#that would basically prevent it from being used commercially

[conventofpleasure]

i don’t think ai artwork is inherently bad but it should never be used for commercial purposes

[thoughtportal]

Opinion Here’s how to get free Paxlovid as many times as you need it

When the public health emergency around covid-19 ended, vaccines and treatments became commercial products, meaning companies could charge for them as they do other pharmaceuticals. Paxlovid, the highly effective antiviral pill that can prevent covid from becoming severe, now has a list price of nearly $1,400 for a five-day treatment course.

Thanks to an innovative agreement between the Biden administration and the drug’s manufacturer, Pfizer, Americans can still access the medication free or at very low cost through a program called Paxcess. The problem is that too few people — including pharmacists — are aware of it.

I learned of Paxcess only after readers wrote that pharmacies were charging them hundreds of dollars — or even the full list price — to fill their Paxlovid prescription. This shouldn’t be happening. A representative from Pfizer, which runs the program, explained to me that patients on Medicare and Medicaid or who are uninsured should get free Paxlovid. They need to sign up by going to paxlovid.iassist.com or by calling 877-219-7225. “We wanted to make enrollment as easy and as quick as possible,” the representative said.

Indeed, the process is straightforward. I clicked through the web form myself, and there are only three sets of information required. Patients first enter their name, date of birth and address. They then input their prescriber’s name and address and select their insurance type.

All this should take less than five minutes and can be done at home or at the pharmacy. A physician or pharmacist can fill it out on behalf of the patient, too. Importantly, this form does not ask for medical history, proof of a positive coronavirus test, income verification, citizenship status or other potentially sensitive and time-consuming information.

But there is one key requirement people need to be aware of: Patients must have a prescription for Paxlovid to start the enrollment process. It is not possible to pre-enroll. (Though, in a sense, people on Medicare or Medicaid are already pre-enrolled.)

Once the questionnaire is complete, the website generates a voucher within seconds. People can print it or email it themselves, and then they can exchange it for a free course of Paxlovid at most pharmacies.

Pfizer’s representative tells me that more than 57,000 pharmacies are contracted to participate in this program, including major chain drugstores such as CVS and Walgreens and large retail chains such as Walmart, Kroger and Costco. For those unable to go in person, a mail-order option is available, too.

The program works a little differently for patients with commercial insurance. Some insurance plans already cover Paxlovid without a co-pay. Anyone who is told there will be a charge should sign up for Paxcess, which would further bring down their co-pay and might even cover the entire cost.

Several readers have attested that Paxcess’s process was fast and seamless. I was also glad to learn that there is basically no limit to the number of times someone could use it. A person who contracts the coronavirus three times in a year could access Paxlovid free or at low cost each time.

Unfortunately, readers informed me of one major glitch: Though the Paxcess voucher is honored when presented, some pharmacies are not offering the program proactively. As a result, many patients are still being charged high co-pays even if they could have gotten the medication at no cost.

This is incredibly frustrating. However, after interviewing multiple people involved in the process, including representatives of major pharmacy chains and Biden administration officials, I believe everyone is sincere in trying to make things right. As we saw in the early days of the coronavirus vaccine rollout, it’s hard to get a new program off the ground. Policies that look good on paper run into multiple barriers during implementation.

Those involved are actively identifying and addressing these problems. For instance, a Walgreens representative explained to me that in addition to educating pharmacists and pharmacy techs about the program, the company learned it also had to make system changes to account for a different workflow. Normally, when pharmacists process a prescription, they inform patients of the co-pay and dispense the medication. But with Paxlovid, the system needs to stop them if there is a co-pay, so they can prompt patients to sign up for Paxcess.

Here is where patients and consumers must take a proactive role. That might not feel fair; after all, if someone is ill, people expect that the system will work to help them. But that’s not our reality. While pharmacies work to fix their system glitches, patients need to be their own best advocates. That means signing up for Paxcess as soon as they receive a Paxlovid prescription and helping spread the word so that others can get the antiviral at little or no cost, too.

{source}

[sorcerersandskillusers]

I want to talk about one of the most terrifying and interesting bsd characters who almost no fan remembers.

This character nearly tore down the ADA without ever getting involved herself, yet the entire fandom has ignored her because of her terrible anime adaptation.

Who am I talking about?

Nobuko Sasaki

If you haven't read Dazai Osamu's Entrance Exam, then you probably don't even know who this character is, in the anime she is watered down to the lovesick girlfriend of an actual villain, and you probably dismissed her immediately. But in the light novel, we get to see how dangerous and cunning she really is, to the point she nearly gets the better of Dazai and almost causes the ADA to be shut down. (Fukuzawa says he would have closed the agency if they hadn't caught her)

In terms of intelligence I'd put her on the same level as Mori, just slightly below the super human genius characters i.e. Dazai, Fyodor and Ranpo

The Azure Apostle

For those who don't remember, Sasaki was the Azure Apostle, a mysterious figure who challenged the agency with several horrifying cases, which would all lead to mass casualties if the agency failed to stop them. These were; uncovering an underground organ smuggling operation (which the agency failed to stop and which massively hurt their reputation) stopping a bombing of Yokohama port which could have killed hundreds of people, and preventing a commercial aeroplane from crashing into the city (this was not included in the anime)

Each of the people, who committed these crimes, had no Idea they were being manipulated and thought it was their own idea the whole time. There was no evidence that anyone else had been involved at all, and the agency had no way to connect her to any of the crimes. And she even makes the genius move of framing Dazai, the mysterious new member with suspicious knowledge of the underworld and a hidden past, as the true culprit.

In fact, she only made one mistake, challenging Dazai. If Dazai had been basically anyone else, they would have been cornered and arrested, but since Dazai's mind works on a level even master strategists can't imagine, he was able to turn the tables on her.

But even after Dazai sees through her plans, the ADA still has to act exactly the way she wants them too and stop the plane crash. Even when they know they're being manipulated, they still have to do exactly what she wanted.

Finally, after Dazai and Kunikida confront her and get her to admit to being behind all those crimes, even then they are powerless to stop her.

Even after being involved with so many massive crimes, Sasaki herself hadn't done anything illegal, so within the law the ADA is completely powerless to stop her.

They can't arrest her, and if they try then the agency will be put in even more danger as will many innocent lives. She has completely trapped the ADA, and even Dazai in a choice to follow the law and let her go or take justice into their own hands and prove they will stoop as low as she did.

In the end, there she has them in a perfect deadlock, let her continue her mission, or kill her themselves. Both are bad outcomes for the ADA.

In the end, Dazai has her killed by using a third party (Rokuzo) to shoot her, so the agency can't be blamed for her murder, though this ends her plans it deeply scars Kunikida and shakes his resolve in his ideals.

The trauma from this event still haunts Kunikida to this day, we see that when he is affected by Q's curse, Sasaki is who he sees.

So thats the Azure Apostle, a terrifying master mind who nearly brought down the Armed Detective Agency, but now lets look at the other side of this character.

Nobuko Sasaki Herself

We know several things about Sasaki as a character and her history from the light novel. That she was a brilliant criminal psychologist and was internationally recognised despite being so young

,that she was the ex-lover of the Azure King and the real mastermind behind his plans, and that she had very little motivation of her own.

That's not meant to be an insult to the character, she says herself that she never really had much direction in life, even with her incredible intelligence she never really had anything she wanted to achieve.

But the Azure King was the opposite, he had powerful drive and strong ideals, he wanted to punish criminals who couldn't be touched by the law and when he failed to change the law as a bureaucrat, she offered him an alternative.

A very important thing here is that neither of them were manipulating or forcing the other into this path, as far as we see they genuinely loved each other, each providing something the other couldn't, Sasaki her mind and the Azure King his drive.

When the Azure king died, Sasaki had no path of her own to follow, so she simply kept following his, even though she doesn't seem to have really cared about his cause.

All of this creates a very unique character, you can't say she was driven by revenge, because she wasn't really driven at all. It's more like she was running on momentum, she had chosen a path to follow and could not stop even though there was nothing pushing her down it any more.

She's a perfect antithesis of Kunikida and was the best possible villain a light novel about him could have had.

A man who brings his ideals into reality with his own hands against a woman who uses others to enforce ideals that were never hers to begin with.

Anyway, I made this because Sasaki is criminally underrated in this fandom, If you haven't read "Dazai Osamu's Entrance Exam" I highly recommend it, I've only put a tiny fraction of the amazing story here.

