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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months

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Thankful for class consciousness

On November 27, I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

Before the term "ecology" came along, people didn't know they were on the same side. You care about owls, I care about the ozone layer – what does the destiny of charismatic nocturnal avians have to do with the gaseous composition of the upper atmosphere?

But as James Boyle has written, the term "ecology" welded together a thousand issues into a single movement. When we talk about "looking at our world through a lens," this is what we mean – apply the right analytical lens and a motley assortment of disparate causes becomes a unified, coherent project:

https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=dlj

Unfettered, planet-destroying, worker immiserating corporate power is only possible in the absence of such a lens. Before neoliberalism can destroy our lives, it must first convince us that we are all disconnected. "There is no such thing as society," isn't just an empty slogan: it's a weapon for dismantling the democratically accountable structures that can stand against industrial tyrants.

That's why neoliberalism is so viciously opposed to all kinds of solidarity, why corporate apologists insist that the only elections that matter are the ones where you "vote with your wallet." It's no surprise that the side with the thickest wallets wants to replace ballots with dollars!

Today, at long last, after generations of deadly corporate power-grabs, we are living through an ecology moment where all kind of fights are coalescing into one big fight: the fight to save democracy from oligarchy.

There are many tributaries flowing into this mighty river, but two of the largest are antitrust and labor. Antitrust seeks to ensure that our world is regulated by democratically accountable lawmakers who deliberate in public, rather than shareholder-accountable monopolists who deliberate in smoke-filled rooms. Labor seeks to ensure that contests between profit for the few and prosperity for the many are decided in favor of people, not profit.

This coalition is so powerful that the ruling class has never stopped attacking it. Indeed, the history of US antitrust law can be viewed as a succession of ever-more-insistent laws enacted solely to make it clear to deliberately obtuse judges that competition law is aimed at corporations, not unions:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

Rising corporate power and declining worker power is bad for all of us. The failure of successive US administrations to block airline mergers led to sky-high prices and a proliferation of "junk fees" that can double the price of a ticket. The monopoly carriers stand to make $118b this year from these fees:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90981005/airlines-fees-118-billion-dark-patterns

The consolidation of the agricultural sector led to cartels that conspired to rig the prices of our food. These Les Mis LARPers rigged the price of bread!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-bread-price-fixing-1.6883783

Remember eggflation? Nearly all the eggs in US grocery stores come from a single company, Cal-Maine, which owns dozens of brands, including "Farmhouse Eggs, Sunups, Sunny Meadow, Egg-Land’s Best and Land O’ Lakes eggs":

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/13/business/egg-prices-cal-maine-foods/index.html

With all our eggs in one basket, it was easy for a single company to rig the egg market, blaming everything from bird flu to Russian invasion of Ukraine for doubling egg prices while their profits shot up by 65%:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/23/cant-make-an-omelet/#keep-calm-and-crack-on

Antitrust isn't just about monopoly – it's also about oligopoly. The American meat cartel pretends that it's not rigging markets by outsourcing its price-fixing to a "clearinghouse" called Agri Stats:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

Agri-Stats gets data from all the Big Meat companies, "anonymizes" it, and publishes it back to its subscribers, who use the service to coordinate across-the-board price-hikes that have cost the public billions in price gouging (meanwhile, Big Meat was able to secure $50b in public subsidies).

For forty years, governments have ceded power to "autocrats of trade" who usurped control "over the production, transportation, and sale of the necessaries of life":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/20/we-should-not-endure-a-king/

But that era is coming to an end. In the past year, American regulators have blocked airline mergers and promulgated rules banning junk fees. They've dragged price-fixing clearinghouses into court:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-turkey-eggs-and-air-travel-just

They're getting results, too: for the second year in a row, turkey prices are down. Cranberries, too (18%). Same for whipping cream (25%). Pie crusts are down. So are russet potatoes. Airfares are down 13.2%.

The egg cartel just lost a long-running court case over the last egg price-fixing campaign, which gouged Americans from 1990-2008:

https://www.pymnts.com/cpi_posts/kellogg-kraft-secure-victory-in-price-fixing-lawsuit-against-egg-producers

The same fact-pattern that was revealed in that court case is repeated in this year's eggflation scandal:

https://farmaction.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Farm-Action-Letter-to-FTC-Chair-Lina-Khan.pdf

That's terrific ammo for the FTC, and will doubtless benefit the Democrats running against would-be Indiana senator John Rust, whose family owns convicted egg cartel member Rose Acre Farms and whose wife just stepped down as chair of the board.

One underappreciated aspect of the global war on corporate power is that the same corporations commit the same crimes in countries all over the world, which means that whenever any government establishes evidence of those crimes, they are of use to all the other governments. Competition enforcers from the UK, EU, USA, Singapore, South Korea and elsewhere are coordinating to target the Big Tech cartel. Maybe Google and Facebook and Apple are bigger enough to resist any one of those governments – but all of them?

https://cmadataconference.co.uk/

One notable absence from the anti-monopoly coalition is Canada. While other countries merely stopped enforcing their competition laws in the neoliberal era, Canada never had a good competition law to enforce. Canada's official tolerance for monopolies has allowed a handful of companies to seize control over the economy of Canada and the lives of Canadians:

https://www.canadaland.com/shows/commons-monopoly/

These monopolies are largely controlled by powerful families, Canada's de facto aristocracy, whose wealth and power make them above the law and subordinate the country's democratic institutions to billionaires' whims:

https://www.canadaland.com/tag/dynasties/

At long last, Canada has called time on oligarchy. Last week's Fall Economic Statement included an announcement of a muscular new competition law, including new merger guidelines, a new "abuse of dominance" standard, and Right to Repair rules:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7132855021548769282/

The law also includes interoperability mandates for Canada's highly concentrated – and deeply corrupt – banking sector. These measures are strikingly similar to new measures just introduced in the US by the CFPB:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/21/let-my-dollars-go/#personal-financial-data-rights

The arrival of Canada's first fit-for-purpose competition rule coincides with all kinds of solidaristic movements in Canada that are fighting corporate power from the bottom up. Even Ontario, led by one of the most corrupt premiers in provincial history, can't break its teachers' union:

https://globalnews.ca/news/10105600/ontario-elementary-teachers-reach-contract-deal/

It's not just workers who benefit from solidarity: Tenants' unions have formed across the province in response to corporate takeovers of scarce rental stock. These finance-sector landlords have armies of lawyers who've figured out how to bypass rent-control rules and evict tenants who balk. Rather than rolling over, tenants' unions are organizing waves of rent-strikes:

https://macleans.ca/longforms/rent-strikes-canada/

As with Big Tech, the illegal tactics of the rental sector aren't confined to a single nation. In America, Wall Street landlords have dramatically increased the price of housing and kicked off an eviction epidemic the likes of which the country has never seen:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

And as with Big Meat, landlords use arm's-length clearing houses to rig rental markets, coordinating across-the-board rent hikes:

https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent

In other words: to fix the housing market, tenants all over the world need to learn the tactics of labor unions. Housing regulators have to learn from agricultural regulators. Americans tenants have to learn from Canadians. These aren't 1,000 different fights – they're one big fight, and the coalition for dismantling corporate power is vast and powerful.

The most powerful weapons our bosses have is convincing us that we are weak and they are strong – so strong that we shouldn't even try to fight them. But solidarity is absurdly powerful, which is why they go to such great lengths to discredit it. In Sweden, the solidarity strikes against Tesla – who refuses to recognize its maintenance workers' union – have spread to nine unions.

Tesla can't get its cars offloaded at the ports. It can't get its showrooms cleaned. No one will deliver its mail. No one will fix its chargers. The strike is spreading to Germany, and workers at its giant Berlin factory is set to walk out:

https://www.metafilter.com/201514/Swedish-Tesla-workers-go-on-strike

There's something delicious about how palpably frustrated Elon Musk is by all this, as he realizes that neither his billions nor his bully pulpit are a match for workers in solidarity:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-23/elon-musk-calls-swedish-tesla-strikes-insane-as-impact-spreads

It's a reminder of just how fragile and weak billionaires are, when we stop believing in them and deferring to them. Rebecca Solnit's latest Guardian column adds up the ways that allowing billionaires to run the show puts us all in danger:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/20/billionaires-great-carbon-divide-planet-climate-crisis

They are the unelected "autocrats of trade" who control "the production, transportation, and sale of the necessaries of life." They are the force that this new ecology movement is coalescing to fight: across borders, across sectors, across identities. No matter whether you are a worker, a tenant, a voter, a shopper or a citizen, your enemy is the billionaire class.

