#“It's hard to live in the city” ordinance

[falseandrealultravival]

“It's hard to live in the city” ordinance (February 10, 2003)

The Snow Country (Yasunari Kawabata)

(This is an entry for a contest sponsored by Snowy Village. I won a prize and received 5 kg of top-grade rice.)

(the purpose)

Article 1

The purpose of this practice is to awaken the urban population, who live separately from rural areas to the place of humans in nature.

(Promotion of rainwater storage)

Article 2

The rain in the city just flows away, and the city people do not use it. Regardless of the form, local governments subsidize urban residents to use rainwater as their 'own water source'. This will prevent the destruction of nature caused by the constructing of unnecessary dams.

(Promote recycling of manure)

Article 3

Because excrement from the buttocks and agricultural products that enter the mouth connects cities and rural areas, local governments are working to spread composting toilets that can efficiently recycle excrement instead of flush toilets. Subsidies will be provided to households that have adopted composting toilets. At the same time, we will develop a route to effectively reuse the compost produced.

(Promotion of participation in forest management)

Article 4

As is well known, Japan's forestry industry is on the verge of collapse. We need to draw more attention to domestic timber. Therefore, each season, urban municipalities jointly plan forestry-related events with rural villages and invite urban residents to participate. Participating city residents and local governments will split the costs. The timber will be transferred at a low price to participating city residents.

(Care for wild plants and edible wild plants)

Article 5

In order to improve the fact that the citizens of the city have not returned anything to the farming, mountain, and fishing villages, those who steal wild plants will be penalized according to this customary practice. (Detailed regulations) Those who enter the mountain to pick edible wild plants are asked to buy thank-you fertilizer for a fee and use it to care for the collected edible wild plants.

(Provisions regarding tobacco)

Article 6

Currently, only the bad aspects of tobacco are emphasized, and urban residents are unaware of the fact that tobacco can also be used for medicinal purposes, including as a hemostatic agent. Violation of manners is out of the question, and clauses that discriminate against smokers are not included. It is a “do nothing” clause. (In fact, the causal relationship between tobacco and cancer has not yet been proven.) In addition, without violating the law, research and development of products using herbs (such as Eyebright, Coltsfoot, etc.) that can be used as "medicinal tobacco" are encouraged. and farming and mountain villages.

(Finance)

Article 7

In principle, each business is self-supporting, but businesses with poor performance can be financed without interest from other businesses.

[shazzyv]

Been rereading the Discworld City Watch series coz those books are like crack laced with serotonin and I think Carrot is simultaneously one of the best and most terrifying characters in Discworld.

Best because yes he's the goodest boi and he's got a werewolf gf and he's unfailingly honest and decent to pretty much everyone and is so earnest and sweet people just can't disappointment him. Except...

One thing that sticks in my head is that last scene in Men at Arms

SPOILERS for most of the City Watch books:

When, right at the end Cruces is telling Carrot he's a long lost king and has the documentation to prove. Carrot walks over to it, takes a read and while Cruces is doing his villain monologue, stabs him through the chest. It's quick and clean and Carrot doesn't even bat an eye that he just took a man's life on purpose.

I say on purpose because my boi literally committed manslaughter in the previous book when he threw the Law and Ordinances at Wonse. He didn't seem to miffed then either, aside from the fact he just misunderstood an order from a superior.

Granted it's a funny joke and Wonse was a bastard but Carrot doesn't seem to react to it.

Like, throughout the books Vimes constantly struggles with the urge to just go ham and remove all the people causing the problems. He's constantly faced with the cynicism and cruelty and just the sheer stupidity of the world and always tries to do the moral thing, to do it by the book because as he says, "if you can do it for a good reason, you can do it for a bad reason." He's in the grey between black and white.

Carrot on the other hand doesn't really seem to mind. We never really see what Carrot is thinking (probably because he's so honest he just flat out says it) so it's hard to parcel how he feels about things.

My headcanon is he killed Wonse by accident, never thought about it again and then killed Cruces when he realized Cruces was a greater threat than he realized plus was about to kill Vimes. You could say the same about him skewering a werewolf later on in Fifth Element, but that was a survival situation I feel. Granted he never really kills again but I like to think if Carrot was face to face with Carcer or Stratford it would've been a very short conversation.

I think that's another reason why Vimes keeps a close eye on Carrot. Imagine doing your best to live life by a strict set of moral principles only to have your charismatic, well beloved second-in-command simply kill a man in front of you then tell you without blinking you had a wedding to go to.

Carrot even says "Personal doesn't mean important" which kind of tells me that no matter what his feelings on the subject, he's going to try to do the right thing.

And he killed Cruces for, I feel, a good reason.

He's a good man who'll kill you without a word and Vimes is a good man who'll kill you when there's no other acceptable option.

Vimes is the grey and Carrot is the white that gets dirty.

[naisilla]

The Emperor's New Muse Part .1

Odyssey Kayn x Reader

content: female reader, non-con, forced blowjob, forced doggy style.

Thunderous marching reverberated through the ship's interior as the sling troopers advanced. In their grasp, you struggled, digging your heels in, violently thrashing. With gritted teeth, you lashed out at the two soldiers who gripped your upper arms like a vice.

Your voice snapped at your captors as you hissed out threats, graphic descriptions of what you promised to make of them ejected from your lips. They cut you off abruptly by throwing your body to the floor. More cusses came from you after your face collided with the hard floor when your eyes snapped to the pair of boots ahead of you.

Looking up your eyes met with a single cold blue stare as his left eye was concealed with a golden eye patch that branched across the sharp features of his face. Immediately you recognize who this imposing man is. The blue hair cut into an edgy mohawk and the golden robotic arm that always gripped that mysterious glowing scythe. The Supreme Ordinal Kayn.

Any shock that you expressed vanished as your lip curled in a snarl, but before a creative insult could come out, the ordinal's boot came down onto your head, pressing it firmly as a warning. The troopers are watching this snicker. "That rebel has quite the silver tongue," one of them comments, making you growl in response, the chucking escalates.

The pressured weight on your head shifts as the ordinal kneels before you, grabbing your face and roughly turning it to look at him. A deep ''hmm" vibrates in his throat as he inspects you closely. His single blue-eye flicks up addressing his sling troopers. "A Rebel you say?"

One of the troopers pipe up "This one was caught trying to tamper with our fleet ships at the last dock."

"Yeh, little shit crawled into the system and sliced up the engine room," says another one. Kayn looks at you with a raised brow.

"You're a mechanic? You understand the elite design of our locus armada fleet ships?" You scoff and roll your eyes.

"I don't, I was just blasting everything until it turned off" Kayn's face scrunched in annoyance.

"I see" he drops your head and straightens himself to his feet, walking past the troopers. "Lock her up, I can't be bothered wasting my time on petty nuisances" He turns his back to you and continues walking off indifferently to your presence.

A hot flush boils within you, and your teeth and wrists clench simultaneously. How dare you be written off as a pest by this bastard! You were his sworn enemy, THE enemy of the Demaxian empire. They may not know who you are but you know them. They had taken your home planet from your people and had drained it of all its ora leaving a lifeless uninhabitable system behind in their greedy pursuit.

You remember the day when the serene sky darkened with the looming shadows of a fleet. When the Demaxians landed an instant struggle ensued as the village you lived in was raided and ravaged by troops. Anyone who resisted was executed immediately and those who remained were either left behind on the dying planet or taken in by force. You never saw your family again, which filled you with bitter hatred towards King Jarvan IV and his empire.

In retaliation, you dedicated your life to vengeance. You had joined a growing rebel group becoming a menace to the empire. You would sneak into capital cities to graffiti the suburbs and protest loudly in the streets. Unfortunately, it seemed that the people of the capitol didn't care much for the opinion of a lower-class citizen. They didn't have to suffer having their planet overthrown by the empire, they lived comfortably in their wealthy establishments and benefitted from having their cities powered by the ora they drained from your land.

You had all this rage, a desire to be known to the empire for that hatred. You wished to tear down Demaxia from its golden pedestal of ora, to drag it and all of its selfish people into hell. To be caught then mindlessly thrown into the prisons like some petty fellon? How demeaning.

As you were being taken away by the guards, you let out a sharp scream and managed to break free. You quickly rushed towards Kayn, moving swiftly and lightly on the balls of your feet, pumping your legs, and launching yourself upwards to attack him. However, even with Kayn's back turned towards you, He swiftly swished his coat and maneuvered himself out of your range.

He swiftly spins his scythe, the blunt handle of it knocking your airborne body off and slamming you into the ground with a painful crack. Your entire body aches as you cough, the wind completely knocked out of you. You spit blood from your mouth as you scramble to collect your composure. You glance around and see the other troopers holding back their laughter.

