#agricultural building manufacturers

[entegrasignaturestructures]

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[vamshi11]

Exploring MS Plates: Varieties, Applications, and Their Design Impact with Top Brands from SteelonCall

Diverse Varieties of MS Plates

Mild Steel (MS) plates, celebrated for their robustness and adaptability, come in various types to suit different industrial and construction needs:

Standard MS Plates: These versatile plates are the go-to choice for general applications. Their balanced mix of strength and flexibility makes them ideal for structural supports, machinery parts, and general fabrication tasks.

High Strength Low Alloy (HSLA) Plates: Designed to offer enhanced strength without compromising weldability, HSLA plates are perfect for demanding applications. They are commonly used in heavy machinery, bridges, and other high-stress environments.

Corrosion-Resistant Plates: Coated or treated to withstand environmental wear, these plates are used in areas prone to moisture and chemicals. They are ideal for outdoor installations and marine applications where durability against corrosion is crucial.

Quenched and Tempered Plates: Through specific heat treatments, these plates gain exceptional hardness and impact resistance. They are utilized in heavy-duty machinery and equipment that require superior strength and durability.

Wide-Ranging Applications of MS Plates

The applications of MS plates span a diverse array of sectors, reflecting their integral role in modern industry and construction:

Construction: In construction, MS plates are essential for structural components like beams, columns, and reinforcements. They provide the necessary stability and strength for buildings, bridges, and infrastructure projects.

Manufacturing: The industrial sector relies on MS plates for machinery and equipment fabrication.

Automotive Industry: MS plates are used extensively in automotive production for vehicle bodies and chassis. Their strength and formability are key to producing safe and reliable automotive parts.

Shipbuilding: In the maritime industry, MS plates are fundamental in constructing ship hulls and decks. 

Agricultural Equipment: MS plates are utilized in the production of agricultural machinery. Their toughness and ability to withstand heavy loads make them ideal for farming equipment.

Impact of MS Plates on Design Innovation

MS plates are not only functional but also inspire creative design solutions:

Architectural Innovation: In contemporary architecture, MS plates are often used for their sleek, industrial aesthetic. They feature prominently in building facades, decorative elements, and structural highlights, contributing to modern architectural styles.

Custom Fabrication: The flexibility of MS plates allows for custom designs and fabrications. From bespoke furniture to artistic installations, their ability to be cut, welded, and shaped supports unique and tailored design solutions.

Facade Solutions: For building facades, MS plates can create striking visual effects while providing durability. Various treatments and finishes offer designers flexibility in achieving distinctive and functional exterior designs.

Versatile Design Options: The range of finishes and treatments available for MS plates enables their use in diverse design contexts. This adaptability allows for integration into both interior and exterior designs, meeting varied aesthetic and functional requirements.

Premium MS Plates Available at SteelonCall

At SteelonCall, we offer a selection of high-quality MS plates from renowned brands, ensuring that you receive the best materials for your projects:

Vizag Steel: Renowned for its superior quality and reliable performance, Vizag Steel’s MS plates are ideal for a range of applications, providing both strength and durability.

SAIL: SAIL offers a wide array of MS plates known for their consistent quality and performance, suitable for various industrial and construction needs.

Jindal: Jindal’s MS plates are celebrated for their exceptional strength and resilience, making them a preferred choice for demanding applications in construction and manufacturing.

Conclusion

MS plates are a fundamental component in numerous industrial and construction applications, valued for their strength, versatility, and adaptability. At SteelonCall, we provide top-quality MS plates from leading brands like Vizag Steel, SAIL, and Jindal, complete with test certificates to ensure authenticity and performance. Whether you need MS plates for construction, manufacturing, or innovative design projects, our range of products meets your highest standards.

For the best prices and exceptional service, contact us at 08062212000 or visit our website at steeloncall.com. Discover how our premium MS plates can elevate your projects and meet your needs with excellence.

#MSPlates #SteelPlates #DesignInnovation #ConstructionMaterials #TopSteelBrands #SteelonCall #QualitySteel

[vsdindustries1]

Here is Some Information About Insecticides Manufacturer in Oman

Insecticides Manufacturer in Oman are chemical substances or formulations designed to kill, repel, or control insects. They are used in agriculture, public health, forestry, and residential settings to protect crops, animals, and people From the damage and health risks associated with insect pests. Insecticides come in various forms, including liquids, powders, granules, and aerosols, and they can have different modes of action to target specific types of insects.

