#of the global north (specially the US)

[daeluin]

i really don't wanna go all ☝🏾🤓 well acktually on tumblr of all places but i am begging you all... pick up a book. wikipedia is free. the ICC (the International Criminal Court) doesn't have ANYTHING to do with the UN. yes they're both in Hague. No, they're wildly different international organizations. You're thinking of the ICJ (the International Court of Justice), which is also in Hague. and no, the ICJ doesn't have jurisdiction to deal with these affairs

#like i get where the sentiment of asking the UN for accountability for Israel comes but a) that's not how the UN works #b) the issue should be with the Security Council and the US unilaterally vetoing any possible action #and c) THEY'RE NOT THE SAME. THE UN IS AN ORGANIZATION. THE ICC IS ANOTHER. THE ICJ IS A THIRD ONE. EACH HAS THEIR SPECIFIC ROLE!!! #like seriously it's not that hard to just google it #you're asking the US house of representatives why it wouldn't intervene on a criminal case in a federal court in Spain....... #and like ik ik i get petty bc this is my field of work but the insistent USamericans have in not learning how Int Law works drives up a wal #bc it just smells of american exceptionalism trying to believe themselves above the International community #like why would they care about it if it doesn't apply to them???? #you guys would never understand how even with all it's shortcomings and defects how important the UN and the ICC are on their own #degrading and ignoring these kind of international organizations accomplish nothing but assure the hegemony and lack of accountability #of the global north (specially the US)

[cathkaesque]

When it comes to understanding migration, this needs to be taken into account: if you are in a rural area in the global south, like Honduras, you have basically no access to social services, medicine, and education. In fact, the funding for those services is actually being cut, as the social security funds have been looted by corrupt politicans appointed by a military coup. Then you have to factor in that you likely have no access to the land, and no access to credit to buy seeds, and have to sell yourself for basically pennies to an agroindustrial giant. The peasants feed the local people; the agroindustries feed the Americans. In Guatamala, there is a neo-corporate fuedalism where you are allowed a patch of land if you are willing to work, unpaid, for coffee plantations which sell their produce to the German company Ritz. If you attempt to settle unoccupied land, a local businessman will claim it is his without any proof, and the police will take his side because the Agrarian Reform Institute, which issues land titles, is controlled by coupists whose main concern is squeezing as much wealth out of the country as possible. Thugs will murder a man and his wife in broad daylight, and the judge will respond by evicting you and your family from the land.

There is nowhere else for you to go but Tegucigalpa, where you can work trying to wash car windows or selling snacks to passing cars for a handful of lempira a day. Or perhaps you could work for a few dollars a day in one of the maquila factories making textiles for the American and European market, which are set up in special economic zones called Charter Cities where the constitution and labour laws do not apply, which can close down and spirit away whenever they like to another country when they are more willing to sell their people for even less. And then you have to factor in the hurricanes that sweep through the country, destroying everything, that the rains no longer come when they used to but when they do they come in flooding torrents. Much of the north of Honduras is currently underwater; most of the banana and coffee plantations have been destroyed.

And then you factor in when you tried to change this via electing a better government in 2006, he was overthrown in 2009; when you tried to get organised and resist the coup, your friends, your loved ones, your trade union leaders and peasant resisters all turned up mysteriously dead while the military and police worked with drug gangs disguised as agribusiness like the Dinant coproration to burn down villages that opposed them. For trying to change things in the way that you were supposed to, through non violently protesting, organising, and voting for something better, you were subjected to a decade of counterrevolutionary terror and violence that the “international community” not only ignored but gave its active approval to. All of the factors listed above have not only been ongoing for the last 10 years, they’ve been intensified, hothoused by the global counterrevolutionary terror that was the response to the 2011 wave of post-financial crisis uprisings and revolutions and accelerating climate apocalypse.

And at the same time, all of this is being done so more of the country can be turned into a massive cash cow for the benefit of foreign corporations and domestic oligarchs. The wealth of your country is siphoned off and flows around the American and European financial system, benefiting them and building a consumer disneyland that looks like paradise compared to your situation. That could, even if you are worked for nothing, give you a few dollars to send home that could build your abuela in the countryside a nice home for her to live out her days. What other option is left for you and your family other than joining the exodus of people heading north, to the countries where the wealth and profits and rewards of your homeland’s suffering are being kept. And after you cross mountains and rivers which freeze you to death and sweep you away, you are faced with a massive border wall of ahte and soldiers on horses which hit you with sticks. You are faced with an immigration detention centre that will chain you to your bed while you give birth and separate you from your baby who will be given away for adoption to a white couple. When you make a charge against the border fence in Melilla, fed up with being kept in shacks with nothing while the Northerners debate what to do about the problem people their greed has forced to move, the Moroccan police will beat 35 of you to death.

And then when you get there to that golden paradise, you end up doing work not dissimilar to the work you were doing back home, working for pennies (though pennies that are valuable enough back home to buy the family that remain the tiniest slice of comfort) for an agroindustrial giant that supplies supermarkets with cheap produce picked by cheaper people. While you work in the fields, a crop duster plane will spray you with paraquat; when support organisations try to raise this with OSHA they will ask for the plane’s number, and when this can’t be provided they will say nothing can be done. In fact, inspectors are ordered to stay away from the plantations on the Texas border. A member of the Border Agricultural Workers Project says she hasn’t seen a normal child born on the border in 20 years, such is the effect of agrichemicals. If you fuck up in the slightest, have any interaction with the state, you will be deported and sent back to square one. There are a 14 million migrants in the US in the same precarious state, effectively without any way of enforcing their rights. My aunt is a Mexican migrant in California. Her son was deported because he got a speeding ticket. It was 15 years before she saw him again, other than through the bars of the border fence, when she finally got her green card.

The situation in Honduras can be repeated for almost any other country. Syria, Venezuela, Iraq, South Sudan, Libya, all the headline countries are countries that have been subjected to a severe counterrevolutionary terror. The processes of dispossession and destruction of peasant economies and communities (primitive accumulation to use the Marxist jargon) have been hothoused over the last decade by war and violence. I just wish that relatively comfortable people in the imperialist countries realised that the “migrant crisis” is the result of policies that their governments forced on others. Violence that their elites made their fortunes off. What a monstrous, barbarous way of life we have.

[probablyasocialecologist]

In some of the work you’ve done on data centers, you talk about how AI is presented as a climate solution, even as it requires resource-intensive data centers and computing to power it. What do you think is the risk of presenting resource-intensive AI as a solution to climate change? This is something that’s already happening, which is basically the imposition of ecological visions of a few, especially in the Global North with private interests, onto the rest of the world. We can see this operating not only when it comes to data centers, but also lithium extraction. Lithium is used for rechargeable batteries, which is a key component of so-called transition technologies, such as electric vehicles. If we want to design a transition towards new forms of energy or less carbon-intensive energies, we need to cooperate with these communities and a very important actor are the ones that are participating in the AI value chain. Companies have a big interest in hiding this value chain, in making sure that these communities don’t have a voice in the media, in regulatory discussions, and so on, because this is crucial for their business model and for the technical capacities that they need. There is a big interest in silencing them. This is why they don’t provide information about what they do. It’s also very important that as we discuss AI governance or regulation, we ask how we can incorporate these communities. If you look at what’s happening in Europe, there is upcoming regulation that is going to request that companies provide some transparency when it comes to energy use. But what about something more radical? What about incorporating these communities in the very governance of data centers? Or if we really want more just technologies for environmental transition, why not have a collective discussion, incorporating actors from different contexts and regions of the world to discuss what will be the most efficient — if you want to use that word — way of allocating data centers. In the case of indigenous communities in the Atacama Desert, water is sacred. They have a special relationship with water. One of the few words that they still have is uma, which stands for water. So how do we make sure that these companies respect the way these communities relate to the environment? It’s impossible to think of any kind of transition without considering and respecting the ecological visions of these groups. I don’t really believe in any technologically intensive form of transition that’s made by technocrats in the Global North and that ignores the effects that these infrastructures are having in the rest of the world and the visions of these communities.

#big data #google #infrastructure #ai #artificial intelligence #climate change

[magz]

Palestine Summary from LetsTalkPalestine April 14 to April 21, 2024.

April 14.