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/2023/11/24/coalescence/#solidarnosc

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vihattu-thethoroughbredofsin · 1 year

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Humans Are Space Orcs and Transformers (some ideas)

Okay, a few posts on the topic "humans are space orcs and transformers" inspired me to expand this topic. Maybe some ideas from one of my reblogs will repeat, but what can I do.

The canon of transformers in all works has extremely belittled humans for an obvious reason — the central theme is cool robots, and people are templates for the viewer's projection (or budget savings, because it will be easier to draw / model people, so you can save on reducing the number of frames with robots).

But if we move away from this and look towards the realistic relationship between humanity and Cybertronians, then we could come up with a bunch of interesting situations that few of the creators have thought of.

For example, transformers consider humans weak and pathetic because we are small and organic. Yes, realistic for a first impression. But why don't people treat them the same when they first meet? We humans are very sensitive to technology, because we know that even an industrial robot can fail, because the more complex the technology, the more variables that can break. Just look at the reaction of the owner of the car, if it was even slightly pushed by something (if there was no person inside, of course). Where are the people who start panicking at every fight, where is the human who is on the verge of a heart attack looking for the number of the nearest car service station after hearing that their Cybertronian friend fell into the lake? Eventually we would have realized that transformers are tougher, but the initial reaction would have been like this.

Although, why wouldn't Earth be a dangerous place? After all, water getting inside the transformer frame, stones and sand getting stuck in the welds of the transformation, cold and frozen water could be a huge constant problem, since this is a non-standard environment for their kind. But this is usually skipped, although it could be a plot reason for friendship with people who could help with this, since they are familiar with similar problems with their equipment. Yes, in some continuities it rains acid on Cybertron and all that, but this does not make the Earth some kind of paradise in comparison.

Why is there not a single moment where a hyperactive person tries to find some softer place on a bet, a wire or an energy line, for example, and bite? People like to mess around like that, especially friends. And how much Cybertronians can be surprised by their friend's phrase about wanting to eat them because of tender feelings (it won't help if they find out about the case of the plane being eaten).

Where is this here: — Energon is delicious, right? — For us, yes, but you can't. — ... — No, this is fatal poisoning for your kind! — I'LL DIE TRYING, JENNY, GEORGIE, WHERE'S THE CAMERA?!

Where is the test drive of all the possibilities of your metal friend? — And then you jump and transform around me! — I'm afraid you'll be crushed. — Okay, let's try with the dummy first.

Why has everyone forgotten Astoria's legacy and is no longer trying to inter-species romance? Where are the strange courtship on the part of humans, such as going to a premium car wash, trying to synthesize delicious energon for a date, incredible rage against someone who somehow offended a love interest? In the end, it's also a great ground for tragic stories, people don't live long, and Cybertronians are constantly putting themselves in danger. And longing after a moment of attachment in time is just as sad as a human's attempt to somehow preserve the memory of a seemingly immortal and invincible friend, which there is no one else to keep, and this, too, will not last long.

Humans are described mostly as useless friends who, for the convenience of the plot, are usually taken hostage or simply useless in this war as a species.

And it's just surprising. Humans. Useless. In the war. Humans who fought before they took a stick and a stone in their hand and from that moment improved weapons, skills and techniques of conflict management. Humans whose military demands move science to the same extent as industrial ones. And we wouldn't have found a way to fight alien robots? The first question that the military would ask scientists is how to break through Cybertronian armor and at what temperature it melts (and don't ask where they will take samples). Having suffered in the early stages, we would have regrouped and thought about what to do next. People are small, so they will fight back much more fiercely if they are cornered by someone big. This is quite common among animals, so it would be a natural thing among humans. To set traps using our specific landscape, to drive the enemy there with the help of energon, which can be poisoned, even if they take it away, they will still get hit. It didn't work out to fight with our weapons — we will improve, it didn't work out too — we will steal their weapons. Open war is not an option? You can fight a guerrilla war.

And it's not worth saying what a real nightmare we can do if the government delays recognizing the extension of humane treatment laws to Decepticons. If this law is often violated in conventional wars, then it's scary to imagine if it will be abolished here in relation to the enemy at all. And if researchers with a scientific interest get involved in this... History has a huge number of examples of what our curiosity is capable of. — And then, later, we realized how to turn off their pain receptors! — Yes, but it wasn't necessary anymore.

Allow a mad scientist to make a mecha suit out of a dead Decepticon and send the most reckless soldier to the battlefield. Not as the most effective combat unit, but as a intimidation and demonstration of what we can do with your dead brothers in arms. I have no doubt that someone would have thought of it (well, I thought of it...). Adaptivity, ingenuity, quick learning, desperation and recklessness — this is the main weapons of humanity.

And who said that transformers will necessarily be effective in war? The fact that they have been fighting for millions of years does not mean that they are doing it successfully, just the opposite (Even your vaunted IDW shows some kind of sucks instead of logical fighting). In the end, they have soldiers and units of military equipment are the same thing, in which case both are lost. In addition, if humans can retrain soldiers and transfer them to other duties, then you will not force those who transform into a tank to replace the seekers when there is a shortage. Moreover, in most continuities, in principle, Cybertronians have difficulties with reproducing numbers, because it's cool to get adult fighters and members of society at once, but when this process depends in most cases on your planet, which is most often a little dead, or some artefacts, then scores with humans begin to be compared. With certain difficulties and with the expenditure of time, but humanity can reproduce itself independently in theory wherever there are suitable conditions for the life of our species. Probably winning option could be a superweapon to blow up the entire planet at once, then yes, it's successful.

Well, just go to any forum ala "Why mechs from anime sucks!" and there will be an essay for a thousand pages about the fact that such a humanoid form is ineffective in war with a whole list of methods for breaking these things (hit the joints and the head — the very first rule).

Oh, you can say, "But in IDW, people were doing something there!". No. The humans there were mostly exposed as idiots, who, as it turned out, acted according to the plans of the Decepticons. Humans weren't even allowed to be evil on their own! They can be shown as good and evil, your favorite gray morality (which never really existed in IDW), but there is no this, just another stick in the Atobot wheel from the Decepticons.

It's just that sometimes I want to tell the authors of works on this franchise to decide not to include humans at all or, since they had to bring in their participation, AT LEAST TRY TO WRITE A STORY LOGICALLY. I understand that many authors are stuck in some kind of teenage "humans are not cool!", especially those who are responsible for the plot of comics, but this does not justify laziness in terms of the plot with people. Even if you were forced, well, at least try to do the job well and efficiently, and do not turn everything into some kind of fan fiction with crushing "stupid and pathetic flesh". It hasn't been entertaining anyone for a long time.

I'm not asking to include humans in every story, but maybe it's possible to try something new for them at least once in more than 30 years of franchise history? Humans are boring just because the authors don't want and don't know how to work with them, that's all.

#Transformers #maccadam #humans are space orcs #humans are weird #humanity fuck yeah #humanity is underrated #humans are deathworlders #Earth is a space asylum #Earth is a deathworld

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ezras--moon · 2 months

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Disorganized Attachment - Chapter 1: Fibonacci

IT'S FINALLY HERE!

Dieter x adult actress reader (no age gap, both in their early/mid 40s)

18+ although this chapter does not contain any explicit smut yet.

This work contains a lot of cursing, talks about substance abuse, mental illness, violence, and I have not researched anything about the film or p**n industry, so if that's not your thing, scroll on. (it is surprisingly soft and fluffy though)

More warnings: Negative self talk/thoughts, body image issues.

word count: 5364

Where to begin?

You and Dieter met in high school, drama and art classes. You had a secret crush on him back then, but thought he was kind of a dick, too. He was envious, or even jealous, of your ability to memorize long monologues seemingly overnight. These ridiculous reasons were mainly why you didn’t become friends then yet, just secretly harbored certain feelings for each other. If just one of you had pulled their head out of their ass and talked to the other, you would have realized very quickly that you were two peas in a pod.

When you met again in college, you had all your acting, theater and film related classes together. You stuck to each other then, because you were both from the same hometown, and you’d both changed and grown. Experimenting with drugs welded you closer together, and you woke up in each other’s dorms after lawless nights quite a few times. Dieter began auditioning long before you both graduated, so did you. He was more successful pretty much from the beginning. You congratulated each other on a few projects, his always bigger than yours, and then at some point you just went your separate ways in Hollywood.