Visit Us: Insecticides Manufacturer in Oman

ADDRESS:

Office No - 704, 7th Floor, Akashdeep Building, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi - 110001

EMAIL:

info@vsdindustries.com

PHONE:

+91 98370 22119

[solarpunkbusiness]

The production of low carbon, plant-based insulating blocks by agricultural workers from farm materials could help to support rural economies and tackle labour shortages, experts believe.

A major new study will test if the materials, for use in local construction, could lead to a “Harvest to House” system of building.

The University of Exeter-led study will show if small-scale farmers could diversify into making sustainable building materials for use on their own farms, or for construction in the local area. This could also benefit their own businesses, communities and the environment.

Arable farm workers in the region will be involved in the small-scale trial of a manufacturing process. Researchers will explore the human, environmental, and infrastructural barriers and opportunities for production through working with farmers and farm workers.

A short animated, visual ‘manual’ of the pilot manufacturing system, in an accessible and easy to digest format that can be readily shared and referred to by time-pressed farmers and workers, as well as people outside agriculture.

The project is part of the Ecological Citizen(s) Network+, led by The Royal College of Art, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York and Wrexham Glyndŵr University, as well as a range of partners from industry, charities, culture and civil society.

//Ed's note: What they're doing is designing a social-economic-environmental intervention that attempts to address a number of complex problems simultaneously. Its a business model innovation also to see if small farms can also make sustainable building materials in their offtime as an additional source of income. Note how in all my African and Asian stories, social enterprises usually include farmers in their business models but this is a first in the UK and Europe I'm guessing to think about these things in a holistic socially oriented community-centric manner.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #14

April 12-19 2024

The Department of Commerce announced a deal with Samsung to help bring advanced semiconductor manufacturing and research and development to Texas. The deal will bring 45 billion dollars of investment to Texas to help build a research center in Taylor Texas and expand Samsung's Austin, Texas, semiconductor facility. The Biden Administration estimates this will create 21,000 new jobs. Since 1990 America has fallen from making nearly 40% of the world's semiconductor to just over 10% in 2020.

The Department of Energy announced it granted New York State $158 million to help support people making their homes more energy efficient. This is the first payment out of a $8.8 billion dollar program with 11 other states having already applied. The program will rebate Americans for improvements on their homes to lower energy usage. Americans could get as much as $8,000 off for installing a heat pump, as well as for improvements in insulation, wiring, and electrical panel. The program is expected to help save Americans $1 billion in electoral costs, and help create 50,000 new jobs.

The Department of Education began the formal process to make President Biden's new Student Loan Debt relief plan a reality. The Department published the first set of draft rules for the program. The rules will face 30 days of public comment before a second draft can be released. The Administration hopes the process can be finished by the Fall to bring debt relief to 30 million Americans, and totally eliminate the debt of 4 million former students. The Administration has already wiped out the debt of 4.3 million borrowers so far.

The Department of Agriculture announced a $1 billion dollar collaboration with USAID to buy American grown foods combat global hunger. Most of the money will go to traditional shelf stable goods distributed by USAID, like wheat, rice, sorghum, lentils, chickpeas, dry peas, vegetable oil, cornmeal, navy beans, pinto beans and kidney beans, while $50 million will go to a pilot program to see if USAID can expand what it normally gives to new products. The food aid will help feed people in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Yemen.

The Department of the Interior announced it's expanding four national wildlife refuges to protect 1.13 million wildlife habitat. The refuges are in New Mexico, North Carolina, and two in Texas. The Department also signed an order protecting parts of the Placitas area. The land is considered sacred by the Pueblos peoples of the area who have long lobbied for his protection. Security Deb Haaland the first Native American to serve as Interior Secretary and a Pueblo herself signed the order in her native New Mexico.

The Department of Labor announced new work place safety regulations about the safe amount of silica dust mine workers can be exposed to. The dust is known to cause scaring in the lungs often called black lung. It's estimated that the new regulations will save over 1,000 lives a year. The United Mine Workers have long fought for these changes and applauded the Biden Administration's actions.

The Biden Administration announced its progress in closing the racial wealth gap in America. Under President Biden the level of Black Unemployment is the lowest its ever been since it started being tracked in the 1970s, and the gap between white and black unemployment is the smallest its ever been as well. Black wealth is up 60% over where it was in 2019. The share of black owned businesses doubled between 2019 and 2022. New black businesses are being created at the fastest rate in 30 years. The Administration in 2021 Interagency Task Force to combat unfair house appraisals. Black homeowners regularly have their homes undervalued compared to whites who own comparable property. Since the Taskforce started the likelihood of such a gap has dropped by 40% and even disappeared in some states. 2023 represented a record breaking $76.2 billion in federal contracts going to small business owned by members of minority communities. This was 12% of federal contracts and the President aims to make it 15% for 2025.

