#City State

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Then there was communism's weak-tea sister, socialism. Socialists maintained that we shouldn't take all the money away from all the people since all the people don't have money. We should take all the money away from only the people who make money. Then, when we run out of that, we could take more money from the people who...hey, wait! Where'd you people go? What do you mean you're "tax exiles in Monaco?"

- P.J. O’Rourke

Monaco. They say it’s the only place in the world where rich people go to feel poor.

#o'rourke #pj o'rourke #quote #monaco #city state #monarchy #rich #wealth #landscape #socialism #tax #tax exile #personal

[sequencer987]

I can’t describe the feeling whenever I see a piece of writing from the Bronze Age mention the Minoans or the Harrapan civilization. They’re a total mystery to us now, but to the Hittites they were just other foreign peoples. No more mysterious than the Greeks or the Egyptians.

#Bronze #Bronze Age #ancient history #ancient crete #minoans #minotaur #indus valley #mesopotamia #Anatolia #city state #mycenaean greece #Hattusa

[myhusbandsasemni]

Intro - Raven’s Revival

Title: Raven’s Revival

Genre: Fantasy, I guess. What flavor of fantasy? I have no heccin clue.

Setting: In the country of Amarith, a place where half of the people are mages and half of the animals have the ability to become familiars. Mild climate, medieval ish setting. Much of it takes place in and around the city state of Fairforth.

Tropes, themes, and warnings: Three man team, artificer with explosions, failed rebellion, PTSD, unhealthy coping mechanisms, disfigurement, a couple of scenes with warfare using explosives, survivor’s guilt, lots of guilt in general, fear expressed as anger, and over all, a rescue mission. 

Story

A battle scarred mage, a hardened warrior, and an explosion happy Artificer have a go at throwing down a terrible leader while trying to rescue siblings, friends, and teachers alike.

Characters

Keith - (Ragged) unsure, traumatized, resilient

Mattie - (Volatile) relentless, irate, loyal

Artie - (Brilliant) sparky, eccentric, ditsy 

I present to you ~plot~

Keith tries to lead his rebellion and fails because Lord Henrick has discovered explosives. In the battle, Keith loses his familiar, a horse named Mags, and barely escapes with his life, physically and emotionally scarred, his soul tattered from the shock of losing his familiar.

The Powerful warrior, Mattie, is taken during this failed battle. She is incarcerated and has to escape while they are transporting her, then follows whispers of where Keith went. When she finds him, she sees her great commander has fallen to alcoholism and survivor’s guilt. She rallies him and calls him to his duty to rescue his men and his brother.

He goes, very reluctantly.

Artie has been in the hands of Lord Hendrick for months now, and he does not know anything of the failed rebellion, kept inside and forced to invent explosive ordnance and other weapons for the Lord. He builds them, all the while looking for a chance to escape. When Mattie and Keith come across the compound he’s being kept in and provide enough of a distraction, he escapes using his explosives and devices and gets the other two out of danger.

The three team up and head to the city state of Fairforth to rescue the men that got left behind, find a way to fight the Lord’s new weapons, and overthrow the Lord, if they have a spare minute or two. 

Neat things

Familiars, Ordnance, Mages, Magic, City States

Where are we?

We are currently trying to wrangle a plot together in a step of writing I call ‘Roughing it out’ which involves writing snippets and picking and choosing what things I like, and what things I don’t like and eventually will turn into some shambling semblance of an outline. 

Corvus series tag list

@thepotatowriter @thethistlegirl @writingonesdreams​

Let me know if you want to be on the taglist!!

#writing #wip raven's revival #familiars #mages #city state #keith #mattie #artie #intro post #I love this story #it's going well so far

[romericas-blog]

The new flag for Romerica, the city state which can be a legal and true place for like minded Christian folk ...

#futurism #city state #make this happen #christian identity #true American dream

[hermitpolarbear]

#music #city state #requiem #favorite #Youtube

[thoughtportal]

#twitter #tweet #tweets #cop city #police violence #justice system #police state #police

[finemealprompt]

DP x DC Prompt #16

When Hal had asked him which town he protected, Danny was more than happy to tell him, "Amity Park!" When Hal asked Danny where it was, Danny hadn't thought the response, "At this moment? Or where it was last week?" would've caused such chaos in the meeting.

Danny knew not everyone's town traveled across the country, but he didn't think it was odd enough to warrant this kind of reaction.