You still privately kept up to date with Dieter’s work and achievements; you watched the Oscars the year he won one of the categories he was nominated for, with a friend over the phone, squealing over the line and damn near rupturing her eardrum at the announcement of the winner. And he looked so handsome on screen, even with the sadness and hubris in his dark eyes that you were well acquainted with.

He’d told you all the stories throughout your time in college together. The abuse, the violent reign of his strict parents drilling him to be the best in all his classes, to always get the big roles he auditioned for… and the harsh punishment if he didn’t. The constant pressure to be perfect and likeable, the emotional neglect in between his successes. What they never really gave a shit about was if he was happy.

While Dieter went off to become a real movie star, you struggled and clung on to shadier and shadier gigs, until you finally landed in the adult film industry. You’d tried your best and worked really hard to make a name for yourself in this new field, and you did, you succeeded!

Your screen name was a secret to most people you interacted with in your daily life, you kept a strict line between your private matters and your work. Many of your loose acquaintances believed you were simply “in the film industry”, which was technically true. Sometimes, when you met someone new and they asked what you did for a living, you could see the split second of recognition in their eyes and then, as soon as possible, you’d drop them like hot potatoes. Better not to get involved with fans.

Now…

Around the time when you sign a contract with a new agency, Dieter’s spiraling into another crisis. He’s coked up to the max, never not high anymore, and during the short, intermittent down periods he thinks he’s worthless and needs to rebrand himself. All of his unusually bottomless lows are followed by particularly severe manic episodes lately, in which he comes up with things to do to revolutionize his public persona, and he won’t hear anyone out who tries to stop him. Because of the excessive amount of cocaine he consumes, he believes himself to be in possession of the necessary skills and fortitude to star in a real, professional porn movie during this particular spiral.

And thank Mother Gaia for modernity, because his manager isn’t even opposed to the idea.

“Get me the most expensive co-star you can find to do this with me!” he barks into his phone, ordering some poor fool at his agency out to get him a role in a big production.

There isn’t much hope, Dieter thinks, that he’ll get anyone exceptionally hot, no matter their price tag - he’s getting old and has gained a few pounds since the peak of his career. But then again, it’s mostly the women in porn who are under pressure to be perfect, fresh off the rack, if they want to make it in the industry. And not just in some niche fetish market, but instead the very top of the food chain, the big studios, like Brazzers or Tushy dot com. His other, admittedly quite reasonable, hope for a really fuckable scene partner is that having an actual Oscar winning movie star like himself, aging and getting heavy or not, fuck his pent-up frustration into a dimepiece on camera would drive sales exponentially more than if he did it to a bridge troll. Fuck, he really should see his therapist again. These horrible thoughts about people’s looks, including his own, can’t be beneficial to his already dwindling mental stability. But that guy is a leech; even as rich as Dieter is nowadays, the rates of a decent therapist are nauseating.

When you receive the offer, you’re just on your way to a set, somewhere up in the hills. You don’t read the e-mail until late that night. The header gives away what type of shoot it’s going to be - a celebrity, a real movie star, and this time not just for a private sex tape. No, this time an A-list Hollywood actor wants to actually publish the tape. It’s guaranteed to make headlines for weeks. This would most definitely be the next Big Thing for you.

It takes you a while to read the wall of text before you find the name of the actor at the bottom of the page. You gasp, then break out into a fit of bewildered little laughs.

Dieter Bravo! You damn outlaw.

You know he probably has no idea his people sent yours an offer, nor that you would definitely say yes, if he’s even aware you’re in this business - it isn’t likely that he knows your screen name either, because you would hope to have heard from him on social media if he had. You’ve followed him since you made your professional account.

The next morning, you wake up bright and early to give Dieter’s agent a call back, accept the job, make an appointment to sign the contract, and go get a fresh bikini waxing. You can’t wait to see Dieter again. Get to fuck him again, if the surprise of seeing you show up for the shoot doesn’t turn him off of it entirely.

As the aesthetician, a close friend of yours affectionately nicknamed Barbie, rips away at the wax strips to get rid of the bush you’d grown out for a vintage shoot, you think about him and what he used to mean to you.

You tell Barbie about him, in between wincing through the pain of the waxing; you tell her that when you were young, your bodies taut and lean, you enjoyed each other’s company very much. And about the things you’d say to each other in bed, how you could never stop praising his heavy cock, how deliciously it burned when he pistoned it into your welcoming heat; how he couldn’t stop sucking on your tits and emptying his balls into you, again and again for hours until there was nothing left to fill you with, always high on something.

You know what he looks like, you’ve seen him at red carpets from the comfort of your living room, even this year - Barbie remembers when you screamed at her over the phone and she tried to match your excitement. She also remembers all the times you were intoxicated and reminisced about past loves, your dreamy retelling of your experiences always circling back to Dieter in the end.

But the new memories all just come from images on screens, they’re not real memories of him. The last real one is over a decade old.

The contract you sign is your agency’s standard adult film production contract, you’ve signed hundreds like this before. Every rich adult film connoisseur who’s into “older” women wants a piece of you.

Several days pass after you sign, before you hear back and receive a shooting date very soon after.

“Mr. Bravo would appreciate it if we could make it happen as soon as possible.” your agent relays to you on the phone. “Fine by me. I can definitely squeeze it in next week.” you reply.

That day…

Rolling up to his house in the hills, your manager drives you through the LA afternoon traffic, and ultimately you're twenty-five minutes late. “We should have known it was gonna be like this” you complain to your manager, a woman your age named Tonya with round, red cheeks, who’s raised five children by herself. “Nonsense. I guarantee you, this guy’s going to be even later himself. These A-listers usually are, they’re too self important to be on time. Now go, get up there! I’ll be right behind you.”

You grab your handbag and your cosmetics, wallet and phone secure in your jacket, and make your way up the thirty-something steps to ring Dieter Bravo’s doorbell.

A stern looking woman with a sleek black librarian hairdo and penciled-in eyebrows of the same color lets you into the mansion; she’s surprisingly nice. You’re instructed to take a seat in Dieter’s living room, on a comfortable couch. You don’t mind the staff standing by the open doors, and change into your outfit out in the open there - a pitch black, crotchless leotard, equally dark ballerina flats, and a thin pink robe for modesty before the shoot starts. Someone from the production crew arrives and brings a make-up artist, who makes you look a decade younger. That takes almost two full hours and removes any remaining shred of your guilt about being late. It's a bothersome process, but might increase the chances he’ll recognize you.

Finally, after another ten more minutes of waiting for him, his majesty makes an appearance, coming from the garage. He’s dressed in a cornflower blue robe, a fluffy, well-worn thing, and chanclas, along with sweatpants. He holds a starbucks cup in his hand and peeks at everyone in the room over the rim of a pair of sunglasses, chewing gum. His hair is as messy as ever, a patchy, scruffy looking beard on his face now. He’s sporting several heavy rings on various fingers and has a chain with an upside-down cross around his neck.

And then he spots you. You can see the exact moment it clicks for him, and everything falls into place. A sultry smirk at him, a wink perhaps, should do, so that’s what you respond with, to the look of pure befuddlement he shoots you.

He crosses the room so fast, he spills some of the whipped cream peeking over the rim of the cup he’s holding with an iron grip.

“What on earth are you doing in my house, Dolphin?” Oh, God, not that nickname… you visibly cringe, but then sigh and go in for a hug. He accepts without hesitation, and you note that he’s wonderfully warm and soft. It almost balances out the reminder of that time he renamed you against your will, when you were sitting out on the fire escape stairs of your dorms, smoking a blunt together. It would be a good memory if it wasn’t tainted by that nickname designed to drive you up the wall, when your hysterical laughter at one of his jokes resembled the call of a marine mammal.

“I was hired to have a certain movie star fuck the shit out of me on camera.” you tell him nonchalantly, and he bites down a laugh to counter. “I didn’t know you do porn. I thought you might still be doing theater, because I never saw you at any award shows. Is everything okay?” “Yes, Dieter, I’m fine. I’m financially stable, I’m nominated for an AVN this year; the only setback is I’ve recently been pushed into the MILF category. Absolutely killing it there, though.”

Dieter laughs at that, finally - a hearty cackle, and it causes your already buzzing head to flood with memories of that same laugh that are aeons old. You realize he never laughs like this in any of the interviews you’ve seen.

