Rants at the Hairdresser
her, behind me trimming my hair: "it's so wild how big cars are. Seems a bit dangerous, ya know?"
me, enjoying the smell of the stuff she sprayed in my hair: "Yeah, apparently that's because it's cheaper to have a car classified as a 'light truck' since you can get past safety regulations and they have different frames."
her, who has paused working on my hair: "Wait, are you serious?"
me: "Yeah, apparently it's a lot cheaper for companies to do that. And it really sucks since driving one of those cars is super dangerous, but it's even more dangerous for other people, especially if they're in a smaller car. Since it would be more safe to be another driver if they ALSO have a 'light truck,' everyone is caught in a cycle of getting bigger and bigger cars. All of which are extremely dangerous and have made being a pedestrian even more dangerous."
her: deep in thought, silent.
me, happy that someone is letting me rant about this: "Oh, the new Cadillacs are the size of tanks. That's not an exaggeration, by the way."
her, stunned: ???? "what the actual hell???"
we're silent for a bit
her, hesitantly, since I look like white trash and she has at least 10 piercings and pink hair: "I feel like America has been that way for a while... ya know?"
me: "Oh yeah, I totally get what you're saying, like, putting profit over people's safety?"
her, assured now that she knows we're both too commie pilled for this kind of conversation with someone else: "Yes! Exactly! It really sucks, right?"
me: "God, tell me about it"
I was very happy with my haircut, btw. She's so good at her job. :D
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silly building sketches for my dnd characters town
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another quick n dirty bdubs build painting they’re so fun <33
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have you seen this?? https://reasonstobecheerful.world/hempcrete-construction-us-building-code-sustainable/
Thank you for sharing this!
Although hempcrete is used in many other countries, it was banned in the US building code for a long time due to the association between hemp and marijuana.
Now that ban has been lifted, which paves the way for this more sustainable building material to be used widely in the states.
"It requires three times less heat to create than concrete, weighs about one-eighth as much as concrete (leading to fewer transport-related emissions), and actively sequesters CO2 — according to one Cambridge University researcher, hemp absorbs between eight to 15 metric tons of carbon per hectare, significantly more than the two to six metric tons typically captured by forests."
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rough concept art for the hidden city post invasion.. a barren wasteland picked clean..
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If we stop, the world stops
Millions of women around the world participated in events for International Women’s Day (IWD) on March the 8th. The most militant action was in the growth of the ‘Women’s Strike’, with 5.3 million people on strike in Spain. In Britain, the interest in the tactics of the strike on IWD is relatively new, yet still 7,000 women pledged to strike. In addition, links were made to grass roots unions such as the Cleaners and Allied Independent Workers Union (CAIUW) with support for their pickets for a Living Wage. Sex workers also co-ordinated their own actions for decriminalisation and trans women held an action over the problems of access to NHS services.
The organisers in Britain made it clear that the strike should focus on demands for working class women, including those who often face the most exploitation and discrimination, like migrants, sex workers, trans women. It is not just a strike about traditional work but also about ‘invisible labour’, such as care, domestic and emotional labour, and against male violence. The historical origins of the day make it clear that the purpose is not to have more women politicians or company directors (see box). Instead it is focused on the majority of women who are at the bottom of the pile, both in the workplace and in the home. According to one organiser of the Women’s Strike in Britain: “We are instead taking action – action against our exploitation under capitalism, where the domestic and emotional work we do for little or no pay is made invisible, while austerity measures force us into a more and more vulnerable position. This is feminism for the 99%”.
It was in Spain, however, that the strike was the most successful. This was partially because of the support it got from the mainstream unions. However, it is clear that they were forced into support as a result of the massive upsurge from the grass roots organisations. According to one source (thefreeonline.wordpress.com): “An important feature of this strike is that it has been promoted and organised from the bottom up, and not the other way around. That is to say, the initiative of the strike has been born first in the streets, in the neighbourhoods and districts and has developed in open assemblies. It has not been a proposal of the unions, but of the feminist movement.” The mainstream unions only called for a 2 hour strike whereas unions such as the CGT and the anarchist CNT called for 24 hour stoppages.
Despite calls for the strike to be based on working class women, it is uncertain to what extent many women could actually participate, given that they are the ones in the most precarious position. In Spain, headlines were given to women in media and other professional jobs. In Britain, the strike was most successful in the universities, with 61 universities taking part. However, the link to CAIWU and sex workers showed that there certainly was support outside the universities.
