#in civil engineering :D…

[rouge-fauna]

Today on Transportation Engineering: best sidewalk ever

Honestly, I can’t decide which is dumber, the utility polls going in after the sidewalk or the sidewalk being put in around the existing polls…

[bleue-flora]

Ok, I recently wrote an essay [here] talking about the definition and duties of civil engineering as well as the ethics because of the brain rot @swordfright gave me with calling Dream Sam’s ultimate engineering project. So, because I actually am a civil engineer I took it upon myself to design the title and summary of quantities sheets just like I do at work for roads but with Dream as the project instead. And in honor of angst day sponsored by @sixteenth-day-event, I figured I’d share it because I feel like it kinda works for the prison of the mind prompt.

“Sam’s “ultimate engineering project” he deemed too damaged like a bumpy road or crumbling building that wasn’t worthy of patching and filling in the cracks or reinforcing, that’s too eroded to be fixed and preserved. So, Sam strived to tear him down to the bedrock so he could remake, remold, and reengineer Dream according to his design for the common safety, public health and well-fair.”

{These are very similar to the actual sheets I make day to day, which I shall not share for the sake of doxing my location, but yea pretty much everything has a significance. Some of it doesn’t necessarily make sense but that was because I was more so taking inventory of what we see in lore (so you know I counted ;) lol)}

[stone-cold-groove]

An engineer.

[swtechspecs]

Sienar Fleet Systems TIE/D (Twin Ion Engine Defender)

Source: The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels (Del Rey, 1996)

[poojagurung]

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[berryblu-soda]

day #18377466878237846387724576347 of being glad im the dumbass sibling 🙏🙏🙏

[sigmauniversity]

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[arcane-ish]

So... is this canon? The "Lanes carved from bedrock" theory

There is this fic by @out-there-tmblr called Brush Off All The Dirt about a the backstory of Silco and Vander meeting as young men in the mines.

There's also the big fat Zaun timeline/chronology meta by @sorceressofthesky

They basically propose the following sequence of events of what exactly might have been the backstory of Silco and Vander and the Lanes as Young Men: namely that they built the Lanes up from scratch.

Let's look at the hints.

1.) Silco, Vander and Cassandra Kiraman are roughly the same age range.

2.) The voice on the recording we assume to be Cassandra. Technically we don't know that for sure I think? 2x01 definitely starts with Cassandra talking because she is talking directly to Caityln

"I know you doubt the merit of your birthright, Caitlyn. There's wisdom in that. But remember: You're a Kiramman."

The voice on the recording picks up directly there with

"But remember: You're a Kiramman."

However it is distorted, in theory this could be ie Cassandra's mother talking to Cassandra and just using the same phrasing. That said, my subtitle thing notes Cassandra for that line.

"The rise of industry in the fissures has led to the air becoming increasingly toxic. They call it the Grey. I've instructed our architects to devise a ventilation system."

So Cassandra as a young woman installed the ventilation system. In the picture where the ventilation system is being opened, she is posing with miners who wear gas masks.

3.) When we see the flashbacks of Vander, neither he, nor Silco, not Connel and Felicia wear gas masks, which suggests the conditions were better for them than during the time when Cassandra was posing. So either Vander and Silco became miners after the changes Cassandra made or were around to see it happen. [note another theory, that shows up in the fanfic, is that those people next to Cassandra might be Piltover engineers who get better gear than the normal miners, following the idea that Pilties need masks and Zaunites are just used to the air, but it still never sat right with me that Felicia would raise her children without protection if there were alternatives; I also think the miner gear just looks pretty similar from the drawing to the flashback]

4.) When Felicai talks to Silco and Vander she says "Tonight a harebrained scheme these two bozos cooked up to turn a dank crack in the earth into a thriving, healthy community became a reality." and later "You two are gonna figure this Zaun thing out. I don't care if you have to carve it out of the bedrock, covered in blisters. You're not allowed to fail anymore."

(that line alone is interesting. Does "you are not allowed to fail anymore" imply they have failed before? there's also the line from Silco to Vander "we both know topside won't listen to anything else.")

5.) In season 1 Vander is protective of the Lanes specifically ("Spare the Lanes"). While Silco wants freedom for all of the undercity.

6.) It gives Vander and Silco something to do between Felicia announcing her pregnancy and the bridge fight. Felicia's words suggest that they have already achieved a lot, the Last Drop is already fully there and looking good. And yet it's several years between Vi being a zygote and Vi being a young kid in the opening scene (I would expect her to be at least 5/6). Time for Vi to have a relative safe happy idyllic childhood as per the Remember Me video. And Silco throwing a molotov and looking scared overall seems like a still fairly innocent reaction, suggesting that there wasn't that much all out open war before the Bridge fight (again matching the rosy, peaceful depiction in the Remember Me video). If Silco and Vander were mostly busy building up their community that would explain why Vi had a very happy childhood rather than being born into turmoil or being raised in the middle of a civil war.