He pats your shoulder almost fraternally and sets down his drink to give you another hug. “I missed you, Dolphin.” “Please don’t call me that again. I’ll fucking leave and go home, I swear to God.” “Didn’t peg you to be particularly religious.” “I’ll fucking show you a pegging, amigo.” Again, you make Dieter laugh; he seems like he hasn’t earnestly laughed much in quite some time.

The two of you waste everyone else’s time while you catch up; you hear about his last ten years, he hears about yours, while you wander around the house and he shows you his awards. At some point, his manager shows up in the dining room, where Dieter is feeding you with the best bread you’ve ever had and antipasti from the catering cart, and reminds you both that you’re here for work.

You think it’s odd that Dieter decided to shoot this film in his home. He doesn’t seem to care and says this house has seen weirder things. It’s more convenient for him to do it here. Your worries about the media backlash directed at him that would inevitably follow the release of whatever you tape today remain a secret for now. It’s not your job to bring it up and you trust that all the adults involved know what they’re getting themselves into.

The set in a spare bedroom is all done, assembled, lit up and prepared; as a last effort to prevent disaster, somebody wearing a headset is grabbing a sphinx cat and removing it from under the massive king size centerpiece of the shot. They just exit the room with their arm full of what you think is a raw chicken when you walk in with Dieter and both your managers, who know each other and proceed to go have a conversation somewhere in the corner.

He introduces you to the director, a Finnish-American talent of the erotic arts, who then introduces herself as Ansa, and who’s supposed to make Dieter’s filthy vision a reality. The six foot four blonde with an angular jaw, who looks like she could easily be a famous basketball player, explains the concept of the Golden Ratio to you, but you have difficulties following, with the way Dieter is already staring at your mouth. “...in each shot, your two bodies have to be arranged in the exactly right way to align with the ratio, which you might know under its other commonly known name, the Fibonacci sequence. Well, technically the golden ratio and the Fibonacci sequence are different things, but they are closely associated with each other. We’ve come up with a few positions that work, they’re shown here-* She rambles on, then hands you a thin stack of cards, each depicting a drawing of a sexual position in which the visual lines and boundaries of the lovers’ bodies resemble a spiral from a certain angle. You look through them, wide-eyed, while Dieter chews on an Olive and ogles you over the rim of his sunglasses - shamelessly.

Ansa continues, “Somebody might have to touch you to adjust the position of a body part for the perfect shot. I hope you have an active gym membership, you might be forced to stay still and hold a difficult position for a while, through up to a few dozen of his thrusts, so we have enough material from each shot.”

Can’t we just start fucking? Why does it matter how I sit on his dick? Besides, the whole Fibonacci sequence thing is kind of overplayed, isn’t it? Hasn’t this shit been done a million times before? There’s songs about it, media that’s structured according to it, stuff that won Grammys and everything. It’s been a meme online, too, people already laugh about it.

Those are the gripes coming up in your head in quick succession, and you don't fully realize that you say all of them out loud and worded exactly like that, making Dieter snort and bend over in a cackle. You blush, hard, and begin to stammer an apology for the bluntness, because she’s not used to your Modus Operandi yet and deserves some grace. This job could have very well been given to somebody else, somebody more demure and accepting of bullshit executive decisions.

Ansa just smiles at you, not quite as amused as Dieter seems to be, still giggling to himself. “You’re funny, I like your attitude,'' she says to interrupt your desaster of an apology before you embarrass yourself, and you notice that you like her subtle accent, although her non-answer annoys you.

You demand to know why they would ask you to sign a contract before letting you know this was going to be a cringefest, and then attempt to ask your questions again in a more respectful tone.

This is when Dieter realizes he’s missed you a whole lot more than he thought; you’re so quick on your feet, as you’ve always been. Just based on this, you haven’t aged a day. Ansa welcomes the rewording of your questions and finally grants you a real response.

She explains that that’s exactly the point of the scene. It’s supposed to drag this pretentious bullshit through the mud. It’s a direct parody of a short film Dieter starred in, ages ago, which you’d never seen, because it was such an obscure release with practically no advertising budget.

“I want to ruin that motherfucker’s career.” Dieter bites; he’s talking about whichever poor soul directed the atrocious short film. “He’s acting all uppity in the media after he landed a couple hits with some military propaganda, wastes of precious lifetime, bullshit ass movies.” You wonder why he’s so genuinely livid at this director, but he answers the question before you can ask it.

“This guy screwed me over so hard on that stupid short film, I almost died trying to appease him and his artistic sensibilities, because he convinced me he was doing something worth my while with it. He had me drenched outside at night in Whateverthefuck, Ohio, in the pouring October rain, wearing barely anything, contorting and curling up and posing like a spiral for hours, because no take was ever perfect. And then that garbage didn’t even make a profit, so I got pneumonia for nothing. I had to pay someone to take that disgrace off my Wikipedia and IMDB. I want to make fun of his yuppie ass, I want to make a pornographic parody of his dumb, pseudo-intellectual garbage movie that nearly cost me my life.”

You get it then. The second layer reveals itself to you from behind the curtain of your initial reaction. And with it, you drop the robe they’d handed you.

Dieter apologizes that he didn’t take the time to talk you through the project before you signed, but he wanted it done as soon as possible. You tell him it’s fine, usually your agency would have sent a request for more information, but you saw his name in that e-mail and didn’t hesitate.

He’s touched by this, though you begin to get a feeling that Dieter isn’t being honest about his intention to do this scene, or at the very least about his constitution. Constantly on edge, fidgeting, shifting his weight back and forth between both feet, extroverted. Friendly. He used to be quieter, and you wonder if he was miserable back then or if he is now, and if it’s your place to even ask.

There’s no time to, anyhow, with droves of production staff pouring into the room, until you and Dieter are practically pushed onto the bed while the camera tests begin. It’s busier than at any normal shoot, but he seems used to it, conversing with his assistant standing close by, about what he would like to order for dinner after. You’re puzzled when he turns to you to ask if you’d like to stay.

But again, no more time to answer questions, the stylist invades your space and touches up both of your faces and hair, and when the cameras are set to roll, everyone who isn’t essential to the shoot leaves the room. The question is long forgotten, when two more people roll a whiteboard into the room that has each of the possible Golden Ratio sexual positions pinned to it for easy review, before leaving as well.

Dieter is awfully quiet over the next few minutes, when the last round of preparations begin, right before they have some time to get each other turned on, and then the cameras are going to start rolling.

But it never comes to that.

What happens next is Dieter is having a panic attack. A full-on hyperventilating, pacing up and down, cursing and yelling and… crying? He’s crying, crashing. A second ago you were busy holding still for the touch-up, and now he’s sobbing.

You’re immediately overwhelmed with the situation, in your leotard and the ballerina flats, adjusting the shoulder straps and wordlessly watching as Dieter’s team attempts to calm him down. His manager seems to be desperate to get him to stay away from the set while he’s melting down, so he doesn’t ruin the professional relationships they were able to forge over it.

He’s so loud when he yells, you’re speechless. A moment ago he was content, laughing, talking about having dinner with you… Oh. You hadn’t given him your answer. You completely ignored his advance. He asked you to have dinner with him, and you ignored him, and now he’s breaking down in front of everybody.

It can’t be because of that. Can it? You stand up and put your pink robe back on, tying it in the front. Then, tip-toeing around the expensive equipment and slipping past all of the people outside the room, you make your way up to Dieter, who’s currently trying to vandalize the dining room, wielding some kind of award, ready to smash a glass table to bits with it. However, he’s being held back by his apparent crisis team, his manager trying to talk him down.

Now it makes sense to you that the set was so crowded, with half of the workers not even doing any active tasks. They’re there to monitor him and mitigate the damage in case he goes off the rails. On second thought, that sounds cartoonishly conspiratorial, like they’re drugging him on purpose or something.

You decide then and there to find out and try to help him, through whatever it is he’s burdoned with.

A step closer to him earns you a glare of disapproval from his manager, but you ignore it and take another. He’s like a feral animal, if only they had Steve Irwin here with a tranquilizer gun.

“It’s okay, Dee… it’s me. Look at me.” you say calmly, raising your hands to show him you don’t mean to restrain him like the others, and it’s not like you would even stand a chance to. He looks at you and you almost start crying too, he looks fucking miserable. “I don’t know what to dooo, oh God” he whines, still looking right at you, fat tears spilling from his wide open eyes that are so dark you can’t tell how blown his pupils are.