Day 191

•⁠ 43 Palestinians killed, 62 injured in Gaza in last 24 hours

💰Israel likely spent $1bn+ to intercept & counter Iran's attacks yesterday

🇯🇴 Jordan summons Iranian ambassador after Iran warned Jordan could be next target if it cooperated w/ Israel. Jordan says it intercepted Iran's artillery in its airspace to protect citizens, despite causing shrapnel to fall on neighborhoods

🇺🇳 UNSC yet to reach consensus on Iran's strikes so no condemnation, but they also didn't condemn Israel's attack on Iran's consulate in Syria that triggered the retaliation

•⁠ Israel vows to "exact a price" after Iran's attack but no details. US trying to dissuade Israel + confirmed US won't participate

•⁠ ⁠Israel to mobilize 2 reserve divisions to Gaza, despite earlier withdrawal of most troops. Announced postponing of date of Rafah invasion

•⁠ Largest wave of Israeli settler attacks w/ IOF protection across West Bank, even amid Iran's attacks last night, so far killing 2 and injuring 55+

April 15.

Day 192

•⁠ 68 Palestinians killed, 94 injured in last 24 hours

🇮🇷 Israeli military chief threatens escalation vs Iran. Israeli war cabinet agrees to respond to Iran but divided on how. US insists won’t join attack. Iran says it wants to avoid escalation but will retaliate if Israel attacks

•⁠ Israeli settlers kill 2 Palestinians & injure 1 in Nablus as West Bank experiences escalating settler attacks

•⁠ ⁠2 mass graves uncovered in north Gaza: 10 patients killed by Israel’s latest siege of al-Shifa Hospital + 20 decomposing bodies in Beit Lahia

•⁠ G7 condemns Iran’s recent retaliation on Israel, saying G7 is open to imposing sanctions on Iran & allies

•⁠ Israeli military ramps up airstrikes on displaced Palestinians in Nuseirat camp killing 4+, injuring 32 today

🇱🇧 4 Israeli soldiers injured after infiltrating Lebanese territory by explosive devices planted by Hezbollah

•⁠ ⁠Undercover ​​Israeli special forces kill Palestinian & injure 2 while raiding home in Nablus (West Bank)

April 16

Day 193

• 46 Palestinians killed, 110 injured in last 24 hours

🇮🇷🇺🇸 Wall Street Journal: Pentagon reveals US involvement in intercepting Iranian projectiles, using intelligence and airspace access from initially hesitant Gulf countries (🇸🇦🇦🇪) as a "shield" to help Israel

• At least 11 killed, most of whom were children, in an Israeli attack on densely populated Maghazi refugee camp

🇮🇷🇯🇴 Iran labels Jordanian interception "strategic mistake" after it opened its airspace to Israel to combat Iran's recent retaliation

🍞 An Israeli attack on a police vehicle kills 8 aid enforcement officers working to distribute aid to starved northern Gaza

🇲🇦 Moroccan activist receives 5-year prison sentence for criticizing Morocco's normalization of relations with Israel

🇺🇳 UN to launch $2.8 billion global appeal, with 90% allocated to Gaza, citing reduced budgeting from initial $4 billion plan due to Israeli restrictions on distribution capabilities

April 17

Day 194 - Palestinian Prisoner’s Day

✊ Palestinians in West Bank rally for release of the 3,500 Palestinian captives held by Israel without charge. 9,000+ Palestinians are held captive by Israel, 5,000 of them since Oct

•⁠ 56 Palestinians killed, 89 injured in last 24 hours

💰 Israel approves 5-year $5bn plan to rebuild settlements around Gaza damaged on Oct 7

🇱🇧 18 Israeli soldiers injured by Hezbollah attack on Israeli military facility

🇪🇺 ⁠Top EU diplomats agree to impose sanctions on Iran soon, while refusing to sanction Israel

🇺🇸 Biden uses Iran attack to revive $14bn aid package to Israel & Ukraine that’s being stalled by Congress

•⁠ Google employees arrested after 9-hour sit-in protest against Google’s $1.2bn contract w/ Israel & Amazon

•⁠ HRW: Israeli settlers & soldiers “entirely uprooted” 7 Palestinian communities in West Bank since Oct, backed by top Israeli authorities

🇺🇳 UNSC to vote on resolution for Palestinian UN membership on Friday, US expected to veto

April 18

Day 195

• 71 Palestinians killed, 106 injured in last 24 hours

⚖️ Israel received intel that the International Criminal Court (ICC) may soon issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu & other leaders for war crimes. Israel is worried & lobbying to prevent it, hoping Germany & UK will help pressure the ICC

🇺🇳 US vetoed Palestine’s application for UN membership at the UNSC

🏥 30 bodies uncovered at an al-Shifa Hospital mass grave deliberately hidden by Israel. The bodies show signs of forced executions. Terrifyingly, it’s still unknown what happened to about 1,000 medical staff and journalists who were in the hospital when Israeli forces entered

• Israeli forces abduct 40 people in the West Bank yesterday, on Palestinian Prisoner’s Day

• Israel withdraws from Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp after brutal days-long attack, leaving 13,000 housing units destroyed, 75 Palestinians killed, 348 injured, and 100 missing under rubble

• Israeli attacks on Rafah today killed 11+ people including 5 kids

April 19

On Iran:

Israel’s attack on Iran.

Small drones were somehow launched from within Iran targeting an airbase in Isfahan. Iran shot them down, reporting no damage caused

It’s a limited response to Iran’s retaliation which launched drones & missiles at Israel after Israel attacked Iran’s consulate, killing 16. Israel is yet to confirm the attack but it told US last minute of the operation

The attack’s limited nature is Israel balancing US pressure to de-escalate while trying to show regional military dominance, consistent w/ reports that US & Israel agreed on a Rafah invasion in exchange for no Iran escalation. An anonymous Israeli official said it was to signal Israel’s ability to strike inside Iran

Iran is downplaying the incident, likely so they won’t have to respond. An official called it “reckless fireworks”

Unclear if Israel will attack again; Iran said they don’t plan to retaliate. Seems there’s no Iranian or Israeli desire to escalate, especially w/ mass global calls for de-escalation

-

Day 196

• Total death toll surpasses 34,000, including 10,000 women, but @ euromedhr puts the real number including the thousands missing under rubble at over 41,000

• Ongoing Israeli raid on Tulkarem (West Bank) since last night, concentrated on Nur Shams refugee camp as bulldozers cause widespread destruction; 5 Palestinians killed incl. a 16-year-old. Fierce battles between resistance fighters & Israeli forces, with IOF killing the leader of Tulkarem Brigades (local resistance group), marking an escalation. More info tomorrow [April 20]

🇪🇺 EU sanctions 4 Israeli settlers for committing violence against Palestinians

• Israeli airstrike on Rafah kills 7, injuring many others

🇺🇸 US sanctions 2 entities that raised money for US sanctioned Israeli settlers

• Columbia University authorized police to arrest 108 pro-Palestinian protesters on its campus

April 20

Israeli forces arrest dozens of Palestinian men in Nur Shams Refugee Camp in West Bank (middle east eye)

🚨 Ongoing 48-hour Israeli raid on Tulkarem causing worst destruction in the West Bank in decades

Fierce battles in Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem between Israeli soldiers & Palestinian resistance fighters who target IOF w/ explosives & gunfire, causing IOF casualties. Israeli drones hovering over Tulkarem since Thursday; reports of explosions & IOF sending reinforcements

Yesterday, IOF executed Mohammed Jaber, leader of Tulkarem Brigades (local resistance group), marking an escalation, but the group said it’ll continue to resist

4 other Palestinians killed, incl. a teen. Death toll likely to rise given ongoing battles. IOF claims to kill 10 Palestinian fighters

Today 11 were injured: 7 by bullets, 4 beaten by IOF soldiers. Videos show soldiers abusing the injured & blocking ambulances. 15+ Palestinians abducted by IOF (📹👆) + IOF seized homes to set up detention centers, forcing out families

Widespread destruction by IOF as 60+ military vehicles demolish homes, roads, shops & sewage lines

-

Day 197

•⁠ 37 Palestinians killed, 68 injured in last 24 hours, lowest daily death toll since start of the genocide (except for 1-week Nov truce)

🇺🇸 US sources say US will soon sanction 1 IOF unit for human rights violations in West Bank, to cut military aid & training. Would be 1st US sanction on Israeli military

🇺🇸 Congress passed aid bill giving $26.38bn to Israel, incl. $14bn unconditional military aid

‼️ Overnight strikes on Rafah kills 10+ people. Several Israeli surveillance drones hovering low & more troops on Rafah outskirts, suggesting an impending invasion

•⁠ ⁠Israeli settlers raid Ramallah, Hebron, al Saywah & Nablus, killing a Palestinian ambulance driver

