#Cheap Travel Resources

[thriftx]

Budget-Friendly Travel Apps and Resources: Your Key to Affordable Adventures

Introduction :

In the age of technology, budget-friendly travel is more accessible than ever. This guide explores a variety of money-saving apps, travel communities, and planning tools that can enhance your travel experience without breaking the bank. From accommodations to transportation, discover the resources that make affordable adventures a reality.

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[arvitoursandtravels]

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[justalittlesolarpunk]

hi! i love your blog :D do you have any advice to implement low waste and solarpunk aspects into everyday life with a tight budget? keep doing what you do!

Hi!

Thanks for asking - I’ve had this question before and it’s definitely a real problem. Organic, plastic free food is expensive. So is handmade durable clothing, and train fares these days. It can feel like only the rich can be solarpunks, which is pretty counterintuitive given its anticapitalist ideology. But! I’m here to tell you there’s lots you can do to bring solarpunk into your life in a cost-effective way.

To start with, lots of solarpunk spaces are free or cheap. Get a library card and you can borrow as many books and DVDs and other resources as you like. Look up to see if there’s a library of things in your neighbourhood, and join a buy nothing or stuff for free group online. Download TooGoodToGo, which lets you access food from local cafes and restaurants which would otherwise go to waste. See if there’s a repair cafe that operates near you - I managed to get a pair of trousers mended at one of these for free, and I had been thinking I would need to pay a tailor (which is fine if you can afford it! Skilled labour deserves fair wages!). In some places plant-based food is cheaper, so when it is, choose it. But in others it will cost more than animal products so you have to decide on a case by case basis whether saving money or a particular diet is more important to you.

There’s lots else you can do for minimal spending or that actually saves you money. Walking to work or school avoids the expenditure in the petrol for a drive or a bus fare. If you’re within walking distance and able to do so, I’d recommend it. Joining your local chapter of Extinction Rebellion, Friends of The Earth, Greenpeace, The A22 network or any other active climate group in your area is almost always free and just involves a small weekly time commitment. This will introduce you to activists and inform you about protests and public meetings you can attend.

If you have the time in your week and the physical ability, which I acknowledge many people don’t, you can also join some sort of volunteer group looking after a nature reserve or tending a community garden (which might also give you access to free or discounted food). Learning to forage is also a good skill as that really is free food!

Depending on where you are, a green electricity tariff *can* also be less expensive. If this is the case and you have control over your provider, it’s worth switching to it. Buying books and clothes secondhand will also be better for the environment and your bank balance. Teaching yourself about the climate and the natural world with podcasts, YouTube, online free articles and other resources is also free and the knowledge will help you keep solarpunk at the front of your mind. Read good news stories online whenever you can, to remind you that good things are happening already.

If you’re employed, you can also try to influence green policy at your workplace or in your trade union. If you’re at school or university, joining (or setting up!) the environmental society and/or lobbying for change at the SU are both good ideas and shouldn’t necessarily cost you anything. If you can - and I know this is inaccessible for a big swathe of the population - put a very small amount of money aside whenever possible, because the more you save the more you can afford to buy better products, donate to causes, help out the needy in your community, travel in a greener way, and other more expensive choices. It’s all about that dual power.

Hope this helps get you started!

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Semi-related to the university and COVID post - have there been any positives you've seen from COVID in uni? I'm in my third year this year and my first year was an absolute mess of poor, older members of the faculty trying to work out how the technology works. In the last year they've really gotten a hold of it and it's been a great help to have lectures recorded alongside the live one, which has helped with people missing the live one due to being ill (or absolutely hanging from a night out, guilty here!) but that's the only positive I can really think of.

Yes, a lot of things disabled students had been calling for for *checks notes* a billion years were suddenly found to be cheap and easy to implement. And my uni was always extremely good for Student Support anyway, but there's much more understanding around mental health and access issues suddenly than, say, five years ago.

It's certainly true that older lecturers have struggled with adapting to the technology, though that's true anyway, tbh - education, like any other field, is a constant technological arms race. But personally, from the moment I was able to run hybrid lectures, I did. If I have a student who can't physically attend a session now, they can still join online. It's not as good an experience for them, but that's true anyway online vs in-person - but as an accessibility feature, it's invaluable.

And this uni is a merged, multi-campus university, with major centres in multiple different towns and cities. When it merged, we were told it would bring marvellous new opportunities because we could all work together now across disciplines and with pooled resources, which in practice did not happen because this is West Wales and inter-campus travel is difficult. But now video conferencing is an automatic and intrinsic part of operations, which means there are suddenly a lot more interdisciplinary projects popping up. One of those campuses has a whole SSSI green space to manage, but no environmental or countryside management faculty or students - we're suddenly able to arrange mini residentials over there with our student groups, and because it's all the same uni, costs are minimal to negligible. Research projects are suddenly easier. There are more conversations happening.

So yeah, there have been a handful! It's just heavily counterbalanced by the many and varied drawbacks

[intersectionalpraxis]

here is the full video:

the hotel business in the Caribbean is like one massive gentrification 'project,' and it makes me sick to my stomach. this entire industry is full of colonizers -from its' roots to its' current mentalities as they destroy the local economies and make SO many of the people dependent on these exploitative systems.

travelling is contextual -i know not everyone travels without reflexivity -but where you go speaks volumes about your privilege and lack of care about what is going on. i have seen people STILL go to Hawai'i despite native Hawaiian people imploring tourists NOT to go because the hotel industry soaks up their essential resources and is poisoning their waters. or for those in Canada who predominantly go to 'Cuba,' because it is 'cheap' -it's just despicable.