His manager looks surprised that he hasn’t tried to swing a fist at you yet, you’re stepping so close to him, and finally she gestures for the two burly guys holding him back to release him and give you both some space.

The out-of-control Hollywood actor in his giant mansion is coming back to his senses slowly, closing the remaining two or three feet of distance to pull you into a desperate embrace, soaking the strap of your leotard with his tears.

You wrap your arms around his middle and shush him, swaying him in place like a big baby and whispering reassurances into his ear. The entire thing is so fucking surreal, everyone’s eyes on you, and when they start whispering to each other so you can’t hear what they’re saying, you ask Dieter where you two can be alone.

You don’t expect him to be able to answer coherently, but the finger he points at a door down the hallway is enough. Keeping one arm around his waist, you lead him there step by step, past all the gawkers. It’s on you now to shoot them a glare, causing them to scatter behind you.

The door leads to another bedroom, which is in complete disarray and stuffed full of boxes overflowing with all kinds of shit. You lock up behind Dieter as he stumbles to the dusty bed and curls up on top of the covers, and you realize he’s been butt ass naked the entire time.

You grab a thin blanket hanging over a chair in the corner and make your way through the narrow path to the bed, past all his stuff. Climbing into bed behind him, you cover him and yourself with the soft blanket and spoon him, pressing a gentle kiss to his shoulder. He grabs your hand and squeezes it with a trembling sigh.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” you ask quietly, so careful not to tread him loose again with the wrong words. He breathes for a minute, deep inhales and long exhales, then croaks, “I hate myself.”

It’s a simple response, easy to understand in theory, but the reasons aren’t clear to you and you’re not sure if you should ask. “Why?” you whisper, pressing your cheek to the side of his neck and nuzzling closer to him. He’s so fucking soft and warm.

He scoffs, like it should be obvious, and you have a hunch but don’t dare to bring it up. “I’m such a fucking waste of space. I’m a piece of shit. I’m so sorry.”

Barely coherent through his tears, you just tighten your arm around him and give his shoulder another kiss. “Don’t say that. Let me help. We can figure this out.”

He shakes his head, “No, it’s fucking pointless. I’ve b-been to rehab so many times.”

“Are you high right now?” you continue to pry some answers from him with the patience of a saint that you’ve really only ever had for him, nobody else. He nods, sniffling and turning around in your grasp to face you. His eyes are red and puffy, cheeks wet, tears soaking his mustache. Up close like this, you can see the state of him clearly in his fully dilated pupils and everything else, and you swallow the emotions so you can be there for him, because what else are you supposed to do?

Thumbing away the tears that still keep coming, a seemingly endless well of them hidden under his eyes, you give him a soft smile. “I missed you, Dee. I’m so sorry we lost touch. Wish I could have been there for you all this time.”

“No, no, that’s not your fault. I’m an asshole, I should’ve called.” He brushes your hair behind your ear with a gentle touch that stands out in overwhelming contrast to his earlier demeanor, when he was about to smash his table with his award.

“Oh, you stop it. It doesn’t matter, I’m here now. And I’m not going to leave, unless you want me to.” you reassure him, and that finally seems to help, his features soften and he manages a crooked smile to try and match yours.

A harsh rap at the door startles you both, and suddenly he looks like a cornered animal again, sitting up and clutching the blanket to his chest. Giving his calf a reassuring squeeze, you slowly get up and walk to the door, unlocking it and cracking it open to peek out at whoever would have the audacity to knock like a cop right now.

It’s Tonya, your manager, behind Dieter’s manager whose name you’ve forgotten since you were introduced. You make an effort to look annoyed at them breaking the brief moment of peace, expecting an explanation. “We’re all leaving. I’ll call you in the morning, alright, sweetheart? Take care, and let me know if you need anything.” Tonya says, looking apologetic and her motherly nature appeases you. “Let me speak to him for a minute, please.” Dieter’s manager demands, but you refuse her with another glare. “Absolutely not.” Then you look back at Tonya with a much less furious look and a nod, “Drive safe, Tonya, I’ll text you if… yeah, I’ll text you.”

Tonya leaves, Dieter’s manager reluctantly follows, and you see some more people leaving and carrying gear out of the house. It’s suddenly very quiet, not even Dieter is making a sound anymore.

“Are they gone?” he asks after a while, when you shut the door again, locking it just in case.

“Yeah, they’re gone.” you assure him, and he lies back down on the bed with you, facing each other and holding hands. Yours are cold from clutching the door knob so harshly, and he warms them in his.

“Did I fuck it up?” he asks you after a while, the silence starting to make him uncomfortable.

“No, you didn’t fuck anything up. I promise.” You hook your pinky around his and look into his deep brown eyes, still filled with residual tears. “Pinky promise.”

He laughs again - not loud like earlier, it’s a quiet chuckle, but it seems even more genuine now that it’s between the two of you. “Pinky promise.”

You end up staying the night. It turns out he didn’t mind you not answering his question on set at all, you were busy. He orders dumplings for dinner and rolls a joint you share by his pool out back, huddled together on the side with your feet in the water. The pool is fucking heated and the emerging steam billows around you in the lights like the smoke you blow out your noses.

You haven’t smoked weed in so long, you’re a lightweight and he smokes most of it himself, content with just handing it over whenever you lift your hand to request a few tiny little puffs that make him giggle at you; he still thinks you’re adorable after all these years.

Dieter has make-up wipes for sensitive skin and scrunchies in his en-suite bathroom, and you even discover a half empty box of tampons under the sink. You don’t need any right now, but the fact that he has them on hand at all makes you a little emotional.

He gives you a shirt that’s three sizes too big and puts on a quiet movie for background noise, turning down the brightness of the enormous TV mounted to the wall opposite his bed. You toss the fake lashes into the bin, burying them in there like a casualty of the disaster of a set.

You finally properly meet his cat, which you’d mistaken for a whole raw chicken earlier as he was being carried off set. The friendly little guy - named Mad Max - lets Dieter put a sweater on him with no complaint, strutting his stuff all pretty in pink as he goes to devour the contents of a can of wet food from a bowl on the kitchen floor.

Dieter offers you a guest room, but you decline, climbing into his unbelievably comfortable kingsize bed, the effects of the weed making you feel heavy and deeply content. Exhaustion creeps into your bones as you curl up next to him with your head and hand on his chest, your eyes falling shut. His slow even breaths and the shapes he gently draws on your back with his fingertips lull you to sleep soon after.

This is not how you expected this day to end, but you’re the opposite of upset about it. If only it could be like this forever.

#dieter bravo fanfic #dieter bravo x reader #dieter bravo fic

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usafphantom2 · 3 months

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IMAGES: Russia resumes production of modernized Tu-160 bombers

Russia plans to eventually buy 50 new Tu-160M and modernize 15 existing Tu-160.

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 02/22/2024 - 08:17 in Military

Russia restarted the production of the Tupolev-160 strategic bombers, known as Blackjack, with the announcement coming from Sergey Chemezov, CEO of the state company Rostec.

"Restarting the production of the Tu-160 was quite a task for all Rostec affiliates. The project documentation was fully digitized within the tightest deadlines. The vacuum welding technique of titanium parts was restored and the production of fuselage units was resumed. Today we can safely say that we have been successful in all aspects," he said, according to the Russian state media.

The updated Tu-160M maintains the exterior design of its predecessor, but incorporates a technological base and completely new digital solutions.

The recent visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the S.P. aviation factory. Gorbunov Kazan, in Tartaristan, where he inspected four updated strategic bombers, drew attention amid concerns about the country's military capabilities.

The Tu-160, recognized as the largest and most powerful supersonic aircraft with wings of variable geometry in the history of military aviation, underwent an update program initiated by Putin's decision.

The government contract, signed between the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Tupolev design department, facilitated the digitization of the Tu-160M aircraft design documentation and the restoration of vacuum welding techniques for titanium products, leading to the resumption of the production of fuselage units.

Rostec's main industrial companies in metallurgy, aircraft design, engineering and instrument manufacturing have played crucial roles in revitalizing their cooperation for the successful resumption of production.

The first Tu-160M strategic bomber built from scratch made its first 30-minute flight on January 12, 2022. It is equipped with modern weapons, electronic warfare system, as well as on-board electronic equipment.

According to reports, the Tu-160 entered Soviet service for the first time in the late 1980s, with production until 1995. In 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the resumption of production of the updated variant of the Tu-160M to strengthen the strategy of the Russian Air Force in the capabilities of the bombers at a time of increasing tension with the West, and to compensate for delays in the future PAK-DA bomber program.