•⁠ ⁠IOF raid of Tulkarem kills 14 Palestinians + army raided a hospital, attacked medical staff & abducted paramedics. For details scroll up

🚚 Gaza gov’t media office says only 130-150 aid trucks enter per day; not Israel & US inflated number of 300

💰 Israel considering raising taxes to fund more attacks on Gaza

April 21

Day 198

• 48 Palestinians killed, 79 injured in last 24 hours

• Israeli airstrikes on Rafah kill 24, incl. 18 children & 6 women; invasion seems imminent as Israeli intelligence drones hover low over Rafah

• In 2 incidents; 2 Palestinian teens + a woman were killed by IOF in West Bank, IOF claims they tried to stab soldiers

🏥 180 bodies deliberately hidden by Israel in a mass grave at Nasser hospital incl. elderly women & kids, expected to find 700 bodies buried. Many were found w/ their hands tied suggesting summary executions

• 7 Palestinians killed & many injured in Israeli strike targeting home in Nuseirat refugee camp (central Gaza)

🇺🇸 The report that US will soon sanction 1 Israeli military unit sparked harsh remarks from Netanyahu + Israeli minister asked US to reconsider the sanction, marking growing US-Israeli tensions

• Israeli forces continue Tulkarem raids (West Bank) after 3-day intensive raid of Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem that killed 14, incl. 3 kids + abducted 50

#on palestine #palestine #iran #text post #israel #sij #letstalkpalestine #magz upload

[misshoneyimhome]

I got inspired after seeing the fashion inspo board you posted I bet he would love seeing this fit during the Sweden trip, and he can't do anything cause his family is there the Sweden trip keeps on giving https://www.instagram.com/p/CVQ-ESuBDrI/ and you wanted to reward him after working so hard.

Oh bb, that Sweden trip was the best thing that could happen to us 😉 and I just love flirty/naughty Willy, teasing you all the time, while he knows you have to keep face - but let's face it, you can be just as much of a tease 🙈🫢

[I know, this is short, and there could be so much more to it] 😏😏

Warnings; mention of sexual behaviour; naughty photos;

・✶ ｡ﾟ

I feel something so right, Doing the wrong thing | William Nylander 🖋️ (⚡️) [Intern x Willy]

"Are you looking forward to this trip?" You flashed William a sweet smile while waiting to board the plane.

"Absolutely," he replied with a friendly, warm smile.

"That’s great," was your simple response.

To onlookers, the exchange of words and smiles appeared friendly and professional, fitting for the setting among the Toronto Maple Leafs players and staff preparing for take-off. However, beneath the surface, there was an unspoken tension between you and the Swedish forwarder.

There existed a considerable level of sexual tension between you two, a hidden dynamic you both had to conceal, particularly as you were in the presence of the rest of the Toronto Maple Leafs team, players, and staff.

Well, maybe calling it 'sexual tension' was an understatement.

In reality, the two of you were sleeping together, keeping your relationship under wraps due to your role as an intern for the MLSE. Every day required maintaining a professional demeanour around each other, even though the truth remained hidden.

And today held a unique aspect, though. The team was en route to Sweden for the NHL Global Series, an event of particular significance to William, given that Stockholm held a special place in his heart as his hometown.

And additionally, his entire family would be present to watch him play - a completely surreal experience for him. Having his extended family witness an NHL game live was a momentous occasion, especially for his grandmother, who hadn't previously had the chance to travel to Toronto to see him play.

So, this event offered them the opportunity to see him live, right in his home country, which he found incredibly thrilling. 

And for you, it meant accompanying the team for a little over a week. Travelling outside North America brought about a heightened level of coordination, necessitating overtime and round-the-clock work to ensure everything ran smoothly.

But despite the apparent chaos and stress, the staff team collaborated diligently, resulting in a smooth landing in the capital of Sweden. Efforts were focused on ensuring that everything was set for the players to settle in comfortably and prepare for the training sessions and the two games scheduled during their stay.

The flight proceeded without major issues, and fortunately arriving on time. The only minor trouble you encountered was dealing with William Nylander's relentless teasing.

Throughout the entire duration of the flight, he'd stealthily send messages hinting at his desire to join the mile-high club with you at the back of the plane. And while the idea excited you and the thrill of potentially getting caught added a hint of arousal, both of you were aware that it was excessively risky.

Given that your relationship was already forbidden in your professional position, engaging in such a scenario would have been reckless and overall, just stupid.

Nevertheless, despite the risks, William continued sending a slew of cheeky messages. Which naturally had you being cautious about opening them, especially in the presence of other staff members.

Willy: You're rocking that little skirt, baby... you're making it hard for me to focus 😛 You: Willy, come on! We're working here... 🙈 Willy: I can't help it... you're so close to me, looking so fucking good, and I can’t do anything - or maybe we could… 😈😏 You: No, Willy, we can't! Stop teasing Willy: You look too good, and I'm dying to touch you right now 😏❤️

He was such a fucking tease, pushing the boundaries relentlessly.

You were aware of how good you looked, though, dressed impeccably in your professional attire, including the skirt that you knew was one of William's favourites. However, maintaining composure was key; you had to keep yourself together.

Resisting temptation was crucial, especially to avoid risking more than you already did. So, deciding to ignore his advances, you settled in for some much-needed sleep to adjust to the time difference as best as possible.

Upon landing in the Scandinavian country renowned for birthing IKEA and the legendary pop band ABBA, you felt nothing but a sense of readiness to tackle the packed schedule ahead.

Though, calling it a packed schedule would be an understatement.

Your primary focus was ensuring the players were well-rested, swiftly transitioning from the airport to the hotel and then to the training rink. The media schedule, especially for the Swedish players, was more demanding than what you were accustomed to. And additionally, there were arrangements to coordinate with the event team for signing sessions and meet-and-greets with the fans.

Surprisingly, everything fell into place smoothly. Time seemed to slip away as tasks seamlessly followed one another. And soon enough, you found yourself reclining in your hotel room after a taxing day filled with constant interactions. Yet, it had been an exhilarating experience. You had never been this occupied, and every task you encountered reaffirmed why you adored your job so much.

And, of course, there was the constant presence of William.

As one of the most successful and well-known NHL players presently for the time being, his presence garnered an overwhelming amount of attention, particularly in his home country. Which meant, you were always by his side - guiding him through various media sessions, preparing for fan interactions, and, most crucially, ensuring he remained on time.

And that last part was probably the most challenging of all.

As you reviewed tomorrow's schedule before retiring for the night, a note in the calendar caught your attention: the Nylander family would be arriving.

Your initial sentiment leaned towards the sweetness of William reuniting with his family, knowing how deeply he valued and loved them.

However, a mischievous thought surfaced, a cheeky notion of a little payback for all his teasing antics.

William consistently pushed the boundaries, testing your composed professionalism, well aware that you had to maintain a serious demeanour at work. And now, an opportunity arose to playfully challenge him back, intrigued to witness how he'd handle a situation where you'd deliberately tease him while he was surrounded by his family.

In a playful manner, you decided to send him a goodnight message along with a slightly provocative photo.

You: Night babe - just something to help you sleep better and hope for sweet dreams 😏🍑

Willy: Shit, baby... you can’t do this to me... You: Why not? 😏 Willy: You're getting me all hard and you know it... You: Then you should take care of that yourself 🙌🏼 don't you think... Willy: Send me more and maybe I will 😉 You: *photo* Willy: Yes, baby, that's exactly it…

You couldn't help but smirk quietly as both of you exchanged rather personal and intimate photos, each of you pleasuring yourselves in your own space just a few rooms a part. And after both experiencing your own moments of climax, you couldn't help but smile to yourself.

Willy: Fuck, you're so fucking hot… You: Just glad I could help you unwind 😉❤️ Willy: You definitely do! But I just wish I could be there with you in person… ❤️ You: I know, I wish that too ❤️ Willy: Looks like we'll have to make up for it when we get back 😏😉 You: I guess so 😉 Now get some rest, you've got a hectic day ahead, love Willy: Yeah yeah, goodnight, babe 😉 You: Sweet dreams, darling 😘

**

It seemed like mere moments passed before the alarm chimed, signalling the start of a new day. 

The clock displayed 5:15, prompting you to swiftly step into the shower and prepare for the day ahead. But not before capturing a quick snapshot and sending it over to the man just down the hall, followed by another showcasing your prized piece of lingerie for later.

The day unfolded into a whirlwind of activity.