[tanadrin]

IP law as it is currently framed seems to me to be about outputs: is the thing you made obviously a duplicate of a competing product? Is the thing you made taking important and original features that make it obviously a ripoff? Regardless of what the inputs are, if the thing you make or sell bears no resemblance to the original or isn’t even the same kind of thing, it’s not really a violation of IP rights. If I sell a table that consists of nothing but hashes of the individual sentences of Dune according to a proprietary algorithm that’s not (as far as I know) copyright violation. It’s not a competing product, it’s not even vaguely recognizably the same. It’s certainly not masquerading as a novel by Frank Herbert.

And this makes sense insofar as IP law is a fairly recent creation in historical terms designed to promote the arts and sciences. It’s a set of commercial incentives, basically. Reframing all of IP law around the idea of inputs would be a drastic renegotiation of what it is and what it is for and it would radically transform the jurisprudential philosophy behind it as a body of law: does this mean pastiche is now illegal? Is it illegal if your work is obviously inspired by Dune? Should it be? I could certainly see how big rightsholders might want to lobby to make even such inspiration illegal, since if you’re buying indie superhero comic books maybe you’re not buying Marvel or DC ones.

But IP law doesn’t exist to prevent alteration or remix or modification of art. It doesn’t exist to prevent training computer programs on the public internet. I think in order to use IP law as an instrument to do that, you would have to break it, to make it do something it was not fundamentally designed to do, and you would open it up to become a vehicle of a legal regime far worse than anything the CEO of Disney could imagine in his darkest dreams right now.

Also, you know, as someone who writes and draws, I think the idea is morally objectionable! If you want your writing and art to be immune from giving inspiration or being altered in any way or being part of the great conversation of human culture, do it in private and burn it afterward. But putting it online and then complaining that people look at it, download it, do stuff with it beyond passively look at it seems to me to miss the point of creativity.

[feminist-space]

"Long COVID has destroyed my life

I would love nothing more than to “finally ignore COVID,” as the headline to Dr. Ashish Jha’s July 31 op-ed reads (“With a few basic steps, most of us can finally ignore COVID”). As a healthy, vaccinated, and recently boosted 35-year-old, I did what he said: I ignored COVID-19 on a weekend trip with friends in September 2022. But the infection I got as a result has all but destroyed my life.

A week after my infection, I began to experience intense fatigue, overwhelming headaches, and cognitive challenges that continue to this day. These symptoms are debilitating: I can no longer work, socialize, or travel. My finances are dire. And if I am unable to avoid another infection, my condition may deteriorate even further.

Jha wrote of long COVID “treatments” being promising. Perhaps he could clarify what treatments he is referring to, because my doctors say that there are no approved treatments for long COVID.

A recent study funded by the NIH’s RECOVER initiative showed that 10 percent of adults infected with COVID still have symptoms six months later, even with vaccination. By downplaying the prevalence and debilitating outcomes of even moderate long COVID, Jha is signing thousands of people up to the misery and despair with which I live every day.

Ezra J. Spier

Oakland, Calif.

Another view from infectious disease doctors

As infectious disease doctors, we disagree with Dr. Jha’s contention that it is time to ignore COVID-19.

Yes, being vaccinated and taking Paxlovid thankfully decrease the risk of severe disease. But only 43 percent of people age 65 and over and only 17 percent of all Americans had received an updated COVID vaccination by May 2023, and access to Paxlovid treatment is inequitable by race and insurance status.

Long-term complications of COVID can be devastating, including after second infections.

More than half a million Americans have died since the summer of 2021, when sufficient vaccine doses were available: COVID death rates in the United States continue to be double those of Canada. Termination of free tests and “commercialization” of medications as implemented by the federal government will only widen our country’s grisly COVID-related health disparities.

Inevitably, ignoring COVID leads to ignoring the slow-motion epidemic of long COVID. Standing up against such neglect, leaders like Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Governor Maura Healey can promote meaningful measures to protect our communities: air purification in all schools and public spaces; free COVID-preventive masks (KN95 or N95, not surgical masks); tests, vaccines, and Paxlovid for all who cannot afford to buy them; and concern for and support of long COVID victims.

Dr. Julia Koehler

Boston

Dr. Regina LaRocque

Wellesley

We remain vulnerable to long COVID

Ashish Jha’s position as former White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator is a conflict of interest masquerading as a qualification for his op-ed. Researchers who study long COVID stated in a recent paper in Nature Reviews Immunology that “the oncoming burden of long COVID faced by patients, health-care providers, governments and economies is so large as to be unfathomable.” Rapid tests, which are less accurate with recent strains while PCR tests are less available, and low death rates give a false sense of security.

I agree that despite progress, more buildings need the air filtration and ventilation that would make public life safer. But Jha omits our vulnerability to long COVID after even mild infections, its devastating effects, and higher death rates for hospital-acquired COVID-19, combined with a lack of collective protection in health care settings with unmasked, untested people who prefer to ignore COVID-19.

Aside from advocating vaccines, he describes an everyone-for-themselves approach, not mentioning responsibility to protect others or access to essentials.

Jha dines in a restaurant with his friends while patients even in leading cancer hospitals are forced into Russian roulette, thanks to this approach.

Kathryn Nichols

Cambridge

Vigilance is necessary to prevent long COVID

While I understand the desire to promote optimism amid the ongoing pandemic, I am deeply concerned about the potential consequences of downplaying the importance of COVID precautions and the significant risk of long COVID. As a person living with long COVID for the last 16 months despite being vaccinated and boosted, I have experienced post-exertional malaise, fatigue, headaches, joint and muscle pain, cognitive dysfunction, and more symptoms that have continued to today. I have tried numerous medicines, supplements, and even participated in a clinical trial, only to find limited relief from the persistent effects of this virus.

Such a stance overlooks the reality that millions more people could end up with long COVID if we fail to remain vigilant in our efforts to combat the virus. Long COVID is a devastating consequence of this virus, and we cannot rely solely on vaccinations to end the pandemic. Even with widespread vaccination, the risk of contracting long COVID remains high. A recent study funded by the NIH’s RECOVER initiative showed that 10 percent of adults infected with COVID still have symptoms six months later. Minimizing the significance of long COVID not only neglects the suffering of long-haulers but also risks undermining public health efforts to control the spread of the virus.

By raising awareness about the risk of long COVID, media outlets can play a pivotal role in educating the public and promoting continued vigilance. Responsible reporting on the enduring impact of long COVID can serve as a reminder that the pandemic is far from over and that we must remain committed to taking necessary precautions to protect ourselves and others. Highlighting the struggles of long COVID survivors and the lack of proven treatments can spur further research and medical advancements in addressing this condition. Empathy and support for those living with long COVID are essential in paving the way for better understanding, compassionate care, and better health outcomes for everyone as COVID rates increase again this summer.

Travis Hardy

Norwalk, Conn.

Link https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/08/05/opinion/cant-ignore-long-covid-jha/

[slavghoul]

Slav, do you ever just get the feeling that Ghost is getting turned into everything it shouldn’t be? I have always frowned on gatekeeping things and exposure is good for a band’s success etc but it’s putting me in the mind of all of the various things in the world that were ruined by too many tourists. Like national parks getting trampled or famous statues being discolored after everyone needed to touch it. You know? To be fair I’m a chronic overthinker but I can’t help but feel like I’m witnessing it (the fan side, not the music itself) being twisted into exactly what Tobias would hate.

This response came out VERY lengthy, I apologize in advance.

To answer your question shortly: yes, I do feel that way sometimes. However, I would be hesitant to involve TF in this discussion because I don't know him on a level that would allow me to gauge his true feelings on any particular matter. If I were to say "I hate it when Ghost fans [blah blah blah], because he would hate that!" it would only be an attempt to justify my own opinion about something, not a genuine concern for his feelings. Implicitly, I would also be shaming other fans and making them think that they are enjoying the band "the wrong way" when in reality, they simply enjoy it differently than me. That's unfair because I have no right to dictate how others should perceive Ghost. Everyone's experience with the band is unique and personal to them, and I have no authority to infringe upon that.

I think the sort of disillusionment that you describe is a common experience when you're a fan of virtually anything and it evolves. There's no solution for it. It just is what it is. The question is, to what extent is it a result of the band "being turned into something it shouldn't be" and how much of it is simply due to our own personal sense of nostalgia?

If you became a fan of the band several years ago, you'll likely always look back on those times through rose-tinted glasses. No other experience will ever compare to the emotions you felt back then, because they were formative and unique to that time in your life. You may continue to enjoy the band, but it's unlikely that anything will be able to replicate the same level of excitement and anticipation you felt when you were first introduced to them.

