#manufacturing units

[wimaccrane]

Insights into 5 Ton Monorails: Their Significance, Manufacturing, and More

Introduction: The Manufacture Process:Uses of 5 Ton Monorails: Introduction: Stepping into the world of heavy-duty lifting technology, it’s nearly impossible to overlook the unfathomable prowess of 5 ton monorails and the importance of wire rope hoists in contemporary industry. Robust, reliable, and crafted to bear mammoth loads, these powerhouses are indeed an unsung hero in the bustling…

[reasonsforhope]

"Environmental groups are claiming victory after Mitsubishi Chemical Group dropped plans for a $1.3 billion plant in the heart of Louisiana’s industrial corridor. 

In the works for more than a decade, the chemical manufacturing complex would have been the largest of its kind in the world, stretching across 77 acres in Geismar, a small community about 60 miles west of New Orleans. Tokyo-based Mitsubishi cited only economic factors when announcing the cancellation last week, but a recent report on the plant’s feasibility noted that growing community concern about air pollution could also hamper the project’s success. 

“The frontline communities are fighting back, causing delays, and that amounts to money being lost,” said Gail LeBoeuf with Inclusive Louisiana, an environmental group focused on the industrial corridor along the Mississippi River known as Cancer Alley.

The nonprofit group Beyond Petrochemical declared the project’s failure a “major victory for the health and safety of Louisianans.”

According to Mitsubishi, the plant could have produced up to 350,000 tons per year of methyl methacrylate, or MMA, a colorless liquid used in the manufacture of plastics and a host of consumer products, including TVs, paint, and nail polish.

The plant was expected to be a major polluter, releasing hundreds of tons per year of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, and other harmful chemicals, according to its permit information...

In July, a report on the plant’s viability warned that a global oversupply of MMA and fierce local opposition made the project a “bad bet.” 

Conducted by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, the report said that credit agencies are paying more attention to “community sentiment” about petrochemical projects, particularly in Louisiana. In Geismar and other parts of Cancer Alley, there’s a “disproportionately heavy concentration of polluting industrial facilities” and Mitsubishi could become “entangled in a decades-long dispute involving issues of racial inequality and environmental justice,” the IEEFA report said. 

Geismar residents are surrounded by about a half-dozen large chemical facilities that emit harmful levels of air pollution. Of the more than 6,000 people who live within the 3 miles of the planned project site, about 40 percent are Black or Hispanic, and 20 percent are considered low-income, according to federal data. 

“The air here is already so dirty that the kids can’t play outside anymore,” said Pamela Ambeau, Ascension Parish resident and member of the group Rural Roots Louisiana.

The proposed plant is the latest in a string of failed industrial projects in Cancer Alley. Since 2019, local activism was instrumental in halting the development of two large plastics complexes in St. James Parish and a grain export terminal in St. John the Baptist Parish. All three projects would have been built in historically Black and rural communities."

-via Grist, January 16, 2025

[spicymancer]

Shoes or No Shoes?

[mythrilthread]

These past months I’ve not been dead, but rather multitasking (making author’s copies of books I’ve bound previously to send a box of them to the US, experiencing a severe depressive episode, and also, working on this!). And now: Behold, the best fucking thing I’ve made in my life so far! ✨

These two books are basically step-fanfiction, or maybe fanfiction times two, seeing as it's the story (co-athored by my darling spouse and I) featuring NPCs from our long and passionate TTRPG campaign (played in the setting of Tessa Gratton’s United States of Asgard). Do not be fooled by the books’ papery appearance, they are primarily made from my heart’s blood and tears.

🌟 The story takes place in 6 (ish) locations over the course of a year (and that year is 2000, which is why people are still into paper maps), with one of the protagonists being very fond of various maps and the other keeping his notes in a Pigpen-style cypher, which informed a lot of design decisions. The constellation (featured on the cover and on the title page) is formed of all the mentioned locations as marked on the road map (which I stitched from two pictures and painstakingly edited all the state names, some borders etc etc to replace the actual US names with the ones Tessa mentioned in her books and some that we came up with as the need arose). Every chapter starts with an additional map, marking the location and date, and with coded (and decoded) prompts from the Star-Crossed TTRPG that we used for inspiration.

🌟 It’s a bit of a tradition that spouse and I use different fonts when writing together, with their usual font being Arial and mine (surprising absolutely no one) Georgia, but for this I wanted a more matching pair of sans/serif fonts, so the body text fonts are DejaVu Condensed.