So the solution that for example that fanfic proposes is:

there was an area that was unusable due to Gray

after the ventilation system was installed it tentatively became livable

Vander, Silco, Felicia and Connel started to use their mining knowledge to carve out new areas that new people could live in and built a thriving community

that community's economy was heavily based around on smuggling (as per the statements of Amanda, who also says Vander and Silco created the "market" respectively market area).

it would explain why Felicia is still working as a miner when her kids are small rather than let's say working for Vander at the bar. They are not working for rich mine owners, they are doing their own thing and working for something they believe in.

It seems like it was always a vision of the writers that Vander and Silco "built the Lanes" in whatever form. And season 2 could have brought in the additional backstory of Cassandra making it possible thought her air systems and Felicia being one of the miners who helped.

Now personally, I strongly think that "it does not matter what headcanon the writers have, if they didn't put it on screen it does not count" (ie like Amanda saying Viktor bullshitted his way into the academy or that he helped Sky get a spot there). But it's still interesting to ponder what exactly the writers were envisioning.

Personally, i always like the idea more of Silco and Vander as dashing robbers in their youth, more in the style of "this is exactly the sort of job Vander would've pulled when he was our age."

But I'm willing to wrap my head around alternative takes. I think there is some appeal to the idea that there was something that Vander and Silco built up as young men, something that was their baby and Vander stayed attached to it. That they "built the Lanes" together. And they clashed, because Silco wanted to expand beyond that ("You had my respect. The Lanes' respect, but that… that was never enough for you.").

That said, I'm not super enthralled by it and I'm trying to formulate why. For one it seems kind of less dashing than fun robbers and revolutionaries. Again there's some appeal of actually building something. But "let's build an underground town" ...

1.) it just seems kind of small as a dream compared to

2.) it seems kind of close to what Ekko is doing (don't like how things are being run, build your own community, except with less pretty trees and hoverboards).

3.) It feels kind of like a very American sort of dream? Grab a piece of wild land, tame it, built a thriving merchant town on it.

Again, I don't completely hate it (and I really enjoy that fanfic that goes into the weeds of Silco and Vander figuring out the starting logistics). But overall, I'm glad they left it vague enough so I'm free to imagine it more as Silco and Vander organizing heroic miner strikes for better working conditions or being gangsters who work their way up.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Steve’s Station

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

If you ever find yourself on the run from the more reputable institutions of the universe, you may be prevailed upon to make your way to a little known star base called “Steve’s Station” in the Cambra system.

Designated as the haven of the underworld, Steve’s Station operates outside the boundaries of all official governing bodies and interplanetary enforcement organizations. It operates as a safe haven at one point or another for every criminal, terrorist, extremist, and other shadowy group that seeks to cause unlawful conduct across the universe.

Normally a station that housed so many unsavory characters would hardly survive a day given the tenacity for grudges its patrons held. It was only through the simple governing of the stations founder, a human known only as “Steve”, that the station was able to not only operate but actively thrive as a hub of underworld activity.

Originally founded some thirty years prior, the human Steve had saved up his life savings to by a third generation mobile station. With only four docking arms and two cargo holds, the third generation stations were largely overlooked as they were the smallest of mobile stations. What did make it more desirable was the fact that it’s smaller size allowed it to make system to system jumps. Even more beneficial was that its core housings could be upgraded and replaced to increase the size of the station if one had the credits.

With the majority of civilized systems already having an overflow of star bases and stations, cutting into the market there would neigh impossible. So Steve instead set course for the Cambra system; a little known and uncharted region of space that barely shows up on star charts save for a pair of skull and bones. This did not dissuade Steve however as he was always of the opportunistic nature.

Forty jumps later and Steve was setting up shop when his first customer came in.

A battered Benaren smuggler had just barely escaped from the authorities and made a blind jump. With his engines all but destroyed from the jump he would have been left to rot had it not been for Steve’s station.

Much to the surprise of the Benaren Steve asked no questions on how the damage came about so long as he followed the station rules.

1.       Pay on time.

2.       Keep your feuds at the door.

3.       Don’t start trouble, lest you want troubles of your own.

Within a short while the smuggler’s ship was repaired and ready to go again. The Benaren paid in full for the repairs and went on their way.

Now that may of well had been the end of Steve’s story had it not been for how connected the criminal underworld was. Not more than three weeks later another group of wayward outcasts and lowlifes stop by the station for use of its quality services.

From there the station’s reputation became wildly known as every criminal, pirate, smuggler, rogue ai and wayward warlord found their way to Steve’s Station to call it home. The wealth being generated from the constant traffic of ships and cargo allowed the station to quickly grow in size as Steve was able to purchase more parts and modules to be included.

Within the first ten years it went it nearly doubled in size, and in another five it was the size of a first 7th generation star base complete with over fifty docking ports and repair bays, sixteen cargo holds for storage, two dozen habitability compartments for stores and clubs, and a fuel depot capable of supplying an entire fleet.

The sheer volume of different factions and cultures using the station facilities would have rapidly devolved into rampant infighting and destruction were it not for the quiet hand of Steve. Patrons kept their animosity at the door unless they wanted to lose access to the safe harbor Steve’s station held. Storage and repair bays were expensive to maintain and were often prime targets for rivals within their own territories, so they were more than happy to maintain a truce while on Steve Station for their own benefit.