Of course, it's true the band has evolved and there's no denying that the community has undergone a significant shift over time. If you had seen them in concert a decade ago, the majority of the audience were people in their 20s and 30s. You had an odd kid here and there and the occasional, let's say, 'senior citizen' headbanging, but majority were young adults. It made for a very different dynamic which was also reflected in online spaces in terms of what was being discussed, how it was being discussed, and what the focus was on. These days, Ghost attracts a much wider age range with a significant portion of their current fans being on the younger side, pre-teens and teenagers. That's fantastic actually, I am very happy that is the case and I welcome them all. However, being 30-ish myself, I simply don't enjoy things in the same way they do and I don't focus on the same things they do.

It's very easy to become jaded when that's the case because you start to feel like you're no longer part of the target audience, and that can be disheartening. I make a conscious effort to prevent that from becoming an issue for me because I love Ghost dearly. At its core, it is still the same band I fell in love with. TF is doing exactly the same thing he has always done, but now on a larger scale, obviously. It's not being transformed into anything it hasn't been before. It's a bit more commercialized, sure, but that's not a crime.

Basically, it's up to us to decide how we want to engage with what is being offered. You need to find a way of consuming Ghost in a way that is comfortable to you or else you may get disenchanted very fast.

At the risk of sounding like a giant dick, I will admit that I intentionally stay away from the fandom and don't follow anyone because.. man, it's actually impossible to say this without sounding like a dick.. because I don't see eye to eye with majority of other fans and it taints my experience if I see too much of what others are saying or doing. To reiterate the point I made earlier, it doesn't mean that others are doing anything wrong and I'm doing it right; no, we are simply doing it differently. I made peace with the fact that I can't control how others act and that's completely fine. I live in my own little Ghost bubble, which, although solitary, is a tranquil place. I decide what I want to see and what I want to share, and who I want to talk to and about what. That's my way of remaining levelheaded and keeping the thoughts you describe at bay.

Apologies for crafting a whole ass high school essay on this fine Friday evening.. if you know me you know that I think and talk a fucking lot, hehe. I don't even know if anything of what I said makes sense, probably not. If you're still reading, thank you and sorry!

[utilitycaster]

FYI, I'm away for the weekend and shall have very limited availability once I reach my destination but here is WoTC's first official statement re the OGL. It is short and in fairly simple language, and I recommend under the strongest terms you read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions from it rather than relying on others.

Takeaways I have are:

They will be clarifying that this is specifically about the creation of TTRPGs. Livestreams, cosplay, etc. were always unaffected but given the response from the community I think this is a useful statement to make. They have also stated that this is not intended to touch on VTTs. I will admit, I feel like the conversation surrounding VTTs has been by far the most poisoned by unfounded speculation, and I also have not liked VTTs when I've used them, so I'll wait for the final OGL 1.1 to have any conclusions, but at the very least this is what they are saying now.

It appears the royalty structure is not being pursued, which was one of the biggest legitimate concerns.

The OGL 1.0 will not be invalidated for existing content. I would presume that this does imply it will not be permissible for future content the moment that 1.1a is released.

The registration system has not been mentioned, and I am keeping an eye on that. It seems that if royalties aren't going to go forward this would not make any sense to have and would almost certainly cost them money to pursue, but I'm waiting for 1.1a to make that clear.

The language surrounding content that uses the SRD as being something that can be used by WoTC at any time for free will be clarified to indicate that this is a provision to prevent lawsuits over unintentional coincidences rather than as a means for WoTC to use commercially available unofficial content for free. (This is part of what was widely stated by people more familiar with IP law to be boilerplate. Basically: let's say a third party publisher came up with the idea of a fire-based druid class shortly before the Circle of Wildfire came out but after it had legitimately already been in development at WoTC. This would basically say "hey, we did not steal your IP; both of us came up with fire-based druid subclasses independently and neither of us will sue each other and both of us can continue to sell our material.")

Obviously this went through PR for a large company, and, you know, sounds like it. The responsible thing to do is to wait for the final document. With that said I do not think it's unreasonable to consider things with a measure of good faith, which is to say: the leak was a draft, it was not intended to be released as it was, and there was intended to be a (far more controlled) comment period for creators once a public-facing draft version was ready.

For what it's worth: More generally, I do recommend being very thoughtful about what subscriptions you maintain, which is why I use D&D Beyond in a fairly limited fashion and only because a DM of mine requested it - I do not use it for DM planning nor did I use it for previous characters. Part of that is because, as you can see in the film/TV industry and music industry, your favorite show or song can be taken off a streaming service on the whim of said service or at the behest of the artist or for many other reasons, but content you actually own will still exist. I think it's worth criticizing this as an ongoing business practice, and I do suspect WoTC will be pushing it for D&D Beyond.

I also think a lot of opportunistic people preyed on people's fears regarding games or shows they have deep emotional attachments to, and that multiple parties in all of this ongoing mess (one of which, to be clear, is WoTC/Hasbro) can all be wrong at once. Also more generally, I do not think this kind of fearmongering is productive, and I do think it's outright harmful to genuinely pragmatic anticapitalist efforts. Lies or even the not necessarily malicious wide dissemination of misinformation are far more dangerous when they validate what you already believe, because you're far more likely to fall for them.

[paladin-of-nerd-fandom65]

Cool answers, happy super early valentine day lol ❤️ got some more for you! :D

1: are they fans of the Super Bowl/puppy bowl or just like to watch the new commercials?

2: in your universe, will zod ever be redeemed, like maybe teaming up with his son against a massive invasion from darkseid or mongul & maybe sacrifice his life for his son, or is zod just plain bad?

3: this maybe a little dark, but have the duo been in a terrifying scenario before, like a school pew-pewing?

4: what is one thing they would do for a million dollars?Like brush their teeth & then drink orange juice.

5: how would their lives be if they didn’t meet or at least not 1st best friends?

6: I think I ask this already but are much are they a hugger on a scale of 1-10?

As you can tell, my universe is ready for questioning if you want to ask me anything? Asks are open ;)

1) Oh easy….its about the ads especially for whatever new movies or video games are coming out that year the Duo focus on. Though every now and then it can be an ad not related to those things which also gets their attention. A prime example being that time Dr Evil took over General Motors.

2) Probably he can take a similar Omni Man direction in trying to find some redemption for the errors of his ways though even Zod might know deep down he might never truly receive that forgiveness from Chris for the years of harsh treatment dished out since basically the latter’s birth. Perhaps uneasy alliances against worse threats including Xa Du and Darkseid between Zod and his son’s adoptive family can occur to which Chris then earns Zod’s respect as a worthy soldier for his own cause (Truth & Justice) which can be a small step on the massive mountain climb that is full reconciliation.

(More below the cut as the answer for Question 3 might be heavy handed)

3) Oh My yes they have. Mainly for Jake, an incident like that at his school occurred during what was an average day. Suddenly during Pre Algebra, loud banging noises sounding like whip cracks were heard down Bludhaven Academy’s hallways so his teacher took the time trying to investigate but thankfully got out of the perpetrator’s way and had his class go into lockdown mode. The issue was that unfortunately, the perpetrator was a recent grad from this school who knew about said lockdown so they weren’t easily fooled, blasting through the door’s locks. The amount of shots fired and bullets spraying all over that classroom can only bang loudly in Jake’s ears as much as his eyes can see one by one some of his classmates try making a run for it either past the attacker or through the window, only to catch their aim and get mercilessly hit by said bullets. Finally, it took a clever distraction from Meredith who risked getting into the aiming sights did Jake finally act, using his acrobatics and a wooden measuring ruler found on the red crimson fluid soaked floors as an impromptu escrima stick to knock the weapon out of the attacker’s hand and knock them out cold, ending the rampage.

In all, 45 total lives, including about 2/3 of Jake’s algebra class, were lost to this incident, and out of those 45, 41 of them were all below the age of 18. Needless to say, Meredith and Jake had to ask extensive permission not to be counted as heroes in this case (in addition to Bruce and Dick lobbying hard with the news media not to reveal any details about the attacker and their background prior to this incident) as that would distract from the real tragedy and the actions needed to prevent such from ever happening again. The hashtag #BludhavenAcademyBrave or #BAB for short trending very quickly the very next day, complimented by Chris and Jake having a blue and white armband with that shortened hashtag as Nightwing and Skybird respectively.

4) Money isn’t always a factor of concern for them since not only are they happy with the lives they do have but there’s also the small elephant in the room that is Mr. Owner of the Third Largest Corporation in the DCU, Gotham’s Prince Playboy Bruce Wayne being their ally and a factor to it. But if they have to earn a million dollars, I can see Chris and Jake attempting a feat that breaks world records of a sort or participate in many Japanese game shows. A popular one in real life that was around in the 80s was called Za Gaman (‘Endurance’) where its contestants would endure some of the nastiest, most punishing and messed up types of challenges imaginable ranging from being tied to a paddle steamer’s engine, dunking back and forth into the water or eating ice cream while buried neck deep in the snow. That I can see the Duo doing for a Million US dollars.