#finemeal prompt #dp x dc #danny fenton #justice league #hal jordon #amity park #amity park moves around #ya know how a lot of people put amity park in different states? #this is my “in universe” reason for it #like amity park just moves from city to city #just living its best life #one day you go to bed in Minnesota #and wake up in California #just another day in the life of Amity Parkers #they're used to it #don't ask me how this works practically #it just works #trust me

[breathtakingdestinations]

New York City - New York - USA (by Diana Robinson)

#New York City #New York #NYC #USA #United States #North America #City #Cityscape #Urban #Buildings #Skyscraper #Photography #Travelling #Traveling #Travel #Tourism #Holiday #Uraub #Reisen #Vacation #Fotografie

[reasonsforhope]

"Chicago’s 82-story Aqua Tower appears to flutter with the wind. Its unusual, undulating facade has made it one of the most unique features of Chicago’s skyline, distinct from the many right-angled glass towers that surround it.

In designing it, the architect Jeanne Gang thought not only about how humans would see it, dancing against the sky, but also how it would look to the birds who fly past. The irregularity of the building’s face allows birds to see it more clearly and avoid fatal collisions. “It’s kind of designed to work for both humans and birds,” she said.

As many as 1 billion birds in the US die in building collisions each year. And Chicago, which sits along the Mississippi Flyway, one of the four major north-south migration routes, is among the riskiest places for birds. This year, at least 1,000 birds died in one day from colliding with a single glass-covered building. In New York, which lies along the Atlantic Flyway, hundreds of species traverse the skyline and tens of thousands die each year.

As awareness grows of the dangers posed by glistening towers and bright lights, architects are starting to reimagine city skylines to design buildings that are both aesthetically daring and bird-safe.

Pictured: Chicago's Aqua Tower was designed with birds in mind.

Some are experimenting with new types of patterned or coated glass that birds can see. Others are rethinking glass towers entirely, experimenting with exteriors that use wood, concrete or steel rods. Blurring lines between the indoors and outdoors, some architects are creating green roofs and facades, inviting birds to nest within the building.

“Many people think about bird-friendly design as yet another limitation on buildings, yet another requirement,” said Dan Piselli, director of sustainability at the New York-based architecture firm FXCollaborative. “But there are so many design-forward buildings that perfectly exemplify that this doesn’t have to limit your design, your freedom.”

How modern buildings put birds in danger

For Deborah Laurel, principal in the firm Prendergast Laurel Architects, the realization came a couple of decades ago. She was up for an award for her firm’s renovation of the Staten Island Children’s Museum when the museum’s director mentioned to her that a number of birds had been crashing into the new addition. “I was horrified,” she said.

She embarked on a frenzy of research to learn more about bird collisions. After several years of investigation, she found there was little in the way of practical tips for architects, and she teamed up with the conservation group NYC Audubon, to develop a bird-safe building guide.

The issue, she discovered, was that technological and architectural advancements over the last half-century had in some ways transformed New York City – and most other US skylines and suburbs – into death traps for birds...

At certain times of day, tall glass towers almost blend into the sky. At other times, windows appear so pristinely clear that they are imperceptible to birds, who might try to fly though them. During the day, trees and greenery reflected on shiny building facades can trick birds, whereas at night, brightly lit buildings can confuse and bewilder them...

Pictured: A green roof on the Javits Convention Center serves as a sanctuary for birds.

The changes that could save avian lives

About a decade ago, Piselli’s firm worked on a half-billion-dollar renovation of New York’s Jacob K Javits Convention Center, a gleaming glass-clad space frame structure that was killing 4,000-5,000 birds a year. “The building was this black Death Star in the urban landscape,” Piselli said.

To make it more bird friendly, FXCollaborative (which was then called FXFowle) reduced the amount of glass and replaced the rest of it with fritted glass, which has a ceramic pattern baked into it. Tiny, textured dots on the glass are barely perceptible to people – but birds can see them. The fritted glass can also help reduce heat from the sun, keeping the building cooler and lowering air conditioning costs. “This became kind of the poster child for bird-friendly design in the last decade,” Piselli said.

The renovation also included a green roof, monitored by the NYC Audubon. The roof now serves as a sanctuary for several species of birds, including a colony of herring gulls. Living roofs have since become popular in New York and other major cities, in an inversion of the decades-long practice of fortifying buildings with anti-bird spikes. In the Netherlands, the facade of the World Wildlife Fund headquarters, a futuristic structure that looks like an undulating blob of mercury, contains nest boxes and spaces for birds and bats to live.

The use of fritted glass has also become more common as a way to save the birds and energy.

Earlier this year, Azadeh Omidfar Sawyer, an assistant professor in building technology in the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture, working with student researchers, used open-source software to help designers create bespoke, bird-friendly glass patterns. A book of 50 patterns that Sawyer published recently includes intricate geometric lattices and abstract arrays of lines and blobs. “Any architect can pick up this book and choose a pattern they like, or they can customize it,” she said.

Pictured: The fritted glass used in Studio Gang’s expansion of Kresge College at the University of California, Santa Cruz, depicts the animals in the local ecosystem.

