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wonder-worker · 11 months ago

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"Alice Perrers was perceived by her contemporaries to be an uncrowned queen and through an analysis of her activities it is clear she was able to utilise the practical benefits of queenship for her own ends. However, by taking on the mantle of queenship Alice fundamentally corrupted the sovereignty and kingship of Edward III. First, by her aggressively political behaviour she became the threat at the heart of the power structure that the gendered constructions of queenship were supposed to remove from a consort. Second, by taking on the practical aspects of queenship she inherently undermined the ideological role of queenship, both by the simple fact that she was a mistress and not a queen, and even more so because of her behaviour. The problems Alice caused and how she was perceived were amplified in contrast to the [...] demeanour of Philippa, who was widely respected and much loved by the people. Just as queens in their exalted position were ‘lightning rods’ for ideas about women and female power, so was Alice because of her proximity to the king."

— Laura Tompkins, The uncrowned queen: Alice Perrers, Edward III and political crisis in fourteenth-century England, 1360-1377 (PhD Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2013)

"Alice's expansion of her power through the office of queenship was problematic for a number of reasons. First, while the queen’s power was legitimised by her marriage to the king and her coronation, Alice’s power was not formalised in this way and consequently would have been regarded as illegitimate. Second, she was not the right type of woman to share in the king’s dignity. She was not noble, she was not chaste and she was not virtuous. Instead, she was a low-born London widow and a businesswoman. Consequently, we find Alice being discussed in the language and stereotypes of queenship, but in a rather negative light. For example, while queens are routinely described as noble, beautiful and virtuous regardless of what they actually looked like, Walsingham is quick to emphasise that Alice was of low birth, and that, almost implied as a consequence, she ‘was not attractive or beautiful’. While we do not know what Alice looked like it seems unlikely that Edward III would have taken and kept her as a mistress for so long if she had been physically repellent. Third, and most significantly, not only was Alice an inappropriate mistress exercising illegitimate power, but she also broke all of the gendered rules that queenship was constructed around, inverting the ideal form of queenship to her advantage."

#alice perrers #historicwomendaily #14th century #english history #queenship tag #(sort of)#my post #This reminded me of something else I've been wanting to discuss #Namely: I really appreciate historians coming up with the 'quasi-queen' designation for historical women in late medieval England #(though imo there needs to be more of a discussion on actual contemporary perception of these women & if it aligned with the designation)#But I do think a side-effect of speaking of them collectively is that it tends to generalize their experiences in a way that #obscures their very different and very anomalous circumstances and tenures in power #Alice is arguably the one affected by it the most because of how fundamentally unique her situation was #Both in terms of her status (she was a commoner) and her position (as the king's mistress with an intrinsically extra-institutional power)#So I think the term 'unofficial queen' fits her actual role MUCH better #Not just because it fits her physical position by the king's side much better #But also because this was how she was explicitly recognized by contemporaries #(Poems had her 'replacing' the queen post 1369; she was called the king's 'wife'; etc)#queue #also im glad that tompkins pointed out the appearance thing because yeah lol

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alarici · 8 months ago

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Mercury

Character: Near | Nate River

600 words | Teen and Up Audiences | No Warnings | General Pairing (none)

The planet closest to the sun.

(This is just kind of a depression wank of sorts. Again!)

Content warn: mental illness, gender issues, disability and maybe internalized ableism, brief mention of sex.

Full text below cut

The counselor asks them, “When was the last time you did something because you wanted to do it?”

And they don’t answer. There are many answers on the tip of their tongue.

“I solved a million-piece puzzle yesterday, and the day before that, also.”

“I bought myself a leg brace. I don’t use it.”

“I slept with a man from the Hong Kong police force on 21 October 2011.”

The answer isn’t no, not exactly. But Near doesn’t say anything.

The counselor sighs and moves on.

“So, have you read the Dialectical Behavior Therapy book I gave you?”

“Yes. I don’t agree with chapter seven and eight.”

Tsk.

—

A week later, Near cancels their next haircut.

The next day, they ask Roger to drive them to the town center and leave them there. They walk into a store at random—they never enter a store without knowing what it sells, if it sells what they want, it it’s open for the ten minutes they can spare to window shop—and stand between the woman’s section and the men’s. Casuals. Dresses.

Shoes.

—

What you are is what you’re supposed to be. You were made as the Christian god intended.