The EPA announced (just now as I write this) that it plans to add PFAS, known as forever chemicals, to the Superfund law. This would require manufacturers to pay to clean up two PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid. This move to force manufacturers to cover the costs of PFAS clean up comes after last week's new rule on drinking water which will remove PFAS from the nation's drinking water.

Bonus:

President Biden met a Senior named Bob in Pennsylvania who is personally benefiting from The President's capping the price of insulin for Seniors at $35, and Biden let Bob know about a cap on prosecution drug payments for seniors that will cut Bob's drug bills by more than half.

[zedecksiew]

Monument vs Shrine

In "Replica, Aura, and Late Nationalist Imaginings", the political scientist Benedict Anderson (most famous for his Southeast Asia scholarship and that definitive critique of nationalism, Imagined Communities) muses on the Lincoln memorial:

Within a temple explicitly mimicking "the religious edifices of a safely pagan Greece";

Mazda Corp floodlights designed "to ward off unnatural, indifferent sunlight";

The abstract enshrinements of "Lincoln's memory" in the "hearts of the people", while neither Lincoln's actual remains or any rites for people to perform are present;

The sense that ultimately the most reverential thing to do there is to take photographs.

+

The Lincoln Memorial; the Jefferson memorial next to it; both figures repeated again on Mt Rushmore; both figures repeated ad nauseum on dollar bills.

These monuments are designed to proliferate. Not only must they create a sober, stately experience for the visitor---but they must also do so consistently, because they are built for visitors: the mass audience of the national population.

Otherwise they must be physically replicable: a memorial to a particular national hero, erected in every city.

The very format of monument-building get copied:

Post-colonial countries, in need of new myths, choose to manufacture national cenotaphs of their own, in imitation of Western models.

Malaysia has Putrajaya, a federal capital sprung ex nihilo from palm-oil agricultural land, its buildings all arches and onion domes and imitation arc de triomphes in inhuman scale, its avenues broad and utterly unwalkable in the tropical heat.

+

At such monuments the citizen is cast as tourist.

Of this state-sanctioned object of devotion you are encouraged to take photographs, sell merchandise---ie: continue the process of replication. With every copy nationalism is reified.

God forbid you tweak the official monument with your own meanings, though! While writing this post, I found the following story, from December 2023:

"Lincoln Memorial temporarily closed after being vandalized with 'Free Gaza' graffiti"

+

Anderson's essay cites instances where the personal and irreproducible sneak back into, or leak out from, or vandalise, national monuments:

"Early in the 1910s,"---in Manila's Cementerio del Norte, a municipal cemetery planned by an American urban designer---"a small pantheon was constructed for the interment of Filipino national heroes."

This monument was to emulate the Pantheon in Paris, where "great Frenchmen" of the national canon are memorialised.

But the Filipino version failed.

"Today, hardly anyone in the Philippines is aware of this dilapidated pantheon's existence ... What has happened is that the Filipino Voltaire and Rousseau have managed to escape, summoning devoted, often familial bodysnatchers, to convey them to home-town shrines."

+

Not that the municipal cemetery itself is deserted. Custodians and their families live in the very mausoleums they care for.

Further, Anderson describes All Saints' Eve in the Cementerio del Norte, when thousands pour into its precincts.

But these multitudes adjourn to their own myriad family graves and small ancestral shrines: spending the day with immediate loved ones, "drinking, praying, gambling, making offerings ..."

Most of the Philippines' presidents have mausoleums in Norte, "but no one pays attention to them ... and only their separate descendants come to attend them."

"There is something exhilarating here that one rarely sees in national celebrations, maybe because the structure of the ceremonial is not serial, but entirely cellular."

+

Hometowns re-exerting themselves within the nation; ordinary people scrawling meaning onto the edifices of the uppercase-P People. A multitude of the singular, instead of a single mass.

Despite nationalism's efforts to centralise and clone a national identity, still we mutate, still we bootleg, still we graffiti, becoming once again ourselves.

And---particular to post-colonial societies---in doing so we casually continue the work of liberation, sneaking the idea of freedom away from our own architects and elites and prime ministers, who would seek to seize its meaning for their own purposes.

The churches or mosques or temples to demos that the federal government builds are ours to transform. To take from. To ignore.

"No need. We've got our own shrines at home."

+

National heroes become local saints and slip out of national control.

