#managed environments

[biglisbonnews]

Upbound Spaces brings managed control planes to self-hosted computing environments Upbound Inc., the startup behind the popular open-source Crossplane project, today announced a new self-hosting feature for its flagship control plane technology, enabling users to deploy managed control planes in self-managed computing environments. Upbound Spaces enables customers with rigorous compliance and data sovereignty requirements to benefit from the company’s Crossplane control plane technology. The launch of […] The post Upbound Spaces brings managed control planes to self-hosted computing environments appeared first on SiliconANGLE. https://siliconangle.com/2023/09/06/upbound-spaces-brings-managed-control-planes-self-hosted-computing-environments/

[reasonsforhope]

Sports have gotten more and more environmentally friendly, whether it's by reducing plastic waste at arenas, or producing medals with recycled materials. But what if the sport itself was devoted to directly helping the planet? Take a look at SpoGomi, a competitive sport in which teams collect garbage and litter within a time limit and specified area. People get to exercise and improve their communities while simultaneously reducing pollution. It's an overall win!

The name “SpoGomi” comes from “sports” and “gomi,” which means “trash” in Japanese. SpoGomi was created in Japan in 2008 as a way to promote trash collecting in an effort to aid the environment and push back on the climate crisis. “The marine litter problem is becoming increasingly serious worldwide,” reads a message from SpoGomi. “Approximately 80% of the garbage in the ocean is said to come from land (cities), and picking up garbage is the ‘last line of defense' to prevent this from happening. By connecting countries and people, we have expanded our circle even further around the world.”

Now, supported by The Nippon Foundation, the sport is so popular that there are competitions around the world, including the first SpoGomi World Cup, which was held in Japan in November 2023. People from 20 countries and all of Japan's prefectures participated, with the UK team coming out in first place.

SpoGomi is more than simply picking up trash, though, as there's a whole set of rules. These game rules are flexible depending on the area and litter to be picked up. Generally, teams are made up of three to five members who have to collect as much trash as possible within a designated area and time limit. The most common duration is an hour for picking up trash plus another 20 minutes to correctly sort it.

Some trash can be extra damaging to the environment or harder to spot, meaning each piece of litter gets a different amount of points. According to Nippon.com, the rules for World Cup regional preliminary rounds have burnable and nonburnable trash at 10 points per 100 grams, cans and bottles at 12 points, and PET plastic bottles at 25 points. The crown jewel of competitive trash picking are cigarette butts, which will get the team 100 points each.

Other rules stipulate that teams cannot pick up trash that is already in bins that belong to someone else. Since everything must fit into the trash bags that are provided, they cannot pick hazardous waste or bulky items either. And since this is meant to improve the local area, any method of transportation other than walking is frowned upon.

In the end, all participants can bask in the pride of making the environment just a little bit cleaner and healthier. Udagawa Takayasu, a spokesperson for The Nippon Foundation, even admits, “I participated in a preliminary tournament held in Japan just last weekend. Although our team could not win and I faced frustration, the city became markedly cleaner. I think it's one of the fascinating aspects of SpoGomi, even if you don't win, it leaves you with a positive sentiment.”

-via My Modern Met, May 20, 2024

--

Hell yeah, gamify this shit!

[vladdyissues]

Part One of DP Panoramas

[mienar]

good morning bakery 🍞🥖

instagram | shop | commission info

[hivemindscape]

im a big fan of esper powers slipping loose in harmless ways when they're happy

[divorcedtom]

gretchen sees dylan g as a version of her husband who is motivated and competent while her husband has never been able to hold down a job. but dylan g was literally created to do that job and only exists to do that job. he isn’t a version of her husband who has managed to “find his thing”— he just never had a choice in what his thing would be. he’s been robbed of the freedom to try to find something he’d be passionate about, even if it would’ve meant failing a bunch along the way

[slutforpringles]

[salems-lots]