🌟 The title page illustration is by the fantastic @erebus0dora (my request was basically that I wanted it to look like one of the Bridgerton promo posters but less glossy, and oh, they delivered! The Major & I (referencing, of course, The Duke & I) is a joke name for the hypothetical crack version of this book where every chapter ends with “And then they fucked.”) When we finish the definitive edition (with many deleted scenes and other bonus content), it is also going to be on the dust jacket.

🌟 All additional illustrations are ephemera that I made for the story, added as extra-illustrations in my copy, and as scanned images in the spouse’s copy.

🌟 The bookmark charms are actual (plot relevant, of course) apricot pits, sanded, polished and waxed by hand.

[bonesashesglass]

God, I’m just so mad and upset and I need to rant for a minute:

I live in Wisconsin, where the last several years winters here have been scarily mild. It’s not uncommon for us to have a mild winter every few years or so, but we’ve been having milder and milder winters for the past several years in a row. Winters here are supposed to be long and snowy. It’s supposed to start snowing in November, sometimes October, and the snow doesn’t melt all the way till April, sometimes early May.

Last year, I felt like we barely even had a winter. There was snow on the ground for maybe two months total, it kept melting and then coming back, which isn’t supposed to happen. The snow will maybe melt after the first couple times, but once you get to December, it’s supposed to stay on the ground until Spring.

Same thing is happening this year. It’ll snow for like two days, stick for maybe one day, and melt. It’ll stay that way for a couple of weeks. It’s January now. The fact that there’s no snow on the ground, in fucking Wisconsin, is alarming. The fact that this has been happening several years in a row now is alarming. I’m seeing it happen right in front of me. We’re all seeing the effects of climate change now, and we’re seeing how it’s directly destroying and harming the planet. We can see it with our own eyes.

I’m thinking about the fires in LA right now. I saw someone talk about how they were alarmed they were getting these kinds of winds in January. (I’m not familiar with LA climate but this person talked about how abnormal it is).

Everything the scientists have been saying about climate change is coming true. It’s happening right in front of us, for the whole world to see. And still, the people responsible, the right-wing politicians and businesspeople that profit off of this just deny deny deny. How can you deny what’s happening right in front of everyone? They are destroying our planet, and they still think they can deny it happening. It just makes me so angry. That a handful of people have the power to destroy our planet and refuse to even acknowledge it. They act like the words “climate change” is liberal propaganda. As if it’s not something we can see happening right before our eyes. They pretend it’s political, they pretend it’s a conspiracy, because they have no other way to justify being against protecting the planet.

One thing that angers me most is that the only thing people seem to do about this is complain on social media. (I know, that’s exactly what I’m doing, but hear me out). LA is burning to the ground because of climate change, and what’s anybody going to do about it? Make a post on Twitter? Maybe write an article about it?

That doesn’t change anything. We need change. We need direct action. It’s only going to get worse if we keep letting companies and governments continue as they are. They cannot continue as they are.

If you haven’t heard of the book How to Blow Up a Pipeline, go look it up. The author talks about a lot of the stuff I want to get at here, but he puts it a lot better.

My hope is that these LA fires will start a movement for stopping climate change. Not just a general shift of opinion like we’ve seen the past few years, but a real movement where people show up in person to do something. We exist in a time where Luigi Mangione is seen as a hero for his actions, I hope people will get inspired to take more direct action in regards to climate change. (That doesn’t mean shooting more people, I’m not advocating for murder, but we need to start taking action beyond just complaining on social media).

I’m going to start researching resources to help myself and others to get more involved with preventing climate change. I hope one day, we’ll have an actual winter in Wisconsin again. To everyone in LA, please please stay safe❤️

[bawkbawkmoose]

it is deeply funny to me that half the premise of Burning Shores hinges on the Quen having 20-year-old Focus units that don't have the hardware capability to place a phone call from LA to San Francisco

[vgprintads]

'Rise of the Robots - "You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine"'

[ARC] [UK] [MAGAZINE] [1994]

"Rise of the Robots, which has stomped its way through every home system, is ready to go coin-op. To make this mechanical one-on-one fighter worthy of your tokens, Mirage plans to add 13 robots to the original crew, juice the A.l., and refine the collision tables. The added attraction is the remixed music soundtrack from Brian May, the legendary Queen guitarist." ~Eye Spy, GamePro ("ECTS: Europe's Electronic Entertainment Showcase", July 1995)

Source: EuroSlot, October 1994 (Vol. 5, #01) || Gaming Alexandria; Dustin Hubbard (via the Internet Archive)

[eugenedebs1920]

I’ve said it before, I’ll probably have to say it again. Who doesn’t want to be fact checked? F*ckin liars! These claims by Elon musk, a South African immigrant and nationalized Canadian citizen, a man who’s wealth was inherited through his father’s exploitation of black South Africans in his jewel mines, not an inventor or engineer, not some genius businessman, potentially the most infamous and successful welfare queen in American history, who made billions on government subsidies for electric vehicles, a trust fund kid, spreading lies to mislead the American people.