At least, that is what the smart ones were willing to abide by.  

--------------

“Give us the access codes and this can all be over.”

The Jinari leaned down and grabbed hold of the human’s head. He lifted it up so the mauled human could see him through his one good eye as the other was well and good swollen shut from the beating his men had given him the moment prior.

Before them lay the one and only human “Steve”; founder of Steve station and currently their captive as they continued with their hostile takeover of the station. Jinari’s group had long wanted to make a name for themselves and by taking control of such a hub of underworld activity they could gain vast amounts of credits to finance their own operations.

It had been easy to breach the station’s control bridge as security was light. The guards had grown lax with the fear of Steve’s displeasure keeping many of the patron’s inline. They’d been dead in moments with the door breached not long after.

Steve had been understandably uncooperative with handing over his access codes that gave full control of the station; so Jinari’s men had proceed with some aggressive interrogation tactics to loosen him.

Steve looked up at Jinari; spitting out a glob of blood on to his shoe and grinned.

“It won’t do you any good you know.”

Jinari’s good mood quickly evaporated as he watched the human Steve begin to laugh.

“You broke the third rule,” he laughed, “you aren’t going to make it out of here alive.”

Before Jinari could ask what the human meant a loud bark of several weapons came from outside the control room followed. The rest of his crew turned their guns on the open doorway as the sound of several heavy footfalls began to draw closer.

“You’ve got one chance,” a deep rattling voice came from outside, “so I want you idiots in there to listen well.”

“Release. The. Human. Steve.” Another voice came in with thick robotic overtones.

“An jus may’be, we lets you go with your bits intact!” One more voice came with a throaty chuckle at the end.

The door to the control room was suddenly ripped open from its frame and the figures entered the room.

“That’s….you’re….” one of Jinari’s crew stammered as the first figure came into view. A towering mass of muscle and bone covered in thick black armor plating.

“Gur, leader of the Black Reavers.”

Gur grinned as his name was spoken with such fear.

Besides him stood an equally tall cybernetic body or polished metal and spikes. It was called “Cybrosis”, the rogue AI responsible for the collapse of three economic zones via hacking and alterations of monetary values.

On the opposite side of Gur stood a squat brutish Ularen decorated with skulls and bones of its victims. This unfortunate figure was Gobsnob, the assassin infamous for decapitating the Hybren prince during his own coronation then escaping with the severed head. Many believed one of the heads mounted on his armor was the prince’s head.

“Let Steve go, and we’ll let you live.” Gur spoke with a calm, collected voice.

Jinari’s eyes darted between the figures now blocking escape from the control room. There were even more waiting patiently in the outside hallway all armed to the teeth. In fear he drew his gun and pointed the muzzle at Steve’s head.

“What makes this flesh sack so special?” He shouted at the group. “It’s just one human! We don’t need him to run this place!”

“Correction.” Cybrosis remarked. “He. Is. The Only. One. Who Can. Run. This. Station.”

“WHY?!” Jianri demanded.

“He makes me laugh!” Gobsnob chuckled.

When the answer did not dissuade Jinari Gur spoke up and pointed at him.

“Deals changed. Whoever kills this stupid metal brain gets to walk free.”

Cybrosis turned to glare at Gur at the remark but said nothing. Jinari laughed and pushed the muzzle deeper against Steve’s head.

“You think my own crew would-“

The bark of an auto-blaster ran out and Jinari collapsed to the floor in a pool of blood and bone. His ribcage now cracked wide open from the blaster fire that tore into his back.

Those gathered turned to see one of Jinari’s crew holding the smoking gun before dropping it to the ground and raising their hands.

“I can go free now, yes?” they stammered.

Gur smiled and reached for something in his pocket. “Nah, I lied.”

Before any of Jinari’s crew could react Gur pulled out a thick barrel cannon from his coat and fired a slug at the thug closest to Steve. The barrel slug slammed the thug back into the wall with enough force to turn him into an art piece.

After that the station patrons who had been waiting outside stormed into the room and quickly subdued the rest of the thugs. They barely had time to get off a round before they were torn to pieces. In some cases quite literally as Gobsnob got ahold of one of them and began beating them to death with their own dismembered arm.

Gur slowly walked forward and helped Steve into the command chair at the center of the room.

“Glad you guys made it.” Steve laughed through bloody teeth. “Was starting to think you’d give me up to that nobhead.”

Gur shook his head. “They broke the rules.” He said calmly, wiping a stain of blood off his boot on Jinari’s twitching corpse. “And here you don’t last long if you break the rules.”

Steve smiled and switched on the com channel for station wide broadcast.

“Attention station,” Steve said calmly, “All possessions belonging to the former Jinari and his crew are now forfeited. Patrons may claim them as they wish for redistribution.”

A low rumble of cheers could be heard echoing down the halls as the denizens of the station began a free-for-all on the would-be takers belongings.  Steve was not finished though.

“Additionally, a free month’s worth of supplies and repairs to the loveable bastards that came to my rescue.”

Even more cheers erupted from those gathered in the control room as they carried off Steve to the nearest bar for celebration.

