#Special Needs Products Manufacturer

[ecoplanet]

We are a leading manufacturer of portable cabin solutions that are engineered to offer hygienic sanitation needs for your daily life, special events, and many more.

all our products come in different sizes and shapes suitable for your needs. If you are in search of Temporary Toilets, Portaloo, or even Fire Rated Portable Toilets, then you can directly walk into Ecoplanet.

If you have any queries, please don't hesitate to contact us, We are located in Jurf Industrial 2, Ajman – UAE Tel: +971 (06) 744 1881 Ph: +971 56 744 1881 Email: sales@ecoplanet.ae Web: https://ecoplanet.ae

[syyds]

www.yyprecision.com

[robertreich]

Boeing Is Everything Wrong With American Capitalism

Excuse my language, but why is Boeing such a shitty corporation?

Their planes are literally falling apart in the sky.

At least six Boeing planes have had parts fall off this year — including an exit door in mid-flight. A whistle-blower has accused Boeing of a “criminal cover-up” of its safety failures.

But beyond this one company, Boeing’s descent is a case study in how American capitalism has become so rotten. Let me explain.

I’m old enough to remember when people used to say “If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going.”

But in 1997, everything changed when Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas and became the only major maker of commercial aircraft in America. With no domestic rivals, it no longer needed to stay on the cutting edge of innovation.

Executives at Boeing who once specialized in engineering were replaced with Wall Street types who looked down on the engineers. One money-hungry CEO described those who cared too much about the integrity of Boeing’s planes, and not enough about its stock price, as “phenomenally talented assholes.”

To keep Wall Street happy, Boeing began spending billions on stock buybacks that pumped up the value of shares — money that could have been spent on safety and innovation.

It doled out hundreds of millions on campaign contributions and lobbying to lower safety standards, rake in massive government contracts, and boost its bottom line.

To cut costs, Boeing outsourced roughly 70% of its design, engineering, and manufacturing rather than rely on its experienced union workforce.

To further undercut its union, Boeing opened an assembly plant in South Carolina, a notorious anti-union state. Executives reportedly told managers not to move any unionized employees there.

This quest for profit resulted in massive quality control problems that were reported by engineers and machinists, but allegedly ignored by management. All of this inevitably led to the deadly safety issues Boeing faces today.

And because of Boeing’s monopoly-like power, it has been largely immune from any repercussions for its poor performance.

Boeing made it seem like it was punishing executives who led it astray by firing them, but still rewarded them with “golden parachutes” on the way out.

Folks, Boeing’s troubles should serve as a cautionary tale. It’s reflective of broader trends in our economy over the past forty years. Monopolization. Wealth siphoned off to rich shareholders at the expense of everyone else. Cutting corners on safety to save a dime. Bashing unions. All while spending big money lobbying the government.

Boeing may have become a shitty company, but that doesn’t mean we have to put up with it.

The government has the power to increase antitrust enforcement to bust up big companies — something that we are already starting to see in other industries.

It should also attach strings to government contracts and subsidies to ensure that private corporations are working in the best interest of the country, and not just their bottom lines.

It should ban stock buybacks, which were illegal before the Reagan administration, so profits are put back into improving the company, including the safety of products, rather than solely padding investors’ wallets.

Union power should be rebuilt, so that workers can once again act as a countervailing force to Wall Street.

And we should continue the fight to get Big Money out of politics.

It’s not too late to reverse course and chart a new flight path.

[zvaigzdelasas]

You can’t buy the Seagull in the US. But I bet you wish you could.

A small hatchback around the size of a Mini Cooper, the Seagull is a fast-charging electric car and claims a range of up to 250 miles [...] BYD, its Chinese manufacturer, claims it can go from 30 percent to 80 percent charged in a half-hour using a DC plug. It’s hardly a luxury car but it’s well-equipped, with a power driver’s seat and cruise control. “If I were looking for an inexpensive commuter car … this would be perfect,” veteran car journalist John McElroy said after taking a drive.

The best part? Its base model costs about $10,700 in China.

That’s about a third of the cost of the cheapest EV you can buy in the US. In South America, it’s a little pricier, but still fairly affordable, at under $24,000 for a top-trim version. Even in Europe, you can get an entry-level BYD for under €30,000. These are absolutely screaming deals — exactly the kind of products that could turbocharge our transition away from gas and toward electric vehicles.[...]