5) Chris and Jake without ever meet each other would be frankly in much more sadder and less fulfilling lives as they would not have as strong of a drive for adventure beyond just doing so due to their respective families and in Jake’s case with other friend and his Big Sis’ friends doing so. It’s likely Jake might’ve quit the hero business altogether even after his powers came in some time later and trying living a normal civilian life while Chris only really goes into hero duties if he was accompanying Jon. So overall, a lot more would change in ways neither one want to really think about

6) Chris: 8 on good days and 9 on days he feels off and needs a hug for comfort. Though he’d only go for it if he’s given a form of permission

Jake: 10 easily. Both Mar’i and him frankly. It’s a family thing, coming from Kory of course XD

Thanks for these asks as always @pin-crusher2000

It’s very appreciative and yes you can be expecting questions for your universe in due time ;-)

[perseidlion]

Welp. This is some bullshit.

I was on Etsy and this came up:

This "service" tries to get around its shittiness with disclaimers and things like this. This is still NOT okay, let's be clear, unless it's YOUR fic and you just want a copy for yourself. This is definitely not okay for anyone else's fic, whether you sell the book or not. Because this service is profiting from fanfic.

What's hilarious about the above disclaimer is that it's basically saying 'consider making your fanfic not fanfic so you can print it.'

What also gets me is that this isn't even a unique service. Anyone can print and ship a book using any number of services with the material they request for less than what they're charging - often a LOT less. So they're ripping you off on top of everything and possibly doing the equivalent of dropshipping. It's possible they have their own printing setup and are printing it themselves, but honestly that doesn't make a difference.

What also makes me suspicious is this shop also has bound fics by different authors, so I am pretty sure they're already binding and selling fic they didn't write. Even if the writer gave permission, that is also not allowed. Because repeat after me:

YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE MONEY OFF FANFIC, FULL STOP. NEVER. IT IS NOT YOUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND TRYING TO DO SO ENDANGERS ALL FANFIC. THIS IS ESPECIALLY EGREGIOUS WHEN THESE PEOPLE TAKE FIC THEY DIDN'T WRITE WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR AND SELL IT.

Look, if you just want to put your own fics on your shelf, you can find printing services that will do that for you for a lot less than these people are charging. The printer is still technically profiting off of another IP, but at the prices other services charge, that is a relatively small amount of money. Also, there's a difference between those services existing and people knowingly doing something on the edge of fair use, versus a shop like this which is trying to encourage people to print fic.

If this was allowed, just about every fic writer would have a storefront where they offered print versions of their fic. But it's not allowed. So why would it be okay for this service to encourage people to print fics and profit off that printing?

Fic is not public domain work. It is not fair game for this sort of commercial activity. What's worse, these printers are making money off the back of a fic writer who can't monetize their own work.

I find it suspect that nowhere in their description does it say you need to either own the work or have explicit permission of the author to print it. They try to use the shield of 'personal use' and 'gifting' to cover their asses.

You can try and find this shop if you want but honestly I don't want to give them any attention. And I highly doubt there's anything to be done about taking the store down if your own fic wasn't being distributed.

Shit like this is why fic writers quit writing and delete all their works.

EDIT: I did some digging and discovered that this shop is set up by a print-on-demand company. These people absolutely know what they're doing.

I also found this "disclaimer."

All of this is semantics. None of this makes this okay. They're trying to encourage people to print books with them so they can profit, when the person who wrote it can't. There is no "might breach" here. Unless you are an officially licensed piece of writing, it's ALWAYS breaching copyright. And they're the ones commercializing other peoples' writing by encouraging people to give them money to print work they don't own.

Also, why does limiting a print run to only 25 prevent commercial distribution?

Sigh.

[ingek73]

Extremist or mainstream: how do Tim Walz’s policies match up globally?

Ed PilkingtonFri 16 Aug 2024 12.00 CEST

Within hours of Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, being chosen by Kamala Harris to be her Democratic presidential running mate, Donald Trump and team began attacking him as a “dangerously liberal extremist”.

Trump surrogates seized on Walz’s record of expanding voting rights for former felons, combatting the climate crisis, and other measures as proof that Harris-Walz would be the “most radical ticket in American history”.

If you step back from the melee, and look at his gubernatorial acts through a global lens, they appear anything but extreme. From the perspective of other industrialised nations, what Trump denounces as leftwing radicalism looks little more than basic public welfare provisions.

Far from being militant and revolutionary, initiatives such as paid family leave, free college tuition and rudimentary gun controls – all championed by Walz in Minnesota – have long been regarded as middle-of-the-road and unremarkable in large swathes of the world. Through this frame, it is not Walz who is the outlier, but his Republican critics.

Here are how some of Walz’s most impactful reforms compare with the rest of the world.

Free school lunches

View image in fullscreenTim Walz gets a huge hug from students at Webster Elementary in Minneapolis after he signed into law a bill that guarantees free school meals on 17 March 2023. Photograph: Star Tribune/Getty Images

‘On fire with excitement’: Tim Walz’s former students react to nominationRead more

Walz’s record: “What a monster! Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn.” That was Walz’s sardonic reply to CNN when he was asked about having introduced free breakfast and lunch for all Minnesota schoolkids. The 2023 measure puts Minnesota among just eight US states that offer school meals at no cost to all children, no matter their family’s income.

Around the world: Several countries provide free lunches for their children nationwide. Sweden, Finland and the three Baltic nations all provide meals at no cost for all schoolchildren irrespective of income, and many more European countries provide targeted or subsidised meals. Even a developing country such as India ensures access to lunch for more than 100 million kids daily.

“The idea of offering free meals to all students during the school day is hardly new – many countries already do so,” said Alexis Bylander at the Food Research and Action Center, a US anti-hunger organisation. “Numerous studies show the benefits, including improving student attendance, behaviour and academic success.”

Combatting the climate crisis

View image in fullscreenPublic works employees run a water pump to prevent flood waters from coming up through the storm drains in Stillwater, Minnesota, in 2023. Photograph: Nicole Neri for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Walz’s record: In February 2023 Walz signed legislation committing Minnesota to having all its electricity produced by wind, solar and other clean energy sources by 2040 – an even more ambitious timeframe than adopted by California, America’s sustainable energy leader. The legislature also passed more than 40 climate initiatives, including expanding charging infrastructure for electric vehicles and introducing a new code for commercial buildings to cut energy use by 80% by 2036.

Around the world: By global standards, Minnesota’s ambitions do not stand out. Some 27 countries have written into law target dates by which they will become net zero – that is, stop loading additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In the developed world, Finland is leading the way, pledging to be net zero by 2035, and to begin absorbing more carbon dioxide than it produces by 2040. In December, almost 200 countries at the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai agreed to call on all countries to transition away from fossil fuels and for global renewable energy to be tripled by 2030.

Child tax credit

View image in fullscreenTim Walz reads a story to a group of kindergarteners in St Paul on 17 January 2023. Photograph: Glen Stubbe/Star Tribune via Getty Images

Walz’s record: Last year the governor signed into law a child tax credit program for low-income Minnesota families. The measure sought to fill the hole left by a federal scheme that expired in 2021 after Congress failed to extend it. The Minnesota plan is the most generous of its type in the US, offering $1,750 per child and reaching more than 400,000 children.

Around the world: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the forum of high-income democracies, reported in 2018 that 34 of the 35 countries with available information provided their people with some form of family benefit including tax credits. The OECD compared the value of family benefits for two-child families, measured as a percentage of average earnings, across 41 countries and found that the US came in at No 40, with only Turkey being less generous in its support.

Basic gun controls

View image in fullscreenTim Walz hands out pumpkin bars to a gun safety advocate before the first day of the legislative session in St Paul in 2023. Photograph: Abbie Parr/AP

Walz’s record: The governor identifies as a proud gun-owner and hunter, and he accepted Harris’s invitation to be her running mate wearing a camo hat. That didn’t stop him in May 2023 enacting a slew of gun safety measures, including requiring all private sales of handguns and semi-automatic rifles to go through an FBI background check that looks for evidence of criminal or mental health risks. The changes also introduced a “red flag law” that allows relatives and other interested parties to intervene when someone is in danger of injuring themselves or others with guns.