You lunge towards the demaxian again, the soldiers attempting to restrain you before Kayn. Although Kayn refused to acknowledge you he was impressed by your display of determination. The ordinal scowled while gripping his scythe tightly as if struggling to contain his frustration. "You may be skilled, but that doesn't excuse your lack of respe-" You cut off Kayn with a swift kick to his gut, he hunches over briefly before lashing out a flurry of swings from his scythe each slash you manage to dodge and counter, edging closer to him between each of his misses until you edge close enough to launch another hit hooking into his jaw.

Kayn's demeanor becomes more agitated as he realizes he's been outclassed in the battle. However, you watch as the Demaxian's eyes light up with interest as he smiles slyly and laughs. "You have guts, it's rare for someone of your status to fight back like that." He steps back cracking his neck with his scythe now lowered to his side. "Tell you what, if you can beat me in this duel I'll let you go. Then you'll be free to live this encounter and go back to being a menace to our glorious empire. If you lose however.... let's just say your sentence will be much more severe."

The ordinal inhales deeply and resumes a broad stance standing confidently before you beconing you with his hand in a taunt. "You will not be granted freedom unless you prove yourself worthy of it. So fight me."

The troopers cheer on encouraging the ordinal to put you in your place, but to their surprise you don't back down from the fight. You manage to hold your own against the demaxian, the troopers' eyes widening as you throw punch after punch.

The fight is fast and brutal. Both of you trade blow after blow as your bodies move effortlessly, dancing and flowing together with incredible agility. You dodge and duck beneath his swings while you deliver your own quick attacks in return. The soldiers spectating are captivated by the sight of the fight, some even cheering you both on as the two of you push each other further and further.

You may have been unarmed but Kayn was still unable to land a hit good enough to take you down, merely cutting you lightly while you miraculously used your body as your weapon. Your swift movements are a blur to the soldiers, who barely manage to track the two of you.

You land a series of solid punches to Kayn's body before he retaliates and delivers a kick to your side, pushing you back. You're able to move out of the way of his scythe as it flies past your head, the demaxian's face remains unfazed even though you landed some powerful hits on him.

"A lower class nobody shouldn't have such power" The Ordinal seethes through clenched teeth, his face twists in rage as he realizes you have successfully fought him to a stalemate. You can see the furious fire in his eyes as he stares at you menacingly.

"A rebel...someone like you, you have no right to be this good," the demaxian snarls, "what a shame, you could have been a fine soldier if you had been born into the proper blood," the demaxian chuckles.

Your own face creases with fury. "I take pride in not being of such filthy heritage"

The demaxian laughs loudly and gives you a look of disdain. "Oh? And just what are you prideful of? A species that could never create something so glorious as the Locus Armada? A race that could never harness an element that grants such limitless possibilities?"

He gives you a mocking salute as he speaks, "I can understand why you became a rebel. It must be exhausting being inadequate."

Fed up with his obnoxiousness, you interrupt his insults, swinging your leg behind Kayn's knees in a sweeping motion, causing his legs to buckle. As he stumbles, you aim a well-delivered strike to his groin, forcing him to recoil with a grunt. You top off the combo by bringing your elbow down onto his shoulder.

A satisfied smirk beams down onto the ordinal who was still recovering below you. "Your "glorious" bloodline is full of fat selfish pigs. All you do is swarm and colonize your military is rightly named the locus armada because that perfectly describes your kind as the pest you all are".

Suddenly your nerves are set on fire and your body twitches and spasms erratically as a powerful current of electricity jolt through your body. You drop to the floor feeling all of your strength instantly drained and your blurry vision spots the guards had stepped in with one of them holding a tazer.

Kayn grabs your dazed body and presses you against his chest, he stares into your eyes intently with a powerful gaze, his blue-eye boring right through your spirit. Your hearing is muffled as the insides of your ears ring but you can make out the ordinal's voice commanding his guards to be dismissed before blacking out.

Your eyes snap open as the past events rush back, instinctively you try to get up but are immediately halted finding your hands bound in cuffs. Glaring at them your first move is to try crushing your wrists free through the hole, too tight. Grunting you attempt to bash them against the wall before Kayns mocking voice rings "ah ah ah I wouldn't do that if I were you" He walks over towards you tapping the cuffs with a cunning smirk "Military cuffs, GPS, vital tracking and a shocking protocol" You grumble and glare up at the Ordinal before looking at your surroundings. You expected crumbly, rusted floors, sterile flickering lights and heavy-duty bars. But instead, you found yourself in a luxurious suite. A massive bed made with silky fabrics set in a spacious room of black gold and blue... Demaxian colours.

You squint your eyes and look up at the Ordinal guardedly. "Why did you bring me here? You get lost in your oversized cruise ship?" Kayn remains silent glaring down at you. You looked so pathetic on your knees before him and yet you stared back defiantly, the distain you had for him coming out like potent venom.

The ordinal doesn't respond to your provocation, instead he continues to stare at you with an amused look. The opulent room around you is a contrast to the harsh life you have lived on the streets. The silken furniture, the lavish bed, the spacious room would make any homeless individual feel uncomfortable in its presence.

There is a strange silence between the two of you as you remain on your knees, staring intensely at the demaxian with a hostile glare. His eyes bore into yours for what feels like ages before he finally speak.

"I wouldn't speak so proudly if I were you," the ordinal hisses, "you are a traitor to this empire, a lowborn pest. I could have your head for a pillow, yet you dare to act with such attitude before me?"

The room is silent as the two of you lock eyes, your resentment towards him clear as day. "So what now? Are you going to just kill me?" you ask, your voice full of contempt. The ordinal only shakes his head leaning over you so you have to crane your neck to remain eye contact. "No Im going to remind you exactly where you stand in this chain of command" Kayns says as one of his arms pulls up the fabric of his uniform that drapes over his pants chuckling. "You were naive to think I'd actually set you free from my grasp after all the little stunts you pulled" he clicks his tongue and shakes his head dismissively "no no no imprisonment or death is too good for you, I plan on breaking you another way."

Your eyes narrow as his hand goes to unzip the fly of his pants as he watches your reaction with an amused smirk. "I'm going to teach you to respect this empire" his other arm, the golden robotic one, grabs the back of your head gripping at your hair controlling it to become level with his hips as he looks at you expectantly.

You resist his hold as you jerk your head trying to break free of his grasp when another electric shock reverberates through you eminating from your wrists. A single glare from kayn reminds you that this shock was merely a warning for any more defiance. The ordinals cock now prods your lips promptly.

With a growl you releuctantly submit and begin to tentatively part your lips open, yet Kayn impatiently thrusts his long cock in, instantly hitting the back of your throat. You retch and pull back on instinct but the grip on your hair becomes more severe and you are force to take in more as kayns grip pulls you until your face is flush against his groin his neatly trimmed blue hair brushing your nose.

You can feel the Ordinals cock curve to penetrate your throat cutting off your air, you try to scream intent on cussing him out but the garbled noise that emits from you only makes Kayn throw his head back and moan. His hips begin to thrust each time his cock is crushed down your throat, tears prick your eyes as you helplessly choke.

You can feel your face burn red from the humiliation and lack of air, your head was caving in on itself with pressure, your pulse began to thrum. Panic was sinking in and you felt like you needed to retaliate so you bit down.

Instantly Kayn pulls himself out of your throat and you gasp for air barely getting a sputter before an iron grip is on your throat continuing to suffocate you. "Insolent brat! You'll pay for that!" Suddenly Kayn grabs you and throws you onto the bed, you bounce on the mattress and try to scramble but the Ordinal was fast to pin you down from under him. He grabs your cuffed wrists and pulls them behind your head forcing you into an inconvenient position with his other hand he takes his scythe and uses it to slice off your clothes now leaving you bare beneath him.

You could feel Kayns evil grin behind you as he positioned himself at your entrance, your hands and knees trembled and you mindlessly began to beg for him to stop between little sobs. Kayn leaned forward pressing his broad chest against your back and his laughter vibrated through you. "Not so high and mighty now are you little brat?" his tone was sickeningly sweet and condescending, his warm breath ticking your ear. Finally he pushes in his long length reaching deep within you. Kayn shudders at how you tightly clenched at him, the raw sensation driving him to thrust fast slamming his hips into yours.

Swallowing your sobs you grit your teeth and scrunch your eyes tight bowing your head, you refused to beg, begging for mercy would get you nowhere. Demaxians never took pity, the Ordinal was just as cruel and greedy as the troops that invaded your planet. So you would not cry, you would not submit and you would stay strong through all of this.

Part 2 out now

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 11/19/2024

no silly little witticism here this week! just heartfelt thanks for helping me pay my rent this month :)

listening

absolutely wild pick from last week's spotify weekly recommenced, Things Will Fall Apart by Louis Cole feat the Metropole Orkest and conductor Jules Buckley. it's been on loop all week for me and im a little sad it won't pop up in my spotify wrapped

when you make a dance pop song with a full orchestra backing, it has a really interesting effect somewhere between Golden Age of Hollywood swashbuckling film score and marching band?