The problem for Americans? The Biden administration is hell-bent on preventing you from buying BYD’s product, and if Donald Trump returns to office, he is likely to fight it as well.

That’s because the BYD cars are made in China, and both Biden and Trump are committed to an ultranationalist trade policy meant to keep BYD’s products out. [...] Shipments to Europe have increased astronomically; Chinese companies sold 0.5 percent of EVs in Europe in 2019 but they’re already over 9 percent as of last year. Companies like BYD make cheap, reasonably good-quality cars people are eager to buy.

In 2018, Trump imposed, and Biden has since continued, a special 25 percent tax on Chinese-made autos, on top of the ordinary 2.5 percent tax on foreign-made cars.

That has so far prevented BYD and its Chinese peers from trying to enter the US market. US customer tastes are different enough that Chinese manufacturers would probably prefer to make cars tailored to them — but US policy has been so hostile toward cheap Chinese EVs that so far, the companies haven’t wanted to bother.

So, the result is that we’re left out of the bounty of cheap EV options created by BYD and others. “If you’re a consumer right now, the best place to be right now is China, because you have the best choice of EVs,” Ilaria Mazzocco, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an expert on Chinese EVs, says.[...]

Still, China’s price advantage is big enough that even the extreme Trump-Biden import tax might not be enough to deter companies like BYD from entering the US market. Even with the tariffs, Chinese cars might be cheaper than their rivals. “​​Subsidies most likely won’t be enough; Mr. Biden will need to impose [more] trade restrictions,” climate journalist Robinson Meyer predicted recently. The Biden administration is already making noise about imposing even more draconian taxes or trade restrictions against these vehicles. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has described Chinese-made cars as a national security threat, and recently announced an investigation into the vehicles’ data collection abilities and the possibility they could send movement data to Beijing.

On the one hand, Biden is offering Americans up to $7,500 per vehicle to buy EVs (provided they meet certain made-in-North America rules). On the other hand, he’s imposing massive taxes to keep Americans from buying EVs. It’s a bizarre policy that makes no sense from a climate perspective.[...]

[The Biden Administration] has proven shockingly willing to sabotage its own climate policy if it gets to stick it to the Chinese in the process.

“There’s almost an across-the-board apprehension about Chinese EVs, even though they would make an important contribution to [lower] CO2 emissions,” Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a veteran trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says.[...]

Realistically, Helveston argues, BYD might not sell something like the Seagull in the US because it’s smaller than most cars Americans buy. They’d probably build plants in the US instead, or its free-trade zone partners Canada and Mexico, to build vehicles tailored for Americans. “If you’re going to really enter a market, you have to make it locally,” Helveston explains. “US automakers like GM sell and make millions of cars in China to sell in China.” BYD would do the same. Indeed, it’s already reportedly scouting sites for factories in Mexico.

If they ever were to set up shop in North America, BYD and other Chinese car companies would still have a major price advantage versus American EVs. They have years more experience and a much more successful track record of building batteries and EVs at low cost.

“Part of why they’re so successful is they’ve been thinking outside the box on cost reduction for a long time,” Mazzocco says. They took the “opposite of the Tesla approach”: starting not with luxury vehicles but ultra-cheap cars fit for taxi fleets and not much else, and constantly improving their early inexpensive prototypes. The result is that Chinese firms have gotten extremely good at making inexpensive EVs, at a time when Ford, by contrast, lost $28,000 for every EV it sold in 2023.[...]

“If you have more affordable EVs in the United States, no matter where you come from,” Gopal says, “that’s better for the climate.”

Still, the Biden administration reportedly wants to restrict Chinese car companies’ access to the US even if they do set up shop in North America. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that the Biden administration is formulating rules that would limit US sales of Chinese-made parts, even if they’re in vehicles ultimately assembled in the US or Mexico.[...]

But the Biden administration’s objections to Chinese EVs are also ideological. The Biden administration represents the victory of a protectionist, trade-skeptical wing of the Democratic party that was relegated to the sidelines during the Clinton and Obama years.[...]

[O]ver 90 percent of American households have a car, and surging car prices were a huge contributor to the 2021–2023 rise in inflation.