Interviews, training sessions, more interviews, additional training – a relentless cycle. Credit where it's due, the lads handled it all admirably. Particularly William. It felt as if he aimed to impress, yet deep down, you recognised his innate skill. Despite his reluctance for the limelight, it always found him.

After a lengthy day spent in constant motion, William finally secured some rest before reuniting with his immediate family. Tomorrow heralded the arrival of the extended family ahead of the inaugural match against the Red Wings.

His time with the family was nothing short of heartwarming.

He'd sorely missed them, especially his sisters, unable to visit lately, and his mother, confined to video chats for the past few months. His father, however, he encountered more frequently owing to his travels to North America.

And while sitting in the restaurant, enjoying some quality time and speaking the language of his ancestors, William’s phone suddenly lit up on the table. 

“Ooh, who’s y/n?” Stephanie quipped cheekily in Swedish as she noticed the notification.

“Just someone working for the team,” William casually replied, before he clicked the button on the side to turn off the screen.

“You’re not going to check it? Could be important,” his younger sister winked.

But as William knew you very well, he didn’t really dare. It could just be an innocent reminder of his schedule for the following days, but it could also be a teasing text, trying to rile him up. 

“If it’s important she’d probably call,” William casually replied before taking a sip of his fizzy drink. And though he tried his best to get back into the lively conversation of his family members, you little message had intrigued him, and now his curiosity had peaked. 

So no more than minutes passed before he excused himself to the restroom, and once back in the gentlemen’s room, he opened the notification. 

And oh, how glad he was that he hadn’t done it in front of his sisters. 

You: You did so well today baby with all the work ❤️ you deserve to be rewarded – so here’s a little something

William had to clench his jaw as he felt a little twitch in his boxers, blood quickly rushing to his member. Holding his breath, he briefly looked away, but his eyes were too captivated and came back to the screen in his hand. 

“Shit…” he muttered to himself, having to adjust himself a little in his loose trousers, before exiting the restroom, in order not to rise any suspicions. 

You were torturing him, right in front of his family, and you knew it. You knew all to well that he couldn’t do anything before you were both back in Toronto where you could sneak into his condo late at night. 

And meanwhile in your hotel room, as you were getting ready for going to bed, a reply from William appeared on your phone. 

Willy: You’re so in for it You: Oh, I’m counting on it 😉

#my asks #intern x willy #william nylander imagine #toronto maple leafs imagine #wn88 imagine #nhl hockey imagine

[roach-works]

hi! I've always admired how you include infrastructure systems in your worldbuilding, and I was wondering if you have any book/documentary/podcast/etc. recs for someone who wants to go into gnarly detail about (for example) wastewater processing, O2 production, and simulated weather systems on a generation ship, but whose current level of knowledge is just "I read a lot of sci-fi?" I find the stuff fascinating in other people's writing, but figuring out where to start research is overwhelming.

shit, that's tough. most of my qualifications are 'i also read a lot of sci fi' but i also read a lot of those pop-up pocket news articles about technology and the environment... my brain isn't one of those kinds of brains where there's much differentiation between what im reading, what im writing, and who im in conversation with. im just always reading everything and having opinions on it and telling my friends what i just learned and learning more about what they learned and so on... tumblr's great for that, honestly. follow a lot of environment and good news blogs, and you'll get an interesting feed of interesting updates on the global ecology.

i would also suggest browsing national geographic, wired, and make magazine websites, if you can. get some good paywall blockers, or dish out for a subscription... the atlantic also has interesting stuff here and there.

'how it's made' type videos are great, especially older mr rogers era stuff, where the machines are less digital and more manual.

get a library card, especially for ebooks--if you're american you can use libby--and browse nonfiction. you can also just ask librarians to help you find stuff. i really admire science writers mary roach and randall munroe, think ryan north is very entertaining, and find malcom gladwell and bill bryson interesting if not particularly trustworthy.

hope this helps! i don't have any more specific suggestions, sorry.

EDIT: GET DUCK DUCK GO AS YOUR SEARCH ENGINE AND FIREFOX WITH UBLOCK AS YOUR BROWSER. i can't emphasize enough how much more useful your search results will be when you need to learn real information about things like ships and sewage systems and oyster farming. these days google only sends you to amazon, wayfair, and pinterest, it's fucking useless if you're not shopping, and sucks even if you are shopping.

there's other, more specialized browsers too that are worth a look.

and of course the internet archive has the wayback machine plus a lot of cool old books for free:

edit edit: here's another post on good search engines

#writing #followers feel free to rec

[fatehbaz]

Avocado orchards had carpeted the gently undulating hills around the sacred lake of Pátzcuaro with stodgy green bushes. Here, before the cataclysmic arrival of the first envoys dispatched by Hernando Cortes from the Aztec capital over the mountains to the East, [...] the Purépecha had sown maize, amaranth, zucchini, cacao, cotton, tomato, beans, a dozen types of chili, and much more.

Now the monotonous “green gold” of the avocado boom had colonized the entire Mexican state of Michoacán. [...] [I]t was shocking to think that the cause of the disaster was America’s great patriotic party: the National Football League’s Super Bowl. A flurry of advertising creativity on behalf of the Mexican avocado was unleashed every year during the multi-million-dollar sports broadcast. [...] “Is your life just terrible?” asks the comic actor Chris Elliott, star of Scary Movie 2 and Scary Movie 4, in the 2019 spot. “You deserve more! Spread an avocado on top of everything!” [...] A few days before the Super Bowl, the domestic diva Martha Stewart [...] had released on social networks her latest recipe for guacamole [...]. Guacamole was now an obligatory snack for the 100 million or so Americans who watched the Super Bowl. In February of 2017, 278 million avocados -- most of them from Michoacán -- had been sold during the days before the game in [the US] [...].

---

The avocado had become the star product of Mexican food production in the age of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) [...] since NAFTA was signed in 1994 [...]. [Mexican] farmers produced 16 times more than the formerly dominant Californian growers. [...] Moreover, the avocado was now classified as a “superfood” [...].

It had not always been like this. In the 1950s, the avocado was known unsentimentally as the crocodile pear [...]. Imports from Mexico were banned until 1997 [...] . When complete liberalization was announced in 2007, Michoacán had become an unbeatable competitor for the Californian avocado growers. The Mexican producers specialized, like their Californian rivals, in the Hass variety of avocado, more meaty than those that the Purépecha had [...] consumed over the millennia, and with a tough skin that protected the pears during long hauls in chilled container trucks to El Paso or Tijuana and then beyond to the big US consumer markets. [...] [T]he Hass avocado was perfectly suited to the global market [...]. Michoacán, whose crystalline lakes had earned it the name of the “land of fish” in the indigenous language of Tarasco, would never be the same.

By 2020, 80 percent of the avocados consumed in the United States came from Michoacán [...].

---

Now in the 21st century, on the outskirts of Uruapan, the frenetic capital del aguacate, the new economy of agribusiness took shape [...]. Further west on the shores of Lake Pátzcuaro, the monoculture had not yet colonized the entire landscape, but the advance of the avocado seemed unstoppable. [...] “Practically everybody here wants an avocado orchard [...],” explained [FFB], a resident of the Purépecha indigenous community of Jarácuaro on the shores of the lake. [...] [H]e was horrified by the extent of environmental destruction. “They pump water from the lake to water the avocado orchards [...]. It’s pillage. [...]”

The falling water level, together with the introduction of the rapacious predator tilapia, had wiped out almost all the [...] [native] fish species. Of the cornucopia of marine life that had fed the Purépecha cities, only the diminutive silvery charal remained. The same occurred at other great freshwater deposits in Michoaczán. [...] The Purépecha communities on the shores of the lake, a landscape of stunning beauty where dense pine and ilex oak forests met white nymphaea lilies floating on turquoise water, were girding themselves for the arrival of the aguacateros, avocado producers [...].

---

“They put a gun to your head and tell you to sign the deed before the notary. That’s how the transfer of land is agreed upon,” explained [GV], a sociologist at the University of San Nicolas de Hidalgo in Morelia [...].

Meanwhile, large exporters and avocado brokers -- some of them international brands like Del Monte -- were profiting by purchasing from producers at dirt-cheap prices and reselling to the US supermarket chains at very attractive ones. “They pay a dollar per kilo of avocado here and sell it for eight at a Minnesota W*lmart,” said [GV].

In order not to squander such a reliable source of profits, “transnational corporations, just like the Canadian mining companies in Zacatecas, pay the extortion money [...],” he continued.