Around the world: International comparisons show that Americans own vastly more guns than civilians in other rich countries – 121 guns per 100 Americans, compared with five guns per 100 people in the United Kingdom. The number of gun killings per 100,000 people is also vastly higher: 4.12 in the US, 0.04 in the UK.

Other countries also have much tougher gun controls that make those introduced by Walz look weak by comparison. Canada requires gun buyers to wait 28 days before acquiring a firearm, and imposes mandatory safety training and a ban on military-style rifles that does not exist in the US. The UK also bans some semi-automatic rifles and most handguns. Japan tightly restricts gun ownership, banning most guns other than air guns and a few other special categories and even then requiring owners to submit to annual inspections.

Paid family and medical leave

Walz’s record: House File 2, enacted by the governor last year, gave Minnesotans access to up to 20 weeks in every year of partial wages to cover medical leave after a life-changing diagnosis, mental health leave, or time off to care for a new baby. “Paid family and medical leave is about investing in the people that made our state and economy strong in the first place,” Walz said as he signed the bill.

Around the world: The US is the only OECD member country without a national law giving all workers access to paid leave for new mothers. Thirty-seven out 38 OECD countries offer national paid maternity leave – the only exception being the US. France, which holds the top spot, allows mothers and fathers to take paid leave until their child is three years old.

The US is also one of only six countries with no form of national paid leave covering either family or medical leave in the case of a health concern.

Voting rights for former felons

Walz’s record: The governor signed a bill that restores the vote to more than 50,000 Minnesotans who have been convicted of a felony. The Trump campaign denounced the measure as evidence of Walz’s “dangerously liberal agenda”, which is ironic, given that Trump himself, as a convicted felon, will only be able to vote for himself in November thanks to a similar reform in New York.

Around the world: A report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in June concluded that the US was an “outlier nation in that it strips voting rights from millions of citizens solely on the basis of a criminal conviction”. In 2022, more than 4 million people in the US were disenfranchised on those grounds. By contrast, when HRW surveyed 136 countries around the world, it found that the majority never or rarely deny the vote because of a criminal record, while those with restrictions tend to be much less draconian in their approach than US states.

[dontforgetoctober3rd]

Spillways (Chapter 4) A Gilded Age fanfic

Faceclaims for George and Randolph Stewart

Contents: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

Word count: approx. 1600

Story Summary: All of New York society is in a tizzy over the news: The Earl of Galloway is in town with his son, the 30 year old (bachelor) Randolph.  Marriage-minded mamas are on the prowl but the Earl and his son eschew most of the lavish parties and teas they’re invited to...except to a certain tea with Agnes Van Rhijn and her niece, Marian.

Rating: Everyone (Ratings will be *by chapter*, so subsequent installments might differ in their rating).

Author's Notes: This is a canon-divergence story that takes place a few months from episode 5 of Season 2.

DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with The Gilded Age in any way beyond being a fan, I do not own the Gilded Age characters nor am I using them for any commercial purposes or making money from this, this is just basically word fanart of the show

Beautiful divider by @muchomago

Bertha Russell was beside herself with a mixture of fear…and excitement.  Fear for Miss Brook, as her reputation was currently being fileted to pieces in the papers.  Excitement because Bertha knew she had a solution.

Agnes Van Rhijn had just sent word that she would finally call upon her. This very day. The day of the famous tea all of New york was talking about. 

The note had reached Bertha by messenger at Bloomingdale’s.  Mrs. Van Rhijn wouldn’t say why, just that it was urgent.  The note had not been sealed and no doubt the messenger had read it and would sell his bit of gossip to the highest bidder after this was done. Bertha wagered the note had something to do with Mrs. Blane’s horrid antics.  However, this provided an amazing opportunity. 

A few days ago, Miss Brook and the young Randolph Stewart (he insisted upon dropping the formality of “lord”, as they were in America after all) had happened upon her and her daughter in the park.  The carriage Bertha and Gladys had been using had broken a wheel.  Miss Brook had recognized them and Randolph had kindly offered them use of his rented carriage.

What an interesting ride that had been.  Apparently Mrs. Van Rhijn had known Lord George Stewart previously, having come close to an engagement with him. Randolph was apprehensive about speaking of the matter so openly to a stranger at first, but Miss Brook had encouraged him that Bertha was a trusted friend. And so she and her daughter Gladys became privy to the saga of their neighbor having a strained history with a Scottish Lord. 

This was the chance of a lifetime, and Bertha knew it.  She knew what she must do: get Agnes Van Rhijn to mend fences with Lord Stewart.  Before the Earl called off his acceptance to their tea later that day, as he surely would, due to Mrs. Blane’s defamatory statements in the papers.  If that happened, it would be the death knell for Marian Brook’s place in society but Bertha had every intention of preventing that from occurring.

Many called Bertha a power-hungry social climber, but she didn’t care.  If she managed to pull off her plan, Marian Brook would come out on top and one day be a countess!  Was it so wrong to want the best for people around her?  

Miss Brook had shown Bertha goodwill from the start, despite Mrs. Van Rhijn's edict that Miss Brook shun her, as everyone else had in the beginning.  It was time to repay that kindness. 

Bertha would get those wretched gossip rags off her back if it was the last thing she did.  Miss Brook would no longer be labeled an adventuress and Susan Blane would rue the day she decided to blacken the name of anyone who was her friend.

Gladys was quite apprehensive about her mother inserting herself into the affairs of Mrs. Van Rhijn.

“Mother, I don’t think it wise to meddle with this. The papers are already tearing Marian Brook apart as it is.” Gladys worried, as they hustled into their carriage to hurry home.  “They only mentioned us in passing from that day in the park and painted us as desperate hangers on, even now that we have Mrs. Astor’s favor!  Don’t you think you will be doing Miss Brook more harm trying to play conciliator between her Aunt and that Lord?  We should just offer Miss Brook whatever support-”

“Gladys, my darling.  If a friend of yours was drowning, would you merely swim by her and hope she is able to latch on on her own?”

“Well, no, I’d grab her at once but-”

“Exactly.  You grab her yourself and drag her to safety.”

“But mother, how-”

“Don’t you worry, I have a plan.” Bertha, smiling as she hastily scribbled a note, handing it back to the messenger before their carriage took off.  Agnes Van Rhijn’s own note had asked Bertha to return to her own home at once and wait for her there while she made a few emergency calls.

Bertha had to act quickly but knew now how to get Lord George Stewart’s attention.  He was sure to accept her new invitation to her house right away.  All she had to do was drop Agnes Van Rhijn’s name.

George Stewart had been looking forward to finally seeing Agnes Van Rhijn once more, but he knew good etiquette demanded he reject the invitation to Miss Brook’s tea now.  He also knew that if he did reject it, Randolph would not only never forgive him but would go by himself anyway and he would be left with trying to find a way to meet with Agnes on his own. It was for the best, as George had not looked forward to that blasted tea at all.  Having to air out his business in front of an unknown girl and god knows whoever else she had probably invited?  No thank you. He should have never let Randolph persuade him to accept the invitation in the first place.

The boy was smitten with Miss Brook and had vehemently defended her when they both read the papers after breakfast early that morning. He was still defending her now, after they had drained both cups of coffee and were on their second.

“You’re really going to listen to the prattlings of a scorned widow? To my knowledge, this Mrs. Blane never even socialized with Marian except for attending a few of same tennis matches.  There must not be much going on in New York right now if ballroom gossip is what is making headlines. This is not who Marian is, I assure you.”

“Oh, it’s just ‘Marian’ now? No, ‘Marian Brook’, no ‘Miss Brook’? You have only known her a few days.” George said in exasperation. 

“Father, I’m serious.  You’re not actually considering it?  Rescinding your acceptance?” Randolph asked, coffee cup in one hand and folded newspaper in the other. “Why inconvenience yourself so?  You have to meet with her Aunt anyway. Save yourself the headache of coming up with another excuse to see Mrs. Van Rhijn.  Do not add fuel to the fire that this Susan Blane ignited against Marian.”

“Randolph, you know I must.  It is nothing against Miss Brook. I’ll send a note after my coffee, I need to think of what to say.”

“The rumors will worsen when you reject her invitation!”

“Oh? It’s my responsibility to guard the reputation of this girl?  I don’t even know her!” George said with a scoff.

Randolph tossed the newspaper to the side and put his cup down, standing up. George put his own newspaper down and sat straight in his chair. 

“Father, I’m disappointed in you. You don’t know her, but I do and she doesn’t deserve what would happen if you decide not to go.”

“Rather harsh to take up against your own father for a girl you barely know.”

“I know enough of her.  I know she is kind, empathetic, cares about her family and has unshakeable integrity.”