If women are to truly win all the demands put forward on the day then we must go beyond demands for equality in the system and call for both the end of capitalism and patriarchy. So how is this going to happen? The strike in Spain may have been very successful in terms of numbers on the streets but what will it achieve in terms of winning demands? Politicians and even bosses may pay lip service to the aims of IWD but they are unlikely to do anything about it. In the end, using the success of March the 8th, women and men must continue to organise at the grass roots level and build up a movement that lasts much longer than a day. The linking up of a number of groups on the 8th provides a good basis on which to move forward.
Origins of International Women’s Day
March 8 is International Women’s Day. This date commemorates March 8, 1909, when 129 employees of a cotton textile factory in New York were killed when their own owner set fire to the factory while all of them were inside making a protest demanding labour rights. In addition, the colour of feminism is violet because, it is said, the smoke that came from that fire was violet, like the fabrics that were there that day. At an International Congress of Socialist Women in 1910, Clara Zetkin proposed this date as the International Women’s Day in honour of the cotton workers.
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Truce?
— SMALLVILLE, “Hug” (1.11)
+ bonus
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Solarpunk vs Home Building
Okay, let me talk about another solarpunk topic, that we really gotta talk about: Homes. And the way we construct them. Because let's put it like that: There is a lot wrong with it.
The amount of things wrong with it depends a lot on the country - and your income bracket. But generally we do think about it wrong. Especially in the west (and let's face it: Worst in the US) we have this idea that everyone needs their own home. And in general that this home should look a certain way, should have a certain size and all of that.
Of course, I think most people active in the Solarpunk sphere do know how bad suburbia is for nature. Because of the lawns, because of the amount of concrete. All of that. It harms biodiversity.
But even if you have a super natural space around it... Let's be quite honest: Single family buildings are bad for the environment, because the per person use of basically everything is a lot worse than it is with a multi-family home/complex.
The very obvious one is heating/cooling. Because it is in fact easier to keep a multifamily home warm or cool, compared to a single family home. If you have ever lived in a multifamily home you might have noticed it yourself, that you have to heat a lot less and that the temperature in summer is also more even. (Though of course the amount also depends on the efficiacy that the house is build with.)
This has to do with the fact that there is some amount of the temperatures exchanging between the different apartments of a building.
Now, you might ask: "But what about water and electricity? You do not use less of that, right?"
Which technically is right. Still, multi-family homes will still save energy on those things. Why? Because the infrastructure is more centralized. Basically, getting the water to the house uses up less energy and material. And the same goes with electricity.
It should be noted, however, that there is a bit more complexity to this. While the heat/cooling savings basically scale quite a lot, the same is not true for water. If you build a home over a certain height, the energy will end up being used on pumping the water up.
Generally six or seven floors are the optimum in most cases.
So, if we imagine a Solarpunk city, the thing that actually makes a lot of sense is to imagine rather wide buildings with about six floors and several families living inside.
Bonus: Some ammenities can actually be shared. And be it actually something more luxurious, like a shared gym or a shared pool in the basement.
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"what would your character be like without their trauma?" is such a hard question for me because it makes me feel like a massive asshole LMAO
(im attaching a picture of a tundra literally to add context to my ramble in the tags because my posts are structured by a sane person) (you should read the ramble in the tags i talk so much about rivers fsr)
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in the process of pinteresting for my soon to be comic, i rediscovered solarpunk. this is what would evidently be the opposite of cyberpunk which is all metal and almost apocalyptic. solarpunk is a future that combines the earth and technology and infrastructure together to create a greener and more sustainable livelihood. it's technically just a fantasy future but it's also something i plan on studying at uni when I do environmental science and architecture.
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Almanac for the Anthropocene collects original voices from across the solarpunk movement, which positions ingenuity, generativity, and community as beacons of resistance to the hopelessness often inspired by the climate crisis. To point toward practical implementation of the movement’s ideas, it gathers usable blueprints that bring together theory and practice. The result is a collection of interviews, recipes, exercises, DIY instructions, and more—all of it amounting to a call to create hope through action.
Inspired by a commitment to the idea that there can be no environmental justice without decolonial and racial justice, Almanac for the Anthropocene unites in a single volume both academic and practical responses to environmental crisis.
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Conclusion: May Day today
The Haymarket Tragedy remains a symbol of countless struggles against capitalism, the State and oppression. Freedoms won in recent times rest on the sacrifices of martyrs like the IWPA anarchists, and the Malawian workers of 1959, 1992 and 1993.
May Day is a symbol of the unshakeable power of working class solidarity, and of remembrance for martyrs. It can serve as a rallying point for new anti-capitalist, participatory-democratic left resistance.
We need to defend and extend the legacy of the Haymarket affair, and to build the working class as a power-from-below for social change.
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Could you imagine how amazing it would be if we were allowed to use even a fraction of the police and military budget for infrastructure environmental and social welfare purposes
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