---

Text by: Andy Robinson. Gold, Oil, and Avocados: A Recent History of Latin America in Sixteen Commodities. 2021. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

[usafphantom2]

Two more B-1B bombers are deployed in Spain

The two recent B-1B bombers arrived in Morón for the latest deployment of the bomber task force in Europe.

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 30/03/2024 - 15:30in Military

Two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers during the 24-2 Bomber Task Force at Morón Air Base, Spain. (Photo: Scott Rathbone / Flickr).

Two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers bombers landed this week at Morón Air Base, Spain, totaling four USAF bombers at the station and completing the arrival of the Bomber Task Force (BTF) 24-2 on Tuesday (03/26).

The bombers transited to Europe passing through the Barents Sea. Throughout the missions, the four U.S. aircraft operated in international airspace and in full compliance with international law.

"Our ability to maneuver through the Arctic and position advanced strategic bombers in Europe is critical to ensuring our Allies and partners our commitment to regional security and stability," said General James Hecker, commander of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe - Africa Air Forces and NATO Allied Air Command. “The global security environment requires a forward-looking approach and we will continue to face this challenge through strategic planning and innovative operations,” he added.

This mission shows the continuous and dynamic operations of the US in the European and Arctic regions, adapting to the evolving security environment alongside the Allies and partners.

The BTF 24-2 is a routine part of the Large-Scale Global Exercise 2024, a generic term that incorporates dozens of separate U.S. military exercises and activities, under multiple combatant commands, that allow the U.S. Joint Force to train with Allies and partners and improve shared understanding, trust and interoperability in security challenges around the world.

The bombers and support personnel will carry out a series of missions to train alongside the Allies and partners during the deployment. Through these missions, USAFE-AFAFRICA allows the dynamic use of forces in the European theater, providing strategic predictability and guarantee to the Allies and partners, while contributing to deterrence, introducing greater operational unpredictability for potential opponents.

Tags: Military AviationB-1B LancerbombersBTFEjército del Aire/Spanish Air ForceUSAF - United States Air Force / U.S. Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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I

#Youtube

[maklodes]

I saw some threads in which people were condemning use of agave syrup, on the grounds that agave cultivation has deleterious ecological consequences.

I haven't actually checked whether agave cultivation is more destructive than growing potatoes or carrots or anything else on a per calorie basis, and I don't know whether environmental damage per calorie is the best metric, but my curiosity took me in a different direction: how much agave goes to agave syrup, how much goes to tequila, and how much goes to mezcal?

I'd think agave farming associations would have this data -- that they'd be pouring over the data, trying to see if they could market agave-syrup baklavas, wondering whether they could somehow sell people on a double-tequila margarita for Taco Tuesday specials, etc. Maybe they do, but I can't find it.

For the amount of agave syrup, I found this site, ominously called Mordor Intelligence, claiming that the agave syrup market in 2024 was $187.24 million. How much agave is that, though? One Amazon source of bulk agave is $147.58 for 44 lbs. (There are other sources, but they don't differ radically.) This suggests that about 25,322 tonnes of agave syrup were sold in 2024. A USDA source claims that agave syrup is about 68% sugar by weight, the amount of sugar being sold in agave syrup is around 17,219 tonnes. (I have way more significant figures than is justified here, but I'm leaving them in mid-process.)

Mordor Intelligence claims the 2024 tequila market 457.96 million liters. Tequilas are, I've heard, often 80 proof, or 40% alcohol by volume. So a liter of tequila should, in principle, have 400 ml of alcohol, weighing 0.79 g/ml * 400 ml = 316 grams of alcohol. It's generally accepted that fermentation yields about 55% of the starting sugar mass as ethanol. I.e., 1 kg of sugar will give you about 550 grams of ethanol. So each liter of tequila started from 575 grams of agave-sourced sugar.

This suggests that the amount of agave-derived sugar going into tequila is about 263,119 tonnes. Except one thing: a lot of tequila is not pure fermented agave. Up to 49% of tequila can be some other neutral grain spirit. This could potentially cut sugar going into tequila to 134,191 tonnes.

So, back-of-the-envelop, it looks to me like 7-8 times as much agave goes to tequila as to agave syrup, although some tequilas are higher than 80 proof, and contain more than 51% agave sugar, so this is probably something of an underestimate. I also feel there's a lot of uncertainty in the agave syrup quantity estimate -- is the agave syrup market the market for selling agave from farm to processors, or is it final purchases by consumers? I think most consumer agave syrup is bought in smaller batches, at higher per-volume prices, than the four gallon Amazon agave jug, so perhaps total agave sugar in syrup is an overestimate.

What about Mezcal? I tried to figure that out, but I got exhausted, so I'm not sure. The North American market page puts market volume at 19.73 million liters. The global market page puts Mexican exports in 2020 at 4.8 million liters. So is ~15 million liters consumed within Mexico? I don't know if I trust this data. I don't know if I trust a lot of the previous data either. I think it's a significantly smaller market than tequila. if anyone has good data on Mezcal -- or better data than what I have on agave syrup and tequila -- I'd certainly welcome it.

(I'm not going to disingenuously pretend not to understand why some people on Tumblr get super mad about agave syrup rather than condemning Friday night margaritas, but that seems to me like a fairly obvious and uninteresting phenomenon, at least in my current state, so I focused on trying to reverse engineer the allocation of agave from scattered data on final agave products.)

#agave syrup #tequila #mezcal

[aer-in-wanderland]

PSYCHO-PASS: Providence - According to Japanese Twitter

After a long wait (or maybe it just felt long to me), PSYCHO-PASS: Providence finally hits North American theaters this week (14 July 2023), before becoming more widely internationally available in early August.

Unfortunately, as I'm not currently in Japan, I've not yet seen it. Fortunately, I speak Japanese, so I've read pretty much everything I could find about what happens. If you're like me and can't wait to see it in cinemas/don't mind major spoilers, this post is for you.

What follows is a compilation of everything my sister and I know about PPP -- drawing from fan talk on Twitter, director and writer interviews and tweets, and other official promotional materials only available in Japanese -- without actually having seen it.

We also explain some of the major plot points and go into detail on the real-life works referenced in the film, so if you watched it but feel like you could still use some clarification (as many Japanese fans did), this post might be for you too.

Once again, this post is nothing but spoilers (to be taken with several grains of salt as there is a certain amount of guesswork involved), so read on at your own risk.

*Note: "SN" denotes tweets/quotes by director Shiotani Naoyoshi.

We open on a snowy, stormy night, January 2118 (2 months post-SS Case.3).

A team of armed mercenaries board a transport ship off the coast of Kanagawa, Japan and set about killing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) Suppressing Action Department (SAD) agents on board. 

Among them is Kai Mikhaylov, a Russian agent with a large burn scar on the left half of his face.

Kai Mikhaylov (VA: Kase Yasuyuki): A member of the “Peacebreakers.” In order to obtain the Stronskaya Document, he launches an attack on the ship Milcia is on. 

Leading the mercenaries is fellow mercenary Bokamoso Murray, who sports distinctive red dreadlocks.

Bokamoso Murray (VA: Shirokuma Hiroshi): A combatant affiliated with the “Peacebreakers.” He operates in tandem with Kai Mikhaylov; beginning with the assault on the Grootslang, he works to seize the Stronskaya Document. 

For the record, the Grootslang (the ship’s name) is a mythical giant snake rumoured to dwell deep in a cave in the Richtersveld, South Africa. It’s said that anyone who encounters it will meet with misfortune. Well then.

Indoors on the same ship, we find Dr Milicia Stronskaya, who has been invited to Tokyo from Russia to participate in an important political conference. 

Milcia Stronskaya (VA: Tsuda Shōko): A researcher and global authority on behavioural economics and statistics. She establishes the basic theory simulation referred to as the “Stronskaya Document.”

Realising the ship is under attack, she hurriedly sends a communication to someone, apologising under her breath as she does so.

She pulls out a gun just as a helmeted mercenary bursts into the room, and she shoots him dead. You can tell from how she handles it that she’s competent.

Kai charges in next, dodging her shots and pinning her down.

Leaning over her, Kai calls her “professor,” at which she startles. He then says to her, “There’s nowhere left to run.”

Kai shoots Dr Stronskaya, killing her. 

Bokamoso shows up then and says to Kai, “You screwed up, huh, Kai,” and “We’re switching to Plan B.”

Meanwhile, Kogami Shinya, one of our two main protagonists, heads to her rescue.