Barriers to importing cheap cars make inflation worse and reduce the real incomes of the middle class.

Not only are the administration and other left-leaning institutions opposed to Chinese EVs, but hardline conservatives at places like the Heritage Foundation are calling for outright bans on Chinese EVs as well. Their rationale is security, another theme the Biden administration evokes often. On Thursday, the Commerce Department announced it was beginning a process to “investigate the national security risks of … PRC-manufactured technology in [internet-connected] vehicles.”

6 Mar 24

[bouquetface]

VEDIC OBSERVATIONS 7

Accuracy is influenced by the entire chart. These are observations from real people. Your personal chart will influence how these placements manifest for you.

Saturn in 8th H of navamsa - this indicates you will have to fight with your family or the spouse’s family on behalf of your marriage and/or kids. This can occur at any point in life, however it is likely much later. The sign can indicate what you fight about, where the ruler of 8th is placed can show if the situation is resolved/where it goes. EX: Saturin in Cap 8th H - fighting with in-laws because of tradition and expectations.

Ketu in 8th H of navamsa - this indicates pregnancy/kids before marriage. this can manifest as marrying someone w/ kids or an unexpected pregnancy. Depending on entire chart, this can become a secret.

8th H in navamsa and d1 can show what your spouse does for income. An exalted or benefic placed here shows the couple can make a lot of wealth together.

Sun in Aries in 8th H navamsa - this women’s husband’s family made a lot of wealth through manufacturing products used in weapons for law enforcement & military in their country. This is extremely unlikely to be your exact situation if you share this placement. However, sun here is exalted so your spouse and his family is likely to benefit/support your marriage/you.

KEEP IN MIND FOR NAVAMSA PREDICTIONS:

When something isn’t promised in natal, it will not happen. The D1 shows the sky you were born under, no other chart has power over D1. Navamsa can only show weaknesses & strengths of D1.

Moon conjunct Ketu - Your mother may be spiritual/religious. You may feel your mother failed to nourish you correctly. She may have neglected you when you really needed her. She may be more focused on other things/people - your siblings, her own romantic life, her career, etc. - positive aspects like conjunct Jupiter can change this.

Being emotionally present can be difficult. You may exhibit trait's of aqua or pisces moon - difficulty being vulnerable/expressing emotions, daydreaming, escapism.

Moon conjunct Ketu in 11th House - The mother may have prominent gemini, she may be a twin, she may have a sibling or parent she looks identical too. There is basically a duality in the mother somehow.

This is all very general information, not looking into signs, aspects and other placements. However, I have noticed this indicates divorced parents. And/or your parent's have a distant relationship - remain married but show no romantic love or intimacy toward one another.

If they are divorced, the father can avoid seeing and/or talking about the mother. They are not the type of divorced parents to remain friends or be enemies. Instead, they are likely to ignore the other's existence as much as possible.

Your mother may have failed to care for you in some way at some point in your development. This can manifest in many ways - ex: your sibling has special needs as a result you get less attention, or your mom has health struggles as a result got don’t get cared for properly, mother is focused on her romantic or career life as a result you come second. From listening to people w moon conjunct ketu there is usually a feeling of coming second to your mother with this placement.

In another woman's chart, I noticed her parent's are not divorced but she did get divorced. The above describes her relationship with her ex and her child - she is distant and struggles to nurture/support her child.

Things improved when she was able to get the help of her mother and grandma to help raise the child.

If you have Moon conjunct Ketu in 11th H, I would love to hear your experience and thoughts on this.

Saturn in 4th House - Disciplined household. Your mother could be strict about being on time, clean household, organization, etc. This can be taken to an extreme or help you develop consistency + discipline that later help you in your career.

If in a co-ruled sign - virgo/gemini, sag/pisces, aqua/cap, scorpio/aries - there is a possibility of a distant relationship with a parent due to divorce - 2 homes. Less likely for cap/aqua as this is saturn's home signs.

Accuracy is influenced by the ENTIRE chart.

Sun in 12th House - When Sun is harshly placed - for ex: in libra - these people will run into conflict with authority figures. This can manifest as issues with a parent, issues with bosses, issues with teachers, etc.