Yes, understood Things will fall apart just likе they should This little shred was good Don't think it through Things will fall apart, they always do At least, something's always true

the syllables are so choppy they don’t even register to me as English at first, i was fully willing to believe this was German for the first couple lines. like @dying-suffering-french-stalkers, i have a deep fondness for works about putting an era to bed. or works focused on the sunsets of things, or one of the last living practitioners of an art. putting the chairs up on the table, sweeping the floors, and turning the lights out and locking the door behind you. this song has that sort of quiet post-wake-party remembrance.

however once you think the song has ended but it keeps going, you can turn it off. you don’t really need that extra minute and a half of strings and light vocalizations.

Lately, Louis Cole has been doing live shows with the Netherlands’ Metropole Orkest and conductor Jules Buckley. Cole recorded nothing with the ensemble. In a press release, he says, “Sometimes, when I’m mixing my own solo stuff, I’ll feel like a song needs a little magical dust. But mixing an entire orchestra and your own rhythm section, there’s so much human energy! You don’t have to add any magic. It was there the whole time.”

i don’t hear many pop songs this millennium with a full orchestral backing. perhaps i need to look harder. unfortunately spotify took this extreme interest in this song as a newfound extreme interest in electroswing, which is really not what this song is. i hope this artist does more albums like this so they can wear grooves in my brain

-

reading

very hard to focus on anything book length this week. some depressing local news (my local paper's links do Not want to preview nicely here, which is annoying:

At a city council meeting in October, district Vice President Dan Joyce told council members that the management district was not attempting to "criminalize homelessness." The city’s civility ordinance bans people from sitting, lying down or placing personal items or bedding on sidewalks from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

cool piece from our pals at 404 Media. i am So fascinated by crime infrastructure

Based on interviews with malware developers, hackers who use the stolen credentials, and a review of manuals that tell new recruits how to spread the malware, 404 Media has mapped out this industry. Its end result is that a download of an innocent-looking piece of software by a single person can lead to a data breach at a multibillion-dollar company, putting Google and other tech giants in an ever-escalating cat-and-mouse game with the malware developers to keep people and companies safe.

(via longreads) my interest in how and why systems fail extends to invasive species management. plus i used to live in florida just above the everglades and these fuckers (the snakes) were everywhere

[I]magine thousands upon thousands of pythons, their slow digestion transforming each corpse into python muscle and fat. Unaided, Florida’s native wildlife doesn’t stand a chance. “That’s what I think about with every python I catch,” Kalil says. “What it ate to get this big, and the lives I’m saving by removing it.” Biologists are taking a multipronged approach to the issue. They have experimented with enlisting dogs to sniff out both pythons and nests—a technique that has proved difficult in such hot weather and inhospitable landscapes. Ongoing projects use telemetry to track pythons to find “associate snakes.” Researchers use drones, go out in airboats, or even take to helicopters to locate their subjects in the interiors of the Everglades. Always, agencies and individuals are looking for the next best methods. “But for now, the python contractor program is the most successful management effort in the history of the issue,” Kirkland says. “We’re capturing more and more—something that is indicative of the python population out there and indicative of us getting better at what we do.”

-

watching

continuing noirvember, watched hitchcock's Notorious to see if i still dislike hitchcock. the answer is yes. there are bond girls and there are hitchcock girls, and not that bond girls are paragons of female agency in film, but hitchcock girls are mostly fluttering little pathetic things. a scrap of agency they showed in the beginning of the film becomes a running joke and something their noses are rubbed in for the rest of the film. not for me!

patrick mcgoohan is leading me into some real dad-ass movies. Ice Station Zebra (1968, dir. Sturges) is a real you're stuck at home sick with your dad and it's on TV for the whole afternoon kind of movie. they truly do not make two and a half cold war submarine espionage films in super panavision with an overture, intermission, and interact music any more. i get why howard hughes was really obsessed with this one. it is a suspense film, but full of people competently going about their business, which i find oddly comforting.

unfortunately i do not feel this really needed to be two and a half hours long. the loving closeups of sub interiors and instrumentation really did keep me amused, though. despite how cluttered every shot is with actors, there is tremendous clarity of purpose and motion with the camera movement. just a really technically brilliant film.

how similar the russian and american control rooms and instrumentation were made me chortle. ties nicely into a little diatribe mcgoohan goes on much later in the film, "The Russians put our camera made by our German scientists and your film made by your German scientists into their satellite made by their German scientists." funny and darkly true! every allied nation had some sort of Operation Paperclip going on! mcgoohan is the focus of every scene he's in, as a spy who is really hanging on by the last remaining shreds of his fingernails.

i had a good time with it, but one of many cold war suspense films im glad exist in the world but don't necessarily need to see again. it might join Escape from New York as a film i put on when im very sick though.

-

playing

this pc needs some sort of replacement something, bc it has a really persistent overheating problem. it only tolerates powerwasher simulator on the lowest possible settings and genshin impact on basically mobile settings. it does not even want to run new vegas. i popped my head out of goodsprings to look out over the desert at the Strip and it said no thank you! too many polygons! naptime!

speaking of genshin, major update this week and new character i will be pulling for. she has a sister who died in the last patch, which i do Not care for as someone with a beloved little sister, but her moveset and skills are unique so far in the game. i feel like her skills are little too complicated for me to fully take advantage of with my "hit enemy very hard until he is dead" playstyle but she has a limited flight ability that will genuinely be very useful for exploration.

if i do not get her when i hit pity on the banner i won't bother pulling another nine times or whatever, bc the next patch has a character i really desperately want and i am saving for her

-

making

the local crew is all getting art this year, bc i already have bristol board and a selection of small frames and zero budget. people who have pets are So easy to get gifts for bc u can simply get them stuff for their pet or that looks like their pet. way less gray cat than black cat merch in the world tho

aiming to send out international holiday cards by the end of the week, and canadian cards by american thanksgiving. the rest of you they'll get there when they get there ok

[finalmemesx]

The Last Book on the Left

By the Last Podcast on the Left.

"I am paid literally hundreds of dollars to suck on television."

"Always use a condom."

"I'm actually supposed to be a very important millionaire."

"Disgustingly, this is an actual genre on Pornhub."

"This is before they started killing people!"

"There are more red flags in this relationship than what you see in Google Maps when you search for bagel shops in Brooklyn."

"You have no business having this level of confidence."

"Now I am scared."

"None of us care what you learn in your fancy law school books."

"They might as well have been driving Jigsaw's bicycle."

"If you want to get out of responsibilities, you do something badly and no one asks you to do it again."

"It would be really inspiring if it didn't lead to so much homicide."

"Most cold-blooded SOB is Stone Cold Steve Austin."

"I hope to play them in the eventual CW teen drama about his life."

"It's hard for a parent to comprehend their child might be a vampire."

"You gotta get good at the cunnilingus and keep yourself in the game."

"Oh wait, that's bad."

"Fucking metal! But also incredibly scary."

"This is like blaming the road for you crashing your car while drunk."

"I can't be mixing any thoughts of brunch into this."

"Remind me to get a 'not welcome' sign on my door immediately!"

"You look at them like Wayne looked at the Excalibur guitar in Wayne's World."

"Here is where I tap out like Kurt Angle tapped to Chris Jericho."

"You're living a metal god's dream."

"Most homosexual lifestyles involve going to work, making dinner, watching Top Chef, and going to sleep."

"I will say if someone really loves kombucha, they might be a serial killer."

"More information that gives me pause regarding my friendships."

"Evidently the recipe isn't the only secret there."

"That's a city ordinance violation."

"Excuse me while my skin crawls off my body."

"I would have loved to see their Tinder profile."

"I also haven't committed dozens of murders."

"I am certain this made you very popular at school."

"You're finally ready for Hollywood!"

"Weed makes me want to watch movies, eat a burrito, and stare at the sky to see if any stars move."

"I'm completely romanticizing the life of a detective."

"When are you guys going to catch that motherfucker?"

"Life you haven't stroked it covered in popcorn."

"But those people are nerds."

"We've got a nerd alert!"

"It really was a different time for angry mobs of people."

"It's official, I am never having children."

"This is why I only hung out with the troublemakers in school."

"I fucking hate you."

"I do it better and I can come faster."

"And what I wouldn't give for a taste of that sweet Baba Yaga milk."

"This is where humor saves people from becoming a cannibal."

"You have to put the blame on yourself if you get caught."

"Nothing good happens under a bridge."

"Sounds like a Hardy Boys mystery."

"I'm not going to sleep for the rest of the week, but it was fascinating information!"

"Similar to when I get super stoned and realize all the Domino's I just ate."

"And I thought the fleshlight was a bit extreme."

"What the hell was going on in the 1980s?"

"I'm never going to trust my neighbors again."