Does the Filipino government really control the various Rizalista sects? Karpal Singh is now a datuk kong, without his political dynasty's consent.

Across Melaka and Negeri Sembilan there once existed shrines dedicated to Hang Tuah, Malay folk hero, now a powerful figurehead of Malay-Muslim ethno-nationalism.

One such shrine existed at Tanjung Tuan:

With a plain altar---more a porch, really---of poured cement, for folk to leave food offerings;

Sunlight mottled from the surrounding forest, and fluorescent lights from a nearby gazebo;

A large rock, with an indent on its crown, said to be Hang Tuah's actual footprint;

The idea that this was a sacred space, where you could come to ask the spirits of the place for love or children.

The shrine that existed was sited in a forest reserve. It was swept clean of leaves by locals; its adherents belonged to all faiths and ethnicities; following the transactional logic of folk religion, those who had received its blessing would've paid for its maintenance.

+

"Existed".

Because the Religious Department of the State of Melaka destroyed the Hang Tuah shrine sometime in 2022, for the crime of idolatry.

A double heresy. An affront to both orthodox Sunni Islam---

But also to the Malaysian state, that sanctions Sunni Islam as its official religion; whose nationalism requires its mythic hero to have only the attributes and magics the state ulama and historians say he must have---and no others.

Local shrines are destroyed, because the nation-state intuits them to be threats to its exclusive franchise.

+

Image sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_five-dollar_bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putrajaya https://www.facebook.com/PilipinasRetrostalgia https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/984521.shtml https://www.facebook.com/PerakPress https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malays_(ethnic_group)

[aromanticduck]

Humans as a collective need food to be produced. Not every human needs to work in agriculture.

Humans as a collective need buildings to live and work in. Not every human needs to work in construction.

Humans as a collective need medical services to stay healthy. Not every human needs to work in medicine.

Humans as a collective need clothes to wear. Not every human needs to work in textile manufacture.

Humans as a collective need babies to be born to continue the species. Not every human needs to reproduce.

Just because someone needs to do a certain thing for humankind to survive doesn't mean everyone has to do it.

[butcharyastark]

did you know service workers and gig workers aren't the only people who are forced to be independent contractors to be exploited????

hey service workers did you know you can talk abt the horrors of being poor and exploited by capitalism without throwing other ppl in worse jobs under the bus

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - December 1-7

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles for 50% off this month!

1. These high-tech windows fight climate change – and will save you money

“[“Vacuum-insulated glass”] insulates five times better than double-paned glass. The Enthermal product line holds energy about as well as fiberglass wall insulation[…. T]he energy bill savings offset the upfront cost of the upgrade in two to seven years, depending on the building[….]”

2. Doulas test ways to curb Memphis’ Black maternal, infant deaths

“Research shows they are key to better health outcomes. […] Free of charge, [parents enrolled in this pilot program], in addition to being paired with a doula, get access to free yoga classes, diapers, breastfeeding starter kits, nutritious food and other tangible help that can measurably boost well-being.”

3. Scientists find feeding grazing cattle seaweed cuts methane emissions by almost 40%

“This is the first study to test seaweed on grazing beef cattle in the world. […] Most research to reduce methane emissions using feed additives has taken place in controlled environments with daily supplements. But Kebreab noted in the study that fewer than half of those methods are effective for grazing cattle.”

4. Success for local residents as Florida council toppled over sewage plant plan

“A citizens’ revolt in a small Florida city ousted an entire slate of councilors who were pushing for a new sewage plant to be built close to one of the state’s most pristine and treasured rivers.”

5. Beaver survey aims to show the urban benefits of Chicago's 'ecosystem engineers'

“Urban Rivers is installing [“artificial floating gardens”] along the river to restore native wetland habitats, which provide food and shelter for wildlife, as well as natural spaces for humans.”

6. The future of plastic: Biodegradable, durable, and even edible

“[… T]he composite plastic proved not only sturdy but also more malleable than its core component, hydroxyethyl cellulose. Additionally, since both cellulose and tyrosine are edible, the biodegradable composite plastic can technically be consumed.”

7. Limestone quarries could be vital for wild bee conservation

“Quarries provide valuable habitats for wild bees and other animals and plants that occur on the now rare calcareous grasslands," explains lead author Dr. Felix Kirsch[….]”

8. New England wedding vendors offer help to same-sex couples before Trump inauguration

“Marriage equality isn’t immediately at risk. Trump has said he considers it settled law, but of course it’s hard to take him at his word […] so vendors in the region are offering free or discounted services to queer couples and noncitizens in a rush to marry.”