[kabr0ztrousers]

Can I get some dubcon ball sucking with a fem reader and a large monster? For the monster I'll let you choose BUT it has to be one you haven't written about yet.

Kabr0z Writes episode 74: Loxodon Warhammer

Find the rest of the Kabr0z Writes anthology here!

CWs: fellatio; dubcon; size difference; alcohol use; intox; anal sex

A/N: Writer's block has been absolutely kicking my ass today, so please enjoy the easiest thing close to the top of the requests queue :D I'm just happy I thought of a loxodon as a potential creature that meets both requirements!

#####################################

Fun fact: elephants have prehensile penises. You discovered this the fun way.

It started as all good nights do: in a smoky nightclub, populated by all sorts of human variants. They wouldn't normally let a baseliner like yourself in, but you knew the bouncer so as long as you didn't get weird with any of the patrons you'd be allowed. Too many issues with so-called monsterfuckers being pushy and putting people off. Just because someone has fur, a wolf head, and hardware to match, doesn't mean they're always down to fuck. So, places like this started up for variants to meet and spend their money on overpriced lager and cocktails. You weren't the only baseliner in the place, sure, but you wouldn't get in without someone vouching for you, be that a guest or a member of staff.

Now, you weren't allowed to hit on anyone, but that didn't mean you weren't allowed to be hit on. Plenty of variants start a night looking to avoid baseliners, but get enough drinks in anyone and they'll start looking to get lucky. As you stood at the bar, short skirt strategically rumpled at the back to give a good view of your pastel-pink thong as it separated your asscheeks, that's precisely what you were counting on.

You'd expected a lupine to make a move on you, maybe an equine, maybe even a felinid though they tend not to frequent places like this. What you hadn't expected was half a tonne of man in a tailored suit and the head of an elephant to step up behind you. Loxodons tend not to be party people, and it's not hard to see why. You're not small, about 5'8 and about 80kg, but this man dwarfed you in every respect. He must have been at least 8 or 9 foot, and was so broad two of you could stand abreast and still hide behind his immense bulk.

He offered you a drink, you accepted. Then another, and another. You got to talking. He was a postdoc from a few cities over, in your neck of the woods for a conference. It seems like it went well enough, he sure wasn't holding back on the drinks. Every fruity cocktail he bought you, he'd get two or three pints of beer, swigging them back with gusto. He was apparently a civil engineer with a speciality in bridge design, he'd been teaching classes for a few years including supervising a PhD student. He'd also been single for several years.

It finally got to kicking-out time: the early hours of the morning, after the band had packed up and left, long past the last train that would get you home safe, clinging to the sleeve of the massive elephant-man steering you towards his hotel. You remember him swiping his keycard to get in, then again in the lift to bring you both up to his room. The double bed was made, the sheets smelling of detergent as you fell onto it. He didn't bother moving your skirt, sliding the thong down your legs and past the six-inch heels on your feet. His trunk brushed your pussy, already wet with drunken anticipation. Your blouse was next, lifting over your spinning head, then your bra, deftly unfastened with one surprisingly nimble hand before being cast aside.

You lay there, barely able to move in your stupor. Feeling the soft sheets on your bare skin as he undressed himself. Two strong hands pulled your face up into his crotch. The musky skin of his ballsack smothered you. Every breath in bore the warm smell of his sweat. You opened your mouth, tasting him as he held you to him. You tried to pull away from him, but he wasn't done. You couldn't get a proper breath, every attempt filling your mouth and nose with the pliant skin pressed against you. Your hands slapped against his thigh. He pulled you away from him as you gasped for air. It was then you noticed it hanging above you, swaying slightly as it did. Your mouth hung open as he held you, transfixed by the huge, thick cock above you.

It curved down, the tip brushing your lips. You opened a little wider, allowing it to press between your lips, stretching your jaw open as he repositioned you. He was barely in you, but already at the back of your mouth, the flare at your tonsils. Your gags only spurred him on, massaging his tip with your mouth. Your eyes watered and he started grunting as precum leaked out, filling your mouth as his balls churned.

The cock popped out of your mouth, moving with a will of its own as it slathered precum and spit over your face, mingling with your tears and streaking your eyeliner down your face. He turned you around, bending you over the bed. One hand spread your asscheeks as his member pressed up against it, the end flexing against the tight hole as he applied his weight behind it, working himself in to you. You cried out into the sheets as he stretched your inexperienced asshole, the girth of it feeling as though he may tear you open. His hands were on your hips, shoving his immense length into you, pushing this way and that. Your hand was on your clit, numbly rubbing yourself, pushing through the pain in pursuit of your release. The sound of your fingers slopping over your wet cunt spurred him on, pushing harder as he picked up speed.

Your cries turned to moans as you gradually became accustomed to the aggressive fucking the loxodon was subjecting you to. You could feel your toes starting to curl as your ass rose up to meet him, even as he was already over a foot inside you. Your body shook around him, your breath catching and heart pounding as your moans turned back to screams of release.

The elephant behind you didn't last long with you crying and clenching. He roared as he rammed another six inches into you, making you cry out in surprise and pain. Cum started to flow from him, and didn't stop. Spurt after spurt, each one pumping two or three ounces of hot, sticky seed into your ass. You could feel it sloshing around, causing you to swell and bloat as over three litres of fluid was shot into you. You thought you could taste it, but maybe that's just your imagination.