FAIL_SAFE

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

“We really kind of refer to this as our third aqueduct,” says John Bednarski, an interim assistant general manager at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — a powerful agency, as the largest wholesale provider of water in the nation and owner of the Colorado River Aqueduct. The “third aqueduct” Bednarski is referring to is not another man-made appendage stretching to the Colorado River Basin or into Northern California but rather a project that’s designed to stay local — and sustainable: Pure Water Southern California would recycle wastewater, treat it and produce 150 million gallons of water each day, accounting for about 10 percent of the agency’s local water demands, according to Bednarski. “So it’s going to be a major contributor,” he says. [...] The L.A. Department of Water and Power is pursuing a similar recycling project. And in 2022, 26 cities and wholesale water providers that pull from the Colorado River wrote a memorandum of understanding committing to focusing on water recycling and reuse. The signatories, including Metropolitan, often point to Las Vegas as a model for recycling wastewater to reduce its total Colorado River use and increase the amount of water available for use. Nevada has long faced scarcity; of all the states, it receives the smallest share of the river: just 1.8 percent of all the water rights. By treating and reusing nearly all of its indoor water, the Las Vegas water purveyor effectively uses the same water over and over, expanding its supply. Now Las Vegas officials, along with Arizona water managers, are looking to the Pure Water project to further shore up supplies on the Colorado River. Their thinking: If Metropolitan can reduce its Colorado River use, its unused water could flow to Nevada and Arizona, providing a needed boost in an era when there is little to spare.  In that way, water recycling projects in one area can have consequences across watersheds."

[wachinyeya]

A consortium linked to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has built a plant at the Mannheim wastewater treatment plant that cleans generated biogas and uses the resulting CO2 to produce climate-neutral marine fuel using green hydrogen. The process could help decarbonise the shipping sector, which is currently responsible for around three percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The demonstration plant uses a patented process to convert biogas produced during wastewater treatment into climate-neutral methanol. The biogas is first purified and the separated CO₂ can then be used with renewably-produced hydrogen to make methanol – a raw material that can be used as marine fuel or in the chemical industry. Methanol does release the CO2 back into the atmosphere when burned. However, because the carbon comes from the treatment plant and not from additional fossil sources, it is considered climate neutral.

There are some 80,000 wastewater treatment plants in Europe that offer considerable potential for the new process, wrote KIT. "To achieve our climate protection goals, we must keep all technological options open," said Volker Wissing, federal minister for digital affairs and transport. “In addition to electrification and hydrogen-based propulsion, we need climate-friendly fuels, especially in maritime shipping." Stressing that the sector represented a future growth market, Wissing said Germany should play a pioneering role in research and development. "It's also about making our country independent of energy imports."

Vidal Vazquez, co-founder of climate tech start-up ICODOS, a spin-off from the KIT, added, "In Germany alone, wastewater treatment plants could produce several million tonnes of sustainable methanol annually." The project shows that "wastewater treatment plants can serve as the heart of sustainable fuel production – a potential that has so far remained untapped," Vazquez said. ICODOS is currently in discussions with other wastewater treatment plants to set up other production facilities.

Renewables-based synthetic fuels could be necessary to decarbonise certain sectors such as shipping, where alternatives are not available today, or extremely costly. However, producing the rare fuels is energy-intensive and expensive and they should only be used where the direct use of electricity is not an option.

25 Mar 2025

[despazito]

Idk man I think both these things are true at once ?

[leidensygdom]

me: maybe i'm over it. maybe i can like, design a monster without my brain going to the absolute banging final fantasy x monster designs

the banging final fantasy x monster designs, tho:

(also i didnt want to clutter the post but there's a lot of rambling in the tags)

[reasonsforhope]

"The Netherlands is pulling even further ahead of its peers in the shift to a recycling-driven circular economy, new data shows.

According to the European Commission’s statistics office, 27.5% of the material resources used in the country come from recycled waste.

For context, Belgium is a distant second, with a “circularity rate” of 22.2%, while the EU average is 11.5% – a mere 0.8 percentage point increase from 2010.

“We are a frontrunner, but we have a very long way to go still, and we’re fully aware of that,” Martijn Tak, a policy advisor in the Dutch ministry of infrastructure and water management, tells The Progress Playbook. 

The Netherlands aims to halve the use of primary abiotic raw materials by 2030 and run the economy entirely on recycled materials by 2050. Amsterdam, a pioneer of the “doughnut economics” concept, is behind much of the progress.

Why it matters

The world produces some 2 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste each year, and this could rise to 3.4 billion tonnes annually by 2050, according to the World Bank.

Landfills are already a major contributor to planet-heating greenhouse gases, and discarded trash takes a heavy toll on both biodiversity and human health.

“A circular economy is not the goal itself,” Tak says. “It’s a solution for societal issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental pollution, and resource-security for the country.”

A fresh approach

While the Netherlands initially focused primarily on waste management, “we realised years ago that’s not good enough for a circular economy.”

In 2017, the state signed a “raw materials agreement” with municipalities, manufacturers, trade unions and environmental organisations to collaborate more closely on circular economy projects.

It followed that up with a national implementation programme, and in early 2023, published a roadmap to 2030, which includes specific targets for product groups like furniture and textiles. An English version was produced so that policymakers in other markets could learn from the Netherlands’ experiences, Tak says.