Russia plans to eventually buy about 50 Tu-160M bombers and is upgrading 16 existing Tu-160s to the modernized standard. With the first Tu-160M scheduled to be delivered soon, series production is expected to begin in 2023, at a production rate of at least three aircraft per year. This would fit the order for 10 aircraft in the period 2023–27.

The update of the Tu-160M is being implemented in two phases, with the first phase of the Tu-160M1 comprising the new navigation system K-042K-1 and autopilot ABSU-200-1, as well as the removal of some previous systems, such as pump observation systems. This variant of the Tu-160M1 has been operational in the Russian Air Force since the end of 2014.

The second phase of the Tu-160M2 includes the new Novella NV1.70 radar, a digital glass booth, modern communications and anti-jamming equipment, updated NK-32 engines (designated NK-32-02) and modern conventional and nuclear weapons.

Tags: Military AviationROSTECRussiaTu-160 Blackjack

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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.

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viktorviolettaenterprises · 1 year

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Finnish Army WW2 Light Tanks

One Of My Patron Request and Also Part Of Great Projects about Weapons and Heavy Machinery That Used During Winter War (1939-1940) & Continuation War (1941-1944) About The Finland Wars Against Soviet During during early and later Stages Of World War 2. For Your Informations Finnish Army During WW2 Heavy Machinery During Winter Wars Are Rely On Captured Soviets Tanks, Obsolete WW1 Products Or Licensed Products From Allied Countries Disclaimer:Due Heavy Censorship Regarding Swastika Usage in Western Society, The Details of The Tanks Are Replaced With Roundel Instead of Finnish Hakaristi. However It Just A Minor Details that May Missed.

DOWNLOAD Support Me In Patreon for Exclusive Business Agreement Or Support Me In Paypal For One-Time Support

BT-5 Light Tank The BT tanks (Russian: Быстроходный танк/БТ, romanized: Bystrokhodnyy tank, lit. "fast moving tank" or "high-speed tank") were a series of Soviet light tanks produced in large numbers between 1932 and 1941. They were lightly armoured, but reasonably well-armed for their time, and had the best mobility of all contemporary tanks. The BT tanks were known by the nickname Betka from the acronym, or its diminutive Betushka. The successor of the BT tanks was the famous T-34 medium tank, introduced in 1940, which would replace all of the Soviet fast tanks, infantry tanks, and medium tanks in service.

This Particular Variant is BT-5: Armed larger cylindrical turret, 45 mm 20-K gun, coaxial DT machine gun. Earlier tanks used simpler fully cylindrical bolted turrets with rear bustle welded on.

BT-42 Light Tank During the WWII, the Finnish Army utilized captured Soviet tanks as their significant armament. Among these was the BT-42 assault gun which the Finnish Army created by pairing the hull from a captured Russian BT-7 Model 1937 light tank with a British 114mm howitzer and a redesigned BT-7's large boxy turret. 18 units were produced from 1943 to 1944 and they were deployed to the Svir River region to attack the Russian bastion. In June 1944 during the Battle of Vyborg, BT-42s saw fierce combat against advancing Russian forces.

Renault FT-17 Light Tank

The Renault FT (frequently referred to in post-World War I literature as the FT-17, FT17, or similar) was a French light tank that was among the most revolutionary and influential tank designs in history. The FT was the first production tank to have its armament within a fully rotating turret. The Renault FT's configuration (crew compartment at the front, engine compartment at the back, and main armament in a revolving turret) became and remains the standard tank layout. Consequently, some armoured warfare historians have called the Renault FT the world's first modern tank. Over 3,000 Renault FT tanks were manufactured by French industry, most of them in 1918. After World War I, FT tanks were exported in large numbers. Copies and derivative designs were manufactured in the United States (M1917 light tank), in Italy (Fiat 3000) and in the Soviet Union (T-18 tank). The Renault FT saw combat during the interwar conflicts around the world, but was considered obsolete at the outbreak of World War II.

This Model Armed with Puteaux SA 1918 37 mm gun While The Other , Equipped With 8mm Hotchkiss Mle 1914 Machine gun for Anti-Personnel Purpose (Not Showed in Review)

KhT-130

KhT-130 is Flamethrower variant of model 1933 which is Variant Of Soviet T-26 Tank, The Most Successful and Most Modular Pre-WW2 Light Tanks using a larger 45 mm gun turret (a gun was replaced with a flamethrower for Anti-Personnel Purpose).

Landsverk L-62 Anti II

Landsverk L-62, also known as Landsverk Anti II or a combination of both, Landsverk L-62 Anti II, was a Swedish self-propelled anti-aircraft gun construction that was specifically designed for Finland by Landsverk between 1941 and 1942.

The vehicle was an improved Landsverk L-62 Anti I where the turret and chassis had been improved for better protection. The chassis was based on the Landsverk L-60 tank but was lengthened with one extra roadwheel per side. The turret was circular and open for a better view against planes. The gun was a 40 mm Bofors L/60 anti-air gun which was already in service with the Finnish military as the 40 ItK/38.

Vickers Mark E

The Vickers 6-ton tank or Vickers Mark E, also known as the "Six-tonner" was a British light tank designed as a private project at Vickers. It was not adopted by the British Army, but was picked up by many foreign armed forces. It was licensed by the Soviet Union as the T-26. It was also the direct predecessor of the Polish 7TP tank.

Hotchkiss H39 Light Tank (German:PzKpfw 38H-735)

The Hotchkiss H39 (a variant of the Hotchkiss H35) was captured and used by Germany as the PzKpfw 38H-735.

The Hotchkiss H35, or Char léger modèle 1935 H, was a French light tank developed prior to World War II. Despite having been designed from 1933 as a rather slow, but well-armored, light infantry support tank, the type was initially rejected by the French Infantry because it proved difficult to steer while driving cross-country, and was instead adopted in 1936 by the French Cavalry. In 1938, an improved version was produced with a stronger engine, the Char léger modèle 1935 H modifié 39, that from 1940 was also fitted with a longer, more powerful 37 mm gun. It was intended to make this improved variant the standard light tank, and was to be produced in a number of at least four thousand in order to equip new armored divisions of both the Cavalry and the Infantry. However, due to the defeat of France in June 1940, total production of both subtypes remained limited to about 1200 vehicles. For the remainder of the war, Germany and its allies would use captured Hotchkiss tanks in several modifications.

Hotchkiss H39 Light Tank (German:Panzerkampfwagen 38H 735(f))

Variants of A Captured Hotchkiss H39 Tank by German, Outfitted with Nebelwerfer 42, A 30mm German Rockets.

Soviet T-50

The T-50 was a light infantry tank built by the Soviet Union at the beginning of World War II. The design for this vehicle had some advanced features, but was complicated and expensive, and only a short production run of 69 tanks was completed.

Soviet T-26

The T-26 tank was a Soviet light infantry tank used during many conflicts of the 1930s as well as during World War II. It was a development of the British Vickers 6-Ton tank and is widely considered one of the most successful tank designs of the 1930s. It was produced in greater numbers than any other tank of the period, with more than 11,000 produced. During the 1930s, the USSR developed approximately 53 variants of the T-26, including other combat vehicles based on its chassis. Twenty-three of these were mass-produced. The T-26 was used extensively in the armies of Spain, China and Turkey. In addition, captured T-26 light tanks were used by the Finnish, German, Romanian and Hungarian armies. Though nearly obsolete by the beginning of World War II, the T-26 was the most important tank of the Spanish Civil War and played a significant role during the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938 as well as in the Winter War in 1939-40. The T-26 was the most numerous tank in the Red Army's armored force during the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The Soviet T-26 light tanks last saw use in August 1945, in Manchuria. The T-26 was reliable and simple to maintain, and its design was continually modernized between 1931 and 1941, with a total of 11,218 vehicles built. However, no new models of the T-26 were developed after 1940.