Mars conjunct Venus - this is one indicator of people who marry quickly after meeting. What one defines as quickly will vary. However, in general I think marrying within 3 years of meeting is considered quick in societies who don’t commonly do arranged marriages.

This is only one indicator and this will NOT be true for everyone with this placement. dashas, UL and d9 need to be taken into consideration for marriage timing.

ex: one women ik has this in leo 2nd H. She met her husband 2010 & married 2012. 2 years of dating, married & engaged in 1.

ex.2: another has this in aries 2nd H. She met her husband 2015 & married 2017. 2 years of dating, married & engaged in 1.

ex.3: another has this in pisces (house unknown). She met her husband 2008 & married in 2010. 1 year of dating, engaged in the 2nd, married in 3rd year of knowing on another.

Venus in Aspect to Saturn - this on the other hand appears in the charts of people ik who dated for years before marriage.

ex: Venus opposite Saturn - 7 years of dating. Married in 8th.

ex: Venus trine Saturn - 6 years of dating. Married in 8th.

Saturn DK &/or Saturn ruled 7th H - this can show late marriage too.

ex: Saturn DK & Aqua 7th H - 5 years of dating. Engaged in 6th year. Married in 7th.

Accuracy is influenced by the entire chart. This is very generic & is not considering d9 & dasha periods which are extremely important for timing events.

Personally, I don’t see Saturn DK being that strong of an indicator for late meeting or late marriage. This is easily influenced by stronger indicators.

[macmay]

OMAKHEATERS - PLATİN

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[tekniblog]

Adamsllc - Devasa+ (2)

If you are looking for a reliable and durable engine, look no further than Adams International, which serves brands such as DIETZ MOTOREN, ELK MOTOR. Each of the manufacturers specializes in producing high-quality engines that are built to last. Whether you need a small engine for an application like your lawnmower or a larger engine for industrial purposes, you can be sure that anyone with our company will have the right product for you. ORIENTAL MOTOR is known for its rugged designs and reliable performance, offering cost-effective solutions tailored to your needs, and the brands in our company combine cutting-edge technology with traditional craftsmanship to produce premium motors. It offers a wide variety of motor solutions for every conceivable application. Whatever the type or size of the project you are working on, our company will assist you with a comprehensive selection of quality engines.

[whencyclopedia]

Celtic Coinage

The coinage of the ancient Celts, minted from the early 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, at first imitated Greek and then Roman coins. Celtic engravers then soon developed their own unique style, creating distinctive coins with depictions of stylised horses, abstract shapes, and the portraits of Celtic chiefs. Not being part of a wider political and economic entity like the Roman Empire, gold, silver, and bronze Celtic coins were rarely used for interregional trade but were, rather, used to buy and exchange goods locally and to spread imagery of rulers, tribes, and the ancient Celtic religion. Finally, coins were frequently buried in large hoards as part of votive rituals.

The Function of Celtic Coinage

An enormous number of Celtic coins have been found in burials and as part of ritual treasure hoards across Europe. Some hoards contained as many as 10,000 coins. Celtic coins were used for a variety of reasons. They were, as one would expect, used as a currency to acquire goods locally but coins were primarily used as a more convenient replacement for other high-value goods which had previously been used in a barter system. Coins were also offered as diplomatic gifts and perhaps given as tribute to more powerful neighbouring rulers.

Coins were also minted for prestige reasons: to demonstrate the wealth and sophistication of a particular chief and to spread their likeness amongst the people they ruled. Coins were sometimes dispensed by chiefs to their people on special occasions as a demonstration of their success and generosity. It is for this reason, perhaps, that the minting of Celtic coins was so sporadic: only when a ruler needed extra legitimacy for their rule were new coins minted.

Although coins provided artists with a new medium to show off their skills, an unexpected consequence of their introduction on wider ancient Celtic art is here summarised by the historians J. Farley and F. Hunter:

The spread of coinage coincided with a rapid decline in the production of unique and ornately decorated objects: the shields, weapons and torcs that were both symbols of status and power, and the canvases for earlier Celtic art. As small, mass produced objects, coins are undoubtedly less impressive than the imposing metalwork that had gone before but they offered a new kind of impact. Rapid manufacture and portability allowed powerful images, political messages, and a newly transformed stock of Celtic art to be transmitted to a wider audience than ever before.

