landofwindandskyscrapers
Land of wind & skyscrapers
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 5 hours ago
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"In one of the more remarkable marches of human progress, Bangladesh has reached the point of near-universal electricity access for its citizens.
Coupled with the rapid electrification has been one of the greatest single declines in the poverty rate of a nation ever seen, falling from 44.2% in 1991 to 18.7% in 2022.
In 1991, only 14% of the nation had access to electricity. By 2021, 99% had access.
Granted, half of these households are considered according to Our World in Data to have lower tier access, which accounts for home lighting and charging mobile phones at least 4 hours a day, but the other half are considered as having higher tier access, defined as the added capacity to power high-load appliances (such as fridges) for more than eight hours a day.
Bangladesh is the world’s most densely populated large country with a density of 3,020 per square mile. As the twelfth densest country in the world, the 11 above Bangladesh are all microstates whose combined land area would not even equal half the size of the smallest state in Bangladesh.
To put this into perspective, (a rather silly perspective) if one wanted to reduce the population density of Bangladesh to that of Mongolia, its borders would have to include both all of Africa and all of Eurasia. That’s how crowded Bangladesh is, and what these amazing reductions in poverty truly mean to global human flourishing."
-via Good News Network, January 21, 2025
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Note: This is the kind of thing I mean when I say that very, very few people in the West know the degree to which absolutely massive societal progress has been happening in a lot of different developing countries.
Especially around access to infrastructure and access to electricity.
The quality of life improvements to electricity access are massive.
It's not just access to phones/the internet (already a huge deal that opens up massive channels of communication and information-sharing).
It's being able to preserve food because you have a fridge, meaning you get to spend less money on food/have less food waste/run fewer errands/have way more flexibility around food.
It's being able to do things after dark, because you have a lightbulb. It's being able to work late, make more of your time.
It's less air pollution because people can use electricity instead of burning fuel for things like heat/light/cooking. (Yes I know these things often use fuel or natural gas still, but they can be done with electricity, and a lot of developing countries are skipping over a natural gas/etc. phase and straight into renewables.)
Hell, it's safety. I had a friend when I was younger who was from southeast Asia. She was horribly injured when she was a kid because her family only had kerosene oil lamps that had to be manually refilled. If her family had had access to electricity, that never would have happened.
It's infrastructure for heating, air conditioning, and water access. It's so, so many things. It's huge.
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 15 hours ago
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completely lirious and ranged. absolutely lusional. not only mented but fective, too. engaging in praved behavior. a real generate
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 2 days ago
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the head of the catgirl space empire’s war fleet is wordlessly chainsmoking as she finally reads over the list of ship names she sorta ignored when she signed off on the approval. like, for instance, the catgirl space empire eschaton-class superheavy warship Slutty Dads Ahoy. Then there’s Catgirl Space Empress RPF. Lox Bagel, Please. Kill Yourself. Ship Namer’s Local 2323 is On Strike. she’s gonna start drinking before she finishes the list
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 3 days ago
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i found this on twitter today: https://oasis.decart.ai/welcome and whilst i dont trust the company behind it our their motivations it has the whole dreamlike weirdness ai has sometimes but in a game (they copied minecraft, but everything you feels *wrong* in a way and there's no object permanence)
this game is fascinating
if they had succeeded in exactly copying minecraft it would have been way worse than the bizarre shifting, melting-block world they got.