And what did he intend? A mass of flesh and bone. A fleshy chest and narrow hips. The face of a child, now pushing twenty five.

Near doesn’t believe in gods they can’t see.

Near doesn’t fit nicely into many Boolean categories—or, they fit into all of them poorly and agree to fall to the side that’s been suggested, what’s been easiest.

True. False.

Error. Error. False.

Here’s the facts: To do what you want is to introduce uncontrollable variables. To bend and break plans, schedules, rules. To place your toe in uncertain lands and hope the grass is greener where you cannot see.

—

Alone in their room, they twist ten centimeters of hair between their thumb and their pointer finger and listen to the whip of the loop as it turns.

The ceiling is very far away. Under the skin, something tickles, squirms, insists to be felt.

If you don’t like the way your life is, change it.

Near is invisible and everywhere at once. A great man, an overgrown child. They look at the dark ceiling and make a map of their life. Destination: I didn’t think I’d make it so far.

The tyranny, the lie, of choices gnaws at them.

When was the last time…?

Near wants to rest. Wants to have long hair, like the woman in the magazine. Wants to walk ten miles in the snow. Wants to hold something or someone close enough to feel their own pulse. How complicated, this job of being human.

They cancel their next appointment. Nobody mandated the therapy. The Dialectical Behavior Therapy was not the correct treatment for them. They did not feel emotions strongly. They were not mad.

The internet suggests EMDR. They buy another set of clothing, a size to big. They try on the leg brace, again. They check their skin in the mirror and don’t look at the eyes.

They plan to take a walk on Tuesday at 6 AM so no one will see how slowly it goes. How difficult. Nor the way they smile at the geese and play guessing games with the cumulonimbus. You’re too old for such pastimes.

Someone will call them, “ma’am.” Another, “kid.” Most frequently, “Sir.” Nothing sits right. Not the shoes from the store. Not the leg brace.

But they want to walk on.

They have to. Which isn’t a want, at all.

#near death note #Nate river #death note fanfiction #this is also just me experimenting with ffic posting #photo credit: Nasa/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)

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edaworks · 1 year ago

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Wasteland Survival Guide: The Institute, Fusion Reactors, and M.I.T.'s Actual Basement

It's that time again. Periodically I make unreasonable longposts about Fallout-related topics (it's a good way to keep track of fic research). Today I'm tackling nuclear fusion, the Institute, and the real-world Massachusetts Institute of Technology's basement.

Yeah, Yeah, M.I.T. is the Institute, We've All Seen - Wait, What Do You Mean, "The Vault Laboratory?"

M.I.T. - the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - is a highly exclusive research university with a well-deserved reputation for hosting brilliant minds.

It also got its serial numbers filed off in order to host the in-game Institute. Why? Probably because of all the very real research into robotics, artificial intelligence, and power armor (no really). And because M.I.T. is actually doing now what the Institute tries to do in-game with nuclear fusion.

And, of course, because of the vaults in the basement.

You know what? I'll just start at the top...Read on below.

I'll be focusing on fusion-related research in this post, and comparing in-game Institute work on fusion to what's actually happening over at M.I.T. (We'll get to the Media Laboratory and robotics and AI and the, uhm, power armor stuff in a separate post. Or three.)

all actual M.I.T. researchers/faculty/students and/or nuclear physicists have my sincere apologies, I don't know shit about shit but I'm doing my best

I Didn't Sign Up for a Physics Class, but Okay

Here's the thing about nuclear fusion generators - y'know...the ones powering nearly** the entirety of pre-war in-game America?

Including self-contained, miniaturized reactors (fusion cores, fusion cells, microfusion cells, Corvega engines, assaultron and robobrain power supplies, recharger weapons, G.E.C.K.s, etc.) and full-scale reactors (powering vaults, the Lucky 38, the Prydwen (and Rivet City before Maxson Happened), missile silos, etc.)...?

We don't have them yet.

Of course we have nuclear power generation, what are you talking about?

Yes - but nuclear power plants currently operating use fission reactors! Fusion reactors, though? Well...

For the pre-war in-game universe, even more than for us, that fuel-to-energy ratio would have been absurdly important. Companies rushed to implement fusion for damn near every possible use, but waited until the Resource Wars left them no other choice. "No more (viable) oil reserves? Well, shit. Fusion it is."