He lifted you into his great arms before lying back onto the bed. He was soft, and warm, like a huge waterbed. His cock stayed in you for hours, shrinking so slowly after he fucked the energy out of you. You dozed off on top of him.

You woke without him in the morning, with an aching ass and a note on the pillow next to you. He had an early train, but left his phone number.

Just in case.

#######################################################

Well, this one took me all day, so the promised Sunday Spectacular ain't happening tonight. Maybe I'll start something tonight and finish it tomorrow, maybe not.

I'll catch up, don't worry

By the way, this is what a Loxodon looks like

[stone-cold-groove]

We need engineers.

[eugenedebs1920]

You know!? It ticks me off this perception that Donald Trump, J.D. (Jerkin Dicks)Vance, even Musk, is somehow manly. I mean, Trump and Ol Jerkin D wear more makeup than my wife! You can’t say that’s all just for television. Musk looks like if Smeagal had only kept the ring for 250 years as opposed to 500. His Prrreeeccciooouussss. None of those guys project masculinity. It’s the varsity cricket team and their weird gangly friend.

Does anyone remember when Trump tried to act like he knew how to use a shovel 🤣🤣🤣 That sh*t cracked me up!! Like ‘MFer, where have you seen someone attempt to shovel like that!?’

Then J. Dick Vance projects uncertainty in his sexual identity. It cool if your gay, but don’t fight being gay so much that you are viscous to women and marginalize those who’ve figured out who they are and are not overcompensating for it. it’s coo Jerkin D! We’ll still hate you either way.

I’m pretty sure Musk is a supervillain. But like if Dollar General had a comic book action figure series.. He’d be the main villain in that. Corneal Creepy McBillions, somethin like that.

These guys definitely got picked on in grade school and vowed to get revenge by making everyone else miserable. Thanks bullies! 😑

Speaking of. If you haven’t constantly put people down, talk sh*t on people, (I realize the irony as I’m sh*t talking these f*cks but, physically I don’t think any of them could take me, but power wise, what they could have done to me!! They’d ruin my world..) pinpoint and pick on a vulnerable individual or group, pretty much, if you get hard by making people laugh at or join in on teasing or bullying someone, that itself reeks of insecurity. It shows the flaws in yourself, you’re hiding by putting those flaws onto others before someone sees them in you. Trump is the master of that! If he accuses someone of something, he’s definitely guilty of it.

It doesn’t make you any less of a man to be kind. It’s isn’t a feminine to treat women with respect. It doesn’t make you macho to be a prick. Being racist and ostracizing immigrants doesn’t protrude masculine traits.

You know what women find sexy. Confidence. Knowing who you are, what your values are, compassion, knowing the difference between proper and improper, and sticking to those principles regardless what others would say or entice you to do. Being a good person, because that the good thing to do, proud of oneself, but knowing there’s always room to grow and learn.

I certainly don’t see what’s would constitute being attractive when you are borderline in a cult, infatuate with a 80 year old politician who bankrupted casinos, been accused by 23 women and adjudicated for sexual assault, shameless grifter, hateful, cruel, racist, bully f*ck. It’s just, sorry to say it, weird.

I have a heart and care for people, I build houses for a living. I believe in equality and the rights for EVERYONE, I can rebuild an engine. I think women are people (who knew!?) and should be in control of their own destiny, I am pro 2nd amendment and love to go shooting.

I’ve been in bar brawls, climbed mountains, go hunting, chop wood, ride atv’s, snowboard, go 4wheelin, camping, have a big beard, drink beer, and I think everyone is entitled to dignity, despite their sexual preference, race, religion, gender, what their hair looks like, whatever. Why? Because it’s basic human respect.

The last 2 times America actually won a war it was Democratic (BIG D 😉) administrations. The only 2 presidential administrations to not add to the deficit in the last, nearly 60 years, were both big D Democratic administrations. Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act, all the racist Dixiecrats jumped ship and became Republican. Democrats nominated and elected the first African American president. We have TWICE nominated a woman at the top of the ticket.

While Republicans are whining about having to wear a mask LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE DID, Democrats passed legislation to address the problem of unemployment, of vaccinations, of shipping logistics, while they were at it passed a HUGE infrastructure package, invested billions in green energy (our future) and ensured national security by manufacturing the technology materials needed to be the best in the world. Simultaneously creating a ton of well paying, respectable middle class jobs.

The right is too busy talking about Jewish space lasers, and checking out Hunter Biden’s junk, and keeping weed illegal, and worrying about bathrooms and sh*t.

How is that manly at all?! Acting like a bunch of whiny immature kids! They even whine when they win!! It’s stupid! It’s a waste of time, money and energy. Just grow up and do the job you’re elected to do!

So yea… I would say the right isn’t the vision of manhood they pretend they are. It’s overgrown children, spoiled to the core, acting out because they want it their way 😤

What shows manliness is doing your job, and doing it to the best of your ability. Being a kindhearted person and willing to help someone in need. Being true to yourself, and in turn others. Being knowledgeable yet willing to learn. Being brave, but admitting when you’re scared.