The programme is focused on reducing the volume of materials used throughout the economy partly by enhancing efficiencies, substituting raw materials for bio-based and recycled ones, extending the lifetimes of products wherever possible, and recycling.

It also aims to factor environmental damage into product prices, require a certain percentage of second-hand materials in the manufacturing process, and promote design methods that extend the lifetimes of products by making them easier to repair.

There’s also an element of subsidisation, including funding for “circular craft centres and repair cafés”.

This idea is already in play. In Amsterdam, a repair centre run by refugees, and backed by the city and outdoor clothing brand Patagonia, is helping big brands breathe new life into old clothes.

Meanwhile, government ministries aim to aid progress by prioritising the procurement of recycled or recyclable electrical equipment and construction materials, for instance.

State support is critical to levelling the playing field, analysts say...

Long Road Ahead

The government also wants manufacturers – including clothing and beverages companies – to take full responsibility for products discarded by consumers.

“Producer responsibility for textiles is already in place, but it’s work in progress to fully implement it,” Tak says.

And the household waste collection process remains a challenge considering that small city apartments aren’t conducive to having multiple bins, and sparsely populated rural areas are tougher to service.

“Getting the collection system right is a challenge, but again, it’s work in progress.”

...Nevertheless, Tak says wealthy countries should be leading the way towards a fully circular economy as they’re historically the biggest consumers of natural resources."

-via The Progress Playbook, December 13, 2023

[tswwwit]

Dipper gets saddled with all of Bills stuff when he dies and suddenly its a role reversal with him trying to reincarnate Bill

I imagine pretty much everyone is upset by this turn of events, including (especially) Dipper! But yes, getting Bill Back would be his top priority, if only to offload all this junk back on his thoroughly irresponsible husband.

[bittersweet-jack-of-no-trades]

I'm sure this has been done before but Gravity Falls/Hunger Games AU? The 50th games/2nd Quarter Quell becomes even more dramatic because in one of the districts, the two male tributes are twins??

This year becomes one of the longest-running games in history; sparked in part by the Capitol's obsession with the twins, Stan and Ford, who have an argument early on and split ways. Stan becomes an expert in hiding and running, making and then breaking alliances as the other tributes inevitably try to use him to get to Ford. But why get to Ford?

Because Ford is excelling. The dangerous and odd mutations of the arena become his fascination and his strength. Probably also because during the pre-game process the Capitol got enamored with his six fingers and awkward attitude and view him as this weird little oddball underdog, and that infuriates especially the Careers. Stan is fighting for his life every day, and thinks Ford is doing the same--- but Ford has a mysterious, anonymous sponsor who sends him everything he needs, signing each note with not a name but a little triangle. The major upset comes when, of course, the last two tributes alive are Stan and Ford. The games end when Stan unceremoniously pushes Ford off a cliff and into the river below.

(Ford, of course, does not actually die. His sponsor was Bill, duh, who I picture as a Heavensbee-like figure, a gamemaker who is actually aligned with D13, more for the chaos than any sense of rebellion or morals. He takes Ford and deposits him in D13 to aid in the rebellion.)

Stan becomes the Haymitch-like drunken, lonely Victor who no one wants to interact with. His district, under his angry tutelage, goes through a period of losing. Then, the 74th games.

When they call Dipper's name, Mabel tries to volunteer. She can't, because she's a girl, but that doesn't stop her from trying so hard the Peacekeepers have to hold her down. So, she does the next best thing: when the girl's name is called, she volunteers again, pushing her way into the games despite Dipper's dismay.

They know Stan is their grunkle, but he's estranged and their first real interactions happen with him as their mentor. He assures them repeatedly they will turn on each other; Dipper and Mabel use the power of twins to win the Capitol's support as gamemakers dramatically drudge up reminders of what happened to the last set of twins. It's the "twins" angle rather than the original books' "star-crossed lovers" angle that earns the twins the right to win as a pair (can you imagine how Stan felt, knowing if he was just a little smarter he and Ford could've been spared, too?).

Eventually, D13's existence is revealed, Ford is shown to be alive, Stan goes through the reverse 7 stages of grief and probably also a lot of booze, etc. etc. They defeat the presidents (probably the Northwests, Pacifica would make a decent President's granddaughter), and end up taking down Bill too as his goal was, of course, to take dictatorial rule in the creation of the power vacuum.

[crystalpallette]

frye inspires this sort of manic "i can do whatever i want" kinda will in people and god. I sure did do whatever I wanted here