Because of this, by October 23, 2077, pre-war Western markets were still somewhat new to adopting miniaturized nuclear fusion reactors.

For instance, Chryslus' first fusion vehicles - intentionally reminiscent of the absolutely wild Ford Nucleon concept car dreamed up in 1957 - came to market in 2070, less than a decade before the nuclear exchange.

As for the other benefits of nuclear fusion...Atom knows the in-game universe could do with less radioactive contamination:

It is no wonder the Institute wants to get the reactor in their basement up, running, and running better than originally designed.

Real-life M.I.T. is no stranger to running fusion reactors - they've been at it since the late '60s - but as it turns out, they are currently also "building a better mousetrap," and if they succeed they will be achieving all the Institute would hope for in clean energy production - without the moral deficit.

If nuclear fusion is so great, why aren't we using this technology yet IRL?

Because - and I cannot stress this enough - we are attempting to levitate bits of the Sun inside a donut to make really hot things boil water* so steam will turn a fan attached to a dynamo to power light bulbs.

*(there are two other ways to generate power using this heat)

Naturally...this comes with some complications.

We know fusion reactors can be the most energy-efficient form of power generation - we just need better reactors. That's where M.I.T. comes in.

The biggest problem right now is efficiency:

TL;DR - as of April 2024, all fusion reactors as a matter of course still consume more power to run than they are able to produce (meaning they do not reach "breakeven"). Many cutting-edge reactors also require tritium (very rare) as well as deuterium (very common) fuel.

We did not even see a fusion reaction that reached "breakeven" for power production until December of 2022. That reaction occurred at the National Ignition Facility in California, and their results just passed peer review in February of this year (2024).

Several in-progress reactors aim to improve on this, including ITER (the combined work of dozens of nations) in France, and SPARC: the new reactor under development by Mass Fusion Commonwealth Fusion Systems and M.I.T.'s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC).

Another big problem with this technology is that it involves plasma.

Plasma, as a particular song reminds us, is what the Sun is made of and The Sun Is Hot. That means plasma carries some very real 'we're-losing-structural-integrity, the-warp-core-is-breaching' risks, and we must jump through all kinds of hoops to work with it.

Why are we shoving the Sun inside a donut, again?

The most well-funded, well-researched way of smashing atoms together involves plasma and magnetic confinement fusion.

This shit is beyond cool. It may also look very familiar:

In-game, the Institute is trying to get what appears to be a spherical tokamak reactor up and running.

Bethesda's choice of reactor was no coincidence: M.I.T. operated the Alcator C-Mod, a spherical tokamak, while Fallout 4 was under development - but that reactor could not achieve "breakeven" IRL, and per Shaun's in-game dialogue, the fictional Alcator C-Mod couldn't either. (Weird given the miniaturized fusion devices everywhere in-universe, but okay, Shaun.)

However, M.I.T. stopped operating that reactor in 2016, a year after Fallout 4's release. SPARC, their planned replacement reactor actually has the sort of power potential we see in-game - and they aim to bring fusion power to market in this decade.

M.I.T., right now, in real life, is doing exactly what you're asked to help the Institute do in-game: build a fusion reactor that surpasses "breakeven."

What the hell is a tokamak and why does it look like half of a Star Trek warp core?

Your typical tokamak reactor is a great big donut-shaped vacuum chamber (the torus), traditionally surrounded by AT LEAST three sets of electromagnets (sometimes many more). M.I.T.'s design for the new SPARC reactor is a bit different, but let's start with the basics.

Why so many magnets?

Because plasma, being Literal Sun Matter, cannot come into contact with the torus containment walls or it will instantly burn through. (This happened in France in 1975. Following initial "well, fuck"s and a couple years' repairs, the logical next step was to publish a paper about it.)

The magnetic fields work to heat the plasma and provide current drive (keep electrons moving in a consistent direction through the plasma and around the torus), while also keeping it from touching anything, preventing a "warp core breach." I'll take a stab at explaining it but the Department of Energy probably does it better.

Meet the magnets:

Toroidal field magnets (blue, above): These enormous D-shaped magnets wrap around and through the torus, conducting an electrical current. This creates a magnetic field that keeps plasma from drifting horizontally into the containment walls.