[thebibliosphere]

Hello! My household is not gluten-free, but there’s someone who’s very important to me who has celiac and is planning to visit us next month. I’m hoping to be able to feed them while they’re here without inadvertently poisoning them. I’ve got some good gluten-free recipes, but I’m worried about potential cross-contamination from cookware since we do usually eat gluten (though we won’t be cooking with gluten while they are here). I’m wondering if you have any resources for what precautions are necessary to safely prepare food for someone with celiac. I’m happy to buy a few things to use exclusively for gluten-free food, but I’m not sure if storing that with the rest of our cookware would be okay or if it should be stored separately? Would we be better off just finding a gluten-free restaurant nearby and ordering delivery while the person is here? I just want to make sure they are safe and feel welcome.

Hello! Thank you for being willing to take such precautions for your friend. I'm sure it means a lot to them to know someone cares this much for them.

You are correct in thinking that gluten contamination can occur from cooking utensils. Gluten can stick to porous surfaces, even when thoroughly scrubbed, and while some people are not sensitive enough for that to affect them, some are and it's always best to err on the side of caution.

Things like plastic or wood cutting boards, plastic mixing bowls, wooden, nylon and even silicone utensils can all be potential risk factors, even when thoroughly scrubbed. Cast iron and non-stick pans and appliances, waffle iron, griddle, plastic components inside a food processor.) can also be a potential source of cross contamination.

I remember when we found out I was being glutened by an old mixing bowl. I yeeted everything out of my kitchen and bought all new utensils and cookware.

Now, I am not suggesting you do that as you do not live with this person full time. But depending on your budget and if you want to have utensils you know are safe for gluten-free individuals in the future, you could put together a little kit that you can store away for later. I'd suggest a cutting board, mixing bowl and getting a cheap set of utensils. You could also invest in a cheap frying pan/pot and maybe a baking sheet tray. That's pretty much what I take with me when I am traveling, so that I know I won't end up having an MCAS reaction when staying in someone else's house. (For those unaware, gluten is a mast cell destabalizer.)

Make sure they are not being washed alongside your normal utensils. If you normally dishwash your other things, I'd suggest handwashing the dedicated gluten-free things with a fresh sponge that hasn't been used on anything else. As for storing them, try to keep them away from places where wheat flour (or other gluten containing products) might be in the air. You've said you'll be eating entirely gluten-free while the person is visiting, but just remember that also means replacing things like butter and jams, as people often overlook those.

Again, this will all depend on how sensitive the individual is. There are some people with celiac who do not react to trace amounts, and there are other folks who can become extremely sick from even the smallest trace amounts.

Beyond Celiac has some more helpful tips and pointers as well.

If all of these recommendations sound too much, I fully understand. It was daunting when I had to do it for me, nevermind a guest. In that case, finding a dedicated gluten-free restaurant would be the way to go--and a worthwhile venture anyway so you can enjoy some down time not having to cook.

Also, talk to the person and see what their needs are. They might be able to eat just fine using shared utensils, or may even be planning to bring their own anyway, like many of us do.

I hope this was helpful, and again, thank you for being considerate. I am sure it will mean a lot to your guest.

[theuplinkexperiment]

Made this little robot fella, got inspired to do so because of @skeletoninthemelonland's Fusionsprunt project, I kind of see this guy as an fan character for that (for some reason Im thinking OC might come off wrong) despite the definite difference in aesthetics.

Basically these robots were designed due to a manpower shortage in some city that had been ravaged by combat, and those still around were left to figure out how to pick up the pieces without any manpower (With a lot of it dead or out fighting).

So a group of engineers and scientists kept out of the military draft by the city's government came up with this simple robot that would act as disaster response and relief for the city, and it was decided to name them Civil Assistance Automata (Despite the fact that they don't really count as Automata, that was added because it "Sounded sophisticated")

These robots are made somewhat crudely, made mostly out of bronze taken from melted shell casings, a lot of their cheap construction was done to save resources to focus them into the machine's mind, which was made to act in a human way.

The intention was that it would be able to properly assist humans if it thought like one, being able to understand dazed or panicked citizens better than if it had been outfitted with some simpler system.

To try and counteract the effects of providing these machines with a humanoid AI, they weren't given an appearance similar to humans to try and prevent people from getting attached to these robots, as they would frequently wind up horrifically damaged, and it was assumed that a more humanoid design in conjunction with a humanoid AI would inflict lasting psychological damage on humans who witnessed it.

These robots are powered by a steam engine fed by wood or other flammable materials, the robots consume this in a way similar to how a human would consume food, with the flammable material traveling from the mouth of the robot to a furnace which would burn it to fuel the steam engine.

They are often seen eating debris while repairing roadways or fixing communication lines. Smoke from the furnace is expelled through the mouth or through a hole in the face of the robot, made to vaguely resemble a nose.