9. The indigenous women saving India's endangered giant yams

“Since their formation in 2022, the 10 members of the Noorang group have planted and brought back to the community 180 varieties of wild tubers[….] The project is part of [… a] farming initiative to eradicate poverty, provide agricultural training and empower women in vulnerable tribal communities.”

10. The US is making and deploying more solar panels than ever before

“[… D]omestic solar module manufacturing capacity has nearly quintupled since 2022[….] Solar is the cheapest source of new power generation by far, and it’s an increasingly large employer in the U.S., particularly in Republican-led states.”

November 22-28 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[sunbookie]

In 1969, Elijah Muhammad purchased cattle and 900 acres of land in St. Clair County, Alabama to build a $2.5 million industrial-agricultural complex. The complex was to be used for farming and to produce food, a slaughterhouse, a meat processing plant, a cement manufacturing plant and a lumber yard.

Then the white people in Alabama got mad...

A crowd of 2,200 or more angry whites met at a local high school to decide what action should be taken to regain the land legally sold to the Black Muslims. The first move was to demonize Black Muslims in the local press.

The Muslims were also attacked in speeches as being anti-Christian and a threat to the local community. The white conservatives said that the Muslims were seeking to use the land as a guerrilla warfare training base for black revolutionaries...

With the support of the governor, Albert Brewer, state Atty. Gen. McDonald Gallion and U.S. Rep. William Nichols, D-Ala., the whites had seven court suits filed. Four of the suits contested the legality of the Muslim organization and its non-compliance with Alabama State law which required Muslims, Communists and Nazis to register after spending five consecutive days in the state. The three remaining civil suits challenged the legality of the land title.

The land was one of the many properties owned by the Black Muslims who were considered to be among the most peaceful citizens anywhere. When they bought land in Missouri, there was tension for a while among white residents but that changed and they went on to operate one of the most modern and productive farms in the state.

In Alabama, the court suits filed against the Muslims failed and in March, 1970, the Black Muslims found scores of their cattle dead in the pastures, victims of cyanide poisoning. With that, the Muslims put the poisoned land up for sale, loaded up the remaining cattle and, under threats to their own lives, departed St. Clair County....

🤔🧠✊🏿❤️🖤💚📚💯

[entegrasignaturestructures]

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[dangerouslypassiveaggressive]

A Terribly Organized Almost-Essay About Suzanne Collins and Why I Think She Writes

Lukewarm take because it's been years, but here it goes: if there's anything I've learned over the years, it's that Suzanne Collins is not a people pleaser. (The author, at least. I don't know her personally lol). And she be pleasing the people, that's not what I mean! I just kept hearing the same question being asked over and over again. "Why Snow? Why him?? Why not anybody else? Really?? A prequel about HIM??" It really made me think.

And don't get me wrong! I'd slash someone's tires for a Finnick prequel just like the next person (Suzanne please!), but that has never been the point of her writing. The Hunger Games novels, and by extension, the prequel book The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, aren't just fun fiction reads. Yeah, they're gripping. The world-building is superb. Young people are at the center of it. And all these characteristics are great, but the thing that draws us in, that keeps us consuming her media like hungry little caterpillars, is that they are, time and time again, a captivating and accurate criticism, analysis, and deconstruction of the broken systems society experiences in the real world. I can only speak from my own experience as a Mexican American woman in the United States, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

The Capitol is colorful and fun and interesting and horrible and sadistic. And it is all those things because it is a symbol of our own real-world 1%, except our own glittering Capitol members here in the real world feed us the hope that we may reach their status if we only work hard enough for long enough. The Hunger Games system never makes that claim. In fact, they are fed the narrative that the system only works because they're stuck where they are. Suzanne Collins is taking everything one step further in her writing because it is a type of satire, a critique of the things we already know. So as an author, she blows it out of proportion so that her reader will say "look at this! How ridiculous! How would someone let the system treat them this way!" And it is ridiculous, it's downright laughable that an entire society, an entire country, would let itself be oppressed in such a cruel way by just a few people in charge instead of rising up and- oh wow, yeah, I see it. She wrote about us.