Kōgami Shinya (VA: Seki Tomokazu): Special Investigator, Suppressing Action Department, Overseas Coordination Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Age 33. He was living a nomadic life abroad acting as a mercenary but was recruited by Frederica and returned to Japan; currently, he’s pursuing international incidents. He prides himself on his advanced combat techniques and honed physique.

Kogami makes an insane jump from an aircraft wearing a wingsuit. (I’ve seen him described alternately as Batman, Captain America, and a flying squirrel here lol)

SN: What colour suits a man who flies... Thinking about it.

Kogami proceeds to fight his way through the enemy soldiers with his typical efficiency.

Unfortunately, he arrives too late to save the professor, and the mercenaries have already absconded with her head. The reason for this is explained later.

On deck, Bokamoso and his team board their aircraft and make their escape.

Kogami, who has followed them out, takes aim at the aircraft but is tackled to the deck by a reanimated SAD agent. The man’s mouth doesn’t move but we hear a voice quoting what appears to be a passage from a religious text.

An explosion goes off and Kogami breaks free of his attacker and escapes the conflagration by jumping into the ocean.

Backlit by the flames and treading water, Kogami — vexed but composed as usual — reports on the situation via his device.

<<Opening Credits>>

OP: 「アレキシサイミアスペア」 (alexithymiaspare) ~ 凛として時雨 (Ling tosite sigure)

We cut to the opening credits, set to Ling tosite sigure’s “Alexthymiaspare.” The group also contributed to the soundtracks for PP1, PP2, and PP: The Movie (M1), so this is one of many ways in which the film “returns to its roots.”

The credits are then followed by a brief shot of the Sibyl System accompanied by the following text: 《"The Sibyl System," a vast surveillance network that assigns numeric values to and governs human beings’ mental states. Detectives who carry "Dominators" — guns that measure "crime coefficients" — pursue "latent criminals" before they commit crimes.》

The next morning, our other main protagonist, Tsunemori Akane, now Chief Inspector of the CID, attends a meeting of senior bureaucrats to discuss the proposed abolishment of the Ministry of Justice and the old system of law.

Tsunemori Akane (VA: Hanazawa Kana): Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Public Safety Bureau. Age 25. She commands the Public Safety Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Department. She possesses an incontrovertible sense of justice and a stalwart mentality that makes it difficult for her Hue to cloud; she makes an appeal for maintaining the law under the Sibyl System.  

The official name of the conference, which is being held at Nona Tower (i.e. the Ministry of Welfare’s HQ), is “Review Meeting on the Topic of the Overseas Expansion of Industry RE: the Sibyl System.”

Shindo Atsushi — father to PP3 protagonist Shindo Arata — is also in attendance, alongside officials from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Shindō Atsushi (VA: Sugō Takayuki): Director-General of the Statistics Department, Minister’s Secretariat,  Ministry of Health and Welfare. One of the elite who started his career as an Inspector [at the CID] and entered the MHW. He’s involved in the exportation of the Sibyl System, immigration policy, etc.

For the record, this is the same conference that Dr Stronskaya was originally scheduled to attend at Atsushi’s invitation.

Akane is the only woman and by far the youngest person present, but she doesn’t hesitate to say her piece. When it’s her turn to speak, she opens by saying, “‘Under the Sibyl System, the law is unnecessary.’ Is that truly the case?”

Akane is basically the sole voice of dissent, while Atsushi assumes a more neutral position. 

During the meeting, Atsushi receives a text message, which he checks covertly before stashing his device in an inner pocket of his suit jacket.

Moments later, Akane receives a red alert on her device and excuses herself.

Atsushi calls a break in the meeting while Akane steps out to take a call from Mika.

Shimotsuki Mika (VA: Sakura Ayane): Inspector, Division 1, Criminal Investigation Department, Public Safety Bureau, Ministry of Health and Welfare. Age 21. The youngest Inspector ever inducted. At the time, she took a negative stance towards Akane’s way of thinking, but the two have a good working relationship now. She’s competitive but possesses both presence of mind and rational judgement.

Director Shiotani tweeted a quote by Rousseau that I saw someone identify as having been in reference to this scene. It’s not clear to me though whether a character quotes it aloud, or if Shiotani just meant it as an overarching theme:

SN: “Keep this truth ever before you—Ignorance never did any one any harm, error alone is fatal, and we do not lose our way through ignorance but through self-confidence.” by.Rousseau

from Rousseau’s Emile (On Education), Book III

SN: “Real knowledge is knowing the extent of one’s ignorance.”〈matcha emoji〉

from Confucius’ Analects II, Political Philosophy

Keep reading here.

#psycho pass #psycho pass: providence #PPP #akane tsunemori #tsunemori akane #kogami shinya #ginoza nobuchika #spoilers #foundintranslation #サイコパス #常守朱 #狡噛信也 #宜野座伸元 #塩谷直義 #Sugou Teppei #Kunizuka Yayoi #Karanomori Shion #Hinakawa Sho #Shimotsuki Mika #SaigaJouji #Hanashiro Frederica #Shindo Arata #Kei Mikhail Ignatov #PP1 #PP2 #PP3

[thenuclearmallard]

Russia, Explained: Siberian Indigenous Population Halves Amid Suicide Epidemic

By Aliide Naylor

April 8, 2021

A suicide epidemic is ravaging indigenous nations in Siberia.

A suicide epidemic is ravaging indigenous nations in Siberia. The Uralic Nganasan community in Siberia’s northern reaches is disappearing at a shocking rate – just three decades ago, there were some 1,300. Now, there are only around 700.

In the Nganasan settlement of Ust-Avam in Krasnoyarsk Krai, there are more suicides than natural deaths. “Six people die here every year. One of these deaths is the result of natural causes. Two or three freeze or die drunk. And two or three kill themselves,” writeNovaya Gazeta special correspondents Elena Kostyuchenko and Yuri Kozyrev after visiting the region.

The community is suffering the devastating effects of global warming, man-made environmental degradation, and severe poverty fuel depression. Out of 359 residents, just 54 have jobs.

“People crack, young people in general break down. The suicide rate is higher among young people. There is no work, nothing. Here you need to pay for lighting, and need to work for food. There is no food, no work, no money,” one young resident says. Her sister also committed suicide, leaving behind an 11-year-old son.

It’s often necessary to rely on anecdotal evidence about indigenous issues. Media reports are sparse and obtaining concrete statistical evidence about indigenous tribes such as the Nganasan is tough. And some deaths may be portrayed as suicides when there is little public information about the facts (for example, the death of one 15-year-old girl, in an uncomfortably termed “relationship” with a 24-year-old adult male police officer wasstyled in 2004 as a Romeo and Juliet story by local press).

The Nganasan are the descendants of semi-nomadic reindeer hunters, with ancient roots and a shamanistic spiritual culture. Even under Peter the Great (in the 17th and 18th centuries) there was a drive to “civilize” Russians in the further-flung regions and catch up with Europe, writes historian Yuri Slezkine. Peter instructed missionaries to find native Siberians and their “seductive false gods-idols and burn them with fire … and destroy their heathen temples”. Such ideas gained greater momentum in the 20th century, and the indigenous people were later forced into reservations under the Soviets in the 1930s. Nomadic civilizations were considered fundamentally incompatible with government-sanctioned lifestyles and these “small nations” of the North were seen as somehow representative of an undesirable past.

The Soviet state collectivized their personal property, including tents, guns and traps, and even reindeer herds. This led to a complete loss of reindeer husbandry and resulted in a steep decline in the reindeer population from the 1950s onwards.

Meanwhile, Soviet enforcement of Russian literacy made the local language almost extinct. Much like practices imposed on indigenous communities in other parts of the world, the Kremlin would take away local kids from their parents and send them to study in boarding schools.

“There, speaking Nganasan was forbidden, and teachers punished them for every Nganasan word they used — beaten with canes, kicked out of the class,” said local linguist Valentin Gusev. Today, Russia is home to 260,000 people from indigenous communities – who constitute just 0.2% of the country’s population. The government officially recognizes 40 separate indigenous groups in the North, Siberia, and the Far East.

The catastrophic impact of climate change in the Russian Arctic limits the Nganasan’s fishing opportunities — their primary food source. Meanwhile, the government continues to restrict hunting, which is a widespread source of tension between the Kremlin and indigenous communities elsewhere across Russia. With a de factoban on hunting, the Nganasans stopped following the routes of wild herds. Local food available for purchase can be out of date or moldy, and chronic alcohol use continues to plague the population.