Hopefully anyone reading this survived those text walls, I kind of imagine these guys swarming like ants if one of them spotted a plank of wood

I really should finish up one of these but at the moment Im not feeling up to it (Nearly 2 AM)

[maddy-ferguson]

a thread by twitter user @tugunl about life in palestine i thought i would translate and share. it was posted in august, so "before october 7th". most of the pictures are screenshots of videos i couldn't include, i linked them at the start of each relevant paragraph. op was told that he shouldn't defend palestine and didn't know what he was talking about because he didn't live there. what he reported after spending over a month in palestine:

A few months ago, this person criticized me for defending Palestine without even having lived there. And it was true. So I went to live there. After spending more than a month there, here is the reality of Palestinian daily life:

First, this individual claimed that "Israelis have no right to go to Arab territories". This is completely untrue. Here is an example of an Israeli colony, established in the Palestinian Territory. There are several others. You can see Israeli settlers walking peacefully in Palestinian Territories. There are now several hundred thousand living there.

Another example of a colony: In Hebron, Israelis live in the city center, right above Palestinians. But of course, you wouldn't want them to mix and live together: they put barbed wire to separate them. Above, Israelis, below, Palestinians.

Pictured here are stones thrown by Israeli settlers at Palestinians.

What's most telling in Palestine: cemeteries. This one opened in 2021, it is already full. In just two years, the cemetery was filled, including with a lot of children.

The reality is Palestinians live in an open-air prison. They are surrounded by these walls, which lock them into territories reserved for them. More than 700 kilometers of walls. So no, Palestinians cannot "freely travel to Israel".

They cannot even go to Jerusalem, unless they have a permit, which is difficult to obtain. Because yes, if you go to Jerusalem as a Palestinian without authorization, you will be arrested at this kind of military checkpoint. God only knows what happens next.

These military checkpoints allow Israelis to control traffic in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the border between Israel and Palestine: All it takes is for one soldier to decide to close the barrier for everyone to be blocked. Thus, any Israeli soldier is superior to any Palestinian authority. All it takes is for the soldier to lower the barrier to trap the president of the Palestinian Authority behind this barrier. There are over 650 checkpoints of this kind.

Another thing you should know: Israel operates under a system of collective punishment. An attack committed against Tel Aviv? All roads in Palestine will be blocked to punish the population.

Palestinians obviously don't have the right to use roads reserved for Israelis. How can the military tell them apart? Thanks to their license plate. Israelis have a yellow plate, Palestinians have a white plate. An example of the disastrous consequences of the ban on Palestinian circulation: At a school, a young girl required medical attention. The ambulance had to wait 5 hours, the time needed to obtain Israeli authorization to travel on their roads.

Because of these restrictions, a journey that would take 15 minutes to complete if you were Israeli takes an hour if you are Palestinian.

Colonies under construction. Guess who builds them? Palestinians. Of course, because it costs a lot less to employ Palestinians.

I infiltrated a colony. Settlers live very well there. Real estate is cheap since land is free (stolen by the state). It's very green, water is used for the grass and the plants there. In Palestinian territories, I didn't have water 4 days out of 7. Because yes, Israel monopolizes 83% of water resources and leaves only 17% to Palestinians, which of course is far from being enough.

On the left, Tel Be'er Sheba, ghetto for Palestinians. Less than 1km from Omer. One of the poorest villages. On the right, Omer, 3rd best village to live in in Israel, also one of the richest villages (reserved for Israelis obviously).

By the way, this is where the waste of Israeli settlers in the North ends up: in this river, which flows to the Palestinians in the South.

This is an example of Palestinian (in this case, Bedouin) habitat destroyed by settlers. These destructions number in the thousands. Palestinians are losing their homes, which are then replaced by Israeli settlements.

Israel implements a legal regime that makes settlers superior to Palestinians. So a Palestinian is considered an adult at 14 years old while an Israeli settler is considered an adult at 18. A 14-year-old Palestinian who commits a crime will face the punishment of an adult.

Here, near Al-Khalil (Hebron), 7-year-old Ryan Sliman died of a heart attack after being frightened by Israeli settlers who chased him.

Palestinians are losing their lives in this fight for freedom and dignity. This Palestinian marked his flag with his blood before giving it his life.

Bonus: if you're foreign and transiting through Israel, be aware that this country uses racial profiling to determine wether or not you're a threat to them. If you have a foreign-sounding first name, especially from Middle-Eastern and North African countries, or if you have a beard that makes you look too Muslim for them, you will undergo very thorough checks at the airport and a very long interrogation with sometimes personal questions, as well as a search of your electronic devices and of your luggage. I personally underwent an hour-long interrogation, with numerous questions, including:

Are you Muslim?

Why do you have a beard?

Where do you come from? What are your parents' first names?

Why do you have a visa from Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates?

...

Also note that the cost of living in Palestine is quite expensive, due in part to taxation. The products are doubly taxed: first by the settler state, Israel, but also by the Palestinian Authority.

You should also know that I have met Israelis who are formally anti-Zionist but who only have Israeli nationality and therefore cannot move to another country even though they wish to emigrate. I am not at all saying that this is the opinion of the majority of Israeli people, but I mean that not everyone is Zionist. Hence the importance of distinguishing them.

