time they mention the evils of capitalism and how we need universal basic income and other ideas of a post-work society it makes me want to pull my hair out. We don't *have* those things. We aren't even close to those things. So it is functionally useless to factor that into your argument. Who is Tech to use A.I.'s elimination of thousands of jobs in non-Tech industries as a bargaining chip to try and incentivize the government to create safety nets for those displaced? Since when has your government prioritized it's citizens over corporations? Have proponents always been this naive, or only when trying to assuage concerns over the consequences of their new toy?

Even if we did achieve that techie utopia, what makes them think most people will use their free time productively, exercising their brain for it's own sake? Because speaking for myself, I can have every good intention of using my time to create and learn, but those things frequently lose out to short term, dopamine-driven feedback loops like social media and video games. Without any external incentives, I guarantee far less people will pursue learning for its own sake if the knowledge-based roles that keep society functioning are filled by machines. Think of how we've had to reintroduce exercise into are lives just for exercise's sake. Hows that going? Again, speaking for myself as an overweight person: Not Great. I might intellectually know physical fitness is important, but the difficulty and unenjoyable nature of exercise and the benefits not being immediate and obvious means it frequently loses out to activities I do enjoy. I know not everyone is like me, but many, many people are. Now replace physical fitness with cognitive abilities. Abilities that require work, who's benefits are totally abstract, and would be wholly unnecessary for living in an A.I dependent society. If that doesn't give you chills up your spine, then you must stand to benefit from a culture of stupidity that's hopelessly dependent on tech. And I hate you.

No ones going to read all this.

#AI #Tech #Art #Artists #creation #anti intellectualism #knowledge #labor #exploitation #Long #word dump #future

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alienerad · 20 days

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The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects, by lowering what Mr. Churchill calls an "iron curtain" between the masses and such facts or arguments as the local political bosses regard as undesirable, totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have done by the most eloquent denunciations, the most compelling of logical rebuttals. But silence is not enough. If persecution, liquidation and the other symptoms of social friction are to be avoided, the positive sides of propaganda must be made as effective as the negative. The most important Manhattan Projects of the future will be vast governmentsponsored enquiries into what the politicians and the participating scientists will call "the problem of happiness" — in other words, the problem of making people love their servitude. Without economic security, the love of servitude cannot possibly come into existence; for the sake of brevity, I assume that the all-powerful executive and its managers will succeed in solving the problem of permanent security. But security tends very quickly to be taken for granted. Its achievement is merely a superficial, external revolution. The love of servitude cannot be established except as the result of a deep, personal revolution in human minds and bodies. To bring about that revolution we require, among others, the following discoveries and inventions. First, a greatly improved technique of suggestion — through infant conditioning and, later, with the aid of drugs, such as scopolamine. Second, a fully developed science of human differences, enabling government managers to assign any given individual to his or her proper place in the social and economic hierarchy. (Round pegs in square holes tend to have dangerous thoughts about the social system and to infect others with their discontents.) Third (since reality, however Utopian, is something from which people feel the need of taking pretty frequent holidays), a substitute for alcohol and the other narcotics, something at once less harmful and more pleasure-giving than gin or heroin. And fourth (but this would be a long-term project, which it would take generations of totalitarian control to bring to a successful conclusion) a foolproof system of eugenics, designed to standardize the human product and so to facilitate the task of the managers.

/ Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

#quotes #aldous huxley #brave new world #literature #classic literature #books #books and reading #social control #sociology #propaganda #dystopian novel

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hunklet · 2 years

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another day of being furious at how the "100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions" statistic has been manipulated for leftists in capitalist economies to completely absolve themselves from acknowledging how we as a society need to change our consumption habits (and that means the individuals who make society. all of us). i seriously hate that the buck for so many stops at "omg it's the companies not me!" like i think it's equally important that 90% of those emissions are associated with the use of products from the 20 most polluting companies (overwhelmingly oil, fracked gas, or petrol) that go into mass producing and shipping the products of convenience that we in capitalist economies have been defanged by. likeee the top 3 biggest plastic polluters are consumer based companies that in addition to the plastic waste they facilitate everywhere also have massive emissions from utilizing oil & gas from other top polluting companies to produce the shit they sell to us

production/consumption/exploitation/pollution are all part of the same cycle, sides of the same cube. everything consumed and used is produced somewhere somehow by someone using something that came from somewhere going in an infinite chain. none of this happens separately from each other, it is all interconnected this is all in response to manufactured demand and we need to literally stop buying into it

#sorry.... pissed off as usual after talking to a fellow young urban professional with their head buried in the sand

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usafphantom2 · 3 months

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Italy will buy more StormBreaker bombs and AMRAAM missiles for its F-35 fighters

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 02/16/2024 - 16:00in Armaments, Military

The United States Department of State has approved two potential sales of advanced aerial weapons packages to the Italian Republic, intended to equip its Lockheed Martin F-35A/B Lightning II multifunction fighters. These two packages are valued at about 220 million dollars.

Italians plan to buy a batch of RTX GBU-53/B StormBreaker SDB-II guided pumps. Rome intends to increase the package by 125 units and eight mass dimension simulators. Previously, Italians received approvals to buy 48 GBU-53/B SDB-II bombs and four mass-sized simulators.

The new lot was valued at a maximum of US$ 150 million. The first bombs destined for Italy were contracted in December last year.

StormBreaker GBU-53/B pumps, thanks to their multifunctional guidance system, can be used to destroy stationary and mobile targets. Due to their light weight (93 kg), they can be transported in greater numbers by multifunctional combat aircraft, allowing them to eliminate a greater number of targets and minimizing collateral damage around the attack site.

As part of the second approved application, the Italians want to purchase twelve more AIM-120C-8 AMRAAM guided missiles. This case also involves an extension of a previously approved request, which also included twelve missiles along with the necessary logistics package. In this case, the total (24 missiles together with the necessary additional and support elements) was valued at a maximum of 70 million dollars.

Both StormBreaker and AMRAAM missiles will serve as critical improvements to the Italian F-35 Lightning II fleet, reinforcing its air-to-air and air-to-ground combat capabilities.

Tags: AIM-120 AMRAAMAMI - Italian Military Aeronautics/Italian Air ForceweaponsMilitary AviationF-35 Lightning IIRaytheonStormBreaker

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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. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.