It’s an absolute disgrace the way the right abuses our Constitution. They decry this anthem of free speech. Then use that privilege to deceive and lie. They tout the importance of the first amendment. Then molest it in the most inappropriate manner.

This is what I’m talking about when it comes to the Republican Party. They have no regard for what they pretend to hold dear. To them everything is just a means to an end. Honor, integrity, and truth be damned.

If one were to truly respect the first amendment they wouldn’t use it to spread falsities and mistruths. If one were to revere the Constitution they wouldn’t test the very limits of its meaning. If one truly loved their country, they wouldn’t attempt to transform it into something it’s not simply to form it to their agenda.

The most disheartening aspect is that we have become so polarized, so divided, that nearly half the population doesn’t give a damn regarding the manipulation and mistreatment of the documents, laws and norms that have guided this nation for centuries.

People like Rush Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch, Newt Gingrich, led to people like, Donald Trump, Elon musk, and Charlie Kirk, peddling lies or at best half truths. Poisoning American against American in a campaign of deception designed to divide and distract, creating the necessary conditions to enact their oppressive agenda.

Some are just pawns, talking heads in this conspiracy of division, others are the brainchild behind the plot. All betraying the United States in their relentless pursuit of wealth and power.

The vast majority of the American people are the victims in this contorted scheme laid out by those who hold no reverence to the core principles of this nation. Yet we act as the expendable soldiers, essential to its fruition, not realizing that the one way to overcome the barriers that shackle us to an existence of mediocrity and a modern form of indentured servitude lies in our united rising against the forces that bind us.

We will never truly be free, we will never live up to the potential granted to us, we will never know liberty until we understand that we can only obtain these fundamental truths when we relinquish the manufactured rift that separates us.

We were gifted with such possibility, squandered in the ongoing culture wars and animosity built to keep us down.

I don’t mean to be a pessimist but the notion of this unshackled prison break from the interests poised to benefit from our segregation appears nothing more than a pipe dream.

Yet if we could become self aware to the villains purposefully pinning us against one another and find that the similarities we have far outweigh the differences limelighted to make us perceive otherwise, all our lives would be exponentially more fulfilling and easy, and mutually beneficial.

I beg of my fellow Americans. Please comprehend that when hate, anger and malcontent are being promoted, stop and contemplate who seeks to benefit from this spread of animosity. When you are being coaxed to harbor distrust and malice against your American counterpart, who will reap the reward of your calloused, untrustworthy view which you were coerced into seeing. Then step back and reflect, does this media personality truly have mine and my country’s interest in mind? Does this person truly reflect the soul of the nation? Is my American counterpart that ideologically opposed to what I consider to be American values.

If you truly internalize it, and mull it over, the answer is we are more alike than we’re portrayed to be. That we have the same goals, hopes, and aspirations, not only personally, but for our nation as a whole.

We will never know freedom until we end the turmoil that enslaves us.

[larrylimericks]

2Jul24

Mr. Cowell, in need of attention, Implanted an H. Styles mention; He says he was rung And praises were sung, Which, much like his face, is invention.

[escapismsworld]

Stained glass windows that were commercially available during the Art Nouveau era. These examples are from the 1914 catalog of the National Ornamental Glass Manufacturers Association of the U.S. and Canada.

[autisticgayplushie]

mango the queer pride puppy!!! :D

[ananke-xiii]

[reasonsforhope]

"Nasir Mansoor has spent 40 years fighting for Pakistan’s workers. Whether demanding compensation on behalf of the hundreds of people who died in a devastating 2012 factory fire in Karachi or demonstrating against Pakistani suppliers to global fashion brands violating minimum wage rules, he’s battled many of the country’s widespread labor injustices.

Yet so far, little has improved, said Mansoor, who heads Pakistan’s National Trade Union Federation in Karachi... Regulations and trade protocols look good on paper, but they rarely trickle down to the factory level. “Nobody cares,” Mansoor said. “Not the government who makes commitments, not the brands, and not the suppliers. The workers are suffering.”

Change on the Horizon

But change might finally be on the horizon after Germany’s new Supply Chain Act came into force last year. As Europe’s largest economy and importer of clothing, Germany now requires certain companies to put risk-management systems in place to prevent, minimize, and eliminate human rights violations for workers across their entire global value chains. Signed into law by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in January 2023, the law covers issues such as forced labor, union-busting, and inadequate wages, for the first time giving legal power to protections that were previously based on voluntary commitments. Companies that violate the rules face fines of up to 8 million euros ($8.7 million)...