Last tweet added to the thread on October 18th:

Note: Currently, new large-scale clashes are occurring in the Gaza Strip, causing the deaths of many Palestinian civilians. This thread was written two months ago, well before these events. If the media today try to manipulate information, particularly in favor of an Israeli state that supposedly has “the right to defend itself”, what you see in the tweets above is the reality on the ground. Palestinians experience this all year round, from birth to death. The current context only reinforces all the horrors they are experiencing.

[arvitoursandtravels]

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[cuprohastes]

The Black Market

Space is big. I mean... really big. Like even bigger than a really big rock.

And boring.

But sometimes you get an encounter...

Boring is the worst part.

You can go into space and there's all sorts of cool stuff like the microgravity, the amazing view... and after a while it's just dark and the computer goes 'Boop' every quarter time unit, and this amazing experience collapses into the same space as e.g., being in a nursing home until someone tells you that you've arrived, and you can go look at cool stuff again.

Hence Interstellar Cruise Liners.

Space travel is still not cheap - even a run up and down a space elevator needs paying for, so you want to take as much cargo and paying passengers as possible.

With automated shipyards, you can just pour money and resources into building a truly huge passenger module, stack it on top of some cargo modules and clamp on as many drive units and crew modules as you need.

Load everyone in, let them ooh and ahhh at the view for a day then spin up a gateway and fire the whole thing into superluminal space and drop it out around any world you have a beacon for.

The really great thing is even if you lose the beacon in transit, you are a beacon. Just drop out and wait. Anything goes wrong, the home office can send a rescue ship after you.

In the meantime, there's the ship's amenities: The lush mossy jungle deck, the galactic beach, the games rooms, the dining groves, the on-board university - Even the theatre for live and recorded entertainment.

Still passengers like to have an experience, and so the Sunward Sail out of Ggxcha with seven hundred passengers dropped out of Superluminal space, the bow wave of exotic particles heating the backstop up to a glowing red.

The Sunward Sail dropped into a lazy orbit around an ancient planet, orbited by a big station trailing glittering wreckage - Obviously something dramatic had gone down here.

The lights were on though - So not a derelict station - and the docking was smooth, so the first set of tourists stepped onto the station, onto the Market deck.

So much to see! So much to do!

Madam Shi-shi's bakery run by a happy Tsin selling classic Tsin pastries, and exotic purple rolls with various filling and other goods.

The Top n' Charmed Quarks Bar with the scarred Atrix obviously a veteran of some war or calamity, serving exotic and colourful drinks:

"Dare you try the Human Menu?" she suggests, pulling it out. "Watch out, the Temple of Shir-li is banned in twelve systems..."

They even have a chance wheel!

Then there's Honest Gar's Genuine Human Antiquities, the wares spilling out from the shop in a riot of colours and patinas, where one can buy a genuine antique reproduction Victorian Empire TV, or a genuine Human Made Brown's Kitchen Imp that can tell you how to make a thousand and five human style recipes with a little sheet glass projection hologram of a human in glasses and red horns. So quaint!

And if you get to the end of the market, or one of the traders tips you off, you can find...

The Black Market

There's someone there, a weathered old... unless they were young... spacer, in a patched and scuffed EVA undersuit with 43 on the chest, who'll spin you unbelievable tales for a couple of creds dropped into the old cracked space helmet he keeps on the table next to him and if you ask, he'll let you in -

The back rooms are dark, rowdy, and full of the coolest stuff. There are lots of humans here, and there's an Atrix little guy, with a set of goggles, riding low on the belly of this Atrix Mech.

If you're lucky you can see one of the humans with some grudge square off agianst the little guy. He's surrounded by switches and levers, with a little pair of waldos.

The mech lurches to life, an angry display on its faceplace, growling in a rattling synthetic voice:

Combat mode! Engaged! Polaron Claws. Charging.

It's claws glowing white hot as it swings into motion, and the Human pulls a little cobbled together blaster out and takes a pot shot. The Mech lurches and sparks, warning lights flashing ominously...

Reactor. Overheat. Reactor. Overheat. Emergency. Venting.

The stricken mecha whirls, the little guy screaming in rage and flipping clunky archaic controls... And then when everything seems to be about to go wrong, the mech begins to spray clouds of vapour from it's vents and the alerts wind down, while the scurrilous human takes the opportunity to flee.

It's very dramatic.

And after that you can buy a souvenir arm patch of Cat Fantastic's Mecha with glow in the dark Polaron claws, before it's time to head back - Don't forget to pick up a packed lunch from Madame Shi-Shi's!

--

"Ugh." said Dave, "I don't mind the tourist run but it ruins my appetite" she muttered.

"You shouldn't snack on your own stock." says Big Ma, touching up Gondy's makeup.

Phalanges, helmet off, chin up and enjoying the cool air blower form the converted life support rig that they'd modded into the mecha grunts noncommittally.

"How are we doing boss?" Raxy asks, potting up souvenir Tsin fungus with Atrix moss and human basil.

O'Patel flashes an OK hand sign. "We are... hitting the funding goals. One more shift - This time it's for the bonus pay." he says with satisfaction and Big Ma looks around, checking everyone's ready as someone helps Cat Fantastic back into his cockpit basket and Gondy makes sure there's enough grenadine left.

"OK people... Showtime!"