Central solenoid (green, above): Inside the "donut hole" sits a massive, stacked electromagnet that generates enough electromagnetic force to launch two space shuttles at once. This heats the fuel to about one hundred million degrees Celsius so that it reaches plasma state, and helps "drive" the plasma current around the torus. (Radiofrequency or neutral beam injection heating/drive may be used as well for reactor prototypes aiming for power generation, because current drive from just the solenoid isn’t practical for continuous operation.) The central solenoid also creates another magnetic field called the "poloidal field," which "loops" around the plasma like a collar to prevent it from drifting vertically into the walls. The strongest central solenoid in existence was made for the ITER reactor...by General Atomics.

Outer poloidal field magnets (grey, above): A third set of electromagnets "stacks" up the outside of the torus, and helps maintain and adjust the poloidal field.

Together these three sets of magnets force the plasma to "float" inside the torus, shape it, and provide current drive. The stronger the magnetic field, the higher the reactor's power output.

Okay, and then what?

Given sufficient heat and drive/stability, the plasma fuel mixture undergoes fusion.

Neutrons released during fusion have plenty of kinetic energy (the kind of energy a kickball has midair before it hits you in the face), but no electric charge.

Since magnetic fields only affect negatively or positively charged particles, neutrons completely ignore the fields, sailing straight through and slamming into a "blanket" of metal coating the donut's insides. Neutrons passing into the 'blanket" lose their kinetic energy, which is converted to heat and absorbed by the "blanket." (ITER's "blanket" involves a lot of beryllium, which...behaves a bit differently IRL than it does in-game.)

Heat captured by the "blanket" is then used to generate power. For instance, a water cooling system can bleed heat from the "blanket," regulating temperature and creating superheated highly-pressurized steam to run turbine generators.

I notice you described a "typical" tokamak above -what's the atypical option?

Check out SPARC.

Its huge design departure is that it uses new high-temperature superconducing magnets (most existing types have to be cooled to vacuum-of-space temperatures using something like a liquid helium system to achieve superconductivity, which is a huge power drain) to create a monstrous magnetic field - and its size is tiny in comparison to its projected power output.

Neat. So why did you refer to plasma as a problem?

Well...between the heat and the neutrons, the "blanket," the "first wall" and all plasma-facing surfaces inside the torus take one hell of a beating:

"Neutron degradation of wall surfaces-" "Energy is released in the form of the kinetic energy of the reaction products-" In practical terms, that just means countless neutrons are doing THIS:

...but to the containment wall and other surfaces inside the torus, instead of to Batshuayi's face. And so:

Basically, this stuff breaks fast enough - and the only materials that don't break quickly are rare enough - to create a real barrier to commercial use.

And THIS is one of the problems they're working on solving in M.I.T.'s basement.

Now we can talk about the Vault. FINALLY.

M.I.T. is home to the Center for Science and Technology with Accelerators and Radiation (CSTAR). CSTAR's splash page announces:

Linear plasma devices? You mean like -

No, not like plasma rifles. Instead of weapons, we're talking about tools being used to solve the "plasma fucking destroys everything it touches" problem.

How does CSTAR do this? They've got CLASS. ...No, really:

This field is called plasma-surface interaction science, and if you want a really long but very informative read on how CSTAR's work helps move it forward, check this out. It involves the DIONISOS Linear Plasma Device - a "let's shoot it with plasma and see what happens" tool.

CSTAR also works to better undertstand how materials handle radiation damage, and how they behave after becoming irradiated.

And to handle this sort of work, one needs a...

The Vault Laboratory for Nuclear Science "combines high-intensity particle sources, precision particle detection, and a heavily shielded experimental area to create a facility for nuclear research in high-radiation environments." It contains, among other things:

the DT Neutron Generator, which is used in a variety of experiments, including radiation detector development (pretty damned important) and characterization, fast neutron imaging, and material activation (stuff becoming radioactive).

the DANTE Tandem Accelerator, which was "originally designed to produce high neutron yields for use in cancer therapy research."

And that is what's actually going on in M.I.T.'s basement: truth is cooler than fiction.

The takeaways:

Yes, M.I.T. really is building a revolutionary fusion reactor with parts from Mass Fusion Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

Yes, there really is a secure underground facility where incredibly advanced research related to nuclear fusion, radiation detection, irradiated materials, and degradation of materials due to radiation exposure takes place.