Aggressive industrial development in the Russian Arctic has massively exacerbated the crisis among the Nganasan. Last year, a Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel) diesel spillbecame the largest human-made fuel spill in Arctic history, after which Russia’s government colludedwith the company (which is the nation’s largest nickel producer) to whitewash the disaster. The spill affected the environment that provided the Nganasan with basic food supplies. “They catch fish; they hunt deer. But there are no fish this year. And the deer left for other lands three years ago,” Kostyuchenko and Kozyrev wrote.

Last year, northern indigenous tribes signed an open letterto US business magnate Elon Musk and Tesla asking him not to purchase any nickel, copper, and other materials from Nornickel in the wake of the disaster. On average, the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Combine plant has released 30 tons of metallic dust and heavy metal oxides annually since it began production in the late 1930s, according toresearcher Konstantin B. Klokov.

There has been a recent spikemore generally in tensions between federal authorities and indigenous communities. Some of these nations have mobilized against an over-centralized state, government-backed environmental assaults on their sacred lands, and have demanded the return of their autonomy. In Kalmykia, for example, the majority-Buddhist region has engaged in protests against a Kremlin-appointed mayor. In Buryatia, locals rallied against a rigged election for weeks. And in a case that sent waves across Russia, a Sámi activist filed a complaint with Russia’s Supreme Court last year, after the government denied him the right to hunt without a license.

#indigenous #culture #indigenous russia #indigenous russian #russia #important #fypシ #colonization #fypage #landback #siberian indigenous #siberia #indigenous siberian #siberian #russian imperialism #russian genocide #russian colonization #land back #Nganasan #Uralic

[codingquill]

What is Cloud Computing ?

Cloud computing has become a widely discussed topic in recent years, but explaining it in simple terms to someone without a background in computer science can be challenging. Allow me to break it down for you.

Cloud computing is a method of storing and accessing data and programs over the internet, rather than keeping them on your personal computer or mobile device. To illustrate this, let's consider online email services like Gmail or Outlook. When you use these services, you can access your emails from anywhere because they are stored in the cloud. This means you don't need to install any special software or save your messages on your hard drive. Instead, your emails are stored on remote servers owned by companies like Google or Microsoft. You can access them from any device connected to the internet, regardless of your location.

Understanding Servers in the Cloud

Now, let's delve into the concept of servers in the cloud.

The data stored in the cloud is saved on physical servers, which are powerful computers capable of storing and processing vast amounts of information. These servers are typically housed in data centers, which are specialized facilities that accommodate thousands of servers and other equipment. Data centers require significant power, cooling, security, and connectivity to operate efficiently and reliably.

Microsoft and Google are two of the largest cloud providers globally, and they have data centers located in various regions and continents. Here are some examples of where their data centers are located, according to search results:

Microsoft has data centers in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

Google has data centers in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.

#codeblr #code #javascript #java development company #studyblr #progblr #programming #comp sci #web design #web developers #web development #website design #webdev #website #tech #html css #learn to code #cloud computing #datascience #dataanalytics

[viktoriakomova]

i want to make this a separate post instead of tacking it onto the last post i reblogged, because a) i feel like its getting way too far away from the point of the OP and as someone who has been in that position several times on my main blog its annoying as shit, and b) i dont want it to feel like anybody is ganging up on OP or "dragging" them or whatever, i dont think what they said was mean spirited or came from a place of bad faith etc etc etc. (if i did i would have been a whole fucking lot meaner in replying lmfao) and i also dont think anything it said was Wrong tbh.

okay all that being said!

i will put my tags of my last reblog in the main text here, because this is something i want to expand on:

not to get too Deep about it but. the colonizing countries literally have more wealth and resources and opportunity *because* th#*they stole so much from the global south. they have the $ and the stability to develop ‘frivolous’ things like gym#at the direct expense of the colonies who are left penniless and in perpetual chaos and upheaval

(for context this is re: children of immigrants in diaspora and their connections to their parents'/grandparents' homelands and culture, and maintaining those ties when the reason they came to the global north are for increased opportunity for success and upward mobility etc.)

i wont turn this into a treatise on economic exploitation and its consequences like i alluded to in the tags (i would if i had like 3 glasses of wine tho lol) but the following is something i really do want to underscore:

i love nemour for a lot of reasons. the gymnastics itself, yes of course. i know i snark and make jokes all the time about her shitting on the FFG every time she does anything great under the 🇩🇿 flag. but sincerely, what she is doing for gymnastics in algeria, in north africa in general (hell even in africa overall given the attention that african champs got because of her), is truly something special. i will admit that i dont stay on top of algerian sports media lol but i do speak french and what ive seen, just what has come across my radar, in the francophone algerian press (both in france and in algeria) is drumming up major excitement about her. this is the kind of attention that gets people who otherwise wouldnt give a shit emotionally invested in the sport. the social and historical baggage of the treatment of algeria and algerians in france, and the olympics being in paris, is just the icing on the cake.

its not exactly the same dynamic, especially not in terms of the Discourse about resources and access in diaspora, but i cant help but to be reminded of daiane dos santos, who famously started the sport at the age of 12. and only 8 years later she became a world champion on floor. she was the first world champion in WAG from brazil, south america entirely in fact, ever!!!! rebeca andrade mentions her all the time as an inspiration for her as a little girl. rebe went out of her way (i mean that figuratively as well as very literally, we all know the story about her brothers escorting her through the favela to the gym and back) to do the sport, because she saw dos santos do great things and looked up to her. and now shes REBECA FUCKING ANDRADE. would we have Rebe™ if it hadnt been for daiane? no probably not!

i guess it just..... not "upsets" me, thats not the word im looking for, but maybe gives me pause when i see anybody say (about any of the aforementioned US-born gymnasts representing other countries, not just in this case with nemour) that its opportunistic or undeserved to be competing under the flag of a country your parent(s) came from but you've never properly lived in. because...... isnt that the whole purpose of the multi-generational Narrative Arc? dont they pick up their whole lives and move to "wealthy" countries to pursue better lives for themselves, and more importantly, for their children? and then their children do take advantage of those opportunities they would not have gotten back "home" and reach the highest levels of a (very expensive and, until very recently, highly "inaccessible") sport. and then there's a chorus of "well it isn't like she's FROM from there and came up from the ranks within that country." i mean you're not wrong but thats.... kinda the point!!! she couldnt have done it at "home," shes a clear example of how much talent there is in places that are torn apart and dirt fucking poor and how if you give those people the opportunity, they can be really fucking good at this! world class, even!

she is, in a very REAL sense, "representing" algeria. if she does well in paris (🧿🧿🧿🧿 *furiously knocking on every wooden surface in my apt*) she will become an emblematic iconic sports star for algeria. she will be the reason a ton of little girls in algeria (and even franco-algériennes in france) will want to sign up for gymnastics! she will have (and has already had, by the looks of it) a tangible impact on the popularity and the future of the sport in algeria. it cannot be overstated how fucking much that means.

#i love that there are like 30 of us still here so we can have conversations like this by the way lmfaooooo #this turned into a whole ass essay i was really foolish enough to think i (ME) could keep this under 3 paragraphs 💀

[midmorningsong]

So this morning a staffmate told me about the recent Miami Zoo Kiwi incident that’s come to light, and I’ve been fucking livid all day.

Just been reading through a bunch of articles (majority NZ news sources) and the Zoo’s official statement, and somehow it’s even worse than what my irate coworker was able to convey to me. Miami Zoo had the absolute fucking privilege of receiving a (North Isl. Brown (?)) kiwi egg to hatch and raise as a species you would never normally see outside our little island at the bottom of the world as part of a some global zoo wildlife initiative.

Brief brief summary: viral videos coming out of this kiwi (Paora) being put on a table and patted by paying customers under bright lights, having selfies taken, made to run around during the day, keeper pursuing him whenever he tried to hide in his box. All around blasé attitude from keeper talking about this bird while he’s being paraded about on display. There’s video footage but I could seriously only stomach watching it once. He’s been there for 4 years and in the wake of this outrage they’re claiming to be building him a ‘proper enclosure’ now. He’s been handled like this at least 4 times a week and his current enclosure has been 3x3m.

They had access to super fucking detailed information on how to take care of this very sensitive and specialized animal, and what the fuck do they do? Disregard ALL of it to sell cutesy, ~rare bird~, self-obsessed animal encounters.