[cyborg-franky]

One Piece Characters And How They Propose

[For the anon who asked and I accidentally premature posted]

You are very welcome <3 and did you mean the large headcanon lists I do or more detail? I will do a big one for now but let me know <3

You've been dating a month before they pop the question. Sanji, Roger, Thatch, Oden, Yamato, Corazon You've been dating ten years and they still haven't asked. Nami, Robin, Shanks, Buggy, Izou, Mihawk, Boa, Crocodile, Smoker, Law, Kid Honestly thought you guys were already married. Franky, Brook, Rayleigh, Marco, Whitebeard, Killer Wants to propose but is crippled by self-doubt Usopp, Ace, Barto Is waiting for YOU to ask THEM. Nami, Buggy, Izou, Mihawk, Boa, Perona, Crocodile, Doffy, Law Never wants to get married. Nami [Just wants to be asked] Luffy, Zoro, Shanks, Buggy, Mihawk, Whitebeard [the cost!], Crocodile, Doffy, Law, Kid, Sabo Thinks about marriage all the time. Sanji, Thatch, Boa, Corazon Never wanted to get married until they met you. Robin, Franky, Jinbei, Oden, Yamato, Boa, Smoker, Killer

Wants to spend their entire life with you but still doesn't wanna get married. Nami, Robin, Luffy, Zoro, Brook, Jinbei, Izou, Ace, Marco, Whitebeard, Crocodile, Sabo

They hide the ring inside food/drink like cheesy movies. Sanji, Brook, Thatch, Corazon, Killer "The three of us should totally get married!" Robin, Franky, Roger, Rayleigh, Ace, Marco, Kid, Killer Pretends to bend down to tie their shoes that don't even have laces. Usopp, Buggy, Oden, Yamato, Corazon,

Comes up with some wild and crazy way to purpose. Franky, Roger, Oden, Yamato

Proposing in a fast food restaurant bathroom. Luffy, Zoro, Shanks, Ace, Kid, Sabo

Proposes drunk. Zoro, Shanks, Whitebeard, Doffy Proposes in front of all your friends. Luffy, Roger, Thatch, Ace, Marco That asshole who proposes at someone else's wedding. Sanji, Shanks, Boa, Perona, Doffy, Law, Sabo Simple but heartfelt. Robin, Jinbei, Rayleigh, Izou, Marco, Whitebeard, Smoker, Killer

The ring is a one of a kind they found on their travels and it spoke to them. Robin, Jinbei, Roger, Rayleigh, Marco, Ace

Stolen from a deadman. Nami, Zoro, Brook [is the deadman yohohoho] Roger, Doffy, Law, Sabo

Just found it, I dunno, nice though right? Luffy, Shanks, Ace, Whitebeard, Oden, Yamato, Smoker

Store bought. Sanji, Thatch, Perona, Crocodile, Corazon, Killer

Passed down by family. Usopp, Izou, Mihawk, Boa Made it. Franky [it also fires rockets] Kid, Buggy [cheap or resourceful?]

[fatehbaz]

Updates on Sauk-Suiattle Tribe and the Skagit River: The owner of the three major dams on the Skagit, Seattle City Light, is currently petitioning the US federal government and moving to extend its operation of these dams for the next 30 to 50 years. This re-licensing would allow Seattle City Light to continue operating for decades in the future, just as they have, without protecting salmon, basically. Almost every other dam in the Pacific Northwest has installed “fish passage infrastructure” which allows migrating salmon and other species to continue traveling along the river course. However, Seattle City Light has not installed the fish passage infrastructure on the Skagit. The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe has repeatedly asked for this installation. So the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe launched a lawsuit against the city of Seattle, with the tribe saying that Seattle is deliberately turning public opinion against Indigenous people while also “greenwashing” its reputation by promoting the city and its dams as “green.”

---

The water sustains life here, in spawning grounds and rearing habitat for native salmon and steelhead. But some 20 miles upstream, the Skagit is quiet. It’s been replaced by the soft crackle and hum of high-tension power lines carrying one-fifth of Seattle’s electricity generated by three century-old dams. Almost 40% of the river is locked up for cheap [...] hydropower. Now, as a fight over the river’s future simmers, a question about the value of life itself is being revisited: Does this river have inherent civil rights?

Seattle City Light is moving to extend its use of the dams for another three to five decades, and tribes and other environmental groups have been pushing the utility to do more for salmon.

The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, one of the smallest and poorest in the region, and its one-person legal team asked its own courts to recognize the rights of the salmon. A tribal court struck down the request over jurisdictional concerns, but it brought attention to the way governments, utilities, the legal system and landowners perceive their nonhuman neighbors. [...] The 19-acre Sauk-Suiattle reservation is nestled in the foothills of the North Cascades. It’s bound by mature-growth forests [...] and the Sauk and Suiattle rivers. [...]

“This is where nature is,” said Jack Fiander, a member of the Yakama Nation, and longtime legal counsel for the Sauk-Suiattle tribe. “Where we’re at is sort of like the Amazon is to South America. We’ve got to constantly watch and comment on when somebody wants to harvest timber or something, and it’s getting more and more difficult to protect it.”

When the dams went in the Skagit River, there was no consultation with the people who lived there for generations — the ancestors of the modern day Upper Skagit, Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle tribes and Canadian First Nations, Fiander said.

And the tribes didn’t have the resources then to fight for fish passage.