Suzanne Collins just organized everything neatly into boxes- well, districts. Because every district comes with some form of product that they manufacture, but much more importantly: a class. We go in order from 1-13. District 1 manufactures luxury items and District 2 makes weapons (but mostly trains Peacekeepers), so they have the most privilege and wealth. On the other end, Districts 11 and 12 are the agricultural and coal mining districts, respectively. That's back-breaking work. Not to mention District 11 puts kids as young as 12 to work, and District 12 is poverty-stricken and starving. "But what about District 13?" You may ask, "They make nuclear weapons! Why aren't they up there with 2?" Fantastic question. If we know, and the people of Panem know, that the hierarchy is very clearly set by literal number order, why would one of the most powerful and competent districts be given more power and be put at the top? Placing them at the end lets them believe that they aren't powerful or competent. I mean, jeez, look at 12 and they're before 13? I wouldn't believe I could make it on my own either. (We know now that's not how things go down, but it's a clever power move regardless.)

But after all this, would it hurt Suzanne to give us a single book just for fun?

Yes, I believe it would, that's the whole point. We're not meant to fall for the Peeta/Katniss/Gale love triangle. We're not meant to be interested in Finnick's secrets and early life. We're not meant to want to know the morbid details of how Haymitch won his Games (with double the contestants! Ooh. Aah.) We're meant to be horrified at every turn, at every story. We're meant to ask ourselves how things got so bad, how anyone let this happen. Suzanne Collins has written wonderfully fleshed out characters that grip us and make us want to know more, but the point has never been them or even their loved ones. It was never about Katniss or Prim or Peeta or Finnick or Annie. It's always been about the systems that let this story happen, and where Suzanne got her inspiration: the very real lives we lead. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes shows us the same thing.

So why Coriolanus Snow? Because he is the catalyst to a broken system that only serves the powerful. If Suzanne were to write a novel about any of our much more beloved characters, then she would be writing the exact same book over and over about the same oppression happening in the same system. She does not write for the sake of bringing her very well-written characters to life, but to flesh out the poverty, the starvation, the power struggles, the horrors they experience. We know this because she writes a lot of her characters as symbols. (Coin, for instance, as the symbol for a power-hungry figurehead, or Prim as the innocent during war.)

Snow is living in a slightly different biome than what we know from The Hunger Games series. He has to make sacrifices and decisions for him and his family, but it's different. It is a view and critique from the inside looking in. This is not Katniss getting to experience the Capitol for the first time and understanding just how terribly unfair everything is. This is someone who is very aware of the way things work and playing the game to stay in power and keep their privilege. Not only that, but it's someone who feels entitled to all of it. In this novel, Suzanne plays around with power and people's position in it. What if a mad scientist was in charge? What if the creator of the thing that brought a semblance of peace was just as horrified as the reader? How far is one person willing to go for power? What if we saw the dawn of a world we're already familiar with?

So I hope she keeps writing, because I love seeing our world through her eyes and the parallels she writes from our world to hers of the injustices happening every day. Even though we'll probably never get the stories we crave, but that's okay. Keep putting those kids through hell, Suzanne.

[accord-vn]

Major Players in the War Against the Firmament

The Republic of Stauros

The Republic of Stauros is a global superpower that controls the Americas and much of eastern and southern Africa, its imperialist agenda funded by the exploitation of abundant natural resources. This influx of resources means that they have been able to rapidly advance technology, particularly in bio-science, engineering, and materials science fields, and their advanced technology in turn makes for political capital with which they can bully nations into being subsumed by the Republic.

Stauros is a meritocratic oligarchy with republican structures, and presents itself as being a place where the best can rise to the top. It is centrally governed in its capital of Etorios, by a council of (what were originally) six departments that oversee facets of government such as treasury, military, agriculture, etc. These department heads are chosen from among a democratically elected parliament that makes up the upper levels of each department by the previous council. In short, the system rejects change very stubbornly as those who are eligible to lead have been entrenched in the system for a very long time. This entrenchment means that the Republic, while founded on progressive ideals, has now fully embraced the authoritarian streak that has haunted it since its inception.

Most prominent in Stauros's war against the Firmament is the ExoCorps, the executive arm of the Department of the Exterior. The Dept of the Exterior was created in order to protect Stauros's offplanet interests, however in the decades since they have come to rival the power of the Dept of Military, even surpassing it in many instances. The most notable example of this power imbalance is in the ExoCorps' development of Synaptic Transfer technology and the resulting Janissary program.

The Sophic Church

The Sophic Church originated as part of the Third Awakening, a reactionary revival in religiosity coupled with anti-Christian sentiment and strong undercurrents of paranoia brought about by a sharp rise in conspiratorial thought. What were several grassroots Gnostic revival movements came together to form a single ecclesiastical society, united in their desire to dismantle current institutions and build something new. These movements, originally different sects, syncretized their beliefs, though after several decades of transformation, their doctrine has evolved into a largely ahistorical conflation of Valentinianism and Sethianism alongside some entirely new ideas.