[wellthebardsdead]

Fools Prayer pt4

Part 3 here

———

“My heart… I tried… he took it… my heart.”

Nerevar: Voryn?… *blinks open his eyes to find himself in the ever familiar heat of the heart chamber beneath red mountain where his destiny was made, the air hot and searing, steaming the very moisture from his eyes and skin as he finds his foothold in what he knows is a dream* Voryn is that you?… *looks around with a tired gaze, having relived this so many times before in his endless, restless nights, before finally resting his eyes upon the horror before him*

Mephala: *strung up by her own thread, her body split open and her heart now replaced with that of the heart of creation, just as Boethia and Azura had forewarned* I’m too late- *staggers back as steam bellows from the pipes connected to the heart as it pulses weakly from her exposed rib cage, making her scream and writhe in agony*

Mephala: *speaking with a voice not her own, one deep and familiar in the crevices of Nerevars mind, voryns voice* my heart… he took my heart… I tried to stop him. I tried to- *freezes in place, her gaze snapping to nerevar as her face twists and contorts to that of a handsome dunmer man, with three, red eyes* Nerevar…

*BANG! BANG! BANG!*

Nerevar: *jolts awake, shooting upright in his bed as sweat glistens across his golden skin* VORYN!! *gasps for breath as he clutches the sheets, grounding himself as he realises he’s safe in his bed* I don’t… I don’t understand- *jumps as the doors swing open and a guard staggers in dropping to their knees as they beg for forgiveness for disturbing his rest*

Guard: Forgive me for waking you your highness. I tried to stop the temple councillors. We tried to recite your orders but they said that justice for the good daedra and their people must be brought.

Nerevar: I- justice?

Guard: they’re preparing the execution of Vivec. Your men are approaching the city as we speak.

Nerevar: … *fumbles out of his sheets and swiftly grabs his armour* ancestors no we have to stop them!!

*meanwhile*

Vivec: *bound and kneeling amongst his captors as the silt strider bringing him to his fate sways slowly with each step, his body stripped bare and only covered with a rough sheet and the magic suppressing irons around his wrists and ankles, and his eyes heavy and fluttering closed with exhaustion, forbidden to rest, forbidden to be comfortable, and forbidden to hold a shred of dignity* …

Temple guard: *suddenly shoves him hard knocking him forward onto the hollowed ‘floor’ of the striders carapace* Oi, N’wah! I warned you about closing your eyes.

Ordinator: … *gently sits vivec upright once more, fixing the sheet over his exposed body* Back off from him. We were told to avoid excessive force until nerevar himself declared otherwise.

Vivec: nerevars word will not reach you in time to decide… my fate is sealed beyond those gates.

Ordinator: what-

Temple Guard: *raises their hand to strike the bound god* What did I tell you about tal-

Ordinator: *grabs their hand* shut up… *turns his gaze over the edge of the striders carapace as the noise of a crowd finally reaches his ears* what the?… *steps to the head of the hollow to see the entire city gathering at the gates with torches and weapons drawn as the stable hands hurry to push the raised platforms to the beasts side*

Vivec: *glances up at the ordinator* I’m ready to greet my end… *slowly rises to his feet with an exhausted, pained grunt, and a slight wobble to his step. Looking like he’s ready to pass out at any moment. His candles wick burned out at both ends, and the end of his rope unravelling in his grasp*

Ordinator: I- no wait!! Sit back down what’s happening?! Nerevar never mentioned this.

Ordinator 2: he said to retrieve him for interrogation not execution!

Ordinator 3: can you even kill a god- Hey wait unhand him!! *draws his weapon as temple guards suddenly ascend the steps to the striders platform and apprehend the living god with ease*

Vivec: *glances back at them for a moment, his pace halting like an immovable force, the shackles in truth doing nothing to halt him of his abilities* my words will not reach nerevars ears in time before it’s too late… please… tell him… I’m sorry.

Ordinator 3: *eyes locking with the gold and red of the dunmeri peoples embodiment of the present. And feeling his heart ache and hang heavy in his chest as Vivec’s words ring of truth in his mind. Bringing tears to his eyes from the tongue of the warrior poet, unable to speak or barely hold his weapon aloft as the temple guards lead him away* I- I will.

Vivec: *allows the guards to pull him away and down the steps once more, their hands rough and their grip tight, leaving visible bruising on his skin that once would have never of shown at the height of his power, now laying bare for the world to see as they finally set foot on the ashen soil before Mournhold and its people, and the sheet removed, leaving him exposed and helpless before their judgment* … *slowly raises his head, his gaze landing on several figures approaching him and the guards holding him as the crowd falls silent with hushed whispers overshadowed by the breeze, the high councillors of House Dres, House Redoran, and house Sadras* … *effortlessly pulls his arms free from the guards grip and kneels down into a graceful bow amongst the ash. A submissive gesture of respect made somehow insulting as he shows a poise befitting a god before them* if my death has been ordered, I go to it willingly. I will not delay the inevita- *coughs as a boot suddenly greets his face with a swift kick, knocking him onto his side and earning a mix of shocked gasps and cheers for violence from the crowd*

Sen Dres: *the new head of house Dres and holder of their seat within the temple of Mournhold, a young, and arrogant councillor with more vitriol and spite than reason and thought* You dare prostate yourself at our feet and pretend still to be more than a whore who stole power from your betters?!

Archmagister Vilinu Sadras: g-grandmaster dres please we should wait for the hortators decision on this mat-

Archmaster Redoran: Silence! Nerevars kindness allowed him to live once before, and look at where it lead him. Lead our people! And now he wishes to afford it again! He kneels before us a traitor to the temple and all of morrowind. He must die.

Vivec: *winces as the guards pull him up from the dirt by his shackles, his blood turning the ash to ebony where it fell from his nose and lip* I, *raises his head, his very gaze though tired and gentle, freezing them in place out of fear for what he may still be capable of* Am ready. To receive my judgement.

Sen Dres: *steps forward, drawing his dagger from his belt and grabbing Vivec by his long braid* and your judgement you shall receive. *steps behind him and yanks his head back hard as he cuts through the gods thick hair, hacking it off with glee believing himself to be humiliating him, completely unaware Vehk grew it out in his own act of penance for his betrayal to nerevar and his people* now then. *raises the braid up for the crowd to see and delighting in their cheers and boos, not at all noticing the tension leave the gold and blue skinned elves shoulders as he does so, like a weight both physical and emotional had finally been lifted* Walk before ‘your’ people. False god.

[ongolecharles]

DAILY SCRIPTURE READINGS (DSR) 📚 Group, Fri Aug 02nd, 2024 ... Friday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year B

Reading 1

----------

Jer 26:1-9

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim,

son of Josiah, king of Judah,

this message came from the LORD:

Thus says the LORD:

Stand in the court of the house of the LORD

and speak to the people of all the cities of Judah

who come to worship in the house of the LORD;

whatever I command you, tell them, and omit nothing.

Perhaps they will listen and turn back,

each from his evil way,

so that I may repent of the evil I have planned to inflict upon them

for their evil deeds.

Say to them: Thus says the LORD:

If you disobey me,

not living according to the law I placed before you

and not listening to the words of my servants the prophets,

whom I send you constantly though you do not obey them,

I will treat this house like Shiloh,

and make this the city to which all the nations of the earth

shall refer when cursing another.

Now the priests, the prophets, and all the people

heard Jeremiah speak these words in the house of the LORD.

When Jeremiah finished speaking

all that the LORD bade him speak to all the people,

the priests and prophets laid hold of him, crying,

"You must be put to death!

Why do you prophesy in the name of the LORD:

'This house shall be like Shiloh,' and

'This city shall be desolate and deserted'?"

And all the people gathered about Jeremiah in the house of the LORD.

Responsorial Psalm

----------------

PS 69:5, 8-10, 14

R. (14c) Lord, in your great love, answer me.

Those outnumber the hairs of my head

who hate me without cause.

Too many for my strength

are they who wrongfully are my enemies.

Must I restore what I did not steal?

R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.

Since for your sake I bear insult,

and shame covers my face.

I have become an outcast to my brothers,

a stranger to my mother’s sons,

Because zeal for your house consumes me,

and the insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me.

R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.

But I pray to you, O LORD,

for the time of your favor, O God!

In your great kindness answer me

with your constant help.

R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.

Alleluia

--------

1 Pt 1:25

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The word of the Lord remains forever;

this is the word that has been proclaimed to you.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

-----------

Mt 13:54-58

Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue.

They were astonished and said,

“Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?

Is he not the carpenter’s son?

Is not his mother named Mary

and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?

Are not his sisters all with us?

Where did this man get all this?”

And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them,

“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place

and in his own house.”

And he did not work many mighty deeds there

because of their lack of faith.

***

FOCUS AND LITURGY OF THE WORD

I have a friend, who in his third year of high school, got caught stealing a package of cigarettes in his neighborhood drugstore. The owner banished him for ever from the store.