As the city’s latest re-licensing process ramped up, the Upper Skagit tribe asked for fish passage at the Gorge Dam, the lowest of the three. The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe challenged the electric utility’s “green” power claims, and asked for salmon to have an equal shot at life in the Skagit and its tributaries.

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Headline, photos, captions, and text published by: Isabella Breda. “’Rights of nature’ movement gains steam in Pacific Northwest. Can it help species on the brink?” Seattle Times. 11 February 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

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The Washington State Court of Appeals gave the green light for the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe to proceed in its “greenwashing” litigation against the City of Seattle. In September 2021, the Tribe, based in Darrington, filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging City Light’s claims that it’s the “Nation’s Greenest Utility,” and that its hydro-electric operations on the Skagit River have improved conditions for salmon are misleading and harmful to the tribe. The Tribe said the city couldn’t claim its dams are green because they lack fish passage, like nearly every other dam in the Pacific Northwest. [...]

In the original complaint, the Tribe alleged when Seattle took credit for improving conditions for salmon species on the Skagit, it “wrongfully shifted blame” for dwindling fish populations from the city’s dam operations to the tribes. The “public misperception,” wrote the Tribe, makes them a target of “public ire, harassment, and vandalism.” “Seattle has done the worst for salmon while claiming to be the best, meanwhile pointing the finger at everyone else for Skagit salmon decline,” said Jack Fiander, attorney for the Sauk-Suiattle. “Seattle says their greenwashing is harmless puffery, but when you’re turning neighbor against neighbor to improve your corporate bottom line, it is harmful to our community as well as the fisheries resource.”

The legal proceedings come as Seattle City Light is in the process of relicensing its Skagit River dams with the federal government. A new license would last between 30 and 50 years. Negotiations have been underway for four years, with fish passage being the most hotly debated issue. [...]

Last year, the city of Seattle was successful in getting the Sauk-Suiattle’s lawsuit dismissed by a King County Superior Court Judge. [...] Monday’s ruling reverses the dismissal and allows the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe to proceed. The suit seeks to keep Seattle from advertising themselves as being fish-friendly until fish passage is installed over all three dams.

Seattle City Light was the first public utility in the country to earn a green power certification from the Low Impact Hydropower Institute. The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe said the utility used misinformation to gain the green status.

Skagit River Chinook salmon, steelhead and Bull Trout are all listed on the Endangered Species List and are threatened with extinction. [...]

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Headline and text published by: Susannah Frame. “Court of Appeals sides with Sauk-Suiattle Tribe in ‘greenwashing’ case against Seattle City Light.” King 5 News. 6 March 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

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Italicized first paragraph in this post added by me.

[asordinaryppl]

A3! Main Story: Part 4 - Act 13: Budding Spring - Episode 26: Home Sweet Home

Masumi: We’re home.

Tsuzuru: Whew~ Made it home in one piece...

Itaru: I’m exhausted... Oh, home sweet home.

Sakuya: Welcome home!

Citron: We’re hope!

Chikage: You said you came back yesterday, Sakuya?

Sakuya: Yes! I’m glad I got to welcome you all back!

Izumi: We’ve been waiting for you.

Banri: You’ve got a full practice schedule startin’ tomorrow.

Citron: We’re being forced into sporty rehearsals~

Tsuzuru: Spartan rehearsals.

Tsuzuru: Oh, yeah. I wanna make a few changes to the script, and I’d like to run them by you, will you be free later?

Izumi: I will.

-

Izumi: Okay, I’ll hand out the new scripts, and we’ll begin practice right away.

Sakuya: Did you rewrite the script?

Tsuzuru: Just a bit, mostly Romeo’s fight scene. I came up with this after watching your sword fighting during remote practice.

Tsuzuru: I thought it’d give a nice sense of contrast compared to the debut performance.

Itaru: That’s some real good work for such a short period of time.

Tsuzuru: Thanks to the scriptwriting camp, I was able to strengthen my scriptwriting muscles and get a lot faster.

Itaru: How reliable.

Izumi: I’ll explain the direction changes to the script.

-

Banri: ‘Kay, we can end morning practice here.

Izumi: Good work.

Sakuya: Good work!

Itaru: Haa... I think the jet lag got to me...

Chikage: The time difference between here and where you were was not that big.

Tsuzuru: Traveling by plane does tire you out, though.

Izumi: Masumi-kun, are you good to have a small promo meeting later? Sakyo-san said he wants to work out the details of the plans from the other day.

Masumi: I’ve done some research, too.

Masumi: I think advertising on social media is the best way to attract newer theater-goers and gain their votes.

Masumi: As for outdoor advertising... We can safely do it for cheap around here.

Izumi: Oh, is that so...

Masumi: We can probably secure an ad space using the company’s resources.

Izumi: Really? Could you write a budget plan based on that, then?

Masumi: Got it. I’ll get to it ASAP.

Tsuzuru: Masumi’s becoming a full-fledged member of the promotions department.

Itaru: This short-term internship gave him some amazing EXP points.

Sakuya: That’s Masumi-kun for you.

Chikage: And your sword fighting has gotten even better, Sakuya.

Tsuzuru: I thought it might be a bit difficult for you when I changed the script, but you breezed through it with no problems.

Sakuya: Really? Thank you very much!