(110)

Celtic coins were rarely used in interregional trade since, unlike say in the Roman Empire, Celtic Europe was made up of many different tribal groups and the coinage of one had no value in another except for the weight of precious metal. It is for this reason that small scales have turned up everywhere in the archaeological record, needed to assess the real value of coins which were used in trade. A consequence of the necessity for a coin to have a real value as opposed to a face value was that should any chief be tempted to debase the metal in their coinage (and some did), they would find it of little use outside their own territory.

Finally, coins were frequently buried in hoards. However, this was not always a mere ‘bank in the ground’ strategy but likely involved some sort of specific ritual and was done as a votive offering to Celtic deities. Such deposits were added to over a period of many years, sometimes several decades, and were often divided into multiple hoards in the same vicinity. The site of Hallaton in England, for example, has been excavated by archaeologists, and they discovered over 5,000 coins buried in 16 different places. Nearby were remains of ritual animal sacrifices, further pointing to a religious significance to the burial of these coins.

Continue reading...

[speechgears]

Biting is a Severe Problem: Tools to Teach Biting

Biting is a severe problem, particularly among children. Biting should be avoided by parents, teachers & it should be addressed if it occurs. 

Some children may bite to obtain sensory input. Treatment with sensory integration therapy tools can teach youngsters how to manage their sensory systems, reducing their demand for sensory-seeking behaviours.

Behaviour modification strategies are used in ABA treatment to Tools To Teach Biting teach children new behaviours and lessen undesirable behaviours. ABA techniques may be used by therapists to teach children other communication styles or to minimise the frequency of biting.

Children can be encouraged to utilise alternate behaviours instead of biting using positive reinforcement approaches. Praise, awards, or other incentives for adopting proper communication or problem-solving skills may be included.

It is critical to remember that Tools to Teach Biting should only be utilised with the supervision of a skilled therapist or healthcare practitioner. Every kid is unique, and treatment should be customised to the child's and family's specific requirements.

[oldguydoesstuff]

Bare CPU Printed Circuit Board for the Alpha NT XL366 workstation I designed back in 1995 or so. This was an obscure model of an obscure product line, made by a company (Digital Equipment Corp.) that is now itself obscure. To be honest I don't even remember much about this machine now.

What I do remember is the HUUUUGE fight I got into with our Signal Integrity team while I was designing this, over decoupling capacitors.

Decoupling caps are small components that hold a charge to help even out power when a circuit is active. This board featured hundreds of them, smaller than a grain of rice (see photo comparison of mounting pads vs rice grain below).

Our Signal Integrity team was tasked with making sure everything was electrically stable, so they required many hundreds of these to be added to the board, based on power simulations they did. Trouble was, they wanted so many, we couldn't even build the board.

My job as the Systems Engineer here was to meet the requirements from the SI team, but also from manufacturing, and the requirement that my PCB layout techs don't go insane trying to place and route the board. SI really only cared about signal quality, so they would not relent, and I ended up getting shouted at at one point by a junior SI engineer who was also under a lot of stress, when I said "There are different schools of thought on this.." and he screamed THERE ARE NOT DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ON THIS!!

It got to the point where the product was not going to get built, because we just couldn't fit like a thousand of these tiny caps on the board, we needed to ditch at least 25% of them to have a hope. The models were the models though, and you couldn't argue against them.

But then my boss got a genius idea. What if we could prove the simulation models were too conservative? We came up with an experiment where we would remove caps from an older system and measure the power supply noise, to see how many caps could be taken off before the system became unstable.

Me and the junior SI engineer were tasked with doing this experiment (later deemed The Decapitation Project), so we grabbed a Tektronix scope and Metcal soldering station and headed over to this abandoned lab we had in our old Maynard headquarters, a now creepy attic space on the 6th floor of an old mill building. Here were a few older Alphastation 3000 workstations we built years earlier, working but waiting to be recycled.

We had this special program that would thrash the CPU within an inch of its life, to put a big demand on the power supply system. While this was running, the SI engineer measured the power quality, while I proceeded to (very carefully to avoid short-circuiting the system) actually desolder caps from the board while the workstation was running.