Fourteen years later, the week after his ordination as a Jesuit priest, his mother asked him to go to the same drugstore to get her something. He walked in and the older owner shouted, “I told you never again to come in here!” So he left with a big smile and went to a more welcoming place.

In today’s Gospel for this First-Friday Eucharistic liturgy, Jesus is not only returning to His home town, but is teaching to His old neighbors in their Synogogue. These faithful Jews question among themselves about his wisdom and power. They think they know Him, because they knew His parents and extended family. He had been urging the, by His words, to a more faith-based, more personally relationship with the God of their ancient faith. They resisted Him and His words, because they clung. His life-giving Word-Seeds fell on hard soil and so He moved on where there might be a more welcoming growing area.

Jesus did not need popular-acceptance. He was advancing in holy self-acceptance and so came and went. He was growing in the awareness of Who He was. He did not need any validation for His growing into. It would be attractive and easy for me to fill out this Reflection by writing about our need to grow in self-acceptance, so I won’t.

I write just a closing thought about living with memories of what we thought in the past which have frozen into the comfortable concrete. Memories can form images and we grow holding them tightly against the intrusion of the new, different and so uncomfortable.

Now here’s the punchline. What Jesus really came to do was to change the ideas of God! Imagine that! Once a relationship is concretely comfortable, it is dying and probably dead.        So, if we are unmovable and relaxed with our image of Jesus and or the unknowable God, that Jesus and His Father are moving on to more receptive soil.    

***

SAINT OF THE DAY

Saint Eusebius of Vercelli

(c. 300 – August 1, 371)

Saint Eusebius of Vercelli’s Story

Someone has said that if there had been no Arian heresy denying Christ’s divinity, it would be very difficult to write the lives of many early saints. Eusebius is another of the defenders of the Church during one of its most trying periods.

Born on the isle of Sardinia, he became a member of the Roman clergy, and is the first recorded bishop of Vercelli in Piedmont in northwest Italy. Eusebius was also the first to link the monastic life with that of the clergy, establishing a community of his diocesan clergy on the principle that the best way to sanctify his people was to have them see a clergy formed in solid virtue and living in community.

He was sent by Pope Liberius to persuade the emperor to call a council to settle Catholic-Arian troubles. When it was called at Milan, Eusebius went reluctantly, sensing that the Arian block would have its way, although the Catholics were more numerous. He refused to go along with the condemnation of Saint Athanasius; instead, he laid the Nicene Creed on the table and insisted that all sign it before taking up any other matter. The emperor put pressure on him, but Eusebius insisted on Athanasius’ innocence and reminded the emperor that secular force should not be used to influence Church decisions. At first the emperor threatened to kill him, but later sent him into exile in Palestine. There the Arians dragged him through the streets and shut him up in a little room, releasing him only after his four-day hunger strike. They resumed their harassment shortly after.

His exile continued in Asia Minor and Egypt, until the new emperor permitted him to be welcomed back to his see in Vercelli. Eusebius attended the Council of Alexandria with Athanasius and approved the leniency shown to bishops who had wavered. He also worked with Saint Hilary of Poitiers against the Arians.

Eusebius died peacefully in his own diocese at what was then considered an advanced age.

Reflection

----------

Catholics in the U.S. have sometimes felt penalized by an unwarranted interpretation of the principle of separation of Church and state, especially in the matter of Catholic schools. Be that as it may, the Church is happily free today from the tremendous pressure put on it after it became an “established” Church under Constantine. We are happily rid of such things as a pope asking an emperor to call a Church council, Pope John I being sent by the emperor to negotiate in the East, or the pressure of kings on papal elections. The Church cannot be a prophet if it’s in someone’s pocket.

***

【Build your Faith in Christ Jesus on #dailyscripturereadingsgroup 📚: +256 751 540 524 .. Whatsapp】

[robotnik-mun]

What do you think would happen if SatAM Robotnik and games Eggman (for some reason in my mind classic Eggman is what shows up usually when I consider the scenario) somehow managed to switch places?

Would SatAM Robotnik have a more difficult time dealing with the games universe considering it seems like the game characters are much more physically powerful than the SatAM cast, and they have access to resources like the chaos emeralds? Or would he find it easier since there is no tactile resistance force akin to the Freedom Fighters?

Would games Eggman find himself struggling against such a well-coordinated resistance effort, or would his more creative, extreme plans and creations put the Freedom Fighters at a disadvantage? Would he find Robotropolis and it’s completely Roboticized subjects boring since there is nobody really around (besides Snively) to give him attention and to boost his ego?

It makes sense that you'd picture classic Eggman for it given that this was the time when SatAM first debuted and when Julian was concurrent with the guy, before Sonic Adventure changed the name of the game. As such I'll use the classic era of things as the benchmark here.

Anyway-

Julian upon winding up in the classic Sonic world and swiftly discovering he no longer has the vast resources he commanded back on Mobius, I feel, would actually make efforts for a more subtle means of taking over than Ivo is prone to. His first step would be to create a working Roboticizer, and the next step would be to use whatever resources he presently has to create a hidden fortress to co-ordinate his new schemes from and doing research on the world and its defenders. Naturally he'd be miffed to discover that The Hedgehog is still around along with Tails, though curiously none of the other Freedom Fighters.

One point of definite interest for Julian would be the existence of the Chaos Emeralds and the data on this world's version of the Floating Island. Rather than overt conquest immediately, Julian instead builds up his new Swatbot army slowly, while carefully kidnapping and capturing people to be roboticized to serve as a new slave labor force. From there he uses the Robian slaves to build more robots and expand his hidden, underground fortress-city, all the while gathering data on Sonic and friends. Something that, due to their relatively public lives (save for Knuckles) is a lot easier by comparison.

In any event when the time comes for him to show his hand, Sonic and Friends are going to have a VERY hard time with things. Not only are Swatbots and the like much more formidable than Badniks, Julian having experience as a military strategist and planner means he's not prone to the same kind of errors that Ivo makes (or at least not as often), and as such our heroes are kept on their feet almost constantly, and whatever victories they do enjoy are by the skin of their teeth. Quickly it becomes less a matter of beating Robotnik's forces and more a matter of rescuing people before they can be added to his growing forces. Pretty soon they find themselves playing things out as they are in SatAM (or if you will, Sonic forces), forced into hiding and having to better organize themselves against Robotnik's encroachment.

So yeah, not a fun time for the SEGA crew.

Eggman on Mobius by contrast would have different problems and different goals, and provide different challenges for the Freedom Fighters compared to his Mobius counterpart. To begin with, the realization that he controls a global empire here with all the resources that entails would be a cause for ecstacy, as would the revelation of the Roboticizer being basically the perfect means of creating obedient slave workers out of a conquered populace… up until the reveal that Sonic and Tails are still around here. That'd put a damper on his good mood.

Still, despite that setback, Eggman none the less realizes he has a good thing here. Especially since now, with the resources at his disposal, all he needs to do is find a way back to his original home and bring his newfound army with him, and thus reign supereme over both worlds. Snively at first would underestimate Eggman thinking of him as a childish buffoon, only to quickly learn the error of his ways… Eggman might not be as vicious or cruel as Julian, but he is far, far from harmless.

Eggman would proceed to re-organize things in Robotnik's empire more in accordance with his own style of things, but his primary goal would be focus his attention on building a new super weapon to send back home and facilitate his conquest of the world. Work would begin on a new, improved Death Egg, and he would also deploy Swatbots in order to capture small animals for usage in Badnik shells. The Freedom Fighters would find themselves deeply confounded by the birds they typically use for communications being captured, as well as the Great Forest suddenly being infested with various Badnik types. Being unused to the Badniks, they're forced to re-adjust to the swarms of new robots infesting every corner of things… and that's without getting into the terror of Metal Sonic. One particular adjustment is that Eggman does not hate Sonic with the same obsessive zeal that Robotnik does, and as such, they can no longer rely on familiar tactics to distract the ovoid one.

Their great advantage is that Eggman's showboating and lack of preparation in dealing with this kind of organized resistance means that dealing with him isn't quite the ordeal it could be, but things are not easy for the Freedom Fighters. EAsier than what their SEGA counterparts are dealing with, but not easy by a long shot.

Take note that this is all very Broad Strokes and I haven't really got a super specific idea for this beyond this point, other than what you might expect- sooner or later the heroes of both dimensions make contact and aid each other in taking down their respective Egg Men, and Robotnik's master plan is revealed- using the Chaos Emeralds to merge the counterpart planets into one, an act that would devastate SEGAworld and allow his empire to move in and lay claim swiftly to the new lands and people availble while swelling up his army. Naturally at some point Eggman would lend a hand to the Heroes in order to save his own world rather than let an 'inferior copy' have control over it before he can do it.

The Day Is Saved, everyone returns to their proper place, but not before the two Sonics decide to engage in a Chilli-Dog Eating Contest to end them all.