George raised an eyebrow. “That is enough to defend her from me, is it? Your own father?”

“Enough for more than that, I would say. She is different.  Marian talks to me like a person.  Not like the future Earl of Galloway. I love her and I intend to ask for her hand.”

“Good god, please tell me you didn’t say that to her! She is American!” George exclaimed. A knock came at their door, his valet answered it while father and son stared each other down. 

“I am not an idiot. She is a practical woman and it would have pushed her away telling her too soon.  Also, why balk at her being an American? Really? If memory serves, you were almost engaged to one yourself!” Randolph said. He crossed his arms and smiled.  “Do you know what I find very funny about this?  The fact that you are still bent on meeting up with Agnes Van Rhijn.  Father, what do you think is going to happen when it gets out you rejected Marian’s invitation? Mrs. Van Rhijn will no doubt do something about these ridiculous gossip articles herself and when she finds out that you-”

“Excuse me, my lord, but a note has arrived for you.” The valet interrupted. George held out his hand and the note was put in.  Randolph rolled his eyes and sat back down, waiting for his father to read it. 

“Oh..!” George looked at his son, shock on his face. “Inform her messenger I will leave straight away,” he ordered.

Randolph looked worried. “Father?”

George Stewart rapidly walked to the door while his valet put on his coat and his top hat. “Mrs. George Russell has sent an invitation again.  Accepting this one is to my benefit, I think.”

“Why is that?”

“Mrs. Russell says that Agnes is anxious to meet with me at her house, Mrs. Russell’s that is,  before the tea. I will see what she has to say before I make a decision.”

“Mrs. Van Rhijn is at her house? Marian never gave me the impression that the two were friends.” 

George adjusted his hat. “The Russell house is right across from Agnes’s. If I change my mind, then we can just walk, it will take no time at all.  Satisfied with that?” he asked, still attempting to placate his son.

“If you change your mind?” Randolph asked incredulously.  “Do you really believe Mrs. Van Rhijn will give you a choice?  This is her niece, after all. From what you’ve told me, she will defend her family from anyone.  Even the nobility. I think you will change your mind, but I shall wish you luck all the same.”

“We shall see about that.  I have my own matter to take up with her, as you well know.” George said grimly, putting on gloves as the footman finished brushing a bit of lint off the Earl’s back.

“Like I said, I wish you luck, father.”

Randolph watched on as his father briefly nodded then hurried away. 

[nicklloydnow]

“Dearest Martha,

We knew each other a very long time. Exactly a century in fictional terms, several decades in reality.

From the first discussion I had with Dave Gibbons at, of all places, the San Diego Zoo, about the two of us working together, when I didn't even know your name, I knew that you were a noble, and quintessentially American, creature.

One thing I've always loved about my country is its indomitable spirit, and you were indomitable from the day you were born. The deck was stacked against you: you were Black, female, and impoverished, but nothing ever stopped you. To date, you are the most heroic creation I've ever had the honor to write.

Dave and I fell in love with you early and often. In fits and starts, we told your tale. We hit a crisis early on: puffed-up with self-importance after the success of The Dark Knight Returns, I mischronicled your first adventure as something too on-the-nose political, too self-consciously serious, and, in a word, dreary.

Dave quit. You were almost stillborn, baby.

It took Lynn Varley to straighten my brain out and advise me to reconfigure your story, to bring absurdity and sarcasm and adventure and boyish joy to it, and to win Dave back. Dave's instincts and Lynn's wisdom brought you back from the brink, Martha. It's hardly a coincidence that Lynn shares your birthday, in day and month, if not in year.

So, Martha, my sweetheart, you've been both daughter and mother to me. You've been noble in your every decision, your every aspect, and you've been, unfailingly, a writer's dream: a character who wrote herself.

From housing-project prisoner to drugged-out victim of an insanity ward, from soldier to explorer to savior of the world, to mother of a new generation worthy of your name, you always, relentlessly, wrote yourself.

As Dave does, I miss you, Martha. And I will always love you.

Frank Miller

New York City, 2008”

“Despite being an extremely successful commercial work, and arguably the series that really put Dark Horse on the map as a home for adventurous comics creators bored with the Big Two, the Martha Washington epic is curiously underrepresented in comics criticism, generally liked but not held in anywhere near as much esteem as the creators’ other contemporary works. The character of Martha Washington will occasionally pop up in lists about strong women characters, or POC representation, or bleak sci-fi, but it’s treated as almost a footnote in the careers of Miller and Gibbons. For Gibbons, it serves as a personal and ambitious attempt to stand outside the shadow of Watchmen before the artist shifted towards more commercially inclined series. For Miller, it’s the exact line of demarcation between his classic Formalist Auteur Era (Daredevil, Dark Knight Returns, Ronin) and his hyper masculine Abstraction Auteur Era (Sin City, 300, Holy Terror). Martha Washington is the most human character Frank Miller ever wrote and the last time you can see him caring about a character more than experimentation and style, and not coincidentally it’s one of the last times he would share basically equal creative autonomy with someone.

As Gibbons and Miller both explain in the introductory text in the complete Martha Washington collection, Miller convinced Gibbons to work with him on the series by pitching him the story of Martha “on a mission to prevent an evangelical Elvis clone [from] nuking the rest of the United States from deep in the Arizona desert.” For Gibbons, this offered a giddy respite from “our recently successful dark dissections of superheroes,” so he started working on designs and plans based on that treatment. But when Miller’s script finally arrived, Gibbons was horrified by how dark and gritty it had become, missing the surreal humor and absurdity that had first caught his eye. Miller admits that the project would have been “stillborn” if Lynn Varley hadn’t convinced him to take Gibbons’ concerns into consideration and rework the entire project. The work that Miller and Gibbons eventually created is an incredible hybrid of these two spheres, brutal and unflinching yet curiously warm and tender and goofy. Not unlike life itself, in other words.

What’s especially clear throughout the series that make up the Martha Washington epic is that Miller and Gibbons and their various colorist collaborators truly love Washington as a character. And it’s not hard to see why. Washington is an epic hero with all of the tragedy and none of the hubris. If she has a tragic flaw, it’s that she has hope for humanity, but that’s also the ingredient that makes her continue long past the point her many enemies expect her to fall. As Washington herself puts it in a survival mantra, “When things get bad like this, you just keep telling yourself ‘This won’t kill me, I won’t die here, this won’t kill me.”

(…)

This is why Washington is such a uniquely potent dystopic protagonist. Gibbons draws her not as a cold superhuman brute or insensitive sex warrior (and notably Washington encounters and defeats characters who represent both of these tropes) but as a bold and powerful black woman with a wide emotional range to reflect her equally wide array of physical talents. Many of the most memorable scenes in the series are simple one page depictions of Washington crying in solitary peace after making a difficult decision (like her first foray in the senseless Amazon War between PAX and the rogue Fat Boy Burger corporate state), or multi-panel sequences showing her reaction to a trauma shifting from shock to acceptance to strength (the killing of a basically nonverbal bully who had just slain her adolescent mentor). So many dystopic and post-apocalyptic works gives us protagonists who are blank slates or emotionally cold, indicating that survival is only possible if you shut down everything that makes you human. But with Washington, Miller and Gibbons reject this premise and provide an emotionally open yet brave and strong woman who survives because of how much she values that which makes her human.

As that anecdote about Martha Washington’s gestation shows, a huge amount of Martha Washington’s humanity is due to Gibbons’ vision for what would make this project work and ability to weave that into even the most ambitious of Miller’s ideas (as well as minimize the tone deafness of Miller’s worst concepts– the less said about the gay Nazi terrorist group, the better, though it’s hard not to think of them as predecessors to the dreaded Nu Fascist icon Milo Yiannopuolos). Gibbons rightfully continues to get acclaim for the patterns and precision focus he brought to Watchmen but while that series and Washington share dystopic themes, Washington also serves as a foil to the unfeeling, repetitive nature of that landmark work. Washington is still just as ambitious and epic but there’s a chaos and looseness to it that makes it far more exciting and filling. Miller’s script gives Gibbons ample opportunity to show off his range as an artist, with issues taking place in locations as diverse as the densely overcrowded urban centers of Chicago and New York, the equally claustrophobic but less populated world of the Amazon and the far more desolate realms of the southwest and outer space. But beyond that, it also pushes Gibbons’ talent for realistically rendering human expression to new extremes, with many of its climaxes getting delivered via small panel beats and compressed close-ups of reactions. It’s a detailed work that never feels overbearing, that demands innumerable rereads but never makes that feel like a chore.