Soviet T-26E

Variant Of Soviet T-26 tank with additional armour plating (appliqué armour). Some modern sources mention this tank as T-26E (E stands for ekranirovanny or "screened"). The Factory No. 174 developed the design of 30–40 mm appliqué armour for all types of single-turreted T-26s during the Winter War. On 30 December 1939, factory tests proved that the T-26 with appliqué armour successfully resisted fire from a 45 mm anti-tank gun at a range from 400 to 500 m. Side and front armoured plates were mounted with the use of blunt bolts and electric welding. Toward the middle of February 1940, the RKKA received 27 screened T-26 mod. 1939 tanks and 27 KhT-133 flame-throwing tanks; an additional 15 T-26 mod. 1939 tanks were armoured by workshops of the 8th Army in Suoyarvi in the beginning of March 1940. All in all, 69 T-26s with appliqué armour were used during the Winter War and 20 more were delivered to tank units after the end of the war. Combat use proved that Finnish light anti-tank guns could not penetrate the armour of these tanks.

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 7 months

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NASA's innovative rocket nozzle paves way for deep space missions

NASA recently built and tested an additively-manufactured—or 3D printed—rocket engine nozzle made of aluminum, making it lighter than conventional nozzles and setting the course for deep space flights that can carry more payloads.

Under the agency's Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity, engineers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, partnered with Elementum 3D, in Erie, Colorado, to create a weldable type of aluminum that is heat resistant enough for use on rocket engines. Compared to other metals, aluminum is lower density and allows for high-strength, lightweight components.

However, due to its low tolerance to extreme heat and its tendency to crack during welding, aluminum is not typically used for additive manufacturing of rocket engine parts—until now.

Meet NASA's latest development under the Reactive Additive Manufacturing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or RAMFIRE, project. RAMFIRE focuses on advancing lightweight, additively-manufactured aluminum rocket nozzles. The nozzles are designed with small internal channels that keep the nozzle cool enough to prevent melting.

With conventional manufacturing methods, a nozzle may require as many as thousand individually joined parts. The RAMFIRE nozzle is built as a single piece, requiring far fewer bonds and significantly reduced manufacturing time.

NASA and Elementum 3D first developed the novel aluminum variant known as A6061-RAM2 to build the nozzle and modify the powder used with laser powder directed energy deposition (LP-DED) technology. Another commercial partner, RPM Innovations (RPMI) in Rapid City, South Dakota, used the newly invented aluminum and specialized powder to build the RAMFIRE nozzles using their LP-DED process.

"Industry partnerships with specialty manufacturing vendors aid in advancing the supply base and help make additive manufacturing more accessible for NASA missions and the broader commercial and aerospace industry," Paul Gradl, RAMFIRE principal investigator at NASA Marshall, said.

NASA's moon to Mars objectives require the capability to send more cargo to deep space destinations. The novel alloy could play an instrumental role in this by enabling the manufacturing of lightweight rocket components capable of withstanding high structural loads.

"Mass is critical for NASA's future deep space missions," said John Vickers, principal technologist for STMD advanced manufacturing. "Projects like this mature additive manufacturing along with advanced materials, and will help evolve new propulsion systems, in-space manufacturing, and infrastructure needed for NASA's ambitious missions to the moon, Mars, and beyond."

Earlier this summer at Marshall's East Test Area, two RAMFIRE nozzles completed multiple hot-fire tests using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, as well as liquid oxygen and liquid methane fuel configurations. With pressure chambers in excess of 825 pounds per square inch (psi)—more than anticipated testing pressures—the nozzles successfully accumulated 22 starts and 579 seconds, or nearly 10 minutes, of run time. This event demonstrates the nozzles can operate in the most demanding deep-space environments.

"This test series marks a significant milestone for the nozzle," Gradl said. "After putting the nozzle through the paces of a demanding hot-fire test series, we've demonstrated the nozzle can survive the thermal, structural, and pressure loads for a lunar lander scale engine."

In addition to successfully building and testing the rocket engine nozzles, the RAMFIRE project has used the RAMFIRE aluminum material and additive manufacturing process to construct other advanced large components for demonstration purposes. These include a 36-inch diameter aerospike nozzle with complex integral coolant channels and a vacuum-jacketed tank for cryogenic fluid applications.

NASA and industry partners are working to share the data and process with commercial stakeholders and academia. Various aerospace companies are evaluating the novel alloy and the LP-DED additive manufacturing process and looking for ways it can be used to make components for satellites and other applications.

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #nasa #astrophysics #Youtube

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spyskrapbook · 1 year

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��Martin Luther Church”, Hainburg, Austria [2008-2011] _ Architects: Wolf D. Prix / Coop Himmelb(l)au.

“ The building consists of four main elements: a sanctuary, a community hall, a sacristy, and a sculptural bell tower. The shape of the building derives from that of a huge table, with its entire roof construction resting on the legs of the table — four steel columns. The play with light and transparency has a special place in this project. The light comes from above: three large winding openings in the roof guide it to the interior. The church interior itself is not only a place of mysticism and quietude but also an open space for the community. The correlation of the number three and the concept of Trinity in Christian theology can be interpreted as a ‘deliberate coincidence’.

The church interior itself is not only a place of mysticism and quietude — as an antithesis of our rather fast and media-dominated times — but also an open space for the community. The sanctuary has direct access to the glass-covered children’s corner, illuminated by daylight, which also accommodates the baptistery. The community hall is situated behind it: folding doors on the entire length of the space between the two main chambers allow for combining them into one continuous spatial sequence. A folded glass facade on the opposite side opens towards the street.

On the interior ceiling, the suspended frame structure was covered with several layers of steel fabric and rush matting as a carrier layer for the cladding of the stucco ceiling, whose geometry follows the three-dimensionally curved shape of the roof with the skylights. Another key element of the church is the ceiling of the prayer room: its design language has been developed from the shape of the curved roof of a neighboring Romanesque ossuary — the geometry of this centuries — old building is translated into a form in line with the times, via today’s digital tools. The roof structure was delivered in four separate parts to Hainburg, assembled, welded, and coated on site. The whole structure was then mounted with a crane into the designated position, on the solid concrete walls of the prayer room.

The implementation of the intricate geometries required specific technologies of metal processing and manufacturing only available in the shipbuilding industry. The reference to shipbuilding is at the same time also reminiscent of Le Corbusier who served as an important role model, not least because of his La Tourette monastery. Due to its shape with three skylights, the roof was designed as a self-supporting steel construction with a stucco ceiling. The structure was assembled in a wharf at the Baltic Sea. The exterior skin is made of 8 mm thick three-dimensionally curved steel plates welded on frame construction. In turn, this structure of steel plates and the frame sits on a girder grid. The compound of the grid, frame, and steel skin transfers the total load of the roof (23 tons) on four steel columns which are embedded on the solid concrete walls of the prayer room. The 20-meter high sculptural bell tower in the forecourt is a vertical self-supporting steel structure, that completes the building ensemble and makes it a highly visible landmark.”

https://coop-himmelblau.at/projects/martin-luther-church/

https://arquitecturaviva.com/publicaciones/av/obras-surreales

#Martin Luther Church #Hainburg #Austria #Wolf D. Prix #Coop Himmelb(l)au #2008 #2011 #Surrealism #Arquitectura Viva No152

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collapsedsquid · 9 months

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Maier’s book offers a new solution to this enigma. In his view, all the classical categories used to describe the twentieth-century state miss its central feature: its orientation around the notion of a project, which could weld business interests, the general population, and state bureaucrats under a single, long-term time horizon. What united Roosevelt’s America, Stalin’s Russia, Attlee’s Britain, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China, and Nkrumah’s Ghana, then, was not a diffuse totalitarianism or developmental ideology. Rather, it was their status as project states, which all “had a transformative agenda . . . based on authoritarian and even totalitarian as well as liberal and democratic coalitions seeking to reform sclerotic institutions or societies that seemed unacceptably unequal.” Project states thereby tended to “see society as a plasmic whole, sometimes in terms of elites and masses, knowable and controllable through statistical science, biological and legal interventions.” The specimen did not come without ancestors, of course—in Maier’s view, Napoleonic France and the wartime organization of the U.S. federal government in 1861 already exhibited embryonic signs of a later project state—yet “as a continuing and nonexceptional form of polity,” the new creature only “came into its own in the twentieth century.” Maier’s category thereby demarcates and unifies. The notion of a “project state” allows us to understand what Mao, Hitler, De Gaulle, Attlee, and Nkrumah had in common. Yet it also clearly separates the twentieth-century state from its pre-1914 antecedents. Although Maier’s state never fully abolished capital, it did have a productively agonistic relationship with it: it was able to both discipline and repel those that controlled investment and to direct or claim those resources for itself. It was a state made for and by warfare, yet not exclusively so. To the disgust of neoliberals and New Leftists, it had an eternally uneasy relationship with the public-private divide, both on the social and on the economic front, encouraging higher birth rates while compiling calorific tables. Above all, it was pitted against the nineteenth-century nightwatchman state, both as a reality and as a metaphor; public authority was to turn itself from a mere facilitator of economic commerce into an active choreographer of social movements. As Maier notes, the hustle and bustle of the traffic jam was replaced by the “ordered direction of the Riefenstahlian march”; under its baldaquin, masses would gather for coordination and instruction, in a rage for order that ran across the whole interwar period. Maier’s concept does not rule out internal differentiation, of course: “creating the fascist man who would live as a lion and not as a jackal was a different project than raising out of poverty ‘one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished,’” and Stalin was surprised to see Churchill switch office with Attlee when negotiating the postwar order. Still, all its forms took an energetic, even invasive interest in the populations that fell under their control: the project state built the National Health Service, transported prisoners to Kolyma, incinerated Dresden and Nagasaki, birthed cybernetics and nuclear power, reduced infant mortality, and cartelized the coal industries. Here was an entity “addicted to transformative agendas,” with a lifespan as short as it was eventful: born somewhere between 1914 and 1929, gone between 1973 and 1991. By the close of the 1980s, Maier admits, the project state had given up on its project and was no longer capable of controlling the forces of private capital. It slowly gave up the role of sculpting society, instead leaving the field open to self-experimentation and the emerging entrepreneurs of the self. In the historian’s view, its “audacity repelled many at the time and certainly social historians in the century since, but the ambitions constituted a major historical force and deserve empathetic understanding.”