Either you knowingly and intentionally went against SO. MUCH. vital animal husbandry or you are just such a fuckwit you legitimately think it was good animal handling, I don’t know which is worse honestly. If it’s the former, congratulations; American Capitalism continues to be the most nasty, disrespectful piece of shit I see regularly parading about in broad daylight. If it’s the latter, then are your staff for real just exotic pet-obsessed freaks who showed up one day in a uniform and you just went ‘yeah sure you can be a zookeeper good enough’. Shoutout to that ‘keeper’ who had Paora’s head pinned to the fucking table with his fist going ‘hohoh yeah he’s just like a dog he loves being pat on the head’ yeah sure thing idiot I bet your zookeeper degree taught you all animals and birds especially just love being slapped around and treated like dogs.

The thing that’s got me the most though, is how over the top and pitiful they are being in their apology; “we’ve offended a nation...”, “it should have never happened”, “we are so sorry this video has caused stress to people”, ok yeah but fuck what we think why is there exactly ZERO mention of the stress, harm and sheer exploitation you have put this animal through??? Like yes, Paora is a taonga species and that is certainly adding to the severity of this response, but in and of itself the fact that their official statement answers ONLY to humans’ responses and outrage and not the failure to care for this animal is telling as fuck to me.

I really liked reading iwi leader Paora Haitana’s response (who Paora the kiwi is named after), in much nicer words than me expressing deep concern over the harm to Paora, the disrespect it is to him as a taonga species and us as protectors of them, and also heavy, heavy emphasis on words holding no shape under the weight of everything that has happened; they need to follow through and follow through right now with adequate care.

Personally I’d like to see Paora moved to a zoo that actually cares about his needs and conservation education over selling clickbait. I feel the love and intention of bringing him home to Aotearoa, though I don’t know how realistic that is with the risk of introducing diseases from abroad into the NZ populations. I also would expect a thorough investigation of Zoo Miami’s husbandry for all their species and the credentials of their staff.

Thanks for coming along to rant o’ clock, I’ll be back to reblogging regular fandom shit now so please don’t follow me if you’re expecting more of my own content lol. Enjoy some great twitter banter from this mess

#zoo miami #miami zoo #zoo miami kiwi #Paora #paora the kiwi #animal husbandry #aotearoa #nz #kiwi #kiwi bird #taonga #taonga species #cw animal abuse #shoutout to that brilliant blog article #titled 'miami zoo to stop deranged treatement of kiwi' #or something to that note #like thank you THANK YOU please say it louder

[fixomnia-scribble]

Cities believed to be 2000-3000 years old. (I LOVE LIDAR.)

Text below cut.

TL;DR:

Using the laser-scanning technology, researchers have uncovered a complex network of farmland, roads and neighbourhoods in Ecuador's Upano River Valley.

The cities are believed to be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old, according to Rostain, who works for France's National Center for Scientific Research. [Rostain's] group's findings were recently published in the journal Science.

Deep in the Amazon, researchers have uncovered a complex of ancient cities — using laser technology

The cities are believed to be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old

Mouhamad Rachini · CBC Radio · Posted: Jan 18, 2024 1:35 PM PST | Last Updated: January 18

Huge ancient city discovered in Amazon

"Wow" was all archaeologist Stéphen Rostain could say when LiDAR (light detection and ranging) laser technology revealed several ancient cities hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest.

"It's a gift for an archaeologist," he told The Current's Matt Galloway. 

Using the laser-scanning technology, researchers have uncovered a complex network of farmland, roads and neighbourhoods in Ecuador's Upano River Valley.

The cities are believed to be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old, according to Rostain, who works for France's National Center for Scientific Research. His group's findings were recently published in the journal Science.

"In the Upano, it's a completely new approach [to] the human past in the biggest rainforest of the world," he said.

Indigenous archaeologist argues humans may have arrived here 130,000 years ago

New discoveries challenge our understanding of when the first people arrived in North America

LiDAR leads the way

Rostain has been working in the Upano River Valley for years. He says he started excavating there 25 years ago, so he's known about the site with earth mounds in the area for decades.

"What we didn't [know] at this time, it was the size and the global organization of this construction," he said. "This is really new, and the LiDAR showed to us a map of this road connecting cities."

LiDAR was introduced to the excavation in 2015, when Ecuador's National Institute for Cultural Heritage funded a LiDAR survey of the valley. 

As part of the survey, specially equipped planes beamed laser pulses through the forest's vegetation, and measured their return path.

According to archaeologist Jay Silverstein, a senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University in England, this method allows researchers to create a terrain model of the ground underneath the forest.

"You've basically skimmed off all the trees and you're actually looking at the shape of the earth," he told Galloway. "Then we start to be able to see the patterns of what we call anthropogenic, or things that were made by humans as opposed to nature."

For Rostain, this method is indispensable because it allows the exact shape and size of the ground to be reconstructed without harming the forest itself.

Rostain says nothing gets destroyed by LiDAR, noting that the technology maps out the terrain without cutting trees or destroying the archaeological site. "It's just perfect."

Silverstein said science can indeed be destructive, as damage created during excavation can't be undone. That's why using non-destructive archaeology like LiDAR is extremely important.

"We are developing more and more non-destructive techniques that allow us to to plan our excavations much better to understand what we're looking at and on the large scale before we do our small-scale excavations," he said.

Humankind's potential — and fragility

As significant as this discovery is, Silverstein warns against making any assumptions about this civilization based on first impressions.

"When I teach students or younger archaeologists, I tell them that your first impression, your gut instinct, your feeling of what you see when you first see, it is wrong," he said.

What's at stake for the climate, deep in the Amazon

The Amazon rainforest plays a crucial role in regulating the global climate, but it’s under serious threat from deforestation. CBC's international climate team ventures deep into the forest with scientists to learn how climate change is affecting it, and what’s at stake in the fight to save it.

In this case, Silverstein said assumptions shouldn't be made about what the geometric shapes revealed by LiDAR represent. 

"You don't know if you're really talking about palace plazas or agricultural fields when you see a rectangular shape in the ground," he said. "There's a big difference of what it means when understanding that society."

Nevertheless, these findings are confirmation of humanity's potential, said Silverstein.

"Whether you're we're dealing with Highlanders in Papua New Guinea or villagers in Mexico … we adapt to our environments, we figure ways to organize ourselves," he said. 

"And given the opportunity and the resources and good fortune, we will organize ourselves and create more complex societies and we'll figure out how to better manage our water and build roads and build houses."

How recreating ancient recipes helps one food buff bring the past to life

Lessons from an ancient Athenian in an era of 'fake news'

There may be a grim lesson to be learned from these findings, according to Silverstein: civilization is fragile, and there's no guarantee that our societies will be around in the future.

"Everyone who lived in those ancient societies thought their society was fine and that they were going to live on forever, and that their children would live there and their grandchildren and so on," he said. "But something happened and it didn't."

"We blithely go through life and we get our warnings of climate crisis and warfare and threats. But we more or less assume that we're going to be here tomorrow and living just like we do today —until it happens."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mouhamad Rachini

Journalist

Mouhamad Rachini is a Canadian-Lebanese writer and producer for CBC Radio's digital team. He's worked for several CBC Radio shows including The Current, Day 6 and Cross Country Checkup. He's particularly passionate about stories from Muslim and Middle Eastern communities. He also writes about soccer on his website Between the Sticks. You can reach him at [email protected].

#archaeology #indigenous #ancient civilizations #amazon culture #indigenous archaeology #amazon archaeology #LIDAR

[transmutationisms]

Along with history and anthropology, literary criticism has also provided insights into the birth of the [Emerging Infectious Disease] concept and its sustained popularity. According to Priscilla Wald, North American publics have primarily been informed about the risks of EIDs through books, newspapers, and movies. To Wald, these stories follow a “formulaic plot,” derived from past narratives of epidemics and nineteenth-century detective novels. It commonly starts with a mysterious outbreak in an isolated place in Africa or South America. Traveling globalized networks, this faraway menace begins threatening American society. A team of doctors is then called to solve the mystery in a race against time. The heroes eventually succeed: the new pathogen is identified, the outbreak is contained and the disease eradicated, at least in the US. To Wald, these accounts reveal obscure biological entities and the hidden realities of globalization. Ironically, if AIDS gave a new life to the outbreak narrative, its trajectory does not follow the formulaic plot, because it was never totally contained. One questions whether COVID-19 will have a similar fate.

Matheus Alves Duarte da Silva & Jules Skotnes-Brown, “Emerging Infectious Diseases and Disease Emergence: Critical, Ontological, and Epistemological Approaches” (IsisCB Pandemics Special Issue, 2023 [forthcoming])

#covid