We managed to get about 1/3 of them off before there was any noticeable effect, and we found one specific type of cap was not doing much of anything at all. We took the data back to the head of the SI team, and he finally relented and let us remove several hundred capacitors. (He also buried the report and data I had, because he didn't want the bad publicity - I remember being mad about that)

The system got built after that, and worked just fine. We did try to enact a small bit of petty revenge on the SI team manager though - there was a recognition event for people involved on the project, and me and our PCB procurement guy decided to give the SI team manager a special "Faraday Award" for achievement in capacitance (Farads are a measure of capacitance - geeky eng joke). We took an old bowling trophy with a giant, beer-can sized electrolytic capacitor strapped to the top of it as the award. He was a no-show so we didn't get to present it. Those SI guys never did have much of a sense of humor.

Anyway, long story sorry. Just thinking of it recently because I was helping someone at work with an analog simulation and I remembered this..

[projectg2redo]

Myself and the absolutely incredible Dark-Lys are thrilled to announce that the first ponies of 'Project G2 Re-Do' has been fully funded and are beginning production. YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT!!! I cannot thank Dark-Lys enough for their amazing investment which is making this pony dream a reality. They have personally funded the first production run of the project and we've been excitedly scheming behind the scenes to make this happen. HUGE THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART    They are incredible What does this mean for everyone? A first run of blank white G2 ponies are being made. I have a meeting to finalise our requirements with the factory tomorrow but they have been working from a detailed project proposal meaning that these ponies should have: - Plain white bodies made from hollow vinyl with a detachable and posable head - Mane rooting holes pre-punched for ease and a tail hole - Printed eyes matching the originals - Holes for eye gems (gems not included) - In the Sky Skimmer / Pretty Parlour Ivy style pose These ponies will be ready in approximately 4 months!!! No kickstarter required! They will be available to directly purchase - easy peasy! They are being made in the UK by a very reputable toy manufacturer, meaning the materials used will be the highest quality and certified to comply with health and safety standards worldwide. It also means that communicating with the factory to make sure everything is perfect is really easy! I'll be opening a webstore, and Dark-Lys will be an official US / North American distributor which means buying internationally will be a breeze! Additionally we will be offering wholesale orders for any pony shops interested in stocking them. My store will hopefully also include everything you need to customise your ponies including eye gems, rooting kits, hair, possibly cutie mark stamps, and a blog full of tutorials, tips and tricks to make some beautiful 90s style ponies Thank you SO MUCH everyone for your support on this project it's a dream come true. Special shoutout to Uftaki over at MLPTP for helping name the project! So exciting! I can't believe that after 20 years there'll be more G2s in the world! Any questions please feel free to ask - I could talk about this all day!!!

[ranticore]

All your settings are crazy interesting to think about and currently I've been taur-brained. sorry if you've already answered this somewhere else, but who are the ones manufacturing their clothes? Or their mane and hoof care products, etc? Would it be humans who were already making similar stuff for normal horses, or are there some centaurs also in the business making more specialized and informed products (like shoes or horse-pants????) Surely there's an economic power imbalance in there somewhere between whoevers making the necessities and who's got to buy them.

(either way, being good at diy is probably a plus for them )

I mentioned it a little bit in the first clothing post i made but the examples given (aside from the classical dress) are all modern - basically, small tailor shops in Ironwall will bulk-order horse blankets from wholesale (usually international) retailers and modify them on-site for resale to centaurs, sometimes doing a same-day custom job for someone if they need it. this is considered kinda cheap, and not in the realm of formalwear/barely business casual. think t-shirt and jeans level stuff. but like you said, in a lot of cases centaurs would buy their own horse rugs to modify at home (basically you need longer straps that articulate at a different part of the body than stock). these specific alteration shops are usually some of the first businesses to pop up in cities/towns outside Ironwall whenever emmigrant centaurs have a decent presence, alongside herbivore food shops.

so yeah absolutely as a marker of class & a requirement for formal occasions, there is bespoke tailor-made clothing made to fit their bodies from the start and it is EXPENSIVE. especially the big classical style gowns, there's a lot of fabric there and it has to be cut well so that it doesn't entangle the legs or restrict the torso, and have enough petticoat/underskirt/etc so that there'll be no accidental flashing on a windy day. now modern commercialism/capitalism hit Ironwall in a very strange way - many centaurs remember the exact moment the first mcdonalds opened in ironwall in the 90s, as human resident % had gone up and suddenly Ironwall was a market and a consumer base.