[jcmarchi]

How good old mud can lower building costs

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/how-good-old-mud-can-lower-building-costs/

How good old mud can lower building costs

Buildings cost a lot these days. But when concrete buildings are being constructed, there’s another material that can make them less expensive: mud.

MIT researchers have developed a method to use lightly treated mud, including soil from a building site, as the “formwork” molds into which concrete is poured. The technique deploys 3D printing and can replace the more costly method of building elaborate wood formworks for concrete construction.

“What we’ve demonstrated is that we can essentially take the ground we’re standing on, or waste soil from a construction site, and transform it into accurate, highly complex, and flexible formwork for customized concrete structures,” says Sandy Curth, a PhD candidate in MIT’s Department of Architecture who has helped spearhead the project.

The approach could help concrete-based construction take place more quickly and efficiently. It could also reduce costs and carbon emissions.

“It has the potential for immediate impact and doesn’t require changing the nature of the construction industry,” says Curth, who doubles as director of the Programmable Mud Initiative.

Curth has co-authored multiple papers about the method, most recently, “EarthWorks: Zero waste 3D printed earthen formwork for shape-optimized, reinforced concrete construction,” published in the journal Construction and Building Materials. Curth wrote that paper with nine co-authors, including Natalie Pearl, Emily Wissemann, Tim Cousin, Latifa Alkhayat, Vincent Jackow, Keith Lee, and Oliver Moldow, all MIT students; and Mohamed Ismail of the University of Virginia.

The paper’s final two co-authors are Lawrence Sass, professor and chair of the Computation Group in MIT’s Department of Architecture, and Caitlin Mueller, an associate professor at MIT in the Department of Architecture and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Sass is Curth’s graduate advisor.

Building a structure once, not twice

Constructing wooden formwork for a building is costly and time-consuming. There is saying in the industry that concrete structures have to be built twice — once through the wooden formwork, then again in the concrete poured into the forms.

Using soil for the formwork could change that process. While it might seem like an unusual material compared to the solidity of wooden formwork, soil is firm enough to handle poured concrete. The EarthWorks method, as its known, introduces some additive materials, such as straw, and a wax-like coating for the soil material to prevent any water from draining out of the concrete. Using large-scale 3D printing, the researchers can take soil from a construction site and print it into a custom-designed formwork shape.

“What we’ve done is make a system where we are using what is largely straightforward, large-scale 3D printing technology, and making it highly functional for the material,” Curth says. “We found a way to make formwork that is infinitely recyclable. It’s just dirt.”

Beyond cost and ease of acquiring the materials, the method offers at least two other interrelated advantages. One is environmental: Concrete construction accounts for as much as 8 percent of global carbon emissions, and this approach supports substantial emissions reductions, both through the formwork material itself and the ease of shaping the resulting concrete to only use what is structurally required. Using a method called shape optimization, developed for reinforced concrete in previous research by Ismail and Mueller, it is possible to reduce the carbon emissions of concrete structural frames by more than 50 percent.  

“The EarthWorks technique brings these complex, optimized structures much closer to built reality by offering a low-cost, low-carbon fabrication technique for formwork that can be deployed anywhere in the world,” Mueller says.

“It’s an enabling technology to make reinforced concrete buildings much, much more materially efficient, which has a direct impact on global carbon emissions,” Curth adds.

More generally, the EarthWorks method allows architects and engineers to create customized concrete shapes more easily, due to the flexibility of the formwork material. It is easier to cast concrete in an unusual shape when molding it with soil, not wood.

“What’s cool here is we’re able to make shape-optimized building elements for the same amount of time and energy it would take to make rectilinear building elements,” Curth says.

Group project

As Curth notes, the projects developed by the Programmable Mud group are highly collaborative. He emphasizes the roles played by both Sass, a leader in using computation to help develop low-cost housing, and Mueller, whose work also deploys new computational methods to assess innovative structural ideas in architecture.

“Concrete is a wonderful material when it is used thoughtfully and efficiently, which is inherently connected to how it is shaped,” Mueller says. “However, the minimal forms that emerge from optimization are at odds with conventional construction logics. It is very exciting to advance a technique that subverts this supposed tradeoff, showing that performance-driven complexity can be achieved with low carbon emissions and low cost.”

While finishing his doctorate at MIT, Curth has also founded a firm, FORMA Systems, through which he hopes to take the EarthWorks method into the construction industry. Using this approach does mean builders would need to have a large 3D printer on-site. However, they would also save significantly on materials costs, he says.

Further in the future, Curth envisions a time when the method could be used not just for formworks, but to construct templates for, say, two-story residential building made entirely out of earth. Of course, some parts of the world, including the U.S., extensively use adobe architecture already, but the idea here would be to systematize the production of such homes and make them inexpensive in the process.

In either case, Curth says, as formwork for concrete or by itself, we now have new ways to apply soil to construction.

“People have built with earth for as long as we’ve had buildings, but given contemporary demands for urban concrete buildings, this approach basically decouples cost from complexity,” Curth says. “I guarantee you we can start to make higher-performance buildings for less money.”