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 3 days ago
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A/L A busy start
So, I’ve decided to continue writing in this blog - at the very least, once per month. I’m proud of managing to write an entry a week for all of 2024, but on the other hand…it was indeed a lot of work. But so! First off, what I managed to read/listen to in December 2024 - since I also like having a written record of the media I’ve consumed. There are no accidents - by Jessie Singer This book made me angry. Or rather, the contents of this book made me angry. I thought it was going to be something like “The Field Guide to Understanding ‘Human Error’” - a book on industrial best practices to avoid accidents. And while “There are no accidents” does refer a lot to that book…it’s more of a long, extended rant on US policy practices. A good, necessary rant! It brings up excellent points!1 But it does make for a reading2 full of negative emotions. The crux of the book is the idea - which I believe is borne out of actual, accurate and precise data3 that American society as a whole is engineered in a way that pushes responsibility for “accidents” onto private individuals. While ignoring the fact that “accidents” kind of don’t exist; what does exist is risk, and the measures taken to mitigate it. Measures which America doesn’t want to take, because of…the usual suspects: racism, classism, misogyny, greed, the “Shirley Exception”4... As a book, it made me very happy that I live in the EU. Thresholder by Alexander Wales This book is actually ongoing, but since it’s already more than 750k words long I consider it an entire book I have read. This is more classical reading-for-pleasure fantasy (....and sci-fi, xianxia, horror….it blends genres a lot, is what I’m saying), but at a scale I’ve seen only rarely. The main character Perry, travels from world to world - and fights other world-hoppers all the way. The worlds themselves are a cornucopia of magic, cybernetics, martial arts, powers….so the fights get to have very high power levels, very quickly. There’s a meta-narrative about finding out who or what set up this frankly demented system - but at a lower level I like to think of it as a way to explore culture clashes, and the feeling of being a tourist somewhere, picking up the best things from a country, but knowing all the time you have to leave quite soon. That kind of bittersweet feeling. Oddly enough I’m not sure if I’ll continue reading it - the chapters are quite long and involved, and I had to sort of force myself to finish it. But the plot is complicated and fascinating, and I like the author. Now, for something completely different: I’m going to write at least 10k words in the month of February. Possibly more. What’s life for, if not for doing foolish things? I don’t have a lot of free time - and I will have even less, since I’m buying a house extremely soon (!!!). But writing is something I’ve tried to do a lot in the past. It’s difficult. It takes a lot of effort for me to avoid procrastinating. But I enjoy it after I’ve done. I might publish on Royal Road or Spacebattles, and I’m not sure but I might try to eventually try my hand at NaNoWriMo. Consider it my project for 2025 - writing more. We’ll see if I can make it. Subscribe now 1 Specifically how “accident” is kind of a nonsense word. Accidents are predictable, controllable, and outside the bounds of personal responsibility. We just pretend otherwise. 2 Well, listening. I listened to it on my commute to work on Audible. 3 (although the book itself is slightly light on that - but that’s because my standards are too high, in my opinion) 4 But surely, they’ll make an exception for me! Everybody else must follow the rules, because it’s their fault if they break them, but when I do it there’s a legitimate reason! Words spoken by many pro-life women when they have to get an abortion in states which outlaw them. See also: Fundamental Attribution Error via https://ift.tt/Xfyr1aT
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 4 days ago
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 6 days ago
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Deity 2 by Robbie Trevino
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 6 days ago
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Day 3 of 2020 Event / @lavendergalactic and @llocket event
An character that would love the 2020 era♡ Glitchcore Miku
 F2U with credits !! Do not repost on other platforms
I rushed making this and I gotta rush to make the other one
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 6 days ago
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I really like gender-flipping a piece of media, mostly because I think it offers insight into how much of a role gender plays in that piece of media.
There are two forms of this. The first is when you gender flip just one person, usually the protagonist, and I think offers more insight when the protagonist is the central character of the work. What do to with the romance stuff is up for debate.
The other option is when you flip most of the main cast. I think this can be fun, but sometimes it's a question of how far to take it, since gender-flipping the entire fictional work can be a bit weird.
It helps to point out some of the crags, I think, and throws other things into relief. Women in traditionally masculine roles become men in traditionally masculine roles, and that has a different feeling to it. Meaning that's been built on top of gender suddenly crumbles. Contrarily, anything that's stereotypical gendered behavior gets (IMO) more interesting when it's no longer part of that groove.
So I've been trying to map out the traits of a book or movie or series that gets the most mileage from trying this, and I think the more subtle (but present!) the gender-encoding, the more there is to chew on. Breaking Bad is largely not a show that's "about" gender ... but in many ways it is, particularly with Walt in a "male provider" role, his emasculation at the start of the show, etc. All the antagonists are male, so how does the reading change when it's a female protagonist? How does the relationship to Hank change?
I don't think that this would improve the show, and in fact, I think most of the time the things I like are written with the correct-for-that-story genders and would not be substantially improved by changing them. Authors are working within the confines of gender already, they're using that to make their commentary and weave their themes. Generally, they're not picking genders out of a hat. But I enjoy flipping things around in my head, seeing all the ways that it suddenly works and doesn't work, and how this new version theoretically comments on the original.
(Some people like making these changes in their head and then do nothing with them, which ... I guess I get. Maybe you just like DBZ better if Goku is a woman for unstated reasons, maybe there's no commentary or insight for you, it's just "cooler" to you. This is great! Go wild!)
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 8 days ago
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We have already averted truly apocalyptic levels of global warming.
Yes, read that again. Let it sink in. This is what the science now says. We have already averted truly apocalyptic global warming.
To quote David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth, from his huge feature in the New York Times:
"Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilization, a clearer picture of the energy future and serious policy focus from world leaders, we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years... The window of possible climate futures is narrowing, and as a result, we are getting a clearer sense of what’s to come: a new world, full of disruption but also billions of people, well past climate normal and yet mercifully short of true climate apocalypse." (New York Times, October 22, 2022. Unpaywalled here. Emphasis mine. And yes, this vision of the future is backed up by the current science on the issue, as he explains at length in the article.)