As I said this is all fairly broad strokes and without a super exact sequence of events in mind, but that's pretty much how I might see it playing out... honestly all of 'these' kind of scenarios wind up ending the same way in my head, with Julian ultimately proving himself to be the bigger danger and Everybody Working Together To Thwart Him In The End.

[ambiguouspuzuma]

Nocturne

The City of Novo Ubat wasn't technically nocturnal. Strictly - and according to the World Clock, who were the authority on all such things - its denizens rose, worked, ate and played in daytime hours, from early ante meridiem to late post meridiem, just like their distant neighbours across the globe. It was simply that, for them, the sun chose that time to rest instead.

The World Clock had smoothed it all out. They'd done away with time zones, the hassle of plus or minus, forward or backward, relics from an age of empire and agriculture: man's attempt to live a uniform life across a capricious world. There was no reason high noon should be at twelve, they figured, when four a.m. or six p.m. had equal right to the sunshine. So they'd shared it out equally.

All countries, all continents, now observed the same time, per the atomic chiming of the World Clock itself. They'd fixed it so it would be 3:15 a.m. in every city all at once, whether that meant brightest day or blackest night to the locals. Global co-ordination had never been easier. At every hour on the clock, it would be daylight somewhere in the world, and international teams could function through them all.

Of course, there were some adjustments to be made. Night owls congregated in cities like Novo Ubat - where they could live with their pupils large and minds alive, still working their nine-to-five against darker skies, keeping in touch with contacts on the light side of the world - whilst morning larks flocked the other way.

In turn, the city changed to cater to those who chose to live in darkness: cafés still opened for an 8 a.m. cup of coffee, the perfect way to start the night, a bars kept the liquor flowing until it was light outside. The minarets still sounded dawn and dusk, but everything else shifted around them. It was a city of mood lighting and blackout blinds, supplements of Vitamin D and ultraviolet lamps - and the type of person who would embrace all of that, finally giving into their body clock's demands.

For the vampires, it was a game-changer. Aamir bin Layl, like all of his brethren, had long struggled with obligate nocturnality. In centuries past, they had been able to rise to rule a feudal fiefdom, controlling lands for miles around their castle crypt, but the age of empires had cut them adrift on new oceans of power and influence.

Even with the benefit of technology, they were forced to sleep at different times, and could each only work in the depths of night. It was hard to run a global corporation that way; a vampire in New South Wales could hardly call his sire in Transylvania, with daylight bound to shine upon one of their screens. The novel Dracula was told only through letters, and perhaps that had been prophetic: for all of their unnatural speed, they could never Zoom.

But in Novo Ubat, they could speak in person, or at least in whatever they were instead, during the middle of the working day. With the World Clock's reforms, they could work all hours - nine to five and five to nine - with representatives in every country, a network that began to creep across the globe. In time, they would come to rule the human world once more. In time, and without time zones, everywhere would be the good old days again.

[rametarin]

Cities irritate me. Pondering them.

People that love cities seem to enjoy the selling point that your personal liberties are inherently compromised either by hard laws, or just by the nature of the soft laws. Such as, gun rights.

There's hard laws that are laws that arbitrarily punish your discharging of a firearm, whether it does or could damage anything. Those laws are hard because they exist purely to punish you based on what you MIGHT do accidentally or on purpose.

Then there's the soft, indirect, asymmetric laws. These ones punish you based on the circumstance. In a city, you virtually cannot discharge a firearm without it hitting something man-made and owned as property, be it brick walls, windows, street lights, or a herd of people walking around. You are almost guaranteed to be taken to court and sued into oblivion for it.

People that stand to make a great deal of money off available labor and the expenses of the people that live there love cities, because it's a large population and pool of people that can do labor. But then they also rope the city into taxing the people that live there in order to finance city life- which gives the city more control over the space above the earth, where they DO control the erection and construction of dwellings, workplaces and institutions deemed necessary for the function of society. They make the people pay to live in the cities and build the cities, and the city and wealthy tolerate one another's influence because they need one another. All to create a large population of people that have needs for both living space and creature necessities.

But the rub is you simply do not and cannot have the freedom of suburban or rural life. You give up certain amounts of personal autonomy, like the freedom of gun ownership without being charged out the ass if your discharged bullets hit anything, and more arbitrary laws that punish you for carrying when you are forced just by the layout of the city to pass by buildings where you aren't allowed to carry or concealed carry, just to live your life.

And the only people that can live under these laws, live around them illegally. Those willing to violate the laws and sacrifice any notion of legally living in society and try to live in the cracks, cede legitimacy in return for doing whatever they want, at the cost of possibly going to prison. These ones carry and intend to commit crimes and predate on people. The ones that live legally become marks, the ones that live illegally prey on them.

Real estate becomes an impossible luxury, because there's simply so many people and so many (necessary and not) zoning ordinances, and regulations, making new housing is practically impossible. You have to build new parts of the city just to keep providing for the people.

Simply put, after a certain size, cities become too intimate and congested. There's no room to live.

You can't have a space to work on your car in your yard, you can't go over to a friend's house to crash because their breadbox apartment isn't "zoned" for guests and the landlord's ire.

Cities just aren't designed for people, they're designed to treat people like hamsters that pay to live in a cage for the betterment of those that believe in the idea of caging people (one distinct group) and the people those cagers deal with (business people, whom are distinct from the ideological cagers and are just in it for the convenience such workers bring.)

So I've come to a conclusion;

I think in the future we're going to have more rural and urban sprawl, and tele-presence will be used for a kind of national commuting. Imagine cities that serve only as large factories; the workers are effectively machines connected to a wireless internet in the factory. You connect via VR and haptic feedback peripherals in the hands for tactile perception. Cities of the future will be designed to house a minority of people who maintain these factory conditions and don't mind the industrial limitations of city life.

The actual workers and employees will enjoy lives outside said city, perhaps connecting from thousands of miles away in different states. Not needing to go by rail or bus or car to commute, always having a machine to boot up into convenient workstations, where they are for a human hand to serve function there.

Doing it this way you eliminate so much need for congestion in cities and can maximize exactly how human inhospitable the city layout is. You'd need far fewer schools locally, fewer sidewalks, fewer residential buildings, fewer sewers, less garbage dumps, fewer hospitals, smaller government. Cities become centered around the people that specifically want to live in a city for the sake of living in a city, which means the sacrifices based on location and necessity become less of a consequence of living there and more the point. Where a minority population can exist there in comfort and the majority can earn city-life wages while living in whatever home community that they wish.

This means that cities can focus less on making breadbox apartments out of necessity to fit as many people as possible, and can afford to make vertical properties that are actually able to be physically owned. Because the people that would be paying taxes to work there as a toll to access the jobs and thus also provide for the city, would not similarly tax the city with their living, physical existence for their needs. The city could suddenly AFFORD, with both space and real estate and labor, to improve the quality of living conditions.

That would mean fewer tiny apartments with small square footage of space and more condominiums with as much space and square footage as farmhouses, able to comfortably house a family of 6-8. With the equivalent of a yard.

That'd mean more piping, infrastructure and real estate for something that's usually, "NIMBY." Imagine cities meant to be natural containment for nuclear power plants, so if there was an explosion (god forbid), they're designed to soak up the energy and spare populations- perhaps even a skyline meant to absorb sunlight and buildings designed not with the priority of habitating people and more as giant vertically-erected but horizontally spinning wind turbines. Cities that themselves are the sources of massive amounts of carbon sinkage, using renewable energy to remove it from the atmosphere.

To me, this seems like a good compromise. The way we're currently doing cities is enormously inhuman for individual rights, and it compromises too much just to be viable. And I'm not commenting on the financial side of things; I'm meaning specifically from the civic side.

It offers all the advantages of a city but removes the sources of poverty in a city when the jobs go away. It eliminates the urban decay and crime. It eliminates road congestion. Cities should logically be populated by fewer people but provide the sort of close proximity, high industrial employment that rural and suburban places don't.

The benefits it'd offer outside of that are great, too. Because you'd have tens of millions fewer people driving to work everyday, you'd have tens of millions fewer people consuming gasoline, diesel or electricity as fuel just to move the person to get to work. You'd have less wear on our roads and streets from traversing.

Overall, the idea of a city as a more serious business industrial zone habitated by tele-presence robots and a smaller human population to service them and keep the place running in ways that require a human presence (and get adequately paid for the inconvenience of city life) just seems to be the more human hospitable model.

[misfitwashere]

November 17, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 18

Tonight is a break from the craziness of the news. 

I often say that 1883 is my favorite year in history because of all that happened in that pivotal year, and one of those things is the way modernity swept across the United States of America in a way that was shocking at the time but that is now so much a part of our world we rarely even think of it….