The Sophic Church played a key role in the formation of the Republic and rose alongside it, shaping it in the process, and as a result, within Stauros there is a strong presumption that most residents of the Republic are a part of the church.

Naturally, due to this relationship the Church has amassed a large amount of wealth and influence, and has invested this wealth into a number of corporate assets. The most prominent among these is Ascension, a corporation with child companies for mining, manufacturing, logistics, pharmaceuticals, and many other industries.

As a result, the Sophic Church has control over a substantial amount of the economy not just of Stauros, but the rest of the world as well.

The Stereomatos

In 2068, Olympia, Stauros's first permanent Martian research base, collapsed due to mismanagement. Due to the nature of the Stauros Dept of Research's control over the research base, while researchers lived permanent lives on base and even raised families there, leadership was not only appointed from a bureaucracy located on Earth, but also frequently rotated. As a result, most Directors of Operations viewed the position only as a temporary station, and ultimately failed to carry out their duties.

This culminated in 2067, when a failure in the water system caused dozens of people to become ill and 14 deaths. Civil unrest had already started to stir, but now was in full swing.

A nearby ExoCorps detachment was then stationed inside the colony to dissuade uprising, but the additional strain on resources that they caused served only to exacerbate discontentment. Before any violence broke out, the base was declared no longer fit for human habitation and disbanded, its residents either returned to earth or stationed in other colonies. The base was leveled shortly thereafter.

A mere two years later, Synesia was founded on Olympia's ruins. Synesia was intended to serve as a colony and an experiment in autonomous government, as well as a center for Stauros' civic operations offplanet. This quickly expanded into a semi-autonomous satellite state, granted nominal independence by Stauros in return for serving as the governing body for bases and offplanet stations too large and too distant from Earth in order to be effectively managed by a planetary bureaucracy.

In practice, the Stereomatos is a puppet state. Most of its leadership is either beholden or sympathetic to Stauros, and lives under constant threat of dismantlement. Stauros maintains exclusive trading rights with the Stereomatos, and uses the leverage of their monopoly on space infrastructure as means of controlling the nation.

The Firmament

The Firmament is a revolutionary movement across the Stereomatos with the ultimate goal of eliminating Stauros control over space.

The movement is comprised of several cells across both inner sphere and outer sphere colonies and stations, which frequently work together to improve the living conditions of Stereomatos citizens, smuggle goods and resources across planetary boundaries, and wage asymmetric warfare against Stauros.

The Firmament's immediate strategy is to hold Stauros at resource-point through piracy and targeted attacks on military installations so that they'll agree to several key conditions:

The right to self-govern independent of Stauros control, including reforming the government from a parliamentary republic into a syndical state.

Better access to tertiary industry, including the means to utilize synaptic transfer tech

Access to Stauros trade networks in order to carry out trade with other nations with minimal interference

The Stereomatos as a whole may be generally divided in their opinion on the Firmament's methods, however it is an unspoken rule to side with them whenever possible, because the Firmament represents hope for a freer future and an end to overcrowding and military police actions. Even those ideologically opposed tend to avoid speaking out, because the members of the Firmament are ultimately members of their community. A number of Stereomatos politicians have direct connections to Firmament leadership, and work to achieve the movement's aims through diplomatic means.

On Earth, however, the opinion is generally much more divided. Typically the details of their actions are largely reduced to the effect that they've had on Stauros, and are branded terrorists due to civilian casualties from their attacks. Within Stauros, media is sufficiently skewed that those who are aware of them despise them. Outside of Stauros, the Stereomatos is shown more sympathy, and even those who skew more conservative are open to the idea of free trade with the Stereomatos.

Federated Oceania

As climate change ravaged the global south, Aotearoa (formerly New Zealand) successfully pushed back the encroaching ocean with a sea wall, reclaiming additional land in the process. Having secured their new position as a safe haven for climate refugees, they pushed Australia into adopting a similar strategy. As a means of allowing displaced people to retain their sovereignty as well as protect against the threat of a subjugation-hungry Stauros on the horizon, the bloc of Federated Oceania was formed.

With a vested interest in environmental sciences and sustainable energy, Oceania rose to prominence by implementing the first viable fusion reactor and selling off excess energy from successive plants. This paved the way to further successes until it became the non-Stauros leader in technology on a global stage, and served as the first country to challenge Stauros's self-proclaimed "monopoly on space".

As a staunch rival of Stauros, Oceania is one of the few terrestrial nations to openly provide support the Firmament.