So we've already averted truly apocalyptic warming, and we've already cut expected warming IN HALF in just the past five years.
The pace of technology, of innovation, of prices, of feasibility, of discovery, of organizing, of grassroots movements, of movements in other countries around the world, have all picked up the pace so fast in the last five years.
Renewable technology and capacity are both increasing at an exponential rate. It's all S-curves, ones that look like this:
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-via The Economist, June 20, 2024.
How much more will we manage in another five years? Another ten? Another twenty?
I know the US is about to fucking suck about the environment for the next four years. But the momentum of renewable energy is far too much to stop - both in the US (x) and around the world.
(Huge shoutouts to India, China, and Brazil for massive gains for the environment in renewables, and Brazil for massive progress against Amazon deforestation.)
We're going to get there.
Say it with me. We're going to get there.
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 8 days ago
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Danny Lane. Etruscan Chair, 1984
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 14 days ago
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 15 days ago
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©️ 2024 Jeremiah Ray
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 16 days ago
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Arcade After Work patreon . bsky
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 16 days ago
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ok
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 16 days ago
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landofwindandskyscrapers · 18 days ago
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Miss Universe National Costume 2024, Part 2!
Splitting this off into a new post so I'm not clogging up everyone's dash quite as much.
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Miss Malta is some sort of environmental protection Sailor Scout. I think the giant bow would look better on the back of the skirt but otherwise this is solid.
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It has just come to my attention that I skipped over Miss Albania and several other A/B countries, back at the beginning. I sincerely apologize! She went to all this trouble putting together a Fifth Element cruise ship passenger costume, and I nearly missed it.
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Miss Armenia, in what even I have to admit would be a legit Princess Leia fit.
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Miss Bahrain, adding some green to her Gold And Vaguely Historical look, along with what is either a comically large prop chalice or an upside-down lamp.
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Miss Bangladesh appears to believe that adding two plush tigers from the toy store around the corner from the pageant venue will conceal the fact that she is just wearing a tiger-print evening dress. Miss Bangladesh is incorrect.
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Miss Belgium. Girl. No.
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Miss Belize let the seventh-grade art class do her whole costume, which was a bold choice.
Okay, I think that's everyone I missed! Back to alphabetical order. And I should have to rely less on shitty screenshots, now. Some countries were benefiting from the low resolution, tbh.
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Kind of feel like Miss Maldives had a luggage mishap and she's just wearing the outfit she packed for a slightly dressy dinner.
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Miss Martinique's costume would honestly have looked better in the shitty screencap version. The construction is... bad. It's bad.
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Feel like we're in a little bit of slump here. Miss Mauritius did not stick enough butterfly appliqués to her gown to conceal that it is, in fact, just a regular evening gown.
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Slump officially over! We are so back. Everyone say thank you, Miss Mexico.
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I would like this better if it had just committed to the giant skirt and not felt the need to make it a Sexy Miniskirt look. Sorry, Miss Moldova.
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Miss Mongolia wanted to stand out from all the other gold armor on stage, so she decided to a) wear cooler armor and b) bring a bow and arrow instead of a sword. Great work, Miss Mongolia.
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Starting to feel like I'm picking on the smaller countries that probably don't have a huge pageant culture or the budget for really elaborate costumes, but on the other hand Miss Montenegro's costume is super low-effort AND the fabrics look cheap, so what am I supposed to do?
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Okay, this looks like a pretty standard Miss Universe Sexy Bird, yes? Well, THIS is how Miss Myanmar entered the stage:
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She had to fight her way out of that thing! God only knows what the visibility was like in there.
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I think the hat is doing most of the heavy lifting to keep Miss Namibia's costume from being Just An Evening Dress, sadly.
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Oh, yikes. It's more obvious in motion but Miss Nepal's bodice looks like it's made of craft foam and it fits real weird. The rest of it looks a little like she got together with Miss Cyprus and a pile of tablecloths for a sewing bee last night, I'm sorry to say.
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Miss Netherlands has chosen a Tribute to Delft. I think if I were in charge of this costume I would do a much fuller skirt that falls from the waist, instead of the weird trumpet-skirt-with-hoop we've got here. And, obviously, I would make the windmill on the bodice actually spin.
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It looks like she's having some issues keeping the wings and peplum in place, but I really like Miss New Zealand's costume from a design perspective. It at least slightly resembles the bird it's supposed to be (New Zealand fantail) and I think the feather pattern is meant to be in a Maori art style.
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Miss Nicaragua is a Sexy Cathedral, which I think might be a Miss Universe first and is definitely a big old step closer to drag.
Okay, pausing here to get the next batch ready.
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