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shealadunlapart · 1 year

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Check out these microscopic crystalline structures from a piece of metal! In my Intro. to Metallurgy class we take a piece of steel, torch it, cut it, and examine it under a microscope. I'm loving the science aspects of this course. In the Fab Lab, a few of us have been tasked to fabricate brackets from scrap steel. I call us "The Bracketteers!" We cut pieces to size, drill mounting holes, bend where necessary, weld together, paint white, then hang. We also do projects that benefit our classroom, campus, and local community such as build a tiered cart for toting around tools, fabricate a fire pan for a fire safety course, and constructing a people mover for Shivley Agricultural Farms, respectively. #micropscope #crystals #fabrication #industrial #science #machineshop #metalshop #projects #metallurgy #studio #lab #womanempowerment #womanartist #makemagic #metalaf #dowhatyoulove #springsemester #welding #certificate #womanpower💪#womanwelder #womanpower #yesican #knowledgeispower #knowledgeispower📚 https://www.instagram.com/p/CpnMe8WrlRN/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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tubetrading · 7 days

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Beyond Conventional Wisdom – The Surprising Benefits of Square Pipes

In the world of construction and engineering, the choice of materials is crucial for the success and durability of any project. While traditional round pipes have long been the go-to choice for many applications, square pipes offer a range of surprising benefits that are often overlooked. As a leading square pipes distributor in Gujarat, Tube Trading Co. is here to shed light on why square pipes might just be the superior option for your next project. This blog will explore the numerous advantages of using square pipes, particularly focusing on their applications in Vadodara and Gujarat.

Understanding Square Pipes

Square pipes, as the name suggests, are hollow, square-shaped sections made from various metals, including steel, aluminum, and stainless steel. These pipes are known for their structural integrity and versatility, making them suitable for a wide range of applications in construction, manufacturing, and engineering.

Structural Strength and Stability

Enhanced Load-Bearing Capacity

One of the most significant advantages of square pipes is their excellent load-bearing capacity. The square shape provides uniform strength in all directions, making them more robust and stable compared to round pipes. This characteristic is particularly beneficial in construction projects where structural integrity is paramount. For instance, in high-rise buildings and large industrial structures, square pipes can withstand heavy loads and resist bending and buckling.

Ideal for Frameworks

Square pipes are ideal for constructing frameworks and skeletons of buildings. Their ability to bear high loads without deformation makes them a preferred choice for creating sturdy and reliable structures. As a prominent square pipes distributor in Vadodara, we have seen a growing demand for these pipes in constructing robust frameworks for commercial and residential buildings.

Versatility in Applications

Construction and Architecture

Square pipes are widely used in the construction and architectural sectors. Their clean lines and geometric shape lend themselves well to modern architectural designs, providing both aesthetic appeal and functional benefits. They are used in the construction of window frames, door frames, and support structures for buildings and bridges. Additionally, their versatility allows for easy integration into various design elements, enhancing the overall aesthetic of a project.

Industrial Applications

In industrial settings, square pipes are used for constructing machinery frames, conveyor belts, and supports for heavy equipment. Their durability and resistance to mechanical stress make them suitable for demanding industrial environments. As a leading square pipes distributor in Gujarat, we supply high-quality pipes that meet the stringent requirements of industrial applications.

Furniture and Interior Design

Square pipes are increasingly popular in the furniture and interior design industries. Their sleek, modern appearance makes them ideal for creating contemporary furniture pieces such as tables, chairs, and shelving units. The versatility of square pipes allows designers to experiment with innovative designs that are both functional and visually appealing.

Ease of Fabrication and Installation

Simple Fabrication

The uniform shape of square pipes simplifies the fabrication process. Cutting, welding, and joining square pipes is more straightforward compared to round pipes, leading to faster and more efficient production. This ease of fabrication translates to cost savings and shorter project timelines, making square pipes an economical choice for many projects.

Hassle-Free Installation

Square pipes are easier to align and install due to their straight edges and flat surfaces. This ease of installation is particularly advantageous in construction projects where precision and accuracy are essential. As a trusted square pipes distributor in Vadodara, we ensure that our products are easy to work with, facilitating smooth and efficient installation processes.

Cost-Effectiveness

Material Efficiency

Square pipes offer better material efficiency compared to round pipes. Their shape allows for optimal use of space and materials, reducing waste and maximizing the utility of each pipe. This efficiency is especially beneficial in large-scale projects where material costs can be a significant expense.

Long-Term Savings

The durability and strength of square pipes translate to long-term savings. Their ability to withstand harsh environmental conditions and mechanical stress means that they require less maintenance and have a longer lifespan. This longevity reduces the need for frequent replacements, resulting in cost savings over the life of the project.

Environmental Benefits

Sustainability

Square pipes are often made from recyclable materials, making them an environmentally friendly choice. The ability to recycle these pipes at the end of their useful life reduces the environmental impact and contributes to sustainable construction practices. As a leading square pipes distributor in Gujarat, we are committed to promoting sustainable and eco-friendly building materials.

Reduced Carbon Footprint

The efficiency and longevity of square pipes contribute to a reduced carbon footprint. By minimizing material waste and extending the lifespan of structures, square pipes help decrease the overall environmental impact of construction projects. This sustainability aspect is increasingly important as industries worldwide strive to reduce their carbon emissions and promote green building practices.

Case Studies: Square Pipes in Action

Commercial Complex in Vadodara

A recent commercial complex project in Vadodara utilized square pipes for its framework and support structures. The developers chose square pipes due to their superior load-bearing capacity and ease of installation. The result was a robust and aesthetically pleasing building that met all safety and performance standards. As a trusted square pipes distributor in Vadodara, Tube Trading Co. was proud to supply the high-quality pipes used in this landmark project.

Industrial Facility in Gujarat

An industrial facility in Gujarat required durable and reliable piping for its heavy machinery and equipment supports. The project engineers selected square pipes for their excellent mechanical properties and resistance to stress. The facility now boasts a sturdy and efficient infrastructure that supports its demanding operations. As a leading square pipes distributor in Gujarat, we provided the necessary materials to ensure the success of this project.

Conclusion: The Future of Square Pipes

The surprising benefits of square pipes extend far beyond conventional wisdom. Their structural strength, versatility, ease of fabrication, cost-effectiveness, and environmental benefits make them a superior choice for a wide range of applications. As a leading square pipes distributor in Gujarat, Tube Trading Co. is dedicated to providing high-quality square pipes that meet the diverse needs of our clients.

Whether you are working on a construction project in Vadodara or an industrial application in Gujarat, square pipes offer a reliable and efficient solution. Embrace the benefits of square pipes and discover how they can enhance the success and sustainability of your projects.

For more information on our products and services, visit our website or contact us directly. Tube Trading Co. is here to support your construction and engineering needs with the highest quality square pipes in Vadodara and Gujarat.

#Square pipes distributor in Vadodara #Square pipes in Vadodara #Square pipes distributor in Gujarat #Square pipes in Gujarat

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