(this one got so long that even I will concede to a readmore)

most people unable to afford the tailored stuff in the early 20th century would buy big cuts of curtain fabric and sew their own gowns for formal occasions/serving on a budget and those gowns would see use for decades. companies saw the potential to offer factory/sweatshop produced off the rack centaur fast fashion that resembled the very intricate classical gowns without any of the tailored properties/thick skirts/flexibility in the torso/etc. this is landfill junk and wears out quickly. in many cases it's a cheap human bodice/t-shirt/etc sewn to the bottom gown bit, which means there's a weak seam right at a point of great articulation, and the clothes will catch/snag in odd places because the muscles underneath are different too. in terms of the economic power imbalance - yep. it's a market but a small one, without much competition, and multinationals can easily outcompete the centaur tailors who offer services at middle or low price brackets.

and of course. there's always poverty tourism. you can buy fully bespoke, made-for-centaurs, designer... rebadged horse blankets, for the athleisure/sports-luxe fans

because centaurs as a market share are not very prominent still (that is changing tho), most of their own businesses are small and dynastic - one group running the same mane oil business since the 1700s, churning out the same basic product for a small but dedicated audience. these types of businesses rarely advertise and if they do it's by putting a tiny text-only ad into the paper with their phone number inserted. they are woefully ill-prepared to compete with external businesses turning their eye to Ironwall in search of new markets. but what they have that large multinationals don't is parochialism and loyalty to a brand, and access to a more readily exploited centaur work force. many will turn around and do a little song and dance "don't you want to support small centaur businesses? we'll go under if we have to comply with modern labour laws!"

because at the heart of centaur businesses is that old purifying work ethic, and because ironwall is 1. conservative and 2. largely self-governing, their labour laws are antiquated. they still have workhouses. and there has always been a lack of interest from the wider country's government to intervene because ehh it's the Ironwall culture to work hard, isn't it? and do we really want to insert ourselves into centaur business? humans actively seeking work in ironwall, then, make up two broad groups - those who seek to exploit these relaxed labour laws by opening a business, and those who know that 'poor' in other places is 'middle class disposable income' in Ironwall (like first worlders becoming 'expats' or 'digital nomads' in places with cheaper costs of living than their wealthy home nation - easily leading to gentrification).

Anyway so that's all the modern perspective; all of this applies for the other beastmen as well like the harpies and so on, though they have to live with the additional layer of most of their laws and products being about horses.

Historically centaur clothing was made by hand in the home, usually by the women in a social group, and made robust enough to last several generations of wear (with repairs). Because clothing would be passed down from mother to daughter, this resulted in colt bachelor bands being so fucking naked all the time. In traditional enclaves and pre-Florian settlements, a stallion who was accepted into his new herd would be gifted handmade kinetic clothing (bells, ribbons, feathers, anything that enhances the movement) by his new wives and his ability to keep his gifts looking nice would be judged for a set period of time (if you lose a bell that's bad luck buddy), after which he was supposed to return the favour by hand-carving them beautiful tail ornaments (as discussed in my historical clothing post - the ornaments would appear similar to welsh lovespoons in design)

this tradition got trampled over with the introduction of Florian's penal laws because tail ornaments could not be worn when the tail was fully covered and attempts at kinetic fashion fell flat when your nice trot is all hidden up by what's basically a giant tablecloth. but there does remain a custom of women giving men gifts to test their commitment (to heterosexuality), with the expectation that it'll be paid back with something nice and handmade. but commercialism comes for us all eventually.

finally on the topic of shoes, iron shoes are not super common anymore but in the victorian era, rope shoes were manufactured in the city to cut down on noise levels when streets were becoming full paved/cobbled.

they were not very good for the feet and required regular replacement because the rope would wear down, but that meant business for farriers was booming and became almost guaranteed when the famously and hilariously corrupt high councillors and lord protector began to pass increasingly strict anti noise pollution laws.

[20dollarlolita]

I've just got to vent for a quick second, because this has been driving me insane. I work at a place that sells sewing machines and does sewing machine repair, and sometimes people will come in and aggressively complain that their machine is a lemon.