Until November 18, 1883, railroads across the United States operated under 53 different time schedules, differentiated on railroad maps by a complicated system of colors. For travelers, time shifts meant constant confusion and, frequently, missed trains. And then, at noon on Sunday, November 18, 1883, railroads across the North American continent shifted their schedules to conform to a new standard time. Under the new system, North America would have just five time zones. 

Fifteen minutes before the time of the shift, the telegraph company Western Union shut down all telegraph lines for anything but the declaration of the new time. It identified the moment the new time went into effect in telegraph messages to local railroad offices and to the jewelers known in cities for keeping time. In offices that got the message, men had their timepieces in their hands and ready to reset when the chief operator shouted “twelve o’clock!” 

In Boston the change meant that the clocks would move forward about 16 minutes; in New York City, clocks were set back about four minutes. For Baltimore the time would move forward six minutes and twenty-eight seconds; in Atlanta it went back 22 minutes. 

The system was a dramatic wrench for the rural United States, bringing it into the modern world. Uniform time zones had been proposed by pioneering meteorologist Cleveland Abbe, who developed the U.S. system of weather forecasting. Having joined the United States Weather Bureau as chief meteorologist in 1871, he recognized that predicting the weather required a nationally coordinated team and worked with Western Union to collect information about temperature, wind direction, precipitation, and sunset times from across the country. 

Coordinating that information required keeping time across all the stations he had set up. To do so, Abbe divided the United States into four time zones, each one hour apart, and in 1879 he suggested those zones might smooth out the chaos of the railroad systems, each trying to coordinate schedules across a patchwork of local times. Railroad executives, who were concerned that if they didn’t do something, the government would, listened to Abbe, and by 1883 they had concluded to put his new system in place.

Members of the new professional class who traveled by train from city to city were on board because they thought the need to regularize train schedules was imperative. But standard time was controversial. In the United States, people had operated entirely by the rhythms of the sun until the establishment of factories in New England in the 1830s, and most people still lived by those rhythms, their local time adjusting to solar time according to their geographical location. 

Telling the time by sundial and history not only was custom, but also was understood as following God’s time. The idea of overriding traditional timekeeping because of the needs of the modern world seemed positively sacrilegious. “People…must eat, sleep and work…by railroad time,” wrote a contributor to the Indianapolis Daily Sentinel. “People will have to marry by railroad time…. Ministers will be required to preach by railroad time…. Banks will open and close by railroad time; notes will be paid or protested by railroad time.” 

The mayor of Bangor, Maine, vetoed an ordinance in favor of standard time, saying it was unconstitutional, that it changed the immutable law of God, that the people didn’t want it, and that it was hard on the working men because it changed day into night. Those planning for a switch to standard time tried to ease fears by providing that Americans would operate on both local time and standard time, with both times represented on clocks.

On November 18, no one quite knew what the dramatic wrench into the future might mean. 

What did it mean to gain or lose time? Many people expected “a sensation, a stoppage of business, and some sort of a disaster, the nature of which could not be exactly ascertained,” a New York Times reporter recorded. As the great moment approached, people crowded the streets in front of jewelers to see the “great transformation.” 

They were disappointed when, after all the buildup, the future arrived quietly.

The New York Times explained: “When the reader of THE TIMES consults his paper at 8 o’clock this morning at his breakfast table it will be 9 o’clock in St. John, New Brunswick, 7 o’clock in Chicago, or rather in St. Louis—for Chicago authorities have refused to adopt the standard time, perhaps because the Chicago meridian was not selected as the one on which all time must be based—6 o’clock in Denver, Col. and 5 o’clock in San Francisco. That is the whole story in a nut-shell.”

—

[the-firebird69]

There are other things happening but it is a major major event it is five of Trump's armies we're marching on DJA and for some reason their ordinance is not separated enough or held the way they should or something and they all were detonated by their own bombs and yeah I guess they are going to try and use it on BJA it is a sizable force they were about 13 thousandth of his whole army which is a lot to lose in one blank. But they're gone and he's organizing more parties to go after BJ A momentarily

- There's news about the battlefield and other areas the 1.4 billion that came additional to those that were left this morning are more or less fully out and leadership has dropped again and it's down to about 7% 12% and 29% and it will drop again as another 1.2 billionaire called and will be here momentarily and yeah there was a big cloud of smoke from them fighting I think it was not radioactive and they did not have the party and open house because of too many threats. And it was not the rev trike of Camilla at the store it was someone else bike

-- In addition to the Rings being on fire another 1.2 billion being called they are thinking of going out there to try and oversee what's going on. there's a huge amount of them no there's 97 households and the remains mostly intact some are kind of stupid now. they will decide tonight. however three feel a must to see it and figure out why and what tod o and true too.

-- There's another battle going on that has increased in amplitude and magnitude over the past couple hours and it is the clones they are approaching and from the SE Groups out and they're big groups and they're supposed to attack things and they are being attacked and the clones are 40% withdrawn

there is more but we publish now

Thor Freya

Olympus

Zues and john r is making noises now Hera

we fix him

Thor Freya

and hard he is a turd we fire on his shortly

and in our areas flatten his forces. he is at factories and all over the midwest and tons of groups. nobody stosp him not they are there and infight. tons of fighitng and we flatten shortly to salvge things there msot of it is intact. adn we fire now hit and they fall. tons of them...and again. and they fall. an shortly they are all done. all. out all of them

Nuada Arrianna

half of his forces in the areas attacked vicinity an gone now. the ohter half up and we hit shortly and several waves of trump at them the factoreis and then he will be out. earlier they all evacuated but his mostly. we ratain some to work no but they will filtr in. via airport and ground. and we use them. in factoreis. a few million and they live in the cities can comeand go. yes.

Thor Freya

Olympus

[miriani-lavellan]

idk if you're actually supposed to answer this in a post but w/e I wanna brainstorm

Elf

Olive skin, grey eyes, dark hair. Dyed? Maybe, we'll see. Some freckles from being out in that Rivaini sun. Very petite, almost doll-like in appearance. People don't tend to take her very seriously at first glance.

A few on the back of her hand from a nervous habit of scratching it with magic that she had as a young woman. One on the back of her calf from an arrow.

Born in Minrathous, grew up on the road, and then in southern Rivain.

Her Antivan birth mother, a Nevarran stepmother and a few siblings.

Hard. Living on the road is hard, even if you're surrounded by love. Lots of lean times, cold nights and dangerous escapes from the perils of the wilderness and cities alike. But she was never a slave, and never abused. And that's more than a lot of people can say.

Mage.

Evoker, probably.

Her extremely buff Nevarran stepmother taught her to fight with a dagger and quarterstaff, starting very young. Her magic was trained by a Tal Vashoth Lord of Fortune who'd been captive in Tevinter and had joined the family on the Big Journey East. Which is probably why she ended up joining...

...the Lords of Fortune.

After spending some time at the Dairsmuid Circle of Magi and visiting Rivaini seers, she returned to the Lords of Fortune where her unofficial third parent got her a job.

A little bittersweet - she saw a lot of Thedas travelling with the Lords of Fortune and generally had a pretty good time. But there comes a point where one wants something more than singing for their supper and delving for pretty baubles.

Mixed. She knows she's good at co-ordinating a team, but until now she's always thought herself more as 'second-in-command' material - not actually making these decisions. But killing that Rivaini lord who was going to sell what she found to the Venatori? Despite the trouble it caused her, that felt... right. Like it mattered. Like something she did made a difference.

Whoever is the most easy-going, and fun to be around. Who knows how to laugh, and does so often.

Whoever it is that's gentle with her, and values her as more than a pretty face. Whoever it is that doesn't treat their intimacy casually, as something to discard later.

Just turned thirty, hence the 'I should probably do something meaningful with my life.'

Fancy ones.

Mischievous, occasionally sarcastic, teasing and... free.

Resilience in the face of adversity.

Recklessness, and occasionally without the ability to see the bigger picture.

Entering a rather tempestuous on-off relationship with a Templar for several years.

Yes - or at least, the kind of chemistry that makes one keep being drawn back in to a relationship that they know isn't the best thing for anyone.

Before? Treasure. Recently? Uncovering the truth, uncovering knowledge. Finding secrets instead of gold.

Her travels.

Group 'encounters', goofiness, degradation, heavy make up.

Hairy men (yes - her fellow elves judge her), physical strength, switching, affection.

Ending up in captivity. Another fear: Being buried alive - an occupational hazard of a dungeon delving life, and one she's seen and nearly experienced first hand.

No, she was never exposed to anything more than stories around the campfire. Aside from some time in the very permissive Dairsmuid Circle, she's never lived by any religious rules. Despite this, she does actually have respect for those that do - she especially respects the many rural Chantry priests who have given her temporary board and lodging when travelling, often whilst knowing she was a mage.

She plays the lute. Doesn't sing for anyone anymore, though.

She's only really doing this because Varric believes she can.