The Archon Program

The disappearance of the Caesarea is a mainstay of conspiracy circles system-wide. From independent blogs hosted on the clearnet to chatrooms on planetside LITEs to forums and message boards maintained on Firmnet servers in the belt, no hushed whisper passes through the internet's lips without mentioning its name, and the Caesarea is rarely mentioned without the words "Archon program" in its wake.

However, there is little consensus on what those words mean.  

They say that Archon Program is run by the Dept of the Exterior— no, by the Sophic Church— no, it's the secret Dept of Suppression— as a psyop— actually, it's in order to crush unions (the IPU has NEVER been able to touch Ascension)— no, to serve as a counter to the Firmament's dark matter bomb— and eventually, to dominate the world— utilizing heinous machines that are larger than any Cataphract, that bleed, that drive their enemies and pilots to madness.

When asked for proof, however, the stories converge. A would-be whistleblower from Ascension Aerospace, killed when lightning struck her complex as she was uploading the leak, severing the connection and her life at once. All that was uploaded was the first gigabyte of a single file, titled Archon Program, completely blank except for the image of an A with an ouroboros divided into seven pieces.

Nothing more is known by the public.

[vsdindustries1]

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“Under this bill, when an item is broken, it could be a cellphone like this, a dishwasher, a washing machine, or a laptop, Coloradans will have the information they need to repair their own equipment or use the repair provider of their own choice,” 

This builds on Colorado’s right-to-repair laws that were already introduced for agricultural equipment and powered wheelchairs, extending similar protections to almost any consumer electronic device with a chip. 

Like Oregon’s right-to-repair law, Colorado’s HB24-1121 explicitly prohibits electronics manufacturers from using “parts pairing” to prevent replacement components from working unless approved by company software.

Device manufacturers have until January 1st, 2026, to comply 

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #3

Jan 26-Feb 2 2024

The House overwhelmingly passed a tax deal that will revive the expanded Child Tax Credit, this will effect 16 million American children and lift 400,000 out of poverty in the first year. The deal also supports the building of 200,000 housing units over the next two years, and provides tax relief for communities hit by disasters.

The Biden Administration has begun negotiations on drug prices for Medicare. Earlier this year the administration announced it would negotiate for the first time directly with drug manufacturers on the prices of 10 common medications. This week they sent their opening offers to the companies. The program is expected to save Medicare and enrollees billions over dollars over the long term and help push down drug prices for everyone.

The Department of Transportation has green lit $240 Million to modernize air ports across the country. Air Ports in 37 states will be able to get much needed updates and refurbishment.

The Biden Administration announced 10 sites across America as sites for innovation investment. They will receive up to 2 billion dollars each over the next 10 years. The goal is to stimulate economic growth and innovation in semiconductor manufacturing, clean energy, sustainable textiles, climate-resilient agriculture, regenerative medicine, and more.

The State Department reviews options for recognizing Palestinian Statehood. While as of yet there's been no policy change this review of options is a major shift in US diplomatic thinking which has long opposed Palestinian Statehood and shows a seriousness of reported Biden plans to push for Statehood as part of a post-war Israel-Saudi normalization deal.

President Biden imposes sanctions on Israeli settlers who have engaged in violence against Palestinians and peace activists. This marks the first time the US has leveled sanctions against Israelis and sets up a standard that could see the whole settlement movement cut off from the US financial system

the Department of Energy has tentatively agreed to a $1.5 Billion dollar loan to help reopen a Michigan nuclear power plant. This would mark the first time a closed nuclear plant has been brought back online. Closed in 2022 it's hoped that it could reopen in time to be generating power in late 2025. This is part of Biden's plan to decarbonize the electricity grid by 2035.

the Internal Revenue Service launched a program to allow tax fillers file for free directly with the government. In 2024 its a pilot program limited to 12 states, but plans for it to be nation wide by tax day 2025

The Department of Health and Human Services announced $28 million in grants to help with the treatment of substance use disorder, including a program aimed at pregnant and postpartum women, and expanded drug court aimed at directing people into treatment and out of the criminal justice system.

The Department of Energy announced $72 million for 46 hydroelectric projects across 19 states. This marks the single largest investment in Hydropower in US history.

The Senate confirmed President Biden's 175th federal judge. Biden has now appointed more federal judges in his first term in office than President Obama did in his, however still lags behind Trump's 186 judges. For the first time in history a majority of a President's nominees are not white men, 65% of them are women and 65% are people of color, President Biden has appointed more black women to judgeships than any administration in history.