Banri: You can show the audience that saw Romeo at the debut performance how he’s grown after going on his journey.

Sakuya: I’ll do my best!

Citron: Chikage also seems different after the journey he went on~!

Itaru: IKR. It’s a little different from growth, but he seems more at ease, somehow.

Chikage: I think I had a bit of a change in my state of mind, so I’m approaching everything with different feelings.

Banri: Oh, also, we received an interview request from some overseas press, that was Citron’s doing, yeah?

Tsuzuru: Woah, overseas?

Citron: My effect on advertising is out manning!

Tsuzuru: Outstanding.

Itaru: As one might expect, the minister attracts attention

Izumi: Regardless, not a lot of us here can handle overseas matters, so I think we’ll be leaving them to you, Chikage-san.

Chikage: Got it.

Citron: I think me and Chikage cooperating and planning a worldwide expansion is a good idea!

Sakuya: That sounds good!

Masumi: If we’re doing this, I’ll come up with some ideas.

Itaru: Feels like everyone’s shining, while the corporate slave’s getting more tired...

[Phone vibrating]

Itaru: Ah, sorry. It’s from the company.

Izumi: Go ahead.

Itaru: Hello. This is Chigasaki speaking.

Itaru: Yes... Okay, yes, is that so... I understand. Thank you for letting me know.

Itaru: Yes. We’ll be in touch. Thank you very much.

[Phone call ends]

Itaru: Hell yeah!

Sakuya: Did something happen?

Itaru: Hm~ Sort of. Something unusually good happened at work.

Citron: Congratulations!

Chikage: Good for you.

-

Itaru: << I’ll be leaving the rest to you, then. >>

Itaru: << Also, was the schedule regarding the matter we discussed the other day suitable? >>

Itaru: << I understand. Thank you very much. Please excuse me. >>

[Phone call ends]

Itaru: Whew...

Itaru: (I know I started this, but planning the ceremony event has been taking up all my time...)

Itaru: (Well, with the subject being what it is, I don’t really mind, though.)

[Phone ringing]

Itaru: Hello. This is Chigasaki speaking.

Itaru: From End Links--? I understand. Put him through.

Itaru: Hello. The line has changed, you’re talking with Chigasaki now. It has been a while.

Itaru: I truly appreciate your cooperation with this ceremony event.

Itaru: Yes, the expectations of both local and Japanese fans are rather high-- Yes.

Itaru: ... What?

-

Tsuzuru: You got an offer to play Lancelot in the overseas KniRoun stage!?

Itaru: I might say that, but it’s just a chill music show. I’ll be treated like a guest who will be performing a sword fight.

Itaru: Since the stage play version of KniRoun is so popular amongst overseas fans, Hoshii-san called to ask me specifically to perform.

Citron: Called directly by HoshiiD... Amazing!

Sakuya: It’s proof Itaru-san’s Lancelot has been accepted by both Hoshii-san and fans of the game!

Itaru: Yeah... That makes me happy, honestly.

Itaru: Still, I never thought I’d be offered the role when I submitted a plan for KniRoun for the ceremony event.

Chikage: KniRoun fans from both Japan and overseas will be paying attention, and because of where it takes place, there’ll be many PVs, so this will be a good promotional opportunity for us too.

Citron: You absolutely need to peel to them!

Masumi: It’s appeal, not peel.

Itaru: But the event is right before the Spring Troupe’s performance. That means, including rehearsals, I’ll be gone for at least two or three days...

Itaru: Even if I leave immediately after the performance is over, considering travel times, I’ll be back in Japan on the day of the first performance.

Itaru: That leaves so little wiggle room, I don’t think it’s possible.

Izumi: But you got this chance–

Masumi: You want to go, don’t you?

Itaru: I mean... Yeah.

Itaru: But if you asked me to pick one of the two, I’d pick the Spring Troupe without hesitation.

Tsuzuru: ... I wonder if we can make it work somehow.

Banri: ... If you’re only gone for two or three days, it ought to be manageable if you miss practice, yeah?

Izumi: It should. Progress is going smoothly, so...

Chikage: There are flights that depart at night and arrive here early in the morning on our first day. You’ll be here in time for the performance, and you should be able to participate in the dress rehearsal.

Izumi: It’ll be okay, Itaru-san.

Itaru: — —

Tsumugi: I can act as an understudy if the need arises. I practiced with Sakuya-kun a bit the other day.

Tenma: I can help too.

Sakuya: Please go, Itaru-san!

Masumi: We all decided we’d take on as many new challenges as possible this time, no matter how reckless they might seem.

Tsuzuru: If it’s making you hesitate even a bit, you should go for it. That was my thinking for joining the scriptwriting camp, too.

Chikage: I’m sure it’ll work out.

Citron: It’s an ‘if you love your child, sell him out into the world’ situation!

Tsuzuru: Send him out into the world.

Itaru: ... Thank you, everyone. I won’t let this chance slip by.

previous episode | masterpost | next episode

NOTES:

(1) an understudy is a performer who learns the lines, blocking (positions on the stage) and choreography of a regular actor (or other performer), and takes over said actor's part if the actor themselves is unavailable

(2) 'if you love your child, send them out into the world' is a japanese proverb that essentially means that if you love your kids, you shouldn't shelter them and let them experience hardships, because that's how they'll grow, i think citron's using it wrong, though...