Get to Know Rook!!

since none of us are waiting for the game to drop before rotating our little guys, we might as well have an ask game to poke each other about them, right?

What lineage are they?

What do they look like?

Do they have scars? Where did they get them?

Where were they born? Where did they grow up?

Do they have a family?

What was their childhood like?

What class are they?

What specialization(s) do you think they're going to have?

Where did they learn their skills? Who trained them?

What is their faction?

How did they get involved with their faction?

How do they feel about leaving their faction?

How do they feel about joining the Veilguard?

Which companion(s) do you think they're going to be best friends with?

Which companion do you think they're going to romance? Why?

How old are they at the start of the game?

What kind of clothes do they like to wear?

What's their personality like?

What's their greatest strength?

What's their greatest flaw?

What's their biggest regret?

Have they ever been in love before?

What excites them?

What's something they can talk about for hours?

Turn offs?

Turn ons?

What's their worst fear?

Are they religious?

What do they do when they're not working? Do they have hobbies?

How do they feel about being a leader? Is it something they would choose for themself? Is it something they think they're good at?

[exiledchilde]

Really hate my neighbor right now. Wish I could move but can't afford that. It's going well past midnight and this dude keeps having angry phone calls and playing really loud music. In our city, after 9pm there's a noise ordinance. This dude has been playing really loud music all day, left his two puppies out (he ignored them and they kept barking and whimpering). I just want some bloody peace and quiet before I get up in about 3hrs to catch the damn bus to my job. I already have a hard enough time sleeping (getting to and staying). I can hear him and his stuff over my music. I wear headphones to sleep too. I can hear his shit even if I move to the opposite side of the house and sit in my living room. I tired calling nonemergency but no one picked up. I don't know what to do anymore. Dude doesn't care if he is loud and anytime someone asks him to be quiet or turn it down, he blares it louder or threatens them.

[lenixsocial]

Someone just swapped my Nutella with Vegemite when I wasn't looking.

That's how I'm feeling today. Nutella really isn't my favorite thing, but it's smooth, creamy, sweet, and you are generally happy eating it. I was happy when I awoke today, generally ready to tackle the day. Had a few creative ideas percolating. Was going to write them down when the AM fuzz was cleared from my brain.

Instead, whilst looking through my morning emails, my eyes locked upon an email from the Nextdoor app. Now, I've deleted this app, mainly because it is one of the most toxic apps that exist. It is a playground bully pulpit for the internet age. It serves only to anger and start fights. The sole reason I keep it is events in our community, and the robust "for sale" listings. Most of what you post on the site sells VERY fast.

Anyhow, I also confess to enjoying the Karen stories on there as well. Even more entertaining is the stories from THEIR VIEWPOINT doing actions that make us cringe but they feel perfectly justified in doing, moments before someone with sense puts them in their place. Then there's a fun run in the comments section.

Anyhow...I'm getting ahead of myself here with minutiae.

Today, I come across a post titled "Has anyone seen the taco truck at CVS on (intersection)?"

Now tbh, all I thought was "oh...cool...new food trucks...I've seen a couple around". Maybe this person tried it and enjoyed it or at the very least was going to post the menu? Maybe just a quick thought?

Any hope I had came crashing to Earth the moment I clicked and my eyes feasted upon the remainder of the message: "...because I hope this ISN'T going to be the norm. They were out there at TEN PM which is TOO LATE. If you think THEY should leave like I do, we should contact the city board".

Now, if this truck had posted up in a quiet neighborhood on a dead end street on a weeknight with a loud boombox or something, sure this kind of reaction would be warranted. But this truck was not playing music, and had permits to sell food. On a public street, where the business was hurting nobody.

Except apparently this person. Because she then launched into what I can only describe as a political rant (doesn't it always end up with one of the crazies shouting the orange one's last name?) involving how it's staffed by illegals (it isn't), how it's not a legit business (it is), how it's dirty (it isn't), and how we should be proactive in getting them kicked out of town because we don't want them here because they got kicked out of the area they were in downtown (we do want them here, because they are trying to make a living and honestly more power to you if you own a food truck, it's damn hard work). Also, yes there is a county ordinance that was recently passed that says you can't sell food from open grills and other apparatus on public streets. But this isn't "other apparatus" this is a $60,000 state of the art food truck. The ordinance essentially stops unverified food sales. Which for health reasons makes perfect sense.

Anyhoo, the first reply was "I like tacos". Simple. Easy. Straight to the point. This got a reply from the poster with racist overtones. Illegals invading our areas, Biden causing it. The same old tired song and dance. Then she upped the ante. She hit just the right button to get pretty much every person over age 55 to comment. The hate rolled in hard and fast.

Then came warnings from the management of the community on the app saying we don't tolerate this, keep doing it and we will suspend you or remove you. Which made things worse.

My Nutella was swapped for Vegemite and I took a gigantic mouthful and now...now I'm not happy. I don't want to create. I just want to watch tv or listen to music or just exist. I have lost the creative drive because of people's idiocy.

Time to unsubscribe from the mailing list and be totally in the dark about events in the community because if the toll is casual racism and hatred then I'm out. This is America, and I fucking hate it.

[chikucab21]

Best cab companies in India in Chiku Cab

The chaos of bustling life in the city, the unfathomable pressure of a hectic work schedule, and the fog of pollution around us create an imbalance in our lives, a void that gives an unexplainable miserable feeling. This changing lifestyle, pressure, and discontentment are leading to a depressed and frustrated population that is devoid of happiness. In such cases, traveling acts as therapy; in fact, it's therapeutic for every individual and acts as a breeze of fresh air in mundane life.

There is a section of society that wants to experience the pleasure of traveling but refrains from doing so due to various factors like a shortage of time, budget constraints, and the problems that crawl into and spoil the pleasure of traveling. Transportation is one of such reasons, nobody wants to walk miles in scorching heat to find a single taxi, and getting a cab with non-operative ill-mannered drivers is yet another nightmare. Moreover, the unreasonable fares of taxis disrupt the whole budget. So, the majority of people prefer sitting alone in their room dealing with sadness rather than dealing with the hassles of traveling.

What if I say you can get your desire to feel happy and refreshed fulfilled without the pains or worries that bother you while traveling? Yes, you heard it right. You can explore the other side of life within your budget without any troubles or worries about walking in the heat, running in the rain, or wasting your hard-earned money. Chiku Cab is at your service anywhere and anytime, with a promise to make your trip memorable.

How to plan your journey in India if you have a shortage of time?

Chiku Cab understands the value of your time and your need to plan everything and travel in such a limited time. You will not have to waste hours on co-ordinating and explaining to them about your expectations and preferences. Chiku Cab provides All India taxi services at your doorstep with all the basic as well as luxurious services, based on your preferences. Their staff is highly punctual and professional, which gives you the comfort of exploring without wasting even a single minute.

What can you expect from Chiku Cab if you plan your trip with them?

1.    Skilled Drivers - They have courteous chauffeurs who deliver top-notch quality service. Their drivers possess very good knowledge of the routes and, hence, can guide you throughout the trip.

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5.    Sanitized Taxi - Booking a taxi with them ensures a sanitized cab before every drive. You can trust them with your well-being.

6.    Excellent Service Track Records - They are one of the most trusted cab service providers in India. They keep getting amazing reviews from their clients, and their customer return rate is outstanding.

7.    Hygiene conscious - Chiku Cabs do not compromise with your health and hygiene at any cost. They provide hygienic cabs with clean seat covers.

8.    Cabs with 24x7 service availability - They are available 24x7 to entertain their customers. You can avail of their service anywhere, at any time, without any hassle.

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         10. Seating capacity - Tourists traveling in large groups can book tempo travelers with Chiku Cab without a second thought.

What if you want to rent a car to travel?

Well! That’s a really good idea, Chiku Cab understands the passion of traveling and fully comprehends the fact that renting a car is one of the best ways to explore any place. It offers outstanding car rental services in India, which makes it a leading car rental company. With the Chiku cab rental service, you get a car at your doorstep. Clean and odorless cars with efficient drivers are their forte. Packages of their car rental service start at 1 hour, and you may extend it up to 12 hours. Your safety is their priority. They provide 24*7 assistance to you.

Do you wish to book Chiku Cab services?

You don't need to be a technology expert to get the services of online cab booking in India with Chiku Cab, as it is a very easy process that is user-friendly and convenient.

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Why do I Prefer Chiku Cab?

I always prefer chiku cab over other cab services as they are fully dedicated to making our traveling experience smooth, safe, and memorable by eradicating all the problems related to transportation. Their team remains by our side right from booking to our arrival at our desired destination. Their drivers are fully trained in their craft and possess deep knowledge of the routes, languages, and popular spots of Chennai. They understand our budget constraints and their fares do justice to our pocket.  They not only guarantee but also adhere to their promises to provide us with a fuss-free journey with safety and comfort.

Your decision decides the course of your journey, Choose wisely.