(…)

The Washington series is at its best when it focuses on these personal, human tragedies and how they spark the larger, more apocalyptic events filling out the background of the series. Though every Martha Washington release is worth reading, there is a significant difference in mood, tone and aesthetic in the initial Give Me Liberty series and what followed in its wake. The clearest difference comes with the departure of masterful colorist Robin Smith, who was brought on to the series to give it a more “European” feel. Smith’s coloring recalls 2000 A.D. and Heavy Metal but it also fits perfectly alongside the adventurous work Gibbons and Miller’s peers were doing at DC in the same era, particularly Tim Truman’s Hawkworld and Howard Chaykin’s The Shadow: Blood and Judgment, both of which utilized their painterly textures to depict grimy urban decay and freakish figures in ways that felt raw rather than realistic.

(…)

Yet the conclusion of the series, Martha Washington Dies, brought Miller and Gibbons full circle, reuniting them with the fearless and eternally optimistic Washington on her final birthday. A century old and still stoic, Washington knows death is on the way and what surprises her most is that she isn’t alone but surrounded by people she cares about. She chooses to spend last day inspiring them, not holding back about how dire their situation might seem in yet another apocalyptic scenario but focusing on the human capacity to overcome hopelessness. And in her final moment, Washington transforms into a literal beacon of hope, dying and then immediately being reborn as a lightwave leading on the troops. It’s not exactly a happy ending but it’s a perfect ending for the type of warrior Martha Washington is, eternally focused on overcoming all challenges and abiding not by law but by what’s best for humanity. In times like these, that’s perhaps better than a happier story or an unrealistically revolutionary text.”

[usafphantom2]

When the B-2 Spirit bomber was being developed in the late 1980s, it was initially equipped with a chlorosulfonic acid injection system similar to that of the Firebees. However, for reasons that were never disclosed, this was never used.

The reason may have been environmental; there was a growing awareness that the secret spraying of highly toxic chemicals from aircraft could attract criticism. This was even before the emergence of the conspiracy theories of the "chemtrail" of the 1990s, which accused the U.S. government of spraying mysterious chemicals from aircraft that left lasting traces. There is no evidence that this theory is connected with the real search for traces - whose objective was to prevent the formation of such traces.

U.S. Air Force Secretary Edward Aldridge revealed that an alternative solution had been found in a 1989 press conference on B-2, but kept journalists trying to guess what the new technology was. "The trail problem has been solved, but I'm not going to say how," Aldridge said.

There was a lot of speculation that the solution would be a new fuel additive or a deflector system to mix cold air with the exhaust (see below).

The Spy of the Stealth Condensation Trail

Noshir Gowadia was an engineer who worked in the complex B-2 stealth exhaust system. His project helped ensure that the cold air was mixed with the hot jet exhaust before leaving the plane, to dilute the thermal trace of the plane and make it more difficult to detect with infrared images.

Gowadia used his experience to redesign jet nozzles in order to eliminate visible traces. This involved a "ununiform flow field" - a region of turbulent mixture - that would spread the drops of water so much that any trail would be invisible to the human eye and other sensors. The USAF thought it had found a solution to the problem of the trail and granted Gowadia a contract to develop its concept into a finished product.

However, in 2011, Gowadia was convicted of espionage - specifically, passing details of stealthy exhausts to China - and sentenced to 32 years. The nozzle redesign project has been discontinued and it is not clear whether this technique can effectively eliminate traces.

It was only years later that the real secret was revealed as the PAS, or Pilot Alert System. Developed by the sensor company Ophir, the PAS uses a way of dealing: it fires a laser beam back to the jet exhaust and measures the dispersion of light in the ice particles. This can immediately detect when a trail begins to form, warning the pilot to change altitude before it becomes visible.

The PAS was certainly an improvement over the U-2 rearview mirror, but what the U. Air Force planners really wanted was to be able to fly without any risk of trail formation in the first place.

Back to basics

Changing the altitude works because the traces only form under particular conditions of temperature and humidity. German scientist Ernst Schmidt took the first steps towards a scientific understanding of the process in 1941 and, in 1953, Herbert Appleman, of the American Meteorological Society, developed a precise formula for the formation of the trail. Known as Schmidt-Appleman's criterion, this can be clearly expressed as a temperature and humidity graph: to avoid the formation of traces, just avoid the area mapped in the middle of the graph.

U.S. Air Force planners used the Schmidt-Appleman Criterion to develop increasingly sophisticated software models to predict where the trails will form. In 1998, USAF evaluated its JETRAX software as 84% reliable to determine if traces would appear on a flight path. Planners can redirect stealth missions to avoid leaving traces in the sky.

Although military forecasting software has always been kept confidential, there has been an increase in developments in the commercial sector. The reason: climate change.

A more ecological reason to avoid condensation trails

While some traces disappear quickly, others spread to form high-altitude cirrus clouds, which have a significant warming effect. In fact, the heating effect of cirrus traces is actually greater than that of CO2 of aviation fuel burning. Removing the tracks would make the flight less harmful to the planet.

"The trails represent 59% of the climate impact of air travel. This is equivalent to 1.8 billion tons of CO2 per year," says Durant. DECISIONX:NETZERO is SATAVIA's planetary atmosphere model, conducted by Artificial Intelligence and fed with commercial meteorological data. The key, appropriately, is cloud computing, which makes intensive computing accessible. This allows the system to divide the globe into cells of five square kilometers, stacked with sixty depth.

"We use global-scale climate data sets to conduct a physics-based model of atmospheric dynamics that shows us the probability of generating a trail on any route," says Durant.

While most meteorological models focus on what is happening at ground level, SATAVIA analyzes the cruise altitude of the aircraft and applies trail formation algorithms. Crucially, by showing the conditions at sixty different altitudes, it allows the flight plan to avoid the risk of condensation trails.

[little-klng]

yknow, i know we're literally all giving that metaverse shit absolutely zero press whatsoever on purpose both because none of us can stand the idea of giving zucc money to play it, AND because of the fact that it (hehe) zuccs in general as a whole both as a design concept and as a game. like its not fun even in concept really. but look i just NEED to give it shit for this one thing. i have to

look. in the history of vr techs development, as much as a layman as even i am (as someone who can not own a vr headset under any circumstances due to personal reasons i dont have to get into, its like 3-4 major reasons minimum). i understand that the vr history "basically" begins with the nintendo virtualboy, which was a commercial failure because Something About It gave people severe and unmanageable motion sickness. and then, even in spaces where people WANTED vr games to be a reality, it took a REALLY long time to get a game out that was good to play and felt good on the eyes for more than an hour on the average non-chronic sufferer of migraines or photosensitivity. like, in order for the games to reach the level of "playable, easy on the eyes, extremely unlikely to make you violently motion sick, and not unbearable for photosensitive chronic migraine sufferers", it took YEARS of trial and error from my perspective

first step rules of all vr games:

do not make "falling"/"spiderman" areas where the player, while standing completely still, has to fall/swing in mid air

do not make inputs too specific/precise, a small button should be achievable with shaky hands and uncalibrated controllers, though buttons shouldnt be small anyway

boring, jarring, or impossible physical movement is extremely hard to watch, it should be synced to irl movement as closely as possible and finger motion if available should be dynamic and easy to understand and intuitively use

metaverse, i cannot stress this enough, breaks literally all of those main basic rules to prevent motion sickness, eye fatigue, and has the fucking audacity to not even be fun while doing it. its PAINFULLY cheap looking, with next to no animations for officially licensed "minigames" (white arial font text "you have been hit!" and such with a bland red overlay in one, literal spiderman swing-between-buildings-over-empty-void-level-while-irl-standing-normally in another). like... theres a REASON these basic vr design rules exist and why breaking them is a bad idea. metaverse spits in the face of basic design and function research. its like they almost dont expect real people of varying visual and sensory ability to see to play the game, and i dont mean "autistic vs allistic people", i mean just straight up people who dont perceive color or light intensity the same way as other people. which is everyone, because varying sensitivity is a part of natural variation in people. vr chat has achieved this. BEAT SABER managed to achieve this while having a huge part of their gimmick break the vr rules of "things that are flashing lights fly at you very quickly", and they manage it in STYLE. tons of vr games work in spite of the inherent struggle in vr of making a game that isnt sickening to play and use. and you'd THINK a company as spyware-heavy as facebook would be able to come up with something a basic human person could play without being bored or sick, and yet... they cant even manage legs. they cant even manage not LYING about having legs. and its so useless and stupid and deserves everyone ignoring it and not bothering to even try it out of hatred.

you have to pay for applause points that might win you an irl shirt if you're top 5, and the shirt isnt even good. literally pay to win social interactions in a game that is so painfully boring and cheap you cant even imagine where 90% of the money could have gone. i dont genuinely think i could have... even FOUND A WAY to spend so much money on things like drugs and gambling in the dev time this game has taken that could account for how much money just simply could not have gone into actual development. i literally cant imagine how they could have done this. indie one person passion projects can create a better tech demo than this entire game manages to be for like... what? $15 billion? it makes me sick thinking about how much money was sunk into this and it still somehow has microtransactions. it feels insulting and flaunting. i hope mark zuckerberg reads this and feels a little worse about the whole thing than he already does. i really hope he feels bad and useless and hopeless.