Builders have also been experimenting with UV-printed patterns, which are invisible to humans but perceptible to most birds. At night, conservationists and architects are encouraging buildings turn off lights, especially during migration season, when the bright glow of a city skyline can disorient birds.

And architects are increasingly integrating screens or grates that provide shade as well as visibility for birds. The 52-floor New York Times building, for example, uses fritted glass clad with ceramic rods. The spacing between the rods increases toward the top of the building, to give the impression that the building is dissolving into the sky.

Gang’s work has incorporated structures that can also serve as blinds for birders, or perches from which to observe nature. A theater she designed in Glencoe, Illinois, for example, is surrounded by a walking path made of a wood lattice, where visitors can feel like they’re up in the canopy of trees.

Pictured: The Writers Theatre, designed by Studio Gang, includes a walking path encased in wood lattice.

Rejecting the idea of the iridescent, entirely mirrored-glass building, “where you can’t tell the difference between the habitat and the sky”, Gang aims for the opposite. “I always tried to make the buildings more visible with light and shadow and geometry, to have more of a solid presence,” she said.

Gang has been experimenting with adding bird feeders around her own home in an effort to reduce collisions with windows, and she encourages other homeowners to do the same.

“I’ve found that birds slow down and stop at feeders instead of trying to fly through the glass,” she said.

While high-rise buildings and massive urban projects receive the most attention, homes and low-rise buildings account for most bird collision deaths. “The huge challenge is that glass is everywhere.” said Christine Sheppard, who directs the glass collisions program at the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). “It’s hard to know what I know and not cringe when I look at it.”

Tips for improving your own home include using stained glass or patterned decals that can help birds see a window, she said. ABC has compiled a list of window treatments and materials, ranked by how bird-safe they are.

Whether they’re large or small, the challenge of designing buildings that are safe for birds can be “liberating”, said Gang, who has become an avid birdwatcher and now carries a pair of binoculars on her morning jogs. “It gives you another dimension to try to imagine.”"

-via The Guardian, December 27, 2023

#conservation #birds #avian #ornithology #new york city #chicago #united states #architecture #green architecture #conservation biology #construction #sustainability #glass #glass windows #skyscraper #cityscape #buildings #bird conservation #birdwatching #good news #hope #“hey mc why is this post so in depth and full of pics compared to what you usually post” you ask #great question #the answer is bc I like architecture a lot #...well I like the kinds of architecture I like a lot lol #bauhaus can fight me tbh #but sustainable architecture is awesome #also this article actually came with a bunch of pics #which yknow most of them don't #cw animal death

[dadaonice]

UN Security Council rejects ceasefire proposal in Gaza Strip

#UNSC #politics #news #gaza genocide #gaza war #united kingdom #united states #uk #eeuu #Gaza Strip #photography #United Nations #new your city #nyc #gaza #israel #US ambassador #palestine #British ambassador #partners in crime #free palestine #genocide #2023 #terrorism #terrorists #free gaza #palestinian genocide

[theatrekidenergy]

#Capital cities #America #USA #States #Poll #Polls #Tumblr #Question for tumblr #Tumblr polls #state polls

[kaapstadgirly]

I don't even think ya'll deserve trigger warnings anymore. I want all of you to see this.

Zionists will still see this and deny that it's a genocide.

#palestine #free palestine #free gaza #free west bank #gaza strip #gaza #israel #genocide #social justice #human rights #middle east #jerusalem #tel aviv #gaza city #yemen #united nations #united states #end israeli occupation

[saltska]

City State Leaders

#ff14 #art #ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #illustration #illustrations #raubahn #aymeric de borel #lyse hext #nanamo ul namo #Merlwyb #kan e senna #hien rijin #city state leaders

[wgm-beautiful-world]

CENTRAL PARK - NYC

#central park #parque central #new york city #ciudad de nueva york #manhattan #from above #desde arriba #la gran manzana #the big apple #new york #nueva york #united states #estados unidos #north america #norte america #america

[romericas-blog]

America is fading away into nothing but ashes of destruction, yet like a Phoenix one will raise from the ashes . This is the personification of the fire , spirit, and body fed up with how things are ran ( does not mean we hate America or its ideals just the people pulling the strings)

#Romerica #city state #future

[hack-saw2004]

THIS MORNING: one of our comrades from emory university that was arrested shared her experience, and what she saw her 22 other comrades experience, while in dekalb county jail. our comrades were subjected to racism, not given water for 12 hours despite vocalizing the water fountain didn't work, and silenced during court appearances.

#free palestine #end aid to israel #current events #palestine genocide #campus protests #let gaza live #free west bank #save palestine #bds movement #end the genocide #end the occupation #emory university #students for justice in palestine #gaza solidarity encampment #stop cop city #acab #boycott divest sanction #from the river to the sea #free palestine in our lifetime #no one is free until we are all free #america is a fascist police state #atlanta ga