The project  was supported by the Sidara Urban Research Seed Fund administered by MIT’s Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism.

[meret118]

However, the reelection of Trump casts this measure in a new light. His promise to turn the civil service into an engine of personal vengeance should be sufficient evidence that he’d likely abuse the powers granted under H.R. 9495, potentially allowing the president to target fairly well-known liberal organizations, such as the Center for American Progress, with punishing sanctions that would prevent such outfits from raising or banking money—penalties which, under the proposed law, such sanctioned organizations would be barred from pursuing legal recourse to plead their case. Moreover, in addition to activist groups, many universities and news outlets are nonprofit organizations.

While significantly lower than the 52 members who joined in last week’s vote to advance the bill, 15 Democrats is still a surprising number of representatives who seem to care more about wanting to neutralize irksome protesters than a fascist, authoritarian president targeting any nonprofit he doesn’t like.Here’s a full list of Democrats who voted for the bill:

Colin Allred—Texas

Yadira D. Caraveo—Colorado

Ed Case—Hawaii

Henry Cuellar—Texas

Don Davis—North Carolina

Jared Golden—Maine

Vicente Gonzalez—Texas

Suzanne Marie Lee—Nevada

Jared Moskowitz—Florida

Jimmy Panetta—California

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez—Washington

Brad Schneider—Illinois

Tom Suozzi—New York

Norma Torres—California

Debbie Wasserman Schultz—Florida

[peejayee]

hello there noble tumblr artist !!! your art (specifically the gorgeous silver woman and midpollo) has bewitched me and i am here to humbly request comic recommendations

ill talk normally now- uhm yeah ive NEVER read anything about any of them and i know nobody that reads about the authority so anything would help 🙏

Hey how you doing. I'm so sorry for the super late reply— school's been kicking my balls for the past 3 months.

About the Authority, unfortunately, I can't in good coincidence recommend Wildstorm comics without a disclaimer. A lot of WS media is really, really, REALLY dated and I don't want to set the wrong expectations going in.

If you find yourself stuck, treat the process like it's media archaeology.

I love Wildstorm is because it the perfect time capsule of the 90s- 00s. You can see the birth of the modern culture war, the death of class analysis, and the consequences of Reagan-era policies. It's really fascinating.

Oh and the silver woman is the Engineer aka Angela Spica. She shows up in Authority 1, 1999.

And heads up, the main architect of the Authority is Warren Ellis, a man accused of and admitted to sexually coercing multiple people.

Reading order—Ill do my best:

Stormwatch:

tbh you can skip most of this. Stormwatch is an Image comics property that didn't sell well. It's a UN sponsored super human team. Stormwatch Jul #37, Warren Ellis was brought onboard to turn the ship around.

Stormwatch #37-#50: Jenny, Swift, Jack introduced to Stormwatch. If you don't read it, it's fine dw. Although, check out issue #44— really, really cool homage to comics. SW ends with everyone dead in an Aliens crossover event.

Authority 1999/Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch 1-12: Jenny's arc begins in Stormwatch #37, and ends in Authority #12.

#1-12 reads as a stand alone as a y2k disaster story, end of the world etc. etc. The engineer is introduced issue one without much explanation— basically, she's a scientist who gained access to Stormwatch tech and becomes superhuman.

Authority #13-29/ Millar, Quitely: It's a hard read... Very controversial but series/genre defining run. To put it succinctly, it is the spiritual precursor to the Boys. To make reading more bearable, look at the date of publication and try to recall what happened that year (9-11, George Bush election upset, war on terror). If you read the Ultimates (Marvel), a lot of its... quirks? Were tested here

IMO, there is one line in the final arc that makes this worth it.

Authority 2003-2004/ (Grant) Robbie Morrison: A lot of people don't like this run, I thought it was fine. It's introduced a lot of cool high scifi concepts but didn't do too much with them. Dunks on scientology before dunking on scientology was cool.

the Authority Coup d'etat—>Revolution/ Ed Brubarker, Dustin Nguyen: Another series defining run— btw Henry Bendix, if you skipped Stormwatch, is the old leader of the organization. This pre-dates Marvel's Civil War (written by Mark Millar).

Authority Lost Year, Grant Morrison: Things happen. the team gets trapped in space. Wrestle with the consequences of Revolution.

Authority World's End 2008-2011: ill keep it 100 with you, I don't remember why the world ended. This was a big Wildstorm comic crossover event and sets up the N-52 merge.

Dog, I'm gonna sound like a dick.

Heres a pretentious tangent:

I've been trying figure out what this story intends to say since reading it 7 years ago. IMO, Stormwatch #37–The Authority #12 functions as an accidental rejection of Francis Fukuyama’s End of History—the idea that humanity has reached the endpoint of political evolution. All forms of governance inevitably will converge toward neoliberal democracy. Jenny Sparks embodies the listless final years of the 20th century: her life was marred by unimaginable suffering, insurmountable geopolitical conflict, and the ideological drift into neoconservatism and neoliberalism. I thought Jenny Sparks' last hurrah reads as a dying struggle against the void—a desperate struggle against comfortable complacency. She sober up (slightly) from her consumerist slumber to see there is no rapture. There is no revolution. To wait for John Cumberland is akin to waiting for Godot.