[jankslide]

Individualism and Community

Something that I have been thinking about lately is how individualistic we are as a society. I was discussing with Matt. Basically we were talking about how Japan's population growth is so fucked, it looks very top heavy because of the absurd amount of elderly and the waning young population. Now by all means we are no experts on population growth or the social/political standards of Japan in general, let alone specific factors that can cause this. But the kinda general idea we were getting at was how could a culture as community based as Japan be having these issues? Like it's built into their culture the value of family and how they care for the elderly and the elderly stay active mentally/physically longer, in part because of sense of community within family and geographic neighborhood. Like the layman's understanding of Japan's issue is that the younger generation have no interest?, or some sort of barrier preventing them from having intimate interactions with each other. The Japanese young adult male has been characterized, the accuracy is up for debate, as isolated/lonely/overworked. Whether it's the work that leaves no mental energy for interpersonal connections. Or it's the overwhelming dread of the dating market. They have found solace in other forms, most recognized being anime or vocaloids. Which has in our amateur opinion, really harmed the population growth of Japan as a whole, causing these issues with a waning upcoming generation.

This entire discussion on Japan kinda just served as a precursor to some of the other issues with individualism. The use for television, and cable, as a member of the internet generation is basically nonexistent. You need it for sports, but streaming alternatives exists in league pass (or national games have the youtube TV option). Most people rely upon youtube, a number of streaming services, and various video sharing social media (tiktok being the largest that comes to mind, vine/musically once shared this market space) for video entertainment. The content that people engage in is so specific and individualized at this point. Couch socializing is dead. The fuck is couch socializing? I guess i would characterize this term I've just created as this: the communication and conversations that occurred from a shared bonding experience of indulging in TV. This is a time when everyone had the TV as their only source of video content. There were multiple people in the household, so the decision of what to watch may commonly have been an executive decision, but a decision that everyone would partake in ( a child's influence on what channel's on Friday night was likely nonexistent in comparison to their parent). This was a time when conversation could be had during the program, during the commercials, while you were waiting for "your show" ( another phrase that seems to have died) to start. This time just provided such a natural instance for you to converse with your family, roommates, whoever was there to watch.

I used to hate commercials, but I really see the positive perspective of them at this point. TV commercials were such a natural break in programming. The annoyance of the unskippable youtube ad doesn't exist here. You know roughly when the commercials are coming, you know roughly how long the commercials last. Need to use the bathroom? Want to get a snack? Need a beverage before the climax of the episode? The commercial gives you that break, involuntarily; yet so uniform was the experience, you could plan around it. The amount of marketing and consumerism fed to the average person cant possibly have been at a higher point than it is currently. Ads have more variety than commercials? Maybe, but not in my experience. I do have a strong guttural feeling that im exposed to more commercials(ads) than ever before in my life. Whether youtube midrolls, the youtuber's sponsor, or the myriad of scrollable suprise sponsorships on tik tok, the amount of messaging you're exposed are at astronomical levels. Theyre just as ivoluntary as TV, but the sheer number we must because of how diverse video content is; honestly, tragic how much of my visual intake must be ads at this point. You get trapped in the tik tok or instagram feed; the addiction of social media helps to feed more messaging to you (consequently increasing the value of advertising on their platform). Commercial were involuntary but uniformly lasted long enough for you be able to plan breaks. The trap of social media addiction doesnt allow this luxury of natural breaks. One swipe eliminates a tik tok ad. 5 seconds allows you to skip a youtube ad. This skippability is beneficial from an impatience stand point. But it secretly ruins youre self-discipline. No natural commercial break to let you think, yeah i'll turn off the tv and do something else. The ads are too short for you to divert your attention elsewhere, another design to help trap you in the app. It's crazy how these realizations have induced a longing for TV as it used to be.

The final point in this i want to mention is the value of limited television. There are just so many different shows, on so many streaming platforms, that cater to so many different demographics, it's hard to find the commonality of shows between people. Seinfeld is probably one of the most well-known examples of the idea I'm getting at. Seinfeld was a cultural phenomenon. Everybody watched Seinfeld and knew what it was. After the new episode premiered, you know that's gonna garner some level of discussion the next day at work. This was a show that brought so many different people together. It was so huge you knew that other people had seen it, so an immediate conversation topic presented itself. Streaming has its heavy hitters (stranger things for one) but it really isn't the same. You were limited to what was on TV. A show you didn’t love would still likely be one you indulged because the other options werent present. Now with such an abundance of media, you can find it hard to carve the time to binge a show. Binging has also killed this weekly conversation topic, but thats a discussion for another post. The point was the limitation of television shows helped to create that sense of community, which is somewhat lost at this point. Streaming, youtube, vimeo, access to bingeable older media has given too many options to oppose the popular culture show. You dont even need to watch other high production media as a substitute ( you got youtube with its variety of content). No need to buy the boxset of an older show with some reruns that intrigued you to watch the rest; streaming and piracy give you this option at limited cost or free. There's just too many options; the shared indulgence of visual culture is not gone by any means, but the point is how specific and catered it is at this point. The wide appeal and connection that this medium once provided has significantly been diminished. I just wish for a more community based environment; it's tough living in an individualistic society without a sense of how to socialize.

[ozoneme-dxb]

Sliding Doors: Reasons for Installing Them in UAE

For a good reason, sliding glass doors are a favorite of many interior designers—they appeal to the most imaginative homeowners as well as designers. They serve a functional purpose and add a great deal of aesthetic appeal to interior spaces. Installing this structure has many visual benefits, whether it is for a commercial complex or a residential building.

Let’s talk about some of the most significant benefits and features of installing sliding doors UAE.

●      Improved Space Comfort

Sliding doors Dubai make good use of available space because they slide along a track as opposed to opening into another area. When people live in high-rise buildings with limited floor space, such as megalopolises, sliding doors contribute to a greater sense of space. These doors are easy to install and maintain in addition to being aesthetically beautiful. Basically, these doors can create the illusion of wider areas, making a home or office appear larger than it actually is.

●      Allows Natural Light to Enter

A lot of natural light will enter and enlighten your home or place of business when sliding doors UAE are installed. If you use less artificial lighting during the day, your home will look cozier and more welcoming. Adding floor-to-ceiling glass windows could provide you with a better and more expansive view of your surroundings.

●      Adaptability in Measures

Sliding doors, in contrast to normal hinged doors, can be constructed to any desired width or height. Large furniture may now be easily moved into and out of rooms thanks to this. It makes walking easier, whether in social settings or not.

●      Unmatched Beauty and Diverseness

There is a wide range of designs for glass sliding doors in the UAE. The frames can be painted and altered to fit your home’s aesthetic requirements. Sliding bi-fold doors, bypass doors, pocket doors, patio doors, sliding French doors, and many more permutations are possible.

●      Energy-Performance

Installing sliding doors Dubai with multiple glass panes reduces heat loss or gain. These doors will keep hot air from the outside and prevent it from entering your inside rooms, especially in the summer. They maintain comfortable interior temperatures all year round by retaining the heat inside throughout the winter.

●      Enhanced Security

It was thought that sliding doors Dubai might not be the safest material to place inside a home before the development of reinforced glass. The robustness and stability of these sliding doors are greatly enhanced by the double-pane toughened glass. In the unlikely event that kids bump into sliding glass doors, they won’t get injured. Moreover, in contrast to regular glass panes, the shattered glass panels would break into tiny, sharp fragments that resemble pebbles and could cause severe injury. Sliding door installation is an easy and safe process.

Conclusion

The ideal internal doors for any home are sliding doors since they are secure and enhance the aesthetics of the surrounding area. Installing sliding doors UAE could raise the value of your home while also improving its aesthetic appeal. They can be crucial if you decide to sell your house. I suggest adding a screen. These may be helpful, particularly for people who reside in places where flying insects, mosquitoes, and flies are common pests.

SOURCE URL: https://klighthouse.com/sliding-doors-reasons-for-installing-them-in-uae/