...As governments come to realize that a purely voluntary regimen produces limited results, there is now a growing global movement to ensure that companies are legally required to protect the people working at all stages of their supply chains.

The German law is just the latest example of these new due diligence rules—and it’s the one with the highest impact, given the size of the country’s market. A number of other Western countries have also adopted similar legislation in recent years, including France and Norway. A landmark European Union law that would mandate all member states to implement similar regulation is in the final stages of being greenlighted.

Although the United States has legislation to prevent forced labor in its global supply chains, such as the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, there are no federal laws that protect workers in other countries from abuses that fall short of forced labor. That said, a proposed New York state bill, the Fashion Act, would legally require most major U.S. and international brands to identify, prevent, and remediate human rights violations in their supply chain if passed, with noncompliance subject to fines. Since major fashion brands could hardly avoid selling their products in New York, the law would effectively put the United States on a similar legal level as Germany and France...

The Results So Far

As of January, Germany’s new law applies to any company with at least 1,000 employees in the country, which covers many of the world’s best-known fast fashion retailers, such as Zara and Primark. Since last January [Jan 2023], German authorities say they have received 71 complaints or notices of violations and conducted 650 of their own assessments, including evaluating companies’ risk management.

In Pakistan, the very existence of the German law was enough to spark action. Last year, Mansoor and other union representatives reached out to fashion brands that sourced some of their clothing in Pakistan to raise concerns about severe labor violations in garment factories. Just four months later, he and his colleagues found themselves in face-to-face meetings with several of those brands—a first in his 40-year career. “This is a big achievement,” he said. “Otherwise, [the brands] never sit with us. Even when the workers died in the factory fire, the brand never sat with us.” ...

-via The Fuller Project, April 2, 2024. Article headers added by me.

Article continues below, with more action-based results, including one factory that "complied, agreeing to respect minimum wages and provide contract letters, training on labor laws, and—for the first time—worker bonuses"

With the help of Mansoor and Zehra Khan, the general secretary of the Home-Based Women Workers Federation, interviews with more than 350 garment workers revealed the severity of long-known issues.

Nearly all workers interviewed were paid less than a living wage, which was 67,200 Pakistan rupees (roughly $243) per month in 2022, according to the Asia Floor Wage Alliance. Nearly 30 percent were even paid below the legal minimum wage of 25,000 Pakistani rupees per month (roughly $90) for unskilled workers. Almost 100 percent had not been given a written employment contract, while more than three-quarters were either not registered with the social security system—a legal requirement—or didn’t know if they were.

When Mansoor, Khan, and some of the organizations raised the violations with seven global fashion brands implicated, they were pleasantly surprised. One German retailer reacted swiftly, asking its supplier where the violations had occurred to sign a 14-point memorandum of understanding to address the issues. (We’re unable to name the companies involved because negotiations are ongoing.) The factory complied, agreeing to respect minimum wages and provide contract letters, training on labor laws, and—for the first time—worker bonuses.

In February [2024], the factory registered an additional 400 workers with the social security system (up from roughly 100) and will continue to enroll more, according to Khan. “That is a huge number for us,” she said.

It’s had a knock-on effect, too. Four of the German brand’s other Pakistani suppliers are also willing to sign the memorandum, Khan noted, which could impact another 2,000 workers or so. “The law is opening up space for [the unions] to negotiate, to be heard, and to be taken seriously,” said Miriam Saage-Maass, the legal director at ECCHR.

Looking Forward with the EU

...Last month [in March 2024], EU member states finally approved a due diligence directive after long delays, during which the original draft was watered down. As it moves to the next stage—a vote in the European Parliament—before taking effect, critics argue that the rules are now too diluted and cover too few companies to be truly effective. Still, the fact that the EU is acting at all has been described as an important moment, and unionists such as Mansoor and Khan wait thousands of miles away with bated breath for the final outcome.

Solidarity from Europe is important, Khan said, and could change the lives of Pakistan’s workers. “The eyes and the ears of the people are looking to [the brands],” Mansoor said. “And they are being made accountable for their mistakes.”"

-via The Fuller Project, April 2, 2024. Article headers added by me.

[thoughtportal]

If you have ever bought a Wayfair couch or tried to assemble an IKEA anything, you know furniture sucks now. Fast furniture has taken over — meaning cheap quality for customers and low wages for workers. Meanwhile, companies like IKEA and Wayfair are raking in huge profits.

[nando161mando]

This is also how easily US imperialist propaganda gets manufactured on Reddit

[spatialmanufactureltd]

WE ARE GANGSTA RAP.