Yes, I really would spend eight hours researching nuclear physics instead of doing more dishes. Shoutout to @twosides--samecoin for tolerating my absurd hyperfocus on researching this.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk on what M.I.T. is really doing in its basement.

Tune in next time for M.I.T.'s Media Laboratory, and how it is related to real-world power armor, plus: the relationship between Langley, P.A.M.'s IRL cousin, and Vault 101.

** (Fallout is wildly inconsistent re: how widespread fusion is in-game and when it was developed. I mean we're talking a two-decade spread of inconsistency! And somehow the technology - first available to the military - was then miniaturized and made available to the general public before becoming widespread for commercial power generation? And somehow we both do and don't have impossible cold fusion in game? It's a mess. I reject this reality and replace it with a fish, hence this post. Also, I hate fission batteries. don't talk to me about fission batteries, "fission batteries" are small fission reactors but they are definitely not "battery sized" - the "fission batteries" in-universe are so miniaturized that they are more likely another kind of atomic battery like a radioisotope thermoelectric generator and those are subject to a law of diminishing returns as the fuel decays/not producing a reasonably useful power output after over 200 years due to the isotopes normally used/can be VERY dangerous if the shielding is breached or removed, and - you know what, that's also a whole different post.)

#actual insanity #fallout #fallout 4 #why am I like this #nuclear fusion #physics #institute #fallout institute #the institute #worldbuilding #meta #oneifbyland #wasteland survival guide

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bijoumikhawal · 1 year ago

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The tender and compassionate side of the divine nature, especially the penchant for weeping, was often related to the Shekinah. The love-aspect of God was also related to the Shekinah which filled the Temple like Solomon's palanquin inlaid with love (Pesiqta di Rab Kahana, ed. Mandelbaum, 4; cf. Patai, 152 and 313n81). The Shekinah also represented the divine punitive power, as indicated by a Tannaitic passage which mentioned ten occasions on which the Shekinah descended for punitive purposes, and predicted another descent in the future in the days of the battle of Gog and Magog.(Aboth di Rabbi Nathan, ed. Schechter, 102. J. Goldin [1955], 140f.) The mixture of vengeful and compassionate traits of the Shekinah, Patai (153) discerned in the legends in which she took the souls of six exceptional individuals whom the Angel of Death could not overcome, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, who died only through a kiss of the Shekinah (TB Baba Bathra 17a; cf. Midrash Canticles Rabbah i 2[5]).

Moses, after his death, whether by a kiss of God or a kiss of the Shekinah, was carried on the wings of the Shekinah a distance of four miles to his burial spot (TB Sota 13; Sifre Deut 355). Since in the Zohar Moses is said to have given up carnal contact with his wife in order to be always ready to communicate with the Shekinah (cf. Patai, 153, 194), Patai suggested that a notion clearly stated in the Zohar was already present in rudimentary form in Talmudic times, that Moses and the Shekinah were like husband and wife. An interesting parallel was suggested by Patai between the Shekinah carrying her dead husband, Moses, to his burial place, and Anat carrying the body of her brother-consort, Baal, to his burial place on Mount Zaphon (Patai, 153). A possible parallel to this motif may be adduced from another source: An oenochoe (jug) of the Bibliotheque National of Paris shows a winged and armed goddess, no doubt Athena who was identified with Anat, carrying the body of a defunct male over undulations which may be either waves or hills (cf. Denyse Le Lasseur, 1919, fig. 126, p.336). Although there is nothing in the Iliad about such an episode, Le Lasseur opined (p.337) that there is no ground to rejecta priori the hypothesis of Athena carrying the body of one of her favorite warriors. The identification of Athena and Anat suggests that the scene depicts Anat with the corpse of her brother-consort Baal, rather than that of an earthly hero. See Plate XIII.

160-161, Song of Songs (commentary) by Marvin Pope

The plates don't seem to have actually been reproduced in the commentary, just referenced in text, though it has separately categorized line drawings that do appear? Anyway I looked up the paper the print was recorded as being from (Les déesses armeés dans I'art classique grec et leurs origenes orientates) and found it there.

#cipher talk #Judaism #Anat #Athena #Song of songs #Shekinah #Honestly it's a pet peeve of mine when papers reference a physical artifact and dont include an image #Not everyone has the same institutional access as you!!! Include the actual image!!!#I think images are under utilized in the papers I read in general

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