Hindsight 2025, we look back at Fukuyama and scoff but, in 1999, a lot of people genuinely thought that Clintonomics, neoliberal democracy was it. And I say accidental refutation because I'd argue Ellis, in 1999, was squarely a liberal. I'd point to Transmetropolitan as evidence of his then politics. Transmet contained the underlying belief that the truth mattered. That we live in a system where justice will prevail when bad apples are exposed as frauds, cheater, liars, fascists.

20th century end on a triumphant note, but not without with a warning: Change is inevitable, progress is not.

There is a lot more I can say about this series. I got 7 years worth of showers monologues to pen on paper.

I'm so sorry for dumping this on you. IDK ab N-52 very much. The DC merge is not for me so idk the deets.

[ode-to-arecibo]

I think this is a good place to start.

Timelike Empire is my main world, both worldbuilding project and place where actual novels will be set eventually. It's hard~ish sci fi with a timeline that diverges in 2020 and runs to about 2300... so far. So here's Timelike Empire's main sophonts and their sizes.

From left to right, you know this guy it's unmodified human. This one's Solenoid, from the 2050s. You'll see more of him later.

More importantly, Drakes, represented by Viviere Serasifi. Drakes were the first species to develop faster than light communication. Their societies arrange themselves into houses of close relatives which in modern times tend to act as countries or companies, ruling land or holding economic monopolies. Biologically they're hexapods evolved from an arboreal predator like a six limbed jaguar. Their feathers absorb the dyes they eat, which they use to distinguish house identity. Their head feathers are used to emote. Their society is a huge mess when humans meet them, as house Cezyra has taken power and done fascism and completely fucked everything up.

Kaledevids, or star crows, and all three of their sexes, represented by literally any kaledevid as they all look identical. Kaledevids were the second species to develop ftl communication, and the first that drakes contacted. They worked together to produce wormholes and Alcubierre drives. They have three sexes, bachelors on the left, herders in the middle and dispersers on the right. Bachelors were originally confused for crows and assumed to be the only sex, giving them the common but impolite star crow moniker. They're expert navigators and significantly more intelligent than humans or the average sophont, but only living 20-30 years. They're the only other species on this list where being naked is ever a crime and they're drawn here with scarves covering their anuses on their chests and their genitals on their backs.

Sapsippers, represented by a pretty average blue drone, are a hive mind or gestalt consciousness, to the point that after they developed an internet analog the entire homeworld could be considered one person. You would never actually see one alone like this, it would have no idea what's going on. Sapsippers form into thrums, groups which communicate through pheromones and tapping the ground. Thrums smaller than six aren't really functional as people. The race pictured here is translucent. That gave them a big head start on medicine, but more important was their biochemistry. They don't use a separate DNA analog/genetic storage system and proteins, they just have self replicating proteins (though not made of amino acids). This meant that as soon as they could isolate proteins, they could genetically engineer whatever they wanted. They started genetic engineering even before they had civilization, rubbing protein rich parts of other creatures in their wounds to make rough and often dangerous modifications. They're called sapsippers because they exclusively consume a sap secreted by a creature they ranch. If you bring a thrum to dinner you can order sugar water for them, they store energy with D-glucose like us. They often act as ship AIs for ships just a bit too small to carry a lect.

Raptors or raptorslugs or various unpronounceable buzzing sounds, represented here by a conventionally attractive male, were contacted 20 years after humans and are the most relatable to the average human. They invariably use cybernetics to speak English or Universal, as the only sound they can make is various kinds of high pitched incredibly irritating buzzing. Their second pair of wings is reduced to just the muscles they now use to pump their blood and lungs. Their main pair of wings is too weak to fly with, but is now used in semaphore and bird of paradise-eqsue mating dances. They're packhunters.

Moths, which I really should give a proper name to, pictured here sitting on the raptor's tail, evolved on the same planet as raptorslugs. While raptorslugs reduced the second pair of wings, got huge, and stopped doing alternation of generations, moths pretty much didn't change from their basal form except getting smarter. They're the sporophyte form of a common photosynthesizer. They're not always included on lists of the sophonts, mostly because they don't particularly want to be included and they're the least common of these, basically just sneaking in because raptors are so common. You'll never see a moth without a raptor, but plenty of raptors don't keep moths. There are hundreds of species of moth and they don't mind being selectively bred by raptors, as long as the raptors protect their gametophytes. Attempting to understand moth culture is a largely futile endeavor that not even raptors attempt.

Not pictured here, artificial intellects, usually referred to as lects. They're often massive godlike intelligences that shape history. Sometimes they're made of flesh. Distinguished from AI by being at least human intelligence and being able to go eccentric. Eccentricity occurs when a lect is given too much free time and infers that whoever told it to do it's job doesn't actually want that job done so much as they want to be happy. This usually results in them deciding that preserving sophont life is the most noble purpose and then accumulating as many resources as they can. Sometimes they go basilisk instead and the Silicon Hydra has to deal with them.

So there we go, there's the blog started. Coming soon: individual species references.