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

Maybe this question is more on me but my brain seems overwhelmed with possibilities and contradictive ideas I can't seem to sort out. Though, my main goal right now is to create the world - actual plot/story can come later. So the key to my world building is the idea of having diamond rains on ice planets being important to the world. So here comes ideas about whoever can get there and farm them for the universe is rich and powerful. But this seems to make it like not many can go there since if space travel is easy for many, would it truly be a monopoly? It would sound more like the world wouldn't be very peaceful with such a precious resources in one hand. Another idea is that the majority of worlds do not have space travel and those that do generally don't care about uniting the whole universe but travellers exist and its diamonds get around. And all ideas in between.

Addy: So first, diamonds are actually very plentiful, even on Earth. They're expensive due to a variety of reasons that I think other folks can cover better. Also, gems can be grown in labs, so the price of various gemstones is going down IRL.

I think this can be expanded to a more general question of "space is big, how do limited resources stay limited?"

Like say you've got some dilithium equivalent, something that's important for making spaceships or for fuel or for whatever. How do those resources stay scarce?

Generally, that's by

1) the resource doesn't occur on all planets or in all systems

2) the resource can be difficult to process or procure, or perhaps requires safety equipment or training for proper handling. Dangerous substances can still be very valuable and useful, even if they're also expensive to process/handle/make less volatile. So there is a limited pool of people with the capabilities to process/use/extract this material/resource -- even if the material itself is plentiful, you're still limited by your ability to process it

3) the material is common in low-quality forms, but is rare in high-quality forms. Higher-quality forms require less processing, which drives up value (see #1 and #2)

4) hidden locations. Space is big! Even on Earth, people didn't know where the cinnamon sellers got their cinnamon from for... a very long time. You hide the source of the substance from the buyer, limiting their ability to cut through the middleman. It is a lack of knowledge about where to find the resource. The resource could be plentiful, it could be scarce (see #1), but where it comes from is a trade secret.

5) processing the material requires another, more rare material. Material 1 is cheap, material 2 is expensive. *jazz hands* supply lines!

6) Processing the material is expensive. That's it, that's the only limit. Where it comes from is known, how to get it is known, how to process it is generally known (like making cake vs making Grandma's cake, there might be some tweaks between groups, but the general process is known), but it's just really really expensive and capital-intensive to process. If you don't have the necessary materials & equipment, you just don't have the physical capability. This can also get into travel costs, as just getting somewhere can also be expensive. Think of taking a plane between major airports vs booking a private flight to take you to a specific island where there's no runway.

Some combination of these.

So why do people want [resource]? And what's stopping people from starting a gold rush on it?

[theprincientist]

Cultivate Your LifeStyle - The Life You Want Won't Just Happen. It's Practiced

No one will come and change your life for you. You will not just start exercising or eating better.

There is no moment where it all magically gets better.

You can't wait for life to happen, you have to make a decision to start living life.

Between you and the life you want, there is only a budget and a plan.

With the budget you have, you can live a life with the habits you wish to cultivate and slowly upgrade from there.

Time and money are interchangeable. If you have money you can save time. If you have no money, you will spend more time to achieve your goals.

If your budget is small you will need to dedicate time to understand how you can do what you want within your budget.

Maybe you'll need to plant your own vegetables or work out at home to be healthier before getting that gym subscription.

Maybe you'll have to shop second-hand before going to other stores to get new clothes.

Maybe you'll have to start going to free and cheap places in your city before you get the money to travel abroad.

Maybe it will take you a year of saving to buy that trip.

But get started. How you can. With the resources you have available.

This post is not about telling you to get started.

It is for you to think if you are the type of person that is waiting for perfect conditions for life to begin.

Are waiting to be happy, and healthy. Are you waiting for money to fall from the sky and make things better?

Are you waiting until you have time to read more, laugh more, go out more?

You won't do these things when you have time. You have to make time to do these things.

Make them a priority.

[aquaquadrant]

I imagine Axis to work in retail and is broke to contrast Atlas being particularly affluent. After all, experiment equipment doesn’t come cheap.

Maybe Stress and Doc like to mess with him by ordering the longest ass order known to mankind.

as amusing as that scenario is, there are a few key differences between how players operate in and out of hels.

hels is an old, inescapable world with a massive population that has depleted most of the world’s easily-accessible natural resources, with monopolies controlled by an exclusive group of well-established power players. sponsors are extremely important bc you can’t just build your own farms wherever you want (you need the land and a way to protect it from griefing) and you can’t just go mining/resource gathering (natural ores are basically impossible to find and the world is very hostile to travel in, especially when carrying valuables). ofc, theoretically, if you went far away enough from spawn there’d be more untouched chunks but then you’re cut off from the rest of society. good luck bringing anything back.

outside of hels, however, players can freely travel between worlds and create new worlds whenever they want, and multiplayer worlds generally function with a lot more collaboration and cooperation. it’ll take some grinding, sure, but ultimately there’s nothing but time and effort to stand in the way of getting the resources you want. and axis is fairly charismatic himself (atlas had to get it from somewhere, right?) so i imagine he joined a small but respectable redstone community world to carry out his experiments. working with the right people, it’d be easy to get whatever he needs.