Sorry, to properly convey it, their machine is, "A LEMON!!!"

And I can't respond to that the way I want to when I'm at work, but that's what this rant is for. People seem to think they've found some amazing, special secret word that gets them whatever they want.

But, in the state that I'm in, "lemon" isn't just a concept. When something is a lemon, there's laws governing what people have to do to make things right. In terms of products (not to be confused with terms of produce), there is a legal definition of what a lemon is, and it actually doesn't cover most "this is a lemon!!" situations that I run into.

So, what needs to happen to qualify a sewing machine as a lemon? Disclaimer, I'm not a lawyer, but I've been sued before, and told I look good in a suit, and also I use Duckduckgo to verify things before I write these things. I'm going to go a bit out of order here, because it's an order that makes the most sense to me, so please read all this before writing back to me to tell me I'm stupid.

What problems make something qualify as a lemon?

Is has to be a problem that compromises the use, value, or safety of the machine. If you can't make an argument that your problem interferes with one of those three things, it's not a lemon.

It has to be a problem that is covered under the manufacturer's warranty, and the problem has to show up during the time that the warranty covers the machine. If your warranty was 1 year on this part and the problem showed up at 1.75 years, it's broken and needs fixing, but it's not a lemon.

It cannot be caused by unreasonable or unauthorized use. Sorry, your manufacturer does not consider you sewing sliced ham to a piece of 20 gauge vinyl to be a reasonable use. Putting 2 million stitches on a machine in 6 months is not a reasonable use. Letting your cat use your machine in lieu of a litter box is not reasonable use. Storing trail mix in your bobbin area is not reasonable use.

In addition to these three things, it needs to have repeat attempts to repair it. That's four repairs of the same problem, or two repairs of a problem if it's a problem that can cause death or serious injury. I challenge most people to find a problem that can cause death or serious injury in a modern sewing machine used in a reasonable, authorized way. Anyway, moving on. The item in question also needs to be in for repair for 30 days, though those do not need to be continuous days.

It also doesn't matter how many different problems the machine has. It's got to be the same problem, unable to be fixed, repeatedly, to qualify as a lemon. If you have thirty problems that all have been failed to be fixed 3 times, legally, not a lemon. If you have over 900 problems that have all happened one time, sadly, not a lemon. This is probably one of the things people get wrong most of the time.

If your device fills all of these categories (serious problem, under warranty, no unreasonable use of the machine, repeated attemtps to repair the same problem), then the manufacturer needs to replace it or offer you a refund. Your dealer and your repair shop have no responsibility, except to put you in contact with the manufacturer. Your dealer does not replace your machine. Your dealer does not refund you. Your repair shop does not refund you. The manufacturer is responsible. This doesn't mean that a good dealer won't help you with talking with the manufacturer or even speak to the manufacturer on your behalf. It's just that the dealer is not legally responsible for it. "Legally responsible" and "being helpful because that's good customer service and we want to help you," are distinct concepts.

If your machine is replaced, and you have new problems with the new one, you have to fulfill the lemon requirements again. Four more repair attempts, problem under warranty, no unreasonable use, etc. The fact that the previous item was a lemon doesn't actually matter anymore, legally. That's annoying as hell and massively painful and I'm sorry about that, but it's the fact. If you got a new machine and it immediately had the same problem, I'm sorry, but it has to be failed to be fixed four times on your new machine before you get to proceed with the lemon shit again.

Oh, and the number one reason why sewing machines bought into my work, labeled "lemon!!" by their owners, are not actually legally lemons: in the State of California, lemon laws only apply to cars. I've been carefully saying "machine" instead of "sewing machine," because literally nothing that we've talked about applies to sewing machines at all.

So if you come in and say it's a lemon, because you want to communicate that you're very frustrated by a lot of problems out of the box, we know what you mean. But if you're doing what a lot of these people are doing, which is coming in brandishing the word "lemon," because you're thinly veiling a threat to pursue legal action, sorry, you just don't have a legally-defined lemon.

And also, again, if the lemon laws DID apply to sewing machines, lemon issues are done with the manufacturer, not your dealer or your repair shop. We're going to do everything we can to help you, because we're above all in the customer service business, but you don't need to try to threaten us with laws that don't apply.